No Dice for Slow Roll?

By Elizabeth Quill
ScienceNOW Daily News
21 December 2007

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.--When light from the big bang cooled, it left microwave radiation spread throughout space. This fiery glow holds clues to the characteristics of the early universe and the secrets of its formation. Now, a team of researchers has announced that temperature fluctuations in the glow clash with one well-accepted theory of how the universe formed. The findings--presented here at a cosmology conference this week--are still preliminary, but if confirmed, they could change cosmologists' understanding of the moments immediately after the big bang.

In 2003, NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite mapped small temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation across the sky (ScienceNOW, 11 February 2003). The average temperature is 2.7 K, but it differs by a few millionths of a degree from one spot to another. By studying such subtleties, cosmologists have determined the age and makeup of the universe and confirmed predictions of inflation (ScienceNOW, 16 March 2006), the reigning description of the ballooning universe.

Inflation predicts that the universe expanded exponentially for a fraction of a second, making it mostly smooth and flat. Small primordial ripples in the structure of spacetime, which can be seen in the cosmic microwave background, grew to colossal scale and led to the formation of stars, galaxies, and other structures. Several models invoke inflation, but the simplest and most accepted, "single-field slow-roll inflation," predicts a particular distribution of the temperature fluctuations.

To test the theory, cosmologist Benjamin Wandelt of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and his colleague Amit Yadav compared that predicted distribution with WMAP's measurements. The patterns did not match. Although the findings don't rule out traditional inflation theories, they do open the door for other theories about how the universe began, including the idea that the universe began with a splat rather than a bang (ScienceNOW, 9 April 2001). "This is telling you something about the physics acting in the first instant of time," Wandelt says.

Not everyone is convinced. To accurately measure the fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, Wandelt and Yadav had to filter the Milky Way's spiral arms and interstellar dust from the WMAP picture. At the conference, cosmologists questioned the accuracy of these filters. In addition, David Spergel, a theoretical astrophysicist at Princeton University, says there is so much data--and so many ways of looking at it--that researchers are bound to find anomalies. "If you know what you are looking for, you can sometimes find it," he says.

Still, the community was buzzing and most were intrigued. Charles Bennett, a cosmologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, says this work is an important first stab: "We are right in the ballpark of detecting things about our early universe."

More-detailed analysis could come from additional WMAP data as well as from the Planck satellite, set to launch in 2008. Princeton cosmologist Paul Steinhardt says now is the time for theorists to decide what their theories predict. Although Wandelt and Yadav's finding, if confirmed, would not kill inflation, Steinhardt says it would represent a setback. "It emphasizes that some things are still quite open, and there are key issues yet to be decided," he says.

Related sites

The study (published before the conference)

More on WMAP

More on the cosmic microwave background

More on inflation

Conference Web site

Stocks Climb on Credit Hopes

Stocks staged a modest rebound Tuesday on hopes that global central bank action can stem the credit market crisis. A $500 billion credit infusion from the European Central Bank helped stabilize stocks a day before investors get the results of a Federal Reserve credit auction. Meanwhile, the Fed proposed tighter mortgage lending standards, too late to help the current credit crunch, and Best Buy and Goldman Sachs issued cautious outlooks that kept slowdown fears alive. Adobe helped boost the tech sector, gaining 2.8% on better than expected results and guidance. Oracle gained 1.5% ahead of its results due out late Wednesday. Analysts are looking for 19.5% sales growth to $5.04 billion from the enterprise software giant and earnings of 27 cents a share. The company's results will be an important indicator of the health of enterprise IT spending. Emcore surged 19% after buying Intel's optical laser unit. Qwest added 3.6% after upping its capital spending plans. Level 3 gained 6%. AMD shares remained under pressure, falling 3.4%. Garmin fell 7% on reports of lost market share. After the close, Palm missed estimates on lower than expected smart phone sales and lowered its guidance. The Nasdaq recouped 21 to 2596, the S%26amp;P rose 9 to 1455, and the Dow gained 65 to 13,232. Volume rose to 3.66 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.02 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 19-12 margin on the NYSE, and 18-12 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 64% on the NYSE, and 68% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 23-370 on the NYSE, and 48-355 on the Nasdaq.

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The Sprint To IPv6

Sprint is gearing up for deploying the next generation IPv6 (define) Internet protocol with new IPv6 services. The effort by the national carrier is being driven by a June 2008 US federal government mandate for IPv6. Whether or not the government agencies will actually be running IPv6 by June of 2008 is an issue that is still not yet clear. All told, it could amount to billions of dollars of revenue for vendors in 2008 and beyond. Tony D'Agata, vice president of federal sales for Sprint explained to InternetNews.com that Sprint has been working with IPv6 from a development point of view for many years. That said, due to the looming federal mandate Sprint is ramping up some specific IPv6 offerings that are expected to be ready in the second quarter of 2008. "We are IPv6 enabling our network and actively pursing putting IPv6 on our peerless IP network," D'Agata said. "We also have plans to implement IPv6 on other assets." Sprint's Peerless IP (PIP) network is Sprint's own Internet platform that is both logically and physically separate from the public Internet. According to D'Agata it is Sprint's PIP network that provides competitive differentiation against others that are seeking to provide IPv6 services to the government. "It's the only physically separated IP platform out there without peering points or gateways," D'Agata claimed. "Having that IPv6 enabled allows agencies to procure peerless IP which has been popular in helping to reduce incidents of denial of service." In terms of helping government and commercial enterprise customers with migration issues from IPv4 to IPv6, the plan is for Sprint to run a dual stack using both versions of IP. "For those government agencies that need to be IPv6 enabled, it's just a matter of moving their ports over to the IPv6 environment," D'Agata said. "Those that don't can stay with IPv4." What's driving the demand for IPv6 at this point is a US Government Office of Management and Budget (OMB) mandate for IPv6 by June of 2008. The plan for Sprint is to be there for its government customers to help them be compliant with the mandate. There is however still a question of how far the IPv6 mandate actually extends and what it specifically entails. "The OMB mandate is to be IPv6 enabled," D'Agata argued. "It is not yet clear whether or not agencies will actually chose to activate services on IPv6. They have so many other initiatives on their plate and this is just one of them. Time will tell if they will have active IPv6 networks and will be actually transporting traffic over their networks." The basic reason why there is a need for IPv6 in the first place is the simple fact that the IPv4 address space is near exhaustion. IPv6 offers significantly more address space, which is something that government wants. D'Agata noted that among the agencies that are likely to deploy IPv6 is the Department of Defense (DoD), which wants to create IP addresses on major pieces of equipment in the battle space. To date there have been a number of different reasons why IPv6 has not been implemented in the government. "There have been some contractual delays that precluded the implementation and not all agencies have yet migrated to an IP environment," D'Agata said. "Quite a few are in legacy technologies like ATM or Frame Relay so they have to go to go through a process of re-architecting their network environment." The other reason for the slow adoption of IPv6 is that for many, there simply hasn't been a real imperative to move. "There is no critical application yet that agencies are saying 'gee, I need IPv6 for this'," D'Agata commented. "When you're only implementing it to meet a government mandate you go at a different pace then if you actually need if for an application."

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A Budget Too Small

By Jeffrey Mervis
With reporting by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, Adrian Cho, Eli Kintisch, Andrew Lawler, Eliot Marshall, and Robert F. Service.
ScienceNOW Daily News
18 December 2007

This article has been updated.

The White House and Congress delivered a heavy blow to the hopes of the U.S. science community yesterday as part of a long-delayed final agreement on the 2008 federal budget. As a result, what began as a year of soaring rhetoric in support of science seems likely to end with agency officials and research advocates shaking their heads and wondering what went wrong.

"It's like someone pulled the rug out from under us," says Samuel Rankin of the American Mathematical Society, who chairs the Coalition for National Science Funding. "It's pretty disappointing."

The $515 billion spending package takes a big bite out of President George W. Bush's promise--backed up by votes earlier this year in Congress--to give a substantial boost to the research budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Instead, the agencies get meager increases--a portion of which is eaten up by projects earmarked by legislators for their constituents--or across-the-board cuts. The package also makes moot the double-digit hikes authorized for research, education and training, and investment in innovation spelled out in a 6-month-old law, the America COMPETES Act, that the community fought hard to pass (ScienceNOW, 3 August). The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would receive a 0.5%26#37; increase after high hopes for a slice that would at least keep up with inflation. Among the major science agencies, only NASA would receive the president's request--a 3%26#37; rise that is universally acknowledged as too little to handle all the projects in its pipeline.

The legislation (H.R. 2764) was approved last night by the House of Representatives. Although there may be some wrangling about spending levels for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress is expected to complete work by the end of the week and send the legislation to the president, who has said he will sign it if there's sufficient funding for the wars. The money covers the 2008 fiscal year that began on 1 October.

