Gunman's Computer Damaged, Drive Possibly Ruined

A computer at the Connecticut home where Newtown, Conn., school shooter Adam Lanza lived with his mother was badly damaged, perhaps smashed with a hammer, said police who hope the machine might still yield clues to the gunman's motive.

The computer's hard drive appeared to have been badly damaged with a hammer or screw driver, law enforcement authorities told ABC News, complicating efforts to exploit it for evidence.

Officials have "seized significant evidence at [Lanza's] residence," said Connecticut State Police spokesman Paul Vance, adding that the process of sifting through that much forensic evidence would be a lengthy and "painstaking process."

Authorities also told ABC News that the weapons used in Friday's rampage at Sandyhook Elementary School, which left dead 20 children and seven adults including Lanza's mother Nancy, were purchased by his mother between 2010 and 2012.

According to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Lanza visited shooting ranges several times in recent years, and went at least one time with his mother.

The first funeral for a child killed in the massacre was held today in Fairfield, Conn., where mourners gathered to remember the too-short life of first-grader Noah Pozner.

Authorities also revealed this morning that two adult women shot during the rampage survived and their accounts will likely be integral to the investigation.

"Investigators will, in fact, speak with them when it's medically appropriate and they will shed a great deal of light on the facts and circumstances of this tragic investigation," Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said at a news conference today.

Both survivors are women and are now home from the hospital after being shot, police said. Officials had previously mentioned just one adult survivor. The women have not been identified and police did not give details on their injuries.

READ MORE: School nurse hid from gunman.

Both adults, Vance said, were wounded in the "lower extremities," but did not indicate where in the building they were when they were injured.

Moving trucks were seen outside Sandy Hook Elementary School this morning, as school officials prepare to move furniture and supplies to a vacant school in neighboring Monroe.

Sandy Hook itself will remain a secure crime scene "indefinitely," said Vance.

Calls for Gun Control Surge Following Newtown Shootings Watch Video

Newtown School Shooting: Social Media Reaction Watch Video

Newtown School Shooting: Talking to Kids About Tragedy Watch Video

CLICK HERE for complete coverage of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.

Police say Adam Lanza, 20, forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, spraying bullets on students and faculty. Lanza killed 20 children and six adults before turning the gun on himself.

Lanza also killed his mother Nancy Lanza at the home they shared before going to school.

"There are many, many witnesses that need to be interviewed," Vance said. "We will not stop until we have interviewed every last one of them."

Vance said the investigation could take weeks or months to complete. "It's not something done in 60 minutes like you see on T.V."

Some of the other key witnesses will be children who survived the shooting spree by playing dead, hiding in closets and bathrooms and being rescued by dedicated teachers.

"Any interviews with any children will be done with professionals...as appropriate," Vance said. "We'll handle that extremely delicately when the time arises."

CLICK HERE for a tribute to the shooting victims.

The first funerals for victims of the shooting are today, beginning with 6-year-olds Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto.

Officials said today that the Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the shooting took place, will be closed "indefinitely."

Both the school and the home where shootings took place are being held by police as crime scenes and Vance predicted authorities would spend "months" investigating the elementary school.

All Newtown schools are closed today to give residents more time to cope. Every school except for Sandy Hook is expected to re-open Tuesday.

The town of Monroe has offered to open to Sandy Hook students the Chalk Hill School, a former middle school that currently houses the town's EMS and recreational departments.

Officials in Monroe, less than 10 miles from Newtown, say the building could be ready for students by the end of the week, but have not yet set a date to resume classes.

Nearly 100 volunteers are working to ensure the building complies with fire and security regulations and are working to retorfit the school with bathroom facilities for young children.

"We're working to make the school safe and secure for students," said Monroe Police Department spokesman Lt. Brian H. McCauley.

The neighboring community's school is expected to be ready to accommodate students in the next few days, though an exact schedule has not yet been published.

While the families grieve, federal and state authorities are working around the clock to answer the question on so many minds: "Why?"

ABC News has learned that investigators have seized computers belonging to Adam Lanza from the home he shared with his mother. Three weapons were found at the school scene and a fourth was recovered from Lanza's car. Lanza had hundreds of rounds and used multiple high-capacity magazines when he went on the rampage, according to Connecticut State Police.

Vance said that every single electronic device, weapon and round will be thoroughly examined and investigated as well as every aspect of Lanza's life going "back to the date of birth."

ABC News has learned that both the shooter and his mother spent time at an area gun range; however it was not yet known whether they had shot there.

