The same genetic mutation that makes people color-blind, can allow a small portion of women to perceive 100 times as many shades of colors as the rest of us, up to a potential 99 million. The mutations, when found on both X-chromosomes, can cause development of a 4th cone cell in a photosensitive layer in the back of the eye that responds to specific wavelengths of light. This increased visual acuity has been found most substantial in mid to long-wavelength, or "reddish", spectral components.

Lots of animals are tetrachromats, including birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and insects, but only a handful of human tetrachromats have been identified since 2012. This increased visual ability does come with a disadvantage of offspring having a high likelihood of color-blindness. Continued research may help scientists find a way to improve the vision of the (much larger) portion of the population that suffers from color-blindness.

More information on scientific studies of human tetrachromacy can be found here.

On Monday, Google sought permission from the Federal Communications Commission to conduct tests of "proprietary wireless applications" in a section of the electromagnetic spectrum that experts say could serve as a perfect replacement for fiber. Google declined to comment on its application for experimental radio service licenses for the 5.8 GHz, 24 GHz, 72 GHz and 82 GHz bands. In correspondence with the FCC, Google went so far as to request confidential treatment.

This is spurring speculation that Google may be looking to wireless alternatives for gigabit speed internet access in future Google Fiber cities. This could allow them to run fiber to the block, and use wireless distribution for the last-mile. Potentially, a cheaper alternative to costly fiber roll-outs to individual homes.

High frequency spectrum is "not an unreasonable way to think about replacing fiber to the home," McFarland said. "However you'd need a clear line of sight. You could have something on a telephone pole on the street, and you could point it at an antenna on top of your house. As long as you had no obstructions, you could get multiple gigabits per second."

Completing its third voyage into space (22 months since it left in December 2012), the X-37B is a known space plane with a secret purpose. The U.S. Air Force's fact sheet lists the official purpose of the craft as "reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth." Speculation abounds that there's an intelligence purpose to the missions, but the secrecy around the program means whatever the X-37B does besides test orbital re-entry will remain secret for some time.

Built by Boeing's secretive Phantom Works in Huntington Beach, Calif., the Air Force X-37B spacecraft is rumored to be everything from a space bomber to a satellite-killer or a test-bed for advanced spy satellite sensors. But as the news media fails to contain their excitement at the opportunity to wildly speculate, experts have debunked the rumors repeatedly, over the years.

"To the extent that it does have a purpose, I think its purpose is to keep the Chinese guessing as to what the purpose is," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a leading source of defense, space and intelligence information. "Over time, most of the money got spent just to keep the program going."

A lot of new tablet models are being announced this week as both Google and Apple update their lineup for the upcoming holiday season. Google's new tablets include the Nexus 6 and the Nexus 9, while Apple's new tablets include the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3.

Interestingly, the smaller Nexus 6 has a higher resolution screen and overall better specs than its larger cousin. Whether anyone wants to pay $650 for a 6" tablet phone is another matter.

A Vietnamese site has leaked more images of the updated Apple tablets ahead of the official launch.

Forbes has a lovely if disjointed writeup; The Register is considerably more dramatic. The gist: your browser likely still allows the use of old SSL standards, which are now proven vulnerable to a lovely new bug which could, in the worst case, give an attacker your cookies. From there, your sessions are at risk, along with anything you'd prefer to keep to yourself online.

The makers of Chrome seem to be saying that the issue has been fixed in Chrome since February, but as of this morning, the Poodle Test still showed Chrome as vulnerable. Firefox expects to have a fix in version 34, due Nov 25. In the meantime, according to the Forbes article, you can open about:config and change the setting security.tls.version.min to 1. This does cause Firefox to pass the test. Microsoft and Apple have not addressed the issue as of this writing. Internet Explorer does have an option to disable SSL 3.0 in its more recent versions (naturally set to "enabled" by default), but IE6 users are out in the cold; Safari users are vulnerable and must wait for a fix from Apple.

CUPS, the Common Unix Printing Specification, has just released version 2.0 of its software. Mike Sweet, the project founder, reflects here on what makes CUPS 2 different, how printing has changed over the 15 years elapsed since CUPS 1.0, and what printing means in a world full of wifi and cloud-connected devices.

Today our focus on printing is much different than in 1999. Wireless networking and mobile computing are everywhere. We no longer want printer drivers, but expect printers that support standard protocols and formats with fantastic output quality that we could only dream of 15 years ago. And our printing is more focused and personal.

