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Anonymous Cowhand writes:

On Wednesday, the International Astronomical Union announced that they'll soon allow astronomy clubs and other organizations to suggest names for exoplanets, with a public vote deciding which names win.

For the first time, in response to the public's increased interest in being part of discoveries in astronomy, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is organizing a worldwide contest to give popular names to selected exoplanets along with their host stars. The proposed names will be submitted by astronomy clubs and non-profit organisations interested in astronomy, and votes will be cast by the public from across the world through the web platform NameExoWorlds. This platform is under development by the IAU in association with Zooniverse. The intention is that millions of people worldwide will be able to take part in the vote. Once the votes are counted, the winning names will be officially sanctioned by the IAU, allowing them to be used freely in parallel with the existing scientific nomenclature, with due credit to the clubs or organizations that proposed them.

Our days of celebrating distant planets with names like OGLE-05-390L b may soon be over. In a year, we could be calling it Magrathea, Krypton, or even Westeros.

AnonTechie writes:

It may smell of flatulence and have a reputation for being highly toxic, but when used in the right tiny dosage, hydrogen sulfide is now being being found to offer potential health benefits in a range of issues, from diabetes to stroke, heart attacks and dementia. A new compound (AP39) could hold the key to future therapies, by targeting delivery of very small amounts of the substance to the right (or key) places inside cells.

Scientists in Exeter have already found that the compound protects mitochondria - the "powerhouse" of cells, which drive energy production in blood vessel cells. Preventing or reversing mitochondrial damage is a key strategy for treatments of a variety of conditions such as stroke, heart failure, diabetes and arthritis, dementia and aging. Mitochondria determine whether cells live or die and they regulate inflammation. In the clinic, dysfunctional mitochondria are strongly linked to disease severity.

Abstract: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2014/MD/c3md00323j#!divAbstract

Hairyfeet writes:

EGC has just released their Best Gaming CPUs of 2014 and while there are no real surprises (high end is i7, mid is a mix, low end has AMD being the better buys) my question would be...does it really matter anymore with CPUs so insanely powerful for several generations now?

Pretty much any mainstream game plays well with even 5 year old Phenom II X4s and C2Qs with tests by Tom's Hardware showing that both AMD and Intel able to stay above 30 FPS on most games so do we really need to care about CPUs when it comes to gaming anymore?

Ethanol-fueled writes:

[ Submitter's note: It gets worse. Both the summary and/or article contain a NSFW (but legal) picture and potentially shocking descriptions not meant to be lurid, but to inform the reader of the current state of a society's handling of a technological aspect of life. ]

Hot on the heels of this related article, The Atlantic one-ups the previous article in bringing to light the increasing hysteria revolving the sexting of minors, truly a new low for American absurdity (paraphrased):

A male minor is forced by adults to submit to an injection that makes his penis erect. The adults command him to strip and photograph his genitals against his will. I am not describing the twisted crime of a registered sex offender. Incredibly, that was the scenario that prosecutors in Prince William County hoped to arrange, according to reports in the Washington Post and at an NBC News affiliate. The boy was already forced to let law enforcement photograph his flaccid penis, the articles add.

The alleged crimes which ostensibly justify this most intrusive and traumatizing investigation? The teen's lawyer, Jessica Harbeson Foster, spoke to the newspaper: "Foster said the case began when the teen's 15-year-old girlfriend sent photos of herself to the 17-year-old, who in turn sent her the video in question. The girl has not been charged, and her mother filed a complaint about the boy's video. "

For committing those heinous crimes, two felony charges were brought - possession of child pornography and manufacturing child pornography. Potential penalties, should the minor be found guilty, are incarceration until age 21 and registering (possibly for life) as a sex-offender.

Fortunately, the case got enough attention in the media, and Manassas Police Lt. Brian Larkin said the Police Department will not proceed with the plan to take the pictures and will let a search warrant authorizing the photos to expire. However, according to an official statement released yesterday evening the police have confirmed that they will continue charging the defendant with manufacturing and distribution of child pornography.

