Earth may be crashing through dark matter walls

Earth is constantly crashing through huge walls of dark matter, and we already have the tools to detect them. That's the conclusion of physicists who say the universe may be filled with a patchwork quilt of force fields created shortly after the big bang.

Observations of how mass clumps in space suggest that about 86 per cent of all matter is invisible dark matter, which interacts with ordinary matter mainly through gravity. The most popular theory is that dark matter is made of weakly interacting massive particles.

WIMPs should also interact with ordinary matter via the weak nuclear force, and their presence should have slight but measurable effects. However, years of searches for WIMPs have been coming up empty.

"So far nothing is found, and I feel like it's time to broaden the scope of our search," says Maxim Pospelov of the University of Victoria in Canada. "What we propose is to look for some other signatures."

Bubbly cosmos

Pospelov and colleagues have been examining a theory that at least some of the universe's dark matter is tied up in structures called domain walls, akin to the boundaries between tightly packed bubbles. The idea is that the hot early universe was full of an exotic force field that varied randomly. As the universe expanded and cooled, the field froze, leaving a patchwork of domains, each with its own distinct value for the field.

Having different fields sit next to each other requires energy to be stored within the domain walls. Mass and energy are interchangeable, so on a large scale a network of domain walls can look like concentrations of mass – that is, like dark matter, says Pospelov.

If the grid of domain walls is packed tightly enough – say, if the width of the domains is several hundred times the distance between Earth and the sun – Earth should pass through a domain wall once every few years. "As a human, you wouldn't feel a thing," says Pospelov. "You will go through the wall without noticing." But magnetometers – devices that, as the name suggests, measure magnetic fields – could detect the walls, say Pospelov and colleagues in a new study. Although the field inside a domain would not affect a magnetometer, the device would sense the change when Earth passes through a domain wall.

Dark matter walls have not been detected yet because anyone using a single magnetometer would find the readings swamped by noise, Pospelov says. "You'd never be able to say if it's because the Earth went through a bizarre magnetic field or if a grad student dropped their iPhone or something," he says.

Network needed

Finding the walls will require a network of at least five detectors spread around the world, Pospelov suggests. Colleagues in Poland and California have already built one magnetometer each and have shown that they are sensitive enough for the scheme to work.

Domain walls wouldn't account for all the dark matter in the universe, but they could explain why finding particles of the stuff has been such a challenge, says Pospelov.

If domain walls are found, the news might come as a relief to physicists still waiting for WIMPs to show up. Earlier this month, for instance, a team working with a detector in Russia that has been running for more than 24 years announced that they have yet to see any sign of these dark matter candidates.

Douglas Finkbeiner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was not involved in Pospelov's study, isn't yet convinced that dark matter walls exist. But he is glad that physicists are keeping an open mind about alternatives to WIMPs.

"We've looked for WIMP dark matter in so many ways," he says. "At some point you have to ask, are we totally on the wrong track?"

Journal reference: Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.021803

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Obama to take first of two oaths of office Sunday

WASHINGTON: Barack Obama will Sunday be sworn in to shoulder the power and burden of the US presidency for a second term, launching two days of inaugural rituals darkened by domestic discord and crises abroad.

Democrat Obama, 51, will swear to faithfully execute the office of president at a low-key ceremony in the Blue Room of the White House, to comply with the US Constitution, which dictates his first term ends at noon on January 20.

In a tradition honored when that date falls on a Sunday, Obama will repeat the oath in a time-honored public ceremony on Monday, and deliver his inaugural address to Americans, and the watching world, outside at a chilly US Capitol.

Obama's second inauguration, which comes courtesy of an election win over Republican Mitt Romney in November, lacks the hope and history which pulsated through his swearing in as the first black American president in 2009.

Since then, a graying Obama has been battered by a weak economic recovery, failed to meet hugely elevated expectations for his presidency and waged a political war of attrition Republicans, which often slides into the gutter.

He begins anew with several fierce budget battles looming in Congress, and with his "Yes we Can" rhetoric soured by sarcasm over the blocking tactics of Republicans in the partisan brouhaha paralyzing government in Washington.

While polls show Obama's approval ratings above 50 per cent -- far higher than the reviled Congress, they also indicate that many Americans, wearied by a stop-start recovery, doubt their country is headed in the right direction.

Abroad, the US confrontation with Iran is fast headed to a critical point with the specter of military action becoming ever more real, the longer diplomacy over Tehran's nuclear program is stuck in neutral.

Recent terror strikes which killed Americans in Benghazi and Algeria meanwhile call into question Obama's election year soundbite that "Al-Qaeda is on the run" despite the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Increasing muscle flexing by China and rising tensions in contested waters with its neighbors, as well as North Korea's nuclear belligerence, will meanwhile test the president's signature pivot of US diplomacy to Asia.

As he raises his right hand, 224 years after George Washington took the first oath of office to lead a new nation, Obama also knows that for second term presidents, power quickly wanes and political potholes await.

The second term "curse" often strikes: Richard Nixon resigned, Bill Clinton was impeached, George W. Bush's image was shattered by Iraq and Hurricane Katrina and Ronald Reagan's legacy was marred by the Iran-Contra scandal.

Obama has already said that he will root his second term on the crusade to build a more equitable economy which powered his triumph over multi-millionaire Romney.

"I intend to carry out the agenda that I campaigned on, an agenda for new jobs, new opportunity and new security for the middle class," Obama said last week.

After being sworn in surrounded by close family, Obama will put the finishing touches on his inaugural address.

Aides have offered few previews of what he will say on Monday, though such occasions offer the chance for presidents to stress national unity, and to bind wounds of the kind of acrimonious elections like the one Obama won in 2012.

Obama has been seen with yellow legal pads full of ideas for his speech, which will likely be high on poetry but low on policy: his State of the Union Address on February 12 will flesh out his agenda.

