Today on New Scientist: 30 November 2012

Dinosaurs might have once gazed into the Grand Canyon

It had been thought that the canyon formed 6 million years ago, but now two geologists say it is actually closer to 70 million years old

Saturn's rings may double up as a moon factory

A new model suggests Saturn's famous rings spawned the planet's moons. Could the mechanism explain the moons of Uranus, Neptune and even Earth?

Gaming the future: the best of 2012

New Scientist looks back at the video games that explored the boundaries of science and technology this year

Friday Illusion: Mystery mirror reveals missing banana

A prize for the first person to figure out how a strange mirror image remains in view

Syria again disconnects nation from the internet

Once again, the Syrian government appears to have pulled the plug on the internet, cutting off its citizens from the rest of the world

Crowdfund your area's projects one brick at a time

As the recession bites and budgets are cut, websites are springing up that allow citizens to club together to fund everything from parks to bridges

Omniphobia: the stuffs that stick at nothing

Whether it's water, oil, ketchup or ants, materials that repel everything that touches them are on the way, says Jessica Griggs

Feedback: Commas in breach of copyright

Why these words break the law, impure apples, Google rewrites the history of everything, and more

A quantum of... We want to see your movies!

The deadline for the Quantum Shorts Film Competition is hard on us and we've already had some amazing entries - submit yours before Sunday

LHC sees hint of high-speed particle pancake

Purely by accident, the Higgs-boson-hunting Large Hadron Collider may have stumbled upon a rare state of matter called a colour-glass condensate

Social bee-haviour: The secret life of the hive

Bees have a brain the size of a pinhead, yet their daily activities rival the range of behaviours seen in many mammals

Florida pet spa mystery link to China's great firewall

China's censors have innovative ways of stopping its citizens accessing banned websites, including poisoning internet servers

Giant tortoises bounce back in the Galapagos

A slow and steady rescue mission has seen the population of the iconic creatures on Española Island leap from just 12 into the thousands

Messenger finds hints of ice at Mercury's poles

The innermost planet of the solar system could harbour a small polar habitable zone - but the chances of finding life there are remote

Projections of sea level rise are vast underestimates

Estimates made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 were wildly wrong

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Palestinians need separate vote to join IMF: spokeswoman

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund said on Friday that the UN vote to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state does not mean the Palestinians will automatically become members of the financial institution.

In response to an AFP query, spokeswoman Wafa Amr said United Nations recognition "by itself has no direct effect on a possible application for membership of the IMF."

"The Fund has its own procedures for determining membership, which include the requirement that Fund members representing a majority of the Fund's voting power recognize the applicant to the Fund as a 'country'."

That would mean that the countries and blocs with the IMF's largest voting power, the United States and Europe, would have to back the Palestinian state's membership.

But Washington on Thursday voted against the resolution elevating the Palestinians' diplomatic status, and Europe was split over the matter. The UN General Assembly backed the measure 138-9 with 41 abstentions.

Joining the IMF would allow the Palestinians to benefit from financial advice and support from the Washington-based body.

Newly-formed South Sudan became the most recent country to join the IMF, in April this year, nine months after gaining independence.

- AFP/xq

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Apple re-posts 10.8.2 update for Mac Mini and MacBook users

Apple has re-issued its 10.8.2 update for specific
Mac systems after having pulled it over a week ago.

OS X 10.8.2 has been available for Mac systems since mid-September, but in mid-November Apple pulled a specific version of the updater for the 2012
Mac Mini,
iMac, and 13-inch MacBook Pro models, resulting in the inability for those with these systems to be updated to the latest version of OS X.

The reasons for the pulled update were not made public. When users attempted to install the Combo updater for OS X 10.8.2 on their systems, the installer gave an error stating the volume does not meet the requirements for this update.

As silently as this update was pulled, Apple has re-issued the update so it should be available for those who have affected systems. With this update available, you can now meet the system requirements for additional updates, including those for the latest versions of Aperture and iPhoto. If you already have OS X 10.8.2 on your system then you do not need to do anything, but if you have one of these systems and have been stuck with OS X 10.8.1, you can now bring your system up to date.

To install this update, check Software Update in your Mac's Apple Menu and apply all available updates there, but it can also be downloaded as a standalone updater from its Apple Support Downloads page. As always, be sure to fully back up your system before applying this or any other update.

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Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or !
Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.

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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

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  Into the Sea

  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters

  A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.

  Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











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  Sea of Fire

  
  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
  

  The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.

  The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











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  Volcanic Flare

  
  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
  

  A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.

  The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











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  Fiery Encounter

  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters

  “Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











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  Point of Contact

  
  Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
  

  A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











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  Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  

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3 Dead After Attack at Wyo. Community College

Three people are dead after an attack at Casper College, a Wyoming community college, that may have involved a type of bow and arrow.

The college was shut down Friday morning after the attack.

"Emergency Alert: All classes and activities are cancelled today," read a message posted on the school's website.

Initial calls came in just after 9 a.m. reporting a "traumatic injury" on campus, according to a statement provided by local law enforcement to ABC News. Officers found "multiple victims" and the school was immediately placed on lockdown.

Alan Rogers/Casper Star-Tribune/AP Photo

Three people were found dead. One was a Casper College faculty member and another was a suspect who died of "apparent suicide," according to the statement.

The suspect, authorities said, "was not a current student at Casper College and the incident does not appear to be school motivated."

"There were no firearms involved in the crime," they said, "and the victim's injuries were caused by a sharp-edged weapon."

Police told Wyoming station KCWY that one of the victims was stabbed with a "bow-and-arrow-type" weapon.

The school of around 5,000 students is located in Casper, the state's second-largest city. It was founded in 1945, according to the school's website.

Calls to Casper Police Chief Chris Walsh and school spokesman Rich Fujita were not returned Friday afternoon.

The lockdown was later lifted. The school's website said campus travel was "now permitted" and that counselors were available at the school's Gateway Building.

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Projections of sea level rise are vast underestimates

Expect more water to lap at your shores. That's the take-home message from two studies out this week that look at the latest data on sea level rise due to climate change.

The first shows that current projections for the end of the century may seriously underestimate the rise in global sea levels. The other, on the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, looks at just how much of the water stored up there has been moving into the oceans.

Both demonstrate that global warming is a real and imminent threat.

What mechanisms could lead to a rise in global sea level as climate change warms the planet?
There are four major mechanisms: the thermal expansion of oceans in a warming world; the loss of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets; the melting of mountain glaciers and ice caps (such as those in the Himalayas); and the extraction and discharge of groundwater.

What is the latest on sea level rise?
One of the two new studies shows that last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 2007, vastly underestimated actual sea level rise. That's because the IPCC's fourth assessment report (AR4) did not include contributions from the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

So, for the years 1993-2011, the IPCC estimated that sea level would rise by about 2 millimetres a year. But the satellite data from that period now tell a different story.

Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and colleagues compared IPCC AR4 projections with actual measurements and found the projections lagging behind what was happening in the real world. Global sea level has been rising at about 3.2 millimetres a year over the past two decades (Environmental Research Letters, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/044035).

Why the discrepancy?
The likely culprits are continental ice sheets. "[In IPCC models], the two big ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica contribute nothing to future sea level rise, because they assume that the mass loss from Greenland is balanced by ice gain in Antarctica due to higher snowfall rates," says Rahmstorf.

But satellite data show that the ice sheets are losing ice to the oceans.

If the models have not accurately reproduced what happened in recent years, it is likely that their projections for the future are not correct either. Since 2007, the IPCC has recognised this. Its initial projection of a maximum sea level rise of 60 centimetres by 2100 has been upped to include an additional 20-centimetre rise due to ice sheets melting. This effect comes from simplified models of what the ice sheets are doing, however, so even the updated projections could be off the mark and sea level rise could potentially be greater still.

So, what do the latest satellite readings tell us about ice sheets?
They tell us that the melting in Greenland is not offset by gain of ice in Antarctica. Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds, UK, and colleagues combined data from three independent types of satellite studies to lessen uncertainties and remove year-to-year variability.

"It's probably now the best overall and most comprehensive estimate of what the ice sheets are doing and what they have been doing for the last 20 years," says team member Ian Joughin of the University of Washington in Seattle.

And the data are clear: from 1990 to 2000, the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets added about 0.25 millimetres a year to global sea level rise. For 2005-2010, that number has increased to about 1 millimetre a year (Science, http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1228102"

This is a concern, says Joughin. "It shows an accelerating increase of mass loss."

