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Earth

Two Huge Holes In the Sun Spotted 204

An anonymous reader writes "Japanese scientists have spotted two huge holes on the sun's magnetic field, and it appears there is some reason to be concerned about. The holes, called coronal holes, are gateways for solar material and gas to spill out into space, according to space.com. The gaps in the sun's magnetic field make a hole through its atmosphere, letting gas out, NASA has said."
Science

North Magnetic Pole Racing Toward Siberia 187

RogerRoast sends along a backgrounder from Scientific American on the best current theory as to why the north magnetic pole drifts. "The NMP, also known as the dip pole, is the point on Earth where the planet's magnetic field points straight down into the ground. Scottish explorer James Clark Ross first located the NMP in 1831 on the Boothia Peninsula in what is now northern Canada... [T]he NMP drifts from year to year as geophysical processes within Earth change. For more than 150 years after Ross's measurement its movement was gradual, generally less than 15 kilometers per year. But then, in the 1990s, it picked up speed, ... bolting north–northwest into the Arctic Ocean at more than 55 kilometers per year. If it keeps going it could pass the geographic north pole in a decade or so and carry on toward Siberia."
Canada

First Human-Powered Ornithopter 250

spasm writes "A University of Toronto engineering graduate student has made and successfully flown a human-powered flapping-wing aircraft. From the article: 'Todd Reichert, a PhD candidate at the university's Institute of Aerospace Studies, piloted the wing-flapping aircraft, sustaining both altitude and airspeed for 19.3 seconds and covering a distance of 145 metres at an average speed of 25.6 kilometres per hour.'"
The Military

Obama To Decide On New Weapons 409

krou writes "Buried within the New Start treaty, which saw the decommissioning of nuclear warheads, was an interesting provision as a result of Russian demands: the US must 'decommission one nuclear missile for every one' of a new type of weapon called Prompt Global Strike 'fielded by the Pentagon.' The warhead, which is 'mounted on a long-range missile to start its journey,' would be 'capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour. ... It would travel through the atmosphere at several times the speed of sound, generating so much heat that it would have to be shielded with special materials to avoid melting. ... But since the vehicle would remain within the atmosphere rather than going into space, it would be far more maneuverable than a ballistic missile, capable of avoiding the airspace of neutral countries, for example, or steering clear of hostile territory. Its designers note that it could fly straight up the middle of the Persian Gulf before making a sharp turn toward a target.' The new weapon is in line with Obama's plans 'to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,' and rather focus on conventional ones. The idea is not new, having been first floated under the Bush administration, but was abandoned, mainly because 'Russian leaders complained that the technology could increase the risk of a nuclear war, because Russia would not know if the missiles carried nuclear warheads or conventional ones.'"
Hardware

Startup's Submerged Servers Could Cut Cooling Costs 147

1sockchuck writes "Are data center operators ready to abandon hot and cold aisles and submerge their servers? An Austin startup says its liquid cooling enclosure can cool high-density server installations for a fraction of the cost of air cooling in traditional data centers. Submersion cooling using mineral oil isn't new, dating back to the use of Fluorinert in the Cray 2. The new startup, Green Revolution Cooling, says its first installation will be at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (also home to the Ranger supercomputer). The company launched at SC09 along with a competing liquid cooling play, the Iceotope cooling bags."
Botnet

Zeus Botnet Dealt a Blow As ISPs Troyak, Group 3 Knocked Out 156

itwbennett writes "Ninety of the 249 Zeus command-and-control servers were knocked offline overnight when two ISPs, named Troyak and Group 3, were taken offline. Whoever was behind the takedown 'just decided to knock out a large area of cyber-crime, and this was probably one of the easiest ways to do it,' said Kevin Stevens, a researcher with SecureWorks. As with the McColo takedown of just over a year ago, Troyak's upstream providers seem to have knocked it off the Internet, Cisco said in a statement. 'The ISP was "De-peered,"' Cisco said. 'Troyak's upstream network providers effectively pulled the plug on Troyak's router, refusing to transmit its traffic.'"
Space

Pluto — a Complex and Changing World 191

astroengine writes "After 4 years of processing the highest resolution photographs the Hubble Space Telescope could muster, we now have the highest resolution view of Pluto's surface ever produced. Most excitingly, these new observations show an active world with seasonal changes altering the dwarf planet's surface. It turns out that this far-flung world has more in common with Earth than we would have ever imagined."
Government

UK Police Plan To Use Military-Style Spy Drones 390

krou writes "According to documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, the UK police plan on deploying unmanned drones in the UK to 'revolutionize policing' and extend domestic 'surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering,' which will be used in 'the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies.' The documents come from the South Coast Partnership, 'a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan' in conjunction with BAE Systems. The stated aim is to introduce the system in time for the 2012 Olympics. Initially, Kent police stated that the system would be used to monitor shipping lanes and illegal immigrants, but the documents reveal that this was part of a PR strategy: 'There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be projected as a "good news" story to the public rather than more "big brother."' However, the documents talk about a much wider range of usage, such as '[detecting] theft from cash machines, preventing theft of tractors and monitoring antisocial driving,' as well as 'road and railway monitoring, search and rescue, event security and covert urban surveillance.' Also, due to the expense involved, it has also been suggested that some data could be sold off to private companies, or the drones could be used for commercial purposes."
Earth