But the president will have a message for allies and enemies abroad, and could shape the political ground for top agenda priorities including immigration and energy reform and new gun control laws.

After Monday's solemn ceremony will come celebration, as Obama returns to the White House down a parade route lined with crowds, before a night of glittering inaugural balls -- though the festivities have been trimmed in recognition of the tough times many Americans are still enduring.

On Saturday, Obama and his wife Michelle grabbed paintbrushes for an inaugural day of service at a Washington DC school.

The president, wearing khaki trousers and a button down shirt, and the first lady, in a purple shirt and black leggings, helped stain a bookshelf along with two members of a group that works to keep children in school.

Obama later joked that "Michelle said I did a fine job."

There has been an immense security build-up ahead of the inauguration, with cameras and barricades covering much of the route leading up to the Capitol. Thousands of police will also fan the area on Monday: several at each street corner.

- AFP/ck

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'Glee' accused of ripping off indy YouTube singer

Have they been naughty?

(Credit:
GleeSeason4Songs/YouTube Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

"That's mine!"

"No, it isn't! It's mine!"

Such is the dialogue I imagine the writers of "Glee" would pen to describe a slight kerfuffle between its own creators and Jonathan Coulton.

Coulton enjoys a bit of fame on YouTube. He writes tunes like "Code Monkey." He created the themes of Portal video games.

He clearly enjoys his art. But he isn't "Glee."

Still, his version of "Baby Got Back," the Sir Mix-A-Lot song, has many admirers. It was less than gleeful for him, then, when he received word that the Fox teeny show appeared to be offering a version that seemed stunningly like his own.

It was to be featured in its January 24 edition.

Coulton tweeted: "Hey look, @GLEEonFOX ripped off my cover of Baby Got Back: http://bit.ly/WME9Ho. Never even contacted me. Classy."

More Technically Incorrect

In case you're unfamiliar with the song, it's all about the wonders of large bottoms.

To my own Saturday ears, Coulton might have a little justification for feeling that the people behind "Glee" are, indeed, large bottoms themselves.

As one of the more than 4,000 people who have retweeted Coulton's plaintive tweet, Greg Pak, offered: "Dude. They even kept the 'Johnny C's in trouble' line," -- a line that was all Coulton's.

Wired thought it might be an idea to contact Fox to ask the organization whether its own ears noticed a marginal resemblance between the two versions.

Sadly, Fox appears to have considered the question very carefully and finally got back with a mere "no comment."

Coulton told Wired:

I'm still waiting on the science. It's possible they chose to reproduce the arrangement exactly, but I'm not sure why they would have kept all my bad choices in there and not found one thing to improve. Though I will say their mix is better than my 2005 version, so that's good.

You will be stunned to hear that Coulton is also waiting on the law. He is musing as to whether he might have recourse against Fox.

He described its apparent purloining of his version as "kind of gross."

The @GleeOnFox Twitter account has stayed silent on the subject, despite being subjected to many inquiring, angry minds.

Its last tweet, sent yesterday, excitedly shrieked: ".@Rach21695 We're ready to be back this Thursday! #glee."

What a comeback.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Algeria Hostage Crisis Over, One American Dead

After the Algerian military's final assault on terrorists holding hostages at a gas complex, the four-day hostage crisis is over, but apparently with additional loss of life among the foreign hostages.

One American, Fred Buttaccio of Texas, has been confirmed dead by the U.S. State Department. Two more U.S. hostages remain unaccounted for, with growing concern among U.S. officials that they did not survive.

But another American, Mark Cobb of Corpus Christi, Texas is now confirmed as safe. Sources close to his family say Cobb, who is a senior manager of the facility, is safe and reportedly sent a text message " I'm alive."

Inside Algerian Hostage Crisis, One American Dead Watch Video

American Hostages Escape From Algeria Terrorists Watch Video

In a statement, President Obama said, "Today, the thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the families of all those who were killed and injured in the terrorist attack in Algeria. The blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out, and the United States condemns their actions in the strongest possible terms. ... This attack is another reminder of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups in North Africa."

According to Algerian state media, 32 militants are dead and a total of 23 hostages perished during the four-day siege of the In Amenas facility in the Sahara. The Algerian Interior Ministry also says 107 foreign nationals who worked at the facility for BP and other firms were rescued or escaped from the al Qaeda-linked terrorists who took over the BP joint venture facility on Wednesday.

The Japanese government says it fears "very grave" news, with multiple casualties among the 10 Japanese citizens working at the In Amenas gas plant.

Five British nationals and one U.K. resident are either deceased or unaccounted for in the country, according to British Foreign Minister William Hague. Hague also said that the Algerians have reported that they are still trying to clear boobytraps from the site.

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NASA planet-hunter is injured and resting

Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter

(Image: NASA/Kepler mission/Wendy Stenzel)

NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope has put its search for alien Earths on hold while it rests a stressed reaction wheel.

The injured wheel normally helps to control the telescope's orientation, keeping it pointed continuously at the same patch of sky. Kepler stares at the thousands of stars in its field of view to watch for the telltale blinks that occur when a planet crosses in front of its star. It has found nearly 3000 potential planets outside our solar system since its launch in 2009, transforming the field of exoplanet research and raising hopes of someday finding alien life.

When it launched, Kepler had four reaction wheels: three to control its motion along each axis, and one spare. But last July, one wheel stopped turning. If the spacecraft loses a second wheel, the mission is over.

So when another wheel started showing signs of elevated friction on 7 January, the team decided to play it safe. After rotating the spacecraft failed to fix the problem, NASA announced yesterday that they're placing Kepler in safe mode for 10 days to give the wheel a chance to recover.

The hope is that the lubricating oil that helps the wheel's ball bearings run smoothly around a track will redistribute itself during the rest period.

