NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? A steady, sometimes heavy rain pelted fans at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, but the music flowed on.
Umbrellas, rain boots and plastic ponchos were out in abundance Sunday as fans stood among the puddles and water-soaked grass awaiting clearer skies.
As Khris Royal & Dark Matter played the Gentilly Stage, pockets of fest-faithfuls grooved and danced to his funky saxophone opening instrumental. Keith Frank & the Soileau Zydeco Band enticed fans to the front of the nearby Fais Do-Do stage, where a few couples rocked a two-step to the band's steady beat.
The Nevilles, without brother Aaron, perform later Sunday just before the Dave Matthews Band, which closes the fest's first weekend and largest stage.
Other headliners include blues legend B.B. King and Earth, Wind & Fire.
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#1 ? 2 daze j?
Group:Normal Members
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Interests:Ghosts, aliens, space, the afterlife, music, high energy music..
Posted Yesterday, 06:44 PM
Do any you guys care about cms, or work with it? Does it seem like more people are choosing joomla over drupal? Do you have any idea why?
Thanks,
if nobody responds, its all good.. I just figure I would ask here for, "the Renoise opinion."
:-)
I woke up with my mind on the floor...
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#2 ? joule?
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Posted Yesterday, 06:47 PM
Most people are choosing Wordpress. I think a few people are choosing Joomla because it seems a little simpler than Drupal at first, but most people, like me, knows that Drupal is the shit.
Do you have any stats?
(AFAIK part of the Renoise website is built on Drupal.)
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#3 ? 2 daze j?
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Posted Yesterday, 06:59 PM
I have no stats, I know an IT person for a big university, who volunteered a little time, and a team to do a website for a group I'm involved with, and they choose joomla, and I've been scratching my head, trying to figure out why they chose joomla over drupal. Anyways, I guess I will have to ask him, when I see him...
But now I am bothered to help create upload content and stuff, for this joomla site... the site looks great, and I don't know.. I'm checking out joomla, in a local install in web matrix right now, and I am not sure if I, "love it, or hate it."
I woke up with my mind on the floor...
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#4 ? joule?
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Posted Yesterday, 07:03 PM
Yes. My experience is that amateurs endorse Joomla because there are better pre-made themes for it. Its learning threshold is a little lower, but Drupal is clearly more thought-thru.
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#5 ? 2 daze j?
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Posted Yesterday, 07:06 PM
joule, on 27 April 2013 - 07:03 PM, said:
Yes. My experience is that amateurs endorse Joomla because there are better pre-made themes for it. Its learning threshold is a little lower, but Drupal is clearly more thought-thru.
I gotcha, and that's why the joomla site they built is so screwed up on mobile, and will continue to be. Damn, they are not going to rebuild in drupal, and neither am I. However, I will continue with drupal, for some personal stuff I'm doing.
Thanks so much
I woke up with my mind on the floor...
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#6 ? MarcC?
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Posted Today, 12:11 AM
I really like ProcessWire and use it all the time. It feels like "Drupal lite" in some ways, but it's extremely powerful and the API is very simple--patterned after jQuery. The author knows Drupal pretty well. His CMS has also attracted lots of former MODx users.
It's not really for the pre-made theme crowd, though.
This post has been edited by MarcC: Today, 12:12 AM
The Gillmor Gang ? Danny Sullivan, Dan Farber, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor ? note the intersection of social and mainstream medias as the events in Boston unfolded in real time. What has been framed as a competition became something more, as Twitter streams, scanner apps, and local news streams meshed with CNN et al. Inspired curation by @dannysullivan produced an authoritative feed of credible crowdsourced updates. Tweeters at the scene produced wry commentary on reporter exaggeration, eventually encouraging a hybrid blend of real time speed and news judgement. Our thoughts remain with the brave and resilient people of Watertown, Cambridge, and Boston.
Apr. 23, 2013 ? Exaggeration over the extent of the malaria parasite's resistance to the 'wonder drugs' artemisinins could jeopardise the fight against the disease, according to a leading expert.
