Topic: Space - on December 15, 2011 at 10:12:00 AM CET
The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
Quasars, the brightest objects we're aware of, are powered by the supermassive black holes that are thought to reside at the center of every galaxy. But many galaxies fail to feed their black holes enough matter, leading to a body that's quiet and difficult to detect. Our own galaxy's central black hole, called Sgr A*, falls into the latter category. We can detect it at wavelengths up to the X-ray range, but it's dim enough that we'd have a hard time spotting it if it weren't so close.
That may be about to change, however. Astronomers have spotted a cloud of gas with a mass about three times that of Earth that's on a trajectory that will have it pass close to Sgr A* in 2013. When it does, it may feed matter into the black hole's accretion disk, powering a sudden surge in Sgr A*'s output.
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Topic: nuclear power - on December 15, 2011 at 9:52:00 AM CET
Japanese Use Wild Monkeys To Track Radiation
Scientists in Japan are taking a novel approach to measuring the impact of radiation in a forest affected by the Fukushima nuclear crisis: enlisting the help of local wild monkeys.
Takayuki Takahashi, a professor of robotic technology at Fukushima University, told CNN Wednesday his team was working on a collar fitted with a dosimeter to measure radiation levels that could be fitted to the monkeys before they are released back into the wild.
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Topic: food - on December 15, 2011 at 9:48:00 AM CET
Zweifel an Lieferung von Schwindel-Soja nach Österreich
"Wir sind uns sicher, dass in den letzten Jahren kein Soja von den verdächtigten italienischen Betrieben an einen unserer Partnerbetriebe geliefert wurde" , betont hingegen Rudi Vierbauch, Obmann des heimischen Bio-Austria-Verbands, dem rund zwei Drittel aller österreichischer Biobauern angehören.
Denn die Bio-Austria-Bauern hätten sich in Selbstverpflichtung mehrfach gegen derartige Praktiken abgesichert, wie Vierbauch im Standard-Gespräch erläutert. "Unseren Landwirten waren die entsprechenden EU-Verordnungen noch zu wenig."
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Topic: War and Peace News - on December 15, 2011 at 9:02:00 AM CET
TIME's Person of the Year 2011 - The Protester
Once upon a time, when major news events were chronicled strictly by professionals and printed on paper or transmitted through the air by the few for the masses, protesters were prime makers of history. Back then, when citizen multitudes took to the streets without weapons to declare themselves opposed, it was the very definition of news — vivid, important, often consequential. In the 1960s in America they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War; in the '70s, they rose up in Iran and Portugal; in the '80s, they spoke out against nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Europe, against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, against communist tyranny in Tiananmen Square and Eastern Europe. Protest was the natural continuation of politics by other means.
And then came the End of History, summed up by Francis Fukuyama's influential 1989 essay declaring that mankind had arrived at the "end point of ... ideological evolution" in globally triumphant "Western liberalism." The two decades beginning in 1991 witnessed the greatest rise in living standards that the world has ever known. Credit was easy, complacency and apathy were rife, and street protests looked like pointless emotional sideshows — obsolete, quaint, the equivalent of cavalry to mid-20th-century war. The rare large demonstrations in the rich world seemed ineffectual and irrelevant. (See the Battle of Seattle, 1999.)
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Topic: AUSTRIA - on December 14, 2011 at 4:02:00 PM CET
Düringer: "Ich bin ein Systemtrottel"
In der letzten Sendung von „Dorfers Donnerstalk“ hat Roland Düringer mit seiner Wutrede für heftige Diskussionen gesorgt. Im wien.ORF.at-Interview sprach er über die Hintergründe und stellte klar: „Ich bin ein Systemtrottel“.
„Wir sind wütend“, schrie Roland Düringer vergangene Woche in die Kamera der ORF-Sendung „Dorfers Donnerstalk“. Der Kabarettist schimpfte in seiner „Wutrede“ auf Politiker, Banken, Medien, das Ausbildung- und Gesundheitssystem. Dabei sprach er scheinbar vielen Menschen aus der Seele. Ein Video seiner Rede verbreitete sich im Internet in Windeseile auf sämtlichen Social Media Plattformen und löste heftige Diskussionen aus. Auf YouTube ist Düringers Wutrede einige Male vertreten und verzeichnete bis zu 50.000 Klicks.
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Topic: POLITIK - on December 14, 2011 at 11:26:00 AM CET
NPD und braune Terrorzelle
Die NPD ist bemüht, sich von den Verbrechen der braunen Zwickauer Terrorzelle zu distanzieren. Fotos belegen allerdings: Der heutige Parteichef Holger Apfel demonstrierte 1996 gemeinsam mit Beate Zschäpe und Uwe Mundlos.
