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Runaway1956 writes:

Something strange was hiding in the Horsehead. The nebula, named for its stallionlike silhouette, is a towering cloud of dust and gas 1,500 light-years from Earth where new stars are continually born. It is one of the most recognizable celestial objects, and scientists have studied it intensely. But in 2011 astronomers from the Institute of Millimeter Radioastronomy (IRAM) and elsewhere probed it again. With IRAM's 30-meter telescope in the Spanish Sierra Nevada, they homed in on two portions of the horse's mane in radio light. They weren't interested in taking more pictures of the Horsehead; instead, they were after spectra—readings of the light broken down into their constituent wavelengths, which reveal the chemical makeup of the nebula. Displayed on screen, the data looked like blips on a heart monitor; each wiggle indicated that some molecule in the nebula had emitted light of a particular wavelength.

Every molecule in the universe makes its own characteristic wiggles based on the orientation of the protons, neutrons and electrons within it. Most of the wiggles in the Horsehead data were easily attributable to common chemicals such as carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and neutral carbon. But there was also a small, unidentified line at 89.957 gigahertz. This was a mystery—a molecule completely unknown to science.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-hunt-for-alien-molecules/

It has always amazed me that people can only imagine life, and matter, as it exists on earth. Given molecules that can't exist on earth, it is easy to imagine life forms that we might not even recognize as "alive". While some general laws of physics probably apply throughout the universe, we need to keep in mind that there may be exceptions to those laws, and that local conditions might twist the laws far outside our understanding. C3H+ ?? Who would have guessed!

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"exec" writes:

The kingdom launched a new Farsi website this week, but how will an Iranian audience react?

Saudi Arabia is taking a "soft power" jab at its regional rival Iran this week — a news website in Farsi, the language of Iran. It launches Thursday and the Saudi government expects to eventually start a Farsi-language TV channel as well. The step into soft power is new for the wealthy Kingdom, more known for opening its checkbook to gain influence.

"Yes, indeed, to give correct information," explains Adel al-Toraifi in an interview with NPR. He is the recently-named minister of culture and information, one of the young technocrats appointed by King Salman in the government's generational shift. As for soft power, he says, "This is what we are lacking," and it is time to "catch up with the world."

In September, the Saudis launched a short-term Farsi TV and radio broadcast during the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage of Muslim faithful to Mecca. The programming was strictly religious commentary and the broadcast ended when the Hajj was over. Al-Toraifi says this is part of a larger effort by the Saudis planned to include a web site in Russian, Chinese and Farsi — and coming up next — TV channels in English, Farsi and Urdu, the language of Pakistan. He says the immediate goal is to "actually explain Saudi society" to Iranians in their own language.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are regional rivals, fighting local proxy wars. Now a media proxy war may be heating up, with Tehran already out in front. In 2003, Iran began a 24-hour news service in Arabic that broadcast into Iraq after Iraqi state television collapsed during the U.S. invasion. Many Iranian-backed Arabic TV channels and web sites have been launched since then, which al-Toraifi described as "very negative." For the first time, the Saudis aim to challenge Iran's media blitz, says al-Toraifi. "It's better if Iranians know how we live, it's kind of a dialogue between people."

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"exec" writes in via IRC with this article from TechDirt:

The appointment of a FISA Court amicus to argue on behalf of the American public -- part of the surveillance reforms contained in the USA Freedom Act -- seems to be working out pretty well. FISC judge Michael Mosman appointed Washington DC attorney Preston Burton to examine one issue facing the court: whether the NSA can retain the bulk records it collected under Section 215. According to the new limitations, the NSA must immediately destroy any records that are not "foreign intelligence information." Unsurprisingly, the NSA is reluctant to begin this purge.

There are a certain amount of records the NSA must retain as they are part of ongoing lawsuits against the government. The NSA has stated that it's impossible to separate the phone records relevant to the lawsuits from the rest of the collection.

Burton -- in his response to the government's response to his original amicus brief -- doesn't find the NSA's claim of limited technical capabilities believable. In his first brief, he asked the following question:

Why has the government been unable to reach some stipulation with the plaintiffs to preserve only the evidence necessary for plaintiffs to meet their standing burden? Consider whether it is appropriate for the government to retain billions of irrelevant call detail records involving millions of people based on, what undersigned understands from counsel involved in that litigation, the government's stubborn procedural challenges to standing- a situation that the government has fostered by declining to identify the particular telecommunications provider in question and/or stipulate that the plaintiff is a customer of a relevant provided.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Cornell computer science professor Emin Gün Sirer has posted a blog on MIT Technology Review reacting to the recent news 'outing' the Australian Craig Steven Wright as the person most likely to be 'Satoshi Nakamoto', the creator of Bitcoin. The WIRED story presents evidence both for and against the Wright-as-Satoshi hypothesis; for starters, Wright is supposedly a polymath with two Ph.Ds who has dabbled in finance, has spent considerable time in the cyber-underground, and has a huge stash of coin. Most tellingly, there are a series of blog posts and emails referencing Bitcoin made by Wright in 2008 and 2009, coinciding almost to the day with posts made by Satoshi to the cryptography mailing list. But the WIRED story points out that there is evidence that the blog posts were edited by Wright in 2013 to include the Bitcoin references, raising the possibility of a hoax. And Wright's awesome Linkedin profile seems to have been recently deleted.

