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Earth

Submission + - Scientists Say Life on Land May Not Have Evolved From the Sea 1

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Conventional wisdom has it that complex life evolved in the sea and then crawled up onto land but NPR reports that a provocative new study published in Nature suggests that the earliest large life forms may have appeared on land long before the oceans filled with creatures that swam and crawled and burrowed in the mud. Paleontologists have found fossil evidence for a scattering of animals called Ediacarans that predate the Cambrian explosion, about 530 million years ago when complex life suddenly burst forth and filled the seas with a panoply of life forms. Many scientists have assumed Ediacarans were predecessors of jellyfish, worms and other invertebrates but palaeontologist Greg Retallack has been building the case that Ediacarans weren't in fact animals, but actually more like fungi or lichens and that Ediacarans weren't even living in the sea, as everyone has assumed. "What I'm saying for the Ediacaran is that the big [life] forms were on land and life was actually quite a bit simpler in the ocean," says Retallack adding that his new theory lends credence to the idea that life actually evolved on land and then moved into the sea. Paul Knauth at Arizona State University has been pondering this same possibility. "I don't have any problem with early evolution being primarily on land," says Knauth. "I think you can make a pretty good argument for that, and that it came into the sea later. It's kind of a radical idea, but the fact is we don't know." Knauth says it could help explain why the Cambrian explosion appears to be so rapid. It's possible these many life forms gradually evolved on the land and then made a quick dash to the sea. "That means that the Earth was not a barren land surface until about 500 million years ago, as a lot of people have speculated.""
Space

Submission + - Earth Avoids Collisions with Pair of Asteroids

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Science Recorder reports that according to NASA a pair of asteroids — one just over three mile wide — passed Earth Tuesday and early Wednesday avoiding a potentially cataclysmic impact with our home planet. 2012 XE5, estimated at between 50-165 feet across, was discovered just days earlier, missing our planet by only 139,500 miles or slightly more than half the distance to the moon. 4179 Toutatis, just over three miles wide, put on an amazing show for astronomers early Wednesday missing Earth by 18 lunar lengths, while allowing scientists to observe the massive asteroid in detail. Asteroid Toutatis is well known to astronomers. It passes by Earth’s orbit every four years and astronomers say its unique orbit means it is unlikely to impact Earth for at least 600 years. It is one of the largest known potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), and its orbit is inclined less than half-a-degree from Earth’s. “We already know that Toutatis will not hit Earth for hundreds of years,” says Lance Benner of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program. “These new observations will allow us to predict the asteroid’s trajectory even farther into the future.” Toutatis would inflict devastating damage if it slammed into Earth, perhaps extinguishing human civilization. The asteroid thought to have killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was about 6 miles wide, researchers say.The fact that 2012 XE5 was discovered only a few days before the encounter prompted Minnesota Public Radio to poll its listeners with the following question: If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an hour, would you want to know?"
Science

Submission + - Scientists Use Electrical Hum to Fight Crime

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "A suspected terrorist has been taped planning a deadly attack and the police want to use this evidence in court or someone has been captured on CCTV threatening an assault. Increasingly, recordings like these are playing a role in criminal investigations but how can the police be sure that the audio evidence is genuine and has not been tampered with or cleverly edited? Now Rebecca Morelle writes on BBC that a technique known as Electric Network Frequency (ENF) analysis is helping forensic scientists separate genuine, unedited recordings from those that have been tampered with and the technique has already been used in court. Any digital recording made anywhere near an electrical power source will pick up the noise from electricity supplied by the national grid and it will be embedded throughout the audio. This buzz is an annoyance for sound engineers trying to make the highest quality recordings but for forensic experts, it has turned out to be an invaluable tool in the fight against crime. Due to unbalances in production and consumption of electrical energy, the ENF is known to fluctuate slightly over time rather than being stuck to its exact set point so if you look at the frequency over time, you can see minute fluctuations and the pattern of these random changes in frequency is unique over time providing a digital watermark on every recording. Forensic Scientist Philip Harrison has been logging the hum on the national grid in the UK for several years. "Even if [the hum] is picked up at a very low level that you cannot hear, we can extract this information," says Dr. Harrison. "If we have we can extract [the hum] and compare it with the database, if it is a continuous recording, it will all match up nicely.""
Space

