JetLib News

CWmike writes “Researchers Nate Lawson and Taylor Nelson say they’ve discovered a basic security flaw that affects dozens of open-source software libraries — including those used by software that implements the OAuth and OpenID standards — that are used to check passwords and user names when people log into websites such as Twitter and Digg. By trying to log in again and again, cycling through characters and measuring the time it takes for the computer to respond, hackers can ultimately figure out the correct passwords. This may all sound very theoretical, but timing attacks can actually succeed in the real world. Three years ago, one was used to hack Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming system, and people who build smart cards have added timing attack protection for years. The researchers plan to discuss their attacks at the Black Hat conference later this month in Las Vegas.”

Source: OAuth, OpenID Password Crack Could Affect Millions

Show them the money: The winners of the Kavli Prizes have been announced, and the eight scientists will split a total of $3 million in prize money.

No, these aren’t the Nobels. The Kavlis are a relatively new award created to award scientists whose fields don’t get much recognition in Stockholm:

These are only the second ever recipients of Kavli Prizes, the biennial awards launched in 2008 by Fred Kavli. Recipients in the fields of astrophysics, neuroscience and nanoscience each receive a scroll, a gold medal and (perhaps most importantly) a share of the $1 million pot for each discipline [Nature].

1. Astrophysics

The prize recognized three men—Jerry Nelson, Roger Angel, and Raymond Wilson—not for finding new phenomena deep in the cosmos, but for engineering the telescopes to make those searches possible. Nelson and Angel are renowned for their prowess in casting the mirrors for the largest telescopes on Earth; Nelson’s work will go into the Thirty Meter Telescope, for which Mauna Kea in Hawaii was just chosen as the preferred location.

Dr. Wilson pioneered the use of a technology known as active optics, in which computer-controlled supports correct the shapes of telescope mirrors to cancel the distortions caused by gravity, wind and temperature, allowing astronomers to build mirrors that are thinner and lighter [The New York Times].

2. Nanotech

Nadrian Seeman of New York University and Donald Eigler of IBM shared the recognition for nanotech.

Seeman discovered that DNA — the genetic material of living creatures — could be used to construct an assortment of molecule-sized devices and machines. In a recent study published in the science journal “Nature,” Seeman and others showed how they built from DNA a functioning assembly line of molecular robots [AP].

Eigler, more than two decades ago, became the first person to accurately move atoms from place to place. Famously, he used 35 xenon atoms to spell out “IBM”—perhaps nanotechnology’s version of a marching band spelling out its college’s name on the football field.

3. Neuroscience

This prize went for communication across the brain, and Thomas Suedhof, Richard Scheller, and James Rothman shared the accolades. Rothman, of Yale, investigated the vesicles in the brain that move neurotransmitters between cells. Suedhof and Scheller discovered much of the genetics that underlie these structures.

“These three people took the study of communication between synapses and brought it from a physiological to molecular level,” neuroscientist Eric Kandel of Columbia University and member of the Kavli committee [San Jose Mercury News].

Image: Thirty Meter Telescope Observatory Corp; IBM; iStockphoto

Source: Huge Mirrors, DNA Robots, & Brain Communication Win 2010 Kavli Prizes

With no end to BP’s gushing oil leak in sight, attention has turned to trying to ascertain just how damaging the spill could be for wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. Yesterday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) doubled the size of the fishing ban in the Gulf. Now nearly 20 percent of the water is off-limits because of the expanding oil slick.

Because so much oil is under the surface, and diluted but still dangerous, it’s hard to get a handle on just how bad things will be. But turtles seem to be the bellwether for worries about sea life. Since April 30, marine biologists have recorded more than 150 sea turtle deaths, and while they can’t immediately say all those were directly related to the oil spill, it’s a much higher number of deaths that is usual for this time of the year.

Necropsies, the animal equivalent of an autopsy, have been performed on 40 turtles so far. And tissue samples taken from as many specimens as possible are being analyzed for abnormally high chemical levels associated with oil contamination. Initial necropsy results are expected in a few days, but laboratory tests of the tissue samples will likely take weeks to complete. In many cases these results are needed to make a conclusive finding about the cause of an animal’s death [Reuters].

