Block and a hard place: UK's online porn filter raises more issues ...

Published time: July 27, 2013 06:18
Edited time: July 27, 2013 09:31

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has expanded on his recent set of guidelines for an internet filer that would block pornographic content by default. This has aroused further controversy, as other content may now also face the filter.

Internet service providers from the Open Rights Group have confirmed the news, following Cameron?s Monday revelation that by the end of 2013, broadband subscribers will have to make do with a compulsory system installed everywhere to monitor various content the government deems harmful.

These include social media, gambling and pornography as well as other adult-orientated sites.?

The argument was that the nation?s children will be prevented from accessing pornography, once parents start ticking and un-ticking the various options available to them ? with the block set by default. According to the PM, this will prevent children?s exposure to ?corroding influences? on the net.?

Customers wishing to access legal pornographic material will have to contact their providers in order to have the filter removed.

The move has led to several criticisms being leveled at Cameron by censorship opponents, such as that the system may not work, or lead to over-blocking; also that it may be circumvented and, finally that no one knows the extent to which privacy would be affected.

But this all may be just the tip of the iceberg, as more worrying facts about the program have started to surface in the course of Friday.

Activists from the Open Rights Group have been talking to a number of ISPs expected to become the first to introduce Cameron?s new system. It turned out that the list of resources blocked by default will include far more than just pornography.

Recently, the British PM chose to commend a similar online blocking system already in place, HomeSafe, which is currently the leader in the field and covers several categories of websites.

The problem is that these categories don?t make clear just how sweeping the changes would be once a user ticks or un-ticks a category, allowing the program to omit a whole host of resources during the initial stages of setting it up.

An interesting aspect about HomeSafe is that the company that created it, TalkTalk, is actually run by Huawei ? a Chinese company belonging to a former officer of the Chine People?s Liberation Army. This is something the UK government knows, as was evident from an Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report from last month. It said that the ?alleged links between Huawei and the Chinese State? are a cause for concern and could ?generate suspicion as to whether Huawei?s intentions are strictly commercial or are more political.?

Whether the connection is as direct as the government believes, what is troubling people about TalkTalk is that even when its filter is turned off, its online traffic still passes through Huawei.

UK providers will actually be free to pick any filtering system of their choosing, but some take issue with the fact that Huawei is still not off the list. The only consolation is that users could still be able to set up a Virtual Private Network (VPN). However, the Open Rights Group believes that there is a big chance this option may also be canceled.

Source: http://rt.com/news/uk-porn-censor-content-659/

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Class action aimed at Va. college settled for $5M

RICHMOND, Va. -- A federal judge has approved a $5 million class action settlement between a two-year college and thousands of primarily African-American students saddled with loans in return for what their attorneys called a sham education in which teachers sometimes failed to show up for classes.

The settlement involves the former Richmond School of Health and Technology, now operating as Chester Career College. The for-profit school offers classes leading to careers in nursing, massage therapy and other medical-related fields.

U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney entered a final order Thursday requiring the school to establish the fund and to reimburse more than 4,000 students and for attorneys' fees.

The settlement also requires Chester Career College to institute changes that will provide prospective students with "much more transparency" before they enroll, said John P. Relman, the attorney representing eight students who brought the class action.

The college specifically courted inner city students with ads on hip-hop stations and other media aimed at their demographic.

"This is where they trolled for business," Relman said Friday. "They boasted that they were on the bus line. In Richmond, that's vernacular for minority community."

The college enrolled "almost exclusively" students who qualified for federal financial aid, primarily in the form of student loans, the students' attorneys wrote in the complaint.

Once a prospective student took the bait, Relman said, the school helped him or her arrange federal loans for up to $25,000 or more for a nine- or 12-month course.

The college was "defrauding the government by taking these students' loans and providing what amounted to a sham education," Relman said. "They didn't deliver any kind of education to these students. Students could not pass any of the certification exams. Teachers didn't show up at classes."

Sade Battle, 26, of Richmond, said that was her experience when she enrolled in 2006 at Richmond School of Health and Technology to work as a community home health aide. She left the school after 1 1/2 years with a $10,000 loan after the school failed to deliver on the hands-on education she sought, including the lack of sheets during lessons on how to care for someone who is bed-ridden.

