WikiLeaks Threatens Its Own Leakers With $20 Million Penalty

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange now makes his associates sign a draconian nondisclosure agreement that, among other things, asserts that the organization’s huge trove of leaked material is “solely the property of WikiLeaks,” according to a report Wednesday.

“You accept and agree that the information disclosed, or to be disclosed to you pursuant to this agreement is, by its nature, valuable proprietary commercial information,” the agreement reads, “the misuse or unauthorized disclosure of which would be likely to cause us considerable damage.”

The confidentiality agreement (.pdf), revealed by the New Statesman, imposes a penalty of 12 million British pounds– nearly $20 million — on anyone responsible for a significant leak of the organization’s unpublished material. The figure is based on a “typical open-market valuation” of WikiLeaks’ collection, the agreement claims.

Interestingly, the agreement warns that any breach is likely to cause WikiLeaks to lose the “opportunity to sell the information to other news broadcasters and publishers.”

WikiLeaks is not known to have sold any of its leaked material, though Assange has discussed the possibility in the past. The organization announced in 2008 that it was auctioning off early access to thousands of e-mails belonging to a top aide to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, but the auction ultimately fell apart.

Also protected by the agreement is “the fact and content of this agreement and all newsworthy information relating to the workings of WikiLeaks.”

The New Statesman’s copy is unsigned, so whoever leaked it might be safe from legal action by WikiLeaks.

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University of Ulster celebrates acquisition of PR2 robot by having it solve Rubik's cube

Programmed by Chris Burbridge and Lorenzo Riano of the Cognitivie Robotics Group, the PR2, in ways that look eerily human, carefully scans the cube, before slowly getting to work; though it’s not been stated as such, it appears the robot first solves the cube in its “brain” then sets to work carrying out what it’s already figured out how to do using it’s grippers to turn and manipulate the cube.

The PR2 is roughly the size of an adult human being and is comprised of a base, torso, arms and head. The base has castors below that allow it to move about, while the arms have grippers for hands that can not only manipulate an object, but can spin it as well to turn whatever it is holding. It also has multiple sensors and cameras placed strategically on its arms and head to allow it to “see” the environment around it, as well as parts of its own self so it knows what it’s doing.

Running on the Robot Operating System (ROS), the open source code originally developed at Stanford but now mostly supported by Willow Garage, the PR2 is one among several robots created by Willow Garage as a research tool designed primarily to advance the science of robotics. And while the robots are not provided free to research institutions such as Ulster, those that demonstrate a history of supporting research on robotics are given big discounts off the normal US $400,000 price tag.

The University of Ulster, like many others, hopes to use the PR2 to devise innovative ROS code that can be shared, used or manipulated by others to accelerate the pace at which software for robots is produced; in much the same way that open source code has been used to provide users the world over with free photo manipulation programs (GIMP) or music creation and generation (Audacity) software.

Such initiatives are likely to result in a slew of new robot applications that will likely trickle down over the next few years, to robots designed to do all those things we’ve been seeing for years in Sci-Fi movies, magazines and books. Stuff most of us have been impatiently waiting for.

More information:

via Willow Garage

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Six Moments When Athletes Cried

We’ve all seen athletes cry before.   Hell many of us have cried as athletes.  It’s easy to get emotional out there as tensions run high and sometimes there’s a lot on the line.

But there’s also those times you can’t help but to laugh at some athletes who cry when you kind of realize they shouldn’t have.   The videos I’m sharing here are not these types of examples.

These are moments where the athletes should have cried and had every right to……

Michael Jordan’s Championship after Dad’s Death

After all that Jordan had been through, retiring, his father’s death, un-retiring, the number change, and really having to prove he was still the same Jordan it all pretty much caught up to him that day.   I think all of us will remember him hogging the trophy but other than that you can’t blame the guy for getting emotional.

