Sunday 7 December 2014

James Watson's DNA Nobel Prize sells for $4.8m

James WatsonWatson is the first living recipient to auction off his Nobel medal
he Nobel Prize gold medal awarded to the US scientist James Watson for discovering the structure of DNA has sold at auction for $4.8m (£3m).
The 1962 prize was awarded to Watson, Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick, with each receiving a gold medal.
The medal is the first Nobel Prize to be put on sale by a living recipient.
Watson recently said he was selling the medal because he had been ostracised by the scientific community after remarks he made about race in a 2007 interview.
The discovery of the structure of DNA - which encodes the instruction booklet for building a living organism - was made by Watson and Crick, using experimental data that had been gathered by Maurice Wilkins, Raymond Gosling and Rosalind Franklin.
Mr Watson, 86, said he planned to donate part of the proceeds to charities and to support scientific research.
Christie's auction house had said the gold medal could fetch between $2.5m (£1.6m) and $3.5m (£2.2m).
In an interview with the Financial Times recently, Mr Watson said he had been made to feel like an "unperson" since a Sunday Times interview seven years ago in which he linked race to intelligence.
Francis Crick's Nobel medal sold for $2.2m last year. He died in 2004.
MORE INFO:http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30346903

The twilight world of China's wild west

China says it is facing a growing threat from militant Islam. It is in the midst of a year-long crackdown on what it describes as terrorism driven by religious extremism. The campaign is focused on the western province of Xinjiang, home to China's Uighur ethnic minority, who are predominantly Muslim.
This is a story about China's wild west, a place where different rules apply.
Our driver and local guide is called Army. Many Chinese born in Chairman Mao's era have names that are martial, patriotic or ideological. I guess Army is as good a name as any other.
We meet in the high altitude air of Kashgar. It's two flights from Beijing, 2,000 miles away, much of it desert and mountain.A scene in the city of Kashgar