Bringing to our attention a bizarre but interesting idea that increasingly pervasive facial recognition techniques can be defeated by wearing 'everybody's face', Venomous Coward writes:

In 2011, taken by the emergence of mass protest movements around the world, artist Zach Blas began making, "Facial Weaponization Suite, (2011 - present)."[Video]

Facial Weaponization Suite is a series of community workshops which discuss and resist biometric facial recognition technologies and the larger political ethos which supports and enforces them. The workshop participants then have their own faces scanned and compiled into a collective mask, a mask which resists any biometric quantification. Vice got Blas on the phone to learn a little more about the project.

The mask does appear to defeat the many algorithms that are currently employed by tracking cameras that are used in many countries. Of course, some countries have already brought in or at least proposed legislation to ban the wearing of any kind of mask in public (unless a masquerade party is being held) but, in the case of a mass demonstration, it might be enough to protect an individual from being recognised or having their movements tracked unless (s)he was physically detained. How long will it be before legislation is brought in to outlaw the manufacture or sale of such masks?

lhsi writes:

New research has found that your reason for exercising can affect how much food you eat afterwards. If your reasons are for fun or to enjoy yourself, you eat less compared to if you are doing it just to exercise.

These new findings from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab study involved two studies where adults were led on a 2 km walk around a small lake and were either told it was going to be an exercise walk or a scenic walk. In the first study, 56 adults completed their walk and were then given lunch. Those who believed they had been on an exercise walk served and ate 35% more chocolate pudding for dessert than those who believed they had been on a scenic walk.

In the second study, 46 adults were given mid-afternoon snacks after their walk. Those thinking they taken an exercise walk ate 206 more calories of M&Ms, which was over twice as much - 124% more - than those who had been told they were on a scenic walk. "Viewing their walk as exercise led them to be less happy and more fatigued," says lead author, Carolina Werle, professor at Grenoble Ecole de Management in France.

Together, these studies point to one reason why people in exercise programs often find themselves gaining weight. According to Werle, the notion is that some exercisers have a tendency to reward themselves by overeating after their workout.

gewg_ writes:

A report at Alternet gives some context to the amount spent by the U.S. on its drug policy.

• 1,100 - The number of Americans that die each year due to violent crime caused by the drug war
• $51 billion - The amount that the U.S. government spends each year on the war on drugs
• 61 percent - The percentage of individuals targeted by drug-related SWAT raids who are people of color
• 82 percent - The number of Americans who believe that the government is losing the War on Drugs
• 18 months - The age of Bounkham "Bou Bou" Phonesavanh, a recent American casualty of the drug war

The article goes into further details on the number, including:

On May 28, a team of police officers raided the Phonesavanh's home, with the mistaken belief that the residents were involved with drugs. As they entered, they tossed a flashbang grenade that landed directly in the crib of baby Bou Bou, which exploded within point-blank range - critically injuring him.

In a harrowing article, his mother, Alecia, described seeing "a singed crib" and "a pool of blood", and later being informed by medics: "There's still a hole in his chest that exposes his ribs". Alecia said that the sole silver lining to this story is that it may "make us angry enough that we stop accepting brutal SWAT raids as a normal way to fight the war on drugs".

Fortunately, Bou Bou has been making a gradual recovery, but his family is relying on donations to support their living and medical costs.

cafebabe writes:

RT reports that:-

Japanese engineers have unveiled plans to create a moving version of the world famous Gundam robot from the 'Mobile Suit Gundam' anime series. The 60-foot machine is expected to be operable by the 40th anniversary of the cartoon in 2019.

Five years ago, on the 30th anniversary of the anime series which first aired in Japan in 1979, enthusiasts erected a life-size statue of the robot in a Tokyo park.

Though the statue was welcomed by devoted fans of the cartoon, the prospect of the real thing is much more exciting - even if it won't be shooting a blaster or brandishing a sword.

