Discoblog » Crime & Punishment

Scientists Who Spy: 8 Tales of Engineering & Espionage

Brett Israel — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:36:34 +0000

If At First You Don’t Succeed… Sell to Venezuela?

feds raided his home, seizing computers, documents, books, and cell phones. The FBI hasn’t publicly stated what it's investigating, but Mascheroni maintains that he's been wrongly accused of nuclear espionage because he gave a CD with sensitive information to the Venezuelan government.

Just what was on the disk? Well, during his days as a scientist, Mascheroni championed hydrogen-fluoride laser fusion, which in theory could produce a cleaner and more reliable nuclear weapons arsenal. He pitched it to Congress in 2007, and when they shot him down, an alleged Venezuelan representative agreed to pay him $800,000 for a laser study, according to Mascheroni. He says he delivered a CD containing only unclassified documents, but was never paid. Mascheroni claims none of that matters since he was never going to build the laser--the whole thing was a ploy to get the United States to take his technology seriously, he says. Well, they are taking him seriously now.

Mascheroni isn't the only scientist who has been accused of espionage. Click through for more tales of scientists who turned spy.

Image: U.S. State Department

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Former government physicist P. Leonardo Mascheroni, an outspoken critic of U.S. nuclear strategy, is in the FBI’s crosshairs. In October, the feds raided his home, seizing computers, documents, books, and cell phones. The FBI hasn’t publicly stated what it's investigating, but Mascheroni maintains that he's been wrongly accused of nuclear espionage because he gave a CD with sensitive information to the Venezuelan government.

Mascheroni isn't the only scientist who has been accused of espionage. Click through for more tales of scientists who turned spy.

Image: U.S. State Department

Britain’s New Protected Minority: Tree-Huggers

Brett Israel — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:55:38 +0000

Employers in the U.K. have just learned that there’s a word for discrimination against a person based on their earth-conscious, tofu-eating ways: “greenism.” And firing someone for their environmental views is just as illegal as firing someone for their religious or philosophical beliefs, according to a court ruling.

Tim Nicholson, former head of sustainability at property firm Grainger Plc, claims he was laid off because of his views on climate change and the environment. A judge said Nicholson could take Grainger to the Employment Appeals Tribunal over the layoff, but Grainger challenged the ruling on the grounds that climate change is a scientific and not philosophical viewpoint. However, that challenge was overturned, according to the Telegraph:

In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.”

The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.

Nicholson said during previous hearings that due to his strong convictions he refused to travel by air and renovated his house to be environmentally friendly. He also said Grainger’s chief executive, who allegedly once flew a staff member from Ireland to London to deliver a forgotten Blackberry, was hostile toward his beliefs. The company said it will now argue that there was no link between Nicholson’s views and his layoff.

Image: flickr / hpeguk

Octomom’s Doc Booted From Society of Reproductive Medicine

Brett Israel — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:31:11 +0000

Dr. Michael Kamrava, the doctor who implanted “octomom” Nadya Suleman’s eight embryos (which, of course, became eight babies), has been kicked out of the Society of Reproductive Medicine for a “pattern of behavior” detrimental to the industry, according to a spokesman for the association. This sounds like a big deal, but it really doesn’t mean anything, since the Beverly Hills fertility doctor still has his license, so he’s free to continue stuffing women full of an unhealthy numbers of embryos.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The disciplinary action was approved by the association’s board in September and first reported over the weekend by USA Today. The move does not bar Dr. Michael Kamrava from continuing to practice, but sends a strong signal to prospective patients that the doctor’s standards and history are outside the group’s acceptable limits.

It’s a nice gesture, though whether it makes any difference remains to be seen. After all, it doesn’t seem like the patients that seek out Dr. Kamrava are not really all that concerned with what the Society of Reproductive Medicine has to say.

Image: iStockphoto

Weekly News Roundup: Burning Bunnies and Stolen Hands

Brett Israel — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:26:22 +0000

• Waste not, want not: Stockholm burns culled bunnies for heating fuel.

