North Korea Says it Has Conducted a Nuclear Test

North Korea says it has successfully tested a miniaturized nuclear device Tuesday, according to state media.

A large tremor measured at magnitude 4.9 was detected in North Korea and governments in the region scrambled to determine whether it was a nuclear test that the North Korean regime has vowed to carry out despite international protests.

Official state media said the test was conducted in a safe manner and is aimed at coping with "outrageous" U.S. hostility that "violently" undermines the North's peaceful, sovereign rights to launch satellites. Unlike previous tests, North Korea used a powerful explosive nuclear bomb that is smaller and lighter, state media reported.

President Obama called the test "a highly provocative act" in a statement Tuesday morning.

"The danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community. The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies,"Obama said.

"The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and steadfast in our defense commitments to allies in the region," he added.

The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on North Korea's nuclear test later this morning.

Suspicions were aroused when the U.S. Geological Survey said it had detected a magnitude 4.9 earthquake Tuesday in North Korea.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization told ABC News, "We confirm that a suspicious seismic event has taken place in North Korea."

North Korea Threatens More Nuclear Tests, Warns U.S. Watch Video

"The event shows clear explosion-like characteristics and its location is roughly congruent with the 2006 and 2009 DPRK (North Korea) nuclear tests," said Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the organization.

"If confirmed as a nuclear test, this act would constitute a clear threat to international peace and security, and challenges efforts made to strengthen global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation," Toth said in a statement on the organization's web site.

Kim Min-seok, a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman, told reporters that North Korea informed United States and China that it intended to carry out another nuclear test, according to the AP. But U.S. officials did not respond to calls from ABC News Monday night.

The seismic force measured 6 to 7 kilotons, according to South Korea.

"Now that's an absolutely huge explosion by conventional terms. It's a smallish, but not tiny explosion by nuclear terms. It's about two-thirds the size of the bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima," James Acton, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told ABC News.

North Korea threatened in January to carry out a "higher-level" test following the successful Dec. 12 launch of a long range rocket. At the time, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un said his country's weapons tests were specifically targeting the United States.

The suspicious tremor comes just hours before President Obama is to give the State of the Union address, and it marks the first diplomatic test in the region for new Secretary of State John Kerry.

Also, South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye, is scheduled to be sworn in on Feb. 25. One of North Korea's biggest holidays, Kim Jong-il's birthday, falls on Feb. 16.

China, North Korea's main ally in the region, has warned North Korea it would cut back severely needed food assistance if it carried out a test. Each year China donates approximately half of the food North Korea lacks to feed its people and half of all oil the country consumes.

Both of North Korea's previous tests used a plutonium-based method for making bomb fuel. The first was deemed a failure, the second only slightly less so. If the most recent test used HEU (highly enriched uranium), a far more difficult-to-detect method of producing bomb fuel, it would be a significant and worrisome step forward for North Korea's weapons program.

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Why we're building a €1 billion model of a human brain

The Human Brain Project has just won a €1 billion research prize. Its director Henry Markram says the initiative will unify our understanding of the brain

Your project aims to recreate the human brain in a supercomputer. Why?
We want to reach a unified understanding of the brain and the simulation on a supercomputer is the tool. Today you have neuroscientists working on a genetic, behavioural or cognitive level, and then you have informaticians, chemists and mathematicians. They all have their own understanding of how the brain functions and is structured. How do you get them all around the same table? We think of the project as like a CERN for the brain. The model is our way of bringing everyone, and our understanding, together.

What do you hope will come of the project?
There are three goals. As the model becomes more accurate and behaves more like a brain, we could couple it to a robot and see the robot learning. Then we'll be able to trace the chain of events from molecules to cognition.

Second, we plan to collect data from hospitals around the world to search for biological signatures of disease. We believe this will give us a new classification of brain disease, which can be used to diagnose people objectively - not solely based on their symptoms.

And finally, we want to build neuromorphic computers, which would have processors that can learn, mimicking the way the brain does.

