Low-power laser may keep blindness at bay

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Elton John has second baby via surrogate

LONDON: British pop star Elton John and his partner David Furnish have become parents for a second time, they confirmed on Wednesday.

The couple told Hello! magazine that they were "overwhelmed with happiness" at the birth of their son Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, who was born in Los Angeles on Friday to a surrogate mother.

"Both of us have longed to have children, but the reality that we now have two sons is almost unbelievable," they said.

The couple's first son Zachary was also born via a surrogacy arrangement in California in 2010.

"The birth of our second son completes our family in a most precious and perfect way," John and Furnish told the magazine.

"It is difficult to fully express how we are feeling at this time; we are just overwhelmed with happiness and excitement."

The "Candle in the Wind" singer, 65, has been in a relationship with 50-year-old film producer Furnish for almost 20 years and they have been in a civil partnership since 2005.

Last week, the couple's spokesman denied reports they had become parents again, but they have often spoken of their desire for Zachary to have a sibling.

The baby shares his middle name, Daniel, with one of John's 1970s hits.

- AFP/fa

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Developer allegedly outsources his whole job to China, fired

I imagine his work posture looked something like this.

(Credit:
HeWazARed/YouTube Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Work is an overrated concept, created by those in power in order to subjugate those who are trusting or have several children.

This might, at least, have been the thinking of a developer who believed he had found a magical ruse to prevent him from being subjugated.

As The Next Web tells it, relying on a case study presented by the security team at Verizon,, the gentleman in question was very interested in Reddit, eBay shopping, and watching cat videos during working hours.

So he allegedly outsourced his work to China. Yes, all of his work. He did nothing at all -- workwise, that is, according to Verizon.

Nicknamed "Bob" by Verizon, the developer worked at a critical infrastructure company in the U.S.

However, the Verizon folks say he also attempted to perform this liberating ploy simultaneously on other companies -- presumably he was accepting freelance projects on the side.

More Technically Incorrect

What some might find amusing -- or even dispiriting -- is that his employers valued him highly, as the work was of an excellent standard.

Meanwhile, Bob's trousers were being handsomely filled, as he was paying the Chinese a mere 20 percent of what the work would cost in the U.S., Verizon said.

You might wonder how, given that everyone was happy, he was ever discovered. Well, apparently his company noticed in its VPN logs that there was odd and consistent activity occurring on a connection between it and Shenyang, China.

The developer had allegedly discovered a way to make log-ins appear that he was over there, rather than over here. Part of his ruse was to FedEx his RSA token to China. Yes, the actual thing.

Bob, you might think, was a bit of a lad, the sort of man who was loud at work and an excellent drinking buddy (before the third pitcher of beer, that is).

Not quite.

Verizon's report describes him as

Mid-40s software developer versed in C, C++, Perl, Java, Ruby, PHP, Python, etc. Relatively long tenure with the company, family man, inoffensive and quiet. Someone you wouldn't look at twice in an elevator.

As my mother always warned me, it's the quiet ones you have to beware of.

Once the security people delved into Bob's computer, according to Verizon, they discovered invoices and all sorts of entertainments.

Though Bob was fired, it's unclear whether any steps were taken to retrieve the money he earned.

An enterprising manager might have decided that he had, in fact, performed an enormously positive service for his company.

Surely the wise thing to do here would be to offer the Chinese developers a permanent contract and hire no more Bobs.

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.

Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale Crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could have been created only in the presence of water. (Related: "Mars Has 'Oceans' of Water Inside?")

Project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said during a press conference that the drill area has turned out "to be jackpot unit. Every place we drive exposes fractures and vein fills."

Mission scientists initially decided to visit the depression, a third of a mile from Curiosity's landing site, on a brief detour before heading to the large mountain at the middle of Gale Crater. But because of the richness of their recent finds, Grotzinger said it may be some months before they begin their trek to Mount Sharp.

The drilling, expected to start this month, will dig five holes about two inches (five centimeters) into bedrock the size of a throw rug and then feed the powder created to the rover's two chemistry labs for analysis.

The drill is the most complex device on the rover and is the last instrument to be used. Project manager Richard Cook, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that operating it posed the biggest mechanical challenge since Curiosity's high-drama landing. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

A Watery Past?

That now desiccated Mars once had a significant amount of surface water is now generally accepted, but every new discovery of when and where water was present is considered highly significant. The presence of surface water in its many possible forms—as a running stream, as a still lake, as ground water soaked into the Martian soil—all add to an increased possibility that the planet was once habitable. (Watch a video about searching for life on Mars.)

