Video games take off as a spectator sport

Editorial: "Give video games a sporting chance"

EVERY sport has its idols and superstars. Now video gaming is getting them too. Professional gaming, or e-sports, exploded in popularity in the US and Europe last year.

The scene has been big in Asia - particularly South Korea - for about a decade, with top players such as Lim Yo-Hwan earning six-figure salaries and competing for rock-star glory in Starcraft tournaments that attract audiences in the hundreds of thousands.

The phenomenon is taking off in the West partly because of improved video-streaming technology and large financial rewards. Video games are becoming a spectator sport, with certain players and commentators drawing massive online audiences.

And where people go, money follows. The second world championship of League of Legends - a team-based game in which players defend respective corners of a fantasy-themed battle arena - was held in Los Angeles in October. The tournament had a prize pool of $5 million for the season, with $1 million going to winning team Taipei Assassins, the largest cash prize in the history of e-sports.

League of Legends has also set records for spectator numbers. More than 8 million people watched the championship finals either online or on TV - a figure that dwarfs audience numbers for broadcasts of many traditional sports fixtures.

But gamers don't need to compete at the international level to earn money. Video-streaming software like Twitch makes it easy for players to send live footage to a website, where the more popular ones can attract upwards of 10,000 viewers - enough for some to make a living by having adverts in their video streams. Gamers can go pro without leaving their homes.

Currently, e-sports productions are handled by gaming leagues - but that could soon change. Last November saw two moves that will make it even easier to reach a global online audience. First, Twitch announced it would be integrating with Electronic Arts's Origin service, a widely used gaming platform. This would let gamers stream their play at the click of a button, making it easy for people around the world to watch.

Also in November came the latest release from one of gaming's biggest franchises, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which has the ability to live-stream via YouTube built into the game itself. Another feature allows the broadcast of in-game commentary for multiplayer matches.

"I think we will reach a point, maybe within five years, where spectator features are a necessity for all big game releases," says Corin Cole of e-sports publishing company Heaven Media in Huntingdon, UK.

David Ting founded the California-based IGN Pro League (IPL), which hosts professional tournaments. He puts the popularity of e-sports down to the demand for new forms of online entertainment. "After 18 months, IPL's viewer numbers are already comparable to college sports in the US when there's a live event," he says. "The traffic is doubling every six months."

Ting sees motion detection, virtual reality and mobile gaming coming together to make physical exertion a more common aspect of video games, blurring the line between traditional sport and e-sports. "Angry Birds could be this century's bowling," says Ting.

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Several killed in failed French raid to free Somalia hostage

MOGADISHU: A French soldier and 17 Islamists were killed in a failed bid to free an intelligence officer captured in Somalia in 2009 and whose fate remained unclear, the defence minister said Saturday.

The overnight operation involving some 50 troops and at least five helicopters to free the intelligence agent, with the alias of Denis Allex, was launched by elite forces from the DGSE secret service, Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

"All indications are (that Allex was) killed by his captors," Le Drian told reporters, adding that one French soldier was killed and another missing. He had earlier spoken of two dead troops.

The Shebab, Al Qaeda's local franchise which has held the Frenchman for more than three years, denied Le Drian's assertion that Allex was killed by his captors during the raid and even claimed to have captured a member of the commando team.

"In the end, it will be the French citizens who will inevitably taste the bitter consequences of their government's devil-may-care attitude towards hostages," a Shebab statement said.

Le Drian said the raid in Bulomarer, some 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Mogadishu, was sparked by the "intransigence of the terrorists who have refused to negotiate for three and a half years and were holding Denis Allex in inhuman conditions."

It came on the same day that French troops launched air strikes on Islamist militants in Mali, in west Africa, but the minister said the operations were not connected.

Allex is among nine French hostages in Africa of whom at least six are held by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

French President Francois Hollande expressed his great distress over the deaths and extended his condolences to the families of victims.

A French expert involved in several hostage negotiations said "talks with the Somali Islamists had become impossible due to the huge ransom demanded and the marked opposition of the Americans to the payment of ransom.

"Denis Allex became a human shield and an operation had become indispensable," the expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A source close to the case also speaking on condition of anonymity said the DGSE had been preparing a raid to free Allex for more than a year, adding they had "been cancelled at the last-minute three or four times as we did not have a solid confirmation of his location."

The Shebab statement said the French carried away "several" of their dead.

"The helicopters attacked a house... upon the assumption that Denis Allex was being held at that location, but owing to a fatal intelligence blunder, the rescue mission turned disastrously wrong.

"The injured French soldier is now in the custody of the mujahedeen and Allex still remains safe and far from the location of the battle," it said.

A Bulomarer resident, Idris Youssouf, told AFP: "We don't know exactly what happened because the attack took place at night, but this morning we saw several corpses including that of a white man.

"Three civilians were also killed in the gunfight," he said.

Allex was kidnapped in Somalia on Bastille day in July 2009 along with a colleague. The second hostage, named as Marc Aubriere, was freed in August in what the French government said was an escape.

The Al-Qaeda linked Shebab lost their main strongholds in the south and centre of the country following an offensive launched in mid-2011 by an African Union force, but they still control some rural areas.

Allex appeared in a video in June 2010 appealing to Paris to drop its support for the Somali government.

He last appeared in another video in October looking gaunt and calling on Hollande to work for his release.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991.

France has a recent history of botched operations, including a failed joint raid with Niger forces in 2011 that left both hostages dead, another in Mali that led to the hostage's execution.

In 2009, French commandos launched a raid to free a French family whose yacht had been hijacked by Somali pirates. They retook the boat but accidentally shot the father.

-AFP/ac

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A headphone amp and USB digital-to-analog converter for just $99 each

The Schiit Magni and Modi (left) and Schiit Asgard (right).

(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg/CNET)

Schiit Audio's very first product, the Asgard headphone amplifier, left me shaken and stirred back in 2010. It sold for $249, looked and sounded amazing, and to top things off, it was made in the U.S. -- not just assembled here. Most of the Asgard's parts are sourced from U.S. companies.

The Asgard is still in company's product line, and it's still $249. But Schiit has grown since then, and now offers a full line of more expensive headphone amps and USB digital-to-analog converters (DACs) -- which is great. But the company's most recent offerings sell for just $99 each! The Magni headphone amp and the Modi DAC are also made in America, and they sound spectacular.

They're both the same ultra-compact size, just 5x3.5x1.25 inches, and they each weigh about a pound. Both feature an all-metal case, and the design looks pretty serious. The Magni amp puts out up to 1.2 watts, so it's considerably more powerful than your average AV receiver's headphone amp. And unlike those built-in headphone amps, the Magni is not a chip-based amp that costs 20 cents. Most headphones don't need all that power -- but some headphones, like my Hifiman HE-400s, really come alive with more potent amps.

Yes, what you plug your headphones into can make or break their sound. Heck, most $1,000 receivers have marginal headphone amps. (They're not a big priority for most buyers.) But the Magni's innards feature fully discrete FET/bipolar, Class AB circuitry. That means the Magni is built like a miniature high-end speaker amplifier. I don't know of another headphone amp built that way for less than $250, and most $250-$500 amps aren't built as well as the Magni. The amp has just one set of RCA analog inputs on its backside, and a 6.3mm headphone jack on the front panel.

The Magni amp uses an external wall wart power supply; the Modi DAC is powered via the USB 2.0 asynchronous input connection. The USB is the only digital input -- there's no coaxial or Toslink optical inputs, but there's a pair of RCA analog outputs on the rear panel. The DAC handles up to 96kHz/24-bit digital audio. The Modi features switched-capacitor filtering and an active filter section, so you can run long analog cables from the Modi back to your hi-fi system without any loss of quality.