Submission + - Kazakhstan Wants Russia to Hand Over Their Baikonur Space City

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "RIA Novosti reports that Kazakhstan and Russia are in talks over returning the city of Baikonur to Kazakhstan — the site of the first Soviet rocket launches and Russia's most important space launch center. Baikonur, built in Kazakhstan in the 1950s, is the main launch facility for the current generation of Russian rockets and was leased by Russia from Kazakhstan under an agreement signed in 1994 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. "Today both nations' governments have decided to set up a new intergovernmental commission for the Baikonur complex to be headed up by first or other deputy prime ministers," said Talgat Musabayev, head of Kazakhstan's space agency. At issue is control over Baikonur and the rent Russia pays Kazakhstan to use the facility, a subject of ongoing dispute between the two nations ever since Kazakhstan gained independence from the USSR. Earlier this year, Kazakhstan blocked Russia from launching several rockets from Baikonur in a dispute over a drop zone for debris and Kazakhstan insisted this must be covered by a supplement to the main rental agreement signed in Astana in 2004, extending Russia's use of the space center's facilities until 2050. Russia pays an annual fee of approximately $115 million to use the space center, which currently has the world's busiest launch schedule, as well as $50 million annually for maintenance. Russia and Kazakhstan are working to build a new space launch facility at Baikonur, called Baiterek, to launch Angara carrier rockets capable of delivering 26 metric tons of payload to low-Earth orbits but Russia intends to eventually withdraw from Baikonur and conduct launches from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, an operating spaceport about 500 miles north of Moscow — and the unfinished Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East."
Power

Submission + - US Nuclear Industry Plans 'Rescue Wagon' to Avert Meltdowns

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "AP reports that if disaster strikes a US nuclear power plant, the utility industry wants the ability to fly in heavy-duty equipment from regional hubs to stricken reactors to avert a meltdown providing another layer of defense in case a Fukushima-style disaster destroys a nuclear plant's multiple backup systems. "It became very clear in Japan that utilities became quickly overwhelmed," says Joe Pollock, vice president for nuclear operations at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying group that is spearheading the effort. US nuclear plants already have backup safety systems and are supposed to withstand the worst possible disasters in their regions, including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes. But planners can be wrong. The industry plan, called FLEX, is the nuclear industry's method for meeting new US Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules that will force 65 plants in the US to get extra emergency equipment on site and store it protectively. The FLEX program is supposed to help nuclear plants handle the biggest disasters. Under the plan, plant operators can summon help from the regional centers in Memphis and Phoenix. In addition to having several duplicate sets of plant emergency gear, industry officials say the centers will likely have heavier equipment that could include an emergency generator large enough to power a plant's emergency cooling systems, equipment to treat cooling water and extra radiation protection gear for workers. Federal regulators must still decide whether to approve the plans submitted by individual plants. "They need to show us not just that they have the pump, but that they've done all the appropriate designing and engineering so that they have a hookup for that pump," says NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said. "They're not going to be trying to figure out, 'Where are we going to plug this thing in?'"
The Military

