Features

WASHINGTON — Slowly but surely, the Internet is becoming a hostile place.

As wondrous as the Internet is — with its 3 billion global users — increasingly, danger lurks. Armies of hackers maraud for personal data. Unknown forces invade privacy, installing hidden bugs. Nations engage in low-grade versions of cyber warfare.

Those who believe that some sort of disaster may be in the offing have coined the phrases “Cyber 9/11” and “Digital Pearl Harbour” to suggest a surprise attack that might change our world. Maybe it’ll be terrorists threatening to bring down the power grid. Or hackers monkeying with November election results.

Are the fears warranted? Some experts say they’re overblown. Yet, the issue reflects how the Internet has become the world’s superstructure, knitting the citizenry together. The “Internet of things” is swiftly evolving: the thermostat, the smart TV, the toaster, the locks on doors, all interconnected. Then there are cars. An estimated 70 per cent of automobiles will be connected to the Internet by the end of the decade.

If cybersecurity is not fortified, experts say, aggression and hostility could steadily overtake the Web. The “Internet of things” may morph, as one recent study forecasts, into the “weaponisation of everything”. Imagine elevators going haywire, or pacemakers under the control of extortionists.

Other scenarios are possible, of course. The Internet is in its infancy. Like other technologies, simple but firm steps may make it safer.

The development of the automotive industry, in fact, could provide a map forward.

“People were driving cars on the road for 100 years before the first seat belt law was introduced in 1968. After that law, the number of crashes that ended in fatalities dropped sharply,” said Jeremy N. Galloway, a cybersecurity expert with Atlassian, an Australian software firm. “The Internet is very similar.”

“We haven’t invented the cyber version of the seat belt yet, so we have many more painful accidents to come. We are progressing incrementally, getting better security every day, but fundamentally, the Internet is a place where you need to be cautious, careful and sceptical.”

For many users, the risks appear remote when weighed with the benefits.

“The equation is still clear. For every one of us, the advantages of the Internet are much bigger than the potential risk,” said Amichai Shulman, co-founder of Imperva, a data security company with headquarters in Redwood Shores, California.

Yet, the power of cyberattacks to hurt companies — and even governments — is already apparent. Israel and the United States are believed to have been behind the sophisticated Stuxnet virus that took down key components of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

When the film studio Sony Pictures Entertainment was hacked in 2014, US intelligence officials within a month blamed North Korea.

Hackers in mid-2015 carried off the greatest theft of personal data in history, stealing vast troves from the Office of Personnel Management on some 21 million current and former federal employees, their relatives and contractors.

The Kremlin has been blamed in the news media for the theft of some 20,000 e-mails from the Democratic National Committee that first came to light in June, forcing Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the chair of the DNC and leading to fears of Russian meddling in US elections. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, called the hack an “electronic Watergate”, evoking the legendary break-in that eventually led former president Richard Nixon to resign in 1974.

Barely a day goes by now without reports of an attack. This month, cybercriminals breached cash register software offered by computer giant Oracle, and other hackers stole credit card data from guests at 20 hotels in 10 states, including Hyatt, Sheraton, Marriott, Westin and others.

Even hardened targets get hit amid signs of global cyber conflict. The nation’s top-secret National Security Agency (NSA) suffered an apparent breach, and the alleged hackers last weekend published some of its most secret cyber tools and weapons on the Internet, a major embarrassment. In Moscow, the government-financed RT television network, once known as Russia Today, said it had faced “massive attacks” this week in sustained digital assaults intended to overwhelm its computer networks.

Concerned about ever bigger cyberattacks, Microsoft in June called for establishment of a global UN-type body of technical experts from governments, the private sector, academics and civil society to ascertain who is behind major cyberattacks.

Those paid to track cyber intrusions and hack attacks say that the hostility that pervades the Internet is vast. Despite the problems, they say it is not yet beyond repair.

“We can combat the bad stuff. We can defend the resources we have. We can adapt where needed. We can’t, however, do nothing. If we give up on protecting resources, data and people on the Internet, then we will end up with an irreparable, and ultimately historical, Internet,” said Tim Erlin, senior director for security and risk strategy at Tripwire, a Portland, Ore.-based company that provides threat protection software tools.

