Botnet Back-Up Gives Glimpse Into Hackers' World

Photo: Coromandel teen Owen Thor Walker last year admitted to running a botnet that controlled a million computers worldwide. Photo / Alan Gibson

From New Zealand Herald:

SAN FRANCISCO - Getting hacked is like having your computer turn traitor on you, spying on everything you do and shipping your secrets to identity thieves.

Victims don't see where their stolen data end up. But sometimes security researchers do, stumbling across stolen-data troves that offer a glimpse of what identity theft looks like from criminals' perspective.

Researchers from U.K.-based security firm Prevx found one such trove, a website used as a stash house for data from 160,000 infected computers before it was shut down this month.

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7 International Spacecraft that Could Replace NASA's Shuttle

A Chinese rocket carrying the Shenzhou-7 spaceship blasts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. (Photo by Xu Haihan/ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

NASA's Orion won't be ready until at least 2015, but the current space shuttle is due to retire next year. Meet the seven international spacecraft from the world's space fleet that could inherit the job of ferrying supplies into space.

The space shuttle is due for retirement in 2010, and NASA’s next spaceship, Orion, won’t be available until at least 2015. That will leave a five-year gap during which NASA astronauts and space-station cargo will be grounded unless they find other ways to get to orbit. In the past, NASA has cadged rides off its former arch-rival, the Russian Federal Space Agency, and its Soyuz (for astronauts) and Progress (for cargo) spacecraft. But relations between the U.S. and Russia are cooling, raising the very real prospect that Congress will forbid NASA to buy spaceflights from Russia. NASA has stepped up its support of two U.S. companies, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences Corporation, that hope to have unmanned cargo spaceships ready for launch by 2010. (See details below.) Even if these companies succeed, NASA will still have to rely on Soyuz for manned flights. But maybe not for long. Here’s a roundup of seven rides to low Earth orbit besides the space shuttle and Soyuz that could be available for space-station flights.

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Gallery: The Top 10 Failed NASA Missions

9. Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) Spacecraft : The Mission: Upset with the expense and risk of launching the shuttle every time a satellite needed maintenance, NASA created the DART to show that a robotic satellite could dock with other satellites. DART was supposed to autonomously navigate towards, and then rendezvous with, an existing communications satellite.

The Problem: And did it ever rendezvous! The computer controlling DART incorrectly estimated the distance between the two satellites, causing DART to bump right into the other satellite! DART then used up all of its fuel, eventually crashing into the ocean.
Courtesy of NASA

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From Popsci.:

Like no other modern endeavor, the space program inspires all mankind by pushing the edge of the possible. At least, when it works it does. Often, the casual integration of satellite technology into nearly all modern electronics combines with imagery of brave astronauts going forth for all mankind to obscure the basic fact that sending something into space is damn hard, and often fails.

So, inspired by the recent loss of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite, Popsci.com is taking a look back at the Top 10 missions that didn’t slip the surly bonds of Earth, failed to trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, and most certainly did not touch the face of God.

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Trend: Daughters Follow Dads' Footsteps

From Live Science:

Women nowadays are three times more likely than those born a century ago to do what men have done for millennia — follow their father's footsteps into his line of work, a newly announced study finds.

One way or another, fathers and daughters have been paying more attention to each other, and daughters picked up job cues or assistance from dads, as more and more women entered the labor force, the research suggests.

Just under 6 percent of women born from 1909 to 1915 worked in their father's occupation, while around 20 percent of women born in the mid-1970s do so (they are in their early 30s now), the researchers found.

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Anger And Hostility Harmful To The Heart, Especially Among Men

New research shows that anger and hostility are significantly associated with both a higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in healthy individuals and poorer outcomes in patients with existing heart disease. (Credit: iStockphoto/Vasko Miokovic)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Anger and hostility are significantly associated with both a higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in healthy individuals and poorer outcomes in patients with existing heart disease, according to the first quantitative review and meta-analysis of related studies, which appears in the March 17, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Management of anger and hostility may be an important adjuvant strategy in preventing CHD in the general public and treating CHD patients, according to authors.

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Planets Like Earth Appear To Be Out There

Image from National Geographic

From Japan Times:

LONDON — The real wonder of our age is this. You can go on the Web, type in PlanetQuest New Worlds Atlas, or Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, or NASA Star and Exoplanet Database, and directly access the data on 340 new planets that have been discovered in the past five years.

That number is set to grow very fast now, for on March 6 The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully launched the Kepler telescope, which will find many more planets including potentially Earth-like ones. It will stare unblinkingly at an area of space containing about 100,000 relatively near stars, watching for the tiny dimming of a star that happens when one of its planets passes between the star and us.

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After 10 Years, Space Station Finally Nears Completion

The space shuttle Discovery sits on launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Scott Audette/REUTERS)

From Christian Science Monitor:

The Space Shuttle Discovery will bring the last US-made piece to the space station when it launches Wednesday.

A decade ago, the United States docked its first module, Destiny, to an embryonic International Space Station. Tonight, the space shuttle Discovery is set to launch an American segment that could be called “Finally!”