The telescope can't take any science data while in safe mode. But if the wheel recovers on its own, Kepler's extended mission will run until 2016, leaving it plenty of time to make up for the lost days.

"Kepler is a statistical mission," says Charlie Sobeck, Kepler's deputy project manager at NASA's Ames Research Centre in Mountain View, California. "In the long run, as long as we make the observations, it doesn't matter a lot when we make the observations."

Despite the high stakes, the team doesn't seem too worried.

"Each wheel has its own personality, and this particular wheel has been something of a free spirit," Sobeck says. "It's had elevated torques throughout the mission. This one is typical to what we've seen in the past, and if we had four good wheels we probably wouldn't have taken any action."

"I prefer to picture the spacecraft lounging at the shore of the cosmic ocean sipping a Mai Tai so that she'll be refreshed and rejuvenated for more discoveries," wrote Kepler co-investigator Natalie Batalha in an email.

The team will check up on the wheel on 27 January and return to doing science as soon as possible.

There are two exoplanet missions currently being considered for after Kepler is finished, says Doug Hudgins at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. One, TESS (Terrestrial Exoplanet Survey Satellite), would scan the entire sky for planets transiting the stars nearest to the sun. The other, FINESSE (Fast Infrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer), would take spectra of planets as they passed in front of their stars as a way to probe their atmospheres.

The missions are being evaluated now, and NASA will probably select one this spring, Hudgins says. The winner will launch in 2017.

If Kepler goes down with its reaction wheel, that won't affect which mission wins, he adds. "That's a straight-up competition based on the merits of the two concept study reports."

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Cycling: 'I want to compete again,' Armstrong says

 

LOS ANGELES: Disgraced US cyclist Lance Armstrong said in an interview aired Friday that he wants to take part in competitive sports again, even after being banned for doping and stripped of his honors.

"Hell, yes. I'm a competitor. It's what I've done my whole life. I love to train. I love to race," Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey. "Not the Tour de France, but there's a lot of other things I could do. I deserve to be punished. I'm not sure that I deserve a death penalty."

- AFP

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Researcher: Apps meant to spot skin cancer are inaccurate

Researchers ran 188 images of skin lesions through four apps and found that three apps incorrectly described at least 30 percent of the melanomas as benign.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore/CNET)

When a patient asked Laura Ferris, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, her opinion on smartphone apps that purport to distinguish between benign and malignant skin lesions, Ferris realized she'd never used one and decided to run images of melanomas through a few of the apps herself.

"When I saw the first few results come back of them being missed, I really started to get concerned," Ferris says in a school video. So she decided to investigate further, and reports this week in JAMA Dermatology that three out of four smartphone apps her team tested incorrectly described at least 30 percent of melanomas as "unconcerning."

The news comes the same week a Pew Research Center study found that 35 percent of Americans seek out medical diagnoses (not just remedies or information) online.

For the melanoma study, researchers uploaded 188 images of skin lesions to each of the four applications (they decided "not to make a direct statement about a particular app" and are thus not naming the apps they studied). The apps analyzed the images in different ways, including automated algorithms and images reviewed by an anonymous board-certified dermatologist.

It turns out that of the four melanoma apps studied, the most accurate one was not only the most expensive (costing $5 per image) but also was the only one to rely on the dermatologist to review the images. (In this case, just one of the 53 melanomas uploaded was incorrectly identified as benign.)

These results could be particularly problematic for those without the resources to go to an actual dermatologist or afford the most expensive app, especially if they take an "unconcerning" result as confirmation that they need not spend any more money investigating the area in question.

"If [users] see a concerning lesion but the smartphone app incorrectly judges it to be benign, they may not follow up with a physician," says Ferris, whose study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. "Technologies that decrease the mortality rate by improving self- and early-detection of melanomas would be a welcome addition to dermatology, but we have to make sure patients aren't being harmed by tools that deliver inaccurate results."

The researchers further warn that even though the free or low-cost apps are specified as educational only, they are not subject to regulatory oversight and should be used with caution.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Armstrong's Lowest Point Was Quitting Livestrong

Lance Armstrong, 41, said tonight that the lowest point in his fall from grace and the top of the cycling world came when his cancer charity, Livestrong, asked him to consider stepping down.

After the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released a report in October 2012 alleging Armstrong doped throughout his reign as Tour de France champion, Armstrong said a second installment of an interview with Oprah Winfrey, his major sponsors -- including Nike, Anheuser Busch and Trek -- called one by one to end their endorsement contracts with him.

"Everybody out," he said. "Still not the most humbling moment."

Then came the call from Livestrong, the charity he founded at age 25 when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

"The story was getting out of control, which was my worst nightmare," he said. "I had this place in my mind that they would all leave. The one I didn't think would leave was the foundation.

"That was most humbling moment," he said.

Armstrong first stepped down as chairman of the board for the charity before being asked to end his association with the charity entirely. Livestrong is now run independently of Armstrong.

"I don't think it was 'We need you to step down,' but, 'We need you to consider stepping down for yourself,'" he said, recounting the call. "I had to think about that a lot. None of my kids, none of my friends have said, 'You're out,' and the foundation was like my sixth child. To make that decision, to step aside, that was big."

George Burns/Harpo Studios, Inc.

Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: How Honest Was He? Watch Video

Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: Doping Confession Watch Video

In the first part of the interview, broadcast Thursday, Armstrong admitted for the first time that his decade-long dominance of cycling and seven wins in the Tour de France were owed, in part, to performance-enhancing drugs and oxygen-boosting blood transfusions.

He told Winfrey that he was taking the opportunity to confess to everything he had done wrong, including for years angrily denying claims that he had doped.

READ MORE: Armstrong Admits to Doping

WATCH: Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

Armstrong said in the interview that he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

Investigators familiar with Armstrong's case, however, told ABC News today that Armstrong did not come completely clean to Winfrey, and that they believed he doped in 2009.

