Gizmorama - August 19, 2013

Good Morning,

U.S. researchers claim that a new computer software has the ability to detect faked or altered photos. I guess that Photoshop is getting better and the naked eye is getting worse. Now let's check all of those Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, and UFO pictures, right?

Learn about this and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Computers and geometry can unmask fake or altered photos --*
HANOVER, N.H. - U.S. researchers say new software can detect faked or altered photos using a geometric algorithm to locate inconsistent shadows not obvious to the naked eye. Computer scientists at Dartmouth College and the University of California, Berkeley, said the development could be significant step in the field of digital forensics, allowing investigators to differentiate between authentic images and computerized forgeries. The new method analyzes a variety of shadows in an image to determine if they are physically consistent with a single illuminating light source, allowing a forensic analyst to determine if a photo is physically plausible or the result of image fakery, a Dartmouth release said Monday. "Our method shifts the dialogue from 'does the lighting/shadow look correct?,' which is well known to be highly unreliable, to a discussion of whether an analyst has correctly selected the location of cast and attached shadows in an image, a far more objective task," Dartmouth computer scientist Hany Farid said. In one example, the method has been used to debunk claims the lighting and shadows in the famous 1969 moon landing photo are fake, the researchers said. "In this regard, our method lets humans do what computers are poor at -- understanding scene content -- and lets the computer do what humans are poor at -- assessing the validity of geometric constraints," Farid said.


*-- Astronomers spot low-mass Jupiter-like planet around distant star --*
GREENBELT, Md. - Using a telescope in Hawaii, astronomers say they've observed the lowest-mass planet ever detected around a star like the sun using direct imaging techniques. Using infrared data from the Subaru Telescope, they've determined the distant planet weighs in at about four times Jupiter's mass, NASA reported Monday. "If we could travel to this giant planet, we would see a world still glowing from the heat of its formation with a color reminiscent of a dark cherry blossom, a dull magenta," said Michael McElwain, a member of the discovery team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Our near-infrared camera reveals that its color is much more blue than other imaged planets, which may indicate that its atmosphere has fewer clouds." The planet, GJ 504b, orbits its star at nearly nine times the distance Jupiter orbits our sun, which poses a challenge to theoretical ideas of how giant planets form, astronomers said. Under the most widely accepted model of planet formation, known as the core-accretion model, Jupiter-like planets get their start in the gas-rich debris disk that surrounds a young star at a fairly close distance. GJ 504b lies at a distance from its parent star more than 43 times the average distance of our Earth to the sun, far beyond the point where the core-accretion model should account for it. "This is among the hardest planets to explain in a traditional planet-formation framework," team member Markus Janson, a Hubble postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, said. "Its discovery implies that we need to seriously consider alternative formation theories, or perhaps to reassess some of the basic assumptions in the core-accretion theory."


*-- Curious craters on Mars said result of impacts into ancient ice --*
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - U.S. geologists say they've come up with a new explanation for a mysterious double-layer type of crater observed on Mars, and it's all about ice and impacts. Impact craters on Mars are surrounded by what's known as ejecta, debris excavated by an impacting object. But astronomers have long noted a curious type of crater they've dubbed double-layer ejecta craters, or DLEs, where the debris forms two distinct layers -- a large outer layer with a smaller inner layer sitting on top. Researchers at Brown University suggest DLEs are the result of impacts onto a surface that was covered by a layer of glacial ice up to 30 feet thick. The impact would blast through the ice layer, spitting rock and other ejecta out onto the surrounding ice, but because that ejected material sits on a slippery ice surface it doesn't all stay put, they said. The layering occurs, they suggest, when material near the top of an upraised crater rim begins to slide down the slippery ice later and overtops material on the lower slopes. The findings could explain why DLEs are found at Mars' middle or high latitudes, they said, areas where scientists believe there may once have been glacial ice on Mars. Understanding how DLEs and other crater types are formed could lead to a better understanding of Mars' past and its climate, the researchers said. "I think for the first time since DLEs were discovered in the 1970s we have a model for their formation that appears to be consistent with a very wide range of known data," Brown graduate student David Kutai Weiss said. "There are over 600 DLEs on the Martian surface, so reconciling how they formed with our knowledge of the climate of Mars is pretty important," he said. "It could tell us a lot about the history of the martian climate on a global scale."

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