Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.

Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.

The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.

Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Notre Dame's Athletic Director Discusses Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax Watch Video

Notre Dame Football Star Victim of 'Girlfriend Hoax' Watch Video

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Te'o said during the season that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died, triggering an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.

"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.

Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The website reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.

Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.

Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said.

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Why musical genius comes easier to early starters

Good news for pushy parents. If you want your child to excel musically, you now have better justification for starting their lessons early. New evidence comes from brain scans of 36 highly skilled musicians, split equally between those who started lessons before and after the age of 7, but who had done a similar amount of training and practice.

MRI scans revealed that the white matter in the corpus callosum – the brain region that links the two hemispheres – had more extensive wiring and connectivity in the early starters. The wiring of the late starters was not much different from that of non-musician control participants. This makes sense as the corpus callosum aids speed and synchronisation in tasks involving both hands, such as playing musical instruments.

"I think we've provided real evidence for something that musicians and teachers have suspected for a long time, that early training can produce long-lasting effects on performance and the brain," says Christopher Steele of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and head of the team.

Sweet spot

Steele says that younger-trained musicians may have an advantage because their training coincides with a key period of brain development . At age 7 or 8, the corpus callosum is more receptive than ever to the alterations in connectivity necessary to meet the demands of learning an instrument.

However, he stresses that these connectivity adaptations are no guarantee of musical genius. "What we're showing is that early starters have some specific skills and accompanying differences in the brain, but these things don't necessarily make them better musicians," he says. "Musical performance is about skill, but it is also about communication, enthusiasm, style and many other things we don't measure. So while starting early may help you express your genius, it won't make you a genius," he says.

Nor should older aspiring musicians despair. "They should absolutely not give up. It is never too late to learn a skill," says Steele.

Journal reference: Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3578-12.2013

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S. Korea satellite rocket launch set for Jan 30-Feb 8

SEOUL: South Korea will make another bid at the end of this month to put a satellite in orbit and gain entry to an elite global space club that includes Asian powers China, India and Japan.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced Wednesday a January 30 to February 8 window for launching the 140-tonne Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) from the Naro Space Centre on the south coast.

"By the end of this week, first and second stages will be connected and next week, rehearsals will take place," a ministry official told AFP.

Following failed attempts in 2009 and 2010, a successful launch is considered crucial to South Korea's commercial space ambitions.

The current attempt has already been postponed twice for technical reasons after launch dates were set in October and then November.

The KSLV-1 has a first stage manufactured by Russia, with a solid-fuel second stage built in South Korea.

In 2009, the carrier achieved orbit, but faulty release mechanisms on its second stage prevented proper deployment of the satellite.

A 2010 effort saw the carrier explode two minutes into its flight, with both Russia and South Korea blaming each other.

Last month, North Korea successfully launched its own long-range rocket, which Pyongyang was a purely scientific mission to place a satellite in orbit.

Most of the world saw it as a disguised ballistic missile test that violated UN resolutions imposed after the North's nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

Seoul's space ambitions were restricted for many years by its main military ally the United States, which feared that a robust missile or rocket programme would accelerate a regional arms race, especially with North Korea.

Japan and China both achieved their first satellite launches back in 1970, and India made its breakthrough in 1980. But the lack of US support contributed to South Korea, Asia's fourth largest economy, lagging behind.

Soon after joining the Missile Technology Control Regime in 2001, South Korea made Russia its go-to space partner.

The KSLV-1 will deploy a small satellite that will mainly collect data on space radiation.

- AFP/ck

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Microsoft Surface Pro expected to arrive in 'weeks'

Microsoft's Surface Pro makes no compromises on Windows 8. It runs everything a mainstream laptop can.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

The Surface Pro's arrival is only a matter of weeks away, according to a tweet today from Microsoft.

"On my way to the factory to check out #Surface Pro coming off the line...arriving in the coming weeks," tweeted Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft's Surface products.

This should be of no great surprise, of course. When Microsoft announced the Surface
tablet last year, it said the
Windows 8 Pro model would be available about 90 days after the release of the Surface RT.

That model was released on October 26, so the 90-day mark is fast approaching.

Surface Pro will be available in two versions and pricing will start at $899 for the 64GB version and $999 for the 128GB version.

