STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

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Scientists mystified as 20 earthquakes hit Oklahoma in one day

Residents of Oklahoma were left feeling rattled over the weekend after a strong of some 20 earthquakes as powerful as 3.5 magnitude rocked the central part of the state on Saturday alone.

Areas north of Oklahoma City felt the brunt of the temblors, which some say were accompanied by startling booms like the sound of an explosion.

The mystery earthquake wave now has residents fearing for their personal safety and the security of their property. Meanwhile, scientists have been left scratching their heads over the quakes, which are becoming more frequent each day.

Quake cluster: A map created by earthquaketrack.com shows the massive cluster of 20-plus quakes that have shaken central Oklahoma in recent days

'Felt like bombs going off. It's just a huge loud noise and then it's like a reverb from that boom that just shakes the entire house,' Logan County resident Nancy York told KOCO.

York was one of countless Oklahomans startled by the quakes, which included a 3.5 magnitude shakeup in the Edmon area.

'If I'm experiencing eight of these in one day,' York wondered, 'then when does it erupt and become absolutely horrible that takes my house down?'

Unfortunately, scientists don't yet have an answer.

One possibility is geological.

'We have a lot of pre-existing faults in Oklahoma,' seismologist Austin Holland told KOCO.

However, with little history of seismic activity in the area, it's unclear why the quakes would become so frequent now.

Another potential cause is the change in water levels at nearby LIberty Lake, where a swarm of the earthquakes were centered Saturday.

The controversial hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking' method pumping millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into fractures in the Earth.

Why now? A chart compiled by the Associated Press from USGS data shows the huge spike in Oklahoma earthquakes after 2009. Scientists point to many possible explanations, including controversial 'fracking'

'We've looked at hydraulic fracturing,' said Austin, but scientists have yet to blame it--or anything--for the quake swarm.

What is sure is that the quakes are growing in frequency.

From 1975 to 2008, only a handful of magnitude-3.0 earthquakes or greater occurred yearly in Oklahoma. But the average grew to around 40 annual earthquakes from 2009 to 2013, seismologists said in an October study by the U.S. Geological Survey on the uptick of quake activity.

Since 2009, more than 200 magnitude-3.0 or greater earthquakes have hit the state's midsection, according to the Geological Survey. Many have been centered near Oklahoma City, the most populous part of the state.

Some researchers and environmental groups have long suspected fracking can have seismic repercussions because it forces millions of gallons of water, sand and other materials deep underground to free pockets of fossil fuels.

The energy industry has repeatedly insisted that the practice is safe. Scientists researching the theory say it's not clear yet whether fracking can trigger significant quakes.

Oklahoma's strongest recorded earthquake was a 5.6-magnitude surprise that struck in November 2011 near the town of Prague. It damaged 200 buildings, shook a football stadium and rattled parts of seven states.

No one has been killed or seriously injured in the recent quakes, and property damage has been minimal. But the frequent tremors have been enough to weaken the constitution of even the most weather-hardened Oklahomans.

The earthquakes rumbled Logan County near Oklahoma City late Sunday, about a week after a 4.1 magnitude temblor caused minor damage at the county jail in Guthrie.

The U.S. Geological Survey says a 3.8-magnitude earthquake struck shortly before 11 p.m. Sunday. The USGS initially estimated the earthquake as a 4.2 magnitude, but it was later downgraded to a 3.8 magnitude.

The earthquake was centered about 7 miles south-southwest of Guthrie. Guthrie is about 30 miles north of Oklahoma City.

Another earthquake with a 2.9 magnitude was recorded about 30 minutes later followed shortly by a third earthquake with a 3.0 magnitude. No damage has been reported.

Damages: Logan County resident Nancy York pointed out the cracks that appeared in her newly built Oklahoma home following the quake swarm

Scary experience: York also described the huge boom sounds that came with the quakes and the cracks in her new home's walls

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A Hardcore Military Flight Sim That Will Run On A Laptop

Modern flight simulators – not the recreational kind, the actual kind used to train pilots – are enormous, expensive things. They’re impressive, sure, but their cost and size mean they can’t exactly be used every day. That’s why a company has been given money by the US Air Force to develop something a little more accessible.

GameSim, a studio that’s worked with EA Sports and BioWare in the past, won the grant to develop something called TTRE, or Tactical Training Rehearsal Environment. “We designed TTRE to run on laptops for Air Force pilots”, GameSim’s Stephen Eckman tells me, “and it is designed to be portable so we didn’t want to have large external displays.”

While the “game-like” platform can be adjusted for any combat aircraft, right now it’s being lined up as an F-35 simulator, as the USAF’s newest jet needs what Eckman calls “5th Gen thinking”. Because of its extensive use of computer aids and advanced sensors, pilots have to learn not just how to fly it, but how to adjust their thinking to do everything else they need to do while flying.

What I find neat about the project is that it’s the opposite of what we normally envision for a military flight sim. Indeed, it’s almost an example on how to go about getting the most bang for your buck as a civilian flight enthusiast. TTRE in its current form uses consumer gear you can buy yourself right now, from the glasses it’s employing (Vuzix Wrap 1200DX) as a cheaper form of VR to the joystick and throttle (the Saitek X52 Pro).

It’s around $US1000 for both of those, plus the laptop/desktop you’d need. That isn’t cheap by game console standards, or even PC gaming standards, but by military flight simulator standards, it’s insane.

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The Xbox One Just Got Its One True Remote

The Xbox One loves to take control of your TV, but there’s something a little uncanny about surfing channels with a dual-stick controller. No more. The Xbox Media Remote is aiming to be your One True Clicker.

