Author: kenmay

U.S. Congressman Wants to Build a Bridge Out of Aircraft Carriers

Shortly after the invention of the airplane in the early 1900s, some military-minded maniac tried to launch one off of a ship. The experiment worked, and soon the American, British and Japanese navies began building aircraft carriers. Like all military craft, carriers have a shelf life. The supercarrier USS Kitty Hawk , for instance, was built in 1956 and decommissioned in 2009; the only reason she’s still floating is that the U.S. Navy is saving her as a backup until the USS Gerald Ford , another supercarrier, comes on-line in 2016. But a Washington-state Congressman, Rep. Jesse Young, has other plans for the Kitty Hawk , or any other carrier he can appropriate: He wants to turn them into a bridge. Congressman Young’s plan sounds completely crazy, but his idea is to connect the Washington municipalities of Bremerton and Port Orchard with a bridge made out of aircraft carriers. “I know that people from around the world would come to drive across the deck of an aircraft carrier bridge, number one, ” Young told the Pacific Northwest’s NW News Network . “Number two, it’s the right thing to do from my standpoint because this is giving a testimony and a legacy memorial to our greatest generation.” Although the rendering shows three carriers, Young believes the span across the Sinclair Inlet could be handled by two connected by a conventional span. He’s reportedly got his eye on the two carriers awaiting the scrap pile at Bremetron’s naval shipyard, the aforementioned Kitty Hawk and the USS Independence . While it’s presumably possible from an engineering standpoint—if a ship can launch an F-16, it can probably handle your average commuter’s Ford Taurus—it would of course require naval cooperation, and the U.S. Navy doesn’t seem interested. The Independence is scheduled to be scrapped later this year, they say, and the Kitty Hawk isn’t going anywhere until the Gerald Ford is ready to sail. Still, Congressman Young is undeterred, and is currently trying to push a $90, 000 feasibility study through the legislature. “That is the beautiful thing about opportunities, ” he told the NSNN . “No one ever says they’ll be easy, just that the greater the difficulty the greater the accomplishment.”

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U.S. Congressman Wants to Build a Bridge Out of Aircraft Carriers

Acetaminophen Reduces Both Pain and Pleasure, Study Finds

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers studying the commonly used pain reliever acetaminophen found it has a previously unknown side effect: It blunts positive emotions (abstract). Acetaminophen, the main ingredient in the over-the-counter pain reliever Tylenol, has been in use for more than 70 years in the United States, but this is the first time that this side effect has been documented. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Acetaminophen Reduces Both Pain and Pleasure, Study Finds

Kaspersky releases decryption tool that unlocks ransomware

You never should have clicked on the email attachment from that Nairobian prince. Now ransomware’s got you locked out of your own computer and is demanding money before you can use it again. But before you reach for you wallet, take a look at this decryption key generator that Kaspersky has built. The Netherland’s National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) recently got its hands on a CoinVault command-and-control server (a type of ransomware that has been infecting Windows systems since last November) and, upon examining it, discovered a large database of decryption keys. The NHTCU shared this information with Kaspersky which used it to build the Noransomware decryption tool . Granted, the program isn’t 100 percent effective yet — it’s not like the NHTCU got all of the potential keys off of that one server or anything — but as police forces around the world continue to investigate the CoinVault ransom campaign, Kaspersky expects to grow the key database and further improve the tool’s functionality. Plus, it’s still better than paying some schmuck hacker to give you back your digital dominion. Filed under: Internet Comments Via: PC World Source: National High Crime Detection Unit , No Ransomware

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Kaspersky releases decryption tool that unlocks ransomware

This Is the First Section of a Giant Map of the Universe’s Dark Matter

A team of cosmologists is creating an enormous map of how dark matter is distributed across the Universe—and this is the first section to be completed. Read more…

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This Is the First Section of a Giant Map of the Universe’s Dark Matter

How to Make Sure Your Torrent Client Isn’t Secretly Mining Bitcoin

If you use uTorrent for your torrenting needs, there’s a good chance your client is also mining Bitcoin without you even realizing it, and gobbling up your computer’s processing power. Read more…

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How to Make Sure Your Torrent Client Isn’t Secretly Mining Bitcoin

