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Alien solar system packs its planets like sardines
REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis
UPFRONT
Egypt wiped off the net THE internet may transcend national boundaries but an entire country can still take itself off the information map surprisingly quickly. At 2230 GMT on 27 January, the Egyptian government did just that as people took to the streets across the nation. Egypt was isolated from the rest of the internet by making changes in a system known as the border gateway protocol (BGP), which internet service providers (ISPs) use to connect to each other’s networks. The government ordered the country’s ISPs to alter their BGP configurations to cut the links to other networks. Technically this is “a very simple thing to do”, says Rik Ferguson of the Californiabased security firm Trend Micro. In many western nations, staging a similar cut-off might not be so easy,
Ferguson says, as it would require hundreds of ISPs to follow the government’s orders. Egypt has relatively few ISPs. Savvy citizens, assisted by online activists, are still finding ways to access the web. It remains possible to use Egypt’s old dial-up networks to access ISPs outside the country, and from there, the rest of the internet. A group called We Rebuild is digging out details of how to do this and passing them on to people in Egypt. Google and Twitter, meanwhile, have jointly launched Speak To Tweet, which allows Egyptians to dial numbers outside the country and leave voicemails. These are uploaded and linked to Twitter. As New Scientist went to press, nearly 500 messages had been uploaded.
–Still getting the message across–
Alien planet pack IF YOU thrill at the discovery of new exoplanets, hold tight. A sextuplet alien solar system has been glimpsed in exquisite detail, revealing six planets of varying mass, five of which are packed closer to one another than in any planetary system seen before. “We think this is the biggest thing in exoplanets since the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first exoplanet, back in 1995,” Jack Lissauer of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, told reporters earlier this week. The new planets orbit a star dubbed Kepler-11, which sits some 2000 light years from Earth. They were found when NASA’s Kepler telescope captured periodic dips
“This is the biggest thing in exoplanet studies since the discovery of the first exoplanet back in 1995” in Kepler-11’s brightness, created when planets pass between the star and Earth. These “transits” allow astronomers to measure a 4 | NewScientist | 5 February 2011
planet’s size. But Kepler-11’s inner five planets are close enough to one another to exert gravitational tugs that continually alter the length of time it takes for each planet to orbit the star. These timing variations allowed Lissauer and a team of colleagues to estimate the planets’ masses, which range from 2 to 14 times the mass of the Earth. The researchers then used this information to estimate the density of the innermost planets and found that all are less dense than the Earth. Some may have massive hydrogen atmospheres, they say, while others may contain significant amounts of water (Nature, DOI: 10.1039/ nature0976). Future observations should pin down the planets’ densities, which could help astronomers discern whether they formed close to or far from their present locations. This in turn could feed into theories about planet formation more generally. At the moment, either scenario presents a challenge for planet formation models, says Phil Armitage of the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Patent truce PIONEERING medical treatments based on stem cells made from adult tissues may arrive sooner, thanks to an international pact to forestall lengthy patent disputes. Announced on Tuesday, the pact pools patents already owned by leaders in the development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are created by “reprogramming” adult tissues, such as skin (see page 15). “My goal is to bring iPSC technology to patients with
intractable diseases as soon as possible,” says Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan, who discovered iPSCs in 2006. The pact will see Yamanaka’s patents, owned by Kyoto University through its affiliate, iPS Academia Japan, pooled with those owned by iPierian, a company based in South San Francisco, California. The goal is to avoid disputes, which have hindered development of treatments based on human embryonic stem cells, first isolated in 1998 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Yes and no to modified alfalfa ARE the “Frankenfears” that put brakes on genetically modified crops in Europe now brewing in the US? Organic farmers were dismayed last week when the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) declared that GM alfalfa can be grown without restriction in the US. They accused the USDA of capitulating to the biotechnology industry. The farmers were hoping for mandatory separations between fields to stop GM pollen drifting into
organic crops. Instead, the USDA expects farmers and seed suppliers to keep GM material apart voluntarily. It said this separation is manageable as only 1 per cent of alfalfa is organic and alfalfa is grown for seed in only a few fields. Elsewhere, it is cut before it produces pollen. The case, which began in the courts last year, is far from over. The Center for Food Safety in Washington DC has thrown it back with a legal challenge.
