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Flushed with success: Human manure's fertile future
Label: WorldThree killed in Las Vegas 'rolling shootout'
Label: Technology
LOS ANGELES: At least three people were killed and three others injured in a "rolling shootout" and multiple car crash on the renowned Las Vegas strip early Thursday, city police said.
Two speeding cars, including a Maserati, were involved in a shootout in the neon-lit casino and hotel zone around Las Vegas Boulevard near Flamingo Road, Metro Las Vegas Police Sergeant John Sheahan told local broadcast news.
"Before 4:30am this morning, there was apparently a rolling gun-battle on the strip," Sheahan told the local ABC and CBS TV news affiliates.
The Maserati driver, who was struck by gunfire, lost control of the vehicle and struck several cars, including a taxi that burst into flames. The Maserati driver and two people aboard the taxi were killed.
The other vehicle fled the scene and police will investigate surveillance footage to identify it, Sheahan said. Local television news citing police sources said officers were hunting for a black Range Rover.
The passenger aboard the Maserati and at least two other people were injured and take to hospital. Three other vehicles were struck and at least two more people were at the hospital being treated for other injuries, Sheahan said.
Police do not yet know the identity nor motive of the shooters. "This is still very, very early in this investigation," Sheahan said.
- AFP/fa
Microsoft is cooler than it used to be, say half of those polled
Label: Lifestyle
Microsoft's Surface Pro tablet.
(Credit:
Best Buy)
Is Microsoft a cooler company than it was in the past? Some people certainly think so.
Among 853 people between the ages of 18 and 29 questioned in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, half believe the software giant is cooler than it was a year or two ago. Though 50 percent may not be a resounding endorsement, it topped the coolness factor for a couple of other tech players.
Twitter was deemed cooler than in the past by 47 percent of the young adults polled, while Facebook got the same response from just 42 percent.
Microsoft's score is a promising sign. The company is often seen as having lost its cool factor years ago, thwarted by more innovative competitors. Even chairman and co-founder Bill Gates said this week that he was not satisfied with the company's lack of innovation in certain areas.
But Reuters believes some of the new Microsoft products may be changing that perception.
In particular, the report pointed to Microsoft's savvy marketing push for its Surface
tablets as well as the
Xbox 360 and Kinect combo, which has proven popular among younger gamers.
So, which high-tech brand name was the coolest?
Google's
Android took top honors, considered cooler than it used to be by a full 70 percent of those 18 to 29. Apple followed, getting the nod from 60 percent of the young adults questioned.
Still, coolness doesn't necessarily mean higher sales.
The poll "definitely shows that Microsoft's efforts are paying off, but we'll have to see how cool translates into customers," Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg told Reuters. "It's also hard to compare 'cool' factor as a quantitative measure against Apple, a company, and Android, a platform."
Conducted between February 5 and 19, the poll was designed to gauge the perception and use of different technology brands and received responses from 4,798 people in total.
NASA's Mars Rover Makes Successful First Drill
Label: HealthFor the first time ever, people have drilled into a rock on Mars, collecting the powdered remains from the hole for analysis.
Images sent back from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Wednesday confirmed that the precious sample is being held by the rover's scoop, and will soon be delivered to two miniature chemical labs to undergo an unprecedented analysis. (Related: "Mars Rover Curiosity Completes First Full Drill.")
To the delight of the scientists, the rock powder has come up gray and not the ubiquitous red of the dust that covers the planet. The gray rock, they believe, holds a lot of potential to glean information about conditions on an early Mars. (See more Mars pictures.)
"We're drilling into rock that's a time capsule, rocks that are potentially ancient," said sampling-system scientist Joel Hurowitz during a teleconference from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
A Place to Drill
The site features flat bedrock, often segmented into squares, with soil between the sections and many round gray nodules and white mineral veins.
Hurowitz said that the team did not attempt to drill into the minerals or the gray balls, but the nodules are so common that they likely hit some as they drilled down 2.5 inches (6.3 centimeters).
In keeping with the hypothesis that the area was once under water, Hurowitz said the sample "has the potential of telling us about multiple interactions of water and rock."
The drill, located at the end of a seven-foot (two-meter) arm, requires precision maneuvering in its placement and movement, and so its successful initial use was an exciting and welcome relief. The rover has been on Mars since August, and it took six months to find the right spot for that first drill. (Watch video of the Mars rover Curiosity.)
The flat drilling area is in the lower section of Yellowknife Bay, which Curiosity has been exploring for more than a month. What was previously identified by Curiosity scientists as the dry bed of a once-flowing river or stream appears to fan out into the Yellowknife area.
