20-million-year-old amber shatters theories of glass as a liquid

May 7, 2013 ? Fact or fiction? Stained glass found in medieval cathedrals becomes thicker at the bottom because glass moves over time. For years researchers have had their doubts, now a team at Texas Tech University has further evidence that the glass is not going anywhere.

"Glass transition is related to the performance of materials, whether it is inorganic glass or organic polymers," said Gregory McKenna, professor of chemical engineering at Texas Tech. "For example, this would be important to people who own a boat made of fiberglass, or fly in an airplane made with epoxy-based composites. Information like that can help predict if that jet will still be flying in 30 years."

The idea for this research came from a doctoral student's qualifying exam, McKenna said. He gave Jing Zhao a problem relating to diverging time-scales using polyvinyl acetate, a substance often found in adhesives. Her results were consistent with a lack of divergence -- contrary to received thought. So they decided to up the ante by performing similar experiments on a much older, ultra-stable glass.

They chose 20-million year old Dominican amber, and together with Whitacre Department Chair and Horn Professor Sindee Simon, Zhao performed calorimetric and stress relaxation experiments on the samples.

"What we found is that the amber relaxation times did not diverge," McKenna said. "This result challenges all the classic theories of glass transition behavior."

This research is supported by the National Science Foundation under a grant from the Division of Materials Research, Polymers Program. The process and results were recently published in Nature Communications.

Meanwhile, McKenna has recently acquired additional samples from around the world, including 220-million-year-old Triassic amber from Eugenio Ragazzi, a pharmacology professor at the University of Padova in Italy. The team now has plans to perform similar experiments on the new samples.

"We are in the very early stages," McKenna said. "However, our research definitely is 'to be continued.'"

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/kCS2B52S0po/130507154937.htm

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New efforts to curb cellphone theft

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Disturbed by the nationwide epidemic of cellphone robberies and thefts, law enforcement officials across the country are looking to the wireless industry to help find a cure.

In San Francisco, where half the robberies were phone-related last year, District Attorney George Gascon is calling on major companies in nearby Silicon Valley to create new technology such as a "kill switch" to permanently and quickly disable stolen smart phones, making them worthless to thieves.

The prosecutor said he's recently had two discussions with Apple, maker of the popular iPhone, and has talked informally with Google, creator of the Android, the world's most popular operating smartphone platform. And, he also wants to meet with Samsung, the global smartphone market leader.

"We know that the technology can be developed to prevent this. This is more about social responsibility than economic gain," Gascon said.

The stakes are huge in the battle to combat cellphone theft. Nearly 175 million cellphones ? mostly smartphones? have been sold in the U.S. in the past year and account for $69 billion in sales, according to IDC, a Massachusetts-based research firm.

And, now almost one out of three robberies nationwide involves the theft of a mobile phone, reports the Federal Communications Commission, which is coordinating formation this fall of a highly-anticipated national database system to track cellphones reported stolen.

The FCC is also working with officials in Mexico to crack down on the trafficking of stolen mobile phones that make it across the border.

San Francisco's district attorney is not the only high-ranking big-city law official seeking solutions.

In Washington D.C, where than 40 percent of its robberies in 2012 involved cellphones, police Chief Cathy Lanier said new federal laws are necessary to require all wireless providers to participate in the national stolen phones database, which is now done by choice.

"This is a voluntary agreement and the decision makers, heads of these (wireless) companies may transition over time and may not be in the same position five years from now." Lanier said in an email. "Something needs to be put in place to protect consumers."

On the theory that an inoperable phone is as useless as a "brick," Lanier and Mayor Vincent Gray also have urged residents who have their phones stolen to call their carriers and ask that the device be "bricked," or disconnected remotely to prevent resale on the black market.

In New York City, police have created a smartphone squad and partnered with Apple to track down stolen iPhones using the device's tracking number. For example, when an iPhone is stolen, Apple can report to police where the phone is located, even if it's been switched to a different carrier.

Police said the city's overall crime rate last year increased three percent mostly due to the more than 15,000 thefts of Apple-related products ? a majority of them iPhones ? said Paul Browne, a police spokesman.

"We would've had a one percent decrease in overall crime if you subtracted the Apple thefts," said Browne, adding that police have coined the phenomenon, "Apple-picking."

"We're trying to protect the orchard, so to speak," Browne said.

He added that police often use officers as decoys using their own iPhones to catch would-be robbers and stings to catch those who sell them on the black market. About 75 percent of the stolen devices stay within the city's five boroughs and some have been tracked down as far as the Dominican Republic.

