Technology Science - Oilsands activity blamed for caribou decline

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Humans, not wolves, are behind declining caribou populations in Alberta's oilsands region, an analysis of animal feces shows.

The same research also found there may be many more caribou in the region than previously thought, meaning there may still be time for industry to change how it does business without resorting to wolf culls to protect the herds.

"Nobody is denying that the trend in caribou decline is alarming," said University of Washington biologist Samuel Wasser, lead author of a paper published Wednesday in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

DNA in the feces suggest there were about 330 caribou in Alberta's oilsands region, more than double the government's population estimate of 150. (Canadian Press)

"While we still think we need to do something now, we think that there's a little bit more time than some people have been advocating."

Caribou in the oilsands are considered a threatened species and have been in decline for decades. Balancing oilsands development and healthy herds has proved to be a tough act for the provincial government, which is still trying to develop a caribou policy for the area.

Some scientists have predicted caribou will be gone within 30 years, suggesting the desperate measure of a wolf cull could be the only way to preserve them. Alberta does cull wolves to protect caribou, but not in the oilsands area.

Upcoming interview

Sam Wasser talks to Quirks & Quarks on Saturday, June 25 at noon on CBC Radio One.

In 2006, Wasser and his team were brought in by oilsands leasee North American Oil Sands to look for answers. Their research continued when the lease was sold to Norway-based Statoil, which has so far spent about $500,000 on Wasser's work.

Using dogs trained to sniff out caribou, wolf, moose and deer droppings, scientists eventually found about 2,000 samples and carefully marked when and where each was found. Those samples were carefully analyzed for chemicals that revealed how the animal was feeling at that moment.

Animals under stress produce hormones that show up almost right away in their feces. Feces can also reveal how well-nourished an animal is. DNA contained in the material can even identify â€Â" and count individual animals.

Population higher than thought

After four winters of sampling, the researchers concluded that there seem to be a lot more caribou than previously thought.

Biologist Samuel Wasser and his team were brought in by oilsands leasee North American Oil Sands, and their research continued when the lease was sold to Norway-based Statoil. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)Government estimates put the number in the area at about 150; DNA in the feces suggest there were about 330 animals. Nor did that number change during the study period.

They also found that about 80 per cent of the wolf diet was deer, with only about 11 per cent from caribou. Wolves even seek out deer in preference to caribou.

And once they started analyzing scat for stress hormones, they found what really bugged caribou was people. Stress increased the closer the animals got to busy roads and also during times when humans were nearby.

Caribou â€Â" unlike moose and deer â€Â" are so skittish they'd rather hang out somewhere where the food isn't as plentiful if it's further from human impact, Wasser concluded.

Court battle

Environmental groups are seeking a court order to protect caribou herds from oilsands development in northeastern Alberta.

Ecojustice was in Federal Court in Edmonton Wednesday on behalf of the Pembina Institute and the Alberta Wilderness Association, seeking an order that would force Environment Minister Peter Kent to recommend emergency protection of the caribou. The hearing was scheduled to continue Thursday.

The groups said in a news release that there are 34 approved oilsands projects and 12 proposed projects within the herds’ ranges.

Previous studies have linked human disturbance and caribou declines before. One study released Monday found that, on average, about 75 per cent of the caribou range in the oilsands area is disrupted either by industry or forest fires.

Wasser found, however, that caribou didn't care so much about the road or the wellsite itself. What they cared about was how close it was and how busy it was.

"Psychological stress was highest and nutrition poorest when humans were most active in the landscape, but caribou recovered when oil crews left the area," the report says.

That leaves plenty of avenues for humans to change their ways, said Wasser.

Roads should avoid grassy areas: scientist

Now, crews tend to build roads through open, grassy areas because that's where it's easiest. But those areas, which provide a clear view of approaching predators, are places caribou like as well.

Wasser said roads could be built to avoid those areas.

"It's not the (industrial) footprint, it's the use of that footprint," he said.

Hoping to encourage caribou by shooting wolves won't work â€Â" and might even hurt them by boosting deer numbers and forcing them to encroach on caribou habitat.

"That is really a bad way to approach the situation," said Wasser.

© The Canadian Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Stranded New Zealand penguin gets new home

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After planning to let nature take its course, wildlife officials moved a stranded Emperor penguin from a New Zealand beach to a zoo Friday after its health appeared to be worsening.

The young penguin had been eating sand and small sticks of driftwood, which it tried to regurgitate. First seen on a North Island beach Monday, the penguin appeared more lethargic as the week progressed, and officials feared it would die if they didn't intervene.

The rare venture north by an Antarctic species captured public imagination, and experts initially said the bird appeared healthy and well-fed and intervention was unnecessary. They became concerned enough to step in Friday.

Three experts lifted the penguin from the beach into a tub of ice and then onto the back of a truck. The bird was docile enough they didn't sedate it for the 65-kilometre journey from Peka Peka Beach to the Wellington Zoo, said one of the participants, Colin Miskelly, a curator at Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand.

It made sense that a penguin might mistake sand for Antarctic snow, which Emperors eat for hydration, Miskelly said, but he had no explanation for the bird eating wood.

Miskelly said experts at the zoo were considering sedating the penguin and putting it on an intravenous drip as they tried to nurse it back to health. Ideally, the bird would heal enough that it could be released into the wild.

Miskelly noted no facilities in New Zealand were designed to house an Emperor penguin long-term. It's the tallest and largest penguin species and can grow up to 122 centimetres high and weigh more than 34 kilograms.

Christine Wilton, the local resident who discovered the penguin Monday while walking her dog, was back at the beach Friday to say goodbye.

"I'm so pleased it's going to be looked after," she said. "He needed to get off the beach. He did stand up this morning, but you could tell that he wasn't happy."

Zoo spokeswoman Kate Baker said veterinarians would give the bird a full health check. The zoo clinic has a salt water pool which has been used in the past to nurse smaller varieties of penguins, she said.

Often sick birds require rehabilitation for a month or two before being released, Baker said, adding that some creatures with severe injuries remain in captivity.

Experts believe the penguin is about 10 months old. It stands about 80 centimetres high. Experts haven't yet determined whether it is male or female.

Emperor penguins typically spend their entire lives in Antarctica, the coast of which is about 3,200 kilometres from the North Island beach where the penguin was stranded. It has been 44 years since an Emperor penguin was last spotted in New Zealand.

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Do online daters take more risks, sex survey asks

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Some women who hook up in the online dating world may take more risks in their sexual behaviour, says a Canadian researcher who has launched a study on the topic.

Cindy Masaro of the University of British Columbia works as a nurse clinician at the sexually transmitted infection and HIV clinic at the BC Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver. In her work, she has noticed that clients quickly grew close to people they'd met online. Cindy Masaro is exploring whether social forces in the digital era are shaping women's sexual behaviour and risk-taking. Courtesy of Cindy Masaro

"Most of them had formed fairly intimate relationships and they were trusting of these partners, but yet they knew really very little about them," Masaro said.

Trusting information they had gained online about their partner, clients were engaging in sexual behaviours that placed them at higher risk for sexually transmitted infections.

The observation intrigued Masaro, who decided to investigate further for her doctoral thesis at UBC's School of Nursing.

Women and rising sexually transmitted infections

Recently, sexually transmitted infections have been on the rise among Canadian women. For example, chlamydia infections went up 157 per cent for women aged 30 to 39 and by 134 per cent in women aged 40 to 59 in the past decade.

Women in these same age groups also saw the greatest rate of increase in gonorrhea: 288 per cent and 211 per cent respectively.

