Other News

Toshiba Secures Next Generation Networked Communications

Representatives of Toshiba announced a major breakthrough in the race towards the unhackable network. Researchers at Toshiba Research Europe Ltd in Cambridge have identified a robust and user-friendly way to use quantum cryptography to detect unauthorized eavesdropping, as well as distribute secret keys, on optical fiber networks. As a result of this innovation, quantum cryptography could now be used in commercial networks. The first beneficiaries are likely to be banks and other large corporations with sensitive information.

A recent trial of the system on installed telecom fibre, held in conjunction with the global communications provider MCI, demonstrated the ability to send secret keys for an entirely automated and uninterrupted session of nearly one week. Previous attempts lasted only minutes and required continual adjustment by experts.

The security of quantum cryptography relies on the ability to encode the bit material for the secret keys on individual photons (the 'particles' of light) sent along the fiber. However, these quantum bits are extremely sensitive to fluctuations in the transmission apparatus, such as temperature changes, or even tiny movements of the fiber.

Toshiba, whose system also holds the distance record for complete key transfer, has eliminated these problems by introducing a unique technique that preserves quantum information over long propagation distances. This allows the quantum cryptography system to be self-initiating and to operate continually, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without any human management.

The first application of quantum cryptography is to distribute secret keys. These keys, long strings of 0's and 1's, are the basis of secure communications and transactions in computer networks. For the security of such systems, it is important that the keys not only remain secret, but also that they are regularly refreshed. The Toshiba system serves keys at a rate of up to 100 per second and provides an absolute guarantee of the secrecy of each one.

Uniquely quantum cryptography provides a means to distribute keys in a manner that is fundamentally secure and therefore independent of future developments in computing and code breaking. The technique is not only future proof, but also provides a convenient method for key distribution and management that allows companies and organisations to build self-reliant secure networks.

Potential users of quantum cryptography include any organization using IT and communications technology to send, receive and store sensitive information - from banks and retailers to central and local government.

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Embryonic Stem Cell Research Guidelines Announced

In a report released through the National Academies, 10 scientists, including two from MIT, offer guidelines for research involving human embryonic stem cells, the cells taken from a five-day-old fertilized egg that may be tweaked to become any organ within the body.

The report comes at an opportune time for Massachusetts as House and Senate leaders come closer to passing a bill that will promote human embryonic stem cell research in this state.

Although compliance is voluntary, some institutions have already agreed to abide by the guidelines, according to Richard O. Hynes, co-chair of the committee. Hynes is the Daniel K Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research at MIT. The Academies are urging all institutions conducting human embryonic stem cell research to establish oversight committees to ensure that the new guidelines are followed.

Hynes' co-chair on the committee is Jonathan D. Moreno, a professor of biomedical ethics and director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Nobel laureate Robert H. Horvitz, an MIT professor of biology, is also on the committee.

Guidelines from the report include:

• Embryonic stem cell research oversight (ESCRO) committees should be established. These committees should include legal and ethical experts, as well as representatives of the public, and experts in biology and stem cell research.
• Stem cells usually are harvested after three to five days from a blastocyst--an early stage of development before implantation in the uterus. The ESCRO committees should review proposals for research that takes stem cells from excess blastocysts at in vitro fertilization clinics or from blastocysts created expressly for stem cell research.
• Nuclear transfer must not be used for reproductive cloning.
• Human embryos used for research should not be grown in culture for longer than 14 days, or until the point when the body axis and central nervous system begin to form.
• Donor consent must be obtained before a blastocyst is used to generate stem cells, and donors should be informed that they have the right to withdraw their consent at any point before a stem cell line is derived.
• No payments should be made to donors.
• The ESCRO committee should maintain a registry of stem cell lines that includes proof of informed consent and the medical history of donors.
• Human embryonic stem cells should be introduced into nonhuman mammals only under circumstances where no other experiment can provide the information needed.

The guidelines also address how far scientists should go in mixing human and animal cells to create so-called chimeras, which researchers may need to do in order to test the therapeutic potential of human stem cells in animal models. They say no animal embryonic stem cells should be transplanted into a human blastocyst, and approval by an ESCRO committee should be secured before any human embryonic stem cells are put into an animal. Also, no animal into which human embryonic stem cells have been introduced should be allowed to breed. No human embryonic stem cells should be put into nonhuman primates.