Meanwhile, the blame game is already in full swing. The chair of the House Science and Technology Committee, Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), acknowledges that the legislation falls short of his expectations. "The overall budget predicament forced appropriators to make some tough decisions," says Gordon. "Despite our best efforts and intentions, COMPETES programs--and many others--are feeling a lot of pain."

Presidential science adviser John Marburger says he's also disappointed by the terms of the bill. And it's clear where he places the blame. "I've certainly been [on Capitol Hill] pushing them," he says of his lobbying efforts with the Democratic Congress. "The most surprising aspect to me is the absence [in the bill] of any visible priority for basic research in the physical sciences." At the same time, Marburger says that the White House never considered designating the research budget as emergency spending--as a way to avoid a self-imposed spending cap. "You can't say that the absence of long-term basic research is an emergency," he says. "Short of that tactic," he adds, "what [more] is the president going to do?"

Science advocacy groups, however, hold both the executive and legislative branches of government responsible for the contents of the spending bill. "In exchange for an arbitrary cap on domestic spending and thousands of earmarks, the Administration and Congress have sacrificed investments in research and education that would help assure our nation's long-term national and economic security," says Robert Berdahl, president of the 62-member Association of American Universities in Washington, D.C. The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, a coalition of business, scientific, and educational organizations, calls the bill a "step backward. ... The President and Congress, for all their stated support this year for making basic research in the physical sciences and engineering a top budget priority, ended up essentially cutting, or flat-funding, key science agencies."

Here are some details for selected research agencies:

NIH
After Bush vetoed legislation that would have given NIH a $1 billion increase, Congress gave it $329 million more, or a 1%26#37; raise, to $29.2 billion. Some $300 million is designated for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, however, leaving the biomedical research behemoth essentially at 2007 levels.

Congress made no big changes in how the appropriation will be distributed, although it did single out a few areas for special attention. For example, the National Children's Study--a controversial $3 billion effort to track the health of 100,000 infants from birth to age 21 that NIH says is too expensive to continue--will get an increase of $42 million, to $111 million, next year (Science, 9 February, p. 751). The NIH "common fund," a $496 million pot controlled by the director for cutting-edge research, will get $13 million more. And bricks-and-mortar spending will increase by $38 million, to $119 million.

Congress also formally endorsed open-access publishing, requiring "all investigators funded by the NIH" to submit final peer-reviewed manuscripts to NIH's PubMed Central for release on the Internet "no later than 12 months after the official date of publication."

NSF
The president had requested a $506 million boost for the $6 billion foundation--an increase of 8.7%26#37;--and both House and Senate panels had added to that total. Instead, the omnibus provides a total increase of only $117 million (after a $33 million rescission is applied to selected programs). NSF research directorates will receive 1.2%26#37; more, or $56 million, while its education programs would go up by 4%26#37;, or an additional $27 million. A pot of money for several new and continuing large facilities would receive a total of $24 million less than the $244 million that NSF had sought. "It's not good news," says NSF Director Arden Bement.

Despite the tight allocation, a few activities were singled out for special treatment. NSF's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research--a $100 million effort to help have-not states--gets $8 million more than NSF had requested. The legislation also asked NSF's astronomy division to reconsider its planned cuts to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and to fully fund repair projects for NSF's collection of ground-based telescopes.

Bement says those two directives "will pinch" other programs and that the cuts in the new construction account will "stretch out" the schedules of some projects. He says that NSF "has no intention" of shutting down Arecibo but would like its backers to find other means of support. (Toward that end, another part of the bill directs NASA to ask the National Academies to examine the fate of the observatory.) One silver lining in the fiscal clouds is a $35 million boost, nearly the full request, to the $246 million NSF spends on salaries and operations, which includes its system of merit review. "I consider that to be a victory," says Bement, "and a sign that Congress realizes its importance."

NASA
For NASA the news is mixed. Although Congress approved its request for $17.3 billion, or 3.1%26#37; more than in 2007, the House and Senate conference rejected a Senate plan to add $1 billion to the space agency in order to cover rising costs in the space shuttle program. Those costs, combined with increases in the new Constellation rocket program and in several science projects, threaten to eat away at NASA's science and aeronautics endeavors. To cope with the rapidly increasing price tags, Congress wants NASA to work with the National Academies to come up with independent cost estimates before lawmakers approve future projects.

NASA science would receive $5.577 billion, a boost from 2007's $5.466 billion, including a $24 million boost for research and analysis of spacecraft data. But agency officials say that millions of dollars in pork projects--many of which are not directly related to the agency's mission--will limit their ability to address pressing needs, as will directives for funding specific programs. For example, legislators told the agency to spend $40 million to address the lack of future Earth science missions, $60 million for the Space Interferometry Mission--$38.4 million more than planned--and $5 million to determine the next outer-planet destination. Mars missions, meanwhile, received the full $625 million requested.

In the exploration effort, Congress told NASA to spend $42 million next year developing a robotic lunar lander, a mission that NASA had deleted from its planning because of cost constraints in the construction of the new rocket. It also allocated $13.5 million more for microgravity life and physical sciences.

Energy Department
The bill set the budget at DOE's Office of Science at $4.055 billion--$342 million short of the requested amount--and the shortfall comes mainly out of two programs: fusion sciences and high-energy physics. Congress realized some savings by allotting nothing for U.S. participation in the international fusion reactor experiment, ITER, which is set to begin construction next year in Cadarache, France (ScienceNOW, 21 November 2006). Although appropriators expressly forbid DOE to shuffle money from other programs to satisfy its planned $149 million contribution in 2008, Marburger predicts that the prohibition will not stand. "I can't see DOE not living up to its obligations," he says. "The department will have to use its money to stay in the project, so [the language] really just amounts to another earmark."

High-energy physics takes a bruising, too, receiving $88 million less than the requested $782 million. Congress nixed funding for the NOvA neutrino experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, which would be the lab's centerpiece experiment once the aging Tevatron collider shuts down. It cuts funding for research and development on the proposed International Linear Collider from $60 million to $15 million and for superconducting accelerator research from $24 million to $5 million. Because Fermilab researchers have already spent nearly $20 million on those projects in FY '08, work on them could immediately stop.

DOE's largest program, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), gets $1.282 billion, $217 million less than requested. That could translate into less beam time at the x-ray sources and other facilities BES runs for research in materials science, structural biology, chemistry, and other areas. In contrast, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program gets $354 million, $14 million more that requested, and the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program receives $549 million, $17 million more than the White House asked for, for more work in nuclear medicine.

Homeland Security
The omnibus bill maintains funding for university research supported by the Department of Homeland Security at its current level of $49 million. That amount would override a $10 million cut requested by the president.

NIST
The omnibus wipes out all but $6 million of a scheduled double-digit boost to the $435 million budget of NIST's core research labs. Agency officials say they are still digesting the impact of that flat funding on their 2008 programs. At the same time, the legislation preserves the renamed National Innovation Partnership but cuts $9 million from the $79 million now being spent on precompetitive industrial research under what had been called the Advanced Technology Program.

Update: Late last night the Senate passed the House omnibus bill after adding $39 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That brings the total in the bill to $70 billion, and gives the Defense Department leeway to spend it as needed. The House is expected to ratify the final version today, and the president said yesterday that he would sign the bill if the additional money for the wars was included.

Related site

Updates on the bill (search Bill Number "HR2764")

Long-Lost Relative of Whales Found?

By Erik Stokstad
ScienceNOW Daily News
19 December 2007

A group of paleontologists has identified what they believe is the closest relative of whales, dolphins, and porpoises--an extinct, raccoon-sized creature that sloshed along river bottoms and could have eaten like a landlubber. The find promises to give scientists a better idea of where whales and their ilk came from.

Ever since whales first appeared, more than 50 million years ago, their origin has remained murky. Whales and their cetacean cousins, the dolphins and porpoises, are thought to have evolved from some sort of hoofed mammal (ScienceNOW, 30 July 1998). But cetaceans are so different from any other creature that researchers haven't been able to agree which fossil relatives best represent their nearest ancestors.

One candidate is a group of mammals called raoellids, which are known from little more than their teeth (but these place them among the hoofed mammals). Paleontologists led by Hans Thewissen of Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown studied fossils that had been collected in Kashmir more than 20 years ago from 48-million-year-old river deposits and that were recently chiseled out of the rock.

The bones belong to a raoellid known as Indohyus, and several newly discovered features now link Indohyus closely to cetaceans. For example, Thewissen points to a bony feature, called the involucrum, that covers the inner ear. The relative thickness of various parts of the involucrum is characteristic of all modern and fossil cetaceans. "I got this shock--I said, ?This must be it? "--the closest relative to cetaceans, Thewissen recalls. A comparison of the features of Indohyus with those of other fossil mammals reinforced that impression. The result makes sense to Mark Uhen of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The raoellids, he says, are in the right place--Asia--at the right time, some 50 million years ago.

