Spectrum: Wikileaks and the Pirate Party, two Iranians file suit against Nokia Siemens, and dark energy
24.08.2010 , Spectrum: The Fascinating World of Science and TecThe Pirate Party of Sweden agrees to host some of Wikileaks' servers, the Pirate Party in Germany lauches its new decision-making platform known as "Liquid Feedback," two Iranians sue Nokia Siemens over the company's role in providing surveillance equipment to Iran, new research provides a neurological element to post-partum depression, and a new technique for studying dark energy.Pirate Party of Sweden says it will now host WikileaksSweden's Pirate Party, which already hosts the controversial site The Pirate Bay, could act as a safe harbor to Wikileaks, especially if the party wins seats in upcoming Swedish parliamentary elections on September 19.In recent weeks, the website Wikileaks has come under fire from governments around the world lately, most notably the United States. Wikileaks published thousands of leaked American government and military documents to its website. But given that the organization's servers are physically distributed amongst various countries, shutting the site down has proven to be nearly impossible. In fact, the site's founder, Julian Assange, has said he will be writing a bi-monthly column for a Swedish newspaper which conceivably could allow him to take advantage of the country's whistleblower laws. But Wikileaks is also getting some Swedish tech help too -- the Pirate Party in Sweden has said it's going to help make sure that shutting the site down is that much harder. Report: Sasha PaveyWeb voting removes hierarchy from Pirate Party decision-makingKeeping in line with its focus on transparency, the Pirate Party has launched an online platform that makes the party's internal decision processes more transparent and democratic.It's not just Sweden that has a Pirate Party. In fact, Germany has one, too. Like its Swedish counterpart, the party's main area of interest is privacy and user rights on the internet and in other modes of communication. During last year's German federal elections, it managed to win two percent of the votes. So, as the Pirate Party focuses on issues related to the internet, it's not surprising that it relies very heavily on this medium for internal communication purposes. The 'Liquid Feedback' system launched earlier this month, which tries to make decision-making processes within the party more democratic. Report: Mathias Bцlinger, narrated by Eva WutkeTwo Iranians file lawsuit in US against Nokia SiemensThe joint Finnish-German venture Nokia Siemens said surveillance equipment it sold Iran was legal and dismissed a lawsuit filed against it. The company also questioned the court's jurisdiction and the suit's premise.Over a year ago, in an election widely viewed as fradulent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected as president of Iran. In the aftermath of that election, as protests raged in Iran, the government cracked down on communications technologies, shutting down mobile phone access and limiting Internet access. In the weeks that followed, it was revealed that Nokia Siemens Networks had sold mobile phone surveillance capability to Iran. Many dissidents blamed the company for aiding a regime that they said was oppressive. But these complaints were taken to a new level last week when two Iranians filed a lawsuit against Nokia Siemens in an American federal court in the state of Virginia.Report: Sean SinicoNew German research unveils neurological aspects of post-partum depressionMedical researchers call for more education about the condition so that women don't have to deal with this issue all aloneNow, let's switch gears and go from the technological to the biological. According to medical research, up to 75 percent of new mothers feel down for a few days after giving birth. It's no wonder, given that their hormones are going a little nuts. Their estrogen levels drop significantly, and many new mothers also experience mood swings, irritability and sleeplessness. The causes of the baby blues are normally explained away as merely hormone levels and psychological changes, but a new study has found that there's an additional neurological cause as well.Report: Cinnamon NippardAstronomers use galactic magnifying lens to illuminate dark energyEuropean and American scientists take a step closer to understanding the unknown force by measuring 'gravitational lensing' from a galaxy cluster 2.2 billion light years away.If neurotransmitters can have a big impact on a mother's life, imagine what impact astrophysics is having on the entire universe. In a paper published last week in the journal Science, European and American scientists report that they have developed a new technique to measure dark energy, a mysterious force that astronomers and astrophysicists have struggled to understand. Since the 1920s, astronomers have known that the universe is expanding. But in 1998, scientists identified something called "dark energy," a strange force that is accelerating the rate of expansion of the universe itself. However, they have not identified precisely what the nature of this force is. But this new study may help to illuminate the nature of dark energy. Report: Chelsea Wald