The little guy will be able to control Blu-rays, or whatever other kind of streaming video you scare up on your ‘box. And by piggybacking on the TV controlling power of the Kinect, it can take on control of your TV as well through the help of IR blasting.

But maybe the best feature is also the most subtle — that the buttons’ backlighting automatically turns on the second you pick up the remote. And really, that’s how all things should work.

The Xbox One Media Controller will be available around the world in March for a surprisingly low price of $25.

Alternatively you could just use SmartGlass, but (fortunately!) not everyone’s a nerd.

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Valeri Kubasov, Apollo-Soyuz Crewmember, Passed Away

Valeri Nikolayevich Kubasov, a retired Soviet cosmonaut, died on Wednesday, 19 February 2014, in Moscow at age 79. He was the second crew member of the legendary joint U.S.-USSR Apollo-Soyuz Test Project to pass away, after Deke Slayton died in 1993.

Kubasov flew two missions in the Soyuz program as a flight engineer: Soyuz — 6 and Soyuz — 19 (the Apollo-Soyuz mission). He also commanded Soyuz — 36 at the side of Hungarian cosmonaut Bertalan Farkas in the Intercosmos program. Later, he was involved in the development of the Mir space station. Kubasov retired from the Soviet space program in March 1993.

“Very sad to report that Valery Kubasov has passed away in Moscow,” the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), a professional organisation whose astronaut and cosmonaut members included Kubasov, wrote in a brief statement cited by collectspace.com. “A true pioneer of spaceflight and international cooperation in space.”

Among other accolades, Kubasov was awarded twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Gold Medal Yuri Gagarin, Hero of the Hungarian People’s Republic. He is survived by his wife Lyudmila Kurovskaya, daughter Ekaterina and son Dmitry. Coins, stamps, and photos preserve his memory.

October 1969: Soyuz 6, 7 and 8 were part of a joint mission that sent three Soyuz spacecraft into orbit together at the same time, carrying seven cosmonauts pictured below (from left to right): Vladimir Shatalov, Viktor Gorbatko, Valeri Kubasov, Anatoly Filipchenko, Aleksei Yeliseyev, Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Shonin. In: Emberek a világűrben, 1980.

Kubasov and Bertalan Farkas during wilderness survival training. In: Galambos Tibor: A világűr képekben, Móra Könyvkiadó, 1983.

The Soyuz 36 crew discussing the flight plan. In: Emberek a világűrben, 1980.

Kubasov and Farkas, Soyuz — 36 crewmembers, 1980.

The Soyuz — 36 crew in the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. On the left: commander Valeri Kubasov, on the right: Research Cosmonaut Bertalan Farkas., 1979. In: Emberek a világűrben, 1980.

Valeri Kubasov and Bertalan Farkas are prepared for the flight. Photo: Emberek a világűrben kiadvány, 1980.

Cosmonaut Valeri N. Kubasov, left, Soviet ASTP engineer, and astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, Apollo crew commander, are seen during a visit by the two crewmen to the Soviet Soyuz Orbital Module during the joint U.S.-USSR Apollo-Soyuz Test Project docking mission in Earth orbit. The visit was one of four made among the five crewmen on July 17-18, 1975

Kubasov and Farkas. In: Magyar űrhajós a világűrben, 1980. május 26.

Leonov and Kubasov, Soyuz — 19 crewmembers before launch (In: Rebrov-Gilberg: Szojuz-Apolló, Műszaki Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1977.)

Kubasov aboard the Soyuz — 19.

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Oskar Schindler's Factory Is Up For Sale

It won’t be cheap, but you could soon be the owner of a piece of World War II history in the Czech Republic. Oskar Schindler’s factory in the tiny village of Brnenec is going on the market. Yes, Oskar Schindler is the same Schindler who had a list.

Truth be told, this factory is a fixer-upper. Brnenec’s mayor told Bloomberg that the complex “looks like Dresden after the bombing”, complete with poisonous dye dumped onto the ground. He added, however, that it “has real potential”.

After all, this is one of the places where Schindler, a member of the Nazi party, sheltered over 1200 Jews during the war, many of whom were kept out of concentration camps because Schindler said they were skilled labourers. Monika Bednarek, curator of the Schindler Factory Museum in Krakow, said that the “most important part of the story happened” at the factory in Brnenec.

After some basic repairs, the factory could be used for a number of different things. For one, it could actually still make a pretty good factory, perhaps for textiles as it was originally. Local leaders are also enthusiastic about the idea of turning it into a museum to commemorate Schindler and the workers.

It’s going to take some cash to make that happen though. While a price hasn’t been set for the whole complex, clean up alone will cost an estimated $2 million.

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Here's Your Full 'Guardians Of The Galaxy' Trailer

http://youtu.be/pTZ2Tp9yXyM

The teaser is history: here’s the full trailer for Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy.

I think Marvel realised that funny superheroes are way better than straight-faced boring superheroes from days gone by. Hence the comedy angle in the trailer for the usually straight-faced Guardians Of The Galaxy.

What do you think?

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Shocking Image Of Kiev's Independence Square Before And After The Riots

Kiev grows more violent every day as Ukrainians riot against its authoritarian government. Witnessing the transformation through media outlets could never sum up the amount of devastation conveyed in this single image of the city’s Independence Square.

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Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The McLaren P1 Is In Here

http://youtu.be/Kb8tGX-HPQE

The McLaren P1 is the real deal. The new thing. The next evolution. The fusion of motoring with science. And this massive review contains everything you need to know about the new greatest supercar ever.