Indohyus seems to have lived mainly in water, as a wader. The limb bones have thick outer layers, which make them dense, like those of manatees, hippos, and early whales, the team reports 20 November in Nature. The chemistry of the teeth--relatively depleted of stable-oxygen isotopes compared to contemporaneous terrestrial fossils found elsewhere in India--also suggests that Indohyus spent considerable time in water. Like the water chevrotain, an 80-centimeter-long herbivore that lives in Africa, Indohyus may have used the water as a way to escape predators. The carbon isotopes don't reveal Indohyus's diet with certainty, but they show it differed from that of early whales.

"It's significant work," says Zhe-Xi Luo, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "This much improves the picture of incremental evolution toward whales and their aquatic life." Not everyone is convinced that Indohyus is the closest cetacean relative, however. Another analysis, in press at Cladistics, suggests that an extinct group of carnivorous mammals, called mesonychids, were more closely related to cetaceans.

Apple Patches Tiger and Leopard

Apple Mac users: It's time to patch your systems. Yes, again, after a whole lot of patches this year. Security Update 2007-009 from Apple provides updates for both OS 10.4 Tiger as well as the new OS 10.5 Leopard. In total there are 31 fixes for issues ranging in severity from information disclosure to arbitrary code execution. As an added bonus, if you're running Apple's Safari browser for Windows XP or Vista, you also need to update. Among the issues fixes are three that deal with Apple's use of CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) CUPS>. For both Tiger and Leopard users, a memory corruption issue that could enable an attacker to crash a system or execute arbitrary code. Another issue with CUPS for just Tiger involves the use of SNMP (define) (Simple Network Management Protocol). According to Apple's advisory on the issue, "The CUPS back-end SNMP program broadcasts SNMP requests to discover network print servers. A stack buffer overflow may result from an integer underflow in the handling of SNMP responses." As a result, a crash or arbitrary code could be executed. A third issue with CUPS that affects Tiger is a buffer overflow condition that is within the printer driver itself. The impact of this flaw could be privilege escalation. Apple has also fixed its iChat instant messaging application in Tiger. According to Apple's advisory, "a person on the local network may initiate a video connection without the user's approval." Apple has resolved the issue by simply adding in a user request in order to start a video conference. There are also a lot of fixes for dynamic languages in Apple's update including new versions of Perl, Python and Ruby. For Leopard, which was just updated a month ago to version number 10.5.1, there is a fix for the Software Update mechanism itself. Apple's advisory describes a situation whereby by when the Software Update checks Apple's repository for updates there is a possibility for a man-in-the-middle attack. "By intercepting requests to the update server, an attacker can provide a maliciously crafted distribution definition file with the "allow-external-scripts" option, which may cause arbitrary command execution when a system checks for new updates," Apple's advisory states. The Safari web browser for Tiger, Leopard as well as Windows XP and Vista gets patched in this update for an information disclosure issue. The vulnerability is due to the way the browser allows pages to navigate the subframes of other pages which could be used in a cross site scripting (XSS) scenario to get a users information. The 007-009 security update is Apple's first that deals with both Tiger and Leopard. Tiger was last updated to version 10.4.11 in mid-November with 40 fixes. Apple has been busy this year patching its QuickTime software as well patching the media software last week to version 7.3.1 for a variety of serious flaws.

A 40-Hour Laptop Battery?

By Robert F. Service
ScienceNOW Daily News
17 December 2007

Although improvements in laptop computers and other electronics continue at a torrid pace, the batteries that power them have made only modest strides in recent years. A new advance in nanotechnology could change all that. Lithium ion batteries made with tiny whiskers of silicon can store as much as 10 times the charge of conventional rechargeables, researchers report. In principle, the new technology could result in laptop batteries that run for days and electric cars that cruise for hundreds of kilometers on a single charge--but it must still clear some key hurdles to make it to market.

The advance centers on increasing the charge that a battery's positively charged electrode, or anode, can hold. When a battery charges, positively charged lithium ions grab an electron provided by an electrical outlet and migrate to the anode. As the battery discharges, the lithium ions give up their extra electrons--to power whatever device the battery is connected to--and migrate through a conductive gel to a cathode, the negatively charged electrode. Today's anodes are made up of sheetlike layers of carbon atoms, and it takes roughly six of these carbons to hold onto each lithium ion. Silicon has the potential to do much better, as each silicon atom can hold four lithiums. But when researchers have constructed anodes made from silicon films or particles, the large number of whizzing lithium atoms pulverizes the silicon and breaks some of its contact with the underlying metal substrate, sapping its strength.

Anodes forged from whiskerlike wires of silicon fare much better, report Yi Cui, a materials scientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and colleagues. The researchers used a standard technique for growing a forest of silicon nanowires directly bonded to a stainless steel substrate. They then added a common electrolyte and top electrode and cycled their battery through a series of test runs. The silicon nanowires still swelled and contracted but did not break away from the substrate, Cui and his team report online this week in Nature Nanotechnology. The key, Cui says, is that the nanowire shape allows the lattice of silicon atoms to expand and contract radially across the whiskers to relieve any built-up strain, thereby keeping the silicon nanowires firmly attached to the metal contact. As a result, Cui's team found that their anode materials were able to hold up to 10 times the charge of conventional graphite anodes.

"It's a really nice proof of concept," says Gerbrand Ceder, a materials scientist and battery expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Making lithium ion batteries capable of holding 10 times the charge of conventional versions still requires a cathode that holds 10 times the charge, too, Ceder says. However, he adds, incorporating a silicon nanowire-based anode could allow batterymakers to reduce the weight and volume of the anode and add more cathode material in its place, which could give lithium batteries a power boost. That could make life a little easier for all of us.

Prominent cell biologist will take reins on 1 March

ScienceNOW Daily News
17 December 2007

Bruce Alberts, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and president emeritus of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, has been named the next editor-in-chief of Science. A prominent cell biologist best known for his work on the protein complexes that allow chromosomes to be replicated, Alberts has focused in recent years on public issues, especially the improvement of science education.

Alberts's appointment is being announced today by the board of directors of AAAS, publisher of Science. AAAS President David Baltimore, who chaired the search committee that nominated Alberts, says his "experience, skill, and interest in all of science make him the ideal person to continue the tradition of superb editors who have made Science the premier journal for the scientific community." Alberts will take over the editorship on 1 March 2008 from Donald Kennedy, who announced earlier this year that he would be retiring. Kennedy has served as editor-in-chief since 2000.

Alberts, 69, earned a doctorate from Harvard University in 1965, spent 10 years on the faculty of Princeton University, and moved to UCSF in 1976. He has published more than 150 research papers and is one of the original authors of a leading textbook, Molecular Biology of the Cell. He served two terms as president of the National Academy of Sciences, from 1993 to 2005. Then he returned to UCSF to continue working on issues he emphasized during his tenure at the academies: internationalizing science--especially building links to scientists in the developing world and strengthening scientific infrastructures--and improving science education.

Alberts will retain his UCSF faculty position and expects to devote half of his time to Science. "I view Science magazine as a critical venue for maintaining the standards of science, as well as for spreading an understanding and appreciation for science around the world," says Alberts. "With the tremendous challenges we face today, both of these important aims need constant attention."

HP Sees 2009 Revenue Growth Slowing, Margins Up

Hewlett-Packard Co, the world's largest personal computer maker, said on Tuesday it expects revenue growth to slow to 5 percent to 6 percent in 2009, in line with analysts' projections, and will boost profit margins as it continues to cut costs. Chief Executive Mark Hurd has eliminated about 15,000 jobs since 2005 and consolidated data centers and real estate even as it spends billions of dollars to acquire software companies, its fastest-growing business. HP executives, speaking at a meeting with analysts, also said they expect the company to keep making acquisitions and grow internally in 2009. The revenue forecast assumes about $1 billion annually in acquisitions, Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak said at the briefing in New York. Following fiscal 2008 revenue of $111.5 billion, HP forecast 2009 revenue of about $117.1 billion to $118.2 billion. The range is a slowdown from the 6.9 percent increase expected in the current fiscal year. Analysts, on average, expect fiscal 2009 revenue of $117.8 billion, according to Reuters Estimates. HP's estimates exclude the effects of fluctuating currencies. Shares of HP closed down 2.3 percent to $50.78 on the New York Stock Exchange, pacing broader market declines sparked by a Federal Reserve interest rate cut that was less than some hoped. HP last year unseated Dell Inc as the world's PC market-share leader as it sold more notebook computers in retailers outside the United States. The strategy helped HP last month post better-than-expected quarterly results, while Dell disappointed investors with narrower-than-expected profit margins. Texas-based Dell, hoping to regain the lead, responded this year by dropping its long-standing practice of only selling directly to customers and expects to sell PCs in 10,000 retail outlets by the end of this month, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc in North America and Carrefour SA in Europe. HP said on Tuesday it expects revenue from software to grow 15 percent to 20 percent in fiscal 2009, while its PC business should grow 5 percent to 7 percent with operating profit margins of 5 percent to 5.5 percent. HP, based in Palo Alto, California, forecast a 2009 profit of $3.74 to $3.84 a share before certain costs, compared with analysts' estimate of $3.78 on that basis. HP's operating profit margin, the percentage of revenue remaining after costs of goods and operating expenses, will rise to 10 percent to 10.4 percent in 2009, HP said. HP reported an operating profit margin, excluding certain costs, of 9.2 percent in its fiscal 2007, ended October 31. HP said last month it expected 2008 fiscal first-quarter revenue of $27.4 billion to $27.5 billion and earnings before certain costs of 80 cents per share. For all of fiscal 2008, HP in November forecast earnings per share before items of $3.32 to $3.37.