Is there a difference in how Greenland and Antarctica are reacting to global warming?
Yes. Greenland is losing the most ice, causing sea level to rise by about 0.75 millimetres per year. What's happening in Antarctica is more nuanced. East Antarctica is gaining mass because of increased snowfall, but this is more than offset by the loss of ice from West Antarctica, particularly along the Amundsen Coast, where warm water is melting ice shelves from beneath. This is leading to thinning and speed-up of glaciers, such the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers.

How much will the extraction of groundwater for irrigation add to the sea level?
Until now, sea level rise from the extraction of groundwater (which eventually ends up in the sea) has been countered by dams built on rivers over the last century, which hold water back on land. But the best sites for dams have now been utilised, so we can't expect to store more water on land.

As we extract more groundwater for irrigation – a trend that could increase as climate change causes droughts – it could add up to 10 centimetres to the sea level by 2100, according to Rahmstorf. "This will become a net contribution to sea level rise in the future," he says. "Not big, but not negligible."

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US, Israel isolated in downplaying Palestine vote

WASHINGTON: The United States and Israel downplayed on Thursday the Palestinians' new upgraded status at the UN, saying it changed nothing in actual practice and even made peace with the Jewish state a remoter prospect.

Palestinians rejoiced at the historic albeit largely symbolic vote at the UN General Assembly in New York, firing guns into the air in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, shooting off fireworks and embracing each other with glee.

In between the two ends of the spectrum were major powers like Britain, which said it respected the vote but abstained on the grounds that the Palestinians had not unconditionally agreed to negotiations on a lasting two-state deal with Israel.

Britain pledged support for efforts to reach an elusive peace accord, as did France, which voted for the resolution but called on Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks without conditions and as soon as possible.

The Vatican welcomed the 138-9 vote, saying it reflected the majority sentiment of the international community and the Holy See had long encouraged more global involvement to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Peace needs courageous decisions," it said in a statement.

But top US diplomats warned the Palestinians that they had essentially achieved nothing, while Israel sounded as angry as the Palestinians did joyful.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's speech before the General Assembly ahead of the vote on the status upgrade was "defamatory and venomous."

"The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the IDF (army) and the citizens of Israel," the statement said.

The American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said the Palestinians' joy would be short-lived.

"Today's grand announcements will soon fade and the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow to find little of their lives has changed, save (that) the prospects of a durable peace have receded," she said.

"This resolution does not establish that Palestine is a state," she said, echoing an earlier speech by the ambassador to Israel. "Today's vote should not be misconstrued by any as constituting eligibility for UN membership."

Rice said that "only through direct negotiations between the parties can the Palestinians and the Israelis achieve the peace that both deserve."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking in Washington, used exactly the same language to denounce a decision that she said "places further obstacles in the path to peace."

The United States and Israel were among just nine countries bucking global support for a resolution giving Palestine non-member status at the United Nations.

Speaking prior to the vote, Netanyahu said in Jerusalem: "The decision at the United Nations today won't change anything on the ground." He added, "It won't promote the establishment of a Palestinian state; it will distance it.

"Israel's hand is always extended in peace, but a Palestinian state will not be established without (a Palestinian) recognition of the State of Israel as the Jewish people's state," Netanyahu said.

Among the allies of Israel and the United States was Canada, whose foreign minister John Baird said giving Palestine non-member observer status, a step on the path to full UN membership, "undermines the core" of attempts to broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal.

But nothing would spoil the Palestinians' big day.

The Hamas movement, which had opposed its rival Abbas's drive for the status change on grounds it was unilateral and not a product of consensus, welcomed the vote as a victory.

And while some in Ramallah recognized it was a half-triumph, they savoured it nonetheless.

"I'm happy they declared the state even though it's only a moral victory. There are a lot of sharks out there, but it feels good," 39-year-old Rashid al-Kor told AFP.

Ethar al-Asmar, a teacher, was pragmatic about the approval.

"Israel isn't going anywhere," she admitted. But, she said, the moment felt historic nonetheless.

"We have been waiting for this for so long. I never thought this day would come."

- AFP/xq

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Anonymous declares war on Syrian government Web sites

Determining that the Syrian government was responsible for the country's Internet blackout, the online hacktivist group Anonymous has announced a campaign against Syrian government Web sites hosted outside the country.

The Middle Eastern country began experiencing an Internet outage this morning, and many people on Twitter reported that phone lines are down as well. All 84 of Syria's IP address blocks have become unreachable, effectively removing the country from the Internet, according to Renesys, which operates a real-time grid that continuously monitors Internet routing data.