The last major US-built component – a 15.5-ton truss bearing the station’s last set of solar panels – is nestled snuggly in Discovery’s cargo bay, awaiting the orbiter’s launch, now scheduled for Thursday night after Wednesday’s planned launch was scrubbed due to a hydrogen gas leak.

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Shuttle Discovery Lifts Off On Mission To ISS -- News Updates March 15, 2009

The US Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off. Photo AFP

From AFP:

CAPE CANAVERAL (AFP) — The shuttle Discovery has blasted off on a mission to outfit the International Space Station with a final pair of solar wings ahead of the arrival in a few weeks of an expanded space crew.

The spacecraft launched at 7:43 pm (2343 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Just over eight minutes later, the shuttle entered orbit.

The journey was expected to take two days to reach the ISS, where the seven-member crew was to deliver and install the fourth and final pair of solar wings on the orbiting ISS, in one of the last major tasks of the more than decade-long effort to construct the station.

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More News On The Launch Of Discovery

Discovery blasts off into space -- BBC
Successful Launch Starts Shuttle Mission -- Aviation Week
Discovery heads to International Space Station -- Orlando Sentinel
STS-119 Launches into Space…Finally -- The Future Of Things
Discovery blasts off for mission to international space station -- CBC
Space shuttle Discovery reaches orbit successfully -- Scientific American
Space Shuttle Discovery successfully launches after a month of delays -- Wikinews
Backgrounder: Crew members of U.S. space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 mission -- China View

Low-Energy Light Bulbs Can Cause Rashes And Swelling To Sensitive Skin, Warn Experts

A break with tradition: Medical experts say people with light-sensitive skin disorders should be exempt from using low-energy light bulbs

From Daily Mail Online:

The phasing out of traditional light bulbs could cause misery for thousands who have light-sensitive skin disorders, medical experts warned yesterday.

Dr Robert Sarkany said some low-energy bulbs gave vulnerable people painful rashes and swelling.

He backed calls by patient groups for the Government to give medical exemptions for those at risk.

The warning comes as British shops start to clear their shelves of traditional bulbs, which are being replaced by more energy-efficient versions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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'Supermodel' Satellite Set To Fly

In orbit, the same side of the GOCE satellite remains facing the Sun. The spacecraft is equipped with four body-mounted and two wing-mounted solar panels. Due to the configuration in orbit, the solar panels will experience extreme temperature variations so it has been necessary to use materials that will tolerate temperatures as high as 160ºC and as low as -170ºC. (Credit: ESA - AOES Medialab)

From The BBC:

Europe is set to launch one of its most challenging space missions to date.

The Goce satellite will map minute variations in the pull of gravity experienced across the planet.

Scientists will use its data to improve their understanding of how the oceans move, and to frame a universal system to measure height anywhere on Earth.

The super-sleek spacecraft will go into orbit on a modified intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in north-west Russia.

Lift-off for the Rockot vehicle is timed for 1421 GMT on Monday.

Most satellites launched into space are ugly boxes. The European Space Agency's (Esa) Goce satellite is very different.

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Earth's Dimming Skies: Before And After

From Wired Science:

Earth's skies have dimmed since the mid-1970s, as airborne pollutants scatter the sun's rays and turn blue skies into a milky haze.

The effect was quantified in a study published on Thursday in Science, and widely covered by the press. But the study explained the effect with graphs, and stories only described a phenomena for which words aren't enough.

Enter Photoshop and the guidance of study co-author Kaicun Wang, a University of Maryland, College Park atmospheric scientist. The resulting visualization takes the worst dimming, experienced in southeast Asia, and applies it to a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

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Tiny Brain Region Key To Fear Of Rivals And Predators

A piece of the brain's hypothalamus (shown in middle of the above model) is key to animals' fear of territorial rivals and predators, according to a new study. Without it, animals lose all sense of caution. (Credit: iStockphoto/Karen Roach)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 15, 2009) — Mice lose their fear of territorial rivals when a tiny piece of their brain is neutralized, a new study reports.

The study adds to evidence that primal fear responses do not depend on the amygdala – long a favored region of fear researchers – but on an obscure corner of the primeval brain.

A group of neuroscientists led by Larry Swanson of the University of Southern California studied the brain activity of rats and mice exposed to cats, or to rival rodents defending their territory.

Both experiences activated neurons in the dorsal premammillary nucleus, part of an ancient brain region called the hypothalamus.

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Metamaterial Revolution: The New Science of Making Anything Disappear

A metamaterial sends rays of light cascading around a ball, rendering it invisible,
in this schematic. David Schurg

From Discover:

Engineers are working with metamaterials to create super-microscopes, optical computers, and yes, invisibility cloaks

Xiang Zhang remembers the day he recognized that something extraordinary was happening around him. It was in 2000, at a workshop organized by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to explore a tantalizing idea: that radical new kinds of engineered materials might enable us to extend our control over matter in seemingly magical ways.