Masaro is recruiting at least 1,000 women aged 25 and older in Canada and the U.S. who are actively dating or who started a relationship in the past year. She's exploring whether social forces in the digital era are shaping women's sexual behaviour and risk-taking.

The study will use an online survey to compare how face-to-face encounters and digital communication â€Â" from texting to online dating â€Â" influence women's choices, such as when to have sex with their new partner.

In popular culture, romance and passion are often seen as a necessary precursor to sex for women, while for men, it's sexual satisfaction, Masaro said.

The research will also delve into the type and frequency of communications and issues such as trust, sexual self-disclosure, discussions about safer sex, feelings of pressure to have sex; and sexual risk behaviours.

Until now, public health research has mainly focused on teens, and adults were assumed to be in a relationship and knowledgeable about sexually transmitted infections, Masaro observed.

Social networks

Syphilis researchers used traditional social network connections to find hard to reach contacts of people infected with the sexually transmitted infection in the Atlanta area in 2000. The study's authors concluded that a targeted approach may be useful in trying to eliminate syphilis.

But she's finding that women over 25 aren't always that knowledgeable. Many older women dating again after a divorce or death of a spouse face a new sexual landscape because of HIV.

Their previous relationships might have focused on using condoms for birth control instead of reducing transmission of STIs. Yet women face higher risks of complications from STIs than men.

"Health-care professionals often conclude that sexual issues aren't important for this age group," Masaro said. "I know a lot of women who come into the clinic and their physician doesn't even bring up STI testing."

The survey website called Dating Confidential went live this week.

With files from CBC's Amina Zafar

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Technology Science - Apple drives mobile internet traffic in Canada

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The share of mobile internet traffic from iPads was highest in Canada, compared to 12 other countries studied, including the U.S., the U.K. and Japan. (Associated Press)

When Canadians are using the internet away from a computer, the vast majority are on an i-something.

Apple products accounted for about 83 per cent of the internet traffic in Canada in May that went across non-computer devices, according to a new report from measurement firm comScore.

Canadians ranked highest in the world in terms of relying on their iPads to use the internet, with 33.5 per cent of non-computer traffic tied to Apple's tablets.

A little more usage, 34.6 per cent, came from iPhone users and 14.9 per cent was associated with iPod touch devices.

The other competing tablets barely registered in the study, with Android devices driving only 0.4 per cent of traffic and other tablets, including Research in Motion's PlayBook, accounting for 1.3 per cent.

In the mobile phone category, 8.2 per cent of all non-computer traffic was through Android devices and 3.6 per cent came through other smartphones.

Canada had one of the lowest rates of Android smartphone usage. In the U.S., 35.6 per cent of its non-computer traffic was tied to Android smartphones, which was about 12 per cent more than the iPhone.

ComScore also studied how digital readers are visiting newspaper websites and found 95.5 per cent of all traffic came from computers. About 2.2 per cent of the traffic was through mobile phones and 1.9 per cent was via tablets.

© The Canadian Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Harry Potter series to be sold as e-books

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Harry Potter's adventures are going digital.

British author J.K. Rowling announced Thursday that her seven Potter novels will be sold as e-books starting in October, ending the boy wizard's status as one of the highest-profile holdouts against digital publishing.

"You can't hold back progress," Rowling said in London. "E-books are here and they are here to stay."

The magical stories that conquered the world in print form will be available as audiobooks and e-books in multiple languages through a new website, Pottermore.

Rowling, one of the world's most powerful authors, is bypassing established online retailers like Amazon, although the creators of Pottermore say the books will be compatible with popular e-readers including Amazon's Kindle, Sony's Reader and Apple's iPad.

"It's very important to Jo to make the books available to everybody, not to make them available only to people who own a particular set of devices, or tethered to a particular set of platforms," said Tom Turcan, chief operating officer of the new venture, Pottermore Ltd.

He said prices for the e-books would be announced closer to October.

The site is a partnership with Sony Corp. and its online shop is described as "a potential outlet for Sony products."

Rowling spokesman Mark Hutchinson said Sony was selected as "the most appropriate partner."

E-books are 'a way I can be creative in a medium that didn't exist when I started the books back in 1990.'â€Â"J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter author

Rowling also has written 18,000 words of new Potter material for the interactive site, which promises to immerse users in her world of wizards, combining elements of computer games, social networking and an online store.

Rowling says the site includes "information I have been hoarding for years" about the books' characters and settings.

Fans can delve into Hogwarts school

Pottermore has been the subject of intense speculation among Potter fans since it appeared on the internet with the words "coming soon."

The project unveiled in London lets Potter fans delve into the world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Sections let users shop for wands in Diagon Alley, travel to Hogwarts from the imaginary Platform 9 3/4 at London's King's Cross train station and be sorted into Hogwarts schoolhouses by the perceptive Sorting Hat.

Along the way are wand fights, games and new information about characters beloved around the world, including Harry's reviled relatives, the Dursleys.

The site goes live July 31, when one million registered users will be chosen to help flesh out the online world. It will be open to all users from October, in languages including English, French, German and Spanish.

"[It's] a way I can be creative in a medium that didn't exist when I started the books back in 1990," Rowling told reporters, a way to incorporate the thousands of "stories, drawings, ideas, suggestions" she still receives from fans, four years after the last Potter book was published.

Harry Potter fans who have been sharing enthusiasm and stories online for years should be delighted by the new digital world.

Latest Harry movie's world premiere next month

But Rowling said she wanted to keep the emphasis of the site firmly on the written word.

"We've had a lot of requests for online games," she said. "I wanted to pull it back to reading."

The seven Harry Potter novels have sold more than 450 million copies and made Rowling one of the world's richest women.

The last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published in 2007, and Rowling said she still has no plans to write an eighth.

But she said Pottermore was a way to reconnect with a character and a universe she loved.

"It is exactly like an ex-boyfriend," Rowling said. "Finishing writing Harry, I have only ever cried in that way and that much when my mother died. I have never cried for a man the way I cried for Harry Potter."

The latest Warner Bros. film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, has its world premiere in London on July 7.

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Winklevoss twins drop Facebook lawsuit

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The Harvard University classmates of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg are ending the legal battle made famous by the Hollywood movie The Social Network.

In a one-paragraph court filing Wednesday, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss said they would accept a settlement that was worth $65 million when agreed upon in 2008.

The twins had sought to undo the settlement of $20 million cash and $45 million in stock.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the twins, saying they had been represented by a squadron of Silicon Valley lawyers and their father, a noted business professor.

The twins said Wednesday they would forgo a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Their stock is now worth more than $100 million.

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Predators migrate en masse to Pacific hotspots

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Huge numbers of sharks, seals, turtles, whales and other ocean predators converge on two regions touching on B.C.'s coast at certain times of year, an animal tracking study shows.

After analyzing data collected over a decade from 4,306 tracking tags placed on 23 species in the North Pacific Ocean, scientists likened the mass migrations to the seasonal journey of vast herds of zebras and antelopes across the African savannah. They published their results Wednesday in Nature.

Ian Jonsen, a researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax who co-led the study, said he was surprised by the huge scale of the migrations.

Click for a larger image of the photo. The distribution of different marine predators was mapped based on electronic tracking data from more than 4,300 tags attached to the animals ranging from whales to sea turtles. (Tagging of Pacific Predators Project)

"In a lot of cases, these are spanning almost the entire Pacific Ocean," he said. "You see species after species doing something similar, coming from different locations, but all of them to some extent arriving in the California current … and timing their arrival with oceanographic conditions."

