Lead Pistorius Cop Facing Attempted Murder Charge

Hilton Botha, the detective at the center of the Oscar Pistorius murder case, is facing his own attempted murder charges in connection with a 2011 shooting in which he and other police officers allegedly fired a gun at passengers in a vehicle.

Botha is scheduled to appear in court in May on seven counts of attempted murder in connection to the October 2011 incident in which he and two other officers allegedly fired shots at a minibus they were attempting to stop. It's unclear whether any of the passengers were injured.

Botha has been outlining details this week at the Olympic runner's bail hearing of his investigation into the Feb. 14 shooting death of Reeva Steenkamp at Pistorius' home in Pretoria, South Africa. Botha was one of the first officers to arrive at the scene, where Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, was found fatally shot three times.

PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing

Pistorius, a double-amputee who walks on carbon fiber blades, says he killed his girlfriend accidentally.

Prosecutors say they were unaware of the charges against the detective when he took the stand this week, according to The Associated Press.

Oscar Pistorius: Investigator Faces Attempted Murder Charges Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius's Bail Hearing: Prosecutors Argue Premeditated Murder Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius Bail Hearing: New Evidence Revealed Watch Video

"The prosecutors were not aware of those charges [against Botha]," Medupe Simasiku of the National Prosecution Agency said. "We are calling up the information so we can get the details of the case. From there, we can take action and see if we remove him from the investigation or if he stays."

FULL COVERAGE: Oscar Pistorius Case

Botha muddled testimony and eventually admitted Wednesday at Pistorius' bail hearing that the suspect's account of the Valentine's Day shooting did not contradict the police's version of events.

A spokesman for the NPA admitted today that charges pending against Botha were not helpful for the credibility of the prosecution's case, but that the case would hinge on forensic evidence, not the testimony of a police officer.

Pistorius has argued in court that he was closing his balcony doors when he heard a noise from the bathroom. Fearing an intruder, and without his prosthetic legs on, he grabbed a gun from under his bed and fired through the closed bathroom door, he told the court.

But prosecutors say that's implausible, that the gun's holster was found under the side of the bed where Steenkamp slept, and that Pistorius would have seen she wasn't there. Prosecutors also say the angle at which the shots were fired shows Pistorius was already wearing his prosthetics when he fired.

Defense attorneys representing Pistorius tore into investigators Wednesday, accusing them of sloppy police work and saying the substance that police identified as testosterone, which they found in his bathroom, was an herbal supplement.

In a statement overnight, Pistorius' family said the new testimony brought "more clarity" to the hearing.

Meanwhile, Steenkamp's cousin told CNN that she wants to believe Pistorius' story.

"That is what in my heart, I hope and wish is the truth, because I would not like to think my cousin suffered," Kim Martin, Steenkamp's cousin, told CNN's Piers Morgan. "I would not like to think that she was scared."

Steenkamp's brother Adam Steenkamp said the family is trying to focus on better days.

"We're remembering the positive," he said. "We're remembering the good."

Pistorius today was dropped by two of his sponsors, Nike and Thierry Mugler.

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Fertiliser makes another reason to eat less meat

IT'S not a good time to be a meat lover. As the horsemeat scandal spreads across Europe, a new report blames livestock for farms' excessive fertiliser use.

Last week, Europol, the pan-European police force, announced it would investigate how cheap horsemeat came to be added to "beef" products, and UK police arrested three individuals on suspicion of food fraud.

Against this backdrop, the UN Environment Programme revealed that 80 per cent of the fertiliser used in farming globally is for meat production – mainly to fertilise pastures and fodder crops. As over half the fertiliser put on fields isn't absorbed by crops, the resulting pollution is killing rivers, causing dead zones in the oceans, encouraging alien species and adding to acid rain and climate change.

Lead author Mark Sutton of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Edinburgh calls for fertiliser to be used 20 per cent more efficiently by 2020 – and for us all to eat less meat.

There was some good news for carnivores, however. The UK Food Standards Agency announced on 15 February that just 29 of 2501 meat products tested contained horse DNA.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Let them eat veg?"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

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Annabel Pennefather named Chef de Mission for SEA Games in Myanmar

SINGAPORE: Miss Annabel Pennefather has been named Chef de Mission for the Singapore contingent at this year's SEA Games in Myanmar.

This will be her fifth time as Chef de Mission to Singapore's contingent.

Previously, she filled that role at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, the 2004 Athens Olympics, the 2006 Asian Games in Doha and most recently, the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

- CNA/de

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Sprint shopping for more wireless spectrum, report says

A Sprint store in Manhattan.

(Credit:
CNET/Marguerite Reardon)

Sprint Nextel is shopping for more wireless spectrum, Bloomberg reported, as the nation's third-largest carrier tries to catch up with bigger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Dan Hesse told the publication in an interview this month that Sprint's purchase of Clearwire will give it a strong position for a period of time, but Sprint wants to buy more spectrum to help it in the long term.

Sprint is looking at making deals with other companies or buying spectrum through government sales, Hesse said, according to Bloomberg.

Sprint, which late last year reached a $20.1 billion merger pact with SoftBank, has largely been on the sidelines in the spectrum rush while Verizon and AT&T have spent billions on acquisitions. But the cash from Softbank will help Sprint make more purchases. Already, it agreed to buy the stake of Clearwire that it didn't already own. It also paid $480 million to buy certain U.S. Cellular customers and spectrum.

Bloomberg, citing an analyst, noted that Sprint's options may include buying more capacity from smaller carriers like U.S. Cellular or Leap Wireless or buying them outright. It also could pursue a deal with Dish.

Read More..

Pistorius Shots Said to Come From High Angle

At the second day of a bail hearing for Olympian Oscar Pistorius, a South African investigator who arrived at the scene of the Feb. 14 fatal shooting said that Reeva Steenkamp was shot from a high angle, which prosecutors say contradicts the runner's account that he was not wearing his prosthetics when he shot his girlfriend to death.

Pistorius, a double-amputee who runs on carbon-fiber blades, appeared in court for the second day in a row after his arrest in the death of girlfriend Steenkamp at his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa.

