Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.

Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.

Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.

One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).

"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.

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China's longest high-speed railway to start on December 26

BEIJING: The world's longest high-speed rail route, running from the Chinese capital Beijing to Guangzhou in the south, will open for business on December 26, state media said on Saturday.

Travelling at an average speed of 300 kilometres per hour, the line will slash journey times linking Beijing in the north with the country's southern economic hub from 22 hours to eight hours, the China Daily newspaper said.

The December opening means the 2,298-kilometre route, with 35 stops including major cities Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Changsha, will be operational for China's Lunar New Year holiday period, in which hundreds of millions of people travel across the country in the world's largest annual migration.

The specific date was chosen to commemorate the birth of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, state media said.

China's high-speed rail network is booming. Only established in 2007, it has quickly become the largest in the world, with 8,358 kilometres of track at the end of 2010 and expected to almost double to 16,000 kilometres by 2020.

The network, however, has been plagued by graft and safety scandals following its rapid expansion, with a deadly bullet train collision in July 2011 killing 40 people and sparking a public outcry.

The accident - China's worst rail disaster since 2008 - triggered a flood of criticism of the government and accusations that the authorities had compromised safety in its rush to expand.

- AFP/de

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Can a MP3 sound better than a high-resolution FLAC or Apple Lossless file?

A great-sounding recording will sound its best only when it's properly mastered to LP, SACD, DVD-Audio, or a high-resolution file. Those formats will reveal the full glory of the music in ways that lower-resolution formats like MP3 or analog cassette always miss. But if you didn't have access to the high-resolution file to compare it with, a great recording will still sound pretty terrific as an AAC, M4A, or 320kbps MP3 file, because the recording's innate quality would shine through. On the other hand, a heavily compressed, processed and crude recording will always sound heavily compressed, processed and crude, regardless of whether it's an MP3, FLAC file, or LP.

Personal preferences are personal -- we like what we like; but there are objective standards for sound quality: low distortion, wide frequency response and stereo separation, and uninhibited dynamic range. If you applied those standards to most contemporary recordings, few would do well. Let's first look at dynamic range compression; once the mix or mastering engineer compresses a singer's whisper-to-a-scream vocal, the whisper will be just as loud as the scream. I love Arcade Fire's music, but their last record, "The Suburbs," sounds like crap. That's too bad; the music is strong, but the sound is not fun to listen to, and an LP or a FLAC can't fix the problems that were there to start with.

No one sets out to make bad-sounding recordings; they all make recordings they hope their intended audience will like. The bands and engineers know that most people will be listening on free earbuds,
car audio systems or Bluetooth speakers, so they make recordings that sound good over those things, but if that whisper to a scream vocal was left intact by the mix and mastering engineers you'd hear it in the MP3, FLAC file, or on the CD. Those formats are all capable of reproducing music's full dynamic range, but most of today's commercial music has it soft-to-loud dynamics squashed flat. Apparently, most people like it that way.

If the guitarist was playing a Gretsch Synchromatic 400 Acoustic Archtop, I'd like to hear its unique sound. But if the producer and engineer record the Gretsch through a pickup instead of a microphone, equalized its sound, compressed dynamic range, added digital reverb, and process it to death -- there won't be much left of the Gretsch's sound. It would sound like a generic guitar, which is why I would describe the sound of the recording as "bad." If the engineer boosted the treble to make the sound "cut" better for listeners in noisy environments, it's likely to sound harsh at home in a quiet setting. It would sound "bad" to me. So why not make separate mixes for different formats? Load up the MP3 with compressed dynamics and brighter EQ, and put the uncompressed, less EQ-ed mix on the LP and FLAC releases. Then everybody would get the sound they want.

Most commercial recordings purposely distort and compress the sound of vocals and instruments. And sure, they might even do it in a way that sounds great. That's the idea, after all, but sometimes it's a treat to hear a recording that sounds like the band is in the room with you. Here's a list of some of my favorite recordings.

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

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Conn. Shooter Adam Lanza: Quiet, Bright, Troubled

Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who killed 20 kids and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school Friday, was very bright, say neighbors and former classmates, but he was also socially awkward and deeply troubled.

"[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said family friend Barbara Frey. A relative told ABC News that Adam was "obviously not well."

READ full ABC News coverage of the Connecticut shootings.

On Friday morning, Lanza shot his mother Nancy in the face at the home they shared in Newtown, and then drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School. Dressed in black combat gear, he broke a window at the school, which had recently had a new security system installed, and within minutes had shot and killed six adults and 20 schoolchildren between the ages of five and 10.

The shooting stopped when Lanza put a bullet in his own head. Multiple weapons were found at the scene, including two semiautomatic handguns registered to his mother. A Bushmaster rifle registered to Nancy was discovered outside in the car.

Long before Lanza's spree, however, residents of Newtown had noticed that tall, pale boy was different, and believed he had some kind of unspecified personality disorder.

"Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were five years old," wrote aneighbor and former classmate Timothy Dalton on Twitter. "As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised."

Newtown School Massacre: 20 Children, 7 Adults Dead Watch Video

Newtown Teacher Kept 1st Graders Calm During Massacre Watch Video

In school, Lanza carried a black briefcase and spoke little. Every day, he wore a sort of uniform: khakis and a shirt buttoned up to the neck, with pens lined up in his shirt pocket.

He hated being called on by teachers, and it seemed to require a physical effort for him to respond. He avoided public attention and had few, if any, friends. He liked to sit near the door of the classroom to make a quick exit.

He even managed to avoid having his picture in his high school yearbook. Instead of his portrait, the space reserved for Adam Lanza says "Camera Shy." And unlike most in his age group, he seems to have left little imprint on the internet – no Facebook page, no Twitter account.

Lanza's parents Peter and Nancy Lanza married in New Hampshire in 1981, and had two sons, Adam and his older brother Ryan, who is now 24 and lives in New Jersey.

The Lanzas divorced in 2009 after 28 years of marriage due to "irreconcilable differences." When they first filed for divorce in 2008, a judge ordered that they participate in a "parenting education program."

Adam was 17 at the time of the divorce. He continued to live in Newtown with his mother. His father now lives in his Stamford, Connecticut with his second wife.

Peter Lanza, who drove to northern New Jersey to talk to police and the FBI, is a vice president at GE Capital and had been a partner at global accounting giant Ernst & Young.

Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24, has worked at Ernst & Young for four years, apparently following in his father's footsteps and carving out a solid niche in the tax practice. He too was interviewed by the FBI. Neither he nor his father is under any suspicion.

"[Ryan] is a tax guy and he is clean as a whistle," a source familiar with his work said.

Police had initially identified Ryan as the killer. Ryan sent out a series of Facebook posts saying it wasn't him and that he was at work all day. Video records as well as card swipes at Ernst & Young verified his statement that he had been at the office.

Two federal sources told ABC News that identification belonging to Ryan Lanza was found at the scene of the mass shooting. They say that identification may have led to the confusion by authorities during the first hours after the shooting.

Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.

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Satellite upgrade should let planes slash emissions

A CONSTELLATION of next-generation communications satellites has a surprise in store for the environment. When Iridium Communications begins launching replacement orbiters in 2015, it will do much more than upgrade its satphone services. Piggybacking on the satellites will be a set of transmitters that could revolutionise long-haul flight, save airlines billions of dollars worth of fuel and prevent millions of tonnes of carbon emissions.

For the first time, these devices, known as ADS-B transponders, will enable air traffic controllers to locate aircraft that are far out over oceans, remote deserts or the poles where there is no radar coverage. On top of the greater safety this offers airlines if a plane gets into trouble, say, it will also let controllers pack planes in closer together along optimal flight paths, which will cut carbon emissions.

The ADS-B radio transmitting system is designed to replace expensive, unreliable and low-range radar tracking. It bundles an aircraft's call sign, GPS position, speed and altitude into 112-bit digital packets, which are broadcast continually from the aircraft to the control stations.

But like today's radar, ADS-B radio packets have limited range. "If you're way out in the Pacific or over the North Pole no one's going to pick it up," says Dan Mercer of Iridium Communications. So the transponders piggybacking on the new satellites will pick up those signals and beam them back down to Earth. "For the first time, they'll have total vision of the aircraft at all times," Mercer says.

To avoid potential collisions, planes on long-haul routes out over the oceans currently have to fly quite a long way apart. And only some planes can fly in air lanes with kind tailwinds, while others have to push through less-favourable air currents. "If air traffic control can see where aircraft are precisely, they can fly them all closer together and on the most efficient routes. So they will save fuel and cut emissions," says Mercer.

A study commissioned by Iridium found that between the service's proposed start in 2017 and 2030, the technology should save airlines about $7 billion on fuel and cut carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 35 million tonnes. Another projection that looked at just North Atlantic flights says orbital ADS-B will save airlines $110 million in fuel and 300,000 tonnes in emissions in 2018 alone.

The system can "improve the efficiency of oceanic air traffic management by reducing aircraft separation distances and allowing greater route optimisation", says Pauline Lamb, operations director of National Air Traffic Services in Prestwick, UK. She adds that her organisation is working to fully understand the benefits it will provide.

Meanwhile, one of the world's largest air traffic management firms, Nav Canada of Ottawa, Ontario, has formed Aireon, a joint venture with Iridium. Aireon will operate and sell the transponder service to airlines and air traffic control providers. In combination with other measures - such as use of lighter carbon fibre planes and more efficient engines - Iridium's move should help aviation fight its environmental corner.

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: Troubled Indonesia dodges FIFA sanctions

JAKARTA: Indonesia evaded sanctions from world football regulator FIFA Friday, the nation's federation said, and was given an extension to resolve a row that has thrown Indonesian football into crisis.

FIFA had given the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) a December 10 deadline to reconcile its differences with rival Indonesian Soccer Rescue Committee (KPSI) that runs a rebel league splitting the nation's top teams.

"FIFA did not sanction Indonesia and we were asked to solve our problem as soon as possible," PSSI head Djohar Arifin told AFP by telephone from Tokyo, after FIFA discussed the issue in a meeting.

The rival administrations failed to show unity despite signing a memorandum of understanding in June vowing to bring Indonesian football under one umbrella.

The nation's top sports authorities were forced to establish a taskforce after the deadline passed ahead of the Tokyo meeting to begin mediation in the long-standing feud.

In a statement emailed to media later, FIFA said: "The PSSI has submitted a three-month roadmap.

"Therefore, the situation of the PSSI will be examined again by the Associations Committee and the Executive Committee at their next meetings.

"This is the very final deadline that will be given to the PSSI to normalise its situation."

Arifin said he was informed of FIFA's decision via email and was told the task to oversee Indonesia's progress was handed to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

He said FIFA had not told him how long the extension would be, but that FIFA would evaluate Indonesia's progress in an association committee meeting on February 14, adding that he hoped to resolve the crisis by FIFA's executive committee meeting on March 20.

The decision has been met with mixed reactions in the 240-million-strong nation, where despite a poor performing national team, football attracts millions of fanatics.

"It's very kind of FIFA to not give sanctions. Now let's solve Indonesia's football problem," Ali Abu Negara tweeted in Indonesian.

Another Indonesian Twitter user Bheny Hermawan disagreed: "It's better for Indonesia to get sanctions so we can start from zero, for a better football in the future."

The PSSI has been in hot water with FIFA and the AFC in recent years over poor management, corruption allegations, leadership tussles and poor security at major matches.

The dual-league rivalry has also hit the national team after the KPSI told players from its unofficial top-tier Liga Super not to make themselves available.

At Southeast Asia's ongoing Suzuki Cup, four-time finalists Indonesia bowed out in the group stages.

-AFP/ac

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CES 2013 preview: The love and the hate of the greatest (tech) show on earth

This will be my 13th
CES. Fewer than many, more than some. It's a grueling marathon of press conferences, swarming crowds, and endless lines.

When it comes to TV tech, David's take on what we'll see in Vegas is spot-on. I'm going to go one better, though. I'm going predict with stunning, remarkable, mind-blowing accuracy, exactly what we'll see at the show of shows.

1. 4K, 8K, 12K, ?K
I've gotten a lot of flak for my position on 4K, and 99 percent of it is from people not reading what I wrote, yet assuming they know what I said. Let me be very clear: 4K the resolution is awesome... for large screens. I have a 102-inch screen, and I'd love 4K and 4K content. But 4K TVs are stupid. And when I say "TV" I'm talking about the TVs most people buy, like 50 inches and smaller. At that size, 4K is pointless because your eye can't resolve it. Annnnnd I know what the first 20 comments to this post are going to be about.

But we're going to see more 4K Ultra HD. We're going to see 8K and probably more. If you read or hear from anyone that saw these ultra-ultra resolution displays, ask them how close they were standing.