In an opinion article published on World Malaria Day today (25 April 2013) -- online in the journal Trends in Parasitology, Professor Sanjeev Krishna of St George's, University of London argues that much of the evidence of the malaria parasite's resistance to artemisinin has been misinterpreted. He says this has led to the extent of artemisinin resistance being overstated, and that fears of its demise as an effective treatment are premature.
The artemisinin class of drugs are the best anti-malarial treatments available, and are used most effectively with other drugs as artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs). Recent research has suggested that the malaria parasite is developing resistance to ACTs, particularly in Southeast Asia. Experts fear that if artemisinins became obsolete -- as previous anti-malarials have -- the effect could be devastating, as there are currently no other effective alternatives.
However, Professor Krishna argues that -- despite being accepted as dogma by the malaria research community -- most of the descriptions of artemisinin resistance do not meet the criteria by which resistance to other anti-malarials and drugs for other diseases have been measured.
For true resistance to exist, according to criteria used for other drugs, there needs to be: a significant failure in treatment (by not meeting the World Health Organization's target of a 95 per cent cure rate 28 days after treatment); a reduced sensitivity to the drug when the parasite is examined in the lab; and a visible delay in ridding the patient of parasites.
Currently, Professor Krishna says, it seems to be accepted that artemisinin treatment failure has occurred when a three-day course of ACT does not meet the target cure rate. This has been observed in a number of studies and has been used to try and understand 'artemisinin resistance.'
But other studies of seven-day courses of artemisinin monotherapies -- in which artemisinins are used alone, without partner drugs -- have shown up to 100 per cent cure rates after 28 days.
This, Professor Krishna, says, indicates proof of resistance to ACTs, but that there is no compelling evidence that artemisinins themselves are becoming less effective. He says this resistance will usually "be to a combination of an artemisinin with another drug against which there is usually a high background of resistance already."
"Contending that there is artemisinin resistance when cure of patients relies on the partner drug of an artemisinin is difficult to substantiate without additional studies," writes Professor Krishna. "It is more appropriate to describe the lack of observed efficacy as resistance to an artemisinin combination therapy rather than as being artemisinin resistance."
He adds that "crying wolf" and raising fears of artemisinin resistance when it is not yet proven "will itself have significant costs, so that when the wolf finally turns up, exhausted villagers no longer respond."
To ensure better understanding of when true artemisinin resistance occurs, and to learn how to fight it, Professor Krishna says there needs to be further research into the how the drugs work against the parasite. He also urges the development of molecular markers to predict the failure of the partner drugs used in ACTs, as well as further studies on artemisinin monotherapies.
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For months, it was assumed the Chiefs would take tackle Luke Joeckel with the first pick in the draft.? Last night, the reality become otherwise.
The Chiefs bypassed Joeckel for Eric Fisher, and Joeckel won?t forget it.
?I wanted that first pick but, you know, it didn?t happen. And that definitely puts a chip on my shoulder,? Joeckel told PFT on Thursday night, after he was picked.? ?I?m ready to go work, I?m ready to go prove myself.? It kind of hurts even more that another offensive tackle was taken before me, so I?m ready to go. . . .
?I?ll probably wake up every single day thinking that and when I?m in the weight room . . . when I?m lifting, when I?m out in the field working, you know, that?s my entire goal.? I grew up in a very competitive family, always wanted to be the best.? And you know, going behind another guy in my same position is definitely going to push me.?
It also puts pressure on Fisher.
?Obviously the first pick gets a lot of expectations, a lot of pressure, but I think I perform very well under pressure,? Fisher told PFT on Thursday night.? ?I am somebody to take advantage of pressure situations and make the most of them.? A lot of people will break under their pressure, I?m not that kind of person.? I think any time in my life I?ve had that kind of expectation that I needed to meet, I think I?ve performed very well.?
There?s a chance both will perform well.? There?s also a chance, in theory, of a Peyton Manning/Ryan Leaf dichotomy.
After spending time last night with each guy, our money?s on the former.
