US Senate confirms Kerry as next secretary of state

WASHINGTON: The US Senate on Tuesday confirmed Senator John Kerry as the next secretary of state, approving President Barack Obama's pick to replace Hillary Clinton by a wide majority.

The Senate voted 94-3 in favour of Kerry, after the chamber's Foreign Relations Committee approved the nomination earlier in the day.

His nomination was pushed through the Senate in a matter of days, given the clear bipartisan support for the 69-year-old veteran Democratic lawmaker, who spent 28 years in the Senate.

Kerry -- a senator from Massachusetts best known outside the United States for his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign -- was nominated last month by Obama to take over from Clinton as the nation's top diplomat.

He is known to have long coveted the job, but almost lost out to US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who had been seen as Obama's first choice.

But she withdrew from consideration for the post under Republican fire over the administration's response to the September 11 attack on a US mission in Libya that left four Americans dead.

Earlier, Kerry said he was "humbled" and gratified by the support from the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he himself chairs.

"They've been wonderful, they've been really superb," he said of his committee colleagues, adding, "I'm very wistful about it, it's not easy" leaving.

Clinton, 65, is expected to leave her post Friday, amid swirling speculation about whether she will run for the presidency in 2016. For now, she has said only that she is looking forward to some rest after four gruelling years.

At his confirmation hearing last week, Kerry called for "fresh thinking" as he outlined his foreign policy agenda and plans for relations with Iran, China and the Middle East.

"American foreign policy is not defined by drones and deployments alone," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"We cannot allow the extraordinary good that we do to save and change lives to be eclipsed entirely by the role that we have had to play since September 11th, a role that was thrust upon us," he said.

The decorated Vietnam veteran turned anti-war activist has built impeccable credentials during his time in the Senate. He has sat down with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, soothed nerves in Pakistan and visited the Gaza Strip.

- AFP/jc

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'Downton Abbey' as SNES video game: Fluff those pillows!

Test your fluffing skills.

(Credit:
Video screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET)

It's fun to sit around and play "What if?" What if Google acquired Microsoft? What if Superman and Spider-Man made a movie together? What if "Downton Abbey" were a Super Nintendo game? We have a pretty good answer to that last question.

YouTube user Bill Kiley posted a video showing what the imported PBS megahit would look like as an SNES game. It comes complete with an insanely catchy digital ditty that's perfect for the SNES period. As a new footman at Downton, you're faced with a myriad of tasks that come fast and furious.

First, you have to find the Earl of Grantham's misplaced cigars. Then, you must investigate a possible poisoning in the kitchen. Later, the head housemaid, Anna Bates, demands you push "L" and "R" as fast as you can to fluff pillows for the guests.

There's a cutlery identification challenge that most people in the world would fail miserably at. The aristocracy continues to boss you around, sending you off to locate the Dowager Countess's hidden jewels. A mock-up image of the fictional game box calls it "tastefully exciting."

Comments from "Downton" fans on the YouTube page are fairly effusive. One viewer even declares it to be better than the movie "Titanic." It seems like the legions of Downton fans would pay good money to play this game, me included. Are you listening, Nintendo? I want to fluff some pillows with a game controller ASAP.

(Via Geek When Spoken To)

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What Does First-century Roman Graffiti Say?

A.R. Williams

A facelift of the Colosseum in Rome that began last fall has revealed centuries of graffiti. Removing the accumulated grime and calcification, experts discovered layers of inscriptions on the section of a wall seen here—designs in red and faded gray from antiquity, and lettering in black left by visitors in modern times.

Built in the first century, the Colosseum may have held crowds as large as 50,000 people. Its numbered entrances and covered passages were designed to get spectators in and out quickly and to separate the high and mighty from the hoi polloi. (Read about Rome's border walls in National Geographic Magazine.)

The wall in this picture flanked a passage that led to an upper tier. There, women, children, and slaves perched in the cheap seats to watch the bloody spectacle of gladiators and wild beasts battling for their lives on the arena floor 60 feet (18 meters) below.

Even in the dim light of this passage, the designs painted in red would have been easy to see against a background of white plaster. Today, the meaning of the designs in this particular spot is a mystery, though patches of newly cleaned plaster on other parts of the wall show a palm frond in red (a symbol of victory) and the letters "VIND," which may be part of the word vindicatio, or vengeance. (See photo of street art graffiti)

In the area above what looks like the large "S," meanwhile, Roman graffiti expert Rebecca Benefiel sees the faint gray profile of a face. "That was the single most popular image to draw in ancient graffiti," she says.

In the Roman period people rarely wrote their messages on top of existing graffiti. "There was a different understanding of writing on a wall," said Benefiel, a classics professor at Washington and Lee University. "You left space."