Chris Harris at /DRIVE went to Abu Dhabi to review the P1, and found himself in the company of one of the originals: one of the cars McLaren use to find out whether it could actually sell this crazy marriage of science and racing.

The McLaren P1 that gets sent around Yas Marina is one of the cars actually sent out into the desert conditions to see if it could survive once they reached their owners.

At least it didn’t end up as bad as its P1 brothers which were used for crash testing. Ouch.

The review is broken up into three parts: an in-depth interview with on how the car was built and how it works, the second is a test of the car out on the Abu Dhabi streets, and the third is a series of screaming night laps around the Yas Marina F1 circuit for good measure.

It’s 30-minutes of pure driving pleasure.

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Video: Huge US Bomb Lands On US Army Soldiers

Shocking video of a US Army infantry outpost hit the web yesterday, showing an airstrike gone awry. The soldiers are waiting for the strike to take out a group of Taliban soldiers, when a 220kg bomb explodes just metres from their outpost.

Funker530 posted the video along with a brief interview with the soldier who was holding the camera. It all sounds incredibly horrifying:

Honestly we had dropped so many bombs up to that point that the thought never even crossed my mind that this could even happen, especially with all the checks put into place. About a half second before impact you could hear the bomb screaming in like I hadn’t ever heard before, and I definitely knew at that point something was off. After the initial realisation that it had hit behind us, we were so scatter brained trying to figure out what happened. It hit so close to the guys in the tower it actually knocked the fill out of radios.

Of course, friendly fire incidents have been all too common in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s still disturbing to know that our troops are still making mistakes that put their fellow Americans in danger. Like the camera man said, there are so many checks in place, it seems like we’d be beyond this sort of thing by now. Instead, videos like this show us how far we have to go.

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TRAX | REAL-TIME GPS TRACKER

Trax is the world´s smallest real-time GPS tracker. Unlike other trackers on the market, Trax delivers real time positioning, meaning the exact position of the tracker is live and not buffered on the Apps map on your smartphone or tablet.

The app lets you keep track of multiple trackers and allows you to create digital fences(safe zones) on the map, you´ll receive notifications if the tracker leaves or enters the fence. You can also receive notifications if a tracker is traveling above a certain speed, or if it falls.

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Men Fixing A Zeppelin In Mid-Flight Over The Atlantic

German photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt — one of the greatest artists in the history of the medium — used his Leica to take this stunning photo of a crew repairing the Graf Zeppelin in mid-air, after a storm in the middle of the Atlantic damaged the airship’s skin en route to Rio de Janeiro in 1934. It looks so surreal — like a Magritte painting.

If you don’t know Eisenstaedt, maybe you know another one of his photographs, taken during the celebrations of V-J Day, when victory was declared over Japan at the end of World War II.

You can read this old feature about him in Life.

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Wheelchair-Bound Woman Walks Again With A 3D Printed Exoskeleton

In 1992, Amanda Boxtel suffered a vicious skiing accident that left her paralysed from the waist down. Doctors said she would never walk again. This week, she proved them wrong, with the help of the world’s first 3D printed exoskeleton that gives her the ability to climb out of her wheelchair and walk once again.

The Ekso-Suit Amanda wears is fully bespoke. 3D Systems used data from a full body scan to print custom-tailored pieces that fit exactly to Amanda’s body. Mechanical components from EksoBionics provide the automation, allowing Amanda to safely use her legs and a pair of canes to walk around.

http://youtu.be/bhCAkUMQ5GA

3D scanning and printing technologies were crucial to making Amanda’s exoskeleton, which took roughly 3 months to complete. As Scott Summit, senior director for functional design at 3D Systems, told Cnet,

“we had to be very specific with the design so we never had 3D-printed parts bumping into bony prominences, which can lead to abrasions.” Since Amanda has no sensation in her legs, even tiny skin injuries can become dangerously infected before they’re found. A comfortable fit isn’t just a nicety, it’s a safety necessity.

This exoskeleton is the first to use 3D printing for an individualized fit, but it’s not Amanda’s first time using such technology: in 2010, she helped test an earlier exoskeleton design to help paralysed patients walk again. Since then, she’s been active as one of 10 EksoBionics test pilots involved in the design process.

With courageous folks like Amanda leading the way, the robot-assisted future is going to be phenomenal.

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Monsters Machines: This 1960s Jet Train Is Still America's Fastest Locomotive

In the mid-1960s, New York Central Railroad engineer Don Wetzel was exploring ways to make trains run safer, cheaper, but most importantly faster. And, clearly, the most logical means of accomplishing all three of these objectives was to strap a pair of US Air Force surplus jet engines to the roof of a prototype high-speed locomotive, creating the world’s fastest self-propelled train. Wait, what?

Built in 1966 by the New York Central Railroad corporation, the M-497 Black Beetle experimental jet-powered locomotive was the first, but surprisingly not the last, of its kind. The Black Beetle utilized an existing Budd Rail Diesel Car (RDC-3) with an added, streamlined front cowling covering the RDC-3′s conventionally blunted nose, and a pair of second-hand General Electric J47-19 jet engines, which had previously been employed as boosters for the Convair B-36 intercontinental bomber, that Wetzel had acquired from the USAF.

At $US5000 for the pair, “They were the cheapest 5000 horsepower engines we could find, “Wetzel recently explained to GE Reports.