The bedrock of the site—named after deceased Curiosity deputy project manager John Klein—is believed to be siltstone or mudstone. Scientists said the veins of white minerals are probably calcium sulfate or gypsum, but the grey nodules remain something of a mystery.
Triumph
To the team that designed and operates the drill, the results were a triumph, as great as the much-heralded landing of Curiosity on the red planet. With more than a hundred maneuvers in its repertoire, the drill is unique in its capabilities and complexities. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")
Sample system chief engineer Louise Jandura, who has worked on the drill for eight years, said the Curosity team had made eight different drills before settling on the one now on the rover. The team tested each drill by boring 1,200 holes on 20 types of rock on Earth.
She called the successful drilling "historic" because it gives scientists unprecedented access to material that has not been exposed to the intense weathering and radiation processes that affect the Martian surface.
Mini-laboratories
The gray powder will be routed to the two most sophisticated instruments on Curiosity—the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin).
SAM, the largest and most complex instrument onboard, operates with two ovens that can heat the sample up to 1,800°F (982°C), turning the elements and compounds in the rock into gases that can then be identified. SAM can also determine whether any carbon-based organic material is present.
Organics are the chemical building blocks of life on Earth. They are known to regularly land on Mars via meteorites and finer material that rains down on all planets.
But researchers suspect the intense radiation on the Martian surface destroys any organics on the surface. Scientists hope that organics within Martian rocks are protected from that radiation.
CheMin shoots an X-ray beam at its sample and can analyze the mineral content of the rock. Minerals provide a durable record of environmental conditions over the eons, including information about possible ingredients and energy sources for life.
Both SAM and CheMin received samples of sandy soil scooped from the nearby Rocknest outcrop in October. SAM identified organic material, but scientists are still trying to determine whether any of it is Martian or the byproduct of organics inadvertently brought to Mars by the rover. (See "Mars Rover Detects Simple Organic Compounds.")
In the next few days, CheMin will be the first to receive samples of the powdered rock, and then SAM. Given the complexity of the analysis, and the track record seen with other samples, it will likely be weeks before results are announced.
The process of drilling and collecting the results was delayed by several glitches that required study and work-arounds. One involved drill software and the other involved a test-bed problem with a sieve that is part of the process of delivering samples to the instruments.
Lead systems engineer Daniel Limonadi said that while there was no indication the sieve on Mars was malfunctioning, they had become more conservative in its use because of the test bed results. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")
Author of the National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012, Marc Kaufman has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including the past 12 as a science and space writer, foreign correspondent, and editor for the Washington Post. He is also author of First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth, published in 2011, and has spoken extensively to crowds across the United States and abroad about astrobiology. He lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife, Lynn Litterine.
3 Dead in Rolling Gun Battle on Vegas Strip
Label: Business
A drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas strip early this morning by the occupants of a Range Rover SUV, who shot at the occupants of a Maserati, caused a multi-car accident and car explosion that left three dead.
Police said that they believe a group of men riding in a black Range Rover Sport SUV pulled up alongside a Maserati around 4:20 a.m. today and fired shots into the car, striking the driver and passenger, according to Officer Jose Hernandez of the Las Vegas Metropolitan police department.
The Maserati then swerved through an intersection, hitting at least four other cars. One car that was struck, a taxi with a driver and passenger in it, caught on fire and burst into flames, trapping both occupants, Hernandez said.
Raw Video: Las Vegas Shooting Caught on Tape Watch Video
The SUV then fled the scene, according to cops.
The driver of the Maserati died from his gunshot wounds at University Medical Center shortly after the shooting, according to Sgt. John Sheahan.
The driver and passenger of the taxi both died in the car fire.
At least three individuals, including the passenger of the Maserati, were injured during the shooting and car crashes and are being treated at UMC hospital.
Police are scouring surveillance video from the area, including from the strip's major casinos, to try and identify the Range Rover and its occupants, according to police.
They do not yet know why the Range Rovers' occupants fired shots at the Maserati or whether the cars had local plates or were from out of state.
No bystanders were hit by gunfire, Hernandez said.
"We're currently looking for a black Range Rover Sport, with large black rims and some sort of dealership advertising or advertisement plates," Hernandez said. "This is an armed and dangerous vehicle."
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority had no immediate comment about the safety of tourists in the wake of the shooting today.
How was Earth's life kindled under a cold sun?
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British economy moves closer to new stimulus injection
Label: Technology
LONDON: Britain's economy, at risk of a third recession in five years despite record employment, could see a fresh injection of cash stimulus, according to minutes of a Bank of England meeting published on Wednesday.
Bank of England (BoE) governor Mervyn King has called for more quantitative easing, minutes from the central bank's February meeting showed.
This helped push the pound to a near 16-month low point against the euro and London's FTSE 100 shares index to a five-year high in trading on Wednesday.