The Adam Morrison Moment

It’s kind of awesome when a player cries from the competitive desire in him/her.   When Gonzaga took that heart wrenching defeat Morrison took the floor and the entire nation watched.  It would have been a much much better story had Morrison been a half decent NBA player.   Where’s the competitive fire now buddy?  Come on!

Kevin Garnett is Pissed

In recent years I’ve grown a little tired of Kevin Garnett.   Honestly it’s because I think he’s a “little much.”   But there’s no denying this dude wants to win.  So badly that this interview was pretty famous.   I mean the guy’s a hall of famer, doesn’t have much more to prove but he’s still out there like it’s the NCAA Championship every single night (even though he skipped college)

Tiger Wins 11th Major

Similar to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods wins one of Golf’s most difficult tournaments and gets emotional as it was his first major without his father being around.   I hope Tiger gets back into form and wins a few more.

Favre’s Retirement Speech

Honestly this is just more comedy than anything else.   If you’ll notice it’s his retirement speech from Green Bay.  Hahahaha.   Screw you Favre.  Seriously buddy, that should have been your crowning moment but everything after was completely unnecessary.

Mike Schmidt Retires

One of true greats of baseball.  It’s tough to keep your composure while watching this.   This guy truly loved the game.  P.S. he didn’t do steroids.

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NASA's Fermi Spots 'Superflares' in the Crab Nebula

The famous Crab Nebula supernova remnant has erupted in an enormous flare five times more powerful than any flare previously seen from the object. On April 12, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope first detected the outburst, which lasted six days.

The nebula is the wreckage of an exploded star that emitted light which reached Earth in the year 1054. It is located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. At the heart of an expanding gas cloud lies what is left of the original star's core, a superdense neutron star that spins 30 times a second. With each rotation, the star swings intense beams of radiation toward Earth, creating the pulsed emission characteristic of spinning neutron stars (also known as pulsars).

Apart from these pulses, astrophysicists believed the Crab Nebula was a virtually constant source of high-energy radiation. But in January, scientists associated with several orbiting observatories, including NASA's Fermi, Swift and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, reported long-term brightness changes at X-ray energies.

"The Crab Nebula hosts high-energy variability that we're only now fully appreciating," said Rolf Buehler, a member of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) team at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, a facility jointly located at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University.

Since 2009, Fermi and the Italian Space Agency's AGILE satellite have detected several short-lived gamma-ray flares at energies greater than 100 million electron volts (eV) -- hundreds of times higher than the nebula's observed X-ray variations. For comparison, visible light has energies between 2 and 3 eV.

On April 12, Fermi's LAT, and later AGILE, detected a flare that grew about 30 times more energetic than the nebula's normal gamma-ray output and about five times more powerful than previous outbursts. On April 16, an even brighter flare erupted, but within a couple of days, the unusual activity completely faded out.

"These superflares are the most intense outbursts we've seen to date, and they are all extremely puzzling events," said Alice Harding at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We think they are caused by sudden rearrangements of the magnetic field not far from the neutron star, but exactly where that's happening remains a mystery."

The Crab's high-energy emissions are thought to be the result of physical processes that tap into the neutron star's rapid spin. Theorists generally agree the flares must arise within about one-third of a light-year from the neutron star, but efforts to locate them more precisely have proven unsuccessful so far.

Since September 2010, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory routinely has monitored the nebula in an effort to identify X-ray emission associated with the outbursts. When Fermi scientists alerted astronomers to the onset of a new flare, Martin Weisskopf and Allyn Tennant at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., triggered a set of pre-planned observations using Chandra.

"Thanks to the Fermi alert, we were fortunate that our planned observations actually occurred when the flares were brightest in gamma rays," Weisskopf said. "Despite Chandra's excellent resolution, we detected no obvious changes in the X-ray structures in the nebula and surrounding the pulsar that could be clearly associated with the flare."

