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John Schwartz reports at the NYT 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.

Michael Rosenwald writes in the WaPot that textbook makers, bookstore owners and college student surveys all say millennials still strongly prefer reading on paper for pleasure and learning, a bias that surprises reading experts given the same group’s proclivity to consume most other content digitally. “These are people who aren’t supposed to remember what it’s like to even smell books,” says Naomi S. Baron. “It’s quite astounding.” Earlier this month, Baron published “Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World,” a book that examines university students’ preferences for print and explains the science of why dead-tree versions are often superior to digital. Her conclusion: readers tend to skim on screens, distraction is inevitable and comprehension suffers. Researchers say readers remember the location of information simply by page and text layout — that, say, the key piece of dialogue was on that page early in the book with that one long paragraph and a smudge on the corner. Researchers think this plays a key role in comprehension - something that is more difficult on screens, primarily because the time we devote to reading online is usually spent scanning and skimming, with few places (or little time) for mental markers.

Another significant problem, especially for college students, is distraction. The lives of millennials are increasingly lived on screens. In her surveys, Baron writes that she found “jaw-dropping” results to the question of whether students were more likely to multitask in hard copy (1 percent) vs. reading on-screen (90 percent). "The explanation is hardly rocket science," says Baron. "When a digital device has an Internet connection, it’s hard to resist the temptation to jump ship: I’ll just respond to that text I heard come in, check the headlines, order those boots that are on sale." “You just get so distracted,” one student says. “It’s like if I finish a paragraph, I’ll go on Tumblr, and then three hours later you’re still not done with reading.”

AP reports that in an effort to undercut Apple's hit service Apple Pay, Google is teaming up with three wireless carriers by building its payment service into Android smartphones sold by AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA. Besides trying to make it more convenient to use Wallet, Google also is hoping to improve the nearly 4-year-old service. Toward that end, Google is buying some mobile payment technology and patents from Softcard, a 5-year-old venture owned by the wireless carriers. Financial terms weren't disclosed but Apple Pay's popularity probably helped forge the unlikely alliance between Google and the wireless carriers. Google traditionally has had a prickly relationship with the carriers, largely because it doesn't believe enough has been done to upgrade wireless networks and make them cheaper so more people can spend more time online.

The biggest challenge however is one that both Apple and Google face: Only a small fraction of the 10 million or store retail outlets in the U.S.–220,000 at last count–have checkout readers that can accept payments from either system. Both wallets both use a radio technology called Near Field Communication to send payment, and it’s expected to take years for most stores to be upgraded. What’s at play? The big tech companies and carriers seem convinced that our phones will eventually replace our wallets. For carriers, that could make mobile wallet technology table stakes over the next few years as they compete for consumers.

The racetrack is the ultimate test of driving skill, managing power, traction, and braking to produce the fastest times. Now BBC reports that engineers at Stanford University have raced their souped-up Audi TTS dubbed ‘Shelley’ on the racetrack at speeds above 120 mph. When they time tested it against David Vodden, the racetrack CEO and amateur touring class champion, the driverless race car was faster by 0.4 of a second. "We’ve been trying to develop cars that perform like the very best human drivers,” says Professor Chris Gerdes who tested Shelley at Thunderhill Raceway Park in Northern California. “We’ve got the point of being fairly comparable to an expert driver in terms of our ability to drive around the track.”

To get the cars up to speed, the Stanford team studied drivers, even attaching electrodes to their heads to monitor brain activity in the hope of learning which neural circuits are working during difficult maneuvers. Scientists were intrigued to find that during the most complex tasks, the experts used less brain power. They appeared to be acting on instinct and muscle memory rather than using judgment as a computer program would. Although there was previously very little difference between the path a professional driver takes around the course and the route charted by Shelley's algorithms until now the very best human drivers were still faster around the track, if just by a few seconds. Now the researchers predict that within the next 15 years, cars will drive with the skill of Michael Schumacher. What remains to be seen is how Shelly will do when running fender to fender with real human race drivers.