"2013 just goes from bad to worse for the pound as this morning's ... minutes came out with a surprisingly bearish vote of 6-3 against further asset purchases after 8-1 last time around," said Investec bank economist Victoria Clarke.
"This continues the snowball of gloominess which has been gathering pace against sterling with the downside risk now getting more worrying for the friendless pound."
Sterling has been hit in recent days also by market rumours that Standard & Poor's rating agency was preparing to cut its top AAA long-term credit rating for Britain. S&P has however declined to comment on the speculation.
Traders were meanwhile mulling over mixed British employment data.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), employment in Britain has hit another record high point, with 29.73 million people in work at the end of December.
Despite this, the unemployment rate edged higher to 7.8 percent over the same period from 7.7 percent in the three months to November, the ONS added.
Recent data meanwhile showed that British gross domestic product shrank by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 compared with the previous three months.
Another contraction in the current first quarter of 2013 would place Britain in a so-called "triple-dip" recession.
Against such a backdrop, the BoE's nine-member Monetary Policy Committee voted 6-3 to keep its QE cash stimulus amount at £375 billion ($574 billion, 429 billion euros), according to minutes from their February 6-7 gathering.
However, outgoing chief King was joined by fellow MPC members David Miles and Paul Fisher in calling for another £25 billion in QE.
The British pound struck multi-month lows on Wednesday as the minutes stoked fresh concern over inflation and the economic outlook, dealers said.
Sterling slumped to 87.64 pence per euro -- which was the lowest level since late October 2011. It also dived to a seven-month nadir of $1.5282.
And on the stock market, London's FTSE 100 index of leading companies surged past 6,400 points for the first time in more than five years.
Under quantitative easing, the Bank of England creates cash that is used to purchase assets such as government and corporate bonds with the aim of boosting lending and in turn economic activity.
At the same time, QE can stoke inflation as it is tantamount to printing money.
British 12-month inflation stood at 2.7 percent in January for a record fourth month in a row -- above the government-set target of 2.0 percent.
"February's MPC minutes provided another clear demonstration of the Committee's increasingly flexible approach to inflation targeting," said Samuel Tombs, economist at the Capital Economics research group.
"We continue to think that more QE is only a few months away."
Wednesday's minutes added that BoE policymakers were unanimous earlier this month in freezing the bank's key interest rate at a record-low 0.50 percent -- where it has stood since March 2009, or almost four years.
-AFP/ac
Apple chairman Levinson: I still 'miss Steve'
Label: Lifestyle
Apple chairman Arthur Levinson.
(Credit:
Genentech)
Arthur Levinson, Apple's chairman of the board, still misses Steve Jobs.
"I'm still not to the point where I walk into that board room and don't miss Steve," Levinson told Fortune in an interview published today. He went on to say that being Apple chairman, a position he took in 2011 after Steve Jobs' death, still feels "weird."
Levinson is one of the more respected figures in the biotechnology industry. Until 2009, he was CEO of Genentech, a company that many believe, kicked off the entire biotechnology industry. He currently serves as chairman of that company, in addition to Apple.
As with other prominent Apple figures, Levinson was tight-lipped on the company's plans and shared little about its process, saying only that the board will see upcoming Apple products between 6 months and 18 months before their launch. In some cases, the board can chime in and suggest changes, though he acknowledged that it's not in place to "define product specs."
"And ultimately, the board is there to hire and fire the CEO," Levinson said.
For now, it appears his CEO, Tim Cook, won't be fired. He pointed to Apple's fourth-quarter performance, in which the company generated a $13.1 billion profit, as "phenomenal." He also told Fortune that while Apple's stock price is plummeting -- it's down 32 percent in the last six months -- he's confident in its ability to stay strong, saying that he won't worry about how many iPhones the company sold in any quarter.
Levinson's confidence in Apple comes as its co-founder Steve Wozniak sounded off on his views towards the iPhone maker. In an interview with Bloomberg published today, Wozniak said that Apple is in danger of losing its standing as the coolest company in the technology industry.
"We used to have these ads, 'I'm a
Mac and I'm a PC,' and the Mac was always the cool guy," Wozniak said. "And ouch, it's painful, because we kind of are losing that."
Pistorius Shots Said to Come From High Angle
Label: Business
At the second day of a bail hearing for Olympian Oscar Pistorius, a South African investigator who arrived at the scene of the Feb. 14 fatal shooting said that Reeva Steenkamp was shot from a high angle, which prosecutors say contradicts the runner's account that he was not wearing his prosthetics when he shot his girlfriend to death.
Pistorius, a double-amputee who runs on carbon-fiber blades, appeared in court for the second day in a row after his arrest in the death of girlfriend Steenkamp at his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa.
