Technology that helps see through walls

By Indo Asian News Service, IANS

Washington, Oct 19 (IANS) - Peering through thick walls is no longer science fiction but stark reality, thanks to a new cutting edge technology developed by scientists.

MIT's Lincoln Lab researchers Gregory Charvat and John Peabody have built a system that can see through walls from some distance away, giving an instantaneous picture of the activity on the other side.

Their device is an unassuming array of antenna arranged in two rows - eight receiving elements on top, 13 transmitting ones below - and some computing equipment, all mounted onto a movable cart.

But it has powerful implications for military operations, especially 'urban combat situations', says project leader Charvat according to a Lincoln Lab statement.

Walls, by definition, are solid, and that's certainly true of the four- and eight-inch-thick concrete walls on which the researchers tested their system.

At first, their radar functions as any other: Transmitters emit waves of a certain frequency in the direction of the target. But in this case, each time the waves hit the wall, the concrete blocks more than 99 percent of them from passing through. And that's only half the battle.

Once the waves bounce off any targets, they must pass back through the wall to reach the radar's receivers - and again, 99 percent don't make it. By the time it hits the receivers, the signal is reduced to about 0.0025 percent of its original strength.

But according to Charvat, signal loss from the wall is not even the main challenge. '[Signal] amplifiers are cheap,' he says.

What has been difficult for through-wall radar systems is achieving the speed, resolution and range necessary to be useful in real time.

'If you're in a high-risk combat situation, you don't want one image every 20 minutes, and you don't want to have to stand right next to a potentially dangerous building,' Charvat says.

The Lincoln Lab team's system may be used at a range of up to 60 feet away from the wall. And, it gives a real-time picture of movement behind the wall in the form of a video at the rate of 10.8 frames per second.






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Top 10 universities in the world

Cambridge tops Harvard in world's best universities rankings
Oct 19, 2011 at 13:01

By Anita Narayan, US News and World Report

Harvard University may be America's top-ranked national university, along with Princeton University, in US News & World Report's latest Best Colleges rankings, but a competitor across the pond is now stealing some of that thunder.

For the second year in a row, the United Kingdom's University of Cambridge topped Harvard in the US News World's Best Universities rankings, released today and based on data from the 2011 QS World University Rankings.

Developed by QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a leading global career and education network, the World's Best rankings showcase the top international universities, from North and South America to Europe and Asia and beyond.

Six distinct indicators were evaluated to rank the top 400 universities worldwide: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, proportion of international faculty, proportion of international students, and citations per faculty.

The gap between Cambridge and Harvard was incredibly small - a difference of about 0.7 points in their overall scores - and can be attributed to Cambridge's more impressive faculty-student ratio.

Despite Harvard falling slightly behind a UK university, U.S. schools dominated the top 400 list, with six American institutions appearing in the top 10 (Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University). The highest showing by a non-American or non-British university was Canada's McGill University, at No. 17. Asia's highest ranking came via University of Hong Kong (HKU), at No. 22.

A separate ranking of the top 100 Asian universities highlights the dynamism of the Asian region, where countries such as China, South Korea, and India are investing heavily in higher education to cater to both domestic and international students.

This year, to better reflect the region's unique character, a distinct methodology from the top 400 global rankings was used, with indicators such as Asian academic reputation and Asian employer review.

The leaders of the pack came from Hong Kong, with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and HKU taking the first and second spots, respectively. The gap between the two was very narrow - a difference of 0.2 points in their overall scores - with HKUST's research productivity giving it the edge.

Japan, whose economy is slowly recovering from the devastating March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, was nonetheless dominant in the Asian rankings, with five Japanese schools in the top 10.

Meanwhile, China, the world's largest source for international students at US universities, made strides with its own schools. Peking University and Tsinghua University were both among the top 20 best Asian universities, performing very well in the academic and employer reputation indicators. India didn't fare as well, due to low citations scores; its highest entries were three Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT Kanpur, Delhi, and Bombay) at No. 36, No. 37, and No. 38, respectively.