And each piece of evidence supporting the presence of water brings the Curiosity mission closer to its formal goal—which is to determine whether Mars was once capable of supporting life.

Curiosity scientists have already concluded that a briskly moving river or stream once flowed near the Gale landing site.

The discovery of the mineral-filled veins within Yellowknife Bay rock fractures adds to the picture because those minerals can be deposited only in watery, underground conditions.

The Curiosity team has also examined Yellowknife Bay for sedimentary rocks with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI). Scientists have found sandstone with grains up to about the size of a peppercorn, including one shaped like a flower bud that appears to gleam. Other nearby rocks are siltstone, with grains finer than powdered sugar. These are quite different from the pebbles and conglomerate rocks found in the landing area, but all these rocks are evidence of a watery past. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

One of the primary reasons Curiosity scientists selected Gale Crater as a landing site was because satellite images indicated that water-formed minerals were present near the base of Mount Sharp. Grotzinger said that the minerals' presence so close to the landing site, and some five miles from the mountain, is both a surprise and an opportunity.

The current site in Yellowknife Bay is so promising, Grotzinger said, that he would have been "thrilled" to find similar formations at the mission's prime destination at the base of Mount Sharp. Now the mission can look forward to the surprises to come at the mountain base while already having struck gold.

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Obama Unveils Sweeping Plan to Curb Gun Violence

Flanked by four children from across the country, President Obama today unveiled a sweeping plan to curb gun violence in America through an extensive package of legislation and executive actions not seen since the 1960s.

Obama is asking Congress to implement mandatory background checks for all gun purchases, including private sales; reinstate a ban on some assault-style weapons; ban high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds; and crackdown on illicit weapons trafficking.

The president's proposal also includes new initiatives for school safety, including a call for more federal aid to states for hiring so-called school resource officers (police), counselors and psychologists, and improved access to mental health care.

Obama also signed 23 executive actions on gun violence, policy directives not needing congressional approval. Among them is a directive to federal agencies to beef up the national criminal background-check system and a memorandum lifting a freeze on gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality," Obama said at a midday news conference. "If there's even one thing that we can do to reduce this violence, if there's even one life that can be saved, then we have an obligation to try.

Maqndel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Congressman, survivor of Tucson shooting, says Gabby Giffords will personally lobby members of Congress on gun legislation Watch Video

Andrew Cuomo Signs New York Gun Control Law, Obama Readies Federal Plan Watch Video

"And I'm going to do my part."

The announcement comes one month after a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., left 26 dead, including 20 children. Obama called it the worst moment of his presidency and promised "meaningful action" in response.

The proposals were the work of an Obama-appointed task force, led by Vice President Joe Biden, that held 22 meetings on gun violence in the past three weeks. The group received input from more than 220 organizations and dozens of elected officials, a senior administration official said.

As part of the push, Obama nominated a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which leads enforcement of federal gun laws and has been without a confirmed director for six years. The president appointed acting director Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, to the post, if the Senate confirms him.

The administration's plan also calls for aid to states for the hiring of more school resource officers, counselors and psychologists. Obama also directed the Department of Education to ensure all schools have improved emergency-response plans.

He also called on Congress to make it illegal to possess or transfer armor-piercing bullets; it's now only illegal to produce them.

Officials said some of the legislative measures Obama outlined could be introduced on Capitol Hill next week.

"House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations," a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said in response to Obama's announcement. "And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that."

The proposals are already being met with stiff opposition from gun rights advocates, led by the National Rifle Association, which overnight released a scathing ad attacking the president as an "elitist hypocrite."

"Are the president's kids more important than yours?" the narrator of the NRA ad says. "Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?"

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Record-breaking temperatures are now the norm

Interactive map: "Your warming world"

Call it the new normal. Last year was the ninth warmest on record across the globe, according to NASA's annual analysis of surface temperatures. But by recent standards, it was nothing special: all but one of the hottest 10 years have happened since 2000.

The single exception – 1998 – was influenced by a very strong El Niño, in which warm water from the western Pacific spreads to the east, increasing the transfer of heat from the oceans to the atmosphere.

The global average figures from the annual analysis of surface temperatures, released today by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, tell only part of the story. Local and regional changes can be even more extreme.

To visualise how temperature has changed around the globe, take a peek at New Scientist's interactive map of the entire historical temperature record from the NASA analysis. Watch the video to get started.

