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Death By Black Hole Firewall Incineration It Shall Be: “Oh, and if, say, an astronaut happened to accidentally cross the event horizon, he or she would technically be in freefall and thus wouldn’t notice anything particularly unusual — not at first. It’s only as said astronaut approached the singularity that gravity would become so extreme, s/he would be “spaghettified.” Except now that might not be the case. There’s a hypothesis currently being bandied about by theoretical physicists that, instead, the unfortunate astronaut would encounter a massive wall of fire as s/he tried to cross the event horizon and burn up before s/he got anywhere near the singularity. Call it the ‘Paradox of the Firewall.’”
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Death By Black Hole Firewall Incineration It Shall Be: “Oh, and if, say, an astronaut happened to accidentally cross the event horizon, he or she would technically be in freefall and thus wouldn’t notice anything particularly unusual — not at first. It’s only as said astronaut approached the singularity that gravity would become so extreme, s/he would be “spaghettified.” Except now that might not be the case. There’s a hypothesis currently being bandied about by theoretical physicists that, instead, the unfortunate astronaut would encounter a massive wall of fire as s/he tried to cross the event horizon and burn up before s/he got anywhere near the singularity. Call it the ‘Paradox of the Firewall.’”

cozydark: Violent Birth of Supernovae | A team of astronomers led by the University of Leicester has uncovered new evidence that suggests that X-ray detectors in space could be the first to witness new supernovae that signal the death of massive stars. Astronomers have measured an excess of X-ray radiation in the first few minutes of collapsing massive stars, which may be the signature of the supernova shock wave first escaping from the star. The findings have come as a surprise to Dr Rhaana Starling, of the University of Leicester Department of Physics and Astronomy whose research is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Dr Starling said: “The most massive stars can be tens to a hundred times larger than the Sun. When one of these giants runs out of hydrogen gas it collapses catastrophically and explodes as a supernova, blowing off its outer layers which enrich the Universe. But this is no ordinary supernova; in the explosion narrowly confined streams of material are forced out of the poles of the star at almost the speed of light. These so-called relativistic jets give rise to brief flashes of energetic gamma-radiation called gamma-ray bursts, which are picked up by monitoring instruments in Space, that in turn alert astronomers.” Gamma-ray bursts are known to arise in stellar deaths because coincident supernovae are seen with ground-based optical telescopes about ten to twenty days after the high energy flash. The true moment of birth of a supernova, when the star’s surface reacts to the core collapse, often termed the supernova shock breakout, is missed. Only the most energetic supernovae go hand-in-hand with gamma-ray bursts, but for this sub-class it may be possible to identify X-ray emission signatures of the supernova in its infancy. If the supernova could be detected earlier, by using the X-ray early warning system, astronomers could monitor the event as it happens and pinpoint the drivers behind one of the most violent events in our Universe. continue reading
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cozydark:

Violent Birth of Supernovae |

A team of astronomers led by the University of Leicester has uncovered new evidence that suggests that X-ray detectors in space could be the first to witness new supernovae that signal the death of massive stars.

Astronomers have measured an excess of X-ray radiation in the first few minutes of collapsing massive stars, which may be the signature of the supernova shock wave first escaping from the star.

The findings have come as a surprise to Dr Rhaana Starling, of the University of Leicester Department of Physics and Astronomy whose research is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Dr Starling said: “The most massive stars can be tens to a hundred times larger than the Sun. When one of these giants runs out of hydrogen gas it collapses catastrophically and explodes as a supernova, blowing off its outer layers which enrich the Universe. But this is no ordinary supernova; in the explosion narrowly confined streams of material are forced out of the poles of the star at almost the speed of light. These so-called relativistic jets give rise to brief flashes of energetic gamma-radiation called gamma-ray bursts, which are picked up by monitoring instruments in Space, that in turn alert astronomers.”

Gamma-ray bursts are known to arise in stellar deaths because coincident supernovae are seen with ground-based optical telescopes about ten to twenty days after the high energy flash. The true moment of birth of a supernova, when the star’s surface reacts to the core collapse, often termed the supernova shock breakout, is missed. Only the most energetic supernovae go hand-in-hand with gamma-ray bursts, but for this sub-class it may be possible to identify X-ray emission signatures of the supernova in its infancy. If the supernova could be detected earlier, by using the X-ray early warning system, astronomers could monitor the event as it happens and pinpoint the drivers behind one of the most violent events in our Universe. continue reading

Swede in slammer after scareware scam: $71M gets him 4 years

infoneer-pulse:

Mikael Sallnert, a Swedish businessman, was sentenced to four years in jail today for aiding a scareware scam that raked in around $71 million by tricking people into downloading bogus anti-virus software.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI arrested Sallnert in Denmark nearly a year ago, after discovering the scareware scam. A statement from the DOJ says that around 960,000 people fell victim to the fraudulent software offer. The scareware used pop ups when a person visited a website to offer free virus scans of their computer. Once the victim accepted the offer, the scareware would lie and say there were a variety of trojans and other malware on the system. Then it would push its fake clean-up software, which would cost victims up to $129.

» via VentureBeat

There are now thought to be some 4.5 billion web pages worldwide. And with half the population of China now on line, most of them are written in Chinese. Still, some linguists predict that within 10 years English will dominate the internet - but in forms very different to what we accept and recognise as English today. That’s because people who speak English as a second language already outnumber native speakers. And increasingly they use it to communicate with other non-native speakers, particularly on the internet where less attention is paid to grammar and spelling and users don’t have to worry about their accent.
BBC News - Learn English online: How the internet is changing language (via infoneer-pulse)
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