Harry J. Kazianis writes at The National Interest that due to advances in big data and new detection methods modern attack subs may soon face the same problem as surface combatants around the world, where some areas are simply too dangerous to enter, thanks to pressing anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) (PDF) challenges:

"Since the Cold War submarines, particularly quiet American ones, have been considered largely immune to adversary A2/AD capabilities," says Bryan Clark, a former submariner and Navy strategist now with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment. "But the ability of submarines to hide through quieting alone will decrease as each successive decibel of noise reduction becomes more expensive and as new detection methods mature that rely on phenomena other than sounds emanating from a submarine. These techniques include lower frequency active sonar and non-acoustic methods that detect submarine wakes or (at short ranges) bounce laser or light-emitting diode (LED) light off a submarine hull. The physics behind most of these alternative techniques has been known for decades, but was not exploited because computer processors were too slow to run the detailed models needed to see small changes in the environment caused by a quiet submarine. Today, “big data” processing enables advanced navies to run sophisticated oceanographic models in real time to exploit these detection techniques. As they become more prevalent, they could make some coastal areas too hazardous for manned submarines."

"We need to think about a new strategy for undersea warfare," says Clark "Right now we tend to rely on submarines doing tactical operations on their own, in an environment where they can operate largely with impunity. All those things are going to change in the future. The threat is going to improve, opportunities to offload missions onto other vehicles are going to improve, and we can take advantage of that if we're going to again be the first mover into this new technology of undersea networks, unmanned vehicles and communication technologies."

Anna North writes in the NYT that a report released last week by the National Research Council calls for research into reversing climate change through a process called albedo modification: reflecting sunlight away from earth by, for instance, spraying aerosols into the atmosphere. But such a process could, some say, change the appearance of the sky — and that in turn could affect everything from our physical health to the way we see ourselves. “You’d get whiter skies. People wouldn’t have blue skies anymore.” says Alan Robock. “Astronomers wouldn’t be happy, because you’d have a cloud up there permanently. It’d be hard to see the Milky Way anymore.”

According to Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, losing the night sky would have big consequences. “When you go outside, and you walk in a beautiful setting, and you just feel not only uplifted but you just feel stronger. There’s clearly a neurophysiological basis for that," says Keltner adding that looking up at a starry sky provides “almost a prototypical awe experience,” an opportunity to feel “that you are small and modest and part of something vast.” If we lose the night sky “we lose something precious and sacred.” “We’re finding in our lab that the experience of awe gets you to feel connected to something larger than yourself, see the humanity in other people,” says Paul K. Piff. “In many ways it’s kind of an antidote to narcissism.” And the sky is one of the few sources of that experience that’s available to almost everybody: “Not everyone has access to the ocean or giant trees, or the Grand Canyon, but we certainly all live beneath the night sky.”

Alan Robock says one possible upside of adding aerosols could be beautiful red and yellow sunsets as “the yellow and red colors reflect off the bottom of this cloud.” Robock recommends more research into albedo modification: “If people ever are tempted to do this, I want them to have a lot of information about what the potential benefits and risks would be so they can make an informed decision. Dr. Abdalati says that deploying something like albedo modification is a last-ditch effort adding that “we’ve gotten ourselves into a climate mess. The fact that we’re even talking about these kinds of things is indicative of that.”

Peter T. Kilborn writes in the NYT about the generation of the baby boomer programmers, engineers, and technical people who are now leaving the bosses, bureaucracies, commutes and time clocks of their workaday careers to tackle something consuming and new, whether for material reward or none at all. “Retirement gives them the opportunity to flex their experience,” says Dr. William Winn speaking of a postchildhood, postfamily-rearing, “third age” of “productive aging” and “positive aging.” Nancy K. Schlossberg calls men and women who exploit the skills of their old jobs “continuers" and those who take up something new “adventurers.” Continuers and adventurers make up the vigorous end of Dr. Schlossberg’s retirement spectrum, opposite those she calls “retreaters” who disengage from life and “spectators” who just watch.