The Race To Development Errors

You could drive a truck through some of the defects that can creep into the software development process. Among the most difficult to detect is something called a Race Condition. When a Race Condition exists, shared data is accessed by multiple concurrent threads without proper data access protection which could lead to data loss, corruption or crashes. Code analysis vendor Coverity is now claiming that it has a solution for detecting Race Conditions. Coverity claims that their detection capabilities in their Coverity Prevent code analysis solution will identify concurrency issues that lead to Race Conditions. By detecting them the hope is to be able to enable software developers to eliminate the problem. Coverity's Chief Scientist, Andy Chou explained to InternetNews.com that Race Conditions are difficult to detect because they depend on the specific timing and ordering of events in order to occur. "Most of the time, a program with a race condition can appear to run normally," Chou said. "Only when a certain sequence of events occurs in a particular order does a race condition manifest in the form of data corruption. This can cause a system to behave strangely or crash at unpredictable times. Developers find that when they go to reproduce a race, everything seems to run normally because they cannot reproduce the exact circumstances that cause the race to occur. Often they resort to guessing what is wrong and reviewing the code manually." Coverity claims that their solution is the first solution capable of identifying dangerous Race Conditions in software. "Based on currently available information, we're not aware of any other commercial tools that statically detect race conditions that involve access to shared memory by multiple threads," Chou said. Other code analysis vendors disagree. Both Klocwork and Fortify claim that their respective solutions can identify Race Conditions as well. Klocwork and Fortify both have competitive code analysis solutions. "We%26#146;ve been detecting race conditions since we released our first product about four years ago," Brian Chess, Fortify's founder and chief scientist told InternetNews.com. "Klocwork does indeed spot race conditions, and has done so for quite a while," Gwyn Fisher, Klocwork's CTO told InternetNews.com. "A typical race condition that we spot centers around concurrent modification of data by two or more threads in a multi-threaded application. This capability uses inter-procedural analysis to follow the trail of potentially modifiable data from any defined thread entry point to the point of modification." Regardless of who was first and who followed, race conditions are becoming increasingly problematic as multi-core processors and multi-threaded are applications are becoming increasingly pervasive. "CPUs have been moving to multiple cores instead of higher clock speeds because of physical limitations. This is a fundamental change," Coverity's Chou explained. "In the past, all software would benefit from increased clock speeds, but now only software specifically written to take advantage of multiple cores can benefit. This means that more and more programs will be multi-threaded and thus prone to having race conditions." The risks of race conditions are also non-trivial and should be taken very seriously by developers. According to Fortify's Chess they%26#146;re more common than many programmers might believe. "A race condition in a web application can result in a user%26#146;s data being shown to another user. A race condition in an online game could allow a player to cheat by effectively being in more than one place at the same time," Chess said. " To make matters worse, race conditions can be really hard to track down because the cause of the problem and the resulting symptom are often far removed." Oh and don't think that any one development approach is any less prone to race conditions either. Apparently they're all equally at risk. "Almost all languages and architectures allow for multi-threading or another form of concurrency," Coverity's Chou said. "Race conditions can occur in all of these systems."

Microsoft Mulls Modest Mobile-Ad Moves

Microsoft said today that it is entering the mobile ad arena, following competitors like Google into one of the fastest-growing sectors of the Internet economy. The software colossus will be moving only gingerly into the space, however, placing banner ads at the top of Web pages viewed through its MSN Mobile platform and optimizing them to fit the screen size and browser of almost any handset. Additionally, Microsoft announced new content channels for its mobile platform, including an expansion of its partnership with MovieTickets.com that will enable mobile phone users to enter a ZIP code to view show times and purchase tickets at nearby theaters. The move follows a massive effort by Google to expand into the mobile space, including a string of acquisitions and providing the core technology behind the Open Handset Alliance's phone software push. The search leader also plans to participate in the multibillion-dollar wireless spectrum auction next month, but has disclosed little in the way of specific plans should it win. Meanwhile, Microsoft developed its new platform in large part through combined efforts with two smaller ad technology players that it acquired in May -- Paris-based ScreenTonic and aQuantive. Using the two companies' technology, the ad placement platform will work with all carriers and virtually any handset model. Bank of America, Jaguar Cars of North America and Paramount Pictures have signed on as the first three advertisers on Microsoft's platform. The company also said it's in advanced negotiations with other brands, with more announcements likely to be made soon. Today's launch represents just the first step in Microsoft's developing mobile ad strategy, according to Phil Holden, the company's director of online services. "We as a company are very firmly focused on mobile services," Holden told InternetNews.com. "When you leave your house in the morning, you grab your keys, your wallet and your mobile phone," he said. "That relevancy -- that it's a device that's always with you -- is not lost on us." Since Microsoft launched the MSN Mobile platform in June, it has been adding content to enhance the browser-based, rich-media experience. Today, the company launched an astrology channel and added a spate of new ring tones, wallpapers, games and other content available for download on the portal, which already features content from providers like Fox Sports and MSNBC. Broadly, Microsoft's mobile strategy consists of two parts: developed and developing markets. In areas falling in the first category, such as the United States, Japan and Europe, the software giant is looking to carry into mobile the usage patterns customers have developed for Microsoft products on their PCs. In still-developing markets such as China, Russia and India, where the mobile phone remains the principal computing device, Microsoft is looking to roll out mobile applications first, Holden said. While today's launch only applies to U.S. consumers, the company plans for the ad platform to soon make it to foreign markets, even if Holden isn't saying which ones. Holden did hint that Microsoft is working on a number of more sophisticated mobile-ad technologies that could follow today's announcement, which he described as a "foundation" for more robust capabilities in the future. Contextual-placement technology, like that which Google offers with its mobile ads, could represent one next step for Microsoft. At present, there is no contextual dimension to the placement of its banner ads. However, a key part of that contextualization -- the mobile cookie -- is already in development at the company. "I will say that when I look into the future, it's even more important that we deliver a relevant experience to the consumer," he said. "That's where you're going to see the focus." Such a move would be a critical step toward closing the gap with Google's mobile ad technology, which already offers a contextual placement system mirroring its browser-based search ads on the computer. Location-based ad placement could represent another enhancement to Microsoft's platform. In such a scenario, an advertiser like Starbucks could not only serve an ad up to a well-documented coffee drinker, it could send him or her a coupon good at any of the green-and-white java giant's shops within a five-block radius. Here, too, Microsoft already is making use of similar technology. The company has partnered with Sprint Nextel on location-based search capabilities on GPS-enabled Sprint phones. Microsoft also offers location-based search on Windows Mobile smartphones. While there is currently no accompanying ad-placement technology in the new banner platform, Holden said Microsoft is exploring the concept. Another potential addition to its mobile ad platform is "click-to-call" technology. Microsoft has already deployed click-to-call in the sponsored results of its mobile search applications, although the banner ads announced today will not have that capability.

Like a Virgin ... Fly

By John Bohannon
ScienceNOW Daily News
10 December 2007

The female fruit fly is a faithful lover, at least for a little while. As soon as she mates, she rejects all suitors for several days and spends her time laying eggs. Biologists have now found the switch that controls this coy female behavior, to the pleasure of male flies and disease researchers alike.

The basis for the female fly's temporary monogamy is a mood-killing protein called sex peptide (SP). Male flies inject SP along with their semen to guard against potential competitors and to induce egg-laying, but the peptide's target has evaded researchers for decades.