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.

Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.

Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.

One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).

"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Fewer students choosing to retake PSLE

SINGAPORE: Amid the national debate on the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) - including whether it has become a be-all and end-all for 12- year-olds - less pupils are choosing to retake the PSLE compared to previous years, as other education paths become available and awareness of such options grows.

Since 2007, NorthLight School and Assumption Pathway School - which opened their doors in 2007 and 2009 respectively - have been set up to provide vocational programmes for students who fail their PSLE and teach subjects such as Mathematics through more hands-on and practical methods.

In the five years before 2007, an average of two to three per cent of the cohort - or between 1,028 and 1,542 students - retook the PSLE each year. After 2007, this proportion fell to an average of one to two per cent of the cohort, or between 477 and 954 students each year.

Responding to media queries, the Ministry of Education (MOE) attributed this trend to the availability of new progression paths and learning support programmes in schools to help weaker students.

Changes in the education system such as subject-based banding have also contributed to fewer students retaking their PSLE, said the MOE.

This allows students to take subjects at either Foundation or Standard level, depending on what best suits their abilities, before they sit for the PSLE.

Together, NorthLight and Assumption Pathway take in about 350 pupils each year. Assumption Pathway Principal Wee Tat Chuen observed that the number of students coming to the school after their second or third try at the PSLE has fallen over the years.

Currently, most of its intake consists of students who failed the PSLE for the first time.

"I am starting to see more openness where parents are opting for a learning experience that best suits the child," said Mr Wee, adding that the public is also starting to see that vocational skills can be useful and progression is still possible even if a student does not perform well at the PSLE.

Former NorthLight student Thang Yuan Ting, 19, believes that not everything hinges on the PSLE. A graduate of the Institute of Technical Education, she is now happily employed in the retail sector.

Entering NorthLight after two unsuccessful attempts at the PSLE, Ms Thang said that she retook the PSLE to give herself another shot at Mathematics - her weakest subject.

But at NorthLight, she found herself enjoying learning more as teachers used kinesthetic methods and she could also try her hand at activities like drawing.

"I do not think that the PSLE is the end … there are still many options available and we can choose what we like," she said.

- TODAY

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Kamikaze conclusion for successful moon mission

Streaking through vacuum at a mile per second just above the cratered surface of the moon, two washing machine-size science probes that have completed their mission to map the lunar gravity field will slam into a mile-high mountainside Monday, bringing a successful $500 million mission to a kamikaze conclusion.

The twin probes, named Ebb and Flow in a student naming contest, have been flying in formation at extremely low altitude since January 1, 2012, mapping subtle changes in the moon's gravitational pull to gain insights into its internal structure.

With all of the mission's scientific objectives accomplished, the trajectories of both 440-pound satellites were fine tuned Friday to set up twin impacts on a rugged cliff near the moon's north pole that is part of the rim of a buried crater.

NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft will crash into a mile-high cliff near the lunar north pole Monday to close out a successful mission to map the moon's gravity field with unprecedented precision.

(Credit:
NASA)

Ebb is expected to hit the mountain at 5:28 p.m. EST (GMT-5) Monday. Flow will follow suit about 30 seconds later, crashing some 25 miles away from its twin. And with that, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory -- GRAIL -- mission will come to an abrupt end.

"We are not expecting a big flash or a big explosion" Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told reporters last week. "These are two small spacecraft, we use the term apartment-size washer/dryer-size spacecraft with empty fuel tanks. So we are not expecting a flash visible from Earth."

But NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be on the lookout for any signs of the crashes during subsequent passes over the region.

"We've had our share of challenges during this mission and always come through in flying colors, but nobody I know around here has ever flown into a moon mountain before," David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. "It'll be a first for us, that's for sure."

Each spacecraft executed a rocket firing Friday using up most of the probes' dwindling propellant to ensure the twin spacecraft hit their target, well away from any U.S. or Russian "historic heritage" landing sites.

While the odds of accidentally hitting one of the legacy landers were extremely remote, mission managers ordered the targeted impact to make absolutely sure.

"In terms of the scientific measurements, we have achieved everything we could have possibly hoped for," Zuber said. "Frankly, in my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined that this mission would have gone any better than it has.

With their mission complete, NASA's twin GRAIL probes were directed to crash into a lunar mountain to avoid any chance of hitting one of several historic landing sites. In this graphic, U.S. and Russian manned and unmanned landing sites are marked, along with the trajectory of the GRAIL probes.

