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Launch of Atlas Rocket

Rudolph the red-nosed brain-deer! Scientists find festive image in head scan

Maybe the subject of this head scan had Christmas on the brain. Or maybe the scientists who examined it did as well.

Either way, the close-up image of a blood vessel reminded researchers of Father Christmas' most-famous reindeer as they studied the inner workings of neurons in the hippocampus region of the brain.

Staff at Newcastle University decided the picture looks like a reindeer with antlers flying through the starry sky. Even its eye and tail are visible as part of the pin head-sized vessel.

Brain-deer: The Rudolph-shaped blood vessel was seen by Newcastle University scientists who were examining a brain scan

The blob for a nose happened by chance when the experts were labelling the image. They then overexposed the image to make it show up red.

Claudia Racca, of the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University, who performed the experiment with colleague David Cox, said: 'Biology can throw up things like this, but it was a nice surprise to find this image.

'We were looking at a section of the tissue and noticed this strange but familiar shape.

'It was intriguing and we noticed the similarity to a reindeer.

'We then took an overexposed picture of it and the red blob for the nose and the white antlers showed up even better.

The image was located in the Hippocampus region of the brain, responsible for spatial awareness and long-term memory

'We got distracted from the science at that point and had a bit of fun with the pictures of Rudolph instead.

'It may not be very valuable scientifically but it looks nice on the eye.'

The hippocampus region of the brain is responsible for spatial awareness and long-term memory.

Judge: State ban on protests at military funerals unconstitutional

Does this make you sick?

Missouri's tight restrictions on protests and picketing outside military funerals were tossed out by a federal judge Monday, over free speech concerns.

A small Kansas church had brought suit over its claimed right to loudly march outside the burials and memorial services of those killed in overseas conflicts. The state legislature had passed a law to keep members of the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church from demonstrating within 300 feet of such private services.

Church members, led by pastor Fred Phelps, believe God is punishing the United States for "the sin of homosexuality" through events including soldiers' deaths. Members have traveled the country, shouting at grieving family members at funerals and displaying such signs as "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "God Blew Up the Troops" and "AIDS Cures Fags."

The Supreme Court last year had granted a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of the law until it could be challenged. The justices will hear a similar challenge this fall involving the same church.

Judge Fernando Gaitan in a 19-page order, dismissed the state legislation.

The laws, said the Kansas City-based judge, "could have the effect of criminalizing speech the mourners want to hear, including speech from counter-protesters to plaintiffs' [the Westboro Church's] message. As the law burdens substantially more speech than is necessary to further the government's interest, [the law] violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment."

Phelps, his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, and other church members had protested near the August 2005 funeral of Army Spc. Edward Lee Myers in St. Joseph, Missouri. The married Army Airborne Ranger died while on patrol in Samarra, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee military vehicle. He was 21, and in addition to his wife, he left behind a daughter. He was later buried at Leavenworth National Cemetery in Kansas.

In response to that protest, Missouri lawmakers passed the "Spc. Edward Lee Myers Law," criminalizing picketing "in front or about" a funeral location or procession.

Phelps-Roper then went to federal court to ask for a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the statute until its constitutionality could be reviewed. A federal appeals court eventually agreed. That court did not address the broader First Amendment claims, but noted the law was overly intrusive, since it "restricts expressive activity not just within or on the premises of a cemetery of a church, but also on traditional public fora such as the adjacent public streets and sidewalks."

The Supreme Court has never addressed the specific issues of laws designed to protect the "sanctity and dignity of memorial and funeral services," as well as the privacy of family and friends of the deceased. But the justices in October will hear an appeal from the father of a U.S. solider killed in Iraq, after members of the Westboro Church conducted an angry demonstration at his son's burial service in Maryland. The family of the Marine had won a $5 million judgment from the protesters, which was overturned by lower federal courts.

At issue is a balancing test between the privacy rights of grieving families and the free-speech rights of demonstrators, however disturbing and provocative their message. Several other states besides Missouri have attempted to impose specific limits on when and where the church members can protest.

