? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/europa-report-report-160800741.html
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Sunday, August 4, 2013
The Europa Report: A Report
I have to say, being asked to review a film for Scientific American has to be one of the most randomly awesome things that's happened to this scientist, especially since the film is about Europa. As a UCLA PhD, most of my friends were graphics and production guys, so I've got to try to put in my former Los Angelino-$0.02. As someone totally, completely UTTERLY obsessed with Europa, I've thought through the moment of first contact myself thousands of times. What could it be like to see under that ice??? How would I feel? So, imagine my absolute joy to learn that there was a full-length feature film coming out that centered on exactly this scenario...what might happen if we sent people to Europa? Mind you, I've always imagined a robots-first scenario, but I would volunteer tomorrow for a one-way trip to see Europa in all its icy glory orbiting Jupiter with my own eyes. So premise? Check. Then I found out: it's a horror movie. SWEET!! I've often kidded, in fact, and only half-jokingly, that with my luck, we'll send a sub down, and in the first live pictures, a huge sea spider will crawl across the view and I'll have a heart attack right there. I'm an arachnophobe but I would still love to see that happen...so of course that's what I imagined would crawl out of the ice in the Europa Report . If I think about sci-fi movies, Mars has gotten it's fair share of the press--Mission to Mars, Total Recall, Mars Attacks! You get my drift. Little Europa has starring in indie films and making quick appearances waiting for the big break, for a cameo as one of the sister moons to Pandora in James Cameron's Avatar. In 2010: A Space Odyssey, we got to hear these ever-ominous words (to which NASA seems to be listening), "all these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there." But this didn't stop the team who wrote and filmed The Europa Report. The movie is set in the not-so-distant future, with exciting new science results compelling humanity to make Europa its first stop in space. We hear from the director of a private corporation, with international membership, which has decided that Europa is too compelling to ignore, and have chosen it as the first target for human exploration (By now I'm cheering, since I agree!!!!) The movie sets up the way we set up for any space mission...press conferences, talking about the science, introducing the intrepid crew who've been training for years for this moment, commentary from mission directors, images of crew capsules being towed down city streets. But we also get the picture...something has gone terribly wrong. We're to be left for most of the film wondering just what has happened to Europa One. In fact, the whole beginning of the film was incredibly exciting. The reasons that the Europa One team cites for going to Europa are a mixture of ripped from the headlines science about lakes on Europa, (OMG that's our paper, our lakes on the silver screen! Bucket list, check!) and a fictional heat signature emanating from Conamara Chaos that the whole world agrees are too compelling to ignore. The film feels more like a documentary, and for the most part, pretty believable. You could imagine what it would be like to be one of these crew members. The eerie and beautiful scene of the spacecraft passing the moon, becoming the farthest out that humanity has ever gone, and then realizing that there are years of travel ahead, just puts into perspective how far we have left to go as a species, and that moment isn't lost on the film. I'm not going to ruin the movie for you by describing in detail all of what comes next--a flight to Europa, loss of data relay to the ground, the launch of a crew vehicle down to the surface, Blair Witch-style photography mixed with crew interviews and commentary from mission control after the fact are all spliced together in a kind of back-and-forth in time that builds suspense for the landed mission. And, spoiler alert, a cameo by a creepy, apparently evil and radioactive version of one of my favorite animals. So onto the science. The producers said they cared about the science, and they proved it. I've made a list of the things they've gotten right and the few they've gotten wrong. The Good: The launch of Europa One is particularly well done--it's a mix of footage from the cape and Apollo-reminiscent external camera views as the rocket launches, and then as the boosters fall away. There's nothing more enthralling than standing at Cape Canaveral, waiting for the moment your mission is going to leave this world and head for another--I'm not sure I can describe it well enough, but the film does a great job of capturing the experience. The flyovers use actual images from NASA spacecraft. I choked up at the first flyover of Europa (seriously, heart in throat). They took the Galileo images that I know so well and brought them to life. I've had that dream so many times...flying past beautiful Jupiter, with its flowing atmosphere like a real life Monet, and glimpsing the bright glittering surface of Europa speckled with brown indications of a hidden dynamic world. I could feel the awe bubbling up. They correctly represent the scientists--unlike what you might guess from the Big Bang Theory or from Michael Bay movies, scientists aren't all pocket protector nerds and certainly aren't sex-starved supermodel-hot-yet-misunderstood blondes (I can barely afford my student loan payments, you won't be seeing me in a Gucci suit at the office anytime soon). We're mostly excited, slightly