Spammers Turn To Social Networks

Photo: Fake friends: This screenshot shows real users who befriended a bogus Facebook user created by George Petre and colleagues. Credit: BitDefender

From Technology Review:

They get results by exploiting a social network's trusting environment.

As users have flocked to social networks, so, inevitably, have spammers. And according to a recent experiment, users are much more receptive to spam sent via a social network than over e-mail.

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Scientists Reverse Alzheimer's-Like Memory Loss in Fruit Flies

In a new study, neuroscientists succeeded in preventing memory loss in fruit flies caused by brain plaques similar to those thought to cause Alzheimer's disease in humans (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2010) — By blocking the cellular signaling activity of a protein, a team of neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has prevented memory loss in fruit flies caused by brain plaques similar to those thought to cause Alzheimer's disease in humans. The study also resolves a long-standing controversy about the role of this protein, PI3 kinase, which was previously thought to have a protective function against the disease.

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Bees See Color 3 Times Faster Than Humans

Bees have surprisingly fast color vision, about 3 to 4 times faster than that of humans depending on how it's measured, a new study finds. Credit: dreamstime

From Live Science:

Bees see color at about triple the speed that humans do, a new study finds.

The findings are the first to measure bumblebee color vision speed and show how it compares with that of monochromatic vision, or the "black-and-white" vision used to track motion.

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Jupiter's Red Spot Has Warm Core

Bottom: Infrared picture of the Red Spot taken by VLT in Chile on 18 May 2008. Top: Visible-light image, which was obtained by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope on 15 May 2008. These images show the interaction of three of Jupiter's largest storms — the Great Red Spot and two smaller storms nicknamed Oval BA and Little Red Spot. Credit: ESO/NASA/JPL/ESA/L. Fletcher

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: Jupiter's Great Red Spot is "extremely complicated", with a core that is warmer and spins in the opposite direction, scientists have found.

The Great Red Spot (GRS) is a storm three times the size of Earth, which spins mostly counter clockwise. It has persisted since at least 1831, and is the most recognisable feature on the striped planet.

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10 Questions The LHC May Answer

From Discovery News:

It's been just over a year since the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, suffered a serious malfunction that shut it down only nine days after going online. But as of this weekend, the LHC is back up and running.

Scientists will use the collider to recreate conditions following the Big Bang, by accelerating beams of subatomic particles (protons and lead ions, called hadrons) around a massive underground racetrack.

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'Allergic' to Electronics: Man Sues Neighbor Over Gadget Use

From ABC:

Santa Fe Man Said He Has 'Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity'.

No TV. No computer. No cell phone. Electronically speaking, he said, his home is more 1980 than 2010.

The Santa Fe man, 59, said, intellectually, he has no problem with technology. It's just that, physically, he can barely tolerate it, he said.

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Climate Science Must Be More Open, Say MPs

Photo: Professor Phil Jones' scientific reputation is "intact"

From The BBC:

MPs investigating the climate change row at the UK's University of East Anglia (UEA) have demanded greater transparency from climate scientists.

The Commons Science and Technology Committee criticised UEA authorities for failing to respond to requests for data from climate change sceptics.

But it found no evidence Professor Phil Jones, whose e-mails were hacked and published online, had manipulated data.

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Picking Our Brains: Nine Neural Frontiers

From New Scientist:

The human brain is the most astoundingly complex structure in the known universe. Yet we are starting to unravel some of its mysteries, thanks to advances in brain imaging, genetics, stem cell research and more. We explore the latest findings from the hottest topics in neuroscience.

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Genetic Shock A Surprising Court Ruling In America May Loosen The Drug Industry’s Grip On Important Genes

From The Economist:

PERSONALISED medicine has proved an elusive dream. Since the decoding of the human genome, biotechnology companies have claimed that by matching a person’s genetic make-up with specialised treatments, they can tailor drugs to maximise benefits and minimise side effects. Alas, researchers have discovered that the link between a given person’s genetic make-up and specific diseases is much more complex than they had hoped. The tantalising vision remains out of reach.

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A Slow Mind May Nurture More Creative Ideas

White matter writ large (Image: UCLA Lab of Neuro Imaging)

From New Scientist:

AS FAR as the internet or phone networks go, bad connections are bad news. Not so in the brain, where slower connections may make people more creative.

Rex Jung at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and his colleagues had found that creativity correlates with low levels of the chemical N-acetylaspartate, which is found in neurons and seems to promote neural health and metabolism.

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Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online Isohunt Ordered to Remove Infringing Content

From Threat Level:

A U.S. judge is ordering Isohunt, one of the world’s leading BitTorrent search engines, to remove all infringing content. Isohunt’s operator said Tuesday that the decision would likely shutter the site, which has 30 million unique monthly visitors.

The injunction targeting Isohunt follows similar rulings against competing pirate sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay, although the Bay has thus far eluded compliance.

