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WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - Scientists on Monday provided the most comprehensive look to date at one of the solar system's most exotic features: prime lakeside property in the northern polar region of Saturn's moon Titan — if you like lakes made of stuff like liquid methane.

Using data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft before that mission ended in 2017 with a deliberate plunge into Saturn, the scientists found that some of frigid Titan's lakes of liquid hydrocarbons in this region are surprisingly deep while others may be shallow and seasonal.

Titan and Earth are the solar system's two places with standing bodies of liquid on the surface. Titan boasts lakes, rivers and seas of hydrocarbons: compounds of hydrogen and carbon like those that are the main components of petroleum and natural gas.

The researchers described land forms akin to mesas towering above the nearby landscape, topped with liquid lakes more than 300 feet (100 meters) deep comprised mainly of methane. The scientists suspect the lakes formed when surrounding bedrock chemically dissolved and collapsed, a process that occurs with a certain type of lake on Earth.

The scientists also described "phantom lakes" that during wintertime appeared to be wide but shallow ponds — perhaps only a few inches (cm) deep — but evaporated or drained into the surface by springtime, a process taking seven years on Titan.

The findings represented further evidence about Titan's hydrological cycle, with liquid hydrocarbons raining down from clouds, flowing across its surface and evaporating back into the sky. This is comparable to Earth's water cycle.

Because of Titan's complex chemistry and distinctive environments, scientists suspect it potentially could harbor life, in particular in its subsurface ocean of water, but possibly in the surface bodies of liquid hydrocarbons.

"Titan is a very fascinating object in the solar system, and every time we look carefully at the data we find out something new," California Institute of Technology planetary scientist Marco Mastrogiuseppe said.

Titan, with a diameter of 3,200 miles (5,150 km), is the solar system's second largest moon, behind only Jupiter's Ganymede. It is bigger than the planet Mercury.

"Titan is the most Earth-like body in the solar system. It has lakes, canyons, rivers, dune fields of organic sand particles about the same size as silica sand grains on Earth," Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory planetary scientist Shannon MacKenzie said.

The research was published in the journal Nature Astronomy. (VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM -Facebook Inc's Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is confident the world's biggest social network will do better in 2020 at stopping "bad actors" from manipulating the U.S. presidential election.

"We've learned a lot since 2016, where, obviously, we were behind where we needed to be on defenses for nation states trying to interfere," he said in a "Good Morning America" interview released on Thursday.

"These aren't things that you ever fully solve, right? They're ongoing arms races, where we need to make sure that our systems stay ahead of the sophisticated bad actors, who are just always going to try to game them.”

U.S. intelligence agencies say there was an extensive Russian cyber-influence operation during the 2016 campaign aimed at helping Donald Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Russia has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Zuckerberg said the social media giant had implemented a lot of different measures since 2016 to verify any advertiser who is running a political ad and create an archive so anyone could see what advertisers are running, who they are targeting and how much they are paying.

Advertising practices at Facebook, the world's largest social network with 2.7 billion users and $56 billion in annual revenue, have been in the spotlight for two years amid growing discontent over its approach to privacy and user data.

The company said in a congressional testimony last year that Russian agents created 129 events on the network during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, shedding more light on Russia's purported disinformation drive aimed at voters.

"At this point, (we) have probably some of the most-advanced systems of any company or government in the world for preventing the kind of tactics that Russia and now other countries, as well, have tried," Zuckerberg said.

Asked if he could guarantee that there would not be interference in the election, Zuckerberg said, "What I can guarantee is that they're definitely going to try.” (Reuters-VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - They built their services for sharing, allowing users to reach others around the world. Now they want people to hold back.

Facebook and other social media companies battled their own services on Friday as they tried to delete copies of a video apparently recorded by the gunman as he killed 49 people and wounded scores of others in the attack on two New Zealand mosques Friday.

The video was livestreamed on the suspect's Facebook account and later reposted on other services.

According to news reports, Facebook took down the livestream of the attack 20 minutes after it was posted and removed the suspect's accounts. But people were able to capture the video and repost it on other sites, including YouTube, Twitter and Reddit.

YouTube has tweeted that it is "working to remove any violent footage." A post from one user on Reddit asks others not to "post the videos. If you see the videos, bring it to themoderators' attention."