“They were also the most reliable.” What’s more, Wetzel explained, “The engines could be easily adapted to burn diesel as opposed to jet fuel” making them ideal for use in both the Black Beetle and Wetzel’s previously patented railroad snow blower (below).

As for the design of the RDC-3 itself, Wetzel told GE Reports:

My wife is a commercial artist and she did the streamlining design. The original design had the jet engines on the rear end of the car, but we changed it to the forward end. She said that the car looked a lot better with the engines on the front. There’s an old pilot legend that if an aeroplane looks good, it usually flies good. We felt that if the jet train looked good, it would run good.

Boy, did it ever! The Black Beetle ran a series of time trials over existing tracks running between Butler, Indiana and Stryker, Ohio. This long, straight, and level stretch of railway provided an ideal testing area for the jet train. During its trial runs, the Black Beetle hit an astounding 183.681 mph, which still stands as the high speed record for self-propelled light rail in the United States.

In fact, the M-497 had a slightly higher top speed. Per Wetzel:

On my second run our speed reached 196 mph (315km/h) and we were decelerating when we went through the timing traps. They told me that they wanted the train to run through at 180 mph (290km/h). Everybody thought that it was quite funny that we set a world record while decelerating. We were going 183.35 mph when got through the gate.

Despite the record setting run, the idea of a turbojet train never really took off. While the New York Central Railroad garnered a huge cache of technical data on high-speed rail travel and the resulting track wear and the Soviets quickly fielded their own version, at the time, the project was seen more as a publicity stunt rather than earnest research. Once the trial runs had been completed, the Black Beetle’s jets were removed and the locomotive was returned to normal service.

Though the RDC-3 itself was eventually scrapped in 1984, its jets live on as snow-blower engines and the historic run has been enshrined in this awesome LEGO-fied GIF from Aleksander Stein.

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Why Does Lotus' First Motorbike Look Like A Tron Lightcycle?

If you feel riding a motorbike is one of the more terrifying road-bound activities one can engage in, then the lightcycle battles from Tron probably didn’t do much to calm those fears. Not much at all. Those lightcycles did look super slick, though, which is why it comes as no surprise that a automotive business like Lotus would use it as inspiration for its first foray into the two-wheeled vehicle market.

Called the C-01, the bike sports a combination titanium and carbon-fibre frame, inside of which is housed a water-cooled, 1195cc V-twin engine with an output of 149kW. The machine itself weighs in at a petite 181.4kg, for those wondering.

As for its futuristic stylings, you can thank German designer Daniel Simon for those. Simon has spent time at both Volkswagen and Bugatti and as you may have guessed, worked on Tron: Legacy (as well as Prometheus and Oblivion).

If you’d like to see more photos of the C-01, check out Simon’s website (specifically the wallpapers section if you think your desktop needs an overhaul).

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Video: Man Defies Gravity By Running Upside Down In A 360-Degree Loop

You would think it would be impossible to upside down in a full 360-degree loop, but it’s not, and Damien Walters can prove it. Insane. When you break down the physics, all you have to be able to do is run fast enough when your feet are on the ceiling. The result if you can? Human super powers.

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Inside The Ghostly Remains Of Budapest's Condemned Amusement Park

After several years of financial difficulties, the Amusement Park of Budapest, the largest amusement park in Hungary was closed on 30 September 2013. Today I had a chance to take a walk among its remains.

The first permanent funfair on this area was opened at the beginning of the 19th century, and a century later, an English park was established here too. During the Second World War, many attractions were severely damaged. Only a few attractions that were built at the beginning of the 20th century survived, including the wooden roller coaster and the carousel.

To prevent a relocation or closure the English park and the Fun Fair fused in 1950, not long after the transition to Communism, and this new park took on a new name: “Vidámpark”, or Merry Park. It had about 34 attractions — the big ones being the Cave Train, the Haunted House, Bumper Cars, the Ferris Wheel, the Ghost Train, the Mirror Palace, the Roller Coaster, the Carousel — and was visited by hundreds of thousands of people.

After the democratic transition, the park survived for more than 20 years — but the sorrowful end was inevitable. After last year’s closure, the adjacent animal and botanical park acquired the land, and most of the attractions were dismantled or torn down.

The good news? Some of the historical buildings were going to be saved and remain operational. Check out the rest of the images below — this is what the end of the amusement park era looks like.

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Why Apple's Recent Security Flaw Is So Scary

Last week, Apple quietly released iOS 7.0.6, explaining in a brief release note that it fixed a bug in which “an attacker with a privileged network position may capture or modify data in sessions protected by SSL/TLS.” That’s the understated version. Another way to put it? Update your iPhone right now.

Oh, and by the way, OS X has the same issues — except there’s no fix out yet.

If you understand what that release note meant in full, chances are you were first in line for the iOS update. If it reads like deleted scene from Sneakers, here’s what it means for you and your Apple devices.

What Is SSL?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and it’s what helps ensure that communication between your browser and your favourite websites remains private and secure. TLS, or Transport Layer Security, is a more recent protocol that does essentially the same. In brief, SSL/TLS is a cryptographic key that lets a browser and a server know they are who they say they are, a secret digital handshake that keeps your financial information safe when you make an Amazon payment or log into wellsfargo.com.

This all happens in the background; your only direct interaction with SSL/TLS is when you notice the lock icon in your search bar has clamped shut. That means you’ve got a direct, private, secure line.

The Apple bug in question — which, again, has been patched in iOS but not yet in OS X, though Apple tells Reuters that fix is coming “very soon” — means that Safari or one of these other affected applications can’t actually know for sure if the servers it’s talking to are who they say they are. Which leaves you and everything you transmit over the web vulnerable to a Man in the Middle attack.

