NY Passes Nation's Toughest Gun Law

Today New York became the first state to pass a gun control law -- the toughest in the nation -- since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre last month.

Acting one month and a day since the rampage killing that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law shortly after 5 p.m.

Called the New York Safe Act, the law includes a tougher assault weapons ban that broadens the definition of what constitutes an assault weapon, and limits the capacity of magazines to seven bullets, down from 10. The law also requires background checks of ammunition and gun buyers, even in private sales, imposes tougher penalties for illegal gun use, a one-state check on all firearms purchases, and programs to cut gun violence in high-crime neighborhoods.

As he signed the bill into law, Cuomo said it was not only "the first bill" but the "best bill."

"I'm proud to be a New Yorker, because New York is doing something, because we are fighting back, because, yes, we've had tragedies, and yes, we've had too many innocent people lose their lives, and yes, it's unfortunate that it took those tragedies to get us to this point, but let's at least learn from what's happened, let's at least be able to say to people, yes, we went through terrible situations, but we saw, we learned, we responded, and we acted, and we are doing something about it," Cuomo said. "We are not victims.

'The View' on NRA Shooting App: Think It Out Watch Video

"You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with commonsense," Cuomo continued, "and you can make this state a safer state."

New York's law also aims to keep guns out of the hands of those will mental illness. The law gives judges the power to require those who pose a threat to themselves or others get outpatient care. The law also requires that when a mental health professional determines a gun owner is likely to do harm, the risk must be reported and the gun removed by law enforcement.

The legislation also includes what is called a "Webster provision," named for the two firefighters ambushed on Christmas Eve in Webster, N.Y. The measure would mandate a life sentence with no chance of parole for anyone who kills a first responder.

The National Rifle Association issued a statement after the bill's signing, saying it was "outraged at the draconian gun control bill that was rushed through ... late Monday evening."

"Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature orchestrated a secretive end-run around the legislative and democratic process and passed sweeping anti-gun measures with no committee hearings and no public input," the statement read. "These gun control schemes have failed in the past and will have no impact on public safety and crime. Sadly, the New York Legislature gave no consideration to that reality. While lawmakers could have taken a step toward strengthening mental health reporting and focusing on criminals, they opted for trampling the rights of law-abiding gun owners in New York, and they did it under a veil of secrecy in the dark of night. The legislature caved to the political demands of a governor and helped fuel his personal political aspirations."

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Today on New Scientist: 14 January 2013

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Give video games a sporting chance

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Benefits of emissions cuts kick in only next century

Even rapid action now to curb emissions will bring only modest results this century, but the earlier we act, the greater the eventual rewards

Video games take off as a spectator sport

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Islamists guerrillas flee French air strikes in Mali

BAMAKO: French air strikes forced Islamist guerrillas to flee towns in northern Mali and Paris secured new international support for military action as the militants struck back, seizing a small western town.

The Islamists said they had made a "tactical retreat" from Timbuktu and other key towns where they have imposed a brutal version of Islamic law for nearly 10 months.

But they struck back in western Mali where they took the small town of Diabaly from the country's weakened army, highlighting the daunting campaign ahead to restore order in the West African nation.

French jets on Monday hit Douentza, 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Bamako, which the Islamists have held since September. But residents said the fighters had left before the warplanes arrived.

In Timbuktu, where inhabitants have been executed or had limbs cut off in some of the worst abuses, the Islamists reportedly fled in anticipation of an attack.

"The mujahideen have left. They are really scared," said one resident in the historic city, where the militants have destroyed centuries-old Muslim monuments.

In Gao, another northern city held by the Islamists, the jihadists were nowhere to be seen after bombing by Rafale warplanes on Sunday, residents there said.

At least 60 insurgents were killed in Sunday's assault, according to residents and a security source.

Mali's Foreign Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly said in Paris that he believed more than 100 Islamists had been killed in the four days since France launched operations to stem a guerrilla advance towards Bamako.

A spokesman for the Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) group, Senda Ould Boumama, said the withdrawal was a "tactical retreat" to reduce civilian casualties, in comments published on Mauritanian news website Alakhbar.

On top of the use of Rafale fighters and helicopter attacks, about 650 French troops are in Mali to halt the Islamist advance, according to the French defence ministry.

While jolted by France's arrival, the insurgents remained on the offensive in areas where French troops were not yet operating. The militants seized Diabaly, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Bamako.

