S?o Miguel scops owl was wiped out after arrival of humans in the Azores

June 27, 2013 ? On S?o Miguel Island in the Azores, there used to exist a small, nocturnal bird of prey, related to the European scops owl, named Otus frutuosoi, which was very probably driven to extinction with the arrival of the first settlers in the 15th century. An international study, in which Spanish researchers participated, has for the first time identified fossils of this species endemic to the island.

On 28 August 2011 researchers Juan Carlos Rando, from the University of La Laguna (Tenerife), and Josep Antoni Alcover from the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies in Mallorca unearthed some small fossil bones buried not far below the ground of the ?gua de Pau cave (S?o Miguel Island, Azores, Portugal).

Two years later, an article published by the journal Zootaxa has revealed that the remains found belong to an extinct species of scops owl which has been given the name Otus frutuosoi in honour of the 16th-century Azorean historian Gaspar Frutuoso.

Carbon dating the fossils indicates that they are from 1,970 years ago. The hypothesis entertained by the researchers is that the arrival of human beings to the archipelago in the 15th century changed its ecosystem and caused the extinction of the species.

"Humans have a history of changing island ecosystems. When humans arrived on the island mice started to appear and laurisilva -- a type of humid forest -- was destroyed. This surely played a large part in the extinction of the S?o Miguel scops owl," Alcover explains.

Scops owls are nocturnal birds of prey, and this new species in particular is phylogenetically related to the Otus scops, or European scops owl, which with a length of 20 cm is the smallest nocturnal bird of prey on the Iberian Peninsular.

It is calculated that the wing surface of the Otus frutuosoi measured a maximum of 114 cm2, at least 33% less than the European scops owl, and although its legs were 11.6% longer, "the appearance of its body was more squat," according to the experts.

"The body of the extinct scops owl of the Azores was shorter and wider than that of its modern-day European relatives. Its beak was short and small, similar to that of the nightjar. Having long legs and very short wings, it must have been a very poor flyer and thus more of a land-dwelling bird," the scientist points out.

The second extinct scops owl on North Atlantic islands

A year ago, the same team of scientists documented another extinct bird of the same genus, although bigger, in Madeira: the Otus mauli.

Due to its anatomical features, the scientists believe that the Otus frutuosoi was an insectivore and must have lived on the ground of the laurisilva, where it would have found food and protection.

Otus frutuosoi remains have only been found on S?o Miguel Island in the Azores, therefore it is considered endemic to the island, although the authors do not discount the possibility of finding more fossils of the same species or other similar ones in various parts of the archipelago.

"The discovery of endemic scops owls in Azores and Madeira indicates that on occasions atmospheric conditions have occurred that have dragged these birds with them. Some reached safe land, where they survived and developed in isolated conditions, and new species formed," concludes Alcover.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/phbEXUJ2L_8/130627083044.htm

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Al-Qaida said to be changing its ways after leaks

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. listens to testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 18, 2013, by National Security Agency (NSA) Gen. Keith B. Alexander during the committee's hearing regarding NSA surveillance. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. listens to testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 18, 2013, by National Security Agency (NSA) Gen. Keith B. Alexander during the committee's hearing regarding NSA surveillance. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? U.S. intelligence agencies are scrambling to salvage their surveillance of al-Qaida and other terrorists who are working frantically to change how they communicate after a National Security Agency contractor leaked details of two NSA spying programs. It's an electronic game of cat-and-mouse that could have deadly consequences if a plot is missed or a terrorist operative manages to drop out of sight.

Two U.S. intelligence officials say members of virtually every terrorist group, including core al-Qaida, are attempting to change how they communicate, based on what they are reading in the media, to hide from U.S. surveillance ? the first time intelligence officials have described which groups are reacting to the leaks. The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak about the intelligence matters publicly.

The officials wouldn't go into details on how they know this, whether it's terrorists switching email accounts or cellphone providers or adopting new encryption techniques, but a lawmaker briefed on the matter said al-Qaida's Yemeni offshoot, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has been among the first to alter how it reaches out to its operatives.

The lawmaker spoke anonymously because he would not discuss the confidential briefing by name.

Shortly after Edward Snowden leaked documents about the secret NSA surveillance programs, chat rooms and websites used by like-minded extremists and would-be recruits advised users how to avoid NSA detection, from telling them not to use their real phone numbers to recommending specific online software programs to keep spies from tracking their computers' physical locations.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said there are "changes we can already see being made by the folks who wish to do us harm, and our allies harm."

