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Here is a video of the International Space Station in an odd shade of … green. And no, it’s not because astronauts secretly painted the hull during their spacewalk this week. What you’re actually seeing is a green laser shining on the space station as part of a test of next-generation communications technologies. Lasers have been used in successful tests to the Moon and the space station in the past year, hinting that perhaps there’s a faster way to transmit data than over traditional radio. The clip was filmed at the European Space Agency’s optical ground station in Tenerife, Spain...

Apple and Google should reconsider their plans to enable encryption by default on their smartphones, and the U.S. Congress should pass a law requiring that all communication tools allow police access to user data, U.S. FBI Director James Comey said. Comey, repeating his recent concerns about announcements from Apple and Google to offer new encryption tools on their smartphone OSes, went a step further Thursday, when he called on Congress to rewrite the 20-year-old Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. Following the past 15 months of leaks about surveillance at the U.S. National Security Agency, the pendulum of public opinion...

0 Reddit CLEVELAND, Ohio – The phosphorus-fueled harmful algal blooms, or HABs, around western Lake Erie are finally going away as water temperatures have fallen below the 60-degree mark in recent days. The phosphorus pollution causing the blooms, however, has also provoked changes in the fish populations of Lake Erie. In this case, more fish swimming in Lake Erie is not always a good thing. As if the ugly green slime wasn't enough to foil fishermen, the phosphorus-rich waters are too friendly to white perch, a species of fish most anglers wish would disappear. An invasive species thriving in the...

Large swathes of the West African population may be immune to the deadly Ebola virus, ravaging the region. The current outbreak, the worst on record since the virus was discovered in 1976, has claimed the lives of 4,493 people, infecting 8,997, the World Health Organisation said yesterday. But a team of scientists in the US believe the Ebola virus may be silently immunising a significant portion of the population, who never fall ill or infect others, protecting them from future infection. These people will never show the tell-take signs of the disease, the high fever, headaches and flu-like symptoms. They...

CHINO (CBSLA.com) — When lives are on the line and homes are in danger, Desiree Horton swoops into action. Horton is a helicopter pilot for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection – CAL FIRE — in San Bernardino. She is the first and only woman to fly for the agency. “At an early age, I was hooked … fascinated me, piqued my interest,” Horton told CBS2’s Tom Wait. “For me, it’s exciting to know that we’re going to go out there and make a difference.” Her job is one of the most unique and high-pressure in the Southland....

A new study says that the Mars One concept could fail on several points: oxygen levels could skyrocket unsafely. Using the local resources to generate habitability is unproven. The technology is expensive. But the founder of Mars One says the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student study is based on the wrong assumptions. “It’s based on technology available on the ISS [International Space Station],” said Bas Landorp in an interview with Universe Today. “So you end up with a completely different Mars mission than Mars One. So their analysis has nothing to do with our mission.” The mission has sparked...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — On the eve of the Great ShakeOut a renowned U.S. Geological Survey seismologist updated Los Angeles officials Wednesday on ways the city can better prepare for an earthquake, and potential losses in the event of a quake. KNX 1070’s Ed Mertz reports Dr. Lucy Jones spent the past year studying how a major seismic event would impact old buildings, the water supply and telecommunications links. Jones, who serves as Mayor Garcetti’s first Science Advisor for Seismic Safety, told the City Council a major earthquake could result in 1,800 people dead, 53,000 injured, and up to half...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Public health officials in Los Angeles County say they are prepared to handle Ebola if it reaches Southern California. KNX 1070’s Margaret Carrero reports Dr. Robert Kim-Farley with L.A. County Public Health says outreach teams are going to hospitals helping them train for a possible Ebola patient. While there are currently no Ebola cases or suspect cases in California, Kim-Farley said county officials are in a state of Ebola preparedness after reports that two health care workers in Dallas tested positive for the disease. County health officials will put particular focus on any people returning from...

In less than a month, on November 12, 2014, the 100-kg Philae lander will separate from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft and descend several kilometers down to the dark, dusty and frozen surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, its three spindly legs and rocket-powered harpoon all that will keep it from crashing or bouncing hopelessly back out into space. It will be the culmination of a decade-long voyage across the inner Solar System, a testament to human ingenuity and inventiveness and a shining example of the incredible things we can achieve through collaboration. But first, Philae has to get there… it has to touch...

A new study finds the shutdown of the 405 Freeway to add a carpool lane hasn’t relieved traffic congestion during rush hour. KNX 1070’s Jim Thornton and Diane Thompson spoke with Jim Bak of traffic service provider INRIX, whose analysts found “relatively no change” in travel speeds and times when comparing data between the middle two weeks of September in 2013 and 2014 on the northbound 405 between the 10 and the 101 freeways. The average trip through that stretch of the 405 during rush hour is about 35 minutes,” he said. Bak insisted there is “no silver bullet” to...