They said that Armstrong's blood values at the 2009 race showed clear blood manipulation consistent with two transfusions. Armstrong's red blood cell count suddenly went up at these points, even though the number of baby red blood cells did not.

Investigators said that was proof that he received a transfusion of mature red blood cells.

READ MORE: Lance Armstrong May Have Lied to Winfrey: Investigators

If Armstrong lied about the 2009 race, it could be to protect himself criminally, investigators said.

Federal authorities looking to prosecute criminal cases will look back at the "last overt act" in which the crime was committed, they explained. If Armstrong doped in 2005 but not 2009, the statute of limitations may have expired on potential criminal activity.

The sources noted that there is no evidence right now that a criminal investigation will be reopened. Armstrong is facing at least three civil suits.

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Matching names to genes: the end of genetic privacy?

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Are we being too free with our genetic information? What if you started receiving targeted ads for Prozac for the depression risk revealed by your publicly accessible genome? As increasing amounts of genetic information is placed online, many researchers believe that guaranteeing donors' privacy has become an impossible task.

The first major genetic data collection began in 2002 with the International HapMap Project – a collaborative effort to sequence genomes from families around the world. Its aim was to develop a public resource that will help researchers find genes associated with human disease and drug response.

While its consent form assured participants that their data would remain confidential, it had the foresight to mention that with future scientific advances, a deliberate attempt to match a genome with its donor might succeed. "The risk was felt to be very remote," says Laura Lyman Rodriguez of the US government's National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Their fears proved to be founded: in a paper published in Science this week, a team led by Yaniv Erlich of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, used publicly available genetic information and an algorithm they developed to identify some of the people who donated their DNA to HapMap's successor, the 1000 Genomes Project.

Anonymity not guaranteed

Erlich says the research was inspired by a New Scientist article in which a 15-year-old boy successfully used unique genetic markers called short tandem repeats (STRs) on his Y chromosome to track down his father, who was an anonymous sperm donor. Erlich and his team used a similar approach.

First they turned to open-access genealogy databases, which attempt to link male relatives using matching surnames and similar STRs. The team chose a few surnames from these sources, such as "Venter",and then searched for the associated STRs in the 1000 Genomes Project's collection of whole genomes. This allowed them to identify which complete genomes were likely to be from people named Venter.

Although the 1000 Genome Project's database, which at last count had 1092 genomes, does not contain surname data, it does contain demographic data such as the ages and locations of its donors. By searching online phonebooks for people named Venter and narrowing those down to the geographic regions and ages represented in the whole genomes, the researchers were able to find the specific person who had donated his data.

In total, the researchers identified 50 individuals who had donated whole genomes. Some of these were female, whose identity was given away because of having the same location and age as a known donor's wife.

Matter of time

Before publishing their findings, the team warned the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other institutions involved in the project about the vulnerability in their data. Rodriguez says that they had been anticipating that someone would identify donors, "although we didn't know how or when".

To prevent Erlich's method from being used successfully again, age data has been removed from the project's website. Erlich says that this makes it difficult, although not impossible, to narrow the surnames down to an individual.

"The genie's out of the bottle," says Jeffrey Kahn of Florida State University in Tallahassee. "It's a harbinger of a changing paradigm of privacy." A cultural zeitgeist led by companies such as Facebook has led to more information sharing than anyone would have thought possible back in 2002 when HapMap first began, he says.

Recurring problem

This is not the first time genome confidentiality has been compromised. When James Watson made his genome public in 2007, he blanked out a gene related to Alzheimer's. But a group of researchers successfully inferred whether he carried the risky version of this gene by examining the DNA sequences on either side of the redacted gene.

While someone is bound to find another way to identify genetic donors, says Rodriguez, the NIH believes it would be wrong to remove all of their genome data from the public domain. She says that full accessibility is "very beneficial to science", but acknowledges that the project needs to strike a careful balance between confidentiality and open access.

It is especially pertinent, says Kahn, because genetic data does not just carry information from the person from whom it was taken. It can also reveal the genetic details of family members, some of whom might not want that information to be public. A relative's genome might reveal your own disease risk, for example, which you might not want to know or have an employer learn of. While laws prohibit health insurers and employers from discriminating against people based on their genetic data, it would not be difficult to give another reason for denying you a job.

An individual's relatives could not prevent that individual from learning about themselves, says Rodriguez, but researchers should encourage would-be genome donors to discuss the risks and benefits with their families.

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If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Cycling: "One big lie" Armstrong says of 7 drug-fuelled Tours

LOS ANGELES: Lance Armstrong admitted his seven Tour de France titles were fuelled by an array of drugs, reversing years of denials in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey broadcast Thursday.

Attempting to explain his drug-tainted past, Armstrong sat down with Winfrey for his first interview since being stripped last year of his record seven Tour titles and banned from sport for life.

It was recorded on Monday in Austin, Texas, and was to be aired in two segments on Thursday and Friday on Winfrey's OWN television channel.

"I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there, the truth isn't what I said... This story was so perfect for so long... you overcome the disease, you win the Tour de France seven times, you have a happy marriage, you have children. I mean, it's just this mythic, perfect story," Armstrong said.

"And it wasn't true."

In an opening series of "yes" or "no" questions, Armstrong admitted using blood-boosting EPO, blood doping transfusions and testosterone or human growth hormone.

Armstrong told Winfrey he didn't believe it was possible to win the Tour in the years he raced without doping, and challenged the characterisation of the doping program on his US Postal Service team as the most sophisticated ever.

Hours before the kickoff, Armstrong saw another accolade withdrawn as the International Olympic Committee said it had asked him to return the cycling time-trial bronze medal he won in 2000.

