for those that have been watching, the newest component to Civilization OS 2.0

Berkeley Lab | How to Train Your Bacterium

Trainers of dogs, horses, and other animal performers take note: a bacterium namedMoorella thermoacetica has been induced to perform only a single trick, but it’s a doozy. Berkeley Lab researchers are using M. thermoacetica to perform photosynthesis – despite being non-photosynthetic – and also to synthesize semiconductor nanoparticles in a hybrid artificial photosynthesis system for converting sunlight into valuable chemical products.

“We’ve demonstrated the first self-photosensitization of a non-photosynthetic bacterium, M. thermoacetica, with cadmium sulfide nanoparticles to produce acetic acid from carbon dioxide at efficiencies and yield that are comparable to or may even exceed the capabilities of natural photosynthesis,” says Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, who led this work.

“The bacteria/inorganic-semiconductor hybrid artificial photosynthesis system we’ve created is self-replicating through the bio-precipitation of cadmium sulfide nanoparticles, which serve as the light harvester to sustain cellular metabolism,” Yang says. “Demonstrating this cyborgian ability to self-augment the functionality of biological systems through inorganic chemistry opens up the integration of biotic and abiotic components for the next generation of advanced solar-to-chemical conversion technologies.”

a soft, juicy target

Dark Reading (Information Week) | Project 'Gridstrike' Finds Substations To Hit For A US Power Grid Blackout

Turns out free and publicly available information can be used to determine the most critical electric substations in the US, which if attacked, could result in a nationwide blackout.

Remember that million-dollar Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) study in 2013 that found that attacks on just nine electric substations in the US could cause a blackout across the entire grid? Well, a group of researchers decided to see just what it would take for a small group of domestic terrorists to identify the US's most critical substations -- using only free and public sources of information.

While FERC relied on confidential and private information in its shocking report and spent a whopping $1 million in research, researchers at iSIGHT Partners used only so-called open-source intelligence, at a cost of just $15,000 total for 250 man-hours by their estimates. The Wall Street Journal, which obtained and first reported on the confidential FERC report, never publicly revealed the crucial substations ID'ed by FERC for obvious reasons, nor does iSIGHT plan to disclose publicly the ones it found.

Sean McBride, lead analyst for critical infrastructure at iSIGHT, says the goal of his team's so-called "Gridstrike" project was to determine how a small local-grown terror group could sniff out the key substations to target if it were looking to cause a power blackout -- either via physical means, a cyberattack, or a combination of the two. "How would an adversary go about striking at the grid?" McBride said in an interview with Dark Reading. He will speak publicly for the first time about the Gridstrike research next week at the S4x2016 ICS/SCADA conference in Miami.

The iSIGHT researchers drew from a combination of publicly available transmission substation information, maps, Google Earth, and grid congestion documentation, and drew correlations among the substations that serve the top ten cities in the US. They then were able to come up with 15 substations that serve as the backbone for much of the electric grid: knocking out those substations would result in a nationwide blackout, they say.

FERC's report had concluded that the US could suffer a nationwide blackout if nine of the nation's 55,000 electric transmission substations were shut down by attackers.

"We looked at maps and tried to … identify [power] generation facilities, and looked up both centers and what substations are in the middle that would make high-value targets," for example, McBride says. "We tried to identify which substations have the highest number of transmission lines coming in and out," as well, and weighed their significance.

roll your own license plate reader

openalpr | (Open Automatic License Plate Reader)

Know when unauthorized persons are on your property

The moment an unwelcome visitor drives past your camera we'll send you an alert.

Use a more cost-effective and accurate approach to identify suspicious activity. OpenALPR monitors all your camera feeds 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

yet another wealth extraction plan with the poor carrying the burden... how about just stopping the war on the poor and black?

Think Progress | Massachusetts’ Plan To Force State Prisoners To Pay Room And Board Will Do Far More Harm Than Good

It takes a lot of money and resources for prisons and jails to run as smoothly as possible. Administrators have to cover the costs of food, beds, healthcare, inmate programming, employee salaries and benefits, security, and maintenance. A survey of 40 states determined that, on average, states spend $31,286 a year to incarcerate one person. The hefty price tag is one motivating factor behind some states’ efforts to reform their criminal justice system and do away with harsh sentencing.

Two lawmakers in Massachusetts are taking a different approach to the cost. Massachusetts currently spends at least $53,000 a year on every inmate — $1.2 billion in total. On Tuesday, the senate minority leader proposed a bill that would make 10,000 prisoners bear some of that financial burden.

Under Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr’s (R-Gloucester) latest proposal, inmates would have to pay $2 a day for their food and housing. They would have two payment options: coughing up the money after they re-enter society or using money earned through prison labor. Those who are pregnant, mentally ill, can’t leave their beds, or are considered indigent by the state would not have to pay.

russia responds to it's downed planes

Military Times | New Russian surface-to-air missiles in Syria, DoD confirms

U.S. pilots flying over Syria and Turkey will be in range of advanced Russian-made surface-to-air defense systems, Pentagon officials said.

U.S. intelligence shows that Russia is following through on plans to send S-400 missile systems into its military base in Syria, the officials said.

With a reported range of up to 248 miles, those missiles could put at risk most U.S. combat aircraft flying over Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the S-400 missiles to Syria one day after a Turkish F-16 aircraft shot down a Russian Su-24 jet last Tuesday. Turkish officials said the Russian aircraft veered into Turkish airspace for less than 30 seconds and was fired upon only after repeated verbal warnings.

lithification - turning dirt to rock in days instead of centuries

our ally, turkey, assisting and benefiting from our enemy's, isis, oil sales

Reuters | Russia says it has proof Turkey involved in Islamic State oil trade

Russia's defense ministry said on Wednesday it had proof that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his family were benefiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from Islamic State-held territory in Syria and Iraq.

Moscow and Ankara have been locked in a war of words since last week when a Turkish air force jet shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian-Turkish border, the most serious incident between Russia and a NATO state in half a century.

Erdogan responded by saying no one had the right to "slander" Turkey by accusing it of buying oil from Islamic State, and that he would stand down if such allegations were proven to be true. But speaking during a visit to Qatar, he also said he did not want relations with Moscow to worsen further.

At a briefing in Moscow, defense ministry officials displayed satellite images which they said showed columns of tanker trucks loading with oil at installations controlled by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and then crossing the border into neighboring Turkey.

The officials did not specify what direct evidence they had of the involvement of Erdogan and his family, an allegation that the Turkish president has vehemently denied.

"Turkey is the main consumer of the oil stolen from its rightful owners, Syria and Iraq. According to information we've received, the senior political leadership of the country - President Erdogan and his family - are involved in this criminal business," said Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov.

"Maybe I'm being too blunt, but one can only entrust control over this thieving business to one's closest associates."

"In the West, no one has asked questions about the fact that the Turkish president's son heads one of the biggest energy companies, or that his son-in-law has been appointed energy minister. What a marvelous family business!"

Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/2015/12/02/us-mideast-crisis-russia-turkey-idUSKBN0TL19S20151202#F9QDWBUcG5fFtJdr.99