Spam Is Killing The Planet

McAfee says that the energy required to send, route, and filter spam e-mail each year could power 2.4 million homes and release as much greenhouse gas as 3.1 million cars. Forget the fact that spam costs you time you’ll never get back and money that probably wasn’t easy to earn. Ignore the possibility that malicious links or files contained in spam might lead to the theft of your identity or bank account.

Focus for a moment on spam as an environmental scourge that damages the planet and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.

You might wonder whether you should be thinking about Hormel’s Spam, the canned meat product. Industrial meat production, after all, has been linked to environmental damage and the increased release of greenhouse gases.

But no. We’re talking about spam e-mail. According to a study released by McAfee, “Carbon Footprint of Spam,” the world expends 33 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, or 33 terawatt-hours, to send, route, and filter spam messages.

That’s the equivalent of the electricity required to power 2.4 million homes, the study estimates. And that much energy use emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion gallons of gasoline.

Jeff Green, senior VP of product development and McAfee Avert Labs, argues that spam has a major financial impact and that spam filtering saves both the environment and money.

The study finds that spam filtering saves 135 TWh of electricity per year, an amount that equates to the removal of 13 million cars from the road. And it estimates that if every e-mail in-box had state-of-the-art spam filtering, spam could be reduced by 75%, or 25 TWh per year, a reduction comparable to the removal of 2.3 million cars off the road.

For those who haven’t yet guessed as much, McAfee offers an anti-spam service.

via Spam Is Killing The Planet — Spam — InformationWeek.

Intelligence chief adds safeguards after wrongful intercepts

U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday that they have added safeguards to prevent the government from unlawfully spying on U.S. citizens after a routine check of the system “detected issues that raised concerns.”

Intelligence officials declined to specify the nature of the problem. But in a prepared statement, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said that on occasion, the National Security Agency “has made mistakes and intercepted the wrong communications.”

Officials characterized the wrongful intercepts as inadvertent and not nefarious. But some lawmakers said the matter reveals holes in the systems Congress established last year to ensure that the country’s vast intelligence gathering bureaucracy would not be used unconstitutionally to collect information about U.S. citizens.

“These are serious allegations, and we will make sure we get the facts,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Feinstein said she will hold a hearing on the matter.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, said Congress needs to fix several post-September 11th laws that “have eroded the privacy and civil liberties of law-abiding citizens.”

At issue is the activities of the National Security Agency, which collects “signals” intelligence, typically international telecommunications and e-mails.

In his statement, Blair said the NSA goes to great lengths to ensure the privacy and civil liberties of U.S. citizens but has made occasional mistakes.

via Intelligence chief adds safeguards after wrongful intercepts – CNN.com.

Who did they mistakenly spy on?  The FBI? The CIA? Political candidates? Company executives? Hollywood celebrities?

Obama Rules Out Charging C.I.A. Agents in Interrogations

The Justice Department made public on Thursday detailed memos describing harsh interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency, as President Obama said that C.I.A. operatives who carried out the techniques would not be prosecuted.

One technique authorized for use by the C.I.A. beginning in August 2002 was the use of “insects placed in a confinement box,” presumably to induce fear on the part of a terror suspect.

The interrogation methods were among the Bush administration’s most closely guarded secrets, and what was released on Thursday afternoon marked the most comprehensive public accounting to date of a program that some senior Obama administration officials have said included illegal torture.

One memo showed that a top Justice Department lawyer issued a legal opinion in 2005 saying that C.I.A. officers were allowed to use a combination of interrogation methods to produce a more effective result.

“Interrogators may combine water dousing with other techniques, such as stress positions, wall standing, the insult slap, or the abdominal slap,” wrote the official, Stephen G. Bradbury.

But Mr. Obama used a written statement to reiterate his opposition to a extensive investigation of the program, saying it was “time for reflection, not retribution.” He added:

“In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carrying out their duties relying in good faith upon the legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”

An early review suggested that the administration had declassified the vast bulk of the memos’ contents, a defeat for C.I.A. officials who had argued that such a step could be harmful to national security. The documents included Justice Department memos from 2002 and 2005 authorizing the C.I.A. to employ a number of aggressive techniques — including sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures and “waterboarding,” the near-drowning technique.

via Obama Rules Out Charging C.I.A. Agents in Interrogations – NYTimes.com.