2. OLED, FFS OLED
For frak's sake (yes, that's a PG-rated "FFS"), OLED was promised to us this year. I don't care what the problems are, I want my OLED and I want it now <stamps feet and pouts>. We better hear more about OLED, with pricing and a date. My guess? We'll be hearing from at least one new player -- perhaps the unholy alliance of Panasonic and Sony? OLED is way more interesting than 4K, as it represents better picture quality overall, not just higher resolution. Ultra HD is like putting better tires on a
car. Sure it's an improvement, but the rest of the car is the same. OLED is an entirely new and better car

Now before I continue, I feel I should explain something. When I and anyone else from CNET goes to CES, we're there to work. We're not "going to Vegas," we're going to CES, which just happens to be in Las Vegas. Our lives, for the most part, consist of hotel-transportation-convention center-transportation-hotel. I'm sure some gamble or see shows, but honestly, there's very little time. This isn't a vacation; we're there to work, we have to be there, and we have a lot to see. So, with that in mind...

3. Crappy press conferences
Press conferences are an awful, life-crushing experience. Imagine the most crowded room you've ever been in, crammed full of often smelly humanity of all shapes and sizes, filling every available space. Now, sit through a PowerPoint presentation detailing the sales figures of washers and dryers over the third quarter in Belize, Guatemala, and Qatar. Then, after your brain has seized up in some kind of Darwinian protection response, there's 32 seconds at the end covering all 1,700 new TV models. What? You feel asleep? You missed a model number? Too bad, because now you have to make a mad dash down the hall so you can squeeze into another hot and humid room with 3,000 of your closest frenemies and do it all over again.

The terribleness is not one person's fault. These are big companies, and I'm sure those tasked with creating these monstrosities work hard to make them as painless as possible. Then, after they've spent weeks crafting the perfect message and an entertaining experience, their boss informs them that her boss wants to speak at CES for 15 of the 45 allotted minutes on the company's "direction."

I can sit through about two press conferences per year; after that it devolves into an MST3K-style tweetfest mocking life, the universe, and everything. It's miraculous that I've never been fired (sort of).

4. No Wi-Fi
We landed a nuclear-powered SUV with frickin' laser beams on Mars, and we still can't get enough Wi-Fi bandwidth for the world's most obvious problem? After all the press conference nonsense, good luck trying to tell the world. Wi-Fi at 100 baud -- rockin'! I'm not asking to stream HD videos of kittens snoring, but being able to post text to a Web site would be nice. You know -- my job?

5. Lines
Lines for cabs. Lines for the monorail. Lines for food. Lines for elevators. Lines for cars (also called "traffic"). Lines for lines. You've walked 12 miles covering the show. All you want to do is go back to your overpriced, ugly hotel room and take your shoes off. It's two miles away. It takes you a hour to get there.

6. Questionable hygiene
Look, I know we Americans are typically "overshowered" compared to inhabitants of most countries, but dammit, put on some deodorant. You're getting shoved in beside other people for hours on end; have some human decency.

7. No one washes their hands!!!
More than half the men leaving the bathroom don't wash their hands. Not an exaggeration. Not a joke. I've seen it with my own eyes at every CES I've been to so far.

8. OMG #7
Seriously. Gross.

9. Rollybags
Look, I understand some people, for myriad reasons, don't have the ability to carry a heavy backpack or satchel around all day. But if you're toting around a rollybag, I hate you. So does everyone else. The normal human takes up about four square feet of floor space. Carting around a rollybag, that area triples. Not only are you wasting precious space on an already crowded floor, you're doing it down out of normal sightlines. At every show, I trip over someone's rollybag and nearly take a header. I've seen countless people fall over them and land hard. These abominations should be banned completely.

And wait a second: what are you toting around that's so heavy and important anyway? Iron Man's suit? Thor's hammer? What? I have a $275 laptop that weighs less than three pounds, plus I carry a real camera and two big lenses, and all of that fits in a bag a kid could carry. (Hmmm, now there's an idea....) This rolling episode of "Hoarders" has to stop. It's dangerous.

10. Meanderers
As I said earlier, most of us at the show are here to work. Some of us cover so many different product categories, that we're literally running from place to place to place to attempt to see everything we need to -- and we won't, it's futile. There's a percentage of people who, apparently, have absolutely nothing to do while they're there. They meander, shuffling slowly around the show with no direction, no straight line. They're speedbumps for those of us who move with a purpose. Hey, whatever you want to do at CES is none of my business, but at least don't walk four abreast with your buddies, blocking aisles. And please, please, please -- move to the side.

Which brings me to my last point. If this is your first CES, I wrote Ten Tips for the CES Noob for S+V last year, and it's still current (not to mention one of my more favorite articles).

Bottom Line
OK, now that all of that is out of my system, I have to say this: The drive to Vegas for CES is one of my favorite days of year. Just a flat-out high-speed burn through Berdoo, Barstow, and Baker. Up the hill, cresting to reveal that unmistakable, incongruous valley, ever growing, ever changing.

The truth is, despite the toll on mind and body, I love CES. It's exciting. We see cool stuff. I get to spend time with friends and co-workers I only see a few times a year. The food is excellent -- seriously.

It occurs to me that every annoyance I've complained about stems from the fact that I have to actually work at the show. A Catch-22 if I've ever seen one. I'd love to go to CES if I didn't have to work, but if I wasn't working, I couldn't go to CES.

Maybe I'll figure it out next year.

---

Got a question for Geoff? Send him an e-mail! If it's witty, amusing, and/or a good question, you may just see it in a post just like this one. No, he won't tell you which TV to buy. Yes, he'll probably truncate and/or clean up your e-mail. You can also send him a message on Twitter: @TechWriterGeoff.

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Pictures: Surveying Rain Forest Arthropods

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  Insects on High

  
  Photograph courtesy Jürgen Schmidl, University of Erlangen

  After an exhaustive search for the creepy crawlies living in a small patch of Panama's rain forest, researchers have discovered that the entire 6,000-hectare forest could harbor up to 25,000 arthropod species.

  Dawn Frame and Alexey Tishechkin, researchers with Project IBISCA-Panama—supported by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute—stand in a crane gondola so that they can capture insects feeding on flowers in the forest canopy.

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Open “Eyes”

  
  Photograph by Darlyne A. Murawski, National Geographic

  An Io moth—known for the false "eyes" located on its hind wings—is one of the many species identified by scientists during a project spanning nearly a decade.