The International Cycling Union last year upheld the US Anti-Doping Agency's ban of Armstrong, and the revocation of his cycling results from August 1998, but the IOC waited for three weeks to see if Armstrong planned an appeal.

While Winfrey confirmed on Tuesday reports that Armstrong had admitted using banned performance enhancers in their talk, little else was known of what he would reveal.

Speculation swirled as to whether he had implicated others -- notably members of the sport's world governing body -- amid allegations of complicity and cover-up.

The difficulty of untangling the doping web in cycling was again clear when the IOC's move recalled the 2000 Olympic time-trial medallists.

Abraham Olano of Spain, who was fourth, could inherit the bronze after finishing fourth in a race won by Armstrong's ex-US Post Service team-mate Viasheslav Ekimov, with Germany's Jan Ullrich taking silver.

Ekimov is now general manager of the Katusha cycling team that were dropped from the elite ProTeam list for this season because of their ambivalent stance on doping, and Ullrich eventually served a two-year ban for doping.

Some have speculated that Armstrong might attempt to rationalize doping as standard procedure in the years of his cycling career.

Certainly his admission, and his choice of the famously sympathetic Winfrey as confessor, are an about face after years of aggressive denials and often vitriolic attacks on those who doubted him.

"No one could have imagined only a few weeks ago that Lance Armstrong would make his confession publicly, that he would confess in public to having been doped," Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme told reporters in Paris.

"It's obviously something very important but I can't say more than that ... For us, Lance Armstrong is already in the past."

This week's exercise, however, is about the future, with Armstrong reportedly seeking a way back into sports and those in cycling wondering just who will be implicated in his revelations.

-AFP/fl

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Execs' e-mails key in employee no-poaching lawsuit, judge says

E-mails reveal that executives at Apple and Google saw a substantial financial benefit to a mutual agreement not to recruit each other's employees, a federal judge said today.

The comments came in relation to a lawsuit brought by five former employees at various tech companies, alleging that an illegal conspiracy eliminated competition for talent. The lawsuit, filed in 2011, accuses Apple, Adobe Systems, Google, Pixar, Intel, and Intuit of conspiring to keep workers' salaries artificially low.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who is pondering whether to award class action status to the lawsuit, also ordered Apple CEO Tim Cook to be questioned by plaintiffs' attorneys for four hours, according to a Reuters report. Koh said the biggest challenge facing defendants was their belief that the collective approach to hiring was most efficient.

CNET has contacted Apple for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

An unredacted court filing in January 2012 recounted an e-mail exchange between late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs and then-Google CEO and Apple board member Eric Schmidt, in which Jobs politely asks Schmidt to stop trying to hire one of Apple's engineers.

"I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this," Jobs wrote to Schmidt on March 7, 2007.

According to the exchange detailed in the filing, Schmidt then sent the request on, saying "I believe we have a policy of no recruiting from Apple and this is a direct inbound request. Can you get this stopped and let me know why this is happening? I will need to send a response back to Apple quickly so please let me know as soon as you can."

The exchange led to the immediate firing of the recruiter who had attempted to hire the engineer in question, with Google's staffing director writing back "please extend my apologies as appropriate to Steve Jobs," and noting that it was "an isolated incident."

The suit focuses specifically on the companies targeted by a 2009 antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. That investigation, and the civil lawsuit that followed, were settled back in September 2011, with the aforementioned companies agreeing to discontinue the non-solicitation agreements. Nonetheless, the suit says the companies are still profiting in the aftermath of the practice.

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.uk

And so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course of your career?

"Yes," came the reply. "Whenever it was necessary."

"And how often was that?" came the follow-up question.

"Almost all the time!"

This is not a leak of a transcript from Oprah Winfrey's much anticipated tell-all with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, but instead was lifted from a decades-old interview with Fausto Coppi, the great Italian road cycling champion of the 1940s and 1950s.

To this day, though, Coppi is lauded as one of the gods of cycling, an icon of a distant and mythical golden age in the sport.

So is five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64) who famously remarked that it was impossible "to ride the Tour on mineral water."

"You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants," Anquetil said.

And then there's British cycling champion Tommy Simpson, who died of heart failure while trying to race up Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, a victim of heat, stress, and a heady cocktail of amphetamines.

All are heroes today. If their performance-enhancing peccadillos are not forgotten, they have at least been glossed over in the popular imagination.

As the latest chapter of the sorry Lance Armstrong saga unfolds, it is worth looking at the history of cheating in the Tour de France to get a sense of perspective. This is not an attempt at rationalisation or justification for what Lance did. Far from it.

But the simple, unpalatable fact is that cheating, drugs, and dirty tricks have been part and parcel of the Tour de France nearly from its inception in 1903.

Cheating was so rife in the 1904 event that Henri Desgrange, the founder and organiser of the Tour, declared he would never run the race again. Not only was the overall winner, Maurice Garin, disqualified for taking the train over significant stretches of the course, but so were next three cyclists who placed, along with the winner of every single stage of the course.

Of the 27 cyclists who actually finished the 1904 race, 12 were disqualified and given bans ranging from one year to life. The race's eventual official winner, 19-year-old Henri Cornet, was not determined until four months after the event.

And so it went. Desgrange relented on his threat to scrub the Tour de France and the great race survived and prospered-as did the antics. Trains were hopped, taxis taken, nails scattered along the roads, partisan supporters enlisted to beat up rivals on late-night lonely stretches of the course, signposts tampered with, bicycles sabotaged, itching powder sprinkled in competitors' jerseys and shorts, food doctored, and inkwells smashed so riders yet to arrive couldn't sign the control documents to prove they'd taken the correct route.

And then of course there were the stimulants-brandy, strychnine, ether, whatever-anything to get a rider through the nightmarishly tough days and nights of racing along stages that were often over 200 miles long. In a way the race was tailor-made to encourage this sort of thing. Desgrange once famously said that his idea of a perfect Tour de France would be one that was so tough that only one rider finished.

