UK to open Earth observation hub

Science minister David Willetts has announced a new UK centre for monitoring the Earth from space.

The Earth observation hub will focus on acquiring environmental data, such as information on deforestation and the impact of climate change.

The hub will be based at the International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC) at Harwell in Oxfordshire, which will open in April 2011.

The aim is to bring together UK expertise in Earth observation.

The hub will also be used as a flight operations centre for controlling satellites. In addition, it will develop the expertise to analyse environmental information coming from space, helping scientists learn more about how the planet is being affected by climate change.
Tracking pollution

Professor Alan O'Neill, director of the National Centre for Earth Observation, said: "By bringing together the best of our space science base with industrial researchers, we hope to develop a wide range of applications.

"These include global monitoring of deforestation, concentration of greenhouse gasses, and levels of marine pollution."

Up to 40 scientists will be based at the centre. Many of them will be involved in gathering and presenting the vast amounts of information coming from environmental satellites.

The data will be made available to scientists across the world and to the public.

Details of the hub were announced by the Science Minister David Willetts in a speech on Wednesday morning at the Farnborough Air Show.

He said that the centre would not become a "centralising force"; rather, it would serve as a hub to link regional space capabilities and promote knowledge-sharing between academia and industry.

Mr Willetts' said in his speech: "ISIC will operate at arm's length from the UK Space Agency so that it becomes a common facility within the Harwell campus.

"And at Harwell, the new European Space Agency facility is already working well, especially in climate change science and related applications.

"Soon it will have an incubator for new space businesses and work on space exploration. This is a fantastic additional catalyst for UK space."

Ancient climate change 'link' to CO2

A "global pattern" of change in the Earth's climate began 2.7 million years ago, say scientists.

Researchers found that, at this point, temperature patterns in the tropics slipped into step with patterns of Ice Ages in the Northern Hemisphere.

They report in the journal Science that atmospheric CO2 could be the "missing link" to explain this global pattern.

The findings, they say, reveal a "feedback process" that could have been magnified by greenhouse gases.

This loop of feedback could have intensified both the Ice Ages in the Northern Hemisphere, and temperature fluctuations in the tropics.

Professor Timothy Herbert from Brown University in Rhode Island, US, led the research. He and his colleagues, in the US and China, analysed mud cores from the seabed in the four tropical ocean basins - the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea, the eastern Pacific and the equatorial Atlantic Ocean.

These mud cores are laid down over millions of years - as sediments of dead plant and animal material sink to the ocean floor.

So by analysing the chemical composition of this material - specifically the chemical remains of one ancient and tiny marine organism - the scientists were able to produce a timeline of temperature changes.

The team "found a fingerprint in the sequence of temperature changes" - a pattern that began 2.7 million years ago, Professor Herbert explained.

He told: "The timing and the amplitude of temperature changes [in the Northern Hemisphere] are reproduced in the tropical temperatures. The patterns are incredibly similar."

He added that the study provided the first direct evidence of a global pattern in climate change that dated back almost three million years.
Ancient greenhouse

Professor Herbert added that the "best global mechanism" to explain this link was the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Dr Carrie Lear, a palaeoclimate scientist from Cardiff University in the UK, agreed that carbon dioxide was the likely "culprit".

She told: "This study reveals a feedback process that has magnified climate change since the inception of Northern Hemisphere glaciation 2.7 million years ago.

"It seems the tropical warming caused by high CO2 levels set off a chain of events resulting in additional greenhouse gases, including water vapour, being released to the atmosphere, thus causing further warming."

Dr Lear said that such studies of past climate change were "invaluable in understanding the current climate system, and hence predicting future change".

Birds with the brightest feathers may pay a cost for their showmanship

Males with the brightest plumage are thought to be more sexually attractive to female birds.

But a study of American goldfinches is the first to show that high levels of brightly coloured chemicals in feathers leads to a breakdown in flight muscles, which affects flight performance.

Details are published in the journal Naturwissenschaften. The discovery does not necessarily mean that the brightest birds are also the weakest, or least able to reproduce.