Read Oscar Pistorius' Full Statement to the Court

PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing

Arresting officer Hilton Botha told the court today that the 26-year-old was standing in the master bathroom when he shot the supermodel, who was crouched in a defensive position behind a locked door in a smaller powder room. He also said that the bullets that were fired had been fired from high up, and the bullets seemed to be coming in a downward direction.

"[The angle] seems to me down. Fired down," Botha told the court.

Pistorius said Tuesday that he went to the bathroom and fired through the door before putting on his prosthetic legs.

Oscar Pistorius: Defense Presents New Evidence Watch Video

'Blade Runner' Appears in Court to Hear Murder Charges Watch Video

He said he mistakenly shot his girlfriend, thinking she was an intruder.

Prosecutors also said that they found two boxes of testosterone in the bedroom, although the defense disputes that, saying it's just herbal supplements.

The court also heard that a witness, someone about 2,000 feet away from Pistorius' home, heard nonstop fighting the morning of the shooting.

"We have a witness who says she heard non-stop shouting and fighting between 2 and 3 a.m.," said prosecutor Gerrie Nel, who added that another witness saw lights on at the time of the gunshots.

Pistorius says he spent a quiet night with Steenkamp before the shooting.

Nel said that Pistorius' actions and phone calls on the night indicate pre-planning, and that there was a "deliberate aiming of shots at the toilet from about 1.5 meters [about 5 feet]."

He says Steenkamp was shot on the right side of her body.

Officer Botha also said Pistorius should be considered a flight risk because investigators discovered that he has offshore bank accounts and a house in Italy.

"I think it would be hard to get him back," Botha told the court. "This is a very serious crime, shooting an unarmed woman behind closed door."

Prosecutors also say they may file more charges for unlicensed ammunition, after a special-caliber .38 round was found in a safe in Pistorius' home.

Botha told the court today that he arrived at Pistorius' home at 4:15 a.m. Valentine's Day to find Steenkamp already dead, dressed in a white shorts and a black vest, and covered in towels. The only thing that Pistorius said was, 'I thought it was a burglar,'" according to Botha.

The 26-year-old sprinter Tuesday denied that he willfully killed Steenkamp, telling the court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.

Botha said today that he attended Steenkamp's postmortem, and that she had three entrance wounds: one on the head, one in the elbow and one in the hip.

Describing the scene to the court, Botha said that the shots fired into the bathroom were aimed at the toilet bowl.

The shooter "would have to walk into the bathroom and turn directly at the door to shoot at the toilet the way the bullets went," he said.

Read More..

Insert real news events into your mobile game

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

(Image: MultiPlay.io)

Seen it in the news? Now play it: a mobile-game programming system allows 3D depictions of news events to be introduced into the action. It's been developed by MultiPlay.io, a British start-up that says the technology could make gameplay more current and provide new ways for designers and coders to make cash - perhaps selling "news injection" rights to news agencies, TV stations or newspapers.

The firm's HTML5 games creator, also called MultiPlay.io, lets users import 3D animations during gameplay, allowing, for instance, last week's meteor explosion over Russia to be pasted in above the game action, says one of the company's founders, Ashraf Samy Hegab. Similarly, he says, if a millionaire footballer hits the news in, say, a fight with a nightclub bouncer, lookalike avatars could engage in just such a fracas as you motor by in a driving game.

The system creates games for Apple iOS, Google Android and Windows Phone devices. Changes to games need to be made in a browser on a PC or Mac, but can be made in real time without you having to download an app update.

"We're using a clever way of splitting the game logic that lets you change the game on the fly, as easy as a drag-and-drop task in a browser," says Hegab. "You don't need to know anything about servers or 3D programming using our engine." The idea also lets you extend the game's virtual playing area by expanding the game map, or add 3D vehicles you've designed yourself, such as glitzy spacecraft or cars. You could even add a model of yourself.

But news injection is MultiPlay.io's main aim - and its founders are hoping to interest news agencies when Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona, Spain, later this month. They are not alone: adding news to make games more relevant is becoming popular, with some websites beginning to offer games with news-related activities built in, such as the fascinating Game The News, which "creates its own twists on news events in a playable form".

Read More..

SGX to review listing rules to protect retail investors of troubled firms

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Exchange (SGX) is looking at reviewing listing rules to better protect retail investors of troubled firms.

This was revealed in a letter to the Securities Investors Association (Singapore) (SIAS) from SGX deputy chief regulatory officer Richard Teng.

SGX was responding to SIAS' earlier proposals to safeguard investors of foreign issuers on the SGX.

The exchange said SIAS' proposals have been discussed and considered by its newly formed working committee to review the SGX listing rules.

Among the committee's proposals are to give SGX legal powers to appoint special auditors or other professionals to help or investigate troubled companies.

It added that there could also be a requirement that imposes a minimum notice period before board directors of listed companies can effectively resign.

In the meantime, SIAS said retail investors who own shares from foreign companies continue to face risks in recover their investments "should the untoward happen to any of the foreign issuers."

In a separate announcement, SGX said that it has formed a working committee to conduct a comprehensive review of the listing manual to enhance the robustness, efficacy and relevance of the listing framework in Singapore.

The new committee comprised capital market stakeholders, including representatives from the SGX, Association of Banks in Singapore, Singapore Institute of Directors, law firms, accounting firms and company secretarial firms.

The committee has commenced its review to identify areas of possible enhancements to strengthen Singapore's attractiveness as a capital market.

- CNA/fa

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Apple pulls Mac Pro from online stores in Europe

Apple's Mac Pro

(Credit:
Apple)

Consumers in Europe looking for a Mac Pro are now out of luck, at least when trying to buy one online.

Apple's online stores in the U.K., Italy, Germany, France, and other European countries show all three editions of the
Mac Pro as "currently unavailable."

The news isn't exactly a surprise. Apple told European retailers and distributors last month that it would stop selling the Mac Pro come March 1 due to new safety regulations. The regulations impose certain electrical requirements, and the Mac Pro's ports and fans aren't in compliance.

The regulations affect 27 different countries in the European union. Apple did have until March 1 to curtail sales of the Mac Pro across Europe, so it's not clear why the company jumped the gun a bit early. The new safety regulations affect only Europe, so the Mac Pro is still available at Apple's online stores in the U.S, Japan, and other non-European countries.

