Microsoft offers free Windows OneCare 2.0

Microsoft released a free beta version of Windows Live OneCare 2.0, its next-generation desktop security and management package.

The company says the new version offers a number of improvements, including the ability to monitor multiple PCs on a local network.
Available for free from Microsoft's website, OneCare 2.0 - which is aimed specifically at consumers and small businesses - also adds new functionality for backing-up data and protecting against malware attacks.
Introduced roughly six months after the launch of Microsoft's OneCare 1.5 in January 2007, the beta - which like its predecessors includes firewall, AV (antivirus), backup, and antispyware programs – adds new tools for securing wireless networks and an automated, self-adjusting firewall.
Among the new management features being introduced in the product are support for the sharing of printers among multiple computers, a start time optimiser for speeding computer boot cycles, and an online backup system for photos and other images.
As part of the service portion of the offering, Microsoft said it has added more proactive system fixes and end-user configuration suggestions to the package along with monthly reports on important computer events or recommended upgrades.
OneCare 2.0’s centralised backup feature allows users to configure and monitor automated storage controls for all PCs covered under a lone OneCare subscription - which can cover up to three machines - in a single network location.
The newest iteration of the package also adds support for 64-bit PCs.
Microsoft, whose security software product business remains in its early stages, is the third major company to release a new version of its consumer security tools in the past month as both McAfee and Symantec have also revamped their competing applications.
Microsoft gave no indication as to when it might push OneCare 2.0 from beta into production but said it is actively seeking feedback from users who decide to try out the package.
Since its initial launch in May 2006 OneCare has drawn mixed reviews from end users and security researchers. While many experts have said that the product's pricing - £37.99 for protection and management of up to three PCs for one year - has drawn the interest of many consumers, the product has fared poorly against its rivals in some head-to-head bake-offs.
In such a comparison study published in March 2007 by researchers at AV-Comparatives - a project based in Austria and overseen by security researcher Andreas Clementi - OneCare performed poorly next to similar products made by Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky Lab, BitDefender, Fortinet, F-Secure, and several other antivirus providers.

Fuente: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk

NASA's Spitzer Finds Water Vapor On Hot, Alien Planet

A scorching-hot gas planet beyond our solar system is steaming up with water vapor, according to new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

The planet, called HD 189733b, swelters as it zips closely around its star every two days or so. Astronomers had predicted that planets of this class, termed "hot Jupiters," would contain water vapor in their atmospheres. Yet finding solid evidence for this has been slippery. These latest data are the most convincing yet that hot Jupiters are "wet."
"We're thrilled to have identified clear signs of water on a planet that is trillions of miles away," said Giovanna Tinetti, a European Space Agency fellow at the Institute d’Astrophysique de Paris in France." Tinetti is lead author of a paper on HD 189733b appearing today in Nature.
Although water is an essential ingredient to life as we know it, wet hot Jupiters are not likely to harbor any creatures. Previous measurements from Spitzer indicate that HD 189733b is a fiery 1,000 Kelvin (1,340 degrees Fahrenheit) on average. Ultimately, astronomers hope to use instruments like those on Spitzer to find water on rocky, habitable planets like Earth.
"Finding water on this planet implies that other planets in the universe, possibly even rocky ones, could also have water," said co-author Sean Carey of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "I'm excited to tell my nephews and niece about the discovery."
The new findings are part of a brand new field of science investigating the climate on exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. Such faraway planets cannot be seen directly; however, in the past few years, astronomers have begun to glean information about their atmospheres by observing a subset of hot Jupiters that transit, or pass in front of, their stars as seen from Earth.
Earlier this year, Spitzer became the first telescope to analyze, or break apart, the light from two transiting hot Jupiters, HD 189733b and HD 209458b. One of its instruments, called a spectrometer, observed the planets as they dipped behind their stars in what is called the secondary eclipse. This led to the first-ever "fingerprint," or spectrum, of an exoplanet's light. Yet, the results came up "dry," probably because the structure of these planets' atmospheres makes finding water with this method difficult.
Later, a team of astronomers found hints of water in HD 209458b by analyzing visible-light data taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble data were captured as the planet crossed in front of the star, an event called the primary eclipse.
Now, Tinetti and her team have captured the best evidence yet for wet, hot Jupiters by watching HD 189733b's primary eclipse in infrared light with Spitzer. In this method, changes in infrared light from the star are measured as the planet slips by, filtering starlight through its outer atmosphere. The astronomers observed the eclipse with Spitzer's infrared array camera at three different infrared wavelengths and noticed that for each wavelength a different amount of light was absorbed by the planet. The pattern by which this absorption varies with wavelength matches that created by water.
"Water is the only molecule that can explain that behavior," said Tinetti. "Observing primary eclipses in infrared light is the best way to search for this molecule in exoplanets."
The water on HD 189733b is too hot to condense into clouds; however, previous observations of the planet from Spitzer and other ground and space-based telescopes suggest that it might have dry clouds, along with high winds and a hot, sun-facing side that is warmer than its dark side. HD 189733b is located 63 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula.
Other authors of the Nature paper include Alfred Vidal-Madjar, Jean-Phillippe Beaulieu, David Sing and Nicole Allard of the Institute d’Astrophysique de Paris: Mao-Chang Liang of Caltech and the Academia Sinica, Taiwan; Yuk Yung of Caltech; Robert J. Barber and Jonathan Tennyson of University College London in England; Ignasi Ribas of the Institut de Ciències de l'Espai, Spain; Gilda E. Ballester of the University of Arizona, Tucson; and Franck Selsis of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, France.
JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. JPL is a division of Caltech. Spitzer's infrared array camera was built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The instrument's principal investigator is Giovanni Fazio of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
For graphics related to this research and more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

