Science & Technology World

Virtual goods such as weapons or digital bottles of champagne traded in the US could be worth up to $5 bn in the next five years, experts predict. In Asia, sales are already around the $5 bn mark and rapidly growing. For many, virtual goods are one of the hottest trends in technology and are fuelling huge growth in the social gaming sector. "This is just an exploding part of the gaming business right now, said venture capitalist Jeremy Liew. "It is the most exciting area in gaming," he said. Mr Liew, whose firm Lightspeed Venture Partners has invested $10 m in virtual goods companies, said the rapid growth of the sector was unprecedented. "We have seen companies go from nothing in the last 18-24 months to tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue." Revenue model Playfish is a social gaming company that started two years ago. Today it has 11 online games and more than 61 million people who play those games worldwide. Crucial to its success is the sale of virtual goods, ranging from furniture for your pet to menu items for your own restaurant in games like Pet Society and Restaurant City. "Virtual items within the Playfish games are the centre point of the way in which Playfish derives its revenue," Tom Sarris of the firm told BBC News. "We have two different revenue models. The primary is the sale of virtual goods and the second is in-game advertising, but that is a very minor aspect at this stage." Mr Sarris would not reveal how much Playfish makes from the sale of virtual goods, but admitted that it accounts for the lion's share of the company's revenue. That, according to Mr Liew is fairly typical. "Virtual goods is the whole story in the world of social games. It accounts for 90-95 % of revenue for a lot of these social game developers." The new gamers And it is not just the stereotypical gamers that are spending their hard earned cash on goods that only add up to a handful of pixels on a website Emma Cox is probably fairly typical of the new breed of social gamer who plays as a way to stay connected to friends and family. "I am not a traditional gamer. I don't buy console games or go out and spend $40 on a game for my PlayStation," said Ms Cox. "I am playing online games for a different reason and it's instant gratification, playing with friends, showing off to others and have them see all the virtual goods you have bought for yourself and even for them." Ms Cox told the BBC she spends about $10 a month per game on virtual goods and plays two to three games. Her favourite is Country Store where players trade real money for coins allowing players to move ahead in the game or to buy goods. The game bills itself as an opportunity to let players get away from the hustle and bustle of life by hanging out in the country tending crops and breathing the country air. On her last visit, Ms Cox bought fertiliser and seeds for corn and peppers. "These virtual goods are easy to buy, they are accessible, they are online," said Ms Cox. "The immediate impact is being able to move throughout the game a lot more quickly. It also enhances your overall experience of the game - it is about total entertainment." Playfish's Mr Sarris said that is the main reason people are willing to purchase products that do not exist. "The way we look at it is it's no different from paying money to go and see a movie or rent a dvd. What you are paying for is the experience and that notion of entertainment." Social is key Central to the early growth of this virtual goods revolution have been social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. Users of these networks can also pay for virtual goods, such as digital birthday cards, champagne or flowers. "Increasingly as people's relationships migrate online, your interactions occur there," said Lightspeed's Mr Liew. "That makes it more natural for those acknowledgements of how important someone is to us to occur there also. Buying something like virtual champagne or a birthday card is telling someone they are important to you." However most of the momentum in this virtual goods market happens through social games which Mr Liew said is responsible for bringing a new type of new gamer to the fore. "We have found tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people playing these social games and many would never consider themselves as gamers. Yet they spend real money to play these games and in some cases really meaningful amounts of money. "That is what makes the expansion of this market so exciting," added Mr Liew. Bright future The market is clearly one with a lot of life in it. About two thirds of the top 15 applications on Facebook are games, according to analytics firm AppData. Those ten games are said to draw more than 100 million users a month. Earlier in December, one of the biggest social gaming companies, Zynga, sold a stake in the firm to Russia's Digital Sky Technologies for $180 m (£113 m). And in November, Electronic Arts, agreed to buy Playfish in a $400 m deal (£251 m). Proof of how successful the virtual goods business has become is evident in moves by Facebook itself to test a payment system to get a cut each time an online-game player buys a digital tractor or pair of flip flops. "We are still in the growth stage of this industry, " said Mr Liew. "We are still seeing people come out of nowhere and become a leading player. Five years down the line, it will become more stable with five to ten companies becoming more valuable. "The virtual goods industry is one of the most exciting categories of 2009 and will remain an exciting category in 2010 ," he added.

If 2009 was dominated by touch technology then 2010 looks set to be the year of 3 D. 3 D has been one of the biggest hits of the cinemas this year and it is likely to continue its stride into other mediums during 2010 , experts agree. TV manufacturer LG wants to sell nearly half a million 3 D-ready TV sets next year as the World Cup kicks off in the format. Meanwhile laptops and games consoles are also getting a 3 D makeover. Acer has already released what it is claiming is the world's first 3 D-capable laptop, and most agree it will be the first of many. One critic likened the screen of the Acer Inspire 5738 DZG to that of a 1960 's cinema "but in laptop form". Others have dismissed the 3 D capability as a gimmick, but most agree that it will be the start of a glut of similar machines. Acer has created its 3 D effect by putting a polarising filter over the screen which splits images into separate streams. When combined with a pair of polarising glasses ( and the laptop comes with a free pair) it allows users to view content in 3 D. Some movie trailers come preloaded on the laptop, while software called TriDef 3 D can add a third dimension to PC games, DVDs and video footage with varying degrees of success. Microsoft is watching developments in the field with interest. Julie Larson-Green, Microsoft's vice president of user experience believes the technology will play a major role over the next decade. "A 3 D spatial camera inside a computer will offer a new way to interact with content. It will allow people to spatially organise things with older things farther away," she said. Trendy glasses Gaming is the most obvious first stop for 3 D and Sony committed in November to making all its PS3 consoles "upgradeable to 3 D", suggesting games are on their way. Meanwhile Microsoft continue to work on its own alternative to a gaming remote control called Project Natal, which uses an optical camera and 3 D sensors to read body movements and facial expressions. In order to view content, some form of eyewear is going to be essential although it is unlikely to have much in common with the cardboard spectacles of the 1970 s. Jeremy Fennell, head of marketing for Dixon Store Group, is betting on visitors to January's high-tech CES show spending a lot of their time on the conference floor wearing 3 D glasses. "An awful lot of money has been invested in 3 D and there is a world of difference between cardboard glasses from the 1970 s to designer 3 D RayBans and aviators," he said. He expects to have a range in store towards the end of next year. In the world of TVs, HD-ready is rapidly being replaced by 3 D-ready. LG Electronics aims to sell 400 ,000 3 D TVs in 2010 and 3.4 million in 2011. One of the drivers for such sets will be the World Cup which Fifa has confirmed will be the first soccer event shot in 3 D. But 3 D isn't the only thing changing TV. More sets will be available with built-in net access, making the viewing of content such as the iPlayer a whole lot simpler. And Microsoft's UK managing director Ashley Highfield envisages an even more interactive future for the humble box in the corner. "If TVs have some form of 2- way functionality, the TV recognises you and you can flick through too find a programme you want to watch," he said at a recent conference, although he did not offer a timeframe for such smart sets. Headset patent Apple has recently filed a patent suggesting that it is looking into create its own 3 D display, possibly as an alternative to the mouse and keyboard. The patent refers to "an electronic device for providing a display that changes based on the user's perspective". MacRumours speculated that the maker of the Mac is planning to offer greater interactivity for users via an established technology known as head-tracking. Using a camera, such a system would be able to detect a user's position and adjust a 3 D display to create the illusion that an on-screen object is physically present, it said. Such patents are not unusual though. In December 2008 Apple filed one seemingly aimed at created a 3 D desktop. And back in 2007 university student Johnny Chung created his own head tracking device using a Nintendo Wii remote controller which became one of YouTube's most popular videos. Interest in 3 D is likely to continue unabated as 2010 begins to make it a reality for consumers.

John Holman, a lifelong champion of science and technology education, is among the scientists to appear in the New Year Honours list. Professor Holman, who leads the National Science Learning Centre, is awarded a knighthood. Prehistory expert Paul Mellars and RSPB director Graham Wynne also receive knighthoods, while nuclear physicist Sue Ion becomes a dame. Further honours for scientists include two CBEs, three OBEs, and nine MBEs. "I'm delighted; it's an enormous personal honour and somewhat overwhelming," Sir John told BBC News. "But more importantly I think that it's a recognition of the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to the future of the UK and to the lives of millions of young people." Sir John studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, going on to teach in a number of secondary schools and soon began advising on science education nationally and internationally. In the late 1980 s, when the National Curriculum standardised teaching across the UK, it was he who wrote the science curriculum. After six years as headmaster of Watford Grammar School for Boys, in 2000 he came to the University of York as Salters Professor of Chemical Education, founding the National Science Learning Centre in 2004. In 2006 , he also became the first national director of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) for the government, a post Sir John refers to as "conducting an orchestra of groups inside and outside the government" where the sole motive is STEM education. "We're in difficult economic times but it's quite clear that one thing this country is very good at is science and technology - but we need to maintain that and build on the strength of that as the core of a future economic strategy."

