Landmark 20-Year Study Finds Pesticides Linked to Depression In Farmers
November 16th, 2014Via: Modern Farmer:
There’s a significant correlation between pesticide use and depression, that much is very clear, but not all pesticides. The two types that Kamel says reliably moved the needle on depression are organochlorine insecticides and fumigants, which increase the farmer’s risk of depression by a whopping 90% and 80%, respectively.
U.S. Navy Deploys Its First Laser Weapon in the Persian Gulf
November 14th, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
The U.S. Navy has deployed on a command ship in the Persian Gulf its first laser weapon capable of destroying a target.
The amphibious transport ship USS Ponce has been patrolling with a prototype 30-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System since late August, according to officials. The laser is mounted facing the bow, and can be fired in several modes — from a dazzling warning flash to a destructive beam — and can set a drone or small boat on fire.
Dragnet Surveilance: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret Spy Program, Fake Cell Towers Attached to Aircraft
November 13th, 2014There was a lot of coverage about fake cell towers several weeks ago. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that because all of the coverage seemed to point at an attempt by an alleged “secure” smartphone company to drum up sales. I didn’t want to give that company any additional advertising, because I don’t think there’s any such thing as a smartphone that’s not spying on you all the time, despite what those guys claim.
But now this…
Via: PCWorld:
The U.S. Department of Justice is putting devices that emulate cellphone towers in Cessna aircraft and flying them around the country to track the locations of cell phones, a practice that targets criminal suspects but may also affect thousands of U.S. citizens, according to a news report Thursday.
The program is run by the Department of Justice’s U.S. Marshals Service and has been in operation since at least 2007, according to the report in the Wall Street Journal, which cited two unnamed sources. The aircraft are flown out of at least five metropolitan-area airports and can cover most of the U.S. population, it said.
Cell phones are programmed to connect to whichever nearby cell tower has the strongest signal. The fake cell towers trick phones into thinking they have the strongest signal, then read the devices’ unique registration numbers when they connect, the Journal report says.
The goal is to locate cell phones linked to people under investigation for crimes like selling drugs, but in the process the program collects data about people not suspected of any crime, the report says. The fake cell towers determine which phones belong to criminal suspects and “let go” of those that aren’t.
The Journal quoted a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union who called it an inexcusable “dragnet surveillance program.”
A DOJ official wouldn’t confirm or deny the program but said Justice Department agencies “comply with federal law, including by seeking court approval,” the Journal said.
A side effect is that the towers can sometimes cause cell phone calls to be dropped. “Authorities have tried to minimize the potential for harm, including modifying the software to ensure the fake tower doesnt interrupt anyone calling 911 for emergency help,” one source told the Journal.
Amazon to Begin Testing Same-Day Delivery Drones in Cambridge
November 13th, 2014Via: Guardian:
Amazon is planning to test drones in Cambridge, England, as the battle to offer consumers same-day deliveries heats up.
The US company announced with considerable fanfare late last year that it was considering using drones as a way of dramatically reducing the time it takes to deliver orders to customers. At the time there was speculation that the move was little more than a publicity stunt. But Amazon said in July that it had sought permission from the US Federal Aviation Administration to test drones that could fly as fast as 50 miles per hour for up to 30 minutes at a time to deliver packages weighing up to 2.3kg (5lb).
Amazon is now expanding its R&D operations in Cambridge – two years after buying Cambridge-based startup Evi Technologies – to take advantage of the talent pool of academics and researchers in the area. The lab will focus on Prime Air, Amazon’s name for its drones project, the blog TechCrunch reported.
Amazon has advertised a number of aviation-related UK jobs in recent weeks, such as a flight operations engineer for Amazon Prime Air: “Flight test experience, manned or unmanned, is preferred,” the advertisement stated. Other roles include a senior research scientist position and a site leader job.
Apache Helicopter Visits Gun Range – Salt Lake City, UT
November 13th, 2014Via: YouTube:
Not something you normally see at the range.
This happened while my wife was visiting some co-workers in Salt Lake City. They took her and their kids to shoot some guns out in the desert. Just some shotguns and some pistols. They were visited by an Apache Helicopter.
