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tadas and cafebabe let us know of some goings-on up in the Wild Black Yonder:

The Washington Post reports on a Russian scientific space mission dispatched to study the effects of weightlessness on various biological processes which continues to transmit data but does not respond to commands from mission control. Non-National Enquirer level reporting on this incident (cited by the Post reporter) at Interfax and ITAR-TASS .

Business Insider and elsewhere report that:

Last year, more than half of the 45 mice aboard a Bion-M1 capsule died during its flight, the first Russian mission to launch animals into space in 17 years. And as for the rest of the species, they were euthanized on landing so scientists could see how much they had been affected.

Now, sadly, it looks like we can add another five to the death toll. A bunch of swinging gecko-lovers are spiraling uncontrolled through space aboard Russia's Foton-M4 satellite and are unlikely to set their sticky little feet on anyone's ceiling again.

At least they're all on an excellent mission to make a two-month long space sex tape for Russian scientists to watch ... and monitor the effects of gravity on sexual behavior and embryonic development.

Some fruit flies and mushrooms are also along with them for the ride, but it's unlikely any will return.

[LATE-BREAKING UPDATE]: cafebabe writes:

According to http://rt.com/news/175864-foton-roscosmos-gecko-sex/, contact has been re-established with the satellite.

present_arms writes:

El reg reports that a customer named Chen Ma has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of up to 100 million users for invading privacy.

From the friendly article:

Her complaint focuses on its Location Services software, which comes as standard on all Apple mobes.

In a legal filing, Ma alleged her "daily whereabouts would be tracked, recorded and transmitted to Apple database [sic] to be stored for future reference".

Her case was sparked by a report on CCTV, China's state-sponsored broadcaster, which led her to believe Apple was "surreptitiously acquiring the data of her daily whereabouts down to every minutes [sic] without her knowledge, approval and permission."

A similar case was brought before a court last year and was rejected, Will this one be more successful? I personally doubt it, but no harm trying.

gewg_ writes:

Softpedia reminds us

Canonical has discontinued its Ubuntu One file service and now the company has sent a final notice for the users who still haven't retrieved their files.
[...]

"This is the FINAL reminder to make sure you have retrieved all your data from Ubuntu One filesync, as we will be deleting all the content permanently on 31st July 2014. After that date, we will no longer be able to retrieve any of your files."

"In order to make it easy for you to retrieve all of your content, we have released a new feature that lets you download all your content at once. Our website, one.ububnu.com, has been updated with instructions on how to conveniently download all your files. In addition, you still can use Mover.io's offer to transfer your data to another cloud provider for free. The Ubuntu One web interface is available for you to download individual files as well," reads the final warning from Canonical.

Starting August 1, all the files that have been left on the servers will be deleted and they will be virtually unrecoverable. Even with all the advanced warnings and with all the methods provided for file transfer, it's very likely that there will be users who don't have a clue about what is happening.

To those who aren't procrastinators: Where have you moved your files?

Community members gewg_ and present_arms have submitted reports regarding Chubby Checker's lawsuit against HP:

There was once an app that claimed it could determine the size of a man's penis simply from being told that individual's shoe size.

Deccan Chronicle reports

The app was called "The Chubby Checker" and was short-lived on HP's WebOS app store.

According to a report on Ars Technica, HP was sued for half a billion dollars by Ernest Evans, a singer-song writer, also known as Chubby Checker, best known for his 1960 smash hit cover version of "The Twist." The app was named "The Chubby Checker," which was the rock-n-roll icon's stage name. Ernest sued HP over infringement on his trademark and also added that HP violated the Communications Decency Act.

The Communications Decency Act was dismissed by the courts, but the infringement of trademark claim was allowed to proceed with the trial due this October. The application was based on estimating the size of the male sex organ by getting the details of his shoe size and was sold online for $0.99 by HP on their WebOS app store in 2012. The app was designed and named by a third-party developer, but was approved and put on sale by HP.

present_arms writes:

Millions are hit by a mysterious bug at US passport and Visa reports International Business Times

From the Article:

Millions of people awaiting US travel documents have been left in limbo, as a major computer glitch crashed the United States global system for passport and visa services.