Some see the Web as reaching an inflection point at which concerted action must be taken by individuals, private companies and governments around the world.

“The Internet has tremendous potential, but that potential’s dark side is just starting to rear its ugly head. We need to act now,” the former Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, wrote in a blog post on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations this month.

Lior Div, a former member of the Israeli military’s elite cybersecurity Unit 8200, knows a thing or two about cyber’s dark side. Let your imagination run wild, and Div says it’s already a reality.

“What I don’t like to do is spread fear,” cautioned Div, who is the chief executive of Cybereason, a Boston-based company that offers military-grade cyber detection. Div spoke on the sidelines of the Black Hat hackers’ convention in Las Vegas earlier this month.

Div said hostile actions are rampant on the Internet but noted that large-scale attacks — ones designed to blow out power grids or carry out major disruptions that could leave hundreds of fatalities — haven’t occurred.

“People are thinking of cyber as an atomic bomb. … The thing about cyber is you can be much more precise and exact,” he said.

The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant
Edited by Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin
London: Hurst and Company, 2015
Pp. 384

In this book, fourteen scholars, mostly Europe-based, survey the trajectory of the Alawis from their mystical origins as followers of Muhammad Ibn Nusayr in 8th century Iraq, to state-power holders in modern Syria. In the process, one gains a sense of Syria’s history per se and of some of its other ethnic, religious and regional communities’ role therein.

While most of the contributors relate their historical analysis to the causes and features of the current war, they eschew heated, partisan views and sectarian labels in favour of objectivity. In the words of co-editor Michael Kerr: “Viewing the war for Syria primarily through the lens of either third party intervention or sectarianism distorts the complexity of the Alawi community’s contemporary experience and its diverging responses to it… Furthermore, one cannot catalogue, connect and affirm the Alawi community’s historical trajectory or its ancient doctrinal religious and tribal identities neatly with either the struggle for Syria today or its part in it”. (pp. 1-2, 7)

Like many other contributors, Raymond Hinnebusch argues that Alawi identity is not monolithic: “multiple possible identities exist in Syria, ranging from the narrowest — clan, tribe, and sect — to broader party, class and state identifications, to supra-state identities… several identities can be held simultaneously” and they can change since they are shaped by material reality… “agency also matters, namely the promotion of identities by political entrepreneurs”. (pp. 107-8)

In another chapter, Max Weiss suggests rethinking the “mosaicist” and “sectarianist” approaches “that have obfuscated some of the country’s most interesting and complex social realities”. (p. 64)

In the view of Leon T. Goldsmith, “To be Alawi means many things to different members of the sect, with multiple sources of overlapping identity including Arab, Muslim, Shi’a, Syrian, Turkish, Lebanese, urban, rural, working class and elite”. (p. 141)

Further evidence of the community’s diversity is presented in Carsten Wieland’s article about Alawis’ role in the secular opposition, historically and in the early stages of the 2011 uprising. 

Several presuppositions about the Alawi community’s history are revisited and partially discredited. The idea that the Alawis were a persecuted minority under Ottoman rule is disputed by Stefan Winter based on archival records from Istanbul and Tripoli. As to the claim that the Alawis collaborated with the French colonial authorities during the Mandate period, this was true of only part of the community. Another part actively rebelled against the French plan to create a separate Alawi state. 

The heart of the matter is how Alawis came to dominate the Syrian state, which hinges on an analysis of their agency in the context of the rise of nationalism, the army and the Ba’ath Party, leading this rural community to seek state positions as a means of social mobility — and, of course, power-seeking on the part of leaders.

Here several ironies come into play as pointed out by Fabrice Balanche: “While underdevelopment and demographic dynamism in the 1950s and 1960s arguably motivated and facilitated the Alawi community’s rise to power, their demographic transition and social promotion were actually significant factors in weakening the Asad state… While former Syrian president Hafez Al Asad’s regime benefited from the poverty of the Alawis, Bashar’s rule has been weakened by the exclusive social promotion of the Alawi community during his tenure”. (p. 79)

Most contributors agree that it was a drive for total control, not sectarianism, which motivated the former president’s state-building strategies whereby trusted Alawis, often kinsmen, were disproportionately appointed to crucial positions in the military and security apparatus. 