How close are you to recreating a brain?
We've developed an algorithm to work out some of the rules for how to reconstruct the brain. We can now make thousands of predictions that when tested are accurate, and we can reconstruct small brain circuits of up to about 1 million rat neurons. Now we've got to connect those groups of neurons to make brain regions, then connect the regions to make a computer model of a whole brain. Once we've modelled a rat brain, then we update the rules and gradually move towards a human model.

Could the model be too detailed?
People are afraid of detail and complexity. But a drug is a molecule. It doesn't hit a cell, or the brain, it hits other molecules. There's no reason why we shouldn't try to explain how all the molecules are interacting with one another. Sheer numbers do not equal complexity. One hundred billion neurons is numbers, not complexity.

What about criticisms that it drains funds from more readily achievable neuroscience?
That is an incredibly short-sighted view of how a big science project impacts the rest of the field. Take the Human Genome Project - you can criticise them for all the promises they made at the time, but we would be in the dark ages now if we hadn't done that project. It has benefitted every biologist and geneticist on the planet today.

Once completed, could the simulated brain ever become conscious?
When we couple the model to a robot, the robot will behave, and we'll see this in the way its neurons are firing. Does that mean it's conscious? That's a philosophical question - and an unresolved one.

This article appeared in print under the headline "One minute with... Henry Markram"

Profile

Henry Markram is the director of the Human Brain Project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). The project just won a €1 billion European research prize

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Tech giants summoned by Australia pricing inquiry

SYDNEY: Global technology giants Microsoft, Apple and Adobe were on Monday ordered to appear before a pricing inquiry examining the often-higher cost of tech goods in Australia compared with other economies.

The lower house committee holding the probe, which was launched last May, said it had summoned the trio to appear at a public hearing next month to explain why Australian customers paid more for the same products.

"The committee is looking at the impacts of prices charged to Australian consumers for IT products," it said in a statement.

"Australian consumers often pay much higher prices for hardware and software than people in other countries."

The inquiry was set up to examine claims by consumer advocacy groups of price discrimination for Australians on technology, with music, games, software, and gaming and computer hardware costing substantially more than elsewhere.

According to consumer lobby group Choice, Australians pay on average 73 percent more on iTunes downloads than the United States, 69 percent more on computer products and a staggering 232 percent more on PC game downloads.

Office software was on average 34 percent more expensive in Australia when compared with the United States, Choice said in its submission to the inquiry, with hardware coming in at 41 percent more expensive.

One software package was A$8,665 (US$8,939) more expensive to buy in Australia than the United States -- a gap that Choice described as "particularly unreasonable".

"For this amount, it would be cheaper to employ someone for 46 hours at the price of $21.30 per hour and fly them to the US and back at your expense -- twice," Choice said.

Choice only did comparisons to the United States and Britain; the inquiry is examining discrepancies with these countries as well as with Asia-Pacific economies.

Apple and Microsoft have both made their own submissions to the committee, arguing that prices differed across jurisdictions due to a range of factors including freight, local taxes and duties and foreign exchange rates.

The Australian Information Industry Association, which represents Adobe and other major ICT firms, has submitted to the committee that the "costs of doing business in Australia are higher than in many other countries".

It pointed to retail rent costs and high wages as some of the main factors behind business costs in Australia being "5-10 percent higher than any other country... and these costs are passed onto consumers".

Apple and Microsoft both declined to comment when contacted by AFP while Adobe said it would "cooperate with the committee as we have done since the inquiry began".

- AFP/ir

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7 social media lessons from the Grammys for organizers of other events

@LLCoolJ promoting the #Grammys hashtag during the 2013 Grammy ceremony.

It's awards season in the U.S., which means big shows on TV, including the Oscars and the Grammys. While we have a couple of weeks to go till the Oscars, their musical counterparts, the Grammys, were presented Sunday night.

Last year, I wrote about how the Oscars missed an opportunity to use hashtags the right way on TV and I look forward to seeing if they learnt anything from the Grammys (I should note here that CBS owns both the Grammys and CNET, but I am writing this unprompted and on my own).

Here are six things the Grammys did right on social this year - plus one they didn't - and what folks who run other events, especially conferences, can learn.