To track down SP's molecular dance partner, a team led by Barry Dickson, a biologist at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria, introduced 13,000 virgin female flies to 13,000 eager males. In each female fly, a different gene had been turned off using a technique known as RNA interference. After every mating, the researchers counted the number of eggs that the females produced in 48 hours. Then they matched each female with another randy male. "If we managed to turn off the receptor for SP in a female," says IMP graduate student Nilay Yapici, "then she should lay few or no eggs and be as receptive as a virgin when she meets another male."

Of the 13,000 female flies tested, one fit the bill. Glowing antibodies were used to home in on the location of the target gene, which Dickson calls the SP receptor (SPR). It lit up in the female's sperm-storing organ and nervous system. Specifically, SPR clustered in neurons known to be involved in sexual behaviors. (SPR also showed up in males' nervous systems, although it is unclear what it does there.) Blocking the production of SPR in just those brain cells made females behave like virgins, even if they were anything but, the team reports this week in Nature. If a drug can be found that blocks SPR in mosquitoes, the researchers say, it could help combat malaria: Mosquito populations might crash as ever-frisky females mate instead of laying eggs.

"This is a major breakthrough," says Eric Kubli, a biologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Whether mosquitoes use the same sexual behavior switches as fruit flies isn't certain, says Kubli. But a gene very similar in sequence to SPR is known in mosquitoes, he says, so the next step will be to knock it out.

Investors Cheer Subprime Rescue

Stocks posted strong gains for a second day Thursday after President Bush announced an agreement with mortgage firms to freeze interest rates for five years, an effort aimed at helping subprime borrowers facing steep increases in adjustable rate mortgages. That was good news for mortgage lenders like Countrywide Financial and other financial stocks like E*Trade with large subprime exposure. The mortgage market crisis has roiled financial markets for months and led to multiple Federal Reserve interest rate cuts %26#151; with the possibility of another rate cut next week. Weaker than expected sales at Target added to the case for another rate cut, but the Fed will have to weigh that evidence against a persistently strong labor market, more evidence of which could be seen in the government's monthly jobs report due out Friday morning. Some of the Nasdaq's biggest names, including Intel, Apple, Google, Dell and Research In Motion, posted gains of 2.4% or more. Dell was up 2.6% after signing up Best Buy as its latest retail partner, even though the company's shares were hit last week on concern about lower margins because of its growing consumer and retail efforts. Analogic surged 18% on its results, and Hoku Scientific gained 20% on a financing deal for a polysilicon plant. Savvis fell 12% after lowering its outlook, while Xilinx gained 3% on in-line guidance. In late trading, Palm and National Semi fell on their results. The Nasdaq rose 42 to 2709, for a two-day gain of 90 points. The S%26amp;P rose 22 to 1507, and the Dow soared 175 to 13,619. Volume declined to 3.42 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.02 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 26-7 margin on the NYSE, and 22-8 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 84% on the NYSE, and 80% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 105-102 on the NYSE, and 102-157 on the Nasdaq.

Technical Analysis: The S&P Pushes Through

Stocks are building nicely on last week's apparent bottom, with blue chip stocks looking particularly strong (see S%26amp;P and Dow charts below). That said, breadth hasn't been all that strong on this move, with the NYSE advance-decline line lagging and the Nasdaq A-D line doing even worse (charts three and four below). Unless the rally broadens, this could turn out to be a selective rally and make the market vulnerable to another large decline. It also raises the possibility of more backing and filling before a sustained advance can occur. The S%26amp;P cleared important resistance between 1493 and 1502 today, but its main downtrend line lies dead ahead at about 1511. To the downside, 1493-1502 and 1480 are support. The Dow cleared its main downtrend line today, making 13,540-13,565 an important first support level. The Nasdaq (fifth chart) also cleared a level that had given it some trouble %26#151; 2700 %26#151; but its 50-day average lies just ahead at 2718, with 2750 and 2770 above that. Support is 2700 and 2672. In short, it remains the toughest market environment in years, but the bulls have the advantage to build on their recent gains. Paul Shread is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) and member of the Market Technicians Association.

New Bill Stiffens File-Sharing Penalties

The U.S. House of Representatives is edging closer to laying out harsher penalties and stepping up enforcement for the illegal sharing of music and movies. Yesterday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) introduced a bill that would establish a permanent intellectual property enforcement division within the Department of Justice. The bill -- the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property ("PRO IP") Act of 2007 -- also increases penalties for copyright violations like music sharing and pirating movies. In a statement, Rep. Conyers called the bill "an important and necessary step in the fight to maintain our competitive edge in a global marketplace." "By providing additional resources for enforcement of intellectual property, we ensure that innovation and creativity will continue to prosper in our society," he said. The bill enjoys wide bipartisan backing within the committee, with 10 of its members having joined as co-sponsors. In addition to increasing the penalties for violation of existing copyright and intellectual property laws, the proposed legislation would create an Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER). The office, which would reside under the Executive Office of the President, would coordinate enforcement of intellectual property laws concerning intellectual property within the US and internationally. Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), a bill co-sponsor who also chairs the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property said in a statement that while he supports the law, he is aware of concerns about the impact of the legislation on consumers. "As a cosponsor, I obviously feel very strongly that we must strengthen enforcement efforts to fight piracy and counterfeiting," said Berman, whose subcommittee will next take up the proposed law. "At the hearing, we will be hearing testimony from both industry experts and from labor and consumer advocates to make sure that in doing so, we don't deny appropriate access to America's intellectual property." Not surprisingly, response from business organizations to the Act's introduction proved immediate and positive. "It's time to recognize the severity of these crimes. We are talking about thieves that threaten the health, safety, and jobs of everyday Americans," Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. "Legislation to strengthen penalties for these sophisticated crooks and provide greater resources for the men and women on the ground fighting this raging epidemic is imperative." The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) also weighed in favorably on the news. "Intellectual property fuels the U.S. economy and stronger enforcement measures are needed to protect the many American business sectors and American workers that depend on it," said MPAA CEO Dan Glickman. "In the motion picture industry alone, film theft costs foreign and domestic distributors, retailers and others $18 billion a year, not to mention the loss of more than 100,000 America jobs." "From counterfeit medicine and fake automobile parts to pirated movies and knockoff handbags, the ill effects of intellectual property theft are felt across many sectors of the U.S. economy," he added. "I am pleased to see a concerted effort by Congress to address this growing problem." Meanwhile, the reaction from consumer and cyber-rights advocacy groups was just as quick, but far less glowing. "All sides of the copyright debate agree that reform of current copyright law is needed, and any legislation that starts that conversation is welcome," said Maura Corbett of the Digital Freedom Campaign, a group founded last year advocating protections and education on fair content use. Backers include the Consumer Electronics Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Library Association, among others. "But any reform to copyright law must recognize the important balance between the rights of copyright holders to protect their intellectual property and the rights of artists, musicians and filmmakers to innovate, create new works, and make full use of lawfully acquired digital content," Corbett said. "We hope this bill will serve as a catalyst to larger, more meaningful reform." The news comes the same day as the Justice Department sided with the Recording Industry Association of America, filing a request for dismissal in the appeal of a Minnesota woman fighting a $220,000 judgment for illegal file sharing. The case drew worldwide attention because the woman, a 30-year-old single mother Jammie Thomas, stands as the first person brought to court by the RIAA for illegally sharing music files. Similarly, critics of the PRO IP Act cautioned about overly harsh penalties for consumers. "Several provisions in this bill could have harmful, if unintended, consequences that would harm consumers," said Gigi Sohn, president of Washington, D.C.-based public interest group Public Knowledge, in a statement. "The bill rightly targets enforcement of copyright law against commercial infringers, but some of these same enforcement provisions are likely to hurt ordinary consumers." "Seizing expensive manufacturing equipment used for large-scale infringement from a commercial pirate may be appropriate," Sohn said. "Seizing a family's general-purpose computer in a download case, as this bill would allow, is not appropriate."

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Senate Panel Adopts Emissions Curbs

By Eli Kintisch
ScienceNOW Daily News
6 December 2007

A bill that would cut U.S. greenhouse gas pollution by 70%26#37; in 2050, relative to 2005 levels, was approved by a Senate panel last night in what supporters are hailing as a landmark vote in the fight to mitigate global warming. "Today, the Senate took a giant and historic step forward toward reversing a clear and present danger to our planet," said Senator Joseph Lieberman (I?CT) in a statement issued last night.

Yesterday's vote came after dozens of hearings by the Senate Environment and Public Works committee since Democrats took control of Congress in January. During a 10-hour session yesterday, members waded through dozens of amendments before adopting the bill by a margin of 11 to 8. The vote largely followed party lines.