In addition, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has been working with U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, the FCC and CTIA, a trade group for wireless providers, on the national stolen phone database, along with six of the largest wireless companies.

Computer security expert Darren Hayes said law enforcement agencies, major corporations and the wireless industry have responded slowly to the spike in mobile phone thefts, leaving individuals as well as businesses vulnerable.

"Smartphones have become such an extension of our lives with all of our personal information on them and criminals recognizing its mass appeal," said Hayes, a professor and computer information systems program chair at Pace University in New York. "Professionally, there are some corporate network administrators who can control their company servers from their smartphone. While it's convenient, it could also put them at risk and could be the biggest source of data loss if they are stolen.

"We could see a potential nightmare emerging," Hayes said.

Jamie Hastings, a CTIA vice president, said the national stolen phone database is a step in the right direction and deserves a chance.

"To suggest that our members don't care about their consumers is completely inaccurate," Hastings said. "Our members are now focusing their energies on the database and achieving the start-up goal by November. The important thing at this stage is to allow our members to execute the plan that all of the stakeholders agreed upon."

The national database will be similar to a global database devised by GSMA, a wireless trade group based in the United Kingdom. Nearly 100 wireless companies across 43 countries participate in the overseas database for reported stolen mobile phones, said Claire Cranton, a GSMA spokeswoman in London.

But Gascon said a national network to track stolen phones comes up short and he is adamant that a kill switch is the best strategy to render a phone useless.

In March, he met with Apple's government liaison officer Michael Foulkes to talk about creating a kill switch technology. He described the encounter as "disappointing" but said a subsequent phone conversation with Apple's general counsel Bruce Sewell last month led to plans for talks that would include Apple's technical people.

Representatives of the tech giant did not respond to requests for comment.

"For me, a technical solution is probably better than just a criminal solution," Gascon said. "We can always create more laws, but look at how long it already takes to prosecute somebody at the expense of the taxpayers?

"If a phone can be inoperable at the flick of a switch, then a database will become moot."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-05-04-Cellphone%20Theft-Kill%20Switch/id-f8917275b5334df3b3d08fd6854895bd

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Randomness: Greed may breed financial fitness, but evolution allows unselfishness to survive

By Tom Siegfried

Web edition: May 6, 2013

If greed is good, as Gordon Gekko proclaimed in the 1987 movie Wall Street, then economics ought to be a superlative science.

After all, at the core of economic theory sits a greedy idealization of human nature known as Homo economicus. It?s a fictitious species that represents the individual economic agent, motivated by selfishness. H. economicus is completely rational, by which economists mean it?s out for itself. And selfishness is supposedly the smart strategy when competing for the resources needed to survive. As Gordon Gekko also mentioned, greed ?captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.? Just as evolution rewarded the fittest, economic interaction rewards the most self-interested.

Yet for some reason, everybody isn?t selfish.

In some cases, of course, apparent lack of selfishness is merely a ploy; behaving unselfishly now could increase profits in the future. But some people are just always less greedy than others.

?Even in one-shot interactions, humans are not as selfish as theory suggests,? write physicist-sociologist Dirk Helbing and colleagues. ?A large body of experimental and field evidence indicates that people genuinely care about each other.?

It?s true that such caring can incur costs to the carer. Still, some people sacrifice their own interests in favor of others, and not just relatives. But such behavior seems at odds with Darwinian evolution???how could behavior evolve that reduced an individual?s ?fitness? (in this context, wealth)?

Some theorists suggest that evolution also operates on groups???when individuals within a group cooperate, their group may have survival advantages over groups with rigid individual selfishness. But even apart from kinship or groups, evolution can still produce cooperative individuals, contend Helbing and collaborators Thomas Grund and Christian Waloszek, all of ETH Zurich.

To test their idea, they ran mathematical simulations of a ?society? in which ?agents? occupy squares on a grid. Each agent interacts only with its neighbors in the eight surrounding squares. Each interaction consists simply of deciding to cooperate or not with the neighbor. Payoffs for each agent are then calculated based on the rules of the famous Prisoner?s Dilemma game. Total payoffs are highest if everybody cooperates, but an individual always gets the best payoff by ?defecting,? that is, refusing to cooperate.

All agents are selfish when the simulation starts. Agents then generate offspring; agents with the highest payoffs are most likely to reproduce. In the reproduction step, ?mutations? can occur to give an agent some regard for others.

