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The Facebook signature wall in question is much bigger than this one, by the way. (credit: Matteo Artizzu)

Facebook may require real names to post on the social network's so-called "walls," but for the company's own real-life equivalent, that does not appear to be the case. As a result, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg reportedly posted a private company-wide memo condemning a particular wave of anonymous activity on its "signature wall."

According to a Gizmodo report, Zuckerberg took issue on Wednesday with someone crossing out part of the phrase "Black Lives Matter"—which was written on the company's giant, dry-erase wall next to other staffers' and guests' signatures and drawings—and changing it to read "all lives matter." The Zuckerberg memo alleged that this had happened multiple times to the Facebook signature wall, and he called out the anonymous activity: "Despite my clear communication at Q&A last week that this was unacceptable... this has happened again."

(credit: Lisa Roe)

What happens in the testes, stays in the testes. At least, that’s according to frustrated researchers who have spent years trying to understand and recreate the process that generates sperm. But now, in a satisfying data release, a group of Chinese researchers report that they’ve finally cracked that nut.

In the study, published Thursday in Cell Stem Cell, the researchers describe using mouse stem cells to generate rudimentary sperm that was used to fertilize eggs and produce healthy mouse pups. If true, the study could pave the way for the development of human sperm in lab dishes for fertility treatments.

“The results are super-exciting and important,” Jacob Hanna, a stem cell scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, told Nature. However, several other researchers said they were skeptical of the data and anxious to see the results repeated in other researchers’ hands. “You have to be very cautious about the implications of this paper,” Mitinori Saitou of Kyoto University said.

The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the SES-9 satellite is ready to go. (credit: SpaceX)

Are you ready for round two? On Wednesday, SpaceX delayed the launch of a commercial communications satellite, SES-9, to a geostationary transfer orbit out of an abundance of caution. The company said it wanted to ensure that liquid oxygen temperatures are as cold as possible to maximize performance of the vehicle. So it's going to try the launch today at 6:46pm ET. Weather is better as well, with an 80 percent chance of "go" conditions when the launch window opens.

As with other recent launches, SpaceX will try yet again to fly its booster back to an automated ship in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. However, because this is a high orbit (about 35,000km above the equator) and will require a heavy vehicle with more fuel and more speed, returning safely back to Earth is far from a sure thing. Additionally, at 5,300kg, this is the heaviest payload SpaceX has attempted to deliver to a geostationary orbit.

Still, the company says it will make another attempt at a historic first, landing an orbital rocket on a sea-based platform. "The first stage of the Falcon 9 will attempt an experimental landing on the 'Of Course I Still Love You' droneship," SpaceX said in its press kit. "Given this mission’s unique GTO profile, a successful landing is not expected."

Enlarge / Apple argues that it would take an unreasonable amount of effort to code "Government OS" for the feds. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple's official legal response to the ongoing encryption dustup between it and the US government was released earlier today, and in it Apple makes many of the same arguments it has made since CEO Tim Cook posted his first letter to customers on the matter last week. But it goes into greater detail on several points, and it includes a section on the specific resources Apple would need to devote to writing the so-called "Government OS" update that would allow investigators to unlock the iPhone 5C in the San Bernardino case.

To recap, Apple says the court order is asking it to do three things: to disable the optional iOS feature that will erase a device after 10 incorrect passcode attempts; to allow passcodes to be entered rapidly and electronically so that investigators can unlock the device via brute force; and to remove the software-imposed time delays between incorrect passcode attempts. This software "simply does not exist today," and Apple says that creating it would "require that Apple write new code" rather than simply disabling features that are already there.

For starters, Apple estimates it would take between six and ten Apple engineers between two and four weeks to design, code, validate, and deploy the software update. "Members of the team would include engineers from Apple’s core operating system group, a quality assurance engineer, a project manager, and either a document writer or a tool writer," according to Apple's motion.

(credit: Sean Gallagher)

At its Build developer conference last year, Microsoft announced four "bridges" designed to help developers bring applications into the Windows Store. Three of these—for porting Web, Win32, and iOS applications to Windows (codenamed "Westminster," "Centennial," and "Islandwood," respectively)—are still around. But the company confirmed on Thursday that the fourth bridge, Astoria, intended to help bring Android apps to Windows, is no longer in development.

Early builds of Windows 10 Mobile included a version of Astoria, which essentially did exactly what it was supposed to: it enabled Android apps to run on Windows phones. But last November, the Android layer was quietly removed, with Microsoft saying that it was "not ready yet."

Thursday's announcement suggests that it's never going to be ready. The company writes, rather peculiarly, that choosing between Astoria and Islandwood "could be confusing" and that having two systems for porting non-Windows applications was "unnecessary." Accordingly, Islandwood is the only bridge, and Astoria is being abandoned.