"We had to pretend we were putting sheets under the patient," said Battle, who is now starting her own cleaning business.

The settlement does not mean the college admits any wrongdoing, Relman and the college's attorney, Christopher L. Perkins, said in a joint statement.

Besides the $5 million fund, the settlement also provides for continued tracking of students and career placement "to strengthen the school" and its educational mission as it moves forward, the statement said.

Relman compared the college's tactics to predatory lending by a bank and reverse redlining, or the specific targeting of minority students. Redlining typically has been a business practice to exclude black Americans, which has been deemed a violation of federal anti-discrimination laws. The school's enrollment is approximately 75 percent African American, he said.

"In my mind, it is just another version of targeting the minority community for predatory loans," Relman said. "You just have debt for no good reason."

The class action was brought by the former students cited breach of contract and violations of the Civil Rights Act and the Virginia Consumer Protection Act.

One of the students, Kyra Franklin, was enrolled in a surgical technology program that the college said would pay her up to $60,000 a year. She took out more than $20,000 in loans but later learned she could not get certification because the college had never obtained the necessary accreditation.

"Although she graduated near the top of her class at RSHT, Franklin has not been able to find work as a surgical technician, much less a position that pays more than $50,000 a year," the lawsuit states.

Under the settlement, Franklin and the other students named in the class action will receive nearly $200,000 for their expenses and liabilities from attending the college.

The settlement covers students enrolled at the school from July 2004 through February 2013.

Notices will be mailed to thousands of other students who qualify for claims. Any money that is not claimed from the remaining funds in the escrow account after one year will be donated to nonprofit organizations dedicated to assisting the economically disadvantaged.

---

Steve Szkotak can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sszkotakap.

---

Online:

Chester Career College: http://www.chestercareercollege.edu/

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/26/3523522/class-action-aimed-at-va-college.html

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NASA's Van Allen Probes discover particle accelerator in the heart of Earth?s radiation belts

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Scientists have discovered a massive particle accelerator in the heart of one of the harshest regions of near-Earth space, a region of super-energetic, charged particles surrounding the globe called the Van Allen radiation belts. Scientists knew that something in space accelerated particles in the radiation belts to more than 99 percent the speed of light but they didn't know what that something was. New results from NASA's Van Allen Probes now show that the acceleration energy comes from within the belts themselves. Particles inside the belts are sped up by local kicks of energy, buffeting the particles to ever faster speeds, much like a perfectly timed push on a moving swing.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/F7B1mOeF3rU/130725140725.htm

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Study reveals how patients experience direct-to-consumer genetic testing

Public release date: 16-Jul-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jim Ritter
jritter@lumc.edu
708-216-2445
Loyola University Health System

MAYWOOD, Il. Several companies sell genetic testing directly to consumers, but little research has been done on how consumers experience such tests. The tests have raised questions about the validity and accuracy of the information provided to consumers especially without the involvement of a qualified health care professional.

Now, a study lead by a Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine researcher is providing insight into how a diverse sample of primary care patients experience genetic testing.

Lead researcher Katherine Wasson, PhD, MPH, and colleagues conducted in-depth interviews with 20 patients recruited from primary care clinics. Among the findings, published online ahead of print in the Journal of Community Genetics:

• Most participants thought results were fairly easy to understand with the help of a genetic counselor (provided by the study, not the testing company). But fewer than half said they might be able to understand results on their own.
• Most participants expressed no concern or hesitation about testing. But a few worried about confidentiality especially whether results could affect their health insurance coverage. A few also expressed fears about getting bad results. As one participant explained, "I mean, you want to know, but then you don't want to know."
• Participants gave several reasons why they decided to undergo testing. Most simply said they were curious. "I don't have a scientific background, so a lot of it is just fascinating to see how all of that can spin out," one participant said. Many also said test results would provide knowledge they could act on, and help them prepare for the future. Said one: "If you know that there's something going on you can go ahead and fix it now and not have to try to fix it later when it's already unfixable." A few participants wanted to help their families or the next generation, or more broadly, contribute to research and medical science.
• Most participants were pleased with results of the tests, mainly because they had not received bad news, despite the uncertainty of the results. "This makes me feel great," said one such participant. "I know I'll be around at least another year or two."
• About half the participants said they had made no changes in response to results, mainly because there was nothing on which to act. But among a few participants, receiving "low-risk" results was a motivating factor to improve their health behavior, mainly through more exercise and a better diet.
• One year after testing, most participants said they would take the test again, and recommend it to others. "It's as if you stepped into a time capsule and you went ahead in time and you can see something," one participant said.