The head of Russia's federal space agency has said it will work to divert an asteroid which will make several passes near the Earth from 2029. Anatoly Perminov told the Voice of Russia radio service that the agency's science council would hold a closed meeting to discuss the issue. Any eventual plan is likely to be an international collaboration, he said. The US space agency said in October that there is a one-in-250 ,000 chance of Apophis hitting Earth in 2036. That announcement was a significant reduction in the probability of an impact, based on previous calculations that put the chances at about one-in-45 ,000. The asteroid is estimated to pass within about 30 ,000 km of the Earth in 2029. Mr Perminov, who is the chief of Roscosmos, gave little detail of any plans that the agency has, but was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying that the solution would not entail the use of nuclear weapons. Other schemes that have been put forth in the past for diverting asteroids from collision courses include spacecraft that nudge the space rocks out of their trajectory through force, or diverting them with "solar sails" that use the wind of particles ejected from the Sun. "People's lives are at stake," Mr Perminov reportedly told the radio service Golos Rossii ( Voice of Russia). "We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people."

The US space agency Nasa has selected three projects as finalists for its next celestial mission. The projects aim to either probe the atmosphere and surface of Venus, return an asteroid fragment to Earth, or send back rocks from the Moon's south pole. The proposals are part of the New Frontiers programme, designed to carry out frequent, low- cost missions. Nasa has provided funding for a fuller analysis of the projects, with a winner to be selected in mid- 2011. The cost of the winning project must not exceed $650 m (£410 m) and must be ready to launch by the end of 2018. These limits are in keeping with the New Frontiers programme's principles of funding focused, short-term, and comparatively cheap space science missions. The three proposals are: The Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer, or Sage, would gather information about Venus' atmosphere during the descent of a lander, which would then scratch at the planet's surface to determine its chemical and mineral composition in detail. The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer, or Osiris-Rex, would initially orbit an asteroid, landing on it to collect about 60 g of material that would be returned to Earth. The Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission would land near the Moon's southern pole, returning about a kilogram of material that scientists believe has risen from the moon's interior to the surface. Each team has been given $3.3 m (£2.1 m) to further flesh out the details of their proposals over the coming year. "These are projects that inspire and excite young scientists, engineers and the public," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for Nasa's Science Mission Directorate. "These three proposals provide the best science value among eight submitted to Nasa this year." The proposal that is eventually chosen will form the third mission in the New Frontiers programme. The first, New Horizons, was launched in 2006 and is bound for a Pluto fly-by in 2015. The second, dubbed Juno, will be the first craft to orbit Jupiter from pole to pole after it launches in August 2011.

Individually designed music therapy may help reduce the noise levels experienced by people who suffer from tinnitus, say German researchers. They altered participants' favourite music to remove notes which matched the frequency of the ringing in their ears. After a year of listening to the modified music, individuals reported a drop in the loudness of their tinnitus. The researchers said the "inexpensive" treatment could be used alongside other techniques to relieve the condition. " It could significantly complement widely-used and rather indirect psychological treatment strategies " Dr Christo Pantev Westphalian Wilhelms University It is thought that around 1-3 % of the population have chronic ringing in their ears which is significant enough to reduce their overall quality of life. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said although the cause of tinnitus remains unknown, it has been shown that the part of the brain that processes sounds is frequently disrupted in people with the condition. The theory behind the new technique is that removing the spectrum of noise associated with tinnitus from the music reduces activity in the brain relating to that frequency, alleviating the condition. Therapy The 39 patients who took part in the study all had chronic tinnitus for an average of five years but had no other hearing problems. They were split into three groups and were offered either the modified music therapy, a dummy version of music therapy or usual treatment. Participants listened to the music for an average of 12 hours a week and by the end of the study, those who had been given the tailored music reported a significant drop in the level of the ringing they heard compared with those listening to the dummy version. Study leader Dr Christo Pantev, from Westphalian Wilhelms University in Munster, said the approach specifically targeted the part of the brain responsible for tinnitus. "The notched music approach can be considered as enjoyable, low cost, and presumably causal treatment that is capable of specifically reducing tinnitus loudness. "It could significantly complement widely-used and rather indirect psychological treatment strategies." Dr Ralph Holmes, director of biomedical research at deaf and hard of hearing charity, RNID, said he would look in detail at the findings. "While we find it encouraging there is new investment in treatment for tinnitus, we know there is no proven 'cure'. "This seems to be similar to tinnitus retraining therapy which is one of the most common ways of managing the condition."

A German computer scientist has published details of the secret code used to protect the conversations of more than 4 bn mobile phone users. Karsten Nohl, working with other experts, has spent the past five months cracking the algorithm used to encrypt phone calls using GSM technology. GSM is the most popular standard for mobile networks around the world. Mr Nohl told the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin that the work showed that GSM security was "inadequate". "We are trying to inform people about this widespread vulnerability," Mr Nohl told BBC News. "We hope to create some additional pressure and demand from customers for better encryption." The GSM Association (GSMA), which devised the algorithm and oversees development of the standard, said Mr Nohl's work would be "highly illegal" in the UK and many other countries. "This isn't something that we take lightly at all," a spokeswoman said. Mr Nohl told the BBC that he had consulted with lawyers before publication and believed the work was "legal". 'Secret key' Mr Nohl, working with a "few dozen" other people, claims to have published material that would crack the A5 /1 algorithm, a 22- year-old code used by many carriers. The code is designed to prevent phone calls from being intercepted by forcing mobile phones and base stations to rapidly change radio frequencies over a spectrum of 80 channels. It is known to have a series of weaknesses with the first serious flaw exposed in 1994. Mr Nohl, who describes himself as an "offensive security researcher", announced his intention to crack the code at the Hacking at Random (HAR) conference in The Netherlands in August this year. "Any cryptographic function is a one way street," he told BBC News. "You should not be able to decrypt without the secret key". To get around this problem, Mr Nohl, working with other members of the encryption community, used networks of computers to crunch through "every possible combination" of inputs and outputs for the encryption code. Mr Nohl said there were "trillions" of possibilities. " It lowers the bar for people and organisations to crack GSM calls " Ian Meakin Cellcrypt All of the outputs are now detailed in a vast table, which can be used to determine the encryption key used to secure the conversation or text message. "It's like a telephone book - if someone tells you a name you can look up their number," he said. Using the codebook, a "beefy gaming computer and $3 ,000 worth of radio equipment" would allow anyone to decrypt signals from the billions of GSM users around the world, he said. Signals could be decrypted in "real time" with $30 ,000 worth of equipment, Mr Nohl added. 'Not practical' It has been possible to decrypt GSM signals previous to this work to listen in on conversations, but the equipment cost "hundreds of thousands of dollars," experts said. According to Ian Meakin, of mobile encryption firm Cellcrypt, only government agencies and " well funded" criminals had access to the necessary technology. He described Mr Nohl's work as a "massive worry". "It lowers the bar for people and organisations to crack GSM calls," he told BBC News. "It inadvertently puts these tools and techniques in the hands of criminals." However, the GSMA dismissed the worries, saying that "reports of an imminent GSM eavesdropping capability" were "common". It said that there had been "a number" of academic papers outlining how A5 /1 could be compromised but "none to date have led to a practical attack". The association said that it had already outlined a proposal to upgrade A5 /1 to a new standard known as A5 /3 which was currently being " phased in". "All in all, we consider this research, which appears to be motivated in part by commercial considerations, to be a long way from being a practical attack on GSM," the spokeswoman said.

Amazon.com on Saturday released its annual post-Christmas statement on holiday sales and made one thing clear: the Kindle was king, perhaps fueled by continued shifts in plans for shipments of Barnes & Noble's competing Nook e-reader . "We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history," said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. In another milestone for the e-reader, the company noted that on Christmas Day, for the first time ever, Amazon customers bought more Kindle books than physical books. The company didn't offer specific numbers for either category. The peak shopping day for the online retailer was December 14 , when customers ordered more than 9.5 million items worldwide, "a record-breaking 110 items per second." Among those items bought between November and December 19 , the top electronics, following the Kindle, were Apple's iPod Touch GB and the Garmin Nuvi 260W GPS . In the video game category, top sellers were the Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board; New Super Mario Bros., and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 . Among software purchases, top items were Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 , Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 , and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac (Home and Student Edition). Top wireless purchases included the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (unlocked), Plantronics 510 Bluetooth Headset , and BlackBerry Bold 9700 Phone (AT&T). Other top selling gadgets included Casio's Waveceptor Atomic Dual-Time Watch, Oster's Electric Wine-Bottle Opener, Omron's HJ-112 Digital Pocket Pedometer, and Bosch's Laser Distance Measuring Device. We'll have more comprehensive coverage on what looks to be a strong online holiday sales season as the figures come in. In the meantime, here are a few more fun gadget sales factoids from Amazon: • If all the computers customers purchased this holiday were stacked one on top of the other, they would be more than twice as high as Mount Everest. • Amazon customers bought more than 50 times more light therapy devices this holiday season than there are sunny days in Seattle the entire year. • For the holiday time period alone, Amazon customers purchased enough shoot-and-share camcorders to supply 50 years' worth of nonstop YouTube watching. • Amazon customers purchased so many Blu-ray disc players, that if you lined them up side to side, they would stretch for more than 27 • During the 2009 holiday season, Amazon customers bought enough 8 GB iPod Touches to play 442 years of continuous music. • In 2009, Amazon customers purchased enough heart rate monitor watches to put one on the wrist of everyone who finished the New York City marathons in 2008 and 2009. • The last Local Express Delivery order that was delivered in time for Christmas, was placed by a Prime member and went to Seattle. It was a Kindle that was ordered at 1 :43 p.m. on Christmas Eve and delivered at 4 :57 p.m. that evening.

