Herbal Viagra actually contains the real thing

IF IT looks too good to be true, it probably is. Several "herbal remedies" for erectile dysfunction sold online actually contain the active ingredient from Viagra.

Michael Lamb at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania, and colleagues purchased 10 popular "natural" uplifting remedies on the internet and tested them for the presence of sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra. They found the compound, or a similar synthetic drug, in seven of the 10 products – cause for concern because it can be dangerous for people with some medical conditions.

Lamb's work was presented last week at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting in Washington DC.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Herbal Viagra gets a synthetic boost"

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Third Malaysian policeman killed in Borneo: report

LAHAD DATU, Malaysia - A Malaysian policeman was killed by "militants" in a region where Filipino followers of a self-claimed sultan are holed up in a deadly standoff with security forces, state media reported Sunday.

The police officer was killed when he was fired upon on Saturday in the Malaysian town of Semporna, 300 kilometres by road from the site of the standoff at Tanduo village on Borneo island where 12 Filipino intruders and two police died in a firefight the day before.

State news agency Bernama also said another officer suffered gunshot wounds.

It quoted police saying the killing was unrelated to the nearly three-week siege involving armed intruders who arrived from the Philippines by boat to press the "sultan's" historical claim to the area.

But the latest shooting raised fears on Malaysian social media sites of a possible spread of violence by suspected sympathisers of the group.

An estimated 100-300 Filipinos have been surrounded in a farming village by a Malaysian police and military cordon since landing by boat from the nearby Philippines to insist the area belongs to their Islamic leader Jamalul Kiram III's.

Kiram, 74, claims to be the heir to the Islamic sultanate of Sulu, which once controlled parts of the southern Philippines and Borneo.

Following Friday's firefight, Malaysian police stepped up threats to clear them out unless they surrendered immediately.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino, who has sharply criticised the intruders, also urged them to surrender unconditionally, but a spokesman for Kiram has said his followers were prepared to die.

The Sulu sultanate's power faded about a century ago but it has continued to receive nominal payments from Malaysia for Sabah under a historical lease arrangement passed down from European colonial powers.

- AFP/ir

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LG notches 10M worldwide sales of LTE-enabled smartphones

LG Electronics announced today it has sold more than 10 million LTE-capable smartphones worldwide as the company grapples with dwindling market share.

The milestone comes a little less than a little more than six months after the LG announced it had surpassed 5 million sales of LTE-enabled phones.

"Aggressive pushing forward with 4G LTE technology allows LG satisfy the needs of consumers and is a huge factor in our growing success in global LTE smartphone sales," LG CEO Jong-seok Park said in statement. "Having established ourselves as a major industry player, we will continue to expand our footprint in the global LTE market with a wider range of differentiated, high quality LTE smartphones."

LG said it hopes to double its LTE smartphone presence in 2013 as LTE smartphone shipment growth is expected to triple. Strategy Analytics said in December that its research indicated global LTE smartphone shipments would hit 275 million this year.

The company attributed its explosive growth in the segment to its expansion last year into markets such as the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. Recent rollouts of the LG Optimus G in more than 50 additional countries also contributed to the milestone.

As impressive as the sales figure is, LG continues to lose ground in the LTE market, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. In the third quarter of 2012, LG's market share fell to 9 percent from 15 percent in the previous quarter. Samsung remained the market leader even though its share fell from 51 percent to 40 percent. Apple brought in 26.7 percent for second place.

The announcement comes on the heels of LG's overhaul of its
Android product line at the Mobile World Congress last month in Barcelona, Spain. LG says it is targeting the spectrum of LTE customers, with its G series for deep-pocketed early adopters, the F series with the mission of "4G LTE for everyone," the lower-end L series, and the Vu
tablets.

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We Didn’t Domesticate Dogs. They Domesticated Us.

In the story of how the dog came in from the cold and onto our sofas, we tend to give ourselves a little too much credit. The most common assumption is that some hunter-gatherer with a soft spot for cuteness found some wolf puppies and adopted them. Over time, these tamed wolves would have shown their prowess at hunting, so humans kept them around the campfire until they evolved into dogs. (See "How to Build a Dog.")

But when we look back at our relationship with wolves throughout history, this doesn't really make sense. For one thing, the wolf was domesticated at a time when modern humans were not very tolerant of carnivorous competitors. In fact, after modern humans arrived in Europe around 43,000 years ago, they pretty much wiped out every large carnivore that existed, including saber-toothed cats and giant hyenas. The fossil record doesn't reveal whether these large carnivores starved to death because modern humans took most of the meat or whether humans picked them off on purpose. Either way, most of the Ice Age bestiary went extinct.

The hunting hypothesis, that humans used wolves to hunt, doesn't hold up either. Humans were already successful hunters without wolves, more successful than every other large carnivore. Wolves eat a lot of meat, as much as one deer per ten wolves every day-a lot for humans to feed or compete against. And anyone who has seen wolves in a feeding frenzy knows that wolves don't like to share.

Humans have a long history of eradicating wolves, rather than trying to adopt them. Over the last few centuries, almost every culture has hunted wolves to extinction. The first written record of the wolf's persecution was in the sixth century B.C. when Solon of Athens offered a bounty for every wolf killed. The last wolf was killed in England in the 16th century under the order of Henry VII. In Scotland, the forested landscape made wolves more difficult to kill. In response, the Scots burned the forests. North American wolves were not much better off. By 1930, there was not a wolf left in the 48 contiguous states of America.  (See "Wolf Wars.")

If this is a snapshot of our behavior toward wolves over the centuries, it presents one of the most perplexing problems: How was this misunderstood creature tolerated by humans long enough to evolve into the domestic dog?

The short version is that we often think of evolution as being the survival of the fittest, where the strong and the dominant survive and the soft and weak perish. But essentially, far from the survival of the leanest and meanest, the success of dogs comes down to survival of the friendliest.

Most likely, it was wolves that approached us, not the other way around, probably while they were scavenging around garbage dumps on the edge of human settlements. The wolves that were bold but aggressive would have been killed by humans, and so only the ones that were bold and friendly would have been tolerated.

Friendliness caused strange things to happen in the wolves. They started to look different. Domestication gave them splotchy coats, floppy ears, wagging tails. In only several generations, these friendly wolves would have become very distinctive from their more aggressive relatives. But the changes did not just affect their looks. Changes also happened to their psychology. These protodogs evolved the ability to read human gestures.

As dog owners, we take for granted that we can point to a ball or toy and our dog will bound off to get it. But the ability of dogs to read human gestures is remarkable. Even our closest relatives-chimpanzees and bonobos-can't read our gestures as readily as dogs can. Dogs are remarkably similar to human infants in the way they pay attention to us. This ability accounts for the extraordinary communication we have with our dogs. Some dogs are so attuned to their owners that they can read a gesture as subtle as a change in eye direction.

With this new ability, these protodogs were worth knowing. People who had dogs during a hunt would likely have had an advantage over those who didn't. Even today, tribes in Nicaragua depend on dogs to detect prey. Moose hunters in alpine regions bring home 56 percent more prey when they are accompanied by dogs. In the Congo, hunters believe they would starve without their dogs.

Dogs would also have served as a warning system, barking at hostile strangers from neighboring tribes. They could have defended their humans from predators.