Kashgar is the last of the legendary oasis towns on the Chinese side of the ancient silk road. Closer to Baghdad than to Beijing. Next stop Pakistan.
Our flight is late in because it snowed overnight, the temperature dropping to minus 14C and turning the runway to ice.
But an unforgiving winter is only the most ancient of Kashgar's challenges.
This city is also the front line in a tussle for 10 million Uighur souls. You can start charting the front line even as you leave the airport.
The soldiers in khaki with hi-tech bayonets look straight through us foreigners, through the Han Chinese passengers and through the old Uighur women in shawls and fur coats.
But young Uighur men are stopped and searched.
We load our bags into Army's 4x4 and he passes over headscarves and maps, along with a flatbread the size of a dinner plate because we haven't had time for lunch.
Bearded Uighur men in Kashgar
He explains that though everyone here works on Kashgar time, which runs two hours behind the rest of China, we'd better stick with Beijing time so as not to get confused.
Eat your bread seeded side towards you, he advises, or you'll offend local sensibilities.
As we pull out into the traffic, Army explains that he grew up here in the 1960s and 70s.
It was before the troubles between the Han Chinese and Uighur communities. He's a Han but went to school with Uighurs and still has Uighur friends.
Like every community, he shrugs, there are good people and bad people.
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Xinjiang Province
An Uighur child with money in his mouth
• Xinjiang province has a history of autonomy but was brought under Chinese control in the 18th Century
• Russian influence remained strong and the Soviet Union supported an Uighur-led East Turkestan Republic in the north of the region in 1944-1949
• It is a similar size to Iran and has considerable oil reserves
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On either side of the road stretches a leached landscape under a leaden sky. The air is too dry for more than a light dusting of snow.
Mudbrick houses, empty fields, a solitary crow on a wire. And cantering along the road straight out of a childhood fairytale, hunched old men with tall hats and wispy beards on donkey carts.
I've been here before. But that was 30 years ago. I was a carefree young teacher straight out of university and it was before the troubles.
I'm nervous about coming back as a reporter. I don't speak Uighur, only Chinese.
I'm afraid of asking questions which might put people in danger. And afraid of not asking them and leaving with as little idea of what's going on as when I arrived.
Army warns that there's a police checkpoint up ahead. Only two days ago, 15 people were killed in a big attack and security is tight as a result.
I'm not going to ask Army what he thinks about Xinjiang's violence. You can go to jail for having your own view here, or even worse, criticising government policy.
Army's phone keeps ringing. It sounds like it might be a girlfriend. I'm just about to mention that the BBC believes in two hands on the steering wheel when the checkpoint appears.
A carful of Uighurs are having their papers checked. We pull in behind and a stony-faced officer motions everyone out of the vehicle.
Han Chinese officers conduct a stop and search
We file into a concrete bunker with riot shields, batons and helmets lined up against the wall.
A dozen or so police officers ask if we are journalists and where are we going.
The answer to the first question has to be yes but we'd rather not tell them where we're going because that will give us even less chance of getting there. We need a coherent cover story.
Army comes to the rescue, offering a plausible tale about places we want to film.
Plausible enough to get our documents back but not to plausible enough to get us through the checkpoint.
Foreign reporters may not be a terrorist threat but they can be a danger to the official version of events.
As we U-turn and head back in the direction we came, Army mutters that things must be bad to have the local police chief out at a checkpoint on a Sunday afternoon.
Who knows what really happened, he muses. But asking questions gets you nowhere and thinking too hard serves no purpose.
I observe that in our first police encounter, our driver has shown greater competence than anyone else in the team.
Our Han Chinese producer suggests this is because Army used to be a policeman. I wonder why I'm only learning this now. But it figures. Army exudes the authority and calm of a seen-it-all police officer.
The night market in Kashgar
Back in town, we're not clear whether it's Beijing time or Xinjiang time, late lunch or early dinner, but in the absence of a better plan, eating seems like a good idea.
Army orders barbecued lamb, yoghurt, rice with raisins, sweet tea. We discuss our next move.
He enters into the spirit of the mission, weighing the risks as earnestly as we do and explaining that if we don't get what we came for, he'll be embarrassed to take money from us.
And then we tour Kashgar, starting with the night market where smoke is rising over the charcoal barbecues and steam over the vats of rice and mutton entrails.
Hawkers sell cubes of fermented yoghurt, and labour over ice cream churns with wooden paddles.
But Army warns that spies are everywhere. And I know enough not to ask sensitive questions in public.
So I look for the people who can converse in Mandarin and we talk about food and hats.
No mention of the fact that only just over the road the imam of China's largest mosque was recently stabbed to death on his way out of morning prayers. Or the riot police and sniffer dogs at major junctions.
Uighur women walk past a statue of Mao in Kashgar
Just along Liberation Avenue under the smiling statue of Chairman Mao the people's square is filling with armoured vehicles.
Our hotel is next door and has bag scanners and doormen in bullet proof vests. Armed police file in and out to use the toilet. A police officer comes to pay us a late night visit. He is not on our side.
Army has made himself scarce, but not before giving advice on the best positions from which to film some of this. We're getting used to thinking he is on our side.
But the problem is he's not. He is actually just a better class of spy, as we discover the next day. How do we find out? It's a long and involved story involving the police revealing information about us that only Army could have told them. Our Chinese producer felt betrayed and sent him packing.
I don't feel so angry with him. This is a place where people grow up playing all sides to survive. Foreign ideas of loyalty and betrayal are just that: foreign.
China is desperately short of Han Chinese who speak Uighur and have Uighur friends.
Army is useful to the state and a diet of news featuring death sentences and long jail terms makes it abundantly clear that the state will crush those who resist.
So if you're Army and you have to double cross someone you're going to choose the BBC because we are not going to imprison you for the offence.
But the experience leaves me sad and disorientated. Forced to rewind and relive each minute with a different set of assumptions.
Chinese soldiers march past the Id Kah mosque in KashgarChinese soldiers march past the Id Kah mosque in Kashgar
Perhaps these are the facts? We thought we were protecting Army from too much information about the place we were going but he always knew far more than we did.
The woman I thought was the girlfriend on the phone was a police handler. And Army was reporting back on all of our plans whenever he had a chance. So everyone at the police checkpoints was expecting us.
We get another driver. He too seems to know more about us than we have told him. We get stopped again by the police. We never reach our destination.
But if life is about the journey not the arriving then so is reporting. Our Xinjiang trip bears fruit in other ways. I have many conversations with Uighurs and Han Chinese that illuminate my understanding of the challenges on all sides.
Our new driver is a danger to those inside his vehicle and out. What's more he gets lost on the way to Kashgar airport so we miss our flight back to Beijing.
At least Army was competent even if he was working for the other side. Some day I'll go back to Kashgar and ask him to tell me some true stories. Too bad I'll never know which of them to believe.
MORE INFO:http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30344879

