Russian meteor will teach us about future bigger hits

You wait years for a space rock and then two come along at once. Just hours before an asteroid is due to almost graze Earth, a meteor has exploded over the Russian region of Chelyabinsk, injuring hundreds of people and damaging nearby buildings.

Studying the impact could give clues to future hits from rarer, bigger space rocks, which are bound to occur.

The impact occurred at 0320 GMT today, the very day that astronomers are anticipating the close fly-by of asteroid 2012 DA14, although there is thought to be no connection between the two events. "This is a remarkable coincidence," says Stephen Lowry, an astronomer at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK.

Details of the strike are still emerging, but pictures and video shared on social media offer clues to the meteor's make-up and origin. "It's certainly smaller than 50 metres and larger than a metre," says Simon Green of the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK. It appears to have exploded as it entered the Earth's atmosphere, creating a shock wave that shattered windows, damaged buildings and apparently collapsed the roof and walls of zinc factory.

The Russian Academy of Sciences says the meteor weighed 10 tons and entered the atmosphere at a speed of at least 54,000 kilometres per hour, exploding between 30 to 50 kilometres above the ground. Reports from Russia also say that more than 900 hundred people have been injured, mostly by broken glass. Reports also suggest there are no fatalities, although two people are in intensive care.

Astronomers will want to recover any fragments of the meteorite that hit the ground. "You'll find them strewn over a large area. There may be some very large fragments but there will be many smaller ones spread over kilometres," says Green. "We can study the science of the bodies and learn more about the bigger ones, which are the real threat."

The much smaller Sutter's Mill meteorite that fell on California last year yielded many fragments that showed it was a very rare type of rock called a CM chondrite.

Strange coincidence

It is not unusual for meteors the size of the one that fell in Chelyabinsk to hit the Earth, though most end up falling into the sea unnoticed. "Depending on its size, it might be something that hits every few years or every few decades," says Green.

Although the odds of an unrelated meteor impacting on the same day as an asteroid fly-by seem astronomically high, experts seem sure the two objects are not linked, especially as the meteor hit over 12 hours before the expected fly-by. "2012 DA14 approaches from the south at quite a steep angle relative to the Earth's equatorial plane, so Russia being in the northern hemisphere makes [a link] extremely unlikely," says Lowry. "If this had been a southern hemisphere impact, serious questions would have been being asked."

One of the European Space Agency's satellites managed to spot the vapour trail of the meteor as it entered the atmosphere. The agency itself has also confirmed that there is no link with asteroid 2012 DA14, on course to fly past Earth at height of around 27,000 kilometres at 1925 GMT.

There are a large number of videos of the Russian meteor strike because it is common for Russian drivers to use dashboard-mounted cameras to prove liability in car accidents. The footage should allow astronomers to retrace the meteor's flight path and identify its origin, as well as any other space rocks that might be related. One possibility is that the meteor split off from a larger object. "It is possible that a collision could have happened further back in its orbit," says Lowry.

If the remnants remained on the same orbit, then they too could impact Earth, although that is unlikely as the planet has most likely moved out of the path of any potential secondary strike by now. "It is possible a parent fragment could hit Earth, but the probability decreases rapidly as time passes."

Read more: Meteorite hunters: Join the space rock rush

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Eurozone returns to trade surplus

BRUSSELS: The 17-nation eurozone posted a 2012 trade surplus of 81.8 billion euros ($108 billion), more than reversing a deficit of 15.7 billion euros in 2011, official data showed Friday.

For December, the eurozone had a trade surplus of 11.7 billion euros, down from 13 billion euros in November, as exports fell 1.8 percent and imports by 3.0 percent, the Eurostat agency said.

For the wider 27-member EU, December showed a trade deficit of some 700 million euros after a deficit of 1.9 billion euros in November, as exports dropped 1.9 percent and imports were down 1.6 percent.

For 2012, the full EU suffered a trade deficit of 104.6 billion euros, improving from a deficit of 162.7 billion euros in 2011.

Eurostat said that for the January-November 2012 period, the EU 27 deficit on energy increased to 388.6 billion euros from 354.6 billion euros in the same period a year earlier, while the bloc enjoyed a surplus in manufactured goods of 330.8 billion euros, up from 224.9 billion euros.

Among member states for the same period, powerhouse Germany had the biggest trade surplus at 174.6 billion euros, followed by the Netherlands, Ireland and the Czech Republic.

Britain had the largest deficit at 152.9 billion euros, with France, Spain and Greece next.