Like Asia, Latin America is undergoing significant development, propelled by rising economic powerhouse Brazil. The country's Universidad de Sao Paulo took the No. 1 spot in the top 100 Latin American universities rankings, beating Chile's Pontificia Universidad Cat?lica de Chile by 0.4 points in its overall score.

The new Latin rankings use a distinct methodology, evaluating indicators such as Latin American academic reputation, Latin American employer review, and proportion of staff with Ph.D.'s.

Brazil was the clear leader, fielding three institutions in the top 10 and eight in the top 20. The country's huge investments in higher education to fuel economic growth, and its prioritization of research, have paid off: Brazilian universities performed particularly well in measures such as papers per faculty and proportion of academics with Ph.D.'s.

Meanwhile, Mexico - with two institutions in the top 10 of the Latin rankings - showcased strong reputations across the region, despite lower performance in research measures for most of its universities. The fifth-ranked Universidad Nacional Aut?noma de México (UNAM) had the highest academic reputation, while seventh-ranked Tecnoligico de Monterrey (ITESM) had the second-highest employer reputation.

Going beyond global and regional comparisons, the new World's Best Universities subject rankings examine the top schools worldwide in 24 subjects (top 30 for chemical engineering and top 50 for all other subjects).

Divided into five broad categories - arts and humanities; engineering and technology; life sciences; natural sciences; and social sciences - the individual subject rankings are based on academic reputation, employer reputation, and citations per paper.

MIT dominated all engineering and technology rankings, taking the top spot in the computer science; civil engineering; chemical engineering; electrical engineering; and mechanical, aeronautical, and manufacturing engineering fields. Other American institutions that had strong showings in that category include Stanford University, University of California--Berkeley, and California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

US universities similarly led the pack in two other broad categories: life sciences and social sciences. In the former, Harvard took the lead in biological sciences and psychology; in the latter, while Harvard took the No. 1 spot atop the accounting and finance; economics and econometrics; politics and international studies; and sociology rankings, Stanford topped the statistics and operational research rankings.

Only the arts and humanities and natural sciences categories showed some variety at the top. Although Harvard once again took the top spots in the majority of the specific subject disciplines, the UK's University of Oxford was ranked No. 1 for geography and area studies, and Cambridge dominated both the linguistics and physics and astronomy subject rankings.

1. University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)

2. Harvard University (United States)

3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States)

4. Yale University (United States)

5. University of Oxford (United Kingdom)

6. Imperial College London (United Kingdom)

7. UCL (University College London) (United Kingdom)

8. University of Chicago (United States)

9. University of Pennsylvania (United States)

10. Columbia University (United States)





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Study finds people with moles may age slower

Oct 15, 2011 at 13:45


By Agence France-Presse


It turns out that Marilyn Monroe and Cindy Crawford's moles may be worth more than their aesthetic value alone: a study shows that people with moles age slower and can appear up to seven years younger than their peers.


A study conducted by researchers at Kings College London that was first published in the Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention Journal was presented last month to a group of doctors and scientists at the UK's Royal Society of Medicine Conference.


Scientists found that an abundance of beauty marks is correlated with stronger bones, firmer muscles, a healthier heart and eyes, fewer wrinkles, and even a nearly 50 percent reduction in the risk of osteoporosis. Scientists say the link stems from the fact that people with moles have longer telomeres -- the region of DNA found at the end of every chromosome that serves as a plastic cap to keep chromosomes from unraveling and mutating.


As humans age, their telomeres naturally shrink. Shortened telomeres are responsible for causing all types of conditions associated with aging including wrinkles, hair thinning, arthritis, weight gain and loss, high blood pressure, diabetes, vision and hearing loss.


But in spite of these results, preserving your telomere length has to do with more than just possessing beauty marks. Other factors such as a poor diet, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, obesity and psychological stress can also cause your telomeres to shorten faster than natural cell division alone. 