For example, leatherback turtles tagged in Indonesia travel across the Pacific Ocean to Monterey Bay, Calif., and back every year.

"It's just incredible," he said. "Obviously, they've got to do it without a map and a compass or a GPS."

The turtles and other predators arrive in the California Current, which stretches from the southern tip of Vancouver Island down to California and Mexico, in the spring and fall, just as cold, nutrient-rich water is rising to the surface, the study found. The upwelling causes phytoplankton to bloom, kicking off a nutritional bonanza that cascades all the way up the food chain.

Tracking data from tags such as the one attached to this male elephant seal showed that predators arrive in the California Current just as cold, nutrient-rich water is rising to the surface at specific times of year. Tagging of Pacific Predators ProjectAnother area rich in marine predators is the North Pacific transition zone, described in a news release for the project as a "trans-oceanic migration highway" that runs between Hawaii and Alaska, skirting Canadian waters along the way.

Blue whales and some species of tuna and shark stay within the California Current year-round, but make very predictable north-south migrations within the current linked to seasonal changes in temperature and food availability.

Jonsen said the detailed information will help fisheries managers understand where and how marine predators move into the North Pacific hotspots. That will help them time fishery closures to minimize the impact on marine predators, which are often caught accidentally as bycatch during fishing for other species.

But there is still a lot researchers don't know, Jonsen said.

Climate change effects unknown

Mako sharks were among the 23 species tagged. Researcher Ian Jonsen said the data will help fisheries managers time fishery closures to minimize the impact on marine predators, which are often caught accidentally as bycatch during fishing for other species. Tagging of Pacific Predators Project

"We don't know how the animals are timing their migrations," he said, noting that climate change has the potential to alter the timing of upwelling in the California Current and may affect species that make long distance migrations. "What we don't know is: 'Do these species have the capacity to change their migration timing and patterns or not?' "

The tracking data was collected by Stanford University biologist Barbara Block and her team at the Tagging of Pacific Predators Project. It was one of 17 projects of the Census of Marine Life conducted by 80 researchers around the world from 2000 to 2009.

Jonsen's team at Dalhousie University was involved in analyzing the data using tools they had developed specifically for electronic tracking data.

The analysis was a challenge because some of the tags measured location far more precisely than others. That meant it took nearly two years to get the data "into a form where we could compare different data sets and start mapping it," Jonsen said.

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Technology Science - Lacavera takes Wind Mobile reins

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The chief executive of Wind Mobile, Ken Campbell, is exiting the company and will be replaced by founder and chairman Anthony Lacavera.

The new wireless player did not disclose the reason for Campbell's departure in its announcement on Thursday.

"Ken has been an integral part of the Wind Mobile team since day one â€Â" overseeing the launch of the brand, building our customer base and network and navigating the company through a tumultuous regulatory environment," said Lacavera, who is also head of the Wind's parent company Globalive.

Wind Mobile has said it added 39,000 subscribers in its first quarter and has about 300,000 subscribers since it began operating in December 2009. The company has said it's on track for 1.5 million subscribers over three years.

Wind Mobile is now selling in more than 500 locations across Canada, roaming in over 200 countries and is planning to expand the network coverage in the coming year.

Parent company Globalive offers such services as long-distance and high-speed Internet as well as voice over Internet Protocol. The Globalive group of companies includes Yak Communications, OneConnect, Canopco, Assemble Conferencing, InterClear, Lucky Call, Canada Payphone and Cohere Communications.

Lacavera said he will help bring Globalive's fixed and wireless businesses together.

© The Canadian Press, 2011

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Technology Science - 2010 quake led Ottawa to change policies

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A magnitude 5.0 earthquake that struck western Quebec and rattled the national capital region in 2010 led the city of Ottawa to change its policies on how people should respond should another quake strike.

The Val-Des-Bois quake, centred about 60 km north of Ottawa, shattered windows and shook buildings, knocking down a brick chimney in at least one building. Outside the city, the damage was more extensive, damaging a church in Gracefield, Que., and collpasing a section of Highway 307 near Bowman, Que.

But the lasting impression for many in Ottawa's downtown was how office buildings across the city evacuated, with workers pouring onto the street.

Kate Ploeger said older masonry buildings such as in the ByWard Market are more vulnerable to earthquakes. CBC

Seismologists and disaster management experts say that was the wrong move, since it exposed them to potential dangers from falling glass or other debris.

With most buildings in Ottawa built to withstand this type of earthquake, workers instead should have taken shelter inside.

"Our biggest lesson learned was the need to make sure we communicate with the business community to ensure they have policies and procedures around what to tell employees when earthquake happens," said John Ash, the city's chief of security and emergency management.

Nash said the city needed to look at how to prioritize responses based on severity. For example, he said during the quake the fire alarm system went off at city hall. While the natural response of staff was to exit the building, he said the correct response would have been to wait inside for the alarm to stop or for instructions.

ByWard market buildings vulnerable

The city has since altered its information for building managers, and now says only people in older, unreinforced masonry buildings like those found in the ByWard market should exit their buildings should another quake strike. Everyone else should remain indoors, he said.

That follows the research of Kate Ploeger, a PhD student at the University of Ottawa who is working with the University of Ottawa's hazard mitigation and disaster management research centre to assess Ottawa's earthquake readiness. A study should be completed in two years.

The 2010 earthquake hit at 1:41 p.m. ET south of Echo Lake, Que., 60 kilometres north of Ottawa near the Ontario border, and was felt across southern and eastern Ontario and western Quebec. CBC

Ploeger said Ottawa is behind only Vancouver and Montreal among Canadian cities when it comes to earthquake risk. The lack of earthquake preparedness of Ottawa residents factored into that assessment. For instance, while many people evacuated buildings and went to the street last year, they may have been wiser to seek shelter under a solid desk.

Ploeger defines risk as a combination of the potential hazard â€Â" based on both the potential for ground motion under a building and the building materials â€Â" and vulnerability â€Â" based in part on the number of people in a building.

She said an earlier risk assessment she conducted of close to 600 buildings in the city's core found a number of potential trouble spots should a more serious quake occur â€Â" such as a magnitude 6.0 quake close to the city.

Ploeger said the high number of rigid, unreinforced masonry buildings in the ByWard Market made that area a likely spot for the most structural damage, but said debris was most likely to occur in the south side of the city's downtown, where more high-rise buildings are in place.

Parliament Hill on solid bedrock

"But the area with most casualties was around Parliament Hill and this whole downtown block, because there are a lot of people," said Ploeger. "The census tracker says this is an area with 65,000 people coming into work."

Parliament Hill itself is not a likely site for damage, she says, because it sits on solid bedrock, meaning the ground does little to amplify a tremor.

By comparison, she said, the newly refurbished Museum of Nature was reinforced against earthquakes because it sits on offshore marine sediment with a substantial amount of clay, and is therefore more prone to shaking when a quake occurs.

Ottawa is near a relatively active fault line that runs parallel to the St. Lawrence Valley. The most recent comparable earthquake on that fault line was a 5.4-magnitude temblor in 1998.

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Technology Science - Stolen password search website launched

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A website that lets people check whether their email addresses, usernames and passwords have been stolen in a cyberattack and posted online has been launched by an Australian who is a former IT security consultant.

Daniel Grzelak, who lives in the Sydney area, launched his new website, shouldichangemypassword.com, on Tuesday. The site allows concerned internet users to enter an email address and see whether it is one of 800,000 records posted online by groups such as Lulz Security.