The justices are being asked to address how far states can go to justify picket-free zones and the use of "floating buffers" to silence or restrict the speech or movements of demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights in a funeral setting. Various jurisdictions across the nation have responded to the protests with varying levels of control over the church protesters.

According to a legal brief it filed with the Supreme Court, church members believe it is their duty to protest and picket at certain events, including funerals, to promote their religious message: "That God's promise of love and heaven for those who obey him in this life is counterbalanced by God's wrath and hell for those who do not obey him."

The congregation is made up mostly of Phelps and his family. The pastor has 13 children, and at least 54 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. He described himself as an "old-time" gospel preacher in a CNN interview in 2006, saying, "You can't preach the Bible without preaching the hatred of God."

The church has also protested at least since 1993 at funerals of gay persons, those who died from AIDS, and others whose lifestyles are deemed sinful but were touted as heroic upon their death.

Missouri officials said the appeals court improperly balanced the free speech rights of both sides in favor of the church.

"Mourners cannot avoid a message that targets funerals without forgoing their right to partake in funeral or burial services, so are appropriately viewed as a captive audience" that is simply unable to shut out the offensive message, said state attorneys.

The case is Phelps-Roper v. Koster (06-4156-cv).

Google CEO Schmidt: No Anonymity Is The Future Of Web

No anonymity is the future of web in the opinion of Google's CEO Eric Schmidt. He said many creepy things about privacy at the Techonomy Conference. The focus of the conference was how technology is changing and can change society. Schmidt's message was that anonymity is a dangerous thing and governments will demand an end to it.

Whether it was a Freudian slip or a simple misstatement, Schmidt is correct; it is not obvious that if you are anonymous, you are therefore likely to commit a "terrible, evil crime."

Anonymity equaling a future heinous act seems to be the direction some online security experts are headed. The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace proposes to do away with anonymous multiple identities in favor of one real identity. Part of the reasoning behind one trusted identity is to do away with crime. But isn't this the same logic of anonymity breeding anti-social behavior and criminals?

According to ReadWriteWeb, Schmidt said of anti-social behavior, "The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity. In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it."

Since Google's CEO has proclaimed the future of the web is no anonymity, does that make it a fact? If we keep hearing that privacy is dead and long buried, how long before we accept that anonymity is an anti-social behavior and a crime?

Security expert Bruce Schneier suggests that we protect our privacy if we are thinking about it, but we give up our privacy when we are not thinking about it.

Schneier wrote, "Here's the problem: The very companies whose CEOs eulogize privacy make their money by controlling vast amounts of their users' information. Whether through targeted advertising, cross-selling or simply convincing their users to spend more time on their site and sign up their friends, more information shared in more ways, more publicly means more profits. This means these companies are motivated to continually ratchet down the privacy of their services, while at the same time pronouncing privacy erosions as inevitable and giving users the illusion of control."

The loss of anonymity will endanger privacy. It's unsettling to think "governments will demand" an end to anonymous identities. Even if Schmidt is Google's CEO, his message of anonymity as a dangerous thing is highly controversial. Google is in the business of mining and monetizing data, so isn't that a conflict of interest? Look how much Google knows about you now.

Bruce Schneier put it eloquently, "If we believe privacy is a social good, something necessary for democracy, liberty and human dignity, then we can't rely on market forces to maintain it."

Mexican Drug Cartel Allegedly Puts a Price on Arizona Sheriff’s Head

$1M offered for Arpaio, $1K to join cartel

PHOENIX - He's been at the center of the discussions and controversies surrounding illegal immigration enforcement in Arizona for quite a while.

On the day parts of Arizona's immigration law, SB 1070, went into effect, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in the news for another reason: there's a price on his head - allegedly offered by a Mexican drug cartel.

The audio message in Spanish is a bit garbled, but the text is clear.