More doubts about Wright (warning: possible paywall) here.

Sirer thinks the press, and the Internet, are looking for Satoshi in the wrong place. Rather than look for a polymath and uber geek with an amazingly broad range of knowledge and interests, we should look at the limited community of individuals who have expertise in consensus algorithms and protocols; in other words, a specialist. Furthermore, the person would almost certainly be one who makes mental models and presents arguments in the same manner as Satoshi; Sirer calls this a "mental signature". Sirer says that Wright doesn't satisfy either of these criteria, based on his personal dealings with the man.

But who could be a match? Sirer:

Sirer then goes on to say why he won't disclose his suspect - not that he's 100 percent sure he's got the man (or woman).

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

From ScienceMag.org:

The World Health Organization (WHO) mostly works to reduce the physical toll of disease. But last week it turned to another kind of harm: the insult and stigma inflicted by diseases named for people, places, and animals. Among the existing monikers that its new guidelines "for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases" would discourage: Ebola, swine flu, Rift Valley Fever, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and monkey pox. Instead, WHO says researchers, health officials, and journalists should use more neutral, generic terms, such as severe respiratory disease or novel neurologic syndrome.

Many scientists agree that disease names can be problematic, but they aren't sure the new rulebook is necessarily an improvement. "It will certainly lead to boring names and a lot of confusion," predicts Linfa Wang, an expert on emerging infectious diseases at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong. "You should not take political correctness so far that in the end no one is able to distinguish these diseases," says Christian Drosten, a virologist at the University of Bonn, Germany.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Some personal care products, such as shower gels, soaps, shampoo, facial scrubs and toothpastes, are formulated with plastic microbeads. The colorful particles, made usually from polyethylene (but sometimes from nylon, polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate or polymethyl methacrylate), serve as abrasives and add visual appeal to the products. Unfortunately, they are small enough to pass through sewage treatment plants into waterways and oceans, where they can persist. In the aquatic environment, the microbeads can absorb other pollutants and can be ingested by animals, resulting in an increase in the amount of those pollutants in the food chain.

Under the proposed legislation, called the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, manufacturing could continue until July 1, 2017 and sales would be phased out from 2018 through 2019. The House bill was sponsored by Republican Fred Upton of Michigan and Democrat Frank Pallone, Jr. of New Jersey. A similar bill is under consideration in the Senate.

• The Guardian
• press release from Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a manufacturers' group
• Detroit News
• The Hill blog
• Consumerist
• Smithsonian
• Center for Effective Government
• TreeHugger

In July, the International Campaign Against Microbeads in Cosmetics has made a list of products which contained microbeads.

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TrentDavey writes:

I receive the Bright's Bulletin from The Brights Net (http://www.the-brights.net/) (A "bright" (n.) is a person whose worldview is naturalistic (no supernatural and mystical elements)) and the December issue highlights an article from the Journal of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (SJDM) and the European Association for Decision Making (EADM): On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit

From the Bulletin:

Receptivity for "Bullshit" Scrutinized

The authors of a recent article in the Journal of Judgment and Decisionmaking do not hold back. Having considered "nonsense" and "rubbish" inadequate to the phenomenon of interest, they deem "bullshit" a consequential aspect of the human condition and set about to put at least one type of it under empirical investigation.

Titling their report, "On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit," they define the attribute as "seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous."

After pursuing 4 different studies regarding bullshit detection, the authors conclude, among other things:

"[W]ith the rise of communication technology, people are likely encountering more bullshit in their everyday lives than ever before."... [S]ome people are more receptive to this type of bullshit" and "[D]etecting it is not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims."

The study is serious, but reading it is likely to bring chuckles to many Brights who would like to think that Deepak Chopra would not be pleased by the scrutiny.

The article:

http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf

or

http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.html*

I'm not sure which is more newsworthy: the article contents or the fact that "bullshit" is a mainstream English word now!

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*Update: 12/14 14:18 GMT by mrcoolbp : I updated the second link as per the submitter

"gewg_" writes:

Noting the EU's horrible effort at providing a comment form, Mike Masnick and company have constructed their own page to help you tell EU legislators to not screw up the online world.

The Copia Institute is a new, digital-native think tank from Mike Masnick and the team behind Techdirt.

Don't Wreck The Net!