Patients were interviewed individually four times: during an initial session in which a saliva sample was given; 4 to 6 weeks later, when they received results; 3 months after receiving results; and 12 months after receiving results. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim.

The patients ranged in age from 29 to 63; the average age was 49.5. Sixty percent were female, 50 percent were white and 50 percent were African American. Thirty percent were high school graduates, 40 percent had some college, 25 percent were college graduates and 5 percent were postgraduates.

Researchers concluded: "This longitudinal, qualitative study adds more in-depth information to the emerging data on participants' decision-making process about, experience of and reactions to direct-to-consumer testing over time. . . It is possible that our findings could be relevant to more general consumers with similar demographics, though further investigation is needed."

###

Companies such as 23andMe and Navigenics test consumers' genomes for single-gene disorders such as cystic fibrosis; for risks of developing complex disorders involving multiple genes, such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes; for sensitivities to drugs such as Coumadin; and for traits such as hair color, eye color and baldness. Costs range from roughly $100 to $1,500. Consumers can order these tests directly and receive results without the involvement of a qualified health-care professional, such as a geneticist or genetic counselor.

Wasson, first author of the study, is an assistant professor in the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics in Loyola's Stritch School of Medicine. Other authors Tonya Nashay Sanders, MA, PhD, an assistant professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore; Nancy S. Hogan, PhD, RN, a distinguished professor in Loyola's Niehoff School of Nursing; Sara Cherny, MS, CGC, of Cadence Health and Kathy J. Helzisouer, MD, MHS, of Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 16-Jul-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jim Ritter
jritter@lumc.edu
708-216-2445
Loyola University Health System

MAYWOOD, Il. Several companies sell genetic testing directly to consumers, but little research has been done on how consumers experience such tests. The tests have raised questions about the validity and accuracy of the information provided to consumers especially without the involvement of a qualified health care professional.

Now, a study lead by a Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine researcher is providing insight into how a diverse sample of primary care patients experience genetic testing.

Lead researcher Katherine Wasson, PhD, MPH, and colleagues conducted in-depth interviews with 20 patients recruited from primary care clinics. Among the findings, published online ahead of print in the Journal of Community Genetics:

• Most participants thought results were fairly easy to understand with the help of a genetic counselor (provided by the study, not the testing company). But fewer than half said they might be able to understand results on their own.
• Most participants expressed no concern or hesitation about testing. But a few worried about confidentiality especially whether results could affect their health insurance coverage. A few also expressed fears about getting bad results. As one participant explained, "I mean, you want to know, but then you don't want to know."
• Participants gave several reasons why they decided to undergo testing. Most simply said they were curious. "I don't have a scientific background, so a lot of it is just fascinating to see how all of that can spin out," one participant said. Many also said test results would provide knowledge they could act on, and help them prepare for the future. Said one: "If you know that there's something going on you can go ahead and fix it now and not have to try to fix it later when it's already unfixable." A few participants wanted to help their families or the next generation, or more broadly, contribute to research and medical science.
• Most participants were pleased with results of the tests, mainly because they had not received bad news, despite the uncertainty of the results. "This makes me feel great," said one such participant. "I know I'll be around at least another year or two."
• About half the participants said they had made no changes in response to results, mainly because there was nothing on which to act. But among a few participants, receiving "low-risk" results was a motivating factor to improve their health behavior, mainly through more exercise and a better diet.
• One year after testing, most participants said they would take the test again, and recommend it to others. "It's as if you stepped into a time capsule and you went ahead in time and you can see something," one participant said.