Known as America's Climate Security Act of 2007 (S.2191), the bill would create a system in which businesses that create or deal with carbon emissions would be issued or sold allowances. This "cap and trade" system would allow them to emit greenhouse gases up to that level or trade the allowances if they could otherwise reduce pollution from operations with clean-energy technology. Introduced by Lieberman and Republican lawmaker John Warner of Virginia, who cast the only Republican vote in favor of the 303-page measure, the legislation affects everything from power plants to forests to elderly consumers facing rising electricity prices.

Yesterday's debate foreshadowed a number of hurdles that could prevent the legislation from ever becoming law. Republicans unsuccessfully offered amendments that would have automatically shuttered the system if more than 10,000 automaker jobs were lost or if experts found that it was not reducing world temperatures effectively. These failed on largely party-line votes, with panel chair Barbara Boxer (D?CA) repeatedly emphasizing that such "poison bill" amendments could upend the fragile coalition of environmental groups and selected industries that support the bill.

One significant provision that did pass was a fuel standard that would require a mix resulting in fewer greenhouse gas emissions by 2020--say, by increasing the percentage of biofuels. Other efforts to toughen the bill's provisions, led by senators Bernie Sanders (I?VT) and Hillary Clinton (D?NY), also failed. Their amendments would have increased the magnitude of the planned reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and reduced the size of initial allowances granted to fossil fuel industries. "This is what the science community wants us to do," said Sanders of a failed amendment that would have reduced emissions by 80%26#37; in 2050, relative to 1990 levels.

The Senate is unlikely to take any further action on the bill until next year, and getting the 60 votes needed to avoid an expected filibuster won't be easy. Beyond Warner, only a handful of Republicans are sympathetic to the bill, including senators Susan Collins (R?ME) and John McCain (R?AZ). But McCain demands more support for nuclear energy, an issue on which Democrats won't easily budge. Previewing what is expected to be a massive campaign against the bill, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently launched advertising on the Internet and in Washington, D.C.-area airports. The ads, featuring suburban professionals cooking with candles and jogging to work in suits, argue that the legislation would make energy too expensive.

Despite the remaining challenges, supporters see the committee vote as a victory. "Even if this bill doesn't pass the Senate and House next year, it is likely to be the blueprint for action early in the next president's term," said the Pew Environment Group in a statement.

Just In Time: SAP Delivers CRM 2007

SAP on Tuesday released an upgrade of its CRM 2007 software suite featuring a new user interface and support for Web 2.0 applications in the enterprise. The software is available in packaged and hosted versions and, at least for now, will not be available as an on-demand, software-as-a-service (SaaS) (define) offering. In September, SAP unveiled Business ByDesign, the company's first SaaS product for small- and mid-sized business (SMB) customers. Analysts say this latest offering features an improved user interface from its predecessor, CRM 2006s, allowing users to move around Web 2.0 tools such as mashup applications and widgets in a more intuitive and seamless fashion. SAP officials said CRM 2007 lets business users track and understand customer tendencies and enables application infrastructures to support multiple interfaces, changes in configuration and multiple user interfaces. "The primary takeaway is the UI is much improved compared to CRM 2006s and uses Web 2.0 principles where users can drag sections of the screen around to personalize them for themselves," Rob Desisto, an analyst at Gartner, told InternetNews.com. "It's still on-premises, which gives, at a minimum, the SAP faithful a little stronger footing to make the case for an integrated SAP story. That was very difficult when the UI was clearly something that was not received by sales representatives." Desisto added that in order to take advantage of the new user interface and Web 2.0 support, customers will have to eventually upgrade their existing ERP, CRM and NetWeaver middleware stacks. "It's more of a re-implementation," he said. "You can't go to Web 2.0 functionality with an older version of SAP CRM." This latest release includes SAP's Real-Time Offer Management module, the business intelligence component that cobbles together and analyzes customer data. There's also a Pipeline Performance Management feature that enables companies to create role-based interactive tools for sales representative to improve workflow through a series of hypothetical scenarios that maps potential new deals against sales lead lists. The Business Communications Management application brings together communications technologies and SAP CRM to expand traditional call center-based processes across the organization. This provides for field-based sales and support staff working anywhere in the world. "The latest version of SAP CRM is all about customer-driven growth and is revolutionary for the enterprise software industry as a whole," Bob Stutz, senior vice president and general manager of SAP's global CRM unit, said in a statement. "SAP is bridging the gap between cool, user-driven Web experiences and enterprise software applications." SAP in recent months has turned its attention toward developing and testing a variety of Web 2.0 technologies and models in the hopes of meeting both the demands of its installed enterprise clients and the growing interest SMBs (define) have shown in nimble and easy-to-use business applications. CRM 2007 also includes an updated version of the company's Trade Promotion %26 Market Development Funds software that provides access to supply chain, financial and historical trade performance data. The software aims to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of future trade promotions and programs. SAP did not disclose pricing details for CRM 2007.

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DOJ Sides With RIAA in File Sharing Case

The Justice Department on Wednesday sided with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and against a Minnesota woman appealing a $220,000 judgment against her for illegal file sharing. In a filing with the U.S. District Court of Minnesota, the Justice Department supported the RIAA's award, asking that the court reject Jammie Thomas' appeal. In October, Thomas' lawyer filed a motion to set the judgment aside, claiming that the verdict, which amounts to $9,250 for each song allegedly shared, was unconstitutionally excessive considering the actual value of each downloaded song was less than $1 a piece. The case has drawn worldwide attention, because Thomas, a 30-year-old Native American and single mother, is the first person brought to court by the RIAA for illegally sharing music files. Most of the other 26,000 other lawsuits brought by the RIAA against people using Kazaa's file-sharing software have been settled out of court. In February, the RIAA sent 400 "pre-litgation" settlement letters to 13 colleges and universities, requesting they be forwarded to students. The letters offered a "discounted rate" to settle infringement charges. The DOJ's filing, a "Memorandum in Defense of the Constitutionality of the Statutory Damages Provision of the Copyright Act," asserted that the award in the case were not disproportionate or unreasonable and were in line with the provisions of the Copyright Act. "The actual damages for subsequent acts of infringement%26#151;that occur after an initial infringement%26#151;are impossible to calculate," the filing said. "The dollar amounts do not even take into account the intangible losses to which plaintiffs claim their witnesses testified, such as a 'diminished capability to identify and promote new talent.' Accordingly, given the findings of copyright infringement in this case, the damages awarded under the Copyright Act's statutory damages provision did not violate the Due Process Clause." The DOJ filing was just the latest bit of good news for the RIAA. On Monday, Judge Gerald Lynch of the U.S. District Court of Southern New York granted a motion to dismiss counterclaims by LimeWire in its argument that RIAA's member companies were violating antitrust laws by conspiring to restrict trade. LimeWire, which is also being sued by the RIAA under the Copyright Act, maintains that RIAA's members were engaging in price-fixing through their joint ventures, MusicNet and Pressplay. "Although such a horizontal price-fixing arrangement is per se unlawful under the Sherman Act, LimeWire has not established that it suffered injury-in-fact," Judge Lynch wrote in his 44-page decision.