Typically, some agents will cooperate some of the time, but only if others around them also cooperate. These ?conditional? cooperators play nice with others who play nice, but revert to defection when surrounded by selfish agents. On the other hand, sometimes a very friendly agent is born???an idealist who always chooses to cooperate, even when surrounded by defectors.

Such idealists aren?t likely to fare very well in the competition for payoffs, though. ?Idealists will normally get miserable payoffs and have very small reproduction rates,? Helbing and colleagues note in a recent Scientific Reports paper describing the simulation. Idealists can survive, though, if they happen to be born in a locale hosting some conditional cooperators.

?Under such conditions, a single ?idealist? may quickly turn a defective neighborhood into a largely cooperative one,? Helbing and colleagues found. ?This implies higher payoffs and higher reproduction rates for both idealists and conditional cooperators.? In that case, ?friendliness is evolutionarily advantageous over selfishness.?

So sometimes idealists can even thrive???if their offspring stay close to home. When offspring move far away, selfishness remains the stronger strategy. But if offspring take up residence close to their parents, clusters of cooperators can grow.

In this way evolution can produce both selfish and other-centered humans. Migration far from birthplaces tends to produce Homo economicus; minimal geographic mobility supports Homo socialis. H. economicus makes choices without regard to others? well-being; H. socialis weighs how each choice will affect the payoffs to others.

?We might characterize this as a situation of ?networked minds,? where everybody is trying to put himself or herself into other people?s shoes,? the researchers write. ?Besides paying attention to networks of companies, economics should also consider networks of individual minds.? That advice is especially pertinent now, the scientists say, when people everywhere are linked by social and other media in an ?information society.?

Of course, astute economists have always known that some people care about others. It was just harder to formulate economic theory incorporating complications like that. Even Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations in 1776 supposedly established the foundations for the ?greed is good? philosophy, knew better. Just because markets can work when people have no regard for others, that doesn?t mean people don?t (or shouldn?t) have regard for others. After all, Smith?s first book???which he believed readers of Wealth of Nations should have read???was all about the importance of sympathy.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/350214/title/Greed_may_breed_financial_fitness_but_evolution_allows_unselfishness_to_survive

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Israeli warplanes strike Syria in escalation

In this image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke and fire fill the the skyline over Damascus, Syria, early Sunday, May 5, 2013 after an Israeli airstrike. Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said. The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's bloody civil war. Syria's state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near the Syrian capital and caused casualties. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)

In this image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke and fire fill the the skyline over Damascus, Syria, early Sunday, May 5, 2013 after an Israeli airstrike. Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said. The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's bloody civil war. Syria's state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near the Syrian capital and caused casualties. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)

In this image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a Israeli airstrikes hit Damascus, Syria, early Sunday, May 5, 2013. Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said. The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's bloody civil war. Syria's state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near the Syrian capital and caused casualties. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)

In this image taken from video obtained from Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke and fire fill the skyline over Damascus, Syria, early Sunday, May 5, 2013 after an Israeli airstrike. Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said. The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's bloody civil war. Syria's state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near the Syrian capital and caused casualties. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video)

BEIRUT (AP) ? Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said.

The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's bloody civil war. Syrian state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near Damascus and caused casualties.

An intelligence official in the Middle East, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to disclose information about a secret military operation to the media, confirmed that Israel launched an airstrike in the Syrian capital early Sunday but did not give more precise details about the location. The target was Fateh-110 missiles, which have precision guidance systems with better aim than anything Hezbollah is known to have in its arsenal, the official told The Associated Press.

The airstrikes come as Washington considers how to respond to indications that the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons in its civil war. President Barack Obama has described the use of such weapons as a "red line," and the administration is weighing its options ? including possible military action.

Iran, a close ally of the Assad regime, condemned the airstrikes but gave no other hints of a possible stronger response from Tehran.

Israel has said it wants to stay out of the Syrian war, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated the Jewish state would be prepared to take military action to prevent sophisticated weapons from flowing from Syria to Hezbollah or other extremist groups.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in mid-2006 that ended in a stalemate.

Syria's state news agency SANA reported that explosions went off at the Jamraya military and scientific research center near Damascus and said "initial reports point to these explosions being a result of Israeli missiles." SANA said there were casualties but did not give a number.

Damascus-based activist Maath al-Shami said the strikes occurred around 3 a.m. "Damascus shook. The explosion was very, very strong," said al-Shami adding that one of the attacks occurred near the capital's Qasioun mountain that overlooks Damascus.

He said the raid near Qasioun targeted a military position for the elite Republican Guards that is in charge of protecting Damascus, President Bashar Assad's seat of power.