That hacker collective, also known as LulzSec, has taken responsibility for cyberattacks on Sony, Nintendo, FBI affiliate Infragard Atlanta, and websites of the CIA and U.S. Senate. Data stolen in some of those attacks is posted on Grzelak's website.

If an email is listed in the database of stolen data, the site will list what information among your email, username and password have been compromised, how many times it has been compromised, and the most recent incident. It will also recommend that the user change all his or her passwords.

However, the site's FAQ cautions that even if a user receives the message: "Your passwords may be safe," it does not mean they were not compromised â€Â" it just means they weren't published as part of the high profile breaches listed.

Grzelak wrote on the site that he plans to keep updating the site whenever a new password database is made public "in perptetuity."

Grzelak told the New York Times that he created the tool for family and friends who had heard about the “LulzSec shenanigans” and were concerned about what it meant for them.

The site allows concerned internet users to enter an email address and see whether it is one of 800,000 records posted online by groups of such as Lulz Security. (Should I Change My Password)

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Technology Science - Ancient mammoth carving found in Florida

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A bone fragment at least 13,000 years old, with the carved image of a mammoth or mastodon, has been discovered in the southern U.S. state of Florida, a new study reports.

While prehistoric art depicting animals with trunks has been found in Europe, this may be the first in the Western Hemisphere, researchers report Wednesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

"It's pretty exciting, we haven't found anything like this in North America," said Dennis J. Stanford, curator of North American Archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, who was a co-author of the report.

They hunted these animals, Stanford explained, and "you see people drawing all kinds of pictures that are of relevance and importance to them."

"Much of the real significance of such finds is in the tangible, emotional connection they allow us to feel with people in the deep past," said Dietrich Stout, an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, who was not part of the research team.

Cave paintings showing animals have been found in Texas, but those were dated to about 4,000 years ago, much more recent than the newly found carved bone.

The bone fragment contains an incised image about 76 millimetres long from head to tail and about 25 millimetres from head to foot.

"There was considerable skepticism expressed about the authenticity of the incising on the bone until it was examined exhaustively by archaeologists, paleontologists, forensic anthropologists, materials science engineers and artists," lead author Barbara Purdy of the University of Florida said in a statement.

The bone was found by a fossil hunter near a location, known as the Old Vero Site, where human bones were found side-by-side with the bones of extinct Ice Age animals in an excavation from 1913 to 1916.

Mammoths died out in North America 13,000 years ago

It was heavily mineralized, which prevented standard dating, Stanford explained. But mammoths and mastodons had died out in the Americas by 13,000 years ago, so it has to be older than that. "It could be quite early," he added.

But the researchers wanted to be sure it was not a modern effort to mimic prehistoric art. They compared it with other materials found at the site and studied it with microscopes, which showed no differences in coloration between the carved grooves and the surrounding material. That, they said, indicated that both surfaces aged together.

In addition, the researchers said, there were no signs of the material being carved recently or that the grooves were made with metal tools.

"It either had to be carved from direct observation when the animals existed or has to be a modern fake" and "all indications are that the carving is the same age as the bone," said anthropologist Christopher J. Ellis of the University of Western Ontario, who was not part of the research team.

The only other report of an ancient bone in North America carved with the image of a mastodon came from Mexico in 1959, but questions were raised about that object and it subsequently disappeared.

It does appear to be the first American depiction of a mammoth or mastodon, said anthropologist David J. Meltzer of Southern Methodist University.

"I think the authors did a reasonable job making the case for the piece being genuine," added Metzger, who was not part of the research team.

The new discovery was made by James Kennedy, a fossil hunter, in 2006 or 2007. Kennedy noticed the image in 2009 when he was cleaning the bone and he then contacted researchers who began their study of the artifact.

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Petition against internet 'lawful access' bills

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The Conservatives promised as part of their election platform to reintroduce legislation tabled before the May 2 election that would give law enforcement and national security agencies up-to-date tools to fight crime in today's high-tech telecommunications environment. Associated Press

Advocates for internet users and civil liberties groups have launched a petition against proposed laws that would give police new powers to monitor and intercept internet communications in Canada.

"These invasive surveillance bills will transform the internet to a closed, rigid, paranoid space," said Steve Anderson, executive director of Open Media, the group leading the campaign, in a statement. The group had previously mobilized internet users against usage-based internet billing.

The new "Stop Spying" petition opposes three bills that were introduced by Stephen Harper's Conservative government in the last session of Parliament, saying they will invade privacy, leave personal information less secure and boost the cost of internet service.

The Conservatives promised as part of their election platform to reintroduce legislation tabled before the May 2 election that would "give law enforcement and national security agencies up-to-date tools to fight crime in today's high-tech telecommunications environment." They committed to passing the legislation within their first 100 sitting days in office.

The bills from the last session included:

• C-50, Access to Investigative Tools for Serious Crimes Act, which would give police the power to intercept private communications without a warrant under certain circumstances.
• C-51, Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, which would allow police to get a) warrants to obtain information transmitted over the internet and data related to its transmission, including locations of individuals and transactions; b) orders that would compel other parties to preserve electronic evidence.
• C-52, Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act, which would require internet service providers to a) have infrastructure that will allow law enforcement agents to intercept internet communications of their customers; b) provide basic information about their subscribers to law enforcement.

The government and law enforcement officials say the laws are necessary because technology provides new ways of committing crimes and makes them harder to investigate. The Conservative government has previously tried to introduce similar legislation multiple times.

Open Media said the police interception of private communications without a warrant will "invade the private lives of law-abiding Canadians." It believes the legislation will leave personal and financial information less secure and will boost the cost of internet service, since internet service providers will likely pass on the cost of installing "millions of dollars worth" of technology to make communications interceptable.

By Wednesday evening, the same day the petition was launched, 30,000 people had signed, Open Media reported.

The petition is backed by the Canadian and B.C. civil liberties associations, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa and the Tyee, a B.C.-based news and culture website. Several unions and independent media outlets are also supporting the campaign.

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Technology Science - Google antitrust probe launched by U.S.

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The Wall Street Journal said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission will serve Google with civil subpoenas 'within days.' (Associated Press)

U.S. federal regulators have begun a formal antitrust investigation into Google's business practices.

In a blog post Friday, the internet search giant said it received notification from the Federal Trade Commission of the review on Thursday.

Google said "it's still unclear exactly what the FTC's concerns are."

But the inquiry is expected to focus in large part on whether Google abuses its dominance of Internet search to extend its influence into other lucrative online markets, such as mapping, comparison shopping and travel. Rivals complain that Google, which handles two out of every three Internet searches in the U.S., manipulates its results to steer users to its own sites and services and bury links to competitors.

The European Commission and the Texas attorney general have already opened investigations into whether Google uses its enormous clout as a major gateway to the Internet to stifle competition online. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee, too, is examining whether Google gives its own services favorable treatment in search results.

Google maintains that most of the accusations of anticompetitive behavior come not from users, who like its services, but from competitors that are not pleased with their search rankings.

"Since the beginning, we have been guided by the idea that, if we focus on the user, all else will follow," the company said in its blog post.

"We make hundreds of changes to our algorithms every year to improve your search experience," it added. "Not every website can come out at the top of the page, or even appear on the first page of our search results."

Earlier, the Wall Street Journal and several other media outlets reported that the Federal Trade Commission was about to launch an investigation. They said the attorneys general in California, New York and Ohio have also launched their own antitrust probes. All reports cited unnamed sources "familiar" with the investigations.

In midday trading Friday, Google's stock fell $6.66 or 1.4 percent, to $473.56.