Goldman Sees Choppy Seas Ahead For Software Stocks

With warning signs pointing to significant weakness in demand from the U.S. enterprise market, Goldman Sachs last week downgraded the vast majority of the software companies it tracks from "attractive" to "neutral" last week. The move was prompted at least partially by research that showed IT managers at Fortune 1000 companies slowing the growth of their IT spending next year. "A more mature IT industry is more closely correlated with the overall macro backdrop than ever, implying likely deceleration in IT spending growth next year as economic headwinds mount," said the report, authored by Sara Friar, vice president of Goldman Sachs' technology group, and three other analysts from the company's investment research arm. "Our latest survey of Fortune 1000 IT executives implies decelerating tech capital spending looking forward, consistent with this view." Goldman Sachs also slightly reduced earnings-per-share estimates for 20 software companies by an average of one percent across the board. "Concurrent with our change in coverage view, we are reducing the estimates of most of our covered companies, focusing on pure-plays that could be harmed as customers seek to purchase 'good enough' substitutes from larger vendors, as well as vendors who sell 'big ticket' items that could be delayed in a slower spending environment," Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in the report. The move by Goldman Sachs comes as concerns mount about the impact various economic issues will have on the technology sector, including the continuing ripples from the collapse of the subprime mortgage industry. "I think the biggest concern is the financial sector," said Robert Johnson, associate director of technology coverage at independent market research firm Morningstar. "With banks and mortgage companies under a bit of pressure, so to speak, I think there is some concern about what's going to happen with their IT spending." Similar concerns caused stocks from all industries to pull back in early November after Cisco announced softening sales in the U.S. enterprise market. Cisco CEO John Chambers told analysts during a November 8 teleconference that Cisco had seen a "dramatic" decline in sales to portions of its enterprise market in the U.S. in the last quarter, and that Cisco saw the enterprise market continuing to be "lumpy." But Johnson says the financial market problems will probably not have a huge impact on the software business as a whole. "We aren't as concerned as some might be because it is 20 percent %26#91;of the U.S. software market%26#93; and not 50 or 60 percent of the total, and a lot of software spending is just maintenance spending. It's not like they have to make a new decision to buy this or buy that. I think that spending is going to continue." There are some sectors of the software industry that are certainly less at risk, said Morningstar's Johnson. "Within software, we're bullish on people who manage security and people who manage storage," he said. "But we're certainly more aggressive in the software services arena where we have a number of five-star rated companies%26#151;EDS, Cognizant, Infosys and Wipro. They're probably among our favorites in the software sector." Goldman Sachs also seems to favor the software-as-a-service (Saas) (define) trend. "The ability to quickly and easily turn on new applications with a significantly lower initial cost of ownership makes SaaS an attractive offering for small- and mid-sized businesses," Friar and her team wrote, "significantly expanding the market for software applications. More broadly, and including enterprises, these benefits are likely to be key in a slower economic environment where purchasers of software may be increasingly skeptical of significant upfront investments which we anticipate to characterize 2008." Potentially softening the blow for more established software companies is increasing sales to international markets, particularly into developing economies in China, India and Eastern Europe. "For BMC, CA, Oracle, and other large conventional software companies, 40 percent to 50 percent of their business comes from overseas," said Morningstar's Johnson. "So certainly as those markets hold up better relative to the U.S. business, that should be a positive." "Our checks through the broader software channel outside the United States continue to indicate a considerably more robust outlook for software spending in 2008 than domestically, and particularly in the emerging economies as well as in EMEA and Asia (particularly outside of Japan)," wrote the Goldman Sachs analysts. It's also likely that consolidation will continue in the software market. "I think one of the things that's been very supportive over the last year, even in the license-based model is that there's been so much consolidation in the field," Johnson said. "With Oracle picking up so many players, and HP and IBM for that matter, that's had a buoyant effect on software company stock." He noted that consolidation has essentially eliminated almost all the independent software companies in the business intelligence sector. "We expect no slowdown in M%26A activity from software consolidators such as Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec and CA, and larger IT incumbents anxious to add to their high-margin and higher growth software portfolios, including IBM, HP, EMC, Cisco, and potentially Sun," the Goldman Sachs report said. The company retains favorable ratings on Microsoft and Oracle because of their potential ability to "consolidate spending."

You Don't Have to Be Smart to Share

By Adam Hinterthuer
ScienceNOW Daily News
3 December 2007

When it comes to sharing, brains are overrated. A new experiment shows that the common marmoset, a relatively primitive monkey, is willing to give food to unrelated marmosets even when there's no chance of having the favor returned. Scientists had speculated that such charitable behavior stemmed from more advanced minds, but this new research suggests that other factors drove the evolution of altruism.

Food sharing is often observed in the animal kingdom, but it usually results from self-interest or coercion. One recent study, for example, found that chimps would gladly help others gain access to a room full of food but only if the others asked for it by banging on the door (ScienceNOW, 25 June). Rats also share food but only after having been the recipient of food charity earlier (ScienceNOW, 5 July). Although both kinds of animals showed signs of altruistic behavior, they lacked "true" altruism.

To see whether marmosets are more selfless, a team of researchers led by anthropologist Judith Burkhart of the University of Zurich in Switzerland placed two of the monkeys in adjacent cages. The "donor" marmoset could reach one of two trays on a platform outside its cage. On each tray sat two dishes--one with a tasty cricket, the other without. When the donor monkey pulled a tray close, one dish came to it, while the second slid within reach of the "recipient" monkey next door. The researchers found that when another monkey was present, the donor was more than 20%26#37; more likely to pull the tray containing food to its counterpart. The donor was never rewarded for its good deed and knew it couldn't score a cricket by pulling the tray, but that didn't matter. It seems the marmoset simply felt the urge to feed a stranger.

Burkhart believes the marmosets' "spontaneous concern about the welfare of others" evolved not because of brainpower but because it helped the species survive as a "cooperative" breeder. Unlike chimpanzees, marmosets enlist help in child rearing. It is not uncommon for grandparent, aunt, or uncle marmosets to be involved in raising offspring, notes Burkhart, a social structure that the monkey shares with humans. The team presents its findings online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Charles Snowdon, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is working on a similar experiment with cotton-top tamarins, another monkey that breeds cooperatively. He says he's "excited" about Burkhart's paper and that it confirms some of his predictions about altruistic behavior in cooperatively breeding primates. Although Snowdon cautions that chimps and marmosets have many more differences than mere breeding style, he says that this research "suggests that social structure and social organization might be more important for organizing altruistic behavior than brain size."

Speech Gene Helps Birds Sing

By Elizabeth Quill
ScienceNOW Daily News
4 December 2007

Like babbling babies, songbirds learn to vocalize by mimicking their elders. Now, researchers have found that a gene responsible for clear pronunciation in humans is also critical for proper song development in zebra finches. The study, reported 4 December in PLoS Biology, suggests that bird brains can help scientists understand speech and speech disorders in humans.

Dubbed the "speech gene," FOXP2 was first identified in 2001 when scientists found a mutated version in a family with severe speech problems. The gene is believed to code for a protein that influences coordination between mouth movements and speech (ScienceNOW, 3 October 2001). Since its discovery, researchers have found that the gene plays a role in the development of language (ScienceNOW, 14 August 2002), that mice need the gene to emit characteristic ultrasonic sounds (ScienceNOW, 21 June 2005), and that it plays a role in bat echolocation (ScienceNOW, 19 September).

After researchers discovered in 2004 that FOXP2 is expressed in the same areas of the brain in humans and zebra finches, a song-learning bird, neurobiologist Constance Scharff of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin began to investigate whether such birds could help scientists understand how humans learn language. Scharff and her colleagues used RNA interference (RNAi), a procedure that inhibits gene expression, to reduce the levels of FOXP2 in zebra finches. When the birds were 23 days old, the age at which song learning is known to begin, the researchers injected the gene-silencing RNA strands into seven male zebra finches' brains, using 10 finches as controls. The birds were kept in sound isolation chambers with adult males, who acted as tutors just as they would in the wild. Over a period of 60 days, the team recorded the songs of the RNAi-treated birds and their control counterparts and analyzed them to see how well they replicated their tutors' songs.

Birds with reduced FOXP2 were less accurate in copying the songs and their syllables were more "wobbly," meaning they varied each time they were produced, the researchers discovered. Scharff says this suggests that the birds had difficulty using the sensory information from the tutors to modify their motor outputs. The condition looks similar to that seen in patients with developmental verbal dyspraxia, a disorder that affects word production and grammar. "The general language community hasn't yet accepted the bird as a model," Scharff says. "But birds are not stupid. This study brings that home."

Because the RNAi wasn't used to dampen FOXP2 activity until 23 days after the birds hatched, the new study shows that the gene has a role beyond embryonic development, says neurogeneticist Simon Fisher of the University of Oxford in the U.K. "The gene, at least in songbirds, may have important active functions in [neural] circuits," he says. Neurogeneticist Daniel Geschwind of the University of California, Los Angeles, agrees, adding that the study opens a window into the integration of sensory and motor functions. "It's a beautiful system for looking at this learning," he says.

Investors Remain on Edge

Tech stocks lost ground for a third day Tuesday, as traders awaited critical economic data a week before the Federal Reserve meets. Dell lost ground again despite restarting its share buyback program to the tune of $10 billion, and blue chip stocks slumped after analysts downgraded the financial sector. With employment and retail sales data due out in the next few days, investors are hoping the Fed will have room to cut interest rates when it meets next week. San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen became the third Fed official in a week to signal that a rate cut is coming, and the Bank of Canada cut interest rates, citing U.S. housing market troubles. Nokia fell 3% after it predicted lower average selling prices, raising fears of a price war and sending the wireless sector lower. Vasco Data Security gained 4% on an upgrade, and Activision was up for a second day on its merger with Vivendi. The chip sector was mixed, with Micron up 4% and AMD down 4%. Verizon was up on a wireless asset swap with AT%26T, and VeriSign fell 4% on a downgrade. Cisco, down 2% on the day, announced that it has named Padmasree Warrior of Motorola its new CTO, the latest departure from troubled Motorola. The Nasdaq lost 17 to 2619, the S%26P fell 9 to 1462, and the Dow fell 65 to 13,248. Volume rose to 3.34 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.08 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 21-11 margin on the NYSE, and 19-10 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 70% on the NYSE, and 70% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 44-202 on the NYSE, and 62-266 on the Nasdaq.