"It's offering a million dollars for Sheriff Joe Arpaio's head and offering a thousand dollars for anyone who wants to join the Mexican cartel."

A man who wants to remain anonymous says his wife received the text message Tuesday evening. It also included an international phone number and instructions to pass the message along.

"She showed it to me..I was kind of disgusted..I reported it to the Sheriff's department yesterday..they said they were going to direct the threat squad on it."

Lisa Allen of the Sheriff's office says they believe the message originated in Mexico.

Although the Sheriff has received numerous death threats in the past, they believe this threat is credible because of its timing.

"Arpaio gets threats pretty routinely, but obviously with this heightened awareness of his role in the immigration issue we've got to take this one a little bit more seriously with a million dollar contract out on him," said Allen.

But she says what really concerns investigators is how quickly the message may have been spread. "It's going so many different places that our folks are looking at it and thinking well at any given point in time it could land in front of some crazy person who thinks I can do that."

As for Arpaio's reaction to the threat, "It's a little bit like water off a duck's back for him, but you never know if it's that sense of false bravado with him..you just can't read it, I'm sure he's concerned, I'm sure he's concerned for his family more than anything else," said Allen.

The Sheriff's office says investigators are trying to trace exactly where the text message came from, but because it did originate from an international number, that will be difficult too.

India’s $35 tablet–how low can it go?

India on Thursday unveiled a prototype tablet computer that would sell for a mere 1,500 rupees, or $35, with the price possibly dropping even further as R&D efforts continue.

Kapil Sibal, the country's Minister for Human Resource Development, showed off the super-cheap touch-screen device in New Delhi as part of a push to provide high-quality education to students across the country. The tablet also comes with a solar-power option that could make it more feasible for rural areas.

The Linux-based computer at first glance resembles an Apple iPad and features basic functions you'd expect to see in a tablet--a Web browser, multimedia player, PDF reader, Wi-Fi, and video conferencing ability. It has 2GB of RAM (but no hard disk, instead using a memory card) and USB ports and could be available to kids from primary school up to the university level as early as next year.

Students from several branches of the Indian Institute of Technology co-designed motherboards for the computer, which the ministry would like to see dropping to $20 and possibly getting as low as $10.

Sibal called the as-yet-unnamed device India's answer to MIT's famed OLPC laptop aimed at children in developing nations, which started off five years ago with a projected cost of $100, but ended up going for $200. In May, Marvell Technologies announced that it would partner with the OLPC foundation to create the hardware for a proposed OLPC tablet, currently named the XO-3, that would go for around $100.

But while the extremely low price of India's newly unveiled tablet is generating much hoopla, the gadget still faces hurdles before it lands in the public's hands.

"This is just a prototype," education expert Zubin Malhotra told Newsxlive. "We need to find people who will be able to manufacture these devices at these price points and continue to develop them going forward."

The tablet is part of a larger initiative aimed at improving India's educational system through technology. Nearly 8,500 colleges in the country have already gotten broadband connectivity, according to the Ministry for Human Resource Development, and some 500 Web-based and video courses are available for upload on YouTube and other online portals, with more in the works.

Chicken-and-Egg Mystery Finally Cracked

British scientists believe they have found the answer to an ages-old question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Scientists cracked the puzzle after discovering that the formation of eggs is possible only thanks to a protein found in chicken's ovaries. That means eggs have to be formed in chickens first.

The protein -- called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17) -- speeds up the development of the shell. Researchers from Sheffield and Warwick universities in England laid out their findings in the paper "Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein."

They used a supercomputer to zoom in on the formation of an egg and realized the protein is vital in kick-starting the crystallization process. It works by converting calcium carbonate into the calcite crystals that make up the egg shell.

Dr Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, said "it had long been suspected that the egg came first -- but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first."

"The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation, but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process," Freeman said.

"It's very interesting to find that different types of avian species seem to have a variation of the protein that does the same job."

It is hoped the discovery leads to the invention of new materials.