LADEE's new space communication system

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) observatory said the probe on Thursday night began a limited test of a high-data-rate laser communication system. It's the U.S. space agency's first laser communications test.

If it works as planned, NASA plans to use similar systems to speed up future satellite communications and deep space communications with robots and human exploration crews.

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Two Indian scientists discover youngest Supernova remnant

Two Indian scientists, Subhashis Roy of NCRA, Pune and Sabyasachi Pal of ICSP, Kolkata, discovered the youngest supernova remnant within the galaxy using Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune. Their research work has been published in the September 2013 issue of the Astrophysical Journal, by the American Astronomical Society.

"Stars are much heavier than the sun. They die with the phenomenon of supernova explosion. Subsequently, they start emitting radio frequency band. The radiation originates from the high-speed ejecta, expanding in a shell-like structure, with a speed of thousands of kilometers per second. Such shells are usually smaller for new supernova remnants. About thousand supernova remnants are expected to be in our galaxy. In 400 years, about a dozen supernovas should have taken place, but only two have been discovered so far," said an official press release.

"Detailed age analysis suggests that this supernova should have occurred very recently, not older than a few hundred years, making it one of the youngest supernova remnant discovered with GMRT. This rare discovery raises hopes that in future more Supernova remnants can be discovered if done at optimum resolution and sensitivity," added the release.

CryptoLocker: The Ransomware There's No Coming Back From

A ransomware threat known as CryptoLocker is making the rounds, scrambling files in the process. And once it’s triggered, there is no way to recover them.

Ransomware has adapted over the years, becoming more difficult to thwart. “Malware that encrypts your data and tries to sell it back to you, or else, is not new,” noted Paul Ducklin, a researcher at Sophos Labs, in a blog. “In fact, one of the earliest pieces of malware that was written specifically to make money, rather than simply to prove a point, was the AIDS Information Trojan of 1989. That Trojan scrambled your hard disk after 90 days, and instructed you to send $378 to an accommodation address in Panama.”

That bug used simplistic encryption algorithms, and every computer was scrambled in the same way, so free tools for cleanup and recovery soon became available, Ducklin noted. Not so with the CryptoLocker next-gen ransomware, which uses a public key to encrypt a variety of file types such as images, documents and spreadsheets. The malware searches for files to encrypt on all drives and in all folders it can access from the compromised computer, including workgroup files shared by colleagues and resources on company servers.

“The more privileged your account, the worse the overall damage will be,” Ducklin said.

CryptoLocker installs itself in the Documents and Settings folder, using a randomly-generated name, and adds itself to the list of programs in your registry that Windows loads automatically when the user logs on. It then produces a lengthy list of random-looking server names in the domains .biz, .co.uk, .com, .info, .net, .org and .ru – and then tries to make a web connection to each of these server names in turn, trying one each second until it finds one that responds. Once it has found a server that it can reach, the server generates a unique public-private key pair and sends the public key part back to the computer.

“Remember that public-key cryptography uses two different keys: a public key that locks files, and a private key that unlocks them,” said Ducklin. “You can share your public key widely so that anyone can encrypt files for you, but only you (or someone to whom you have given a copy of your private key) can decrypt them.”

The malware offers to trade money for the private key to unlock the encrypted files. “It pops up a pay page, giving you a limited time, typically 100 hours, to buy back the private key for your data, typically for $300,” Ducklin said. Then a warning comes that the server will destroy the key after a time specified, meaning that the files will never be able to be recovered.

The picture doesn’t get better. “SophosLabs has received a large number of scrambled documents via the Sophos sample submission system,” he said. “These have come from people who are keenly hoping that there's a flaw in the CryptoLocker encryption, and that we can help them get their files back. But as far as we can see, there's no backdoor or shortcut: what the public key has scrambled, only the private key can unscramble.” In other words, unlike other ransomware, there is no remediation.

Worse, the infection vectors make it difficult for consumers to avoid. CryptoLocker arrives via email attachments and botnet – the former is easy to avoid by being wary of unsolicited attachments. Botnets though are a different story.

“Most bots, or zombies, once active on your computer, include a general purpose ‘upgrade’ command that allows the crooks to update, replace, or add to the malware already on your PC,” said Ducklin. “So take our advice: make it your task today to search out and destroy any malware already on your computer, lest it dig you in deeper still.”

Vitamin D Pills Effect on Healthy bones

Healthy adults do not need to take vitamin D supplements, suggests a study in The Lancet which found they had no beneficial effect on bone density, a sign of osteoporosis.

But experts say many other factors could be at play and people should not stop taking supplements.

University of Auckland researchers analysed 23 studies involving more than 4,000 healthy people.

The UK government recommends children and over-65s take a daily supplement.

The New Zealand research team conducted a meta-analysis of all randomised trials examining the effects of vitamin D supplementation on bone mineral density in healthy adults up to July 2012.

The supplements were taken for an average of two years by the study participants.