- AFP/al

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Uh oh: Nintendo sold 57,000 Wii U units in the U.S. in January

Nintendo's Wii U had a rough January, CNET has learned.

Nintendo sold only 57,000
Wii U units in the U.S. in January, a person familiar with NPD's game industry sales data has confirmed to CNET. The leading console maker during the period, Microsoft, sold 281,000 units in January.

Gamasutra was first to report that
Wii U sales were sluggish in January. That publication's source said only that January sales were "well under" 100,000 units.

The Wii U's trouble in January stands in stark contrast to its predecessor, the Wii. In its first January on store shelves in 2007, Nintendo sold 435,000 console units.

That Nintendo is having trouble selling Wii U units is nothing new. The company's CEO Satoru Iwata last month characterized Wii U sales as "not bad." That came just days before Microsoft and Nintendo announced their console unit sales in December. During that period, Microsoft sold nearly one million more consoles.

The Wii U's troubles negatively affected Nintendo's earnings for the nine-month period ended December 31. The company said that it sold only 3 million Wii U units since its launch in November, adding that upcoming games, including new entries in the Legend of Zelda franchise, could "help Nintendo regain momentum for Wii U."

Still, that a console that has been on store shelves for just three months is selling so few units is shocking. It's something that gamers would expect from unknown game companies, but that it's a Nintendo issue, especially given its recent successes, is surprising.

CNET has contacted Nintendo for comment. We will update this story when we have more information.

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Why We Walk … and Run … And Walk Again to Get Where We're Going

You have to get to a bus stop to catch the once-an-hour express ... or to a restaurant to meet a friend ... or to a doctor's office. You've got maybe a half a mile to cover and you're worried you'll be late. You run, then you stop and walk, then run some more.

But wait. Wouldn't it be better to run the whole way?

Not necessarily.

A new study by an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State University tests the theory that people subconsciously mix walking and running so they get where they need to. The idea is that "people move in a manner that minimizes energy consumption," said the professor, Manoj Srinivasan.

Srinivasan asked 36 subjects to cover 400 feet (122 meters), a bit more than the length of a football field. He gave them a time to arrive at the finish line and a stopwatch. If the deadline was supertight, they ran. If they had two minutes, they walked. And if the deadline was neither too short nor too far off, they toggled between walking and running.

The takeaway: Humans successfully make the walk-run adjustment as they go along, based on their sense of how far they have to go. "It's not like they decide beforehand," Srinivasan said. (Get tips, gear recommendations, and more in our Running Guide.)

The Best Technique for "the Twilight Zone"

"The mixture of walking and running is good when you have an intermediate amount of time," he explained. "I like to call it 'the Twilight Zone,' where you have neither infinite time nor do you have to be there now."

That ability to shift modes served ancient humans well. "It's basically an evolutionary argument," Srinivasan said. A prehistoric human seeking food would want to move in a way that conserves some energy so that if food is hard to find, the hunter won't run out of gas—and will still be able to rev it up to escape predators.

The study, published on January 30 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, doesn't answer that question of how we make such adjustments.

Runners: Take a Break if You Need It

The mix of walking and running is also something that nonelite marathoners are familiar with. Covering 26.2 miles might take less of a toll if the runner stops running from time to time, walks a bit, then resumes a jogging pace. "You use less energy overall and also give yourself a bit of a break," Srinivasan noted. (Watch: An elite marathoner on her passion for running.)

One take-home lesson is: Runners, don't push it all the time. A walk-run mix will minimize the energy you expend.

Lesson two: If you're a parent walking with your kid, and the kid lags behind, then runs to catch up, then lags again, the child isn't necessarily trying to annoy you. Rather, the child is perhaps exhibiting an innate ability to do the walk-run transition.

Potential lesson three: The knowledge that humans naturally move in a manner that minimizes energy consumption might be helpful in designing artificial limbs that feel more natural and will help the user reduce energy consumption.

The big question for Manoj Srinivasan: Now that he has his walk-run theory, does he consciously switch between running and walking when he's trying to get somewhere? "I must admit, no," he said. "When I want to get somewhere, I just let the body do its thing." But if he's in a rush, he'll make a mad dash.

"Talk to you tomorrow," he signed off in an email to National Geographic News. "Running to get to teaching now!"

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Falling Meteor Causes Blast, Injures Hundreds

A massive meteor shower slammed into Earth near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, located about 1,000 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains.

Dashboard cameras captured a blinding flash of light streaking across the sky. Moments later, the fragments smashed into the ground. The impact, and the sonic boom of the meteor entering the atmosphere, shattered windows around the city and knocked over a wall at a zinc factory.