Yet, Asad also created a broad coalition, including significant Sunni representation, in the government, Ba’ath Party and economy. The narrowing of the regime’s social base occurred when Bashar instituted neoliberal reforms that privileged investors over its traditional constituencies, thus breaking the social contract that, alongside co-optation and harsh repression of dissent, had underpinned regime stability for decades. 

Still, none of the contributors contend that the economic situation was the main cause of the war.

The book concludes with a very interesting chapter evaluating the viability of the Syrian regime’s repressive strategy for overcoming the insurgency. There are no easy answers to be found in this book; the contributors do not pretend to have solutions to the conflict, but their powerful, fact-based arguments dispel any notion that the Syrian war is primarily a sectarian conflict, thus paving the way for a more fruitful approach.

Icy comets may have a reputation for being the inner solar system’s ancient water delivery system, but a new study finds that most of the water in our nearest neighbour, the moon, was actually delivered by asteroids around 4.5 billion to 4.3 billion years ago.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, offer a window on the processes that shaped the moon and gave the Earth much of the water for its oceans — and may shed light on the dynamics of the giant planets in the solar system’s early days.

The moon had long been thought to be exceedingly dry, based on rocks brought back by NASA’s Apollo lunar missions starting in the late 1960s. But more advanced techniques in recent years have actually picked out significant signs of water in those samples, said study co-author David Kring, a planetary scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. In fact, he added, though the surface is parched, the lunar interior might actually have about 10,000 to 10 million times more water than the surface seems to hold.

But how exactly could all that water get to the moon and the Earth? Scientists have gone back and forth on whether the water came mainly from comets, which are full of ice but reside far beyond the orbit of Pluto, or asteroids, which are much closer (lying, today, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter) but thought to be rockier and drier.

That, however, is something of a misconception, Kring said.

“Asteroids are also water rich or can be water rich,” Kring said. Often, that water is locked into the molecular structure of a clay, which causes some people to overlook it, he explained. “The larger scientific community oftentimes views them as rocks and they equate rocks as being inherently dry — and that simply is not true.”

To try and answer this question, an international team of researchers pulled data from a range of different studies that had analysed lunar samples brought back from the moon or meteorites (which are thought to be chunks of asteroids that fell to Earth). They studied the composition of volatile elements in the space rocks, looking in particular at the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium (a heavier isotope of hydrogen). This hydrogen-to-deuterium ratio acts as a sort of fingerprint that allows researchers to figure out where the moon’s water came from. In broad strokes: If it looks a lot like the ratio of a comet, it probably came from a comet. If the ratio looks like that of a certain type of asteroid, then it came from an asteroid.

After carefully collecting and modelling the data, the researchers found that the moon’s water probably came mostly from asteroids — even though comets have the reputation for being rich in water ice. From about 4.5 to 4.3 billion years ago, during a period the scientists are calling the “late accretion window”, more than 80 per cent of the moon’s water likely came from various types of asteroids and less than 20 per cent of it came from comets. Back then, the young, hot moon was covered in a magma ocean and the space missiles would have sunk their cargo into the fluid mix.

The findings could help explain where much of our planet’s water came from. After all, the freshly formed moon was far closer to Earth in the early days after its violent birth around 4.5 billion years ago. It is believed to have formed when a Mars-sized body slammed into Earth, ripping off debris that would coalesce to form our lunar satellite. During the time period Kring and his colleagues studied, the moon would have looked about 16 times bigger in the sky than it does today.

“Basically, whatever was happening on the moon was happening on the Earth,” Kring said.

The findings could also help scientists adjust their understanding of the forces at play in the larger solar system, Kring added. After all, if the majority of the moon’s water during this time period came from asteroids, it meant that the comets were not getting dragged out of their distant, elliptical orbits and yanked into the inner solar system.

The theory that comets predominantly brought water to Earth (and other bodies) requires some pretty notable movements or accretion rates on the part of gas giants like Jupiter, which are the only planetary bodies massive enough to exert the necessary gravitational pull. If most of the water instead came from asteroids, it might offer scientists new clues into the behaviour of Jupiter and its cohorts during this time period, the scientist said.

