Free Republic

When the famous skeleton of an early human ancestor known as Lucy was discovered in Africa in the 1970s, scientists asked: Where did she come from? Now, fossils found in the same region are providing solid answers, researchers have announced. Lucy is a 3.5-foot-tall (1.1-meter-tall) adult skeleton that belongs to an early human ancestor, or hominid, known as Australopithecus afarensis. The species lived between 3 million and 3.6 million years ago and is widely considered an ancestor of modern humans. The new fossils are from the most primitive species of Australopithecus, known as Australopithecus anamensis. The remains date to about...

APRIL 07, 2006 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Kaspersky Labs is reporting a new proof-of-concept virus capable of infecting both Windows and Linux systems. The cross-platform virus is relatively simple and appears to have a low impact, according to Kaspersky. Even so, it could be a sign that virus writers are beginning to research ways of writing new code capable of infecting multiple platforms, said Shane Coursen, senior technical consultant at Kaspersky. In a note on its Web site, the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC) in Bethesda, Md,. said the new virus “is a sign the cross-platform aspects are becoming important. As the...

TOKYO — Like good daughters anywhere, Mayumi and Kaori Asahara worry about their father's declining health. They are alarmed that he looks so thin and won't see a doctor. They fret that he refuses to wear the new clothes they gave him to replace his fraying old ones. But they desperately need something back from their father too. They are seeking an explanation of why the man who taught them to cherish life, even that of an ant, could be a cult leader responsible for Japan's worst terrorist attack. "I need to ask my father directly what happened," said Kaori...

A New Jersey politician is hoping to outlaw anonymous speech on the Internet, claiming that civility must be mandatory in political debate. State Assemblyman Peter J. Biondi, a Republican from Somerset County, recently introduced legislation that would require any "public forum Web site" to solicit the legal name and addresses of everyone who can post messages to it. What irks Biondi, a top Republican in the state assembly, is the political free-for-all that has grown around the New Jersey Star-Ledger's discussion site at NJ.com. The site's forum for Somerset County--that is, Biondi's home district--is home to a slew of pseudonymous...

Gaining root access to a Mac is "easy pickings," according to an individual who won an OS X hacking challenge last month by gaining root control of a machine using an unpublished security vulnerability. On February 22, a Sweden-based Mac enthusiast set his Mac Mini as a server and invited hackers to break through the computer's security and gain root control, which would allow the attacker to take charge of the computer and delete files and folders or install applications. Within hours of going live, the "rm-my-mac" competition was over. The challenger posted this message on his Web site: "This...

A new security vulnerability in Safari has been identified by security experts at Secunia. The company - which rates the flaw as “extremely critical” - says that the vulnerability was discovered by a source outside the company, Michael Lehn. It can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system, it warns. The vulnerability is caused due by an error in the processing of file association meta data (stored in the "__MACOSX" folder) in ZIP archives. “This can be exploited to trick users into executing a malicious shell script renamed to a safe file extension stored in a ZIP...

According to the International Olympic Committee's website, Australia's gold medallist Dale Begg-Smith, runs an internet pop-up advertising company that he describes as the third largest of its type. But that's about as much detail as you'll get out of the Lamborghini-driving Canadian-turned-Australian moguls skier who is reluctant to talk about his dealings which remain shrouded in secrecy. Speaking on Monday at a pre-race press conference, the 21-year-old said he had wound down his multimillion-dollar internet business to concentrate on his Olympic ambitions. He refused to reveal the name of his business, nor details of its operations or size. He did...

SEATTLE — "The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate, and it won't work," said Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute, the nation's leading think tank researching the scientific theory known as intelligent design. “He has conflated Discovery Institute’s position with that of the Dover school board, and he totally misrepresents intelligent and the motivations of the scientists who research it.” “A legal ruling can't...

Embattled religious studies professor Paul Mirecki has stepped down as chairman of the University of Kansas’ Department of Religious Studies. Mirecki remains a tenured professor at the department. No successor has been named. In a written statement, Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas, said she accepted Mirecki’s resignation today. “Professor Mirecki said he thought it appropriate to step down and did so on the recommendation of his colleagues in the department and I have accepted his resignation,” Romzek said. “This allows the department to focus on what’s most important...

Did US troops use chemical weapons in Falluja? The answer is yes. The proof is not to be found in the documentary broadcast on Italian TV last week, which has generated gigabytes of hype on the internet. It's a turkey, whose evidence that white phosphorus was fired at Iraqi troops is flimsy and circumstantial. But the bloggers debating it found the smoking gun. The first account they unearthed in a magazine published by the US army. In the March 2005 edition of Field Artillery, officers from the 2nd Infantry's fire support element boast about their role in the attack on...