Witnesses said they thought a war had broken out.

"I saw a body moving in the skies. In a moment there came a flash - we first thought it was fireworks but a moment later we saw a trace as if from the rocket followed by an explosion in a couple of minutes. The window broke ... tea, bread, water - everything fell on the floor," one restaurant waiter in Chelyabinsk said.

Officials told the Russian news agency Interfax that more than 500 people were injured, most by broken glass. Of the 12 people hospitalized, at least three of them were in serious condition.

One scientist told Russian television the meteor was a big one, weighing perhaps tens of tons, but stressed that it was not related to the asteroid that is expected to buzz close to Earth later today.

Regional officials said the one large fragment fell in a lake, but debris had been reported in three parts of Russia and in Kazakhstan.

Schools in the region closed for the day after most of the windows were blown out, citing freezing temperatures, which were below zero degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

Debris from the meteor was found in three sites around the country, but emergency services say ground zero was Chebarkul Lake, just west of Chelyabinsk.

The meteor knocked out cell phone networks, but electricity and water supplies were not affected. Rosatom said all its nuclear power facilities were functioning normally.

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How Facebook makes breaking up hard to do

Paul Marks, senior technology reporter

(Image: Andy Kingsbury/Corbis)

I am not particularly prone to earbugs, but Jimmy Ruffin's emotive Motown classic What Becomes of the Brokenhearted began playing in my mind when I came across this intriguingly titled research paper last week: "Design for forgetting: Disposing of digital possessions after a breakup".

Yes, I know it’s Valentine’s Day, and love is in the air. For people who have recently suffered a break-up, though, it’s a tough day to get through - and this research shows how social technologies are making it tougher still. It asks if the "huge collections of digital possessions" couples now acquire in latter-day, online-social-media-rich relationships make breaking up, er, hard to do.

It seems it does, as Corina Sas at Lancaster University in the UK and Steve Whittaker of the University of California, Santa Cruz, are due to tell a computer interaction conference - which, appropriately, takes place in April in Paris. The pair asked 24 people who had recently split with their lovers how they dealt with the digital detritus of their affair - texts, emails, music, video clips, Facebook messages or photos - stored across multiple gadgets, from computers to mobile phones, cameras and even digital picture frames.

Perhaps not too surprisingly they found their subjects developed a variety of "digital disposal" strategies, depending on the degree of hurt. That has led the researchers to suggest ways in which the likes of Facebook could develop novel features to help newly split couples better manage what they call "digital forgetting".

The 24 subjects revealed three main break-up strategies, Sas says: "Some people tended to keep too much digital content, leaving them subjected to painful reminiscences. Others impulsively deleted digital possessions they may later want. Still others engaged in immediate discontinued use and later selective disposal."

Whittaker adds: "Many people make multiple mistakes when they dispose of digital possessions: some immediately delete too impulsively but later regret not keeping stuff."

Your digital relationship is more difficult to dispose of than burning love letters in days of yore, and your Twitters and Facebooks are the major bugbear. The relationship traces we leave on social networking systems "could be particularly difficult to remove and emotionally taxing when accidentally revisited", Sas says.

"Some of the greatest problems related to interactions and content in Facebook where couples were constantly reminded of their ex. Unless they unfriend them, partners could easily see what the ex is up to."

To the rescue, of course, comes even more technology.

Sas and Whittaker would like to see Facebook offer more "couple-oriented" features that make it easier to erase a couple's joint content later - a kind of digitally mediated pre-nup. That might get over the problem of having relationship material present on other friends’ pages, outside your control but still visible to you.

They also propose development of - and get this for ambition - automatic relationship-information harvesting software. "This tool would gather together all the digital possessions relating to the ex in one place. At the moment possessions are spread across laptops, phones, Facebook, et cetera, so it's hard to hide or delete everything about the ex," says Whittaker.

They realise this is no trivial task - but it's worth the effort, they believe. Automatically hoovering up a couple's digital pictures, emails and text messages would require a raft of artificial-intelligence techniques, from face recognition to machine learning and "entity extraction". "That would generate a unified set of digital possessions that can be later dealt with appropriately," says Sas.

In the meantime, her advice is to quell the red mist re the digital stuff post break-up. "Keeping or deleting everything may be tempting, but acting on such impulses may not the best approach in the long run. Instead try to create some immediate distance from digital possessions and revisit them later to choose only the most memorable ones." Rather like putting your old photos in a tin until you’ve cooled off, then.

If not, to quote Jimmy Ruffin, "all that's left is an unhappy ending".