I played the Magni and Modi together, and loved the sound. Like the bigger Schiit amps I've tested, the sound is rich, with lots of detail and oomph. I started with my old Sennheiser HD 580 and Grado RS-1 headphones, and moved onto the brand-new Yamaha PRO 500, Sony MDR-1R, Noontec Zoro, and Koss Porta Pro over-the-ear and on-ear headphones, plus a few in-ear models, including Ultimate Ears UE 900s. I have quite a few more expensive desktop amps on hand, including the other Schiits at my disposal. But there was nothing about the sound of the Magni/Modi combo that I found wanting. They deliver bona-fide high-end sound quality. A lot of desktop headphone amps aren't quiet enough to use with in-ear headphones, but the Magni is.

Then I compared the Modi with the $449 Schiit Bifrost DAC, and it was easy to hear the difference. The Modi is sweet and mellow and very tolerant of cruddy-sounding low bit-rate files and streaming audio sources. But when I played great-sounding CDs, the Bifrost was a lot more transparent and detailed. There's less standing between my ears and the music. But as I did the Modi vs. Bifrost shootout, my respect for the Magni amp's sound went up. The $99 amp easily resolved the differences between the two DACs over my Hifiman HE 400 headphones. Stepping up from the Magni to the Asgard produced similar improvement, but to a much smaller degree. The Magni would still be an outstanding value for double the price.

The Magni and Modi come with two-year warranties. That's twice the coverage of most desktop components in their price range. Schiit has a 15-day return policy, so you can still send it back for a refund if you're not happy with the sound, but there is a 15 percent restocking fee.

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

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Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right.

"He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan said. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and, the thing is: After he won the lottery and the next day later he passes away -- it's awkward. It raises some eyebrows."

The medical examiner initially ruled Urooj Khan, 46, an immigrant from India who owned dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago, died July 20, 2012, of natural causes. But after a family member demanded more tests, authorities in November found a lethal amount of cyanide in his blood, turning the case into a homicide investigation.

"When we found out there was cyanide in his blood after the extensive toxicology reports, we had to believe that ... somebody had to kill him," Minhaj Khan said. "It had to happen, because where can you get cyanide?"

In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

Authorities could be one step closer to learning what happened to Urooj Khan. A judge Friday approved an order to exhume his body at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago as early as Thursday to perform further tests.

Lottery Winner Murdered: Widow Questioned By Police Watch Video

Moments after the court hearing, Urooj Khan's sister, Meraj Khan, remembered her brother as the kind of person who would've shared his jackpot with anyone. Speaking at the Cook County Courthouse, she hoped the exhumation would help the investigation.

"It's very hard because I wanted my brother to rest in peace, but then we have to have justice served," she said, according to ABC News station WLS in Chicago. "So if that's what it takes for him to bring justice and peace, then that's what needs to be done."

Khan reportedly did not have a will. With the investigation moving forward, his family is waging a legal fight against his widow, Shabana Ansari, 32, over more than $1 million, including Urooj Khan's lottery winnings, as well as his business and real estate holdings.

Khan's brother filed a petition Wednesday to a judge asking Citibank to release information about Khan's assets to "ultimately ensure" that [Khan's] minor daughter from a prior marriage "receives her proper share."

Ansari may have tried to cash the jackpot check after Khan's death, according to court documents, which also showed Urooj Khan's family is questioning if the couple was ever even legally married.

Ansari, Urooj Khan's second wife, who still works at the couple's dry cleaning business, has insisted they were married legally.

She has told reporters the night before her husband died, she cooked a traditional Indian meal for him and their family, including Khan's daughter and Ansari's father. Not feeling well, Khan retired early, Ansari told the Chicago Sun-Times, falling asleep in a chair, waking up in agony, then collapsing in the middle of the night. She said she called 911.

"It has been an incredibly hard time," she told ABC News earlier this week. "We went from being the happiest the day we got the check. It was the best sleep I've had. And then the next day, everything was gone.

"I am cooperating with the investigation," Ansari told ABC News. "I want the truth to come out."

Ansari has not been named a suspect, but her attorney, Steven Kozicki, said investigators did question her for more than four hours.

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Largest structure challenges Einstein's smooth cosmos

A collection of galaxies that is a whopping four billion light years long is the biggest cosmic structure ever seen. The group is roughly one-twentieth the diameter of the observable universe – big enough to challenge a principle dating back to Einstein, that, on large scales, the universe looks the same in every direction.

Roger Clowes of the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, UK, and colleagues discovered the structure using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the most comprehensive 3D map of the universe. They identified a cluster of 73 quasars, the brightly glowing cores found at the centre of some galaxies, far larger than any similar structure seen before.

Since 1982 astronomers have known that quasars tend to clump together in large quasar groups, or LQGs. "We look for quasars that have a certain separation from the next nearest quasar," says Clowes.

The newly discovered, and appropriately named, Huge-LQG (see black circles in image) happens to be in the same region of the sky as one of the earliest known quasar clusters, which Clowes helped find in 1991. That group contains 34 quasars and measures roughly one billion light years across (red crosses), so it is dwarfed by Huge-LQG.

Basic assumption

The discovery of Huge-LQG joins a collection of observations that seem to challenge the cosmological status quo. When Albert Einstein first applied his theory of general relativity to the universe as a whole, to make the calculations workable, he was forced to assume that one large part looks much like any other large part. This became known as the cosmological principle.

Still, a question remained: how large is a large part?

"As time went on, people did more and more surveys," says Clowes. "Each time they found structures the size of the new survey, and you began to wonder when it would all stop."

Previous calculations gave a value of one billion light years as the maximum possible size of a cluster. The 1991 LQG is at this supposed limit, but Huge-LQG smashes right through it. The researchers say this could undermine the cosmological principle, although it may simply mean that we need to revise upwards the size limit on large structures.

Dark flow

But other evidence, such as a controversial "stream" of galaxies that seem to be moving in the same direction, dubbed dark flow, is also poking holes in the uniformity of the universe.

The search for such large structures is key to furthering our understanding of the universe and creating new and improved cosmological models, says Subir Sarkar of the University of Oxford. "All of this suggests there is structure on scales at which the universe is supposed to be boring," he says.

But the cosmological principle is so ingrained that it is hard for researchers to shake. "People are maybe understandably reluctant to give up the thing, because it will make cosmology too bloody complicated," says Sarkar.

Journal reference: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sts497

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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Turkey blames internal feud as France hunts Kurd killers

PARIS: Police on Friday hunted the assassins of three Kurdish activists shot dead in Paris as Turkey said an internal feud in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was most likely behind the slayings.

The PKK meanwhile warned that it would hold France responsible if the killers are not quickly found, as Ankara asked for increased security to safeguard its missions in France.

French judicial sources said the three female activists, including founding PKK member Sakine Cansiz, were each shot at least three times in the head, giving further credence to the theory of an execution-style hit.

Autopsies on the bodies revealed that one of the women had been shot four times in the head and the other two shot three times, the sources said. A police source said that 7.65 mm bullets were found, indicating the use of automatic pistols.

The killings came days after Turkish media reported Turkey and the PKK leadership had agreed a roadmap to end the three-decade old insurgency that has claimed more than 45,000 lives.

The PKK, which took up arms in 1984 for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey, is considered a terrorist organisation by Ankara and much of the international community.

Experts have suggested a number of potential motives for the killings, including an attack by Turkish extremists and internal feuding within the PKK.

