Jack Louis and Robert Lee, from Outpost24 (http://www.outpost24.com/), are scheduled to give a talk at the T2'08 Information Security Conference in Finland later this month giving details on a new, and dangerous, denial of service attack that uses TCP state table manipulation. The attack is unique in that it is cross platform and requires very little bandwidth to be executed.[1] This attack also has a prolonged impact on the hardware that lasts beyond the denial of service.

Back in 2004, there was a great deal of fanfare about the early adoption of IPv6 by China. The Chinese Education and Research Network Information Center (CERNIC) was at the center of IPv6 adoption efforts and created CERNET2. CERNET2 provides IPv6 services to 25 universities in 20 cities in China.[1] CERNET2 received a fair amount of press at the time with some arguing that this early embrace of the new protocol could lead to a competitive economic advantage. These views were reinforced by Chinese officials who identified the nature and importance of the problem.

A new approach to improving vaccine supplies in the event of an influenza pandemic is reported online in Mucosal Immunology (http://www.nature.com/mi) this week. The study compares delivery methods of the current vaccine in an animal model and shows that a lower dose delivered to the site of infection, gives better protection against influenza than the normal dose as it is currently delivered. One of the most serious challenges facing human health today is preparing for the next influenza pandemic.

Those giant, claustrophobic, tunnel forming magnets used for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in labs and hospitals look so last century! They are pricey and heavy, making MRI systems immobile and demanding to install. Any alternative? Yes by implementing the pre-polarized MRI concept introduced some 15 years ago:

Prior to the last decade most data networks were routed through the United States. It was not uncommon for traffic from one European country to find itself being hauled to the US prior to being delivered to an EU neighbor.
However, we are clearly witnessing a major transition in this position as the exceptional pace of the development of international high speed network creation quickens.

Percolation theory is commonly used to describe the movement of liquid through porous material - like coffee through a filter. In Nature this week, European researchers report the first example of the theory at work in nature, using it to explain the spread of plague through colonies of great gerbils in Central Asia. The research could help us to understand the transmission of other diseases. Great gerbils live in vast underground burrow systems that form a lattice-like arrangement visible from satellite images.

For decades, American graduate schools have attracted students from all over the world. Over time, of course, the origins of international graduate students has shifted. For years, the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates has been following where Ph.D. recipients received their undergraduate degrees, and each year it publishes a list showing what universities and colleges graduate the largest number of students going on to get Ph.D.s in the U.S.