By the 19th century, the Colosseum was a famous monument, and its graffiti had become a tangled, overwritten record of tourists' visits. "Writers were aware of being in a historic place," said Benefiel. "They were making a mark to emphasize their presence."

Names and dates were important. So was place of origin. On this wall, in 1892, J. Milber wanted the world to know that he had traveled from the city of Strasbourg.

Officials in Rome say they plan to open this passage to the public once the restoration work is done. Presumably some kind of barrier will prevent future tourists from adding their own autographs for posterity.

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Palin and Fox Part Ways, but Is She Really Over?

Sarah Palin's break up with Fox News should not have been, well, breaking news, as she had publicly complained in August on Facebook that the network had canceled her appearances at the Republican National Convention. And going back even further, Palin didn't give Fox the scoop in October 2011 when she announced she wasn't going to run for president. Still, the news of the Fox split overtook Twitter and the news cycle by storm.

One thing I've learned in my years covering Palin, which began on Aug. 29, 2008, when Sen. John McCain stunned the country by selecting her as his running mate: Everyone has an opinion on whatever she does, and she can get clicks and coverage like no one else.

The prevailing theory now is that since Palin no longer has a megaphone like Fox News through which she can blast her opinions, her moment is now officially over.

The 'Ends' of Sarah Palin

It might be true, but there have been so many "ends of Sarah Palin" that it's almost too hard to keep track of them all. She was over when she lost the 2008 campaign, she was over when she quit the Alaska governorship, she was over when she decided to do a reality show, she was over when she decided not to run for president, and now again, she's over because her appearances on Fox News are over.

Secret Service Scandal: Fired Agent 'Checked Out' Sarah Palin Watch Video

I, for one, did think Palin would lose her relevancy when she quit the Alaska governorship, and also when she didn't run for president. But in both cases, people who both love her and hate her just couldn't get enough information about her, and she still got an incredible amount of news coverage. Her voice was heard loud and clear, even if it blasted only from her Facebook posts. That's just another example of what she's been able to pull off that others who've come before or after just haven't. Palin's been written off from Day One, but like a boomerang, she just keeps coming back.

Yes, she wasn't really helpful to Mitt Romney's campaign, but she also never really explicitly backed him. And what an odd pair they would have made if she had. In her interview last weekend with Steve Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News who made "The Undefeated," the positive 2011 movie about her, she said, "The problem is that some on the right are now skittish because of the lost 2012 election. They shouldn't be. Conservatism didn't lose. A moderate Republican candidate lost after he was perceived to alienate working-class Reagan Democrats and independent voters." Not a sign that she wants to rethink some of her policy points, or that she will retreat into the shadows.

Another Possible TV Home

I think more likely than her fading away (we all still cover every eyebrow-raising Facebook post of hers) is that she will possibly find an on-air home elsewhere, at somewhere like CNN. She told Breitbart.com that she "encourages others to step out in faith, jump out of the comfort zone, and broaden our reach as believers in American exceptionalism. That means broadening our audience. I'm taking my own advice here as I free up opportunities to share more broadly the message of the beauty of freedom and the imperative of defending our republic and restoring this most exceptional nation. We can't just preach to the choir; the message of liberty and true hope must be understood by a larger audience."

Later in the interview, she added, "I know the country needs more truth-telling in the media, and I'm willing to do that. So, we shall see."

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Iran launches monkey into space

Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter

Last summer, the Iranian Space Agency announced their plan to send a monkey into space - and now they've apparently done it.

According to Iranian state-run television, a press release on the space agency's website, and photos of the event, Iran sent a live rhesus monkey into sub-orbital space aboard a small rocket called Pishgam, or Pioneer. There's even a video posted on YouTube that appears to be of the launch (though New Scientist could not confirm its authenticity).

The report has not been confirmed independently, however, and the US air force's North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has not reported seeing any missile launches from Iran.

But independent observers say the launch looks legitimate.

"Really, I see no reason not to take their word for it," says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who also keeps a log of space launches. He says he's convinced by the photos and discussions he's had with several knowledgeable source in online forums.

In photos released on the Iranian Space Agency's website, the rocket looks like the same kind the agency has launched before, but with a larger nose cone designed to fit a small chamber that can support life. Images also showed a live rhesus monkey strapped to a small seat.

The reports say the rocket went straight up 120 kilometres, which McDowell says qualifies as outer space, but not high enough to reach orbit, and came back down with a parachute.

It's unclear exactly when the launch took place. The press release says that the launch happened on the birthday of Mohammed the Prophet, which is celebrated by Shiites on 29 January, but was celebrated last week elsewhere in the world.

Some countries worry that Iranian rockets capable of carrying animals or people could also carry weapons. Iran has denied any military intention.

