Many U.S. counties have incorporated electronic voting technology, largely in response to well-publicized challenges related to older mechanical and punch-card models. Although these updated systems have solved some usability problems, they present a new set of issues for voters unfamiliar with the technology. A new study published in Human Factors examines how smartphone-based voting systems can be incorporated into the current large-scale election process.
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Imagine a user who intends to send $2 to a friend through PayPal. Embedded malware in the user's laptop, however, converts the $2 transaction into a $2,000 transfer to the account of the malware author instead.
Researchers at Georgia Tech have created a prototype software, Gyrus, that takes extra steps to prevent malware from sending spam emails and instant messages, and blocking unauthorized commands such as money transfers.
COLLEGE PARK, MD--Wireless sensor-based irrigation systems can offer significant benefits to greenhouse operators. Advances in sensor technology and increased understanding of plant physiology have made it possible for greenhouse growers to use water content sensors to accurately determine irrigation timing and application rates in soilless substrates. The wireless sensor systems provide more accurate measurements of substrate moisture than qualitative methods, and can save irrigation water, labor, energy, and fertilizer.
Water has been detected in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system with a new technique that could help researchers to learn how many planets with water, like Earth, exist throughout the universe. The team of scientists that made the discovery includes astronomers at Penn State University and other institutions. The astronomers detected the water in the atmosphere of a planet as massive as Jupiter that is orbiting the nearby star tau Boötis.
Since he was a graduate student, Armando Solar-Lezama, an associate professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has been working on a programming language called Sketch, which allows programmers to simply omit some of the computational details of their code. Sketch then automatically fills in the gaps.
The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 7:49 p.m. EST on Feb. 24, 2014. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which keeps a constant watch on the sun, captured images of the event.
Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation, appearing as giant flashes of light in the SDO images. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
A real-time hurricane analysis and prediction system that effectively incorporates airborne Doppler radar information may accurately track the path, intensity and wind force in a hurricane, according to Penn State meteorologists. This system can also identify the sources of forecast uncertainty.
"For this particular study aircraft-based Doppler radar information was ingested into the system," said Fuqing Zhang, professor of meteorology, Penn State. "Our predictions were comparable to or better than those made by operational global models."
DETROIT – The mental health conditions of most people who commit suicide remain undiagnosed, even though many visit a primary care provider or medical specialist in the year before they die, according to a national study led by Henry Ford Health System with the Mental Health Research Network.
Among those in the study, 83 percent received health care treatment in the year prior to dying, and they used medical and primary care services more frequently than any other health service. However, a mental health diagnosis was made in less than half (45 percent) of these cases.
Reports coming from Australia are more positive than negative now with regards to the Morwell fire, but officials say they still have a "long way to go." Considerable progress has been made in extinguishing the fire, but there is still significant heat that continues to generate smoke from the open mine. Fire activity has been cut in half since February 11, but there are still "weeks of firefighting ahead" according to Craig Lapsley, Fire Services Commissioner on the County Fire Authority website.
Along with eggs, soup and rubber toys, the list of the chicken's most lasting legacies may eventually include advanced materials such as self-organizing colloids, or optics that can transmit light with the efficiency of a crystal and the flexibility of a liquid.
Catalan researchers have studied the acquisition and development of language in babies on the basis of the temporary coordination of gestures and speech. The results are the first in showing how and when they acquire the pattern of coordination between the two elements which allows them to communicate very early on.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2014 — Forget ketchup and mustard — Sriracha might be the world's new favorite condiment. Beloved by millions for its unique spicy, garlicky, slightly sweet flavor, the chemistry of "rooster sauce" is the subject of the American Chemical Society's latest Reactions video. The video is available at http://youtu.be/U2DJN0gnuI8.
MADISON, Wis. – With the help of a tiny fragment of zircon extracted from a remote rock outcrop in Australia, the picture of how our planet became habitable to life about 4.4 billion years ago is coming into sharper focus.
The Andromeda Galaxy is surrounded by a swarm of small satellite galaxies. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, have detected a stream of stars in one of the Andromeda Galaxy's outer satellite galaxies, a dwarf galaxy called Andromeda II. The movement of the stars tells us that what we are observing is the remnant of a merger between two dwarf galaxies. Mergers between galaxies of such low mass has not been observed before. The results are published in the scientific journal, Nature.
IRIS studies the layer of the sun's atmosphere called the chromosphere that is key to regulating the flow of energy and material as they travel from the sun's surface out into space. Along the way, the energy heats up the upper atmosphere, the corona, and sometimes powers solar events such as this flare.