An jenem Sommertag waren sie sich so nah, wie es zumindest Holger Apfel heute nicht mehr wahrhaben will: Es gibt ein Foto, entstanden am 17. August 1996, es zeigt den heutigen Chef der NPD und Beate Zschäpe, getrennt nur durch wenige Meter und ein paar Dutzend Menschen, die zwischen ihnen hocken. Apfel war damals Chef der Jungen Nationaldemokraten, der NPD-Jugendorganisation. Zwei Jahre später sollte Zschäpe gemeinsam mit Uwe Böhnhardt und Uwe Mundlos, der auch auf den Bildern zu sehen ist, in den Untergrund gehen.
Nun, gut 15 Jahre später, sitzt sie in Haft, ihr wird die Bildung einer terroristischen Vereinigung, des "Nationalsozialistischen Untergrunds" (NSU) zur Last gelegt, ihre Mitbewohner Böhnhardt und Mundlos sollen für zehn Morde verantwortlich sein.
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Topic: POLICE REPORT - on December 14, 2011 at 11:23:00 AM CET
Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front
Unmanned aircraft from an Air Force base in North Dakota help local police with surveillance, raising questions that trouble privacy advocates.
Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.
Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.
He also called in a Predator B drone.
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Topic: POLITIK - on December 14, 2011 at 11:20:00 AM CET
Why Drones Could End up Being Good for Privacy Law
On the front page of the Los Angeles Times this weekend was a story about local police calling in military drones -- in this case, the Predator B -- to help apprehend civilians. Mark my words, this is just the beginning. Drones are simply too effective, too cost efficient, for police, firefighters, and even the private sector to ignore. Imagine what drones would do for the lucrative paparazzi industry, for instance, especially coupled with commercially available facial recognition technology.
So why isn't the sky already filled with drones? The Federal Aviation Administration has for years restricted the use of unmanned aerial systems absent a waiver. A few folks in the public sector have sought them. (The state of Oklahoma sought a blanket waiver of the drone ban for eighty miles of airspace.) Going forward, however, waiver may not be necessary: The FAA faces increasing pressure to relax its restrictions and is considering rulemaking to reexamine drone use in domestic airspace.
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Topic: POLITIK - on December 14, 2011 at 11:10:00 AM CET
Politie gebruikt spyware, bevestigt minister - Polizei mit Trojanern, bestätigt Minister
De Unit Interceptie van het KLPD injecteert in "zeer beperkt aantal gevallen" spyware op pc's van verdachten. Dat bevestigt minister van Veiligheid en Justitie Ivo Opstelten.
"De Unit Landelijke Interceptie van het Korps Landelijke Politiediensten (KLPD) beschikt over software die geïnstalleerd kan worden op de computer van een verdachte en waarmee ten behoeve van opsporingsdiensten toegang kan worden verkregen tot die computer en of gegevens daarvan kunnen worden overgenomen." Dat schrijft minister Opstelten in antwoord op Kamervragen van D66, SP en GroenLinks.
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Topic: Phone - on December 14, 2011 at 11:06:00 AM CET
FBI: Carrier IQ FOIA Denial Not Proof Software is Being Used
The FBI is downplaying speculation that its denial of a request for records regarding its possible use of Carrier IQ's software is proof-positive the agency is using the software’s data collection capabilities.
Carrier IQ has been at the center of controversy since it security researcher Trevor Eckhart published findings in November that accused the software of collecting location, keystroke and SMS data from mobile users.
Michael Morisy, co-founder of MuckRock.com, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesting “manuals, documents or other written guidance used to access or analyze data gathered by programs developed or deployed by Carrier IQ.” The FBI responded to Morisy’s request in a letter stating: “…the records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; that there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records; and that the release of the information contained in these responsive records could reasonably be expected to interfere with the enforcement proceedings.”
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Topic: POLITIK - on December 14, 2011 at 10:59:00 AM CET
Post-Revolt Tunisia Can Alter E-Mail With `Big Brother' Software
In Tunisia, Big Brother goes by an alias: Ammar 404.
A play on the “Error 404” message for blocked websites, Tunisian bloggers dreamed him up as a fictional front man for the sprawling surveillance state of former ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Aided directly and indirectly by American and European suppliers, Ammar 404 took control of virtually all electronic communication in Tunisia and turned lives upside down -- even changing the content of e-mails in transit. In this world, Tunisians of all stripes could never be sure if e-mails arrived as sent or at all, or who was reading them.
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Topic: DRUGS - on December 14, 2011 at 10:56:00 AM CET
Ending the Global War on Drugs
Ever since the War on Drugs, everything has hit the fan," says Romesh Bhattacharji, former Narcotics Commissioner of India. Rather than continue the unnecessary and costly drug war, Bhattacharji advises the United States to simply "Relax, take it easy, [and] tolerate."
Last month, at the Cato Institute's "Ending the Global War on Drugs" conference, Bhattacharji's sentiments were echoed by ex-drug czars, cops, politicians, intellectuals, liberal and conservative journalists, and even the former President of Brazil.
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