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Cyberattack hits T&T Supermarket

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T & T Supermarket has 20 stores in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, including this store in Ottawa, shown on the day it opened in 2009. Kate Porter/CBC

The website of Loblaw subsidiary T & T Supermarket Inc. was hit by a cyberattack that may have exposed the personal data of 58,000 people.

Website visitors may also have been tricked into downloading malicious software onto their computers, the Richmond, B.C.-based Asian grocery chain said in a news release Friday.

The personal data that may have been stolen includes usernames, passwords, names and contact details.

It does not include credit card information, birthdates or social insurance numbers, as those are not collected through the website. T & T reported that the "unauthorized and illegal intrusions" to the website took place on:

• June 6, 7, and 11, when customers ordering products online to pick up in a store or people applying for a job may have been redirected to a malicious site.
• June 14 to 17, when the company's suppliers were similarly targeted.

The company said it has shut down its website and security experts are conducting a full investigation.

In the meantime, it will notify the people affected, and has already contacted all relevant privacy commissioners. It recommends that people who believe they are affected change their passwords and scan their computers for malware.

The company added that it will be enhancing security on its network.

T & T has 20 stores in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Loblaw Companies Ltd. bought the chain for $225 million in 2009.

Cyberattacks have hit a number of other Canadian targets in the past two months, including the Conservative Party of Canada website, and video game makers BioWare, based in Edmonton, and Eidos Montreal.

Affected individuals can contact T&T at pr@tntsupermarket.com or 1-855-296-2342.

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Technology Science - Canadians among world's heaviest internet users

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The report showed that Canada's average prices for high-speed internet plans with speeds above 2.5 megabits per second were in the top third among surveyed OECD countries in September 2010. (Associated Press)

Canadians generate more internet traffic per capita than any other nation in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development except South Korea.

For every 100,000 inhabitants, Canada generates 2,288 terabytes of data traffic per month from internet use, video on demand and mobile data, said the group's Communications Outlook 2011 report, released this week.

That is roughly the amount of data traffic that would be generated by transmitting 500,000 DVDs and is slightly higher than U.S. data traffic per 100,000 inhabitants, even though the report noted that video on demand use is very high in the U.S.

The report showed that Canada's average prices for high-speed internet plans with speeds above 2.5 megabits per second were in the top third among surveyed OECD countries in September 2010. For example, plans between 2.5 and 15 megabits per second averaged $55.18 US, compared to a median of $39.23 US for all 33 countries surveyed. For connections below 2.5 megabits per second, Canadian prices were close to the OECD average.

The survey looked at advertised prices for three internet providers in each country, including the one with the biggest market share and the top cable internet provider.

Telus said in a statement that it thinks "Canada does fine in the OECD broadband rankings, especially when you consider we are stacked up against countries with far denser populations that are less expensive to connect." It noted that its prices were not included, but that it thought the average would have been improved by including Telus.

Some other findings of the OECD report were that:

• The average measured internet connection speed in Canada in the second quarter of 2010 was 4.7 megabits per second, slightly faster than the OECD median of 4.1 megabits per second, but much slower than Korea's average of 16.6 megabits per second.
• Just 0.41 per cent of Canadians have ultra-fast fibre internet connections, putting fibre penetration in Canada near the bottom among 27 countries that advertised fibre internet. (The U.S. and the U.K. were not listed.)
• Canada was one of four countries where 100 per cent of offers by the three internet service providers surveyed included a cap on the amount of data for a given price. In most other countries, some or all providers did not have such a cap. However, the average cap in Canada was 96 gigabytes, higher than in most other countries where caps existed, including Australia and New Zealand.

Wireless internet growth soars

A worldwide trend highlighted by the report was the huge growth of wireless broadband subscriptions, which had surpassed 500 million by the end of 2010. That was an increase of more than 10 per cent since June 2010. Canada has 30.4 wireless broadband internet subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, putting it below the OECD average of 41.6.

That may be partly because Canada had the lowest number of cellular subscriptions per 100 people in 2009 â€Â" 71, compared to the OECD average of 103.

However, wireless internet use seems to be growing quickly. The report noted that in 2009, Bell and Rogers were among four internet providers in the OECD that had mobile data revenue growth higher than 30 per cent year over year.

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Technology Science - Fishes' sex changing linked to 'workplace' tiffs

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The researchers were surprised to find that pairs actually provide far superior service compared to individual cleaner fish. Nick Hobgood/WikiMedia Commons

Male bluestreak cleaner wrasses tend to punish female "co-workers" more severely if they are at high risk of turning into males, a British researcher has found.

Cleaner wrasses remove parasites from the flesh of coral reef fish in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, who visit them at special "cleaning stations" where a dominant male cleaner wrasse works with a harem of about 16 females.

"It's something like going to the hairdresser for the clients," said Nichola Raihani, a postdoctoral researcher at the Zoological Society of London Institute of Zoology.

Upcoming interview

Nichola Raihani talks to Quirks & Quarks on Sat., June 18 at noon on CBC Radio One.

However, the relationship between cleaner fish and their clients does involve some conflict of interest, Raihani told CBC's Quirks & Quarks in an interview set to air Saturday.

"Although cleaners will eat ectoparasites, what they actually find far more delicious is…eating the mucus of the clients and their living tissues."

Hence, cleaner fish are known to sometimes bite their clients, which typically won't tolerate that kind of treatment.

"Often, they'll just immediately swim away and say, 'I'm done here. I'm out of here. This is not good service,'" Raihani said.

Cleaner fish sometimes work in male-female pairs, and Raihani and her colleagues suspected that under those circumstances, each fish would be tempted to be the first to bite the client, before it swam away.

They were surprised to find that pairs actually provide "far superior service" compared to individual cleaner fish.

That's because a male, who is bigger than all the females, punishes his female partner if she bites a client, causing the client to swim away.

"The male will aggressively chase her around if he can catch her, he'll take a chunk out of her tail or bite of some of her scales or something like that," Raihani said.

That makes her less likely to bite a client the next time the two work together.

Raihani and her colleagues found that a male punished a female partner more severely if she was close in size to him.

They suggested that was because of cleaner wrasses' sex-changing lifestyle â€Â" all bluestreak cleaner wrasses are born female, but turn into males once they get close in size to the dominant male. Therefore, it is in the best interest of a male to try to prevent a large female from reaching his size.

"Even though these females are ostensibly a breeding partner," Raihani said, "they may be trying to fatten up and outgrow male and become the breeding male in the territory." The researchers' finding were published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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Technology Science - NDP resurrects climate change bill

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The NDP is trying again to legislate stronger targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reintroducing a bill that was defeated by the Senate last fall.

The proposed law would set a long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target of 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050, and a medium-term target of 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. It would also force the government to table with Parliament an interim target plan every five years.

Canada's current target is based on the less-strict 2006 base level and seeks to reduce emissions 17 per cent by 2020.

The NDP's most recent attemp made it through the House of Commons and to the Senate last fall as C-311, where it was defeated before making it to committee for study. It's much less likely to make it that far this time, with a majority Conservative government poised to vote it down.

The government may argue it has to protect the oilsands but that industry isn't Canada's only economic driver, said NDP environment critic Megan Leslie.

"We have an oilsands worth of energy at our fingertips in energy efficiency. We have an oilsands worth of energy in renewables in this country. What we lack is the political will of this government to see these opportunities for what they are," she said.

"They are opportunities to create jobs, they are opportunities to ensure our own energy security, and they are opportunities to meet our international climate change obligations."

Leslie pointed to a recent OECD report, which she says reported the world has to choose between a green economy or none at all.