The Mac Pro is the only Apple product that runs afoul of the new safety regulations. Beyond a couple of minor changes last year, Apple hasn't updated the Mac Pro in more than two years. Last June, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased an update for the high-powered desktop in 2013, saying that we're "working on something really great for later next year.".

Apple could even have a Mac Pro refresh in store sooner than later. Earlier this month, two online publications in France reported that a French reseller received word from Apple that a new Mac Pro lineup would debut this spring.

CNET contacted Apple for comment and will update the story if the company responds.

(Via 9to5Mac)

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Confirmed: Dogs Sneak Food When People Aren't Looking

Many dog owners will swear their pups are up to something when out of view of watchful eyes. Shoes go missing, couches have mysterious teeth marks, and food disappears. They seem to disregard the word "no."

Now, a new study suggests dogs might understand people even better than we thought. (Related: "Animal Minds.")

The research shows that domestic dogs, when told not to snatch a piece of food, are more likely to disobey the command in a dark room than in a lit room.

This suggests that man's best friend is capable of understanding a human's point of view, said study leader Juliane Kaminski, a psychologist at the U.K.'s University of Portmouth.

"The one thing we can say is that dogs really have specialized skills in reading human communication," she said. "This is special in dogs." (Read "How to Build a Dog.")

Sneaky Canines

Kaminski and colleagues recruited 84 dogs, all of which were more than a year old, motivated by food, and comfortable with both strangers and dark rooms.

The team then set up experiments in which a person commanded a dog not to take a piece of food on the floor and repeated the commands in a room with different lighting scenarios ranging from fully lit to fully dark.

They found that the dogs were four times as likely to steal the food—and steal it more quickly—when the room was dark. (Take our dog quiz.)

"We were thinking what affected the dog was whether they saw the human, but seeing the human or not didn't affect the behavior," said Kaminski, whose study was published recently in the journal Animal Cognition.

Instead, she said, the dog's behavior depended on whether the food was in the light or not, suggesting that the dog made its decision based on whether the human could see them approaching the food.

"In a general sense, [Kaminski] and other researchers are interested in whether the dog has a theory of mind," said Alexandra Horowitz, head of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard University, who was not involved in the new study.

Something that all normal adult humans have, theory of mind is "an understanding that others have different perspective, knowledge, feelings than we do," said Horowitz, also the author of Inside of a Dog.

Smarter Than We Think

While research has previously been focused on our closer relatives—chimpanzees and bonobos—interest in dog cognition is increasing, thanks in part to owners wanting to know what their dogs are thinking. (Pictures: How smart are these animals?)

"The study of dog cognition suddenly began about 15 years ago," Horowitz said.

Part of the reason for that, said Brian Hare, director of the Duke Canine Cognition Lab and author of The Genius of Dogs, is that "science thought dogs were unremarkable."

But "dogs have a genius—years ago we didn't know what that was," said Hare, who was not involved in the new research. (See pictures of the the evolution of dogs, from wolf to woof.)

Many of the new dog studies are variations on research done with chimpanzees, bonobos, and even young children. Animal-cognition researchers are looking into dogs' ability to imitate, solve problems, or navigate social environments.

So just how much does your dog understand? It's much more than you—and science—probably thought.

Selectively bred as companions for thousands of years, dogs are especially attuned to human emotions—and, study leader Kaminski said, are better at reading human cues than even our closest mammalian relatives.

"There has been a physiological change in dogs because of domestication," Duke's Hare added. "Dogs want to bond with us in ways other species don't." (Related: "Dogs' Brains Reorganized by Breeding.")

While research reveals more and more insight into the minds of our furry best friends, Kaminski said, "We still don't know just how smart they are."

Read More..

'Blade Runner' Denies Intentionally Killing Girlfriend

Olympian Oscar Pistorius today denied that he willfully killed his girlfriend, telling a South African court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.

Pistorius, 26 and a double-amputee Olympian, was charged today with premeditated murder, or a Schedule 6 offense, which under South African law limits his chances for parole if convicted.

Pistorius, who gained worldwide fame for running on carbon-fiber blades and competing against able-bodied runners at the Olympics, is accused of shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 14.

PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing

In a statement read by his lawyer, the runner said he and Steenkamp went to bed together before he was awoken by a noise he thought was an intruder coming from the bathroom.

Filled with a "sense of terror," he removed the 9-mm pistol he kept hidden under his bed and, without putting on his prosthetic legs, began shooting through the bathroom door, according to his statement.

It was only then that he realized Steenkamp was not in bed, he said in the statement. Fearing she was inside the bathroom, he says, he broke down the door using a cricket bat and carried the woman outside, where he called for help, and she soon died.

Oscar Pistorius: Was Shooting Premeditated? Watch Video

Conflicting Theories Muddle Oscar Pistorius Murder Case Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius Allegedly Fought the Night of Shooting Watch Video

Pistorius appeared in court today for the first time since his Valentine's Day arrest, as prosecutors laid out their case, insisting that the runner could not have mistaken his girlfriend for an intruder.

"[Pistorius] shot and killed an innocent woman," Gerrie Nel, the senior state prosecutor, said in court, adding that there is "no possible explanation to support" the notion that Pistorius thought Steenkamp was an intruder.

Police responding to neighbors' calls about shouting and gunshots at Pistorius' home in the guarded and gated complex in the South African capital discovered Steenkamp's body. A 9-mm pistol was recovered at the home.

Prosecutors said Steenkamp had arrived at the house with the expectation of spending the night with Pistorius. They said that Steenkamp was shot while in the bathroom, which is about 21 feet from the main bedroom, and that the two rooms are linked by a passage. The door to the toilet was broken down from the outside, prosecutors said, implying that the bathroom door had been locked.

Prosecutors believe it's a case of premeditated murder because, they say, Pistorius had to stop, put on his prosthetic legs, grab a gun and then walk 21 feet to a bathroom.

The premeditated murder charge means that he would likely be sentenced to life in prison if convicted, and that he is likely to be denied bail, which is expected to be decided later today.

South Africa has moved away from the jury system, in light of its brutally racist past, so Pistorius' fate will rest in the hands of a judge and two magistrates.