And finally, though this is not a pleasant thought, when times were tough, dogs could have served as an emergency food supply. Thousands of years before refrigeration and with no crops to store, hunter-gatherers had no food reserves until the domestication of dogs. In tough times, dogs that were the least efficient hunters might have been sacrificed to save the group or the best hunting dogs. Once humans realized the usefulness of keeping dogs as an emergency food supply, it was not a huge jump to realize plants could be used in a similar way.

So, far from a benign human adopting a wolf puppy, it is more likely that a population of wolves adopted us. As the advantages of dog ownership became clear, we were as strongly affected by our relationship with them as they have been by their relationship with us. Dogs may even have been the catalyst for our civilization.

Dr. Brian Hare is the director of the Duke Canine Cognition Center and Vanessa Woods is a research scientist at Duke University. This essay is adapted from their new book, The Genius of Dogs, published by Dutton. To play science-based games to find the genius in your dog, visit www.dognition.com.

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US Seeks to Confirm Report of Terror Leader's Death

American military and intelligence officials said today they are attempting to confirm a report from the Chadian military of the death of al Qaeda leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the alleged mastermind of the deadly attack on an Algerian natural gas facility in January.

If the new report is confirmed, Belmokhtar's death would be a significant victory against a growing al Qaeda threat in northern Africa.

Belmokhtar's killing was announced on Chadian national television by armed forces spokesperson Gen. Zacharia Gobongue, who said Chadian troops "operating in northern Mali completely destroyed a terrorist base."

"The [death] toll included several dead terrorists, including their leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar," he said.

However, an unidentified elected official in Mali told The Associated Press he doubted Belmokhtar had actually been killed and said he suspected the Chadian government of pushing the story to ease the loss of dozens of Chadian troops in operations in northern Africa.

SITE Intel Group/AP Photo

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Belmokhtar is known as Mr. Marlboro because of the millions he made smuggling cigarettes across the Sahara, but in the last few months the one-eyed terrorist leader has become one of the most sought after terrorists in the world. The attack on the plant near In Amenas in eastern Algeria left dozens of Westerns and at least three Americans dead.

Belmokhtar had formed his own al Qaeda splinter group and announced he would use his wealth to finance more attacks against American and Western interests in the region and beyond.

The U.S. has badly wanted Belmokhtar stopped and actively helped in the search by French and African military units to find him, as well as another top al Qaeda leader who was reported killed yesterday.

After the Chadian announcement, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said Belmokhtar's death, if confirmed, "would be a hard blow to the collection of jihadists operating across the region that are targeting American diplomats and energy workers."

Steve Wysocki, a plant worker who survived the attack in In Amenas thanked "military forces from around the world," especially the Chadian military, for bringing "this terrorist to an expedient justice."

"My family and I continue to mourn for our friends and colleagues who didn't make it home and pray for their families," Wysocki told ABC News.

The CIA has been after Belmokhtar since the early 1990s, Royce's statement said.

ABC News' Clayton Sandell contributed to this report.

Read More..

Herbal Viagra actually contains the real thing

IF IT looks too good to be true, it probably is. Several "herbal remedies" for erectile dysfunction sold online actually contain the active ingredient from Viagra.

Michael Lamb at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania, and colleagues purchased 10 popular "natural" uplifting remedies on the internet and tested them for the presence of sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra. They found the compound, or a similar synthetic drug, in seven of the 10 products – cause for concern because it can be dangerous for people with some medical conditions.

Lamb's work was presented last week at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting in Washington DC.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Herbal Viagra gets a synthetic boost"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

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US Defence Secretary Hagel scolds budget cuts

WASHINGTON: Major budget cuts will endanger the US military's ability to conduct its missions, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel warned.

His comments came hours before President Barack Obama authorized cuts in domestic and defence spending, following the failure of efforts to clinch a deal with Republicans on cutting the deficit.

Hagel, whose budget at the Pentagon is set to be slashed by roughly $46 billion, said earlier: "Let me make it clear that this uncertainty puts at risk our ability to effectively fulfil all of our missions."

In contrast with his predecessor Leon Panetta, who branded the cuts a "doomsday mechanism" and "fiscal castration," Hagel was more measured two days after taking office as defence secretary.

But he made clear his thoughts on the consequences of the so-called "sequester" on the military.

Defence officials say they will be forced to reduce the working week of 800,000 civilian employees, scale back flight hours of warplanes and postpone some equipment maintenance.

The deployment of a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf has also been cancelled.

The US Navy will gradually stand down several hundred planes starting in April, the Air Force will curtail flying hours and the Army will cut back training for all units except those deploying to Afghanistan.

"This will have a major impact on training and readiness," Hagel said. "Later this month, we intend to issue preliminary notifications to thousands of civilian employees who will be furloughed."

Hagel acknowledged that the budget cuts "will cause pain, particularly among our civilian workforce and their families."

"I'm also concerned, as we all are, about the impact on readiness that these cuts will have across our force," he added.

The Pentagon chief expressed "confidence" that the White House and President Barack Obama's Republican foes in Congress would eventually reach agreement.

But other officials laid bare the consequences.

"If you stop training for a while and you're a combat pilot, then you lose your rating and eventually can't fly at all, because we can't allow you to fly if you can't fly safely," said Ash Carter, Hagel's deputy at the Pentagon.

"You can't, you obviously can't fly proficiently, but you can't even fly safely. Then you have to go back to the long building-back process of getting your readiness back."

Obama was bound by law to initiate the automatic, indiscriminate cuts.

The hit to military and domestic spending, known as the sequester, was never supposed to happen, but was rather a device seen as so punishing that rival lawmakers would be forced to find a better compromise to cut the deficit.

But despite a looming reality that the nation would suffer, Democrats and Republicans remained far from compromise and were never close to agreement.

- AFP/fa

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Crave Ep. 111: Man vs. jetpack

Man vs. jetpack, Ep: 111

Subscribe to Crave:

iTunes (HD) | iTunes (SD) | iTunes (HQ)

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A German inventor has built a DIY jetpack, so we hop onboard. Also, we get a first look at "Star Wars" pinball for iOS and
Android, and "Star Trek" fans win a major space battle when they vote to name a Pluto moon "Vulcan." All that and more on this week's episode of Crave.

Crave stories:

- Google Nexus fired into space to see if screams are audible

- Myo gesture-control armband uses muscle power

- Star Wars Pinball coming tomorrow to Android, iOS (video)

- Get a ball's-eye view with camera in football

- Trekkies conquer contest to name Pluto moons

- Inventor gets off the ground with homemade jetpack

- First-person Mario video will blow your mind

- Crave giveaway: Two leather iPad cases from Kavaj

Social networking:

- Stephen on Twitter

- Stephen on Google+

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Black Hole Spins at Nearly the Speed of Light

A superfast black hole nearly 60 million light-years away appears to be pushing the ultimate speed limit of the universe, a new study says.

For the first time, astronomers have managed to measure the rate of spin of a supermassive black hole—and it's been clocked at 84 percent of the speed of light, or the maximum allowed by the law of physics.

"The most exciting part of this finding is the ability to test the theory of general relativity in such an extreme regime, where the gravitational field is huge, and the properties of space-time around it are completely different from the standard Newtonian case," said lead author Guido Risaliti, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and INAF-Arcetri Observatory in Italy. (Related: "Speedy Star Found Near Black Hole May Test Einstein Theory.")