The three were found dead on Thursday at the Kurdistan Information Centre in the French capital's 10th district, after last being seen alive at the centre at midday on Wednesday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the slayings bore the hallmarks of an internal feud, noting that the victims appeared to have given the killer or killers access to the centre.

"The place was protected not by one lock but many coded locks," Anatolia news agency quoted Erdogan as telling reporters. "Those three people opened it (the door). I do not assume they would open it to people they didn't know."

But the Turkish leader also upheld his earlier suggestion that the slayings could be aimed at derailing peace talks between Ankara and the PKK's jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

"The killings could be the result of an internal feud or steps aimed at disrupting the steps we are taking with good intentions," Erdogan said.

Experts have said potential internal feuding could be linked to the peace process or to other PKK activities, in particular conflicts over money.

A French judicial source said police are currently running 21 investigations into potentially illegal fundraising by the PKK.

The group raises funds through a "revolutionary tax" on Kurdish expatriates that authorities in several countries have condemned as extortion.

The PKK's military wing, the People's Defence Forces (HPG), said in a statement on its website that France would be held to account if no progress is made in the investigation.

"France has a responsibility to immediately shed light on the massacre," it said. "Or it will be held responsible for the murder of our comrades."

The PKK accused Ankara of trying to shift the blame on Kurds for what it called a "well-organised and professional political murder."

A Turkish diplomatic source meanwhile said Ankara had asked France to boost security at its missions. "We alerted our representations in France and the rest of Europe to be careful," the source added.

There are around 150,000 Kurds in France, the vast majority of them of Turkish origin.

-AFP/ac

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4K TV, tablets, and timepieces at CES 2013 (week in review)

The Razer Edge gaming tablet

Forget about 3D TV -- this year's Consumer Electronics Show was all about 4K.

Sony got the ball rolling with the unveiling of new 55-inch and 65-inch 4K TVs, as well as the world's first 4K video distribution service, which offers native 4K movies from Sony Pictures and other 4K content creators. Additionally, the company also said it would be selling "4K mastered" Blu-ray discs this summer; they'll be standard 1080p resolution (not 4K), but supposedly look better than traditional Blu-rays.

The electronics giant unveiled a prototype 4K OLED TV at 56 inches, although little was said about it. Meanwhile, Panasonic displayed its own 4K OLED screen, which it claims is the world's biggest at less than half an inch thick. Panasonic also showed off a 4K tablet prototype that boasted a ridiculous 3,840x2,560-pixel resolution and 230 pixels per inch packed into a 20-inch IPS LED-backlit LCD display.

There were plenty -- plenty --of other stories at the Las Vegas show, but here's a brief roundup of some of the highlights:

•  Microsoft CEO crashes Qualcomm keynote at CES

•  Samsung shows off Youm flexible display

•  Scrappy Dish wows again at CES with TV anywhere push

•  Razer Edge gaming tablet becomes reality at CES

•  Actor, gadget fan Danny DeVito speaks with CNET at CES

•  Pebble watch is the smartest timepiece ever

More headlines

Amazon lets rip with AutoRip music service

When you buy an AutoRip-enabled CD, you automatically get the MP3 version for free, and those MP3 versions will be available via Amazon's Cloud Player.

•  Scoop: Amazon to launch auto rip, an effort to sex up CDs

Dish counters Sprint, makes $5.5B offer for Clearwire

The satellite TV provider's unsolicited offer for the wireless broadband company is more than 10 percent higher than Sprint's.

•  Sprint reportedly asks to partner with Dish

Google withdraws ITC patent claims against Microsoft

Motorola Mobility's parent drops two patents from its infringement case over video-coding patents used in Xboxes and smartphones.

•  Justice Department, Patent Office urge limiting sales bans

•  Sling Media sues Belkin, Monsoon for patent infringement

Iran said to be responsible for cyberattacks on U.S. banks

The massive wave of DDoS attacks that hit U.S. banks recently was thought to have been done by a fringe hacker group, however government officials now believe it was the work of Iran.

•  Iran develops software to control access to social networks

Congressman: Google FTC probe results were leaked illegally

News of the FTC's investigation into the search giant's business practices leaked a day before being made public. Now Rep. Darrell Issa is demanding an inquiry into the leaks.

•  Senator blasts leaks in FTC's Google investigation

•  Watchdog seeks FTC staff opinion on Google antitrust case

•  EU still unhappy with how Google shows search results

Microsoft to kill the Messenger on March 15

The tech titan plans to migrate users of the instant-messaging client to Skype, which it purchased in 2011.

•  Microsoft updates Skype for Windows with Outlook integration

T-Mobile rips up contract on unlimited data plan

In another example of its push into prepaid, the carrier is offering its unlimited plan without a contract.

•  T-Mobile expands iPhone-compatible 4G service, unveils HD voice

Netflix brings 3D, 'Super HD' video to some customers

The video streaming service adds a limited number of 3D movies to its library. The hitch? You can only access them if you've got an ISP that uses its Open Connect network.

•  Warner Bros. to bring 'Revolution,' 'Fringe' to Netflix

Google's Schmidt presses North Korean officials for open Web

The Web giant's executive chairman tells reporters that his private delegation warned officials that global Internet access is key to a developing economy.

•  In N. Korea, Google's Schmidt gets glimpse of Net

Also of note

•  Aereo to bring its TV service to 22 cities this year

•  Facebook invites media to event at HQ next week

•  Steve Ballmer bringing NBA's Kings to Seattle?

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Space Pictures This Week: Australia Burns, Pulsars Wobble

Image courtesy P. Kalas, U. California, and ESA/NASA

This new Hubble Space Telescope image of a nearby star, Fomalhaut, and its surrounding disc of debris have made astronomers sit up and take notice. That's because the picture, released January 8, reveals that the debris field—made of ice, dust, and rocks—is wider than previously thought, spanning an area 14 to 20 billion miles from the star.

Scientists have also used the image to calculate the path of a planet, Fomalhaut b, as it makes its away around the star. It turns out that the planet's 2,000-year elliptical orbit takes it three times closer to Fomalhaut than previously thought, and that its eccentric path could send it plowing through the rock and ice contained in the debris field.

The resulting collision, if it happens, could occur around the year 2032 and result in a show similar to what happened when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter, astronomer Paul Kalas, of the University of California at Berkeley, said in a statement.

Published January 11, 2013

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Teen to Hero Teacher: 'I Don't Want to Shoot You'

A California teacher'sbrave conversation with a 16-year-old gunman who had opened fire on his classroom bullies allowed 28 other students to quickly escape what could have been a massacre.

Science teacher Ryan Heber calmly confronted the teenager after he shot and critically wounded a classmate, whom authorities say had bullied the boy for more than year at Taft Union High School.

"I don't want to shoot you," the teen gunman told Heber, who convinced the teen gunman to drop his weapon, a high power shotgun.

Responding to calls of shots fired, campus supervisor Kim Lee Fields arrived at the classroom and helped Heber talk the boy into giving up the weapon.

"This teacher and this counselor stood there face-to-face not knowing if he was going to shoot them," said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood. "They probably expected the worst and hoped for the best, but they gave the students a chance to escape."

One student, who police say the shooter had targeted, was shot. He was airlifted to a hospital and remains in critical, but stable condition, Youngblood said. He is expected to undergo surgery today.

Two other students received minor injuries. One suffered hearing loss and another fell over a table while evacuating. Heber received a wound to his head from a stray pellet, police said.