ILO: Women in Europe 'better educated but paid less'

A businessman and businesswoman walking
Women in Europe may be better educated or work harder than men, but they are paid substantially less, according to the International Labour Organization.
The gender pay gap in Europe ranges from about 100 euros (£79) to 700 euros per month, the ILO report suggested.
In the UK, women earn about 28% less than men on average, the UN body found.
In all the countries studied around the world, a proportion of the pay gap is unexplained, implying discrimination, it said.
"The actual gap varies from about 4% to 36% across all of the 38 countries we looked at," ILO economist Kristen Sobeck told the BBC World Service.
Discrimination?
In Europe in 2010, the bottom-earning 10% of women workers earned about 100 euros per month less than the bottom 10% of men.
And the top 10% of high-earning women earned close to 700 euros per month less than the top 10% of men.
The ILO looked at education, experience, seniority, work sector, location and work intensity. It found that in about half of the countries studied around the world women had a stronger or better combination of those characteristics, yet were paid substantially less than men.
"For example, in the case of Sweden, what we see is that the overall gap is about 4%, but when you look at the characteristics of women and what they would be paid otherwise, the gap would turn the other way, and women would actually earn about 12% more than men," Ms Sobeck said.
In the UK, about one-third of the pay gap can be explained by men having attributes such as more experience or more seniority, but there is still "a huge gap" that Ms Sobeck said could be due to discrimination.
The ILO recommended a number of ways to overcome the difference in pay between men and women, including wage policies and equality legislation.
Asian growth
A worker selling food on a Chinese streetChina's fast rising wages lifted Asia's incomes above of the global average
The ILO's Global Wage Report also suggested the Asia-Pacific region outperformed the rest of the world when it came to wage growth.
Annual average incomes rose 6% in the region, compared to a global average growth of 2% in 2013.
But despite the big gains, wages in many countries in the region were still much lower than in developed economies.
Even though wages in Asia have risen almost two-and-a-half fold since the beginning of the century, the report said "one-third of the region's workers remain unable to lift themselves and their families above the international poverty threshold of $2 per day".
The impact of the global financial crisis on wage growth can also still be seen in the region.
The current wage growth trend of about 6% is still below growth rates of more than 7% in the pre-crisis years of 2006 and 2007.
But, that mirrored wage growth in much of the developed world with workers in rich economies such as the UK, Italy and Japan earning less than they did in 2007.
Asia's mixed bag
The region's growth in wages was also driven by China, which saw wages rise 9%, while income growth elsewhere was "much more modest".
For example, wage growth in East Asia was 7.1% last year thanks to China, compared with 5.3% in South-east Asia and 2.4% in South Asia, which includes the region's third largest economy, India.
There also continues to be a vast difference in earnings across the region.
On the lower end, workers in Nepal earned $73 (£47) a month, $119 in Pakistan, and $121 in Cambodia.
That compares to $3,694 in Singapore, $3,320 in Japan and $613 in China, according to the ILO.
MORE INFO:http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30340870

Sony Pictures' nightmare week: what now?