"When I created Gundam 35 years ago, I used my imagination freely because it wasn't real," Yoshiyuki Tomino told reporters in Tokyo on Wednesday, as quoted by AFP.

"That is what creativity is for - when you dream of something. Four decades later, Gundam is growing into something new," Tomino said.

The article also has pictures of robots from NASA, Google and Toshiba and makes passing references to Transformers and Pacific Rim.

APK writes with an article via nakedsecurity.sophos.com:

On Tuesday, The Guardian posted an article about the US military pouring millions into researching how to become a Twitter-user-influencing, propaganda-spewing machine.

The program in question is known as Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC).

SMISC, which was announced in 2011, has been regarded as the means by which the US military can both detect and conduct propaganda campaigns via social media.

While DARPA's social media experiments well might have avoided breaking any law by using only publicly available data, some of its studies are sure to make people uncomfortable.

For example, some of the SMISC research has focused on the Occupy Wall Street protests and those in the Middle East, while other projects have analysed online memes and tweets from celebrities including Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga (described as "the most popular elite user on Twitter", according to The Guardian.

The manager of SMISC, Dr. Rand Waltzman, said in a post that understanding social media is just part of DARPA's "mission of preventing strategic surprise."

frojack writes:

According to IDC's analysis published yesterday (July 9), PC sales may have hit bottom.

  Worldwide PC shipments totaled 74.4 million units in the second quarter of 2014 (2Q14), a year-on-year decline of (only) -1.7%. Which is markedly better than the projected decline of -7.1%

The largest growth is in the U.S. market, which showed strong 6.9% year-on-year growth in the second quarter of 2014.

In many markets, IDC attributes the growth to replacement of XP machines in homes and offices.

"The recent strength in mature regions is a positive sign," said Loren Loverde, Vice President, Worldwide PC Trackers. "However, an important part of this strength is driven by the rebound from weaker demand last year and to potentially short-term replacement activity. We can look for some recovery in emerging regions going forward, but it may coincide with slower growth in mature regions. We do not see the recent gains as a motive to raise the long-term outlook, although 2014 growth could get closer to flat, rather than the May projection of -6%."

Lenovo, Dell, and HP are eating everyone else's lunch. (See Chart, first link).

So the question is, did XP's death briefly resuscitate an otherwise failing market, or is the recession recovery finally allowing businesses to resume capital improvements?

lhsi writes:

Research into the frequency of scientists publishing papers over the last 16 years has found that, while less than 1% of scientists who published at least one paper in the last 16 years have published at least one paper each year over the last 16 years (having what the article calls an "uninterrupted, continuous presence" [UCP]), they published 41.7% of all papers in the same period and 87.1% of all papers with >1000 citations in the same period.

While it may seem obvious that publishing more papers would mean that a scientist would get more citations, the research indicates that the total citations conditioned for number of papers was higher for UCP authors compared to non-UCP authors.

Skipping even a single year substantially affected the average citation impact. We also studied the birth and death dynamics of membership in this influential UCP core, by imputing and estimating UCP-births and UCP-deaths. We estimated that 16,877 scientists would qualify for UCP-birth in 1997 (no publication in 1996, UCP in 1997-2012) and 9,673 scientists had their UCP-death in 2010. The relative representation of authors with UCP was enriched in Medical Research, in the academic sector and in Europe/North America, while the relative representation of authors without UCP was enriched in the Social Sciences and Humanities, in industry, and in other continents.

Authors with uninterrupted, continuous presence over all these 16 years eventually had a much higher citation impact than other authors. To some extent this higher impact is generated through a larger volume of published papers. However, the citation impact in the UCP authors goes beyond just publishing more papers. Even after conditioning on the number of papers, the total citations and h-index of their work were higher than those of non-UCP authors; the exception was authors with fewer than 3 papers per year and who did not have any discernible difference in citation impact regardless of whether they had UCP or not.

frojack writes:

Earlier this year, the Engineering Authority of Egypt's military announced a hand-held instrument that could detect a variety of viral infections without even touching a person, and another device that clears a patient's blood of viruses. Widespread treatment of Egyptian patients with both devices was scheduled to begin today.

