By Mike Martin
TechNewsWorld
Friday, May 11, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
With Malice Aforethought
For three decades, a highly regarded Berkeley professor has stood accused of America’s most notorious serial murders. Why won’t he fight back? By Michael J. Martin
Between 1966 and 1981, U.C. Berkeley public policy professor Michael Henry O’Hare (left), a Harvard-educated architect who regularly holds court at an Edge-style intellectual blog called The Reality Based Community, committed first degree murder with malice aforethought on seven separate occasions.
On or around Nov. 28, 1981, he bludgeoned to death 25-year-old Harvard architecture student Joan Lucinda Webster, dumping her body in a Massachusetts field, where it was found in 1990.
Twelve years earlier, on October 11, 1969, O’Hare fired a point-blank shot into the head of 29-year-old cab driver Paul Lee Stine. Stine was found in his cab on a dark San Francisco street, slumped, bleeding, and dead.
On September 27, 1969, Michael Henry O’Hare, then 26 years old, did stab Cecelia Ann Shepard (below), age 22, five times each in the front and back. Turning the knife on her companion, O’Hare did stab 20-year-old Bryan Calvin Hartnell six times in the back. She died in a Napa hospital. He survived.
On Independence Day, July 4, 1969 at approximately 11:55 p.m., Michael O’Hare used a 9mm semi-automatic pistol to shoot Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, age 22, five times. Turning the gun on Michael Renault Mageau, age 19, O’Hare fired four more rounds. Mageau, like Hartnell, lived. Ferrin died in a Vallejo, Calif. hospital. Five days before Christmas, on Friday, Dec. 20, 1968, Michael O’Hare, supposedly on assignment in San Francisco for consulting giant Arthur D. Little and Company, did shoot David Arthur Faraday, age 17, once in the head at point blank range with a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol. O’Hare turned the gun on 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen and shot her five times in the back. Both Faraday and Jensen died instantly, on a Vallejo lovers’ lane.
Finally, on Sunday, Oct. 30, 1966, Michael Henry O’Hare did beat and stab to death 18-year-old Cheri Josephine Bates in a dark alleyway on the campus of Riverside City College in Riverside, Calif.
These are the accusations that Dr. O’Hare has let stand without legal challenge for nearly 30 years: That he murdered Joan Webster and before that, was a homicidal maniac with a penchant for devilish taunts known only as the Zodiac killer.
They are the same allegations that his long-time accuser, a retired government librarian and true crime author named Gareth Sewell Penn (right), repeated in a March 2008 interview with a daily news magazine called Boston Now.
Prompted by the pending publication of this story, O'Hare broke a mysterious near-30-year silence to respond, in the May/June 2009 of the well-known political magazine, The Washington Monthly.
The Professor and the Polymath
An intellectual version of The Most Dangerous Game—Richard Connell’s famous tale of man as predator and prey—the odyssey of Gareth Penn, the Mensa polymath, and Michael O’Hare, the ascendant academic, is one of the most confounding, disturbing, and bizarre in the annals of contemporary crime.Inspector Javert to O'Hare's Jean Valjean, Penn has chased the professor from Cambridge to Berkeley, combining a non-stop media blitz with a Zodiac-style personal harassment campaign that started as the very first public allegation in the Zodiac case and goes on to this day.
“To my mind, their relationship—or whatever it was—is the most fascinating subplot in the whole of the Zodiac story,” says Suffolk County (Mass.) District Attorney press secretary Jake Wark, who authored several articles on the crimes and spoke as a private citizen for this story. “It deserves big treatment.”
Penn—a Berkeley-educated linguistics scholar and retired research editor for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—may be the Zodiac killer’s biggest fan.
Through a compelling combination of absurdity and brilliance, his many pronouncements on the 20th century’s most famous unsolved homicides have held legions of investigators in thrall for decades.
Esquire Magazine film critic Mike D’Angelo acknowledged Penn’s allure in his review of the 2007 David Fincher film Zodiac, based on the Robert Graysmith book of the same name. “I think the movie erred in selecting Graysmith as its source and nominal protagonist,” D’Angelo wrote. “Zodiac buffs know well that the true obsessive is a fellow named Gareth Penn.”
Born and raised in New York City, Michael O’Hare represents the mainstream academy to Penn’s fringe infamy. With faculty appointments at MIT and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, O’Hare’s career was rising fast when Penn took his first shot at derailing it.
Now an expert in art and environmental policy at Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, O’Hare is a respected teacher whose friends defend his honor.