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said Tuesday that Snowden "has basically alerted people who are enemies of this country ... (like) al-Qaida, about what techniques we have been using to monitor their activities and foil plots, and compromised those efforts, and it's very conceivable that people will die as a result."

At the same time, NSA and other counterterrorist analysts have been focusing their attention on the terrorists, watching their electronic communications and logging all changes, including following which Internet sites the terrorist suspects visit, trying to determine what system they might choose to avoid future detection, according to a former senior intelligence official speaking anonymously as a condition of discussing the intelligence operations.

"It's frustrating. You have to start all over again to track the target," said M.E. "Spike" Bowman, a former intelligence officer and deputy general counsel of the FBI, now a fellow at the University of Virginia's Center for National Security Law. But the NSA will catch up eventually, he predicted, because there are only so many ways a terrorist can communicate. "I have every confidence in their ability to regain access."

Terror groups switching to encrypted communication may slow the NSA, but encryption also flags the communication as something the U.S. agency considers worth listening to, according to a new batch of secret and top-secret NSA documents published last week by The Guardian, a British newspaper. They show that the NSA considers any encrypted communication between a foreigner they are watching and a U.S.-based person as fair game to gather and keep, for as long as it takes to break the code and examine it.

Documents released last week also show measures the NSA takes to gather foreign intelligence overseas, highlighting the possible fallout of the disclosures on more traditional spying. Many foreign diplomats use email systems like Hotmail for their personal correspondence. Two foreign diplomats reached this week who use U.S. email systems that the NSA monitors overseas say they plan no changes, because both diplomats said they already assumed the U.S. was able to read that type of correspondence. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss their methods of communication publicly.

The changing terrorist behavior is part of the fallout of the release of dozens of top-secret documents to the news media by Snowden, 30, a former systems analyst on contract to the NSA.

The Office of the Director for National Intelligence and the NSA declined to comment on the fallout, but the NSA's director, Gen. Keith Alexander, told lawmakers that the leaks have caused "irreversible and significant damage to this nation."

"I believe it will hurt us and our allies," Alexander said.

The leaks revealed that the NSA was scanning the worldwide use of nine U.S.-based Internet service providers, including Google, Yahoo, Skype and YouTube.

"After the leak, jihadists posted Arabic news articles about it ... and recommended fellow jihadists to be very cautious, not to give their real phone number and other such information when registering for a website," said Adam Raisman of the SITE Intelligence Group, a private analysis firm. They also gave out specific advice, recommending jihadists use privacy-protecting email systems like TOR, also called The Onion Router, to hide their computer's IP address, and to use encrypted links to access jihadi forums, Raisman said. While TOR originally was designed to help dissidents communicate in countries where the Internet is censored, it is facing legal difficulties because criminals allegedly have used it as well.

"Criminals are doing well without things like TOR," said Karen Reilly, a spokeswoman for TOR. "If TOR disappeared tomorrow they would still have secure, anonymous access to the Internet. ... Their victims would not."

Other analysts predicted a two-track evolution away from the now-exposed methods of communication: A terrorist who was using Skype to plan an attack might stop using that immediately so as not to expose the imminent operation, said Ben Venzke of the private analysis firm IntelCenter.

But if the jihadi group uses a now-exposed system like YouTube to disseminate information and recruit more followers, they'll make a gradual switch to something else that wasn't revealed by Snowden's leaks ? moving slowly in part because they'll be trying to determine whether new systems they are considering aren't also compromised, and they'll have to reach their followers and signal the change. That will take time.

"Overall, for terrorist organizations and other hostile actors, leaks of this nature serve as a wake-up call to look more closely at how they're operating and improve their security," Venzke said. "If the CIA or the FBI was to learn tomorrow that its communications are being monitored, do you think it would be business as usual or do you think they would implement a series of changes over time?"

The disclosure that intelligence agencies were listening to Osama bin Laden drove him to drop the use of all electronic communications.

"When it leaked that bin Laden was using a Thuraya cellphone, he switched to couriers," said Jane Harman, former member of the House Intelligence Committee and now director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center. "The more they know, the clearer the road map is for them."

It took more than a decade to track bin Laden down to his hiding place in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by following one of those couriers.