1. Be semi-obnoxious: The Grammys did what I say to anyone trying to promote their use of social media: be semi-obnoxious, telling people what your hashtags and handles are, and what platforms you are on. You can't be shy about it. You need to, more than once, tell them how and where to follow you. For a conference, be sure to print the hashtags and handles on the official program and even the invitation, if possible.

2. Tell your audience what they will get for following you on social media: On at least four occasions, host LL Cool J (@llcoolj) was on camera talking up the night's official hashtag - #grammys - and reminding viewers to tweet to the official handle. He also told the audience that he and @TheGrammys were posting behind-the-scenes photos and other exclusive content on Twitter.

3. Let people know you are listening: Just as importantly, he appeared to read select tweets on the air, giving the impression that he - or at least some on the Grammys social media team - was browsing the tweets. Letting it be known that there's someone reading tweets is a great way to trigger more tweets. At a conference, the emcee or moderator can read out selected tweets.

4. Spell it out: Before going to some of the commercial breaks, there were promos for social media channels, as you can see from this Tout video of the broadcast, urging people to look at Grammy.com as well as Twitter.com/thegrammys, Faceboo.com/thegrammys and GetGlue.com/thegrammys:

At a conference you can remind the audience, from the podium, what the handles and hashtags are, and during breaks run a tweet wall on the main screen. You can use VisibleTweets or Tweetbeam to run tweets, but best to do it only during breaks so that the audience isn't distracted as the tweets rush by behind the speakers.

5. Be active on social media during your event: The various Grammy platforms were active throughout the broadcast. At a conference, it's important to have active official accounts to direct, guide and enhance the conversation, so you aren't just relying on attendee participation.

The official Grammys account tweets about the Bob Marley tribute by Sting, Bruno Mars and some of the Marley children.

A promo poster for The Grammys featuring Rihanna.

6. Think about social media long before the event: The Grammys were promoting the ceremony on various platforms and not waiting for the last minute. Even the playful "#The World is Listening" campaign of posters featuring Rihanna, Linkin Park, Taylor Swift and others, hinted at the social aspects of the show (thankfully, the producers didn't actually use what would have been the world's worst hashtag). For a conference, think about adding the handles and hashtag to the invitations, reminder emails, etc.

7. Use social media to help the viewer keep up: On every awards show, it's hard to keep straight who's on stage. Between the introducers of the performers to the performers to the winners, it's easy to lose track of who you are watching at any moment. And even if you know who that is on stage, trying to tweet about him or her often means having to look up the person's Twitter handle. While the Grammys tweeted about who was on stage, the on-air titles could easily have shown some of the relevant handles, thus helping viewers keep up. Especially people like me who don't know many of the popular names in today's music.

At conferences, make sure the slides announcing a panel or keynote have the relevant handles on them. Or have the moderator or emcee mention ways in which attendees can connect with the speakers, and do it multiple times.

Another idea: Every nametag should have printed on it the conference's hashtag and the attendee's Twitter handle (if available).

All these activities seem to have paid off, as Grammy related hashtags were trending around the world and continued to do so hours after the show ended. According to stats provided by Twitter to Mashable, there were about 13.2 million tweets during the show and these were the top three tweets-per-minute moments:

Jay-Z, Kanye West, Frank Ocean and The-Dream win Best Rap Collaboration: 116,400; Prince announce's Gotye winning Record of the Year: 109,400; Fun. wins best new artist: 100,600.

I will be taking a lot of this advice this week as I host the third annual Social Media Weekend at Columbia Journalism School. Of course, our team is tiny and budget is minuscule compared to the Grammy extravaganza, but thanks to fabulous volunteers, we will be in the game. Even if you can't make it, thanks to my being semi-obnoxious (or worse) about getting people to tweet, you can follow the action before, during and after via #smwknd. We are also giving away some fabulous tweet-based prizes (including career counseling and social-media makeovers) that anyone can win.

If you haven't seen them, Twitter's official hashtags best practices are here. Consolidate and Be #Obvious are two of the tips there.

Your turn: What did you think of the Grammys and social media? What social tips do you have for conference organizers? Post your comments below or tweet me, @sree.