The prosecution had said that the defense would no doubt argue for the charge to be downgraded to a Schedule 5 offense, but that was clearly wrong, according to the prosecution.

In a Schedule 5 offense, the onus is on the prosecution to prove that it would be in the interest of justice to keep the accused behind bars and not release him on bail. A Schedule 6 offense is a more serious category, wherein the defense has to prove that it would be in the interest of justice to release the accused person on bail.

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The fish with a rainbow eye

Michael Marshall, environment reporter

(Image: Randall Benton/The Sacramento Bee)

These eyes are positively spectral. They belong to a Caribbean trumpetfish, and their many colours are created by the refraction of light.

Rays of light bend as they pass in and out of the fish's eyes, and different colours of light bend different amounts. As a result, what was previously white light splinters into bands of different colours, like a rainbow. From bottom to top in the photo, the colours in the eye follow part of the usual rainbow sequence, from orange to blue.

Like all trumpetfish, Aulostomus maculatus has a long thin body rather like that of an eel. It often swims vertically, disguising itself among vertical corals. But it also camouflages itself by swimming along the lateral lines of larger fish.

The photograph, by Randall Benton, has just won third prize in the Nature category of the World Press Photo of the Year awards 2012.

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EU agrees new sanctions against North Korea after nuclear test

BRUSSELS: The European Union agreed a raft of new sanctions on Monday against North Korea in retaliation for the country's nuclear test last week, EU officials said.

The measures range from financial measures to travel bans and asset freezes against individuals.

The sanctions include the implementation of individual sanctions approved at UN level as well as EU restrictions on financial dealings and trade sanctions on items potentially linked to Pyonyang's ballistic and nuclear programmes, the source said.

"It is a tough package that aims to mark our opposition to the nuclear test," conducted by Pyonyang on February 12, said a senior EU diplomat who asked not to be named.

The UN Security Council on January 22 ordered expanded sanctions against North Korea, adding its state space agency, a bank, four trading companies and four individuals to an existing UN sanctions list.

- AFP/de

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Get a Logitech Harmony 700 universal remote for $59.99

The Logitech Harmony 700.

(Credit:
Logitech)

This is an update of a deal I posted last summer.

Juggling is meant for circus folk, not home-theater owners. Yet that's exactly what you're doing if you have more than one device and, ergo, more than one remote.

Regular Cheapskate readers know I'm a fan of Logitech's Harmony series of universal remotes. One of the better models, the 700, has a list price of $119.99 (or used to -- it's been discontinued). Ouch.

For a limited time, and while supplies last, TigerDirect via Ebay has the refurbished Harmony 700 universal remote for $59.99 shipped.

What's so great about the Harmony series? Thanks to Logitech's wizard-driven software, they're significantly easier to program than most universal remotes. Just choose your gear from a mammoth database and presto: you're good to go. They're also blissfully user-friendly, with guided onscreen help in case one component didn't turn on or switch modes or something.

The Harmony 700 features a color LCD, a rechargeable battery (though not a charging dock), and support for up to six devices.

The user reviews on this model average four stars out of five at , both at Amazon's product page.

And CNET editor John P. Falcone gave it four stars out of five in his full review of the remote. You can see his First Look video below.

Because this is a refurb, the warranty expires after 90 days. (That's a guess: Although the duration isn't specified in the Ebay listing, TigerDirect lists a 90-day warranty on its own product page for the same remote.) For what it's worth, I've had the same Harmony One for over four years, and it's humming along just fine. If you're still juggling multiple remotes, I think you'll find this is $60 very well spent.

Bonus deal: Another good rerun: Staples has the Kindle Fire HD 8.9" Wi-Fi tablet for $269 shipped (plus sales tax where applicable). That's $30 off the regular price, making it a match for the similarly sized Barnes & Noble Nook HD+. I like the latter a teensy bit better, but for $269 for an 8.9-inch
tablet, you win either way.

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.

Read More..

Confirmed: Dogs Sneak Food When People Aren't Looking

Many dog owners will swear their pups are up to something when out of view of watchful eyes. Shoes go missing, couches have mysterious teeth marks, and food disappears. They seem to disregard the word "no."

Now, a new study suggests dogs might understand people even better than we thought. (Related: "Animal Minds.")

The research shows that domestic dogs, when told not to snatch a piece of food, are more likely to disobey the command in a dark room than in a lit room.

This suggests that man's best friend is capable of understanding a human's point of view, said study leader Juliane Kaminski, a psychologist at the U.K.'s University of Portmouth.

"The one thing we can say is that dogs really have specialized skills in reading human communication," she said. "This is special in dogs." (Read "How to Build a Dog.")

Sneaky Canines

Kaminski and colleagues recruited 84 dogs, all of which were more than a year old, motivated by food, and comfortable with both strangers and dark rooms.

The team then set up experiments in which a person commanded a dog not to take a piece of food on the floor and repeated the commands in a room with different lighting scenarios ranging from fully lit to fully dark.

They found that the dogs were four times as likely to steal the food—and steal it more quickly—when the room was dark. (Take our dog quiz.)

"We were thinking what affected the dog was whether they saw the human, but seeing the human or not didn't affect the behavior," said Kaminski, whose study was published recently in the journal Animal Cognition.

Instead, she said, the dog's behavior depended on whether the food was in the light or not, suggesting that the dog made its decision based on whether the human could see them approaching the food.

"In a general sense, [Kaminski] and other researchers are interested in whether the dog has a theory of mind," said Alexandra Horowitz, head of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard University, who was not involved in the new study.

Something that all normal adult humans have, theory of mind is "an understanding that others have different perspective, knowledge, feelings than we do," said Horowitz, also the author of Inside of a Dog.

Smarter Than We Think

While research has previously been focused on our closer relatives—chimpanzees and bonobos—interest in dog cognition is increasing, thanks in part to owners wanting to know what their dogs are thinking. (Pictures: How smart are these animals?)

"The study of dog cognition suddenly began about 15 years ago," Horowitz said.

Part of the reason for that, said Brian Hare, director of the Duke Canine Cognition Lab and author of The Genius of Dogs, is that "science thought dogs were unremarkable."