Rising prices and better alternatives may mean curtains for netbooks. The small portable computers were popular in 2009 , but some industry watchers are convinced that their popularity is already waning. "The days of the netbook are over," said Stuart Miles, founder and editor of technology blog Pocket Lint. As prices edge upwards, net-using habits change and other gadgets take on their functions, netbooks will become far less popular, he thinks. "Technology has advanced so much that it's outmanoeuvred itself," he said. "You wouldn't go for something so basic anymore." His prediction stems from his belief that the netbooks of 2009 are losing touch with what made them so appealing. Media heart Asus kicked off the netbook trend in 2007 when it launched the Eee PC 700 and 701. The 700 sported a 2 GB solid state hard drive, 512 MB of Ram, a 900 Hz Intel Celeron processor and a seven-inch screen. It was cheap, cheerful and a boon for those wanting to check e-mail and go online while out and about. But, said Mr Miles, the success of the small, portable notebook has been its undoing because it has spawned so many imitators. Many contemporary netbook models run Windows XP or Windows 7 which has forced the specifications, and price, upwards. Many, he said, now cost at least £350 , a figure close to that for a more capable full-size laptop. What people are looking for now, he believes, is a machine that can keep up with the demands of contemporary web users - far more than the basic e-mail and web browsing that made the first models so appealing. "As soon as you want to do anything else you hit the same problem, it ceases to work," he said. "It does not have the power." Those changing habits of web users, he maintains, are too complex for those basic machines. "It's the internet's fault for making us much more multimedia savvy," he said. Uploading and editing still or moving pictures and handling audio all require far more power than the basic netbook offers, he said. This could explain, he said, why many laptop makers are now turning out very thin and light machines that have power but not the shoulder- wrenching bulk. All change Ian Drew, spokesman for chip designer Arm, also believes netbooks are in for a shake-up. Consumers, he said, were chafing against the restrictions that using a netbook imposed on them. "We have failed the consumer because we have imposed constraints on them," he said. Changing web habits and greater use of social media will mean consumers will be looking for gadgets that are tuned to specific purposes. " The web is the king " Christopher David, SonyEricsson "It will be a lot of different machines for a lot of different people," he said. "This whole market will be exploding in the next couple of years." Impetus for this change will come, he believes, from the phone world where many, many types of gadgets are already blooming. "It's no surprise that your mobile has changed a lot in the last three years but your PC hasn't," he said. Arm hopes that many more netbook makers will be using one of its designs as a core processor and turn to Linux as the operating system. At the very least a crop of Arm-based netbooks might mean a big boost to battery life. Arm's mobile pedigree means it is designed to be parsimonious with power. Dell already produces notebooks sporting Latitude ON technology that use both Arm and Intel chips so that they can boot into either Windows or Linux. Editing tools Battery life on Linux is in excess of 10 hours, for Windows rarely more than three. Machines sporting Arm chips are also likely to be thinner as they will not need the heat sinks demanded by processors used in desktops. Mr Drew said deals Arm has signed with Adobe will help ensure that future devices will be able to use the software maker's familiar video, audio and image editing tools. What will also be worth watching, he said, is what happens when Google's Chrome OS is launched. Many of the devices running that will be Arm- based as Chrome is broadly based on one of the Linux distributions. There are also unconfirmed rumours that either Windows 8 or 9 will run on Arm chips. Mr Drew also expects to see devices tailored to particular types of user. E-book readers were an example of this, he said, and were evolving into devices capable of doing more than just handle text. Many can play MP3 s or let owners browse the web. Then there is the approaching wave of tablet computers. Apple is rumoured to be working on one. Dell and Microsoft have shown off their own ideas of what one will look like and there are bound to be many more from established tablet makers such as Archos. Mr Miles from Pocket Lint believes these are likely to take up the mantle from the netbook. "I don't think people will expect it to do much more than you get from a netbook," he said, adding that they were perfect for those who needed a device that let them get online quickly to satisfy their curiosity. They were more likely to succeed now more than ever, said Mr Miles, because of the greater experience people had with using such devices. "It'll be helped by Apple which has educated people how to use multi-touch through the iPhone and iPod touch," he said. Netbooks are also likely to come under pressure from smartphones as they get even smarter, said Christoper David, head of developers at SonyEricsson. Phone makers, he said, have to position themselves to be more open and able to support the web habits of users no matter what they were or what they wanted to do. "The web is the king," he said. Handset makers must work with those open web standards to ensure that the software on the phones they make is flexible enough to cope. "Though," he added, "that is only the starting point of the journey." What will not change, he believes, is the importance of the phone as a vessel for data about its owner. "We're going to see phones coming along where the form factor will be less and less relevant in terms of what we carry about with us," he said. Future devices will grab the best resources nearby whether that is a flat screen, projector or thin film display. The ID credentials stored on what was our phone will handle all the logins and give access to all the sites and services we use. The netbook, and its limitations, will be well and truly left behind.

In Africa and in the tropics, armies of tiny creatures make the twisting stems of acacia plants their homes. Aggressive, stinging ants feed on the sugary nectar the plant provides and live in nests protected by its thick bark. This is the world of "ant guards". The acacias might appear overrun by them, but the plants have the ants wrapped around their little stems. “ Acacias... have very open flowers, but still, the ants don't seem to go on to them. We wanted to know why ” Nigel Raine, Royal Holloway These same plants that provide shelter and produce nourishing nectar to feed the insects also make chemicals that send them into a defensive frenzy, forcing them into retreat. Nigel Raine, a scientist working at Royal Holloway, University of London in the UK has studied this plant-ant relationship. Dr Raine and his colleagues from the universities of St Andrews, Edinburgh and Reading in the UK and Lund University in Sweden have been trying to work out some of the ways in which the insects and the acacias might have co-evolved. He explains how the ants provide a useful service for the acacias. "They guard the plants they live on," said Dr Raine. "If other animals try to come and feed on the rich, sugary nectar, they will attack them." In Africa, one type of ant-guard, known as Crematogaster , will even attack large herbivores that attempt to eat the plant. "If a giraffe starts to eat the leaves of an acacia that is inhabited by ants, the ants will come out and swarm on to its face, biting and stinging," says Dr Raine. "Eventually, the giraffe will get fed up and move off." In the New World tropics, the Pseudomyrmex genus of ants fulfil a very similar guarding role. For both species, the acacias provide little, reinforced structures that the ants hollow out and nest within, as well as sugar-rich nectar for them to eat. "In return, both groups of ants protect their host plants from herbivores - both hungry insects and larger [animals]," explains Dr Raine. Give and take That is the plus side for the plants. But being inhabited by aggressive insects could make one important aspect of a plant's life difficult - flowering. Flowers need to be pollinated so the plant can reproduce. So what stops the ants from attacking the helpful little pollinators or stealing all the tasty nectar that attracts them? "Some plants do this structurally, with physical barriers to stop ants getting on to the flower, or sticky or slippery surfaces that the insects can't walk on," said Dr Raine. "Acacias don't have these barriers. They have very open flowers, but still, the ants don't seem to go on to them. We wanted to know why." One clever approach by the plant is a food " bribe". "Extrafloral nectaries" are small stores of nectar on stems, from which the inhabitants can feed without going on to the flowers. Acacias also produce structures called beltian bodies on the leaf tips. These, Dr Raine explains, are nutritious structures produced by the plant to feed its resident colony of ant-guards. But when this isn't enough, it is a case of chemical warfare. Flowers can produce a variety of chemicals. We can smell some of the volatile organic compounds they release when we sniff our favourite summer bloom. But there is a more manipulative side to these scents. Floral volatile compounds can act as signals - drawing in pollinators such as bees and hummingbirds in with their irresistible aromas. To the ants, however, they are far from irresistible. "The flowers seem to produce chemicals that are repellent to the ants," said Dr Raine. "They release these particularly during the time when they're producing lots of pollen, so the ants are kept off the flowers." In recent studies, described in the journal Functional Ecology, Dr Raine and his colleagues found that the plants with the closest relationships with ants - those that provided homes for their miniature guard army - produced the chemicals that were most effective at keeping the ants at bay. "And that was associated with the flower being open," he says. "So the chemicals are probably in the pollen." When the pollen has all been taken away - by being brushed on to the bodies of hungry pollinators and helpfully delivered to other plants - the flowers become less repellent. "So at this point, the ants can come on to the flowers and can protect them from other insects that might eat them, so that the developing seeds aren't lost," he explains. Dr Raines' team was able to test this using young flowers that had just opened and that contained lots of pollen. The scientists wiped them on older flowers and on the acacia's stems. This showed them that the effect was " transferrable" - the stems and older flowers that had been wiped became more repellent. "It gives this really neat feedback system - the plant is protected when it needs to be protected, but not when it doesn't." Selective deterrents The repellent chemicals are specific to the ants. In fact, they attract and repel different groups of insects. "[The chemicals] don't repel bees, even though they are quite closely related to ants. And in some cases, the chemicals actually seem to attract the bees," says Dr Raine. The researchers think that some of the repellents that acacias produce are chemical " mimics" of signalling pheromones that the ants use to communicate. "We put flowers into syringes and puffed the scent over the ant to see how they would respond, and they became q