"We knew there would be a counter-offensive towards the west," French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM Television.

"They have taken Diabaly, which is a small town, after heavy fighting and resistance from the Malian army, which was insufficiently equipped at that exact point."

Le Drian acknowledged that French forces were facing a "difficult" situation in the west, where he said the rebels are well armed.

France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius hailed the "quasi-unanimous" international backing for the offensive, strongly supported by Mali.

"We cannot simply push them back, we have to chase them away," Coulibaly told French television after meeting Fabius, "We simply now cannot allow a timeout for these forces to reorganise."

A meeting of the 15-nation UN Security Council on Mali also expressed unanimous "understanding and support" for the military intervention, France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters.

France and other council countries want to speed up the deployment of a UN-mandated 3,300-strong West African intervention force in Mali.

Nigeria, which will lead the force, plans to have 600 troops on the ground "before next week," President Goodluck Jonathan said. Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Togo have also pledged troops.

Britain and Canada have offered military transporters to the French military and the United States said it will share intelligence and provide logistical support.

"I commend France for taking the steps that it has," US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.

Algeria said it had closed its 2,000 km (1,250 mile) desert border with northern Mali to stop Islamists crossing into the country.

The Islamists seized upon the chaos of a military coup in Bamako in March to seize northern Mali, sparking widespread international fears that they could set up a terrorist safe haven.

The UN Security Council had given approval for a military offensive that UN officials had said could not be launched until September.

But the Islamist offensive and France's military intervention has led to predictions by diplomats that the plans will be reviewed.

-AFP/fl

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Can't stop eating? Pump will suck your stomach contents

Meet the "apparatus for treating obesity by extracting food." That's what Dean Kamen's stomach pump is called in a recently granted U.S. patent, and it looks a lot less fun than Kamen's most famous invention, the Segway.

The good part is you can eat anything you like. The bad part is you have to get a tube put into your stomach and then suck the food out with a gadget called the AspireAssist.

Kamen and a team of physicians developed the pump as an obesity treatment that's reversible and, as they describe it, "minimally invasive."

During a 20-minute procedure, users are fitted with a removable stomach valve and a tube that leads from the top of the stomach to the valve's outside port.

About 20 minutes after eating a meal, users go to the bathroom and attach the AspireAssist to the port. About a third of the meal is drained out through the gadget and into the toilet. Check out an animation here.

So far, the device is available in parts of Europe, but hasn't been approved for sale in the U.S. It's undergoing clinical trials.

"In our U.S. clinical trial, patients lost, on average, over 20 kg (45 pounds) in the first year (or 49 percent excess weight loss)," Aspire Bariatrics says on its Web site. "The most successful patients -- those who aspirate regularly and begin to make healthier choices -- lost 100 percent of their excess weight and have maintained that weight loss. Because the procedure and device are relatively simple, the AspireAssist may be affordable for patients who cannot afford bariatric surgery."

(Via PopSci)

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.

While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.

Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long) creature is a relatively large new type of flying frog, a group known for its ability to "parachute" from tree to tree thanks to special aerodynamic adaptations, such as webbed feet, Rowley said. (Also see "'Vampire Flying Frog' Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs.")

Rowley dubbed the new species Helen's flying frog, in honor of her mother, Helen Rowley, "who has steadfastly supported her only child trekking through the forests of Southeast Asia in search of frogs," according to a statement.

The newfound species—there are 80 types of flying frogs—is also "one of the most flying frogs of the flying frogs," Rowley said, "in that it's got huge hands and feet that are webbed all the way to the toepad."

"Females even have flappy skin on their forearms to glide," added Rowley, who has received funding from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) "The females are larger and heavier than males, so the little extra flaps probably don't make much of a difference," she said.

As Rowley wrote on her blog, "At first it may seem strange that such a fantastic and obvious frog could escape discovery until now—less than 100 kilometers [60 miles] from an urban centre with over nine million people."

Yet these tree dwellers can easily escape notice—they spend most of their time in the canopy, she said.

Flying Frog On the Edge

Even so, Helen's flying frog won't be able to hide from development near Ho Chi Minh City, which may encroach on its existing habitats.

So far, only five individuals have been found in two patches of lowland forest hemmed in by rice paddies in southern Vietnam, Rowley said. The animals can probably tolerate a little bit of disturbance as long as they have large trees and temporary pools, she added.