Scientists think the flares occur as the intense magnetic field near the pulsar undergoes sudden restructuring. Such changes can accelerate particles like electrons to velocities near the speed of light. As these high-speed electrons interact with the magnetic field, they emit gamma rays.

To account for the observed emission, scientists say the electrons must have energies 100 times greater than can be achieved in any particle accelerator on Earth. This makes them the highest-energy electrons known to be associated with any cosmic source. Based on the rise and fall of gamma rays during the April outbursts, scientists estimate that the size of the emitting region must be comparable in size to the solar system.

NASA's Fermi is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

The Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

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Obama Makes It Through Another Day Of Resisting Urge To Launch All U.S. Nuclear Weapons At Once

WASHINGTON—Despite being constantly tempted by the seductive power of having an apocalyptic arsenal at his fingertips, President Barack Obama somehow made it through another day Tuesday without unlocking the box on his desk that houses "the button" and launching all 5,113 U.S. nuclear warheads.

Though the president confirmed his schedule was packed with security briefings, public appearances, and cabinet meetings, he said he couldn't help but steal a few glances at the bright red button, which is "right there, staring at [him], all the time."

Tuesday marks the 841st-straight day Obama has withstood the button's powerful allure.

"I think I was closer to pressing the button today than I have ever been," Obama said during a press conference from the White House Rose Garden, adding that he would be lying if he said he wasn't thinking about the button right at that very moment. "Let me be clear: I do not want to start a thermonuclear war. But knowing that I could at any moment, and that it would be so easy, well, it almost feels like I'm being tested or something."

"Did you know that if you sort of put enough weight on the button with your fingertip, you can feel a little slack there before it actually clicks?" Obama added. "Thank you, and God bless America."

According to Beltway insiders, it has taken everything in Obama's power lately to distract himself from the button, which the president once told an aide is "sort of begging to be pressed, you know?" At one point Tuesday, Obama reportedly forced himself to stop glaring at the button by leaving his desk and staring silently across the White House lawn, only to return seconds later to gaze at it some more.

Obama has also been overheard asking White House staffers if they weren't just the least bit curious what would happen if he just waltzed in there right now and pushed it.

"I don't want to unleash Armageddon," said Obama, adding that there is a 50-50 chance he won't be able to get through his next day in office without pressing the button at least once. "But it's hard not to dare myself to do it. It's like I'm standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, taking it all in, and I'm one millisecond away from saying to myself, 'Fuck it, Barack. Just jump.'"

"Bravo-Delta-five-seven-three-Delta-Charlie-zero-two-Tango-Tango-eight-one-six-Echo-Foxtrot-zero-zero-nine-four-nine," Obama continued. "Those were the launch codes as of three minutes ago. They constantly change, but I memorize them."

Sources told reporters that when Obama first took office, the thought of pressing the button and launching thousands of ICBMs only crossed his mind two or three times a day. Two-and-a-half years into his term, however, the button consumes him at all times, whether he is watching basketball, playing with his children, or lying in his bed at night. During a deficit-reduction meeting last Monday with House Speaker John Boehner, the president's index finger was reportedly resting on the button the entire time without his even realizing it.

"Apropos of nothing, the president approached me one day and said, 'Think about it: There is a button 3 feet away from me, that I, a human being, could press and virtually end the human race. Tell me you wouldn't be slightly tempted to push it,'" Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) said. "Then the president said he often wondered if the exploding bombs would look like a movie in which dozens and dozens of mushroom clouds rise from Earth and can be seen from outer space."

"The way he talked about it, I think I would have pressed it by now, honestly," Conrad added. "Jesus, I'm breathing faster just thinking about it."

Historians have noted that a strong desire to press the button is not uncommon among U.S. presidents. After just one year in office, Jimmy Carter wrote in his diary, "You don't leave a man alone in a room with a button like that," and two years later the pages were simply covered with the word "button" over and over again. In 1974, Richard Nixon rapidly pressed the button 12 times just prior to his resignation, but Pentagon officials had already disconnected its triggering mechanism.

