After admitting they have illegally spied on NZ citizens or residents 88 times (PDF) since 2003, the government, in a stunning example of arse covering, is about to grant the GCSB the right to intercept the communications of New Zealanders in its role as the national cyber security agency, rather than examine the role the GCSB should play and then look at the laws. There has been strong criticism from many avenues. The bill is being opposed by Labour and the Greens, but it looks like National now have the numbers to get this passed. Of course, the front page story is all about the royal baby, with this huge erosion of privacy relegated to a small article near the bottom of the front page. Three cheers, the monarchy is secure, never mind the rights of the people. More bread and circuses anyone? — via Slashdot
Germany’s Zoo am Meer Bremerhaven announced the arrival of its first Siberian Red Squirrel offspring. The five healthy youngsters were born seven weeks ago and are now old enough to begin exploring their habitat. This Siberian subspecies (Sciurus vulgaris exalbidus) is rarely kept in European zoos, so getting a chance to see these rambunctious and playful little red babies is a treat for zoo visitors — via ZooBorns
Scientists have shown that light-sensitive retinal cells, grown in the lab from stem cells, can successfully integrate into the eye when implanted into blind mice. The technique opens up the possibility that a similar treatment could help people who have become blind through damage to their retinas to regain some of their sight.
Loss of light-sensitive nerve cells, known as photoreceptors, is a major cause of blindness in conditions such as age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa and diabetes-related blindness. These conditions affect many thousands of people in the UK alone and there is no effective treatment at present. Scientists have been exploring the possibility of somehow replacing the photoreceptors, which come in two types: rods that help us see in low light conditions, and cones, which help us differentiate colours.
Robin Ali at University College London’s Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital has previously shown that transplanting immature rod cells from the retinas of very young mice can restore vision in blind adult mice. It was a neat proof of concept, but the technique as it stood would be impractical as a way to treat people.
His latest work got around the problems of sourcing donor photoreceptor cells by growing and differentiating them from embryonic stem cells in a culture dish, rather than taking the cells from young mice. The donor photoreceptors developed normally once inside the adult mouse eyes and, crucially, formed nerve connections with the brain. The results are published on Sunday in the journal Nature Biotechnology — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The prime minister is looking at porn. For research purposes, of course. He’s not sitting in cabinet meetings peeking under the table at a looped three-second clip of a woman’s bra falling off that Michael Gove e-mailed to him by mistake. He is looking for a way he can pretend to be fighting it. He wants to declare himself the first prime minister to win the war on online porn. And, according to a letter leaked to the BBC last week, he reckons he has found one: default-on.
Default-on is a system whereby internet service providers block access to pornographic images as standard, unless the customer opts out of the filters. In the eyes of certain newspapers, it is the silver bullet solution to the problem of kids watching pornography. But, for various reasons, most of the major ISPs are not up for asking their customers: Do you want porn with that?
They have negotiated with the government and agreed on a system called Active Choice + in which customers opt in for filters, rather than out for falling bras. The system gives new users a choice at installing filters, and existing customers the option of switching to safer browser modes. The default setting remains filter-free.
The leaked letter, sent to leading ISPs from the Department for Education, makes it clear that Cameron’s war or porn is propaganda masquerading as policy. It suggests: Without changing what you will be offering (ie active-choice +), the prime minister would like to be able to refer to your solutions [as] ‘default-on’
. It is a sleight-of-hand worthy of the Ministry of Truth, a move from the “Let’s not and say we did!” school of regulation.
