During the 1980s, American security engineer Charles Gandy knew that the Soviets had found a way to electronically spy on the US Embassy in Moscow. Americans had already discovered antennas hidden inside a false hole in a chimney. But Gandy couldn't figure out what signals these antennas were relaying to the KGB. After much searching, He discovered that a typewriter's ball had been hacked through an extraordinarily sophisticated method to relay whatever it typed to Soviet agents.

A point of historical clarification: inside many electric typewriters there is a metal ball that the machine uses to print text. It looks like this. IEEE Spectrum describes how the Soviets tracked the movements of that ball:

A solid aluminum bar, part of the structural support of the typewriter, had been replaced with one that looked identical but was hollow. Inside the cavity was a circuit board and six magnetometers. The magnetometers sensed movements of tiny magnets that had been embedded in the transposers that moved the typing “golf ball” into position for striking a given letter.

Other components of the typewriters, such as springs and screws, had been repurposed to deliver power to the hidden circuits and to act as antennas. Keystroke information was stored and sent in encrypted burst transmissions that hopped across multiple frequencies.

Perhaps most interesting, the transmissions were at a low power level in a narrow frequency band that was occupied by intermodulation overtones of powerful Soviet TV stations. The TV signals would swamp the illicit transmissions and mask them from detection by embassy security scans, but the clever design of the mystery antenna and associated electronic filtering let the Soviets extract the keystroke signals.

-via Instapundit | Photo: Steve Lodefink

In June 1909, Placer County, California, Alma Bell was dumped by her fiancé, Joe Armes. In response, she confronted him and shot him dead.

One of Joe's brother's claimed to have heard her say, "Goodbye Joe," after the shooting.

The trial was big news at the time in Sacramento and San Francisco newspapers.

The remarkable part of the story was that Alma was acquitted that November in a jury trial. "Not guilty, by reason of insanity."

The newspaper account of the trial said a majority of jurors favored acquittal during deliberations and convinced the holdouts to come over to their side based on “the unwritten law” associated with men promising to marry women.

She lived until 1952, aged 66 and was interred at the Old Auburn Cemetery...without a headstone.

You've probably seen the film clip of NASA's 1960 Mercury-Redstone 1 test launch attempt in compilations of failures. Nothing much happens, but the rocket does not slip the surly bonds of earth. Not by a long shot.

As you can see from the video, the rocket engines fired, but then stopped again very quickly. What followed were several seemingly random events. The first thing to happen was the escape tower disappearing in a cloud of smoke, followed by the release of the recovery parachute that was designed to carry the Mercury capsule safely back to Earth. You will notice that the parachute did not inflate. This is hardly surprising, as the capsule was sat motionless on its launchpad.

The whole rocket had travelled 4 inches. 10 centimetres. Less than the length of your smartphone.

Everything then fell silent but the potential for disaster was still high. Here was a rocket, full of fuel, powered by internal batteries and packed with explosive charges. However, luck was on NASA’s side – the wind was gentle, and the rocket stayed safely upright. What began as a dangerous situation ended as an amusing comedy of errors. But what had gone wrong?

Find out the cause of the failure to launch at DesignSpark. -via Digg

(Image credit: NASA)

This award-winning animation features two characters made of yarn who fall in love. It's not just attraction; they commit to giving of themselves to each other. Yarn, that is. Over time, it causes them to become more connected and more alike. When one of them falls ill, it tests the limits of that connectedness. -via Laughing Squid

Elizabeth Rona received a PhD from the University of Budapest in 1912. She spent her life studying radiation and various radioactive elements and isotopes, contributing greatly to the body of knowledge about those substances. But because of who she was, where she was, and when, she managed to miss out on the accolades that came to those she worked with. During World War I, she worked with German chemist George von Hevesy.

Rona and von Hevesy tracked how radioactive tracers moved in different materials, and used that information to predict the size and behavior of atoms. Long after Rona left his lab, von Hevesy would be awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on these tracers, recognizing their importance in studying metabolism and in diagnosing conditions like cancer and heart disease. The collaboration with von Hevesy established Rona as a key figure in the radioactivity community.

The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following World War I lead to political upheaval and violence as communists and nationalists fought for control. As a Jewish member of the academy, Elizabeth Rona was an enemy to both sides – the communists hated the notion of an ivory tower, and the nationalists were suspicious of Jews, who they associated with the communist leadership.

In 1921, radiochemist Otto Hahn offered her a position at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and she soon left for Berlin. Like Rona’s previous mentor, Otto Hahn would also receive a Nobel Prize long after she left the lab, this time for the discovery of nuclear fission, the reaction that fuels the atomic bomb. Hahn’s female colleague in the fission research, Lise Meitner, was snubbed.

Rona's movement from place to place continued throughout her life. It held back recognition, but not her work. Read about Elizabeth Rona, her life, and her research at Massive Science. Scroll down past the article to find links to more stories of the women of science. -via Damn Interesting 

It was an eventful year. Vox reminds us of the news events, culture, trends, media, and memes of 2019, both in America and around the world.

At first glance, it might seem to be just a bunch of electrical cords. But, when you take a closer look, a baby serpent can be found hiding in plain sight.

The tiny reptile was spotted by an Australian snake catcher, who was called to a Brisbane home on Friday.

“When I saw the red and black leads, I thought ‘well this could be interesting’, but it took me all of two minutes to find it,” snake catcher Tony Harrison told 9news.com.au. “This one was very small, very young – but from the day they are born, to the day they die their venom is the same strength.”

