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Radiation inside one of the damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power facility has reached an “unimaginable” level according to experts. Because so much nuclear material from Fukushima escaped into the Pacific Ocean, there are many scientists that believe that it was the worst environmental disaster in human history, but most people in the general population seem to think that since the mainstream media really doesn’t talk about it anymore that everything must be under control. Unfortunately, that is not true at all. In fact, PBS reported just last year that “it is incorrect to say that Fukushima is under...

...The fire broke out at the Samsung Electronics Co Ltd affiliate's factory in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin earlier on Wednesday and has been extinguished, a Samsung spokesman said, adding that there were no casualties or significant impact to the plant's operations. ...The local fire department, however, said on its microblog that the fire was caused by batteries inside the facility. The "material that caught fire was lithium batteries inside the production workshops and some half-finished products", the Wuqing branch of the Tianjin Fire Department said in a post on its verified Sina Weibo account. It added it had...

As Barack Obama began preparing to leave office, the first smartphone-toting U.S. president ordered his team to upgrade the White House’s aging technology for his successor. New computers were purchased and faster internet was installed. Not included in the modernization plans? A courier service. But that delivery method of a bygone era may be in for a comeback under Donald Trump. Despite his voracious use of Twitter, the president-elect appears to be leaning toward old tech to ensure the security of sensitive messages. “It’s very important, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by...

Subtitle: In the face of a new administration, activists and regular people alike embrace tools for keeping their browsing habits and communications private. There's something about a Donald Trump administration in charge of the US National Security Agency that has folks taking government surveillance very seriously. Encrypted email provider ProtonMail and encrypted chat service Signal saw a spike in new users after the election. What's more, privacy advocates say they're hearing from more people who are interested in covering up their tracks online. Eva Galperin, a global policy analyst at the privacy-oriented Electronic Frontier Foundation, said she's received more requests...

SCIENTISTS may have found proof that E.T. really is phoning home — in the form of powerful radio signals which have been detected repeatedly in the same exact location in space.

Since October 1996 there has been no global warming at all (Fig. 1 ){see at link]. This month’s RSS temperature plot push es up the period without any global warming from 18 years 1 month to 18 years 2 months (indeed, very nearly 18 years 3 months) . Will this devastating chart be display ed anywhere at the Lima conference? Don’t bet on it. Figure 1 . The least - squares linear - regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no globa l warming for 18 years 2 month s since October 1996....

Americans feel government doesn’t serve them, their voice isn’t heard. Most solutions focus on the next political battle. While short-term battles are important, we need long-term solutions more profound than better policies, politicians or parties; we need a better political system. Technology has been blamed for our current political environment; for social and economic disruption that led to disaffection, for spreading fake news. Well-designed technology offers the best chance of creating the political system needed: more participatory, responsive, informed democracy. It just hasn’t been built yet. Silicon Valley invested billions designing technology to improve industries; commerce, communications, travel, transportation. Less...

Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have discovered a chemical reaction to turn CO2 into ethanol, potentially creating a new technology to help avert climate change. Their findings were published in the journal ChemistrySelect. The researchers were attempting to find a series of chemical reactions that could turn CO2 into a useful fuel, when they realized the first step in their process managed to do it all by itself. The reaction turns CO2 into ethanol, which could in turn be used to power generators and vehicles.

Office Depot has suspended PC Health Check – its malware-scanning service – after it was accused of lying about infections to push antivirus software. Former Office Depot technician Shane Barnett told Seattle TV station KIRO 7 that the PC Health Check service would lie to customers that their otherwise-clean PCs were infected with malware, and that this was used to flog expensive disinfection tools. He claimed he was let go from his job because he refused to run the allegedly dodgy scanner on people's machines. ... The station decided to investigate his claims and took six virgin PCs along to...

Tips for A Thanksgiving Turkey!

Most people think you can usually find a better deal when you shop online. But the price you see can be different than what other people see. The type of computer you use, your online search history, even your zip code have all been used by online retailers to determine what price you pay. In a study conducted by researchers at Northeastern University in Boston, nine out of 16 online retailers and travel websites tested showed different prices or difference results for the same searches. “I always assumed all the prices would always be the same,” said Liz Owens. Owens,...

Physicists avoid highly mathematical work despite being trained in advanced mathematics, new research suggests. The study, published in the New Journal of Physics, shows that physicists pay less attention to theories that are crammed with mathematical details.

Christian von Koenigsegg's namesake company is small, but it builds some of the most advanced supercars in the world. The Regera, for example, is a 1500-horsepower plug-in hybrid that doesn't have a gearbox. It's incredible. What a lot of people don't know, though, is that Koenigsegg has a sister company called Freevalve. And Freevalve is working to sell the world's first camless engine. By getting rid of camshaft and the throttle body, Koenigsegg says you get better power, torque, efficiency, fuel economy, and emissions. It's an engine that can run on multiple fuels, run as a two-stroke, use the Atkinson...

US Defense Department modeling shows that “if we can close the fire support with a controlled solution,” the hypervelocity projectile (HVP) weapons would be able to shoot down most of a 100-missile raid. The Pentagon has shifted emphasis away from the electromagnetic rail gun as a next-generation missile defense platform, sees a new hypervelocity powder gun technology as the key to demonstrating to potential adversaries like China and Russia that U.S. military units on land and sea can neutralize large missile salvos in future conflicts The guided projectile being developed for EMRG (Electromagnetic Railguns) can also be fired from 5-inch...

The co-founder of the newly launched Senate Cybersecurity Caucus is pushing federal agencies for possible solutions and responses to the security threat from insecure “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices, such as the network of hacked security cameras and digital video recorders that were reportedly used to help bring about last Friday’s major Internet outages. ... I have been asked by several reporters over the past few days whether I think government has a role to play in fixing the IoT mess. Personally, I do not believe there has ever been a technology challenge that was best served by additional government...

Updated Today, a huge army of hijacked internet-connected devices – from security cameras to home routers – turned on their owners and broke a big chunk of the internet. Compromised machines, following orders from as-yet unknown masterminds, threw huge amounts of junk traffic at servers operated by US-based Dyn, which provides DNS services for websites large and small. We're told gadgets behind tens of millions of IP addresses were press-ganged into shattering the internet – a lot of them running the Mirai malware, the source code to which is now public so anyone can wield it against targets. The result:...

According to researchers at security firm Flashpoint, today’s attack was launched at least in part by a Mirai-based botnet. Allison Nixon, director of research at Flashpoint, said the botnet used in today’s ongoing attack is built on the backs of hacked IoT devices — mainly compromised digital video recorders (DVRs) and IP cameras made by a Chinese hi-tech company called XiongMai Technologies. The components that XiongMai makes are sold downstream to vendors who then use it in their own products. “It’s remarkable that virtually an entire company’s product line has just been turned into a botnet that is now attacking...

A massive and sustained Internet attack that has caused outages and network congestion today for a large number of Web sites was launched with the help of hacked “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices, such as CCTV video cameras and digital video recorders, new data suggests.

For more than two hours on Friday morning, much of the web seemed to grind to a halt—or at least slow to dial-up speed—for many users in the United States. More than a dozen major websites experienced outages and other technical problems, according to user reports and the web-tracking site downdetector.com. They included The New York Times, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, GitHub, Etsy, Tumblr, Spotify, PayPal, Verizon, Comcast, EA, the Playstation network, and others. How was it possible to take down all those sites at once?

"With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked." "Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account."