Research Credit: pookie
Son of Stuxnet
November 13th, 2014Via: Firstlook:
As he drove to work, he tried to wrap his mind around what he’d just seen, and couldn’t believe the Stuxnet gang was still active. After all the media attention and finger-pointing at Israel and the United States, he thought for sure the attackers would have laid low for a while to let things cool off. At the very least he thought they would have altered their methods and code a little to make sure that any attack they unleashed hereafter couldn’t be traced back to them if found. But judging by the report from Hungary, it appeared they hadn’t bothered to alter their signature moves at all. They really had balls, he thought. They were determined to do whatever they had to do to conduct their attack and didn’t care who knew it was them. Either that, or they were already so invested in using the Duqu code that they were loath to replace it even after Stuxnet had been caught.
Duqu was essentially a remote-access Trojan, or RAT, which operated as a simple back door to give the attackers a persistent foothold on infected machines. Once the back door was installed, however, Duqu contacted a command-and-control server, from which the attackers could download additional modules to give their attack code more functionality, such as the keystroke logger/infostealer the Hungarians had found on one of their systems.
As for Duqu’s intent, it was pretty clear it wasn’t a saboteur like Stuxnet, but an espionage tool. Whereas Stuxnet was a black ops mission bent on destruction, Duqu appeared to be the forward scout, sent out to collect intelligence for future assaults. Symantec suspected it was the precursor to another Stuxnet-like attack. Duqu’s life-span was limited, however; a kill date in the code forced it to self-destruct after thirty-six days, deleting all traces of itself from an infected machine.
Idea that Intestinal Bacteria Affect Mental Health Gains Ground
November 13th, 2014Via: Nature:
Companies selling ‘probiotic’ foods have long claimed that cultivating the right gut bacteria can benefit mental well-being, but neuroscientists have generally been sceptical. Now there is hard evidence linking conditions such as autism and depression to the gut’s microbial residents, known as the microbiome. And neuroscientists are taking notice — not just of the clinical implications but also of what the link could mean for experimental design.
Forex Scam: Regulators Fine Global Banks $4.3 Billion
November 12th, 2014Via: Reuters:
Regulators fined six major banks including Citigroup (C.N) and UBS (UBSN.VX) a total of $4.3 billion for failing to stop traders from trying to manipulate the foreign exchange market, following a year-long global investigation.
HSBC (HSBA.L), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L), JP Morgan (JPM.N) and Bank of America (BAC.N) also face penalties resulting from the inquiry that has put the largely unregulated $5 trillion-a-day market on a tighter leash, accelerated the push to automate trading and ensnared the Bank of England.
In the latest scandal to hit the financial services industry, dealers shared confidential information about client orders and coordinated trades to make money from a foreign exchange benchmark used by asset managers and corporate treasurers to value their holdings. Dozens of traders have been fired or suspended.
Dealers used code names to identify clients without naming them and created online chatrooms with pseudonyms such as “the players”, “the 3 musketeers” and “1 team, 1 dream” in which to swap information. Those not involved were belittled and traders used obscene language to congratulate themselves on quick profits made from their scams.
…
Despite Wednesday’s payout, which brings the total fine for benchmark manipulation to over $10 billion in two years, banks still face further penalties as the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve and New York’s financial regulator conclude their own investigations.
Penalty For Uninsured Not Signing Up For Obamacare To More Than Triple
November 12th, 2014Via: CBS:
Americans will see their bank accounts shrink if they don’t sign up for Obamacare in its second enrollment season.
Uninsured Americans who decide not to enroll will face a penalty of $325 per person, more than tripling the $95 penalty those who did not enroll had to pay the first time around.
Children under the age of 18 will be fined $162.50. The maximum amount an uninsured family will be penalized is $975 under the flat-rate method.
“The penalty is meant to incentivize people to get coverage,” Laura Adams, senior analyst of InsuranceQuotes.com, told CBS News. “This year, I think a lot of people are going to be in for a shock.”
You Don’t Know Shit
November 12th, 2014Vis: Vice:
Every day, America must find a place to park 5 billion gallons of human waste, and we’re increasingly unable to find the space. We wake up in the morning, brush our teeth, and flush the toilet, thinking that the waste water disappears into the center of the Earth. If only that were the case.
Every morning between 8 AM and 9 AM, the waste output of Manhattan’s West Side swells from 70 million to 150 million gallons per day. This is known as “the big flush.” The sewage will eventually end up on a NYC Department of Environmental Protection Sewage boat, which will take the sludge to a dewatering plant on Ward’s Island, where the sludge will become “biosolids”—reused to create golf courses, cemeteries, and fertilizer for the human food chain.
Biosolids have become a financial asset worth hundreds of billions of dollars, but it’s still possible that we’ll go back to dumping our waste in the ocean. In this new documentary, VICE traces the trail of waste from butt to big-money biosolid and beyond.