Paper reference: Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Human factors in Computing Systems (in press)

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Life in Kashmir inches back to normalcy after curfew lift

SRINAGAR: Life in Indian Kashmir is slowly returning to normal as authorities lift a curfew in phases. The curfew was imposed during the weekend after the execution of a Kashmiri militant.

The Batmalu area of Srinagar in Kashmir valley was under curfew since Saturday, after Afzal Guru was hanged in Central Prison in Delhi.

Since Guru came from the valley, police anticipating any kind of backlash had imposed a curfew in the region. But now, the police is slowly and gradually relaxing the curfew, depending on the condition in a day-to-day manner.

S M Sahi, inspector general of police in Kashmir, said: "We take these decisions on a daily basis, so what we will see when the day gets over today, then we will take a decision for tomorrow, and of course we are in favour of relaxation as much as possible and we will work towards that."

The relaxation in the curfew has brought a sigh of relief for the people who live in the valley, and people by and large want the curfew to be relaxed, but in a phased manner so that there are no incidents of violence and the valley remains peaceful.

Resident Ansar Ahmad said: "If the curfew is relaxed step by step, then it'll be good because there won't be too much violence."

Newspapers are also back in circulation. There was no censorship of press as such but because of the curfew, the newspapers were not reaching the residents.

- CNA/xq

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Three-deal Thursday: Pogoplug, Klipsch earbuds, and apps

Klipsch earbuds for $15? I'll take two pair, please.

(Credit:
Woot)

Happy Valentine's Day, cheeps! Here's hoping you have a day filled with love, chocolate, and, of course, deals.

That's right: deals, plural. I couldn't settle on just one today, so I've rounded up three (well, five, technically) to make your day a little sweeter.

1. Pogoplug Mobile

The Pogoplug Mobile is a small box that plugs into your home router and streams your media libraries to your
Android or iOS device.

Typical Pogoplug, right? The Mobile adds one key feature to the mix: it can automatically back up photos and videos captured with your phone or
tablet. (Here's my original write-up on the Pogoplug Mobile if you want to learn more.)

It originally sold for $79.99, but for a limited time, Rakuten.com (formerly Buy.com -- talk about a name-change for the worse) has the Pogoplug Mobile for $17.99 shipped. That's the lowest price I've seen on this handy gizmo. (Thanks to the anonymous reader who sent this in.)

2. Klipsch Image E1 Earbuds

Klipsch enjoys a stellar reputation for making some of the best audio gear on the planet -- but it's usually spendy stuff.

Today only, and while supplies last, Woot has the Klipsch Image E1 noise-isolating earbuds for $14.99, plus $5 for shipping. These sell elsewhere (like at Newegg) for around $45. Sellout risk: huge.

If you've never used in-ear buds like these, they can feel a little weird at first. You really have to get them in there to create that noise-isolating seal. And once you do, every movement of the cord (to say nothing of your jaw, if you're eating) will produce unwanted noise.

But if you sit still and keep your pie hole shut, you'll enjoy vastly superior sound to what you get from traditional earbuds. Trust me on that.

3. Apps for Apple folks

Got an iOS device? Today's your lucky day. The following apps are on sale for free (or super-cheap):

• Smart Office 2, which lets you create, view, edit, and share
  Microsoft Office documents on your iDevice. Normally it's $9.99; today it's free! (Android users can snag it for 99 cents.)
• Top-rated hack-and-slash adventure game Infinity Blade normally sells for $5.99, but for today it's free!
• Remember the Apple (II) classic Karateka? It was recently reborn for iOS -- and priced at $2.99. But in honor of Valentine's Day (it is a love story, after all), Karateka is on sale for 99 cents.

There you go, cheeps! Now go forth and share some love, eat some chocolate, and buy some stuff. Cheapskate out.

Deals found on The Cheapskate are subject to availability, expiration, and other terms determined by sellers.

Curious about what exactly The Cheapskate does and how it works? Read our FAQ.

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Are Honeybees Losing Their Way?

A single honeybee visits hundreds, sometimes thousands, of flowers a day in search of nectar and pollen. Then it must find its way back to the hive, navigating distances up to five miles (eight kilometers), and perform a "waggle dance" to tell the other bees where the flowers are.

A new study shows that long-term exposure to a combination of certain pesticides might impair the bee's ability to carry out its pollen mission.

"Any impairment in their ability to do this could have a strong effect on their survival," said Geraldine Wright, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University in England and co-author of a new study posted online February 7, 2013, in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Wright's study adds to the growing body of research that shows that the honeybee's ability to thrive is being threatened. Scientists are still researching how pesticides may be contributing to colony collapse disorder (CCD), a rapid die-off seen in millions of honeybees throughout the world since 2006.