Instead it shows that having bright feathers comes at a real cost to male birds.

That in turn means that bright feathers are an honest signal of quality.

Only the fittest males in the best condition, who are best able to cope with the negative effects, will take on enough brightly coloured chemicals to brighten their plumage.

Yellow health

In many animals, including fish and birds, males gain competitive or mating advantages by ingesting and using large quantities of pigments known as carotenoids.

These yellow, orange and red pigments are found naturally in the bird's diets, and they cannot be made by their bodies.

When eaten, carotenoids are converted to brighten otherwise dull feathers, creating bright plumages.

The beneficial effects of high levels of carotenoids are well documented by scientists: as antioxidants they are thought to improve bird's health, and the resulting bright feathers signal to female birds that males are healthy, have less parasites and a good diet.But until now, scientists have not examined whether there is a downside to eating lots of carotenoids.

To do so, Professor Kristen Navara of the University of Georgia in Athens, US and colleagues at Auburn University, Alabama studied what happened to American goldfinch birds fed a diet rich in carotenoids.

Over two consecutive seasons, they fed wild caught goldfinches a high carotenoid diet for two months, followed by a normal diet for two months.

A control group of birds was consistently fed a diet low in carotenoids.

During the experiments, the researchers collected feathers from the birds to measure how much carotenoid pigment was taken up into the bird's plumage.

In the first year, they also tested for levels of an enzyme that might indicate muscle is being broken down in the birds.

In the second year, they followed this up by directly testing the bird's ability to fly by measuring the performance of the bird's flight muscles.

Muscle wasters

The results were clear.

Birds fed carotenoid supplements were significantly more colourful, having more strikingly yellow feathers.

However, birds fed this high-carotenoid diet also produced high levels of muscle-wasting enzymes, as the carotenoids became toxic, causing tissue damage.

They also performed less well during flight tests.

"The impairments were long-term and occurred two months after carotenoid supplementation had stopped," Prof Navara told.

"In a natural situation, this time period would correspond with the breeding season for male goldfinches."Impaired muscle performance during this time could decrease reproductive output overall."
That means only birds in good enough condition to tolerate these negative effects will take on high levels of carotenoids, and hence have the showiest feathers.

"So when females choose males with bright colouration, they are choosing ones in good enough condition to withstand high levels of carotenoids," says Prof Navara.

"Until now high levels of carotenoids have been regarded as beneficial to songbirds, and out study suggests that other potentially detrimental effects need to be tested in other species to get a full picture."

Microsoft slims down Xbox console

The new console - to be launched this week - will have the same price as the old system, but comes with Wi-Fi and a 250 GB HD.

It follows a similar move by Sony, which released its own slimmer edition in August 2009.

The announcement was made ahead of the E3 games convention in Los Angeles, at which the firm showcased its range of forthcoming games.

The event also saw the first public viewing of Call of Duty: Black Ops, the latest edition in the popular Call of Duty series.

The new edition is set during the Vietnam War and takes the players through the tunnels of South Vietnam and into the jungles of Laos.

The game will hit the shops on 9 November this year.

New deal
Microsoft said a new deal with Call of Duty's publisher Activision would see all add-on and map packs for the game being released on Xbox 360 first, and that this deal would last for the next three years.

The event, less than 12 hours after it unveiled the final version of its hands-free control system Kinect, also had offerings from Hideo Kojima, the man behind the Metal Gear Solid series with Metal Gear Solid: Rising; Gears of War 3; Fable 3; and Halo Reach, the latest in the long running series.

Microsoft also fleshed out details of the games, as well as software that will be supported by Kinect.

After the success of Wii Sports from rival Nintendo, it was unsurprising that Microsoft are to follow suit, with Kinect Sports boasting six different events, from javelin, to boxing and volleyball.

The firm also demonstrated Kinectimals, a virtual pet that allows users to adopt and play with their favourite animals.

Kinectwill launch on 4 November 2010 in North America, with Europe expected to follow a few weeks later. Microsoft said there will be 15 different Kinect titles at launch.