Next to the global economy, overhauling the U.S. health care system dominated headlines in 2009. We'll leave the debate over a public option for others to tackle and instead focus on one of the major ways in which an overhauled health care system would affect the tech industry: digitizing health records. At the close of 2008 , an in-depth survey published by the New England Journal of Medicine found that only 4 percent of physicians have a fully functional electronic records system . The health care industry's enormous paper trail is notoriously expensive, inefficient, and outdated. So in early 2009 , the stimulus package enacted by Congress pushed for medical records to go electronic . Among the stated goals: "utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014. " By 2015 , government reimbursements to physicians who are not participating in the federal e-record effort will begin to decline. Today, organizations such as Kaiser Permanente, which by early 2009 had already taken its 450 nationwide locations mostly paperless , remain anomalies. The Obama stimulus package committed $59 billion to revamping the health care industry, earmarking $19 billion for hospital technology efforts alone, but even that is considered little more than a down payment on the total cost to modernize a system that is extremely convoluted, not to mention critical to secure. Another stimulus goal is to establish a uniform policy for health IT . Bill Mitchin, co-chair of a health policy collaborative called the Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration, said, "At our very first meeting, we started talking about HIE (health information exchange), and we spent two and a half hours trying to decide if HIE is a noun or a verb. The answer is both." Of course, tech giants are lining up for stimulus dollars , but will any of them get it right? President Obama says he supports an open- source system , while MSN moved forward with My Health Info and IBM partnered with Google Health , which uses software built partially on open-source standards. At the CTIA Wireless 2009 trade show in Las Vegas, many companies talked about jumping on the stimulus gravy train . Wireless companies also flooded a health care technology trade show in Chicago the following week, saying that the most useful electronic records will be those that access data directly from diagnostic and monitoring devices wirelessly, so medical professionals won't have to commit valuable ( read: expensive) time to entering data. Of course, as the industry struggles to go digital, 2009 proved to be a year of tremendous innovation as well. The world of health-related mobile phone apps continues to expand, from scanning bar codes for health ratings and finding the best medicine in a pharmacy , to tracking swing flu outbreaks and carrying the entire Merck Manual on your iPhone. And 2009 brought plenty of optimistic health news, such as the development of fun body monitoring devices ; scientists further finessing the increasingly intricate movements that amputees can perform with prosthetic hands and fingers ; the introduction of a bra that, when taken off, could save your life ; and new research, however flimsy, that porn may not be so bad for you after all.

A YouTube video suggesting that face recognition cameras installed in HP laptops cannot detect black faces has had over one million views. The short movie, uploaded earlier this month, features "Black Desi" and his colleague "White Wanda". When Wanda, a white woman, is in front of the screen, the camera zooms to her face and moves as she moves. But when Desi, a black man, does the same, the camera does not respond by tracking him. The clip is light-hearted in tone but is titled "HP computers are racist". "HP has been informed of a potential issue with the facial-tracking software included on some of its systems, which appears to occur when insufficient foreground lighting is available," an HP spokesman told BBC News. "We take this seriously and are looking into it with our partners."

US scientists believe they have uncovered one of the mechanisms that enables the brain to form memories. Synapses - where brain cells connect with each other - have long been known to be the key site of information exchange and storage in the brain. But researchers say they have now learnt how molecules at the site of the synapse behave to cement a memory. It is hoped the research, published in Neuron, could aid the development of drugs for diseases like Alzheimer's. The deteriorating health of the synapses is increasingly thought to be a feature of Alzheimer's, a disease in which short-term memory suffers before long-term recollections are affected. " Scientists have been perplexed for some time as to why, when synapses are strengthened, you have the degradation of proteins going on side by side with the synthesis of new proteins " Kenneth Kosik University of California Santa Barbara A strong synapse is needed for cementing a memory, and this process involves making new proteins. But how exactly the body controls this process has not been clear. Now scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara say their laboratory work on rats shows the production of proteins needed to cement memories can only happen when the RNA - the collection of molecules that take genetic messages from the nucleus to the rest of the cell - is switched on. Until it is required, the RNA is paralysed by a " silencing" molecule - which itself contains proteins. When an external signal comes in - for example when one sees something interesting or has an unusual experience - the silencing molecule fragments and the RNA is released. " This interesting development could give a greater understanding of the memory loss experienced by people with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia and lead to new treatments " Rebecca Wood Alzheimer's Research Trust Kenneth Kosik of the university's neuroscience research institute said: "One reason why this is interesting is that scientists have been perplexed for some time as to why, when synapses are strengthened, you have the degradation of proteins going on side by side with the synthesis of new proteins. "So we have now resolved this paradox. We show that protein degradation and synthesis go hand in hand. The degradation permits the synthesis." Identifying the proteins the brain needs in order to cement the memory could ultimately have benefits for those suffering from memory disorders. Rebecca Wood, head of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: "Scientists say they have studied nerve cells in the laboratory and learnt more about how specific proteins may have a role in areas of the brain that transmit messages and help us store memories. " The health of synapses and their activity levels is becoming an important and interesting focus of research " Professor Julie Williams "This interesting development could give a greater understanding of the memory loss experienced by people with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia and lead to new treatments." The most recent projections suggest 115 million people across the globe will suffer from dementia by 2050. Julie Williams, professor of psychological medicine at Cardiff University, said: "Our increasing understanding of genetic risk factors in Alzheimer's is pointing to the synapses so any new study in this area is welcome. "Alzheimer's is a complicated disease and it is early days, but the health of synapses and their activity levels is becoming an important and interesting focus of research."

Twitter has bought Mixer Labs, the company that created the GeoAPI location service for developers building application atop Twitter. Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, announced the acquisition on the company's blog , saying "when current location is added to tweets, new and valuable services emerge--everything from breaking news to finding friends or local businesses can be dramatically enhanced." Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it would appear Twitter is putting some of that money it now gets from Google and Microsoft to work. Elad Gil, the co-founder and CEO of Mixer Labs, is a veteran of Google and McKinsey, saying on his company bio that he co- founded Google's Mobile team. Seven employees are listed on Mixer Labs' "About" page , but that might not be an exhaustive list. Twitter acquired Summize in July 2008 , but the company has made few acquisitions, instead fending off perpetual rumors that Google, Microsoft, or another tech heavyweight is poised to snap up the company. Geo-location is definitely one of the hotter segments among the social-media butterflies, with companies like Foursquare and Gowalla drawing significant attention.

The group behind the $100 laptop has revealed the design for its latest computer aimed at connecting children in the developing world. The XO-3 , as it is known, is a slim-line touchscreen tablet PC. One Laptop per Child (OLPC) said it would be " available in 2012 " and would cost "well below $100 ". The new design replaces the proposed XO-2 , a foldable e-book that was first shown off in 2008 but has since been scrapped by the organisation. The XO-3 will eventually replace the original XO laptop that first went into production in 2007. The innovative machines, which have been designed for use in remote and harsh environments, were designed for use by school children and featured a sunlight readable display and open source software. 'Bigger appeal' OLPC originally aimed to sell the low-cost laptops in lots of one million to governments in developing countries for $100 each. However, the non-profit organisation had difficulty getting governments to commit to bulk orders. The machines - which are able to run both Linux and Microsoft Windows - are now offered in single units and cost around $200. So far the XO has been distributed to more than 1.4 million children in 35 countries. The high-price has not however put off all governments. Uruguay has bought a computer for every one of their school children. Walter de Brouwer, CEO of OLPC Europe said that these "saturation projects" were the future of the organisation both in the developed and the developing world. "I'm talking to three four countries in the EU at the moment," he told BBC News. "Once one says yes, the others can't say no." The organisation believes the new design will cost significantly less. Mr Brouwer said that because of the pace of technological change and the ever decreasing prices of electronics he could imagine the design selling for "50 , 60 or 70 euros". He said governments could pay this back over a number of years, allowing pupils to have a laptop for less than one euro per month. "This is very realistic," he said. The concept shows a touchscreen, a camera, induction charger, and a carrying ring on one of its corners. Its inner workings - including a chip from UK firm ARM - will come from an interim design - the XO 1.75 - set for launch in 2011. The 1.75 will merge elements of the current machines with technologies - such as a touchscreen - intended to be included in the XO- 3. OLPC recently said that the organisation would just focus on promoting its concepts and educational aims, rather than manufacturing laptops. "We are not a laptop company," said Mr Brouwer. "Manufacturing a laptop is not such a big deal. The bigger appeal for us is deploying them and integrating them with education systems to transform a society." Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the group, said that he hoped that industry would now copy the design for the XO-3.

