Can Cops Read Shooter's Sabotaged Computer?

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza may have tried to sabotage his own computer before going on a murderous rampage that claimed the lives of 20 children, but experienced investigators said today that law enforcement forensic experts could still recover critical evidence from the damaged drives.

Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance revealed Monday that a computer crimes unit was working in conjunction with a forensics laboratory to "dissect" any evidence relevant to the case, but he declined to comment further on what type of evidence was involved and in what condition it was in. Later that day, law enforcement officials told ABC News that police recovered a badly damaged computer from Lanza's home that appeared to have been attacked by a hammer or screwdriver.

Sources said if they can still read the computer's hard drive, they hope to find critical clues that may help explain Lanza's motives in the killing.

Former FBI forensic experts told ABC News that in cases similar to this one, damage to the computer does not necessarily mean the computer files cannot be accessed.

"If he took a hammer to the outside, smashed the screen, dented the box, it's more than likely the hard drive is still intact," said Al Johnson, a retired FBI special agent who now works privately examining digital evidence and computer data. "And even if the hard drive itself is damaged, there are still steps that can be taken to recover everything."

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Brett Harrison, a former FBI computer forensics expert who now works with a D.C. consulting firm, said that authorities have a great deal of technology at their disposal to retrieve that data. How much is recovered, he said, will depend entirely on how much damage was done to the well-insulated "platters" -- discs lodged deep inside the machine -- where Lanza's every digital footstep was recorded.

It is likely, he said, that Lanza's computer has been moved to a "clean room" where, if the discs are intact, they could be removed and then carefully re-inserted in a fresh hard drive. If the calibrations are done correctly, investigators would still be able to unlock the clues on the discs.

If the discs aren't in perfect condition, Harrison said, "There is equipment they can use to read the data off a record even if a portion of it is damaged."

Johnson said it is tedious work done in a clean environment because the tolerances of the discs is so precise – even a particle of dust could destroy crucial evidence.

"We're talking about a tolerance of less than a human hair," said Johnson, who now does computer forensics for a South Carolina-based investigative firm.

Police have not said exactly what they expect to find on the computer's hard drive, but the former FBI experts said typically there could be record of visits to violent web sites, or to online stores that sell ammunition, or to email that might reveal if Lanza shared any hints of his plans with others.

"I'm not big on speculation," Harrison said, "but you're talking about potentially finding all the normal things that people do with their computer – Facebook pages, internet activity, email, you name it."

For now, the FBI is keeping mum on what kind of computer forensic help it could be offering in the case.

"At this time, in deference to the ongoing investigation being conducted by the CSP, the FBI is not releasing information regarding operational or forensic assistance provided in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting," an FBI spokesperson said.

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Fungal frog killer hops into crayfish

Crayfish are vulnerable to the same fungus that is killing frogs all over the world. The discovery helps explain how the disease spreads even after all the amphibians in an area have been wiped out. Worryingly, chemicals released by the fungus may alone be enough to kill.

Taegan McMahon of the University of South Florida, Tampa, and colleagues discovered infected crayfish in field surveys in Louisiana and Colorado. They found that up to 29 per cent of the animals carried the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Lab studies proved that crayfish can become infected and die, the first time this has been shown in non-amphibians.

Infected crayfish can pass the disease to tadpoles, and crayfish exposed to water from which the fungus had been filtered still died. McMahon says the distribution of crayfish around the world may explain why the fungus is so widespread.

She adds that it is "is certainly possible" that other invertebrates might carry the fungus. Her team are currently investigating this and are working on possible ways to stop the spread of the toxin.

"It's very compelling, their evidence for crayfish as a disease vector and for a toxic effect secreted in the water," says Trenton Garner at London's Institute of Zoology.

PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1200592110

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Big turn-out at Punggol East Meet-the-People Session

SINGAPORE: While a typical Meet-the-People Session (MPS) at Punggol East would see about 50 residents seeking their Member of Parliament (MP) each week, Monday night's session - the first since former MP Michael Palmer resigned last week over an extramarital affair - saw a queue of about 50 people even before the session began.

The Monday night's MPS was conducted by Deputy Prime Minister and Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC MP Teo Chee Hean, who held a combined session with residents from his Pasir Ris West ward.