But lowland forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, mostly because they're so accessible to people, and thus chosen for logging and development. (Get the facts on deforestation.)

"While Helen's flying frog has only just been discovered by biologists," Rowley wrote, "unfortunately this species, like many others, is under great threat from ongoing habitat loss and degradation."

The new flying frog study was published in December 2012 in the Journal of Herpetology.

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Arias Denied Guilt Despite Sex Photos, DNA

A defiant Jodi Arias insisted she was innocent of killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander even after a detective told her that he had nude photos of them together on the day he died.

"Are you sure it's me? Because I was not there," Arias is heard saying in the police interrogation tape played for the Arizona jury today.

When Detective Esteban Flores tells Arias she is seen in pigtails in the photos, she asks with a tone of incredulity, "Pigtails?"

As Flores laid out more incriminating evidence, including that investigators found DNA of their blood mixed together, her hair stuck with blood and her palm print in blood, Arias was insistent.

"I would not hurt Travis. I would not hurt Travis. I would not do that to him," she told Flores.

At another point Arias said, "If I hurt Travis I would beg for the death penalty."

"Jodi, this is over. … you have to tell me the truth," Flores says. The detective suggests a motive for the killing to be jealousy, and cites the opinion of Alexander's friends.

"They don't just say you were jealous. You were absolutely obsessed… a fatal attraction," Flores in heard on the tape.

Arias, now 32, has since admitted to killing Alexanderfollowing their tryst in 2008, but has claimed it was self-defense. She is accused of stabbing Alexander 27 times in the chest, back, and head, slashing his throat from ear to ear, and shooting him the head with a .25 caliber handgun.

Arias is charged with murdering her ex-boyfriend in a "heinous and depraved" way and could face the death penalty if convicted.

The interrogation tape was played after the jury was shown sexually graphic photos that police recovered from Alexander's digital camera. Among the pictures were shots of Arias and Alexander posing naked on Alexander's bed, as well as pictures of Alexander in the shower.

Those photos were the last pictures of Alexander while he was alive.

Jodi Arias Trial: Jurors See Photos of Bloody Handprint Watch Video

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Who Is the Alleged Killer? Watch Video

The final photos in the series show a body partly covered in blood on the bathroom floor.

See Full Coverage of Jodi Arias Trial

Watch the Jodi Arias Trial Live

See Jodi Arias Trial Videos

Arias looked away from the screen in the courtroom where the sexual photos were shown, as her mother watched from the gallery. Alexander's sisters, also seated in the gallery, looked away from the photos of their brother.

Computer analysts for the city of Mesa, Ariz., where Alexander lived, went over the photos in detail during the sixth day of testimony in the trial. The photos were time stamped June 4, 2008, beginning around 1:45 p.m.

Prosecutors have said that Arias drove from her California home to Alexander's house, arriving early in the morning on June 4. The pair had sex in the afternoon, took photos of one another, and then Arias killed Alexander, age 30, around 5:30 p.m., they said.

The photos on the bed occurred around 1:45 p.m., according to the data on the camera. The shower photos and the pictures of a bloody body part occurred around 5:30 p.m.

In earlier testimony today, the jury watched video taped interrogations of Arias as she repeatedly denied to police stealing and using the handgun that killed Alexander.

Arias told police that she had never seen a .25 caliber handgun and had no idea her grandparents owned one until they reported it stolen a week before Alexander's killing, according to the police interrogation tapes played in court today.

Police from Yreka, Calif., where Arias lived with her grandparents, described the scene of the home when Arias's grandparents reported a break-in. The door was pushed in, breaking the door jamb, and many drawers were opened in Arias' bedroom and her grandparents' room.

The only things reported taken were the handgun, a DVD player, and $30, while other valuable items, including a large pile of quarters and three other guns, were left untouched. Arias told police that her laptop computer was not taken because she had hidden it in a laundry basket covered with clothes.

Officer Kevin Friedman of the Yreka police department told the court today that burglary struck him as odd.

"I believed it was unusual that small items worth money or money, for instance, that the change was not taken," said Officer Kevin Friedman, of the Yreka police department, who investigated the alleged robbery. "I also thought it was strange that only one of the firearms was stolen from the cabinet."

In the police videos, Arias is seen calmly denying stealing the gun from her grandparents' home and using it when she killed Alexander in June 2008, a week after the burglary.