Criticism of pace

Despite the companies' quick actions, they still came under fire for not being fast enough. Critics said the platforms should have better systems in place to locate and remove content, instead of a system that helps others facilitate its spread once something is posted.

One critic, Tom Watson, a member of the British Parliament and deputy leader of the Labor Party, called for YouTube to stop all new videos from being posted on the site if it could not stop the spread of the New Zealand video.

Resistance to censorship

The companies' race to stamp out the New Zealand video highlighted the dilemma that social media companies have faced, particularly as they have allowed livestreaming.

Built on users' content, Facebook, YouTube and others have long resisted the arduous task of censoring objectionable content.

At hearings in Washington or in media interviews, executives of these firms have said that untrue information isin itself notagainst their terms of service.

Instead of removing information deemed fake or objectionable, social media companies have tried to frame the information with fact checking or have demoted the information on their sites, making it harder for people to find.

That is what Facebook appears to be doing with the anti-vaccination content on its site. Earlier this month, Facebook said it would curtail anti-vaccination information on its platforms, including blocking advertising that contains false information about vaccines. It did not say it would remove users expressing anti-vaccination content.

But sometimes the firms do remove accounts. Last year, Facebook, Twitter and others removed from their platforms Alex Jones, an American commentator, used for spreading conspiracy theories and stirring hatred.

More monitors

In the past year, some social media companies have hired more people to monitor content so that issues are flagged faster, rather than having to wait for other users or the firm's algorithms to flag objectionable content.

With the New Zealand shooting video, Facebook and other firms appeared to be in lockstep, saying they would remove the content as quickly as they found it.

But there have been more calls for human and technical solutions that can quickly stop the spread of content across the internet.(VOA)

JAKARTA, LELEMUKU.COM - An Instagram account that published comic strips depicting the struggles of gay Muslims in Indonesia has disappeared from the site following a frenzy of moral outrage online in the world's biggest Muslim nation.

The Ministry of Communications said Wednesday that the account under the username Alpatuni was pornographic, which violated the law on information and electronic transactions. In a statement it said Instagram had “fulfilled” its request made in a warning letter for the account to be removed.

Instagram, however, said it had not removed the account. A spokeswoman said there were a number of reasons an account may no longer be accessible including the account holder deleting it, deactivating it or changing the username.

The comics depicted gay characters facing discrimination and abuse, which has become increasingly common in Indonesia since late 2015 when conservative politicians and religious leaders began a campaign of portraying lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as a threat to the nation.

An account of the same name on Facebook, which owns Instagram, was also no longer accessible.

The social media company is regularly in the crosshairs of regulators, rights groups and the public as it unsuccessfully tries to balance what CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called “giving people a voice” and demands for censorship of content posted on the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms.

Instagram's content guidelines, published in Indonesian, say the service is a mirror of the diversity of the community.

Human Rights Watch's Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono criticized the government's demands that the account be blocked.

“That account describes mostly the problems of gay individuals in Indonesia. It's no secret that many LGBT individuals are arrested, their houses raided, some are sentenced to prison terms,” he said. “The Indonesian government does not help them in demanding the removal of that account.”

The communications ministry said it appreciated that members of the community reported the gay Muslim account, which “accelerated” its removal.

Some Indonesian netizens in turn congratulated the ministry. On Twitter, Fahmi Alfansi Pane, a policy analyst at the Indonesian parliament, thanked officials for “acting decisively” to protect public morality but also told The Associated Press he had never seen the comics.

Local media, quoting the communications minister, reported the ministry would block Instagram in Indonesia if the Alpatuni account wasn't removed.

The government frequently threatens to block Western social media and internet companies for content deemed illegal but has never taken such measures, possibly fearful of a public backlash due to the huge popularity of the services with Indonesians.

In 2017, it briefly and partially blocked the Telegram messaging app because of its failure to remove groups linked to violent jihad. (VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - Singer Demi Lovato has deleted her Twitter account following criticism that she was laughing at memes about 21 Savage.

The Grammy-nominated rapper was taken into federal immigration custody in the Atlanta area early Sunday. An official says the rapper is a British citizen who overstayed his visa and is also has a felony conviction.

Lovato had tweeted: "So far 21 savage memes have been my favorite part of the Super Bowl." She later clarified she wasn't laughing "at anyone getting deported."

The rapper Wale tweeted he didn't get the joke and rapper Migos wrote it wasn't funny.