At press time, large-scale nuclear explosions had been confirmed in Pyongyang, Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Washington, D.C.

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Lung transplant breathes new life into boy of four, who is youngest to have op in Britain

A boy of four has become the youngest and smallest person in the UK to have a successful lung transplant.

Surgeons at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London carried out the transplant, which has transformed Mason Lewis's quality of life within a matter of weeks.

Mason has suffered from pulmonary hypertension (PH) since birth and struggled to develop as quickly as other children his age.

Relief: Mason Lewis with his mother Rebecca enjoy playing in a playground in Atherstone, Warwickshire following Mason's operation

He was just 3ft tall when the operation took place - although surgeons do not usually operate on children under 3ft 3in.

Professor Martin Elliott, who carried out the transplant, said: 'The operation is the same as for larger people, but obviously one needs greater precision and delicacy.'

People with PH have pulmonary arteries with thicker, less elastic walls. As a result, the heart struggles to pump blood to the lungs and has to work harder than normal. The person is often breathless as a result.

Mason's consultant Dr Helen Spencer said: 'It's a bit like a traffic jam. The small vessels into the lungs are narrowed and you get a backlog of blood building up.'

Drugs can help but a lung transplant is an option when patients are on the maximum medication and are still struggling.

Mason's operation took around eight hours and the lungs he received were just 4.3ins long and each weighed 4.9oz.

Fighting fit: The transplant has transformed Mason's quality of life within a matter of weeks

Mason's consultant Dr Helen Spencer at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where the youngster underwent the eight-hour surgery

Prof Elliott said surgeons used magnifying lenses during the operation and smaller stitches which eventually dissolve, reducing the risk of creating scar tissue which could inhibit future growth.

Dr Spencer, consultant in transplant respiratory medicine, said: 'This is the first time in the UK we have seen a child this small successfully transplanted with lungs this small.

'It is a good advance in transplantation, and something which previously had only been carried out in a small number of centres in the U.S.

'At Great Ormond Street Hospital, candidates considered for lung transplant would normally be over the age of three and more than 100cm (3ft) in height.

'We hope the fact we have been able to do this in someone as small as Mason will offer hope for patients like him in the future.'

Dr Spencer added: 'Mason has done well post-operatively and we are really pleased to see his family in a position to return home. He has been incredibly lucky, not only to have a transplant but to receive one so quickly.'

Happy families: Mason with mother Rebecca, father Steven and sister Indiana at home in Atherstone. Rebecca said Mason had always been a happy child despite his illness

Mason waited only a matter of weeks after he was put on the transplant list in January.

Without a transplant, he had been expected to survive around two years. Around half of transplant patients at GOSH survive for seven years or more and some may be suitable for a second transplant.

Echocardiograms have shown the health of Mason's heart is improving since pressure on it was reduced as a result of the transplant.

Mason's mother, Rebecca Prentice, 33, of Atherstone, Warwickshire, said he is putting on weight and has much more energy.

'He's always been a happy child. His body can keep up with him now,' she said.

'We are indebted to the clinical team, especially Dr Spencer and Professor Elliott, who have given our son a wonderful opportunity to lead a good quality of life.

'We are also eternally grateful to the donor family. We cannot imagine what they went through. They lost a child and have displayed courage and selflessness.

'We would like to urge people to think about becoming donors, and to consider what they would do if tragedy hit their children, as uncomfortable and difficult as we know that is.'

Dr Spencer added: 'Unfortunately, we are still in a position where about one fifth of patients who are waiting for a lung transplant on the paediatric list will die while waiting.

'I think it's an incredibly difficult decision for any family to make in the face of terrible personal tragedy, to think about other people that you don't know.

'As a parent myself, I can only imagine the terrible angst that people go through but I think many donor families get some comfort from the way they have helped other people to have a second life.'

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