Meanwhile, exercising has been linked to longer telomeres.

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Mystery over a woman's rapid aging

At 21 years old

At 26 years old

Doctors have been baffled by 
a strange condition that saw 
a woman of 23 age 50 years 
in just a matter of days.

VIETNAM – A vietnamese woman Nguyen Thi Phuong now looks like a septugenarian after the rapid
aging affliction took hold following an allergic reaction to seafood. Her sad story began in 2008, when her youthful beauty began to fade over the course of just a few days, leaving her with sagging, wrinkled skin all over her face and body. Until now she has been forced to wear a mask in public to hide her appearance from prying eyes, but now doctors are attempting to establish what caused her sudden and horrifying aging.
Her husband, carpenter Nguyen Thanh Tuyen says his love for his once beautiful wife has not faded while Phuong, now 26, says her condition has only worsened since she was first struck with the condition. The couple, from the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre, in Vietnam, have agreed to talk to the media for the first time in order to ask for help.
Some have argued that the condition is lipodystrophy - a rare syndrome that causes a layer of fatty tissue beneath the surface of the skin to disintegrate while the skin itself continues to grow at a startling pace. The syndrome with no cure leaves its victims with loose folds of skin all over their bodies, wrinkled faces and the gaunt features of people decades their senior. The condition is extremely rare and out of around seven billion people on the planet, only 2,000
are thought to have lipodystrophy.
Displaying photos of a beautiful 21-year-old woman on her wedding day in 2006, Phuong said: "Five years ago, I was rather pretty and not so ugly like this, right?". Phuong explained she has long been allergic to seafood and that she had suffered a particularly bad reaction in 2008.She said: "I was really itchy all over my body. I had to scratch even while sleeping."
Phuong said she took some medicine bought at a local pharmacy instead of going to the hospital because her and her husband Tuyen, now 33, were too poor to afford it.She said: "After one month of taking the drugs, I became less itchy but hives remained on my skin. "Then I switched to traditional medicine and all the hives disappeared, together with my itching. However, my skin began to sag and fold."Phuong then took another kind of traditional medicine to treat her rapid-aging skin problem - but to no avail. The couple do not remember what the medicine was or which pharmacy they got it from.
Phuong said: "We considered that it was our destiny and I quit treatment in 2009. Now I always wear a face mask whenever I go out." The skin on my face, chest and belly have folds like an old woman who has given birth several times although I have never had a child. "But the rapid-aging syndrome hasn't affected my menstrual cycle, hair, teeth, eyes and mind." In 2010, the couple migrated to the southern province of Binh Phuoc's Bu Dop District where they rent a small wooden house.
Tuyen continued to work as a carpenter while Phuong got a job at a cashew-nut processing factory.
Both earn a total of VND3 million - less than £92 a month - which means they cannot afford an examination at a major hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. Tuyen said his wife's disease has not affected his love for her or their relationship.
He said: "I married Phuong when she was a beautiful woman. I have followed her through her disease and have never been shocked at all."It's not easy to talk about one's own marital affairs. Just simply understand that I still love her very much."
Phuong said her husband's love is the reason she is able to persevere in the face of adversity. She said, "He still loves me like before despite the fact that I look old and ugly. With him, I feel more confident to live and work." On Oct 2, doctors from Nguyen Dinh Chieu Hospital in Ben Tre Province said they would examine Phuong for free and send her to the HCMC Dermatology Hospital if they failed to diagnose her condition.
Meanwhile, stories about Phuong in the local media have prompted a variety of diagnoses from local doctors. Many of them do not believe that Phuong has lipodystrophy, saying instead that Phuong may be suffering the side effects of too much steroid medication. – Agencies