Taft Midway Driller/Doug Keeler/AP Photo

Tennessee Teen Arrested Over School Shooting Threat Watch Video

Tragedy at Sandy Hook: The Search for Solutions Watch Video

Police said the teen, whose name has not been made public because he is a minor, began plotting on Wednesday night to kill two students he felt had bullied him.

Authorities believe the suspect found his older brother's gun and brought it into the just before 9 a.m. on Thursday and went to Heber's second-floor classroom where a first period science class with 20 students was taking place.

"He planned the event," Youngblood said. "Certainly he believed that the two people he targeted had bullied him, in his mind. Whether that occurred or not we don't know yet."

The gunman entered the classroom and shot one of his classmates. Heber immediately began trying to talk him into handing over the gun, and evacuating the other students through the classroom's backdoor.

"The heroics of these two people goes without saying. ... They could have just as easily ... tried to get out of the classroom and left students, and they didn't," the sheriff said. "They knew not to let him leave the classroom with that shotgun."

The gunman was found with several rounds of additional ammunition in his pockets.

Within one minute of the shooting, a 911 call was placed and police arrived on the scene. An announcement was made placing the school on lockdown and warning teachers and students that the precautions were "not a drill."

The school had recently announced new safety procedures following last month's deadly shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in which 20 young children were killed. Six school staffers, including the principal, were killed as they tried to protect the children from gunman Adam Lanza.

The school employs an armed security guard, but he was not on campus Thursday morning.

Youngblood said the student would be charged with attempted murder, but the district attorney would decide if he was to be tried as an adult.

Some 900 students attend Taft Union High School, located in Taft, Calif., a rural community in southern California.

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Flesh-eating beetles turn dead parrot into skeleton

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

Even after death, this parrot retains its striking plumage. But its feathers and tissue disappear when subjected to flesh-eating beetles for about three weeks, leaving behind a grisly skeleton.

The video, captured by Brian McClave from Site-Eye Films in collaboration with Joanne Cooper from the Natural History Museum at Tring, UK, shows the process often used by museums to prepare a skeleton for their collections. Beetles are best for stripping a bird's flesh since chemical alternatives can eat into bone and change its structure. To speed up decomposition, specimens are usually defeathered before beetles are left to do their work.

Once the flesh is removed, bones are cleaned before a specimen is registered and added to a collection. Skeletons of modern birds are important for comparison with fossils, giving clues into how species evolved. They can also give insight into bone diseases and injuries.

The Natural History Museum has more than 18,000 bird skeletons, so far. "The beetles are always at work," says Cooper.

If you enjoyed this post, watch sea lice devour a pig from the inside out or see wild animals reduce an elephant to a pile of bones.

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Football: Adebayor included as Africa Cup squads named

JOHANNESBURG: Emmanuel Adebayor will play at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations after he was included in Togo's squad as the 16 sides finalised their 23-man squads.

Mahamadou Diarra will meanwhile miss the tournament, and a late-minute change left Brown Ideye thrilled and Nigeria team-mate Raheem Lawal devastated.

It was all part of the drama ahead of the January 19-February 10 tournament that will be played in five South African cities.

Tottenham striker and Togo captain Adebayor said last year he would shun the competition, citing security concerns after being part of the squad attacked in Angola ahead of the 2010 finals.

A player and an official were killed by separatists seeking independence for the oil-rich Cabinda enclave and Adebayor escaped injury by cowering under a bus seat.

As Tottenham, the Togo president and national football officials became involved in the saga, Adebayor refused to reveal his plans, and his inclusion became official only when the 23-man squad was named by coach Didier Six.

Perennial underachievers Togo are in the Rustenburg-based 'group of death' with title favourites Ivory Coast and other former champions Algeria and Tunisia and are given little hope of survival.

Mali, third last year and considered likely quarter-finalists after being drawn with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Niger, suffered a late setback when Fulham midfielder Diarra pulled out injured.

A recurring knee injury failed to heal, meaning the veteran will miss a second consecutive Cup of Nations, although the blow was cushioned by the return of another experienced midfielder, Mohamed Lamine Sissoko.

Turkey-based midfielder Lawal was included in a Nigerian squad leaked to the media a day before the final-squad deadline, only to be replaced by striker Ideye when it was officially announced.

Home-based players have traditionally been ignored by Super Eagles coaches, but Stephen Keshi has chosen six, including goalkeeper Chigozie Agbim and strikers Sunday Mba and Ejike Uzoenyi from Enugu Rangers.

Shock absentees from the 2012 tournament, Nigeria face defending champions Zambia and outsiders Burkina Faso and Ethiopia in Group C and are expected to make the knock-out phase at least.

Debutants Cape Verde made a couple of last-minute changes with injured midfielder Odair Fortes and unavailable striker Ze Luis replaced by Portugal-based pair Platini and Rambe.

Cape Verde face hosts South Africa in the January 19 opening fixture at the 90,000-seat Soccer City stadium in Soweto and also confront former champions Morocco and Angola in the first round.

- AFP/de

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Cheap iPhone could reach half a billion potential customers, says analyst

How many customers would a cheap iPhone grab?

(Credit:
CNET)

A cheaper iPhone could tap into a world of potential sales of 580 million units, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

Rumors have been flying lately that Apple will introduce a low-cost iPhone to reach out to developing markets and offer more competition to
Android. Assuming the rumors even prove true, Munster feels such a phone would provide a huge boost to Apple's market share.

"We believe that the high-end smartphone market (above $400 USD off contract) for [calendar year 2013] will be about 320 million units, of which we believe Apple will capture 50 percent market share," Munster said in an investors note out today. "We believe this means Apple is missing the other 65 percent of the market, or 580 million units, given its current product lineup without the lower priced phone."

As a result, the analyst thinks Apple will unveil a low-cost iPhone this year to address that missing 65 percent not served by its current iPhone lineup, representing 580 million potential units.

A cheap iPhone will hurt gross margins over the next few years, but the overall impact is likely to be less than 1 percent, Munster said. Even with the effect on margins, the analyst sees this as a prime opportunity for Apple. A lower-price iPhone will help Apple reach sales growth of 22 percent this year and 23 percent next year.

"We believe the opportunity for Apple is too large to miss as the low-end market is growing significantly faster than the high-end smartphone market," Munster added.

The analyst expects the low-cost iPhone to offer a lower-quality screen and case and potentially a slower processor than the current lineup.

What about the price?

A Bloomberg report out yesterday estimated a price range for the phone of $99 to $149. Munster believes Apple will sell the phone for as much $199, but at an off-contract price. At that level, the cheaper iPhone's core competition would be Android phones that sell for $99 to $199.

However, the price could be higher depending on the amount of storage offered.

"While we are assuming a $200 ASP (average selling price) for the lower priced phone, we also note that Apple may have multiple storage sizes like the current iPhone lineup, which could result in ASPs higher than the base level," Munster said. "If this were the case, it may blunt some of the effect on margins given the higher storage devices would carry a slightly better margin profile."

Rumors of a cheap iPhone revved up this week after both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg claimed that Apple is prepping to launch such a device this year.

In December, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said he thinks a low-cost iPhone is on the agenda for this summer with a price of $200 to $250. Last week, Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston added his voice, saying he believes Apple will unveil an "iPhone Mini" but not until next year at the earliest.

And what is Apple's response?

Phil Schiller, the company's senior VP of marketing, has more or less quashed the rumors. In a translation of an interview with the Shanghai Evening News yesterday, Schiller said that Apple will "not develop cheap smartphones in order to grab market share away."

