SoylentNews

c0lo writes:

Remember that story about the Siberian mystery crater last June? Turns out there are six more and, as Siberian Times reports, there could be dozens of others which popped out recently enough to allow satellite comparisons between before and after.

Respected Moscow scientist Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky has called for 'urgent' investigation of the new phenomenon amid safety fears.

Until now, only three large craters were known about in northern Russia with several scientific sources speculating last year that heating from above the surface due to unusually warm climatic conditions, and from below, due to geological fault lines, led to a huge release of gas hydrates, so causing the formation of these craters in Arctic regions.

Two of the newly-discovered large craters - also known as funnels to scientists - have turned into lakes, revealed Professor Bogoyavlensky, deputy director of the Moscow-based Oil and Gas Research Institute, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Examination using satellite images has helped Russian experts understand that the craters are more widespread than was first realised, with one large hole surrounded by as many as 20 mini-craters, The Siberian Times can reveal.

-- more after the break ---

AnonTechie writes:

In the field of cryptography, a secretly planted “backdoor” that allows eavesdropping on communications is usually a subject of paranoia and dread. But that doesn’t mean cryptographers don’t appreciate the art of skilled cyphersabotage. Now one group of crypto experts has published an appraisal of different methods of weakening crypto systems, and the lesson is that some backdoors are clearly better than others—in stealth, deniability, and even in protecting the victims’ privacy from spies other than the backdoor’s creator.

In a paper titled “Surreptitiously Weakening Cryptographic Systems,” well-known cryptographer and author Bruce Schneier and researchers from the Universities of Wisconsin and Washington take the spy’s view to the problem of crypto design: What kind of built-in backdoor surveillance works best ?

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/sabotage-encryption-software-get-caught/

[Paper]: http://www.scribd.com/doc/257059894/Surreptitiously-Weakening-Cryptographic-Systems

Hugh Pickens writes:

Color scientists already have a word for it: Dressgate. Now the Washington Post reports that a puzzling thing happened on Thursday night consuming millions — perhaps tens of millions — across the planet and trending on Twitter ahead of even Jihadi John’s identification. The problem was this: Roughly three-fourths of people swore that this dress was white and gold, according to BuzzFeed polling but everyone else said it's dress was blue. Others said the dress could actually change colors. So what's going on? According to the NYT our eyes are able to assign fixed colors to objects under widely different lighting conditions. This ability is called color constancy. But the photograph doesn’t give many clues about the ambient light in the room. Is the background bright and the dress in shadow? Or is the whole room bright and all the colors are washed out? If you think the dress is in shadow, your brain may remove the blue cast and perceive the dress as being white and gold. If you think the dress is being washed out by bright light, your brain may perceive the dress as a darker blue and black.

According to Beau Lotto, the brain is doing something remarkable and that's why people are so fascinated by this dress. “It’s entertaining two realities that are mutually exclusive. It’s seeing one reality, but knowing there’s another reality. So you’re becoming an observer of yourself. You’re having tremendous insight into what it is to be human. And that’s the basis of imagination.” As usual xkcd has the final word.

Juan Fiero el Menso Estupido writes:

Ars Technica reports:

For decades after Linux's early '90s debut, even the hardest of hardcore boosters for the open source operating system had to admit that it couldn't really compete in one important area of software: gaming.

Now, more than a year into the SteamOS era (measuring from that beta launch), the nascent Linux gaming community is cautiously optimistic about the promise of a viable PC gaming market that doesn't rely on a Microsoft OS. Despite technical and business problems that continue to get in the way, Valve has already transformed gaming on Linux from "practically nothing" to "definitely something" and could be on the verge of making it much more than that.

For those already running Linux on their main machines, though, finally having significant gaming options on their platform of choice will continue to be a happy side effect of Valve's still-developing push into this new market. "I do know that in the absolute worst case, the chicken-and-egg problem is solved," Gordon said. "You get people to a platform with games, but games won't come until people are on a platform. Valve being there has clearly given developers the faith to stick their toes in the water right away."

We had two submissions on non-water-based life forms; the study and images are available at: https://cornell.box.com/azotosome

ikanreed writes:

The search for extra-terrestrial life focuses quite heavily on the presence of liquid water. That's because all life on earth depends on water, using it as a medium for all cells, and an ingredient for many biological processes.