It raises the question: where else does Cameron use this line? Do his aides write to Starbucks, Google and Amazon to ask that, without changing what they are doing (avoiding paying billions in tax), they find a way for him to refer to this as “paying billions in tax”? Do they ask tobacco firms if, without ditching branded packaging, they could find a way for Dave to pretend they have? Has he ever asked George Osborne if he can refer to him as not George Osborne
? — via redwolf.newsvine.com
In Dublin, Ireland, stands an estate reminiscent of old folklore, complete with its own dragon! Of course, dragons are mythical creatures, so this home only has a dragon made of steel which acts as its gatekeeper. The property, known at Harlech House, was originally built in 1798 by a Welsh immigrant. (The estate is actually named after a town in Wales called Harlech and the national flag has a dragon on it.) Harlech House sits on less than an acre of land but is full of enchantment. It features religious iconography and fairy-tale motifs throughout the seven-bedroom home, but it’s the dragon gate that grabs the most attention — via My Modern Metropolis
A closer shot of my Alien Facehugger/Giger tribute Parasitoid
. Made with wild turkey and mink bones, coyote claws, and two box turtle shells — via Steve Niles Tumblr
The police tactics at issue in the Stewart case are no anomaly. Since the 1960s, in response to a range of perceived threats, law-enforcement agencies across the US, at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier. Driven by martial rhetoric and the availability of military-style equipment — from bayonets and M-16 rifles to armoured personnel carriers — American police forces have often adopted a mind-set previously reserved for the battlefield. The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the US scene: the warrior cop—armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.
The acronym SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. Such police units are trained in methods similar to those used by the special forces in the military. They learn to break into homes with battering rams and to use incendiary devices called flashbang grenades, which are designed to blind and deafen anyone nearby. Their usual aim is to clear
a building — that is, to remove any threats and distractions (including pets) and to subdue the occupants as quickly as possible.
The country’s first official SWAT team started in the late 1960s in Los Angeles. By 1975, there were approximately 500 such units. Today, there are thousands. According to surveys conducted by the criminologist Peter Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University, just 13% of towns between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team in 1983. By 2005, the figure was up to 80%.
The number of raids conducted by SWAT-like police units has grown accordingly. In the 1970s, there were just a few hundred a year; by the early 1980s, there were some 3,000 a year. In 2005 (the last year for which Dr Kraska collected data), there were approximately 50,000 raids.
A number of federal agencies also now have their own SWAT teams, including the Fish & Wildlife Service, NASA and the Department of the Interior. In 2011, the Department of Education’s SWAT team bungled a raid on a woman who was initially reported to be under investigation for not paying her student loans, though the agency later said she was suspected of defrauding the federal student loan program.
The details of the case aside, the story generated headlines because of the revelation that the Department of Education had such a unit. None of these federal departments has responded to my requests for information about why they consider such high-powered military-style teams necessary — via redwolf.newsvine.com
On 10 October 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn’t. Two days later, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer. It’s been a tough week for vitamins,
said Carrie Gann of ABC News.
These findings weren’t new. Seven previous studies had already shown that vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease and shortened lives. Still, in 2012, more than half of all Americans took some form of vitamin supplements. What few people realize, however, is that their fascination with vitamins can be traced back to one man. A man who was so spectacularly right that he won two Nobel Prizes and so spectacularly wrong that he was arguably the world’s greatest quack — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Alan Turing, the Enigma codebreaker who took his own life after being convicted of gross indecency under anti-homosexuality legislation, is to be given a posthumous pardon.
The government signalled on Friday that it is prepared to support a backbench bill that would pardon Turing, who died from cyanide poisoning at the age of 41 in 1954 after he was subjected to chemical castration
.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, a government whip, told peers that the government would table the third reading of the Alan Turing (statutory pardon) bill at the end of October if no amendments are made. If nobody tables an amendment to this bill, its supporters can be assured that it will have speedy passage to the House of Commons,
Ahmad said.