Add to this the big prizes at a time when money was hard to come by, a Tour largely comprising young riders from impoverished backgrounds for whom bicycle racing was their one big chance to get ahead, and the passionate following cycling enjoyed, and you had the perfect recipe for a desperate, high stakes, win-at-all-costs mentality, especially given the generally tolerant views on alcohol and drugs in those days.

After World War II came the amphetamines. Devised to keep soldiers awake and aggressive through long hours of battle they were equally handy for bicycle racers competing in the world's longest and toughest race.

So what makes the Lance Armstrong story any different, his road to redemption any rougher? For one thing, none of the aforementioned riders were ever the point man for what the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has described in a thousand-page report as the most sophisticated, cynical, and far-reaching doping program the world of sport has ever seen-one whose secrecy and efficiency was maintained by ruthlessness, bullying, fear, and intimidation.

Somewhere along the line, the casualness of cheating in the past evolved into an almost Frankenstein sort of science in which cyclists, aided by creepy doctors and trainers, were receiving blood transfusions in hotel rooms and tinkering around with their bodies at the molecular level many months before they ever lined up for a race.

To be sure, Armstrong didn't invent all of this, any more than he invented original sin-nor was he acting alone. But with his success, money, intelligence, influence, and cohort of thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers-and the way he used all this to prop up the Lance brand and the Lance machine at any cost-he became the poster boy and lightning rod for all that went wrong with cycling, his high profile eclipsing even the heads of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the global cycling union, who richly deserve their share of the blame.

It is not his PED popping that is the hard-to-forgive part of the Lance story. Armstrong cheated better than his peers, that's all.

What I find troubling is the bullying and calculated destruction of anyone who got in his way, raised a question, or cast a doubt. By all accounts Armstrong was absolutely vicious, vindictive as hell. Former U.S. Postal team masseuse Emma O'Reilly found herself being described publicly as a "prostitute" and an "alcoholic," and had her life put through a legal grinder when she spoke out about Armstrong's use of PEDs.

Journalists were sued, intimidated, and blacklisted from events, press conferences, and interviews if they so much as questioned the Lance miracle or well-greased machine that kept winning Le Tour.

Armstrong left a lot of wreckage behind him.

If he is genuinely sorry, if he truly repents for his past "indiscretions," one would think his first act would be to try to find some way of not only seeking forgiveness from those whom he brutally put down, but to do something meaningful to repair the damage he did to their lives and livelihoods.

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Lance Armstrong Confesses to Doping

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, confessing to using banned substances for decades.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said.

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

Lance Armstrong's Oprah Confession: The Consequences Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Winfrey Confession: The Fallout Watch Video

The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the race again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.

PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present

Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive," from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Also on Thursday, before the Winfrey interview aired, the International Olympic Committee stripped Armstrong his of 2000 Olympic bronze medal.

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

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NASA buys blow-up habitat for space station astronauts

NASA wants to blow up part of the International Space Station – and a Las Vegas firm is eager to help.

The US space agency has signed a $17.8-million contract with Bigelow Aerospace of Nevada to build an inflatable crew habitat for the ISS.

According to details released today at a press briefing , the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will launch in 2015. Astronauts on the ISS will test the module for safety and comfort.

BEAM will fly uninflated inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Once docked and fully expanded, the module will be 4 metres long and 3 metres wide. For two years astronauts will monitor conditions inside, such as temperature and radiation levels.

Bigelow hopes the tests done in orbit will prove that inflatable capsules are safe and reliable for space tourists and commercial research, an idea almost as old as NASA itself. The space agency began investigating the concept of expandable spacecraft in 1958. Space stations like this would be easier to launch and assemble than those with metal components, so would be cheaper. But research ended after a budget crunch in 2000, and Bigelow licensed the technology from NASA.

Stronger skin

The company has made progress, developing shielding that resists punctures from space debris and micrometeorites. BEAM's skin, for instance, is made from layers of material like Kevlar to protect occupants from high-speed impacts. The craft's skin has been tested in the lab alongside shielding used right now on the rest of the ISS, says Bigelow director Mike Gold.

"Our envelope will not only equal but be superior to what is flying on the ISS today. We have a strong and absolute focus on safety," he says.

And we have to be sure that inflatable craft are safe, says William Schonberg, an engineer specialising in orbital debris protection at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla. "The overall risk to the ISS is the sum of the risks of its individual components," he says.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but a flexible, inflatable design is just as likely to survive punishment from space debris as metal shielding, says Schonberg. "Certain composite cloth materials have been shown to be highly effective as shields against [high-speed space] impacts. So depending on what material is used, and in what combination it is used with other materials – such as thermal insulation blankets – the final design could be just as effective and perhaps better than the more traditional all-metal shields used elsewhere on the station."

Gold hopes BEAM will also demonstrate that fabric shielding can limit radiation risks. This is a major worry on missions to the moon or an asteroid say, where astronauts have to spend weeks or months outside Earth's protective magnetic field.

High-energy particles called cosmic rays constantly fly through the solar system, and when they strike metal shielding, they can emit secondary radiation in the form of X-rays. This doesn't happen with Kevlar-based fabric shields and so expandable habitats could be more desirable for travellers heading deeper into space, says Gold.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Football: Hodgson eyes long-awaited England glory

LONDON: As the Football Association begins its 150th anniversary year, England manager Roy Hodgson has challenged his players to provide the ultimate celebration by at least putting themselves in contention to end almost half a century without a trophy.

Hodgson is the latest in a string of managers charged with ending England's wait for a first major honour since their lone World Cup final triumph, against the then West Germany at London's Wembley Stadium in 1966.

But after helping the FA launch its landmark birthday on the London site of its first meeting, the current incumbent in the so-called 'impossible job' refused to accept it may take another 50 years to replicate.