“That is going to be an important constraint on models of how the solar system evolved — that is, how and when giant planets formed, when their orbits changed and so on,” Kring said. “So the implications, I think, are far beyond the application to the Earth and the moon.”

Nothing stays the same. If there is one field where this is particularly true it is in Information Technology (IT), and perhaps in its most significant aspect, the Web.

If having a fast ADSL Internet connection was a matter of pride so far, the technology is showing its age and is on its way out. Several other forms of subscription and channels to the Web are now available and are gradually replacing ADSL.

Fibre optics, DSL, microwave, 3G, 4G, leased lines, T3, etc.. are some of the wired and wireless options, other than the wired ADSL, and they offer significantly better, more reliable and of course faster connection.

There are inherent limitations to copper-wired ADSL. Although you can subscribe to faster or slower formulas, the peak speed will not exceed 24Mb (megabyt per second) in the best case. Moreover the upload speed is but a fraction of the download speed. Typically if you enjoy 24Mb download, the upload will be around 1 or 2 Mb. Five or ten years ago it was not a constraint, for users would browse (i.e. download) much more than they would send data (i.e. upload).

Today with the huge size of audiovisual material we exchange, with extensive and ever increasing usage of the cloud — which implies equal and large amounts of downloads and uploads — ADSL is just not enough.

Last but not least, your ISP (Internet Service Provider) will put several subscribers on the same ADSL connection and will make them share it, resulting in unstable, inconsistent speeds and performance, depending on whose doing what on that shared line.

Consider just the size of the pictures you take with your smartphone. Thanks to the much improved resolution of the new handsets’ cameras, it has been multiplied by four in the last six or seven years. So when you send or receive a photo taken with an up to date, high-end smartphone, this alone requires a connection certainly better than regular copper-wired ADSL.

Some networks, like for instance WhatsApp, automatically downsize the picture you are sending so as not to overload the network, and also to put less stress their own servers. This results in pictures with reduced quality. If all networks were consistently fast there would be no need for such downsizing. WhatsApp statistics indicate that an average 1.6 billion photos are exchanged on its network every day (figures of February 2016). Doesn’t this call for better than ADSL?

If you use a cloud storage service such as OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox, here too ADSL is hardly a good solution.

Most of the new subscription formulas and technical implementations offered by the ISPs, including by those operating in Jordan, fare better than ADSL. In plain the latter has become somewhat old.

Times have changed and the need for faster and more consistent Internet has become a real need, certainly not a luxury, and it is justified at home as much as it is at work.

As always performance comes at a price. Whereas ADSL has become relatively inexpensive, with household subscriptions being at about JD250 per year, 4G for example is still charged much higher by the local ISPs. One of the leading providers in Jordan charges JD10 for each 4GB you would use via your 4G-enabled smartphone.

As for the leased lines that large enterprises and businesses often subscribe to, although prices have gone down recently, they are still in the range of a few thousands dinars per year. If it is often feasible for business it is rarely so for home use.

One way or another, and regardless of cost, ADSL is bound to disappear very soon.

With freewheeling summer months behind children and school and organised sports just ahead, new research offers some sobering news about the potential for long-term cost when a child’s brain is hurt.

In a study that tracked the life trajectories of more than a million Swedes, young people who sustained a brain injury — including a concussion — before the age of 25 were more likely to have a tougher, and shorter, life than were their uninjured siblings.

Compared to a broad population of their unhurt peers, young people who were treated in the hospital for a single traumatic brain injury before the age of 25 were nearly twice as likely, by their mid-30s or so, to be hospitalised for a psychiatric illness. They were 76 per cent more likely to be unable to work and require disability benefits. And they were 72 per cent more likely to die before reaching the age of 36.

In a bid to ensure that those starkly different outcomes weren’t the product of differing socioeconomic circumstances or family situations, the researchers also compared the outcomes of individuals who sustained a brain injury before age 25 directly with those of a sibling who did not.

That direct comparison only marginally diluted the divergent outcomes of the brain-injured and those who were not. Compared to his or her unharmed sibling, an individual who had at least one brain injury before age 25 was 57 per cent more likely to have an in-patient psychiatric hospitalisation, 49 per cent more likely to receive disability benefits, and 40 per cent more likely to die by his or her mid-30s.