Anonymous said it had conducted an "exhaustive analysis" of the blackout and determined that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad had severed fiber-optic and coaxial cables going into Syria.

"Essentially, they have physically 'pulled the plug out of the wall,'" Anonymous said in a press release. "As we discovered in Egypt, where the dictator Mubarak did something similar -- this is not damage that can be easily or quickly repaired."

Characterizing the outage as a "desperate move by a dying regime," Anonymous said it would be begin a campaign at 6 p.m. PT dubbed "Operation Syria" to remove all Web assets belonging to Assad's government hosted outside the country. The group said its first target would be servers for all Syrian embassies, beginning with the embassy in China.

"By turning off the Internet in Syria, the butcher Assad has shown that the time has come for Anonymous to remove the last vestiges of his evil government from the Internet," Anonymous said.

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Pictures: Inside the World's Most Powerful Laser

Photograph courtesy Damien Jemison, LLNL

Looking like a portal to a science fiction movie, preamplifiers line a corridor at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF).

Preamplifiers work by increasing the energy of laser beams—up to ten billion times—before these beams reach the facility's target chamber.

The project's lasers are tackling "one of physics' grand challenges"—igniting hydrogen fusion fuel in the laboratory, according to the NIF website. Nuclear fusion—the merging of the nuclei of two atoms of, say, hydrogen—can result in a tremendous amount of excess energy. Nuclear fission, by contrast, involves the splitting of atoms.

This July, California-based NIF made history by combining 192 laser beams into a record-breaking laser shot that packed over 500 trillion watts of peak power-a thousand times more power than the entire United States uses at any given instant.

"This was a quantum leap for laser technology around the world," NIF director Ed Moses said in September. But some critics of the $5 billion project wonder why the laser has yet to ignite a fusion chain reaction after three-and-a-half years in operation. Supporters counter that such groundbreaking science simply can't be rushed.

(Related: "Fusion Power a Step Closer After Giant Laser Blast.")

—Brian Handwerk

Published November 29, 2012

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Palestinians Win Statehood Status at U.N.

The U.N. General Assembly voted today to approve Palestinians' request to be upgraded to a "non-member observer state," defying opposition by the U.S. and Israel.

Before the vote, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the General Assembly that it "is being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine."

Of the 193 countries in the General Assembly 138 voted to recognize Palestine. Only nine, including the U.S., voted against it. Another 41 countries abstained.

In the West Bank, Palestinians erupted in a roar of cheers, horn honking and fireworks as crowds thronged the main square of Ramallah to celebrate the world's recognition of their state.

The historic vote recognizes Palestine as a state and gives Palestine the right to join U.N. agencies. It opens the door for Palestine to become a party to the International Criminal Court, allowing them to bring cases against Israel.

Israel and the U.S. argued that the vote is purely symbolic, would change nothing on the ground, would hurt peace talks and could affect U.S. funding.

Most European countries were expected to side with the Palestinians in this dispute.

The only countries voting against the resolution besides the United States and Israel were Canada, the Czech Republic and some Pacific Island states.

Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images

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U.S. allies France, Sweden and Italy all voted for the resolution, as did countries where the U.S. is expected to hold sway like Mexico, Afghanistan, India and Iraq.

Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom all stayed out of the fray, preferring to abstain.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice downplayed the significance of the victorious resolution.

"Today's grand pronouncement will soon fade and the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded," Rice said.

"The United States therefore calls upon both the parties to resume direct talks without preconditions on all the issues that divide them and we pledge that the United States will be there to support the parties vigorously in such efforts. The United States will continue to urge all parties to avoid any further provocative actions - in the region, in New York and elsewhere," she said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office dismissed the significance of the vote.

"This is a meaningless decision that will not change anything on the ground. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that there will be no establishment of a Palestinian state without a settlement that ensures the security of Israel's citizens," the statement said.

"He will not allow a base for Iranian terrorism to be established in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], in addition to those that have [already] been established in Gaza and Lebanon... By going to the U.N., the Palestinians have violated the agreements with Israel and Israel will act accordingly," the Israeli statement said.

After the results were announced, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged leaders of Israel and Palestine to resume peace talks.

"Today's vote underscores the urgency of the resumption of negotiations," he said.

The vote went ahead despite calls to Abbas from President Obama and other U.S. officials to abandon the bid. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that only direct Palestinian negotiations with Israel can bring about any real solution.

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