'jOBS' biopic starring Ashton Kutcher to hit theaters April 19

Ashton Kutcher as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

(Credit:
Sundance )

The Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher will open in theaters on April 19, the movie's distributor announced today.

The indie film, which is set to debut Friday at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Firday, covers Jobs' life during the years 1971 through 2000 -- a time frame that includes the founding of Apple, as well as his ouster, the forming of NeXT and Pixar, and then his return to the company when Apple acquired NeXT.

The movie should not to be confused with a separate production penned by "The Social Network" and "The West Wing" writer Aaron Sorkin. That movie is said to be based on Walter Isaacson's biography, while "jOBS" is based on widely available information.

Principal photography on "jOBS" began at Jobs' childhood home in Los Altos, Calif., in June. Photos from the production have since leaked out, showing Kutcher and others in costume.

Along with Kutcher, the movie also stars Matthew Modine as former Apple CEO John Sculley, Josh Gad as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and "The Help" star Ahna O'Reilly playing Chris-Ann Brennan, Jobs' girlfriend, and the mother of his daughter Lisa. Other additions include J.K. Simmons and Kevin Dunn, who will play venture capitalist Arthur Rock and former Apple CEO Gil Amelio respectively.

Read More..

Deformed Dolphin Accepted Into New Family

In 2011, behavioral ecologists Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany were surprised to discover that a group of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus)—animals not usually known for forging bonds with other species—had taken in an adult bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).

The researchers observed the group in the ocean surrounding the Azores (map)—about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal—for eight days as the dolphin traveled, foraged, and played with both the adult whales and their calves. When the dolphin rubbed its body against the whales, they would sometimes return the gesture.

Among terrestrial animals, cross-species interactions are not uncommon. These mostly temporary alliances are forged for foraging benefits and protection against predators, said Wilson.

They could also be satisfying a desire for the company of other animals, added marine biologist John Francis, vice president for research, conservation, and exploration at the National Geographic Society (the Society owns National Geographic news).

Photographs of dogs nursing tiger cubs, stories of a signing gorilla adopting a pet cat, and videos of a leopard caring for a baby baboon have long circulated the web and caught national attention.

A Rare Alliance

And although dolphins are known for being sociable animals, Wilson called the alliance between sperm whale and bottlenose dolphin rare, as it has never, to his knowledge, been witnessed before.

This association may have started with something called bow riding, a common behavior among dolphins during which they ride the pressure waves generated by the bow of a ship or, in this case, whales, suggested Francis.

"Hanging around slower creatures to catch a ride might have been the first advantage [of such behavior]," he said, adding that this may have also started out as simply a playful encounter.

Wilson suggested that the dolphin's peculiar spinal shape made it more likely to initiate an interaction with the large and slow-moving whales. "Perhaps it could not keep up with or was picked on by other members of its dolphin group," he said in an email.

Default

But the "million-dollar question," as Wilson puts it, is why the whales accepted the lone dolphin. Among several theories presented in an upcoming paper in Aquatic Mammals describing the scientists' observations, they propose that the dolphin may have been regarded as nonthreatening and that it was accepted by default because of the way adult sperm whales "babysit" their calves.

Sperm whales alternate their dives between group members, always leaving one adult near the surface to watch the juveniles. "What is likely is that the presence of the calves—which cannot dive very deep or for very long—allowed the dolphin to maintain contact with the group," Wilson said.

Wilson doesn't believe the dolphin approached the sperm whales for help in protecting itself from predators, since there aren't many dolphin predators in the waters surrounding the Azores.

But Francis was not so quick to discount the idea. "I don't buy that there is no predator in the lifelong experience of the whales and dolphins frequenting the Azores," he said.

He suggested that it could be just as possible that the sperm whales accepted the dolphin for added protection against their own predators, like the killer whale (Orcinus orca), while traveling. "They see killer whales off the Azores, and while they may not be around regularly, it does not take a lot of encounters to make [other] whales defensive," he said.

Read More..

Pentagon to Allow Women in Combat

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will lift a longstanding ban on women serving in combat, according to senior defense officials.

The services have until this May to come up with a plan to implement the change, according to a Defense Department official.

That means the changes could come into effect as early as May, though the services will have until January 2016 to complete the implementation of the changes.

"We certainly want to see this executed responsibly but in a reasonable time frame, so I would hope that this doesn't get dragged out," said former Marine Capt. Zoe Bedell, who joined a recent lawsuit aimed at getting women on the battlefield.