UPFRONT
Egypt wiped off the net THE internet may transcend national boundaries but an entire country can still take itself off the information map surprisingly quickly. At 2230 GMT on 27 January, the Egyptian government did just that as people took to the streets across the nation. Egypt was isolated from the rest of the internet by making changes in a system known as the border gateway protocol (BGP), which internet service providers (ISPs) use to connect to each other’s networks. The government ordered the country’s ISPs to alter their BGP configurations to cut the links to other networks. Technically this is “a very simple thing to do”, says Rik Ferguson of the Californiabased security firm Trend Micro. In many western nations, staging a similar cut-off might not be so easy,
Ferguson says, as it would require hundreds of ISPs to follow the government’s orders. Egypt has relatively few ISPs. Savvy citizens, assisted by online activists, are still finding ways to access the web. It remains possible to use Egypt’s old dial-up networks to access ISPs outside the country, and from there, the rest of the internet. A group called We Rebuild is digging out details of how to do this and passing them on to people in Egypt. Google and Twitter, meanwhile, have jointly launched Speak To Tweet, which allows Egyptians to dial numbers outside the country and leave voicemails. These are uploaded and linked to Twitter. As New Scientist went to press, nearly 500 messages had been uploaded.
–Still getting the message across–
Alien planet pack IF YOU thrill at the discovery of new exoplanets, hold tight. A sextuplet alien solar system has been glimpsed in exquisite detail, revealing six planets of varying mass, five of which are packed closer to one another than in any planetary system seen before. “We think this is the biggest thing in exoplanets since the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first exoplanet, back in 1995,” Jack Lissauer of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, told reporters earlier this week. The new planets orbit a star dubbed Kepler-11, which sits some 2000 light years from Earth. They were found when NASA’s Kepler telescope captured periodic dips
“This is the biggest thing in exoplanet studies since the discovery of the first exoplanet back in 1995” in Kepler-11’s brightness, created when planets pass between the star and Earth. These “transits” allow astronomers to measure a 4 | NewScientist | 5 February 2011
planet’s size. But Kepler-11’s inner five planets are close enough to one another to exert gravitational tugs that continually alter the length of time it takes for each planet to orbit the star. These timing variations allowed Lissauer and a team of colleagues to estimate the planets’ masses, which range from 2 to 14 times the mass of the Earth. The researchers then used this information to estimate the density of the innermost planets and found that all are less dense than the Earth. Some may have massive hydrogen atmospheres, they say, while others may contain significant amounts of water (Nature, DOI: 10.1039/ nature0976). Future observations should pin down the planets’ densities, which could help astronomers discern whether they formed close to or far from their present locations. This in turn could feed into theories about planet formation more generally. At the moment, either scenario presents a challenge for planet formation models, says Phil Armitage of the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Patent truce PIONEERING medical treatments based on stem cells made from adult tissues may arrive sooner, thanks to an international pact to forestall lengthy patent disputes. Announced on Tuesday, the pact pools patents already owned by leaders in the development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are created by “reprogramming” adult tissues, such as skin (see page 15). “My goal is to bring iPSC technology to patients with
intractable diseases as soon as possible,” says Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan, who discovered iPSCs in 2006. The pact will see Yamanaka’s patents, owned by Kyoto University through its affiliate, iPS Academia Japan, pooled with those owned by iPierian, a company based in South San Francisco, California. The goal is to avoid disputes, which have hindered development of treatments based on human embryonic stem cells, first isolated in 1998 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Yes and no to modified alfalfa ARE the “Frankenfears” that put brakes on genetically modified crops in Europe now brewing in the US? Organic farmers were dismayed last week when the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) declared that GM alfalfa can be grown without restriction in the US. They accused the USDA of capitulating to the biotechnology industry. The farmers were hoping for mandatory separations between fields to stop GM pollen drifting into
organic crops. Instead, the USDA expects farmers and seed suppliers to keep GM material apart voluntarily. It said this separation is manageable as only 1 per cent of alfalfa is organic and alfalfa is grown for seed in only a few fields. Elsewhere, it is cut before it produces pollen. The case, which began in the courts last year, is far from over. The Center for Food Safety in Washington DC has thrown it back with a legal challenge.