Patients were interviewed individually four times: during an initial session in which a saliva sample was given; 4 to 6 weeks later, when they received results; 3 months after receiving results; and 12 months after receiving results. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim.

The patients ranged in age from 29 to 63; the average age was 49.5. Sixty percent were female, 50 percent were white and 50 percent were African American. Thirty percent were high school graduates, 40 percent had some college, 25 percent were college graduates and 5 percent were postgraduates.

Researchers concluded: "This longitudinal, qualitative study adds more in-depth information to the emerging data on participants' decision-making process about, experience of and reactions to direct-to-consumer testing over time. . . It is possible that our findings could be relevant to more general consumers with similar demographics, though further investigation is needed."

###

Companies such as 23andMe and Navigenics test consumers' genomes for single-gene disorders such as cystic fibrosis; for risks of developing complex disorders involving multiple genes, such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes; for sensitivities to drugs such as Coumadin; and for traits such as hair color, eye color and baldness. Costs range from roughly $100 to $1,500. Consumers can order these tests directly and receive results without the involvement of a qualified health-care professional, such as a geneticist or genetic counselor.

Wasson, first author of the study, is an assistant professor in the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics in Loyola's Stritch School of Medicine. Other authors Tonya Nashay Sanders, MA, PhD, an assistant professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore; Nancy S. Hogan, PhD, RN, a distinguished professor in Loyola's Niehoff School of Nursing; Sara Cherny, MS, CGC, of Cadence Health and Kathy J. Helzisouer, MD, MHS, of Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/luhs-srh071613.php

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'The Lone Ranger' is wit-free and derivative

'The Lone Ranger' actor Johnny Depp looks like he'd rather be somewhere else, and the contrast between Depp and Armie Hammer's Lone Ranger character isn't interesting.

By Peter Rainer,?Film critic / July 2, 2013

'The Lone Ranger' stars Johnny Depp (l.) and Armie Hammer (r.).

Peter Mountain/Disney/AP

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When ?The Lone Ranger? was halted during pre-production in 2011 because Disney thought its $250 million budget was too high, the shock waves rocked Hollywood. A Johnny Depp movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer was halted? Can the apocalypse be far behind?

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Cooler heads prevailed and a budget of $215 million was agreed upon. Now that ?The Lone Ranger? is a reality, all I can say is that they shouldn?t have bothered. It may clean up at the box office ? to make a profit, it better? ? but as a slam-bang entertainment, it?s overlong, repetitive, derivative, and essentially wit-free.

Depp is Tonto, sporting goofy headgear topped by a giant stuffed crow, and Armie Hammer is the Lone Ranger, a city-educated lawyer who returns to his small Texas hometown in 1869 to civilize the inhabitants and ends up teaming with Tonto to battle the nefarious Cavendish gang after his Ranger brother is killed.

Director Gore Verbinski and Bruckheimer, both of whom worked with Depp on the ?Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, are clearly trying for another Depp annuity here. It?s nice that Tonto isn?t relegated to obvious sidekick status as he was in the 1950s TV series, but he might as well be since he is given nothing interesting to do. Depp mugs and mutters a lot, makes funny little squiggles with his mouth, overdoes the double takes, and in general acts as if he?d rather be somewhere else. He probably knows that if this film is a hit he?s locked into yet another silly franchise that will, like ?Pirates? but only more so, waste his shape-shifty talents. Just say no.

Hammer plays the Lone Ranger as a clueless, stolid square, and the resulting contrast with Depp?s cartoonishness isn?t odd-couple funny, just blah. Meanwhile, Verbinski keeps ticking off the movie references: "The Wild Bunch,? ?Little Big Man,? "The General,? the collected works of John Ford etc. Greatness by association? Hardly. Grade: C- (Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence, and some suggestive material.)