What’s a Man in the Middle Attack?

A Man in the Middle Attack, which we’ll call MITM from here for brevity’s sake, is basically high-tech eavesdropping. A MITM attacker intercepts the communication between your browser and a site, monitoring, recording, seeing everything that transpires between you.

Gmail. Facebook. Financial transactions. All of it read, in real-time, by a complete stranger. Here it is in oversimplified chart form:

Normally attacks like this are are foiled by SSL/TLS (encrypted handshakes are hard to get in the middle of), or at least rendered too difficult to be worth it. But this Apple bug makes it painfully easy. That “privileged network position” an attacker needs to be in, referenced in the release notes? That just means he’s in the same Starbucks as you.

And this has been going on since September. Of 2012.

How Serious Is It?

If you’re still scratching your head over what all of this means and how bad it is, the simplest way to explain it is that developers who understand it deeply weren’t even willing to talk about it openly, for fear of giving hackers more ammunition than they already had:

I’m not going to talk details about the Apple bug except to say the following. It is seriously exploitable and not yet under control.

That same Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins cryptography professor, also explained to Reuters that it was “as bad as you could imagine, that’s all I can say”. So there you go!

You can afford to take a little bit of a deep breath; obviously there’s not a hacker lurking in every coffee shop, and your personal information is never as interesting to others as you think it is. And if you’ve updated your iPhone or iPad to 7.0.6, you’re fine.

But knowing that this has been going on for a year and a half is troubling just on principle. And knowing that it’s been this widely publicized and hasn’t yet been fixed for MacBooks means it’s worth taking a few extra ounces of precaution.

How Did This Happen?

Nobody knows, and Apple’s understandably not saying. But theories range from the plausible to the tin-foil-hatted. Let’s start with what probably happened and work our way up.

Google’s Adam Langley detailed the specifics of the bug in his personal blog, if you’re looking to stare at some code. But essentially, it comes down to one simple extra line out of nearly 2000. As ZDNet points out, one extra “goto fail;” statement tucked in about a third of the way means that the SSL verification will go through in almost every case, regardless of if the keys match up or not.

Langley’s take, and the most plausible? That it could have happened to anybody:

This sort of subtle bug deep in the code is a nightmare. I believe that it’s just a mistake and I feel very bad for whomever might have slipped in an editor and created it.

It doesn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination, though, to draw a few shaky lines between this bug and the NSA’s PRISM program. No less an Apple devotee than John Gruber did just that last night, pointing out that the “goto fail;” command first snuck into iOS 6.0, which shipped just a month before Apple was reportedly added to the spy agency’s info-snooping PRISM program.

If you want to go full tinfoil hat based on that timing, you’re welcome to, but it’s highly unlikely that Apple intentionally added this bit of code. It’s entirely possible, though, that the NSA found out about it before Apple did, and has been secretly exploiting it for its PRISM purposes.

How Can I Prevent It?

If you’re on an iOS device, you need to download 7.0.6 immediately.

If you’ve got a 3GS or an old iPod touch, you can download iOS 6.1.6 instead. And if you were looking for an indication of just how seriously Apple is taking this, the fact that they’re supporting an iOS version that they are incredibly eager to phase out should be as good an indicator as any.

So far, though, you’re out of luck if you’re on OS X. The vulnerability is still there, and now that it’s been widely publicised, bad guys are going to be keen to take advantage while they can. There’s an unofficial patch floating out there, but please know that it’s not for beginners.

Your best option in the meantime is to use Chrome or Firefox, which aren’t affected on OS X. Also make sure you stay on secured networks, and if you do wind up on a shared network to play it smart (no financial info, no transactions, no personal details). That’s a good rule of thumb generally, but especially important until this is made right.

Oh, and to hope that a fix “very soon” means hours or days, not weeks.

[MIKA27]

This Dutch Airport Has One Of The Lowest Final Approaches In The World

Gilze-Rijen is — according to The Aviationist — one of the airports with the lowest final approaches in the world. They get so low that, when you are there, you think they are going to touch down on the road that crosses the head of the runway. In fact that has happened.

The first image by Jimmy Van Drunen is an Antonov 124 — the largest mass-produced plane in the world — now leased by the Royal Netherlands Air Force to perform overseas support duties.

The second is a US F-4E Phantom in June 1984. And the third is a Royal Netherlands Air Force NF-5A, snapped in 1987 by Jan Klijs. It seems the NF-5A “touched down short of runway 28 but the fence was low and the aircraft wasn’t damaged too much.”

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I Want This $US30,000 Vibrating Waterbed That Syncs To My Heart Rate

People, muster up all your creative juices and imagine the most ridiculous bed you can think of. Is it a waterbed? Obviously. Can it play music from your iPhone? Totally. Does it vibrate to the beat of that music? Yes, it can. Can it sync 50 LED lights to the beating of your heart? Yup.

Guys. This bed exists, and it only costs $US30,000.

Hammacher Schlemmer recently listed the so-called Tranquility Pod. “Bed” is too small a word to describe this amazing piece of sleep technology. The Tranquility Pod comes equipped with a four speaker sound system that syncs up with your smartphone, so you can control your soundtrack without leaving the warm embrace of the temperature-controlled waterbed. The elliptical shape also blocks 90 per cent of outside noise if it’s quietude you crave.