Other specs include an Intel Ivy Bridge processor -- that's the fast Core Series chip found in Windows 8 laptops -- a 16:9 ClearType display sporting a 1,920x1,080 resolution and goodies like a Mini DisplayPort that can drive an external display up to 2560X1440 resolution. And Windows 8 Pro of course.

"The Surface Pro is the more significant product, because it makes no computing compromises: it's the dream of a tablet as your PC, while the original Surface felt more like an
iPad competitor," said CNET Reviews.

Reviews continued. "It all worked exactly as advertised, and with a extremely elegant, bordering on beautiful, sense of design."

One of the limiting factors of the Surface Pro may be battery life. Intel's Ivy Bridge processors are powerful but that power comes at a price. Even the most power-efficient Ivy Bridge chips cannot match the battery life of devices sporting ARM processors, like the iPad -- or Surface RT, for that matter.

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.

Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could have been created only in the presence of water. (Related: "Mars Has 'Oceans' of Water Inside?")

Project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said during a press conference that the drill area has turned out "to be jackpot unit. Every place we drive exposes fractures and vein fills."

Mission scientists initially decided to visit the depression, a third of a mile from Curiosity's landing site, on a brief detour before heading to the large mountain at the middle of Gale Crater. But because of the richness of their recent finds, Grotzinger said it may be some months before they begin their trek to Mount Sharp.

The drilling, expected to start this month, will dig five holes about two inches (five centimeters) into bedrock the size of a throw rug and then feed the powder created to the rover's two chemistry labs for analysis.

The drill is the most complex device on the rover and is the last instrument to be used. Project Manager Richard Cook, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that operating it posed the biggest mechanical challenge since Curiosity's high-drama landing. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

A Watery Past?

That now-desiccated Mars once had a significant amount of surface water is now generally accepted, but every new discovery of when and where water was present is considered highly significant. The presence of surface water in its many possible forms—as a running stream, as a still lake, as ground water soaked into the Martian soil—all add to an increased possibility that the planet was once habitable. (Watch a video about searching for life on Mars.)

And each piece of evidence supporting the presence of water brings the Curiosity mission closer to its formal goal—which is to determine whether Mars was once capable of supporting life.

Curiosity scientists have already concluded that a briskly moving river or stream once flowed near the Gale landing site.

The discovery of the mineral-filled veins within Yellowknife Bay rock fractures adds to the picture because those minerals can be deposited only in watery, underground conditions.

The Curiosity team has also examined Yellowknife Bay for sedimentary rocks with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).  Scientists have found sandstone with grains up to about the size of a peppercorn, including one shaped like a flower bud that appears to gleam. Other nearby rocks are siltstone, with grains finer than powdered sugar. These are quite different from the pebbles and conglomerate rocks found in the landing area, but all these rocks are evidence of a watery past. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

One of the primary reasons Curiosity scientists selected Gale crater as a landing site was because satellite images indicated that water-formed minerals were present near the base of Mount Sharp. Grotzinger said that the minerals' presence so close to the landing site, and some five miles from the mountain, is both a surprise and an opportunity.

The current site in Yellowknife Bay is so promising, Grotzinger said, that he would have been "thrilled" to find similar formations at the mission's prime destination at the base of Mount Sharp.  Now the mission can look forward to the surprises to come at the mountain base while already having struck gold.

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Jan 16, 2013 12:04am

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

As the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.

In 35-second video posted online Tuesday night, the NRA criticizes Obama for accepting armed Secret Service protection for his daughters, Sasha and Malia, at their private Washington, D.C., school while questioning the placement of similar security at other schools.

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?” the narrator says.

“Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security,” it continues. “Protection for their kids and gun-free zones for ours.”

The immediate family members of U.S. presidents – generally considered potential targets – have long received Secret Service protection.

The ad appeared on a new website for a NRA advocacy campaign – “NRA Stand and Fight” — that the gun-rights group appears poised to launch in response to Obama’s package of gun control proposals that will be announced today.

It’s unclear whether the video will air on TV or only on the web. The NRA did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.  The domain for the website is registered to Ackerman McQueen, the NRA’s long-standing public relations firm.

The White House had no comment on the NRA ad.

In the wake of last month’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Obama administration has met with a cross-section of advocacy groups on all sides of the gun debate to formulate new policy proposals.