Notorious for ripping apart and swallowing stars, supermassive black holes live at the center of most galaxies, including our own Milky Way. (See black hole pictures.)

They can pack the gravitational punch of many million or even billions of suns—distorting space-time in the region around them, not even letting light to escape their clutches.

Galactic Monster

The predatory monster that lurks at the core of the relatively nearby spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is estimated to weigh in at about two million times the mass of the sun, and stretches some 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) across-more than eight times the distance between Earth and the moon, Risaliti said. (Also see "Black Hole Blast Biggest Ever Recorded.")

Risaliti and colleagues' unprecedented discovery was made possible thanks to the combined observations from NASA's high-energy x-ray detectors on its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) probe and the European Space Agency's low-energy, x-ray-detecting XMM-Newton space observatory.

Astronomers detected x-ray particle remnants of stars circling in a pancake-shaped accretion disk surrounding the black hole, and used this data to help determine its rate of spin.

By getting a fix on this spin speed, astronomers now hope to better understand what happens inside giant black holes as they gravitationally warp space-time around themselves.

Even more intriguing to the research team is that this discovery will shed clues to black hole's past, and the evolution of its surrounding galaxy.

Tracking the Universe's Evolution

Supermassive black holes have a large impact in the evolution of their host galaxy, where a self-regulating process occurs between the two structures.

"When more stars are formed, they throw gas into the black hole, increasing its mass, but the radiation produced by this accretion warms up the gas in the galaxy, preventing more star formation," said Risaliti.

"So the two events—black hole accretion and formation of new stars—interact with each other."

Knowing how fast black holes spin may also help shed light how the entire universe evolved. (Learn more about the origin of the universe.)

"With a knowledge of the average spin of galaxies at different ages of the universe," Risaliti said, "we could track their evolution much more precisely than we can do today."

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Obama Signs Order to Begin Sequester Cuts

President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.

President Obama officially initiated the cuts with an order to agencies Friday evening.

He had met for just over an hour at the White House Friday morning with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic allies, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Vice President Joe Biden.

But the parties emerged from their first face-to-face meeting of the year resigned to see the cuts take hold at midnight.

"This is not a win for anybody," Obama lamented in a statement to reporters after the meeting. "This is a loss for the American people."

READ MORE: 6 Questions (and Answers) About the Sequester

Officials have said the spending reductions immediately take effect Saturday but that the pain from reduced government services and furloughs of tens of thousands of federal employees would be felt gradually in the weeks ahead.

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Federal agencies, including Homeland Security, the Pentagon, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education, have all prepared to notify employees that they will have to take one unpaid day off per week through the end of the year.

The staffing trims could slow many government services, including airport screenings, air traffic control, and law enforcement investigations and prosecutions. Spending on education programs and health services for low-income families will also get clipped.

"It is absolutely true that this is not going to precipitate the crisis" that would have been caused by the so-called fiscal cliff, Obama said. "But people are going to be hurt. The economy will not grow as quickly as it would have. Unemployment will not go down as quickly as it would have. And there are lives behind that. And it's real."

The sticking point in the debate over the automatic cuts -- known as sequester -- has remained the same between the parties for more than a year since the cuts were first proposed: whether to include more new tax revenue in a broad deficit reduction plan.

The White House insists there must be higher tax revenue, through elimination of tax loopholes and deductions that benefit wealthier Americans and corporations. Republicans seek an approach of spending cuts only, with an emphasis on entitlement programs. It's a deep divide that both sides have proven unable to bridge.

"This discussion about revenue, in my view, is over," Boehner told reporters after the meeting. "It's about taking on the spending problem here in Washington."

Boehner: No New Taxes to Avert Sequester

Boehner says any elimination of tax loopholes or deductions should be part of a broader tax code overhaul aimed at lowering rates overall, not to offset spending cuts in the sequester.

Obama countered today that he's willing to "take on the problem where it exists, on entitlements, and do some things that my own party doesn't like."

But he says Republicans must be willing to eliminate some tax loopholes as part of a deal.

"They refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit," Obama said. "We can and must replace these cuts with a more balanced approach that asks something from everybody."

Can anything more be done by either side to reach a middle ground?

The president today claimed he's done all he can. "I am not a dictator, I'm the president," Obama said.

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Mystery ring of radiation briefly encircled Earth

What were you doing last September? The charged particles that dance around Earth were busy. Unbeknown to most earthlings, a previously unseen ring of radiation encircled our planet for nearly the whole month – before being destroyed by a powerful interplanetary shock wave.

We already knew that two, persistent belts of charged particles, called the Van Allen radiation belts, encircle Earth. The discovery of a third, middle ring by NASA's twin Van Allen probes, launched in August 2012, suggests that these belts, which have puzzled scientists for over 50 years, are even stranger than we thought. Working out what caused the third ring to develop could help protect spacecraft from damaging doses of radiation.

Charged particles get trapped by Earth's magnetic field into two distinct regions, forming the belts. The inner belt, which extends from an altitude of 1600 to 12,900 kilometres, is fairly stable. But the outer belt, spanning altitudes ranging from 19,000 to 40,000 kilometres, can vary wildly. Over the course of minutes or hours, its electrons can be accelerated to close to the speed of light, and it can grow to 100 times its usual size.

Mystery acceleration

No one is sure what causes these "acceleration events", although it seems to have something to do with solar activity interacting with the Earths' magnetic field.

"That's one of the key things the probes are in place to understand," says Dan Baker of the University of Colorado, Boulder. "How does this cosmic accelerator, operating just a few thousand miles above our head, accelerate electrons to such extraordinarily high energies?"

When the Van Allen probes started taking data on 1 September 2012, one of these mysterious events was already under way. "We came in the middle of the movie there," Baker says. But otherwise, he says, "What we expected was what we saw when we first turned on: two distinct belts, separated."

That changed a day later when, to the team's surprise, an extra ring developed between the inner and outer ones. "We watched it develop right before our eyes," Baker says. The new, middle ring was relatively narrow, and its electrons had energies between 4 and 7.5 megaelectronvolts - about the same as in the outer Van Allen belt during an acceleration event.

Although the outer ring displayed its characteristic inconstancy, the new middle ring barely budged for nearly four weeks. Then a shock wave, probably linked to a burst of solar activity, wiped it out in less than an hour on 1 October.

Spacecraft malfunctions

It's not clear where the middle ring came from, Baker says, although it was probably related to the acceleration event. The electrons could have been stripped from the outer Van Allen belt, funnelled back towards the Earth and got trapped in the middle on the way, or they could have been energised from closer to Earth and shot up to higher altitudes.

Figuring out what happened could be important to protecting spacecraft from radiation damage, says Yuri Shprits of the University of California in Los Angeles, who was not involved in the observations but is crafting a theoretical explanation that he hopes to publish soon. "It truly presents us with a very important question, and very important puzzles," he says.

There were no specific spacecraft malfunctions during September that can be directly linked to the new belt, says Shprits. However satellite operators will want to know if such belts are common and if they pose more of a risk.

With no other examples of a transient belt caught so far, it's too soon to answer all those questions, Baker says. "We only have one in captivity," he says. "We're still trying to figure out exactly how it works."

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1233518

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Initiatives outlined to make it easier for public to get legal help

SINGAPORE: The overarching theme of the Subordinate Courts Workplan seminar this year is to make it easier for the public to get legal help and information.