An Israeli hacker claims to have broken the copyright protection on Amazon's Kindle e- reader, reports say. The hack will allow the ebooks stored on the reader to be transferred as pdf files to any other device. The hacker, known as Labba, responded to a challenge posted on Israeli hacking forum, hacking.org. It is the latest in a series of Digital Rights Management hacks, the most famous being the reverse engineering of iTunes. The Kindle e-book reader has been very successful since it was launched in the US in 2007. Amazon hopes to have sold a million devices by the end of the year. It leaves it to individual publishers whether they want to apply DRM but books in its main proprietary format .azw, cannot be transferred to other devices. It did not immediately respond to the news but it is likely it will attempt to patch its DRM software. DRM has long divided opinion. While rights holders regard it as a crucial tool to protect copyright, consumers tend to hate it because it limits what can be done with content. "DRM is not an effective way of preventing copying nor is it a good way of making sales. There isn't a customer out there saying 'what I need is an electronic book that does less," novelist and co-editor of the Boing Boing blog Cory Doctorow told the BBC when the Kindle was launched. As soon as a new DRM system is active, hackers begin to try and break it. Most famously Jon Lech Johansen, known as DVD Jon, cracked the copy protection on DVDs in 1999. He went on to break the copyright protection on iTunes, leading Apple to offer DRM-free music. DVD Jon now runs a company with an application to take the pain out of moving different types of content between devices.

President Obama's long awaited cybersecurity tsar faces a "tough job", Security experts have warned. Despite saying the issue was a priority for the government, it has taken seven months to find someone to take the job. Howard Schmidt, a former eBay and Microsoft executive was appointed after others turned the post down. "I bring to this challenge lessons learned during 40 years of experience in government, business and law enforcement," said Mr Schmidt. "In our digital world the information technologies we depend on every day present us with great opportunity and great danger - for our national security, public safety and economic competitiveness as well as our personal privacy," added Mr Schmidt in a video broadcast posted on the White House's website. 'The right person' While applauding the appointment of the country's first cybersecurity co-ordinator, security professionals have also expressed some frustration at how long it has taken to fill the post. "While I am disappointed that it has taken this long, I am happy the government spent the time to get the right person for the job," said Ken Silva, the chief technology officer of VeriSign and someone who has known Mr Schmidt for around eight years. "What he brings to this job is the right level of senior government experience and industry experience. That is something that is hard to find. "Before getting down to the technology challenges he has to establish himself within government and industry in this new role," Mr Silva told BBC News. Mr Schmidt served under President George W Bush for three years, where his tasks involved reviewing how to improve network security for government agencies, the private sector and citizens. Some in the industry warn of the political pitfalls ahead as Mr Schmidt tries to pull together a number of government agencies and their various cybersecurity issues. "I think it will be a very tough job. He's going to have to herd some cats," said Roger Thornton, CTO and founder of security vendor Fortify Software. Cisco's chief security officer John N. Stewart agreed that Mr Schmidt has his work cut out for him. "Today more than ever, we need greater collaboration between government and business leaders to help enable national security and public safety, provide for economic prosperity, and ensure the delivery of critical services to the American public." Challenges In Mr Schmidt's video broadcast, he said that the President has already directed him to focus on several priority areas. These include "developing a new comprehensive strategy to secure American networks, ensuring an organised, unified response to future cyber incidents, strengthening public/private partnerships, promoting research and development for the next generation of technologies and leading a national campaign for cybersecurity, awareness and education". "When it comes to cyber security our vulnerability is shared," said Mr Schmidt. In May this year, President Obama pledged to personally appoint someone to the post. Mr Schmidt will have "regular access to the President and serve as a key member of his National Security Staff," said John Brennan, assistant to the President for homeland security and counterterrorism. The White House's acting cyber-security head, Melissa Hathaway, stood down in August after complaining that the post did not allow her to implement necessary changes. News of Mr Schmidt's appointment comes amid claims in the Wall Street Journal that the FBI is investigating a hacker attack on Citigroup Inc that led to the theft of tens of millions of dollars. The newspaper has reported that the hackers were connected to a Russian cyber gang. Citigroup has denied the report.

A Russian spacecraft carrying an international crew has docked with the International Space Station, Russia's mission control says. Spokesman Valery Lyndin said the Soyuz TMA-17 , launched from Kazakhstan on Monday, docked at 0148 Moscow time on Wednesday (2248 GMT on Tuesday). American Timothy J Creamer, Soichi Noguchi of Japan and Russia's Oleg Kotov were on board. They join an American and a Russian currently on the station. Jeff Williams and Maxim Surayev have been there since October.

Touchscreens are so yesterday. Remote controls? So last century. The future is controlling your devices with a simple wave of the hand. A wiggle of the fingers will change television channels or turn the volume up or down. In videogames, your movements will control your onscreen digital avatar. It's called 3 D gesture recognition and while it may not be in stores this Christmas a number of technology companies are promising that it will be by next year. Softkinetic, a Brussels-based software company, is one of the leaders in the gesture-control field and has teamed up with US semiconductor giant Texas Instruments and others to make this touchless vision of the future a reality. Besides TI, Softkinetic has forged partnerships with France's Orange Vallee for interactive TV, another Belgian firm, Optrima, a maker of 3 D cameras and sensors, and with Connecting Technology, a French home automation company. "On the consumer side you have three markets -- television, videogames and personal computers," Softkinetic chief executive Michel Tombroff told AFP in a telephone interview. "The objective is to be on the consumer market at the end of next year, by Christmas, so people can buy these things," he said. "In the same way that the Nintendo Wii completely changed the way that people play videogames this 3 D camera technology will allow us to completely transform the way people interact with television," Tombroff said. Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, said he believes that gesture recognition technology is "directionally correct because anything leading to a more natural interface for a human is better. "We're in that transition to a time when gestural input will be quite natural," Kay said. "From what I've seen of the demos they're pretty close. " On the gaming front, "using a camera in real time to capture motion and then take the representative avatar from that and play it on a screen with other elements in a virtual world is a pretty compelling experience," he said. US software giant Microsoft demonstrated a gesture recognition program called "Project Natal" for its Xbox 360 videogame console in June and has announced plans to launch it next year. Tombroff said Softkinetic's gesture recognition solutions involve using a 3 D camera that "looks like a little webcam" and is mounted on top of a television set or computer monitor. "It looks at the scene and it can analyze gestures without you holding anything in your hand or wearing any special equipment," he said. "It's really the ultimate gesture-based solution. "With the Wii you need to hold something in your hand," Tombroff said. "With this we look at your full body. You don't need to hold anything. "You just stand up or just move your hand," he said. "We let you interact without any intermediate component." Tombroff said the technology has the capability of transforming television. "It will become an active component of the living room," he said. "It's not just about sitting in the living room, turning it on and watching. "It's about interacting. The TV will recognize you. If you step in front of it, the camera will recognize it's you," Tombroff said. "Maybe it will start with a quick recap of your email, the weather, and the traffic because it knows you need to go to the office," he said. "That's the personalization," Tombroff said. " After that it may propose interactive programs. So instead of just sitting and watching TV you'll be able to play games or enter into programs. "In the same way that the iPhone completely transformed the user experience as far as the phone is concerned this will transform the way people experience television," he said.

Most Yahoo employees will be off next week due to mandatory office closings though they& had since April to figure out what to do. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Yahoo is shutting down everything except for certain essential functions during the week between Friday, December 25 , and Friday, January 1. A Yahoo representative confirmed the Journal report Tuesday however, according to the representative, Yahoo employees were informed of this plan in April, a detail lacking from several reports about the shutdown, although Reuters had pointed it out at the time. Yahoo has certainly looked to cut costs this year , its first with CEO Carol Bartz and CFO Tim Morse. Layoffs, a search-outsourcing deal with Microsoft , and a reassessment of business priorities were high on the company to-do list in 2009. The shutdown, which requires employees to take unpaid leave or vacation days, would be the first ever in Yahoo history, though other tech companies, notably Hewlett-Packard and Adobe Systems, also shut down for the holidays. Yahoo will have customer support people working over the break, and it obviously plans to keep its Web site up and running, the representative said. Outside the United States, employees will either have paid time off or unpaid time, depending on local laws.

