feed on feeds - 2016/02/26 - items 0 to 15

MikeChino writes: New samples taken from groundwater near New York's Indian Point nuclear plant show that contamination levels are 80% higher than previous samples, and experts say the leak is "a disaster waiting to happen." The Indian Point nuclear power plant is located just 25 miles north of New York City, and it is a crucial source of power for the greater metropolitan region.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Qeeq conducted 94-day hunger strike in protest against the conditions of his detention by Israeli authorities.

StartsWithABang writes: The need for a February 29th, once every four years, doesn't just give us an extra day this year, but it keeps the calendar from drifting and failing to align with the seasons. Even so, the scheme we have worked out today, where years divisible by 4 but not those divisible by 100 unless also divisible by 400 get an extra day, isn't perfect, and will get worse as time goes on. The current misalignment between our calendar and the actual Earth's orbit is big enough that we'll be off by a day every 3,200 years, but bigger news is that the Earth's rotation rate is changing, as our day lengthens and our spin slows down. In another 4 million years, we won't need leap days at all, and if we extrapolate backwards, we can find that early Earth had a day that lasted just 6.5 hours.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The New Jersey governor could be keen on a top job in any Trump administration.

An anonymous reader writes: 90% of all SSL-based VPNs use insecure or outdated encryption. According to research conducted by information security firm High-Tech Bridge, almost three-quarters of all SSL VPNs use the outdated SSLv3 and SSLv2. In addition, another three-quarters use untrusted certificates exposing users to MitM attacks. 74% use SHA-1 to sign certificates, while 5% of all SSL VPNs still use MD5. All of a sudden, VPNs don't look that secure anymore.