Submission + - F-16 Engines Stolen From Israeli Air Base

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Defense Tech reports that several F-16 engines weighing 3,700 pounds each have been stolen from a base in a central part of the country as Israeli officials played down the loss saying the engines were old or retired and likely stolen for scrap. US security and aviation experts contacted were not so dismissive of the missing engines and said that some countries would see value in having them and taking them apart. “They’re still more modern than anything in the Iranian air force inventory, and they would even be helpful to China in their jet engine development,” says Richard Aboulafia noting that modern technology engine design remains “a black art” and that competitors would love the opportunity to study them. This is not the first time jet engines have gone missing. In June 2011, Israel reported the loss of eight F-15 and F-16 fighter engines from a base at Tel Nof near Jerusalem when investigators found the engines had been taken away on large trucks, prompting speculation that the thieves had help from inside the base. In 2009, two F-5 engines were stolen from an airbase in Malaysia, tracked to Argentina and ultimately located in Uruguay."
Earth

Submission + - UN Summit Strikes Climate Deal Promising 'Damage Aid' to Poor Nations

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "BBC reports that UN climate talks in Doha have closed with a historic shift in principle agreed to by nearly 200 nations extending the Kyoto Protocol through 2020 and establishing for the first time that rich nations should move towards compensating poor nations for losses due to climate change. Until now rich nations have agreed to help developing countries to get clean energy and adapt to climate change, but they have stopped short of accepting responsibility for damage caused by climate change elsewhere. "It is a breakthrough," says Martin Khor of the South Centre — an association of 52 developing nations. "The term Loss and Damage is in the text — this is a huge step in principle. Next comes the fight for cash." US negotiators made certain that neither the word "compensation", nor any other term connoting legal liability, was used, to avoid opening the floodgates to litigation – instead, the money will be judged as aid. Ronny Jumea, from the Seychelles, told rich nations earlier that discussion of compensation would not have been needed if they had cut emissions earlier. "We're past the mitigation [emissions cuts] and adaptation eras. We're now right into the era of loss and damage. What's next after that? Destruction?" While the United States has not adopted a comprehensive approach to climate change, the Obama administration has put in place a significant auto emissions reduction program and a plan to regulate carbon dioxide from new power plants. “What this meeting reinforced is that while this is an important forum, it is not the only one in which progress can and must be made,” says Jennifer Haverkamp, director of the international climate programs at the Environmental Defense Fund. “The disconnect between the level of ambition the parties are showing here and what needs to happen to avoid dangerous climate change is profound.”"
Transportation

Submission + - FCC Chief Urges FAA to Ease Airplane Electronics Ban

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "AFP reports that Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski is calling for an easing of the ban on using mobile phones and other electronic devices on airplanes during takeoff and landing saying devices such as smartphones "empower people" and can boost economic productivity. "I write to urge the FAA to enable greater use of tablets, e-readers and other portable electronic devices during flight, consistent with public safety," the FCC chief said in the letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. "They empower people to stay informed and connected with friends and family, and they enable both large and small businesses to be more productive and efficient, helping drive economic growth and boost US competitiveness." The ban is in place based on the assumption that devices could interfere with an airplane's navigation equipment. But a number of news stories have questioned the validity of this claim, and many point out that some people forget to turn off their devices during flights. The FCC studied the question several years ago but found insufficient evidence to support lifting the ban at the time. But not everyone has been forced to put their gadgets away. Earlier this year the FAA approved iPads instead of paper flight manuals in the cockpit for pilots, but the agency still refuses to allow passengers to read Kindles and iPads during takeoff and landing."
Science