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/1YQF_cA4oAg/The-Lone-Ranger-is-wit-free-and-derivative

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Arizona wildfire kills 19 members of elite crew

Homes burn as the Yarnell Hill Fire burns in Glenn Ilah on Sunday, June 30, 2013 near Yarnell, Ariz. The fire started Friday and picked up momentum as the area experienced high temperatures, low humidity and windy conditions. It has forced the evacuation of residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, David Kadlubowski)

Homes burn as the Yarnell Hill Fire burns in Glenn Ilah on Sunday, June 30, 2013 near Yarnell, Ariz. The fire started Friday and picked up momentum as the area experienced high temperatures, low humidity and windy conditions. It has forced the evacuation of residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, David Kadlubowski)

In this 2012 photo provided by the Cronkite News, Phillip Maldonado, a squad leader with the Granite Mountain Hotshots, trains crew members on setting up emergency fire shelters. On Sunday, June 30, 2013, 19 members of the Prescott, Ariz.-based crew were killed in the deadliest wildfire involving firefighters in the U.S. for at least 30 years. The firefighters were forced to deploy their emergency fire shelters - tent-like structures meant to shield firefighters from flames and heat - when they were caught near the central Arizona town of Yarnell, according to a state forestry spokesman. (AP Photo/Cronkite News, Connor Radnovich)

Homes burn as the Yarnell Hill Fire approaches Glenn Ilah on Sunday, June 30, 2013 near Yarnell, Ariz. The fire started Friday and picked up momentum as the area experienced high temperatures, low humidity and windy conditions. It has forced the evacuation of residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, David Kadlubowski)

Dean Smith watches as the Yarnell Hill Fire encroaches on his home in Glenn Ilah on Sunday, June 30, 2013 near Yarnell, Ariz. The fire started Friday and picked up momentum as the area experienced high temperatures, low humidity and windy conditions. It has forced the evacuation of residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, David Kadlubowski)

This graphic shows the location of Yarnell, Ariz., where 19 firefighters died battling a wildfire on June 30, 2013. (AP Photo)

YARNELL, Ariz. (AP) ? An elite crew of firefighters trained to battle the nation's fiercest wildfires was overtaken by an out-of-control blaze in Arizona, killing 19 members as they tried to protect themselves from the flames under fire-resistant shields.

It was the most firefighters killed battling a wildfire in the U.S. in decades.

The lightning-sparked fire, which spread to at least 2,000 acres amid triple-digit temperatures, also destroyed 200 homes and sent hundreds fleeing from Yarnell, a town of about 700 residents about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix. Residents huddled in shelters and bars, watching their homes burn on TV as flames lit up the night sky in the forest above the town.

The disaster Sunday afternoon all but wiped out the 20-member Hotshot fire crew based in nearby Prescott, leaving the city's fire department reeling.

"We grieve for the family. We grieve for the department. We grieve for the city," Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo said at a news conference Sunday evening. "We're devastated. We just lost 19 of the finest people you'll ever meet."

The National Fire Protection Association website lists the last wildland fire to kill more firefighters as the 1933 Griffith Park fire of Los Angeles, which killed 29. The most firefighters ? 340 ? were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, according to the website.

Most people had evacuated from the town, and no injuries or other deaths were reported.

Hotshot crews go through specialized training and are often deployed soon after a fire breaks out. Sometimes they hike for miles into the wilderness with chain saws and backpacks filled with heavy gear to build lines of protection between people and fires. They remove brush, trees and anything that might burn in the direction of homes and cities. This crew had worked other wildfires in recent weeks in New Mexico and Arizona.

As a last-ditch effort at survival, Hotshot crew members are trained to dig into the ground and cover themselves with the tent-like shelter made of fire-resistant material, Fraijo said. The hope in that desperate situation is that the fire will burn over them and they will survive.

"It's an extreme measure that's taken under the absolute worst conditions," Fraijo said.

Nineteen fire shelters were deployed, and some of the firefighters were found inside them, while others were outside the shelters, Mike Reichling, Arizona State Forestry Division spokesman, told the Arizona Republic.

Prescott, which is more than 30 miles northeast of Yarnell, is home to one of 110 Hotshot crews in the United States, according to the U.S. Forest Service website. The unit was established in 2002, and the city also has 75 suppression team members.

In 1994, the Storm King Fire near Glenwood Springs, Colo., killed 14 firefighters who were overtaken by a sudden explosion of flames.

President Barack Obama called the 19 firefighters heroes and said in a statement that the federal government was assisting state and local officials.