But "dogs have a genius—years ago we didn't know what that was," said Hare, who was not involved in the new research. (See pictures of the the evolution of dogs, from wolf to woof.)

Many of the new dog studies are variations on research done with chimpanzees, bonobos, and even young children. Animal-cognition researchers are looking into dogs' ability to imitate, solve problems, or navigate social environments.

So just how much does your dog understand? It's much more than you—and science—probably thought.

Selectively bred as companions for thousands of years, dogs are especially attuned to human emotions—and, study leader Kaminski said, are better at reading human cues than even our closest mammalian relatives.

"There has been a physiological change in dogs because of domestication," Duke's Hare added. "Dogs want to bond with us in ways other species don't." (Related: "Dogs' Brains Reorganized by Breeding.")

While research reveals more and more insight into the minds of our furry best friends, Kaminski said, "We still don't know just how smart they are."

Read More..

Country Singer Mindy McCready Dead at 37

Mindy McCready, the country singer who soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," but struggled with substance abuse, served time in jail and fought a lengthy battle with her mother over custody of her son has died of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. She was 37.

Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a report of gun shots fired at McCready's Heber Springs, Ark., home at around 3:30 p.m. today.

There they found McCready on the front porch. She was pronounced dead at the scene from what appeared to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.

PHOTOS: In Memoriam 2013

McCready's boyfriend, David Wilson, died in January of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. McCready was ordered to enter rehab shortly after Wilson's death, and her two children, Zander, 6, and 9-month-old Zayne were taken from her. She was released after one day to undergo outpatient care.

McCready scored a number-one Billboard country hit in 1996 with "Guys Do It All the Time," but in recent years, the country crooner has received more media attention for her troubled personal life than her music.

She has been arrested multiple times on drug charges and probation violations and has been hospitalized for overdoses several times, including in 2010, when she was found unconscious at her mother's home after taking a painkiller and muscle relaxant.

Angela Weiss/Getty Images

Country Singer Mindy McCready Dead at Age 37 Watch Video

Mindy McCready Details Moment Cops Found Her, Son Watch Video

RELATED: Mindy McCready: Police Take Son

Her mother, Gayle Inge, was appointed to be her son Zander's legal guardian in 2007 after McCready was arrested for violating probation on a drug-related charge. The boy's father is McCready's ex-boyfriend Billy McKnight.

Following a custody hearing in May 2011, McCready released a statement, saying, "We have progressed in a positive manner to reunite me and my son, Zander. I feel very optimistic this will happen in the near future."

But just six months later, in November 2011, was accused of violating a court order for failing to bring Zander back to her mother in Florida after a visit. The boy was placed in foster care while McCready and her mother worked out the custody dispute.

McCready's struggle with substance abuse was broadcast in 2010 on the third season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew."

McCready also claimed to have carried on a decade-long affair with baseball star Roger Clemens that began was she was 15 years old and he was 28. Clemens denied that the relationship was sexual in nature.

"You know what, I don't think I'm ever going to be one of those people that has a normal, quiet existence," McCready told ABC Radio in 2010. "I've been chosen for some reason to be bigger and larger than life in every way. Negative and positive."

McCready, who was born and raised in southern Florida, moved to Nashville when she was 18 to start her music career.

Within a few months, she was starting to work with producer David Malloy, who got her tapes to RLG Records. The company signed her to a contract after seeing her in concert, giving her a record deal less than a year after her arrival in Nashville.

Her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," went gold within six months of its release in April 1996, and eventually went multi-platinum. Two more followed: "If I Don't Stay the Night," in 1997; and "I'm Not So Tough" in 1999.

Her most recent album, "I'm Still Here," featuring new versions of her early hits "Ten Thousand Angels" and "Guys Do It All the Time," was released in March 2010.

Read More..

False memories prime immune system for future attacks

IN A police line-up, a falsely remembered face is a big problem. But for the body's police force – the immune system – false memories could be a crucial weapon.

When a new bacterium or virus invades the body, the immune system mounts an attack by sending in white blood cells called T-cells that are tailored to the molecular structure of that invader. Defeating the infection can take several weeks. However, once victorious, some T-cells stick around, turning into memory cells that remember the invader, reducing the time taken to kill it the next time it turns up.

Conventional thinking has it that memory cells for a particular microbe only form in response to an infection. "The dogma is that you need to be exposed," says Mark Davis of Stanford University in California, but now he and his colleagues have shown that this is not always the case.

The team took 26 samples from the Stanford Blood Center. All 26 people had been screened for diseases and had never been infected with HIV, herpes simplex virus or cytomegalovirus. Despite this, Davis's team found that all the samples contained T-cells tailored to these viruses, and an average of 50 per cent of these cells were memory cells.

The idea that T-cells don't need to be exposed to the pathogen "is paradigm shifting," says Philip Ashton-Rickardt of Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study. "Not only do they have capacity to remember, they seem to have seen a virus when they haven't."

So how are these false memories created? To a T-cell, each virus is "just a collection of peptides", says Davis. And so different microbes could have structures that are similar enough to confuse the T-cells.

To test this idea, the researchers vaccinated two people with an H1N1 strain of influenza and found that this also stimulated the T-cells to react to two bacteria with a similar peptide structure. Exposing the samples from the blood bank to peptide sequences from certain gut and soil bacteria and a species of ocean algae resulted in an immune response to HIV (Immunology, doi.org/kgg).

The finding could explain why vaccinating children against measles seems to improve mortality rates from other diseases. It also raises the possibility of creating a database of cross-reactive microbes to find new vaccination strategies. "We need to start exploring case by case," says Davis.

"You could find innocuous pathogens that are good at vaccinating against nasty ones," says Ashton-Rickardt. The idea of cross-reactivity is as old as immunology, he says. But he is excited about the potential for finding unexpected correlations. "Who could have predicted that HIV was related to an ocean algae?" he says. "No one's going to make that up!"

This article appeared in print under the headline "False memories prime our defences"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

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Pope calls for Church to "renew", thousands flock to Angelus

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI called on the Church and its faithful on Sunday to "renew themselves" as tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists attended his penultimate Angelus prayers.

Families with young children, pensioners and nuns packed into the square in the sunshine said they had come to pay their respects to the pope, make their goodbyes or just share in a historic event ahead of Benedict's resignation.