___

Follow Kimberly Dozier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kimberlydozier

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-26-US-NSA-Surveillance-Al-Qaida/id-2a49d23069b04a11919499f59860bde9

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National Journal's New Communications Director Has 'Boundless ...

This just in from The Atlantic?s Linda Douglass: an internal memo detailing changes on National Journal?s communications team. As most of you know, Douglass is leaving her role but will continue on in a more advisory position. The memo was not from Douglass, but someone who leaked it to us.

Hi all?

I wanted to let you know about a couple of exciting changes on the communications team. First, our uber-Editorial Booker, Emma Angerer, is being promoted to the position of Communications Director for National Journal, effective today.

See the rest of the memo?for what it?s worth, we hear Angerer has quite the fan club inside National Journal?s newsroom.?

Emma joined us nearly three years ago and single-handedly built an extremely successful booking operation?from scratch. Thanks to her sophisticated understanding of our content and knowledge of our talent, writers and editors from both National Journal and The Atlantic now appear regularly on television and radio every week. Emma has a reputation for credibility and great news sense among producers in DC and New York. She has boundless energy, is deeply loyal to our brands and is always brimming with smart ideas?qualities that will make her an excellent communications director for NJ.

And there is more good news: We have found someone great to step into Emma?s old job. Our new Editorial Booker is the 2012-2013 communications Fellow Kori Anderson, who has been working closely with Emma and learning from her for the last year. Kori has done a terrific job during her fellowship, helping the comms team with press releases, media lists, story pitches and producing some of our live TV and radio hits. She has proved herself to be a very quick study and already is doing an impressive job in her new position, booking writers from National Journal and The Atlantic on programs where they can showcase their work. Kori will be working on the 4th floor near Emma.

Emma and Kori will report to Emily Lenzner, the incoming VP of Global Communications, when she joins the company on July 8. Please welcome all of them to their new positions.

Best,

Linda

Source: http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/national-journals-new-communications-director-has-boundless-energy_b108706

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World Bank urged to stop ranking countries on ease of doing business

LONDON (Reuters) - An independent panel set up by the World Bank to look at the validity of one of its highest profile country rankings said on Monday the Bank should stop producing it because it may be misleading.

The Bank's annual "Doing Business" report judges 185 countries on 10 criteria and compiles an index on the ease of doing business, assigning each country a rank. The rankings can carry huge weight with governments.

But a panel initiated by the Bank's new president, Jim Yong Kim, found that the rankings could too easily be affected by small factors and were sometimes not objective.

"The panel believes the Bank should make a clean break with this practice," it said in a report. The panel was headed by South Africa's planning minister Trevor Manuel.

"It is important to remember that the (Doing Business) report is intended to be a pure knowledge project. As such, its role is to inform policy, not to prescribe it or outline a normative position, which the rankings to some extent do," the report added

Singapore topped last year's rankings while Central African Republic was bottom. Russian President Vladimir Putin last year declared a policy objective of raising Russia's ranking to 20th by 2018 from the current 120th place.

According to several sources, China has pushed for modifying the report and getting rid of the ratings system, arguing that the World Bank should not rank its members.

China was ranked number 91 in the most recent report, prompting suspicions that its opposition was motivated by the low ranking.

Instead of a ranking, the panel suggested assigning scores for each of the indicators for each country.

(Reporting by Sujata Rao; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-bank-urged-stop-ranking-countries-ease-doing-113919594.html

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Socialists ahead in Albanian election count

TIRANA, Albania (AP) ? The Socialists appeared to hold an early lead as counting in Albania's election got under way Monday, a day after a deadly shooting outside a polling station.

Despite the shooting, international election monitors noted overall improvements ? seen as key test for the country's aspirations to forge closer ties with the European Union.

With less than a quarter of Sunday's votes counted, the Central Election Commission said the Socialists' coalition was taking 52 percent of the vote, while the Democrats had 37 percent. The Democrats, who are led by Prime Minister Sali Berisha, won 48 percent of the popular vote in 2009.

In Albania, parliamentary seats are awarded on a party's share of the vote in each of 12 districts. For example, a party which won 50 percent of the vote in a 12-seat district could expect to win six seats. There are 140 seats in parliament.

Turnout was 54 percent of some 3.3 million registered voters, according to CEC estimates. Sunday's election was the eighth since the fall of communism in 1990.

Election observers from the Vienna, Austria-based Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said an overhaul of voting procedures last year had helped improve the country's election standards, but expressed disappointment at a pre-election dispute over the make-up of the election commission.