Daniel CraigThe launch of the new James Bond film - not the only thing Sony Pictures revealed this week
As the week draws to a close, many Sony Pictures employees will be left thinking: Thank heavens for James Bond.
For without the announcement of the new 007 film, this week would have been continuous misery for a company that has suffered one of the most damaging, not to mention embarrassing, security breaches in history.
To recap: We heard last month that Sony had been the victim of a cyberattack. Some employees were reportedly told to turn off their machines.
Some received a message from a group calling itself the Guardians of Peace (GOP).
"Hacked by #GOP" it read, showing even cyberattackers have a social media strategy.
The group warned that if its demands were not met, it would release a bevy of information from the company.
This week, they made good on that threat.
Unreleased films apparently leaked. Information on actors' salaries, too - as well as payroll data and social security numbers for more than 47,000 employees.
And not just any employees: personal details of celebrities including Sylvester Stallone.
In the courts
So what happens now?
Sean Sullivan, a security advisor with Finland-based F-Secure, says it's too late to do anything to contain the leaking.
Sony Pictures will just have to hope the worst is behind them - and move on to preparing for the fall out.
"The range of lawsuits that Sony could be facing is everything under the sun," he told me.
Scene from AnnieThe upcoming remake of Annie, due for release this month, was reportedly leaked online
Most pressing is the payroll data, Mr Sullivan said. Reams and reams of information about employee salaries.
Those who have been able to pick through the data - such as US data privacy firm, Identity Finder - raise the possibility of gender discrimination lawsuits. Men and women, in the same jobs, earning different sums.
"If there was anyone looking to do a discrimination lawsuit, you typically, when standing in a court, have to have evidence of discrimination.
"Now [there could be] plenty of evidence."
Speaking to Buzzfeed, US lawyer Brian Strange said the leak of the data would be enough for current and former employees of the company to "file an action".
Sony Pictures has not yet commented on what lies ahead - but the Sony Corporation, the parent company, has found itself in this kind of situation before.
When its PlayStation Network was hacked in 2011, a class-action lawsuit from users resulted in the company settling by offering free content (i.e. games) and free assistance in monitoring whether users had suffered any credit card fraud.
Sony Pictures will take comfort in how the PlayStation Network, and its reputation, managed to recover.
Adam Sandler
Beyond the courts, Sony Pictures must now consider its reputation, said Mr Sullivan from F-Secure, who added that trust is hard to regain after such a massive breach.
"It has to be a huge blow to morale, a huge barrier to overcome now for anybody else wanting to do business with them.
Adam SandlerSome Sony Pictures employees are not huge fans of Adam Sandler's films
"It's about relationships in Hollywood - that's got to be a bad blow for how they can make connections to folks and make deals.
"I would not expect them to have a good time for quite a while."
On the slightly lighter side, there have been some embarrassing leaks. A document detailing suggestions from staff of ways to improve the company contained many less-than-complimentary mentions of comedian and actor Adam Sandler.
"We continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films," noted one employee, as discovered by news site Gawker.
As well as being an actor, Mr Sandler runs his own studio - with Sony Pictures being the parent company. An awkward meeting with Sony Pictures executives awaits, you would assume.
Targeted executives
Earlier this week I spoke with Gert-Jan Schenk, president of McAfee for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
I asked him why he thought that, despite regular warnings from security firms and journalists, many companies still displayed indifference to threats.
He noted that while companies are, for the most part, expanding their information security budgets, it is not to the same level he thinks is required to give the protection needed in the modern, connected age.
Of course, as someone whose job is to sell security products, Mr Schenk has an interest in encouraging more security, but the Sony Pictures hack is perhaps the wake up call that pushes corporations the world over to invest more.
Kim Jong-unPyongyang has not yet made an official comment on rumours it was involved - but experts think it's unlikely
Mr Sullivan agrees - suggesting that hackers, regardless of whether they pose a real threat, will be capitalising on the fear of executives.
He thinks some will target studio executives and claim that they have information.
"If a studio executive at Fox gets an extortion note, he's going to have to take it very seriously," he said.
"It's not just Sony Pictures having a bad day - there's also probably lots of fraudulent claims being foisted at executives all over Hollywood at this point."
Hollywood hacker
We know little about Spectre, the new Bond film.
But we do know that cast once again is Ben Whishaw who, in the previous 007 film, Skyfall, updated the role of Q from gadget maestro to hacking genius.
But his major contribution in the film is a blunder - his lapse in concentration means a malware infection, as villain Raoul Silva gains access to MI6's machines. Cue a fantastic visualisation of an infected network, and gasps of horror from Bond and friends.
At Sony Pictures, the horror at this hack is real.
And the drama surrounding it could be straight out of a Hollywood movie - such as the suggestion that North Korea, angry at an upcoming Sony film, was somehow involved.
F-Secure mostly dismisses that rumour, although Mr Sullivan admits that "nothing surprises" him anymore.
Regardless of who was responsible, the next 12 months will be an uneasy time for Sony Pictures.