Turtles raise special concern because all five species that live in the Gulf region are endangered. And as spring turns to summer, they could be more in the path of danger.

The nesting season for the sea turtles runs until mid-July, and for most of that time the mothers will remain off Padre Island and the beaches of Mexico, where there is currently no oil. But then things become more chancy, as new sea turtle babies go off to sea, floating on currents in the gulf or on seaweed patches that could be covered by crude [The New York Times].

Meanwhile, back at the leak site, BP says that the siphon it successfully installed last week is now carrying 2,000 barrels of oil per day to a tanker on the surface. While the company trumpeted this as capturing 40 percent of the estimated 5,000 barrels of oil per day leaking in the Gulf, we noted last week that the 5,000 figure could be a gross underestimation. If the leak is truly 50,000 barrels and not 5,000, then the 2,000 currently being captured is barely a drop in the bucket.

In Washington, Democrats in the Senate are pushing a plan to raise the cap on liability for a spill from its present $75 million to at least $10 billion—a more than 130-fold increase. Republicans have blocked the measure thus far.

And in Florida, people are left to wait and see if Gulf currents bring oil their way.

Florida Democrat Senator Bill Nelson released a forecast by University of South Florida College of Marine Science experts who said part of the oil slick may reach the Keys in five to six days, and possibly Miami five days after that. “While I always hope for the best, this is looking like really out-of-control bad,” Nelson said in a statement before another round of congressional hearings on Tuesday [Reuters].

Recent posts on the BP oil spill:
80beats: Good News: BP’s Oil Siphon Is Working. Bad News: Florida Keys Are in Danger
80beats: Scientists Say Gulf Spill Is Way Worse Than Estimated. How’d We Get It So Wrong?
80beats: Testimony Highlights 3 Major Failures That Caused Gulf Spill
80beats: 5 Offshore Oil Hotspots Beyond the Gulf That Could Boom—Or Go Boom
80beats: Gulf Oil Spill: Do Chemical Dispersants Pose Their Own Environmental Risk?

Image: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Justin Stumberg; U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley.

Source: Gulf Oil Spill: Fishing Ban Expanded; Endangered Turtles Threatened

You can’t cancel an enormous federal program without hitting pushback, and President Obama is hitting plenty of it over his proposal to end NASA’s Constellation program. In January his budget proposal put forth no funding for Constellation, the space shuttle successor program that included the Ares rockets, Orion crew capsule, and plans to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020. Instead, NASA would become more reliant on private companies to ferry its astronauts to the space station, and would explore new ideas for visiting Mars or nearby asteroids. But the proposal has already ruffled lots of feathers, prompting the President to say he will hold a conference to further outline his plan.

First, many high-profile space experts balked at the proposal. Former astronaut Tom Jones said Obama was surrendering human spaceflight, and Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, one of the last men to walk on the moon, was equally displeased. “It’s bad for the country,” Schmitt said. “This administration really does not believe in American exceptionalism” [Washington Post]. Dissent wasn’t universal; DISCOVER blogger Phil Plait, for one, praised the possibilities for commercial space-faring.

But even getting the new plan in place will take plenty of political wrangling. Last week reports surfaced saying that NASA chief Charles Bolden and others inside the agency were quietly preparing a Plan B, with compromise options for the members of Congress who have objected to the President’s plan. When the news reports came out, however, Bolden flatly denied them. “The president’s budget for NASA is my budget,” General Bolden said. “I strongly support the priorities and the direction for NASA that he has put forward” [The New York Times].

One of the unhappy members of Congress is Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Hutchison, whose home state is one that stands to lose jobs when NASA’s space shuttle program ends, tried to thwart the Obama plan last week by introducing a bill to extend the shuttle for two more years (It’s currently due to retire this year). The bill, dubbed the Human Space Flight Capability Assurance and Enhancement Act, calls for spending an additional $3.4 billion between 2010 and 2012 to keep the space shuttle flying. It would require NASA to spread out its four remaining shuttle missions, now slated to wrap up by October, and potentially add additional flights [MSNBC]. Yesterday, shuttle program manager John Shannon said it could be done—if the country is willing to spend the money. It currently takes $200 million every month to maintain the shuttles.