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Year of the Snake: The Serpent Behind the Horoscope

On February 10, people all around the world will ring in the Lunar New Year with paper lanterns and firecrackers. At the heart of it all sits the snake, a slithery reptile feared for its sharp fangs and revered for its undeniable charm. (Watch videos of some of the world's deadliest snakes.)

Those born in the Year of the Snake are said to be intelligent and quick thinking, but they can also be dishonest and prone to show off. Though based on Chinese astrology, some of these traits are similar to characteristics of the actual serpent.

Snakes are known to be great at outsmarting their predators and prey. Their colorful, patterned skin makes them some of the best tricksters in the animal kingdom. And despite a bad rap as frightening creatures, snakes never fail to fascinate scientists, explorers, and zoo-goers. (See pictures of snakes.)

With more than 3,400 recognized species, snakes exhibit incredible diversity in everything from behavior and habitats to skin colors and patterns.

"As a vertebrate lacking in limbs, all snakes look largely like other snakes, yet they succeed in tremendous diversity in multiple directions," said Andrew Campbell, herpetology collections manager at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute.

To usher in the Year of the Snake, Campbell and herpetologist Dennis Ferraro at University of Nebraska-Lincoln weigh in on some of the snake's qualities that the Chinese zodiac predicts people born this year will have.

Horoscope: Snakes have an innately elegant personality but can also be ostentatious at times.

In Nature: Snakes come in all different colors, patterns, and textures, making them some of nature's most visually stunning creatures.

According to Campbell, the utility of their coloring falls into two main categories: to use as camouflage and to warn predators to stay away.

Among the most beautiful are the emerald tree boa (Corallus caninus)—whose vibrant green body is decorated with white stripes resembling lightning bolts—and the Brazilian rainbow boa (Epicrates cenchria), characterized by its iridescent skin and the large black rings down its back.

For some snakes, the diversity in color occurs within the same species, which is why Ferraro tells his student not to identify snakes by colors. For example, the polymorphic bush viper (Atheris squamigera), many of which are green, also come in shades of yellow, orange, red, and blue, as captured in photographer Guido Mocafico's "Serpent Still Life" photo series.

Horoscope: The snake is known to be the master seducer of the Chinese zodiac.

In Nature: Female garter snakes (Thamnophis) have all the luck with the gentlemen.

When a female garter snake is ready to mate, she announces it by producing chemicals called pheromones. Males, upon encountering the scent, immediately come crawling out and gather around the female in a large, wriggling "mating ball."

The competition intensifies when a male passing by the ball tries to fool the others by producing a scent that mimics that of the female, said Ferraro.

As soon as his rivals are led off in the wrong direction, the trickster slides right in. In areas with smaller populations of garter snakes, each ball consists of about 12 males and one female.

But in places like Manitoba, Canada, where garter snakes travel to certain areas to mate after coming out of hibernation, a mating ball can have thousands of males and only a hundred females.

Horoscope: Though snakes don't often tell lies, they will use deception when they feel it's necessary and they think they can get away with it.

In Nature: When it comes to using trickery to catch dinner, or to hide from predators, snakes are no amateurs.

Their sneaky techniques range from tricking fish to swim right into their mouths, to playing dead when threatened, to using their wormlike tails to lure in prey.

The most cunning of them all is the two-headed snake. To protect against a sneak attack from behind, the two-headed snake's tail looks just like its head. While the business end looks for food, the snake coils up its body and rests its tail on top to look like it is on guard.

The tail can even mimic the behavior of a retreating snake to trick predators into thinking they're going face-to-face with their opponent.

Horoscope: When snakes get down to work, they are organized and highly efficient, and they work quickly and quietly.

In Nature: While snakes are often perceived as lazy, Campbell said people are mistaken. "What we perceive as shy, lazy, or inactive is really efficiency," he said.

"On average, they are bigger than other lizards and can build a lot of body mass. They do that by being efficient in feeding and traveling." In other words, snakes don't move very much because they don't have to.

When it comes to food, snakes catch prey that are significantly larger than them so they can eat less frequently. This reduces the time they spend hunting and thus makes them less vulnerable to falling victim to a predator themselves.