obsessive people with average wardrobes (ok perhaps slightly worse than average) who just want to tell you how awesome it is that we get to work on something we'd probably do for free. We would certainly walk the extra hundred meters to get that once in a lifetime sample of figure out what the glowing light is. They captured the reality of spaceflight in our current time: with funding for science and space at its lowest point since the 80's and with increasing risk aversion, there are things public spaceflight just may not accomplish. Hopefully, the rise of private space flight will lower launch costs and let the public sector do what it does best--frontier, fundamental research. But unless priorities change soon, there are things we just can't--and really won't--with public space programs. The movie shows exactly what we all know--technology is incredible and moving fast, but there are things we just can't do with robots, tasks for which a human is still required. The "Meh" I'm guessing the rockets they launched from are not large enough, despite being well done. Visually, the launch looks like an Atlas V with more boosters, though perhaps they are going for the new SLS-style launch. But I was still underwhelmed. Ok, we have to talk about gravity. Every movie has its way of dealing with gravity. In this one, we've got actors at least trying to raise their arms like they are in zero G. There's the spinning spacecraft to "simulate" gravity. And there are some shots where the actors go flying about through the cabin, so ok, I'll give it to them. Ice thickness is a debate (I'd argue mostly solved) in the science community. The preponderance of evidence says the ice shell is really think, at least 10 km and probably closer to 20 km (But don't worry, there is still water up close to the surface and the ice shell thickness probably doesn't matter the way we once thought for the possibility of life there). And while we think there are places where the ice shell disrupts, it's probably NEVER thin enough that a spacecraft would crack the ice, much less a person. But, this is a horror movie, so I guess we can let them have that. Ice 11: there's a point where the actor playing the landing module pilot describes, "we've landed on Ice 11." Ice 11 is pretty cool, literally, forming at a temperature below about 80 K, which I might add is much, much colder than Europa's surface. It's been reported in some very ancient ice in Antarctica, at temperatures higher than that, so maybe it's possible on Europa as well. And while it can be formed in high radiation, that assumes the temperature hasn't cycled past the stability point for ice 11. If you go to Europa to land on a warm spot, I'd wager it's not too likely that the dynamic, recycling surface, especially where it's warm (and apparently thin), is made of Ice 11. At least they didn't say Ice 6, then we'd have to throw down. As much as I hate to say it, launching people to Europa as a first deep space target is pretty insane. The amazing complexity of life support, planning, logistics, etc, would just not be well suited to going there first, not to mention the travel times and complexity of the orbital tour into Europa orbit (which would have been really cool to see in the film!! Hi there, Ganymede!). The Ugly Clich? crazy Russian scientist...I'm getting sick of this one. But there's only one part of the movie I absolutely hated: light coming down through the ice (because of the horrifically cool radiationopus, I'll give them the light going up through the ice, who am I to know what monsterpusses might be capable of?). As I can tell you first hand, precious little light makes it through even the eight meters of sea ice, common off the coast of Antarctica. And there is just no way Europa's ice is that thin, anywhere. Might there be cracks? Sure. But not translucent ice. So at 5 AU, with less intense solar flux than here at Earth, there's certainly not going to be light transmitted through the ice. Just put some headlights on your subs, like we do, and it will STILL look as cool. And by the way, if you go all the way to Europa, melt or drill into the ice with a probe, and let it swim around, wouldn't it occur to you to have a way of measuring when you broke through? I have to say, "I guess the ice must be thinner than we thought" just doesn't cut it for this scientist. But lets not leave it on a bad note. The movie is fun. It's beautiful. The acting is alright actually, in fact at times, it's rather personal (well, except the landing module pilot who has the emotion of a sandwich, and that awkward moment when one of the crew is lost and everyone just stands around, as if waiting to hear "cut"). What I think the film does well is transmit the sense of what could be. From the crew who sacrifice themselves to send back proof of life, to the awe that the folks on the ground feel at the grandeur of the moment, to the documentary-style crew interviews, the movie shows why we study space, and why we dream of going there. As explained by James Corrigan (played by Sharlto Copley of District 9 fame), we're trying to understand ourselves, our place in the universe, and if we are alone. Space science inspires the kind of awe that might lift humanity up, asking us to look outside our selves to a bigger and better sense of who we are and our connection to this amazing universe where we find ourselves. Overall, the film is an enjoyable voyage not short on awe for those who care to jump on board. Images: Europa: NASA/JPL/DLR; movie still, courtesy of Magnet Releasing. Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
Fly London To Brno From Just ?19.99
01.08.13
RYANAIR?S BARGAIN THURSDAY!