(Credit:
NASA)

"But when you orbit at very low altitudes above a planetary body that has a very bumpy gravity field, you use a lot of fuel. And so the mission is going to come to an end."

Launched September 10, 2011, Ebb and Flow reached the moon at the end of the year with the second spacecraft slipping into orbit on New Year's Day. After maneuvers to put both spacecraft into exactly the same orbit, the probes flew in close formation, constantly sending timed radio signals back and forth to precisely measure the distance between them.

The initial phases of the mission were carried out at an average altitude of 40 miles above the lunar surface. After a break over the summer due to solar power constraints, mapping resumed in August at an average altitude of just 14 miles. On December 6, a final set of observations was carried out at an altitude of just 6.8 miles above the surface.

Sailing over buried mass concentrations, craters, mountain ranges, basins and other geologic features, the satellites' velocity changed ever so slightly, one after the other, due to subtle gravitational differences. The ranging system was accurate enough to detect differences of as little as one micron, or the width of a red blood cell.

By carefully analyzing those changes, scientists have been able to map out the gravity field in unprecedented detail, shedding new light on the moon's evolution and, by extension, the evolution of Earth and other terrestrial worlds.

"GRAIL has produced the highest resolution, highest quality gravity field for any planet in the solar system, including Earth," Zuber said. "One of the major results that we found is evidence that the lunar crust is much thinner than we had believed before."

She said the data indicated "a couple of the large impact basins probably excavated the moon's mantle, which is very useful in terms of trying to understand the composition of the moon as well as the Earth. We actually think the Earth's mantle has a similar composition."

Another perhaps not-so-surprising result: the heavily cratered surface of the moon is extremely fractured and broken up by countless impacts.

"We found evidence that the shallow subsurface of the moon is largely pulverized, the crust of the moon has a very high average porosity indicative of the fact that it's been broken up by impacts," Zuber said. "And there is evidence that fracturing extends maybe several tens of kilometers possibly into the upper mantle."

The findings illustrate the role of "impact bombardment" on the evolution of early planetary crusts, Zuber said, including those of Earth and Mars.

"With Mars, there (are) a lot of questions about where did the water that we think was on the surface of Mars go? Well, if a planetary crust is that fractured, these fractures provide a pathway deep inside the planet and it's very easy to envision now how a possible ocean at the surface could have found its way deep into the crust of a planet."

Details about the moon's deep interior are expected to be announced after additional data analysis.

Read More..

Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

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Conn. Shooter Had Hundreds of Rounds

Adam Lanza had hundreds of rounds and used multiple high capacity magazines when he went on a rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing 20 first graders and six adults, Connecticut State Police said today.

After shooting at victims in two classrooms and a hallway with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle, he put a bullet into his own head with a handgun.

"The weapon that was utilized most of the time during this horrific crime was identified as a Bushmaster AR-15 assault weapon," Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said. "The trajectory of the shots and all of the ammunition used in the horrible crime will be examined."

Vance said three weapons were found at the scene, while a fourth, a shotgun, was recovered from Lanza's vehicle.

While the shattered community of Newtown awaits President Obama's visit this afternoon, plans for the first funerals were announced.

Noah Pozner, the first grader whose twin sister survived the massacre, and 6-year-old Jack Pinto, will be laid to rest in separate ceremonies Monday afternoon.

The funeral for Jessica Rekos, 6, will be held on Tuesday at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, where several of the victims' families attend mass.

The community faced a new shock today when parishioners attending the midday service at Rose of Lima were told to evacuate after a church official became aware of a credible threat.

About 1,000 people were gathered inside the church at the time observing one of four memorial services being held there.

Witnesses said police entered the church and told parishioners that a threat had been made against the church and the surrounding area and that everyone had to leave immediately.

More than a dozen state troopers armed with assault rifles entered the church's education center next to the church, but after a short time it was determined that threat was over.

Brian Wallace, director of communications for the Diocese of Bridgeport, said that after massacre on Friday, he felt evacuation was a vital precaution to take.

"I don't think any of us could be surprised about anything after what has happened," Wallace said.

Meanwhile, police are working to understand what set Lanza off on his rampage.

Connecticut Shooting: Churches Services Honor Victims Watch Video

Pastor Explains How Girl Played Dead to Survive Watch Video

ABC News has learned that investigators have seized computers belonging to the 20-year-old from the home he shared with his mother Nancy, the same place he killed her before going to the Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he slaughtered students in two first-grade classes and teachers and staff.

