mdsolar sends this report from Symmetry Magazine: Cosmic rays can help scientists do something no one else can: safely image the interior of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. ... [M]uon tomography is similar to taking an X-ray, only it uses naturally produced muons. These particles don't damage the imaged materials and, because they already stream through everything on Earth, they can be used to image even the most sensitive objects. Better yet, a huge amount of shielding is needed to stop muons from passing through an object, making it nearly impossible to hide from muon tomography. ... By determining how muons scatter as they interact with electrons and nuclei within the item, the team's software creates a three-dimensional picture of what's inside. ... To prove the technology, the Los Alamos team shipped a demo detector system to a small, working nuclear reactor in a Toshiba facility in Kawasaki, Japan. There, they placed one detector on either side of the reactor core. "When we analyzed our data we discovered that in addition to the fuel in the reactor core, they had put a few fuel bundles off to the side that we didn't know about," says Morris. "They were really impressed that not only could we image the core, but that we also found those bundles."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pretty soon my linkblogging will be cross-platform. Meaning the links will go to Facebook, Twitter (as before) and a new feature-full RSS feed that will make it possible, if enough people linkblog this way, to build new experimental networks on the open web web we all love so much.

The name of the new product, coming soon, is Radio3.

And it's not such a "snack" it's actually a fairly beefy piece of software.

Still diggin!

PS: The first Radio was Radio UserLand released in 2002. The second was Radio2 a server-based linkblogging tool that ran in the OPML Editor environment. Radio3 is a browser-based JS app with a thin server that runs in Node. The 3rd Radio is by far the best, but of course I'm biased.

Oljerika Angola står redo att skriva av hälften av de skulder som Moçambique har till landet, enligt en moçambikisk myndighetskälla. Beslutet kommer efter ett möte mellan länderna tidigare i veckan.

Efter framgången i Europavalet i maj står eurokritiska Alternative für Deutschland, AfD, inför ett genombrott på hemmaplan. I söndagens delstatsval i Sachsen går högerpartiet mot sju procent av rösterna – och flirtar med nationalistiska stämningar.

Trailrunner7 writes: Mozilla is planning to add support for public-key pinning in its Firefox browser in an upcoming version. In version 32, which would be the next stable version of the browser, Firefox will have key pins for a long list of sites, including many of Mozilla's own sites, all of the sites pinned in Google Chrome and several Twitter sites. Public-key pinning has emerged as an important defense against a variety of attacks, especially man-in-the-middle attacks and the issuance of fraudulent certificates. The function essentially ties a public key, or set of keys, issued by known-good certificate authorities to a given domain. So if a user's browser encounters a site that's presenting a certificate that isn't included in the set of pinned public keys for that domain, it will then reject the connection. The idea is to prevent attackers from using fake certificates in order to intercept secure traffic between a user and the target site.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Conflicting reports emerge over the crash of fighter jet belonging to militia forces of General Khalifa Haftar.

Conflicting reports emerge over the crash of fighter jet belonging to militia forces of General Khalifa Haftar.

Official says rescue "will not be easy" though rescuers presume miners are still alive as they can hear their voices.

Official says rescue "will not be easy" though rescuers presume miners are still alive as they can hear their voices.

Jason Koebler writes: Peter Richie spent eight months planning and building a megacity in vanilla SimCity 4, and the end result is mind-boggling: 107.7 million people living in one massive, sprawling region (video). "Traffic is a nightmare, both above ground and under," Richie said. "The massive amount of subway lines and subway stations are still congested during all times of the day in all neighborhoods of each and every mega-city in the region. The roadways are clogged at all times, but people still persist in trying to use them."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jason Koebler writes: Peter Richie spent eight months planning and building a megacity in vanilla SimCity 4, and the end result is mind-boggling: 107.7 million people living in one massive, sprawling region (video). "Traffic is a nightmare, both above ground and under," Richie said. "The massive amount of subway lines and subway stations are still congested during all times of the day in all neighborhoods of each and every mega-city in the region. The roadways are clogged at all times, but people still persist in trying to use them."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Greg Pierce explains why Drafts 4 will use CloudKit:

Why am I willing to make these trade-offs for CloudKit, despite its limitations? Because, ultimately, developer perspectives aside, I felt it was the right choice for my customers.

Greg Pierce explains why Drafts 4 will use CloudKit:

Why am I willing to make these trade-offs for CloudKit, despite its limitations? Because, ultimately, developer perspectives aside, I felt it was the right choice for my customers.

Nya larm om IS-krigarnas grymma beteende strömmar in. Alla är ense om att något måste göras snabbt men inte vad – och president Obama verkar inte ha någon brådska med att ge order om upptrappning.

Luftrummet över den isländska vulkanen Bárdarbunga har öppnats igen. Det stängdes tillfälligt under fredagsmorgonen till följd av ett utbrott under natten.