The executive summary is available for downloading and the full report can be browsed at the National Academies Press web site (books.nap.edu/catalog/11278.html). The National Academies consist of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council.

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Shuttle Launch Delayed Until July

The US space agency (NASA) has announced that the launch of its space shuttle Discovery will not take place until July. The two-month delay occurred because managers decided the spaceship's fuel tank, which triggered the 2003 Columbia disaster, is not quite ready to fly.

NASA first set the launch date for 15 May, but it has been pushed back twice.

Driving NASA's decision to postpone the flight to July - the next possible launch period - were lingering concerns about accumulations of ice forming on the outside of the external tank. The fear is the ice could come away as the orbiter blasted off the launch pad and strike delicate parts of the ship's thermal shield. Although the space shuttles have been showered by small pieces of debris thousands of times during the 24 years that they have been flying, NASA can no longer close its eyes to the possibility of danger.

Columbia was struck by a piece of lightweight foam insulation that fell off the fuel tank during launch. Far lighter than ice, the foam gouged a hole in the ship's wing, which was torn apart as the shuttle flew through the atmosphere 16 days later for landing. NASA redesigned the tank and replaced the wedge of foam that slipped off Columbia's tank with new electric heaters - but problems remain.

Last week, shuttle program managers told reporters that engineers had assessed 170 sources of potential debris and cleared all but a handful as a potential threat to shuttle safety. A follow-up review was held at the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday and Wednesday, but managers could not dispel their concerns.

One worry is a 21m-long (70ft) propellant line running along the outside of the tank.

Before launch, the tank is filled with 1,900,000 litres (500,000 US gallons; 420,000 imperial gallons) of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, both of which need to remain hundreds of degrees below zero despite the Florida sun and humidity. The fuels feed the shuttle's main engines during launch.

Engineers are concerned frost and ice could build up near the top of the propellant line and break off during launch, damaging the shuttle.

NASA may decide to add an electric heater to the suspect area before clearing Discovery for flight. The foam insulation around the line already has been revamped to prevent condensation from pooling and freezing into chunks of ice. However, when the modified tank was filled with fuels during a launch pad test two weeks ago, the potential for ice formation remained.

Because of new flight rules imposed after the Columbia accident, NASA has far fewer suitable periods of time for launching the shuttle. For now, lift-off, as well as the separation of the shuttle fuel tank just before the ship reaches orbit, must occur during daylight so that cameras will have good lighting for still pictures and video.

NASA had hoped to have its first two post-Columbia missions complete by summer's end so that managers could look into relaxing the launch restrictions and return full-steam to space station construction and crew rotation flights.

The new NASA administrator Michael Griffin also has said the shuttle must safely return to flight before he will consider re-scheduling a servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope that was cancelled following the Columbia accident.

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Mars Express Radar to be Deployed in May

Following green light for the deployment of ESA's Mars Express radar, given in February this year, the radar booms are now planned to be deployed in the first half of May. Once the deployment is successful, the Mars Express MARSIS radar will enable the first European spacecraft to orbit Mars to complement its study of the planet's atmosphere and surface.

MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument) is the first antenna of its kind which was also designed to actually look below the surface of Mars at the different layers of material, most notably for water. The deployment of the three MARSIS radar booms is an operation which will take place in three phases, in a window spanning from 2 to 12 May 2005. These operations will be initiated and monitored from ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. Each boom will be deployed separately, with the two 20-metre 'dipole' booms to be unfurled first and the 7-meter 'monopole' boom to follow a few days later.

Before each deployment, the spacecraft will be placed in a 'robust' attitude control mode, which will allow it to tumble freely while the boom extends before regaining standard pointing to the Sun and Earth. After each deployment, the control team will conduct a full assessment of the spacecraft status before a decision is taken to proceed with the next phase.

The result of each deployment can be assessed only after a series of tests, each taking few days. After the deployment of the three booms, ESA engineers will start the analysis of the complete behaviour of the satellite to be able to confirm the overall success of the operation.

The current schedule is subject to changes, because the timing of the complex series of operations cannot be all fixed beforehand. A status report will follow in due course. Once the deployment is complete, MARSIS will undergo three weeks of commissioning before the start of actual science investigations, ready for when one of the prime regions of interest for radar observations comes into the right position through the natural evolution of the spacecraft's orbit.

The MARSIS instrument was developed by the University of Rome, Italy, in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, USA.