"There's always hope," Hodgson insisted. "Hope springs eternal. But what you have to do to win tournaments is make sure you're regularly among the ones who are up there with a possibility of winning.

"You could compare it to someone who is an amateur darts player. The more darts he throws in and around the centre, one day he will get it in the bullseye.

"If he's spreading them around the board your chances will be less than if he's getting them in the 25 circle."

Hodgson took England to the quarter-finals at Euro 2012, only losing on penalties to Italy -- even though his team's performances were often described as limited by many critics who yearn for England to rely more on technique and finesse than just their famous bulldog spirit.

The FA shares the same ambition; which is why it has built a national academy in central England at St George's Park -- a school for coaches where all 24 national teams will also be based.

And although Hodgson knows any rewards from that venture are a long way down the line, he hasn't ruled out a degree of short-term success if England qualify for the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil.

"The first thing we have to do of course is qualify for the tournament," he said. "And then when we qualify it will be important that we give a very good account of ourselves at the World Cup in Brazil. And who knows, once you are there you have a chance of winning it.

"I think we have some very good young players coming into the game playing regularly now and showing that they do have the ability to shoulder the burden."

Hodgson was joined at The FA's anniversary launch by several former England managers including Sven-Goran Eriksson, Terry Venables and Fabio Capello, who left the role in controversial circumstances following a row over a decision to strip John Terry of the England captaincy.

But the Italian was all smiles as he said: "We are all friends now. It is very good to come back and see the people I used to work with. I have no problems with anyone.

"You know I can't talk about what happened with England but I am enjoying my life with Russia and my hope is that we play England in Brazil at the World Cup. That would be very good I think."

FA chairman David Bernstein welcomed Capello's participation by insisting: "Fabio is a man of great dignity and I respect him enormously.

"To see him today (Wednesday) and the warmth he showed, and there was a great deal of warmth when we met each other was really fabulous. It's the way it should be. There were hugs all round."

Meanwhile it emerged the FA, which has already arranged anniversary England friendlies against Brazil, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, was also looking to fit in matches against Argentina and Germany at Wembley in October and November.

-AFP/ac

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Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend was born and died on social media

Manti Te'o gave several interviews about the death of his girlfriend Lennay Kekua.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Dara Kerr/CNET)

Manti Te'o's tale was a portrait of a heartbroken football player overcoming adversity -- triumphing over the tragic death of his girlfriend.

The devout Mormon, Notre Dame linebacker, and runner up to the 2012 Heisman Trophy first suffered the loss of his grandmother, then his girlfriend to leukemia. On the day she died, he had one of the best games of his college career, logging 12 tackles.

The only problem is that she didn't die...because she apparently never existed.

In an exhaustive investigation, Deadspin's Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey detail how Te'o started dating a virtual woman and how his relationship flourished on social media -- and, by the same token, how the truth was sleuthed out via those same online avenues.

According to various news stories gathered by Deadspin, Te'o apparently met his fake 22-year-old girlfriend Lennay Kekua after a Stanford vs. Notre Dame football game in November 2009. After talking on the phone, e-mailing, and meeting up in Hawaii, they decided to become a couple in early 2012. After recovering from a
car accident in the summer, she was hospitalized for leukemia -- and didn't survive.

Kekua's last words to Te'o were "I love you," according to a "College GameDay" interview with the football player. And, a "CBS This Morning" profile on Te'o's will to overcome loss, showed a photo of Kekua along with quote from her that said, "Babe, if anything happens to me, you promise that you'll stay there and you'll play and you'll honor me through the way you play."

However, Deadspin discovered that there are no accounts of Kekua's birth, death, or school records. The woman whose pictures graced national newspapers and TV shows as Te'o's deceased girlfriend is actually someone who lives in Torrance, Calif., who has never met the star athlete and does not suffer from leukemia. This woman's identity has been kept anonymous to protect her privacy.

In an interview this evening on CNN's Anderson Cooper, Burke said that Deadspin's investigation began a week ago with an anonymous e-mail. They did a Google search for "Lennay Kekua," but that only turned up links to stories about her death -- nothing from before then.

Calls to Stanford and Southern California mortuaries turned up nothing, he said. The key turned up when they found the photos that represented Kekua and were able to track them back to the actual person in the images. "That sort of opened everything up," he said.

Looking back on social media, Deadspin was able to retrace Te'o and Kekua's virtual relationship, which commenced on Twitter in October 2011. Throughout the course of their courtship, Kekua's Twitter name went from @lovalovaloveYOU to @LoveMSMK to @LennayKay.

All photos associated with Kekua's social media accounts were of the woman who lives in Torrance. Apparently she knew a friend of Te'o's named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo who is believed to have nabbed her photos and helped the football player construct his virtual girlfriend.

While Te'o gave interviews about his relationship with Kekua and her loss, along with details on how they met at Stanford and talked for hours on the phone, he is currently denying any involvement in this hoax.

Notre Dame's spokesman and assistant vice president Dennis Brown told Deadspin that Te'o "had been the victim of what appears to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia."

Meanwhile, in his own statement Te'o said, "This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating."

Even though Kekua never existed, Te'o's grandmother Annette Santiago did pass away on September 11, 2012.

Currently, Te'o's Twitter profile is headed by a quote from Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo," a well-known novel about a man of many identities. "Life is a storm...You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes."

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6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You

Photograph by AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

The planet keeps getting hotter, new data showed this week. Especially in America, where 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded, by far. Every few years, the U.S. federal government engages hundreds of experts to assess the impacts of climate change, now and in the future.

From agriculture (pictured) to infrastructure to how humans consume energy, the National Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee spotlights how a warming world may bring widespread disruption.

Farmers will see declines in some crops, while others will reap increased yields.