The firm hopes these new games will help it stay ahead of its arch-rival, Sony PlayStation, which has seen a resurgence in sales over recent months.

Last year, the firm unveiled a number of games that were once the sole domain of the PlayStation, such as Grand Theft Auto and Assassins Creed.

Exclusivity
An exclusive title can mean a significant lift to hardware sales, as gamers are forced into a single platform if they want to actually play it. Halo did much to boost the Xbox 360 when it was launched, as did Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation 3.

However, the price difference between the two systems at the time meant that there were more sales for Microsoft's system than Sony.

Since the two systems launched, an unofficial price war has been waged between the two firms, with Sony reducing the price of the PS3 from £420 at launch to £249.99 ($299 in the US) and Microsoft now selling its Xbox 360 Elite for £199 (down from its original £299 price tag at launch).

Both firms say that their price cuts are not influenced by competitors decisions.

Sony has denied there will be any further reduction in price for the PlayStation 3 at E3, with Sony's UK Sales Director - Mark Howsen - telling the British games industry magazine MCV that there had been "no discussion internally about that at all".

"We're enjoying good year-on-year growth and as long as that continues we'll keep on going I think".

Wikipedia unlocks divisive pages for editing

The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia says it has taken an "important step" towards making it easier to edit some of its most controversial articles.

Up to 2,000 articles, including a page about former US President George W Bush, will have their strict editing restrictions relaxed.

Users will now be able to submit changes to the selected pages for review by senior editors.

It is part of Wikipedia's ongoing efforts to curb vandalism of the site.

Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales told the new system, called "pending changes" will allow the site "to open up articles for general editing that have been protected or semi-protected for years.

"That's what is exciting about this," he said.

False reports

Wikipedia encourages editorial changes from everybody who comes to the site.

However, it has been plagued by persistent problems such as the malicious editing of entries, and repeated editing of controversial topics. As a result, the site has introduced a number of levels of protection that can be applied to articles.

For example, new or anonymous users could previously be prevented from editing "semi-protected" articles, and were forced to suggest changes on a discussion board attached to each article before they could be incorporated.

Semi-protected articles cover a wide range of subjects including Iceland, David Cameron, George W Bush and even homework.

The new changes should make it easier for users to contribute to these pages, the site says.

Mr Wales said that he was pleased to see the pages opening up again.

"These have had to be semi-protected for years just because they are too tempting for naughty people to try something funny," he said.

"But semi-protection has prevented thoughtful and sincere newcomers from making good changes."

Pending Changes will be introduced at 11pm GMT on 15 June.

Editing review

Any edits to articles in this category are subject to review from an established Wikipedia editor before publication, although anyone can still view changes that have been proposed.

For the duration of the two month trial, Wikipedia users will notice a small magnifying glass, in place of a padlock, on included articles. In a blog post, Wikipedia said: "The icon, on the upper right corner of the article, represents an important step that Wikipedia volunteers have taken to open up articles that were previously protected from editing.

"At present, only about 0.1% of the 3.3 million articles on the English Wikipedia are under edit protection.

"This tool should help reduce disruptive edits or errors to these pages while maintaining open, collaborative editing from anyone who wants to contribute."

Anyone can view proposed edits by clicking on the "pending changes" tab, alongside the "edit" and "history" tabs on a Wikipedia entry.

The software that enables the new feature was originally developed for the German version of Wikipedia, where it is called "flagged revisions".

In Germany, edits on all articles are subject to review, and it is likely that some observers will see this pilot as the first step towards such a system in English.

Mr Wales said that was "extremely unlikely" and "neither necessary nor desirable".

"The Germans seem happy with it, but they are also going to be closely watching the English system, and I'm sure they'll at least consider switching if the results are good," he said.

Michael Peel, secretary of the independent non-profit organisation Wikimedia UK, told that it had taken "a long time to find consensus" on how best to run the trial.