In 1999 a technology manager called Kevin Ashton coined the phrase ?The Internet of Things?. It was to convey the fact that not everything connected to the Internet generates data via humans tapping on keyboards. Today, these ?things? now include elements of our critical national infrastructure via what are called SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems or ICS (Industrial Control Systems). Unfortunately, these systems can be just as vulnerable to attack as our laptops.
Security through obscurity has helped to protect these systems until recently as they are not obvious to regular Internet users. However, there is no longer anywhere to hide. Many know that search engines such as Google, if queried in using ?advanced operators?, can reveal exposed equipment. This became even simpler with search engines such as Shodan which are specifically to help locate exposed webcams, routers, etc but which can just as easily reveal SCADA systems.
Lack of direct connection to the Internet is no guarantee of security either. More often than not, unprotected control systems can be reached indirectly using the ?swivel chair interface? where a human can be convinced to transfer something from the Internet to automated systems, or vice versa.
In 2010 we saw how even the most secure ?air gap? can be breached when the Iranian nuclear reprocessing plant at Natanz was infected with the Stuxnet virus. This appears to have been achieved when an operator plugged in an infected USB stick to an isolated PC that was used to communicate with the embedded computers that controlled and reported upon the centrifuges producing enriched uranium. The Stuxnet virus simultaneously caused the centrifuges to malfunction whilst reporting that all was well to the operators.? Leave a USB stick lying around with what looks like a free game, and you?d be surprised how many users will plug it into the nearest computer.
Since this incident there has been a growing realisation that various elements of a critical national infrastructure are similarly vulnerable.? They use similar, if not identical, embedded computer systems as were used at Natanz. The initial thought was one of defending the realm against foreign aggressors. After all, it was an obvious way to cripple a country without firing a physical shot. Why launch missiles if you can switch out the lights and turn off the water.? It?s cheaper too. So much so that this form of attack has become a great leveller, allowing small nations to potentially punch well above their weight.
For a while there were detractors who have said that this type of threat is nonsense, and that it simply could not happen.? However, tests were already being conducted at research institutes such as the Idaho national laboratories (known as Aurora) by the time Stuxnet was released.? Such tests showed that access to these SCADA systems could not only turn off equipment that we all rely upon but it could cause the equipment to self-destruct.
Hence, embedded computing needs to be kept updated and have protection just as much as the computers with which we are all more familiar. Unfortunately, keeping embedded computers updated can be problematic. Perversely, although they may be vulnerable to remote attacks, updating their software (known as firmware if it cannot be accessed routinely by a remote computer) can require visits to the physical devices.? This takes time and effort, and when coupled with a history of complacency about their risk of attack, many systems remain vulnerable for significant periods after a vulnerability is reported.
The combination of dramatic tests such as in Idaho and the public analysis of Stuxnet, brought home the full potential of such attacks if mounted on a nationwide scale.? This was reinforced when new viruses began to appear on the Internet which were related to Stuxnet along with copies of Stuxnet itself and documents and videos of how to use it.? The fact that sons-of-Stuxnet began appearing so quickly showed up a shortcoming in this type of weapon: it is the only weapon that you voluntarily give to the enemy, who can then use it right back at you.? Rather like biological warfare, once released you had better have a defence against your own weapon.
Some governments have recognised the danger and are marshalling their cyber forces to understand the threat and, hopefully, prepare for any attack. The UK Government has established the Centre for the Protection of Critical National Infrastructure which specifically addresses cyber threats. This was one result of the UK Government declaring cyber-attacks as a ?Tier 1 Threat? to the UK national interest. However, not all countries are as advanced in their thinking. It is made particularly difficult in countries that do not have, for example, a National Grid, and where critical national infrastructure is almost exclusively provided by private businesses with little oversight.
Much of the preparations being made, if they are being made, assume that the threat comes from nation states.? But, they are not the only actors in this play. What happens when criminals gain the ability to mount such attacks?
Imagine something akin to the current attacks with ?ransomware? where your computer is locked and will only be released when you pay a ?fine?. What is to stop criminals holding elements of our critical national infrastructure hostage? The unappealing vision of cyber protection rackets starts to emerge. With criminals becoming bolder every day in their Internet escapades, this is something for which we need to be prepared.