Claims of Himalayan Glacier Disaster Melt Away 561

Hugh Pickens writes "VOA News reports that leaders of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have apologized for making a 'poorly substantiated' claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. Scientists who identified the mistake say the IPCC report relied on news accounts that appear to have misquoted a scientific paper — which estimated that the glaciers could disappear by 2350, not 2035. Jeffrey Kargel, an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona who helped expose the IPCC's errors, said the botched projections were extremely embarrassing and damaging. 'The damage was that IPCC had, or I think still has, such a stellar reputation that people view it as an authority — as indeed they should — and so they see a bullet that says Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2035 and they take that as a fact.' Experts who follow climate science and policy say they believe the IPCC should re-examine how it vets information when compiling its reports. 'These errors could have been avoided had the norms of scientific publication including peer review and concentration upon peer-reviewed work, been respected,' write the researchers."
Science

8% of Your DNA Comes From a Virus 478

An anonymous reader writes "About 8 percent of human genetic material comes from a virus and not from our ancestors, according to an article by University of Texas at Arlington biology professor Cédric Feschotte, published in the Jan. 7, 2010 issue of Nature magazine."
Science

The Neuroscience of Screwing Up 190

resistant writes "As the evocative title from Wired magazine implies, Kevin Dunbar of the University of Toronto has taken an in-depth and fascinating look at scientific error, the scientists who cope with it, and sometimes transcend it to find new lines of inquiry. From the article: 'Dunbar came away from his in vivo studies with an unsettling insight: Science is a deeply frustrating pursuit. Although the researchers were mostly using established techniques, more than 50 percent of their data was unexpected. (In some labs, the figure exceeded 75 percent.) "The scientists had these elaborate theories about what was supposed to happen," Dunbar says. "But the results kept contradicting their theories. It wasn't uncommon for someone to spend a month on a project and then just discard all their data because the data didn't make sense."'"
Censorship

Florida Congressman Wants Blogging Critic Fined, Jailed 549

vvaduva writes "Florida Rep. Alan Grayson wants to see one of his critics go directly to jail, all over her use of the word 'my' on her blog. In a four-page letter sent to [US Attorney General Eric] Holder, Grayson accuses blogger Angie Langley of lying to federal elections officials and requests that she be fined and imprisoned for five years. Her lie, according to Grayson, is that she claims to be one of his constituents. Langley, Grayson says, is misrepresenting herself by using the term 'my' in the Web site's name."

Comment Re:From www.BarackObama.com (Score 1) 493

I suppose I should have been clearer in the terms I used as well. When I say "socialism", I'm referring to democratic, non-authoritarian socialism; the way I see it, an actual socialist country would necessarily have a democratic political system. However, state capitalism, fascism, and Stalinism are so often referred to as socialism that it's probably best to specify.

I also see your point that Stalinism or authoritarian attempts at socialism can be quite similar to fascism in practice. That's more of a general trait of authoritarianism, though, and not specific to capitalism or socialism. I think we can agree that a less authoritarian government is a good thing.

It's also true that the countries closest to socialist democracies still maintain significant aspects of capitalism. I think they still have some room to improve by further reducing the capitalist aspects of their economies, but those countries seem to do quite well as long as they have at least partial socialism combined with a socially libertarian government.

Comment Re:From www.BarackObama.com (Score 1) 493

I'll concede the links between Socialism and Fascism are tenuous other than the Fascist party we all know best, were the Nazi's which comes from "National Socialist". If you define the term "Socialist" in the strict left wing sense, then Fascism doesn't fit.

Socialism is correctly defined in what you call the strict left wing sense. The Nazis used the word "socialist" as part of their propaganda, but it didn't actually have any of the characteristics of socialism.

If you define it as a huge government intervening in the economy and lives of its citizens, and allow it to have left and right wing forms, then Fascism is the right wing form of Socialism.

Sure, but that's big government or authoritarianism, and not necessarily socialism.

I think part of the problem here is the U.S. political and economic system is so completely confused at this point I'm not sure you can cubbyhole it in to any of the traditional definitions. It defies definition. Components of the system seem to be rampant free market capitalism bordering on Libertarianism. But the government intervenes so frequently in those markets you can only refer to it as state capitalism, certainly all the recent bailout and interventions are exactly that, so were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by design.

I agree; that's why it's capitalism with aspects of both libertarianism and corporate state capitalism.

Other components, many dating to FDR, are blatant left wing Socialism, Social Security, Medicare, unions.

Social Security, Medicare, and unions are things that socialists generally support, but they're not really socialist programs. They're more like reforms put in place to moderate capitalism and try to fill in for some of the things that a free market does poorly.

But this country's massive expenditures on its military and intelligence apparatus, launching aggressive wars based on fabrication(Iraq), pronounced nationalist tendencies, support for right wing dictators the world over, unrestrained warrantless spying, torture, shredding the Constitution and the ignoring basic due process(rendition, arresting and detaining people without charge and denying them access to lawyers, courts or fair trials) are all the hallmarks of a Fascist state, as are the disturbing ties between government and corporations.

From Wikipedia:

"Fascism, pronounced, is a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism with a corporatist economic system, and which is usually considered to be on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum."

I think Fascism is still probably the closest term we have for the current governments of the U.S., Russia, China and the U.K.

I agree with the first part of what you said. I'm as concerned by these as you are, but considering that the basic democratic institutions of the country are still in place—look at the recent non-violent transfers of power between the two parties, for example—I don't think we've reached the degree of authoritarianism necessary to be considered a fascist state. A corporatist economic system alone isn't sufficient to constitute fascism.

Socialist democracy probably applies best to most of the rest of the E.U. since they are mostly harmless nanny states. Don't think there are many actual representative democracies left, or if their are they are tiny(I don't know India well enough to know where it sits).

I'd still consider the U.S. a representative democracy, even if it's an often dysfunctional one with some tendencies towards fascism. I'd also attribute some of the problems in the U.S. to the influence of capitalism; for example, the military-industrial complex is a major force behind the aggressive tendencies of the U.S.

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