Technology

DARPA-Funded Hacker’s Tiny $50 Spy Computer Hides In Offices, DROPS FROM DRONES

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– DARPA-Funded Hacker’s Tiny $50 Spy Computer Hides In Offices, Drops From Drones (Forbes, Jan. 27, 2012):

Even more embarrassing than a student discovering your GPS tracking device on his car, as the FBI found out last year, is having to ask him to give the expensive piece of equipment back.

So security researcher Brendan O’Connor is trying a different approach to spy hardware: building a sensor-equipped surveillance-capable computer that’s so cheap it can be sacrificed after one use, with off-the-shelf parts that anyone can buy and assemble for less than fifty dollars.

At the Shmoocon security conference Friday in Washington D.C., O’Connor plans to present the F-BOMB, or Falling or Ballistically-launched Object that Makes Backdoors. Built from just the hardware in a commercially-available PogoPlug mini-computer, a few tiny antennae, eight gigabytes of flash memory and some 3D-printed plastic casing, the F-BOMB serves as 3.5 by 4 by 1 inch spy computer. And O’Connor has designed the cheap gadgets to dropped from a drone, plugged inconspicuously into a wall socket, thrown over a barrier, or otherwise put into irretrievable positions to quietly collect data and send it back to the owner over any available Wifi network. With PogoPlugs currently on sale at Amazon for $25, O’Connor built his prototypes with gear that added up to just $46 each.

“If some target is surrounded by bad men with guns, you don’t want to have to retrieve this, but you also don’t want to have to pay four or five hundred dollars for every use,” says O’Connor. “The idea is that it’s as close to free as possible. So you can throw a bunch of these sensors at a target and get away with losing a couple nodes in the process.”

Homemade as it may look, the F-BOMB is more than a hacker hobby. O’Connor says his one-man security consultancy Malice Afterthought received a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract earlier this month to develop the devices as part of the Cyber Fast Track program, which awards small sums to inventors.

Despite its name, O’Connor says the F-BOMB is designed to be a platform for all sorts of applications on its Linux operating system. Outfit it with temperature or humidity sensors, for instance, and it can be used for meteorological research or other innocent data-collecting.  But install some Wifi-cracking software or add a $15 GPS module, and it can snoop on data networks or track a target’s location, O’Connor adds. As is often the case with these kinds of hacker projects, he says the devices are only intended for penetration testing–finding security flaws in clients’ networks in order to fix them–and wouldn’t comment on what DARPA might do with the technology.

Read moreDARPA-Funded Hacker’s Tiny $50 Spy Computer Hides In Offices, DROPS FROM DRONES

Humans Lose, Robots Win in Pentagon’s New Defense Budget

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– Humans Lose, Robots Win in New Defense Budget (Wired, Jan. 26, 2012):

The big loser in the Pentagon’s new budget? Ordinary human beings.

About 80,000 Army soldiers and 20,000 Marines are getting downsized. Half of the Army’s conventional combat presence in Europe is packing up and ending its post-Cold War staycation. Replacing them, according to the $613 billion budget previewed by the Pentagon on Thursday: unconventional special-operations forces; new bombers; new spy tools; new missiles for subs; and a veritable Cylon army of drones.

Read moreHumans Lose, Robots Win in Pentagon’s New Defense Budget

Homeland Security Wants To Spy On 4 Square Miles AT ONCE

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– Homeland Security Wants to Spy on 4 Square Miles at Once (Wired, Jan. 23, 2012):

It’s not just for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars anymore. The Department of Homeland Security is interested in a camera package that can peek in on almost four square miles of (constitutionally protected) American territory for long, long stretches of time.

Homeland Security doesn’t have a particular system in mind. Right now, it’s just soliciting “industry feedback” on what a formal call for such a “Wide Area Surveillance System” might look like. But it’s the latest indication of how powerful military surveillance technology, developed to find foreign insurgents and terrorists, is migrating to the home front.

Read moreHomeland Security Wants To Spy On 4 Square Miles AT ONCE

India’s First Fast Breeder Reactor To Go Critical In Early 2013, Near Small Japan (‘Noda’s Ark’) In Chennai

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See also:

– Small ‘Japan’ In Southern India – ‘Noda’s Ark’ – Turns Out To Be Only For The Rich

– Japan’s Government-Industrial Complex To Create Small ‘Japan’ In Southern India

– India’s First Fast Breeder Reactor to Go Critical in Early 2013, Near Chennai (Ex-SKF, Jan. 22, 2012):

Some poetic justice, I can’t help thinking. But this may be exactly what the Japanese government and the corporate elites (particularly in the nuclear industry) want anyway, to be near a successful (if) fast breeder reactor for a change.