"This is as dark a day as I can remember," Gov. Jan Brewer said in a statement. "It may be days or longer before an investigation reveals how this tragedy occurred, but the essence we already know in our hearts: fighting fires is dangerous work."

Brewer said she would travel to the area on Monday.

As the blaze spread, people started fleeing, including Chuck Overmyer and his wife, Ninabill. They were helping friends leave when the blaze switched directions and moved toward his property. They loaded up what belongings they could, including three dogs and a 1930 model hot rod on a trailer.

As he looked out his rear view mirror he could see embers on the roof of his garage.

"We knew it was gone," he said.

He later gathered at the Arrowhead Bar and Grill in nearby Congress along with locals and watched on TV as he saw the fire destroy his house.

Two hundred firefighters were working on the fire Sunday, and several hundred more were expected to arrive Monday.

The fire has forced the closure of parts of state Route 89. Fire crews had no containment late Sunday.

The Red Cross has opened two shelters in the area ? at Yavapai College in Prescott and at the Wickenburg High School gym.

____

Billeaud reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Brian Skoloff in Yarnell, Ariz., and Associated Press reporter Martin Di Caro in Washington, D.C., also contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-07-01-US-Firefighters-Killed/id-498e2931f9074f239489abce581d392b

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Dark energy survey set to seek out supernovae

July 2, 2013 ? The largest ever search for supernovae -- exploding stars up to 10 billion times brighter than the Sun -- is beginning this August. For the next five years, the Dark Energy Survey (DES) will look for these cosmic explosions, which can be used to measure precisely the growth of the universe over time. The aim of the survey is to improve understanding of Dark Energy, the mysterious force causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. A status update on the project and candidate supernovae found during the commissioning phase will be presented by Dr Chris D'Andrea at the National Astronomy Meeting in St Andrews on Tuesday, 2 July.

DES is operated by an international collaboration of researchers from 25 institutions and consortia, including six universities in the UK. It will use a massive new 570 Megapixel camera (DECam) installed on the four-meter diameter Blanco telescope, high in the mountains of Chile. The instrument was commissioned in September and October 2012, and this was followed by a period of science verification from November through February 2013.

"Thanks to the extreme sensitivity of the camera and to the large area of sky that can be imaged through the telescope at once (about 15 times the size of the full moon), we expect DES to find more supernovae than any previous experiment. During the verification phase, we have already identified at least 200 good candidates," said D'Andrea, a researcher at the University of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation.

More than just numerous, these supernovae are very old, with the light from the most distant having travelled towards Earth for over 8 billion years. Of particular interest are Type Ia supernovae, which all have nearly the same luminosity when they reach their brightest phase. By comparing the brightness of Type Ia supernovae, scientists in DES will be able to determine accurately the distance to the supernovae and measure how the universe has expanded over time. This method was used in the Nobel Prize-winning research that led to the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe 15 years ago. While those researchers used a few dozen supernovae in their study, DES will find over 3500 of these objects. This glut of data poses a challenge for the team to analyse.

"Traditionally, astronomers have identified supernovae by analysing the spectrum of light from candidates. Because DES will give us so many candidates -- we already have hundreds just from the commissioning phase -- we don't have the resources to do this for each individual candidate supernova. We need to use other techniques to confirm which of the objects we observe really are exploding stars," said D'Andrea

An alternative method for identifying supernovae is to monitor changes in the brightness and colour of their light over time. However, the scientists also need to know how much the universe has expanded since the star exploded. This information can be gathered by analysing the spectra of light from galaxies in which supernovae have occurred -- unlike a supernova, a galaxy does not quickly fade away.

"DES is a long-term survey -- we may not know whether some of our candidates are 'real' supernovae until the end of the project. However, in collaboration with Australian researchers, our team has recently been awarded 100 nights of time on a telescope in Australia over the next five years. The Anglo-Australian Telescope has the ability to take spectra of nearly 400 galaxies at the same time. With the first of these nights scheduled for September, it won't be that long before we can start to accurately classify the supernovae candidates discovered in DES," said D'Andrea.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/mc0b-c649mU/130702100556.htm

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