The military services also will have until January 2016 to seek waivers for certain jobs -- but those waivers will require a personal approval from the secretary of defense and will have to be based on rationales other than the direct combat exclusion rule.

The move to allow women in combat, first reported by the Associated Press, was not expected this week, although there has been a concerted effort by the Obama administration to further open up the armed forces to women.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended in January to Secretary Panetta that the direct combat exclusion rule should be lifted.

"I can confirm media reports that the secretary and the chairman are expected to announce the lifting of the direct combat exclusion rule for women in the military," said a senior Defense Department official. "This policy change will initiate a process whereby the services will develop plans to implement this decision, which was made by the secretary of defense upon the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey sent Panetta a memo earlier this month entitled, "Women in Service Implementation Plan."

Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

Soaring With the First Woman Fighter Jet Commander Watch Video

Instant Index: Divers Save Dolphin; Orangutans Play With iPads Watch Video

Extreme Cold Takes Its Toll on Freezing Nation Watch Video

"The time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service," the memo read.

"To implement these initiatives successfully and without sacrificing our warfighting capability or the trust of the American people, we will need time to get it right," he said in the memo, referring to the 2016 horizon.

Women have been officially prohibited from serving in combat since a 1994 rule that barred them from serving in ground combat units. That does not mean they have been immune from danger or from combat.

As Martha Raddatz reported in 2009, women have served in support positions on and off the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, where war is waged on street corners and in markets, putting them at equal risk. Hundreds of thousands of women deployed with the military to those two war zones over the past decade. Hundreds have died.

READ MORE: Female Warriors Engage in Combat in Iraq, Afghanistan

"The reality of the battlefield has changed really since the Vietnam era to where it is today," said Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a former military helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in combat. "Those distinctions on what is combat and what is not really are falling aside. So I think that after having seen women, men, folks who -- cooks, clerks, truck drivers -- serve in combat conditions, the reality is women are already in combat."

Woman have been able to fly combat sorties since 1993. In 2010, the Navy allowed them on submarines. But lifting restrictions on service in frontline ground combat units will break a key barrier in the military.

READ MORE: Smooth Sailing for First Women to Serve on Navy Submarines

READ MORE: Female Fighter Pilot Breaks Gender Barriers

Panetta's decision will set a January 2016 deadline for the military service branches to argue that there are military roles that should remain closed to women.

In February 2012 the Defense Department opened up 14,500 positions to women that had previously been limited to men and lifted a rule that prohibited women from living with combat units.

Panetta also directed the services to examine ways to open more combat roles to women.

However, the ban on direct combat positions has remained in place.

Read More..

MIT website hacked in tribute to Aaron Swartz

Hal Hodson, technology reporter

A tribute to internet activist Aaron Swartz replaced the homepage for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology today, in an apparent act of protest over the university's role in the legal case that led up to Swartz's suicide on 11 Jan.

For a short time, visitors to the MIT.edu home page found a message that read: "R.I.P. Aaron Swartz. Hacked by grand wizard of Lulzsec, Sabu. God Bless America. Down With Anonymous." The background was watermarked with words from a blog post, written by Swartz, titled "Immoral".

Attributing the defacement to "grand wizard of Lulzsec, Sabu" lent the page a sarcastic air, as it's widely known that the former Lulzsec leader was outed as an FBI informant last year.

The attack on MIT's website came amid widespread criticism of how the university handled the case against Swartz, including an article in The New York Times that quoted Swartz's father as saying: "We don't believe [MIT] acted in a neutral way. My belief is they put their institutional concerns first."

According to MIT's service status page, network service was restored within the university as of 1:30 pm EST. The university had not yet returned New Scientist's request for comment when this story was published.

This is the second time since Swartz' death that the MIT site has been the target of attacks. Previously, an MIT sub-domain was replaced with a manifesto for reform of computer and copyright laws. The authors claimed to be operating as a part of the online activist group, Anonymous.

Read More..

Unilever reports 5.0% profit rise to 4.48b euros

THE HAGUE: Global food and cosmetics giant Unilever reported on Wednesday that net profit last year rose by 5.0 per cent from the 2011 level to 4.48 billion euros (US$5.96 billion).

Unilever, which achieved sales exceeding 50 billion euros for the first time with a figure of 51.3 billion euros, up 10.5 per cent, said the outcome was an important step towards its target of sales of 80 billion euros.

"There is no room for complacency," Unilever chief executive Paul Polman nevertheless warned in a statement.

"Markets will remain challenging, with intense competition and volatile commodity costs."

