More holes found in Web's SSL security protocol

IDG News Service - Security researchers have found some serious flaws in software that uses the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption protocol used to secure communications on the Internet.
At the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, researchers unveiled a number of attacks that could be used to compromise secure traffic travelling between Web sites and browsers.
This type of attack could let an attacker steal passwords, hijack an on-line banking session or even push out a Firefox browser update that contained malicious code, the researchers said.---

Homeless Man Leaves Behind Surprise: $4 Million

Every day on NPR, listeners hear funding credits — or, in other words, very short, simple commercials.
A few weeks ago, a new one made it to air: "Support for NPR comes from the estate of Richard Leroy Walters, whose life was enriched by NPR, and whose bequest seeks to encourage others to discover public radio."
NPR's Robert Siegel wondered who Walters was. So Siegel Googled him.
An article in the online newsletter of a Catholic mission in Phoenix revealed that Walters died two years ago at the age of 76. He left an estate worth about $4 million. Along with the money he left for NPR, Walters also left money for the mission.
But something distinguished Walters from any number of solvent, well-to-do Americans with seven-figure estates: He was homeless...

You can listen to some of this story here ( link )

This compound is now known as Ataluren. About 50 years ago, at a postgraduate seminary, the registrar handed round a tube of Phenylthiocarbamide and, like Arthur Fox, who discovered this anomaly, I was unable to taste it, while all the other medicos found it disgusting.

http://www.ptcbio.com/3.1.1_genetic_disorders.aspx

Traffic noise could be ruining sex lives of frogs


Traffic noise could be ruining the sex lives of urban frogs by drowning out the seductive croaks of amorous males, an Australian researcher said Friday.
A well-projected and energetic croak is the male frog's most important asset in the quest to attract mates to his pond, Melbourne University ecologist Kirsten Parris said.
But competition from traffic noise in Melbourne could be a reason why frog numbers have declined in Australia's second-largest city since her survey of more than 100 ponds began in 2000, she said....

In this undated photo, a Southern Brown Tree Frog sits on a log in swampy lands near Melbourne, Australia.

Is quantum mechanics messing with your memory?



A physicist has claimed that glass can un-break – but quantum entanglement prevents our brains from recording the event

For all we know we may live in a world in which windows un-break and cold cups of coffee spontaneously heat up, we just don't remember. The explanation is quantum entanglement...