“Two images, one with a short exposure time, one with a longer one, were combined to capture the whole dynamic range of the scene, from the bright parts of the solar arrays to the dark comet and the dark insulation cladding the Rosetta spacecraft,” the European Space Agency stated. It’s quite the zoom-in after the last selfie that Philae produced for the public in September, which was taken from 31 miles (50 kilometers) away. The spacecraft is expected to make the first touchdown ever on a comet next month. Rosetta, meanwhile, will keep following 67P as it gets closest to...

Archeologists in Bulgaria haved uncovered a 13th century staked "vampire" at Perperikon, an ancient Thracian site in the south of the country, Archaeology reports. The remains once belonged to a man who was likely in his 40s. An iron rod had been hammered through his chest "to keep the corpse from rising from the dead and disturbing the living," Archaeology continues, and his left leg had also been removed and placed beside the corpse. Clearly, this man's neighbors did not trust his remains to stay put. As Nikolai Ovcharov, the archeologist in charge of the dig, told the Telegraph: "We...

Egg-freezing is expensive: The procedure generally costs $10,000, at minimum, for each round of egg-harvesting—doctors recommend at least two rounds to maximize success—with an additional $500 a year (or more) for storing the eggs. Which is why it has thus far, for the most part, been an option for women who are not just concerned about conception, but able to pay to quell their anxieties. That may be changing. Now, NBC News reports, some of the biggest firms in Silicon Valley are offering elective egg-freezing as part of their benefits packages. Facebook recently began covering the procedure (under its surrogacy...

Security firm iSight Partners claims that Russian hackers have been attempting to gain information relating to the Ukraine crisis. However, in August it began exploiting a vulnerability in Windows—which Microsoft is now aware of—that allowed it to peer into computers used by NATO, the EU and various energy and telecommunications companies. This is, apparently, the latest event in a five-year campaign by the Russian hacking group, which has been nicknamed the "Sandworm Team" due to references to "Dune" in its code. In the past, it's used phishing attacks and other holes to gain access to data.

One of the STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) spacecraft stopped phoning home to Earth on Oct. 1 “immediately after a planned reset of the spacecraft”, NASA said in an update last week. .... NASA didn’t say how badly solar weather forecasts are affected, but in other materials they have said both STEREO spacecraft are a crucial part of this work. STEREO’s pair of satellites ... aim to better map Sun eruptions ( “coronal mass ejections”) whose charged particles can disrupt satellite communications during solar storms. The mission has been ongoing since 2006 and they’ve viewed the far side of the...

The robotic X-37B space plane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, will land at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where Air Force officials are gearing up for its return. As of today (Oct. 12), the X-37B mini-shuttle has been in orbit since December 2012 and racked up a record-shattering 671 days in space. ... The Air Force has two X-37B space planes in its fleet and has been flying them on secret missions since 2010. But the exact purpose of those flights have been shrouded in secrecy. The mission in orbit now, called Orbital Test Vehicle 3...

“We needed to invest in simplifying the control of the robots so that more people with less training can use them,” said Orin Hoffman, technical director for iRobot. “If you can play Angry Birds, you can operate a robot.” The new app, called the uPoint MRC, essentially makes these robots easier control, maneuver and operate. The controls are intuitive and make operating the robot easy. The system even integrates cloud and in-built Android features, users can share information to a number of different cloud platforms, both public and private. In fact, users can even share or stream information to Facebook...

Reports of creepy clowns carrying knives and other weapons have been scaring people in the California city of Bakersfield for the past week, police said on Sunday. ... "We've been having sightings all over the city," Matson said. "They range from anywhere from a guy carrying a gun to a guy carrying a knife running up to houses." The Bakersfield Californian newspaper reported earlier in the week that at least some of the reports were hoaxes. Matson said he did not know whether the incidents were pranks. At least one of the reports was not a hoax - police arrested...

Siding Spring will be the first comet from the Oort Cloud to be studied up close by spacecraft, giving scientists an invaluable opportunity to learn more about the materials, including water and carbon compounds, that existed during the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago. ... In preparation for the comet flyby, NASA maneuvered its Mars Odyssey orbiter, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and the newest member of the Mars fleet, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN), in order to reduce the risk of impact with high-velocity dust particles coming off the comet. The period of greatest risk to...

Seeds genetically engineered to grow into glow-in-the-dark plants are expected to be mailed to 1,000 people across the U.S. later this year. San-Francisco startup Glowing Plant will ship the first version of its flagship product starting in December, the company said in an update on its blog today. The seeds belong to arabidopsis plants, which are related to mustard and cabbage. The company is inserting genes into the plants from other organisms, including fireflies, to give them bioluminescence — the ability to glow via a biochemical process.