India’s first prototype fast breeder reactor will go critical in early 2013, with commercial power generation to commence in March 2015 in the township of Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, about 70 kilometers south of Chennai where the Japanese government-industry joint venture is to set up a “Japan town” where expat Japanese can live in luxury with own hospitals and shopping centers, golf course in a resort setting.

The fast breeder uses liquid sodium as coolant, just like “Monju” in Japan. I am pretty sure that Indians, just like the Japanese before them, think they are different, and won’t make stupid mistakes like Americans (TMI), Russians (Chernobyl), and Japanese (Fukushima). Not to mention the costly “Monju” fast breeder project that has had nothing but failures.

Just watch out for those cyclones and tsunamis from future mega earthquakes from Indonesia…

From Zeenews.com (1/21/2012):

Chennai: India’s first 500-MW prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR), being set up at Kalpakkam near here, is likely to go critical early next year and commercial generation of electricity is expected in March 2015.

Read moreIndia’s First Fast Breeder Reactor To Go Critical In Early 2013, Near Small Japan (‘Noda’s Ark’) In Chennai

Air Force’s Chief Scientist Wants A ‘Social Radar’ To ‘See Into Hearts And Minds’

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You can’t make this stuff up!

– Air Force’s Top Brain Wants a ‘Social Radar’ to ‘See Into Hearts and Minds’ (Wired, Jan. 19, 2012):

Chief Scientists of the Air Force usually spend their time trying to figure out how to build better satellites or make jets go insanely fast. Which makes Dr. Mark Maybury, today’s chief scientist, a bit of an outlier. He’d like to build a set of sensors that peer into people’s souls — and forecast wars before they erupt.

Maybury calls his vision “Social Radar.” And the comparison to traditional sensors is no accident, he tells Danger Room. “The Air Force and the Navy in this and other countries have a history of developing Sonar to see through the water, Radar to see through the air, and IR [infrared] to see through the night. Well, we also want to see into the hearts and the minds of people,” says Maybury, who serves as the top science advisor to the Air Force’s top brass.

But Social Radar won’t be a single sensor to discover your secret yearnings. It’ll be more of a virtual sensor, combining a vast array of technologies and disciplines, all employed to take a society’s pulse and assess its future health. It’s part of a broader Pentagon effort to master the societal and cultural elements of war — and effort that even many in the Defense Department believe is deeply flawed. First step: mine Twitter feeds for indications of upset.

Read moreAir Force’s Chief Scientist Wants A ‘Social Radar’ To ‘See Into Hearts And Minds’

NYPD Testing X-Ray Body Scanner Technology To Scan People For Concealed Guns

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These criminals are destroying your health (and your DNA):

– Prof. John Sedat On DHS’ X-ray Scanners: ‘Society Will Pay A Huge Price In CANCER Because Of This’

– US Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners

– TSA Full Body Scanner Radiation Safety Tests Were Rigged

– TSA Body Scanners Show Radiation Levels 10 Times Higher Than Expected

– Inside TSA Body Scanners: How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart Human DNA

– Review of the TSA X-ray backscatter body scanner safety report: hide your kids, hide your wife

– Dr. Russell Blaylock: Body Scanners More Dangerous Than Feds Admit

– Airport Body Scanners: Why You should REJECT ‘Routine’ NON-Diagnostic X-ray

– How Body Scanner Terahertz Waves Can Tear Apart DNA

– Full-Body Scanners Emitting ‘High-Energy’ Radiation Increase Cancer Risk

– US prisoners forced to submit to radiation experiments for private foreign companies

In case you still don’t know who to vote for:

– Rep. Ron Paul to TSA: Stop Irradiating Our Bodies and Fondling Our Children!

 


The NYPD and Department of Defense are working together testing Terahertz Imaging Detection, a new way to get concealed illegal weapons off the streets. (Photo courtesy: NYPD)

– NYPD, Feds Testing Gun-Scanning Technology, But Civil Liberties Groups Up In Arms (CBS News, Jan. 17, 2012):

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The NYPD is stepping up their war against illegal guns, with a new tool that could detect weapons on someone as they walk down the street.

But is it violating your right to privacy?