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100,000 seats on over 1,000 European routes in September, October & November
?from only ?19.99
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Ryanair, Europe?s only ultra-low cost carrier (ULCC), announced that from midnight (24:00hrs) tonight (Thur 1 Aug), passengers can fly from London Stansted to Brno from just ?19.99 in September, October and November as part of its weekly ?Bargain Thursday? promotion.
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Ryanair is releasing 100,000 seats across its European network at prices starting from just ?19.99 for travel on Mon, Tue, Wed & Thur in September, October and November and these ?all in? low fares will be available on over 1,000 of Ryanair?s European routes, but must be booked on www.ryanair.com before midnight (24:00hrs) Mon, 5 Aug.?
Ryanair?s ?19.99 sale fare includes all non-optional taxes, charges and fees, so passengers who only travel with carry-on luggage and decline our priority boarding service can book, check-in online and fly for this advertised ?19.99 fare on these ?Bargain Thursday? flights.
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Ryanair?s Robin Kiely said:
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?Only Ryanair sells Europe?s lowest fares with no fuel surcharges guaranteed, across over 1,600 routes, connecting 180 destinations, while delivering Europe?s No 1 customer service, with the most on-time flights, fewest cancellations and least mishandled bags.
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From midnight tonight (1 Aug), passengers can book 100,000 ?Bargain Thursday? seats on over 1,000 European routes, including London Stansted to Brno, at prices starting from just ?19.99, for travel in September, October and November.?These seats are only available until midnight (24:00hrs) Monday (5 August) and at these mad prices are sure to be snapped up fast, so we urge passengers to book them on www.ryanair.com before they sell out.??
Source: http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/fly-london-to-brno-from-just-19-99-pounds
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Saturday, August 3, 2013
Dorian regenerates into depression near Florida
Dorian has regenerated into a tropical depression just east of Cape Canaveral
Sun Sentinel10:14 a.m. EDT, August 3, 2013
Tropical Depression Dorian, Saturday, 5 a.m. advisory
OUTLOOK: Dorian, the system that just won't go away, re-strengthened into a depression in the Atlantic off the coast of Cape Canaveral on Saturday morning.
The former tropical storm is projected to remain a depression, aim northeast out to sea and finally die early next week.
WHAT FLORIDA CAN EXPECT: Dorian continues to spread clouds over much of the eastern part of the state, increasing the rain chance to 50 percent in South Florida and to 40 percent in the Orlando area on Saturday.
PARTICULARS: Even if Dorian re-strengthens into a tropical storm, it's unlikely that any watches or warnings will be posted because the strongest winds are in its southeast quadrant, or over the ocean, said senior hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart of the National Hurricane Center.
Dorian initially grew into a tropical storm on July 24 in the eastern Atlantic and fell apart last Saturday, the result of wind shear and dry air.
LOCATION: 85 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral
STRENGTH: 35 mph sustained winds
MOVEMENT: North at 6 mph
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sun-sentinel/news/weather/hurricane/blog/~3/WsuonoilnTc/story01.htm
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U.S. declares new push to defuse Egyptian crisis
By Tom Perry and Michael Georgy
CAIRO (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday it would work with other nations to resolve Egypt's crisis peacefully, injecting new energy into a push to end a bloody standoff since the overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
A day after saying the army had restored democracy by removing Mursi, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Egyptian authorities to give demonstrators the space to protest in peace - a warning against dispersing pro-Mursi sit-ins.