Read Oscar Pistorius' Full Statement to the Court
PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing
Arresting officer Hilton Botha told the court today that the 26-year-old was standing in the master bathroom when he shot the supermodel, who was crouched in a defensive position behind a locked door in a smaller powder room. He also said that the bullets that were fired had been fired from high up, and the bullets seemed to be coming in a downward direction.
"[The angle] seems to me down. Fired down," Botha told the court.
Pistorius said Tuesday that he went to the bathroom and fired through the door before putting on his prosthetic legs.
Oscar Pistorius: Defense Presents New Evidence Watch Video
'Blade Runner' Appears in Court to Hear Murder Charges Watch Video
He said he mistakenly shot his girlfriend, thinking she was an intruder.
Prosecutors also said that they found two boxes of testosterone in the bedroom, although the defense disputes that, saying it's just herbal supplements.
The court also heard that a witness, someone about 2,000 feet away from Pistorius' home, heard nonstop fighting the morning of the shooting.
"We have a witness who says she heard non-stop shouting and fighting between 2 and 3 a.m.," said prosecutor Gerrie Nel, who added that another witness saw lights on at the time of the gunshots.
Pistorius says he spent a quiet night with Steenkamp before the shooting.
Nel said that Pistorius' actions and phone calls on the night indicate pre-planning, and that there was a "deliberate aiming of shots at the toilet from about 1.5 meters [about 5 feet]."
He says Steenkamp was shot on the right side of her body.
Officer Botha also said Pistorius should be considered a flight risk because investigators discovered that he has offshore bank accounts and a house in Italy.
"I think it would be hard to get him back," Botha told the court. "This is a very serious crime, shooting an unarmed woman behind closed door."
Prosecutors also say they may file more charges for unlicensed ammunition, after a special-caliber .38 round was found in a safe in Pistorius' home.
Botha told the court today that he arrived at Pistorius' home at 4:15 a.m. Valentine's Day to find Steenkamp already dead, dressed in a white shorts and a black vest, and covered in towels. The only thing that Pistorius said was, 'I thought it was a burglar,'" according to Botha.
The 26-year-old sprinter Tuesday denied that he willfully killed Steenkamp, telling the court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.
Botha said today that he attended Steenkamp's postmortem, and that she had three entrance wounds: one on the head, one in the elbow and one in the hip.
Describing the scene to the court, Botha said that the shots fired into the bathroom were aimed at the toilet bowl.
The shooter "would have to walk into the bathroom and turn directly at the door to shoot at the toilet the way the bullets went," he said.
Huge telescopes could spy alien oxygen
Label: WorldGiant telescopes like the Extremely Large Telescope now being built in Chile could hunt for alien life by detecting oxygen on exoplanets – even though they were not designed with that in mind.
On Earth, plants and some bacteria are the only sources of large amounts of atmospheric oxygen. Finding oxygen on an exoplanet would therefore be a tantalising hint of life as we know it.
Current telescopes can look at the light that passes through exoplanet atmospheres and tease out their make-up, based on the substances that absorb particular wavelength bands. "We do this now for Jupiter-sized planets," says Ignas Snellen of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands.
But current telescopes are not sensitive enough to see atmospheres on small, rocky worlds. What's more, observations made from the ground struggle to filter out Earth's own oxygen-rich atmosphere. Space missions intended to hunt for distant oxygen have been cancelled.
Flux buckets
Snellen and colleagues have now calculated that the European Extremely Large Telescope, due to be completed in the next decade on Cerro Armazones, a mountain in Chile, will be big enough to do the job. Boasting a 39-metre main mirror, this telescope is expected to see some of the most distant stars and galaxies in the universe. With its much higher resolution, oxygen from an exoplanet would appear similar to Earth's oxygen, but its wavelength band would be noticeably shifted due to the exoplanet's motion as it orbits its star.
Finding such oxygen would still be a long shot: an exoplanet has to pass in front of its star many times to gather enough data to say for sure whether oxygen is present. Depending on the planet's orbit and the size of its star, that could take between 4 and 400 years.
The team also suggests building an array of "flux buckets", cheap telescopes that collect as much light as possible. These cannot be used to produce detailed images like large observatories, but they would allow the analysis needed to find exoplanet oxygen.
"It's good to have a cheaper alternative to the big space-based missions," says Jack O'Malley-James at the University of St Andrews in Fife, UK. But he cautions that just detecting oxygen will not confirm the presence of life. Other planets with vastly different chemistry might have an alternative source, so space-based observations would still be needed to confirm the full range of chemicals in a planet's atmosphere and show whether it is truly Earth-like.
Journal reference: Astrophysical Journal, doi.org/kh6
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