(Schiller comment via 9to5Mac)

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Embryonic Sharks Freeze to Avoid Detection

Jane J. Lee

Although shark pups are born with all the equipment they'll ever need to defend themselves and hunt down food, developing embryos still stuck in their egg cases are vulnerable to predators. But a new study finds that even these baby sharks can detect a potential predator, and play possum to avoid being eaten.

Every living thing gives off a weak electrical field. Sharks can sense this with a series of pores—called the ampullae of Lorenzini—on their heads and around their eyes, and some species rely on this electrosensory ability to find food buried in the seafloor. (See pictures of electroreceptive fish.)

Two previous studies on the spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) and the clearnose skate (Raja eglanteria)—a relative of sharks—found similar freezing behavior in their young. But new research by shark biologist and doctoral student Ryan Kempster at the University of Western Australia has given scientists a more thorough understanding of this behavior.

It all started because Kempster wanted to build a better shark repellent. Since he needed to know how sharks respond to electrical fields, Kempster decided to use embryos. "It's very hard to test this in the field because you need to get repeated responses," he said. And you can't always get the same shark to cooperate multiple times. "But we could use embryos because they're contained within an egg case."

Cloaking Themselves

So Kempster got his hands on 11 brownbanded bamboo shark (Chiloscyllium punctatum) embryos and tested their reactions to the simulated weak electrical field of a predator. (Popular pictures: Bamboo shark swallowed whole—by another shark.)

In a study published today in the journal PLoS One, Kempster and his colleagues report that all of the embryonic bamboo sharks, once they reached later stages of development, reacted to the electrical field by ceasing gill movements (essentially, holding their breath), curling their tails around their bodies, and freezing.

A bamboo shark embryo normally beats its tail to move fresh seawater in and out of its egg case. But that generates odor cues and small water currents that can give away its position. The beating of its gills as it breathes also generates an electrical field that predators can use to find it.

"So it cloaks itself," said neuroecologist Joseph Sisneros, at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the study. "[The embryo] shuts down any odor cues, water movement, and its own electrical signal."

Sisneros, who conducted the previous clearnose skate work, is delighted to see that this shark species also reacts to external electrical fields and said it would be great to see whether this is something all shark, skate, and ray embryos do.

Marine biologist Stephen Kajiura, at Florida Atlantic University, is curious to know how well the simulated electrical fields compare to the bamboo shark's natural predators—the experimental field was on the higher end of the range normally given off.

"[But] they did a good job with [the study]," Kajiura said. "They certainly did a more thorough study than anyone else has done."

Electrifying Protection?

In addition to the freezing behavior he recorded in the bamboo shark embryos, Kempster found that the shark pups remembered the electrical field signal when it was presented again within 40 minutes and that they wouldn't respond as strongly to subsequent exposures as they did initially.

This is important for developing shark repellents, he said, since some of them use electrical fields to ward off the animals. "So if you were using a shark repellent, you would need to change the current over a 20- to 30-minute period so the shark doesn't get used to that field."

Kempster envisions using electrical fields to not only keep humans safe but to protect sharks as well. Shark populations have been on the decline for decades, due partly to ending up as bycatch, or accidental catches, in the nets and on the longlines of fishers targeting other animals.

A 2006 study estimated that as much as 70 percent of landings, by weight, in the Spanish surface longline fleet were sharks, while a 2007 report found that eight million sharks are hooked each year off the coast of southern Africa. (Read about the global fisheries crisis in National Geographic magazine.)

"If we can produce something effective, it could be used in the fishing industry to reduce shark bycatch," Kempster said. "In [America] at the moment, they're doing quite a lot of work trying to produce electromagnetic fish hooks." The eventual hope is that if these hooks repel the sharks, they won't accidentally end up on longlines.

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Whales Trapped Under Sea Ice Free Themselves

The killer whales trapped under ice in a remote Quebec village reached safety after the floes shifted on Hudson Bay, according to the mayor's office in Inukjuak.

Water opened up around the area where the orcas had been coming up for air and the winds seemed to have shifted overnight, creating a passageway to the open water six miles away.

"This is great news," Johnny Williams, a resident who works for the mayor's office, told ABC News.

Williams said he was unsure how far the whales have moved, but that they were definitely not under the ice hole.

Residents in the remote village of Inukjuak had been watching helplessly as at least 12 whales struggled to breathe out of a hole slightly bigger than a pickup truck in a desperate bid to survive.

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The community had asked the Canadian government for help in freeing the killer whales, believed to be an entire family. The government denied a request to bring icebreakers Wednesday, saying they were too far away to help. Inukjuak, about 900 miles north of Montreal, was ill-equipped to jump into action.

Joe Gaydos, director and chief scientist at the SeaDoc Society in Eastsound, Wash., said that although the whales can go a long time without food, the length of time they can hold their breath, which they must do underwater, was the question.

"The challenge [was] to figure out where the next hole is," he told ABCNews.com before the whales found freedom. "If that lake freezes over, it's an unfortunate situation. It's a very limited chance. It's a matter of luck."

Inukjuak residents posted a video online to show the whales' struggles. In the clip, the whales are seen taking turns breathing. They can't bend their necks so they do a "spy-hopping" maneuver, Gaydos said, in order to look for another hole in the ice.

A hunter first spotted the pod of trapped whales Tuesday. It is believed that the whales swam into the waters north of Quebec during recent warm weather.

ABC News' Bethany Owings contributed to this report

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Bubbles of fat hint at origin of reproduction

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Hong Kong leader survives impeachment bid

HONG KONG: Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers failed in an unprecedented bid on Wednesday to impeach the city's embattled Beijing-backed leader, after they accused him of breaking housing laws and urged him to quit.

The city's first impeachment motion, which accused Leung Chun-ying of lying, dereliction of duty and serious breaches of the law in a row stemming from illegal structures at his luxury home, was denied after eight hours of debate.

The 27 pro-democracy lawmakers who signed the joint motion -- which they said was a symbolic move -- voted in favour, while 37 voted against in the 70-seat legislature which is dominated by pro-Beijing members.

Wednesday's vote followed a protest on New Year's Day in which tens of thousands took to the streets to urge Leung to quit and to press for greater democracy, 15 years after the city returned to Chinese rule.

The former British colony maintains a semi-autonomous status, with its own legal and judicial system, but cannot choose its leader through the popular vote.

Leung took office in July after he was picked by a 1,200-strong election committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites, amid rising anger over what many perceive to be China's meddling in local affairs.

China has said the chief executive could be directly elected in 2017 at the earliest, with the legislature following by 2020.

Unauthorised structures are a politically sensitive issue in the space-starved city of seven million and demonstrators have used the scandal to press for universal suffrage in choosing Hong Kong's leader.

Leung secured the chief executive role after criticising his rival Henry Tang over illegal structures at Tang's home.

But he has since acknowledged and apologised for structures at his own home which were built without planning permission.

Maverick lawmaker "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, wearing a T-shirt reading "We topple a tyrant", accused the new leader of lying about his own structures during campaigning when he presented the impeachment motion earlier on Wednesday.

"He has used dishonest ways to win the election," he said.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, second in command in Leung's administration, said the motion was unnecessary and urged lawmakers to work together on policy and livelihood issues.

But Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau said the motion was a symbolic gesture to show the deepening public mistrust toward Leung, claiming the leader had "cheated his way to power".

"This is the first time we have a motion in the legislature to impeach a cheating chief executive," she said.

If the motion had been passed, the city's highest court would have had to initiate an investigation. At least two-thirds of the legislature would need to endorse a guilty finding before Leung could be removed from office.

Earlier, rival protesters traded barbs outside the legislature and security personnel had to step in at one point when an angry pro-government supporter charged towards the rival group, TV footage showed.