Some users thought it was wrong for others to criticize Lovato, who was hospitalized in July following a drug overdose. (VOA)

KINSHASHA, LELEMUKU.COM - The last two years have been grim for internet access on the African continent, according to analyst Robert Besseling of risk-assessment firm EXX Africa, and the situation may be getting worse. In the last four weeks alone, no fewer than five African governments have temporarily shut down internet access amid political crises and unrest.

While this practice dates back several years, he says it has accelerated and hit nations that rely on the internet for spreading information and for internet-based commerce, like Zimbabwe.

“We counted 21 shutdowns across Africa in 2018, and so far this year in the first three weeks of 2019, we saw shutdowns in five countries: again, Cameroon, as well as most prominently, Zimbabwe, as well as during the elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and unrest in Sudan, as well as briefly following the attempted coup in Gabon," Besseling said.

Those five nations have one thing in common: recent political unrest. Congo's shutdown occurred during a chaotic, disputed, long-delayed election and its contentious aftermath. In Zimbabwe, fuel price hikes led to violent protests, which led to even more violent crackdowns by security officials, which was followed by an internet blackout.

Congolese rights activist Sylvain Saluseke - who lives in self-imposed exile outside of the country — says his compatriots in pro-democracy youth group LUCHA struggled under the blackout as they tried to carry out their mission of observing the December 30 polls and documenting the aftermath.

“That was a major hindrance," he told VOA. "Of course, beyond that, there have always been these questions of how less are we able to pass on information or exchange information, and that in itself raised the risk of if and when somebody has been arrested, or somebody goes into any dangerous situations or risky situations."

Stopping the flow of information is the point of these internet shutdowns, argues Edgar Munatsi of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights. Other rights groups have claimed the same, saying this was a tactic to give cover to the rampant human rights abuses that happened — and still may be happening — in Zimbabwe.

“Beyond just stopping people from organizing themselves, was the need to black out, in terms of the media and the international community, to what was taking place during the night, and sometimes during the day," Munatsi told journalists. "Because a lot of atrocities were committed during the night and during the internet shutdowns. If you realize, most civil society leaders and activists in Zimbabwe were abducted during the night, and no one knows, up to now, where they are, some of them.”

Besseling, who assesses the continent from a business perspective, notes that African nations have an easier time shutting down or forcibly slowing down internet services, because many African telecom companies are under state control.

The shutdowns come at a high cost, he says.

“If you were to shut down the internet throughout the geography of an economically important country, then you can estimate of course a far higher cost. In a country like Kenya, for example, the cost would be $6.3 million a day, in the case the internet was shut down across the country.”

Those losses come, he said, through disruptions in information networks — such as internet-accessible stock and commodity price indices — and the unavailability of e-commerce and electronic banking.

He said there are other losses that can’t be easily quantified, though, like getting reliable information about what’s going on around you, or perhaps hardest of all, losing touch with loved ones during a time of crisis. (VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM -  A tiny fraction of Twitter users spread the vast majority of fake news in 2016, with conservatives and older people sharing misinformation more, a new study finds.

Scientists examined more than 16,000 U.S. Twitter accounts and found that 16 of them — less than one-tenth of 1 percent — tweeted out nearly 80 percent of the misinformation masquerading as news, according to a study Thursday in the journal Science. About 99 percent of the Twitter users spread virtually no fake information in the most heated part of the election year, said study co-author David Lazer, a Northeastern University political and computer science professor.

Spreading fake information "is taking place in a very seamy but small corner of Twitter,'' Lazer said.

Lazer said misinformation "super sharers'' flood Twitter: an average of 308 pieces of fakery each between Aug. 1 and Dec. 6 in 2016.

And it's not just that few people are spreading it — few people are reading it, Lazer said.

"The vast majority of people are exposed to very little fake news despite the fact that there's a concerted effort to push it into the system,'' Lazer said.

The researchers found the 16,442 accounts they analyzed by starting with a random pool of voter records, matching names to Twitter users and then screening out accounts that appeared to not be controlled by real people.

Their conclusions are similar to those of a study released earlier this month that looked at the spread of false information on Facebook. It also found that few people shared fakery, but those who did were more likely to be over 65 and conservatives.