Mohammed Saeed, another activist who lives in the Damascus suburb of Douma, said "the explosions were so strong that earth shook under us." He said the smell of the fire caused by the air raid near Qasioun could be felt miles away.

There has been no official statement from the Syrian military.

The strikes put the Assad regime in a tricky position. If it fails to respond, it looks weak and leaves itself open to such airstrikes becoming a common occurrence. But if it retaliates militarily against Israel, it risks dragging the Jewish state and its powerful military into a broader conflict.

After the airstrikes overnight, Israel's military on Saturday deployed two batteries of its Iron Dome rocket defense system to the country's north. It described the move as part of "ongoing situational assessments."

The Iron Dome protects against short-range rockets. Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets at Israel during the 2006 war, while Israeli warplanes destroyed large areas of south Lebanon.

Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel's military intelligence, said the strike is a signal to Syria's ally, Tehran, that Israel is serious about the red lines it has set.

"Syria is a very important part in the front that Iran has built. Iran is testing Israel and the U.S. determination in the facing of red lines and what it sees is in clarifies to it that at least some of the players, when they define red lines and they are crossed, take it seriously," he told Army Radio.

In Tehran, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast condemned an Israeli airstrike against Syria and urged countries in the region to remain united against Israel, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency. The brief statement gave no details.

The Fateh-110, or Conqueror, is a short-range ballistic missile developed by Iran and first put into service in 2002. The Islamic Republic unveiled an upgraded version in 2012 that improved the weapon's accuracy and increased its range to 300 kilometers (185 miles).

Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said at the time that the solid-fueled missile could strike with pin-point precision, making it the most accurate weapon of its kind in Iran's arsenal.

An airstrike in January also targeted weapons apparently bound for Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. officials have said. The White House had no immediate comment on Sunday's reported missile strikes.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, also reported large explosions in the area of Jamraya, a military and scientific research facility northwest of Damascus, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah's al-Manar TV said the research center in Jamraya was not hit. It added that an army supply center was targeted by the strike. It quoted unnamed Syrian security officials as saying that three sites including military barracks, arms depots and air defense center were targeted by the strike.

The station aired footage of what it said was a facility in Jamraya that was hit in the airstrike. It showed a heavily damaged building as well as what appeared to be a chicken farm with some chickens pecking around in debris scattered with dead birds.

The raid appeared to have taken place next to a major road that was filled with debris, and shell casings were strewn on the ground. A blue street sign on the side of the road referred to the direction of the Lebanon border and the Syrian town of Zabadani near the frontier.

Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen TV, that has several reporters around Syria, said one of the strikes targeted a military position in the village of Saboura, west of Damascus and about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the Lebanon border.

An amateur video said to be shot early Sunday in the Damascus area showed fire lighting up the night sky. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting.

Uzi Rubin, a missile expert and former Defense Ministry official, told the AP that if the target were Fateh-110 missiles as reported then it is a game changer as they put almost all Israel in range and can accurately hit targets.

Rubin emphasized that he was speaking as a rocket expert and had no details on reported strikes.

"If fired from southern Lebanon they can reach Tel Aviv and even (the southern city of) Beersheba." He said the rockets are much five times more accurate than the scud missiles that Hezbollah has fired in the past. "It is a game changer because they are a threat to Israel's infrastructure and military installations," he said.

Israel's first airstrike in Syria, in January, also struck Jamraya.

At the time, a U.S. official said Israel targeted trucks next to the research center that carried SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. The strikes hit both the trucks and the research facility, the official said. The Syrian military didn't confirm a hit on a weapons shipment at the time, saying only that Israeli warplanes bombed the research center.

Israeli lawmaker Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister and a former chief of staff, declined to confirm the airstrike but said Israel is concerned about weapons falling into the hands of the Islamic militant group amid the chaos of Syria's civil war.

"We must remember that the Syrian system is falling apart and Iran and Hezbollah are involved up to their necks in Syria helping Bashar Assad," he told Israel Radio. "There are dangers of weapons trickling to the Hezbollah and chemical weapons trickling to irresponsible groups like al-Qaida."

___

Deitch was reporting from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Brian Murphy contributed to this report from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-05-Israel-Syria/id-6bc4fc82c5704327b6cb8c46e672ace6

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Incursion or fair play? Chinese, Indian troops face off along disputed border.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's choice of India as his first foreign trip seemed to signal a fresh turn between the rivals. But both sides' troops are waving the flag on disputed turf.