Leung's popularity ratings have fallen since the controversy, with discontent over issues including sky-high property prices and anti-Beijing sentiment remaining high.

- AFP/xq

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Intel responds to cooked power efficiency claims

Intel announced its new low-power Ivy Bridge chips on Monday at CES.

(Credit:
CNET)

LAS VEGAS--Intel came clean today about the power efficiency for the new Ivy Bridge chips announced at CES on Monday.

At its
CES event, Intel claimed that new power-frugal Y series Ivy Bridge processors were rated at 7 watts -- a remarkable feat on its face, as that's 10 watts less than standard low-power Ivy Bridge chips rated at 17 watts.

It turns out, Intel did some fancy marketing footwork in order to claim the 7-watt rating.

Below is Intel's statement provided to CNET. The operative phrase is: "The TDP of the Y-processors are 13W." So, by Intel's historical power rating standard, the chips are actually 13 watts not 7. According to Intel:

Scenario Design Point (SDP) is an additional thermal reference point meant to represent mainstream touch-first usages. It balances performance and mobility across PC and tablet workloads to extend capabilities into thin, thermally-constrained designs.

The Mobile Y-processors have multiple design points providing maximum design flexibility for our customers to continue to push the envelope in terms of form factor innovation. The TDP of the Y-processors are 13W which is a 24% reduction from TDP of our lowest 3rd gen Intel Core processors today. In addition to the TDP reduction, the Y-processors also have an additional thermal reference point, namely Scenario Design Power (SDP), which provides a balance of performance vs. design power for mainstream touch-first usages and operates at 7W.

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2012: Hottest Year on Record for Continental U.S.

Temperatures across the continental United States soared in 2012 to an all-time high, making last year the warmest year on record for the country by a wide margin, scientists say. (Related: "July Hottest Month on Record in U.S.—Warming and Drought to Blame?")

"2012 marks the warmest year on record for the contiguous U.S., with the year consisting of a record warm spring, the second warmest summer, the fourth warmest winter, and a warmer than average autumn," Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at the National Climatic Data Center at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said in a press conference Tuesday.

According to a new NOAA report, the average temperature for the lower 48 states in 2012 was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius), which is higher than the previous 1998 record by one degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degree Celsius).

A single degree difference might not seem like much, but it is an unusually large margin, scientists say. Annual temperature records typically differ by just tenths of a degree Fahrenheit.

"That is quite a bit for a whole year averaged over the whole country," said Anthony Barnston, chief forecaster at Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), who was not involved in the study.

2012: An Odd Year

To put that difference in perspective, said NOAA's Crouch, consider that the entire range of temperature increase between the coldest year on record, which occurred in 1917, and the previous hottest year in 1998 was just 4.2 degrees Fahrenheit (2.3 degrees Celsius).

"2012 is now more than one degree above the top of that. So we're talking about well above the pack in terms of all the years we have data for the U.S.," he added.

2012 was also the 15th driest year on record for the nation: The average precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. was 26.57 inches (67.5 centimeters), 2.57 inches (6.5 centimeters) below average.

Moreover, every single one of the lower 48 states had above average temperatures. Nineteen states had their warmest year on record and an additional 26 states experienced one of their top ten warmest years on record.

2012 was unusual in another way for the nation, according to the NOAA report. Last year was the second most extreme year on record for the U.S., with 11 natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy and a widespread drought that each cost at least a billion dollars in losses. (See pictures of the U.S. drought.)

Global Warming at Play?

The country's record year can't be explained by natural climate variability alone, noted Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the Boulder, Colorado-based National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"It is abundantly clear that we are seeing [human-caused] climate change in action," Trenberth, who also did not participate in the NOAA report, said in an email. "These records do not occur like this in an unchanging climate." (Test your global warming knowledge.)

(Also see "Climate Predictions: Worst-Case May Be Most Accurate, Study Finds.")

Just how much of a role climate change played is still unclear, however. "That's kind of hard to state at this point," NOAA's Crouch said.

"Climate change has had a role in this ... but it's hard for us to say at this time what amount of the 2012 temperature was dependent on climate change and what part was dependent on local variability."

For example, Columbia University's Barnston pointed out, an atmospheric weather pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) was in the positive phase for much of the winter of 2012, which lead to warmer winters in the eastern U.S.

Warming Trend May Continue

There's no guarantee that the weather pattern will continue in 2013. "It could be in the negative phase, which would make it more like it was a few years ago when we had very snowy winters in the eastern part of the country," Barnston said.

The NAO is an example of "a factor that makes the U.S. annual mean temperature kind of jog up and down from year to year. It won't just gradually go straight up with global warming. It can take big dips and have big jumps."

But if climate change continues unchecked, heat records will become more common, NOAA's Crouch said.

"If the warming trend continues, we will expect to see more warmer than average years."

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Hospitals Flooded With Flu Patients

U.S. emergency rooms have been overwhelmed with flu patients, turning away some of them and others with non-life-threatening conditions for lack of space.

Forty-one states are battling widespread influenza outbreaks, including Illinois, where six people -- all older than 50 -- have died, according to the state's Department of Public Health.

At least 18 children in the country have died during this flu season, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The proportion of people seeing their doctor for flu-like symptoms jumped to 5.6 percent from 2.8 percent in the past month, according to the CDC.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago reported a 20 percent increase in flu patients every day. Northwestern Memorial was one of eight hospitals on bypass Monday and Tuesday, meaning it asked ambulances to take patients elsewhere if they could do so safely.

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Most of the hospitals have resumed normal operations, but could return to the bypass status if the influx of patients becomes too great.

"Northwestern Memorial Hospital is an extraordinarily busy hospital, and oftentimes during our busier months, in the summer, we will sometimes have to go on bypass," Northwestern Memorial's Dr. David Zich said. "We don't like it, the community doesn't like it, but sometimes it is necessary."

A tent outside Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township, Pa., was set up to tend to the overflowing number of flu cases.

A hospital in Ohio is requiring patients with the flu to wear masks to protect those who are not infected.

State health officials in Indiana have reported seven deaths. Five of the deaths occurred in people older than 65 and two younger than 18. The state will release another report later today.

Doctors are especially concerned about the elderly and children, where the flu can be deadly.

"Our office in the last two weeks has exploded with children," Dr. Gayle Smith, a pediatrician in Richmond, Va., said

It is the earliest flu season in a decade and, ABC News Chief Medical Editor Dr. Besser says, it's not too late to protect yourself from the outbreak.

"You have to think about an anti-viral, especially if you're elderly, a young child, a pregnant woman," Besser said.

"They're the people that are going to die from this. Tens of thousands of people die in a bad flu season. We're not taking it serious enough."

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Today on New Scientist: 8 January 2013

Mock Mars mission reveals salty surprise

Unexpected findings from the "crew members" of the Mars 500 experiment may overturn a common assumption about how our body stores and excretes dietary salt

'Exocomets' abound in alien solar systems

Planets around billions of stars may be getting pummelled by the icy dirt-balls in the same way that the young Earth once was

Australia faces another week of 'catastrophic' heat

A record-smashing "dome of heat" is causing the worst fire threat on record and forcing Australian meteorologists to add two colours to their heat maps

Black holes star in first images of high-energy cosmos

NASA's recently launched NuSTAR space telescope peers through the dust that blinds other craft to spot a supernova and two black holes

Another day at the office for NASA's robot astronaut

This fine figure of a robot is Robonaut 2 hard at work aboard the International Space Station last week

Into thin air: Storage salvation for green energy

If renewable energy is to succeed, we need to find a better way to store it. Liquid air batteries could be the answer, says Jim Giles

Tony Fadell: From iPhones to sexing up thermostats

After quitting Apple, the tech guru behind the iPod wanted to revolutionise our homes - starting with the humble thermostat

World's oldest pills treated sore eyes

Tablets found in an ancient shipwreck contain zinc carbonates - just like many of today's eye medications

Only the toughest would survive on Tatooine worlds

A new look at twin-star systems hints that life might thrive in more places than we thought, as long as it can adapt to wild climates

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India says two soldiers killed in clash with Pakistan troops

SRINAGAR, India: Pakistani troops killed two Indian soldiers on Tuesday near the tense disputed border between the nuclear-armed neighbours in Kashmir and one of the bodies was badly mutilated, the Indian army said.