Ireland's judges lose their wigs in austerity move

DUBLIN (AP/AFP) - M'lord, I can see your blad spot.
Hundreds of Ireland's judges abandoned their 
wigs for the first time in centuries Friday after the Irish Courts Service ended the rule requiring them to wear the British-style headgear.
The move is designed to save the taxpayer money in debt-struck Ireland. Until now, each new judge has received a London-made, white-dyed horsehair wig that costs the state about €2,200 ($3,000) each.
Ireland is voting Oct. 27 on a constitutional amendment that would give the government new power to cut judges' salaries.
Ireland's judges are to end the tradition of wearing horsehair wigs that dates back over 350 years to British colonial rule, the country's Courts Service said.
The Superior Courts Rules Committee, chaired for the first time by recently appointed Chief Justice Susan Denham -- Ireland's first female top judge -- approved the court rules change that does away with the requirement for ceremonial wigs to be worn in the Supreme and High Courts.
A similar rule change will apply to judges in the Circuit Court after the change is signed into law by Justice Minister Alan Shatter.
Wigs have been worn in court as "a matter of rule, tradition and law" since about 1660, the time of the restoration of the English monarchy, and survived Ireland's transition to independence in 1921.
The Service said the decision to dispense with wigs is complementary to a rule change made some time ago which removed the necessity to address a judge in court as "My Lord".
It is now the rule that a judge be referred to simply as "Judge" or in the Irish language as "A Bhreithim".
Irish judges have worn wigs since the mid-17th century and kept the policy after Ireland won independence from Britain in 1922.

'Totally blind' Italian hairdresser caught in benefit scam

Rome, Oct 14, 2011 (AFP) -An Italian woman claiming a disability allowance for blindness was remanded in custody on Friday for benefit fraud after police filmed her working as a hairdresser and cycling about town on her bicycle.
The 62-year old woman, who owns a hair salon in the town of Lugo in northern Italy, began claiming benefit in 1986 because her vision was degenerating and by 2011 she claimed to be "totally blind," according to a police statement.
By 1997 her doctor said she had to be accompanied when she left the house, and by 2008 she could only count the number of fingers held up in front of her if the hand was held a few centimeters away from her face.
In double-checking a list of professions of those registered as blind, police stumbled across the salon and filmed the woman cutting clients' hair, shopping for clothes and food and walking and cycling about the town.
Her benefit — 43,000 euros ($59,000) so far — has been suspended.

Sleeping Austrian alerted to fire by cats

VIENNA, Oct 14, 2011 (AFP) -An Austrian man was saved from tragedy in the early hours of Friday morning after his cats woke him up by repeatedly walking over his face as he slept, police said.
When the 37-year-old from Hohenems in the western state of Vorarlberg finally came to, he smelled burning and discovered the blaze in his flat.
After failing to put out the flames with an extinguisher he called the fire brigade at 3:30 am. The man was unharmed but his living room furniture was almost completely destroyed.

Jubilant crowds greet Bhutan’s newly married king

King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wengchuck with wife Jetsun Pema