"We will work very, very hard together with others, in order to bring parties together to find a peaceful resolution that grows the democracy and respects the rights of everybody," Kerry said before a meeting United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in London.
The meeting appeared to signal a new diplomatic effort to end the crisis in which more than 300 people have been killed. The army removed Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood from power on July 3 in response to mass protests against his rule.
With the European Union already mediating, the new push will rely on the United Arab Emirates to work with the army-backed interim government and Qatar, which supported the Mursi administration, to liaise with the Brotherhood.
Analysts say civilian members of the interim cabinet are trying to promote a political solution despite resistance from security services that want to crack down on the Brotherhood, encouraged by an outpouring of public anger at the movement.
Mohamed ElBaradei, vice president in the new administration, said he was lobbying for talks with the Brotherhood, while others advocated crushing it.
"People are very angry with me because I am saying, 'Let's take time, let's talk to them'. The mood right now is, 'Let's crush them, let's not talk to them'," he said. "I hope the Brotherhood understands that time is not on their side. I'm holding the fort, but I can't hold it for very long."
Egypt is more polarized than at any time since the downfall of autocratic president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, complicating mediation efforts in a pivotal Arab state fraught with unrest.
The Brotherhood, decrying what it sees as a coup against the country's first freely-elected head of state, escalated its protest campaign by announcing two new sit-ins and three marches to sensitive security facilities.
Its supporters clashed with police during a protest near a complex of television studios outside Cairo. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. State media reported army helicopters overhead and said two policemen were wounded by birdshot in what it described as an attempt to storm the complex.
The Brotherhood said the security forces had fired tear gas on peaceful protesters. Seven Mursi supporters were also injured, security sources said.
State TV reported that the Interior Ministry would impose a cordon around two large pro-Mursi Cairo sit-ins within 48 hours and that the police did not want to break them up by force.
Following the deaths of around 80 Mursi supporters on Saturday when security forces opened fire near one of the sit-ins, government pledges of action have raised concerns of more casualties. By pushing back any move to break up the sit-ins, the government has given the mediation effort a chance.
With the United States supplying Egypt with $1.3 billion in military aid each year and the United Arab Emirates having pledged $3 billion to the new administration, the countries may be able to help force a compromise with Qatar's help.
In London, Sheikh Abdullah said a peaceful resolution required "inclusive dialogue".
The government has drawn up a transition plan envisaging parliamentary elections that will start in about six months.
But the Brotherhood protests are threatening to rob the government of a semblance of normality it needs to revive an economy which is in deep in crisis.
SISI SEES NEED FOR POLITICAL SOLUTION
Mursi has been in detention since he was deposed and is facing a judicial inquiry into accusations of murder and conspiring with the Palestinian group Hamas.
The authorities have also rounded up many other Brotherhood leaders accused of inciting violence, feeding international fears of a plan to uproot a group that was suppressed for decades until Mubarak's overthrow. The government accuses Mursi's supporters of taking up arms, alleging they engage in terrorism.
ElBaradei, former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, outlined ideas for a political deal that might include a pardon for Mursi and guarantees that the Brotherhood would have a place in political life. He said army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi understood the need for a political solution.
"But of course he has a responsibility to protect the country in terms of security. And the army is on the edge."
He said dialogue was the way to end the Brotherhood sit-ins. The government has promised to deal with protests it sees as a threat to national security. "I do not want to see any more bloodshed. Nobody wants that," ElBaradei said.
"They need to cooperate," he added, in reference to the Brotherhood. "But they need of course to feel secure, they need immunity, they need to feel that they are not excluded. It's things we are willing to provide."
He added that Sisi, who has gained enormous popularity since deposing Mursi, was not thinking of running for president.