"This is not a scary thing because this is not a big new rocket that could hit America or anything like that," McDowell says. "There's nothing military to this. It's purely for propaganda. Nevertheless, it advances their science and their technology by being able to do it."

Iran says the launch is a first step towards sending humans into space, which they intend to do in the next 5 to 8 years. To do that, McDowell says, they'll need to build a larger rocket. The country currently has a vehicle called Safir that has successfully put satellites in orbit, and is developing a more powerful launcher called Simorgh.

The next step will probably be to either launch Safir to carry a human to sub-orbital space, or an unmanned Simorgh flight into orbit to make sure mission controllers can return it to the ground safely.

"They don't want to repeat what the Soviets did" in 1957, McDowell says, "which is put a living being in orbit before you figure out how to get it back."

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Cycling: UCI disbands independent Armstrong commission

LONDON: The International Cycling Union (UCI) announced Monday it had disbanded the independent commission it had set up to investigate any alleged involvement by the global governing body in the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

The UCI said it had pulled the plug on the commission, which only met in public for the first time last week, because both the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the United States Doping Agency (USADA) had refused to co-operate with its inquiries and thus any report it produced would be dismissed "as not being complete or credible".

UCI president Pat McQuaid said they had been left with little choice but to disband the three-member commission consisting of chairman Philip Otton, a former judge in England's Court of Appeal, British Paralympic champion Tanni Grey-Thompson and Australian lawyer Malcolm Holmes.

"As I said last Friday, we have listened carefully to the views of WADA, USADA, and cycling stakeholders and have decided that a truth and reconciliation process is the best way to examine the culture of doping in cycling in the past and to clear the air so that cycling can move forward," McQuaid explained in a statement.

"Over the weekend I spoke to John Fahey, president of WADA. He confirmed WADA's willingness to help the UCI establish a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC), as well as saying that WADA had no confidence in the existing independent commission process."

It was an investigation by USADA that led to Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and comments in their decision regarding the UCI's alleged complicity in his drug-taking that led cycling chiefs to set up the independent commission.

- AFP/jc

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Twitter acquires Crashlytics crash reporting service

Crashlytics announced that it has merged with Twitter.

(Credit:
Crashlytics)

Twitter has bought Crashlytics, a startup whose crash reporting tool has been incorporated into a wide variety of iOS apps including Vine, Yelp, Kayak, TaskRabbit, and Waze.

In a blog post today, Crashlytics co-founders Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang announced that the company is "joining the flock," the term often used when people or companies are hired or acquired by Twitter:

We started Crashlytics a little over a year ago to address a huge hole in mobile app development. With hundreds of millions of devices in use around the world, it was impossible for developers to fully test every edge-case and catch every bug before release. Even worse, when problems did crop up, it was often difficult and complicated to find the root cause. App developers were stuck with little insight into what happened and forced to rely on vague end-user feedback to diagnose problems.

We built Crashlytics to deliver the world's most powerful and lightest-weight crash reporting solution. With us, developers gain instant visibility into the precise line of code that caused a crash, enabling them to more easily fix issues. Since our iOS launch, we've had the privilege of working with thousands of incredible app developers, from those building independent passion-projects to many of the top iOS apps available today.

Twitter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, although the company did tweet news of the acquisition.

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Urban Heat May Warm Faraway Places

The massive amounts of heat produced by cities may be heating up rural areas 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away, atmospheric researchers have found in a new modeling study.

Scientists have long invoked the "urban island heat effect" to explain why cities are generally hotter than suburban and rural areas. More people, as well as more cars, houses, and paved surfaces, turn energy into heat, which is radiated into the atmosphere.

But new modeling research from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, suggests that cities in the Northern Hemisphere can also increase the heat of faraway rural places up to 1.8ºF (1°C)—a substantial aggregate increase.

The reason comes down to global air flow.

Heat produced by cars and people travels about 2,500 feet (4,023 kilometers) into the atmosphere, where it disturbs part of the jet stream that continually circulates a belt of cool air around the top of the planet. When hot air intercepts the jet stream, it pushes the belt upward, allowing warmer air from the Equator to come farther north, warming parts of northern Europe and North America that normally would have been cooler.

Over the Northern Hemisphere, 86 major metropolitan areas cover only 1.27 percent of the Earth's surface. But those areas consume 6.7 terawatts of energy annually—representing 42 percent of annual global consumption.

Those cities' influence on global climate is therefore magnified, according to the study, published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Until now, climate researchers have mostly pointed to greenhouse gasses as the sole cause of climate change. But the planet has been warming in some areas faster than models have predicted.

The impacts of urban heat produced by energy consumption may account for some of that extra warming, said Guang Zhang, a meteorologist at Scripps who conducted the study: "Essentially, we are now able to account for a missing part of the warming."