THIMPHU — Bhutan’s newly-married king and his 21-year-old bride greeted huge crowds of well-wishers on Friday as they made their way on foot back to the capital along windy Himalayan roads.
The hugely popular 31-year-old king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, married and crowned Jetsun Pema, the commoner daughter of an airline pilot, on Thursday in a colorful Buddhist ceremony in the ancient capital of Punakha.
The staunchly royalist people of this remote Himalayan nation, which has resisted outside influences for centuries, are enjoying a three-day public holiday to mark the occasion.
The royal couple set off on foot from Punakha — a two-and-half-hour drive from the capital along roads with stunning views over untouched mountains — and had covered only a few kilometers (miles) by midday.
“There are people lined up along almost the entire stretch,” royal spokesman Dorji Wangchuck told AFP by phone from the scene.
The king’s habit of diving into crowds, greeting people and picking up babies is known to exasperate his security detail, but is a core part of his appeal to his 700,000 adoring subjects.
When he was crowned in 2008 in Punakha, he did much of the return journey to the capital Thimphu on foot.
This time the couple planned to cover parts of the route that go through less populated areas by car.
The main streets of Thimphu have been decorated with flashing lights and the official poster of the royal couple and the national flag adorn lampposts, building facades and roundabouts.
Lines of schoolchildren with the national orange-and-yellow flag had already started forming at midday, hours before the royal couple were due to arrive.
Amid clouds of incense and chanting monks, Pema was crowned queen at the end of a series of elaborate rituals in the 17th-century fortified monastery in Punakha that served as the headquarters of the country’s ancient capital.
The “Dragon King”, an Oxford graduate who came to power in 2008 at the start of democracy in Bhutan, said afterwards that he had waited to get married but was sure he had found “the right person”.
“She is a wonderful human being,” he told a small group of foreign reporters.
Bhutan banned foreign television until 1999 and is the only nation in the world whose government pursues “Gross National Happiness” for its people instead of economic growth.
Dasho Karma Ura from the Centre for Bhutan Studies, a think-tank, said the queen would bring a “new dimension of feminine leadership” to the country. The previous king had four wives, all sisters, who shunned the limelight.
“The Bhutanese youth are starting to look up to her, to dress up like her and trying to be an attractive personality like her,” he told AFP in an interview.
Bhutan, which has never been colonised, remained in self-imposed isolation for centuries and is still wary of outside influence and the impact of globalisation.
The country had no roads or currency until the 1960s and continues to resist mass tourism to this day. — AFP-year-old bride greeted huge crowds of well-wishers on Friday as they made their way on foot back to the capital along windy Himalayan roads.
The hugely popular 31-year-old king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, married and crowned Jetsun Pema, the commoner daughter of an airline pilot, on Thursday in a colorful Buddhist ceremony in the ancient capital of Punakha.
The staunchly royalist people of this remote Himalayan nation, which has resisted outside influences for centuries, are enjoying a three-day public holiday to mark the occasion.
The royal couple set off on foot from Punakha — a two-and-half-hour drive from the capital along roads with stunning views over untouched mountains — and had covered only a few kilometers (miles) by midday.
“There are people lined up along almost the entire stretch,” royal spokesman Dorji Wangchuck told AFP by phone from the scene.
The king’s habit of diving into crowds, greeting people and picking up babies is known to exasperate his security detail, but is a core part of his appeal to his 700,000 adoring subjects.
When he was crowned in 2008 in Punakha, he did much of the return journey to the capital Thimphu on foot.
This time the couple planned to cover parts of the route that go through less populated areas by car.
The main streets of Thimphu have been decorated with flashing lights and the official poster of the royal couple and the national flag adorn lampposts, building facades and roundabouts.
Lines of schoolchildren with the national orange-and-yellow flag had already started forming at midday, hours before the royal couple were due to arrive.
Amid clouds of incense and chanting monks, Pema was crowned queen at the end of a series of elaborate rituals in the 17th-century fortified monastery in Punakha that served as the headquarters of the country’s ancient capital.
The “Dragon King”, an Oxford graduate who came to power in 2008 at the start of democracy in Bhutan, said afterwards that he had waited to get married but was sure he had found “the right person”.
“She is a wonderful human being,” he told a small group of foreign reporters.
Bhutan banned foreign television until 1999 and is the only nation in the world whose government pursues “Gross National Happiness” for its people instead of economic growth.
Dasho Karma Ura from the Centre for Bhutan Studies, a think-tank, said the queen would bring a “new dimension of feminine leadership” to the country. The previous king had four wives, all sisters, who shunned the limelight.
“The Bhutanese youth are starting to look up to her, to dress up like her and trying to be an attractive personality like her,” he told AFP in an interview.
Bhutan, which has never been colonised, remained in self-imposed isolation for centuries and is still wary of outside influence and the impact of globalisation.
The country had no roads or currency until the 1960s and continues to resist mass tourism to this day. — AFP

No sex please, we're British and over 60

LONDON (Reuters) - An event organized by British city to school its older residents in the arts of safe sex has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

The "Generation Sex" workshop was part of an annual over-60s festival in the southern English city of Portsmouth and billed as a "frank, fun and factual" way for older people to talk about sex in later life.