Not everyone greeted the President’s proposal with sour grapes. Private space companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX, for whom the move would mean more opportunities, are understandably excited. “It’s a huge move, and in the face of a lot of congressional opposition,” Musk said when DISCOVER spoke to him for a piece in the upcoming May magazine issue. Constellation, he argues, was never going to to reach it goals. It was already vastly underfunded, and would have required an infusion of cash that Americans would never give, especially in the current economic climate. “The people that are really hardcore against the cancellation of Constellation are people who, either from a political standpoint, have a ton of money being spent in their district and they don’t really care whether this succeeds or not,” he says.

Trying to get back on top in the public relations war, Obama announced this week that he would give a conference on April 15 in Florida to spell out more of his NASA vision. Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, said he hoped Mr. Obama would use the meeting to lay out a goal and a timetable for sending astronauts to Mars [The New York Times]. Nelson, who flew on a space shuttle mission in the 1980s, is a political ally of the President’s, but represents Florida, where so much of NASA’s human spaceflight program is based. The key to political victory for Obama, he says, may be overturning the idea that the end of Constellation equals the end of ambitious manned spaceflight.

Image: NASA

Source: Obama’s NASA Plan Draws Furious Fire; The Prez Promises to Defend His Vision

theodp writes “After the morning commute from his Las Vegas apartment, Air Force captain Sam Nelson sits in a padded chair inside a low, tan building in Nevada, controlling a heavily armed drone aircraft soaring over Afghanistan, prepared to kill another human being 7,500 miles away if necessary. Welcome to the surreal world of drone pilots, who have a front-row seat on war from half a world away. ‘On the drive out here, you get yourself ready to enter the compartment of your life that is flying combat,’ explained retired Col. Chris Chambliss. ‘And on the drive home, you get ready for that part of your life that’s going to be the soccer game.’ No wonder why the Air Force is interested in the Xbox LIVE crowd and the Army’s opened a new arcade recruitment center!”

Source: What Happens In Vegas Happens In Afghanistan

The big roundup in Nevada has begun. But rather than being fodder for a old-fashioned Western, this one is kicking up a fight. Yesterday the Bureau of Land Management launched its mission to capture 2,500 wild horses from public and private lands across the state.

Contractors in helicopters and on horseback herded some of the mustangs into corrals in the Black Rock Range, a chain of mountains 100 miles north of Reno, according to a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management. Heather Emmons said she did not know how many horses were captured on the first day of the roundup, which will take two months and stretch across 1,750 square miles in the Calico Mountains Complex [Los Angeles Times].

According to the BLM, the Nevada lands can’t sustain the 3,000 wild horses that now live there, as the population will likely double in four years. So, the agency argues, winnowing the population will sustain the environment and protect the horses, too. But where the horses will end up remains uncertain. Long-term plans call for the mustangs to be placed for adoption or sent to holding facilities in the Midwest. The agency said a facility in Reno was full of adoptable horses, making it unclear when the animals gathered in the latest capture could be put up for adoption [AP].

To say that the helicopter roundup riled up some horse lovers would be an understatement. “To start this immense roundup … on private land where members of the public are forbidden to attend is a brilliant, insidious move on the part of the BLM to hide the suffering and death that they are about to inflict on our mustangs,” said activist Eylse Gardner [San Jose Mercury News]. Activists say that helicopter-assisted roundups frighten the horses and can cause injuries like broken legs, which cause horses to be euthanized. However, a federal judge last week denied a request to stop the operation by ruling that it didn’t violate the law, paving the way for its commencement yesterday.

Opposition remains, in both local activists and celebrity sympathizers—it seems the Rolling Stones aren’t the only musicians with a soft spot in their hearts for “Wild Horses.” Celebrities including singers Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow and former Playboy models Shane and Sia Barbi have tried to call attention to the issue. “We must act now before the BLM has managed these magnificent animals into extinction,” Nelson said [USA Today].

Image: flickr / zenera

Source: Nevada Begins Wild Horse Roundup; Willie Nelson Cries Foul