Groups of scouts held up banners reading "We have loved you so much!" and "We will be with you... always" and said they wanted to show Benedict that his shock decision to stand down on February 28 had not shaken their faith in him.

"He has done it for the good of the Church, and will keep serving us," said Germana Blaiotta.

A serene-looking Benedict waved to the crowds and thanked them for turning out in such large numbers, calling it a "sign of affection and spiritual closeness", as the onlookers called out "viva il papa" (long live the pope).

The Vatican said over 50,000 people had turned out to see the 85-year-old pope, while local authorities put the number at over 100,000.

Benedict, whose surpise announcement last Monday that he would step down after eight years rocked the Church, called on the world's faithful to "refocus on God by disowning pride and egoism".

His words were seemed by some to hold a veiled reference to internal bickering within the Church in recent months, as well as the jostle for power as cardinals from all over the world prepare to vote in his successor.

"Benedict did everything for the Church, he was always in the limelight but they did nothing but criticise him and try and undermine him. Whoever follows him will have to have strong nerves," said Margherita Yager, 61, from Germany.

Christine Renier, a 48-year-old teacher from Paris, said she was in Rome on holiday and had wanted to see the pontiff before he retires to a secluded monastery behind the Vatican walls for a life of contemplation.

"It is a sad day, but I think Benedict was actually too rigid and lost many faithful among the young. I'm hoping for a pope who can throw out the bureaucracy and get back to the Church's roots, perhaps an African," she said.

Amid speculation over which of the 117 cardinals in the running might snap up the Vatican's top job, Italian media said Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Archbishop of Milan, was among the favourites backed by Benedict.

After meeting the pope on Saturday, Scola said Benedict had told him "you have to become a light for everyone", a phrase pounced on by the media as a clue.

"Significant words which will be weighed by everyone," said the Repubblica, while La Stampa agreed they were "meaningful words".

At St Peter's Square, tourists snapping souvenir photographs of Benedict on their smart phones said he may have revolutionised the papacy.

"This is a moment which will go down in history. He's opened the door to future resignations and I cannot see anyone suffering through an old age as pope again. From now on they'll retire," said Michele Agostino, 66.

Later Sunday, the pontiff will start a week-long spiritual retreat and have only very few public engagements before he formally steps down -- the first to resign voluntarily in 700 years.

Benedict will receive Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on February 23, celebrate his last Angelus prayer on February 24 and hold a final audience in St Peter's Square with tens of thousands of followers on February 27.

- AFP/xq

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Russian meteorite: The conspiracy theories

A strange time for a military attack?

(Credit:
CNN; screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

A good hearty conspiracy theory can shine a sharp light on two of humanity's most enduring traits.

One, of course, is humanity's boundless imagination. The other is humanity's essential suspicion of humanity.

So while you might be deeply immersed in Bill Nye's explanation of the Russian meteorite, those with darker sensibilities have filled the Web with their fears and hauntings about the phenomenon.

There are few nations with greater awareness of dark sensibilities than Russia. The fact that there seems to be little evidence of meteorite fragments on the ground has encouraged some Russians to offer their own suspicions.

As the Toronto Globe and Mail reports, nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky hasn't been slow to offer something of a Hot War perspective.

"It's not meteors falling. It's a new weapon being tested by the Americans," he was quoted as saying.

We know from our recent experience of North Korea that weapons testing is an imprecise science.

But if you were an American in the mood to test a weapon, would Chelyabinsk, Russia, be your very first choice of place for the experiment?

Perhaps Tallahassee; Area 51; and Bialystok, Poland, were all unavailable due to prior commitments. Or perhaps it wasn't the Americans, but, say, the North Koreans, who mistook Chelyabinsk for, say, Chelsea.

Zhirinovsky's rather emotionally manipulative offering was countered by Russia's Emergency Ministry, which dedicated itself to an extensive rebuttal of his belief (and that of others) that this was some sort of military thing. The rebuttal? "Rubbish."

But that wasn't going to put off the local media, was it? Not only do they have papers to sell, they also have theories to expound to a troubled nation and world.

So, as The Atlantic reports, the local Znak newspaper accepted that this was a meteorite but insisted the explosion was caused by military defense blowing it up.

More Technically Incorrect

Yes, of course it has a source in the military. You thought it didn't?

Though I've watched a few movies in which exciting things happen, I don't find it easy to imagine that some sort of terrestrially created missile-laden aircraft could really explode a meteorite in such a manner.

It is easier to imagine, though, that politicians like Zhirinovsky might take the opportunity to foment a little rage.

Indeed, Alex Jones' infamously well-guarded Infowars site offered that Zhirinovsky insisted that America -- in the person of Secretary of State John Kerry -- had tried to give Russia advance notice of its "attack."

The Drudge Report led me to a piece at Foreign Policy that explained that Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, simply hadn't called Kerry back.

Which all suggests that Russia isn't, after all, living in fear of an attack from the U.S. Especially one over Chelyabinsk.

On balance, I prefer to currently believe Nye. He is the science guy, after all. And science guys know scientific events when they see them.

I hope.

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Pictures: What the Presidents Brought Home

Photograph by Bill Ray, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

When paleontologist Paul Olsen (pictured left, in 1970 at 17 years old) first started looking for dinosaurs in 1967, he never dreamed that he'd end up the subject of White House memos between President Richard Nixon and his senior advisers.

Or that one of the dinosaur footprints he discovered would find its way into a presidential collection.

But that's exactly what happened when Olsen and his friend Tony Lessa (right) successfully lobbied for the creation of a park in 1970 near Livingston, New Jersey (map).

The future park, located in a quarry owned by Walter Kidde Precision Instruments, was a budding paleontologist's dream.

The area was covered in dinosaur footprints, such as ones made by Eubrontes gigantis (pictured), and some of them were more than 200 million years old.

"The footprints are very well preserved in that particular spot," said Olsen, now at Columbia University in New York. And the arrangement of some of them—many small footprints associated with one larger set—indicated behaviors that included parental care, he said.

It took Olsen and Lessa two and a half years to get the area designated as a park, but once they did, an Olsen family friend started writing letters to the White House to see if the boys could meet the President.