• Helicopters search for radioactive rabbit poop near the Hanford nuclear reservation. Workers to begin removing the poop soon, which might be the worst job ever.

• Mathematician predicts an ESPN fantasy—a Dodgers-Yanks World Series. FOX Sports also has its fingers crossed.

• Doctors enjoy the five-fingered discount by pocking watches, severed hands from hospitals.

• Think technology is invasive now? A new camera is under development that could capture your entire life.

Never Gonna Give You Up: MIT Gets RickRolled

Brett Israel — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:05:28 +0000

MIT students have pulled some creative pranks on their campus. Some of the more ambitious “hacks” involved assembling large objects—think firetrucks and lunar modules—on top of the school’s Great Dome. For their latest hack, students decided to RickRoll the Dome in the nerdiest way possible—by wrapping the first eight notes of the now infamous pop song around it’s exterior.

For the unfamiliar, RickRolling began as an Internet phenomenon that involves tricking people into watching Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video on YouTube. Apparently, the students got the idea for the latest prank after noticing that outside of the Dome looks sheet music minus the notes.

The MIT student newspaper, The Tech, has a photo here.

And now, for those who wish to experience the joy, here’s a video of the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade getting Rickrolled by Astley himself:

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Image:flickr/Matthais_Rosenkranz

Smoked Pot Last Month? Dieting, Stress May Mean Positive Drug Test

Boonsri Dickinson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:46:42 +0000

Pot-smokers, beware: You may want to avoid dieting before that next company drug test. New research shows that even if a person hasn’t smoked marijuana in months, he or she could still test positive for the drug after dieting or beginning a heavy exercise ritual.

In a recent study using rats, Australian scientists found that extreme stress or major dieting can result in a positive drug test, even if the tester hasn’t smoked pot in weeks.

Fat cells love the psychoactive ingredient, Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), found in pot, and they absorb it—and hold onto it—extremely well. Even long after a person stops smoking up, his body undergoes changes as a result of exercising or shedding pounds, and these changes can cause THC to be released into the blood stream once those fat cells start to break down. New Scientist reports:

Jonathon Arnold and colleague Iain McGregor first exposed THC-laden fat cells taken from rats to the stress hormone ACTH. They found that the hormone increased the speed of release of THC from the cells.

Then they injected rats with 10 milligrams per kilogram of THC (equivalent to a person smoking between five and 10 cannabis cigarettes, depending on their strength) every day for 10 days. Two days later, they injected a third of the rats with ACTH, deprived another third of food for 24 hours, with the rest as controls.

Blood tests showed that the rats who where on diets had twice as much THC in their systems—though the effects only lasted for two days. The scientists will have to test out their theory over a longer time scale, but the true test will be whether humans show identical effects. And it can’t come too soon: In this economy, you don’t want anything to get in the way of your employment.

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Image: flickr/ BodhiSativa Photography

Are Bulletproof Turbans the Next Safety Gear for Sikh Policemen?

Rachel Cernansky — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:59:28 +0000

Is safety on the job so much to ask for?

Sikh policemen in England are effectively prevented from becoming firearms officers because of their religious beliefs. They are not allowed to remove their turbans, but the traditional head wraps won’t fit under standard safety helmets. So they’re asking for a technology-fueled alternative: bulletproof turbans.

The British Police Sikh Association’s vice chairman said they are requesting the development of “a ballistic product, made out of a synthetic fibre, that would ensure a certain degree of protection, so Sikh police officers could take part in these roles.”

Research has already begun on the battle-turbans, and while no guarantees have been made, they seem like a feasible goal—though one that might not conform to the most traditional of styles. No word yet on whether the turban would have to be produced in a more solid form, rather than as a long piece of cloth. But soft Kevlar vests do exist and some Kevlar can even be woven, as opposed to bulletproof vests which are layered. Hopefully the turban designers will go for lightweight as well—or, at least, develop a support system for poor neck muscles.