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Ant Mimic

  
  Photograph by Christian Ziegler, National Geographic

  A broad-headed Hyalymenus nymph (right), mimics its ant neighbors (left) while visiting a flower. By looking like an aggressive ant that can sting attackers, the harmless nymph tricks predators into leaving it alone. Mimicry is a type of camouflage and occurs throughout the animal kingdom. ("Art of Deception": Can you find the animals hidden in these photos?)

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Foggy With a Chance of Bugs

  
  Photograph courtesy Roger Le Guen, Panacoco

  Researcher Jürgen Schmidl fogs the rain forest understory in an attempt to collect insects in the vegetation. Some techniques use chemicals that stun the insects, causing them to rain down on sheets laid out to catch them.

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Deceptive Defense

  
  Photograph by Christian Ziegler, National Geographic

  Normally, saw-nosed plant hoppers try to keep a low profile. Blending in with tree bark offers some protection from predators. But when their cover is blown, plant hoppers have a second line of defense: Flashing the red spots hidden under their wings gives the impression that the eyes of a much larger animal are staring back.

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Brown on the Ground

  
  Photograph courtesy Thomas Martin, Jean-Philippe Sobczak, and Hendrik Dietz, T.U. Munich

  Although some beetles are famous for their metallic jewel tones, this scarab beetle (Megasoma elephas), also known as an elephant beetle, is covered in brownish yellow hairs. This scarab beetle species flaunts itself in other ways—males sport a horn that they use in fights with other males for mating rights.

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Bubbling Up

  
  Photograph courtesy Maurice Leponce, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

  Researcher Maurice Leponce floats above the San Lorenzo forest canopy on the Canopy Bubble.

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  











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  Nighttime Snack

  
  Photograph by Christian Ziegler, National Geographic

  Africanized honeybees visit an Ochroma flower just after sunset, looking for some nectar. (Late-night nectar binge: See pictures of animals caught in the act.)

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Red Flags

  
  Photograph by Christian Ziegler, National Geographic

  A flat-footed bug uses flashy red "flags" on its hind limbs to distract potential predators, such as birds. By placing attractive lures away from vital areas such as the head, the insect ensures a striking predator will miss the important bits.

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  











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  Photograph by Annie Griffiths Belt, National Geographic

  Published December 14, 2012

  
  

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State Police: Two Gunmen at Conn. Grade School

A shooting involving two gunmen erupted at a Connecticut elementary school this morning, prompting the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today.

State Police confirm that one shooter is dead. A second gunman is apparently at large, sources told ABC News.

The shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, about 12 miles east of Danbury.

State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41a.m. and immediately began sending emergency units from the western part of the state. Initial 911 calls stated that multiple students were trapped in a classroom, possibly with a gunman, according to a Connecticut State Police source.

Shannon Hicks/The Newtown Bee

A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.

CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.

While some students have been reunited with their parents on the school's perimeter, one group of students remains unaccounted for, according to a source with a child in the school.

Newton Public School District secretary of superintendent Kathy June said in a statement that the district's school were locked down because of the report of a shooting. "The district is taking preventive measures by putting all schools in lockdown until we ensure the safety of all students and staff."

State police sent SWAT team units to Newtown.

All public and private schools in the town are on lockdown.

State emergency management officials said ambulances and other units were also en route and staging near the school.

A message on the school district website says that all afternoon kindergarten is cancelled today and there will be no mid-day bus runs.

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Higgs boson having an identity crisis

The Higgs boson is sending mixed signals: its mass seems to vary depending on how it is measured. What's more, oddities in the way it decays into other particles, first noticed when the team at the Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of a new boson in July, do not seem to be going away.

Experiments at the LHC, part of the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, do not detect the Higgs directly. Instead, they collect and analyse the slew of particles it is predicted to decay into. The latest results from the ATLAS detector at the LHC suggest that when we look at its decay into two photons, we find that the new boson's mass is about 3 greater than when calculated from its decay into particles called Z bosons.

Albert De Roeck, one of the key Higgs hunters at ATLAS's sibling detector, CMS, finds this puzzling. "The results are barely consistent," he says.

But he says the inconsistency almost certainly reflects a problem with the measurements rather than strange physics.

"There's probably a large statistical fluctuation pulling the data around," says Matt Strassler of Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. He says the problem may have implications for other results.

No fluke

The ATLAS team also announced new results from analysing the Higgs boson's rate of decay into pairs of photons. The standard model of particle physics predicts exactly how often this should happen. Intriguingly, when early hints of a new particle were upgraded to a "discovery" in July, it was doing that more often than the standard model says it should. But there was not enough data to say whether this was a fluke.

If the Higgs really decays into photons at too fast a rate, it would offer some clues as to where to look for new physics that might explain mysteries like dark matter, gravity and the dearth of antimatter in the universe.

Today, physicists announced that the excess has not gone away – and it does not look any less likely to be a fluke either, because they have now seen twice the number of decays.

"It keeps us titillated," says Raymond Volkas from the University of Melbourne in Australia. Strassler calls the new results "very interesting and tantalising", but adds that they are still not quite enough to tell us anything.

"I guess the CMS results are now very highly anticipated," says De Roeck. The CMS team has not released their data on the Higgs decay to photons yet, saying they need more time to do their analysis.

According to Strassler, the Higgs mass problem could be a sign that we should not trust the unusually high rate of photon decays measured. "This unfortunately tends to make me less confident that the excess seen in the photon signal will survive with more data."

Next week, the LHC will move into a different phase before shutting down in early 2013 while the machine is upgraded. You'd think that might let physicists' blood pressure recover, but there is no rest for the wicked. Marumi Kado, presenting the ATLAS results today, said they have only analysed a fraction of the data collected so far. "Surprises might be waiting for us in the present data," he said.

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Ukrainian MPs brawl in parliament as PM re-appointed

KIEV: The Ukrainian parliament Thursday voted to reinstate its prime minister after dozens of opposition and pro-government lawmakers brawled for a second day in the chamber notorious for its fisticuffs.

Newly-elected world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko sought to stand above the fray by staying well out of the fighting that came just before parliament voted to re-appoint Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.

Deputies in suits and shirtsleeves climbed on tables, shouted and grappled with opponents in an angry protest against lawmakers pressing electronic buttons to vote for absentee colleagues.

While lawmakers are legally obliged to vote in person, many of them run around pressing buttons for absent colleagues.