"[Presidential speechwriter] William Safire said he didn't want President Nixon to be associated with the concept of a dinosaur," said Olsen. The White House staff discussed this while dealing with the Vietnam War, going so far as to write memos on the situation, he said.

Olsen and Lessa never got their meeting with the President. But Nixon ended up sending the teenagers presidential commendations.

Olsen sent the President a cast of the E. gigantis footprint as a thank you. The cast now resides at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California.

The actual footprint fossils, stored in a shed at the park, have walked off. "No one knows what happened to them," Olsen said.

February 17, 2013

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Gun Ban Would Protect More Than 2,200 Firearms

Congress' latest crack at a new assault weapons ban would protect more than 2,200 specific firearms, including a semi-automatic rifle that is nearly identical to one of the guns used in the bloodiest shootout in FBI history.

One model of that firearm, the Ruger .223 caliber Mini-14, is on the proposed list to be banned, while a different model of the same gun is on a list of exempted firearms in legislation the Senate is considering. The gun that would be protected from the ban has fixed physical features and can't be folded to be more compact. Yet the two firearms are equally deadly.

"What a joke," said former FBI agent John Hanlon, who survived the 1986 shootout in Miami. He was shot in the head, hand, groin and hip with a Ruger Mini-14 that had a folding stock. Two FBI agents died and five others were wounded.

Hanlon recalled lying on the street as brass bullet casings showered on him. He thought the shooter had an automatic weapon.

Both models of the Ruger Mini-14 specified in the proposed bill can take detachable magazines that hold dozens of rounds of ammunition. "I can't imagine what the difference is," Hanlon said.

President Barack Obama has called for restoring a ban on military-style assault weapons and limiting the size of ammunition magazines.

Gun Owners Rally State Capitals Across Country Watch Video

A bill introduced last month by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. would ban 157 specific firearms designed for military and law enforcement use and exempt others made for hunting purposes. It also would ban ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

Yet there are firearms that would be protected under Feinstein's proposal that can take large capacity magazines like the ones used in mass shootings that enable a gunman to fire dozens of rounds of ammunition without reloading.

Feinstein said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press that the list of more than 2,200 exempted firearms was designed to "make crystal clear" that the bill would not affect hunting and sporting weapons.

The December shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that left 26 students and educators dead forced Washington to focus on curbing gun violence, a risky political move not tried in decades.

The gun industry, which is fighting any sort of ban, says gun ownership in the U.S. is the highest it's ever been, with more than 100 million firearms owners.

Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden have traveled around the country in an effort to gain support for new laws. Feinstein's proposal is the only sweeping piece of legislation designed to ban assault weapons currently being considered.

But some gun experts say the lists of banned and exempted firearms show a lack of understanding and expertise of guns.

"There's no logic to it," said Greg Danas, president of a Massachusetts-based expert witness business and firearms ballistic laboratory. "What kind of effect is it going to have?"

Feinstein's bill defines an assault weapon as a semi-automatic firearm with a detachable magazine that has one of several military characteristics that are specified in her legislation. Examples of those characteristics include a pistol grip, which makes a firearm easier to hold, and a forward grip, which makes the firearm easier to stabilize to improve accuracy. The definition is similar to the one in Congress' original ban on assault weapons, which went into effect in 1994 and was widely criticized for outlawing firearms based on cosmetic features.

Read More..

False memories prime immune system for future attacks

IN A police line-up, a falsely remembered face is a big problem. But for the body's police force – the immune system – false memories could be a crucial weapon.

When a new bacterium or virus invades the body, the immune system mounts an attack by sending in white blood cells called T-cells that are tailored to the molecular structure of that invader. Defeating the infection can take several weeks. However, once victorious, some T-cells stick around, turning into memory cells that remember the invader, reducing the time taken to kill it the next time it turns up.

Conventional thinking has it that memory cells for a particular microbe only form in response to an infection. "The dogma is that you need to be exposed," says Mark Davis of Stanford University in California, but now he and his colleagues have shown that this is not always the case.

The team took 26 samples from the Stanford Blood Center. All 26 people had been screened for diseases and had never been infected with HIV, herpes simplex virus or cytomegalovirus. Despite this, Davis's team found that all the samples contained T-cells tailored to these viruses, and an average of 50 per cent of these cells were memory cells.

The idea that T-cells don't need to be exposed to the pathogen "is paradigm shifting," says Philip Ashton-Rickardt of Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study. "Not only do they have capacity to remember, they seem to have seen a virus when they haven't."

So how are these false memories created? To a T-cell, each virus is "just a collection of peptides", says Davis. And so different microbes could have structures that are similar enough to confuse the T-cells.

To test this idea, the researchers vaccinated two people with an H1N1 strain of influenza and found that this also stimulated the T-cells to react to two bacteria with a similar peptide structure. Exposing the samples from the blood bank to peptide sequences from certain gut and soil bacteria and a species of ocean algae resulted in an immune response to HIV (Immunology, doi.org/kgg).

The finding could explain why vaccinating children against measles seems to improve mortality rates from other diseases. It also raises the possibility of creating a database of cross-reactive microbes to find new vaccination strategies. "We need to start exploring case by case," says Davis.

"You could find innocuous pathogens that are good at vaccinating against nasty ones," says Ashton-Rickardt. The idea of cross-reactivity is as old as immunology, he says. But he is excited about the potential for finding unexpected correlations. "Who could have predicted that HIV was related to an ocean algae?" he says. "No one's going to make that up!"

This article appeared in print under the headline "False memories prime our defences"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

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Pertapis children's home using music to boost academic performance

SINGAPORE: Pertapis children's home is trying to raise its residents' academic achievements through using music as educational therapy.

As part of the programme, the children learn to play various musical instruments.

It is one way to help them express themselves and focus better on their studies as a result.

The home is also getting help from partners like Hwa Chong Institution for lessons on playing other instruments.

At the end of the music therapy programme, the children will be performing in a concert next month, where their family members are invited to attend.

Pertapis has seen positive changes in the children.

Haloyah Atana, administrator at Pertapis said: "We have seen slight improvements in their studies such as increase in marks in the exams. They are also more forthcoming in seeking help.They are more open and able to manage their daily needs."