Everyone has a part to play: it?s not just government.? Whether it?s the smart meter in your home, machines used by your customers and patients, or something for which you are responsible on an industrial scale, we all need to remember that we live in an increasingly interconnected world, sometimes interconnecting ?things? we may not even have considered.
To paraphrase John Philpot Curran, technology is giving us an increasingly connecting world but the price is eternal vigilance.
~~~
SCADA image (#2) by Ecava, other images in public domain.
The executive director of the National Institute of meteorology and hydrology (Inamhi), Carlos Naranjo, said that the current climate which is being experienced in the country,? i.e., with heavy rains in isolated areas and mornings with low temperatures on the coast, is considered ?normal?.
Naranjo said that from midnight on Tuesday until noon yesterday, there was a slight change in the wind circulation, usually it goes from East to West, but now is going? from South to North and East to Northwest.
?This mass brings another kind of physical condition and is within the variability, it is something temporary, but this permits the entering of cold air to the southern part, which is evidenced with some cold in the mornings, but it does not mean that? the rainy season is over?, said the official.
According to Naranjo,? it may expected some punctual downpours, but less intense than those reported in the country so far in the year.
?The problem in the coast is that there are plenty of stagnant water, which, by evaporation, forms clouds and generates shower rains with some thunderstorms?, said Naranjo.
TORONTO (AP) ? A man accused of plotting with al-Qaida members in Iran to derail a train in Canada gave a rambling statement in a Toronto court Wednesday and appeared to be saying he does not recognize its jurisdiction.
Law enforcement officials in the U.S. said the target was a train that runs between New York City and Canada. Canadian investigators say Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35, received guidance from members of al-Qaida in Iran. Iranian government officials have said the government had nothing to do with the plot.
"My comment is the following because all of those conclusions were taken out based on criminal code and all of us know that this criminal code is not a holy book," Esseghaier said at the hearing Wednesday. "We cannot rely on the conclusions taken out from these judgments."
The judge told him to "save that for another court," and take the advice of his lawyers. He was given a May 23 court date.
Charges against the two men in Canada include conspiring to carry out an attack and murder people in association with a terrorist group. Police ? tipped off by an imam worried by the behavior of one of the suspects ? said it was the first known attack planned by al-Qaida in Canada. The two could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
In a brief court appearance in Montreal on Tuesday, Esseghaier declined to be represented by a court-appointed lawyer. He made a brief statement in French in which he rejected the allegations against him.
Esseghaier, who was arrested Monday afternoon at a McDonald's restaurant in the train station, was later flown to Toronto for Wednesday's appearance in the city where his trial will take place.
Jaser also appeared in court Tuesday in Toronto and also did not enter a plea. He was given a new court date of May 23. The court granted a request by his lawyer, John Norris, for a publication ban on future evidence and testimony.
The case has raised questions about the extent of Shiite-led Iran's relationship with al-Qaida, a predominantly Sunni Arab terrorist network. It also renewed attention on Iran's complicated history with the terror group, which ranges from outright hostility to alliances of convenience and even overtures by Tehran to assist Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Law officials in New York with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press the attack was to take place on the Canadian side of the border. They are not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Jaser's lawyer said on Tuesday that his client questioned the timing of the arrests, pointing to ongoing debates in the Canadian Parliament over a new anti-terrorism law that would expand the powers of police and intelligence agencies.
Norris speaking outside the court said his client is "in a state of shock and disbelief."
He said his client would "defend himself vigorously" against the accusations, and noted Jaser was a permanent resident of Canada who has lived there for 20 years. Norris refused to say where Jaser was from, saying that revealing his nationality in the current climate amounted to demonizing him.
Canadian police have declined to release the men's nationalities, saying only they had been in Canada a "significant amount of time." But a London-based newspaper Al Arab reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources in the Gulf, that Jaser is a Jordanian passport holder with full name Raed Jaser Ibrahim Amouri, who had visited the UAE several times and most recently in September 2011. The newspaper reported that the suspect also visited other Gulf countries including Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It was not possible to independently confirm the report.
Esseghaier's, in a profile on a university department website ? which has since been removed ? says he was born in Tunis, Tunisia.