Fuente: www.sciencedaily.com

To Avoid Soccer Head Injuries, Soft Protective Headgear Is Only Effective Solution, Study Shows

From small scrapes to hospital emergencies, playing soccer can be painful, and even dangerous. To avoid head injuries and concussions the only effective solution is wearing soft protective headgear, as shown by Dr. Scott Delaney, Research Director of Emergency Medicine at the MUHC, in a new study published in the July issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

In the first attempt to rely on results from the field instead of the lab, this innovative study was carried out just after the 2006 soccer season and included 268 adolescents aged 12 to 17 years from the Oakville Soccer Club. Although only 52 of them wore headgear during this period, the results are significant: the risk of concussion was 2.65 times higher for players who were not protected. In fact, 52.8% of the adolescents who did not wear headgear reported being injured compared to only 26.9% of those who did. These results are indeed noteworthy, particularly since approximately 80% of sports-related injuries are not recognized or reported. Prevention is therefore an essential means of protection.
Interestingly, though headgear protects the areas of the head that are covered, there were no differences in the number of cuts and bruises on the areas of the head and face not covered by it. “This was important to examine as many people fear that the use of soccer headgear may make players more aggressive and more prone to other injuries. At least for these injuries, it may show that wearing a headgear does not encourage people to play more aggressively,” stated Dr. Delaney.
Unfortunately, adolescents who regularly wear headgear are not the rule and do not represent the majority of young athletes: most of them are young girls or adolescents who have already been injured. “Girls, in general, are more prone to concussions in soccer and they may be more aware of the possible benefits of wearing headgear,” remarked Dr. Delaney, who also practices at the McGill Sports Medicine Clinic. Since 2002, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has authorized soft headgears during official matches but has not made them mandatory. “This study may help convince parents and players that soft protective soccer headgear can be an effective part of a comprehensive plan to reduce the number of head injuries and concussions in soccer.,” confirmed Dr. Delaney.

Fuente: http://www.sciencedaily.com

Brightly Colored Birds Most Affected By Chernobyl Radiation

Brightly coloured birds are among the species most adversely affected by the high levels of radiation around the Chernobyl nuclear plant, ecologists have discovered. The findings -- published online in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology -- help explain why some species are harder hit by ionising radiation than others.

Dr Anders Møller of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie and Professor Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina examined 1,570 birds from 57 different species in the forests around Chernobyl at varying distances from the reactor. They found that populations of four groups of birds -- those whose red, yellow and orange plumage is based on carotenoids, those that laid the biggest eggs, and those that migrated or dispersed the furthest -- declined more than other species.
The intriguing results centre on the role of antioxidants -- chemicals that help protect living organisms from the damaging effects of free radicals. Certain activities use up large amounts of antioxidants. These include producing carotenoid-based pigments for feathers, migrating long distances and laying large eggs (birds lay down antioxidants in their eggs, and will deposit larger amounts of antioxidants in larger eggs). Møller and Mousseau hypothesized that because they had fewer antioxidants left to mop up dangerous free radicals, these birds would most adversely affected by exposure to radiation around Chernobyl.
According to Møller and Mousseau: "We found that bird species differed in their response to radiation from Chernobyl. The strongest declines in population density with radiation level were found for species with carotenoid-based plumage, long-distance migration and dispersal, and large eggs for their body size. All four of these factors are associated with antioxidant levels, suggesting that reduced antioxidant levels may cause population declines when species are exposed to radiation."
Among the brightly coloured species most affected were orioles, blackbirds and blue tits, while drab species like tree pipits, coal tits and chaffinches were much less affected. Long distance migrants or dispersers that were most affected included quails, orioles, hoopoes, blackbirds and robins, while non-migrant or short-dispersing species like great tits, coal tits and song thrushes were much less affected.
"This is the first study linking the effects of radiation on population size of different species to antioxidant defence. Although all species must cope with the potentially detrimental effects of free radicals, because of their use of antioxidants, certain species are predisposed to suffer most from these negative effects," they say.
The results could have important implications for other animals elsewhere. According to Moller and Mousseau: "There is large variation in natural levels of radioactivity due to differences in the abundance of radioactive isotopes, mainly in mountain regions where the underlying rock reaches the surface. There are no studies of the biological consequences of such variation in natural levels of radioactivity, but we suggest that some of the consequences can be predicted from the present study."

Fuente: http://www.sciencedaily.com