Opposition politicians rose to their feet and rushed to blockade the speaker's tribune, while being pushed back by pro-government lawmakers.

Amid angry shouts and calls for calm, some clambered on desks from where they dealt blows and jumped down on opponents.

At least one opposition lawmaker had a bruised face after being thrown to the floor and receiving punches and kicks from ruling party lawmakers, the Interfax news agency reported.

The towering boxing champion Klitschko, whose opposition party UDAR, or punch, has won 42 seats in the parliament, refrained from joining the skirmishes and could be seen seated, watching the fight calmly.

"You could call the fists of a world champion a nuclear weapon. I don't think we will use this weapon yet," Klitschko said, quoted by his party press service.

But he added: "We do support the blockading of the tribune."

After a break, the parliament managed to restore calm and hold a vote to reappoint prime minister Azarov that had been postponed from Wednesday.

A total of 252 deputies out of 450 in the single-chamber parliament supported Azarov's return to office, including President Viktor Yanukovych's ruling Regions Party, the Communists and several independents.

Three opposition factions - Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party close to jailed ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the UDAR party of Klitschko and the Svoboda nationalist movement - did not back Azarov.

"The politics of the Regions Party of which Azarov is a representative is anti-Ukrainian, anti-social and anti-democratic," said comments from Svoboda.

It remained unclear why Azarov, 64, took the dramatic step of resigning earlier this month, with the presidency saying at the time that Yanukovych had accepted his request to give up his post and become an MP.

Azarov called on the parliament to leave behind the "confrontation" to "face together outside challenges" including the global economic crisis that is already hurting Ukraine.

The parliament's opening session on Wednesday had earlier seen fighting erupt between opposition lawmakers and deputies whom they accused of defecting to the pro-government camp.

In a typically raucous session, feminist group Femen also staged a topless anti-corruption protest outside the entrance to the parliament wearing only black pants.

The brawls were an ugly start to a new parliament apparently still controlled by Yanukovych's Regions Party, which claims to have won a majority in legislative elections on October 28.

The October polls were widely criticised by the international community, coming as Tymoshenko continues to serve a seven-year prison term for abuse of power that she argues is politically motivated.

The Ukrainian parliament is often the scene of scuffles with lawmakers throwing eggs and letting off smokebombs.

Two years ago several opposition deputies were badly injured in a bloody brawl prompted by the opening of a criminal probe into Tymoshenko that saw punches thrown and chairs hurled.

- AFP/de

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iPhone infringes on patents from MobileMedia, rules jury

Apple has lost a courtroom case pitting it against patent holder MobileMedia.

A U.S. court ruled today that the iPhone infringes on three patents held by MobileMedia, according to a tweet from Bloomberg. CNET has contacted MobileMedia for comment. A person at the company had no details to share but said that the PR representative was in the process of preparing a statement on the matter.

The jury trial kicked off just last month in a case in which Apple was accused of violating patents held by MobileMedia, a company jointly owned by Sony, Nokia, and a Denver-based outfit called MPEG LA, which licenses patents for the MPEG standards.

It's unknown at this time which three patents were included in the ruling. CNET will update the story as we receive more information.

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Hubble Discovers Oldest Known Galaxy

The Hubble space telescope has discovered seven primitive galaxies formed in the earliest days of the cosmos, including one believed to be the oldest ever detected.

The discovery, announced Wednesday, is part of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field campaign to determine how and when galaxies first assembled following the Big Bang.

"This 'cosmic dawn' was not a single, dramatic event," said astrophysicist Richard Ellis with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Rather, galaxies appear to have been formed over hundreds of millions of years.

Ellis led a team that used Hubble to look at one small section of the sky for a hundred hours. The grainy images of faint galaxies include one researchers determined to be from a period 380 million years after the onset of the universe—the closest in time to the Big Bang ever observed.

The cosmos is about 13.7 billion years old, so the newly discovered galaxy was present when the universe was 4 percent of its current age. The other six galaxies were sending out light from between 380 million and 600 million years after the Big Bang. (See pictures of "Hubble's Top Ten Discoveries.")

Baby Pictures

The images are "like the first ultrasounds of [an] infant," said Abraham Loeb, a specialist in the early cosmos at Harvard University. "These are the building blocks of the galaxies we now have."

These early galaxies were a thousand times denser than galaxies are now and were much closer together as well, Ellis said. But they were also less luminous than later galaxies.

The team used a set of four filters to analyze the near infrared wavelengths captured by Hubble Wide Field Camera 3, and estimated the galaxies' distances from Earth by studying their colors. At a NASA teleconference, team members said they had pushed Hubble's detection capabilities about as far as they could go and would most likely not be able to identify galaxies from further back in time until the James Webb Space Telescope launches toward the end of the decade. (Learn about the Hubble telescope.)

"Although we may have reached back as far as Hubble will see, Hubble has set the stage for Webb," said team member Anton Koekemoer of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "Our work indicates there is a rich field of even earlier galaxies that Webb will be able to study."

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Royal Hoax Nurse Hanged Herself, Left 3 Notes

Jacintha Saldanha, the London nurse who killed herself after she answered a radio-station prank call about Kate Middleton, was found hanging from the neck, and left three notes, according to the coroner's officer.

The 46-year-old nurse who worked at London's King Edward VII Hospital was discovered Dec. 7 hanging by a scarf from a wardrobe in her bedroom, Coroner's Officer Lynda Martindill told a British inquest.

The wife and mother of two also had injuries to her wrists, according to police detective chief inspector James Harman.

Harman told the coroner's inquest that two notes were found at the scene and a third was discovered among Saldanha's belongings.

He did not release the contents of the notes.

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Australian DJs Apologize in Wake of Nurse's Suicide Watch Video

There is no suspicion of foul play in Saldanha's death, Harman said. Investigators are still trying to piece together exactly what led to her suicide, and are now interviewing her friends, family and co-workers to find more information, Harman said.

Saldanha was found dead Friday morning after police were called to an address near the hospital to "reports of a woman found unconscious," according to a statement from Scotland Yard.

Saldanha had worked at the hospital for more than four years.

DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian of 2Day FM in Sydney called the hospital Dec. 5 pretending to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, looking to speak to Middleton, who was being treated at the hospital for acute nausea related to her pregnancy. The duo were able to obtain information about the duchess' condition.

When the royal impersonators called the hospital, Saldanha put them through to a second nurse who told the royal impersonators that Kate was "quite stable" and hadn't "had any retching."

