Army Looks to ‘Counteract Nightmares’ With Digital Dreams
October 21st, 2011Via: Wired:
A soldier tries to sleep. But he is not safe in his dreams. Jolted awake by a nightmare, the combat veteran fumbles in the dark for his 3-D glasses.
He puts them on. Around him are the faces of people whom he trusts. They fight the darkness with him. The soldier’s re-lived this scene in his head and the laboratory over and over again, until it has become reassuringly familiar. The soldier knows that his pixelated friends will take him away from these troubled dreams. When the scene is over, he takes off his goggles and looks around him. The soldier is home.
The U.S. Army wants this dream sequence to become reality. In an Army-backed experiment called “Power Dreaming,” Naval Hospital Bremerton in Washington State will help traumatized troops battle their nightmares — with soothing, digitally-made dreams crafted in virtual worlds.
Get Ready for a New Human Species
October 21st, 2011Via: MIT Technology Review:
If you turned off the electricity in the United States, you would see millions of people die quickly, because they wouldn’t have asthma medications, respirators, insulin, a whole host of things we invented to prevent people from dying. Eventually, we get to the point where evolution is guided by what we’re engineering. That’s a big deal. Today’s plastic surgery is going to seem tame compared to what’s coming.
Research Credit: bretwalda
MIT Develops New Radar Technology: Military Could See Through Walls
October 21st, 2011Via: ABC News:
Looking through walls is no longer something we read about in comic books or watch in Superman movies.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory has presented new radar technology that would allow humans to see through a solid wall.
35 Congressmen Move to Kill $122 Billion in Subsidies to Big Oil
October 21st, 2011Via: Tree Hugger:
Who likes oil subsidies? Nobody! Nobody but the oil companies, that is. But as we know, these subsidies, which American taxpayers annually spend billions of dollars on, are extremely difficult to kill. But 35 US congressmen and women are going to try: They’ve just drafted a motion to the so-called ‘super committee’ charged with reducing the deficit, asking it to remove $122 billion worth of oil subsidies from the federal budget. The coalition drafted a letter to the committee chairs Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA). From the letter (via Think Progress Green):
In the current budgetary environment, the United States can no longer afford to give away billions of dollars every year to corporations earning billions of dollars in profits and costing American taxpayers twice: at the pump and through the tax code. We urge the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to consider eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels as an excellent source of deficit reducing savings. According to a coalition of organizations, eliminating subsidies to the fossil fuels industry could reduce our national debt by up to $122 billion over ten years.
$122 billion is a lot of cash to be directing towards some of the most profitable companies in the world. Can anyone think of anything that could use $122 billion more than Exxon or Chevron? I certainly can’t. After all, our nation’s infrastructure is in tip-top shape, it’s not like we’re in the middle of a foreclosure crisis or anything, everyone is employed, and we’ve already got more clean energy than we know what to do with!
Sigh.
Nasdaq Hackers Spied on Company Boards
October 21st, 2011Via: Reuters:
Hackers who infiltrated the Nasdaq’s computer systems last year installed malicious software that allowed them to spy on the directors of publicly held companies, according to two people familiar with an investigation into the matter.
The new details showed the cyber attack was more serious than previously thought, as Nasdaq OMX Group had said in February that there was no evidence the hackers accessed customer information.
It was not known what information the hackers might have stolen. The investigation into the attack, involving the FBI and National Security Agency, is ongoing.
“God knows exactly what they have done. The long term impact of such attack is still unknown,” said Tom Kellermann, a well-known cyber security expert with years of experience protecting central banks and other high-profile financial institutions from attack.
The case is an example of a “blended attack,” where elite hackers infiltrate one target to facilitate access to another. In March hackers stole digital security keys from EMC Corp’s RSA Security division that they later used to breach the networks of defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.
Nasdaq had previously said that its trading platforms were not compromised by the hackers, but they attacked a Web-based software program called Directors Desk, used by corporate boards to share documents and communicate with executives, among other things.
By infecting Directors Desk, the hackers were able to access confidential documents and the communications of board directors, said Kellermann, chief technology officer at security technology firm AirPatrol Corp.
Investigators have learned that hackers were able to spy on “scores” of directors who logged onto directorsdesk.com before the malicious software was removed, said Kellermann and another person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
It was still unclear how long Nasdaq’s system was breached before the attack was discovered last October.