"Voting proceeded well, but with technical irregularities, and counting was delayed in many areas," said Roberto Battelli, head of the monitoring mission.

Confident of winning, the Socialist leader Edi Rama said his opponent had a role to play in Albania's future.

"This is the moment in politics when losers should take part in the victory of their country ... Albania should hold its head high after these elections," Rama said.

Full results were not expected until Tuesday, and the Democrats insisted the early returns were misleading.

"When all the ballots are counted we shall be the winners," party official Gerti Bogdani said, calling for a "peaceful, calm and regular" vote-counting process.

Although the election campaign was highly acrimonious, it was generally considered peaceful until Sunday's shooting in the north Albanian city of Lac.

A police spokesman said Gjon Gjoni, 49, died after being shot in an exchange of fire that also wounded Mhill Fufi, 49, a candidate for Berisha's governing Democratic Party, and a relative of Fufi.

The violence drew condemnation from an EU official.

"Violence is simply not acceptable and cannot be tolerated," Ettore Sequi, the EU ambassador to Tirana, told Associated Press television." These elections are a crucial test for the democratic maturity of the country a test for the smooth functioning of the Albanian institutions."

In 2009, three people were killed in politically motivated attacks during the campaign. They Socialists boycotted the parliament for a long time in protest to what it called manipulation from the governing Democrats.

Albania, now a NATO member despite a rocky road to democracy, has been denied EU candidate status twice since 2009 because of criticism that it has not done enough to fight corruption and proceed with democratic reforms that include its ability to hold elections that comply with international and European standards.

Last month, parliament held an extraordinary session to pass the last three laws in a series of 12 key recommendations required by the EU as part of the country's quest for eventual membership.

___

Associated Press writer Nebi Qena in Tirana contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/socialists-ahead-albanian-election-count-160651501.html

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Major Nelson takes Xbox One questions, says banned users will 'absolutely not' lose games

E3 is over, but Microsoft still has a long way to go to answer questions from gamers about its new Xbox One console, particularly when it comes to the effects of DRM. Director of Programming of Xbox Live Larry Hryb aka Major Nelson takes on the most upvoted ones from posters in Reddit's games section in this video interview with Chloe Dykstra. One question that seems to have a clear answer is whether banned users will lose access to any games they've activated, as he stated "Absolutely not, you will always have access to the games you purchased." That goes against a previous response from the Xbox Support twitter account, although that may have been the result of confusion between the Xbox One and Xbox 360 policies. A question with no satisfying response yet however, is what gamers can expect years down the road if Xbox One's authentication servers are shut down. Major Nelson followed up with a response in the comment thread that "I'll get the real answer, I just don't know it yet."

Interestingly, the question he wished more people would have asked is about the "family package" and, we assume game sharing with a single account, after previously bringing up its cloud library as one upside to the new DRM setup. Tracking back to the original debut's focus on the console's HDMI input and TV overlays he mentioned using snap mode to watch TV while gaming, or getting Xbox Live notifications and jumping "instantly" to a game while watching TV. A similar crowdsourced interview was planned with the PlayStation team, but cancelled. Major Nelson says he will address more questions leading up to launch and is planning an ask me anything session later, so keep your (many) inquiries at the ready.

Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft

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Source: Reddit, YouTube

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/N9APR7ugTEM/

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Heartbreak on his birthday for Mickelson in Open

Phil Mickelson tips his hat to fans as he makes his way up the 18th fairway during the final day of the U.S. Open Sunday, June 16, 2013 at the Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/The Express-Times, Matt Smith)

Phil Mickelson tips his hat to fans as he makes his way up the 18th fairway during the final day of the U.S. Open Sunday, June 16, 2013 at the Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/The Express-Times, Matt Smith)

Phil Mickelson reacts after missing a shot on the 18th hole during the fourth round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

Phil Mickelson reacts after missing a shot on the 18th hole during the fourth round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Phil Mickelson reacts after a shot on the 18th hole during the fourth round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Phil Mickelson reacts after hitting an eagle in the 10th hole during the fourth round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Ardmore, Pa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

ARDMORE, Pa. (AP) ? This wasn't the way it was supposed to end, not on Phil Mickelson's birthday and not at Merion Golf Club, where history will record with little fanfare outside of England that Justin Rose won his first major championship.