Boost to credibility

That makes this study more believable, because two groups of researchers using different social media platforms, measuring political affiliation differently and with different panels of users came to the same conclusion, said Yonchai Benkler, co-director of Harvard Law School's center on the internet and society. He wasn't part of either study but praised them, saying they should reduce misguided post election panic about how "out-of-control technological processes had rendered us as a society incapable of telling truth from fiction.''

Experts say a recent showdown between Kentucky Catholic school students and a Native American elder at the Lincoln Memorial seemed to be stoked by a single, now-closed Twitter account. Lazer said the account fit some characteristics of super sharers from his study but it was more left-leaning, which didn't match the study.

Unlike the earlier Facebook study, Lazer didn't interview the people but ranked people's politics based on what they read and shared on Twitter.

The researchers used several different sources of domains for false information masquerading as news — not individual stories but overall sites — from lists compiled by other academics and BuzzFeed. While five outside experts praised the study, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, head of the public policy center at the University of Pennsylvania, found several problems, especially with how they determined fake information sites.

Lazer's team found that among people they categorized as left-leaning and centrists, less than 5 percent shared any fake information. Among those they determined were right-leaning, 11 percent of accounts shared misinformation masquerading as news. For those on the extreme right, it was 21 percent.

This study shows "most of us aren't too bad at circulating information, but some of us are determined propagandists who are trying to manipulate the public sphere,'' said Texas A&M University's JenniferMercieca, a historian of political rhetoric who wasn't part of the study. (VOA)

BEIJING, LELEMUKU.COM Chinese internet users lost access to Microsoft’s Bing search engine for two days, setting off grumbling about the ruling Communist Party’s increasingly tight online censorship.

Microsoft Corp. said Friday that access had been restored. A brief statement gave no reason for the disruption or other details.

Comments on social media had accused regulators of choking off access to information. Others complained they were forced to use Chinese search engines they say deliver poor results.

“Why can’t we choose what we want to use?” said a comment signed Aurelito on the Sina Weibo microblog service.

Government censorship

Bing complied with government censorship rules by excluding foreign websites that are blocked by Chinese filters from search results. But President Xi Jinping’s government has steadily tightened control over online activity.

The agency that enforces online censorship, the Cyberspace Administration of China, didn’t respond to questions sent by fax.

China has by far the biggest population of internet users, with some 800 million people online, according to government data.

Foreign sites blocked

The Communist Party encourages internet use for business and education but blocks access to foreign websites run by news organizations, human rights and Tibet activists and others deemed subversive.

Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has promoted the notion of “internet sovereignty,” or the right of Beijing and other governments to dictate what their publics can do and see online.

Chinese filters block access to global social media including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Officials argue such services operating beyond their control pose a threat to national security.

Xi’s government also has tightened controls on use of virtual private network technology that can evade its filters.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit operated a search engine in China until 2010 that excluded blocked sites from results. The company closed that after hacking attacks aimed at stealing Google’s source code and breaking into email accounts were traced to China.

That has helped Chinese competitors such as search engine Baidu.com to flourish. But Baidu has been hit by repeated complaints that too many search results are irrelevant or are paid advertising. (VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - Scientists prepared Thursday to embark on an unprecedented, years-long mission to explore the Indian Ocean and document changes taking place beneath the waves that could affect billions of people in the surrounding region over the coming decades.

The ambitious expedition will delve into one of the last major unexplored frontiers on the planet, a vast body of water that’s already feeling the effects of global warming. Understanding the Indian Ocean’s ecosystem is important not just for the species that live in it, but also for an estimated 2.5 billion people at home in the region — from East Africa, the Arabian peninsula, South and Southeast Asia.

The Nekton Mission, supported by over 40 organizations, will conduct further dives in other parts of the Indian Ocean over three years. The research will contribute to a summit on the state of the Indian Ocean planned for late 2021.

The Ocean Zephyr is preparing to leave Bremerhaven, Germany, on the first leg of trip. Researchers will spend seven weeks surveying underwater life, map the sea floor and drop sensors to depths of up to 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) in the seas around the Seychelles.

Little is known about the watery world below depths of 30 meters (100 feet), which scientists from Britain and the Seychelles will be exploring with two crewed submarines and a remotely operated submersible in March and April.

Ronny Jumeau, the Seychelles’ ambassador to the United Nations, said such research is vital to helping the island nation understand its vast ocean territory.

While the country’s 115 islands together add up to just 455 square kilometers (176 sq. miles) of land — about the same as San Antonio, Texas — its exclusive economic zone stretches to 1.4 million square kilometers (540 million square miles) of sea, an area almost the size of Alaska.