"We remain focused on achieving another year of profitable volume growth ahead of our markets, steady and sustainable core operating margin improvement and strong cash flow."

Unilever's fourth-quarter sales rose by 7.8 per cent, thanks largely to volume growth of 4.8 per cent, higher than the 6.3 per cent expected on average by analysts interviewed by Dow Jones Newswires.

Underlying sales growth in emerging markets was 11.4 per cent, representing 55.0 per cent of the multinational's global turnover.

"Emerging markets again contributed double-digit growth helping us exceed 50 billion euros turnover, an important milestone in our journey to double the size of Unilever from 40 billion euros to 80 billion euros whilst reducing our environmental impact," Polman said.

The company saw strongest sales growth in Asia-Africa, where the figures rose by 10.6 per cent, while Americas sales were up 7.9 per cent.

Performance in Europe was "sluggish", the company said, with sales up 0.8 per cent.

This reflects "the fragile state of consumer confidence and intensely competitive markets," Unilever said.

Nevertheless, "we have responded to the needs of hard-pressed consumers by providing good quality products at low price points."

"Throughout 2012 our markets experienced markedly different dynamics as emerging markets grew in both volume and value terms whilst developed market value remained subdued, with volumes lower than prior year," Unilever said.

The Anglo-Dutch company said that Magnum ice creams and Sunsilk hair products had become "billion-euros brands", bringing the company's total of such brands to 14.

"We continued to invest behind our brands, again increasing advertising and promotions spend," Polman said, with such spending up 470 million euros.

One of the world's leading suppliers of consumer goods, Unilever owns a wide variety of brands including Knorr, Lipton, Dove and Vaseline. It employs 167,000 workers in 100 countries.

- AFP/xq

Read More..

Google's Native Client reaches ARM-based Chromebooks

Google has finished a version of its Native Client programming technology that extends beyond mainstream x86 PC processors into the world of ARM chips.

Native Client, or NaCl for short, is designed to let programmers easily adapt the C or C++ software they've written for native software so that it can run as a part of Web apps, too. It's designed for high performance, but it's also got security mechanisms built in to counter the risks of running malicious code directly on the processor. The first version of NaCl, though, only worked on personal computers using Intel or AMD's x86 chips.

Google's David Sehr announced NaCl for ARM today with version 25 of its NaCl software developer kit, which programmers use to build NaCl programs.

The technology is designed so that programmers can bring their existing code to the Web -- for example, game designers who have written a physics engine in C++. But NaCl has been at odds with the Web philosophy in one important way, namely, that NaCl software doesn't simply run on any device with a browser.

Extending to ARM is thus an important for NaCl, because ARM chips power almost every smartphone out there. But this version of NaCl doesn't do that -- it only works on the new ARM-based Samsung Chromebooks.

To reach mobile phones, Google is banking on a revamp called Portable Native Client, or PNaCl. It adopts a low-level translation technology called LLVM that adapts native code to a variety of processors.

"With Portable Native Client, we'll be able to support not just today's architectures, but also those of tomorrow - and developers won't have to recompile their app," Sehr said in the blog post.

With PNaCl, programmers will be able to produce a single package (with the .pexe extension rather than NaCl's .nexe extension) that will run on all supported devices. With today's approach, programmers must produce separate .nexe files for ARM and for x86.

Another major challenge for Native Client is attracting support. It's built into Chrome, but no other major browser maker supports it, and Mozilla is downright frosty about NaCl.

So far you can only get NaCl software through Google's Chrome Web Store. That's also a big departure from the ordinary Web, where you simply point a browser at a Web page to fetch the necessary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript software.

That'll change with PNaCl, too, Google said. The Chrome Web Store is required today to ensure software is compatible with different chip architectures, Google said in a statement. PNaCl sheds this chip-architecture constraint.

Read More..

The Promise and Perils of Mining Asteroids

Encouraged by new space technologies, a growing fleet of commercial rockets and the vast potential to generate riches, a group of entrepreneurs announced Tuesday that they planned to mine the thousands of near-Earth asteroids in the coming decades.

The new company, Deep Space Industries (DSI), is not the first in the field, nor is it the most well-financed. But with their ambition to become the first asteroid prospectors, and ultimately miners and manufacturers, they are aggressively going after what Mark Sonter, a member of DSI's board of directors, called "the main resource opportunity of the 21st century." (Related: "Asteroid Hunter to Be First Private Deep-Space Mission?")

Prospecting using miniaturized "cubesat" probes the size of a laptop will begin by 2015, company executives announced. They plan to return collections of asteroid samples to Earth not long after.