"This government continues to warn of the economic disaster that will occur if we take action on climate change and they continue to tell us that they're shepherding us through this economic recovery, but they're wrong," she said.

A spokeswoman for Environment Minister Peter Kent says Canadians recently had an opportunity to consider the NDP's climate change agenda, referring to the party's second-place finish in the May 2 election.

"We look forward to the mandate given to us by the Canadian people to proceed with our plan to reduce GHG emissions in a sector by sector approach which will balance the environment and the economy," she wrote in an email.

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Technology Science - Rare sturgeon's spawning grounds sought

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Rare lake sturgeon in the Mattagami River near Timmins, Ont., are being surgically implanted with radio transmitters so wildlife conservationists can figure out where they spawn.

Fifty of the unusual fish were reintroduced to the river in 2002 after locals noticed that the species had disappeared from the region. Sturgeon can grow to be longer than a person is tall and live for more than 100 years.

Biologists believe that the fish were decimated by the effects of logging, pollution and hydro dams that interfered with their long migration routes.

"The sturgeon have been around since the time of the dinosaurs and we've basically pushed them out of their historic range," said Derrick Romain, a biologist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

Andy Chartrand, president of the Timmins Fur Council, has been involved with the sturgeon restoration project since the beginning.

He said the radio transmitters will help them figure out exactly how the fish are being affected by the dams and where they now migrate to lay their eggs.

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Technology Science - Mercury's quirks revealed by NASA spacecraft

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Mercury's crust contains far more sulphur than the crust of the Earth or the moon, and its magnetic field is lopsided toward the north, a NASA spacecraft has discovered.

"What we are finding is that in many cases, a lot of the original ideas about Mercury are just plain wrong," said Larry Nittler, one of four scientists affiliated with the Messenger who spoke at a NASA news conference Thursday.

The researchers presented some of the new images and scientific results gathered by Messenger since it became the first spacecraft to enter orbit around the closest planet to the sun on March 17.

Mercury is the only rocky planet in our solar system besides Earth that has a magnetic field, and one of Messenger's surprising findings so far is that Mercury's magnetic field is not a miniature version of Earth's, said Sean Solomon, principal investigator for the mission at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

"The magnetic field in the northern hemisphere is stronger and different from that in the southern hemisphere," he added.

Messenger took this high-resolution image, colour of Mercury's Degas crater, shown beside an image from Mariner 10 (left) for comparison. Rock that melted from the heat of the impact, then cooled and shrank, formed the cracks observed in the crater, which is 52 kilometres across. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Mercury's magnetic equator is north of the planet's geographic equator by roughly a fifth of the planet's radius. That means its south pole is far more exposed to charged particles than its north pole, and may help explain the presence of the planet's exosphere â€Â" a tail of elements such as sodium that are kicked off the surface by charged particles from space.

Messenger has also found that Mercury's crust contains less aluminum and more silicon than the Earth, and 10 times as much sulphur than either the Earth or the moon.

"Mercury most likely formed from building blocks that were fundamentally chemically different from those that formed the Earth and moon originally," Nittler said.

He added that Mercury's high sulphur content could help illuminate the nature of volcanic activity on Mercury, since explosive volcanoes are closely linked to sulphur-containing gases on Earth.

Mercury ice hypothesis tested

One of Messenger's goals is to test a hypothesis proposed 20 years ago about why there appears to be water ice on a planet so close to the sun. Scientists first proposed 20 years ago that bright spots on Mercury's poles, seen by radar telescopes on Earth, might be water ice trapped in craters that kept them permanently in shadow, beyond the sun's reach.

Solomon reported that Messenger has now mapped the topography of much of Mercury's surface. The mapping shows that the parts of some craters in permanent shadow coincide with the location of the deposits that are thought to be water ice.

"The first scientific test of that hypothesis using Messenger data from orbit has passed with flying colours," Solomon said.

Move the slider to switch between a radar image of bright spots believed to be water ice on Mercury's surface and a new image taken by the Messenger spacecraft, showing that the bright spots coincide with craters in permanent shadow. National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory and NASA/The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

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Technology Science - IBM turns 100

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With around $100 billion in annual revenue today, IBM is ranked 18th in the Fortune 500. It's three times the size of Google and almost twice as big as Apple. Fabian Bimmer/Associated PressGoogle, Apple and Facebook get all the attention. But the forgettable everyday tasks of technology â€Â" saving a file on your laptop, swiping your ATM card to get $40, scanning a container of milk at the checkout line â€Â" that's all IBM.

International Business Machines turns 100 on Thursday without much fanfare. But its much younger competitors owe a lot to Big Blue.

After all, where would Groupon be without the supermarket bar code? Or Google without the mainframe computer?

"They were kind of like a cornerstone of that whole enterprise that has become the heart of the computer industry in the U.S.," says Bob Djurdjevic, a former IBM employee and president of Annex Research.

IBM dates to June 16, 1911, when three companies that made scales, punch-clocks for work and other machines merged to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Co. The modern-day name followed in 1924.

With a plant in Endicott, New York, the new business also made cheese slicers and â€Â" significantly for its future â€Â" machines that read data stored on punch cards. By the 1930s, IBM's cards were keeping track of 26 million Americans for the newly launched Social Security program.

These old, sprawling machines might seem quaint in the iPod era, but they had design elements similar to modern computers. They had places for data storage, math processing areas and output, says David A. Mindell, professor of the history of technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Punch cards carted from station to station represented what business today might call "data flow."

"It was very sophisticated," Mindell says.

The force behind IBM's early growth was Thomas J. Watson Sr., a demanding boss with exacting standards for everything from office wear (white shirts, ties) to creativity (his slogan: "Think").

Research investments boosted mainframe business

Watson, and later his son, Thomas Watson Jr., guided IBM into the computer age. Its machines were used to calculate everything from banking transactions to space shots. As the company swelled after World War II, IBM threw its considerable resources at research to maintain its dominance in the market for mainframes, the hulking computers that power whole offices.

IBM's Watson attracted buzz by beating two human Jeopardy! champions. The company wants to put it to real-world use as a medical diagnostic tool that can understand plain language and analyze mountains of information. IBM"When we did semiconductors, we had thousands and thousands of people," says Donald Seraphim, who worked at IBM from 1957 until 1986 and was named a fellow, the company's highest honour for technical achievement. "They just know how to put the force behind the entrepreneurial things."

By the late '60s, IBM was consistently the only high-tech company in the Fortune 500's top 10. IBM famously spent $5 billion during the decade to develop a family of computers designed so growing businesses could easily upgrade.

It introduced the magnetic hard drive in 1956 and the floppy disk in 1971. In the 1960s, IBM developed the first bar code, paving the way for automated supermarket checkouts. IBM introduced a high-speed processing system that allowed ATM transactions. It created magnetic strip technology for credit cards.

For much of the 20th century, IBM was the model of a dominant, paternalistic corporation. It was among the first to give workers paid holidays and life insurance.

Country clubs for employees

It ran country clubs for employees generations before Google offered subsidized massages and free meals.

"The model really was you joined IBM and you built your career for life there," says David Finegold, dean of the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. Transfers to other cities were still common enough that employees joked IBM really stood for "I've Been Moved."

The origins of the company's nickname, Big Blue, are something of a mystery. It may simply derive from IBM's global size and the colour of its logo.

IBM's gold-plated reputation was based in part on ubiquity and reliability, as well as a relentless sales force. But its fortunes began to change as bureaucracy stifled innovation.

Information-technology managers used to joke that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. But by the 1980s, Big Blue found itself adrift in a changing technology environment.