"Pesticides are very likely to be involved in CCD and also in the loss of other types of pollinators," Wright said. (See the diversity of pollinating creatures in a photo gallery from National Geographic magazine.)

Bees depend on what's called "scent memory" to find flowers teeming with nectar and pollen. Their ability to rapidly learn, remember, and communicate with each other has made them highly efficient foragers, using the waggle dance to educate others about the site of the food source.

Watch as National Geographic explains the waggle dance.

Their pollination of plants is responsible for the existence of nearly a third of the food we eat and has a similar impact on wildlife food supplies.

Previous studies have shown certain types of pesticides affect a bee's learning and memory. Wright's team wanted to investigate if the combination of different pesticides had an even greater effect on the learning and memory of honeybees.

"Honeybees learn to associate floral colors and scents with the quality of food rewards," Wright explained. "The pesticides affect the neurons involved in these behaviors. These [affected] bees are likely to have difficulty communicating with other members of the colony."

The experiment used a classic procedure with a daunting name: olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension reflex. In layman's terms, the bee sticks out its tongue in response to odor and food rewards.

For the experiment, bees were collected from the colony entrance, placed in glass vials, and then transferred into plastic sandwich boxes. For three days the bees were fed a sucrose solution laced with sublethal doses of pesticides. The team measured short-term and long-term memory at 10-minute and 24-hour intervals respectively. (Watch of a video of a similar type of bee experiment.)

This study is the first to show that when pesticides are combined, the impact on bees is far worse than exposure to just one pesticide. "This is particularly important because one of the pesticides we used, coumaphos, is a 'medicine' used to treat Varroa mites [pests that have been implicated in CCD] in honeybee colonies throughout the world," Wright said.

The pesticide, in addition to killing the mites, might also be making honeybees more vulnerable to poisoning and effects from other pesticides.

Stephen Buchmann of the Pollinator Partnership, who was not part of Wright's study, underscored how critical pollinators are for the world. "The main threat to pollinators is habitat destruction and alteration. We're rapidly losing pollinator habitats, natural areas, and food—producing agricultural lands that are essential for our survival and well being. Along with habitat destruction, insecticides weaken pollinators and other beneficial insects."

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'Blade Runner' Charged With Murdering Girlfriend

Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic and Paralympic athlete known as the "blade runner," was taken into custody in South Africa today and charged with the murder of his girlfriend, who was fatally shot at his home.

Police in the South African capital of Pretoria received a call around 3 a.m. today that there had been a shooting at the home of 26-year-old Pistorius, Lt. Col. Katlego Mogale told the Associated Press. When police arrived at the scene they found paramedics trying to revive 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp, the AP reported.

At a news conference early today, police Pistorius was arrested and has requested to be taken to court immediately.

RELATED: 'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius Faster Than a Horse

Mogale said the woman died at the house, and a 9-mm pistol was recovered at the scene and a murder case opened against Pistorius, the AP reported.

Police said this morning that there were no other suspects in the shooting, and that Pistorius is at the police station.

Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images; Mike Holmes/The Herald/Gallo Images/Getty Images

Oscar Pistorius: Double Amputee Going to Olympics Watch Video

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The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said that Pistorius' hearing will be Friday at 9 a.m. local time. His court hearing was originally scheduled for this afternoon but has been postponed to give forensics investigators time to carry out their work, said Medupe Simasiku, a spokesman for the NPA.

The precise circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear. Local reports say he might have mistaken her for a burglar, according to the AP.

VIDEO: Double Amputee Races to Win Olympic Gold

Police said they have heard reports of an argument or shouting at the apartment complex, and that the only two people on the premises were Steenkamp and Pistorius.

Police confirmed there have previously been incidents of a domestic nature at the home of Pistorius.

Pistorius, a sprinter, had double below-the-knee amputations and a part of his legs has been replaced with carbon fiber blades. In 2012, he became the first double-leg amputee to participate in the Olympics, competing in the men's 400-meter race.

He also competed in the Paralympics, where he won gold medals in the men's 400-meter race, in what became a Paralympics record. He also took the silver in the 200-meter race.

Steenkamp, according to her Twitter bio, is a law graduate and model. She tweeted Wednesday, "What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow??? #getexcited #ValentinesDay."

Steenkamp recently appeared on the cover of FHM magazine, in commercials and was due to appear on a reality-TV show, "Tropika Island of Treasure."

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