In his first workplan keynote address, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon outlined a slew of initiatives to resolve informational inadequacy and litigation costs.

These include the Primary Justice Project to have a team of lawyers who will provide basic legal services to the public, coming up with guide books on motor vehicle accident scenarios, and simplifying the process for minor civil cases.

The initiatives point towards one thing - settling disputes out of court so as to save time and costs.

- CNA/ck

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Dropbox users getting spammed, might be from earlier hack

It looks like Dropbox may be grappling with some leftover issues from hackers' access into the system last July.

Over the past 24 hours, users have been posting on the file-sharing site's forum, saying that they're being hit with spam e-mails sent to e-mail accounts used only for Dropbox.

"My Dropbox specific email has been receiving spam since the 20th of February," Daniel B. wrote today. Richard F. wrote, "I have an internal to my company email address that I used for Dropbox only and I am getting the same fake paypal scam emails. This has been happening since about Monday."

Dropbox experienced a data leak last summer when hackers accessed usernames and passwords from third-party sites and then used them to get into Dropbox users' accounts. With this data breach, a few hundred Dropbox users received spam e-mails about online casinos and gambling sites.

The company has since put in place additional security controls with the aim to avoid a repeat occurrence, including two-factor authentication, mechanisms to identify suspicious activity, and password changes.

Rather than being a new breach, Dropbox seems to believe the current spam attack is related to what happened last July.

"We've been looking into these spam reports and take them seriously. Back in July we reported that certain user email addresses had leaked and some users had received spam as a result. At this time, we have not seen anything to suggest this is a new issue, but remain vigilant given the recent wave of security incidents at other tech companies," a Dropbox spokesperson told CNET. "We want you to know that we've taken these reports seriously and began our investigation immediately."

Despite what looks to be leftover issues from last summer, far fewer users are complaining this time around. So far, the forum only has 58 posts by 37 users, while hundreds posted on the forum last July.

The company appears to be continuing with its investigation into the issue and will most likely figure out what's happening within the next few days.

Read More..

Scarred Duckbill Dinosaur Escaped T. Rex Attack

A scar on the face of a duckbill dinosaur received after a close encounter with a Tyrannosaurus rex is the first clear case of a healed dinosaur wound, scientists say.

The finding, detailed in the current issue of the journal Cretaceous Research, also reveals that the healing properties of dinosaur skin were likely very similar to that of modern reptiles.

The lucky dinosaur was an adult Edmontosaurus annectens, a species of duckbill dinosaur that lived in what is today the Hell Creek region of South Dakota about 65 to 67 million years ago. (Explore a prehistoric time line.)

A teardrop-shaped patch of fossilized skin about 5 by 5 inches (12 by 14 centimeters) that was discovered with the creature's bones and is thought to have come from above its right eye, includes an oval-shaped section that is incongruous with the surrounding skin. (Related: "'Dinosaur Mummy' Found; Have Intact Skin, Tissue.")

Bruce Rothschild, a professor of medicine at the University of Kansas and Northeast Ohio Medical University, said the first time he laid eyes on it, it was "quite clear" to him that he was looking at an old wound.

"That was unequivocal," said Rothschild, who is a co-author of the new study.

A Terrible Attacker

The skull of the scarred Edmontosaurus also showed signs of trauma, and from the size and shape of the marks on the bone, Rothschild and fellow co-author Robert DePalma, a paleontologist at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History in Florida, speculate the creature was attacked by a T. rex.

It's likely, though still unproven, that both the skin wound and the skull injury were sustained during the same attack, the scientists say. The wound "was large enough to have been a claw or a tooth," Rothschild said.

Rothschild and DePalma also compared the dinosaur wound to healed wounds on modern reptiles, including iguanas, and found the scar patterns to be nearly identical.

It isn't surprising that the wounds would be similar, said paleontologist David Burnham of the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute, since dinosaurs and lizards are distant cousins.

"That's kind of what we would expect," said Burnham, who was not involved in the study. "It's what makes evolution work—that we can depend on this."

Dog-Eat-Dog

Phil Bell, a paleontologist with the Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Initiative in Canada who also was not involved in the research, called the Edmontosaurus fossil "a really nicely preserved animal with a very obvious scar."

He's not convinced, however, that it was caused by a predator attack. The size of the scar is relatively small, Bell said, and would also be consistent with the skin being pierced in some other accident such as a fall.

"But certainly the marks that you see on the skull, those are [more consistent] with Tyrannosaur-bitten bones," he added.

Prior to the discovery, scientists knew of one other case of a dinosaur wound. But in that instance, it was an unhealed wound that scientists think was inflicted by scavengers after the creature was already dead.

It's very likely that this particular Edmontosaurus wasn't the only dinosaur to sport scars, whether from battle wounds or accidents, Bell added.

"I would imagine just about every dinosaur walking around had similar scars," he said. (Read about "Extreme Dinosaurs" in National Geographic magazine.)

"Tigers and lions have scarred noses, and great white sharks have got dings on their noses and nips taken out of their fins. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and [Edmontosaurus was] unfortunately in the line of fire from some pretty big and nasty predators ... This one was just lucky to get away."

Mysterious Escape

Just how Edmontosaurus survived a T. rex attack is still unclear. "Escape from a T. rex is something that we wouldn't think would happen," Burnham said.

Duckbill dinosaurs, also known as Hadrosaurs, were not without defenses. Edmontosaurus, for example, grew up to 30 feet (9 meters) in length, and could swipe its hefty tail or kick its legs to fell predators.

Furthermore, they were fast. "Hadrosaurs like Edmontosaurus had very powerful [running] muscles, which would have made them difficult to catch once they'd taken flight," Bell said.

Duckbills were also herd animals, so maybe this one escaped with help from neighbors. Or perhaps the T. rex that attacked it was young. "There's something surrounding this case that we don't know yet," Burnham said.

Figuring out the details of the story is part of what makes paleontology exciting, he added. "We construct past lives. We can go back into a day in the life of this animal and talk about an attack and [about] it getting away. That's pretty cool."

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Arias Recounts Each Moment of Stabbing, Slashing

Accused murderer Jodi Arias was forced to recount today each detail of how she killed her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, including re-enacting how he allegedly tackled her when she shot him, leaving her crying in her hands on the witness stand.

During hours of dramatic cross-examination by prosecutor Juan Martinez, Arias bawled as he asked her about stabbing, slashing and shooting Alexander on June 4, 2008.

"You would acknowledge that Mr. Alexander was stabbed, and that the stabbing was with the knife, and it was after the shooting according to you, right?" Martinez said in rapid succession.

"Yes, I don't remember," Arias said, covering her face with her hands.

"Do you acknowledge the stab wounds, and we can count them together, were to the back of the head and the torso?" Martinez said, flashing a photo of Alexander's bloodied body onto the courtroom projector. " Do you want to take a look at the photo?"

Arias, burying her face in her hands and shutting her eyes on the stand, mumbled, "No."

Alexander's sisters, seated in the front row of the gallery, also looked away, crying.

Arias, 32, is accused of killing Alexander on June 4, 2008 out of jealousy. He was stabbed 27 times, his throat was slashed and he was shot in the head twice.

Arias claims she killed in self-defense after Alexander had become increasingly violent with her. She could face the death penalty if convicted.

Martinez also forced Arias to demonstrate in court today how she claims Alexander lunged at her "like a linebacker," causing her to fire the gun at him. The pair argued over how exactly Alexander was positioned, and Martinez pushed her to explain what she meant.