Submission + - Scientist's Past Haunts Prestigious Space Prize

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Lucette Lagnado writes that every year since 1963, the Space Medicine Association has given out the Hubertus Strughold Award named in honor of the German émigré known as the "Father of Space Medicine," revered for his contributions to America's early space program. But it is what he allegedly did during World War II that has fueled a bitter controversy. Dr. Strughold, a former scientist for the Third Reich, was listed as one of 13 "persons, firms or organizations implicated" in some notorious Dachau concentration camp experiments, according to a 1946 memo by the staff of the Nuremberg Trials. The document referenced the infamous hypothermia, or "cold experiments," in which inmates were used, and typically died, as subjects exposed to freezing conditions. Strughold was never tried at Nuremberg and the US Justice Department never found sufficient grounds for prosecution. "He was not a war criminal," says Dr. Mark Campbell, a former president of the Space Medicine Association. "We would not have been where we are in space medicine without Strughold." Now German scholars have found that at least one set of human experiments—involving children—took place inside Dr. Strughold's own institute where half a dozen children 11 to 13 years old were taken from a nearby psychiatric facility and placed in an altitude chamber to see if the conditions would trigger seizures. "These experiments were clearly criminal," says Dr. Wolfgang Eckart, "the risk to the children was recklessly disregarded." Dr. Campbell is considering one solution: changing the award's name—but only if there is an agreement stating categorically that Dr. Strughold wasn't a Nazi or a war criminal (PDF). That isn't likely to satisfy critics. "You can't whitewash history," says Professor Robert Proctor of Stanford University, an authority on Nazi-era medicine."
Moon

Submission + - Battered Crust Reveals Moon's Violent Past

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "AFP reports that new images from a pair of spacecraft that are orbiting the Moon and measuring its gravitational field point to a violent past in which it was battered by comets and asteroids during its first billion years. "It was known that planets were battered by impacts, but nobody had envisioned that the (Moon's) crust was so beaten up," says Maria Zuber, the MIT scientist leading the mission. "This is a really big surprise, and is going to cause a lot of people to think about what this means for planetary evolution." As the pair of spacecraft named Ebb and Flow flew over areas of greater and lesser gravity, caused both by visible features such as mountains and craters and by masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, they moved slightly toward and away from each other. An instrument aboard each spacecraft measured the changes in their relative velocity very precisely, and scientists translated this information into a high-resolution map of the Moon's gravitational field. Unlike the Earth's crust, which is repeatedly recycled through the process of plate tectonics, the Moon's hard crust dates back billions of years, offering clues to the formation of the solar system, including Earth. Around 98 percent of the crust is deeply fragmented, porous material, the result, scientists say, of very early, massive impacts. Scientists say the beating was far more extensive than previously thought. "This is interesting for the Moon," says Zuber. "But what it also means is that every other planet was being bombarded like this.""
Businesses

Submission + - Apple Stock Plummets and Nobody is Sure Why 4

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Jeremy Owens writes in the Mercury News that Apple stock took its biggest one-day slide in the four years since the Great Recession was in its heyday dropping 6.4 percent to lop off nearly $35 billion from its world-leading market capitalization but the most interesting aspect of Wednesday's dive is all the different theories analysts are providing for the sudden drop. Theory No 1 is that large tech companies such as Oracle and Cisco are handing out their dividends for next year early to avoid possible tax hikes on the cash as a result of the "fiscal cliff" changes that could take effect at the end of the year. Apple declined to do so, so investors may be taking their profits now to avoid larger tax bills in 2013. Theory No. 2 is that there are rumors out of Asia that Apple has cut back on its orders for components, suggesting that the company is slowing production in the first quarter of 2013, which could damage Apple's earnings for that quarter. Theory No. 3 is that Apple's growth is slowing, its product refresh isn't innovative, the competition is growing, Apple's latest product refresh is underwhelming, and there has been a drop in Apple's tablet market share. This theory has been growing for months, and can be summed up with the phrase "Steve Jobs isn't walking through that door." Any or all of those theories may have played into Wednesday's fall, or it could just be the vagaries of the marketplace, where Apple shot to the highest market cap on record earlier this year, then dove into "bear market" territory just months later. "Apple stock is significantly more volatile than its earnings and innovation stream," says analyst Daniel Ernst. "It makes no sense. There are lines around the block for their products all around the world. No other company has that.""
The Military

Submission + - Historians Propose National Park to Preserve Manhattan Project Sites