IBM had slipped with the rise of cheap microprocessors and rapid changes in the industry. In an infamous blunder, IBM introduced its influential personal computer in 1981, but it passed on buying the rights to the software that ran it -- made by a startup called Microsoft.

IBM helped make the PC a mainstream product, but it quickly found itself outmatched in a market it helped create. It relied on Intel for chips and Microsoft for software, leaving it vulnerable when the PC industry took off and rivals began using the same technology.

The PC's casing wasn't as important as the technology inside it, and IBM didn't own the intellectual property inside its own machines. In addition, the rise of smaller computers that performed some of the same functions as mainframes threw IBM's main moneymaking business into disarray.

Outsider CEO

With its legacy and very survival at stake, the company was forced to embark on a wrenching restructuring.

Louis Gerstner, shown in a 2002, was hired in 1993 to turn IBM around. The former executive with American Express and RJR Nabisco, focused the company on services, such as data storage and technical support. Stuart Ramson/Associated PressOne of its major achievements turned out to be re-engineering itself during the upheavals of the 1990s. Viewed as too bureaucratic to compete in fast-changing times, IBM tapped an outsider as CEO in 1993 to help with a turnaround.

Louis Gerstner, a former executive with American Express and RJR Nabisco, had little knowledge of technology or IBM culture. In his first meeting with top IBM executives, he was the only one in the room with a blue shirt.

But he broke up old fiefdoms, slashed prices and eliminated jobs. IBM, which had peaked at 406,000 employees in 1985, shed more than 150,000 in the 1990s as the company lost nearly $16 billion over five years.

Gerstner resisted pressure to break up the company and instead focused on services, such as data storage and technical support. Services could be sold as an add-on to companies that had already bought IBM computers. Even barely profitable pieces of hardware were used to open the door to more profitable deals.

The shift allowed IBM to ride out two recessions: When times are tough, businesses pay IBM to help them find ways to cut costs and handle technology chores that would be more expensive to perform in-house.

The change in strategy was risky for a company that helped create the PC industry, yet IBM rose to become the world's biggest technology services provider.

With around $100 billion in annual revenue today, IBM is ranked 18th in the Fortune 500. It's three times the size of Google and almost twice as big as Apple. Its market capitalization of around $200 billion beats Google and allowed IBM last month to briefly surpass its old nemesis, Microsoft.

Though transformed, IBM remains a pioneer, the envy of the technology industry. Hewlett-Packard Co.'s new CEO, Leo Apotheker, says one of his primary goals is to strengthen the company's software and services businesses to compete better with IBM.

Some things haven't changed. The company still spends heavily on research, about $6 billion a year. It still comes up with flashy feats of computing prowess, most recently when its Watson computer system handily defeated the world's best "Jeopardy!" players.

And, just as in 1911, it's still in the business of finding data solutions.

While IBM's Watson attracted buzz by beating two human "Jeopardy!" champions, the company wants to put it to real-world use as a medical diagnostic tool that can understand plain language and analyze mountains of information. That's in line with IBM's focus on other big data projects, such as analyzing traffic patterns citywide to predict and stave off traffic jams.

The company that built its success making sense of millions of punch card records sees future innovations in the analysis of the billions and billions of bits of data being transmitted in the 21st century.

"The scale of that enables you to do discovery, whether it's in the case of drugs, medicine, crime â€Â" you name it," says Bernard Meyerson, IBM's vice-president for innovation.

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - CIA website attack claimed by Lulz Security

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The computer mischief appeared to be targeting the CIA's public website, which does not include classified data and has no impact on the CIA's operation. (CBC)

A group of hackers who breached the U.S. Senate computer system earlier this week claimed responsibility for problems with the CIA's website Wednesday.

The group, known as Lulz Security, tweeted "Tango down â€Â" CIA.gov," and there were difficulties throughout the early evening accessing the agency's website.

The computer mischief appeared to be targeting the CIA's public website, which does not include classified data and has no impact on the CIA's operation. CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf said the agency is looking into the reports.

It is sometimes difficult to tell if a website has been hacked, or if the claim alone drove so many people to the site that it crashed. Efforts to access the website were met with an error message long after the breach began, around 6 p.m. ET.

Early Thursday the site had returned to normal operation and could be accessed from various parts of the country, according to a review by analysts at Keynote, a mobile and internet cloud monitoring company based in San Mateo, Calif.

Lulz has claimed credit for hacking into the systems of Sony and Nintendo and for defacing the PBS website after the public television broadcaster aired a documentary seen as critical of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

On Monday, the group accessed a Senate server that supports the chamber's public website but did not breach other files, according to a Capitol Hill law enforcement official. The hackers said the release was a "just for kicks" attempt to help the government "fix their issues."

Senate deputy sergeant-at-arms Martina Bradford said in a statement that while the intrusion was inconvenient, it did not compromise the security of the Senate's network, members or staff.

Lulz Security claimed that it had added a Senate file to its list of successful, high-profile intrusions at a time when governments and corporations are on high guard for cyber intrusions.

The group has suggested it is trying to highlight cyber security weaknesses.

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Vancouver riot's 'kissing couple' tell their story

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Scott Jones says he was just trying calm his girlfriend down after they both had been hit by Vancouver police when the now-famous photos of them lying in the street and kissing was taken in the midst of Wednesday night’s riot.

“They started beating us with the shields, like trying to get us to move,” Jones told CBC News in an exclusive television interview Friday.

“We weren’t being aggressive towards [police] or anything like that. But eventually they passed over us. And that’s when we were on the ground. She was a bit hysterical afterwards, obviously, and I was just trying to calm her down,” said Jones, 29, an Australian who’s been in Canada for six months.

Alex Thomas said she wasn’t sure how she fell, although a witness has told CBCNews.ca that the Canadian woman was hit first by rioters and then pushed over by riot police trying to clear the street after rampant vandalism and looting spread through the downtown streets following the Vancouver Canucks' Game -7 Stanley Cup loss to the Boston Bruins.

“Tripped up? I’m not sure. I was starting to get really frightened because I’d never experienced anything like that before, and it’s really scary,” Thomas told CBC News. “I was upset, and I fell down, and didn’t really know exactly what was happening."

Jones said they had been trying to get out of the downtown area but found themselves on a street filled with police in riot gear.

Photos gone viral

“They were literally charging at us and we tried to run away,” he said.

Neither Thomas nor Jones blames the police for what happened, but understand they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The 'Kissing Couple,' Alex Thomas and Scott Jones, told their story to CBC News Friday. CBC “[The police] were doing their job,” Thomas said.

Jones has been working as a bartender and trying to break into acting and standup comedy. At least one of his comedy routines has been posted on YouTube.

Following the Canucks' loss to the Boston Bruins, images of the kissing couple surrounded by riot police were splashed around the world.

On Twitter, Facebook and other social media, there was early speculation that the picture was staged. CBC.ca immediately launched a search to uncover the identity of the two.

Beaten riot hero Do you know him?

Hannah Jones, Scott's sister from Perth, told CBC News earlier Friday in an email that the man in the pictures is her brother, and he recently started dating Thomas, a former student at the University of Guelph in Ontario.

The two are overwhelmed by all the coverage the picture has gotten, she said, fielding calls from media around the world.

The Getty Images photo that went around the world, featuring Scott Jones trying to comfort his girlfriend Alex Thomas. Rich Lam/Getty images With files from the CBC's Ian Hanomansing

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Technology Science - Powerful earthquake jolts Anchorage, Alaska

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Alaska's largest city was rocked by a powerful earthquake on Thursday, but there are no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The earthquake struck with a magnitude of 5.2 shortly after 11 a.m., according to seismologists at the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center. It was centered about 80 kilometres southwest of Anchorage, said tsunami program manager Cindi Pressler.