Europe is considering new regulations that threaten to undermine the internet as we know it.

The European Commission is asking the public critical questions about the future of our online world, but these questions are buried throughout a lengthy consultation survey that will probably make your eyes water. We need you to tackle the survey and make your voice heard. It's not easy, so we're here to help.

Go ahead, take a look at the public consultation. It's got five pages of oblique questions and too much smallprint for anyone's taste. But it's really all asking one thing: WHAT ARE THE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF SERVICE PROVIDERS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD? Our survey survival guide helps you overcome the bureaucratic barrier and answer that question, because it's at risk of being ignored.

This isn't just for European companies--it impacts everyone online.

[...] Don't let a bad survey bore you into silence.

Thanks to one confusing and poorly-designed survey, the consultation is receiving very little response from the people most affected by this important issue--entrepreneurs, service providers, innovators, and the public. Don't let lawmakers shake the foundations of the internet without your input. The public consultation closes on December 30th.

Okay, are you ready? Take a deep breath, open up our survey survival guide, and make your voice heard.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Plants on land appear to be taking less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than predicted by climate models, researchers say. In a study, Large divergence of satellite and Earth system model estimates of global terrestrial CO₂ fertilization (full article is paywalled) led by William Kolby Smith at the University of Minnesota, satellite observations were examined. Plant growth was found to be less than expected. The authors suggest two phenomena may account for the difference. In what's termed "water stress," hotter temperatures increase the loss of water from plants. Where there's adequate water and carbon dioxide, other nutrients such as phosphorus or fixed nitrogen may limit growth.

press release

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timbim writes in with a Reuters story on a gun surge:

Many Americans agree and are stocking up on weapons after the country's worst mass shooting in three years. Gun retailers are reporting surging sales, with customers saying they want to keep handguns and rifles at hand for self-defense in the event of another attack.

"Everyone is reporting up, every store, every salesman, every distributor," said Ray Peters, manager of Range, Guns & Safes, a company that sells firearms and safes in Atlanta with an indoor firing range. "People are more aware of the need to protect themselves."

[...] Gun sales were already on the rise this year. On Black Friday, the popular shopping day on Nov. 27 after the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday, a total of 185,345 applicants were processed through the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a 5.5 percent increase from the year before.

The Pew Research Center found last December that 57 percent of Americans say they believe owning a gun helps protect people from crime, up from 48 percent in 2012. The rest said owning a gun would put personal safety at risk.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

News aggregator site Voat announced their intention to "stop using Google Analytics service, effective immediately." The replacement will be the GPL'd platform Piwik, which will be installed "when time permits," and will be hosted by Voat themselves. The announcement is getting a warm reception; as of 02:22 UTC on December 12, there are over 1100 upvotes for the newspost.

Google Analytics has been notorious for being disrespectful of privacy, from surreptitious geolocation, to downright creepy knee-jerk reconfiguration of website ads to the last visited e-commerce venue, in a desperate attempt to lure window shoppers to a purchase. Despite the existence of a browser add-on released by Google in 2010, those in the know have recommended alternative countermeasures not involving installing Google software, such as a hosts file entry, or installing NoScript to block execution of Javascript from unauthorized websites. However, Voat's approach seems to be a step further: taking ownership of the analytics data itself, and cutting off Google's attempts to monetize the otherwise private data stream between the website and the users it serves.

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Video: Different Painting Under "Mona Lisa"

An Anonymous Coward writes:

A BBC 2 documentary, "Secrets of the Mona Lisa", explains Pascal Cotte's theory that the Mona Lisa is underlaid by a portrait of a different woman.

From iflscience.com:

The Mona Lisa is one of the most famous pieces of artwork in human history. This half-length portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, thought to depict Lisa Gherardini in the early 16th century, was given to the King of France centuries ago, and has been on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797.

Now, 500 years on from its completion, French scientist Pascal Cotte, has claimed to have uncovered hidden details within the painting. As reported by BBC News, this potentially means that the famous painted woman isn't actually Mona Lisa at all. The findings will be presented in a documentary, "Secrets of the Mona Lisa", which airs on BBC Two tomorrow at 9pm GMT.

direct link to the Youtube video.

Possible "Hidden Portrait" Underneath the Mona Lisa

takyon writes:

French scientist Pascal Cotte has claimed to have found a "hidden portrait" underneath the Mona Lisa:

An image of a portrait underneath the Mona Lisa has been found beneath the existing painting using reflective light technology, according to a French scientist. Pascal Cotte said he has spent more than 10 years using the technology to analyse the painting. He claims the earlier portrait lies hidden underneath the surface of Leonardo's most celebrated artwork.

A reconstruction shows another image of a sitter looking off to the side. The Louvre Museum has declined to comment on his claims because it "was not part of the scientific team". Instead of the famous, direct gaze of the painting which hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, the image of the sitter also shows no trace of her enigmatic smile, which has intrigued art lovers for more than 500 years. But Mr Cotte's claims are controversial and have divided opinion among Leonardo experts.