"Using low cost technologies, and combining the legacy of [the United States'] space program with the innovation of today's young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago," said Rick Tumlinson, company chairman and a longtime visionary and organizer in the world of commercial space [not sure what commercial space means].

"We sit in a sea of resources so infinite they're impossible to describe," Tumlinson said.

Added Value

There are some 9,000 asteroids described as "near-Earth," and they contain several classes of resources that entrepreneurs are now eyeing as economically valuable.

Elements such as gold and platinum can be found on some asteroids. But water, silicon, nickel, and iron are the elements expected to become central to a space "economy" should it ever develop.

Water can be "mined" for its hydrogen (a fuel) and oxygen (needed for humans in space), while silicon can be used for solar power systems, and the ubiquitous nickel and iron for potential space manufacturing. (See an interactive on asteroid mining.)

Sonter, an Australian mining consultant and asteroid specialist, said that 700 to 800 near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach and land on than the moon.

DSI's prospecting spacecraft will be called "FireFlies," a reference to the popular science fiction television series of the same name. The FireFlies will hitchhike on rockets carrying up communication satellites or scientific instruments, but they will be designed so that they also have their own propulsion systems. The larger mining spacecraft to follow have been named "DragonFlies."

Efficiencies

It all sounds like science fiction, but CEO David Gump said that the technology is evolving so quickly that a space economy can soon become a reality. Providing resources from beyond Earth to power spacecraft and keep space travelers alive is the logical way to go.

That's because the most expensive and resource-intensive aspect of space travel is pushing through the Earth's atmosphere. Some 90 percent of the weight lifted by a rocket sending a capsule to Mars is fuel. Speaking during a press conference at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying in California, Gump said that Mars exploration would be much cheaper, and more efficient, if some of the fuel could be picked up en route. (Related: "7 Ways You Could Blast Off by 2023.")

Although there is little competition in the asteroid mining field so far, DSI has some large hurdles ahead of it. The first company to announce plans for asteroid mining was Planetary Resources, Inc. in spring 2012—the group is backed by big-name investors such as Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, filmmaker James Cameron, and early Google investor Ram Shriram. DSI is still looking for funding.

Owning Asteroids

While these potential space entrepreneurs are confident they can physically lay claim to resources beyond Earth, there remain untested legal issues.

The United Nations Space Treaty of 1967 expressly forbids ownership of other celestial bodies by governments on Earth. But American administrations have long argued that the same is not true of private companies and potential mining rights.

While an American court has ruled that an individual cannot own an asteroid—as in the case of Gregory Nemitz, who laid claim to 433 Eros as a NASA spacecraft was approaching it in 2001—the question of extraction rights has not been tested.

Moon rocks brought back to Earth during the Apollo program are considered to belong to the United States, and the Russian space agency has sold some moon samples it has returned to Earth-sales seen by some as setting a precedent.

Despite the potential for future legal issues, DSI's Gump said his group recently met with top NASA officials to discuss issues regarding technology and capital, and came away optimistic. "There's a great hunger for the idea of getting space missions done with smaller, cheaper 'cubesat' technology and for increased private sector involvement."

Everyone involved acknowledged the vast challenges and risks ahead, but they see an equally vast potential—both financial and societal.

"Over the decades, we believe these efforts will help expand the civilization of Earth into the cosmos, and change what it means to be a citizen of this planet," Tumlinson said.

Read More..

Al Qaeda Commander Killed for the 3rd Time

The second in command of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen in December, according to a news report by Arabic television network Al Arabiya, the third time the former Guantanamo detainee has been reported dead since 2010.

According to the report, Said al-Shihri died last month after sustaining severe injuries from a joint U.S.-Yemeni airstrike that targeted a convoy in which he was riding. The al Arabiya account, based on information from "family sources," said that the airstrike left al-Shihri in a coma. He allegedly died soon after and was buried in Yemen.

On Tuesday afternoon, hours after the initial report, a Yemeni government official denied having any information regarding the death of al-Shihri, according to Arabic news site al-Bawaba.

No photos of a body have yet surfaced and no mention of his death has appeared on jihadi forums.
This is the third time al-Shihri, the second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has been reported killed since 2009. In 2010, the Yemeni government claimed it had captured him. In September 2012, Yemeni news sites reported he was killed in an American drone strike.