Jumeau said the Seychelles aims to become a leader in the development of a “blue economy” that draws on the resources of the ocean. The archipelago relies on fishing and tourism, but has lately also been exploring the possibility of extracting oil and gas from beneath the sea floor.

“Key to this is knowing not only what you have in the ocean around you, but where it is and what is its value,” he said. “It is only when you know this that you can properly decide what to exploit and what to protect and leave untouched.”

“Research expeditions such as the Nekton Mission are therefore vital to help us fill those gaps and better know our ocean space and marine resources to make wise decisions in planning the future of our blue economy,” Jumeau added.

The island nation of fewer than 100,000 people is already feeling the effects of climate change, with rising water temperatures bleaching its coral reefs.

“Our ocean is undergoing rapid ecological transformation by human activities,” said Callum Roberts, a marine conservation biologist at the University of York, England, who is a trustee of the mission.

“Seychelles are a critical beacon and bellwether for marine conservation in the Indian Ocean and globally,” he said.

The mission’s principal scientist, Lucy Woodall of Oxford University, said the researchers expect to discover dozens of new species, from corals and sponges to larger creatures like types of dog-sharks.

The Associated Press is accompanying the expedition and will provide live underwater video from the dives, using new optical transmission technology to send footage from the submarines to the ship and from there, by satellite, to the world. (VOA)

MOSCOW, LELEMUKU.COM - Russia's communication watchdog, Roskomnadzor, opened "administrative proceedings" Monday against Facebook and Twitter for non-compliance with country’s data laws, Interfax news agency reported.

Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov is quoted as saying that U.S. social media giants have a month to comply or face legal proceedings.

According to Roskomnadzor, Facebook and Twitter have not explained how and when they would comply with legislation that requires all servers used to store Russians' personal data to be located in Russia.

Russia has introduced stricter internet laws in the past five years, among other things requiring search engines to share encryption keys with Russian security services.

In April last year, thousands rallied in Moscow in support of internet freedom after Russian authorities attempted to block access to the popular messaging app Telegram.

Telegram had refused to give state intelligence services access to private conversations which are usually encrypted. (VOA)

VATICAN, LELEMUKU.COM - As the pope prepares to meet tens of thousands of young people from across the globe for World Youth Day this week, he attempted to connect with them on a platform they would easily understand: the internet.

During the weekly Angelus prayer at the Vatican Sunday, Pope Francis launched his own user profile on Click to Pray, the official app of the Vatican's Worldwide Prayer Network.

"Internet and the social networks are a resource of our time, a way to stay in touch with others, to share values and projects, and to express the desire to form a community," the pope told those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

With the help of an aide holding a tablet, the pope swiped the screen saying, "Here, I will put in ... requests for prayers for the Church's mission."

For example, he said, the app will let young people join him in prayer for the "two sorrows" in his heart this week: the 170 migrants who drowned in recent days in the Mediterranean Sea and the victims of a terrorist attack in Colombia this week that killed 21 people.

"I especially invite young people to download the Click To Pray app, continuing to pray with me the Rosary for peace, especially during the World Youth Day in Panama," the pontiff said.

He also asked all Catholics to pray for the youth event, which takes place Jan. 22-27.

World Youth Day was started by Pope John Paul II in 1985. It is held in different cities around the world every two to three years. This will be Francis' third World Youth Day. (VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - With temperatures of 48 Celsius (118 Fahrenheit) in the New South Wales outback, records are falling as an extreme heat wave grips eastern Australia.

Even in a land used to nature's extremes, this heat wave is punishing. The blistering conditions are affecting much of eastern Australia, but New South Wales has felt it most.

Last year was Australia's third-warmest year on record, and 2019 has got off to a scorching start.

Residents in White Cliffs, 1,000 kilometers northwest from Sydney, have endured heat of 48.2 Celsius. Other parts of Australia have also set new heat records, including the town of Noona, which hit a nighttime temperature of 35.9 Celsius (96.6 Fahrenheit), the highest ever documented across the nation.

"The heat wave across New South Wales over the past week has actually broken 14 all-time maximum temperature records,” said Graham Creed, a TV weather expert. “It is all a combination of weather patterns that have led to the buildup of heat, including the influence of climate change increasing the potential of these events.

