THIS BOX CAN FIGURE OUT YOUR 4-DIGIT IPHONE PASSCODE - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

THIS BOX CAN FIGURE OUT YOUR 4-DIGIT IPHONE PASSCODE

In and of itself, that's not particularly surprising: a 4-digit PIN is widely considered to be insecure. What is novel about the IP Box's approach is that it can bypass one of

iOS's

optional built-in security features, which erases the device after 10 incorrect PIN attempts.

To do so, the box connects to the iPhone via USB and directly to the device's power supply. After it enters an incorrect attempt--which it cleverly determines via a light sensor, as the screen brightness changes when the correct code is input--it cuts power to the phone and reboots it, before

iOS

can record a failed entry.Slide2

WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE NEARSIGHTED?

Studies among twins in the 1960s showed researchers that DNA influences nearsightedness.

K

ids who spend more time outside will maintain good vision for much longer, plus the physical activity could stave off obesity and improve mood.Slide3

FACE RECOGNITION SECURITY, EVEN WITH A 'BLINK TEST,' IS EASY TO TRICK

Since then, most of these systems have gotten a little savvier: most now require you to blink during the recognition process, to verify that you're a real live person and not a photo.

Perhaps using facial recognition for security or buying things on the Internet isn't the best plan. After all, your face is the one part of you that's most easy to find.Slide4

CLOSTRIDIUM DIFFICILE INFECTIONS ARE MORE COMMON IN STATES WITH FEWER HOSPITALS PER PERSON

I

t causes nothing more than a bad case of diarrhea. But for some, it can be deadly; 20 percent of the deaths caused by hospital infections can be directly traced to C. diff.

The bacteria spread through spores, and are constantly evolving into stronger strains, some of which are already resistant to antibiotics.Slide5

ROBOT NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM

Cairns and

Lanza

built the bots from laser-cut and machined parts, along with DIY electronics.

To avoid knocking over priceless works of art, the robots use sonar, which detects sound waves as they bounce off obstacles. If an object blocks a robot’s path, it won’t proceed forward, even when its driver orders it to. The designers also built in a fail-safe: If one of the sensors stops working, a switch will cut off power to the bot.Slide6

NEW TEST DIAGNOSES MALARIA IN ANCIENT BONES

After looking at finely ground samples of bone marrow from leg bones of children taken from an archeological dig in Italy,

Inwood

identified the crystal

hemozoin

, which is created by the malaria parasite as it digests human blood.

Malaria is spread by mosquito and infects 198 million people every year. The CDC estimates that in 2013, 500,000 people died of the disease, primarily children in Africa. Slide7

NEWLY DISCOVERED LUNAR CRATER NAMED AFTER AMELIA EARHART

Only the rim of the Earhart crater is still visible. The rest of it was obliterated by another impact that formed the massive Mare

Serenitatis

(Sea of Serenity) 3.9 billion years ago. The researchers were only able to figure out it existed based on data from NASA's GRAIL mission which mapped the Moon's gravity field. When the scientists looked at the resulting gravity maps, they noticed a circular crater-like anomaly whose circumference lined up directly with a semi-circle shaped ridge (part of the rim of the crater). The researchers decided that the elusive crater should be named after Earhart, a proposal they hope will be approved by the International Astronomical Union.Slide8

IRELAND’S JAMES JOYCE SHIP WILL CONTROL FLYING ROBOTS

L.E James Joyce is an “offshore patrol vessel." These ships

surveil

the exclusive economic zone off Ireland’s coasts, extending toward Great Britain in the East and into the Atlantic in the west. It covers over 158,000 square miles in area. To cover all that territory, Joyce will fly drones. Which drones exactly haven't been specified, but there are a few possibilities.

In 2013 the Irish Naval Service ran a practice exercise using Israeli-made Orbiter drones, the same ones Israel’s navy has launched from the decks of ships. The naval version of the Orbiter requires a small catapult on deck to launch it.

SkyTec

Ireland may also be developing a drone for the Irish fleet to use.Slide9

SPACE SHOTS: THE UNIVERSE'S BEST IMAGES

This smiley face was captured by Hubble. The two bright eyes are galaxies, and the smile is caused by a phenomenon called strong gravitational lensing

. Essentially, the gravitational pull of some galaxy clusters is so strong that it 

warps

spacetime

around

them. As light from even more distant stars and galaxies travels through this warped

spacetime

, it gets distorted, showing up to us as arcs and circles. When we see circles, like the outline of the smiley face above, that circle is called an Einstein ring

.Slide10

RESEARCHERS FIND THE GENE THAT MAKES US 3D

The researchers suspected that YAP played a role in tissues' tensile strength, which is why they looked at it in the first place. But they couldn’t experiment on human organs, so they mutated the YAP gene in an embryo of a medaka fish, or Japanese rice fish, to see how it would react to gravity without it. They found that the embryos with the YAP mutation were significantly flatter in the direction of gravity and the tissues didn’t align themselves in the right way--most notably the tissues in the lens of the eye

.

Then the researchers tried the same mutation on 3D clusters of human cells and found that the tissues weren’t able to maintain the same tension as before, which they need in order to stay in the right shape and function properly. If our tissues weren’t able to hold themselves up against the pull of gravity, many of our organs, such as our eyes and hearts, wouldn’t work as well--if at all. With a better understanding of what helps our tissues resist gravity, the researchers hope to better grow more complex organs in a lab for transplantation.