The firefight broke out at about noon on Tuesday (0630 GMT) after an Indian patrol discovered Pakistani troops about half a kilometre (1,600 feet) inside Indian territory, an army spokesman told AFP.

A ceasefire has been in place along the Line of Control that divides the countries since 2003, but it is periodically violated by both sides and Pakistan said Indian troops killed a Pakistani soldier on Sunday.

Relations had been slowly improving over the last few years following a rupture in their slow-moving peace process after the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, which were blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants.

"There was a firefight with Pakistani troops," army spokesman Rajesh Kalia told AFP from the mountainous Himalayan region.

"We lost two soldiers and one of them has been badly mutilated," he added, declining to give more details on the injuries.

"The intruders were regular (Pakistani) soldiers and they were 400-500 metres (1,300-1,600 feet) inside our territory," he said of the clash in Mendhar sector, 173 kilometres (107 miles) west by road from the city of Jammu.

In Islamabad, a Pakistan military spokesman denied what he called an "Indian allegation of unprovoked firing". He declined to elaborate.

On Sunday, Pakistan said Indian troops had crossed the Line of Control and stormed a military post. It said one Pakistani soldier was killed and another injured.

It lodged a formal protest with India on Monday over what it called an unprovoked attack.

India denied crossing the line, saying it had retaliated with small arms fire after Pakistani mortars hit a village home.

A foreign ministry spokesman said Indian troops had undertaken "controlled retaliation" on Sunday after "unprovoked firing" which damaged a civilian home.

The deaths are set to undermine recent efforts to improve relations, such as opening up trade and offering more lenient visa regimes which have been a feature of talks between senior political leaders from both sides.

Muslim-majority Kashmir is a Himalayan region which India and Pakistan both claim in full but rule in part. It was the cause of two of three wars between the neighbours since independence from Britain in 1947.

- AFP/fa

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G-Tech soups up external storage with 7,200rpm hard drives

The G-Tech G-RAID Mini external hard drive.

(Credit:
G-Tech)

LAS VEGAS--Call it a minor upgrade, but that's what G-Technology has to offer this year at
CES.

The storage vendor, which is now part of Western Digital, announced at CES 2013 that it now ships all of its popular G-Technology G-Drive Mini and G-RAID Mini external storage products with high-speed 1TB, 2.5-inch 7,200rpm hard drives.

Thanks to this, the G-Drive Mini, a compact single-volume external drive, now offers up to 136MBps performance speed. The drive offers both USB 3.0 and FireWire 8000 connection types and is bus-powered. It's preformatted for
Mac and is now available in a 1TB model that costs $200.

The G-RAID Mini is a dual-volume external hard drive that offers RAID 0 (default) and RAID 1. RAID 0 is tuned for high-speed performance and maximum storage space, while the RAID 1 guards the data against a single drive failure at the expense of 50 percent of storage space. This drive also supports both USB 3.0 and FireWire. It's now available in a 2TB capacity and costs $450.

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Primitive and Peculiar Mammal May Be Hiding Out in Australia

It’d be hard to think of a mammal that’s weirder than the long-beaked, egg-laying echidna. Or harder to find.

Scientists long thought the animal, which has a spine-covered body, a four-headed penis, and a single hole for reproducing, laying eggs, and excreting waste, lived only in New Guinea. The population of about 10,000 is critically endangered. Now there is tantalizing evidence that the echidna, thought to have gone extinct in Australia some 10,000 years ago, lived and reproduced there as recently as the early 1900s and may still be alive on Aussie soil.

The new echidna information comes from zoologist Kristofer Helgen, a National Geographic emerging explorer and curator of mammals at the Smithsonian Institution. Helgen has published a key finding in ZooKeys confirming that a skin and skull collected in 1901 by naturalist John T. Tunney in Australia is in fact the western long-beaked echidna, Zaglossus bruijnii. The specimen, found in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia, was misidentified for many years.

(More about echidnas: Get to know this living link between mammals and reptiles.)

Helgen has long been fascinated by echidnas. He has seen only three in the wild. “Long-beaked echidnas are hard to get your hands on, period,” he said. “They are shy and secretive by nature. You’re lucky if you can find one. And if you do, it will be by chance.” Indeed, chance played a role in his identification of the Australian specimen. In 2009, he visited the Natural History Museum of London, where he wanted to see all of the echidnas he could. He took a good look in the bottom drawer of the echidna cabinet, where the specimens with less identifying information are often stored. From among about a dozen specimens squeezed into the drawer, he grabbed the one at the very bottom.

(Related from National Geographic magazine: “Discovery in the Foja Mountains.”)

“As I pulled it out, I saw a tag that I had seen before,” Helgen said. “I was immediately excited about this label. As a zoologist working in museums you get used to certain tags: It’s a collector’s calling card. I instantly recognized John Tunney’s tag and his handwriting.”

John Tunney was a well-known naturalist in the early 20th century who went on collecting expeditions for museums. During an Australian expedition in 1901 for Lord L. Walter Rothschild’s private museum collection, he found the long-beaked echidna specimen. Though he reported the locality on his tag as “Mt Anderson (W Kimberley)” and marked it as “Rare,” Tunney left the species identification field blank. When he returned home, the specimen was sent to the museum in Perth for identification. It came back to Rothschild’s museum identified as a short-beaked echidna.

With the specimen’s long snout, large size, and three-clawed feet, Helgen knew that it must be a long-beaked echidna. The short-beaked echidna, still alive and thriving in Australia today, has five claws, a smaller beak, and is half the size of the long-beaked echidna, which can weigh up to 36 pounds (16 kilograms).

As Helgen began tracing the history and journey of the specimen over the last century, he crossed the path of another fascinating mind who had also encountered the specimen. Oldfield Thomas was arguably the most brilliant mammalogical taxonomist ever. He named approximately one out of every six mammals known today.

Thomas was working at the Natural History Museum in London when the Tunney echidna specimen arrived, still misidentified as a short-beaked echidna. Thomas realized the specimen was actually a long-beaked echidna and removed the skull and some of the leg bones from the skin to prove that it was an Australian record of a long-beaked echidna, something just as unexpected then as it is now.

No one knows why Thomas did not publish that information. And the echidna went back into the drawer until Helgen came along 80 years later.

As Helgen became convinced that Tunney’s long-beaked echidna specimen indeed came from Australia, he confided in fellow scientist Mark Eldridge of the Australian Museum about the possibility. Eldridge replied, “You’re not the first person who’s told me that there might be long-beaked echidnas in the Kimberley.” (That’s the Kimberley region of northern Australia.) Scientist James Kohen, a co-author on Helgen’s ZooKeys paper, had been conducting fieldwork in the area in 2001 and spoke to an Aboriginal woman who told him how “her grandmothers used to hunt” large echidnas.