“Now we currently have (a) near-record late start to the monsoon across northern Australia. That is leading to the clear skies and very little rainfall that is allowing the heat to continue to build across the northern and central parts of the continent," he added.

Heat waves are Australia's deadliest natural hazard, but there was relief for a distressed sheep found abandoned in the New South Wales outback. It was rescued by the police, and allowed to recover in an air-conditioned patrol car.

Cooler conditions this weekend are expected to give way to more extreme heat in the coming days. Authorities say the hot weather will worsen the risk of serious bushfires. Emergency crews in drought-hit New South Wales continue to battle about 80 blazes.

Australia's hottest recorded temperature was 50.7 Celsius (123 Fahrenheit) in South Australia in January 1960. (VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - Here comes a total lunar eclipse and supermoon, all wrapped into one. The moon, Earth and sun will line up this weekend for the only total lunar eclipse this year and next. At the same time, the moon will be ever so closer to Earth and appear slightly bigger and brighter than usual — a supermoon.

"This one is particularly good," said Rice University astrophysicist Patrick Hartigan. "It not only is a supermoon and it's a total eclipse, but the total eclipse also lasts pretty long. It's about an hour."

The whole eclipse starts Sunday night or early Monday, depending on location, and will take about three hours.

It begins with the partial phase around 10:34 p.m. EST Sunday. That's when Earth's shadow will begin to nip at the moon. Totality — when Earth's shadow completely blankets the moon — will last 62 minutes, beginning at 11:41 p.m. EST Sunday.

If the skies are clear, the entire eclipse will be visible in North and South America, as well as Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, and the French and Spanish coasts. The rest of Europe, as well as Africa, will have partial viewing before the moon sets.

During totality, the moon will look red because of sunlight scattering off Earth's atmosphere. That's why an eclipsed moon is sometimes known as a blood moon. In January, the full moon is also sometimes known as the wolf moon or great spirit moon.

So informally speaking, the upcoming lunar eclipse will be a super blood wolf — or great spirit — moon.

In the U.S., the eclipse will begin relatively early Sunday evening, making it easier for children to stay up and enjoy the show. Plus the next day is a federal holiday, with most schools closed. But the weather forecast for much of the U.S. doesn't look good.

Parents "can keep their kids up maybe a little bit later," said, Hartigan, who will catch the lunar extravaganza from Houston. "It's just a wonderful thing for the whole family to see because it's fairly rare to have all these things kind of come together at the same time.

"The good thing about this is that you don't need any special equipment," he added.

Asia, Australia and New Zealand are out of luck. But they had prime viewing last year, when two total lunar eclipses occurred.

The next total lunar eclipse won't be until May 2021.

As for full-moon supermoons, this will be the first of three this year. The upcoming supermoon will be about 222,000 miles (357,300 kilometers) away. The Feb. 19 supermoon will be a bit closer and one in March will be the farthest. (VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - Giant rocks from space are falling from the sky more than they used to, but don't worry.

For the past 290 million years, large asteroids have been crashing into Earth more than twice as often as they did in the previous 700 million years, according to a new study in Thursday's journal Science.

But no need to cast a wary glance up. Asteroids still only smack Earth on average every million or few million years, even with the increased crash rate. NASA's list of potential big space rock crashes shows no pending major threats. The biggest known risk is a 4,200-foot (1.3-km) wide asteroid with a 99.988 percent chance that it will miss Earth when it whizzes very near here in 861 years.

Tell that to the dinosaurs. Most scientists think dinosaurs and a lot of other species went extinct after a huge space rock crashed into Central America about 65 million years ago.

"It's just a game of probabilities," said study lead author Sara Mazrouei, a University of Toronto planetary scientist. "These events are still rare and far between that I'm not too worried about it."

Mazrouei and colleagues in the United Kingdom and United States compiled a list of impact craters on Earth and the moon that were larger than 12 miles (20 km) wide and came up with the dates of them. It takes a space rock that's half a mile (800 meters) wide to create holes that big.

The team counted 29 craters that were no older than 290 million years and nine between 291 million years and 650 million years old.

But we can see relatively few big craters on Earth because the planet is more than 70 percent ocean and past glaciers smoothed out some holes, said University of Toronto planetary scientist Rebecca Ghent, a study co-author.