“Gareth Penn is full of crap,” wrote an ally on the Zodiackiller.com blog, in answer to a question about a Harvard University police investigation that supposedly drove O’Hare from that campus shortly after Joan Webster’s murder. “Penn spent the better part of three decades researching and writing books about a suspect he can’t place in the state of California during the Zodiac crimes, and at no time has that even given him pause.”
Monday, December 26, 2011
Semantic Web May Be Cancer Information’s Next Step Forward
The next big thing on the Web—which World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee nicknamed “Web 3.0,” or the Semantic Web—may also be the next milestone in cancer information.
Already deployed in the U.S. census, the catalog of electronics retailer Best Buy, and Facebook pages, Semantic Web technology could give rise to “a killer app that allows the clinical oncologist to access, integrate, and analyze drug and genomics data, medical records, and other cancer-related information to enhance care and efficiency,” said Kei-Hoi Cheung, Ph.D., an associate professor at the Yale University School of Medicine Center for Medical Informatics.
Already deployed in the U.S. census, the catalog of electronics retailer Best Buy, and Facebook pages, Semantic Web technology could give rise to “a killer app that allows the clinical oncologist to access, integrate, and analyze drug and genomics data, medical records, and other cancer-related information to enhance care and efficiency,” said Kei-Hoi Cheung, Ph.D., an associate professor at the Yale University School of Medicine Center for Medical Informatics.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Rewriting the Mathematics of Tumor Growth
A new theory about tumor growth makes oncology look a little like cosmology. Just as the universe accelerates as it expands, tumors become malignant at an accelerating speed, according to a team of scientists who have been probing the mathematics of tumor growth.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
New Medical Education Program Selects Students for “Emotional Intelligence”
This July in Florida, a group of newly minted medical students embarked on their training. But instead of heading to gross anatomy lab or a biochemistry lecture, these students spent five days learning about empathy, cultural competence, and self-awareness.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
New Algorithm may help Data Centers Better Control Power Costs
Data centers can get more green with less power consumption thanks to a novel yet powerful algorithm that keeps power costs down and paying customers happy.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Modifying Google's MapReduce to Increase GPU Cluster Computing
A modified version of MapReduce—Google’s patented program for distributed and cluster computing—harnesses the power of graphics processing units (GPU) for large-scale, high-performance applications, claim University of California, Davis computer science researchers.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
For Storing Web 3.0, HBase has the Edge
by Mike Martin for HPC Source
A storage system modeled after Google's Big Table has the edge in data management for cloud computing and next-gen Internet users, researchers claim.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Study details general aviation accident injuries
A first ever study details general aviation accidents.
READ ALL ABOUT IT ON PAGE 6
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Massive Information Stockpile Guides Humanity's Course
Sixty one CD-ROMS for every man, woman, and child on Earth.
That's the amount of global data humankind stored on devices of every kind in 2007 -- 295 exabytes, or 80 times more information per person than exists in the historic Library of Alexandria, Egypt, according to a study published in the journal Science.
"We tracked 60 analog and digital technologies from 1986 to 2007," said study co-author Martin Hilbert, Ph.D., an information researcher at USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.
Cold Fusion: It May Not Be Madness
A handful of intrepid scientists are reigniting interest in work that was dismissed as junk science more than 20 years ago, claiming to have found a way to create more energy from less.
The most recent excitement was generated by Italians Sergio Focardi and Andrea Rossi, who demonstrated a device that turned 400 watts of heat power into 12,400 watts. If their results are reproducible, the implications could be monumental.
Verizon Goes for FCC's Jugular in Net Neutrality War
Verizon may have been involved in the crafting of the FCC's Net neutrality rules, but that doesn't mean the company wouldn't rather do without them, and it's taking the matter back to the courts.
For its part, the FCC is "prepared to defend its Open Internet Order in any forum." The battle may end up being waged in Congress, where Verizon may find fresh support.
People Are People: Human Factors Engineering Works at the Intersection of Humanity and Technology
AAMC Reporter
Some teaching hospitals and health systems are taking a fresh look at human factors engineering (HFE), a discipline not often associated with medicine, but one that proponents say can improve the quality and safety of health care.In a nutshell, human factors engineers attempt to learn about human strengths and limitations, and then apply that knowledge to products and processes to reduce errors and improve quality and productivity.
Enterprises that rely heavily on people interacting with technology, such as aviation and consumer electronics, are prominent HFE users. Health care, however, has lagged behind other industries in adopting HFE programs.