US State Department Spokeswoman, Marie Harf, says the glitch, which was first discovered on 19 July, has stalled the issuance of US passports and visas.

cafebabe writes:

CNN reports that:

A doctor who has played a key role in fighting the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is infected with the disease, according to that country's Ministry of Health. Dr.Sheik Humarr Khan is being treated by the French aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres also known as Doctors Without Borders in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, Tim Shenk, an agency spokesman, told CNN.

Until falling ill, Khan had been overseeing Ebola treatment and isolation units at Kenema Government Hospital, about 185 miles east of the capital Freetown.

Citing patient confidentiality, Shenk declined to provide additional details about Khan's condition.

I'm reluctant to discuss a person's confidential medical condition. However, this is a matter of public interest.

present_arms writes:

International Business News reports that Russia is offering $111,000 to any citizen who can crack the popular encrypted Tor network.

FTFA:

The Russian federal government is concerned about the number of people using Tor to anonymously surf the web in the country and has set up a competition to find a technological solution to solve the problem.

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) is offering 3.9 million roubles ($111,000, £65,370) to researchers who will "study the possibility of obtaining technical information about users and users equipment on the Tor anonymous network," according to a translated version of the proposal. In order to apply, entrants must pay 195,000 roubles, and foreigners are not allowed to enter the competition, in order to ensure the "defence and security" of the Russian Federation.

I imagine a lot of Russian crackers will be right on this.

CoolHand writes:

GamingonLinux announces that GOG.com (Good Old Games) is now officially supporting Linux. They have announced a big sale of Linux games, including many newly-announced for the platform. I've picked up Pirates! Gold and DukeNukem3d myself.

A frequently-cited reason for people holding on to Windows is the lack of games for Linux. With Steam and now GOG both supporting Linux, how close are we to "the year of Linux on the Desktop"? What, if anything, is holding you back?

present_arms writes with a report from the BBC:

Wikipedians have been warning editors from the House of Representatives since March 2012, and moved to block the address for one day earlier this month. Wikipedia has now blocked anonymous edits by addresses in the IP range assigned to the US House of Representatives for 10 days, due to "persistent disruptive edits".

One of the acts highlighted was an alteration to the page on the assassination of John F Kennedy, which was changed to say that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting "on behalf of the regime of Fidel Castro". An entry on the moon landing conspiracy theories was changed to say they were "promoted by the Cuban government". The biography of former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld was revised, describing him as an "alien lizard who eats Mexican babies".

Edits from computers using the IP address belonging to the House of Representatives have been banned before, following similar acts of vandalism. One staffer said they were being banned for the "actions of two or three".

The latest block comes after rogue edits were brought to light by a Twitter feed, @congressedits, which posts every change made from the government-owned address.

Following up on our story "Fossilised Footprints Suggest Tyrannosaurus Hunted in Packs", we have this report on the natural result of that hunting and feeding.

gewg_ writes with a report from El Reg:

Squeeze out a bid for colossal coprolite at this weekend's auction

Auction house I.M. Chait has listed what it describes as an "Enormous and rare coprolite" said to measure 40 inches 101.6cm from end to end. The object is believed to have been the result of a meal consumed during the Miocene-Oligocene epoch, some 23 million years ago.

Here's the auctioneer's blurb about the miocene motion:

"This truly spectacular specimen is possibly the longest example of coprolite ever to be offered at auction. It boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow coloring and terrifically detailed texture to the heavily botryoidal surface across the whole of its immense length. The passer of this remarkable object is unknown, but it is nonetheless a highly evocative specimen of unprecedented size, presented in four sections, each with a heavy black marble custom base, an eye-watering 40 inches in length overall."

The prehistoric poo is expected to fetch between $US8,000 and $10,000 when it goes under the hammer. If that's more than you're willing to pay for a no-longer-steaming pile of fossil faeces, the July 26th auction also features a collection of 5 coprolites expected to sell for just $4,000 to $6,000. There's also a single large specimen from the Jurassic expected to sell for a mere $500 and $700.

OK, guys. Here's your chance to let loose with your most prodigious poop puns.

[UPDATE: fixed typo: gave change a chance.]

lhsi writes:

Adjacent track ways of tyrannosaurus footprints have been discovered (full text) that suggest that tyrannosaurids hunted in packs. The fossilised footprints show clear evidence that the animals travelled together, with all three tracks going in the same direction around the same time, suggesting that these dinosaurs may have been social, and not solitary, animals.