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Thrill Seekers Lack Brakes In The Brain

From ScienCentral:

New research gives a possible explanation for why some of us are thrill seekers and others like to play it safe. The study found that some of us can’t control the release of a certain brain chemical.

"Adrenaline Junkies" Actually Prefer Dopamine

Wouldn’t it be amazing if researchers could scan our brains and see whether we have thrill seeking personality traits? Vanderbilt University psychologist David Zald has come pretty close. He has conducted a study that links thrill seeking behavior with a difference in specific part of the dopamine system in the brain.

“Dopamine does a number of different things. Probably most importantly though it’s involved in motivation and reward,” explains Zald. “And it’s the critical chemical in terms of people really wanting to do things.”

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Technique Disables Plutonium's Use in Bombs

Keeping Nuke Fuel Safe: Scientists report that adding the element Americium, a synthetic compound used in commercial smoke detectors and industrial gauges, to nuclear power plant fuel generates higher-than-normal concentrations of a particular type of plutonium, rendering it useless for armaments without additional processing. iStockPhoto

From Discover Magazine:

Israeli scientists have devised a technique to keep plutonium produced in nuclear power plants from being used in nuclear bombs.

Adding the element Americium, a synthetic compound used in commercial smoke detectors and industrial gauges, to nuclear power plant fuel generates higher-than-normal concentrations of a particular type of plutonium, rendering it useless for armaments without additional processing.

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My Comment: One small step to insure such materials do not fall into the hands of those who may harbor ill will.

Global Hurricane Activity Has Decreased To The Lowest Level In 30 Years.

(Click the Above Image to Enlarge)
Figure: Global 24-month running sum time-series of
Accumulated Cyclone Energy updated through March 12, 2009.

From Watts Up With That?

Very important: global hurricane activity includes the 80-90 tropical cyclones that develop around the world during a given calendar year, including the 12-15 that occur in the North Atlantic (Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean included). The heightened activity in the North Atlantic since 1995 is included in the data used to create this figure.

As previously reported here and here at Climate Audit, and chronicled at my Florida State Global Hurricane Update page, both Northern Hemisphere and overall Global hurricane activity has continued to sink to levels not seen since the 1970s. Even more astounding, when the Southern Hemisphere hurricane data is analyzed to create a global value, we see that Global Hurricane Energy has sunk to 30-year lows, at the least. Since hurricane intensity and detection data is problematic as one goes back in time, when reporting and observing practices were different than today, it is possible that we underestimated global hurricane energy during the 1970s. See notes at bottom to avoid terminology discombobulation.

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Why Is Obama Going Gray?

Barack Obama in January 2008, a few days after he became president. Credit: White House

From Live Science:

News reports today point out that President Obama is going a little gray at the temples. Is it the stress of the job, or is he due to go gray about now anyway?

We saw it happen to George Bush, and in dramatic fashion with Bill Clinton. Obama saw his own grayer self coming.

"Seniors, listen up. I'm getting gray hair myself," Obama said at a campaign stop in Indiana last spring, according to The Washington Post. "The gray is coming quick," he said a few months later. "By the time I'm sworn in, I will look the part."

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Solar Panels In The Sahara 'Could Power The Whole Of Europe'

A solar power plant in the Mojave Desert. (Solar Systems/AP)

From Times Online:

All of Europe’s energy needs could be supplied by building an array of solar panels in the Sahara, the climate change conference has been told.

Technological advances combined with falling costs have made it realistic to consider North Africa as Europe’s main source of imported energy. By harnessing the power of the Sun, possibly in tandem with wind farms along the North African coastline, Europe could easily meet its 2020 target of generating at least 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources.

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Old Age Begins At 27: Scientists Reveal New Research Into Ageing

Photo: Getting old already? 27-year-old singer Beyonce Knowles is already past her mental peak according to new research

From The Daily Mail:

Old age is often blamed for causing us to misplace car keys, forget a word or lose our train of thought.

But new research shows that many well-known effects of ageing may start decades before our twilight years.

According to scientists, our mental abilities begin to decline from the age of 27 after reaching a peak at 22.

The researchers studied 2,000 men and women aged 18 to 60 over seven years. The people involved – who were mostly in good health and well-educated – had to solve visual puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols.

Similar tests are often used to diagnose mental disabilities and declines, including dementia.

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'Peking Man' Older Than Thought; Somehow Adapted To Cold

Darryl Granger, a Purdue professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, stands with the accelerator mass spectrometer used in a study that determined the age of "Peking Man" was around 200,000 years older than previously thought. Purdue is the only university in the nation with an accelerator mass spectrometer powerful enough to perform the type of testing used in this study. (Credit: Purdue News Service photo/Andrew Hancock)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2009) — A new dating method has found that "Peking Man" is around 200,000 years older than previously thought, suggesting he somehow adapted to the cold of a mild glacial period.

A dating method developed by a Purdue University researcher allowed a more accurate determination of the age of the Zhoukoudian, China, site of remains of Homo erectus, commonly known as "Peking Man." The site was found to be 680,000-780,000 years old. Earlier estimates put the age at 230,000-500,000 years old.

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