Muhammad Robert Heft, president of the P4E Support Group Inc., a non-profit organization that provides support to Muslims in Canada, said Jaser's father Mohammad Jaser came to him several times citing concerns about the radicalization of his son. The discussions took place between 2010 and 2011, while the father was living in a basement apartment in Heft's home in Markham, Ontario. The pair took up accommodation there while awaiting surgery for Jaser's younger brother, who had been in a serious car accident, because the apartment didn't have stairs.
"He came to me about his son saying he how concerned he was getting about the rigidness of his son and his interpretation of Islam. He was becoming self-righteous, becoming pushy, pushing his views on how much they (his family) should be practicing as a Muslim," said Heft.
"His son was becoming overzealous and intolerant in his understanding of the religion," he said. "Those are the telltale signs that can lead into the radicalization process."
The investigation surrounding the planned attack was part of a cross-border operation involving Canadian law enforcement agencies, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Canadian police said the men never got close to carrying out the attack.
The warning first came from an imam in Toronto, who in turn was tipped off by suspicious behavior on the part of one of the suspect.
___
Associated Press writers Benjamin Shingler in Montreal, Tom Hays and Jennifer Peltz in New York, Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Brian Murphy in the United Arab Emirates contributed to this story.
Wilson Rothman and Rosa Golijan, NBC News? ? ?5 hrs.
Following a hack attack, the Associated Press' verified Twitter account posted "an erroneous tweet" claiming that two explosions occurred in the White House and that President Barack Obama is injured. Moments later, the @AP Twitter account ? with nearly 2 million followers ? was suspended.
Immediately following the false tweet, the Dow Industrial Average lost about 140 points. These losses were immediately recovered. (See chart below.)
"That's a bogus tweet," an AP spokesperson initially told NBC News, a statement that was repeated by the company's corporate communications account. Though the false tweet disappeared, the false message continued to exist on the service in over four thousand retweets.
In a briefing that occurred after the erroneous tweet appeared, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that "the president is fine, I was just with him." Julie Pace, AP's chief White House correspondent, reiterated during the briefing that "anything that was just sent out about any incident at the White House is actually false."
AP media relations director Paul Colford is quoted, in a blog post, as saying that the company had also suspended other AP Twitter feeds, "out of a sense of caution." He added, "We are working with Twitter to sort this out."
FBI spokesperson Jenny Shearer told CNBC that it is investigating the AP Twitter hack.
A wire statement issued later explained that the mid-day tweet "came after hackers made repeated attempts to steal the passwords of AP journalists." A group called the Syrian Electronic Army claimed credit for the hack. The group's original Twitter account is currently suspended, but on Tuesday afternoon, an alternate "official" account was live.
Social media accounts associated with CBS News programs "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours" were compromised on Saturday. The same group, known for its pro-Assad politics, took credit for that attack too, as well as earlier attacks on the Twitter accounts of NPR and the BBC. The group is not to be confused with the hacking collective known as Anonymous ? in fact, they have previously clashed online.
Passwords are weak link Because password theft is the culprit behind social-media account takeovers, security experts say that better protection is needed. Responsibility for security is shared between the user and the service.
"The challenge (with corporate-owned Twitter accounts) is, we share the password," Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at Sophos, told NBC News. "Once you get enough people with the password, bad things are going to happen," he adds. "There's no good way of isolating or limiting access these high-profile accounts."
Wisniewski said it is up to Twitter to strengthen security by using two-factor authentication, a log-in technique used by Google, Apple, Facebook and others that requires the pairing of a password with a code delivered to a user's cellphone.
"In my opinion, this is overdue for Twitter, especially for verified accounts," he said, regarding how incidents like this could be prevented. "Humans are the weakest things when it comes to a phish [attack]."
Twitter sent users a note saying that, "while we investigate (the AP hack), we wanted to get in touch to provide some information to help keep your account secure. And given the recent incidents, it is especially important to be extra vigilant about any attempt to phish your information." The note included a link to a support page with basic security precautions.