READ THE REST
New Study Narrows Epilepsy Drug Suicide Risk
A recent study says the FDA may have overreached when it warned that all anti-epileptic drugs can increase the risk
of suicidal thoughts and behavior.
of suicidal thoughts and behavior.
Materials Scientists Join Oncologists To Explore Nano- and Microtherapeutics Materials
It's all happened in preclinical studies so far. But the studies have drawn attention, partly because of their science-fiction–sounding methods and partly because they highlight a burgeoning partnership between two unlikely bedfellows: materials science researchers and clinical oncologists.
“I’ve seen a dramatic increase over the last 3–4 years in the involvement of chemists, physicists, bioengineers, and materials scientists in clinical oncology,” said Steven Curley, M.D. , a surgical oncologist at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who is working on the radio waves.
Some of the partnerships are focused on nanoimaging devices ( see accompanying news story); others, on nano- or microtherapeutics. The treatments they are exploring are diverse but share a core concept: the pairing of biologically active molecules such as drugs and antibodies with biologically inert particles such as metals and polymers.
READ MORE
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Repairs Delay Discovery Launch as Shuttle Program Winds Down
By Mike Martin
The space shuttle Discovery is scheduled for at least one -- possibly two -- more missions to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, but it's having a hard time getting off the ground.
The latest delay was necessitated by repairs to damaged struts supporting its exterior fuel tanks. NASA wants to make sure the mission is not endangered by cracks in the shuttle's foam insulation.
IPv6 for a Day: Sampling the New Web World
By Mike Martin
TechNewsWorld
It's been a long time coming, but IPv6 will soon go live -- for a day. Several Internet technology leaders are joining with the Internet Society to get some real Web-world experience using the new protocol this June.
"By providing an opportunity for the Internet industry to collaborate to test IPv6 readiness, we expect to lay the groundwork for large-scale IPv6 adoption," said the Internet Society's Leslie Daigle.
Google Adds a Little Magic to Earth
By Mike Martin
TechNewsWorld
Google Earth is "a beautiful, user-friendly site to help us gain better awareness of our neighborhoods and our planet," said Jonathan Askin, a Brooklyn Law School professor.
Among the new features of the latest release are "3D trees" that let users examine dozens of native species in detail when strolling through parks and forests at ground level.
Wikileaks Spill: Catalyst for New, More Open Style of Governing?
Hero, fool -- even terrorist -- are some of the characterizations of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, which revealed sensitive exchanges between the U.S. and other governments on its website.
"Mr. Assange doesn't understand how the U.S. constitutional democracy was meant to work, and has ensured that we will not be trusted in our foreign relations efforts for a long time to come," said BU professor Michael Corgan.
Is That a Computer You're Wearing on Your Head?
TechNewsWorld
Motorola (NYSE: MOT) announced Wednesday that it will develop a hands-free wireless computing headset with micro-display specialists at Kopin -- a move reminiscent of previous attempts to create wearable computers and communications devices.
The device will offer voice, audio and PC capabilities on a virtual reality-style 15-inch monitor that will also support simulation software and streaming video.
"We believe this computer headset will be a game-changing solution for mobile workforces," said Motorola emerging business director Tom Bianculli in a prepared statement. TechNewsWorld's attempts to contact Motorola were not successful.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Berners-Lee Sounds Alarm Over Appified, Siloed, Regulated Web
TechNewsWorld
Tim Berners-Lee has set off a debate over the future of the Web, arguing in an essay published in Scientific American that the walled gardens being created by social networks, businesses and governments could create isolated islands of information in a vast ocean of lost data. At stake is the "continuous worldwide conversation" that the Internet enables, he maintains.
New Exoplanet Discovery Hints at Earth's End
Until now, planets known to humans have never wandered into the Milky Way galaxy. However, Friday's announcement that planet HIP 13044b entered our galaxy hitched to a giant star called HIP 13044 has astronomers rethinking how -- and where -- planets form.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
CERN Physicists Create Antimatter (and Could Build a Bomb in a Billion Years)
A product of the Big Bang theoretically produced in abundance, antimatter didn't survive whatever powerful evolutionary pressures permitted the matter we see all around us to reign supreme. As a result, it must be coaxed, very carefully, into existence. The "Alpha Experiment" had a simple goal, said CERN investigator Jeffrey Hangst. "We wanted to see if matter and antimatter behaved identically, as predicted by Dirac."
