Mark DePristo

Enlarge (credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

On January 12, 2017, President-elect Donald Trump named Rudy Giuliani to be his cybersecurity advisor. A month later, on February 7, Giuliani walked into a San Francisco Apple Store with a problem: his iPhone had gotten locked down after 10 unsuccessful passcode attempts, NBC reports.

iPhones are designed to become permanently inaccessible after 10 failed login attempts. Rudy—who is now Trump's personal lawyer—had little choice but to wipe the phone and start over.

"Proceeded with DFU [device firmware update] restore and will set up the phone again from a current iCloud backup," an Apple store employee wrote in Apple's internal database.

Enlarge / Say hi to a dramatic angle of a javelin robo-suit. You'll need one of these to zip around Anthem. (credit: EA/Bioware)

On Friday, EA and Bioware gave everyone who pre-ordered the online shooter Anthem access to a "VIP demo," complete with missions and combat-filled zones from the upcoming game. The result may very well be the most cruel definition of "VIP" ever sold by a video game company.

And it comes with a serious case of déjà vú. A longtime game maker known for sprawling, choice-filled adventures has thrown its hat into the "shared online shooter" ring, and the public's first taste is a buggy, uneven mess that lands somewhere shy of a beta. Months after Fallout 76's wonky pre-release demo, here we are again with a disconnect-ridden taste of Anthem.

In this week's case, there's something worse going on than unoptimized netcode. Anthem has arrived with some beautiful imagery, lush worlds, and intriguing, jetpack-fueled blasts into the sky. At its best, Bioware's latest game feels like dreamy, action-gaming catnip. But a few immediately apparent problems, including inelegant combat, stilted world-building, and confusing systems, make one thing clear: Destiny 2 already seems like a better game, and that's not a good starting point for a latecomer.

Enlarge / Flanked by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, left, and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, right, President Donald Trump called the International Space Station on Monday. (credit: NASA TV)

Early on Monday morning, NASA's veteran astronaut Peggy Whitson set a US record for cumulative time in space, surpassing Jeff Williams' record of 534 days. To honor her achievement, President Donald Trump called Whitson from the Oval Office, flanked by his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and another NASA astronaut, Kate Rubins.

The conversation was cordial, and President Trump was gracious in congratulating Whitson and asking about her science activities on the space station. After Whitson explained various engineering efforts, including the recycling of urine into water to make for a closed-loop environmental system, Trump replied, "Well that's good, I'm glad to hear that. Better you than me."

During the call, the president also asked about NASA's Journey to Mars and whether any of the astronauts, including Whitson, Rubins, and Jack Fischer, wanted to go to Mars. They all did. "Tell me, for Mars, what do you see a timing for actually sending people to Mars. Is there a schedule, and when do you see that happening?" he then asked.

(credit: Emw)

Australia's highest court has ruled unanimously that a version of a gene that is linked to an increased risk for breast cancer cannot be patented. The case was brought by 69-year-old pensioner from Queensland, Yvonne D'Arcy, who had taken the US company Myriad Genetics to court over its patent for mutations in the BRCA1 gene that increase the probability of breast and ovarian cancer developing, as The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Although she lost twice in the lower courts, the High Court of Australia allowed her appeal, ruling that a gene was not a "patentable invention."

The court based its reasoning (PDF) on the fact that, although an isolated gene such as BRCA1 was "a product of human action, it was the existence of the information stored in the relevant sequences that was an essential element of the invention as claimed." Since the information stored in the DNA as a sequence of nucleotides was a product of nature, it did not require human action to bring it into existence, and therefore could not be patented.

Although that seems a sensible ruling, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry has been fighting against this self-evident logic for years. The view that genes could be patented suffered a major defeat in 2013, when the US Supreme Court struck down Myriad Genetics' patents on the genes BRCA1 and the similar BRCA2. The industry was hoping that a win in Australia could keep alive the idea that genes could be owned by a company in the form of a patent monopoly. The victory by D'Arcy now makes it highly likely that other judges around the world will take the view that genes cannot be patented.

Almost three years ago, the Red Planet put on a bit of a show for anyone with a telescope big enough, and an eye trained enough, to spot it. As the Terra Cimmeria region of Mars’ Southern Hemisphere rotated into view, a faint bulge rose above the smooth curve of the planet’s surface. It looked like a cloud, but it was too tall and too weird.

Starting on March 12, 2012, amateur astronomers reported seeing the odd lump on the Martian horizon. Reports continued to pour in over the next 11 days as the lump became even more obvious. It petered out some time before April 1, but a second occurrence was observed between April 6 and April 16. Each time, its form varied from day to day, and it was seen as dawn swept across the region—but not at dusk.

Although the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged the area daily, it did so in the afternoon, and nothing showed up. But using the images that were captured by amateurs, a group of researchers led by University of the Basque Country’s Agustín Sánchez-Lavega calculated the size of the fuzzy plume. It covered an area some 500 to 1,000 kilometers across and reached as high as 200 to 250 kilometers above the surface—that is, into Mars’ ionosphere and exosphere.