The radio station, along with Greig and Christian, has apologized for the prank call, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority has now launched an investigation into the incident.

Coroner Fiona Wilcox has adjourned the inquest into Saldanha's death until March 26.

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OPEC sits tight before oil output meeting

VIENNA: OPEC maintained Tuesday its oil demand growth forecasts ahead of a meeting to discuss output levels and pick a new secretary-general for the cartel that pumps out more than a third of the world's crude.

While the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was expected to hold its oil production ceiling at 30 million barrels per day (mbpd) in Vienna on Wednesday, there was uncertainty over who would become the group's new administrative head.

The world's biggest oil exporter Saudi Arabia was battling against Iraq and political foe Iran to succeed Libya's Abdullah El-Badri, who as OPEC secretary-general for the past six years has steered the cartel through the financial crisis.

A vote to pick his successor was postponed in June after OPEC failed to reach the required unanimous decision. Another delay could see El-Badri stay on beyond the maximum of two, three-year terms, analysts said.

The oil ministers of Kuwait and Venezuela were not attending Wednesday's meeting because of political events in their countries, while it was not known if the absences would affect the outcome of the secretary-general vote.

Asked if OPEC would decide on a new secretary-general at the ministerial meeting in Vienna, home to the cartel's headquarters, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi simply told reporters: "Maybe."

UAE Energy Minister Mohammad bin Dhaen al-Hamli added: "I hope we will solve this issue tomorrow."

Hamli meanwhile insisted that there was "no need to do anything" over OPEC's current oil production levels. Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi added to the expectation of there being no change, stating that crude supply and demand was "relatively balanced" and that "prices are okay."

OPEC is said by analysts to be producing about one million oil barrels above its official daily ceiling, as Saudi Arabia compensates for lost Iranian output caused by a Western embargo on the Islamic Republic, and as other nations look to maximise profits while oil prices remain high.

World oil prices rose Tuesday on expectations of fresh stimulus measures from the Federal Reserve to perk up the struggling US economy, traders said, with benchmark Brent North Sea crude adding 70 cents to $108.07 a barrel.

An expected drop in oil demand next year risks dampening crude prices despite a background of Middle Eastern unrest, notably over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.

OPEC on Tuesday kept its forecast for growth in world oil demand unchanged for this year and next. World oil demand was expected to reach 88.80 mbpd in 2012, up from 88.04 mbpd in 2011, the dozen-member cartel said in its monthly report.

Next year, global demand was set to grow to 89.57 mbpd, it forecast.

OPEC, which pumps 35 percent of the world's oil, said much of its demand growth this year came from Japan, which has turned to oil after shutting down nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

Massive power outages in India in the summer also helped growth there, even as members of the OECD club of industrialised nations and China saw weak economic growth that pushed down oil demand.

For 2013, OPEC was more optimistic, citing an improving economy in the United States and a potential return to growth in the eurozone, "although this might prove challenging."

As for oil production, Iran -- OPEC's second largest producer last year after Saudi Arabia -- appeared to be feeling the impact of international economic sanctions imposed over its suspected nuclear weapons drive.

In the third quarter of 2012, after an EU oil embargo took effect on July 1, Iranian crude production sank to 2.73 mbpd, from 3.09 mbpd in the second quarter and 3.39 mbpd in the first, OPEC said citing secondary sources.

-AFP/ac

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Netflix ranks ISPs by streaming performance, Google Fiber wins

The top 7 performing ISPs, according to Netflix. A larger list is available in the full report.

(Credit:

Netflix)

Internet service provider (ISP) performance is notoriously hard to quantify, but there's at least one company that has tons of real-world data: Netflix.

The streaming-video king released a report this morning ranking 21 major US ISPs based on real-world streaming performance. Google Fiber came in the lead by quite at bit, with an average of 2.55 Mbps in November, with the next closest competitor (Verizon FiOS) coming in at 2.19 Mbps. Unsurprisingly, DSL services came in behind all the major cable/fiber services, with the best performer averaging just 1.42 Mbps in November. The best mobile service to crack the list is Verizon at a relatively pokey 0.76 Mbps.

Netflix says this is just the first installment in what will be a regular monthly report, which is good news for keeping ISPs honest about bandwidth throttling.

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U.K. Dash for Shale Gas a Test for Global Fracking

Thomas K. Grose in London

The starting gun has sounded for the United Kingdom's "dash for gas," as the media here have dubbed it.

As early as this week, a moratorium on shale gas production is expected to be lifted. And plans to streamline and speed the regulatory process through a new Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil were unveiled last week in the annual autumn budget statement by the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne.

In the U.K., where all underground mineral rights concerning fossil fuels belong to the crown, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could unlock a new stream of government revenue as well as fuel. But it also means that there is no natural constituency of fracking supporters as there is in the United States, birthplace of the technology. In the U.S., concerns over land and water impact have held back fracking in some places, like New York, but production has advanced rapidly in shale basins from Texas to Pennsylvania, with support of private landowners who earn royalties from leasing to gas companies. (Related: "Natural Gas Stirs Hope and Fear in Pennsylvania")

A taste of the fight ahead in the U.K. came ahead of Osborne's speech last weekend, when several hundred protesters gathered outside of Parliament with a mock 23-foot (7-meter) drilling rig. In a letter they delivered to Prime Minister David Cameron, they called fracking "an unpredictable, unregulatable process" that was potentially toxic to the environment.

Giving shale gas a green light "would be a costly mistake," said Andy Atkins, executive director of the U.K.'s Friends of the Earth, in a statement. "People up and down the U.K. will be rightly alarmed about being guinea pigs in Osborne's fracking experiment. It's unnecessary, unwanted and unsafe."

The government has countered that natural gas-fired power plants would produce half the carbon dioxide emissions of the coal plants that still provide about 30 percent of the U.K.'s electricity. London Mayor Boris Johnson, viewed as a potential future prime minister, weighed in Monday with a blistering cry for Britain to "get fracking" to boost cleaner, cheaper energy and jobs. "In their mad denunciations of fracking, the Greens and the eco-warriors betray the mindset of people who cannot bear a piece of unadulterated good news," he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Natural Gas")

Energy Secretary Edward Davey, who is expected this week to lift the U.K.'s year-and-a-half-old moratorium on shale gas exploration, said gas "will ensure we can keep the lights on as increasing amounts of wind and nuclear come online through the 2020s."