Bells Ringing in Cupertino: The Beatles Have Been Landed
Steve Jobs has made no secret of his wish to draw The Beatles into his Apple universe, and once again, he has managed to turn his vision into reality. The legendary band has been deeply reluctant to join the digital download music revolution, but the day has come, spurring weighty reflections and hallelujahs in the form of one-liners pulled from the group's vast library of songs.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Seizure Detecting Wristwatch May Promise Autonomy, Respite and Accuracy
By Mike Martin for Epilepsy USAA wristwatch-style device may soon help allay a major fear among people with epilepsy: That a seizure could occur without the knowledge of someone who could help.
“We are working on a device called the SmartWatch that will detect myoclonic and grand mal seizures within 4-5 seconds after onset and alert caregivers within 7-10 seconds after onset,” said Stanford University pediatric neurology professor Donald Olson, M.D.
The Measure of Success
By Mike Martin for Oregon Quarterly
Frustrated by poor student performance in introductory courses they were teaching, University of Oregon physics professors James Schombert and Stephen Hsu wondered if they were missing something in the acronym-driven numbers game—GPA, SAT, GMAT, GRE, ACT—that dominates the college admissions process.
Freshman students with high entrance-exam scores weren’t performing as well as expected, and “we were unable to determine if there was a deficiency in our teaching or in student cognitive abilities,” Schombert explains. “Being good scientists, we began looking for answers.”
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Like Google Earth, Below Ground
By Mike Martin for E Magazine
The power grid isn’t just above the ground. Much of the power transmission grid lies in a hard-to-navigate subterranean world. Mark Smith, CEO of Geospatial Corporation, believes the answer lies in a Google Earth-like application that maps the world below the ground’s surface.
The power grid isn’t just above the ground. Much of the power transmission grid lies in a hard-to-navigate subterranean world. Mark Smith, CEO of Geospatial Corporation, believes the answer lies in a Google Earth-like application that maps the world below the ground’s surface.
Medical Students Feel Unprepared for Health Care System
By Mike Martin for the AAMC Reporter
The U.S. health care system—like the 2,000-page reform bill proposed to change it—is a mountain of complexity. And less than half of graduating U.S. medical students comfortably understand it.
The U.S. health care system—like the 2,000-page reform bill proposed to change it—is a mountain of complexity. And less than half of graduating U.S. medical students comfortably understand it.
Citing inadequate education, a University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS) study of 58,294 AAMC medical student graduation questionnaires revealed that, while 92 percent of respondents were confident with their clinical training, nearly 60 percent felt unprepared for the managerial demands of medical practice.
"Everyone benefits when medical students are introduced to key concepts regarding health care systems," said AAMC Chief Academic Officer John Prescott, M.D.
"That is why, when students say they believe their knowledge in this area is not where it should be, we take it very seriously. Our goal is for systems-based practice to be a core competency at every medical school and across the continuum of medical education. As students become aware of real-world issues and concerns, they can become active participants in finding solutions."
Published in the September 2009 issue of Academic Medicine, the study, which covered graduates from 2003 to 2007, found lagging student confidence in practice management, record keeping, insurance, medical economics, and managed care.
This may be especially important as health care reform legislation makes its way through Congress.
Read the Rest
Published in the September 2009 issue of Academic Medicine, the study, which covered graduates from 2003 to 2007, found lagging student confidence in practice management, record keeping, insurance, medical economics, and managed care.
This may be especially important as health care reform legislation makes its way through Congress.
Read the Rest
Resident Workload Debate Unveils Bigger Picture
By Mike Martin for the AAMC Reporter
A 25-year debate over resident workloads continues to stir the medical community, as the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) considers new standards stimulated by 2008 Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations.
The IOM recommendations, which include shift limitations, guaranteed sleep periods, and stricter moonlighting guidelines, have some medical professionals welcoming new ways to reduce medical errors and fatigue. At the same time, others, such as Kevin Simpson, M.D., who directs the internal medicine residency program at the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago, see further reductions in resident training time as unnecessary and possibly costly for hospitals covering the same patient loads with fewer available resident hours. Resident fatigue issues were at the heart of a set of 2003 ACGME standards limiting residents to 80 duty hours per week.
"The IOM report is excellent, but I disagree with the emphasis on further reducing hours," Simpson said. "Going from unlimited hours to 80 hours a week was great, but there's no need to go any further."
In a 2009 letter to the ACGME, the AAMC noted that improving how fatigue (and the residents themselves) are managed—as opposed to duty-hour limits or scheduling—is now the central issue. "We believe resident supervision and attention to patient handovers are critical but under-emphasized components of this debate," said AAMC health care affairs director Sunny Yoder. "A third important issue is resident fatigue—whatever its sources. We support the development of measures of 'fitness for duty' that could be used generally in the 24/7 health care environment."
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