"He lunges at me like a linebacker," Arias said.

"Like a linebacker, what does that mean?" Martinez asked.

Jodi Arias Under Attack in Third Day of Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias, Prosecutor Butt Heads in Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Maintains She 'Felt Like a Prostitute' Watch Video

"He was low. It was almost like he dove," she said, and trying to explain it further, added, "He was like a linebacker is the only way I can describe it unless I get up to act it out which I'd rather not do."

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial

"Go ahead and do it," Martinez said. "Just stand. Go ahead."

Judge Sherry Stephens initially cleared the court as Arias demonstrated and then Martinez had her do it again after the jury and spectators were allowed back into the courtroom.

Standing and moving away from the witness box, Arias bent at the waist and spread out her arms and meekly made a slight lunging motion.

According to her testimony, Arias fired the gun as Alexander rushed at her, tackling her to the ground. She said she does not remember how she stabbed or slashed him.

It was a day of dramatics and anger as the prosecution pressed Arias on the details of the killing, with Martinez ending the afternoon of questioning by accusing Arias of lying throughout her direct testimony.

At one point Arias dissolved into tears, unable to answer pointed questions when shown a photo of Alexander's body lying crumpled in the bottom of the stall shower.

After a short pause, Martinez asked dryly, "Were you crying when you were shooting him?"

"I don't remember," Arias moaned.

"Were you crying when you stabbed him?" he said. "How about when you slashed his throat?"

"I don't remember, I don't know."

Martinez pressed on, "You're the one that did this right? And lied about all this right?"

"Yes."

"So then take a look at it," he barked.

Arias did not answer Martinez's question, crying into her hands instead. The judge, after a moment, called for the lunch recess to take a break from the testimony. Arias' attorney walked over and consoled her, telling her to "take a moment."

Until that moment, Arias had given vague answers to Martinez as he asked about the hours leading up to the murder. Arias, 32, has testified that she drove to Alexander's house on June 4, 2008, for a sexual liaison, that she had sex with Alexander and the pair took nude photos before an explosive confrontation ended with her killing him. She claims she doesn't remember stabbing Alexander, but insists it was in self-defense.

Martinez questioned her claims, asking exactly what they argued about and who encouraged whom to take the nude photos. He pointed out that Arias told Detective Esteban Flores of the Mesa police department that she had to convince Alexander to take the nude photos in the shower, but that she testified on the stand that Alexander had wanted them.

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Quantum skyfall puts Einstein's gravity to the test

DIVIDING a falling cloud of frozen atoms sounds like an exotic weather experiment. In fact, it's the latest way to probe whether tiny objects obey Einstein's theory of general relativity, our leading explanation for gravity.

General relativity is based on the equivalence principle, which says that in free fall, all objects fall at the same rate, whatever their mass, provided the only force at work is gravity. That has been proven for large objects: legend has it that Galileo did it first by dropping various balls from the Tower of Pisa. Whether equivalence holds at quantum scales, where gravity's effects are not well understood, isn't clear. Figuring it out could help create a quantum theory of gravity, one of the biggest goals of modern physics.

Creating a quantum equivalent of Galileo's test isn't easy. In 2010 a team led by Ernst Rasel of the University of Hannover in Germany monitored a quantum object in free fall, by tossing a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) – a cloud of chilled atoms that behaves as a single quantum object and so is both particle and wave – down a 110-metre tall tower. Now they have split and recombined the wave – all before the BEC, made of rubidium atoms, reached the bottom. This produces an interference pattern that records the path of the falling atoms and can be used to calculate their acceleration (Physical Review Letters, doi.org/km6). The next step is to do the same experiment on a different kind of atom, with a different mass, to see if the equivalence principle holds.

The BEC can only be split for 100 milliseconds in the tower before hitting the bottom, so to allow tiny differences between the atom types to emerge, the work must be repeated in space, where the waves can be split for longer. By showing that a matter-wave can be split and recombined while falling, Rasel's result is a "major step" towards the space version, says Charles Wang of the University of Aberdeen, UK.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Quantum skyfall tests Einstein's gravity"

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Asian markets rise on Wall St rally, ECB comments

HONG KONG: Asian markets rose Thursday after the Dow on Wall Street hit a more than five-year high, while the head of the European Central Bank soothed concerns over the eurozone.

A strong bond sale in Italy also helped the euro despite uncertainty after weekend polls, while the yen resumed its downward trend after Japan's government nominated a fan of aggressive easing as the new central bank governor.

Tokyo climbed 2.04 per cent as the yen sank on confirmation that Japan's government had put forward Haruhiko Kuroda to take over at the Bank of Japan.

Kuroda, the current Asian Development Bank chief, is known as an advocate of a looser monetary policy to overcome slow growth, in line with the views of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The dollar bought 92.44 yen, compared with 92.16 yen in New York late Wednesday.

Hong Kong shares advanced 1.10 per cent, Sydney added 0.71 per cent, Seoul rose 1.02 per cent and Shanghai was up 0.39 per cent.

ECB President Mario Draghi said Wednesday the bank would preserve the integrity of the eurozone, reasserting its commitment to buy up bonds of under-pressure countries.

"We are committed to preserving the integrity of our currency, in the interests of all people of the euro area," he said.

The announcement, which came after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said its own huge easing would stay in place, came as welcome relief to markets after Italy's poll deadlock raised fears of a return to Europe's debt crisis.

On forex markets the euro rebounded after being hammered in the wake of Sunday's inconclusive poll, which saw voters shun austerity policies and leave the country with a hung parliament.

The euro sat at $1.3150 and 121.56 yen in Tokyo, from $1.3136 and 121.07 yen -- and well up from the levels just above $1.30 and 119 yen seen earlier in the week.

The single currency was also given support from news that Rome had successfully sold 6.5 billion euros of treasury bonds, albeit at a higher price, providing evidence for now that it can borrow cash to pay its own bills.

On Wall Street the Dow ended at its highest level since October 2007 after reports showed US pending home sales rebounded sharply in January to the highest level in almost three years.

In other positive news, durable goods orders in January -- excluding volatile aircraft -- surged 1.9 per cent, with gains particularly strong in capital goods, suggesting business confidence in the economy in upcoming months.

The Dow jumped 1.26 per cent, while the S&P 500 rose 1.27 per cent and the Nasdaq added 1.04 per cent.

Oil prices rose, with New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, gaining 34 cents to $93.10 a barrel and Brent North Sea crude for April delivery adding 35 cents to $112.22.

Gold was at $1,597.70 at 0220 GMT compared with $1,608.32 late Wednesday.

- AFP/ck

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Bitcoin virtual currency hits record high after exchange deal

The Bitcoin exchange rate against U.S. dollars for the past couple of years (clock for larger image).

(Credit:
Mt. Gox)

Bitcoin has staged a dramatic comeback in the past two months, more than doubling its value against the dollar in that time and trading at record levels.

The virtual currency was trading above $32 a share today after languishing in the mid-teens in January. The record was reached on the same day that Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, reached an agreement with CoinLab to manage the exchange's operations in the U.S. and Canada.

Bitcoin sprang up in 2009 as a peer-to-peer currency that intentionally avoided the prying eyes of law enforcement officials. In order to acquire Bitcoins, users access exchange sites to transfer actual currency, such as U.S. dollars, into the digital option.