A Big Role for Gas

If the fracking plan advances, it will not be the first "dash for gas" in the U.K. In the 1980s, while Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher battled with mining unions, she undercut their clout by moving the nation toward generating a greater share of its electricity from natural gas and less from coal. So natural gas already is the largest electricity fuel in Britain, providing 40 percent of electricity. (Related Interactive: "World Electricity Mix")

The United Kingdom gets about 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and has plans to expand its role. But Davey has stressed the usefulness of gas-fired plants long-term as a flexible backup source to the intermittent electricity generated from wind and solar power. Johnson, on the other hand, offered an acerbic critique of renewables, including the "satanic white mills" he said were popping up on Britain's landscape. "Wave power, solar power, biomass—their collective oomph wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding," he wrote.

As recently as 2000, Great Britain was self-sufficient in natural gas because of conventional gas production in the North Sea. But that source is quickly drying up. North Sea production peaked in 2000 at 1,260 terawatt-hours (TWH); last year it totaled just 526 TWh.

Because of the North Sea, the U.K. is still one of the world's top 20 producers of gas, accounting for 1.5 percent of total global production. But Britain has been a net importer of gas since 2004. Last year, gas imports—mainly from Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands—accounted for more than 40 percent of domestic demand.

The government hopes to revive domestic natural gas production with the technology that has transformed the energy picture in the United States—horizontal drilling into deep underground shale, and high-pressure injection of water, sand, and chemicals to create fissures in the rock to release the gas. (Related Interactive: "Breaking Fuel From the Rock")

A Tougher Road

But for a number of reasons, the political landscape is far different in the United Kingdom. Britain made a foray into shale gas early last year, with a will drilled near Blackpool in northwest England. The operator, Cuadrilla, said that that area alone could contain 200 trillion cubic feet of gas, which is more than the known reserves of Iraq. But the project was halted after drilling, by the company's own admission, caused two small earthquakes. (Related: "Tracing Links Between Fracking and Earthquakes" and "Report Links Energy Activities To Higher Quake Risk") The April 2011 incident triggered the moratorium that government now appears to be ready to lift. Cuadrilla has argued that modifications to its procedures would mitigate the seismic risk, including lower injection rates and lesser fluid and sand volumes. The company said it will abandon the U.K. unless the moratorium is soon lifted.

A few days ahead of Osborne's speech, the Independent newspaper reported that maps created for Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) showed that 32,000 square miles, or 64 percent of the U.K. countryside, could hold shale gas reserves and thus be open for exploration. But a DECC spokeswoman said "things are not quite what it [the Independent story] suggests." Theoretically, she said, those gas deposits do exist, but "it is too soon to predict the scale of exploration here." She said many other issues, ranging from local planning permission to environmental impact, would mean that some tracts would be off limits, no matter how much reserve they held. DECC has commissioned the British Geological Survey to map the extent of Britain's reserves.

Professor Paul Stevens, a fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said the U.K. is clearly interested in trying to replicate America's shale gas revolution. "That's an important part of the story," he said, but trying to use the American playbook won't be easy. "It's a totally different ballgame." In addition to the fact that mineral rights belong to the crown, large expanses of private land that are commonplace in America don't exist in England. Just as important, there is no oil- and gas-service industry in place in Britain to quickly begin shale gas operations here. "We don't have the infrastructure set up," said Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University, adding that it would take years to build it.

Shale gas production would also likely ignite bigger and louder protests in the U.K. and Europe. "It's much more of a big deal in Europe," Stevens said. "There are more green [nongovernmental organizations] opposed to it, and a lot more local opposition."

In any case, the U.K. government plans to move ahead. Osborne said he'll soon begin consultations on possible tax breaks for the shale gas industry. He also announced that Britain would build up to 30 new natural gas-fired power plants with 26 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. The new gas plants would largely replace decommissioned coal and nuclear power plants, though they would ultimately add 5GW of additional power to the U.K. grid. The coalition government's plan, however, leaves open the possibility of increasing the amount of gas-generated electricity to 37GW, or around half of total U.K. demand.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that Europe may have as much as 600 trillion cubic feet of shale gas that could be recovered. But Stevens said no European country is ready to emulate the United States in producing massive amounts of unconventional gas. They all lack the necessary service industry, he said, and geological differences will require different technologies. And governments aren't funding the research and development needed to develop them.

Globally, the track record for efforts to produce shale gas is mixed:

• In France, the EIA's estimate is that shale gas reserves total 5 trillion cubic meters, or enough to fuel the country for 90 years. But in September, President Francois Hollande pledged to continue a ban on fracking imposed last year by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.
• Poland was also thought to have rich shale gas resources, but initial explorations have determined that original estimates of the country's reserves were overstated by 80 percent to 90 percent. After drilling two exploratory wells there, Exxon Mobil stopped operations. But because of its dependence on Russian gas, Poland is still keen to begin shale gas production.
• South Africa removed a ban on fracking earlier this year. Developers are eyeing large shale gas reserves believed to underlie the semidesert Karoo between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
• Canada's Quebec Province has had a moratorium on shale gas exploration and production, but a U.S. drilling company last month filed a notice of intent to sue to overturn the ban as a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
• Germany's Environment Ministry has backed a call to ban fracking near drinking water reservoirs.
• China drilled its initial shale gas wells this year; by 2020, the nation's goal is for shale gas to provide 6 percent of its massive energy needs. The U.S. government's preliminary assessment is that China has the world's largest "technically recoverable" shale resources, about 50 percent larger than stores in the United States. (Related: "China Drills Into Shale Gas, Targeting Huge Reserves")

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Royal Hoax: Station to Give $500K to Nurse's Family

The Australian radio station that employed the DJs who prank-called the London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated has cancelled their show and will donate at least $500,000 to the grieving husband and children of the nurse who took the call and later apparently killed herself.

Australia's 2Day FM released a statement today saying it hopes to "help [Jacintha] Saldanha's family with the support they need at this very difficult time."

After days of suspended advertising, the radio station at the center of a global firestorm announced it will resume airing commercials Thursday. All its profits for the rest of the year will go directly to the family of the unsuspecting nurse at the center of that joke.

The Sydney-based station also issued a company-wide suspension of prank calls after the nurse who initially answered the hospital call was found dead.

Saldanha's husband and two teenage children met with officials at the hospital Monday, and spoke publicly for the first time, although via a member of the British Parliament.