If it weathers this monumental hacking storm, perhaps one day it'll make a film about it.
MORE INFO:http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30345227

Old laptop batteries could power slums, IBM says

IBM UrJar testerAbout 400 million people in India are off grid, and use other sources to get power
Old laptop batteries still have enough life in them to power homes in slums, researchers have said.
An IBM study analysed a sample of discarded batteries and found 70% had enough power to keep an LED light on more than four hours a day for a year.
Researchers said using discarded batteries is cheaper than existing power options, and also helps deal with the mounting e-waste problem.
The concept was trialled in the Indian city of Bangalore this year.
The adapted power packs are expected to prove popular with street vendors, who are not on the electric grid, as well as poor families living in slums.
The research, which comes from IBM's India-based research team, will be discussed at a conference in San Jose, California, according toTechnology Review from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Cheap
The IBM team created what they called an UrJar - a device that uses lithium-ion cells from the old batteries to power low-energy DC devices, such as a light.
The researchers are aiming to help the approximately 400 million people in India who are off grid.
UrJar diagramThe UrJar uses lithium-ion cells from the old batteries to power low-energy DC devices
Options such as solar power are considerably more expensive and logistically more cumbersome at the moment.
If the UrJar, which would last a year, is made in sufficiently large volume, researchers estimate the price per unit at just 600 rupees (about £7).
They conclude: "UrJar has the potential to channel e-waste towards the alleviation of energy poverty, thus simultaneously providing a sustainable solution for both problems."
Feedback from the trial was positive, the team said. Among the improvements suggested by users was a call for rat-resistant wires.
Urgent
E-waste is a major problem, particularly in the developing world, where the majority of the West's unwanted technology ends up.
IBM's research said 142,000 computers are thrown away in the US daily - around 50 million a year.
India's predicament is particularly urgent. Not only does the country receive a lot of e-waste from other countries, but with a booming IT market it is also generating huge amounts of its own - around 32 tonnes a day, according to one estimate.
Computer Aid, a UK-based charity that redistributes unwanted old technology, welcomed the initiative.
"We think that this is an excellent initiative as it is in line with our practice of reusing and refurbishing rather than recycling," said Keith Sonnet, its chief executive.
"Refurbishing has definitely a more positive impact on the environment and we should encourage more companies to adopt this practice."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC
more info:http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30345221