Is life without water possible? A chemical engineer and others at Cornell University devised a hypothetical model for life that could instead use liquid methane as its medium, opening more possibilities for simple life on Titan and on other cold moons and planets.

bitshifter writes:

A new type of methane-based, oxygen-free life form that can metabolize and reproduce similar to life on Earth has been modeled by a team of Cornell University researchers.

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-life-saturn-moon-titan.html

AnonTechie writes with an interesting story :

The main reason why the U.S. military can promote global peace is because of the aura of invincibility it gained in World War II, because of the end of the Cold War, and because of its overwhelming military spending and technological advantage. But an aura of invincibility is a dangerous thing. And unfortunately, there are signs of rot.

Today, the U.S. military has fallen under the Bureaucracy Rule. The U.S. has no great power rivals, and thank God for that. Iraq and Afghanistan have not caused an identity crisis for the U.S. military because many senior commanders view these as "freakshow" wars — counterinsurgency wars, not the kind of "real" wars that militaries fight.

What are the signs that an organization has become a bureaucracy?

The first is excessive PowerPoint. Every organization should ban PowerPoint ( http://theweek.com/audio/442552/ban-powerpoint ). But it has become particularly endemic in the military ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html?_r=0 ).

The fact that the new Defense secretary has banned PowerPoint from some senior briefings is a step in the right direction ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2015/02/23/the-war-on-powerpoint-in-the-military-continues/ ).

"gewg_" writes:

Common Dreams reports

Public schools are outperforming charter schools in Minnesota, in some cases "dramatically," according to a new analysis by the state's Star-Tribune newspaper.

In addition, many charter schools fail to adequately support minority students, close examination of the data revealed.

[...]Education analyst Diane Ravitch notes: "Minnesota was the home of the charter movement, which began with high expectations as a progressive experiment but has turned into a favorite mechanism in many states to promote privatization of public education and to generate profits for charter corporations like Imagine, Charter Schools USA, and K12. Today, charter advocates claim that their privately managed charters will 'save low-income students from failing public schools,' but the Minnesota experience suggests that charters face the same challenges as public schools, which is magnified by high teacher turnover in charter schools."

The findings back up a report (PDF) put out last fall by the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School, which examined the success and failures of the charter school system in Chicago, Illinois.

That study concluded:

Sadly, the [charter] schools, which on average score lower that the Chicago public schools, have not improved the Chicago school system, but perhaps made it even weaker.

Further, charters, which are even more likely to be single-race schools than the already hyper-segregated Chicago school system, have not increased interracial contact, an often-stated goal of charter systems.

Finally, the fact that Chicago charters use expulsion far more often that public schools deserves further study. In the end, it is unlikely that the Chicago charter school experience provides a model for improving urban education in other big city school districts.

AnonTechie writes:

Despite notable differences in appearance and governance, ancient human settlements functioned in much the same way as modern cities, according to new findings by researchers at the Santa Fe Institute and the University of Colorado Boulder.

Previous research has shown that as modern cities grow in population, so do their efficiencies and productivity. A city's population outpaces its development of urban infrastructure, for example, and its production of goods and services outpaces its population. What's more, these patterns exhibit a surprising degree of mathematical regularity and predictability, a phenomenon called "urban scaling."

But has this always been the case?

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-ancient-modern-cities.html

[Related]: http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/human-social-universals/

[Abstract]: http://www.santafe.edu/research/working-papers/abstract/3f8afbc22a66c776600bfe31f1d01149/

[Working Paper]: http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/14-11-041.pdf

Hugh Pickens writes:

John Schwartz reports at The New York Times that prominent members of the United States House of Representatives and the Senate are demanding information from universities, companies and trade groups about funding for scientists who publicly dispute widely held views on the causes and risks of climate change. In letters sent to seven universities, Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who is the ranking member of the House committee on natural resources, sent detailed requests to the academic employers of scientists who had testified before Congress about climate change. "My colleagues and I cannot perform our duties if research or testimony provided to us is influenced by undisclosed financial relationships.” Grijalva asked for each university’s policies on financial disclosure and the amount and sources of outside funding for each scholar, “communications regarding the funding” and “all drafts” of testimony. Meanwhile Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island sent 100 letters to fossil fuel companies, trade groups and other organizations asking about their funding of climate research and advocacy asking for responses by April 3. “Corporate special interests shouldn’t be able to secretly peddle the best junk science money can buy,” said Senator Markey, denouncing what he called “denial-for-hire operations.”