By Peter Ford,?Staff Writer / May 3, 2013

Indian protesters shout slogans against the alleged incursion by Chinese troops into Indian territory, during a protest in New Delhi, India, Wednesday. India says Chinese troops crossed the de facto border between the countries and went six miles into Indian territory on April 15.

Manish Swarup/AP

Enlarge

As Chinese and Indian troops face off again on a remote and barren Himalayan mountainside where the two sides fought a war 50 years ago, their governments are trying hard to play down the territorial dispute and prevent it from flaring into violence.

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?It is a limited, localized incident in geography and scope,? insisted Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Syed Akbarudin in Delhi on Thursday.

?China and India are wise and capable enough to handle the existing differences ? while boosting friendly cooperation,? Mr. Akbarudin?s Chinese counterpart, Hua Chunying, said in Beijing.

But the standoff in disputed territory, now entering its third week, is threatening to derail preparations for a visit to Delhi later this month by new Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. His choice of India for his first foreign trip had seemed to signal a fresh turn in relations between the neighboring rivals.

Two weeks ago, a platoon of Chinese People?s Liberation Army soldiers pitched tents in an area near the Tibetan border over which China and India both claim sovereignty. India complained about what it called an incursion into its territory, and sent soldiers who then pitched their own tents less than 100 yards from the Chinese encampment.

Three rounds of ?flag talks? ? parleys between local military commanders ? and diplomatic negotiations between Beijing and Delhi have so far failed to resolve the dispute. The Chinese unit, far from withdrawing, has been reinforced and resupplied, according to Indian officials.

'Problems inevitably arise'

China does not dispute the location of its soldiers, but claims they are in Chinese territory. ?Chinese patrol troops have never crossed the line,? insisted Ms. Hua last week, but added that since the border had never been officially demarcated ?problems inevitably arise one way or another.?

Since a brief border war in 1962, China and India have been separated by a ?Line of Actual Control,? but where it runs is a matter of dispute. In northern Ladakh, extraordinarily harsh and high altitude desert country, a 12- to 15-mile-wide strip of no-man?s land claimed by both sides lies between the two countries? differing versions of the Line of Actual Control. It is there that the current incident is playing out.

Neither country?s army is technically supposed to send patrols into this territory, but both acknowledge that they do so. Under a 2005 agreement, however, patrols that come across each other are meant to ignore each other so as to ?avoid any unfriendly complications,? says Binod Singh, an Indian academic who teaches at Peking University?s South Asian Studies Center.

The Indians, accustomed to keeping an eye on passing Chinese patrols, were surprised when the PLA troops began to set up a camp on April 15, says Dr. Singh. Diplomatic overtures, flag talks, and a hurried visit to the site of the dispute by the Indian Army chief of staff then followed, but have failed to resolve the situation.

Chinese observers dismiss the spat, which has blown up in the wake of territorial disputes between China and several other neighbors, as insignificant. They say the close attention that the Indian media has paid to the incident has made it harder to resolve.?

?This sort of thing has happened before,? says Ye Hailin, a South Asia analyst at the China Academy for Social Sciences, a government linked think tank. The PLA pitched tents ?to show our stand on the issue? of territorial sovereignty, adds Dr. Ye. ?Our military have always been there; they were following a pattern and they didn?t realize this would be a problem.?

?Since the border has never been officially delineated, both sides have different perceptions of the Line of Actual Control and both sides send out patrols ?some unexpected incidents are natural,? adds Lan Jianxue, an India expert at the China Institute of International Studies, a think tank linked to the Foreign Ministry.

Meanwhile in India...

Indian observers are more suspicious. ?It is not a coincidence that the Chinese made their move now, with Li Keqiang due to visit India in May,? says Singh. ?They want to assert their power and their presence ? as a bargaining chip.?

It is unclear what Beijing might be seeking in return for a withdrawal of its soldiers; Indian press reports say PLA officers have complained during their flag talks about Indian construction in disputed territory. But the Chinese authorities have not mentioned any such complaints.

Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid is due in Beijing next week to prepare for the Chinese premier?s visit later this month to India, but he has warned that events might change his plans, and the Chinese government has not confirmed his trip here.

Border incidents similar to the current standoff have flared up episodically in the past, and have generally died down soon enough. Chinese analysts expect a similar outcome this time.

?Both governments share a deep consensus at a high level that they should not let their overall bilateral relations be hostage to the boundary question,? says Dr. Lan. ?This unexpected incident has been localized and it will not affect our relationship.?