The skeletal record of tyrannosaurids is well-documented, whereas their footprint record is surprisingly sparse. There are only a few isolated footprints attributed to tyrannosaurids and, hitherto, no reported trackways. We report the world's first trackways attributable to tyrannosaurids, and describe a new ichnotaxon attributable to tyrannosaurids. These trackways are from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian Maastrichtian) of northeastern British Columbia, Canada. One trackway consists of three tridactyl footprints, and two adjacent trackways consist of two footprints each. All three trackways show animals bearing southeast within an 8.5 meter-wide corridor. Similarities in depth and preservation of the tyrannosaurid tracks indicate that these three trackways were made by track-makers walking concurrently in the same direction. These trackways add significantly to previous osteology-based hypotheses of locomotion and behavior in Tyrannosauridae by providing ichnologic support for gregariousness in tyrannosaurids, and the first record of the walking gait of tyrannosaurids.

The Zero Theorem writes:

Confirming what we've all suspected — that some spy agencies employ incompetent posers — the United States' Office of the Director of National Intelligence has failed to secure the SSL certificate for their own website. Exposing them to deserved public ridicule.

To be generous, one of the comments suggests: "No this is Akamai not able to do a good job on HTTPS. I've seen this a lot! Pay more money is what Akamai says to fix it." Still, were there any QA applied to the site, one would expect this would have been detected before it went live.

This leads to a broader question: what security mistakes (government or otherwise) have you encountered?

[UPDATE: Replaced a duplicate link with a link to the DNI website.]

gewg_ writes with a report from El Reg:

Boffins have named elephants as the top sniffers in the animal kingdom, possessing twice as many functional olfactory receptors (ORs) genes as hounds. ORs help organisms detect odours in their environments.

Proving that Dumbo really is the mutt's nuts, the researchers also found that pachyderms outclassed the olfactory abilities of the rat — once thought to have the best nose of any animal. "Rats had the record for the largest number of [these] genes," said Yoshiihito Niimura, a molecular evolution researcher at The University of Tokyo in Japan. "Elephants have much more. It's almost double, so it's very surprising."

To analyse different animals' smelling abilities, boffins examined genome sequences from 13 different mammals, examining a total of 10,000 genes. They found that each mammal's smell genes were highly unique, with just three shared between them. An elephant has a mammoth 2,000 olfactory receptor genes, whereas humans have far fewer, as we stopped relying on our nose way back in the mists of evolutionary time.

The animals examined in the study are all descended from a common ancestor that lived 100 million years ago and is thought to have 781 OR genes. All the primates in the study lost more than half of all their smell genes during the process of evolution. Orangutans, for instance, shed some 70 per cent of their olfactory receptor genes. Humans have just 396 OR genes left and just one passed down from the common ancestor.

Can someone tell me how "highly unique" is different from "unique"?

cafebabe writes:

RT reports that:

Hackers have stolen personal information from the European Central Bank (ECB) in what seems to be a blackmail scheme. The stolen data includes email addresses and contact information taken from the organization's database.

"There had been a breach of the security protecting a database serving its public website," ECB said in a statement on Thursday. "This led to the theft of email addresses and other contact data left by people registering for events at the ECB."

Around 20,000 email addresses were stolen, according to media reports.

The hacked database serves the public website and gathers registrations for conferences and other visits. It is "physically separate from any internal ECB systems."

This is slightly more serious than denying access to a website because 20,000 individuals may be targeted by fake messages.

cafebabe writes:

Wired reports that:

At the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas next month Ragan and Salazar plan to reveal how they built a botnet using only free trials and freemium accounts on online application-hosting services--the kind coders use for development and testing to avoid having to buy their own servers and storage. The hacker duo used an automated process to generate unique email addresses and sign up for those free accounts en masse, assembling a cloud-based botnet of around a thousand computers.

That online zombie horde was capable of launching coordinated cyberattacks, cracking passwords, or mining hundreds of dollars a day worth of cryptocurrency. And by assembling that botnet from cloud accounts rather than hijacked computers, Ragan and Salazar believe their creation may have even been legal.

"We essentially built a supercomputer for free," says Ragan, who along with Salazar works as a researcher for the security consultancy Bishop Fox. "We're definitely going to see more malicious activity coming out of these services."

[UPDATE: Also submitted by: Common Joe]