Belfast scientists develop ‘sex spray’

A new spray to help men with premature ejaculation problems has been developed by scientists at a Belfast hospital. The revolutionary new spray, which could prolong six-fold the length of time men have sex, was developed at the Royal Victoria Hospital. Men who used the treatment five minutes before having intercourse extended their love-making from half a minute to almost four minutes, trials showed. The spray uses local anaesthetics to numb the penis, helping to prolong the amount of time men stay aroused. It is believed the spray could be available in the next couple of years. Lead researcher Professor Wallace Dinsmore said: “Our study shows that when the PSD502 spray was applied to the man's penis five minutes before intercourse it improved both sexual performance and sexual satisfaction, which are key factors in treating premature ejaculation.” Researchers looked at 300 men who had difficulty lasting for more than a minute during love-making.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/consummation/belfast-scientists-develop-lsquosex-sprayrsquo-1665687.html

Report From Antarctica: Countries Maneuver for Potential Future Land Grab

KING GEORGE ISLAND, Antarctica — More than 30 years before the moratorium on mining in Antarctica is set to expire, countries are quietly positioning themselves for a potential land grab. The 1961 Antarctic Treaty stipulates that the continent should be owned by none and open to all for scientific purposes and other peaceful pursuits. The Protocol on Environmental Protection — added to the books in 1991 — banned all mineral exploitation for 50 years. Forty-seven nations have signed on to the Antarctic Treaty, and it is often regarded as one of the more effective works of international law. But subtle maneuverings for territory and economic stakes predate any cooperative framework. The United Kingdom claimed a slice of the continent in 1908, and New Zealand, France, Australia, Norway, Chile and Argentina followed suit in the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. Chile and Argentina remain most vociferous about their overlapping claims. In both countries, it is illegal to display a map not showing the nation’s claimed Antarctic territory. There is certainly an impressive amount of great science being done in Antarctica, but many of the bases on the island are more settlements than research stations. And through the quiet development of civil life on the island, battle lines for the future are already being drawn.

Source: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/antarcticland.html

The iPhone Gold Rush

IS there a good way to nail down a steady income? In this economy? Try writing a successful program for the iPhone. Last August, Ethan Nicholas and his wife, Nicole, were having trouble making their mortgage payments. Medical bills from the birth of their younger son were piling up. After learning that his employer, Sun Microsystems, was suspending employee bonuses for the year, Mr. Nicholas considered looking for a new job and putting their house in Wake Forest, N.C., on the market. Then he remembered reading about the guy who had made a quarter-million dollars in a hurry by writing a video game called Trism for the iPhone. “I figured if I could even make a fraction of that, we’d be able to make ends meet,” he said. Because he grew up playing shoot-em-up computer games, he decided to write an artillery game. He sketched out some graphics and bought inexpensive stock photos and audio files. For six weeks, he worked “morning, noon and night” — by day at his job on the Java development team at Sun, and after-hours on his side project. After the project was finished, Mr. Nicholas sent it to Apple for approval, quickly granted, and iShoot was released into the online Apple store on Oct. 19. When he checked his account with Apple to see how many copies the game had sold, Mr. Nicholas’s jaw dropped: On its first day, iShoot sold enough copies at $4.99 each to net him $1,000. He and Nicole were practically “dancing in the street,” he said. In January, he released a free version of the game with fewer features, hoping to spark sales of the paid version. It worked: iShoot Lite has been downloaded more than 2 million times, and many people have upgraded to the paid version, which now costs $2.99. On its peak day — Jan. 11 — iShoot sold nearly 17,000 copies, which meant a $35,000 day’s take for Mr. Nicholas. And for every iShoot, which earned Mr. Nicholas $800,000 in five months, “there are hundreds or thousands who put all their efforts into creating something, and it just gets ignored in the store,” said Erica Sadun, a programmer and the author of “The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/fashion/05iphone.html?em

Old worm learns new Conficker tricks

Proving imitation in the sincerest form of flattery, even in the world of malware creation, VXers have adapted a four-year old worm to exploit the vulnerability used by the Conficker superworm. The Neeris worm, which dates from as far back as May 2005, making it a bit of geriatric, has been adapted to spread using the infamous MS08-067 vulnerability harnessed by Conficker. Earlier variants of the Neeris worm exploited a much older flaw (MS06-040) in the same Windows component hit by the Conficker exploit, so the update to the older malware probably involved more of a tweak than a complete rewrite. Neeris has also copied other security chisels from the Conficker tool-box, Microsoft researchers warned on Friday. The new Neeris variant adds the same "Open folder to view files" autoplay social engineering trick used by Conficker. Despite the similarities between Nerris and Conficker the two are reckoned to be the work of different malware authors, albeit ones that might be collaborating, or at least drawing inspiration from each other. "This new variant of Neeris spiked on late March 31 and during 1 April," security researchers at Microsoft note. "However it was not downloaded by any Conficker variant and there’s no evidence that it’s related to Conficker's April 1 domain algorithm activation."

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/06/old_worm_adopts_conficker_tricks/