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(credit: NJCU.edu)

A federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s decision to dismiss a case brought in Kansas by a religiously-minded group of parents and students. The plaintiffs were concerned about their home state’s adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

As Ars reported back in 2013 when the case was first filed, the NGSS standards are a nationwide attempt to improve science education in the US. They have been backed by organizations such as the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

This case, COPE v. Kansas Board of Education, is a notable victory for science—and a blow to the creationist crowd and its progeny.

(credit: Beryl_snw)

In a short letter filed Friday evening, federal prosecutors wrote to a Brooklyn judge to say that they no longer needed Apple’s help in accessing the data on a seized iPhone 5S running iOS 7 associated with a drug case.

In the letter, United States Attorney Robert Capers wrote:

The government respectfully submits this letter to update the Court and the parties. Yesterday evening, an individual provided the passcode to the iPhone at issue in this case. Late last night, the government used that passcode by hand and gained access to the iPhone. Accordingly, the government no longer needs Apple’s assistance to unlock the iPhone, and withdraws its application.

This case pre-dates the debacle that played out earlier this year in San Bernardino, but relied on many of the same legal arguments. Here, in October 2015, the government asked the court to grant it an order that would have forced Apple to assist the unlocking of a phone belonging to Jun Feng, a man who eventually pleaded guilty to drug charges. Unlike the case in California however, Apple does have the ability to extract data on pre-iOS 8 devices with minimal difficulty. Feng has claimed that he forgot the passcode to this particular iPhone. According to the Wall Street Journal, it was Feng himself who recently supplied the passcode to investigators.

(credit: Wikimedia)

Getting sick is definitely a bummer. But besides feeling icky and being stuck in bed, viral infections may cause us to actually be depressed. While scientists have been clued into this connection for a while, there was little data on how everyday viral infections, like the flu, might mess with our moods.

Now, data from a new mouse study shows that common viruses may spur sadness by causing the cells that line the blood-brain barrier to release signals that hush the chatter between neurons in the area of the brain responsible for mood. The findings, published this week in the journal Immunity, may finally explain the link between infections and mental health problems, and it could point researchers towards new strategies for treating depression and other mood disorders.

Researchers have been collecting hints of the connection between mental health and infections for years. Though it was first dismissed as people simply being blue about getting sick, doctors now accept that there is a condition called “sickness behavior.” This condition is marked by cognitive deficits, drowsiness, general malaise, and other depression-like symptoms in those with an infection. Moreover, in a 2013 Danish study, researchers found that people who had been treated for a severe infection were 62 percent more likely to suffer from mood disorders. Perhaps related, those that had an autoimmune disease were 45 percent more likely to have such a mental health issue.

A federal investigator uses a pen tool to pan and scan over photo evidence in Adobe Photoshop. (credit: CNN)

On Thursday, a CNN report showed exactly how a major 2013 online child-pornography bust went down. The case's breakthrough came from the kind of photo manipulation that happens on TV crime dramas, in which a horribly blurry photo is somehow magically "enhanced."

Homeland Security Investigations special agent Jim Cole showed CNN how a blurry photo of a bottle of prescription pills led to the 110-year conviction of Georgia sexual predator Stephen Keating. Though CNN described the analysis as "game-changing," the tools used to confirm the suspect appear to be relatively common.

In 2012, photos recovered from a computer by Danish investigators was handed off to the HSI's Cyber Crimes Center. Cole demonstrated that filters built into Adobe Photoshop were used to sharpen the text on a bottle—which was visible because a victim was photographed in front of a bathroom cabinet—to confirm a first name, the first two letters of a surname, and the beginning of a code for a prescription type.

Emperator Furiosa, tell us how being in this movie made you feel! (credit: Universal)

I saw Snow White and the Huntsman, so I should have known the sequel would be terrible. But honestly, I'm not sure anything other than 24 hours of tickle torture with demon-possessed muppets could have girded me for The Huntsman: Winter's War. It was like watching somebody make a cinematic suicide soda out of Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Frozen, Planet of the Apes, and (just for that extra wrong flavor) Ted Danson in Cheers. And the worst part? It wasn't made for the love of so-bad-it's-good things, the way a real suicide soda is. Nothing in this incoherent, bumbling movie feels genuine—except for that one part where a saucy lady dwarf hits on Eric the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth).

For those who missed the first film, the Huntsman series is a retelling of the Snow White story done in the "hard fantasy" style popularized by Game of Thrones. What that means is the characters are more emo. The evil queen Ravenna eats virgins procured by her creepy incest brother, and there's a class of characters called "Huntsmen" who are like fairy tale ninjas with axes. In the first film, Snow White defeated Ravenna (or DID she?). The new film is a kind of origin story about the Huntsmen, minus Snow White, plus a bunch of other things that don't add up.

So what makes The Huntsman so much more awful than other awful sequels made in a crass bid for cash? Somehow, this film manages to exhibit every single cliche of fantasy and science fiction sequels—then goes one step further into raw narrative incoherence. The movie begins with Liam Neeson doing a voiceover about how "you know the story of Snow White, but there's another story that happened long before." OK, fine, we're doing a prequel. We see the rise of the evil witch Ravenna (Charlize Theron, chewing the scenery so hard she's channeling William Shatner). There's also the en-evilling of her gentle sister Freya (Emily Blunt, looking puzzled that she's in this movie) when her boyfriend betrays her and murders their baby.