Police, along with the U.S. Department of Defense, are researching new technology in a scanner placed on police vehicles that can detect concealed weapons.

Read moreNYPD Testing X-Ray Body Scanner Technology To Scan People For Concealed Guns

CNN: US Funds Iran Nuclear Program (Video)

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YouTube Added: 02.01.2012

Flashback:

– George Galloway: The Case Against War With Iran (Must-Listen!!!):

‘Iran Hasn’t Invaded Another Country In More Than 300 Years.’

More on Iran:

– Iran Is Not Our Enemy (Video)

– The Real Target … US Wants To ‘Close Down The Central Bank Of Iran’: Senior U.S. Official

– Iran, Russia Replace US Dollar With National Currencies In Trade Exchanges

Read moreCNN: US Funds Iran Nuclear Program (Video)

Nuclear Expert: NRC Allows Nuclear Plants To Release Very High Levels Of Radiation And The ‘EPA Has Criticized Them As Being Not Protective Of Public Health’ – Nuclear Russian Roulette Part 2 (Video) – Nuclear Russian Roulette (Video)

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Related info:

Part 1: Nuclear Expert: ‘These Reactors Produce 50 Years Of Electricity And Half A Million Years Of Waste. It’s Not A Particularly Good Deal’ – NUCLEAR RUSSIAN ROULETTE (Video)

Watch at 15:50 into the video


YouTube Added: 10.01.2012

Description:

This is the question and answer session following Prof. Dan Hirsch’s presentation to the San Clemente, CA. City Council.

IAEA ‘Officially Confirmed That Iran Has Started Enriching Uranium To The 20-Percent Level, Which Can EASILY Be Turned Into Fissile Warhead Material’

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Easily??? BS!

Iran has to enrich uranium over 90% to get weapons-grade material to build a nuclear weapon.

For high enrichment much larger centrifuge facilities are needed.

It is absolute disinformation that highly enriched uranium could be fabricated in a civil nuclear plant.

No weapons of mass destruction In Iran, only weapons of MASS DECEPTION on our side.

See also:

– US Analysts: Iran’s Nuclear Fuel Rod Isn’t Military Threat (Bloomberg, Jan. 4, 2012)

– Defense Secretary Leon Panetta: Iran Not Building Nuclear Bombs Yet

– Thousands Of US Troops To Be Deployed In Israel, Joined By US Aircraft Carrier

– Obama And Netanayu Push For Attack On Iran (Video)

– Royal Navy Sends Its Mightiest Warship To Take On Iran

– Ron Paul: Sanctions Against Iran Are an ‘Act of War’

Flashback: IAEA

– IAEA Confirms Iran Has Started 20% Uranium Enrichment (ZeroHedge, Jan 10, 2012):

The geopolitical foreplay is getting ridiculous. At this point it is quite obvious that virtually everyone involved in the US-Israel-Iran hate triangle is just itching for someone else to pull the trigger. And the latest report out of the IAEA will only precipitate this. Who – remember the IAEA? The same IAEA which did not find nukes in Iraq in 2003 only to be overriden by Dick “WMD” Cheney to “justify” an invasion. As RIA reports:  “The International Atomic Energy Agency officially confirmed that Iran has started enriching uranium to the 20-percent level, which can easily be turned into fissile warhead material. “The IAEA can confirm that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent using IR-1 centrifuges in the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant,” the agency said in a statement. However, IAEA Spokeswoman Gill Tudor said that all nuclear materials and operations in the Fordo facility are “under the Agency’s containment and surveillance.”” Naturally, that leaves the “use of uranium” variable quite subjective and in the hands of political manipulation. Which means at this point it is only a matter of days before the meme that Iran already has nuclear warheads becomes actively adopted by warmongers everywhere.

From RIA:

Iranian officials earlier said the Fordo plant, deep inside the mountains near the central Iranian city of Qom, was build to produce 20-percent uranium needed for a research reactor in Tehran, which produces medical isotopes to treat cancer patients.

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereydoon Abbasi said last August that Iranian authorities planned to transfer all enrichment facilities from a plant in Natanz to Fordo, citing insufficient security.

He also said Iran had no plans to enrich uranium to higher than 20 percent.

Read moreIAEA ‘Officially Confirmed That Iran Has Started Enriching Uranium To The 20-Percent Level, Which Can EASILY Be Turned Into Fissile Warhead Material’

US Analysts: Iran’s Nuclear Fuel Rod Isn’t Military Threat (Bloomberg, Jan. 4, 2012)

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From the article:

Weapons-grade uranium is at least 90 percent enriched and power- plant fuel is enriched about 3 percent to 5 percent, she said.

