Comment Rachel Garrett (Score 1) 618
She's good, fair, strong, and present.
It's unfortunately that all the adult captains live in alternate universes/timelines...as in not ours.
Mars Images Reveal Evidence of Ancient Lakes 128
Matt_dk writes "Spectacular satellite images suggest that Mars was warm enough to sustain lakes three billion years ago, a period that was previously thought to be too cold and arid to sustain water on the surface, according to research published today in the journal Geology. Earlier research had suggested that Mars had a warm and wet early history but that between 4 billion and 3.8 billion years ago, before the Hesperian Epoch, the planet lost most of its atmosphere and became cold and dry. In the new study, the researchers analysed detailed images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently circling the red planet, and concluded that there were later episodes where Mars experienced warm and wet periods."
Big Dipper "Star" Actually a Sextuplet System 88
Theosis sends word that an astronomer at the University of Rochester and his colleagues have made the surprise discovery that Alcor, one of the brightest stars in the Big Dipper, is actually two stars; and it is apparently gravitationally bound to the four-star Mizar system, making the whole group a sextuplet. This would make the Mizar-Alcor sextuplet the second-nearest such system known. The discovery is especially surprising because Alcor is one of the most studied stars in the sky. The Mizar-Alcor system has been involved in many "firsts" in the history of astronomy: "Benedetto Castelli, Galileo's protege and collaborator, first observed with a telescope that Mizar was not a single star in 1617, and Galileo observed it a week after hearing about this from Castelli, and noted it in his notebooks... Those two stars, called Mizar A and Mizar B, together with Alcor, in 1857 became the first binary stars ever photographed through a telescope. In 1890, Mizar A was discovered to itself be a binary, being the first binary to be discovered using spectroscopy. In 1908, spectroscopy revealed that Mizar B was also a pair of stars, making the group the first-known quintuple star system."
Sharp Rise In Jailing of Online Journalists; Iran May Just Kill Them 233
bckspc writes "The Committee to Protect Journalists has published their annual census of journalists in prison. Of the 136 reporters in prison around the world on December 1, 'At least 68 bloggers, Web-based reporters, and online editors are imprisoned, constituting half of all journalists now in jail.' Print was next with 51 cases. Also, 'Freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed worldwide, a dramatic recent increase that reflects the evolution of the global news business.' China, Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma were the top 5 jailers of journalists."
rmdstudio writes, too, with word that after the last few days' protest there, largely organized online, the government of Iran is considering the death penalty for bloggers and webmasters whose reports offend it.
Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331
Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."
Researchers Use Salmon DNA To Make LED Lightbulbs 66
Al writes "Researchers from the University of Connecticut have created a new light-emitting material by doping spun strands of salmon DNA with fluorescent dyes. The material, which is robust because DNA is such a strong polymer, absorbs energy from ultraviolet light and gives off different colors depending on the amounts of dye it contains. A team led by chemistry professor Gregory Sotzing created the new material by mixing salmon DNA with two types of dye, then pumping the solution from a fine needle while a voltage is applied between the needle tip and a grounded copper plate covered with a glass slide. As the liquid jet comes out, it dries and forms long nanofibers that are deposited on the glass slide as a mat. The researchers then spin this nanofiber mat directly on the surface of an ultraviolet LED to make a white-light emitter. The color-tunable DNA material relies on an energy-transfer mechanism between two different fluorescent dyes, and the DNA keeps the dye molecules separated at a distance of 2 to 10 nanometers from each other."
Comment Readings for the motivated... (Score 1) 176
Dan Boneh has written relevant papers on revocation of encryption keys, esp.
"A revocable backup system"
and
"Revocation of unread E-mail in an untrusted network"
both at http://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs.html
The basic idea is to effectively destroy files using a two-layer key scheme. Files are encrypted using automatically generated keys. These keys are together encrypted using a master key. At user specified intervals (or manually), the keys are reencrypted with a new master key; revocation occurs by omitting the keys of the desired files. It works across archives, and supports repudiation - the file owner only knows master keys, thus can access only those files encrypted by keys encrypted in turn by the current master key, (and can say so honestly in court). Of course, old key files encrypted with old master keys should be deleted immediately and securely, and should not themselves be backed up!
Public key exchange protocols can support similar revocation of delivered content. Obviously, this only works until the content is in the clear, whether email, MP3s, DVD video...
That's why I suspect all the "might makes copyright" groups will start pushing content copy tracking...try
"An efficient public key traitor tracing scheme"
(same URL) on for size!
"A revocable backup system"
and
"Revocation of unread E-mail in an untrusted network"
both at http://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs.html
The basic idea is to effectively destroy files using a two-layer key scheme. Files are encrypted using automatically generated keys. These keys are together encrypted using a master key. At user specified intervals (or manually), the keys are reencrypted with a new master key; revocation occurs by omitting the keys of the desired files. It works across archives, and supports repudiation - the file owner only knows master keys, thus can access only those files encrypted by keys encrypted in turn by the current master key, (and can say so honestly in court). Of course, old key files encrypted with old master keys should be deleted immediately and securely, and should not themselves be backed up!
Public key exchange protocols can support similar revocation of delivered content. Obviously, this only works until the content is in the clear, whether email, MP3s, DVD video...
That's why I suspect all the "might makes copyright" groups will start pushing content copy tracking...try
"An efficient public key traitor tracing scheme"
(same URL) on for size!
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