firehose

Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA, PRISM, and the US government's broad surveillance tactics were shocking to many people — but maybe they shouldn't have been. There's plenty of precedent, says David T. Z. Mindich for the New York Times, dating all the way back to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. In 1862, Lincoln authorized sweeping control over the American telegraph infrastructure for Edwin Stanton, his secretary of war. Telegraphs were re-routed through his office, and Stanton used his power to spy on Americans, arrest journalists, and even control what was or wasn't sent. It was a critical tool in wartime, but a massive invasion of privacy that surely angered citizens.

Mindich argues that despite the huge differences in scope and technology, the Lincoln-era example is a neat comparison to the current war on terror. For those that take issue with the current NSA procedures, he says, the only real solution is to end the war — that's the only way Stanton's grasp of the telegraphs was loosed. "As the war ended, the emergency measures were rolled back. Information — telegraph and otherwise — began to flow freely again." Until this war is over, Mindich cautions, invasive governmental overreaching is a fact of life; whether it's Western Union or Microsoft, Lincoln or Obama, that's how it's always been.

Paper helmets could be protecting the heads of cyclists in under 12 months according to one of their inventors, Thomas Gottelier.

Paper Pulp Helmets are a type of cheap, disposable bicycle helmet made entirely from recycled newspaper. Designed by former Royal College of Art (RCA) students Thomas Gottelier, Bobby Petersen, and Edward Thomas, the helmets could cost as little as $1.50 and are 2-3 mm thick.

The helmets are "safe, biodegradable, recyclable and waterproof," Gottelier told Wired.co.uk.

It's not hard to see how an insect could get trapped in a spider's web; its strands are sticky, ultra-strong, and well-concealed. But according to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, spiders may also use a more subtle tool to catch their prey: electricity.

In a paper published this week, Victor Manuel Ortega-Jimenez and Robert Dudley of the University of California Berkeley found that spider webs change their shape in response to the electrostatic charges of insects, and that positively-charged bugs are actually attracted to the webs. It has long been assumed that spiders change the shape of their web to catch different bugs, but until now, researchers were unsure as to how they do it.

A girl's toy leads to a 'Eureka' moment

Ortega-Jimenez hypothesized that electricity may hold a clue, after noticing that a spider web changed shape every time his daughter's electrostatically charged toy wand passed in front of it. Intrigued, he and Dudley began collecting strands of spider webs from the UC Berkeley campus, and placed them in front of honeybees, aphids, fruit flies, and water droplets.

Bees and other insects have been shown to generate electricity as they fly, typically by rapidly flapping their wings. In their experiments, Ortega-Jimenez and Dudley found that positively-charged insects were indeed attracted to a spider's web, and that the web would actually change shape. In some cases, the web would bend inward as a flying bee approached, making the insect more likely to get trapped.

But it remains unclear whether this technique is widely used among different spider species. Ortega-Jimenez and Dudley focused their study on the web of a cross spider, which is not known to eat honeybees. The arachnids mostly eat flies, which have yet to be tested for electrostatic charges.

As you may have heard by now, Samsung and Jay-Z have teamed up to offer users of Galaxy S III, S 4, and Note II phones the opportunity to hear his new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, three whole days before anyone else.

Samsung has its own music store that it could, in theory, use to drop this musical treasure trove into the hands of the Galaxy-toting masses, but the company instead chose to distribute the music through a Google Play app. That's strange enough on its own, but actually installing and using the software is a free master's class in how not to make an app.

As of this writing, the Jay Z Magna Carta app has nearly 10,000 5-star reviews, but nearly 6,000 1-star reviews.

Andrew Cunningham

Downloading most applications from Google Play prompts a permissions window that you have to click through before the application will install. The best apps don't ask for anything they don't need, and most restrict their requests to things that make sense. Yes, a Web browser will need Internet access. Yes, a photo-editing app will need access to your device's storage. Yes, a map app will need access to your GPS.