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Moral Judgments Can Be Altered

In a new study, researchers disrupted activity in the right temporo-parietal junction by inducing a current in the brain using a magnetic field applied to the scalp. They found that the subjects' ability to make moral judgments that require an understanding of other people's intentions -- for example, a failed murder attempt -- was impaired. (Credit: Graphic by Christine Daniloff)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2010) — MIT neuroscientists have shown they can influence people's moral judgments by disrupting a specific brain region -- a finding that helps reveal how the brain constructs morality.

To make moral judgments about other people, we often need to infer their intentions -- an ability known as "theory of mind." For example, if a hunter shoots his friend while on a hunting trip, we need to know what the hunter was thinking: Was he secretly jealous, or did he mistake his friend for a duck?

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Mystery of Great Civilization's Destruction Revealed

The religious complex of Angkor Wat was center of a civilization that depended for irrigation on a vast network of canals, embankments and reservoirs. Credit: Charles J. Sharp.

From Live Science:

Climate change might have helped bring about the fall of the ancient Khmer civilization in Angkor, Cambodia, nearly 600 years ago, new research suggests.

Historians have given various explanations for the fall of the empire that stretched across much of Southeast Asia between the ninth and 14th centuries (801 to 1400), from land overexploitation to conflict with rival kingdoms. But the new study offers strong evidence that two severe droughts, punctuated by bouts of heavy monsoon rain, could have weakened the empire by shrinking water supplies for drinking and agriculture, and damaging Angkor's vast irrigation system, which was central to its economy.

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How It Works: Taser's Electrified Shotgun Slug

From Popular Science:

It’s midnight. You’re a cop patrolling the wrong side of town when you spot a mugging. The assailant is about 40 feet away, out of range of your stun gun. You shout, but he darts down an alley. It’s a dead end. The crook picks up a bottle, hurls it at your head, and makes a break for the street. You draw your gun.

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Assault Breacher Vehicles Beat Bombs In Afghanistan

From Popular Mechanics:

Marine corps engineers in Afghanistan have a new beast of a vehicle to help them defeat explosive booby traps.

The civilian mechanics at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama usually only fix vehicles for the Army, not design them for the Marine Corps. But as Marines push into contested areas of Afghanistan, their engineers face a persistent threat from roadside bombs. The mechanics at Anniston saw they could build a safe ride for these military engineers by adding off-the-shelf equipment to an M1A1 Abrams battle tank. The result, called the Assault Breacher Vehicle (ABV), maximizes the depot staff’s experience at fixing the M1A1 and their ability to mount heavy engineering equipment, including a 12-foot plough, onto its hull. The Army donated excess tank parts from its inventory to create the ABV.

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My Comment: This is a monster.

New iPhone Could End AT&T's U.S. Monopoly

From The Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc. plans to begin producing this year a new iPhone that could allow U.S. phone carriers other than AT&T Inc. to sell the iconic gadget, said people briefed by the company.

The new iPhone would work on a type of wireless network called CDMA, these people said. CDMA is used by Verizon Wireless, AT&T's main competitor, as well as Sprint Nextel Corp. and a handful of cellular operators in countries including South Korea and Japan. The vast majority of carriers world-wide, including AT&T, use another technology called GSM.

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Oceanology: Robot 'Gliders' Swim The Undersea World

Engage the wave drive (Image: Liquid Robotics)

From New Scientist:

THE way we study oceans could be transformed by a high-tech "surfboard" that generates its own power from sunlight and water waves. The device is capable of navigating at sea for months at a time and recently completed a 4000-kilometre trip from Hawaii to San Diego, California.

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Cern's Giant Collider Is Back – And The Hunt For Fundamental New Insights Is On

The Large Hadron Collider is set for record-breaking high-energy particle experiments after an 18-month delay for repairs. Photograph: Reuters

From The Guardian:

• Two beams of protons will be collided at record energy levels
• Large Hadron Collider may find Higgs boson, or 'God particle'

The largest, most complex scientific instrument in the world will begin its long-delayed hunt for new particles, forces and extra dimensions on Tuesday at Cern, the European Nuclear Research Organisation, on the outskirts of Geneva.

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Picking Our Brains: What Are Memories Made Of?

Want to forget a fright? (Image: WIN-Initiative/Getty)

From New Scientist:

MEMORIES are the basic stuff of thought. We access our stores of knowledge every time we perform a task, communicate through speech or formulate the simplest concepts. Yet the physical form of memory has long been mysterious. What changes occur in the brain when a new memory is encoded?

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Atom Smasher Will Help Reveal 'The Beginning'

Physicists gather at CERN to witness results of the LHC's first half-power particle collisions. Photograph courtesy Maximilien Brice, CERN

From The Washington Post:

GENEVA -- The world's largest atom smasher threw together minuscule particles racing at unheard of speeds in conditions simulating those just after the Big Bang - a success that kick-started a megabillion-dollar experiment that could one day explain how the universe began.

Scientists cheered Tuesday's historic crash of two proton beams, which produced three times more energy than researchers had created before and marked a milestone for the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider.

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