Serena Software Joins Mashup Mania

Serena Software on Monday announced the general availability of its Business Mashup software suite, giving companies of all sizes the ability to build these handy mashup applications without the hassle or expense of going through their IT departments. "For every project IT is doing, 10 projects get ignored," said Tim Zonca, Serena Software's director of product marketing, in an interview with InternetNews.com. "This backlog isn't growing because IT is incompetent or doesn't have the right skills. It's a simple supply and demand issue. A lot of IT budgets haven't grown since 2000, so there's this ever-growing application backlog." Serena Software thinks it might have a solution that doesn't tax the already overwhelmed IT departments, yet still makes it possible for employees to build customized mashups without taking any engineering classes at night. Business Mashups 2008 includes the Mashup Composer and Mashup Server applications. The Composer component is a point-and-click visual design tool that connects various applications%26#151;maybe from your ERP or CRM system%26#151;and automates business processes such as sales discount approvals or time-off requests. Without writing any new code, the Composer lets users pick and choose the functionality and applications they want to mash together, click the "publish" button and send their mashups to the mashup server. The Mashup Server software, which for now most be installed on-premise, runs all the mashups with the preconfigured security and compliance rules established by the IT department. Companies can download the Composer applications from Serena's Web site for free and start building their applications. "It helps bring the business and IT people closer together to address this long tail of the application backlog," Zonca said. "One mashup in and of itself won't make or break a business. But with so many applications in this backlog, helping the non-technical business folks to build their own business mashups provides a tremendous amount of value." Mashups, along with widgets, social networks and unified communications, are the Web 2.0 technologies that vendors such as IBM, SAP and Oracle are investing a lot of time and money in order to incorporate in their larger business software portfolios. Later this month, Serena Software will deliver 13 pre-built application mashups free of charge that can be downloaded from the company's site and deployed immediately to address a variety of fairly simple business processes such as time-off requests, the on-boarding of new employees and issue defect tracking. The company built these mashups based on conversations with its customers and will make them available December 18.

SIIA Launches eBay Certification Program

The Software %26 Information Industry Association on Tuesday launched an effort to at least stem the flow of pirated and counterfeit software sold on eBay -- an initiative it calls the Certified Software Reseller (CSR) program. The CSR program marks the SIIA's latest endeavor to protect the intellectual property of its member companies. The trade association represents more than 800 software and digital content companies. Along with performing a fair amount of its own online surveillance for illicit wares, the group is pursuing litigation against between 200 and 250 companies and individuals who have allegedly sold stolen, counterfeit or pirated software during the past year. SIIA officials said a good portion of all this ill-gotten software is sold on eBay. Exactly how much is moved through the online auction site is impossible to ascertain, but it surely represented a sizable percentage of the $40 billion worth of illegal software installed last year, according to an IDC report issued in May. eBay officials were not immediately available to comment on the CSR program. The site's merchants who sign the agreement with the SIIA to become a certified software reseller receive a logo (a blue "thumbs-up" icon) to post next to their listings, distinguishing them from other non-certified merchants and hopefully encouraging buyers to only purchase software from these approved resellers. Participating merchants don't need to be authorized resellers approved by the original vendors. They only need to agree not to sell any stolen, pirated or counterfeit software and to perform due diligence before selling any software acquired from a third party. They also must provide their eBay-issued seller ID and their name (and all pseudonyms) under which they sell software on the site. "The crux of what we're trying to do is get anyone selling software on eBay to agree to only distribute legal software," Keith Kupferschmid, the SIIA's senior vice president for intellectual property, said in an interview with InternetNews.com. "Our objective is to help buyers distinguish between legal and illegal software. The agreement defines what that means and also states that if you do sell illegal software, you're going to pay a penalty." During the past few months, the SIIA has stepped up its assault on software crooks. In October, a Florida-based mortgage survey company agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit brought against it by the SIIA on behalf of Autodesk. And on Nov. 1, the SIIA announced it had filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco alleging that one merchant, Bob Tarkens, sold more than 1,000 pirated copies of various Symantec software applications on eBay in less than a year. Through September, the SIIA claims it has paid out more than $39,500 cash to reward 14 whistleblowers who reported instances of software piracy through its Anti-Piracy reward program. The trade association offers rewards to sources who alert it to alleged software piracy through its Web site. Those rewards range from $500 for a settlement of $10,000 to $1 million for cases with settlements of more than $20 million. While the CSR logo is intended to serve as a tool for buyers to distinguish between a seller who agrees to market only legal software and one who does not, Kupferschmid said he is well aware that determined thieves will either try to acquire the logo under false pretenses or just rip it off with a simple cut-and-paste maneuver. "There are definitely people out there stupid enough to do that," he said. "But that's even better, because it enables us to take down the auction without knowing whether they're selling illegal software or not. It's a trademark infringement. We'll be monitoring every auction that has a logo but we'll also be paying even closer attention to the ones that don't."

Google Goes Back to (High) School

Get 'em while they're young. As part of its continuing efforts to get young people interested and involved in open source software development, Google is launching a contest just for high school and secondary school students. All you have to be is a student age 13 or older who hasn't started college and you too can take a shot at winning cash prizes from Google. The Google Highly Open Participation (GHOP) contest offers the prospect of up to $500 in prizes per successful participant in the effort. Students will compete for the loot by completing any number of different tasks including writing code, doing research or just writing documentation. "There is no maximum number of contestants, but our goal here is the quality of work and not the quantity of students," Leslie Hawthorn, Google Program Manager, said in an email to InternetNews.com. "We're looking forward to seeing the many tasks contributed by the community." Google has populated GHOP with 10 open source groups including the Apache Software Foundation, Drupal , GNOME, Joomla!, MoinMoin, Mono, Moodle, Plone, Python and SilverStripe. Contestants can choose from a list of tasks submitted by each group. "We chose projects that had done a great job in the Summer of Code and that we were in active contact with," Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager at Google told InternetNews.com. "Basically, if all goes well, we will want to do this over and over again with more and more students and open source organizations, scaling it much in the same way we have the Summer of Code." Google's success criterion for the GHOP effort is all about the development of more open source developers. "The only real criteria we consider are does it create more open source developers?" DiBona said. "Does it create more open source code? Does it support open source infrastructure? If the answer to any of these is yes, then this project will be in good stead." The contest is now officially open for student entries and all work needs to be completed by February 4, 2008. The GHOP effort builds off Google's Summer of Code initiative which has matched university students with open source projects since 2005. The 2007 iteration of Summer of Code saw Google accept more than 900 students. Summer of Code students who completed their tasks earned $4,500 from Google, while each open source organization that sponsors the student received $500 per successful student. Google's total tally in 2007 amounted to more than $4 million for the Summer of Code effort.

Female Fickleness May Split a Species

By Matt Kaplan
ScienceNOW Daily News
30 November 2007

What makes an ideal man? For some women, it's a charming personality; others just want to see a nice set of abs. Things aren't quite so complicated in the rest of the animal kingdom. In most species, every female prizes the same trait in a male, whether it be bright plumage or a pretty song. So researchers have been surprised to discover that female yellowthroats don't always agree on what turns them on--a finding that may offer a window onto speciation.

Male yellowthroats sport large black masks and bright yellow bibs. Vibrant colors result from pigments called carotenoids, which are also antioxidants and thus a sign of health. So it was little surprise when biologist Corey Freeman-Gallant of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and colleagues found in 2001 that local female yellowthroats preferred males with the most vivid yellow bibs. But in the same year, biologist Peter Dunn of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, published something different about his local population of yellowthroats: Females seemed to be targeting the size of males' black masks to determine whether they were worth a fling. That didn't make sense, because the black masks are generated from melanin, which has no connection to health. "I was taken aback," says Dunn.

To confirm the findings, Dunn and colleagues brought yellowthroats from the New York state and the Wisconsin populations back to aviaries near Skidmore College. They spied on the females from behind a blind a few meters away as the birds were presented with multiple bachelors, some with big masks, some with bright yellow throats. Dunn measured the amount of time females spent ogling the various males and confirms in a future issue of the Journal of Avian Biology that both he and Freeman-Gallant were correct. New York state yellowthroats want males with large yellow bibs, and Wisconsin yellowthroats prefer males with big black masks.

That still leaves unanswered the question of why females would be drawn to the masks. It's possible that in Wisconsin, masks are an even better indicator of fitness than bibs are, says Dunn, but further research is needed.

Regardless of the reason, the fact that female preferences differ at all is very unusual, notes evolutionary biologist Michael Webster of Washington State University in Pullman. Variation in female preferences for male traits has long been proposed as an evolutionary force that could lead to speciation, he says, and such a divergence may be under way in yellowthroats. "The first step is to show that female mating preferences do vary geographically, and this study is doing that," says Webster.