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Image: Flickr / jas kaur

Lesson of the Day: Stuffing Songbirds in Your Pants Can Get You Arrested

Boonsri Dickinson — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:44:23 +0000

Two Vietnamese men, Duc Le and Sony Dong, were charged this week with eight counts of smuggling. Only the goods weren’t drugs or CDs—they were rare songbirds, which the men carried from Vietnam to Los Angeles. In their socks.

The weirdness went down like this: In March, Dong was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport when an airport worker noticed poop droppings on his socks and feathers popping out of his pants. When the Fish and Wildlife Service inspectors checked Dong’s pants, they found over a dozen songbirds pinned to his socks, each hung like a Christmas ornament.

Millions of birds are illegally trafficked overseas, stuffed inside boxes and bags to be sold on the black market. Dong smuggled songbirds, but other hobbyists specialize in transporting parrots, snakes, and numerous other birds. The global demand for cute, exotic pets encourages criminals to mine biodiverse hot spots for rare species to trade. Despite regulations to keep this from happening, people fascinated with owning their own wild pet fuels the smuggling trade.

After further investigation, authorities linked Dong to Le. Sure enough, when they searched Le’s Orange County home, they found 51 songbirds in an outside aviary. (In other words, Le had over $20,000 worth of birds in his backyard, since each bird can be sold on the black market for $400).

The birds are now in quarantine. But before they can be donated to zoos, they must be tested to be sure they are avian flu-free. And don’t even get us started on swine flu.

Attention Poachers: That Deer Just Might Be a Robot

Rachel Cernansky — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:44:27 +0000

Robots really seem to be catching on as a tool for environmental defense. Even if they’re animal decoys: robot animals that look—and act—just like the real things. Why would such a machine be useful? Well, for one, they’re great at trapping would-be poachers.

Wildlife officials are up against a hunting season where for every animal killed legally, there’s another one killed illegally. State officers hide out near the strategically-placed decoys, and when poachers approach, the officers act quickly, jumping from bushes and shouting things like, “Game and Fish Department! Cease fire! Put down your weapon!”

The decoys are actually fiberglass models wrapped in real hides (from animals that were illegally killed, or provided by government officers), and their eyes are designed to glow when light is shined on them.

So far, models exist for turkeys, swimming moose, white-tailed deer and black bears. Inside the “animals”—which cost up to $5,500 each, depending on the animal (turkeys are only $500)—are radio-controlled motors that allow wildlife officers to move a decoy’s head, ears, and tail using a remote control. Whether the deer have “Bambo” capabilities remains to be seen.

Image: Flickr / Birdfreak.com

Using Nuclear Tests on “Aged” Whiskey Could Save You $30,000

Rachel Cernansky — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:15:24 +0000

People who take their Scotch seriously—and many should, if they’re paying up to $38,000 a bottle for it—may have just made some new, unexpected friends: archaeologists. Whiskey connoisseurs will want to borrow an archaeological technique now that scientists have learned that radiocarbon dating can weed out counterfeit whiskey.

Counterfeits have become a problem in the world of finely aged Scotch. Fakes claim they were made hundreds of years ago, when in fact they are just a few years old. But small amounts of radioactive carbon are absorbed by barley before it’s harvested, and by using a technique normally used to date ancient fossils (and created by nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s), scientists can identify the exact age of whiskey samples by detecting traces of radioactive particles. Even older whiskeys, from previous centuries, can be dated using natural background levels of radioactivity.

So far, more fakes have been found than authentic whiskeys, and would-be bidders were saved a pretty penny when a bottle of 1856 Macallan Rare Reserve was withdrawn from a Christie’s auction after scientists found that it was actually produced in 1950. The earliest whiskey to be dated came from the 1700s, with most coming from the 19th century.

So next time you find yourself considering that $30,000 bottle of Scotch, make sure to confirm first it’s as radioactive as it should be.

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Image: Flickr / CavinB