There was, as expected, a huge uproar for the untested device. However the country's military regime has been handing down harsh criminal punishments for its critics, including journalists, causing a collapse of in-country demands for testing and proof of concept.

But one expat Egyptian scientist, Islam Hussein, has created videos, one of which has garnered more than 100,000 views on YouTube, a large number considering they are 80-minute PowerPoint presentations in Arabic explaining the devices' scientific problems.

The effort payed off today as military officials said on Saturday that they were delaying the rollout for another 6 months. (During which time, I predict, the whole idea will probably disappear).

In an interview in ScienceMag, Dr Hussein is interviewed and explains the pseudoscience behind the "C-FAST" detector and the Complete Cure Device (blood irradiation device), and what prompted him to speak out about these devices at the risk of being banned from his homeland.

broggyr writes:

Have an LED light that you can control with your phone? Show me your WiFi password! The more items that become Internet-enabled, the more security holes will pop up.

The LIFX lightbulb, yet another addition to the "Internet of things", allows a user to remotely change a network-connected bulb's color and strength from a computer or cell phone.

White-hat hackers with the UK-based security firm Context released their findings this week after successfully obtaining Wi-Fi credentials from 30 meters away.

crutchy writes:

This is probably one of those topics that gets regurgitated periodically, but it's always good to get some fresh answers.

The small consultancy business I work for wants to set up a new file server with remote backup. In the past we have used a Windows XP file server and plugged in a couple of external USB drives when space runs out. Backups were performed nightly to a USB drive and taken offsite to a trusted employees home.

They are looking to Linux for a new file server (I think more because they found out how much a new Windows file server would be).

I'm not a server guy but I have set up a simple Debian-based web server at work for a specific intranet application, but when I was asked about ideas for the new system the best I could come up with was maybe ssh+rsync (which I have only recently started using myself so I'm no expert by any means). Using Amazon's cloud service has been suggested, as well as the remote being a dedicated machine at a trusted employee's home (probably with a new dedicated line in) or with our local ISP (if they can offer such a service). A new dedicated line out of the office has also been suggested, I think mainly because daily file changes can potentially be quite large (3D CAD models etc). A possible advantage of the remote being nearby is that the initial backup could be using a portable hard drive instead of having to uploading terabytes of data (I guess there is always courier services though).

Anyway, just thought I'd chuck it out there. A lot of you guys probably already set up and/or look after remote backup systems. Even if anyone just has some ideas regarding potential traps/pitfalls would be handy. The company is fairly small (about 20-odd employees) so I don't think they need anything overly elaborate, but all feedback is appreciated.

lhsi writes:

Abstract: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10336-014-1098-9

By re-examining a fossil of Scansoriopteryx (which means "climbing wing"), a sparrow-size creature from the Jurassic era, researchers believe that the commonly held belief that birds evolved from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs that gained the ability to fly is false. The birdlike fossil is actually not a dinosaur, as previously thought, but much rather the remains of a tiny tree-climbing animal that could glide.

Through their investigations, the researchers found a combination of plesiomorphic or ancestral non-dinosaurian traits along with highly derived features. It has numerous unambiguous birdlike features such as elongated forelimbs, wing and hind limb feathers, wing membranes in front of its elbow, half-moon shaped wrist-like bones, bird-like perching feet, a tail with short anterior vertebrae, and claws that make tree climbing possible. The researchers specifically note the primitive elongated feathers on the forelimbs and hind limbs. This suggests that Scansoriopteryx is a basal or ancestral form of early birds that had mastered the basic aerodynamic manoeuvres of parachuting or gliding from trees.

Their findings validate predictions first made in the early 1900's that the ancestors of birds were small, tree-dwelling archosaurs which enhanced their incipient ability to fly with feathers that enabled them to at least glide. This "trees down" view is in contrast with the "ground up" view embraced by many palaeontologists in recent decades that birds derived from terrestrial theropod dinosaurs.