Royal Hospital Hoax: End to Shock-Jock Pranks? Watch Video

Australian DJs Apologize in Wake of Nurse's Suicide Watch Video

"This is a close family," Keith Vaz said. "They are devastated by what has happened. They miss her every moment of every day.

Although radio pranks have been a staple of shock DJs for years, DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian of Australia's 2Day FM might have crossed the line last week when they pranked the hospital, prompting the question of whether this is the end for radio pranking.

"Entertainers try to use real-life everyday circumstances and try to find humor in them," Radio DJ J Niice of B96 in Chicago, who does regular pranks on his show, told ABC News.

DJ Niice says his station has no intentions of pulling the plug on prank calls because it doesn't need to.

Based on U.S. law, such calls only become problematic when any resulting damage or injury could have been foreseen.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was famously pranked while running for vice president by a notorious Montreal-based comedy duo, who pretended to be then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"You know, I see you as a president one day," one of them told Palin, to which she replied with a giggle, "Maybe in eight years.'"

A prank caller even managed to make his way through security to speak to Tony Blair while he was still British prime minister. But it was no laughing matter in 1998 when Opie and Anthony, DJs from a Boston radio station, were fired for telling listeners on April Fools' Day that the city's mayor had died in a car accident.

While the Australian DJs' show has been terminated, it's still unclear whether they will be.

They could face criminal charges if police determine their call was illegally recorded. And the same joke at which they initially laughed is now the reason for their tears.

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Doha summit launches climate damage aid

The latest summit to stop climate change, held in Doha, Qatar, over the past two weeks has been roundly slammed. Little was agreed to curb greenhouse gas emissions and the latest modelling, carried out by the Climate Action Tracker consortium shows global averages temperatures are still set to rise by at least 3 °C above pre-industrial levels.

There was one breakthrough: developing countries won a promise from developed ones that they would compensate them for losses and damage caused by climate change. The deal offers the promise of large amounts of climate aid. But first, science will have to catch up with politics.

All countries will suffer from climate change. There will be consequences even if humanity slashed its emissions and stopped temperatures rising more than 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, the stated goal of the UN negotiations. In actual fact, with emissions rising faster than ever, a 3 or 4 °C rise is likely this century.

The consequences will be manifold. Deserts will spread and lethal heatwaves become more frequent. Changes in rainfall will bring droughts, floods and storms, while rising seas will swamp low-lying areas, obliterating valuable territory. Food production will fall.

Before Doha kicked off, the charities ActionAid, CARE International and WWF released a report arguing that rich countries should compensate poor countries for such damages. Tackling the Limits to Adaptation points out that climate change will cost countries dearly, both economically and in less tangible ways such as the loss of indigenous cultures.

Two-pronged approach

So far, climate negotiations have taken a two-pronged approach to the problem. On the one hand, they have sought to create incentives or imperatives to cut emissions. On the other, they have established a pot of money for poor countries to pay for measures that will help them fend off the unavoidable consequences of climate change – such as sea walls and irrigation systems.

That, according to some, leaves a third element missing. Helping those who suffer the consequences of climate change is a moral obligation and must be part of any treaty on climate change, says Niklas Höhne of renewable energy consultancy Ecofys. The idea of climate compensation has been around since the early 1990s, when the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was negotiated.

In Doha, a coalition including China, the Alliance of Small Island States and the G77 group of developing countries pushed for it to revived.

They proposed a scheme that would decide when countries had suffered climate harms, and compensate them. It would be a form of insurance, and the greatest international aid scheme ever. The idea gained momentum after Typhoon Bopha struck the Philippines last week, and that country's negotiator Naderev "Yeb" Saño broke down in tears during a speech. And, although developed nations had little incentive to agree, the conference concluded with a promise to set something up next year.

Compensation poses a fundamental challenge to climate science, which still struggles to work out if trends and events are caused by greenhouse gases or would have happened anyway. "We can't say that an individual event was caused by climate change," says Nigel Arnell of the University of Reading, UK. "What we can do is say that the chance of it happening was greater."

Systematic tests

Some climatologists are now running systematic tests to decide whether extreme weather events are caused by climate change. They run climate models with and without humanity's emissions. If the odds of a particular event are different, it suggests it was at least partially driven by emissions. By this measure, the 2003 European heatwave and 2011 Texas drought were both made more likely by human emissions.

But this science is in its infancy. We can confidently attribute large-scale trends and temperature changes, says Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. But changes in rainfall, and short-term events like hurricanes, are harder because we do not really understand them. Trenberth speculates that superstorm Sandy would not have flooded the New York subways without climate change, but says it's not possible to prove.

Arnell says that might prove unworkable. Gradual changes – such as rising sea levels, melting glaciers and ocean acidification – are easy to attribute to climate change but their consequences difficult to cost; sudden events are easy to cost but difficult to attribute.

There may be another possibility. Rather than examining individual events, climate models could predict the extra climate-related costs each country would experience, allowing regular payouts. "That would be a way round it," says Arnell. Delegates at next year's conference will have to consider these questions.

Positive step

Harjeet Singh of ActionAid in New Delhi, India, calls the Doha deal "a positive step forward". But it is only an agreement in principle: no money was committed, and even a promise to do so in the future was left out of the final text. Edward Davey, the UK's secretary of state for energy and climate change, said it was "far too early" to talk about committing money. "We aren't saying there should be compensation," he said.

Singh says the developed world would save money by cutting emissions now, rather than letting temperatures rise and then paying compensation. Small island states were keen to get an agreement on loss and damage because emissions cuts are going so slowly, making dangerous climate change almost certain. The Doha agreement is a first step towards dealing with the consequences of that failure.

On 'other business'

Aside from agreeing to make compensation available for loss and damage, the Doha summit achieved little. Nearly two decades ago, the world's governments set out to agree a binding deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Doha included some baby steps towards a deal in 2015, but that is not guaranteed and in any case will come too late to stop dangerous climate change. Only Lebanon and the Dominican Republic made new emissions pledges.

The talks were bogged down in rows over financing. In a deal that was separate to the adaptation fund, developed countries had promised in 2009 to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor nations prepare for climate change. Between 2009 and 2012 they allocated $10 billion a year. In Doha they refused to say how they would scale that up, simply promising to "continue" – leaving developing countries unsure if or when they would get more.

The Kyoto protocol was renewed until 2020, but its global effect is likely to be limited. Its value is partly symbolic, to show that binding agreements can be reached, and as one of many small and medium-scale projects to cut emissions.

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