The NRA, which met with Vice President Joe Biden last week, has opposed any new legislative gun restrictions, including expanded background checks and limits on the sale of assault-style weapons, instead calling for armed guards at all American schools.

Obama publicly questioned that approach in an interview with “Meet the Press” earlier this month, saying, “I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools. And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”

Still, the White House has been considering a call for increased funding for police officers at public schools and the proposal could be part of a broader Obama gun policy package.

Fifty-five percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they support adding armed guards at schools across the country.

“The issue is, are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can’t walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a shockingly rapid fashion.  And surely, we can do something about that,” Obama said at a news conference on Monday.

“Responsible gun owners, people who have a gun for protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship, they don’t have anything to worry about,” he said.

ABC News’ Mary Bruce and Jay Shaylor contributed reporting. 

SHOWS: Good Morning America World News

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Today on New Scientist: 14 January 2013

Activist's death sparks open-access tribute on Twitter

Hundreds of researchers have been offering free access to their work in tribute to internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on Friday

Exploding microchip could make arms dumps safer

Shrapnel and bullets can set off huge explosions if they hit weapons stores. But microchip-based detonators could help keep them safe

The hologenome: A new view of evolution

Far from being passive hangers-on, symbiotic microbes may shape the evolution of the plants and animals that play host to them

White House uses Death Star request to plug science

The White House has politely declined to build a version of the planet-destroying space station from Star Wars but took the opportunity to promote science

Wolves bite back in the human world

Grey wolves are an evolutionary success story, giving rise to the domestic dog 10,000 years ago and now rebounding from centuries of persecution

Mariko Mori: From stone circles to stardust

The artist's new exhibition tethers human history to the life of the entire cosmos

Why we called off hunt for ancient Antarctic life

Geoscientist Martin Siegert says that drilling through 3 kilometres of ice to reveal the secrets of an entombed lake was never going to be easy

Give video games a sporting chance

Traditional fans will turn their noses up at e-sports, but they risk missing some compelling action

Benefits of emissions cuts kick in only next century

Even rapid action now to curb emissions will bring only modest results this century, but the earlier we act, the greater the eventual rewards

Video games take off as a spectator sport

Professional gaming has been huge in Asia for years, and improved technology means it is now going global

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New report reopens questions over Natalie Wood death

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood icon Natalie Wood may have suffered non-accidental injuries before her 1981 drowning death and ended up in the sea in a "non-volitional" manner, a new coroner's report said Monday.

The report, compiled by the LA County Coroner's Office after the case was re-opened in 2011, raises fresh questions about her death and the role of her actor husband Robert Wagner and a fellow actor on the fateful night.

The "West Side Story" and "Rebel Without a Cause" star drowned on the night of November 29, 1981 off California's Catalina Island, after an evening of drinking and eating with her husband and actor Christopher Walken.

Her "accidental" death at age 43 has long been a Hollywood mystery -- but was thought to have been laid to rest until a November 2011 surprise announcement that police were reviving the probe.

A "re-evaluation" coroner's report, dated last May but published Monday, recounts how Wood, Wagner and Walken were drunk after dining in a restaurant, and continued drinking after returning to the couple's boat the "Splendour."

The captain of the boat, Dennis Davern, said they realized Wood was missing around midnight, but initially thought she might have returned to shore using the boat's dinghy.

Wagner raised the alarm with authorities at 1:30 am. A search was launched, and her body was found floating face-down in the ocean some 200 yards from shore, while the dinghy was found nearby, about a mile from the main boat.

In the new report, a copy of which was published by the LA Times, the Medical Examiner said some of the injuries found on her body did not necessarily come from an accident, such as falling from the boat or dinghy.

"With the presence of fresh bruises in the upper extremities in the right forearm/left wrist area and a small scratch in the anterior neck, this Examiner is unable to exclude non-accidental mechanism causing these injuries," it said.

And it added: "This Medical Examiner is unable to exclude non-volitional, unplanned entry into the water."

As a result, "the cause of death will be changed to drowning and other undetermined factors. Manner will be changed to undetermined. How injury occurred will be listed as found floating in ocean," the report concluded.

"Circumstances not clearly established."

Captain Davern, who co-wrote a 2009 book about the mystery, said the couple had a fierce row shortly before she vanished, and that Wagner then delayed a search that could have saved her.