"WE'RE NOT TERRORISTS"
The biggest sit-in is in northeast Cairo, where several thousand Mursi supporters have been camped out for more than a month in a protest that at times swells to tens of thousands.
"We are here with our wives and children. We don't want violence," said Ali el-Shishtawi, a government employee at the sit-in. "We're not afraid. We're not terrorists like they say."
Amnesty International issued a report saying Mursi supporters had tortured some of their political rivals, saying anti-Brotherhood protesters had reported being been captured, stabbed, beaten and subject to electric shocks.
It said eight bodies had arrived at the morgue in Cairo bearing signs of torture, five of which had been found near pro-Mursi sit-ins, and called for an investigation.
The new government gained a U.S. seal of approval late on Thursday when Kerry said the army had been "restoring democracy" when it toppled Mursi - Washington's strongest endorsement yet for the new leadership.
"The military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people, all of whom were afraid of a descent into chaos, into violence," Kerry told GEO TV in Pakistan. "And the military did not take over, to the best of our judgment - so far."
Washington's efforts to avoid calling Mursi's overthrow a "military coup" has left it open to charges of sending mixed messages about events in Egypt, long a bulwark of U.S. Middle East policy.
Mohamed Ali Bishr, a senior Brotherhood leader, said the movement was disappointed by Kerry's statement. "The United States is a country that speaks of democracy and human rights and they say something like that. I hope that they rethink their position and correct it," he told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Maggie Fick and Noah Browning in Cairo and Lesley Wroughton in London; editing by David Stamp)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-gives-seal-approval-egypts-leaders-111611555.html
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India's first indigenous aircraft carrier to be launched on August 12
ibnlive ? Video
India's first indigenous aircraft carrier will be formally launched on August 12 at Kochi Harbour. Designed by Indian naval architects and built using Indian made steel, the carrier displaces more than 32,000 tonnes. When fully operational in 2018 it will have early warning radar and two runaways for launching aircraft.
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Friday, August 2, 2013
Flaws in UEFI Implementation Can Be Abused to Bypass Windows 8 Secure Boot
Security researchers have found a way to bypass the Secure Boot system implemented in Windows 8. The attack method doesn?t rely on flaws in Secure Boot, but in the way some companies have implemented the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
Present at Black Hat 2013 in Las Vegas, Andrew Furtak, Oleksandr Bazhaniuk and Yuriy Bulygin have demonstrated two attack methods that can be used to bypass the Secure Boot in an effort to install a UEFI bootkit, PCWorld reports.One of the attack techniques relies on security holes in the device?s firmware. However, in this case, the exploit that alters the code responsible for enforcing the Secure Boot mechanism needs to be launched in kernel mode.
Present at Black Hat 2013 in Las Vegas, Andrew Furtak, Oleksandr Bazhaniuk and Yuriy Bulygin have demonstrated two attack methods that can be used to bypass the Secure Boot in an effort to install a UEFI bootkit, PCWorld reports.One of the attack techniques relies on security holes in the device?s firmware. However, in this case, the exploit that alters the code responsible for enforcing the Secure Boot mechanism needs to be launched in kernel mode.
This makes the attack more difficult to pull off because cybercriminals would need to find a way to execute code in the part of the OS that has the most privileges.
This exploit method was reported to impacted vendors, one of which is Asus, around one year ago. The company has released some BIOS updates, but products such as the VivoBook laptop ? on which the experts have made their presentation ? are still vulnerable.
The second method is not as limited. Cybercriminals can leverage it to bypass Secure Boot simply by using vulnerabilities in common applications such as Microsoft Office, Java or Adobe Flash.
Since the exploited security holes have been discovered only recently, the experts haven?t named any of the impacted vendors and they haven?t provided any technical details regarding the attacks.
While security experts from all around the world try to find ways to bypass Secure Boot, Bulygin admits that the system is an important step forward in keeping computers bootkit free.
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A Brief History of Tech Companies Talking to Women Like Total Assholes
No matter how far technology might advance, there's always been one little area that the reigning powers-that-be have never quite managed to figure out. Or more specifically, an area they've never quite figured out how to talk to. Tech companies, meet women. And then stop treating them like idiots.
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