Continental record

Although 2012 was not a record breaker in global terms, it was an extreme year for the Arctic and North America, with temperatures exceeding 3 °C above the average for NASA's baseline period of 1951 to 1980.

Last week, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that 2012 was the warmest year on record for the continental US.

NASA's analysis confirms this conclusion. According to team leader James Hansen, an unusually warm spring dried out the soil across much of the country, leaving little moisture to moderate summer temperatures through evaporative cooling.

Still, the steady rise in global average temperature seems to have levelled off in the past few years. One reason may be that the El Niño conditions that prevailed in the first half of the decade gave way to La Niña, which reduces heat transfer from the oceans. If so, prepare for more record-breaking years when El Niño returns.

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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Football: LionsXII fall to PKNS

SINGAPORE - After two confidence-boosting wins from their first two Malaysian Super League matches, V. Sundramoorthy's high-flying LionsXII side were brought down to earth on Tuesday night at the Shah Alam Stadium when they fell to their first defeat.

Ironically, PKNS Selangor, the team that defeated them on Tuesday, had entered the match in contrasting fashion - with two losses out of two matches.

But that did not stop PKNS Selangor from stunning the LionsXII and maintaining their 100 per cent home record against the Singapore side.

Last season, PKNS did the double over Sundram's men, beating them in Kuala Lumpur in the MSL as well as in the group stage of the Malaysia Cup.

Tuesday's match seemed headed for a 0-0 draw despite the LionsXII coming close through Fazrul Nawaz, Irwan Shah and Gabriel Quak in the first half which they had also dominated.

Fazrul sent his shot centimetres wide of the post after latching onto a pass by skipper Shahril Ishak. Irwan then missed another scoring opportunity during a goalmouth scramble minutes later, while Quak let himself down by shooting wide with only the keeper to beat after dribbling his way past several PKNS defenders.

In the second half, the two sides switched roles as PKNS attacked more, and had the LionsXII on the backfoot.

In the end, it was Nazrin Syamsul who made the difference when he blasted home the only goal of the game for PKNS.

The LionsXII's misery was further compounded when striker Fazrul was sent off in the dying minutes of the game for a nasty tackle.

The LionsXII's next match is on Saturday against Terengganu at the Jalan Besar Stadium.

- TODAY

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Jack Ma to step down as Alibaba CEO, stay on as chairman

Alibaba founder Jack Ma.

(Credit:
Alibaba Group)

Alibaba founder Jack Ma has announced that he will step down from his company's chief executive post.

Ma sent an e-mail to employees today, saying that it was a "difficult decision," according to Reuters, which obtained a copy of the note. He noted that while he will be stepping down as CEO, he will stay on at Alibaba as chairman of the company's board of directors.

Ma and Alibaba have yet to name a successor, though Ma said that his replacement would be announced on May 10. It seems likely, given the tone of the 48-year-old Ma's letter, that the replacement will be younger.

"It's not because I wanted to take things easy (though the job of Alibaba CEO is no easy task), it's because I see that Alibaba's young people have better, more brilliant, dreams than mine, and they are more capable of building a future that belongs to them," Ma wrote to employees, according to Reuters.

Alibaba founded his online marketplace and e-commerce company in 1999. Since then, the company has become one of the largest Internet firms in the world, with over 25,000 employees. Alibaba operates primarily in China.

That Ma is ready to step down now comes as a surprise. At 48 years of age, he's young for a chief executive. However, in an interview with The New York Times, Ma said that he's "no longer young enough to run such a fast-growing business."

Still, he doesn't plan on going far. He told the Times that he plans on being "very active" in the chairman role.

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.

While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.

Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long) creature is a relatively large new type of flying frog, a group known for its ability to "parachute" from tree to tree thanks to special aerodynamic adaptations, such as webbed feet, Rowley said. (Also see "'Vampire Flying Frog' Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs.")

Rowley dubbed the new species Helen's flying frog, in honor of her mother, Helen Rowley, "who has steadfastly supported her only child trekking through the forests of Southeast Asia in search of frogs," according to a statement.

The newfound species—there are 80 types of flying frogs—is also "one of the most flying frogs of the flying frogs," Rowley said, "in that it's got huge hands and feet that are webbed all the way to the toepad."

"Females even have flappy skin on their forearms to glide," added Rowley, who has received funding from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) "The females are larger and heavier than males, so the little extra flaps probably don't make much of a difference," she said.

As Rowley wrote on her blog, "At first it may seem strange that such a fantastic and obvious frog could escape discovery until now—less than 100 kilometers [60 miles] from an urban centre with over nine million people."

