At least 63, 000 current and former students at the University of Central Florida are getting bad news this week: Someone breached the school’s network to access their social security numbers and other sensitive personal data. Read more…
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63,000 College Students Hacked at University of Central Florida
If humans are ever going to have a long-term presence on Mars , they’ll need to make their own buildings — they can’t count on timely shipments from Earth. But how do they do that when the resources they have will share little in common with what they knew back home? Northwestern University researchers have an idea. They’ve developed a concrete that uses Mars’ native materials. You only have to heat sulphur until it melts, mix it with an equal part of Martian soil and let it cool. The finished concrete is very strong, easy to work with and recyclable — you just have to reheat it to get some building supplies back. Any need for Martian concrete is years away at best , but the discovery is still crucial. It suggests that explorers won’t have much trouble transitioning from short-term shelters to more permanent structures. Also, any would-be settlers can afford to pack light. Rather than carry every possible building they might want, they could bring just the essentials and build more once they’re established on the Red Planet’s surface. [Image credit: Getty Images] Via: MIT Technology Review , Inhabitate Source: ArXiv.org
On December 30th, someone using an IP address from the 32nd Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg sent a probe out to every IPv4 address with an open connection on Port 80, consisting of a poem exhorting the reader to “DELETE your logs. Delete your installations. Wipe everything clean, Walk out into the path of cherry blossom trees and let your motherboard feel the stones.” (more…)
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Someone at the Chaos Communications Congress inserted a poem into at least 30 million servers’ logfiles
David Rothman writes: Eric Posner, the fourth most-cited law professor in the U.S., says the government may need to jail you if you even visit an ISIS site after enough warnings. He says, “Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way—and by this I mean ideas that lead directly to terrorist attacks that kill people. The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of speech. The law would provide graduated penalties. After the first violation, a person would receive a warning letter from the government; subsequent violations would result in fines or prison sentences. The idea would be to get out the word that looking at ISIS-related websites, like looking at websites that display child pornography, is strictly forbidden” There would be exemptions for Washington-blessed journalists and others. Whew! Alas, this man isn’t Donald Trump — he is a widely respected University of Chicago faculty member writing in Slate. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Go To Jail For Visiting a Web Site? Top Law Prof Talks Up the Idea
There’s a whole branch of science that’s dedicated to turning flexible surfaces into sensors that can be used as an artificial substitute for skin. These materials could then be used to give robots a sense of touch , or even to restore feeling for people with artificial prostheses. Researchers at the University of Auckland have taken the concept in a slightly different direction after building a square of soft, stretchable rubber that pulls double-duty as a keyboard. It’s hoped that the technology can be used to create foldable, rollable input devices, which reminds us of Nokia’s twisty-stretchy phone concept from way back when. Via: EurekaAlert Source: Smart Materials
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Stretchable square of rubber doubles as a keyboard
Someday, you might be able to throw a lab-grown meat party with not only burgers , but also tempura on the menu. A startup called New Wave Foods is developing artificial shrimp meat in the laboratory, urged by environmental destruction and the other troubles brought about by commercial fishing. According to Motherboard , the team is currently testing different ways of extracting proteins from algae that the crustaceans eat, mixing and mashing them together with protein gels to create the meat. So far, they’ve already nailed the taste, but mimicking the seafood’s texture is proving to a bit more difficult. Source: Motherboard , New Wave Foods
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A startup is growing faux shrimp meat in the lab using algae
An undergraduate student from the University of Alberta has uncovered the fossilized remains of an Ornithomimus dinosaur with preserved tail feathers and soft tissue. The remarkable specimen is offering important insights into the plumage patterns of these ancient creatures, while tightening the linkages between dinosaurs and birds. Read more…
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Fossil With Preserved Tail Feathers and Skin Reveals Dinosaur Plumage Patterns
Researchers at Rice University announced a novel use for batroxobin , a hemotoxic component in the venom of two South American pit viper species. They’ve figured out how to leverage it as a potent anticoagulant — when combined with a nanofiber hydrogel called SB50 — that could save countless lives in surgery. Medical science has actually been employing batroxobin as a topical clotting agent and thrombosis treatment since the mid 1930s. But more importantly, it’s been shown to stop the flow of blood even if the patient is on heparin, a powerful anticoagulant administered before some surgeries. Via: Rice University Newsroom Source: Rice University
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Nanofiber gel and snake venom work together to stop the bleeding
In 1837, Italian physician Camilo Golgi devised a reaction to stain the wispy dendrites and axons of neurons, making it possible to see brain cells in situ . In 1875, he published his first scientific drawing made possibly by his chemical reaction, seen here. It’s an illustration of the never fibers, gray matter, and other components of a dog’s olfactory bulb. ” The First Neuron Drawings, 1870s ” (The Scientist)
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The first drawings of neurons
Conservationists working at the University of Virginia’s Rotunda have inadvertently uncovered a chemical hearth designed by Thomas Jefferson. The discovery is offering fresh insights into how chemistry was taught over 200 years ago. Read more…
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Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Chemistry Lab Found Hidden Behind Wall