? with additional reporting by NBC News' Stacey Klein, Helen Popkin and Patrick Rizzo, and CNBC's Eamon Javers
Apr. 23, 2013 ? A research team with Jungmi KWON (GUAS/NAOJ) has performed deep imaging linear and circular polarimetry of the 'Cat's Paw Nebula' (NGC 6334) located in the constellation Scorpius, successfully detecting high degrees of circular polarization (CP) of as much as 22% in NGC 6334. The detected CP degree is the highest ever observed.
In addition, the team has presented the first systematic survey of a combination of linear and circular polarimetry in nine star- and planet-forming regions. As the results of statistical analysis of observations of various star-forming regions, CPs were detected in nine star- and planet-forming regions. Putting it differently, it can be said that CP is a universal feature of star- and planet-forming regions. The team's findings enable us to obtain information about magnetic fields of circumstellar structures around protostars, which is difficult to obtain using existing methods.
There is a hypothesis that large CP causes homochirality of amino acids and that left-handed amino acids come from outer space. The team's findings imply an extraterrestrial origin of homochirality of life, from the universality of CP detected in star- and planet-forming regions.
This research is part of an ongoing survey project of wide-field near-infrared (JHKs) imaging polarimetry for star-forming regions (PI: Motohide TAMURA, University of Tokyo/NAOJ). Doctoral student Jungmi KWON, who is contributing to the project, led this research with nine international researchers from Japan and the United Kingdom. The team's findings were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on March 1, 2013.
Notes:
(1) An instrument used for observations is the IRSF (InfraRed Survey Facility), a 1.4 m telescope with a built-in SIRPOL imaging polarimeter at an elevation of about 1761 meters at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Sutherland, South Africa. The field of view (~ 8 x 8 arcmin2) enables us to observe a wide field in the three (JHKs) bands simultaneously.
(2) The 'Cat's Paw Nebula' is a star- and planet-forming region located in the constellation Scorpius. It is approximately 5,500 light years distant from the Earth.
(3) A chiral molecule (from the Greek word for 'hand') is a molecule that cannot be superimposed on its own mirror image. A hand is chiral in the sense that the mirror image of a left hand is a right hand, and the two hands cannot be superimposed. All the vital biomolecules of life possess the same handedness (left-handedness); this is called homochirality.
Research Background
What is the origin of life on Earth? Where did life on Earth come from? Research into star and planet formation throws new light on on these questions and arouses public curiosity.
The Cat's Paw Nebula is located in the galactic plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, and it is 5,500 light years away from the Earth. The nebula is known to be one of the most active star-forming regions in the Milky Way Galaxy, containing many young stars of the Sun's mass, born about one million years ago. Even though tens of thousands of young stars are also embedded in the Cat's Paw Nebula, the stars cannot be seen in optical wavelengths because they are buried inside the optically thick (molecular or dark) clouds of gas and dust.
For this reason, our research team used near-infrared to observe the site where stars and planets are being born. Infrared light enables us to look at regions that are heavily obscured in the optical wavelengths. This means that we can expect to hear the story about the trip photons in the infrared make to observers on the face of the Earth from heavenly bodies in space in the same way as photons from stars experience.
Furthermore, a unique characteristic of light called 'polarimetry' enables us not only to obtain information of the intensity of near-infrared from illuminating sources, but also that of (linearly or circularly) polarized light. The properties of polarized light, an important tool in astronomy, have even been the focus of astrobiology -- the study of life in the universe.
Origin-of-life theories often ignore the homochirality problem, even though the question is critical to the origin of life. Scientists hypothesized that the enantiomeric excess of L-amino acids in extraterrestrial sources could be due to circular polarization, which selectively destroys the opposite-handed enantiomer. In previous studies in 1998, an extended CP region was reported in the Orion nebula. It was the only example to show extended and high CP, and there is no observation to study the universality of CP obtained from space, not in laboratories on Earth. The reason is that there were no instruments available to detect any circularly polarized light with wide field of view and high sensitivity.