Won't more atmospheric carbon mean longer growing seasons? Not quite. Over the next several decades, the yield of virtually every crop in California's fertile Central Valley, from corn to wheat to rice and cotton, will drop by up to 30 percent, researchers expect. (Read about "The Carbon Bathtub" in National Geographic magazine.)

Lackluster pollination, driven by declines in bees due partly to the changing climate, is one reason. Government scientists also expect the warmer climate to shorten the length of the frosting season necessary for many crops to grow in the spring.

Aside from yields, climate change will also affect food processing, storage, and transportation—industries that require an increasing amount of expensive water and energy as global demand rises—leading to higher food prices.

—Daniel Stone

Published January 16, 2013

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FAA Grounds Boeing 787 Dreamliners

The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered the grounding of Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets until their U.S. operator proves that batteries on the planes are safe.

United is the only U.S. carrier flying the Boeing 787s, which have been touted as the planes of the future. However, several operated by overseas airlines have run into recent trouble, the latest because of a feared battery fire on a 787 today in Japan.

The FAA's so-called emergency airworthiness directive is a blow to Boeing, from the same government agency that only days ago at a news conference touted the Dreamliner as "safe." Even Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood went so far as to say he would have no issue flying on the plane.

Now, United will need to prove to the FAA that there is no battery fire risk on its six Dreamliners. An emergency airworthiness directive is one that requires an operator to fix or address any problem before flying again.

"Before further flight, operators of U.S.-registered Boeing 787 aircraft must demonstrate to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that the batteries are safe and in compliance," the FAA said in a statement today. "The FAA will work with the manufacturer and carriers to develop a corrective action plan to allow the U.S. 787 fleet to resume operations as quickly and safely as possible."

United Airlines responded tonight with a statement: "United will immediately comply with the airworthiness directive and will work closely with the FAA and Boeing on the technical review as we work toward restoring 787 service. We will begin reaccommodating customers on alternate aircraft."

787 Dreamliner Grounded, Passengers Forced to Evacuate Watch Video

Boeing 787 Dreamliner Deemed Safe Despite Mishaps Watch Video

Jim McNerney, Boeing's chairman, president and CEO, expressed regret about any scheduling disruptions in a written statement, adding that Boeing was "confident the 787 is safe and we stand behind its overall integrity."

"The safety of passengers and crew members who fly aboard Boeing airplanes is our highest priority," McNerney said. "Boeing is committed to supporting the FAA and finding answers as quickly as possible. The company is working around the clock with its customers and the various regulatory and investigative authorities. We will make available the entire resources of The Boeing Company to assist."

There are some 50 Dreamliners flying in the world, mostly for Japanese airlines, but also for Polish and Chilean carriers.

Overseas operators are not directly affected by the FAA's emergency airworthiness directive -- but Japanese authorities grounded all of their 787s overnight after All Nippon Airways (ANA) said a battery warning light and a burning smell were detected in the cockpit and the cabin, forcing a Dreamliner, on a domestic flight, to land at Takamatsu Airport in Japan.

The plane landed safely about 45 minutes after it took off and all 128 passengers and eight crew members had to evacuate using the emergency chutes. Two people sustained minor injuries on their way down the chute, Osamu Shinobe, ANA senior executive vice president, told a news conference in Tokyo.

ANA and its rival, Japan Airlines (JAL), subsequently grounded their Dreamliner fleets. ANA operates 17 Dreamliner planes, while JAL has seven in service.

Both airlines said the Dreamliner fleet would remain grounded at least through Thursday.

ANA said the battery in question during today's incident was the same lithium-ion type battery that caught fire on board a JAL Dreamliner in Boston last week. Inspectors found liquid leaking from the battery today, and said it was "discolored."

Japan's transport ministry categorized the problem as a "serious incident" that could have led to an accident.

Even more shaken up than the passengers on the Japanese flight may be the reputation of America's largest plane manufacturer, Boeing.

Since the 787 -- with a body mostly made of carbon fiber -- was introduced, it's had one small problem after another. But the nagging battery issue, which caused an onboard fire at Boston's Logan Airport last week, was serious enough for the FAA to ground the plane.

"It's a rough couple weeks for Boeing and ANA," said John Hansman, an MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics. "I think clearly in the short term this type of bad press has been tough for Boeing. I think in the long haul, this is a good airplane. It's in a good market."

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Why musical genius comes easier to early starters

Good news for pushy parents. If you want your child to excel musically, you now have better justification for starting their lessons early. New evidence comes from brain scans of 36 highly skilled musicians, split equally between those who started lessons before and after the age of 7, but who had done a similar amount of training and practice.

MRI scans revealed that the white matter in the corpus callosum – the brain region that links the two hemispheres – had more extensive wiring and connectivity in the early starters. The wiring of the late starters was not much different from that of non-musician control participants. This makes sense as the corpus callosum aids speed and synchronisation in tasks involving both hands, such as playing musical instruments.

"I think we've provided real evidence for something that musicians and teachers have suspected for a long time, that early training can produce long-lasting effects on performance and the brain," says Christopher Steele of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and head of the team.

Sweet spot

Steele says that younger-trained musicians may have an advantage because their training coincides with a key period of brain development . At age 7 or 8, the corpus callosum is more receptive than ever to the alterations in connectivity necessary to meet the demands of learning an instrument.

However, he stresses that these connectivity adaptations are no guarantee of musical genius. "What we're showing is that early starters have some specific skills and accompanying differences in the brain, but these things don't necessarily make them better musicians," he says. "Musical performance is about skill, but it is also about communication, enthusiasm, style and many other things we don't measure. So while starting early may help you express your genius, it won't make you a genius," he says.

Nor should older aspiring musicians despair. "They should absolutely not give up. It is never too late to learn a skill," says Steele.

Journal reference: Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3578-12.2013

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