However, after struggling to crack the U.S. market, the Japanese exchange hopes its arrangement with the Seattle-based startup, which has a partnership with Silicon Valley Bank and $500,000 in VC funding, will increase customer confidence.

"There are two major difficulties Bitcoin exchange customers have traditionally faced: banking troubles for the underlying exchange, and security of their coins," CoinLab CEO Peter Vessenes wrote in a company blog post announcing the partnership. "Since we believe in Bitcoin, we'd like to solve these problems."

The currency has experienced a rollercoaster ride in the past two years, setting its previous record of $31.90 in June 2011 before plummeting to $2 later that same year. Its exchange rate began to improve in mid-November when the popular blogging platform WordPress announced it would begin accepting Bitcoin payment for upgrades such as custom designs and ad-free presentations.

(Via TNW)

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Why African Rhinos Are Facing a Crisis

The body count for African rhinos killed for their horns is approaching crisis proportions, according to the latest figures released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

To National Geographic reporter Peter Gwin, the dire numbers—a rhinoceros slain every 11 minutes since the beginning of 2013—don't come as a surprise. "The killing will continue as long as criminal gangs know they can expect high profits for selling horns to Asian buyers," said Gwin, who wrote about the violent and illegal trade in rhino horn in the March 2012 issue of the magazine.

The recent surge in poaching has been fueled by a thriving market in Vietnam and China for rhino horn, used as a traditional medicine believed to cure everything from hangovers to cancer. Since 2011, at least 1,700 rhinos, or 7 percent of the total population, have been killed and their horns hacked off, according to the IUCN. More than two-thirds of the casualties occurred in South Africa, home to 73 percent of the world's wild rhinos. In Africa there are currently 5,055 black rhinos, listed as critically endangered by the IUCN, and 20,405 white rhinos. (From our blog: "South African Rhino Poaching Hits New High.")

Trying to snuff out poaching by itself won't work, said Gwin. The South African government is fighting a losing battle on the ground to gangs using helicopters, dart guns, high-powered weapons—and lots of money. (National Geographic pictures: The bloody poaching battle over rhino horn [contains graphic images].)

"Every year they get tougher on poaching, but rhino killings continue to rise astronomically," said Gwin. "Somehow they have to address the demand side in a meaningful way. This means either shutting down the Asian markets for rhino horn, or controversially, finding a way to sustainably harvest rhino horns, control their legal sale, and meet what appears to be a huge demand. Either will be a formidable endeavor."

Hope and Hurdles

The signing in December of a memorandum of understanding between South Africa and Vietnam to deal with rhino poaching and other conservation issues raises hope for some concrete action. Observers say the next step is for the two governments to follow through with tangible crime-stopping efforts such as intelligence sharing and other collaboration. The highest hurdle to stopping criminal trade, though, is cultural, Gwin believes. "In Vietnam and China, a lot of people simply believe that as a traditional cure, rhino horn works." (Related: "Blood Ivory.")

The recent climb in rhino deaths threatens what had been a conservation success story. Since 1995, due to better law enforcement, monitoring, and other actions, the overall rhino numbers have steadily risen. The poaching epidemic, the IUCN warns, could dramatically slow and possibly reverse population gains.

The population growth is also being stymied by South Africa's private game farmers, who breed rhinos for sport hunting and tourism and for many years have helped rebuild rhino numbers. Many of them are getting out of the business due to the high costs of security and other risks associated with the poaching invasions.

Those who still have rhinos on their farms will often pay a veterinarian to cut the horns off—under government supervision—to dissuade poachers, but the process costs more than $2,000 and has to be repeated when the horns grow back every two years. Even then the farmers are stuck with horns that are illegal to sell—and which criminals seek to obtain.

Room for Debate

Rhino killings and the trade in their horns will be a major topic at a high-profile conference, the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which opens in Bangkok March 3. What won't surprise Gwin is if the issue of sustainably harvesting rhino horns from live animals comes up for discussion.

"It's an idea that seems to be gaining traction among some South African politicians and law enforcement circles," he said, noting that the international conservation community strongly opposes any talk of legalizing the trade of rhino horn, sustainably harvested or not. The bottom line for all parties in the discussion is clear, said Gwin: "The slaughter has to stop if rhinos are to survive."

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Arias Prosecutor Too Combative, Experts Say

He has barked, yelled, been sarcastic and demanded answers from accused murderer Jodi Arias this week.

And in doing so, prosecutor Juan Martinez and his aggressive antics may be turning off the jury he is hoping to convince that Arias killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, experts told ABCNews.com today.

"Martinez is his own worst enemy," Mel McDonald, a prominent Phoenix defense attorney and former judge, told ABC News. "He takes it to the point where it's ad nauseam. You have difficulty recognizing when he's driving the point home because he's always angry and pushy and pacing around the courtroom. He loses the effectiveness, rather than build it up."

"He's like a rabid dog and believes you've got to go to everybody's throat," he said.

"If they convict her and give her death, they do it in spite of Juan, not because of him," McDonald added.

Martinez's needling style was on display again today as he pestered Arias to admit that she willingly participated in kinky sex with Alexander, though she previously testified that she only succumbed to his erotic fantasies to please him.

Arias, now 32, and Alexander, who was 27 at the time of his death, dated for a year and continued to sleep together for another year following their break-up.

Arias drove to his house in Mesa, Ariz., in June 2008, had sex with him, they took nude photos together and she killed him in his shower. She claims it was in self-defense. If convicted, Arias could face the death penalty.

Jodi Arias, Prosecutor Butt Heads in Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Maintains She 'Felt Like a Prostitute' Watch Video

Jodi Arias Admits to Killing Man, Lying to Police Watch Video

Martinez also attempted to point out inconsistencies in her story of the killing, bickering with her over details about her journey from Yreka, Calif., to Mesa, Ariz., including why she borrowed gas cans from an ex-boyfriend, when she allegedly took naps and got lost while driving, and why she spontaneously decided to visit Alexander at his home in Mesa for a sexual liaison.

"I want to know what you're talking about," Arias said to Martinez at one point.

"No, I'm asking you," he yelled.

Later, he bellowed, "Am I asking you if you're telling the truth?"

"I don't know," Arias said, firing back at him. "Are you?"

During three days of cross examining Arias this week, Martinez has spent hours going back and forth with the defendant over word choice, her memory, and her answers to his questions.

"Everyone who takes witness stand for defense is an enemy," McDonald said. "He prides himself on being able to work by rarely referring to his notes, but what he's giving up in that is that there's so much time he wastes on stupid comments. A lot of what I've heard is utterly objectionable."

Martinez's behavior has spurred frequent objections of "witness badgering" from Arias' attorney Kirk Nurmi, who at one point Tuesday stood up in court and appealed to the judge to have a conference with all of the attorneys before questioning continued. Judge Sherry Stephens at one point admonished Martinez and Arias for speaking over one another.

Andy Hill, a former spokesperson for the Phoenix police department, and Steven Pitt, a forensic psychiatrist who has testified as an expert witness at many trials in the Phoenix area, both said that despite his aggressive style, Martinez would likely succeed in obtaining a guilty verdict.

"When it comes to cross examination, one size does not fit all," said Pitt. "But if you set aside the incessant sparring, what the prosecutor I believe is effectively doing is pointing out the various inconsistencies in the defendant's version of events."