PHOTOS: Terrorists Who Came Back from the Grave

READ: Gitmo Detainee turned terror commander killed: Reports

Al-Shihri, a "veteran jihadist," traveled to Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to fight coalition troops, only to be captured weeks later, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. He was sent to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he stayed for six years before being released to Saudi Arabia. There, he entered a so-called "jihadi rehab" program that attempted to turn terrorists into art students by getting them to get "negative energy out on paper," as the program's director told ABC News in 2009.

READ: Trading Bombs for Crayons: Terrorists Get 'Art Therapy'

But just months after he supposedly entered the fingerpainting camp, al-Shihri reappeared in Yemen where he was suspected to have been behind a deadly bombing at the U.S. embassy there.

At the time, critics of the "jihadi rehab" program used al-Shihri as evidence that extremists would just go through the motions in order to be freed.

Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.

Read More..

A theory of everything won't provide all the answers

We shouldn't be obsessed with finding a theory of everything, says Lisa Randall, one of the world's most prominent theoretical physicists

Doesn't every physicist dream of one neat theory of everything?
There are lots of physicists! I don't think about a theory of everything when I do my research. And even if we knew the ultimate underlying theory, how are you going to explain the fact that we're sitting here? Solving string theory won't tell us how humanity was born.

So is a theory of everything a myth?
It's not that it's a fallacy. It's one objective that will inspire progress. I just think the idea that we will ever get there is a little bit challenging.

But isn't beautiful mathematics supposed to lead us to the truth?
You have to be careful when you use beauty as a guide. There are many theories people didn't think were beautiful at the time, but did find beautiful later - and vice versa. I think simplicity is a good guide: the more economical a theory, the better.

Is it a problem, then, that our best theories of particle physics and cosmology are so messy?
We're trying to describe the universe from 10²⁷ metres down to 10^-35 metres, so it's not surprising there are lots of ingredients. The idea that the stuff we're made of should be everything seems quite preposterous. Dark matter and dark energy - these are not crazy ingredients we're adding.

Did the discovery of the Higgs boson - the "missing ingredient" of particle physics - take you by surprise last July?
I was surprised that the Large Hadron Collider experiments reached that landmark. I thought the teams would say something very affirming but the announcement of the discovery was amazing. It was a feat of engineering that they got the collision rate up to what it had to be, and the experiments did a better job at analysing the data.

Are you worried that the Higgs is the only discovery so far at the LHC?
I'm not worried that nothing else exists. But I am worried that the LHC might have too low an energy. Had the Superconducting Super Collider been built in Texas, it would have had almost three times the energy. There is a distinct possibility we'll discover things when the LHC's energy is nearly doubled next year. But it's too early to see signs of warped extra dimensions - they will take longer to find.

What would an extra dimension look like?
The best signature of the warped extra dimensions would be seeing a so-called Kaluza-Klein particle. These are partners of the particles that we know about but they get their momentum from extra dimensions. They would look to us like heavy particles with properties similar to the ones we know, but with bigger masses.

What if we don't see one? Some argue that seeing nothing else at the LHC would be best, as it would motivate new ideas.
I don't know what dream world they are living in. It would be very hard to make the argument to build a higher energy machine based on the fact that you didn't see something.

Profile

Lisa Randall is a professor of physics at Harvard University. Her recent books are Knocking on Heaven's Door (Vintage) and Higgs Discovery: The power of empty space (Bodley Head)

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.

Read More..

Penguin head-cam captures bird's eye view of hunt

TOKYO: Miniature cameras attached to a penguin's head have given Japanese scientists a bird's eye view of the creature's incredible underwater hunting skills, the lead researcher said Tuesday.

Using video cameras weighing just 33 grammes (around 1 oz) and equipped with accelerometers, depth gauges and thermometres, researchers were able to see exactly what the Adelie penguin sees when it goes out to catch krill and other prey in its native Antarctica.

Yuuki Watanabe, of the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo, said the team was amazed to discover that the bird adapts its hunting behaviour depending on what it is trying to snare.

Watanabe said the accelerometer -- a device also used in mobile phones, tablet computers and games consoles -- allowed researchers to precisely measure the bird's head movements and showed how one penguin could catch two krill in under a second.

"Now we know what the Adelie penguin preys on and how much it eats, we can understand how the penguin survives and how it relates to its environment," he said.

The penguin's fragile Antarctic habitat is at risk from climate change, with scientists warning that as pack ice melts, their numbers could fall dramatically.

Watanabe said the tiny cameras and micro equipment had given researchers a much better understanding of how the penguin lives.

"We now understand how much they rely on those fish that inhabit water just below the sea ice, which means that Adelie penguins can only survive in a sea ice environment," said Watanabe.

-AFP/fl

Read More..