Authors:Schaller et alAbstract:Extraterrestrial impacts have left a substantial imprint on the climate and evolutionary history of Earth. A rapid carbon cycle perturbation and global warming event about 56 million years ago at the Paleocene-Eocene (P-E) boundary (the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum) was accompanied by rapid expansions of mammals and terrestrial plants and extinctions of deep-sea benthic organisms. Here, we report the discovery of silicate glass spherules in a discrete stratigraphic layer from three marine P-E boundary sections on the Atlantic margin. Distinct characteristics identify the spherules as microtektites and microkrystites, indicating that an extraterrestrial impact occurred during the carbon isotope excursion at the P-E boundary.
Showing posts with label new jersey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new jersey. Show all posts
Friday, October 21, 2016
Impact Ejecta Found at Paleocene-Eocene Boundary in New Jersey
Monday, September 22, 2014
New Jersey Subpoenas Source Code, Documentation, Evidence of Criminal Activity for Nonfunctional Tidbit Bitcoin Mining Software
Four MIT students behind an award-winning Bitcoin mining tool will face off against New Jersey state authorities in court today when they attempt to fight back against a subpoena demanding their source code.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is representing 19-year-old MIT student Jeremy Rubin and three classmates in a remarkable case that stands out for the measure of aggression the state is using to obtain the code and identify anyone who might have tested the mining tool.
The case is reminiscent of a federal one that targeted Aaron Swartz after he was arrested by MIT police in 2011 for downloading more than 4 million scholarly journal articles from the JSTOR digital library, offered to MIT students, to make them more widely available. Swartz faced multiple charges for his activity and killed himself as he was preparing for trial. Although there is currently no indictment or pending criminal charges against Rubin and his friends, state authorities have indicated that they believe the researchers may have violated state laws. The case marks a disturbing trend among authorities to go after researchers, innovators, tinkerers and others who try to do cutting-edge projects to help the tech community, says EFF staff attorney Hanni Fakhoury.
“It’s a very broad subpoena that hints at criminal liability and civil liability,” he says. “For a bunch of college kids who put something together for a hackathon—they didn’t make any money, the project never got off the ground and now is completely disbanded—there are some very serious implications.”
The mining tool, known as Tidbit, was developed in late 2013 by Rubin and his classmates for the Node Knockout hackathon—only Rubin is identified on the subpoena but his three classmates are identified on the hackathon web site as Oliver Song, Kevin King and Carolyn Zhang. The now defunct tool was designed to offer web site visitors an alternative way to support the sites they visited by using their computers to mine Bitcoins for them in exchange for having online ads removed.
“We believe our utility for the end user comes in freeing up real estate on web pages,” King wrote about their program on the Node Knockout site. “Imagine a web where your amazon shopping cart doesn’t follow you around to every website you visit. We believe there should be more options than advertising for monetizing a website, and we believe we have a novel and non-intrusive solution. In this way, we provide utility to developers who can now include higher quality content on their websites, and utility to end users who are spared the wasted time in looking at ads.”
The clever design won the award for innovation in the programming competition.
“This is a very intriguing idea that could really transform online economics if it works,” one supporter wrote on the hackathon site. “There is a much broader discussion to have about mining bitcoins vs doing other useful tasks (e.g. a friendly form of mechanical turk).”
But the program never got beyond the proof-of-concept stage before Rubin and Tidbit, as an entity, were hit with subpoenas from the New Jersey
link.
Labels:
bitcoins,
cryptocurrencies,
law,
MIT,
new jersey,
software,
virtual currency
Friday, March 14, 2014
New Jersey Require Tesla to Sell via Franchise Auto Dealers, Tesla Closes NJ Showroom, Lays off Employees
A New Jersey agency has agreed to ban Tesla from selling cars directly to consumers in the Garden State Tuesday.
Tesla (TSLA) has been selling directly to shoppers at two locations in New Jersey for about a year, but state officials will now force the automaker to sell cars through a franchised car dealership.
James Chen, a Tesla attorney, told members of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission that the change will force Tesla to close its existing sales operations in the state and layoff 27 employees, according to documents posted to the commission's website.
Tesla's practice of selling its Model S electric sedan directly to consumers is unusual and has run into problems before. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has tangled with dealership associations in various states including Texas and New York.
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