Nevertheless, grassroots leaders said that most of the residents who turned up at the MPS, which was held at the PAP Community Foundation's Punggol East Education Centre at Blk 124A Rivervale Drive, were from the Punggol East Single Member Constituency.

Residents who TODAY spoke to were there mainly to seek help on getting rental flats or appealing against penalties for their traffic offences.

One resident, Madam Mani, 64, said she was worried about whether there would be continuity for her case after Mr Palmer's resignation.

She is looking for a rental flat and said she had seen Mr Palmer a few times and he told her not to worry about her case. "I hope they will take care of us, just as what Mr Palmer has done," she said.

Another resident, a taxi driver who declined to be named, said he felt assured by the fact that a minister was handling the MPS. "He has weight, let's put it that way."

- TODAY

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Israeli embassy deletes 'Christmas Thought' Facebook comment

I want to believe that this is the time of year for human harmony.

But who am I to talk? My future wife won't even acknowledge me, believing I am Beelzebub's kin. Servers at fine restaurants won't even refill my water glasses.

Oh, and then there was a Facebook "Christmas thought" from Israel's embassy in Ireland that Jesus would likely be lynched if he was in Bethlehem this year.

As The New York Times describes it, someone at Israel's embassy wrote the following:

A thought for Christmas...If Jesus and mother Mary were alive today, they would, as Jews without security, probably end up being lynched in Bethlehem by hostile Palestinians. Just a thought...Thanks Daniel for sharing

More Technically Incorrect

These heartfelt words were atop a serene picture of Jesus and the Virgin.

You might imagine that some found this a touch provocative. The post was, indeed, removed, as was the apology that followed it, as was the whole Facebook page.

An embassy spokesman told the Times that he didn't know who had posted the thought. However, he added: "People who post on the embassy Facebook page include embassy staff and also people based in Israel itself."

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Crayfish Harbor Fungus That’s Wiping Out Amphibians

Scientists have found a new culprit in spreading the disease that's been driving the world's frogs to the brink of extinction: crayfish.

In the last few decades, the disease caused by the chytrid fungus has been a disaster for frogs and other amphibians. More than 300 species are nearly extinct because of it. Many probably have gone extinct, but it can be difficult to know for sure when a tiny, rare species disappears from the face of the Earth. (Related photos: "Ten Most Wanted 'Extinct' Amphibians.")

"This pathogen is bad news. It's worse news than any other pathogen in the history of life on Earth as far as we know it," says Vance Vredenburg, a conservation biologist at San Francisco State University who studies frogs but did not work on the new study.

The chytrid fungus was only discovered in the late 1990s. Since then, scientists have been scrambling to figure out how it spreads and how it works.

One of the biggest mysteries is how chytrid can persist in a frogless pond. Researchers saw it happen many times and were perplexed: If all of a pond's amphibians were wiped out, and a few frogs or salamanders came back and recolonized the pond, they would also die—even though there were no amphibians in the pond to harbor the disease. (Learn about vanishing amphibians.)

One possible reason is that chytrid infects other animals. For a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Taegan McMahon, a graduate student in ecology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, looked at some possible suspects and focused on crayfish, those lobsterlike crustaceans living in freshwater. They seemed like a good possibility because they're widespread and because their bodies have a lot of keratin, a protein the fungus attacks.

In the lab, McMahon exposed crayfish to the disease and they got sick. More than a third died within seven weeks, and most of the survivors were carrying the fungus. She also put infected crayfish in the water with tadpoles—separated by mesh, so the crustaceans wouldn't eat the baby frogs—and the tadpoles got infected. When McMahon and her colleagues checked out wetlands in Louisiana and Colorado, they also found infected crayfish.

That means crayfish can probably act as a reservoir for the disease. The fungus seems to be able to dine on crayfish then leap back to amphibians when it gets a chance. No one knows for sure where the fungus originally came from or why it's been such a problem in recent decades, but this research suggests one way that it could have been spread. Crayfish are sometimes moved from pond to pond as fish bait and are sold around the world as food and aquarium pets. (Related photos: "New Giant 'Bearded' Crayfish Species.")

The study doesn't answer every last question about the disease. For one thing, crayfish are common, but they aren't everywhere; there are no crayfish in some of the places where frogs have been hardest hit, Vredenburg says. But, he says, the new research shows that "we need to start looking a little more broadly at other potential hosts."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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