In India, however, where many still smart from the memory of military defeat at Chinese hands in 1962, the mood is more belligerent, warns Singh. ?There is pressure on the Indian Army to do something tit-for-tat,? he says. ?If that happens, who knows what kind of unfortunate event we might see.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/vZ0YcuAw8QE/Incursion-or-fair-play-Chinese-Indian-troops-face-off-along-disputed-border

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Chinese Researchers Create Potentially Deadly Strains of Avian Flu

A team of Chinese researchers have deliberately created deadly new strains of influenza in a veterinary laboratory?and are now on the receiving end of severe criticism from across the wider scientific community.

The controversial research, carried out at China?s National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, has mixed the H5N1 bird-flu virus?which is lethal but not easily transmitted between humans?with a 2009 strain of H1N1 that is very infectious to humans. That's a bad combination as far as humankind is concerned.

The researchers claim they were attempting to emulate what happens in nature when two strains come together to form a hybrids, with shared genetic material. The result is, according to the researchers, ?H5N1 viruses [that] have the potential to acquire mammalian transmissibility?. In total, the team created 127 different viral hybrids? five of which were shown to easily pass through the air between laboratory guinea pigs. Great!

Understandably, the researchers are receiving their fair share of criticism. For instance, Robert May, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, told The Independent:

?They claim they are doing this to help develop vaccines and such like. In fact the real reason is that they are driven by blind ambition with no common sense whatsoever. The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring. They are taking it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It?s appallingly irresponsible.?

It remains unclear how easily the hybrids would spread between humans, and for that matter how lethal they would be if they did. But to an extent, that's not really the point: the concern here is over the fact that the researchers are even trying to create a virus which combines transmissibility and lethality in the first place.

It's not the first time such studies have raised concerns. Back in 2011, researchers from Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam and University of Wisconsin, Madison created a version of H5N1 that could be passed between ferrets through the air. That incident bought about a moratorium which saw research cease for an extended period. It remains unclear what the fallout from the Chinese research will be. [Independent]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/chinese-researchers-create-potentially-deadly-strains-o-488605034

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Watch: 'Seeking Asian Female': American Finds Chinese Bride

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// Should only be changed if you are running Kaltura On Prem / Kaltura CE:
var service_url = "http://cdnapi.kaltura.com/";
// logic cascade for deciding which entry to load
var entry_id = this.getEntryIdFromUrl() || this.getEntryIdFromDataAttr() || this.fallback_entry;
var embedSrc = "http%3A%2F%2Fcdnapi.kaltura.com%2Findex.php%2Fextwidget%2FembedIframe%2Fentry_id%2F" + entry_id + "%2Fwidget_id%2F_" + kdp_embed_default.partner_id + "%2Fuiconf_id%2F" + kdp_embed_default.uiconf_id;
flashembed(this.placeholder_id,
{ // attributes and params:
id : "kaltura_player_default",
src : service_url + "/index.php/kwidget/wid/_" + kdp_embed_default.partner_id +
"/uiconf_id/" + kdp_embed_default.uiconf_id + "/entry_id/" + entry_id,
height : 361,
width : 640,
bgcolor : "#eeeeee",
allowNetworking : "all",
version : [10,0],
expressInstall : "http://cdn.kaltura.org/apis/seo/expressinstall.swf",
wmode: "transparent"
},
{ // flashvars (double-quote the values)
externalInterfaceDisabled : "false",
jsInterfaceReadyFunc : "jsInterfaceReady",
contentType: "video",

//"restrictUserAgent.restrictedUserAgents": "GoogleTV",
referer : "http://abcnews.go.com/Health/video/seeking-asian-female-american-finds-chinese-bride-19103715",
"omniture.videoViewEventEvar15Value" : "player|videoindex",
"omniture.videoViewEventProp18Value" : "player|videoindex",
"omniture.videoViewEventProp16Value" : jsvideoViewEventProp16Value,
"omniture.videoViewEventEvar20Value" : jsvideoViewEventEvar20Value,
"omniture.adStartEvar15Value" : "player|videoindex",
"omniture.adStartEvar20Value" : jsvideoViewEventEvar20Value,
"closedCaptionActive" : closedCaptionActiveValue,