But wait: there’s more. The Tranquility Pod also comes with a biofeedback system that can literally listen to your heartbeat and provide an LED light show to go along with it. Oh and the soundsystem’s subwoofer actually makes the bed vibrate with the sound of the beat. [Hammacher Schlemmer]

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The Return of the Polar Vortex Is Actually a Good Thing

NASA image showing the polar vortex in January reaching down over the middle-U.S. Image: NASA

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside again, the polar vortex is back, blasting the Midwest and eastern half of the U.S with very cold weather. While this will undoubtedly be unpleasant, there is an upside.

You might remember the polar vortex from January and later in January, when it brought extremely low temperatures to a good deal of North America. Starting next week the atmospheric phenomenon, usually confined to the Arctic regions of our planet, will be dipping down once again into many states.

Models are “very confident that it’ll be significantly colder than average” in much of the eastern two-thirds of the nation, said Mike Halpert, acting director at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. During the worst parts, temperatures could be as much as 20 to 35 degrees below average. The most affected areas will likely be places that have already felt the freeze this year, such as Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas.

Those states are currently feeling a little relief as the weather has momentarily cleared up in the Midwest, leading to warmer temperatures in the 50s and 60s and heavy rain instead of snow. Though it might be a nice break from the freezing temperatures, unfortunately, this is actually a bad thing.

According to Weather Underground, there is so much snowpack on the frozen ground in the central and northeastern U.S. that warm weather and rain could lead to flash floods. Ice flows breaking up in rivers could also get carried downstream and jam up the flow, leading to spillover. It seems that the expected arrival of the polar vortex next week may be a blessing: The return of freezing temperatures could save the region from the worst of this.

“This week’s thaw will be short-lived, preventing the kind of major flooding that would result if all of the snowpack were to melt in a week,” wrote meteorologist Jeff Masters at Weather Underground.

The polar vortex originates in the far north, where sunlight has disappeared during the winter season, creating the Northern Hemisphere’s coldest air. Moving southward, this air gradually warms, until it reaches a place where the warming occurs very quickly. A swift-moving river of air moves west to east here, marking the typical southern edge of the polar vortex.

Another climactic phenomenon in play is known as the Arctic Oscillation, where atmospheric mass moves back and forth over many years between the Arctic and the middle latitudes. During a positive Arctic Oscillation, pressure is lower than normal over the Arctic but higher than normal over the mid-latitudes. Because air moves from high to low pressure, the polar vortex is pushed upward, nearer to the pole, creating warm weather in the Arctic Circle.

During a negative phase, conditions are reversed, with high pressure in the Arctic and low pressure in the mid-latitudes. This is the time when the polar vortex can develop waves or kinks that bring freezing air southward. Interestingly, this year’s Arctic Oscillation was not largely negative. This could help explain why the polar vortex only came down in North America and eastern Siberia. Other locations around and within the Arctic Circle such as Alaska, Scandinavia, Europe, and western Russia had much balmier than normal temperatures. While this year’s Arctic Oscillation wasn’t very negative, scientists have noticed a trend in recent decades toward more negative phases. Some blame loss of sea ice and other effects from climate change, though the true cause remains unclear.

Though many folks like to think this perpetually dark and frozen winter they are suffering through is especially miserable, it’s actually not been a particularly severe one when taking a long-term view of the entire country.

“People are saying this winter’s been really cold,” said Halpert.

“When looking at the last three months, yeah, we’ll be a little on the cold side compared to average. But it’s certainly nothing historic.”

Just how cold it is, of course, depends on where you are. While some states, like Wisconsin, are experiencing what may be in the top five or 10 coldest winters on record, California is in the middle of a warm and dry drought. But a lot of the U.S. hasn’t been having anything really out of the ordinary weather-wise.

[MIKA27]

U.S. Seeks Extradition of Mexican Drug Lord ‘El Chapo’

U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn among those wanting to indict kingpin for drug trafficking

U.S. prosecutors want drug-cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to face trial in the U.S. and are now seeking to extradite Mexico’s most wanted man.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn confirmed on Sunday it is requesting Guzmán’s extradition on a variety of charges, along with a number of attorney’s offices around the country. “We plan to seek his extradition,” said Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the attorney’s office.

Guzmán was captured in a predawn raid on Saturday by Mexican and U.S. authorities in the beach-resort town of Mazatlán in northwestern Mexico, about 135 miles (217 km) from Guzmán’s suspected base in Culiacán.

The drug lord allegedly led the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which was responsible for bloodbaths and pitched battles in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, eventually amassing $1 billion and making it onto Forbes’ list of the world’s most powerful people.

Guzmán’s drug empire stretched across North America and even extended into Europe and Australia, so it remains unclear where he will be tried. He is on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s most wanted list and faces a number of federal indictments.

“This guy, he ran a global enterprise, so he’s big. He’s as big as Pablo Escobar,” Nardoza tells TIME. “He may wind up being charged in Mexico first. We don’t know what the time line is and how exactly this is going to proceed … He’s facing a lot of time in prison based on the charges we’ve brought against him.”

Guzmán would face a wide range of drug trafficking and organized-crime charges in the U.S. An indictment acquired from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York — where Guzmán allegedly carried out much of his criminal activity beginning in 1990 — alleges that the drug lord is guilty of trafficking over 100,000 tons of cocaine in the U.S.

Drug violence in Mexico has claimed the lives of nearly 80,000 people in the past seven years, especially along key smuggling routes in the northern and western regions where police, local politicians and journalists are regularly assassinated by the powerful drug cartels.