For Campbell, the most impressive hunter is the eastern diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus Adamanteus), which is able to hunt and kill its prey very quickly using venom, so it doesn't have to travel far. "Because they don't have to do that, they can become relatively large and heavy, being able to build up body mass and not having to spend that energy hunting."

Horoscope: Snakes are charming, with excellent communication skills.

In Nturea: For snakes, their visual and auditory senses don't mean much when it comes to communicating with each other.

Instead, they use their sense of smell and the chemicals produced by their musk glands. Unlike mammals, a snake picks up scent through the forks of its tongue.

When the snake retracts its tongue, it inserts the forks into grooves in an olfactory organ located at the roof of its mouth. Depending on which fork picks up a stronger scent, the snake knows in which direction to go when looking for prey or a mate.

It's when snakes are threatened that they use sight and sound, said Ferraro. Rattlesnakes, for example, shake their tails, making a loud rattling noise to ward off predators.

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Possible Dorner Sighting Leads to Store Evacuation

A Northridge, Calif., home improvement store was evacuated tonight because of a possible sighting of suspected cop-killer Christopher Dorner, just hours after police announced a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

As helicopters hovered overhead and a command center was established, police searched the Lowe's store and eventually told shoppers they could leave, but could not take their cars out of the parking lot.

LAPD spokesman Gus Villanueva said the major response to the possible sighting was a precaution, but couldn't say whether Dorner was in the area.

The announcement of the $1 million reward today came as authorities in Big Bear, Calif., scaled back their search for Dorner, the disgruntled ex-cop who is suspected in three revenge killings.

"This is the largest local reward ever offered, to our knowledge," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said at a news conference today. "This is an act of domestic terrorism. This is a man who has targeted those that we entrust to protect the public. His actions cannot go unanswered."

The money for the reward was pooled by businesses, government, local law enforcement leaders and individual donors, Beck said.

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

The reward comes on the fourth day of a manhunt for Dorner, who has left Southern California on edge after he allegedly went on a killing spree last week to avenge his firing from the police force. Dorner outlined his grievances in a 6,000 word so-called "manifesto" and said he will keep killing until the truth is known about his case.

Irvine Police Department/AP Photo

Manhunt for Alleged Cop Killer Heads to California Mountains Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Search: Officials Search for Ex-officer in the Mountains Watch Video

Dorner's threats have prompted the LAPD to provide more than 50 law enforcement families with security and surveillance detail, Beck said.

Authorities are chasing leads, however they declined to say where in order to not impede the investigation.

Dorner's burned-out truck was found Thursday near Big Bear Lake, a popular skiing destination located 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Investigators found two AR-15 assault rifles in the burned-out truck Dorner abandoned, sources told ABC News.

The truck had a broken axle, which may be the reason he decided to set fire to it, the police sources said.

Full Coverage: Christopher Jordan Dorner

Officers have spent the past couple of days going door-to-door and searching vacant cabins. The manhunt was scaled back to 25 officers and one helicopter in the resort town today, according to the San Bernadino Sheriff's Office.

On Saturday, Beck announced he would reopen the investigation into Dorner's firing but said the decision was not made to "appease" the fugitive ex-cop.

"I feel we need to also publicly address Dorner's allegations regarding his termination of employment, and to do so I have directed our Professionals Standards Bureau and my Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing to completely review the Dorner complaint of 2007; To include a re-examination of all evidence and a re-interview of witnesses," Beck said. "We will also investigate any allegations made in his manifesto which were not included in his original complaint."

Dorner is suspected of killing Monica Quan and her fiancé Keith Lawrence last Sunday in their car in the parking lot of their Irvine, Calif., condominium complex. Both were struck with multiple gunshot wounds.

Quan's father, Randal Quan, was a retired captain with the LAPD and attorney who represented Dorner before a police review board that led to Dorner's dismissal from the force in 2008.

On Wednesday, after Dorner was identified as a suspect in the double murder, police believe he ambushed two Riverside police officers, killing one and wounding the other.

The next day, Randal Quan reported he received a taunting call from a man claiming to be Dorner who told him that he "should have done a better job of protecting his daughter," according to court documents documents.