Research Credit: GP
Canada: ’52 of the 98 Teens Who Caught Measles Were Fully Vaccinated’
October 21st, 2011Via: CBC:
An unusual vaccine observation from a large measles outbreak in Quebec may raise some alarm among those who attend the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Measles cases have surged in parts of Canada and the United States this year, with cases among unvaccinated children and teens driving the high numbers, public health officials from both countries will tell a major infectious diseases conference this weekend. A still smoldering outbreak of measles in Quebec is the largest in the Americas in over a decade. A still smoldering outbreak of measles in Quebec is the largest in the Americas in over a decade. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Canadian Press
An investigation into an outbreak in a high school in a town that was heavily hit by the virus found that about half of the cases were in teens who had received the recommended two doses of vaccine in childhood — in other words, teens whom authorities would have expected to have been protected from the measles virus.
It’s generally assumed that the measles vaccine, when given in a two-dose schedule in early childhood, should protect against measles infection about 99 per cent of the time. So the discovery that 52 of the 98 teens who caught measles were fully vaccinated came as a shock to the researchers who conducted the investigation.
Mikhail Gorbachev Says Uprisings Signal an Emerging New World Order
October 21st, 2011Via: Lafayette College:
Gorbachev was referring to the series of uprisings around the world including the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations here in the United States. “The world needs goals that will bring people together,” he said. “Some people in the United States were pushing the idea of creating a global American empire, and that was a mistake from the start. Other people in America are now giving thought to the future of their country. The big banks, the big corporations, are still paying the same big bonuses to their bosses. Was there ever a crisis for them? . . . I believe America needs its own perestroika.”
…
“The entire world situation did not develop properly,” said Gorbachev. “We saw deterioration where there should have been positive movement. My friend the late Pope John Paul II said it best. He said, ‘We need a new world order, one that is more stable, more humane, and more just.’ Others, including myself, have spoken about a new world order, but we are still facing the problem of building such a world order…problems of the environment, of backwardness and poverty, food shortages…all because we do not have a system of global governance.”
Department of Homeland Security Deployed on Tennessee Interstates
October 20th, 2011Via: NewsChannel5:
You’re probably use to seeing TSA’s signature blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR).
“Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate,” said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.
Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.
Agents are recruiting truck drivers, like Rudy Gonzales, into the First Observer Highway Security Program to say something if they see something.
“Not only truck drivers, but cars, everybody should be aware of what’s going on, on the road,” said Gonzales.
It’s all meant to urge every driver to call authorities if they see something suspicious.
Unpaid Student Loans Top $1 Trillion
October 20th, 2011This whole student loan apocalypse is another confetti currency bubble scam. There are many parallels to the housing bubble, except, of course, that people can’t live inside those useless degrees obtained with borrowed money that can never be repaid.
The availability of the loans is driving ludicrous tuition increases, just like the funny money mortgages inflated the real estate market.
In other news: Rise of the Machines: America’s Jobs Challenge’.
Have a nice day.
Via: USA Today:
Students and workers seeking retraining are borrowing extraordinary amounts of money through federal loan programs, potentially putting a huge burden on the backs of young people looking for jobs and trying to start careers.
The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year. Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Students are borrowing twice what they did a decade ago after adjusting for inflation, the College Board reports. Total outstanding debt has doubled in the past five years — a sharp contrast to consumers reducing what’s owed on home loans and credit cards.
Muammar Gaddafi Killed in Sirte
October 20th, 2011Via: Al Jazeera:
Colonel Ahmed Bani, the military spokesman of the National Transition Council, has confirmed to Al Jazeera that Muammar Gaddafi has been killed.
Abdul Hakim Belhaj, an NTC military chief, said Gaddafi had died of his wounds after being captured near his hometown Sirte.
The body of the former Libyan leader was taken to a location which is being kept secret for security reasons, an NTC official said.
“Gaddafi’s body is with our unit in a car and we are taking the body to a secret place for security reasons,” Mohamed Abdel Kafi, an NTC official in the city of Misrata, told Reuters.
Earlier, Abdel Majid, another NTC official, said the toppled leader had been wounded in both legs.
A photograph taken on a mobile phone appeared to show Gaddafi heavily bloodied, but it was not possible to confirm the authenticity of the picture.
