Engineered E.coli designed for secret communication

Scientists have developed a method of encrypting information into genetically-engineered E. coli bacteria to deliver secret messages.

The finding was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S.

By modifying the selected genes of E. coli, the scientists make the bacteria produce the fluorescent proteins, which can glow and express one of seven colors under ultraviolet light.

The color's controlled arranging creates a coding system that allow for the entire alphabet, the digits 1-9 and some other symbols.

And the containing messages cannot be detected until the recipient unlocks it by dipping the E. coli into a special bacteria-growing solution.

"Obviously, the secret agent kind of application jumps out," said the study's lead author David Walt of Tufts University in Massachusetts, "a way of sending secure messages, preventing counterfeiting and providing authentication."

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, according to the Bloomberg.

U.S. treasure hunter finds British shipwreck full of silver

A British sunken wreckage filled with silver was found in the Atlantic Ocean, a U.S. salvage company announced on Monday.

The wreckage was found in international waters some 500 km off the coast of Ireland, at a depth of some 5,000 meters, said the salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc.

The British cargo ship, SS Gairsoppa, was sunk on Feb. 17, 1941, after it was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine.

Its cargo included about 7 million ounces of silver (200 tons), which would be worth about 241 million U.S. dollars at current prices, the company said in a statement.

According to a contract the company signed with the British government in 2011, it will keep 80 percent of silver recovered from the wreck.

"Given the orientation and condition of the shipwreck, we are extremely confident that our planned salvage operation will be suited for the recovery of this silver cargo," said Andrew Craig, the recovery manager of the company.

The recovery operation is expected to begin in the spring of 2012, the company said.

Samsung to mass produce 20-nano flash, DRAM memories

Samsung Electronics said Thursday that it started mass producing memory chips based on 20-nanometer class technology. The world's No. 1 memory chipmaker began operating its 16th production line with the world's largest scale in a bid to mass produce flash and dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips based on 20-nano class technology, Samsung said in a statement by email.
The new plant, where NAND flash memory will be mainly manufactured, started producing 20-nano class high-speed NAND flash from September, according to the statement. The factory, which can produce more than 10,000 wafers of 12-inch size per month, will mass produce 10-nano NAND flash starting next year.
NAND flash memory refers to chips that store information in portable electronics such as tablet computers and smartphones. Demand for the chips has been fast growing in line with brisk sales of smartphones and table PCs. According market researcher iSuppli, the market for NAND flash memory is forecast to grow from 18.85 billion U.S. dollars last year to 22.95 billion U.S. dollars this year, expanding to 28.63 billion U.S. dollars by 2015.
Meanwhile, the plant started mass production of the DDR3 2- gigabit DRAM chips based on 20-nano class technology from this month for the first time across the globe, Samsung said.
The first production of 20-nano DRAM chips is expected to widen Samsung's lead over its rivals such as Hynix Semiconductor and Elpida Memory. Hynix, the world's biggest chipmaker after Samsung, aimed to produce 20-nano class DRAM chips next year.

Facebook adds new profile feature

Facebook on Thursday introduced Timeline, a new profile design featuring milestones of one's life on a single page.
At Facebook's f8 developer conference, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg promoted the new feature, a blog-like presentation that let users scrolls vertically through the big moments of one's life.
"It's how you can tell the whole story of your life in a single page," said Zuckerberg, showing his Timeline which started from a baby photo.
Zuckerberg assured users that they have complete control over their Timeline, saying that they can decide what content will appear and who can see it. The new feature will be available in a few weeks.
Half a billion people are using Facebook in the world everyday, according to Zuckerberg.

Climate change might lead to water shortage in the Alps

Climate change and rising temperature in the long term can lead to water shortages in the Alps region, international experts warned Thursday at the Water-Scarce Final Conference in the Austrian eastern city Graz.
The Alpine region originally is rich in water resources due to a large number of glaciers, spring and abundant rainfall either in summer or winter. But global warming may change this situation which has been shown in the past years that the water reserve has reduced gradually due to climate change, warned the experts.
Observation data have shown a significant decrease of 25 percent in groundwater recharge in the past 100 years which has also resulted in the reduction of mountain spring.
Director of the Provincial Department of Water Resources of Styria Johann Wiedner point out, in 2003, droughts occurred in the eastern part of the Alps, including the state of Styria and water shortages were also found in other regions of the Alps. He said the phenomenon was giving a warning that people "have to do something."
To this end, the European Union begun a project called "Alp Water Scarce" three years ago to observe water reserves, air temperature, water temperature and water table in this region and study the relationships among them.
Wiedner also admitted that there is no shortage of water at least in the short term and water supply for the local residents is totally insured.

Publisher unveils "unauthorized autobiography" of Wikileaks founder

A British publisher on Thursday issued an "unauthorized autobiography" of the founder of the controversial Wikileaks website Julian Assange.
Assange became a global figure after he published 250,000 secret United States diplomatic cables on his Wikileaks website, which became a serious embarrassment to the American government.
He was then accused by two women of rape when he was in Sweden. Swedish police said they wanted to question him, and issued a European Arrest Warrant in 2010 for him.
Assange, 40, denies the allegations and surrendered himself to police in London at the end of 2010, and the Swedish authorities applied for his extradition to face questioning.
Assange fought the extradition bid in the English courts, fearing that he could face further extradition from Sweden to the United States where he could face criminal charges related to the publishing of the secret cables, but failed.
He appealed against the extradition ruling in July and a final decision on the case will be made by senior English judges, probably before Christmas.
Assange agreed to cooperate with Edinburgh-based publisher Canongate in publishing an autobiography and had 50 hours of interviews with a ghostwriter between January and March this year, while he was on bail awaiting an outcome of the extradition hearings.
He received a 500,000 pound advance (about 768,000 U.S. dollars) for the book.
Publisher's spokesman Liz Sich told Xinhua Thursday, "It's an unauthorized autobiography -- it is his words. He was contracted to write his autobiography in December; a ghostwriter was assigned to it, approved by the publisher and Julian and an intense amount of work was done in the first three months of 2011. The first draft was delivered on schedule at the end of March. After that there was an hiatus and nothing happened; in June Julian decided he wanted to tear up the contract."
Assange has opposed publication, but Sich said, "It is very much Julian's words, it is written in the first person. He didn't want it to be published but he was in breach of his contract. He couldn't pay the advance back because he had used it to pay his lawyers."
The book is available only in English at the moment, but a Dutch publisher and a Turkish publisher said they would print translations in their languages, and other foreign language editions are also likely.

Japan sends new spy satellite into space

Japan's H-2A rocket carrying a new information gathering satellite was launched at the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture on Friday, local media reported.
Japan has already introduced three information-gathering satellites in the wake of a missile launch by Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and the latest one will replace the No. 2 satellite which has passed its use-by date, Kydo News said.
The development cost of the fourth satellite has reached 35.9 billion yen and its launch expenses have come to 10.4 billion yen, according to the government.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. were forced to put off the launch three times during the past four weeks due to the approach of a powerful typhoon and discovery of a system glitch. The rocket was initially scheduled to be sent into orbit on Aug. 28.