[Editor's note: Does an image of the image exist?]

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$46 Million in Funding for Silicon-Based Quantum Computing at UNSW

takyon writes:

Physicists at the University of New South Wales in Australia have received $26 million from the federal government and $10 million from the Commonwealth Bank and Telstra to advance work on a silicon-based quantum computer:

Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank have each pledged $10 million in cash and in-kind support over the next five years for research into the development of silicon quantum computing technology in Australia.

The funds will go to the Centre for Quantum Computation and Communications Technology (CQC2T), which is headquartered at the University of New South Wales.

It comes just a day after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced an additional $26 million over five years for CQC2T as part of the federal government's innovation plan.

The funds will go towards the development of a silicon quantum integrated circuit, as part of a broader bid by researchers to build the world's first silicon-based quantum computer.

IBM to Develop Hardware to Wipe Out Errors in Quantum Computing

takyon writes:

IBM has also received more funding to pursue universal quantum computing:

The race to build a full-blown quantum computer is heating up. Tech giant IBM has been working on error-correcting techniques for quantum hardware, and has now won funding from the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to take it to the next level.

[...] Chow says they need around 20 physical qubits to create one logical qubit, but packing the qubits close together will be tricky. "When you put many of them together, you don't know that they are going to work the same way as when you just have one," he says. "How you properly engineer this larger chip is going to be a big challenge."

IBM and IARPA have not yet revealed how much funding is going into the five-year research programme, but money is already pouring into quantum computing around the world.

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darkfeline writes:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/dmca-takedowns-sent-over-pics-of-star-wars-action-figure-bought-at-walmart/

For the last decade, Marjorie Carvalho and her husband have produced Star Wars Action News, a podcast dedicated to Star Wars collectibles of all sorts. Predictably, they've had a lot to talk about, as waves of action figures and other collectibles have been launched in the run-up to the much-anticipated release next week of Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens.

On Tuesday, a Star Wars Action News staffer saw something he shouldn't have—and bought it. A 3 3/4" action figure of "Rey," a female character from The Force Awakens, was on display in a Walmart in Iowa, apparently earlier than it should have been. The staff member bought it for $6.94 plus tax, no questions asked. The following day, he posted pictures of the Rey figure on Star Wars Action News' Facebook page.

"Have we known this figure was coming?" the staffer, named Justin, asked in the post. "I just found her at Walmart—no new other figures."

A short time later, Carvalho got a surprising message.

"A friend texted my husband saying, hey, are you getting sued?" said Carvalho in an interview with Ars Technica. The image from the Facebook post was gone. "We looked and noticed we'd gotten a notice from Facebook saying our image violated copyright. It was confusing because our staff member, Justin, he took the photo."

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takyon writes:

Dow Chemical Company and DuPont have agreed to merge into an entity named DowDuPont, before splitting into three distinct companies organized by market segment:

The two largest chemical companies in America will become one entity named DowDuPont, as Dow Chemical and DuPont say they're joining in a "merger of equals." The new company will have a market capitalization of around $130 billion. After the merger, the resulting behemoth would be split into what Dow Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris calls "three powerful new companies," with a combined revenue of around $83 billion.

Now that the two companies' boards of directors have agreed to terms, their shareholders will also need to affirm the merger. Terms of the agreement state that Dow shareholders will get 1 share of the new enterprise for each Dow share they own, while DuPont shareholders will get 1.28 shares. They will own about 50 percent of the new enterprise.

The massive deal also will need the approval of federal regulators. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2016, with the segmentation taking place up to two years later. The three corporations will have distinct identities, according to a news release announcing the merger. Here's a list of relevant quotes, along with the projected revenue for each proposed company:

• Agriculture: "Leading global pure-play agriculture company that unites DuPont's and Dow's seed and crop protection businesses." Revenue: $19 billion.
• Material Science: "A pure-play industrial leader, consisting of DuPont's Performance Materials segment, as well as Dow's Performance Plastics, Performance Materials and Chemicals, Infrastructure Solutions, and Consumer Solutions ... operating segments." Revenue: $51 billion.
• Specialty Products: "The businesses will include DuPont's Nutrition & Health, Industrial Biosciences, Safety & Protection and Electronics & Communications, as well as the Dow Electronic Materials business." Revenue: $13 billion.

The companies hope to save $3 billion during the merger period and DuPont already plans to cut around 10% of staff. Dow will also purchase glassmaker Corning's 50% stake in the Dow Corning joint venture. Reuters reports that the merger may spur other deals, such as another attempt by Monsanto to purchase Syngenta. We've had a lot of merger news lately but this one will still rank among the twenty biggest ever.

How about some Teflon to cleanse this news from your mind?

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