Universal backdoor for e-commerce platform lets hackers shop for victims

As people become more aware of the threat of targeted “phishing” attacks via e-mail and social media, malware-armed attackers are turning to new ways to target specific victims where they least expect it—by exploiting the legitimate websites they frequent and assume to be secure. Last week, Swiss security firm Hi-Tech Bridge disclosed that the Web store of a corporate customer had been used to deliver a targeted attack against a specific site visitor. The attackers were also able to retrieve the store’s customer database, which they may have used to search for desirable targets. The attack exploited a current and patched version of osCommerce Online Merchant (version 2.3.4, released last June), a common Web store content management system used by a number of high-profile companies—including Canonical’s Ubuntu Shop . The attacker inserted malicious PHP script that provided a backdoor into the site and could be configured to check users’ IP addresses and login credentials as they visit the site for specific targets. Once a desired target is detected, the script attempts to download malware to the victim from another site. The attacker can then remotely delete the backdoor and altered PHP files and replace them with the original by connecting to the script with a “?del” parameter added to its URL. The backdoor script is labeled as “osCommerce 2.x.x universal pwner by Piht0z,” and it’s just that: a generic PHP-based backdoor for osCommerce sites. According to Ilia Kolochenko, High-Tech Bridge’s CEO, there have been similar cases of targeted attacks on users of e-commerce sites before, but “it’s the first time we see a universal backdoor for a large e-commerce platform,” he said in a blog post about the discovery. “This means that hackers started using this vector on a regular basis to achieve their goals.” Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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Universal backdoor for e-commerce platform lets hackers shop for victims

Sound waves separate rare cancer cells from blood

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a rare type of cancer cell that are found in the blood stream of patients with localized tumors. Successful separation of CTCs from blood could serve as a liquid biopsy to help diagnose cancer and monitor treatment progress. A deeper understanding of CTCs could also lead to a better understanding of the most deadly cancer process: metastasis, where cancer cells leave established tumors and migrate to other locations in the body. Currently, CTC separation methods rely on features that distinguish CTCs from other cells—antibodies that stick to them, cell size, deformability, or even electrical properties. Scientists have also explored using sound waves to separate CTCs. Acoustic-based separation provides excellent biocompatibility and safety; it preserves the viability, function, phenotype, and genotype of cells. It also allow cells to be separated without modification. As a result, sound-based separation methods enable CTCs to be maintained in their native state throughout the separation process while avoiding invasive biopsies. Unfortunately, previous sound-based separations technologies haven’t managed to separate CTCs from clinical samples due to insufficient throughput and long-term operational instability. Recently, a team of scientists has developed an acoustic-based microfluidic device that separates CTCs from peripheral blood samples of cancer patients in a high-throughput manner. This method relies on something called tilted-angle standing surface sound waves. These standing waves contain points that “stand still,” called nodes, around which the wave oscillates. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Sound waves separate rare cancer cells from blood

DARPA creating software that won’t need upgrades for a century

Software upgrades and outdated applications that don’t work on new platforms are just a fact of life for people who use computers and other devices. DARPA, however, wants to change that by making software systems that can run for over a century without getting updates from their developers and despite upgrades in hardware. Pentagon’s mad science department has recently announced that it has begun a four-year research to figure out what algorithms are necessary to create software that “can dynamically adapt to changes.” The agency calls the project “Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems or BRASS, ” and it knows it won’t be easy. In fact, DARPA’s expecting to build everything from the ground up. In return, though, we could see a whole new list of programs with longer lifespans that are easier to maintain. “The goal of the Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems program (BRASS) is to realize foundational advances in the design and implementation of long-lived, survivable and complex software systems that are robust to changes in the physical and logical resources provided by their ecosystem, ” part of its official description says. The agency has started accepting research proposals for every aspect of the project, from which it’ll find the most promising to fund. DARPA is hoping that BRASS will ultimately lead to military computers and machines that don’t need to stop running for upgrades, as the process can be costly. Sounds a bit terrifying, considering the project aims to build software that can evolve on its own, much like those villainous programs in movies that gained sentience as time went on. Filed under: Science Comments Source: DARPA (1) , (2) , FedBizOpps

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DARPA creating software that won’t need upgrades for a century

Apple’s iOS 8.4 beta includes a brand-new music player

Think that iOS’ music player is overdue for a remake? You’re going to get your wish. Apple has released the first iOS 8.4 beta to developers, and its centerpiece is a shiny, new Music app. The refresh includes at least a few long-sought changes, including some borrowed from iTunes: There’s a mini player that sticks around while you’re browsing, global search and an “Up Next” song queue. You’ll also see a sleeker iTunes Radio interface that helps you discover new tracks. There’s no sign of the Beats-based music service rumored to come alongside 8.4, but that’s not supposed to show up until Apple’s developer conference at the earliest — if it exists, it’s probably going to stay under wraps for a little while. [Image credit: 9to5Mac ] Filed under: Cellphones , Tablets , Mobile , Apple Comments Source: 9to5Mac

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Apple’s iOS 8.4 beta includes a brand-new music player

Why Gas Is Priced in Tenths of Cents

The practice of pricing fuel with a fraction of a penny is thought to have started around the 1930s. While we can’t be sure who was the first to price fuel this way, it seems to have become relatively commonplace across the United States all the sudden around the same time. So what happened? In short- taxes and the Great Depression. Read more…

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Why Gas Is Priced in Tenths of Cents