A publicist for Wagner said when the case was re-opened that his family supported the police probe, while warning against people "trying to profit from the 30 year anniversary of her tragic death".

-AFP/fl

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Feds: MegaUpload was not entrapped

Kim DotCom (at right) and his company managers shortly after being arrested in January 2012 for alleged copyright violations and fraud.

(Credit:
Screenshot by CNET)

Entrapment is one of MegaUpload's claims in its legal battle against the U.S. government. The feds are now saying this claim is "baseless."

"Megaupload's allegations are baseless, as even a cursory review of Megaupload's pleading and the search warrant materials at issue disproves the allegation that the government misled the court as part of a conspiracy to entrap Megaupload," the government wrote in a Friday filing (PDF).

MegaUpload, which was founded by Kim DotCom, is the highest-profile service to be accused of criminal copyright violations by the U.S. government -- and the case is being watched closely around the globe.

DotCom's saga has played out over the past year after he was arrested on allegations of criminal copyright violation, conspiracy, money laundering, and wire fraud. U.S. federal officials accused DotCom of pocketing millions of dollars in illegal profits from criminal file sharing and downloading that has reportedly cost the film industry more than $600 million in damages.

One of the reasons DotCom claims he was entrapped by the U.S. government is because he complied with a federal search warrant targeting five file-sharing services using MegaUpload's infrastructure in 2010, according to Wired. These file-sharing services, including Movies-Links.tv, Planetmoviez.com, and Ninjavideo.net, were accused of being movie-pirating sites.

MegaUpload reportedly gave the authorities a database of 39 pirated movies, which allowed the feds to raid the sites' operators and seize their assets. Even though DotCom cooperated with the government, the feds then used this same database as evidence in its case against MegaUpload. Apparently, DotCom never deleted the allegedly pirated movies from MegaUpload's servers, which the government said proved he was aware of pirated material on the platform.

In a January 2 court filing (PDF), DotCom's lawyer Ira Rothken wrote that "MegaUpload had every reason to retain those files in good faith because the government had sought and obtained MegaUpload's cooperation in retrieving those files and warned that alerting users to the existence of the warrant and the government's interest in the files could compromise the investigation."

However, the feds filing from Friday said this claim is meritless and that the government never told DotCom to keep the files. The feds also said that more than 2,000 users uploaded the 39 pirated movies because the material wasn't deleted from MegaUpload's servers.

Currently, DotCom and his company managers are free on bail in New Zealand while waiting for an extradition hearing. The hearing will determine whether they will be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial. The earliest the hearing will be scheduled is July 2013.

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.

While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.

Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long) creature is a relatively large new type of flying frog, a group known for its ability to "parachute" from tree to tree thanks to special aerodynamic adaptations, such as webbed feet, Rowley said. (Also see "'Vampire Flying Frog' Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs.")

Rowley dubbed the new species Helen's flying frog, in honor of her mother, Helen Rowley, "who has steadfastly supported her only child trekking through the forests of Southeast Asia in search of frogs," according to a statement.

The newfound species—there are 80 types of flying frogs—is also "one of the most flying frogs of the flying frogs," Rowley said, "in that it's got huge hands and feet that are webbed all the way to the toepad."

"Females even have flappy skin on their forearms to glide," added Rowley, who has received funding from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) "The females are larger and heavier than males, so the little extra flaps probably don't make much of a difference," she said.

As Rowley wrote on her blog, "At first it may seem strange that such a fantastic and obvious frog could escape discovery until now—less than 100 kilometers [60 miles] from an urban centre with over nine million people."

Yet these tree dwellers can easily escape notice—they spend most of their time in the canopy, she said.

Flying Frog On the Edge

Even so, Helen's flying frog won't be able to hide from development near Ho Chi Minh City, which may encroach on its existing habitats.

So far, only five individuals have been found in two patches of lowland forest hemmed in by rice paddies in southern Vietnam, Rowley said. The animals can probably tolerate a little bit of disturbance as long as they have large trees and temporary pools, she added.

But lowland forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, mostly because they're so accessible to people, and thus chosen for logging and development. (Get the facts on deforestation.)

"While Helen's flying frog has only just been discovered by biologists," Rowley wrote, "unfortunately this species, like many others, is under great threat from ongoing habitat loss and degradation."

The new flying frog study was published in December 2012 in the Journal of Herpetology.

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