Microsoft has lost an appeal in a patent case that will force it to alter Microsoft Word to avoid an injunction on sales of the product. Microsoft lost a patent case involving a company called I4i in May , after a jury ruled that Microsoft infringed one of i4 i's patents with a custom XML feature found in Word. In August an injunction was placed on sales of Word pending the appeal, which did not go in Microsoft's favor Tuesday. "We couldn't be more pleased with the ruling ( click for PDF ) from the appeals court which upheld the lower court's decision in its entirety. This is both a vindication for I4 i and a war cry for talented inventors whose patents are infringed," said Loudon Owen, chairman of I4 i, in a statement. The technology in question involves "any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML," according to a copy of the injunction released in August. I4i's Owen said at the time that his company wasn't out to force a halt in sales of one of Microsoft's most profitable products, and it doesn't appear that will happen. Microsoft said it planned to remove the feature from all copies of Microsoft Word 2007 that will be sold on or after January 11 , 2010. Prior copies of Word 2007 are not affected by the injunction, and Word 2010 is being designed without the infringing technology, the company said. "While we are moving quickly to address the injunction issue, we are also considering our legal options, which could include a request for a rehearing by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals en banc or a request for a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court," said Kevin Kurtz, director of public affairs for Microsoft, in a statement. The ruling also means that Microsoft is on the hook for $200 million in damages awarded by the jury as well as additional fees and interest. Reuters reported the total would reach $290 million. I4i , unlike other high-profile patent plaintiffs of recent memory ( what's NTP up to these days? ), appears to actually have a business. The company, based in Toronto, helps companies publish and organize documents created with XML, and appears to have carved out a niche in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

The first mobile phone version of the popular web browser Firefox is "days away" from launch, the head of the project has told the BBC. The browser, codenamed Fennec, will initially be available for Nokia's N900 phone, followed by other handsets. It is currently going through final testing and could be released before the end of the year, said Jay Sullivan at Mozilla, the group behind Firefox. The open-source browser will be able to synchronise with the desktop version. " Apple is very restrictive. It doesn't allow other browsers " Jay Sullivan Mozilla Software will mean that any web pages open in a user's desktop browser will automatically open in the mobile version. "At the end of the working day you can walk away from your computer and keep on going on your phone," Mr Sullivan told the BBC. "It encrypts all of the information and sends it back through the cloud between your desktop and mobile." He said that providing there were no "show stoppers", the software could be available to download "within the year". Desktop success The browser will be available to download from the Mozilla website and then offered in Nokia's Ovi store, so that N900 owners can download the software. The organisation is also developing versions for Microsoft's Windows mobile and Google's Android operating system. However, he said that it would be some time before iPhone users would be able to use the browser. "Apple is very restrictive. It doesn't allow other browsers," he said. "As it's a pretty closed platform we don't see that happening soon." When it launches, Firefox will compete with browsers such as Opera, which is the most popular mobile browser according to analytics firm Stats Counter. Apple's Safari for mobile, which comes bundled with the iPhone, is the second most popular, whilst Nokia's own browser is third. The mobile version of Firefox will hope to follow the success of its desktop browser.

Vodafone says it will start selling the iPhone in the UK on 14 January 2010. It is the latest of the UK's major phone networks to offer the iPhone to customers. The cheapest tariff available is £30 a month for 24 months, plus additional handset charges ranging from £59 ( iPhone 3 G 8 GB) to £239 (3 GS 32 GB). Both business and consumer contracts are subject to a 1 GB monthly data limit on mobile internet use. Orange has a "fair use" limit of 750 MB per month. Vodafone and O2 both offer unlimited wifi use. Orange's data limit includes connections to the internet via BT Open-Zone wifi. Both O2 's and Orange's lowest tariffs - £34.26 and £29.36 respectively - are on a 24- month contract and come with a free iPhone. Vodafone comes close with a £35 a month contract over a two year period, also including a free 3 G 8 GB handset. Tesco Mobile tariffs start at £20 a month for 12 months - with a £222 charge for the same model of handset. However, Tesco says that the shorter contract will enable customers to upgrade more quickly. Guy Laurence, chief executive of Vodafone UK, said that the company had been preparing its network for over a year to handle the introduction of the iPhone. There are concerns that mobile networks globally are struggling to cope with demand as more consumers choose internet-enabled smartphones and mobile dongles over fixed broadband deals. Vodafone has also introduced a charge for customers wishing to use their iPhones as a modem - starting at £5 to download 500 MB.

A bird-like dinosaur that prowled an ancient forest 125 million years ago used venom to subdue its prey, according to a new theory. Sinornithosaurus upper teeth resemble those of rear-fanged snakes which bite their prey and channel venom into the wound. The dinosaur probably fed on the abundant birds which inhabited what is now north-east China. The work appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Rear-fanged snakes are considered less dangerous than other venomous snakes. The fangs in these snakes do not inject venom, but instead channel the poison along a groove on the outer surface of teeth that pierce their prey flesh. Sinornithosaurus had upper teeth that were similarly long, grooved and fang-like. David Burnham, from the University of Kansas, US, and colleagues, say the dinosaur upper jaw also contained a pocket that could have housed a venom gland. This is connected to the base of the teeth by a long groove. Like rear-fanged snakes, the venom Sinornithosaurus used was probably not lethal. The researchers suggest it instead caused rapid shock, allowing the dinosaur to subdue its prey. The researchers propose that the length of the dinosaur fangs allowed it to penetrate the thick plumage of birds that populated the forests of north-east China during the early Cretaceous period.

The uniform of the British Army is to be changed for the first time in almost 40 years. The new Multi-Terrain Pattern (MTP) will replace the traditional four colour woodland uniform known as No.8 : Disruptive Pattern Material (DPM). Forces in Afghanistan will start to get the new uniforms in March next year, with the whole army upgraded by 2011. MTP is designed for a wide range of environments, including the volatile "green zone" of Helmand province. British troops in Afghanistan currently use a mix of desert camouflage and temperate DPM, depending on which area they are operating in. There are three main types of terrain in Helmand - desert, the agricultural "green zone" either side of the Helmand river, and residential areas with dusty buildings and mud huts. One soldier said that the mix-and-match was far from ideal and made units stand out, especially in the "green zone". Not perfect Lt Col Toby Evans - a military advisor with the Government's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory - told the BBC the new uniform was a compromise between having a uniform that was perfectly suited to a specific environments and one that would work well across a wide range of conditions. "We've realised that Afghanistan is more complex - especially Helmand - than, say Iraq, which was predominantly a desert background or north-west Europe, which was predominantly green," he said. "The new camouflage is optimised for all the Afghan background colour sets and in doing so we never reach a point - which we did with the old colours - where it is actually wrong. "It may not be quite perfect, but its good enough for everything," he added. The Army's Infantry Trials and Development Unit and the government's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory tested a number of different designs in the UK, Cyprus, Kenya, and Afghanistan before selecting the MTP design. Developed by Crye Precision, MTP is developed from the firm's MultiCam pattern, currently used by some special forces units. 'Looks good' Corporal Adrian Gibbs, from The Grenadier Guards, told BBC News his first impressions of seeing the new MTP uniform. "I think it's good - when you see it compared to the green and desert DPM I think it will work well both on tour and within the UK itself. "This new uniform will make it harder for us to be seen and so much easier for us to do our job." The MoD say the dark green DPM uniforms will slowly be phased out and replaced by MTP. However the current No.5 : Desert combat dress will remain in service and be used along side the Multi-Terrain Pattern.

Esa's Council of Ministers has approved an initial budget of 850 million euros to support the missions. It will need to increase the cash available by about 150 million euros in future years. "This marks an important moment for Europe in its steps towards space exploration on the world scale," said Professor David Southwood, the director of science and robotics at the agency. "We have been to the planets before, sure. But now we have a plan for exploration ahead to build our technical capability and explore Mars in a long-term partnership." The two-mission scenario has been born out of a much smaller proposal passed in 2008 which had the idea of launching a technology- demonstration rover to Mars in 2011 known as ExoMars. Technical considerations that saw this concept grow in scope and cost meant the whole endeavour was revised. The 2016 orbiter would be designed to track down the sources of methane and other trace gases recently detected at Mars. The presence of methane is intriguing because its likely origin is either present-day life or geological activity. Confirmation of either would be a major discovery. The 2018 ExoMars rover - now a much bigger vehicle - could then be targeted at one of the most interesting sources. The 2016 mission would also have sufficient mass margin to put some sort of lander on the surface, although this would stay in just one location and may not be very long-lived. Even so, Europe is keen to have a go at putting down some sort of instrument package on the planet to gain expertise in entry, descent and landing technologies. David Southwood told BBC News that the programme was "on the road in that full implementation of the hardware build will now start".

Twitter has been hit by an embarrassing security breach. A group claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army managed to redirect Twitter users to its own site displaying a political message. Twitter said the attack had been carried out by getting at the servers that tell web browsers where to find particular sites. The site said it would start an investigation into what allowed the "unplanned downtime" to take place. Address books Twitter was hit by the security breach at 2200 PCT (0600 GMT) which led to users being redirected to a page showing a message declaring it had been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army. It showed an image of Arabic text overlaid on a green flag carrying the name of the third Shi'i Imam, Imam Husayn. It also included a poem in Persian which said: "We shall strike if the leader orders, we shall lose our heads if the leader wishes." Also included were the words: "Those that wage fight on the path of God win." Some have suggested the attack is retaliation over the use made of Twitter during protests surrounding the Iranian election. Soon after the images appeared Twitter went offline. About an hour later the site came back to life and appeared to be working normally. A post on the Twitter status blog said: "We are working to recovery (sic) from an unplanned downtime and will update more as we learn the cause of this outage." Later, Twitter admitted that its DNS records had been "temporarily compromised". It said it was looking into what happened. " THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don't, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To.... NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA? WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST Take Care. " Twitter hack text DNS, the Domain Name System, acts as the address books for the internet. It tells browsing software where to find the computers hosting a particular webpage. By attacking the DNS servers the hackers were able to re-direct Twitter users. "These changes mean that when you or I type a website address into our browsers, we are directed not to the real website but to a second site, set up by the hackers, in this case the ' Iranian Cyber Army'," said Rik Ferguson from security firm Trend Micro. "This has the net effect of making it look like, in this example, servers belonging to Twitter were compromised when in reality that was not the case." Mr Ferguson said such attacks were typically a result of politically motivated hacking or " hacktivism". However, he added, some cyber criminals also try the ruse using a replica of a website in an attempt to trick people into handing over login details. The attack is the latest in a series of security embarrassments that Twitter has suffered. In August, Twitter was offline for two hours as it struggled to cope with an attack aimed at a Russian blogger. In July many of Twitter's confidential business documents were stolen in a hack attack and published online. Many spammers and scammers are also targeting the service in a bid to hijack accounts and piggyback on the popularity of some Twitter users.