noThumbnail: true,
"abcnews.displayEndCard":false,
"addThis.embedCodeLinks" : "%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2Fus%2F%3Fcid%3D11_extvid1%22%3EUS%20News%3C%2Fa%3E%7C%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2Fentertainment%2F%3Fcid%3D11_extvid2%22%3EEntertainment%20News%3C%2Fa%3E%7C%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2Fvideo%2F%3Fcid%3D11_extvid3%22%3EMore%20ABC%20News%20Videos%3C%2Fa%3E",
"addThis.embedFlashVars" : "referer=http://abcnews.go.com/Health/video/seeking-asian-female-american-finds-chinese-bride-19103715%26flashvars[autoPlay]=false%26flashvars[addThis.playerSize]=392x221%26freeWheel.siteSectionId=nws_offsite%26closedCaptionActive=false",
"addThis.iframeTemplate" : "%3Ciframe%20id%3D%22%24playerId%24%22%20height%3D%22360%22%20width%3D%22640%22%20style%3D%22%24cssStyle%24%22%20src%3D%22"+embedSrc+"%22%3E%24noIFrameMessage%24%3C%2Fiframe%3E%20%3Cdiv%20style%3D%22text-align%3Aleft%3Bfont-size%3Ax-small%3Bmargin-top%3A0%3B%22%3E%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2Fus%2F%3Fcid%3D11_extvid1%22%3EUS%20News%3C%2Fa%3E%7C%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2Fentertainment%2F%3Fcid%3D11_extvid2%22%3EEntertainment%20News%3C%2Fa%3E%7C%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2Fvideo%2F%3Fcid%3D11_extvid3%22%3EMore%20ABC%20News%20Videos%3C%2Fa%3E%3C%2Fdiv%3E",
"shareBtnControllerScreen.enabled" : "true",
"outbrainKalturaVideo.plugin": "true","outbrainKalturaVideo.isDebug": "true","outbrainKalturaVideo.relativeTo": "PlayerHolder","outbrainKalturaVideo.path": "http://widgets.outbrain.com/fl/outbrainKalturaVideo.swf","outbrainKalturaVideo.position": "lastChild","outbrainKalturaVideo.idx": "1","outbrainKalturaVideo.playerSrcId": "ABCNewsKaltura","outbrainKalturaVideo.widgetId": "VP1","outbrainKalturaVideo.displayWidget": "true","outbrainKalturaVideo.sendStats": "true",

//"video.stretchThumbnail":true,
//"volumeBar.initialValue":0.75,
//"volumeBar.forceInitialValue":true,
debugMode: true

}
)
},
onFail : function() {
alert("FLASH EMBEDDING FAILED");
},
getEntryIdFromUrl : function() {
if(location.hash.indexOf(kdp_embed_default.url_param_name) != -1) {
// get the entry id from the url document fragment (aka hash):
return location.hash.split("#")[1].substring((kdp_embed_default.url_param_name.length+1));
}
else if(location.search.indexOf(kdp_embed_default.url_param_name) != -1) {
// get the entry id from the url parameters (aka querystring):
return location.search.split("?")[1].substring((kdp_embed_default.url_param_name.length+1));
}
else {
// use the default video defined in "fallback_entry" below:
// return kdp_embed_default.fallback_entry;
return false;
}
},
getEntryIdFromDataAttr : function() {
var data_attr_val = document.getElementById(this.placeholder_id).getAttribute("data-entryid");
if(data_attr_val && !(data_attr_val

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This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/video/seeking-asian-female-american-finds-chinese-bride-19103715

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Philz Coffee Raises Eight-Figure Round From Summit, Angels, As Specialty Coffee Market Heats Up

I've found that when people visit San Francisco, it's not unusual to hear them ask something like: "No seriously, is there a coffee shop on every block in this city?" Yes, San Francisco likes coffee. So do a lot of cities. Busy people thrive on coffee, especially in the tech industry. In fact, some would even say that a substantial amount of coffee is an essential ingredient to success.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ZCJYXpX8hC0/

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U.N. report seeks to stop killer robots

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? Killer robots that can attack targets without any human input "should not have the power of life and death over human beings," a new draft U.N. report says.

The report for the U.N. Human Rights Commission posted online this week deals with legal and philosophical issues involved in giving robots lethal powers over humans, echoing countless science-fiction novels and films. The debate dates to author Isaac Asimov's first rule for robots in the 1942 story "Runaround:" ''A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."

Report author Christof Heyns, a South African professor of human rights law, calls for a worldwide moratorium on the "testing, production, assembly, transfer, acquisition, deployment and use" of killer robots until an international conference can develop rules for their use.

His findings are due to be debated at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 29.

According to the report, the United States, Britain, Israel, South Korea and Japan have developed various types of fully or semi-autonomous weapons.

In the report, Heyns focuses on a new generation of weapons that choose their targets and execute them. He calls them "lethal autonomous robotics," or LARs for short, and says: "Decisions over life and death in armed conflict may require compassion and intuition. Humans ? while they are fallible ? at least might possess these qualities, whereas robots definitely do not."