Anyone with information leading to the arrest of Christopher Dorner is asked to call the LAPD task force at 213-486-6860.

ABC News' Dean Schabner, Jack Date, Pierre Thomas, Jason Ryan and Clayton Sandell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Sooty ships may be geoengineering by accident

GEOENGINEERING is being tested - albeit inadvertently - in the north Pacific. Soot from oil-burning ships is dumping about 1000 tonnes of soluble iron per year across 6 million square kilometres of ocean, new research has revealed.

Fertilising the world's oceans with iron has been controversially proposed as a way of sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to curb global warming. Some geoengineers claim releasing iron into the sea will stimulate plankton blooms, which absorb carbon, but ocean processes are complex and difficult to monitor in tests.

"Experiments suggest you change the population of algae, causing a shift from fish-dominated to jellyfish-dominated ecosystems," says Alex Baker of the University of East Anglia, UK. Such concerns led the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to impose a moratorium on geoengineering experiments in 2010.

The annual ship deposition is much larger, if less concentrated, than the iron released in field tests carried out before the moratorium was in place. Yet because ship emissions are not intended to alter ocean chemistry, they do not violate the moratorium, says Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, a think tank that consults for the CBD. "If you intentionally drove oil-burning ships back and forth as a geoengineering experiment, that would contravene it."

The new study, by Akinori Ito of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, is the first to quantify how shipping deposits iron in parts of the ocean normally deficient in it. Earlier models had assumed that only 1 to 2 per cent of the iron contained in aerosols, including shipping emissions, is soluble in seawater, so the remaining 98 to 99 percent would sink to the bottom without affecting ocean life. But Ito found that up to 80 per cent of the iron in shipping soot is soluble (Global Biogeochemical Cycles, doi.org/kdj). As this soot rapidly falls to the sea surface, it is likely to be fertilising the oceans.

In the high-latitude north Pacific - a region that is naturally iron-poor and therefore likely to be most affected by human deposits - ship emissions now account for 70 per cent of soluble iron from human activity, with the burning of biomass and coal accounting for the rest. Shipping's share will rise as traffic continues to grow and regulations restrict coal and biomass emissions.

Can we learn anything from this unintentional experiment? Baker thinks not. "The process isn't scientifically useful," he says, because the uncontrolled nature of the iron makes it difficult to draw meaningful comparisons.

The depositions are unlikely to be harmful at current levels, he says, but "given the uncertainties, I just don't know how much these iron emissions would have to increase before there was demonstrable harm to an ecosystem, or benefit in terms of carbon uptake, for that matter".

This article appeared in print under the headline "Ships inadvertently fertilise the oceans"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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China ships in disputed waters as tension runs high

TOKYO: Four Chinese ships were spotted Sunday in disputed East China Sea waters, Japanese officials said, as Tokyo considered disclosing video footage and pictures as evidence of a Chinese frigate's alleged radar-lock incident.

For the first time after Tokyo made the allegation last week, China sent maritime surveillance vessels near Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea, known as Senkaku in Tokyo and Diaoyu by Beijing, which also claims them.

They were seen sailing in the contiguous waters near one of the outcrops as of 0000 GMT, the Japan Coast Guard said.

Tokyo accused a Chinese frigate of locking its weapons-tracking radar on a Japanese destroyer -- the first time the two nations' navies have locked horns in the territorial dispute that has provoked fears of armed conflict breaking out between the two.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday demanded Beijing apologise and admit to the incident, which occurred late January, after Chinese authorities flatly denied Tokyo's accusation.

Japan's Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said on Fuji TV on Sunday that Tokyo was carefully studying whether or how to disclose military data as evidence.

However, he also said he did not think China would "admit to it even if Japan discloses a variety of evidence, because it is trying to protect its national interest".

Onodera on Saturday told the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper that Tokyo had "evidence to show the fire-control radar chased after the ship (of Japan's Self-Defence Forces) for some time. The visual evidence would convince many of those who watch it".

The long-running row over the islands intensified in September when Tokyo nationalised part of the chain, triggering fury in Beijing and huge anti-Japan demonstrations across China.