"The background was the risk of sexually-transmitted diseases in older people and the need to practise safer sex," said Drusilla Moody, Portsmouth Council's tourism and visitor services manager.

Entry would have been free, but those taking part would have had to supply proof of age and of residency in Portsmouth.

These requirements are no longer needed, since the workshop was cancelled "because too few people booked places", Moody said.

Nigerian woman gets prison for enslaving 2 women

ATLANTA (AP) — A Nigerian woman convicted of enslaving two young women from her country to work as servants and nannies at her suburban Atlanta home has been sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison.Bidemi Bello apologized to the judge and to the victims before her sentencing Thursday.

A federal jury convicted Bello in June of human trafficking, making false statements and other charges.

Prosecutors say she lured the women to Georgia on separate occasions with false promises of education and then forced them to do menial labor. They say she routinely beat them, forced them to eat spoiled food and cut her lawn by hand.

The two women, both 27, managed to eventually escape. They still live in the US and are working to rebuild their lives.



Landlord cracks down on NY demo as protests spread

Police watch Wall Street protesters in New York.

NEW YORK (AP) — Protests against corporate greed and corruption are spreading across the United States into Canada and the United Kingdom, just as the New York demonstration that started the movement faces a crackdown by its unwilling landlord.

The owner of the private park where "Occupy Wall Street" protesters have been camped out for nearly a month in lower Manhattan gave notice Thursday that it will begin enforcing regulations that prohibit everything from lying down on benches to storing personal property on the ground.

The landlord, Brookfield Properties, handed out a notice to protesters saying they would be allowed back inside after a planned park cleanup on Friday morning if they abide by park regulations.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited the protesters Wednesday to offer assurances they would not be evicted. Bloomberg's girlfriend, Diana Taylor, is on Brookfield's board of directors, according to the property owner's website.

Protesters said they believe the effort is an attempt to end their encampment at Zuccotti Park, a three-quarter acre (one-third hectare) open square near the New York Stock Exchange, which triggered a movement against unequal distribution of wealth that has spread across the globe.

"They're going to use the cleanup to get us out of here!" said Justin Wedes, 25, a part-time public high school science teacher.

Hacker says was addicted to prying on celebrities

Oct. 13 (Reuters) - The man charged with hacking the private e-mail accounts of Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera and other celebrities apologized on Thursday, saying he became addicted to prying into their affairs.

But Christopher Chaney, 35, said he never intended to sell or release the information, which included nude photos that later made their way to the Internet.

"It started as curiosity and it turned into just being addicted to seeing behind the scenes of what was going on with these people you see on the big screen every day," Chaney told Fox television affiliate WAWS in Jacksonville, Florida.

"I was almost relieved months ago when they came in and took my computer...because I didn't know how to stop," he said.

Chaney was charged on Wednesday with 26 counts of cyber-related crimes against Hollywood celebrities after an 11-month FBI probe dubbed "Operation Hackerazzi."

Victims included "Iron Man 2" star Johansson, whose topless photo was leaked online in September, and "Black Swan" actress Mila Kunis, who was seen in a bubble bath.

Chaney said he couldn't remember who or when he started hacking but said his activities just "snowballed".

"I deeply apologize," he said. "I know what I did was probably one of the worst invasions of privacy someone could experience. I am not trying to escape what I did."

Chaney faces up to 121 years in jail if convicted on all counts.

Investigators said there is no connection between Chaney and a hacking scandal involving one of the London newspapers owned by media giant News Corp. has spread across the globe.

"They're going to use the cleanup to get us out of here!" said Justin Wedes, 25, a part-time public high school science teacher from Brooklyn. "It's a de facto eviction notice."

It's not clear whether the regulations are new or how they would be enforced.