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Newly spotted comet to buzz Mars in 2014

Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter

A Martian sunset, as seen by NASA's Spirit rover in 2005.
(Image: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, Texas A&M, Cornell, JPL, NASA)

There's a new comet in town, and it is making a beeline for Mars. If projections of its orbit are correct, the icy visitor will buzz the Red Planet in October 2014.

Dubbed C/2013 A1, the comet was discovered on 3 January by prolific comet hunter Robert McNaught at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. Colleagues at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona found images of the comet in their catalogue that date back to 8 December 2012, giving additional information about its movements.

These observations allowed astronomers to trace the comet's likely path around the sun. The calculated trajectory has C/2013 A1 crossing Mars' orbit on 19 October 2014, according to Australian blogger Ian Musgrave.

That doesn't necessarily mean a collision will occur. The best estimates right now have the comet passing a safe distance of 900,000 kilometres from the Martian surface. Asteroid 2012 DA14 got much closer to Earth last week, skimming by at a distance of 34,400 kilometres. But with so little data in hand, the calculations are not precise. It's possible the comet will miss Mars by as much as 36 million kilometres - or it could smack right into the planet. "An impact can't be ruled out at this stage," Musgrave wrote.

From Earth, we should be able to see the comet and Mars sitting side by side through small telescopes. And from Mars, the comet could be as spectacular as the expected "supercomet" ISON, which will come into view this year and could outshine the full moon.

Assuming the comet's orbit brings it close enough - but not too close - to Mars, the object should be visible either by rovers on the surface or the armada of Mars-orbiting satellites, which have a history of snapping spectacular shots of the Red Planet and its neighborhood.

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Asian markets up on Fed stand, strong yen hits Tokyo

HONG KONG: Asian markets mostly rose on Wednesday after US Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke reaffirmed the central bank's huge monetary easing scheme, but a stronger yen sent Tokyo lower.

Investors remained hesitant and the euro came under pressure after Italy's election results which left no party in overall control, raising concerns that uncertainty in Rome could see the eurozone return to the dark days of crisis.

Tokyo fell 0.78 per cent by noon but Hong Kong rose 0.44 per cent, Sydney added 0.64 per cent, Shanghai climbed 1.14 per cent and Seoul was 0.18 per cent higher.

In testimony to Congress Bernanke said the Fed's $85 billion a month bond-purchase programme aimed at holding down long-term interest rates and encouraging investment -- known as quantitative easing -- was still merited.

While warning that looming steep budget cuts could slow growth, he stressed high unemployment was a main challenge to the economy, adding that the risks of the programme -- inflation, and risky behaviour in the financial industry -- were being monitored closely.

Bernanke said the programme was "providing important support to the recovery".

His comments on Tuesday were a relief for financial markets, which stumbled last week after minutes from the Fed's latest policy meeting suggested some members wanted to curtail the policy before the economy was back in track.

"Bernanke confirmed the Fed's commitment to continue quantitative easing until unemployment falls, and US economic data are clearly improving," Martin Lakos, division director in Macquarie's Private Wealth division in Australia, told Dow Jones Newswires.

On Wall Street the Dow rose 0.84 per cent, the S&P 500 added 0.61 per cent and the Nasdaq jumped 0.43 per cent.

US investors also took comfort in surprisingly robust new home sales while the Conference Board's February consumer confidence index showed a surprise jump to 69.6 from 58.4 in January, well above the average analyst estimate of 62.0.

But the dollar fell against the yen in Asia as dealers sought the safe havens after the inconclusive Italian elections.

The dollar bought 91.70 yen in Tokyo Wednesday, from 91.93 yen in New York late Tuesday and well off the 94.77 yen high seen on Monday.

The euro slipped to $1.3043 and 119.60 yen from $1.3061 and 120.08 yen.

Eurozone fears have been reignited after the Italian polls, which left the country with a hung parliament and a protest party effectively holding the balance of power.

Investors fear the outcome will mean Italy will reverse the austerity policies put in place to pay off its debts, with implications for the wider region.

Italian leftist leader Pier Luigi Bersani, who said he had "come first but not won", warned that the huge anti-austerity protest vote should be heeded beyond Italy's borders, adding: "The bell tolls also for Europe."

Oil prices were mixed, with New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, shedding two cents to $92.61 while Brent North Sea crude for April delivery gained three cents to $112.74.

Gold was at $1,612.40 at 0220 GMT compared with $1,597.80 late Tuesday.

- AFP/ck

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'Angry Birds Toons' TV series to launch March 16

First it was stuffed animals, then T-shirts, and now it's a television show -- the Angry Birds franchise just continues to grow.

Rovio announced today that the first episode of the weekly Angry Birds cartoon TV show, "Angry Birds Toons," is set to air on March 16. Viewers will be able to watch what is happening "deep in the heart of Piggy Island" and find out whether those merciless piggies ever get hold of the birds' eggs.

The game maker hinted at turning the wildly popular game into an animated TV series last April. In addition to the cartoon, the company has also said that an Angry Birds movie is in the works, which is expected to debut in the middle of 2016. It seems Rovio's overall goal is to transform from a gaming company to an entertainment company.

Zynga is also getting into the entertainment business. The social gaming company is working with Director Brett Ratner, of "Prison Break" fame, to create a half-hour animated television series on the popular game Farmville.

It's unclear what devices, apps, and sites will eventually air "Angry Birds Toons." But it's been said that there will be 52 episodes that will each last about three minutes and be available on a variety of devices. For the March 16 premier, it looks like the cartoon will only be broadcast on the show's Web site.

Here's a trailer for the series:

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A History of Balloon Crashes

A hot-air balloon exploded in Egypt yesterday as it carried 19 people over ancient ruins near Luxor. The cause is believed to be a torn gas hose. In Egypt as in many other countries, balloon rides are a popular way to sightsee. (Read about unmanned flight in National Geographic magazine.)

The sport of hot-air ballooning dates to 1783, when a French balloon took to the skies with a sheep, a rooster, and a duck. Apparently, they landed safely. But throughout the history of the sport, there have been tragedies like the one in Egypt. (See pictures of personal-flight technology.)

1785: Pioneering balloonist Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and pilot Pierre Romain died when their balloon caught fire, possibly from a stray spark, and crashed during an attempt to cross the English Channel. They were the first to die in a balloon crash.

1923: Five balloonists participating in the Gordon Bennett Cup, a multi-day race that dates to 1906, were killed when lightning struck their balloons.

1924: Meteorologist C. LeRoy Meisinger and U.S. Army balloonist James T. Neely died after a lightning strike. They had set off from Scott Field in Illinois during a storm to study air pressure. Popular Mechanics dubbed them "martyrs of science."

1995: Tragedy strikes the Gordon Bennett Cup again. Belarusian forces shot down one of three balloons that drifted into their airspace from Poland. The two Americans on board died. The other balloonists were detained and fined for entering Belarus without a visa. (Read about modern explorers who take to the skies.)

1989: Two hot air balloons collided during a sightseeing trip near Alice Springs, Australia. One balloon crashed to the ground killing all 13 people on board. The pilot of the other balloon was sentenced to a two-year prison term for "committing a dangerous act." Until today, this was considered the most deadly balloon accident.

2012: A balloon hit a power line and caught fire in New Zealand, killing all 11 on board. Investigators later determined that the pilot was not licensed to fly and had not taken  proper safety measures during the crash, like triggering the balloon's parachute and deflation system.