For example, 75-year-old Seth R. Goldstein, with four degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from MIT and retired for thirteen years, still calls himself an engineer. But where he was previously a biomedical engineer with the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda with 12 patents, he now makes kinetic sculptures in his basement workshop that lack any commercial or functional utility. But his work, some of which is on display at the Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore, has purpose. Goldstein is pushing the envelope of engineering and hoping to stir the imaginations of young engineers to push their own envelopes. For example "Why Knot?” a sculpture Goldstein constructed, uses 10 electric motors to drive 10 mechanisms to construct a four-in-hand knot on a necktie that it wraps around its own neck. Grasping, pulling, aligning and winding the lengths of the tie, Mr. Knot can detect the occasional misstep or tear, untie the knot and get it right. Unlike Rube Goldberg’s whimsical contraptions, Mr. Goldstein’s is no mere cartoon. It works, if only for Mr. Knot.

According to Kilborn, people like Goldstein don't fit the traditional definition of retirement, which according to Webster's Dictionary means the "withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from active working life. Retirement implies that you're just leaving something; it doesn't reflect that you're going to something," says Schlossberg. "But it is really a career change. You are leaving something that has been your primary involvement, and you are moving to something else."

Reuters reports that the US Department of Homeland Security has advised Lenovo customers to remove "Superfish" software from their computers. According to an alert released through its National Cyber Awareness System the software makes users vulnerable to SSL spoofing and could allow a remote attacker to read encrypted web browser traffic, spoof websites and perform other attacks on Lenovo PCs with the software installed. Lenovo inititally said it stopped shipping the software because of complaints about features, not a security vulnerability. "We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns," the company said in a statement to Reuters early on Thursday. On Friday, Lenovo spokesman Brion Tingler said the company's initial findings were flawed and that it was now advising customers to remove the software and providing instructions for uninstalling "Superfish". "We should have known about this sooner," Tingler said in an email. "And if we could go back, we never would have installed this software on our machines. But we can't, so we are dealing with this head on."

Rachel Nuwer writes in the NYT that Dr. Sameer Chaudhry’s online dating persona was garnering no response from the women he reached out to so he synthesized 86 literature studies on the subject of online dating in the fields of psychology, sociology, and computer, behavioral, and neurocognitive sciences.in hopes of improving his odds. As it turns out, success begins with picking a user name. While men are drawn to names linked to physical traits (e.g., Cutie), the researchers found, women prefer ones that indicate intelligence (e.g., Cultured). Both sexes respond well to playful names (e.g. Fun2bwith) and shy away from ones with negative connotations (e.g., Bugg). User names that begin with letters from the first half of the alphabet do better than those from the latter half. “As human beings, we have a tendency to give things at the top of a pile more value,” says Khan. As for your profile photo, pick a photo with a genuine smile, one that crinkles the eyes, and with a slight head tilt (it’s linked to attractiveness). And if you’re looking for a male partner, go for that photo of you in siren red—a color that enhances men's attraction to women. "For those attracted to browse into the profile, a description of personal traits increased likeability when it: showed who the dater was and what they were looking for in a 70:30 ratio; stayed close to reality; and employed simple language with humor added. Invitations were most successful in obtaining a response from the potential date when they: were short personalized messages addressing a trait in their profile; rhymed with their screen name or headline message; and extended genuine compliments." And finally, don't wait too long before arranging a face to face meeting.

Oliver Sacks, a professor of neurology at the New York University School of Medicine and the author of many books, has a beautifully written op-ed in the NYT where he reflects on his own mortality and the fact that at 81 he is faced with terminal cancer and a few months left to live. Some excerpts:

"I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight. It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.

I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends. I shall no longer look at “NewsHour” every night. I shall no longer pay any attention to politics or arguments about global warming.

My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.