Failing to complete high school and receiving welfare payments were also more common among those with an early brain injury, even after family circumstances were taken into account.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine, comes against the backdrop of growing concern about youth brain injuries, particularly those related to organised sports. In 2009, nearly a quarter-million US children (age 19 and under) were diagnosed with and treated in US hospitals for sports- and recreation-related injuries, a 57 per cent rise over an eight-year period.

In a population of 1,143,470 youngsters born between 1973 and 1985, the new study identified 104,290 Swedes who were diagnosed and treated in a hospital for traumatic brain injury before the age of 25. While the severity of those injuries varied, 77.4 per cent were diagnosed as mild TBI — more typically called concussion.

To be sure, the vast majority of the young Swedes in the study — including the 9.1 per cent who were treated in the hospital for a brain injury while young — turned out just fine. In both groups, it was rare to develop serious psychiatric illness or require disability payments by the age of 41, or to die before the age of 36. But among those who had sustained a significant blow to the head, such poor adult outcomes were notably less rare.

Statistically, having such a low rate of poor outcomes can magnify small differences between two groups. When the “base number” of those who die early or experience hardships is tiny, even a numerically small increase in such people can appear as a stark difference.

But it is a difference, and the design of the new research suggests that brain trauma likely contributed to an increased risk of hardship. Moreover, these differences were evident even with the study’s relatively short follow-up period (data collection ended in 2014, when the youngest in the cohort would only have reached 29). The data suggest that as this group of Swedes ages, divergence between the two groups might widen.

Not surprisingly, the worse the youthful brain trauma, the greater was the likelihood of a poorer life course for young Swedes who participated in the study.

But recurrent brain trauma also worsened life prospects. Among those who went to a hospital more than once for a brain injury before the age of 25, the likelihood of ending up on disability in early adulthood was more than 2 1/2 times greater than for the uninjured. One in 11 of those who sustained more than one traumatic brain injury before the age of 25 went on to be considered incapable of work, and thus eligible for disability payments.

In the United States, similar levels of TBI-related disability would exact a tremendous price, the authors reckoned: If TBI affected similar numbers of Americans, keeping them out of the labour force and requiring the payment of disability benefits, the cost over 30 years would be $1.1 trillion, they estimated.

Finally, the authors of the new study found that the age at which a person sustained his or her first brain injury mattered. Those injured later in adolescence and young adulthood fared more poorly than those hurt early, suggesting that a child’s brain may be more resilient in the face of injury than that of a young adult.

In an editorial published alongside the new study, two Canadian injury-prevention specialists, Dr Donald A. Redelmeier and Sheharyar Raza, cautioned that when as many as two or three decades separate an injury from a measured “outcome”, it’s not easy to draw a causal line from one to another.

But, they added, “these data comprise the strongest available long-term analysis of concussions in youths, since a randomised trial is unethical and animal experiments cannot examine psychosocial outcomes”.

All of this bespeaks the importance of preventing brain trauma in young people, said the new study’s authors. When 9 per cent of a cohort is experiencing brain trauma at some point in their youth, they wrote, “basic strategies” — seatbelt and helmet use, better protective gear in athletics, less reckless behaviour — “need more attention”.

If you have watched any Indian classical music performances, you would have seen that the singers occasionally touch the lobes of their left or right ear, whenever they mention their Gurus. 

This is because the Indian classical music teaching still follows the ancient “mentor-mentee” tradition, according to which the protégés revere their tutors, and taking their name or even mentioning them in passing, is considered extremely inappropriate. So, if the performers talk about them, they hold their ears in the time-honoured sign of apology. Following the same ritual, even before I refer to this great master, let me clasp my ears in a symbol of forgiveness. 

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul needs no introduction but when I met him for the first time I forgot to tell him my name. I shook his hand, told him how much I admired his writing and then before I could even catch my breath, a big burly butler whisked his wheelchair away. Lady Nadira Naipaul must have noticed my disappointment because she invited me over to their table for dinner later, the same evening.

Seated opposite him I was overcome with shyness. Here was a living legend, a Nobel Prize winning writer who had published more than 30 books, was knighted in 1989 and was the author of “A House for Mr Biswas”, which according to me, was the best English novel to be ever written in my lifetime. It was actually written a few years before I was born, but you know what I mean. Published in 1961, the book contained some of his funniest writing as it depicted the life of its protagonist, Mr Mohun Biswas, in Port of Spain, Trinidad. 

