Al Qaeda Steals Crashed Drone Wreckage

Whoops! A Predator drone cruising over Yemen took a spill, nosediving into a heap inside a small village. Police then secured the debris – sort of. On the way out, their convoy was hijacked by Al Qaeda goons. Debris snatched. It’s not as if Al Qaeda is about to reverse engineer and manufacture their own drones, but the incident underscores Yemen’s own problems with counter-terrorism. Mainly, that they’re piss poor at it.

2011 Ducati Diavel

   A scant few photos and a quick hit of information about the all-new Ducati Diavel have slipped out ahead of the bike's unveil at EICMA. According to the crew at Hell for Leather, the sculpture you see above packs a full 162 horsepower, 94 pound-feet of torque and tips the scales at a feathery 456 pounds. And that's just the base version. Apparently the Italian moto-maker is also offering a Diavel Carbon version that makes use of plenty of carbon fiber to shed an additional seven pounds from the recipe.

Aside from the pants-soiling power, the Diavel also comes loaded with more technology than ought to be possible. There's a ride-by-wire throttle system, traction control, anti-lock brakes, a keyless ignition and a tank-mounted, light-sensing TFT display packed into the beast you see above. Sounds fun, but we can hardly look at the bike without getting our eyeballs stuck on that epic 240 millimeter-wide tire. Hey, all that power has to get to the pavement somehow.

If you want one, and let's face it, you probably do, you'll have to shell out around $16,995 for the base model and $19,995 for the Carbon iteration.

2011 Yamaha YZF-R1 Unveiled

     Yamaha has unveiled the 2011 YZF-R1 which is the only production motorcycle with a crossplane crankshaft. It is fitted with a 998 cc, DOHC, 4-valve, in-line 4 engine that can deliver 182 hp at 12500 rpm, torque of 85 lb. ft. at 10,000 rpm, a top speed of 174 mph with a fuel consumption of 40 mpg.
The engine features forged aluminum pistons, titanium intake valves and adopts a forced-air intake system. Also, the new YZF-R1 uses a compact close-ratio 6-speed transmission that has optimized gear ratios, a multi plate clutch as well as a 4 into 2 into 1 into 2 titanium exhaust system with dual under seat mufflers.
     In keeping with this machine’s exceptional cornering ability and crisp handling, the aluminum frame has been designed to offer exceptional rigidity balance. The rear frame is lightweight Controlled-Fill die-cast magnesium, contributing the optimum mass centralization. Suspension includes SOQI front forks which use one of the tricks developed for our winning MotoGP® bikes: independent damping. The left fork handles compression damping and the right side handles the rebound damping. And the rear shock adopts bottom linkage for optimum suspension characteristics.

                        
In addition, the new R1 has only two projector-type bulbs mounted closer to the nose of the bike that positions ram air ducts closer contributing to a more compact, smooth look. Another novel feature is the rounded lenses.
Lightweight instrumentation includes an analog tachometer, digital speedo, dual tripmeters, clock, coolant temperature and fuel trip meter. This console also features adjustable back lighting, adjustable shift light and a low fuel warning light.
The 2011 Yamaha YZF-R1 also features a gear position indicator, accelerator opening angle indicator, engine mode indicator integrated stop watch, lap timer with split time mode and an air intake temperature display.
Footrests can be raised 15mm upward and 3mm backward, the windshield has a “screw less” design and the 4.8 gallons fuel tank provides excellent knee grip.
The 2011 Yamaha YZF-R1 is priced at $13,590.

This X-Ray Is a Billion Times Brighter Than Any Before It. Can It Reveal the Secrets of Viruses?

       While conducting research, scientists have never been able to capture accurate image of a virus' insides without freezing or slicing it open. With the introduction of the Linac Coherent Light Source, an X-ray free-electron laser which is a billion times brighter than any previous X-ray source, that all changes. Now they can look at viruses while they're in action, opening up all sorts of possibilities for future research.
According to Gizmag, the LCLS, which is powerful enough to blast through steel, only emits a beam for a "few millionths of a billionth" of a second, and destroys whatever it is imaging in the process of capturing said image. But it's allowing researchers to see things they've never seen before in the process.
Scientists sprayed live mimivirus particles in non-crystalized form into the LCLSbeam, and got two images showing the external shell of the viruses, along with their insides, which a team of Stanford researchers are trying to determine if the virus core contains genetic material or not. They believe this breakthrough will help them acquire video of moving viruses and microbes, and "revolutionize the study of life."

How Long It Takes Hackers to Crack Your Password

    BusinessWeek says a 6 character password (just letters) can be cracked in just 10 minutes while a 9 character password complete with letters, uppercase, numbers and symbols will take 44,530 years to crack. Take a look at the image to see other comparisons, the first column describes your password, the other columns show you how long the hackers need to hack your password.
There’s a reason some sites ask for, or require, a password that contains both letters and numbers. The first column describes passwords. The other columns tell you how long it takes a hacker to figure them out. Don’t make it easy for someone to figure yours out.