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Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "William J. Broad writes that a plan now before Congress would create a national park to protect the aging remnants of the atomic bomb project from World War II, including hundreds of buildings and artifacts scattered across New Mexico, Washington and Tennessee — among them the rustic Los Alamos home of Dr. Oppenheimer and his wife, Kitty, and a large Quonset hut, also in New Mexico, where scientists assembled components for the plutonium bomb dropped on Japan. “It’s a way to help educate the next generation,” says Cynthia C. Kelly, president of the Atomic Heritage Foundation, a private group in Washington that helped develop the preservation plan. “This is a major chapter of American and world history. We should preserve what’s left.” Critics have faulted the plan as celebrating a weapon of mass destruction, and have argued that the government should avoid that kind of advocacy. "At a time when we should be organizing the world toward abolishing nuclear weapons before they abolish us, we are instead indulging in admiration at our cleverness as a species," says Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich. Historians and federal agencies reply that preservation does not imply moral endorsement, and that the remains of so monumental a project should be saved as a way to encourage comprehension and public discussion. A park would be a commemoration, not a celebration, says Heather McClenahan, director of the Los Alamos Historical Society pointing out there are national parks commemorating slavery, Civil War battles and American Indian massacres. "It's a chance to say, 'Why did we do this? What were the good things that happened? What were the bad? How do we learn lessons from the past? How do we not ever have to use an atomic bomb in warfare again?' ""
Security

Submission + - The Rise of Feudal Computer Security

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "In the old days, traditional computer security centered around users but Bruce Schneier writes that now some of us have pledged our allegiance to Google using Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Android phones while others have pledged allegiance to Apple using Macintosh laptops, iPhones, iPads; and letting iCloud automatically synchronize and back up everything while others of us let Microsoft do it all. "These vendors are becoming our feudal lords, and we are becoming their vassals. We might refuse to pledge allegiance to all of them — or to a particular one we don't like. Or we can spread our allegiance around. But either way, it's becoming increasingly difficult to not pledge allegiance to at least one of them." Classical medieval feudalism depended on overlapping, complex, hierarchical relationships. Today we users must trust the security of these hardware manufacturers, software vendors, and cloud providers and we choose to do it because of the convenience, redundancy, automation, and shareability. "In this new world of computing, we give up a certain amount of control, and in exchange we trust that our lords will both treat us well and protect us from harm (PDF). Not only will our software be continually updated with the newest and coolest functionality, but we trust it will happen without our being overtaxed by fees and required upgrades." In this system, we have no control over the security provided by our feudal lords. Like everything else in security, it's a trade-off. We need to balance that trade-off. "In Europe, it was the rise of the centralized state and the rule of law that undermined the ad hoc feudal system; it provided more security and stability for both lords and vassals. But these days, government has largely abdicated its role in cyberspace, and the result is a return to the feudal relationships of yore," concludes Schneier adding that perhaps it's time for government to create the regulatory environments that protect us vassals. "Otherwise, we really are just serfs.""
Earth

Submission + - The Science of Roadkill

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Sarah Harris writes that roadkill may not be glamorous, but wildlife ecologist Danielle Garneau says dead critters carry lots of valuable information providing an opportunity to learn about wildlife and pinpoint migratory patterns, invasive species, and predatory patterns. "We're looking at a fine scale at patterns of animal movement — maybe we can pick up migratory patterns, maybe we can see a phenology change," says Garneau. "And also, in the long term, if many of these animals are threatened or they're in a decline, the hope would be that we could share this information with people who could make changes." Garneau turns students out into the world to find dead animals, document them and collect the data using a smartphone app RoadkillGarneau and she has already received data from across New York, as well as Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Florida and Colorado. Participants take photos of the road kill, and the app uploads them through EpiCollect, which pinpoints the find on the map. Participants can then update the data to include any descriptors of the animal such as its species; sex; how long the dead animal had been there; if and when it was removed; the weather conditions; and any predators around it. "People talk a lot about technology cutting us off from nature," says Garneau. "But I found that with the road kill project, it’s the opposite. You really engage with the world around you — even if it is a smelly skunk decaying on the side of the road.""

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