In a situation like this I got down to noting what he ate and discovered that he was a vegetarian who sometimes tried seafood. Soon I mustered the courage to talk to him. The two things that interested him instantly were my Sanskrit name, and the place where I lived, i.e. Jordan. He asked me if I knew anything about Gertrude Bell. I did not. His eyes clouded over and he went back to eating his ice cream. 

Subsequently I bought the book Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell and read it from cover to cover. I also saw the 2015 American epic biographical drama film based on the life of the British traveller, which starred Nicole Kidman. Then I waited for Sir V, as I got around to calling him, to ask me about her again. He never did.

I knew about his temperamental personality so when he agreed to participate at my book launch last year, I was over the moon. However, if truth be told, till the last minute I did not believe that he would actually arrive. At the designated hour, when his favourite burly butler pushed his wheelchair into the corridor, I realised that sometimes wishes could actually come true. The confidence his presence gave me was tremendous although he must have forgotten about the event immediately afterwards, I was sure. 

But, over tea, the other day, he suddenly turned towards me.

“Nickunj,” he announced my name clearly. 

“Yes,” I answered. 

“After the wonderful launch of your book, how is it doing now? ” he asked. 

“You remembered?” I exclaimed in astonishment. 

He looked at me without blinking. 

“Ahem! Sir V, Jordan good, India better,” I mumbled, fighting the urge to pull my ear.

NEW YORK — A huge catalogue of human Deoxyribo Nadeic acid (DNA) is helping researchers find tiny glitches that cause disease, in part by pointing out some false leads.

The database, with genetic codes from more than 60,000 people, is aimed at researching rare diseases that are generally caused by a single malfunctioning gene. Most of these diseases are so uncommon that the general public has never heard of them, but there are thousands of such conditions, and as a group they affect about 1 per cent of births.

Better accuracy in identifying the genetic cause of a person’s disease provides a “clear and direct benefit to patients”, said Daniel MacArthur of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

He is senior author of an analysis published Wednesday in the journal Nature by researchers who compiled the database, which draws on DNA data from more than two-dozen disease studies. It went online in 2014 and has since been consulted more than 5 million times, he said.

For rare diseases, doctors try to find the genetic cause by analysing the patient’s DNA. But everybody carries tens of thousands of minute differences from the standard DNA code, and the goal is to find which one or two of them is making the person sick.

Researchers frequently do that through guilt by association. If a variation shows up in a patient but it is never seen or extremely rare in others, it may be fingered as the cause of disease.

The challenge is getting enough DNA from the general public. If the sampling is too small or not comprehensive enough for diverse populations, a variant may be wrongly blamed as the cause of the patient’s problems. A better sampling might show the variant actually appears in healthy people often enough that it’s clearly not making anybody sick.

False leads can harm patient care, including in some cases missing out on treatments, MacArthur said.

An example of such a “genetic misdiagnosis” was presented Wednesday in an unrelated study in the New England Journal of Medicine. It focused on an inherited disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which thickens heart muscle and can interfere with pumping blood.

Examining three years of records from a testing lab, it found that seven patients were told they carried one of two DNA variants that had been linked to the heart disease. Both variants were later reclassified as benign.

At least five of the patients were of African ancestry. If the original studies of those variants had included enough black Americans in their samples, they probably would not have reached the wrong conclusion, the Harvard researchers said.

They said the new DNA catalogue, dubbed ExAC, is well-equipped to avoid such errors. It provides a far more comprehensive collection of DNA variations than has been available in the past. The roughly 10 million tiny variations listed are from people of European, African, South Asian, East Asian and Latino ancestry.

In a separate study, recently released by the journal Genetics in Medicine, British authors used ExAC data to cast doubt on recent reports that implicated some genes in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and a second heart muscle disease.

The analysis in Nature provided another example of how ExAC can point out past mistakes. Researchers looked at 192 DNA variations that had been linked to diseases, but which ExAC showed were actually so common in the general population that those links appeared spurious.