Iran’s announcement “provides political cover for their continued enrichment of uranium” to just less than 20 percent, according to Squassoni. “It has no connection to a nuclear weapons timeline.”

– Iran’s Nuclear Fuel Rod Isn’t Military Threat, U.S. Analysts Say (Bloomberg, Jan. 4, 2012):

Iran’s development of a nuclear fuel rod for medical research isn’t a milestone in a quest for atomic weapons, according to energy analysts in the U.S.

“This has some diplomatic significance and virtually no military significance,” James Acton, a senior associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Although Iran’s announcement sends a signal that the country may have the ability to develop fuel for research uses without external help, such units need uranium that’s less concentrated than what’s needed to make weapons, he said.

Read moreUS Analysts: Iran’s Nuclear Fuel Rod Isn’t Military Threat (Bloomberg, Jan. 4, 2012)

Stop Smart Meters – The Film (Trailer HD)

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YouTube Added: 02.01.2012

See also:

– US: Smart Meters Make Themselves At Home … By Force

– Measuring The Dangerous Pulsed Radiation From Smart Meters (Video)

– Red Level Alert America: THEY WANT US DEAD!

– Obama Implemented U.N. Agenda 21 With Executive Order 13575 To Totally Control US Farming Communities – USDA Attacks Rural America With Smart Meters

– HEALTH WARNING: DO NOT ALLOW SMART METERS TO BE INSTALLED IN YOUR HOME!

Japanese Expert: Prof. Hiromitsu Ino: Fukushima II (Not I) Nuclear Plant Containment Vessel Has Been Damaged By Earthquake

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– Just In: Japanese Expert Says Fukushima II (not I) Nuke Plant’s Containment Vessel Has Been Damaged by the Quake (Ex-SKF, Jan. 8, 2012):

Information from Iwakami Yasumi’s USTREAM channel netcasting the workshop of an Osaka citizens’ group “Kansai network to stop the disaster-debris acceptance” with a panel of experts including European experts.

One Japanese expert, Hiromitsu Ino, said a Containment Vessel at Fukushima II (Daini) is broken, and they are trying to repair it. It was probably caused by the earthquake, not tsunami.

The workshop is on-going at this link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iwj-osaka1#utm_campaign=t.co&utm_source=8481429&utm_medium=social

Hiromitsu Ino is professor emeritus at Tokyo University. His area of specialty is metallic materials science. He is the head of the Group of Concerned Scientists and Engineers Calling for the Closure of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.

I still remember a tweet last summer (I think) saying an acquaintance fleeing from the area near Fukushima II Nuke Plant right after the earthquake saw a smoke coming out of one of the reactor buildings (there are 4). Fukushima II, unlike Fukushima I, has 4 Mark-II type boiling water reactors built by Toshiba and Hitachi.

US Government Paid Dutch Researchers To Mutate Deadly H5N1 Virus And Make It Go AIRBORNE!!!

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– Debate persists on deadly flu made airborne (NDTV, Dec. 27, 2011):

The young scientist, normally calm and measured, seemed edgy when he stopped by his boss’s office.

“You are not going to believe this one,” he told Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. “I think we have an airborne H5N1 virus.”

The news, delivered one afternoon last July, was chilling. It meant that Dr. Fouchier’s research group had taken one of the most dangerous flu viruses ever known and made it even more dangerous – by tweaking it genetically to make it more contagious.

What shocked the researchers was how easy it had been, Dr. Fouchier said. Just a few mutations was all it took to make the virus go airborne.

The discovery has led advisers to the United States government, which paid for the research, to urge that the details be kept secret and not published in scientific journals to prevent the work from being replicated by terrorists, hostile governments or rogue scientists.

Read moreUS Government Paid Dutch Researchers To Mutate Deadly H5N1 Virus And Make It Go AIRBORNE!!!

Scientists Grow Sperm In Laboratory Dish

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– Scientists grow sperm in laboratory dish (Telegraph, Jan. 2, 2012):

The development opens up the possibility of infertile men being able to father their own children rather than using donor sperm.

Researchers in Germany and Israel were able to grow mouse sperm from a few cells in a laboratory dish.

In a world first a team headed by Professor Stefan Schlatt, at Muenster University in Germany, were able to grow sperm by using germ cells. These are the cells in testicles that are responsible for sperm production.