Leonardo portrait found in cathedral window

A new, vividly colored portrait of Leonardo da Vinci has emerged from the windows of Arezzo’s Cathedral in Tuscany, Italy, claims an Italian scholar who has published the finding in a new book, “The Portraits of Leonardo.”

Depicting an amiable, bearded old man wearing a red hat, the portrait is one of many figures appearing in the stained glass on the cathedral’s right wall.

The scene, which shows the biblical story known as the Raising of Lazarus, is part of a renowned portfolio of stained-glass work by the undisputed master of the time, the French artist Guillaume de Pierre di Marcillat (1475-1529).

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“The image distinguishes itself by its dazzling intensity,” said Alezzandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, where da Vinci was born in 1452.

According to Vezzosi, the stained-glass portrait dates to around 1520, one year after Leonardo’s death in Amboise, France.

“The hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that a detail from ‘The Last Supper’ is evoked in the scene,” Vezzosi said. “The figure next to the old bearded man strongly recalls the profile of the apostle Matthew in Leonardo’s masterpiece.”

After becoming a Dominican friar, probably to avoid murder charges, di Marcillat left France and worked in Italy with the architect Donato Bramante and fellow artist Raphael Sanzio. His most famous pupil was the painter, architect and art historian Giorgio Vasari.

“I believe he also met Leonardo, while traveling between Arezzo and Rome,” Vezzosi said.

No one can say for certain what exactly da Vinci looked like: There isn’t a single portrait known for certain to bear his likeness. According to Vezzosi, there are five types of da Vinci portraits. They share some common features (the beard, for example) but have enough variation to keep experts guessing.

“When studying Leonardo, everything should be considered an hypothesis,” Carlo Pedretti, director of the Armand Hammer Center for Leonardo Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, wrote in the foreword to the book.

via Leonardo portrait found in cathedral window – Discovery.com- msnbc.com.

Man bites snake in epic struggle

A Kenyan man bit a python which wrapped him in its coils and dragged him up a tree during a fierce three-hour struggle, police have told the BBC.

The serpent seized farm worker Ben Nyaumbe in the Malindi area of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast at the weekend.

Mr Nyaumbe bit the snake on the tip of the tail during the exhausting battle in the village of Sabaki.

Police rescued Mr Nyaumbe and captured the 13ft (4m) reptile, before taking it to a sanctuary, but it later escaped.

The victim told police he managed to reach his mobile phone from his pocket to raise the alarm when the python momentarily eased its grip after hauling him up a tree on Saturday evening.

Mr Nyaumbe used his shirt to smother the snake’s head and prevent it from swallowing him.

His employer arrived with police and villagers, who tied the python with a rope and pulled them both down from the tree with a thud.

Peter Katam, superintendent of police in Malindi district, told the BBC News website: “Two officers on patrol were called and they found this man was struggling with a snake on a tree.

“The snake had coiled his hands and was trying to swallow him but he struggled very hard. The officers and villagers managed to rescue him and he was freed.

“He himself was injured on the lower lip of the mouth – it was bleeding a little bit – as the tip of the snake’s tail was sharp when he said he bit it.”

Mr Nyaumbe told the Daily Nation newspaper how he resorted to desperate measures after the python, which had apparently been hunting livestock, encircled his upper body in its coils.

“I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python,” he said.

“I had to bite it.”

via BBC NEWS | Africa | Man bites snake in epic struggle.

Birds: Feather Color Is More Than Skin Deep

Where do birds get their red feathers from? According to Esther del Val, from the National History Museum in Barcelona, Spain, and her team, the red carotenoids that give the common crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) its red coloration are produced in the liver, not the skin, as previously thought.

Their findings, published online in Springer’s journal Naturwissenschaften, have implications for understanding the evolution of color signaling in bird species.

Carotenoids have important physiological functions, including antioxidant, immunomodulating, and photoprotectant properties. Carotenoid pigments are also used by many bird species as colorants, and are responsible for most of their red, orange and yellow coloration. In particular, carotenoid-red coloration in birds has been shown to act as an ornament, signaling the nutritional and health status of the individual and its ability to locate high quality resources. Recent studies have suggested that the transformation of carotenoid pigments takes place directly in the follicles during feather growth.

Del Val and her team show for the first time that, contrary to previous assumptions, the liver acts as the main site for the synthesis of carotenoids responsible for the birds’ coloration, not the skin.

via Birds: Feather Color Is More Than Skin Deep.