According to Harrison, the snake was a red-bellied black snake. Despite it being typically shy and avoiding humans, it is considered one of the most dangerous snakes in Australia, as its venom can cause muscle and nerve damage and a blood-clotting disorder.

(Image Credit: Gold Coast and Brisbane Snake Catcher/ Facebook)

According to researchers, it might. So if you can’t remember something, wait until later in the day and maybe you’ll be able to remember.

Researchers identified a gene in mice that seems to influence memory recall at different times of day and tracked how it causes mice to be more forgetful just before they normally wake up.

"We may have identified the first gene in mice specific to memory retrieval," said Professor Satoshi Kida from the University of Tokyo Department of Applied Biological Chemistry.

According to Kida, this is evidence that our circadian clocks regulate our memory recall.

Check out ScienceDaily for more details about the study.

(Image Credit: kaboompics/ Pixabay)

This is Rose, a romney ewe from a small farm in the Auckland area. When she became pregnant with her triplets, she began to produce massive a high volume of milk, which damaged her udders’ suspensory ligaments.

According to Dr. Sarah Clews, a veterinarian, “when this happens, the udder can hang so low that it can be traumatized on the ground.” If not corrected, it becomes a case for euthanasia.

Clews recommended Rose's owners try supporting her udders with a bra to prevent her from requiring surgery to repair the ligaments or remove her udders.

A large maternity bra, size 24J, was obtained from lingerie company Rose and Thorne, which inspired the sheep's owners to name her in honor of the company. Holes were cut in the garment to allow her to feed her three black lambs, which were born Nov. 11.

The veterinarian said Rose's ligaments healed enough to correct her saggy udders after a few weeks of wearing the bra. She said she bought the bra from the sheep's owners so she could attempt the same treatment next time a similar situation arises.

Good thinking!

(Image Credit: Franklin Vets Lifestyle Farms)

Good news: A team of scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have calculated how long it would take a spacecraft to get from our own Solar System to the next system over.

Bad news: It takes a really, really long time. Like tens of thousands of years.

I guess fans of space exploration will have to wait even beyond death.

(Image Credit: NASA/ Popular Mechanics)

Yip yip yip yip. Hello. Christmas!

Novelist Dot Hutchinson tweets this photo, which is of Christmas stockings knitted by her sister-in-law. They take the form of the Yip Yip Martians, which are recurring characters on Sesame Street.

-via Super Punch

A daughter has recently left university and entered the corporate world, taking on a temporary office job. She phoned home in tears, however, just at the end of her first week, complaining to her mother that it was horrible.

“There’s no time to do anything else. I’m so tired when I get home in the evenings that all I can do is watch TV. And then I have to get up early the next morning and do it all again. If this is what work is like, I don’t want to spend my whole life doing it.”

Many of us might sympathise with her feelings of dismay. The daily grind of modern employment can make weekends, holidays and the prospect of retirement highly treasured prospects.

This is where concepts of working fewer hours, such as a four-day working week, comes in.

Aside from the fact that working shorter hours might actually make us more productive, there is no doubt that it would enhance our well-being.

More details about this over at Neuroscience News.

(Image Credit: hamonazaryan1/ Pixabay)

Charlie McMillian is everyone's friend and is thus a natural-born politician. He's just getting started on his political career, having been inaugurated as the mayor of the small town of Whitehall, Texas. Mayor McMillian is only seven months old. KBTX News describes his meteoric rise:

Mayor Charlie was elected to serve the Whitehall community in Grimes County back in October.

Each year the position of mayor is auctioned off at the Whitehall Volunteer Fire Department BBQ Fundraiser. This year, Charlie was the highest bidder, thereby "electing" him the youngest mayor in America.

The mayors adopted father, Chad McMillan said Charlie's motto is to "Make America Kind Again."

"Charlie loves folks from all political leanings; Republican, Democrat, Independent. Regardless of anyone's background, he loves them and we hope he can be a unifier in our country," said Chad.

Mayor Charlie and his family have a visit with our local congressman and Senator Ted Cruz next month in Washington D.C.

By going to Washington, he's already demonstrating national political ambitions.

-via TYWKIWDBI | Image: KBTX

In the video, we see Dorothea Taylor coming in to the music store. The store worker glanced at her and immediately said that “the pianos and violins are just that way" (talk about judging a book by its cover). She, however, has other plans.

Then, we see Dorothea arriving at what I assume to be a worship team practice at church and announcing that she will be playing with them. Unfortunately, the man immediately said that “the organ is in the back.”

Next, she comes to the Disturbed cover band auditions. As she arrived and met a man playing the guitar, the man greeted her with, “Oh sorry, are we being too loud?” instead of “Hello.” She replies, “No, I’m here for the audition for drums.” The man, surprised, just says “Oh.”

Finally, we see our grandmother play a drum cover of “Down With The Sickness.”

Badass!

Via Laughing Squid

(Video Credit: Drumeo/ YouTube)

When cognitive neuroscientist Luke Miller was toying with a curtain rod in his apartment, he came upon a strange realization. When he hit an object with the rod, even without looking, he knew where the rod made contact as if it was a sensory extension of his body.

“That’s kind of weird,” Miller recalls thinking to himself. “So I went [to the lab], and we played around with it in the lab.”

Sensing touch through tools is not a new concept, though it has not been extensively investigated. In the 17th century, philosopher René Descartes discussed the ability of blind people to sense their surroundings through their walking cane. While scientists have researched tool use extensively, they typically focused on how people move the tools. “They, for the most part, neglected the sensory aspect of tool use,” Miller says.

Learn more details about this study over at Scientific American.

(Image Credit: Lottie Clark/ Scientific American)