Beijing has repeatedly sent ships and aircraft near the islands and both sides have scrambled fighter jets, though there have been no clashes.

- AFP/al

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LA Microsoft Store not mobbed, but Surface has a following

The Surface Pro

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

LOS ANGELES -- The launch of the Surface Pro at the Microsoft Store in LA's Century City was a relatively low-key affair compared with the debut of the Surface RT.

When I arrived just after 10 a.m. there was a small line (see photo). That said, both versions -- 64GB and 128GB -- of the
Surface Pro had sold out immediately.

Of course, no one would say how many units were set aside for first-day sales, and the lines didn't exactly snake around the Westfield Century City mall. So, it wasn't like a Depression-era run on a bank.

And back in October the lines were longer and the atmosphere a bit more frenzied when the Surface RT launched.

On Saturday, there was a small line outside the Century City Microsoft Store near Beverly Hills. The Surface Pro sold out immediately at the store.

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

But like the RT rollout, there was a fixation on and interest in the product not unlike what's found at an Apple event. I saw more than a few customers glued to the device for 30 minutes or even an hour.

In other words, Surface has a following. An analogy I would use is the Chevy Volt. Recently in LA, the Chevy Volt is gaining ground, driven by a small but growing (and fervent) customer base.

And Microsoft Store sales reps know what they're talking about. A patient, focused rep gave me a long, hands-on explanation of the
Windows 8 touch interface and demonstrated a new touch-enabled paint app, among other apps.

Finally, note that there are other enticing touch-screen Windows 8 devices at the store, including the 2.3-pound Acer Aspire S7 and the HP Spectre XT TouchSmart. And that's good for Windows 8 overall.

Looking at the line from inside the store.

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

The Surface Pro isn't the only cool Windows 8 device on sale at the Microsoft Store. The 11.6-inch Acer Aspire S7 touch-screen laptop is a tempting alternative to the Pro.

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

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Mars Rover Curiosity Completes First Full Drill

For the first time in history, humans have drilled a hole into rock on Mars and are collecting the powdered results for analysis, NASA announced Saturday.

After weeks of intensive planning, the Mars rover Curiosity undertook its first full drill on Friday, with NASA receiving images on Saturday showing that the procedure was a success.

Curiosity drilled a hole that is a modest 2.5 inches (6.35 centimeters) deep and .6 inches (1.52 centimeters) wide but that holds the promise of potentially great discoveries. (Watch video of the Mars rover Curiosity.)

"The most advanced planetary robot ever designed now is a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars," John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement on Saturday.

"This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August."

Read: Asteroid to Make Closest Flyby in History

The site of the much-anticipated penetration is a flat section of Mars rock that shows signs of having been underwater in its past.

Called Yellowknife Bay, it's the kind of environment where organic materials—the building block of life—might have been deposited and preserved long ago, at a time when Mars was far wetter and warmer than it is today.

The contents of the drilling are now being transferred into the rover's internal collection system, where the samples will be sieved down to size and scoured to minimize the presence of contamination from Earth. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

Then the sample will be distributed to the two instruments most capable of determining what the rocks contain.

The first is the Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM), which has two ovens that can heat the powdered rock to almost 2000°F (1093°C) and release the rock's elements and compounds in a gaseous form.

The gases will then be analyzed by instruments that can identify precisely what they are, and when they might have been deposited. Scientists are looking for carbon-based organics believed to be essential for any potentially past life on Mars.

Powder will also go to the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument for a related analysis that looks especially at the presence of minerals—especially those that can only be formed in the presence of water.

Louise Jandura, chief engineer for Curiosity's sample system at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that designing and testing a drill that can grab hold of Martian rock and commence first a percussive shallow drilling and then dig a deeper hole was difficult.

The drill, which is at the end of a 7-foot arm, is capable of about 100 discrete maneuvers.

"To get to the point of making this hole in a rock on Mars, we made eight drills and bored more than 1,200 holes in 20 types of rock on Earth," Jandura said in a statement.

Results from the SAM and CheMin analyses are not expected for several days to weeks.

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