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Dam Removal Study Reveals River Resiliency

Apr. 30, 2015 More than 1,000 dams have been removed across the United States because of safety concerns, sediment buildup, inefficiency or having otherwise outlived usefulness. A paper finds that rivers are resilient and respond relatively quickly after a dam is ...

Apr. 30, 2015 Fishery improvement projects -- programs designed to fast-track access to the world seafood market in exchange for promises to upgrade sustainable practices -- need to first make good on those sustainability pledges before retailers and fisheries actually do business, researchers recommend. The findings are particularly important as major ...

Apr. 30, 2015 Within the past week, Thailand officials seized seven tons of ivory, representing the slaughter of hundreds of African elephants for illegal trade. While recent reports say that poaching far exceeds population growth, some conservation groups contend that population growth in some regions compensates for poaching losses in others, despite the fact that each area is populated by a different ...

Apr. 30, 2015 Behavioral conformity has been studied extensively and is commonly explained in terms of social pressure or impact. Surprisingly, however, recent research suggests that social factors may not be necessary to produce or explain conformity. According to their study people may simply confuse memories ...

Apr. 28, 2015 A lack of safety at school is one of the correlates of childhood obesity, say researchers. The researchers came to their conclusions by reviewing data provided by 1,234 Quebec youths who had just entered secondary school. The students were asked about their feelings of safety at school and whether they had been verbally, socially or physically bullied. This information was supplemented with data ...

Apr. 28, 2015 Most of the time, we learn only gradually, incrementally building connections between actions or events and outcomes. But there are exceptions--every once in a while, something happens and we immediately learn to associate that stimulus with a result. Scientists have discovered that uncertainty in ...

Apr. 28, 2015 Bullying adversely affects children in later life more than being maltreated, according to new research. A new study shows that children who have been bullied by peers suffer worse in the longer term than those who have been maltreated ...

Apr. 29, 2015 Logic would dictate that consumers receiving new market information would jump at the chance to adjust their investments accordingly. In practice, however, many people associate change with loss of control. They crave the idea of permanence or closure to such an extent that they would rather freeze decisions in place even if, ironically, this puts them more at risk, according to a new ...

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ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news

Think Atheist: World Leaders of Atheism, Agnosticism, and Christianity – Video

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Think Atheist: World Leaders of Atheism, Agnosticism, and Christianity
WELCOME ALL! This is the second introduction video welcoming everyone to my channel, "Looking for Truth". The purpose of this video is to give an account of the professionalism and knowledge...

By: Looking For Truth

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Think Atheist: World Leaders of Atheism, Agnosticism, and Christianity - Video

Bradley Nelson : Medical MicroRobotics and NanoMedicine : Teruko Yata Memorial Lecture in Robotics – Video

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Bradley Nelson : Medical MicroRobotics and NanoMedicine : Teruko Yata Memorial Lecture in Robotics
Brad Nelson ETH Zrich April 16, 2015 While the futuristic vision of micro and nanorobotics is of intelligent machines that navigate throughout our bodies searching for and destroying disease,...

By: cmurobotics

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Bradley Nelson : Medical MicroRobotics and NanoMedicine : Teruko Yata Memorial Lecture in Robotics - Video

[2.55 SPOILERS] FINAL FANTASY XIV: Unnecessary Censorship #5 – Video

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[2.55 SPOILERS] FINAL FANTASY XIV: Unnecessary Censorship #5
Here #39;s the fifth and last in a series of videos I really enjoyed making! Hope you enjoy, and if you do please leave a thumbs up so I can keep this series going! They will be resuming when Heavenswa...

By: Zodical Candy

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[2.55 SPOILERS] FINAL FANTASY XIV: Unnecessary Censorship #5 - Video

GitHub attack marks escalation in China's cyber censorship battle, experts warn

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File photo.(REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon)

The ongoing denial-of-service attack against code-sharing site GitHub marks an escalation in Chinas cyber censorship battle, security experts warn, urging a strong response from the U.S. government.

San Francisco-based GitHub has not said who it believes is behind the attack, which started last month, although the finger of suspicion has been pointed firmly in the direction of China. Anti-online censorship group Greatfire.org says that Chinese authorities took over computers both inside and outside the country to launch cyberattacks against the Greatfire.org website and GitHub, which hosts some of the group's data.

The attack, which was the largest in GitHubs history, began March 26, causing intermittent shutdowns of the code sharing forum. The shadowy attackers used the web browsers of unsuspecting, uninvolved people" to flood github.com with high levels of traffic, according to GitHub. On March 31, after days of battling the attack, GitHub reported that that its service was operating normally.

I believe that its likely that it is the government of China behind this, Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at software security specialist F-Secure told FoxNews.com. The reason why the attack is still ongoing is because their target is to cause pain for GitHub.

Its a tremendous escalation of nation state enforcement of their policy of banning what people can get access to, added Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest. China probably thinks of the U.S.s Internet infrastructure as the wild wild west, where everybody does what they want this could be bad, if the government doesnt respond, there will be more attacks.

Security expert Robert Graham traced a machine used in the GitHub attack to a location on or near the so-called Great Firewall of China -- the technology infrastructure for Internet censorship in China. This is important evidence for our government, he wrote, in a blog post. It'll be interesting to see how they respond to these attacks - attacks by a nation state against key United States Internet infrastructure.

The long-running nature of the digital assault also underlines the threat posed by shadowy attackers. A person with knowledge of the issue told FoxNews.com Monday that the attack is ongoing, but has decreased in intensity. GitHub, the person added, is mitigating the attack well and is fully operational.

F-Secures Hypponen told FoxNews.com that GitHub poses a unique challenge for China. With every single GitHub page encrypted, The Great Firewall of China is unable to block individual pages on the site. They would have to block everything, and that will not happen because a lot of Chinese companies are using GitHub, he said. The only option that China has is to bully GitHub.