Yet these tree dwellers can easily escape notice—they spend most of their time in the canopy, she said.

Flying Frog on the Edge

Even so, Helen's flying frog won't be able to hide from development near Ho Chi Minh City, which may encroach on its existing habitats.

So far, only five individuals have been found in two patches of lowland forest hemmed in by rice paddies in southern Vietnam, Rowley said. The animals can probably tolerate a little bit of disturbance as long as they have large trees and temporary pools, she added.

But lowland forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, mostly because they're so accessible to people, and thus chosen for logging and development. (Get the facts on deforestation.)

"While Helen's flying frog has only just been discovered by biologists," Rowley wrote, "unfortunately this species, like many others, is under great threat from ongoing habitat loss and degradation."

The new flying frog study was published in December 2012 in the Journal of Herpetology.

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Jodi Arias: The New Casey Anthony?

The murder trial of Jodi Arias is drawing comparisons to the trial of Casey Anthony, another woman who initially told elaborate lies and then claimed at trial that she was a victim.

Arias, 32, eventually admitted that she killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander, but insists it was in self defense because he was an abusive and sexually deviant lover.

Anthony, now 25, insisted her daughter Caylee had been stolen by a nanny and didn't drop that story until the first day of her murder trial when she said the toddler drowned in a backyard pool. Anthony said she had become accustomed to lying to hide alleged sexual abuse by her father for much of her life.

Both women lied about their jobs, sought out sex immediately after the deaths, and even had similar hair styles.

Anthony was found innocent by a jury in 2011, while Arias is still on trial and could face the death penalty if found guilty.

Nancy Grace, a legal analyst for ABC News, says the Arias trial is also similar to Scott Peterson's murder of his wife Laci, who was eight months pregnant when she was killed in 2002. Peterson was having an affair with a masseuse at the time of his wife's death.

Key Players and Key Evidence in Jodi Arias Trial

"The obvious one is that all three of them killed the one they professed to love the most...their love object, the thing they held dearest," said Grace, who has covered all three trials on her TV show.

Matt York/AP Photo|Al Golub/Pool/AP Photo|Joe Burbank-Pool/Getty Images

Jodi Arias Trial: Jurors See Photos of Bloody Handprint Watch Video

"You also have of course the promiscuity, a very obvious (similarity)," Grace said. "You could argue all three were sexually driven murders. 'Tot Mom' [Grace's nickname for Casey Anthony] clearly wanted a wild carefree single life. She was dancing in a push-up bra and go-go boots while her daughter's body was rotting. She's going from one man's arms to another man's arms."

See Full Coverage of Jodi Arias Trial

"Scott Peterson was a dog, there's no other way I can put it. And then Jodi Arias, who went from slashing the throat of her lover to literally hopping on top of another guy within a few hours," Grace said.

Ryan Burns testified that the day after Arias killed Alexander, he had a date with Arias and she laid on top of him and began kissing him.

"It could also be argued that all three are physically attractive," Grace said, "though I find none of them attractive. But all three use their looks and their charisma."

Each of the three changed their looks, dying their hair different colors and drastically changing their appearances for court. Grace was particularly struck by the similarity of Arias' and Anthony's hair style.

"With Arias coming in like 'Tot Mom' with the long hair draping their faces. If I sat 'Cousin It' at the table I don't think anyone would notice," the commentator said.

Grace claimed that none of the defendants looked at their juries. "They all sit in a position where their lawyers are kind of shielding them," she said.

There are other similarities. Anthony claimed falsely to work at Universal Studios while Arias told friends falsely that she worked at a Margaritaville bar.

Anthony said her daughter was taken by a fictitious nanny while Peterson said he wife was the victim of a Satanic cult. At one point Arias said she was present when a man and woman entered Alexander's apartment and killed him.

"All three lied about their jobs and positions in life, their relationships, what they do," Grace said. "All three changed their stories over and over and all three are caught on tape."

There is one other similarity, Grace said.

"I truly believe that their most important deadly common flaw is that they cannot empathize with others, they can't feel for someone who is suffering, and the murders don't mean anything to them," she said.

Grace predicted that unlike Anthony's trial, Arias will be convicted of murdering Alexander the same way Peterson was convicted of murdering Laci Peterson. In that case, Peterson was sentenced to the death penalty, a fate that Arias could face if convicted.

"It's very hard to get a woman sent to death row," Grace said. "Tot Mom' was acquitted, but I don't think Jodi Arias will be acquitted. The question is will they [jury] have the back bone to send her to death row."

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