CLICK HERE for full coverage of the tragedy at the elementary school.

Authorities are forensically investigating those computers and are also examining devices owned by Ryan Lanza, the gunman's older brother, to see if they can learn anything more about Adam and what caused him to snap.

Members of the community gathered today at churches across the small town, seeking comfort, clarity or just a cry.

With intermittent freezing rain falling, the bells tolled at St. Rose of Lima as parishioners came for the morning service.

Little more than a week before Christmas when congregants celebrate the birth of the savior, they instead were mourning the deaths of people they knew.

Many of the victims attended the church and the clergy is preparing for the funerals of eight of the children.

As parishioners arrived at the church for the morning service, many stopped at a makeshift memorial with flowers, teddy bears and candles. On large white boards, people wrote notes that express condolences, hope, and even forgiveness.

One says "Rest in Peace Sweet Angels."

After a man and woman knelt down at the memorial -- the woman overcome by grief crying into her husband's arms -- two police officers opened their cars with a delivery: bouquets of flowers and teddy bears stacked in the back of their vehicles. They delicately placed each one down and then both knelt down at the vigil.

The female officer began crying and her male partner put his arm around her to comfort her. She quickly got up, walking to her car while wiping away tears, and then they pulled away.

READ: Complete List of Sandy Hook Victims

A mother and two young daughters came next. She gripped one while she also wiped away tears. A father and his young daughter also came up, the father kneeling and talking to the girl before they slowly walked into the church.

A state police trooper was also among those dropping flowers at the memorial comprised of candles, stuffed toys and a sign that says "Sleep in heavenly peace."

Police Tracing Guns Used in Shooting

At a news conference this morning, Vance said there are many pieces missing in the investigation and investigators continue to work inside Sandy Hook Elementary School to collect evidence.

Key to the investigation will also be the four firearms found at or near the crime scene, he said.

"We are tracing them historically, all the way back to when they were on the workbench being assembled," Vance said.

Authorities are wrapping up their processing of the exterior crime scene, which included vehicles parked in the school's lot at the time of the shooting, Vance said, and have began to release the cars back to their owners.

Vance declined to say what evidence has or has not been collected.

"We can't take segments of an investigation and discuss that publicly because something taken out of context could be misinterpreted," he said, adding that in the end, the "goal is to answer every single question.

Read More..

Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.

Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.

Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.

One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).

"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

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Russia arrests opposition leaders at banned rally

MOSCOW: Russian police on Saturday arrested several opposition leaders, including well-known blogger Alexei Navalny, as hundreds of people packed a central Moscow square in defiance of an official ban to protest Vladimir Putin's rule.

Scores of Muscovites, many holding white roses, defied the authorities by turning up at Lubyanka Square, the seat of the FSB security services, despite temperatures of minus 14 degrees C (seven degrees F) and warnings that the unsanctioned rally would be broken up.

Navalny, possibly the most charismatic figure in the protest movement against the Russian president, was detained a day after investigators launched a new criminal probe against him for suspected fraud. patisserie

"It's raving mad. (They) simply snatched me from the crowd," Navalny tweeted from inside a police van.

Besides Navalny, police also arrested Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of leftist group the Left Front, and activists Ilya Yashin and Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of Putin's late mentor Anatoly Sobchak.

"Looks like I am a very dangerous criminal," Sobchak quipped on Twitter.

The prominent figures arrested all noted on Twitter that the police vans holding them had been equipped with webcams to keep close watch on their behaviour.

Police put the turnout at around 500 people, half of them journalists and bloggers, but an AFP correspondent said the real number of the protesters appeared to be significantly higher.

People laid white lilies, carnations and chrysanthemums at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument to victims of Stalin-era purges adorning the square, as a helicopter hovered overhead.

One hour into the rally, the monument was blanketed by piles of flowers.

"Our authorities are repressive," one protester, 48-year-old businessman Andrei Genin, told AFP, sporting a white ribbon, the symbol of the opposition movement against Putin.

City authorities had earlier banned an opposition march through the city, and the opposition Coordination Council had urged Russians to simply turn up at Lubyanka Square.

On the eve of the protest, Russian authorities launched a second major investigation against Navalny, accusing the protest leader and his brother Oleg of embezzling 55 million rubles ($1.8 million, 1.4 million euros) from a trading company.

Navalny, who has already been charged with embezzlement in an earlier case in which he faces up to 10 years in prison, vowed to press ahead with his political activism.