The discovery of a fossilised skeleton that has become a "central character in the story of human evolution" has been named the science breakthrough of 2009. The 4.4 million year old creature, that may be a human ancestor, was first described in a series of papers in the journal Science in October. It has now been recognised by the journal's editors as the most important scientific accomplishment of this year. It is part of a scientific top 10 that ranges from space science to genetics. The first fossils of the species, Ardipithecus ramidus , were unearthed in 1994. Scientists recognised their importance immediately. But the very poor condition of the ancient bones meant that it took researchers 15 years to excavate and analyse them. " It's not a chimp. It's not a human. It shows us what we used to be " Professor Tim White University of California, Berkeley The most important thing to emerge from that excavation was the partial skeleton of a female creature, which has now been nicknamed "Ardi". An international team of scientists unveiled the skeleton in a series of scientific papers published in Science in October. Their careful examination of its skull, teeth, pelvis, hands and feet revealed that Ardi shared a mixture of "primitive" traits shared with its predecessors, and "derived" features, which it shared with later hominids, or human-like creatures. It shared some of these derived features with humans. Professor Tim White from the University of California, Berkeley in the US, was one of the lead scientists working on the project. "This is not an ordinary fossil. It's not a chimp. It' s not a human. It shows us what we used to be," he told Science Magazine at the time the research was published. One of his team's key conclusions was that Ardi walked upright. This was based on the painstaking reassembly of its very badly crushed pelvis, which the scientists said had a shape that would have allowed Ardi to balance on one leg at a time. Evolution debate Professor White said that some researchers had been sceptical about these conclusions. "Some people have looked at the pelvis and said, 'my gosh, that's fairly squashed. Are you sure you knew how to put it together correctly?' So we're responding to that," he told Science magazine. Ardipithecus was even more primitive than the famous "Lucy" fossil - a 3.2 million year old Australopithecus skeleton that was discovered in 1974. Professor Chris Stringer, a palaeontologist from the Natural History Museum in London said that Ardi was likely "a remnant of a more ancient stage of human evolution" than Lucy. "[It was] closer in many ways to the ancestor we shared with our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, more than six million years ago," he said. The editor-in-chief of Science said that the Ardipithecus research represented a "culmination of 15 years of painstaking, highly collaborative research by 47 scientists of diverse expertise from nine nations." The nine runners up in Science's list of this year's most important breakthroughs were published in a number of scientific journals, including Science, Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The first runner up was Nasa's discovery of magnetised, rapidly rotating neutron stars called pulsars. Others included the discovery that a compound called rapamycin boosted longevity in mice - the first time any drug has stretched a mammal's life span - and advances in gene therapy that could help treat a fatal brain disease. The nine runners up were: Pulsar mystery: Nasa's Fermi gamma-Ray Space Telescope helped identify previously unknown pulsars - highly magnetised and rapidly rotating neutron stars. Extending life: Researchers found the compound rapamycin extends the life span of mice. The discovery was particularly remarkable because the treatment did not start until the mice were middle-aged. Supreme conduction: Materials scientists probed the properties of graphene - highly conductive single-layer sheets of carbon atoms - and started fashioning the material into experimental electronic devices. Plant survival: Scientists discovered the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts. This could help in the design of new ways to protect crops against prolonged dry periods. Laser tool: The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California unveiled the world's first X-ray laser, a powerful research tool capable of taking snapshots of chemical reactions as they happen and studying materials in unprecedented detail. Gene Therapy: European and US researchers made progress in treating a fatal brain disease, inherited blindness, and a severe immune disorder by developing new strategies involving gene therapy . Magnetic monopoly: Physicists working with strange crystalline materials called spin ices created magnetic ripples that behaved like " magnetic monopoles" - fundamental particles with only one magnetic pole . Watery Moon: Nasa discovered water vapour in the debris when it deliberately crashed a rocket near the south pole of the Moon. The experiment was part of the space agency's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission. Hubble Repair: A final repair mission by space shuttle astronauts gave the Hubble telescope sharper vision, enabling it to produce some of its most spectacular images yet.

Mozilla, racing to release Firefox 3.6 by the end of the year , issued a fifth, and likely final, beta version of the new browser. The open-source browser backer announced the new Firefox beta (download for Windows and Mac OS X ) in a blog announcement Thursday. Firefox 3.6 builds in a feature called Personas for customizing the browser's appearance, adds the File interface for better file management such as selecting what to upload, and, my personal favorite, placement of new tabs next to the ones that spawned them . A total of 127 bugs were fixed since the fourth beta, but this time Mozilla didn't announce any new features . The first Firefox 3.6 beta arrived in October. Mozilla had considered issuing its first Firefox 3.6 release candidate this week: "If we can go to build today or tomorrow, QA [quality assurance] will scrap Beta 5 and we'll release RC to the beta audience ASAP," the Mozilla meeting notes said.

Firefox was the application that had the most reported vulnerabilities this year, while holes in Adobe software more than tripled from a year ago, according to statistics compiled by Qualys, a vulnerability management provider. Qualys tallied 102 vulnerabilities that were found in Firefox this year, up from 90 last year. The numbers are based on running totals in the National Vulnerability Database . However, the high number of Firefox vulnerabilities doesn't necessarily mean the Web browser actually has the most bugs; it just means it has the most reported holes. Because the software is open source, all holes are publicly disclosed, whereas proprietary software makers, like Adobe and Microsoft, typically only publicly disclose holes that were found by researchers outside the company, and not ones discovered internally, Qualys Chief Technology Officer Wolfgang Kandek said late on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Adobe took the second-place spot from Microsoft this year. The number of vulnerabilities in Adobe programs rose from 14 last year to 45 this year, while those in Microsoft software dropped from 44 to 41 , according to Qualys. Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office together had 30 vulnerabilities. A shift in focus The numbers illustrate the trend of attackers turning their focus away from operating systems and toward applications, Kandek said. "Operating systems have become more stable and harder to attack and that's why attackers are migrating to applications, he said. "Adobe is a huge focus for attacks now, around 10 more than Microsoft Office. However, other widely used targets like Internet Explorer and Firefox are still far from secure." Research from F-Secure earlier this year provides further evidence that holes in Adobe applications are being targeted more than Microsoft apps. During the first three months of 2009 , F-Secure discovered 663 targeted attack files, the most popular type being PDFs at nearly 50 percent, followed by Microsoft Word at nearly 40 percent, Excel at 7 percent, and PowerPoint at 4.5 percent. That compared with Word representing nearly 35 percent of all 1 ,968 targeted attacks in 2008 , followed by Reader at more than 28 percent, Excel at nearly 20 percent, and PowerPoint at nearly 17 percent. As a result, Adobe needs to respond the way Microsoft did in 2002 when it launched its Trustworthy Computing initiative , and make securing its software a company-wide priority, researchers say . F-Secure even recommended that people stop using Reader and use an alternative PDF reader. Adobe has taken some action, announcing in May that it would release its security updates on a regular schedule, quarterly and coinciding with every third Microsoft Patch Tuesday. Another study released this week focuses on which applications are the riskiest to users. Based on the most severe vulnerabilities in popular applications that run on Windows and which are not updated automatically, Firefox again tops the list, followed by Adobe Reader and Apple QuickTime, according to Bit9 , a provider of application whitelisting technology. The list of risky software compiled by Bit9 based on the National Vulnerability Database also includes Java, Flash Player, Safari , Shockwave, Acrobat, Opera, Real Player, and Trillian. Last year, the Bit9 list of the most risky apps included Skype, Yahoo IM, and AOL IM, but those three were not on this year's list. Not included on the list are programs from Microsoft and Google because of the ability for users of their software to have patches installed automatically. Microsoft software can be automatically and centrally updated via the Microsoft Systems Management Server and Windows Server Update Services, and Google Chrome is automatically updated when users are on the Internet, Bit9 said. The lists do not take into account the amount of time it takes for companies to release patches, particularly when there is an exploit in the wild. Bit9 noted that Microsoft Internet Explorer was given an "honorable mention" because of a zero- day vulnerability related to ActiveX that went unpatched for three weeks in July . Microsoft isn't alone in taking longer than customers would like to fix holes. In March , Adobe released a patch for a zero-day vulnerability in Reader and Acrobat--about two weeks after it was disclosed to users and nearly two months after exploits had been discovered in the wild. Adobe customers will have to wait about a month for a fix to the latest critical zero-day hole in Reader and Acrobat. The company announced on Wednesday it would not patch the vulnerability until its next scheduled quarterly security update release on January 12.