Mr Wales called for a similar change in 2009, after Wikipedia articles wrongly suggested for a short time that two US senators had died.

In a blog entry, Mr Wales said the "nonsense" of the false reports would have been "100% prevented" by a system that involved editors and said he wanted the changes to be implemented as soon as possible.

The suggestion provoked a storm of comments on his site, with many encyclopaedia editors saying the proposal was unworkable.

Wikipedia said the decision about which articles to include in the new trial, up to an initial limit of 2,000, will be taken by the Wikipedia community.

Technology milestone heralds a more secure internet

Moves to make the web's address system more secure will take a major step forward next month.

In the planning for a decade, the Domain Name System Security Extentions, DNSSEC, will help protect users from cyber attacks such as phishing and spam.

The security layer will be added to the web's address system in July.

It should close the loophole that allows hackers to intercept DNS data and redirect users to fake websites.

The Domain Name System (DNS) was created in 1984 to allow computers to 'read' web addresses but it had no security features, offering rich pickings for criminals.

"DNSSEC will improve the security of the web so we can have more confidence in the activities on the network as it increasingly becomes part of our working lives and home lives," said Leslie Daigle the chief internet technology officer at the Internet Society, which is the home of the standards body that developed DNSSEC.

The new security extension, DNSSEC, basically works by using cryptograph and digital signatures to verify each query and ensure that each response that is made has not been compromised or intercepted.

Cyber-criminals are increasingly using false DNS servers to intercept legitimate web addresses and redirect users to fake sites, which steal personal information.

"It acts like tamper-proof packaging to make sure if you type in the website name of your bank that you actually get to the machine that your bank wants you to use and not to a machine that looks like that of your bank but is operated by those who want to take you to a different website to steal your log-in details," said Ms Daigle.

'Security puzzle'

The reason this move is being seen as a "technological milestone" in shoring up the web is because, although not visible to most users, DNS is an essential part of the way the internet works.

It acts as the net's address system or phone book by translating website addresses like www.bbc.co.uk into the numerical equivalents preferred by machines.

The DNSSEC protocol is being overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), which is the administrative body behind net addresses.

It is working with domain-name registrars and root nameservers - which begin the process of translation web addresses into IP addresses - to make sure the process runs smoothly.

However Ms Daigle told, DNSSEC cannot solve all the evils perpetrated by cyber-criminals and best practices that people have been using should not be abandoned.

"It is a piece of the security puzzle and while it does build better security around everything people are doing on the internet, users should not become lax in how they protect themselves online," she said.

Revolutionary
One of the greatest critics of the security of the Domain Name System has been Dan Kaminsky, chief scientist at security firm Recursion Ventures.

In 2008 he went public with a flaw that he found in the DNS which meant the internet was at the mercy of phishing gangs who could redirect internet users to fake banks sites to steal their personal information.

This issue became known as the "Kaminsky bug" and is often referred to as cache poisoning.

Mr Kaminsky told that even though he was initially sceptical of the efficacy of DNSSEC, he has examined the code carefully and has become a recent convert having declared it "awesome" in its ability to provide a "safer and more secure internet".

"The basic flaw of the internet is one of trust and this will revolutionise the way we use the internet.

"In my mind the biggest benefit we will get concerns one of the biggest embarrassments in the security sector and that is secure email where it will be truly possible to know that when you get an email from your bank, it really is your bank," said Mr Kaminsky.

The Internet Engineering Task Force's Ms Daigle agreed and called DNSSEC "an essential building block for building a larger internet future" that will allow us to take on "bigger activities and carry out new applications".

Nintendo unveils 3D game gadget

Nintendo has unveiled its new 3D handheld gaming system at a briefing in Los Angeles at the E3 games show.

Called 3DS, the system can display 3D images that can be seen without using special glasses.

Nintendo said the novel handheld is designed to replace the existing DS and is scheduled to be on shop shelves in late 2010.

The gaming giant said it had overhauled the graphics system on the DS to bring it into the 21st Century.

Playing Mickey

The 3DS handheld has two camera lenses which enables owners to take and view photographs in 3D.