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Benefits of emissions cuts kick in only next century

Are we the altruistic generation? Do we care what happens to our grandchildren, and to their children? Or are we with Groucho Marx when he said: "Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?"

A new study of climate change lays out in detail why this matters. According to its author, Nigel Arnell of the University of Reading, UK, the unpalatable truth is that even rapid action now to curb greenhouse gas emissions would have only a "negligible effect by 2030, and the benefits in 2050 would remain small". The big dividend – cooler temperatures, fewer floods and droughts and better crop yields, compared to carrying on as we are – would only become clear by about 2100.

Arnell and colleagues used climate models to look at how different policies to curb greenhouse gases would affect temperature, sea levels, crop yields and the incidence of droughts and floods. Two findings emerged. The first is that lags in the climate system mean the real benefits of cutting emissions will only show up late this century. This, says Arnell, underlines that there is a lot of global warming "in the pipeline" that cannot now be prevented.

But the study also shows that tackling climate change early brings big rewards. Arnell compared a policy of letting emissions peak in 2016 and then cutting them by 2 per cent a year with one that delays the peak till 2030 and then cuts by 5 per cent a year. He found that both restricted warming in 2100 to about 2 °C, but the climate disruption over the next century would be much less with the early start. Coastal flooding from sea-level rise in particular would be much reduced. This, he told New Scientist, contradicts a common view that drastic action to curb warming should wait for renewable energy to become cheaper.

"Arnell has shown just how crucial the emissions pathway we take today will be for our children and grandchildren," said Dave Reay, geoscientist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Bill McGuire of University College London agrees: "It shows taking effective action now is far better than putting it off until later."

It's a shame, then, that even if all goes well with UN negotiations, no global deal to bring down emissions will come into force until at least 2020. Our great-great-grandchildren will be cursing our delay.

Journal reference: Nature Climate Change, DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1793

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Benjamin Pwee joins DPP leadership as acting secretary-general

SINGAPORE: Opposition politician Benjamin Pwee has joined the leadership of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)as acting secretary-general.

He was co-opted into the Central Executive Committee (CEC) at a closed-door meeting on Sunday, while six other independents were officially accepted as party members and cadres.

The DPP's secretary-general, Mr Seow Khee Leng, went on leave from the party from Sunday and handed over the leadership reins to Mr Pwee.

The DPP said in a statement that Mr Pwee and his new team will prepare for the party's congress in March, where Mr Pwee will officially take over as secretary-general.

The new team also intends to reach out to other opposition parties through a joint Lunar New Year walkabout, as well as collaboration in various areas.

Mr Pwee is also discussing the possibility of an alliance leadership role to rally the opposition parties to jointly strategise and plan for the next General Election, due in 2016.

The new DPP leadership team will launch several activities, including a day-trip to Pulai and Batu Pahat for residents, monthly "happy hour" at a pub at Clarke Quay and monthly Meet-the-People sessions in selected constituencies.

Also in the CEC are Mr John Chiam (chairman), Mr Mohamad Hamim Aliyas (vice-chairman), Mr Wilfred Leung (assistant secretary-general), Mr Winston Lim (treasurer), Ms Juliana Juwahir (assistant treasurer) Mr Ting Tze Jiang (organising secretary) and Mr Sa'aban Ali (assistant organising secretary).

All, except Mr Lim, are ex-members of the Singapore People's Party.

- CNA/ck

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Oracle releases software update to fix Java vulnerability

Oracle released an emergency software update today to fix a security vulnerability in its Java software that could allow attackers to break into computers.

The update, which is available on Oracle's Web site, fixes a critical vulnerability in Oracle's Java 7 that could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code. The attack can be induced if someone visits a Web site that's been set up with malicious code to take advantage of the hole.

Oracle said the update modifies the way Java interacts with Web applications.

"The default security level for Java applets and web start applications has been increased from 'medium' to 'high," Oracle said in an advisory today. "This affects the conditions under which unsigned (sandboxed) Java web applications can run. Previously, as long as you had the latest secure Java release installed applets and web start applications would continue to run as always. With the 'high' setting the user is always warned before any unsigned application is run to prevent silent exploitation."

The vulnerability was being exploited by a zero-day Trojan horse called Mal/JavaJar-B, which was already identified as attacking Windows, Linux and Unix systems and being distributed in exploit kits "Blackhole" and "NuclearPack," making it far more convenient to attackers.

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

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