Results from near-infrared polarimetric observations
The history of star and planet formation and the origin of life are still a mystery, and the team with Jungmi KWON who belongs to GUAS, NAOJ, and JSPS is involved in working out the puzzle. To solve the puzzle, the team used the IRSF 1.4 m telescope with SIRPOL imaging polarimeter at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Sutherland (at an elevation of about 1761 meters), which is the one of the coldest places in South Africa. The telescope and instrument are operated by Nagoya University, Kyoto University, and NAOJ. SIRPOL is an instrument developed by our group; it enables us to obtain information of circularly polarized light as well as linearly polarized light. It also enables wide-field (~ 8 x 8 arcmin square in the sky = ~ 1/4 diameter of the moon) imaging polarimetry, which is a decidedly broader scope than other existing instruments. In other words, IRSF/SIRPOL has one of the highest performances in the present for (linearly and/or circularly) polarized light in the near-infrared toward a wide field of view of the sky.
The observations caught scattered lights of dust grains, as material of reflection nebulae around young massive stars, from an illuminating source. The data show the following features: (1) infrared reflection nebula around the central source, (2) hourglass-shaped outflow, (3) quadrupolar patterns of CP extended to the outside of circumstellar structures broader than the outflow, (4) the highest CP degree (22%) so far observed in star-forming regions, and (5) the maximum CP extents (about 600 times of the size of our solar system).
The young massive star that is the illuminating source of the reflected bipolar nebula is located around the center of each side of the nebula. Even though it is obstructed by optically thick gas and disk in near-infrared, it can be observed in mid-infrared (longer wavelength). Our linear polarimetry data that enable us to know the size of the reflection nebulae as well as the position of the central source also indicate the existence and location of the illuminating source in this bipolar nebula.
The team's findings toward the massive star-forming region NGC 6334-V in the Cat's Paw Nebula suggest a unique characteristic of light named CP is extended over more than the Orion nebula that was the largest CP region ever detected until the team found CP in the Cat's Paw Nebula. Furthermore, the team firstly detected very clear quadrupolar pattern with the highest CP degree. This is a scientific breakthrough in CP observations of star-forming regions.
The team also performed survey observations of polarized light in various star-forming regions, and the researchers successfully detected CP in nine star- and planet-forming regions such as Orion, Taurus, Chamaeleon, etc. There are only three regions to show large CP greater than 2 % in the previous studies of CP in star-forming regions. Until now, since the number of CP observations and successful detection was too small, statistical debate on the characteristic of CP in star-forming regions was not reached. The team's findings present CP is greater than 2 % in all intermediate and massive star-forming regions, and suggest massive star-forming regions with large luminosities tend to large and extended CP. These are the first systematic results obtained from the infrared circular polarization survey with the unique instrument.
A comparison with observations and models
The team not only performed observations but also three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations. The simulations reveal the mechanism of large CP (22%) shown in observations. The idea is that photons are released from a central star, and we trace and estimate the interaction between the light and surrounding structures numerically. In existing mechanisms of CP, even though multiple scattering was mainly considered as the mechanism to generate CP, it cannot generate large CP over 1 %.
The team's findings using the three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations suggest (1) light from the illuminating source of reflection nebulae is scattered by circumstellar structures, (2) the scattered light is circularly polarized by dust grains aligned with the magnetic field (dichroic extinction). It successfully reproduces large CP such as that over 20% as well as the quadrupolar patterns of CP.
Intimation of the relationship between huge CP in massive star-forming regions and life in the Solar system
Life on Earth is made of "left-handed amino acids (L-amino acids)." The question of why organisms on Earth consist of L-amino acids instead of D-amino acids or consist of D-sugar instead of L-sugar is still an unresolved riddle. In other words, a major mystery of life on Earth is that organisms are exclusively made up of left-handed amino acids. Therefore, the effort to solve this problem is one of the biggest in research into the origins of life, a subject that remains enveloped in mystery.