The letters come after evidence emerged over the weekend that Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had failed to disclose the industry funding for his academic work. The documents also included correspondence between Dr. Soon and the companies who funded his work in which he referred to his papers and testimony as “deliverables.” Soon accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work. “What it shows is the continuation of a long-term campaign by specific fossil-fuel companies and interests to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change,” says Kert Davies.

See our earlier story: Climate Change Denying Scientist Paid Millions by Energy Companies.

slash2phar writes:

Starting March 1, China will ban internet accounts that impersonate people or organizations, and enforce the requirement that people use real names when registering accounts online, its internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), said on Wednesday.

The new regulations are part of efforts to impose real-name registration requirements on internet users and halt the spread of rumors online, the CAC said. Internet companies will have the responsibility to enforce the rules.

On Tuesday, the CAC accused NetEase Inc, a U.S.-listed Chinese web portal, of spreading rumors and pornography. And last month, 133 WeChat accounts were shut down for "distorting history", state media reported.

"gewg_" writes:

AlterNet reports

A new report, by the journal Scientific Reports,[1] finds that marijuana is far safer than other recreational drugs, including and especially alcohol.

Pot may be as much as 114 times safer than booze, say the researchers. The study also maintains that past research into alcohol has systematically underestimated the risks associated with its use.

The study sought to quantify the risk of death associated with the use of common recreational drugs. Alcohol, they found, was the deadliest substance, followed by heroin and cocaine. The safest drug was marijuana; it was also the only drug in the study that had a low mortality risk for users.

Unlike other studies into drug toxicity, the study did not use historical death counts associated with recreational drug used to come to its findings. Instead, the study weighed the potential lethal doses of a substance compared with the amount a typical user might consume. Booze posed the greatest risk to its users when comparing a fatal dose to typical recreational use.

This is not the first study to find that marijuana is significantly safer than other recreational drugs, including booze. A 2003 study by the School of Behavioral and Organizational Science at Claremont Graduate University produced similar results and rankings.(PDF)

[1] The link in the article is crap.

malloc_free writes:

From the MEGA blog:

"PayPal has ceased processing MEGA customer payments effective immediately.

MEGA is aware of a report published by NetNames (partially funded from the MPAA supported Digital Citizens Alliance) that incorrectly claims MEGA's business to not be a legitimate cloud storage service. MEGA is aware that Senator Leahy (Vermont, Chair Senate Judiciary Committee) then pressured Visa and MasterCard to cease providing payment services to the companies named in that report.

Visa and MasterCard then pressured PayPal to cease providing payment services to MEGA."

tonyPick writes:

Spotted on Hackaday is this neat clock project which writes the time on a whiteboard.

There's also a link to a similar clock plotter project.

AnonTechie writes:

Verizon is just so mad at the Federal Communications Commission today that a normal press release wouldn't do. After all, Verizon issues so many press releases denouncing the FCC for trying to regulate telecommunications that today's vote on net neutrality required a special one to make sure it would be remembered. So Verizon wrote it in Morse code and set the date as "1934" to make the point that the FCC is taking us backward in time. Verizon sent out the press release in this e-mail: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/verizon-morse-code.png

Despite this protest, Verizon hasn't been shy about using Title II to its benefit. The company was already a Title II carrier for its wireline telephone and mobile voice networks, and used the benefits of its Title II status to help build its fiber network, which carries phone, TV, and Internet service.

Of course, this is the same Verizon that in 2012 claimed that net neutrality violates its First and Fifth Amendment rights. That happened after Verizon sued to overturn the FCC's 2010 net neutrality rules, which relied on authority granted to the FCC by Congress in both 1934 and 1996. (Verizon won that case, leading directly to today's FCC decision.)

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/verizon-issues-furious-response-to-fcc-in-morse-code-dated-1934/

fritsd, infodragon, tmib, and others write:

The BBC reports Leonard Nimoy's death by end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The actor, famous for playing the role of Mr Spock in the long-running sci-fi series, passed away at his Bel Air home on Friday Feb 27th.

This is reported far and wide, including The New York Times , and Volkskrant .

fritsd: I'll never forget Spitting Image's mangling of his words: "To be, or not to be.. isn't that quite logical, captain?"

infodragon: The iconic Vulcan will be missed!