This is “the first evidence of the survival into modern times of any long-beaked echidna in Australia,” said Tim Flannery, professor at Macquarie University in Sydney. “This is a truly significant finding that should spark a re-evaluation of echidna identifications from across northern Australia.”

Helgen has “a small optimism” about finding a long-beaked echidna in the wild in Australia and hopes to undertake an expedition and to interview Aboriginal communities, with their intimate knowledge of the Australian bush.

Though the chances may be small, Helgen says, finding one in the wild “would be the beautiful end to the story.”

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Jodi Arias: Who Is the Admitted Killer?

Jodi Arias is a woman that many can't keep their eyes off of--a soft-spoken, small-framed 32-year-old who last year won a jailhouse Christmas caroling contest. But she is also an admitted killer who is now on trial in Arizona for the 2008 murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Sitting in a Maricopa County court, Arias, whose trial resumes today, cries every time prosecutors describe what she admits she did -- stab her one-time boyfriend Travis Alexander 27 times, slit his throat and shoot him in the head.

Arias grew up in the small city of Yreka, Calif. She dropped out of high school, but received her GED while in jail a few years ago. She was an aspiring photographer; her MySpace page includes several albums of pictures, one of which was called "In loving memory of Travis Alexander."

FULL COVERAGE: Jodi Arias Murder Trial

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"Jodi wanted nothing but to please Travis," defense attorney Jennifer Wilmot said in her opening statements, but added that there was another reality – that Arias was Alexander's "dirty little secret."

Arias' attorneys want the jury to believe she killed Alexander in June of 2008 in self defense, that he abused her, and she feared for her life when she attacked him in the shower of his Mesa, Ariz., home.

Alexander's family and friends say Arias was a stalker who killed him in cold blood. They say the 30-year-old was a successful businessman who overcame all the odds. His parents were drug addicts, and he grew up occasionally homeless until he converted to Mormonism and turned his life around.

Jodi Arias Trial: A Timeline of Events in the Arizona Murder Case

"He actually had everything going for him," said Dave Hall, one of Alexander's friends. "A beautiful home, a beautiful car, a great income."

Alexander kept a blog, and in a haunting last entry, just two weeks before his murder, he wrote about trying to find a wife.

"This type of dating to me is like a very long job interview," he wrote. "Desperately trying to find out if my date has an axe murderer penned up inside of her."

Alexander did date a killer. It's now up to the jury to decide if she killed in self defense.

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Today on New Scientist: 7 January 2013

Light hits near infinite speed in silver-coated glass

A new metamaterial is the first with a refractive index near zero, allowing light waves to propagate ultrafast over nano-distances

Fact and fiction blur as Captain Kirk tweets astronaut

Truth got stranger than fiction in low Earth orbit when the crew of the starship Enterprise exchanged messages with the crew of the International Space Station

Sea level rise could lead to a cooler, stormier world

If sea level rises significantly due to global warming, chilled seas caused by melting icebergs might temporarily cool the planet's surface

Climate change looms large as Australia swelters

Australia is baking in record-breaking heat, threatening to unleash the worst firestorms since 2009

Abnormal timing in the womb may cause miscarriage

Repeated miscarriages may be due to abnormal signals that make the uterus receptive to an embryo for too long

Quantum shadows: The mystery of matter deepens

Forget particles and waves. When it comes to the true guise of material reality, what's out there is beyond our grasp, says Anil Ananthaswamy

Chad's 'mountains of hunger' as rendered by Turner

It may look like a Turner, but this dramatic image is actually a snapshot of the Tibesti mountains that straddle Chad and Libya taken from space

West vs Asia education rankings are misleading

Western schoolchildren are routinely outperformed by their Asian peers, but worrying about it is pointless, says MacGregor Campbell

Silent Skype calls can hide secret messages

A new technique embeds secret data in the silent gaps between words during a Skype call, making it very hard to detect

Graphic in-car crash warnings to slow speeding drivers

Tell drivers what might happen to them and their car if they continue speeding and they might just slow down

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Airbus unveils deal for Indian air refuelling tankers

PARIS: European aircraft manufacturer Airbus said Monday that it has won a tender to supply India with six A330 air refuelling tankers, a deal potentially worth more than US$1.0 billion.

"Airbus Military is pleased to confirm that it has been selected by the Government of India as the preferred bidder to supply its A330 MRTT Multi Role Tanker Transport to the Indian Air Force," an Airbus statement said.

A spokesman for Airbus Military, the group's defence division, declined to comment on the deal's value, which would have a catalogue price of US$1.25-1.38 billion.

Airbus still has a way to go before it can take a signed contract to the bank however, as the development opened the door to a long process of negotiations between Delhi and the aircraft manufacturer.

As an example, the French company Dassault Aviation was chosen by India in January 2012 to supply 126 Rafale combat jets, but that deal has yet to be finalised.

Airbus Military chief executive Domingo Urena Raso was quoted as saying: "We are fully committed to the next stage of the negotiations, and ultimately to providing the IAF with what is unquestionably the most advanced tanker/transport aircraft flying and certified today."

Airbus had already won a contract to build air refuelling tankers for India, but that deal was cancelled owing to irregularities in the tender process.

This time around, Airbus was competing head-to-head with the Russian group Ilyushin, which has already supplied aircraft to India.

If the Airbus contract with India is finalised, it would mark the sixth country to buy or say it will buy the tankers.

The others are Australia, Britain, France, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

An industry source said that India might need many more than just six of the planes, meanwhile.

The A330 MRTT (multirole tanker transport) can supply two aircraft with fuel at the same time, and in the configuration now being used by the Australian air force, can carry 111 tonnes of fuel, 37 tonnes of material and 270 passengers.

The deal would be a welcome fillip to Airbus, which suffered a bitter defeat in the United States almost two years ago when arch rival Boeing won a US Air Force contract for 179 air refuelling tankers.

- AFP/jc

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Lexar announces its first XQD memory cards

Lexar's Professional XQD USB 3.0 Reader for reading XQD flash memory cards

(Credit:
Lexar)

Nikon photography pros will be happy to know there's a major new supplier of XQD flash-memory cards: Lexar.

Lexar's 64GB XQD flash memory card

(Credit:
Lexar)

They might not be so happy about the price for the new high-end format: a 1100X 64GB model costs $580, and a 32GB costs $300. At the
CES show today, the Micron subsidiary also announced a $45 USB 3.0 card reader for the new format.

Nikon's flagship D4 SLR uses the XQD cards, which before were available only from Sony. Lexar's 1100X models guarantee a 168MB/sec read speed, though write speeds are somewhat lower.

XQD is one of two formats vying to be the replacement for the venerable CompactFlash. Perversely, the CompactFlash Association is overseeing standardization of both. Nikon signed up for XQD, which is based on the PCI Express data-transfer technology, but Canon signed up for CFast 2.0, which uses the Serial ATA data-transfer technology.

Having two high-end flash card formats means the market is fragmented, making it harder for photographers to switch between camera models or use multiple brands. It also means shipment volumes of either format will be lower than if there were a unified standard, which typically translates into lower availability and higher cost.

Lexar's top rival, SanDisk, is making CFast 2.0 cards but not XQD cards.

Meanwhile, SD card is the victor of the mainstream flash-card market.

That victory doesn't mean SD is immune from stratospherically priced options for buyers who need to keep up with 3D video or other high-throughput demands, though.

Also at CES, Lexar also announced new high-performance SD cards. The Lexar Professional 600x SDXC UHS-I card comes in a 256GB size that costs $1,000.

Lexar's 256GB Professional 600x SDXC UHS-I flash memory card

(Credit:
Lexar)

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