Extrapolating for what can't be seen brings the total to about 260 space crashes on Earth in the last 290 million years. Adding in other factors, the science team determined that the current space crash rate is 2.6 times more than the previous 700 million years.

Craters older than 650 million years are mostly wiped off on Earth by glacial forces so the scientists used impact craters on the nearby moon as a stand-in for holes between 650 million and 1 billion years old. The moon is a good guide for estimating Earth crashes, because it is close enough to be in the same bombardment path and its craters last longer.

Mixed reactions

So what happened nearly 300 million years ago?

"Perhaps an asteroid family was broken up in the asteroid belt," Mazrouei speculated. The space rocks then headed toward the Earth and moon, and the planet got slightly more because it is a bigger target and it has higher gravity, Ghent said.

Outside scientists are split about the research. Jay Melosh at Purdue said he found the number of craters too small to come to a reasonable conclusion, but Harvard's Avi Loeb said the case was convincing.

Humans might not have emerged without mass extinctions from space rocks about 250 million and 65 million years ago, Loeb said in an email, adding, "but this enhanced impact rate poses a threat for the next mass extinction event, which we should watch for and attempt to avoid with the aid of technology."

"This demonstrates how arbitrary and fragile human life is," Loeb wrote. (VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - Silicon Valley has enjoyed years of popularity and growing markets. But 2018 has been rocky for the industry.

Data breaches, controversies over offensive speech and misinformation — as well as reports of foreign operatives’ use of their services — have left many people skeptical about the benefits of social media, experts say.

Worries about social media in Congress meant tech executives had to testify before committees several times this year.

“2018 has been a challenging year for tech companies and consumers alike,” said Pantas Sutardja, chief executive of LatticeWork Inc., a data storage firm. “Company CEOs being called to Congress for hearings and promising profusely to fix the problems of data breach but still cannot do it.”

An apology tour

Facebook drew the most scrutiny. The social networking giant endured criticism after revelations that its lax oversight allowed a political consulting firm to exploit millions of its users’ data.

In the spring, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, went on what was dubbed “an apology tour” to tell users that the company would do a better job of protecting their data.

The California firm faced other problems when data breaches at the site compromised user information. Other sharp criticism hit Facebook when false reports on its site sparked violence in places like Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Using social media to sow division

“Are America’s technology companies serving as instruments of freedom?” asked Kevin McCarthy, R-California and the House Majority Leader during a congressional hearing. “Or are they serving as instruments of manipulation used by powerful interests and foreign governments to rob the people of their power, agency, and dignity?”

Adding to concerns, the year saw new revelations of foreign operatives using social media to secretly spread divisive and often bogus messages in the U.S. and worldwide.

“It doesn’t matter to whose benefit they were operating,” said Walt Mossberg, a former tech columnist with the Wall Street Journal. “What bothers people here is that a foreign country, using our social networks, digital products and services that we have come to feel comfortable in … has come in and used that against us.”

Tech workers stand up

In addition to data privacy and misinformation, online speech became a big issue this year. Under pressure, social media companies like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook’s Instagram tightened restrictions on the kinds of speech they tolerate on their sites.

Tech workers pressed managers about their company’s government contracts, and Google workers staged a worldwide walkout over the treatment of female colleagues.

The issue of user data has led some companies such as LatticeWork, a data storage firm, to create new ways for users to protect their data and themselves. Playing off people’s concerns about data, LatticeWorks markets its products as a way to “bring your data home.”

#DeleteFacebook?

What’s unclear however is whether concerns about personal data and tech company decisions will spur users to leave these services. Facebook revelations prompted some like Mossberg to give up Facebook and its other services such as Instagram. He wants federal law to limit U.S. internet firms collection and use of user data.

“Governments and citizens of countries around the world need the right to regulate them without closing down free speech,” he said. “And that’s tricky.”

Some congressional members have vowed to pass a federal data privacy bill in the coming year, something that tech firms say they support.

But whether new regulations build trust in digital services remains to be seen. (VOA)

HANOI, LELEMUKU.COM - Before Facebook, Vu Kim Chi thought something was lacking in her job, which is to promote the economy in and around Vietnam's famed Ha Long Bay. Posting updates to her department's website, or photocopying missives to send to constituents, she said, was mostly one-sided.

But after she set up an official Facebook page for Quang Ninh province, the conversations started to flow in both directions, between Chi and the local residents or businesses. That's why, when it comes to social media, she thinks more civil servants need to catch up with the rest of the country.