Read moreScientists Grow Sperm In Laboratory Dish

Nuclear Expert: ‘These Reactors Produce 50 Years Of Electricity And Half A Million Years Of Waste. It’s Not A Particularly Good Deal’ – NUCLEAR RUSSIAN ROULETTE (Video)

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“Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water!”
– Albert Einstein

Watch at 28:30 into the video.


YouTube Added: 22.12.2011

Description:

Close Down California’s Nukes?

Read moreNuclear Expert: ‘These Reactors Produce 50 Years Of Electricity And Half A Million Years Of Waste. It’s Not A Particularly Good Deal’ – NUCLEAR RUSSIAN ROULETTE (Video)

New Report: ‘Recording Everything’ … Details How Governments Can Shape the Dynamics of Dissent

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– New Report: “Recording Everything” Details How Governments Can Shape the Dynamics of Dissent (Activist Post, Dec.29, 2011):

A recent Brookings Institution report has now confirmed what many have suspected for some time – that the United States government (and virtually every other government in the world) has the capability to monitor and record nearly every interaction that occurs within its national borders.

For years, those individuals who have tried to warn others of the creeping surveillance state were met with denials and catcalls of “conspiracy theory,” as well as the famous claims that it was not physically possible to monitor everyone.

This new report, however, shatters the delusional rationalities of the uninformed into a million pieces.

The Brookings Institution report entitled, “Recording Everything: Digital Storage as an Enabler of Authoritarian Governments” (.pdf) discusses the increasing capacities for surveillance due to the improvement in technology and the sinking costs of its procurement, along with the implications for human rights and authoritarianism that come along with it.

The report begins by stating:

Read moreNew Report: ‘Recording Everything’ … Details How Governments Can Shape the Dynamics of Dissent

CT Scans: The Leading Cause Of Breast Cancer

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Profiteers in the medical CT scan business took a big hit last week from a major new government report on the causes of breast cancer.

Published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, the exhaustive analysis found that medical radiation, particularly the large radiation dose delivered by CT scans, is the foremost identifiable cause of breast cancer.[1]

Almost 230,480 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year in the United States, and about 40,000 women will die of the disease, roughly one out of every 3,875 women.

Read moreCT Scans: The Leading Cause Of Breast Cancer

Prof. Dr. Chris Busby On Depleted & Enriched Uranium Weapons Use, Internal Emitters And Fukushima Radiation (Video)

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YouTube Added: 27.12.2011

Description:

Dr. Chris Busby interviewed 20th December 2011 by Theo Chalmers on Sky TV’s “One Step Beyond” about Fallujah, Fukushima and the cover-ups over the health effects of exposure to radioactivity.

Dr. Helen Caldicott Interviews Arnie Gundersen: A Fresh Report On Fukushima (Audio): Melted Core To Hit Groundwater, Will Leak Out Anyway, Groundwater Already Contaminated, Massive Contamination Of The Ocean

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MP3: Listen Now (Download the show by right-clicking the link.)

– Arnold Gundersen with A Fresh Report on Fukushima (Dec. 23, 2011):

This week, Dr. Caldicott and Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear energy consultant with Fairewinds Associates, have another look at how the Fukushima disaster is affecting Japan, and how the U.S. nuclear industry continues its plans to build new plants in America. As background for today’s program, read the recent articles Mothers Rise Against Nuclear Power in Japan, Nuclear Russian Roulette in California:
Dr. Helen Caldicott and Dan Hirsch Warn How Accident at San Onofre Would Trap Eight Million People, and Fukushima Shutdown Still At Least 40 Years Away. Be sure to visit Gundersen’s website for many articles, reports, videos and
other resources about Fukushima and the hazards of nuclear power. Watch Gundersen’s October presentation on YouTube (9 minutes), Nuclear Oversight Lacking WORLDWIDE. And fully inform yourselves about nuclear energy with Dr. Caldicott’s books Nuclear Power is Not the Answer and Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do.

More info:

Read moreDr. Helen Caldicott Interviews Arnie Gundersen: A Fresh Report On Fukushima (Audio): Melted Core To Hit Groundwater, Will Leak Out Anyway, Groundwater Already Contaminated, Massive Contamination Of The Ocean

Mystery Spy Devices Dropped Over Syria

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– Who is behind mystery spy devices dropped over Syria? (IntelNews, Dec. 23, 2011):

On December 14, residents of a small town in northern Syria reported seeing unidentified aircraft circling overhead, and dropping several small items attached to mini-parachutes. Two days ago, one local resident, Adnan Mustafa, posted on Facebook several photographs of some of these items, which were found scattered around the area.