The quake occurred about 48 kilometres below ground and rumbled for several seconds. It will not generate a tsunami, the warning centre said.

Anchorage police spokeswoman Anita Shell said there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The Alaska Earthquake Information Center said the event was widely felt in the Kenai Peninsula and Cook Inlet regions, with the strongest shaking occurring in the Peninsula communities of Sterling and Soldotna.

Andrew Smith, who works in payroll at Soldotna City Hall on the Kenai Peninsula, said the shaking came in two rounds.

"At first, it felt like somebody was walking across the floor … like walking real heavy. Then it stopped. Then was a five- or six-second delay, then it really shook."

He said the shaking continued 10 to 15 seconds.

"I'm really quite scared of earthquakes," he said. "You just never know when they are going to stop or how long it's going to last."

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Volcanic ash blankets Argentine towns

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A province in Argentina declared an economic emergency on Thursday to aid towns where falling ash from Chile's erupting volcano is endangering livestock and keeping tourists away.

The emergency in Neuquen province follows a similar measure by the national government in other parts of Patagonia where agriculture has been hit by accumulating volcanic ash.

The decree by Gov. Jorge Sapag will mean that those affected can receive tax benefits, among other measures.

Chile's Cordon Caulle volcano began erupting June 4, spewing ash that has disrupted flights in countries ranging from Uruguay to Australia.

The ash has also blanketed towns across the border in Argentina. In the area of Villa La Angostura, located 38 kilometres from the volcano, up to 30 centimetres of ash has accumulated on the ground.

The ash has made it difficult to drive safely on roads, and the eruption came just as resorts in the mountain towns were preparing for ski season.

An ash plume rises above the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain near Entrelagos, Chile, on June 5. (Carlos Gutierrez/Reuters)

"Today we can't anticipate the season's final results, but we can say that this has ruined the start of the winter season in the coming days," said Roberto Alonso, mayor of Villa La Angostura.

Residents in the town have been working to clean up the ash, said Alejandro Curiluck, a business owner in Villa La Angostura. "In 15 days we should be operating. The big problem is that the volcano keeps sending up ashes," he said.

Satellite images on Thursday showed the main ash cloud from the erupting volcano stretching about 1,400 kilometres toward the east-southeast, Chile's National Geology and Mines Service said in a statement.

"The eruption process continues and it's possible that an increase in activity could occur again, with episodes similar or greater in intensity than those that have occurred so far," the agency said.

The ashes are causing problems for Argentine farmers whose sheep herds are now roaming in pastures covered with ash.

According to official figures, there are more than two million sheep in Patagonia, of which more than half are affected by the ash.

In response, Argentina's Agriculture Ministry declared an emergency on Wednesday in the provinces of Chubut, Rio Negro y Neuquen.

Regional airports in Patagonia have also been shut down for more than a week due to the cloud of fine grit, which can damage airplane engines.

Buenos Aires's main airports reopened on Wednesday and international flights were operating again.

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Black hole that ate star caused blast

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X-rays emitted by the explosion glow orange in this image from the Swift Observatory. Stefan Immler/Swift/NASA

An extraordinary flash spied in a faraway galaxy did come from a massive black hole that devoured a star after it wandered too close, scientists say.

The awesome energy released by the feeding frenzy was first detected by NASA's Swift satellite on March 28 and was later confirmed by a fleet of space and ground telescopes.

Some scientists initially thought the bright flash was a gamma-ray burst from a star collapsing, but flaring from such an event typically lasts only a few hours.

Instead of fading, the cosmic outburst continued to burn bright and emit high-energy radiation that could be observed even today.

Two separate teams pored through data and concluded that an unsuspecting star the size of our sun likely got sucked in by the powerful tug of a giant black hole â€Â" a huge quantity of matter packed into a very small area that produces a gravitational field so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

Until the encounter, the black hole had been relatively inactive.

Upcoming interview

Joshua Bloom talks to Quirks & Quarks Saturday, June 18, at noon on CBC Radio One.

The researchers first proposed the scenario in a NASA news release at the beginning of April. After further analysis, the findings were published online Thursday in the journal Science.

As the black hole gobbled up the star, it streamed a beam of energy straight at Earth that was recorded by telescopes. The stellar feast occurred in the heart of a galaxy 3.8 billion light years from Earth. A light year is about 6 trillion miles.

"This was clearly different than anything we've ever seen before," said one of the team leaders, Joshua Bloom, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley who classified the event as extremely rare.

Scientists think the latest observation could help them better understand how galaxies form.

Could what happened in the distant galaxy occur in our Milky Way? In theory yes, say scientists, but the chances are low.

"It's not something worth losing sleep over," said researcher Andrew Levan of University of Warwick in England, who led the other team.

© The Associated Press, 2011

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Technology Science - Facebook, PayPal users urged to check logins after hacking

Latest Technology and Science News

The hacker group Lulz Security is claiming it released log-in information for 62,000 private internet accounts Thursday, including Facebook, PayPal, dating sites, Xbox Live and Twitter.

The list is mostly American accounts but includes hundreds of Canadians, including a CBC journalist from Prince Edward Island, and employees of all three levels of government, including provincial public servants in Alberta, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island and at least one municipal worker in Whitehorse.

Who's on the list

CBC reporter Laura Chapin pored through the list and found more than 100 email addresses ending in .ca in the top sixth of the list, including:

• Federal government workers from Service Canada, Passport Canada, and Public Safety Canada.

• Provincial government workers in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Alberta, including at least one from the P.E.I. Department of Justice and Public Safety.

• Municipal government workers from several cities, including Whitehorse.

• Dozens of personal addresses.

Canadians may also be included among the email addresses that don't end in .ca.

The list shows that the most common password is 123456, which shows up almost 600 times. Another very common password is "romance."

Other countries whose citizens were hacked include the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil.

On its Twitter account, LulzSec said it uploaded the file to a file-sharing site Thursday morning. The site took it down, but it was uploaded again Thursday evening and taken down once more. LulzSec reported thousands of downloads before it was removed.

The group's Twitter feed contains bragging from people who claim to have taken the information and logged on to people's personal sites: taking money from PayPal accounts, replacing dating site profile pictures with pornographic images, and engaging in chats using other people's Facebook accounts.

"Envelope yourself in the sickening realization that you secretly love f--king someone's Facebook life beyond repair," says one tweet from LulzSec.

People concerned that they may be on the list can protect themselves by changing their passwords, provided no one else has already done that using their log-in information. Dazzlepod.com has published a list of emails hacked by LulzSec so people can check if their accounts are at risk.

Lulz Security, also known as LulzSec, was also in the news this week after claiming it had attacked the websites of the CIA and the U.S. Senate. It had previously taken credit for hacking into the systems of Sony and Nintendo and for posting a fake story about dead rapper Tupac Shakur on the PBS website after the public television broadcaster aired a documentary seen as critical of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Responding to the news Friday, PayPal Canada stressed through a spokesman that its site security has in no way been breached. "The hacker acquired usernames and passwords via another, less secure site, and is encouraging criminals to try the username/password combinations on PayPal.com.

"These usernames and passwords are not necessarily associated with PayPal, but if people have used the same usernames/passwords for multiple sites, including PayPal, then their accounts could be accessed by another person."

The spokesman added that PayPal monitors accounts for unusual activity patterns and will contact customers if wrongdoing is suspected.

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