- CNA/xq

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How Apple got serious about style

Humble beginnings -- an early conceptual modular Apple tablet from 1982.

(Credit:
Harmut Esslinger, Frog Design)

When Frog Design founder Hartmut Esslinger met Steve Jobs in 1982, it sparked a chain of events that monumentally changed Apple's design philosophy forever. It wasn't just a change in how future products would look -- Esslinger ushered in a change of mindset and a unified design language across products. Esslinger's new book, "Design Forward: Creative Strategies for Sustainable Change," available today in the U.S., delivers some fascinating insights into those crucial early years at Apple.

The dialect that emerged from that period, known as the Snow White design language, influenced dozens of Apple devices starting with the Apple IIc in 1984 and lasting until the Macintosh IIfx in 1990.

Our gallery below starts off with a range of computers that earned Frog Design a hefty annual contract and a role as a leader in Apple's product design process. The two companies didn't just create computers, however; they went beyond and created a mock
tablet, computer phone, flat-screen devices, and more.

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Picture Archive: Making Mount Rushmore, 1935-1941

Photograph from Rapid City Chamber of Commerce/National Geographic

There's no such thing as Presidents' Day.

According to United States federal government code, the holiday is named Washington's Birthday, and has been since it went nationwide in 1885.

But common practice is more inclusive. The holiday expanded to add in other U.S. presidents in the 1960s, and the moniker Presidents' Day became popular in the 1980s and stuck. It may be that George Washington (b. February 22, 1732) andAbraham Lincoln (b. February 12, 1809) still get the lion's share of attention—and appear in all the retail sale ads—on the third Monday in February, but the popular idea is that all 44 presidents get feted.

Mount Rushmore is a lot like that one day a year writ large—and in granite. It's carved 60 feet (18 meters) tall and 185 feet (56 meters) wide, from Washington's right ear to Lincoln's left.

The monument's sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, grew up in Idaho, a first-generation American born to Danish parents. He studied art in France and became good friends with Auguste Rodin. Borglum mostly worked in bronze, but in the early 1910s he was hired to carve the likenesses of Confederate leaders into Stone Mountain in Georgia.

He was about to be fired from that job for creative differences about the same time that a South Dakota historian named Doane Robinson had an idea. Robinson wanted to have a monument carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota, maybe Western historical figures like Chief Red Cloud and Lewis and Clark, each on their own granite spire. (Plan a road trip in the Black Hills.)

Robinson hired Borglum and gave him carte blanche. Borglum was looking for something with national appeal, so he chose to depict four presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

Borglum wanted to represent the first 150 years of the nation's history, choosing four presidents as symbols of their respective time periods. He took a tour of western South Dakota, searching for an ideal canvas.

The sculptor was looking for three things: a surface strong enough to sculpt, a mountain big enough to hold several figures, and a mountain face that received morning sunlight. Mount Rushmore fit the bill and was already part of a national forest, so it was easy to set aside as a national memorial.

Work started in 1927. Calvin Coolidge attended the dedication ceremony. It took 14 years to finish the carving, conducted mostly in summertime because of the area's harsh winters.

There were approximately 30 workers on the mountain at any give time. In total about 400 had worked on it by the time the monument was finished. Though the project involved thousands of pounds of dynamite and perilous climbs, not a single person died during the work.

Borglum himself died of natural causes in 1941, though, just six months before the project was declared "closed as is" by Congress that Halloween. His son Lincoln—named for his father's favorite president—took over.

In the photo above, a worker refines the details of Washington's left nostril.

About 90 percent of the mountain was carved using dynamite, which could get within 3 to 5 inches (8 to 13 centimeters) of the final facial features. For those last few inches, workers used what was known as the honeycomb method: Jackhammer workers pounded a series of three-inch-deep holes followed up by chiselers who knocked off the honeycomb pieces to get the final shape. Then carvers smoothed the "skin's" surface.

—Johnna Rizzo

February 16, 2013

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Vatican Raises Possibility of Early March Conclave

The Vatican raised the possibility Saturday that the conclave to elect the next pope might start sooner than March 15, the earliest date possible under current rules that require a 15-20 day waiting period after the papacy becomes vacant.

Vatican spokesman The Rev. Federico Lombardi said that the Vatican rules on papal succession are open to interpretation and that "this is a question that people are discussing."

"It is possible that church authorities can prepare a proposal to be taken up by the cardinals on the first day after the papal vacancy" to move up the start of conclave, Lombardi said.

He explained that the 15-20 day rule is in place to allow time for the arrival of "all those (cardinals) who are absent" to take part in the conclave in the usual circumstances of convening after a pope dies. But in this case, the cardinals already know that this pontificate will end on Feb. 28 with the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, and therefore can get to Rome in plenty of time to take part in the conclave, Lombardi said.

L'Osservatore Romano Vatican Pool/Getty Images

The date of the conclave's start is important because Holy Week begins March 24, with Palm Sunday Mass followed by Easter Sunday on March 31. In order to have a new pope in place in time for the most solemn liturgical period on the church calendar, he would need to be installed as pope by Sunday, March 17. Given the tight time-frame, speculation has mounted that some sort of arrangement would be made to start the conclave earlier than a strict reading of the law would allow.

Questions about the start of the conclave have swirled ever since Benedict announced on Feb. 11 that he would retire, the first pontiff in 600 years to abdicate rather than stay in office until death. As a result, his decision has created a host of questions about how the Vatican will proceed, given that its procedures for the so-called "sede vacante" — or vacant seat — period between papacies won't begin with a pope's death.

Lombardi also gave more details about Benedict's final audiences and plans for retirement, saying already 35,000 people have requested tickets for his final general audience to be held in St. Peter's Square on Feb. 27. He said Benedict would spend about two months in the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome immediately after his abdication, to allow enough time for renovations to be completed on his retirement home — a converted monastery inside the Vatican walls.

That means Benedict would be expected to return to the Vatican, no longer as pope, around the end of April or beginning of May, Lombardi said.

He was asked if and when the pope would meet with his successor and whether he would participate in his installation Mass; like many open questions about the end of Benedict's papacy, both issues simply haven't yet been resolved, Lombardi said.

———

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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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

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

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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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