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Timeline of the early Universe, showing the Dark Ages and the First Light, when reionization allows starlight to travel long distances. (credit: ESO)

Early in the Universe's history, something ionized most of the diffuse hydrogen gas that’s spread between galaxies. But until now, the source responsible for this ionization has been largely mysterious—a conundrum so persistent, the authors of a new paper call it “one of the key questions in observational cosmology.”

First, a little background: The Universe’s hydrogen started out ionized because the early Universe was too hot and energetic for electrons to settle down and pair with protons. This situation persisted for about 375,000 years after the Big Bang, at which time the Universe had cooled enough for neutral hydrogen to exist. Then, any light produced by interactions among these hydrogen atoms was at a wavelength where it was quickly re-absorbed by other hydrogen atoms—the Universe was opaque.

It wasn’t until a few hundred million years later that some of the hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) began to be ionized again by an unknown source of energy. This event is known as the epoch of reionization, and it’s the last major phase transition in the history of the Universe. It returned the Universe to a state where light could travel long distances.

Boston Dynamics robots, from left to right: Little Dog (on pedestal), Spot, BigDog, WildCat, and LS3. (credit: Boston Dynamics)

As we reported in our 2016 Google preview, Alphabet's robot division is in a bit of a mess. The division was started inside Google by Android cofounder Andy Rubin, who aimed to quickly get the project up and running via an acquisition spree. He picked up Boston Dynamics, the DARPA Robotics Challenge winner Schaft, and about seven other companies. Then Andy Rubin left Google, leaving the collection of companies to fend for themselves. With no leader and not much of a direction, the group needed help.

Google has been searching for someone to replace Rubin and lead the Robotics group, and it looks like the group is finally getting some leadership in the form of Alphabet's newly renamed "X" group. A report from The New York Times says that the robot team will be moving to the X division, and Alphabet's moonshot group will "review the various projects and refocus them toward solving specific problems that would be reframed as a particular moonshot effort."

Moving the robot division into the X group reportedly wasn't Alphabet's first choice. The Information claimed Alphabet earlier tried to get Carl Bass, the CEO of Autodesk, to run the division, but questions about the group's relationship with the rest of Alphabet apparently caused problems.

Amir Hekmati (credit: FreeAmir)

As part of a prisoner swap this weekend, 32-year-old Iranian-American game developer Amir Mizra Hekmati has been released from Iranian custody after over four years of imprisonment. The US State Department confirmed yesterday that Hekmati and three other Iranian prisoners had arrived safely in Geneva, en route to a military base in Germany.

Hekmati, who was born and raised in the US, was first imprisoned in August 2011 after he purportedly confessed to high-level espionage for the US government. According to the confession, Hekmati's company, Kuma Reality Games, was working with the CIA to release "games with the aim of manipulating public opinion in the Middle East. The goal of the company in question was to convince the people of Iran and the people of the entire world that whatever the US does in other countries is a good measure."

Hekmati was initially sentenced to death in 2012, but that sentence was overturned by a higher court later that year. He was resentenced to a ten-year term after a secret trial in which Hekmati was not allowed to present a defense, according to his family.

The Democrats had their final presidential debate Sunday before the Iowa caucus in two weeks. There was the usual venom and posturing among the three candidates vying to win their party's nomination to run for president. And then there was a candidate who said there should be no encryption backdoors—or did he? Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley couched his response during the Charleston, South Carolina debate that was livestreamed on YouTube.

Here's the dialogue after a YouTube "creator" asked about encryption.

Hi, my name's Marques Brownlee, and I've been making YouTube videos about electronics and gadgets for the past seven years.

I think America's future success is tied to getting all kinds of tech right. Tech companies are responsible for the encryption technology to protect personal data, but the government wants a backdoor into that information.

So do you think it's possible to find common ground? And where do you stand on privacy versus security?

"I believe whether it's a backdoor or a front door that the American principle of law should still hold that our federal government should have to get a warrant, whether they want to come through the backdoor or your front door," O'Malley replied.