[MIKA27]

Korea-watchers fear backlash from North over US drills

The US and South Korea are set to begin another round of controversial military drills near the Korean peninsula. Such large-scale exercises have been held annually since 1976 to rehearse the alliance's plans for the defence of South Korea.

During February and March, exercise Key Resolve will focus on practising command and control procedures, while the overlapping Foal Eagle will deploy significant forces and military hardware for simulated combat in the field.

Neighbouring North Korea responds with hysteria when these exercises take place, often acting in ways which destabilise the region.

In 2013, North Korea loudly threatened nuclear strikes on the United States and brought tensions on the peninsula to one of the highest points in recent memory.

As is often the case when dealing with pattern-prone Pyongyang, a repeat of this belligerence remains an unfortunate possibility despite the North and South's recent co-operation in briefly reuniting dozens of families separated by the Korean War.

'Vicious outbursts'

Tensions on the Korean peninsula escalated to a worrying degree in 2013

Washington and Seoul see joint military exercises like Key Resolve and Foal Eagle as performing several critical functions. The first is to prepare those countries' armed forces to defend the South in the event that a serious threat to its security arises. Wartime operational control of allied forces is slated to shift from the US to South Korea in 2015. This year's training therefore has increased importance in readying the South's forces for that transition.

The second function of regular joint drills is to assure South Korea that its alliance with the US remains strong, and Washington is prepared to come to its defence, whether with conventional or nuclear weapons.

Finally, the two countries see major military exercises as a means of deterring North Korean provocations through demonstrations of alliance capability and solidarity. Reflecting this thinking, impromptu joint exercises were announced after North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong Island in 2010.

North Korea cries foul. It claims that large-scale joint military exercises in and around the Korean peninsula are the guise under which the US and South Korea will prepare an invasion across the 38th parallel.

To demonstrate its anger, North Korea commonly draws on a toolbox of responses:

• Threatening conventional or nuclear retaliation; raising the alert levels of its forces
  
• Withdrawing from ongoing diplomatic initiatives
  
• Declaring the Armistice Agreement invalid
  
• Cutting off military hotlines
  
• Deploying or testing military hardware such as missiles
  
• And announcing its inability to guarantee the safety of foreign assets, including diplomatic staff.
  

In 2013 it did nearly all of the above, escalating the situation to a worrying degree.

North Korea may use the joint military exercises to justify pre-determined actions

Permanently detangling this potentially destabilising web of commitments and concerns around joint military exercises seems nigh on impossible.

All the while, Pyongyang's vicious outbursts continue to be met with confusion and concern from international audiences. Its apparently extreme reaction might be explained by a mixture of factors, each with varying salience depending upon the circumstance.

It is possible that at least some senior North Korean officials feel genuinely threatened by the appearance of sophisticated, often nuclear-capable military hardware in their backyard. However, even the most frightening film loses its edge after watching it on repeat for four decades.

'Crucial proposal'

On balance therefore, though a degree of genuine fear may appear in the background, propaganda and pretext may better explain North Korea's recent conniptions.

After decades of consistently circulating propaganda decrying joint exercises as evidence of US nuclear blackmail, comparative silence would be conspicuous. Pyongyang may wish to avoid appearing suddenly unthreatened.

The Koreas briefly co-operated in bringing dozens of families separated by the Korean war together

It may also wish to use regularly scheduled US-South Korean drills as a pretext for ostensibly unconnected decisions. In August 2013, North Korea abruptly announced the cancellation of US special envoy Ambassador Robert King's visit to Pyongyang, during which he was meant to secure the release of a detained American citizen. As justification, they cited the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drill, of which there was only hours remaining, as well as a B-52 practice sortie weeks before. This belated outburst stank of pretext.

Similar concerns that Pyongyang may use Key Resolve and Foal Eagle 2014 as convenient justification for pre-determined actions now exist.

In mid-January North Korea's National Defence Commission issued a "crucial proposal": cancel, move, or scale back joint drills, and in exchange North Korea will refrain from slandering and will consider facilitating reunions of families separated by the Korean War.

Family reunions have now fortunately moved forward. Yet so too have joint exercises. As a result, it is possible that when US military assets finally materialise in the region for Foal Eagle, North Korea could point to the overt rebuke of its goodwill, claim that it has no choice but to develop robust self-defences, and then subsequently revert to belligerence.

New nuclear or missile tests are some of the measures that North Korea may label as "proportional" responses to US-South Korean drills and the military assets deployed as part of them. North Korea reserves a special form of hatred for American nuclear-capable platforms, and frames many of its recent nuclear advancements as a direct reaction to their appearance near the Korean peninsula.

It may therefore be advisable for the US and South Korea to abstain from deploying such hardware as part of Foal Eagle 2014 and hope that the positive atmosphere fostered by family reunions will be sufficient to prevent a re-run of last year's tensions.

[MIKA27]

The urban hyenas that attack rough sleepers

Urban hyenas are becoming a dangerous problem in the Ethiopian capital, where they attack rough sleepers.

It is late evening in Addis Ababa. Stephen Brend, a zoologist with the Born Free Foundation, is driving me to the airport to catch a flight back to London.

"Have you got time for a ten-minute detour?" he asks, as we passed the British embassy. "Of course," I reply.

So he turns off the road and up a dirt track between some rough shacks and a collection of battered old jalopies that passes for a taxi rank in Ethiopia's capital.

"There! Look there!" Stephen exclaims. In the beams of his headlights I see several pairs of eyes glinting in the darkness like tiny mirrors. As we drive closer I begin to make out the shapes of the animals behind those eyes. They are hideous beasts, as large as the largest dogs, with coarse spotted brown fur, elongated necks and front legs much longer than their back ones so their backs taper away from their powerful shoulders.