The changes since the previous version of CUPS are actually not all that substantial. This is a minor bug-fix and maintenance release. Specifically:

CUPS 2.0.0 is now available for download. The focus of this major release is on performance and security improvements. Changes since 2.0rc1 include:

The scheduler did not preserve listener sockets from launchd or systemd after a restart ()
Added some USB quirk rules for the libusb-based USB backend (STR #4482)
Spanish localization update (STR #4487)
Updated documentation for 2.0.0 release.
Enjoy!

Interesting new tech if you're into bikes: the Copenhagen Wheel is a disc-shaped module that can be retrofit onto almost any bike. It's:

... an electric pedal-assist motor fully contained in the oversized red hub of an otherwise normal back bicycle wheel. Inside that red hub is a delicately crammed array of computing equipment, sensors, and a three-phase brushless direct current electric motor that can feel the torque of my pedaling and add appropriately scaled assistance.

Replace the back wheel of any bike with the Copenhagen Wheel and it's instantly an electric bike-one that not only assists the rider but senses the surrounding topography and can even collect and share data about environmental, traffic, and road conditions. First developed in 2009, through a partnership between MIT's Senseable City Lab and the City of Copenhagen, the wheel is now in its first stages of commercial production. By the end of 2014, thousands will be shipped out to fulfill pre-orders around the world.

Sometimes you do still have to pedal though.

Shortly after NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX mult-billion dollar contracts in the "space taxi" program, Sierra Nevada Corporation filed a lawsuit against NASA challenging its loss to Boeing, despite submitting a cheaper bid. While the lawsuit caused NASA to immediately request Boeing and SpaceX to halt work on their vehicles, they've now reversed course and requested the programs be restarted. NASA stated that a delay in providing transportation services to the ISS crew will put the crew at risk and will highly affect several operations of the ISS. This delay may even result in the US failure to fulfill the commitments it made in its international agreements.

The lawsuit is starting to result in private internal documents coming out of the woodwork and into public view. While many speculated that NASA was fully behind SpaceX and only granted Boeing a chunk of the contract for political reasons, it seems that Boeing was ranked above SpaceX in every major category, from technical maturity to management competence to likelihood of sticking to a timetable. Despite SpaceX's historic achievement of becoming the first commercial entity to put a capsule into orbit and ferry NASA cargo to and from the international space station, the agency had somewhat less assurance in the company's ability to perform, based on performance on its own preliminary contract.

When completed in 2022, the mammoth Thirty Meter Telescope will have eight times the light-gathering area of any other optical telescope. But many Hawaiians are opposed to it.

The ceremony demonstrated the combustible mix of science, local traditions, and politics that have dogged the summit's development for decades and the TMT project in particular. The ceremony was interrupted for several hours as local opponents staged a peaceful protest[3], using their cars to block the road leading to the summit. Some held signs using TMT to spell out "Too Many Telescopes."

Mauna Kea, often translated as "White Mountain" because it's sometimes capped with snow, rises 13,796 feet (4,205 m) from the Pacific Ocean and is sacred to native Hawaiians. The dormant volcano is known locally as wao akua ("realm of the gods"), and its slopes are dotted with shrines, altars, and hidden burial grounds.

According to the master plan drawn up in 1983 (extended in 2000) between state environmental officials and the University of Hawaii, which manages the summit, no more than the 13 domes can be built on the summit. This limitation ultimately led to cancellation of plans to add four small "outrigger" telescopes to Keck Observatory's existing giant twin domes.

Despite the protests, construction for the TMT has been approved and will move forward. When completed, perhaps as early as 2022, the telescope will leapfrog to the top ranking of the world's largest optical telescopes.

Each of the 492 mirror segments that comprise the Thirty Meter Telescope's f/1 primary mirror will be constantly adjusted for optimum alignment. An 11-by-8-foot pickoff mirror protrudes through the central opening and directs light sideways to one of several planned instruments.

Since the 1930s scientists have been searching for particles that are simultaneously matter and antimatter. Now physicists have found strong evidence for one such entity inside a superconducting material. The discovery could represent the first so-called "Majorana particle," and may help researchers encode information for quantum computers.

As opposed to particles found in a vacuum, unattached to other matter, these Majoranas are what's called "emergent particles." They emerge from the collective properties of the surrounding matter and could not exist outside the superconductor. The discovery could have implications for searches for free Majorana particles outside of superconducting materials. Many physicists suspect neutrinos-very lightweight particles with the strange ability to alter their identities, or flavors-are Majorana particles, and experiments are ongoing to investigate whether this is the case. Now that we know Majorana particles can exist inside superconductors, it might not be surprising to find them in nature.