Zhang found that the areas most significantly impacted by this urban heat effect were Siberia and northern Canada, which can see temperatures rise 1.4º to 1.8°F (0.8° to 1°C) due to urban heat in faraway cities like New York or San Francisco.

Further south, areas like Minnesota and Michigan might see a 0.5°F (0.3°C) increase. The modeling was conducted with data from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a leading source of global climate data.

While it's true that the Earth's aggregate climate affects every spot on the planet, the impacts of city heat were most pronounced in the Northern Hemisphere, where nearly 90 percent of the global population lives. And the most dramatic cool usually comes in the fall, the researchers said, for reasons that can't yet be fully explained.

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Immigration Plan Includes Path to Citizenship

A bipartisan group of senators on Monday formally unveiled their proposal to drastically overhaul the nation's immigration system, with the hope of passing a bill out of the Senate by late spring or early summer.

"We believe this will be the year Congress finally gets it done," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) one of the members of the so-called "Gang of Eight" said during a press conference on Capitol Hill.

See Also: Transcript: Framework for Immigration Reform

Five of the eight members of the group -- Schumer, Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- appeared at the press conference intended to outline their immigration proposal. The proposal would provide a path to citizenship for many of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants while upping border security and cracking down on businesses that hire workers who are not legally present in the U.S.

Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) were the members not in attendance.

The senators all expressed optimism that their legislation could pass both the House and the Senate. Schumer added that he hopes to have an actual piece of legislation done by the end of March, and then have the Senate act on it right away.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

But while some conservatives have signaled support for the Senate framework, many others have resisted any plan that could grant a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants, saying it amounts to amnesty for people who broke the law.

The Senate's plan does not grant undocumented immigrants automatic "amnesty," rather it requires them to go through an arduous process that includes undergoing a background check, paying fines, back taxes and learning English and American civics over the course of a number of years. The new law would grant eligible undocumented immigrants permission to live and work in the U.S. legally, but would not confer permanent legal status, or a green card, until the border is deemed to be secure. Young people brought into the U.S. illegally as minors and some agricultural workers would face an easier path to citizenship.

"We will never put these people on a path to citizenship until we have secured the border," Schumer said.

McCain, who helped lead the last effort on a comprehensive immigration bill in 2007 said, "We have been too content for too long to allow individuals to mow our lawns, grow our food, clean our homes, and even watch our children while not affording them any of the benefits that make our country so great."

Senators in both political parties suggested that the reason that some Republicans have had a change of heart was because of the results of last November's election, when seven in 10 Latino voters backed President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney.

"The politics on this issue have been turned upside down," Schumer said. "For the first time ever, there is more political risk in opposing immigration reform, than in supporting it."

Perhaps more than anyone on the stage, McCain understands this. While he backed comprehensive immigration reform five years ago, he backed away from it during his 2010 run for Senate, just as his home state was considering the SB 1070 crackdown law on undocumented immigrants.

McCain went so far as to say that the current plan is a "testimonial" to bill he worked on with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), the late liberal icon, in 2007.

Another member of the group, Marco Rubio, had not always voiced support for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants during his Senate career. But on Monday, he said that Congress needs to "address the reality" of the massive undocumented population in the U.S.

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DNA privacy: don't flatter yourself

The secrets contained in our individual genomes are less valuable than we like to believe

IMAGINE donating your DNA to a project aimed at discovering links between genes and diseases. You consent to your genome sequence being released anonymously into the public domain, though you are warned there is a remote possibility that it might one day be possible to link it back to you.

A few years later, that remote possibility comes to pass. How should you feel? This is no longer a hypothetical scenario. About 50 people who participated in a project called 1000 Genomes have been traced (see "Matching names to genes: the end of genetic privacy?").

The researchers' intentions were honourable. They have not revealed these identities, and the original data has been adjusted to make a repeat using the same technique impossible. All they wanted to do was expose privacy issues.

Consider them exposed. It is clear that genomics has entered a new phase, similar to that which social media went through a few years ago, when concerns were raised about people giving away too much personal information.

What happens when the same applies to our DNA? Having your genome open to public scrutiny obviously raises privacy issues. Employers and insurers may be interested. Embarrassing family secrets may be exposed.

But overall, personal genetic information is probably no more revealing than other sorts. In fact there are reasons to believe that it is less so: would an insurance company really go to the trouble of decoding a genome to discover a slightly elevated risk of cancer or Alzheimer's disease?

The available evidence suggests not. In 2006, Harvard University set out to sequence the genomes of 100,000 volunteers and make them publicly available, along with personal information such as names and medical records. One of the goals was to see what happens when such data is open to all. The answer seems to be "not a lot". So far this Personal Genome Project has published 148 people's full genomes. Not one volunteer has reported a privacy issue.

This is not a reason for complacency, but it suggests that our genomic secrets are less interesting to other people than we might like to believe.

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