When the rain began falling on the back nine Sunday after Mickelson pitched in for an eagle on the 10th hole to take the lead in the U.S. Open, you half expected a rainbow to appear amid the clouds with a trophy at the end of it and bearing Mickelson's name.

He probably expected it, too, if only because the law of averages would seem to demand it. Five times before he had been runner-up in this tournament and no bookie in Vegas would offer odds of any player finishing second in the national championship six times.

But golf is a cruel game and the Open seems even crueler to Mickelson, though some of the fault lies within. He desperately chased the best birthday present of all, only to kick it away once again in a way only Mickelson seems to lose golf tournaments.

Two bad wedges from one of the greatest short game players ever. One more huge disappointment in a tournament Mickelson seems destined never to win.

If he didn't cry, surely some of his many fans did. This wasn't so much a loss as it was a career encapsulating moment, and though Mickelson handled it with his usual grace that didn't make it any easier to stomach.

He began the week by flying all night to make his tee time just so he could watch his daughter speak at her eighth-grade graduation. He ended it by wondering why at he keeps being tortured by a tournament he loves but doesn't love him back.

"Heartbreak," Mickelson said when asked what he would take from this one, and it was a word he used more than once.

The fans who crowded into old Merion came expecting something special from a century-old golf course where history seems to come alive. So, too, did Mickelson on a day he hoped to remember for far different reasons than it being both his birthday and Father's Day.

Ben Hogan famously won here in 1950 after a near fatal car accident and Bobby Jones capped off his Grand Slam here 20 years before. Who among the thousands lining the fairways and greens didn't expect Mickelson's first Open win to write a new chapter in Merion lore?

It was just 18 holes of golf, but it seemed much more than that. It could have been the story of his career, with Good Phil, Bad Phil, Unlucky Phil and Jubilant Phil all making cameos at some point during the round.

When he pitched in from 75 yards on the 10th hole to retake the lead he leapt in the air with both arms raised high, much like he did in 2004 when he shook off the critics and his own self-doubt to win his first Masters, cradling his daughter on the side of the green and telling her, "Daddy won! Can you believe it?"

This one would have been almost as good, except there would be cake instead of a green jacket. All Mickelson had to do was play even par coming in to win and, though that's a tough order in any Open, he had the easy 121-yard 13th hole that he would almost surely birdie as insurance against any bogeys down the stretch.

But he hit a pitching wedge instead of a gap wedge to the hole, flying the green and leaving himself with a pitch from the rough he had no way of getting close to the hole. He made bogey, then compounded his error on No. 15 by quitting on a gap wedge and leaving it so short he had to chip from the front of the green for another bogey.

This from a guy who had studied Merion so carefully that he carried five wedges in his bag and not one driver.

"Thirteen and 15 were the two bad shots of the day that I'll look back on where I let it go," Mickelson said.

What made it hurt even more was that Merion was Mickelson's kind of course, a place where he could work the ball both ways and use his short game magic to trump the field. He knew it from the time he first played it, and became even more convinced of it the more he studied his notes and course pictures in the days ahead of the Open.

He opened with a 67 on little sleep and had a one-shot lead going into the final round. Everything was going according to plan ? you could almost see the newspaper headlines of "PHIL-a-del-phia" ? but anyone who has ever seen Mickelson play knows that even his best plans sometimes have a way of unraveling with little warning.

"This could have been the big ? a really big turnaround for me on how I look at the U.S. Open and the tournament that I'd like to win after having so many good opportunities," Mickelson said. "Playing very well here and really loving the golf course, this week was my best opportunity I felt, heading in, certainly the final round, the way I was playing and the position I was in."

There was still a chance at the end, though it wasn't a good one. With no driver, Mickelson had to hit his 3-wood on the 511-yard finishing hole immortalized by Hogan's 1-iron and he put it in the left rough with no chance of reaching the green.

The crowd serenaded him with choruses of "Happy Birthday" as he came to the green needing to hole a pitch shot to force a playoff, but there would be no happiness this time.

"This one's probably the toughest for me because, at 43 and coming so close five times, it would have changed the way I look at this tournament altogether and the way I would have looked at my record," Mickelson said.

"Except I just keep feeling heartbreak."

A word he kept repeating. A feeling he knows all too well.

____

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org or http://twitter/timdahlberg

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-06-16-Tim%20Dahlberg/id-4ecfabc2c786410991393bf790dc6e79

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