2012: A sightseeing balloon carrying 32 people crashed and caught fire during a thunderstorm in the Ljubljana Marshes in Slovenia. Six died; many other passengers were injured.

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Inside Organized Retail Crime Raids

We used to call it shoplifting, but these days the foot soldiers of retail crime rings are known as boosters. Police even have an acronym for these operations: ORC, which stands for Organized Retail Crime.

"It's just like a Fortune 500 company," said Sergeant Eric Lee of the Gardena Police Department in Gardena, Calif. "All of this is just organized."

Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET

Police say big retail stores, from Walgreens to J.C. Penny, are getting hit by highly sophisticated shoplifting networks that steal and resell everything from underwear to razors to milk. According to the National Retail Federation, theft can amount to annual losses as high as a $37 billion for retail businesses.

"Every store in every city has to go through this," Lee said. "They wait until no one's paying attention and they walk out."

Tide detergent is currently a hot target because it is compact, expensive and easy to sell on the streets for profit, police said. The Street name: "liquid gold."

"Sometimes we get rings that just do alcohol," Lee said. "And then we get some that do just meat and seafood."

Investigators say boosters move the loot for cents on the dollar to fencing operations -- the black market resellers of the stolen goods -- which sell the stolen merchandise in plain sight in stores. Boosters, fencers, Mr. Bigs, all of those involved in these shoplifting operations can potentially make millions a year from boosting and re-selling stolen goods.

Craigslist Crackdown: Cops Go After Thieves Watch Video

Alleged Underage Prostitution in Philippines Watch Video

And Mike Swett is on the case. A former Riverside County sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles, Swett was badly injured in a car wreck and now works as a full-time private investigator on the ORC beat who has worked with Target, Marshalls, T.J. Maxx. Stores hire him to do his own undercover police work, catching thieves before involving local law enforcement.

"Kind of like working a narcotics case, it's like you've got low-level, mid-level and then top dog," Swett said. "We like to go after the top dog and the only way to get to the top dog is mid-level first."

At his command center -- his apartment -- Swett showed off the boxes upon boxes of tapes and photographs he has collected, the fruits of countless silent stake-out hours.

Swett said he has been casing two joints in L.A. for months, both alleged to be mid-level fencing operations. "Nightline" was invited to ride along with him when he sent undercover agents in for a final reconnaissance mission.

At some stores and shopping malls, clerks do little to stop shoplifters and often let them run, which has contributed to the growing fencing operations.

"[The stores] don't want their employees to get injured," Swett said. "So oftentimes they will call the police, but by the time we get there they are already in their car and they are gone."

This leaves professional investigators like Swett to put the pieces together and bust open the gangs to lead over-stretched police departments to the prey.

When raid day arrived, a motorcade of squad cars departed from the Gardena, Calif., police department and pulled up to one fencing operation. Swett said the merchandise being sold was boosted goods.

"There is Victoria's Secret, expensive Victoria's Secret, the gift sets," he said, pointing down a line of tables. "J.C. Penny, Miramax, its real stuff not counterfeit."

He spotted a bottle of Katy Perry brand perfume, which usually retails for around $90 but one seller had it priced at $59.

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Today on New Scientist: 25 February 2013

First fruits of a groundbreaking art-science tie-up

A pioneering collaboration between two of London's most prestigious cultural institutions shows that sci-art has come of age

The great illusion of the self

Your mind's greatest trick is convincing you of your own reality. Discover the elaborate illusions involved and what they mean in our special feature

Stunning seeds: a biological meteor wreathed in flames

Some seeds have a look that evokes all-consuming fire, says an artist who captures their portraits with a flatbed scanner

Armband adds a twitch to gesture control

The Myo band turns electrical activity in the muscles of a user's forearm into gestures for controlling computers and other devices

Treat malware as biology to know it better

Treating computer viruses as a biological puzzle could help computer scientists get a better handle on the wide world of malware

Take my taxi to the moon

Susmita Mohanty, the founder of India's first private space company, Earth2Orbit, wants India to claim bigger piece of the space-launch pie

How electrodes in the brain block obsessive behaviour

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Ancient continent hides beneath Indian Ocean

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UN calls for independent inquiry into Palestinian death

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations called Monday for an independent inquiry into the death of a Palestinian in Israeli custody, warning that mounting tensions risk an eruption of violence in the occupied territories.

The Palestinians also demanded an independent investigation in a letter to the UN Security Council, which said that Arafat Jaradat, who died at the weekend, could have been tortured.

UN Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry made the call for an investigation in a statement after talks with Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad on the Jaradat's death.

Serry noted that Israeli and Palestinian experts had examined the body.

"The United Nations expects the autopsy to be followed by an independent and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Mr Jaradat's death, the results of which should be made public as soon as possible," the envoy added.

Jaradat was detained on February 18 and died five days later.

Israeli prison authorities said Jaradat appeared to have died of a heart attack. But the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, Issa Qaraqaa, citing the preliminary findings of the joint autopsy, reported bruises on Jaradat's body, muscle damage and broken ribs.

A letter sent by Palestinian UN ambassador Riyad Mansour to the Security Council said the autopsy revealed that Jaradat "was subjected to severe beatings, abuse and medical negligence during his captivity, possibly amounting to torture."

The letter said Jaradat had six broken bones in his neck, spine, arms and legs, along with other injuries.

Israel has said the prisoner could have suffered broken bones in attempts to resuscitate him after the heart attack.

"This horrific incident is further proof of the inhumane treatment systematically meted out by Israel against Palestinians in its jails," added the letter, which called for an "impartial investigation" and Security Council action to make Israel abide by humanitarian law.

Thousands attended the Jaradat's West Bank funeral on Monday and some militants have threatened revenge for his death.

Serry's statement said "mounting tensions present a real risk of destabilisation".

UN leader Ban Ki-moon expressed concern last week about the deteriorating state of Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli jails and said that the rights of all Palestinian detainees must be fully respected.

-AFP/sb

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Twitter to build app for new Firefox OS smartphones

Twitter for Firefox OS.

(Credit:
Twitter)

Twitter is jumping into the Firefox mobile mania, committing an app to the forthcoming platform.

The microblogging site announced today that when devices running Mozilla's browser-based operating system begin to be shipped to consumers in the next couple of months, it will have an app for the mobile platform in its
Firefox Marketplace.

"Similar to our other mobile apps, Twitter for Firefox OS has a rich interface, featuring the Home, Connect, Discover and Me tabs, as well as the search and compose Tweet icons, so you can easily find and send Tweets from anywhere in the app," Twitter engineer Manuel Deschamps wrote in a company blog post today.

The new app will also feature Web Activities, a feature unique to Firefox OS that allows users to tweet photos from within any app that supports the feature.

Mozilla announced yesterday at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain, that it's lined up 18 mobile network operators and four mobile phone makers to back its open-source mobile operating system. The first phones should arrive in the second quarter of the year.

Like its desktop cousin, Firefox OS runs Web apps written in Web languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but it also features phone-specific interfaces for things like monitoring battery life and phone orientation.

Mozilla won commitments to sell Firefox OS phones from these carriers: America Moovil, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Qtel, SingTel, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia Group, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, TMN, and VimpelCom. Handset manufacturers on board are Alcatel, ZTE, LG Electronics, and Huawei, with a boost from chipmaker Qualcomm.

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