Polish zoo visitors flock to catch glimpse of ‘gay’ elephant

Visitors have been flocking to a zoo in the western Polish city of Poznan to catch a glimpse of an elephant, who it is claimed is homosexual, Polish media said.

The ten-year-old African Bush elephant, Nino, has had to change zoos three times in the past five years because of his aggressive behavior toward female elephants, including pushing them into the pool. However his attitude to male elephants is described as “affectionate.”

“He only liked his buddies and hit the cows with his trunk, and was very disrespectful on the whole,” Michal Grzes, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) deputy for Poznan said.

Nino was sent to Warsaw Zoo, where he lived for three years, until his aggressive behavior led to his transfer to a zoo in Budapest before he once again returned to Poznan.

Grzes said that if Nino does not alter his behavior and breed, he will become “dead weight” for the zoo. He is currently being kept separate from the other animals.

However, zookeepers have not lost all hope. Nino is still young and will soon be introduced to a female from the Netherlands to try and tempt him into breeding.

via RIA Novosti – World – Polish zoo visitors flock to catch glimpse of ‘gay’ elephant.

Ants inhabit ‘world without sex’

An Amazonian ant has dispensed with sex and developed into an all-female species, researchers have found. The ants reproduce via cloning – the queen ants copy themselves to produce genetically identical daughters.

This species – the first ever to be shown to reproduce entirely without sex – cultivates a garden of fungus, which also reproduces asexually. The finding of the ants’ “world without sex” is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Anna Himler, the biologist from the University of Arizona who led the research, told BBC News that the team used a battery of tests to verify their findings. By “fingerprinting” DNA of the ant species – Mycocepurus smithii – they found them all to be clones of the colony’s queen.

And when they dissected the female insects, they found them to be physically incapable of mating, as an essential part of their reproductive system known as the “mussel organ” had degenerated.

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Ants inhabit ‘world without sex’.

Robot ant link here.

Three Neanderthal Sub-groups Confirmed

The Neanderthals inhabited a vast geographical area extending from Europe to western Asia and the Middle East 30,000 to 100,000 years ago. Now, a group of researchers are questioning whether or not the Neanderthals constituted a homogenous group or separate sub-groups (between which slight differences could be observed).

Paleoanthropological studies based on morphological skeletal evidence have offered some support for the existence of three different sub-groups: one in Western Europe, one in southern Europe and another in the Levant.

Researchers Virginie Fabre, Silvana Condemi and Anna Degioanni from the CNRS Laboratory of Anthropology (UMR 6578) at the University of Marseille, France, have given further consideration to the question of diversity of Neanderthals by studying the genetic structure of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and by analyzing the genetic variability, modeling different scenarios. The study was possible thanks to the publication, since 1997, of 15 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences (the mtDNa is maternally transmitted) that originated from 12 Neanderthals.

The new study confirms the presence of three separate sub-groups and suggests the existence of a fourth group in western Asia. According to the authors, the size of the Neanderthal population was not constant over time and a certain amount of migration occurred among the sub-groups. The variability among the Neanderthal population is interpreted to be an indirect consequence of the particular climatic conditions on their territorial extension during the entire middle Pleistocene time period.

via Three Neanderthal Sub-groups Confirmed.

Epilepsy Drug Linked to Babies’ Lower IQ

Women with epilepsy who took the drug valproate ( Depakote) during pregnancy gave birth to children whose IQ at age 3 averaged up to 9 points lower than the scores of children exposed to other epilepsy drugs, according to a new study.

“Valproate exposure to the unborn child is associated with a lower IQ, which is not explained by any of the other factors [influencing IQ], such as mother’s IQ, mother’s age, or epilepsy type,” says Kimford J. Meador, MD, the study’s lead author and professor of neurology at Emory University in Atlanta.

The average IQ of children born to women who took valproate was 92 — 8 below the 100 that is considered average — and the scores of those exposed to other epilepsy drugs ranged from 98 to 101, he tells WebMD.

The implications go beyond the use of the drugs in women of childbearing age who have epilepsy, Meador tells WebMD, because the drug is also commonly prescribed for migraine headaches and bipolar disorder.

In response to the study, published in Wednesday’s New England Journal of Medicine, a spokesperson for Abbott, which makes valproate, said the drug may be the only effective medication for some women.

via Epilepsy Drug Linked to Babies’ Lower IQ.