"Social media, especially the Facebook application, is really used a lot in Vietnam," said Chi, who is deputy head of the province's investment promotion and support office. "But for public agencies that use it as a tool to interact with people and businesses, it's still not necessarily used a lot."

Facebook on charm offensive

Even as governments around the world are demanding more accountability and transparency from Facebook, public officials in Vietnam are looking for more ways to use the website. And Facebook is happy to oblige.

The company is on something of a charm offensive in Vietnam, where it has roughly 42 million members, nearly half the country. Besides sending top officials to visit Vietnam last year, Facebook has been instructing small businesses on how to sell their products on the site, and now it is giving civil servants like Chi advice for engaging with the public.

The chance to win some good will in Vietnam comes at a time when pressures are piling up on Facebook both inside the country and abroad. Globally, it has been accused of complicity in plots to convince voters to vote for Brexit or for candidate Donald Trump, as well as in what the United Nations calls ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. The company reportedly paid for research that could damage its critics' and competitors' reputations, as well as gave users' data to dozens of other firms without consent.

New cyber law

In Vietnam, the government told advertisers to boycott Facebook and other sites in response to users' postings that criticized the one-party state. Next month, the country will enact a cyber law requiring firms to store data domestically, which Facebook opposes.

But those troubles were not front and center at a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City this month where a company representative gave bureaucrats tips on making a Facebook page.

"We have to understand and put more attention to the social aspect of the platform," said Noudhy Valdryno, who handles government outreach for Facebook. "That means you have to understand your followers, who are they, where do they live, what are their interests? Then you can formulate an accurate strategy to engage with your followers."

The workshop included suggestions for government officials, such as posting updates on Facebook at regular intervals, shooting videos vertically to retain the attention of mobile users, and encouraging conversations among followers on the page.

Tech companies welcome

The event was an example of how Vietnamese officials are open to working with the tech company. It is so ubiquitous in the Southeast Asian country that when Vietnamese people say "social media" they mean Facebook, and when asked what newspapers they read, they give the answer: Facebook.

"What we're talking about is effective use of technology in this day and age to achieve our goals," said Le Quoc Cuong, vice director of the Ho Chi Minh City department of information and communications. "What we're looking for is being effective, being engaging and enhancing cooperation between the government and the people."

Chi says more Facebook data would help her better engage with residents around Quang Ninh, a northeastern province that hugs the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Chinese border on another. She would like regular reports, perhaps every month, with information to help analyze the province's fan page, from key words to number of "likes." So as many people worldwide have begun to decry tech companies for abusing and cashing in on users' data, there are those who still continue to see untapped potential in gathering further data. (VOA)

VANCOUVER, LELEMUKU.COM -  mobile application launched in dozens of U.S. and Canadian cities on Monday measures the planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions of inner-city travel, its creators said, letting concerned commuters map their so-called carbon footprints.

Mapping app Cowlines can suggest the most efficient route as well which uses the least fuel, combining modes of transport such as bicycling and walking, within cities, its Vancouver, Canada-based creators said.

Some two-thirds of the world's population is expected to settle in urban areas by 2050, according to the United Nations.

The trend presents an environmental challenge, given that the world's cities account for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions.

Not only will the app measure a trip's emissions and suggest alternatives, it will provide the data to cities and urban planners working on systems from subway lines to bike-sharing programs, said Jonathan Whitworth, chief strategy officer at Greenlines Technology, which created the app.

"As you would imagine here in Canada, especially Western Canada, most people are driven by the environmental side of it," Whitworth told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The app aims to encourage users in 62 U.S. and Canadian cities to use cleaner modes of transportation, from mass transit to walking or biking, he said.

In the United States, mass transit accounts for less than 2 percent of passenger miles traveled, according to Daniel Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis.

"People are starved for good information and data for good travel choices," said Sperling.

The app's suggested route is a cowline - city planner parlance for the fastest route, said Whitworth. In pastoral settings, a cowline is the most direct path cattle use to reach grazing grounds.

The app shows users after a trip how many kilograms of carbon-dioxide equivalent emissions they are responsible for, Whitworth said.

While other apps such as Changers CO2 Fit track users' carbon footprints, Cowlines claims its methodology, certified by the International Organization for Standardization, is most accurate, he said.

Whitworth said the company also plans to sell the data it collects. (VOA)