Ancient Remains of New Zealand Monster of the Sea Unearthed

""The jagged teeth of a hefty predator that lived in our waters 80 million years ago have been discovered in a Hawkes Bay forest.

The fossil remains of a mosasaur - a large marine reptile that was a dominant predator toward the end of the Cretaceous period - have been identified by experts at GNS Science after being earlier found in Maungataniwha Native Forest.

Earlier this year, Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust forest manager Pete Shaw and Department of Conservation biodiversity ranger Helen Jonas had been searching for whio (blue duck) up a small stream, when they spotted a rock with a lump of bone in it.

Ms Jonas was keen to see if the bone extended through the rock, so Mr Shaw jumped into a nearby pool to fetch a branch with which to lever the rock loose.

While in the pool, Mr Shaw felt something rough and lifted out another rock containing the fossilised jaw fragment.

"There was great jubilation at that point," Mr Shaw said.
The mosasaur could be likened to a crocodile with a snake-like body and paddle-like appendages.
It is believed to have lived only in water.

The area where the teeth were found is known by geologists as a hot-spot for fossils, and was where renowned palaeontologist Joan Wiffen famously first discovered evidence of land-dinosaur fossils in New Zealand, changing a long-held view that dinosaurs never existed here.

While mosasaur fossils have been found before in New Zealand - including around the forest area - they are not particularly Common.""

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11423436

Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet Cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper

 ""A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.

The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.

“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.”

Military network security specialists aren’t sure whether the virus and its so-called “keylogger” payload were introduced intentionally or by accident; it may be a common piece of malware that just happened to make its way into these sensitive networks. The specialists don’t know exactly how far the virus has spread. But they’re sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech. That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command.""

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/