Apple's $1bn anti-competition trial might collapse

An iPodOnly iPods purchased between September 2006 and March 2009 are part of the lawsuit
A court case against Apple, which could see the company facing damages of $1bn, might collapse.
Lawyers for Apple have raised a last-minute challenge saying new evidence suggested that the two women named as plaintiffs may not have purchased iPod models covered by the lawsuit.
The case is considering whether the hardware giant abused its dominant position in the digital music market.
The lawsuit covers iPods purchased between September 2006 and March 2009.
During that period Apple used software that meant only rights-protected music purchased from its iTunes store could be played on its devices.
Serial number
Lawyers representing both consumers and businesses claim that the restrictions meant Apple could inflate the prices of iPod in an anti-competitive manner. They are seeking $350m in damages, which could be tripled under US competition laws.
But after lead plaintiff Marianna Rosen testified on Wednesday, Apple lawyers checked the serial number on her iPod Touch and found it was purchased in July 2009.
The other main plaintiff, Melanie Wilson, also bought iPods outside the relevant timeframe, they indicated.
"I am concerned that I don't have a plaintiff. That's a problem," Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said at the end of the trial's third day of testimony in Oakland, California.
Lawyer Bonny Sweeny said that her team was checking for other receipts. She conceded that while Ms Wilson's iPod may not be covered, an estimated eight million consumers are believed to have purchased the affected devices.
The case has been rumbling on for years and offers a fascinating insight into the early days of the digital music business.
At the start of the millennium, the big record labels were terrified that illegal copying of digital music could ruin their businesses.
Rivals frustrated
To help placate them, Apple created digital rights management software known as FairPlay but early versions of it were easily cracked by music pirates.
The software also frustrated rivals such as RealNetworks, who found that music from its digital music store could not be played on iPods.
In response, RealNetworks announced a similar technology - Harmony - which allowed music purchased from the RealPlayer music store to be played on iPods.
It led Apple chief executive Steve Jobs to famously accuse the firm of adopting the "tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod".
By 2007 Apple's software had got more sophisticated and restrictive.
In the trial it emerged that, between 2007 and 2009, if an iPod owner tried to sync their device with iTunes and had music from another digital store on the device, they would receive an error message telling them to restore their iPod to factory settings. This effectively wiped all non-iTunes music from the device.
Apple maintained at the trial that the software and restrictions were necessary to protect users from malicious content and hackers.
If the case continues it will hear video testimony from Steve Jobs, filmed shortly before his death.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers is currently considering her options and has asked both sides to file written arguments as to how they think the trial should proceed.
more info:http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30343686

Clashes at Greek protests to mark police shooting

Protesters clash with riot policemen during a rally on the anniversary of the killing of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos by a Greek police officer, in Athens, Greece, 6 December 2014Protesters clashed with riot police on Saturday night
Clashes have erupted in the capital of Greece during protests marking six years since police shot dead an unarmed teenager.
At least 5,000 demonstrators marched in Athens on Saturday. Some attacked shops and hurled petrol bombs at riot police.
Police officers used tear gas and a water cannon to disperse protesters.
The demonstrators had been marking the anniversary of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos' death. He was shot by an officer who has since been jailed.
Mr Grigoropoulos' killing on 6 December 2008 sparked violent riots across Greece, with cars being set alight and shops looted in a number of cities.
Clashes have also broken out on previous anniversaries of his death.
On Saturday, anti-establishment protesters attacked banks and damaged shops and bus stops.
Riot policemen dodge a petrol bomb during clashes in central Athens, 6 December 2014Petrol bombs were thrown at police, who responded with tear gas and water canon
Demonstrators take part in a rally on the anniversary of the killing of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos by a Greek police officer, in Athens, Greece, 06 December 2014Earlier on Saturday, thousands marched in a rally marking Alexis Grigoropoulos' death
At one point, demonstrators looted a clothes shop and set fire to the merchandise in the street, the Associated Press news agency reported.
According to Reuters, police said they detained close to 100 protesters.
Clashes primarily took place in Athen's Exarchia neighbourhood, but violence was also reported in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece.
No injuries were reported in either city.
Protesters have also been expressing support for Nikos Romanos, a friend of Mr Grigoropoulos who witnessed his death.

Romanos, 21, has been jailed for attempted bank robbery. He is currently on hunger strike, demanding study leave after he was accepted onto a university course.
more info:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30363054