In a separate event, his supporters convened in the Russian capital to establish a new political party that would represent the interests of middle-class urbanities, the backbone of the anti-Putin protests.

Dubbed "The Popular Alliance", the party will promote the "middle class and the European choice", activist Leonid Volkov told Echo of Moscow radio, noting that Navalny himself would not be an official member.

The opposition movement is hoping to maintain momentum despite internal divisions between liberals, leftists and nationalists and the authorities' tough crackdown on dissenters since Putin's return to the Kremlin in May.

Even supporters admit that the euphoria that marked the first opposition protests that erupted after fraud-tainted parliamentary polls last December has largely died down.

Up to 120,000 people gathered near the Kremlin walls at the peak of the protests last winter, a huge number for a country that lost its taste for street politics after the turbulent 1990s.

The last major rally, in September, drew around 14,000 people, according to police, though the opposition argued many more had shown up.

Weeks after his inauguration, Putin signed off on a raft of laws that critics have attacked as a bid to quash dissent.

Scores of activists now face jail time for taking part in a May 6 protest on the eve of Putin's inauguration and for alleged plans to overthrow the Russian strongman with the help of foreign sponsors.

Ahead of Saturday's rally, Moscow prosecutors delivered a warning to leading activists, while police urged Russians to refrain from "provocations".

Smaller rallies were held in several cities across Russia.

Sixty people held a 40-minute march in Tomsk in western Siberia despite temperatures of minus 35 degrees C, a representative of the Solidarnost (Solidarity) movement, Ksenia Fadeyeva, told AFP.

Fourteen people marched in the city of Krasnoyarsk in eastern Siberia, police said.

- AFP/de

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Apple rumors never cease

The iPad Mini will be a magnet for lots of rumors in the coming months.

(Credit:
Apple)

Apple rumors are a fact of life.

And it's silly to think that tech sites will begin writing fewer stories about the latest
iPad/iPhone chatter.

It's like asking the Washington press corps to stop writing about Beltway scuttlebutt or Hollywood reporters to cease scribbling about la la land -- however frivolous. Ain't gonna happen.

Let's take the
iPad Mini Retina rumor-machine (which is just getting started, by the way).

Retina chatter: A Retina iPad Mini is an intriguing prospect, but it's hardly a fait accompli. If it were, Apple would have announced one on October 23.

So my guess is that any remotely tantalizing Retina rumor that surfaces will be picked up and propagated across the Apple universe.

Usually (but not always) for good reason. Getting a 300-pixel-per-inch display into the Mini's tiny chassis is really, really hard. One phone call and any analyst at NPD DisplaySearch -- who analyze the display industry for a living -- will tell you this.

So, a supply chain tidbit from DigiTimes, for example, that cites "backlighting industry" sources talking about a higher-resolution iPad Mini is definitely interesting.

A Retina Mini would require a smaller LED light apparatus than is used in conventional Retina-class displays, as the DigiTimes story alludes to.

DigiTimes: The Asia supply chain gossip sheet is invariably the source of more than a few rumors. The problem is it's accuracy is a reflection of the unpredictable supply chain it covers. I've discussed this with DisplaySearch analysts more than a few times.

It goes something like this. Some big component supplier gets an order from some big device maker, and a Taipei newspaper reports it. Then a few months pass and said supplier runs into a serious unexpected snag in ramping up production (like Sharp, for example, trying to ramp up IGZO display production and failing initially).

So the device maker has to turn to another supplier for a more practical (and less innovative) solution.

As a result, the Taipei newspaper's story doesn't pan out. But that doesn't mean the newspaper was just passing along bogus rumors. It means it reported what it was hearing as a credible development at the time.

These on-again, off-again scenarios occur constantly in the supply chain, according to DisplaySearch. And it's a real challenge for supply chain analysts to determine what is panning out and what isn't.

DigiTimes' problem is that it doesn't filter the rumors as well as, let's say, a DisplaySearch analyst would. But maybe that's not the intention anyway. Maybe DigiTimes feels it needs to pass along gossip as it hears it. Maybe that's what its Asia-based supply chain readership wants.

And analysts are hardly infallible, either. Some analysts in the financial community come up with much whackier Apple theories, masquerading as erudite analysis, that end up being reported as credible speculation.

But reporters will still regurgitate financial analyst musings, complaints about "dumb" Apple rumors notwithstanding.

Like I said, it's a fact of life.

Read More..

Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

Read More..