He notes the arguments of robot proponents that death-dealing autonomous weapons "will not be susceptible to some of the human shortcomings that may undermine the protection of life. Typically they would not act out of revenge, panic, anger, spite, prejudice or fear. Moreover, unless specifically programmed to do so, robots would not cause intentional suffering on civilian populations, for example through torture. Robots also do not rape."

The report goes beyond the recent debate over drone killings of al-Qaida suspects and nearby civilians who are maimed or killed in the air strikes. Drones do have human oversight. The killer robots are programmed to make autonomous decisions on the spot without orders from humans.

Heyns' report notes the increasing use of drones, which "enable those who control lethal force not to be physically present when it is deployed, but rather to activate it while sitting behind computers in faraway places, and stay out of the line of fire.

"Lethal autonomous robotics (LARs), if added to the arsenals of States, would add a new dimension to this distancing, in that targeting decisions could be taken by the robots themselves. In addition to being physically removed from the kinetic action, humans would also become more detached from decisions to kill - and their execution," he wrote.

His report cites these examples, among others, of fully or semi-autonomous weapons that have been developed:

? The U.S. Phalanx system for Aegis-class cruisers, which automatically detects, tracks and engages anti-air warfare threats such as anti-ship missiles and aircraft.

? Israel's Harpy, a "Fire-and-Forget" autonomous weapon system designed to detect, attack and destroy radar emitters.

? Britain's Taranis jet-propelled combat drone prototype that can autonomously search, identify and locate enemies but can only engage with a target when authorized by mission command. It also can defend itself against enemy aircraft.

? The Samsung Techwin surveillance and security guard robots, deployed in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, to detect targets through infrared sensors. They are currently operated by humans but have an "automatic mode."

Current weapons systems are supposed to have some degree of human oversight. But Heyns notes that "the power to override may in reality be limited because the decision-making processes of robots are often measured in nanoseconds and the informational basis of those decisions may not be practically accessible to the supervisor. In such circumstances humans are de facto out of the loop and the machines thus effectively constitute LARs," or killer robots.

Separately, another U.N. expert, British lawyer Ben Emmerson, is preparing a special investigation for the U.N. General Assembly this year on drone warfare and targeted killings.

His probe was requested by Pakistan, which officially opposes the use of U.S. drones on its territory as an infringement on its sovereignty but is believed to have tacitly approved some strikes in the past. Pakistani officials say the drone strikes kill many innocent civilians, which the U.S. has rejected. The other two countries requesting the investigation were two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China.

In April, an alliance of activist and humanitarian groups led by Human Rights Watch launched the "Campaign to Stop Killer Robots" to push for a ban on fully autonomous weapons. The group applauded Heyns' draft report in a statement on its web site.

___

On the Web:

The U.N. draft report: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session23/A-HRC-23-47_en.pdf

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-report-wants-moratorium-killer-robots-170141210.html

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New Apple iPhone patent to track you and manage your ...

Will use GPS to determine the most convenient method of contact.

Apple has secured a new patent, according to Apple Insider, which the filing describes as a "method and system for facilitating contacting people using electronic devices."

In English, the service will use GPS and track the whereabouts of device users, thus automatically detecting the most convenient form of communication.

For example, if an iPhone user is called while in the same location as the caller, the call may be cancelled in exchange for an automatic text advising them to approach each other. Alternatively, if a user is travelling at speed on a train, the call would be permitted.

In addition to GPS, users of the service would be able to set times of availability in the device, assisting with the accuracy of the platform.

Source: http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/new-apple-iphone-patent-to-track-you-and-manage-your-communications/021239

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Witherspoon: I panicked the night of my arrest

ATLANTA (AP) ? Actress Reese Witherspoon recalls that she panicked and said "crazy things" the night she was arrested in Atlanta on a disorderly conduct charge.

During an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Witherspoon repeatedly apologized for her behavior during the April 19 traffic stop. A police report states that Witherspoon asked a Georgia state trooper, "Do you know my name?" and added, "You're about to find out who I am."

In Thursday's interview, the Oscar-winning actress said she has "no idea what I was saying that night." She said she had "one too many" glasses of wine, and panicked after she and her husband were pulled over.

Witherspoon faces a May 22 court hearing. Her husband, Hollywood agent Jim Toth, was charged with drunken driving and is due in court May 23.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-05-02-Reese%20Witherspoon%20Arrest/id-4f7cdd2da4204844be532328850caf89

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