A producer from Uruguay who uploaded a short film to YouTube in November 2009 has been offered a $30 m (£18.6 m) contract to make a Hollywood film. The movie will be sponsored by director Sam Raimi, whose credits include the Spiderman and Evil Dead films. Fede Alvarez's short film "Ataque de Panico!" ( Panic Attack!) featured giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. It is 4 mins 48 seconds long and was made on a budget of $ 300 (£186). So far it has had more than 1.5 million views on YouTube. "I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios," he told the BBC's Latin American service BBC Mundo. "It was amazing, we were all shocked." The movie Mr Alvarez has been asked to produce is a sci-fi film to be shot in Uruguay and Argentina. He says he intends to start from scratch and develop a new story for the project. "If some director from some country can achieve this just uploading a video to YouTube, it obviously means that anyone could do it," he added. YouTube recently revealed the most watched videos of 2009. Britain's Got Talent star Susan Boyle topped the chart with more than 120 million views worldwide of her debut on the show.

Extraordinary video has been obtained in the Pacific Ocean of the deepest undersea eruption ever recorded. The pictures show lavas bursting into the water at the West Mata submarine volcano, which is sited about 200 km (125 miles) south-west of the Samoas. The US Jason robotic submersible had to descend over 1 ,100 m to acquire the high definition video. The vehicle found microbes and a specialized volcano-dwelling shrimp thriving in hot, acidic waters. "It's an extraordinary environment," said Joseph Resing, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Washington and the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean in Seattle, US. "You have molten lavas at 1 ,400 C producing acidic fluids - the sulphur dioxide makes these fluids as acidic as pH1.4 - and yet microbes are thriving," he told BBC News. "The magmatic gases sustain and provide energy for microbial life, and then the microbes provide energy for the shrimp. "We see them very close to the volcano - within metres." Dr Resing has been describing the volcano's behaviour here at the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) Fall Meeting, the world's largest annual gathering of Earth scientists. Rock recycling The West Mata submarine volcano is about 9 km long and 6 km wide. The base is some 3 km down. Its setting is very close to the 10 ,000 m-deep Tonga-Kermadec Trench. This is where the Pacific Tectonic Plate, which comprises much of the central ocean floor, dives under (subducted) the Australian Plate. It is a key location for the recycling of rock back into the interior of the Earth and it is where molten material can also then force its way back up to the surface. The possible existence of the eruption was first identified in November 2008 through water samples recovered from the ocean that contained anomalously high levels of hydrogen and volcanic debris. But it was not until a full scale expedition took place in May this year and Jason was able to go down and investigate West Mata that scientists realised the magnificence of the discovery. Lava flows Jason, which is operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), moved to within 3 m of the erupting volcano. The vehicle's high-definition camera captured large molten lava bubbles about a metre across bursting into cold seawater, and it saw glowing red vents explosively ejecting lava into the sea. It is said to be the first-observed advance of lava flows across the deep-ocean seafloor. Jason's two robotic arms collected samples of rocks, hot spring waters, the microbes, and the shrimp. To find and study animal life in such a location was fascinating, said Tim Shank, a WHOI macro- biologist on the expedition. "The animal life you see down there has evolved over millions of years to take advantage of the situation. Virtually every species down on the sea floor at vents has some sort of novel adaptation," he told reporters at the AGU meeting. "Shrimp have modified eye forms, and modified claws to enable them to scrape certain types of bacteria. This is where fundamental planetary processes like eruptions meet life, so it has profound implications for me as a biologist looking at the evolution of life on this planet." Researchers say the volcano is spewing boninite lavas, believed to be among the hottest erupting on Earth in modern times, and a type only seen before on extinct volcanoes older than a million years. "Having a very fresh occurrence - it hasn't been altered by the ravages of time - and having a known date of eruption gives us the ability to study many different aspects of the rock, including radioactive tracers which will give us the rates of these processes - i.e. how long it takes for this recycling [at subduction zones] to occur." The West Mata expedition was funded by the US National Science Foundation and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Moon has the coldest place in the Solar System measured by a spacecraft. Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has used its Diviner instrument to probe the insides of permanently shadowed craters on Earth's satellite. It found mid-winter, night-time surface temperatures inside the coldest craters in the northern polar region can dip as low as minus 249 C (26 Kelvin). "The Moon has one of the most extreme thermal environments of any body in the Solar System," said Prof David Paige. "During the middle of the day, temperatures can get up to about 400 K (127 C) at the equator; and at the poles at night, they can get very cold," the Diviner principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles, added. Prof Paige has been describing his instrument's latest findings here at the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) Fall Meeting, the world's largest annual gathering of Earth scientists. Diviner was part of the suite of instruments launched on LRO in June this year and has been operating continuously since it was switched on in July. In October, the spacecraft found itself in the perfect position to witness summer solstice in the Moon's southern hemisphere and winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. The Moon does have seasons - just about. The tilt of the lunar axis is 1.54 degrees. For most places, this makes no difference, but as Prof Paige explained, at the poles, this gives rise to a small, three-degree change in the elevation of the Sun on the horizon through the course of a year. "This results in a significant variation in the extent of shadows and temperatures," he said. Diviner observed the lowest summer temperatures in the darkest craters at the southern pole to be about 35 K (-238 C); but in the north, close to the winter solstice the instrument recorded a temperature of just 26 K on the south- western edge of the floor of Hermite Crater. There were also areas on the southern edges of the floors of Peary and Bosch Craters that got almost as cold. Calculations suggest one would have to travel to a distance beyond the Kuiper Belt - well beyond the orbit of Neptune - to find objects with surfaces this cold. "The way you can make something cold is to eliminate all possible other heat sources, and in these craters at the lunar poles they receive no direct sunlight and the coldest places don't even receive any indirect sunlight," Prof Paige said. "In other words, only what little radiation may be scattered from some distant cliff gets down into these areas; and they just cool off. Finally, they reach an equilibrium temperature down at those low values." The discovery adds further weight to the idea that some craters on the Moon could harbour water-ices for extended periods, and also more volatile substances that require even colder storage temperatures.

Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers - skin and lung - a move they say could revolutionise cancer care. Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, says the Wellcome Trust team. Scientists around the globe are now working to catalogue all the genes that go wrong in many types of human cancer. The UK is looking at breast cancer, Japan at liver and India at mouth. China is studying stomach cancer, and the US is looking at cancers of the brain, ovary and pancreas. " These catalogues are going to change the way we think about individual cancers " Wellcome Trust scientist Professor Michael Stratton The International Cancer Genome Consortium scientists from the 10 countries involved say it will take them at least five years and many hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete this mammoth task. But once they have done this, patients will reap the benefits. Professor Michael Stratton, who is the UK lead, said: "These catalogues are going to change the way we think about individual cancers. "By identifying all the cancer genes we will be able to develop new drugs that target the specific mutated genes and work out which patients will benefit from these novel treatments. "We can envisage a time when following the removal of a cancer cataloguing it will become routine." It could even be possible to develop MoT-style blood tests for healthy adults that can check for tell-tale DNA patterns suggestive of cancer. Russian roulette The scientists found the DNA code for a skin cancer called melanoma contained more than 30 , 000 errors almost entirely caused by too much sun exposure. " Most of the time the mutations will land in innocent parts of the genome, but some will hit the right targets for cancer " Wellcome Trust researcher Dr Peter Campbell The lung cancer DNA code had more than 23 ,000 errors largely triggered by cigarette smoke exposure. From this, the experts estimate a typical smoker acquires one new mutation for every 15 cigarettes they smoke. Although many of these mutations will be harmless, some will trigger cancer. Wellcome Trust researcher Dr Peter Campbell, who conducted this research, published in the journal Nature, said: "It's like playing Russian roulette. "Most of the time the mutations will land in innocent parts of the genome, but some will hit the right targets for cancer." By quitting smoking, people could reduce their cancer risk back down to "normal" with time, he said. The suspicion is lung cells containing mutations are eventually replaced with new ones free of genetic errors. By studying the cancer catalogues in detail, the scientists say it should be possible to find exactly which lifestyle and environmental factors trigger different tumours. Treatment and prevention Tom Haswell, who was successfully treated 15 years ago for lung cancer, believes the research will benefit the next generation: "For future patients I think it's tremendous news because hopefully treatments can be targeted to their particular genome mutations, hopefully... reducing some of the side effects we get". Cancer experts have applauded the work. The Institute of Cancer Research said: "This is the first time that a complete cancer genome has been sequenced and similar insights into other cancer genomes are likely to follow. "As more cancer genomes are revealed by this technique, we will gain a greater understanding of how cancer is caused and develops, improving our ability to prevent, treat and cure cancer." Professor Carlos Caldas, from Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Research Institute called the research "groundbreaking". "Like molecular archaeologists, these researchers have dug through layers of genetic information to uncover the history of these patients' disease. "What is so new in this study is the researchers have been able to link particular mutations to their cause. "The hope and excitement for the future is that we will eventually have detailed picture of how different cancers develop, and ultimately how better to treat and prevent them."