What kind of mechanism causes the selection of all L-amino acids? One of the mainstream hypotheses today is this: photolysis of one enantiomer of a racemic amino acid with circularly polarized light, transfer of chirality from enantioenriched amino acids to proteinogenic amino acids, and aqueous amplification of one enantiomer with preferential dissolution. Thus, how the circularly polarized light physically works is important in determining the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial origin of homochirality or the origin of abiogenesis on Earth. For the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial origin, CP of synchrotron radiation in neutron stars has emerged as a candidate for extraterrestrial sources. Recently, CP detected in the Orion nebula has been mentioned as the strongest candidate, as originally suggested by Jeremy Bailey at The University of New South Wales and his collaborators. On the basis of such a hypothesis, the scenario below can be conjectured.
"Above all, organic material such as amino acids is made in a molecular cloud. Next, any initial surplus of L-amino acids is initiated by CP. The L-amino acids are transferred to parent meteorites or comets when the solar system is formed, and they are eventually transported to Earth. In the prebiotic sea, a small amount of surplus of L-amino acids is amplified by an amplifying action such as a Soai response. At the end of such a process, life is born with homochirality of amino acids."
In connection with the team's findings, the suggested scenario is that (1) the solar system is formed in massive star-forming regions such as the Cat's Paw Nebula and Orion nebula, (2) the solar system is swallowed up in the huge CP region, (3) amino acids, completely affected by one side of the CP region, are biased towards L-amino acids, and then (4) the L-amino acids are finally carried to Earth with meteorites, comets, etc. However, since debates continue about transmutation of meteorites in the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial origin, improved observations, experiments, and theories are being sought.
Summary Including Current and Future Positions
The research team successfully detected high degrees of CP (22%) in the nebula including young stars. The detected CP degree is the highest among CPs reported in star-forming regions. The team also shed light on the mechanism of CP. From this, CP has become a new tool with which to obtain information about the effects of magnetic fields and circumstellar structures that can affect the process of star and cluster formation. Furthermore, both the CP detection that is not only higher but also broader than in the Orion nebula and the universality of CP in various star-forming regions imply that Orion is not the only candidate for CP as the extraterrestrial origin of homochirality on life. Putting it differently, in star- and planet-forming regions, CP may be a common feature. These findings are among the latest knowledge obtained using the unique method called 'wide-field near-infrared imaging polarimetry observations'.
'Astrobiology' that builds on technological and scientific capability is expected to open doorways to new knowledge in many fields, with the progress of extrasolar planet observations and solar system research. Hereafter, the research team will continue its wide-field CP survey of star- and planet-forming regions and make new attempts to conduct high-resolution observations of CP. The team's findings using polarized light toward star- and planet-forming regions are expected to provide the basis for another ongoing project, the Subaru Strategic Exploration of Exoplanets and Disks with HiCIAO/AO188 (SEEDS).
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Jungmi Kwon, Motohide Tamura, Phil W. Lucas, Jun Hashimoto, Nobuhiko Kusakabe, Ryo Kandori, Yasushi Nakajima, Takahiro Nagayama, Tetsuya Nagata, James H. Hough. Near-infrared Circular Polarization Images of NGC 6334-V. The Astrophysical Journal, 2013; 765 (1): L6 DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/765/1/L6
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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? 
joule, on 27 April 2013 - 07:03 PM, said:
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In 1999 a technology manager called Kevin Ashton coined the phrase ?The Internet of Things?. It was to convey the fact that not everything connected to the Internet generates data via humans tapping on keyboards. Today, these ?things? now include elements of our critical national infrastructure via what are called SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems or ICS (Industrial Control Systems). Unfortunately, these systems can be just as vulnerable to attack as our laptops.
Lack of direct connection to the Internet is no guarantee of security either. More often than not, unprotected control systems can be reached indirectly using the ?swivel chair interface? where a human can be convinced to transfer something from the Internet to automated systems, or vice versa.
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Some governments have recognised the danger and are marshalling their cyber forces to understand the threat and, hopefully, prepare for any attack. The UK Government has established the Centre for the Protection of Critical National Infrastructure which specifically addresses cyber threats. This was one result of the UK Government declaring cyber-attacks as a ?Tier 1 Threat? to the UK national interest. However, not all countries are as advanced in their thinking. It is made particularly difficult in countries that do not have, for example, a National Grid, and where critical national infrastructure is almost exclusively provided by private businesses with little oversight.
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