Greatfire.org said it had mirrored some of its content on GitHub repositories, and that the data were the targets of the attacks.

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GitHub attack marks escalation in China's cyber censorship battle, experts warn

Film-makers withdraw films from Istanbul festival in censorship protest

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Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan was one of more than 100 film-makers who published a letter accusing the Turkish government of oppression and censorship. Photograph: Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images

Dozens of Turkish film-makers have withdrawn their work from this years Istanbul international film festival in protest over the removal of a documentary from the programme, as a growing censorship row prompted organisers to cancel all festival competitions halfway through the event.

The documentary, Bakur (North), the first set in the camps of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) in Turkey, had been scheduled to open on Sunday, but was cancelled only hours before the screening after festival organisers received a letter from the Turkish ministry of culture claiming that the film did not have the required registration certificate.

But the organisers decision to comply with the ministrys orders prompted immediate outrage. On Monday, more than 100 film-makers, including the most recent laureate of the Palme dOr in Cannes, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, published an open letter in the Turkish media, accusing the government of oppression and censorship.

We, the undersigned film-makers, oppose the imposition [of this regulation] as a tool of censorship, the letter said, claiming there was a political agenda behind the decision to ban Bakur. The festival programme was announced weeks ago, and other local films that did not have the registration certificate were screened without problems.

In total, 23 Turkish film-makers withdrew their films from the festival, and the festival organisers announced on Monday that all competitions and the closing ceremony had been cancelled.

Ertugrul Mavioglu, journalist and co-director of Bakur together with documentary film-maker ayan Demirel, said he was impressed by the reactions triggered by the de facto ban of his film from the festival.

This is the first time that there is such massive solidarity against censorship, and of course I see this as a positive, he said, adding that he was disappointed by the stance of the festival organisers. They should have cancelled the whole festival immediately instead of complying with the ministrys bogus request, he said.

According to the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), the organiser of the festival, Bakur was removed from the programme because the film-makers had failed to obtain the necessary commercial screening licence for their film. Azize Tan, director of the festival, said that the organisers had previously conducted negotiations with the ministry to change the licence regulation, in place since 2004 and applicable only to locally produced films.

But to Mavioglu, the governments last-minute reminder of the licence rule was a thinly veiled attempt to cover up the outright ban of a film that Ankara might find uncomfortable.

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Film-makers withdraw films from Istanbul festival in censorship protest

Tolerance is as vital as free speech

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In her book "The Friends of Voltaire," Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote, I do not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Unfortunately, free speech is again under attack. The recent debacle with the French magazine Charlie Hebdo is but the most recent in a line of assaults. In this struggle, the enemy is the culture of political correctness.

Earlier this year, Islamic terrorists carried out an atrocious attack on Charlie Hebdos Parisian headquarters. This attack claimed the lives of 12 people and injured 11 more. The source of the terrorists motives dwelled with the magazines history of publishing cartoons that they claimed were offensive in its portrayals of the prophet Muhammad.

In the wake of the attack, many expressed solidarity for Charlie Hebdo by rallying behind the slogan, Je suis Charlie [I am Charlie]. Inspired by a defiant spirit of freedom, the magazine published what has been dubbed a survivors issue. The cover of this issue unapologetically depicts Muhammad on the cover holding a sign that reads, Je suis Charlie, as a single tear trickles from his eye. And yet, many news companies refused to either print or show the cover, citing a desire not to offend.

Political correctness in American society holds that some topics may not be discussed for fear of being impertinent. There is merit in this doctrine. Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker has spoken about how this politically correct culture arose as a response to some very big problems. During the early to mid-19th century, many doctrinesparticularly in regard to racewere simply rude, insensitive and unacceptable.

Profanity, vulgarity, tastelessness, racism and discrimination (amongst other things) should not have a place in a civilized and enlightened society. British author Alfred George Gardiner captured this quite well when he wrote, A reasonable consideration for the rights or feelings of others is the foundation of social conduct.

From this, it would follow that speech that is detrimental to order and coexistence should be discouraged. The question is whether the caricature of Muhammad in Charlie Hebdo was indeed harmful to either individual persons or society as a whole. It is very hard to point to an injury in fact resulting from this harmless cartoon. Many people feel that these cartoons are insulting, and they are entitled to feel this way. But one does not have a right not to be insulted.

The English philosopher John Stuart Mill discussed free speech extensively in his famous essay On Liberty. He said that the benefits of free speech are not for the one speaking, but rather for society as a whole. This sounds counterintuitive, but Mill has a strong argument.

The only way that truth may be discovered is through free and open discourse. If a new idea is correct, then society benefits through a replacement or augmentation of previous opinions. And if a new idea is wrong, then society benefits from an exercise in understanding why the received opinion is right. No truth is so firmly situated that it cannot be questioned. Bertrand Russell once said that, In all affairs, love, religion, politics or business, its a healthy idea, now and then, to hang a question mark on things you have long taken for granted.

Truth is not a democracy, as truth exists regardless of whether one believes in it. Yet the way that truth is uncovered is democratic. And through this democratic process, ones perceptions of reality can be made better to reflect reality as it is. Truth does not always win out in the marketplace of ideas, but in the end, it will triumph. As Freud said, The voice of reason is small but persistent.

Political correctness can be seen as a barrier to free speech, as it prevents certain claims from being made. Many of the greatest ideas that the human mind has conceived must have seemed revolutionary and insulting in their time. Copernicus, Darwin, Marx and Einstein all broke with the status quo and insulted a great many people. Yet humanity would be the worse without their contributions.

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Tolerance is as vital as free speech