The researchers found that under standard criteria, at least 163 should be reclassified as benign or probably benign. As of last December, 126 had been reclassified, the researchers reported. That probably reflects the influence of the ExAC database, MacArthur said

But databases even bigger than ExAC will be needed to decisively link genetic variations to disease or rule them out, he said. “We have a long way to go,” he said.

Jay Shendure, a genetics expert at the University of Washington in Seattle who didn’t participate in the new work, said the ExAC catalogue offers advantages over previous databases. There’s “little doubt” that it will accelerate and refine the search for disease causes and genetic aspects of patient care, he wrote in a Nature commentary.

On the market since 1993 and before the compact crossover became a runaway success and distinct automotive segment. An early if somewhat unlikely trendsetter offering a mix of practicality and value, the Sportage has come a long way since, with the latest and most advanced fourth generation debuting earlier this year.

An ambitious and confident vehicle setting out to take on European and Japanese rivals head on, the Sportage is a markedly classier, more refined and dynamically resolved vehicle than the one it replaces. Boasting new infotainment, convenience and driver assistance technologies and perky and sporty 1.6-litre turbocharged engine, the nimble new Sportage’s chassis enhancements also make it a more refined and agile drive.

Stiffer and sportier

Assertive and taut, the new Sportage’s evolution of Kia’s corporate “tiger” nose fascia features a larger low-set grille for improved engine cooling, and higher set headlights stretching back to scalloped bonnet edges. From rear quarter view, it is bulging and athletic, with tight rear lights, strong shoulders and rear arches. 

With smooth yet discretely muscular surfacing, swept back tapering lines and pert rear with tailgate spoiler, the Sportage’s silhouette carries a sense of urgent momentum. The sportier GT Line model driven features “ice cube” LED fog lamps, dual exhaust tips, large 19-inch alloy wheels and aluminium effect front skid plate and rear diffuser style lower lips.

Utilising 51 per cent Advanced High Strength Steel content compared with its predecessor’s 18 per cent, the stiffer new Sportage is designed for improved ride, handling, refinement and crash safety. With particular emphasis on stiffer pillars, sills, wheel arches and roof, torsional rigidity improves by 39 per cent, and with extensive safety features, the new Sportage earns a maximum 5-star EuroNCAP safety rating.

Versatile delivery

Powered by same but detuned version of the turbocharged direct injection 1.6 T-GDI four-cylinder engine from the European market Kia Pro_cee’d GT hot hatch, the Sportage GT Line develops 175BHP at 5500rpm and 195lb/ft at 1500-4500. Driving front wheels normally and diverting power rearwards when for additional traction, the GT Line sprints through 0-100km/h in 9.1 seconds and can achieve 201km/h.

Confident off-the-line and responsively versatile throughout a muscular broad mid-range, the Sportage’s T-GDI gives a slight 6BHP power disadvantage but gains 20lb/ft torque over its naturally aspirated 2.4-litre sister model. Capable of a higher top speed owing to more torque yet only marginally quicker in acceleration, the difference is in the T-GDI’s more urgent rather than progressive delivery.

Were the Sportage GT Line been offered with the Pro_cee’d GT’s more potent 201BHP, it would have carved out a distinctly more sporty position than the Sportage 2.4. However, as is, it achieves significant fuel efficiency advantage of 7.5l/100km combined, which is more important for drivers in the family-oriented compact crossover segment.

Nimble and sure-footed

Exclusively offered with a 7-speed automated dual clutch gearbox in place of other Sportage models’ conventional 6-speed automatic option the 1.6 T-GDI benefits from crisper and quicker shifts, especially in “sport” mode. With separate clutches lining up sequential ratios, shifts are smooth and concise, but yet more responsive manual mode shifting would be welcome.

Using independent MacPherson strut front and multi-link rear suspension — now with dual lower-arms — the new Sportage has been upgraded to provide improved ride and handling qualities. Featuring stiffer bushings with revised mounting points and improved isolation, the Sportage also gets stiffer wheel bearings and cross member, revised dampers and suspension geometry, and more direct, fluent and refined steering.

More refined, stable and sporty than its predecessor, the new Sportage’s dynamic improvements were evident on test drive. Having recently recruited a former BMW M Division vice president with an eye on developing their cars handling properties, Kia’s efforts were evident on winding UAE hill climbs, through which the Sportage felt nimble, agile and sharp.