"Hyenas," says Stephen. Some of the fiercest predators on earth. And they are brazenly scavenging around a collection of rubbish skips right next to a football pitch and less than 50 yds from people's homes.

As we watch, a group of teenagers walks up the track, right past the animals. "They're mad," Stephen remarks. Hyenas have jaws as powerful as those of great white sharks, he explains. They can crush an elephant's leg. They devour every last morsel of their prey - bones included. "I mean - there's nothing left," he says.

London is infested by urban foxes. Delhi is besieged by urban monkeys. Addis Ababa is plagued by urban hyenas who have moved in to the city from the surrounding hills and taken up residence in the capital. In some ways they perform a useful service, keeping the city's growing population of stray dogs and feral cats under control and consuming the carcasses of dead horses and other animals. But there are now reckoned to be somewhere between 300 and 1,000 of them living in the city and they are dangerous.

In 2011 the airport authorities had to call in hunters to shoot a pack of hyenas that was posing a threat to planes landing and taking off. People living near the Ketchene public cemetery have complained of hyenas digging up and eating the corpses of the poor that are buried in very shallow graves. The hyenas tend to hunt in groups, and one night a guard at the British embassy saw a line of 40 running along the back fence of the compound.

Periodically they attack some of the many Ethiopians who sleep rough on the streets of Addis every night. A volunteer at a clinic run by a Mother Teresa mission in the city said that a couple of times a month he has to treat homeless and destitute people who have had fingers and toes gnawed by hyenas while they were drugged or drunk. On one occasion a man was brought in after a hyena had ripped much of his scalp away while he was sleeping, leaving it hanging down over his eyes. Last year a mother camping outside St Stephanos church near the Hilton Hotel had her baby son snatched from her arms and killed by a hyena.

In December the authorities organised a cull, and licensed hunters killed 10 hyenas who were living on an overgrown four-hectare site near the heart of the capital which they reached along the bed of the Kebena river.

At least half-a-dozen other dens have been reported close to the city centre. The authorities had to act again when a female hyena built a den in a drainpipe in a densely populated neighbourhood called Shiro Meada right behind the US embassy. She gave birth to two cubs there. She was eventually shot in January, and Stephen took the month-old cubs home.

They are now living on the bed in his spare room. They are called Screamer and Stylo, and they are ugly-looking creatures. They destroy the mattress, the curtains, the cupboards - everything. "They have no sense that they're not still in a drainpipe," Stephen complains. They emit piercing high-pitched screams. They have to be fed fat-enriched milk three times a day with a bottle, the last time at midnight. For all that, says Stephen, "they're quite cute in their own little way".

But when they reach six months he'll have to transfer them to Born Free's animal sanctuary on the edge of Addis. "They'll simply become too dangerous," he says.

"A little nip for them is amputation for us."

Martin Fletcher - BBC

[MIKA27]

'Doomsday' vault opens its doors

Leading dignitaries have attended the official opening of a 'doomsday' seed vault built 130m (426ft) inside a mountain on a remote Arctic island.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai placed the first seeds in the depository during the ceremony.

The vault, designed to withstand all natural and human disaster, will house samples of all known food crops.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault took 12 months and cost £5m to construct.

During the ceremony, Mr Stoltenberg unlocked the vault before being joined by environmental campaigner Ms Maathai to place the first consignment of seeds in the -18C (0F) freezer.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was among the 300 guests to attend the event.

"With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilisation," said Mr Stoltenberg.

When full, the vault will hold 4.5m samples - an estimated two billion seeds - from more than 100 countries around the world.

'Fail-safe' facility

The collection and its maintenance is being organised by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has responsibility of ensuring the "conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity".

"Crop diversity will soon prove to be our most potent and indispensable resource for addressing climate change, water and energy supply constraints, and for meeting the food needs of a growing population," predicted Cary Fowler, the Trust's executive director.

The vault consists of three secure rooms at the end of a 125m (410ft) tunnel, and four sets of locked doors.

Dr Fowler said the role of the facility was not to replace national seed banks, but to act as insurance by storing duplicates of seeds from national collections.

If seeds are lost, for example as a result of a natural disaster, the collection can be re-established by using samples stored at Svalbard.

The site, 1,000km (621 miles) north of mainland Norway, was chosen because it was geologically stable, remote, and the surrounding permafrost would act as natural refrigeration to keep the facility at the temperature needed to preserve the seeds.

[MIKA27]

Chile: Owls drafted in to fight deadly hantavirus

Officials in Chile are turning to an unlikely ally - wild owls - as they try to fight a contagious disease that has already caused about 15 deaths, it seems.

Owls are the natural predators of the rats carrying the deadly hantavirus,the Santiago Times newspaper reports. Long-tailed pygmy rice rats transmit the virus to humans as they come into contact with campers in the forest, while foraging for bamboo.

But forest fires during Chile's summer months have forced the rats into urban areas, making more people sick. The disease does not affect the rats themselves.

Chile's forest service says it wants to increase the population of Chilean white owls and lesser horned owls, so it can act as a "biologicial regulator" that will curb the spread of disease-carrying rats. But locals would have to become less superstitious about the birds, officials say.

"If an owl hooted near a house, it used to mean that someone would die in that house. But in reality it is the opposite - the owls are actually protecting homes," Aldo Valdivia Ahumada told Santiago Times.