Continue reading the main storyBone mineral density is a measure of bone strength and measures the amount of bone mineral present at different sites in the body. It is often seen as an indicator for the risk of osteoporosis, which can lead to an increased risk of fracture.

The trials took place in a number of different countries including the UK, the US, Australia, Holland, Finland and Norway.

Although the results did not identify any benefits for people who took vitamin D, they did find a small but statistically significant increase in bone density at the neck of the femur near the hip joint.

According to the authors, this effect is unlikely to be clinically significant.

Free up resources

Prof Ian Reid, lead study author, from the University of Auckland, said the findings showed that healthy adults did not need to take vitamin D supplements.

"Our data suggest that the targeting of low-dose vitamin D supplements only to individuals who are likely to be deficient could free up substantial resources that could be better used elsewhere in healthcare."

Writing about the study in The Lancet, Clifford J Rosen from the Maine Medical Research Institute agrees that science's understanding of vitamin D supports the findings for healthy adults, but not for everyone.

"Supplementation to prevent osteoporosis in healthy adults is not warranted. However, maintenance of vitamin D stores in the elderly combined with sufficient dietary calcium intake remains an effective approach for prevention of hip fractures."

The Department of Health currently recommends that a daily supplement of vitamin D of 10 micrograms (0.01mg) should be taken by pregnant and breastfeeding women and people over 65, while babies aged six months to five years should take vitamin drops containing 7 to 8.5 micrograms (0.007-0.0085mg) per day.

2013 Chemistry nobel goes to computer modelling of chemical reaction

By combining quantum and classical mechanics, three researchers could model how electrons jump between elements in a molecule, enabling a deeper understanding of reactions and the design of new drugs
                               What is actually happening at the atomic scale when two elements react? This year'schemistry prize goes to three theoretical chemists who devised a way for computers to model and predict how such reactions take place: Martin Karplus of Harvard University and the Universite de Strasbourg in France; Michael Levitt of the Stanford University School of Medicine and Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California. Or, as the Nobel Committee put it in awarding the prize: "for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems."

The key was physics—specifically, finding a way to use both a quantum mechanical understanding of individual atoms in the most critical area of a molecule (which requires a great deal of computational power) and then simpler, easier-to-calculate classical mechanics to deliver the rest of the system. That combination enables a computer to model in great detail, say, the catalyst in a particular enzyme as the electrons leap from the orbit of one nucleus to another during the formation of chemical bonds , while allowing simpler calculations for the rest of the complex molecule.

"It's like seeing the watch and wondering how it works," said Warshel via telephone during the press conference presenting the prize. "What we developed is a way that requires a computer to take the structure of a protein and then to eventually understand how exactly it does what it does." Such an understanding of how things work, for example, can then be used to "design drugs or, like in my case, to satisfy curiosity." In other words, chemists no longer only experiment in the lab; they can also experiment in cyberspace.

Such theoretical modeling is already in wide employ in the pharmaceutical industry, helping to deliver drugs and is also being used to help unlock the secrets of photosynthesis—the chemical transformation of carbon dioxide to carbohydrates using only the energy provided by sunlight. A better understanding of that chemical reaction, and the molecules involved—which, after all makes the majority of life on Earth possible—could help deliver clean and abundant energy for human purposes. And Levitt, for one, would like to one day simulate an entire living organism at the molecular level.

Atlas robot refuses to be knocked over

Meet Atlas, a humanoid robot capable of crossing rough terrain and maintaining its balance on one leg even when hit from the side.

And WildCat, the four-legged robot that can gallop untethered at up to 16mph (26km/h).

These are the latest creations of Boston Dynamics, a US robotics company part-funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).

The robots are part of Darpa's Maximum Mobility and Manipulation programme.

Darpa says such robots "hold great promise for amplifying human effectiveness in defence operations".

Referring to Atlas's ability to remain balanced despite being hit by a lateral weight, Noel Sharkey, professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC: "This is an astonishing achievement... quite a remarkable feat."

This version of Atlas is one of seven humanoid robots Boston Dynamics is developing in response to the Darpa Robotics Challenge.

In December, competing robots will be set eight tasks to test their potential for use in emergency-response situations, including crossing uneven ground, using power tools and driving a rescue vehicle.

Darpa wants to improve the manoeuvrability and controllability of such robots while reducing manufacturing costs.

Lake that turns animals to stone??????????

Lake Natron in Tanzania is one of the most serene lakes in Africa, but it's also the source of some of the most phantasmagorical photographs ever captured — images that look as though living animals had instantly turned to stone.

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The alkaline water in Lake Natron has a pH as high as 10.5 and is so caustic it can burn the skin and eyes of animals that aren't adapted to it. The water's alkalinity comes from the sodium carbonate and other minerals that flow into the lake from the surrounding hills. And deposits of sodium carbonate — which was once used in Egyptian mummification — also acts as a fantastic type of preservative for those animals unlucky enough to die in the waters of Lake Natron.