One difficulty Nintendo faced in creating the gadget was the incompatability between creating a 3D screen and a usable touch-screen interface.

Consequently on the 3DS only the top screen displays 3D while the lower screen is a functional touch screen.

At its briefing Nintendo showed the first game that will be released for the 3DS called Kid Icarus Uprising.

One other feature new to the 3DS is an always-on wi-fi connection that will automatically feed levels and updates to players. Nintendo said the net service behind the always-on updates will be free to use.

Nintendo said several 3DS titles were in development including DJ Hero 3D, Saints Row: Drive-By, Resident Evil Revelations, Batman, Assassin's Creed Lost Legacy and Metal Gear Solid.

At the event Nintendo also showcased a number of new titles that included Donkey Kong Country Returns, a new Legend of Zelda called Skyward Sword, Mario Sports and, after a 13-year gap, Goldeneye 007 for the Wii.

Veteran game developer Warren Spector was also at the event to show off his new game Disney Epic Mickey - a 3D action adventure with a heavy Role-playing element set in the Disney universe.

Gamers play as Mickey Mouse who travels around a dynamic 3D world in which he can use paint or paint thinner to create or destroy the environment which will have a direct effect on how the game plays out.

Mr Spector has developed a number of classic gaming titles in the past such as Deus Ex and System Shock.

Large Hadron Collider smashes energy record again

The Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest physics experiment, has broken its own particle beam energy record.

On Friday morning, the machine created two beams of protons, each with an energy of 3.5 trillion electron volts.

The effort breaks the prior record, set by the LHC in December, of just over a trillion electron volts in each beam.

The LHC will now aim to smash those two beams together, hoping to create new particles that give insight into the most fundamental workings of physics.

The experiment, housed in a 27km-long tunnel under the outskirts of Geneva in Switzerland, has only been back online since November 2009.

A breakdown and helium leak in 2008, shortly after the machine was first switched on, took some 14 months to repair.

"Getting the beams to 3.5 TeV is testimony to the soundness of the LHC's overall design, and the improvements we've made since the breakdown in September 2008," said Steve Myers, director for accelerators and technology at the Swiss laboratory Cern, where the LHC is based."It's a great credit to the patience and dedication of the LHC operation team."

Since coming back online, the machine has exhibited performance that was "remarkable", according to Cern director general Rolf Heuer.

In an announcement of the 3.5 TeV result, he congratulated the LHC team and stressed the cutting-edge nature of its work.

"We must not lose sight of the fact that the LHC is new, and it wasn't bought off the shelf," he wrote.

As with all particle accelerators, the LHC will be periodically shut down for maintenance, but LHC officials recently decided to significantly lengthen the shutdown period.

This is in part because the machine takes so long to reach and return from the low temperatures required for its experiments.

But the shutdown scheduled for late 2010 will also address the joints between the machine's superconducting magnets, which must be strengthened before the LHC can run at even higher energies.

"It is a state of the art prototype that is pushing the limits of technology across a wide range of disciplines, and as such it needs to be treated with the greatest respect," Professor Heuer wrote.

"It takes time, but as we've seen this week, patience pays dividends.

Thales Alenia Space wins huge Meteosat competition

A consortium led by Thales Alenia Space of France will enter into negotiations for a 1.3bn-euro (£1.2bn) contract to build Europe's next weather satellites.

The TAS group was selected after a competitive process run by the European Space Agency (Esa).

The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) system will comprise six satellites, with the first spacecraft likely to be ready for launch in 2016.

MTG is expected to bring a step change in weather forecasting capability.

The programme should guarantee European access to space-acquired meteorological data until at least the late 2030s.

"These spacecraft should improve dramatically the quality of meteorological data, and I'm convinced we will see the difference in the weather forecasts," said Dr Volker Liebig, the head of Earth observation at Esa.

MTG is a joint undertaking between Esa and Eumetsat, the international agency charged with looking after Europe's Meteosats.