The gadgets, pictured here, look suspiciously like surreptitious listening devices. Residents say the question is: who dropped them, and why?

The devices were found in the hills around Afrin, a predominantly ethnic-Kurdish town 20 miles south of the Syrian-Turkish border. Local townsfolk said the flight patterns of the planes observed on December 14 resembled those of previous sightings of Turkish aircraft, which routinely invade Syrian airspace before returning to the Turkish air base in Incirlik, about 100 miles north of Afrin.

Syrian newspaper Al-Hakikah (The Truth), which supports the opposition Syrian National Council for Truth, Justice and Reconciliation, said the suspected spy gadgets weigh about 90 grams each and bear “Made in Germany” labels, as well as “GRAW DFM-06” inscriptions. Graw is a Nuremberg-based German company that produces radiosondes, small radio transmitters used in weather balloons, that measure various atmospheric parameters and transmit them to fixed receivers.

Read moreMystery Spy Devices Dropped Over Syria

New Discovery Could Potentially More Than Double Solar Cell Efficiency

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– Discovery of a ‘Dark State’ Could Mean a Brighter Future for Solar Energy (ScienceDaily, Dec. 15, 2011):

The efficiency of conventional solar cells could be significantly increased, according to new research on the mechanisms of solar energy conversion led by chemist Xiaoyang Zhu at The University of Texas at Austin.

Zhu and his team have discovered that it’s possible to double the number of electrons harvested from one photon of sunlight using an organic plastic semiconductor material.

“Plastic semiconductor solar cell production has great advantages, one of which is low cost,” said Zhu, a professor of chemistry. “Combined with the vast capabilities for molecular design and synthesis, our discovery opens the door to an exciting new approach for solar energy conversion, leading to much higher efficiencies.”

Zhu and his team published their groundbreaking discovery Dec. 16 in Science.

The maximum theoretical efficiency of the silicon solar cell in use today is approximately 31 percent, because much of the sun’s energy hitting the cell is too high to be turned into usable electricity. That energy, in the form of “hot electrons,” is instead lost as heat. Capturing hot electrons could potentially increase the efficiency of solar-to-electric power conversion to as high as 66 percent.

Read moreNew Discovery Could Potentially More Than Double Solar Cell Efficiency

Trillion-Dollar F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Jet Has Thirteen Expensive New Flaws

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– Trillion-Dollar Jet Has Thirteen Expensive New Flaws (Wired, Dec. 13, 2011):

The most expensive weapons program in U.S. history is about to get a lot pricier.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, meant to replace nearly every tactical warplane in the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, was already expected to cost $1 trillion dollars for development, production and maintenance over the next 50 years. Now that cost is expected to grow, owing to 13 different design flaws uncovered in the last two months by a hush-hush panel of five Pentagon experts. It could cost up to a billion dollars to fix the flaws on copies of the jet already in production, to say nothing of those yet to come.

In addition to costing more, the stealthy F-35 could take longer to complete testing. That could delay the stealthy jet’s combat debut to sometime after 2018 — seven years later than originally planned. And all this comes as the Pentagon braces for big cuts to its budget while trying to save cherished but costly programs like the Joint Strike Fighter.

Read moreTrillion-Dollar F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Jet Has Thirteen Expensive New Flaws

Iran Claims It’s Almost Done Decoding US CIA Drone

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See also:

– Iran Shows Off Captured US Drone, Claims To Have Overridden Drone Flight Control Systems (Video)

– US Drone Lost Over Iran Was On CIA Operation – Rep. Dennis Kucinich: ‘The Events Have Been Confirmed, So When You Start To Connect The Dots, Those Dots Start To Spell The Word WAR’ (Video)

– Iran says it’s almost done decoding US drone (AP, Dec. 12 2011):

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran claims its experts are in the final stages of recovering data from the U.S. surveillance drone captured by Iranian armed forces.

Lawmaker Parviz Sorouri, from the parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, says the extracted information will be used to file a lawsuit against the U.S. for the “invasion” by the unmanned aircraft.

Sorouri also says Iran has the capability to reproduce the drone through reverse engineering. He didn’t elaborate. His remarks were carried by state TV on Monday.

Read moreIran Claims It’s Almost Done Decoding US CIA Drone