The announcement marks a change of heart by the government, which declined last year to grant pardons to the 49,000 gay men, now dead, who were convicted under the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act. They include Oscar Wilde — via redwolf.newsvine.com
MIT is claiming they can make the Internet faster if we let computers redesign TCP/IP instead of coding it by hand. They used machine learning to design a version of TCP that’s twice the speed and causes half the delay, even with modern bufferbloated networks. They also claim it’s more fair
. The researchers have put up a lengthy FAQ and source code where they admit they don’t know why the system works, only that it goes faster than normal TCP — via Slashdot
Meeting a fox in the snow: a fantasy coming true. 😉 — via 500px
Bring the iconic Boeing 747 into your conference room with MotoArt’s newest piece made from a General Electric engine nacelle. At 12′ wide this high-mirror polished table seats up to 12, and includes a set of 6 pop-up connection ports. The custom fabricated engine stator is set off with internal LED lighting in a color or your choice, and topped with a B-52 engine spinner.
Like the easily recognizable classic Jumbo Jets, Motoart’s Jumbo conference table is in a class by itself — via MotoArt
The world is mourning with a man who lost his dog Wednesday.
John Unger and his elderly dog, Schoep, became Internet celebrities last summer because of Bayfield, Wis., photographer Hannah Stonehouse Hudson’s photograph of the pair in the waters of Lake Superior. Unger took Schoep into the lake regularly to ease the discomfort of the dog’s arthritis.
People from Texas to Japan to Slovakia gave money to help pay Schoep’s veterinary bills, medications and laser treatments.
It gave the faithful companions another year together.
Schoep turned 20 on June 15. He died 26 days later. On Thursday, a photo of a paw print in the sand was posted on the Official Fan Page of Schoep and John on Facebook — via redwolf.newsvine.com
We are in love with this super-soft black tee depicting a rare and strange occurrence! This shirt depicts a storm so vast and powerful that it has plucked a giant squid from the ocean and carries high into the night sky where it clings to a zeppelin — via ShanaLogic
Our itsy bitsy li’l kraken is made from polymer clay and glazed for extra shine and durability. Just be a little careful of any bits that protrude, because as much as we try to minimise it, clay is only so strong and will not stand up to heavy wear and tear — via Etsy
A real-life RoboCop is one step closer to reality thanks to 23-year-old UNSW design student Alfred Boyadgis.
Boyadgis has designed a high-tech helmet for motorcycle officers that displays information in the visor and combines a number of vital technologies that are currently only available at arm’s length.
The helmet is designed to improve response times in emergencies and save lives. It has already attracted interest from the Chief of Police in Coral Gables in the US state of Florida, who wants to test it in the field and sees potential for tactic response deployment as well.
Mr Boyadgis says he is also in talks with the NSW Police Traffic and Highway Patrol Command.
The way that helmets are designed at the moment is quite archaic,
Mr Boyadgis said. “There’s no direct electronics in there and, if you think about it, everyone has a smartphone, and all the luxuries of smart technology aren’t with riders. They’re still using strap-on GPSs and they have no ability to communicate with each other in a safe manner with something that’s integrated.”
Named Forcite, his helmet includes a heads-up
display that shows critical information in front of the wearer’s eyes, delivers turn-by-turn GPS by voice, and links to the automatic number-plate recognition system used by police, which identifies vehicle registration details and checks if there are any infringements — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Cthulhu lives.. on your shirt! Original design of our favourite scary octopus headed god — via Design by Humans
Artist Catherine Rosselle created an amazing series of creepy embroidered insects called Insectomanie — via MAKE
An Austrian man is to be charged with disturbing the peace of the dead after police found 56 human skulls and 55 other bones at a museum he had created in his home.
Police in the province of Burgenland said the relics were taken without authorisation from a church cemetery and had now been returned.
The 47-year-old man, whose name was not immediately released, came to the attention of police when he tried to sell three skulls and two thigh bones at a flea market — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Whose little feet are those? They belong to one of the new White Canadian Wolf pups born at Berlin Zoo. On 29 April, keepers noticed that the four-year-old Ava, who had been pregnant, emerged from the wolf cave looking considerably leaner. It was not long before five pups ventured out to be seen by staff and visitors alike. They sport their puppy coat of brownish spotted fur, but in time will come to have the magnificent white coat of their parents — via ZooBorns
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