In the new programme, Esa will oversee the research and development phase of MTG.This will include two prototype Meteosats: an imaging spacecraft to picture weather systems and a sounding spacecraft (one which can return information about different layers in the atmosphere).

Eumetsat will operate these prototype platforms once they are launched and pay for the production models that follow. It is envisaged the satellites will be launched at intervals of a few years.

The new spacecraft will be quite unlike their forebears. The second generation satellites (MSG), for example, are spin-stabilised and build up their images as they rotate across the field of view.

The MTG spacecraft will look more like standard telecommunications platforms. They will sit and stare at the Earth.

Their image data will have a much higher resolution (capturing details as small as 500m) and will come down in a fraction of the time - in as little as 2.5 minutes.

"The users asked for a higher spatial resolution and even a better signal to noise ratio, and for that we've had to increase the time the satellite is able to observe the Earth," Rolf Stuhlmann, MTG programme scientist at Eumetsat, told.

"So, the first and the second generation were spin-stabilised satellites - they return around their axes and the instrument on the satellite is only able to look at the Earth 5% of the time. All the other time, it is looking into space.

"To increase the time the instrument is capable of looking at the Earth, we've had to go for the first time to a three-axis stabilised satellite."The new spacecraft will carry many innovations that should translate into more accurate and more detailed weather forecasts.

One key development is an Infrared Sounding Instrument that has been pioneered on Europe's Metop polar-orbiting Earth-observation spacecraft but which will now be flown in a geostationary orbit by MTG.

The instrument will be able to detect layers of moisture in the atmosphere long before they have developed into weather systems."If you see clouds, you know you have water vapour; it's very easy to see," explained Ernst Koenemann, director of programme development at Eumetsat. "But even in blue skies you still have water vapour, and this vapour will eventually develop into weather systems.

"With the infrared sounder, we will see this vapour, and by doing that we will be able to predict much better if and how the systems will develop."

The sounding instrument should also give improved warning of extreme precipitation events, such as the one in December that saw about 25cm of rain fall in just 24 hours on Cockermouth in north-west England.

In addition, the sounding spacecraft will have an enhanced capability to study atmospheric chemistry - to track the behaviour of trace gases such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide.

Another new MTG instrument of major note is the Lightning Imager, which should provide much better information on the state of electrification in storms. This is expected to have immense benefits for the aviation sector, allowing it to route planes more safely.

Drawn-out process

The Meteosat series stretches back to 1977. Currently, two platforms - Meteosat-8 and Meteosat-9 - provide the space data on which daily weather forecasts for Europe depend.

Esa member states committed just under a billion euros to the MTG programme at a ministerial meeting in late 2008. The details of the Eumetsat contribution, which will amount to more than 2.4bn euros, are expected to be finalised later this year.

Eumetsat will hold a special council meeting shortly to discuss the scope of its role in the project.

It has taken much longer than expected to sort out the industrial contract. France and Germany wanted to lead MTG and both committed 34% of the requested Esa funds.

Space agency officials have had to ensure the workshare in the contract rewards the commitment of the two nations, as demanded under Esa rules.

The Thales consortium includes OHB System from Bremen which will ensure Germany plays its part; although Germany had hoped a consortium led by EADS Astrium from Friedrichshafen would win through to direct the MTG project.

"Technically, it was very complicated," Dr Liebig told. "The offers were 18,000 pages each. If we don't count Galileo [Esa's satellite-navigation project], it is the biggest contract in the agency. There were a lot of questions and it took many months to answer them."

Reynald Seznec, president and CEO of TAS, commented: "Esa and Eumetsat have chosen Thales Alenia Space, in partnership with OHB of Germany, to develop the third generation of Meteosat weather satellites, thanks to the technical excellence and competitiveness of our proposal.

"We are very proud of being chosen to meet the challenge of building the most ambitious geostationary satellites ever developed in Europe."

Esa will now negotiate a final price with TAS, with the aim of completing the deal in June.

If the talks are not concluded satisfactorily, Esa reserves the right to open discussions with Astrium.