Classy and comfortable

Tucking tidily into corners, the Sportage’s steering feels tighter and precise on-centre and weighs up nicely through bends. Eager, tidy and grippy with little evidence of understeer, the Sportage well controlled lateral weight shifts through corners. Running on firmer and grippier 245/45R19 tyres, the Sportage was smooth, settled and reassuring on highway, with a good compromise between ride comfort and sporty manners.

Refined and quiet over imperfect surfaces, the new Sportage’s noise, vibration and harshness isolation is well improved. Classier and more comfortable inside, the new Sportage features logical, uncluttered and ergonomic dash and console design extensively uses soft textures and quality trim in prominent places. A 40mm longer wheelbase improves stability and rear passenger space, while cabin access and headroom are good for its segment.

Ergonomic with good driving position, 10-way adjustable driver’s seat and firmer more supportive centre cushion and improved rear seat tilt adjustability, the GT Line’s dual clutch gearbox lever is better positioned than the automatic models’. Infotainment, safety and convenience options include 8-inch touchscreen, reversing camera, wireless phone charging, automatic tailgate opening, and blindspot, high beam and lane change warning and assistance systems.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 1.6-litre, transverse, turbocharged 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 77 x 85.44mm

Compression ratio: 10:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, variable valve timing, direct injection

Gearbox: 7-speed dual clutch automated, four-wheel drive

Ratios: 1st 3.929; 2nd 2.318; 3rd 2.043; 4th 1.070; 5th 0.822; 6th 0.884; 7th 0.721; R 5.304

Final drive 1, 2, 4, 5/3, 6, 7, R: 4.333/3.25 

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 175 (177) [130] @5,500rpm

Specific power: 110BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 114BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 195 (265) @1,500-4,500rpm

Specific torque: 166.5Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 172.75Nm/tonne

0-100 km/h: 9.1-seconds

Top speed: 201km/h

Fuel economy, urban/extra-urban/combined: 9.2-/6.5-/7.5-litres/100km

CO² emissions, combined: 175g/km

Fuel capacity: 62-litres

Length: 4,480mm

Width: 1,855mm

Height: 1,635mm

Wheelbase: 2,670mm

Track, F/R: 1,613/1,625mm

Overhang, F/R: 910/900mm

Headroom, F/R: 997/993mm

Legroom, F/R: 1,129/970mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1,450/1,400mm

Hip room, F/R: 1,380/1,300mm

Cargo capacity, min/max: 491/1,480 litres

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.33

Kerb weight: 1,534kg

Suspension: MacPherson struts/multi-link, anti-roll bars

Steering: Electric assistance, rack & pinion

Turning circle: 10.6 metres

Lock-to-lock: 2.71 turns

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs, 305mm/discs, 302mm

Tyres: 245/45R19

SAN FRANCISCO — You’re stuck at a red light. It’s taking forever.

How much time until the light turns green? Ten seconds? Twenty seconds? A minute and a half?

Would you be more patient if you knew exactly how long it will take?

Audi is betting yes. The German luxury carmaker said Monday that several cars in its 2017 line-up will be available with a cloud-computer-connected countdown timer for red lights, displayed on the instrument panel and heads-up display.

The service is scheduled to roll out city by city, starting this year in Las Vegas; Washington, DC; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; and possibly others.

The Los Angeles area will have to wait at least a year or two — because the region is so huge, with so many governments involved, according to the countdown system’s technology supplier, Traffic Technology Services.

Government agencies already collect information from traffic signals and road sensors to help manage traffic flow. Now, participating agencies will contract with companies to sift that software and predict when lights will change from red to green.

Audi will pass along that information to drivers who subscribe to its broadband data plans.

How do drivers benefit? Audi believes they will feel less stressed in heavy traffic if they know how long they’ll have to wait for a green light.

“If you’ve got 45 seconds, you can take care of the kid in the back seat,” said Anuparm Malhotra, the general manager of connectivity for Audi. “It’s a more relaxed form of driving.”

City air, theoretically, could benefit, too. Vehicles equipped with start-stop engines, like hybrids, could be programmed to shut themselves down while they wait for the green light, saving fuel and wear and tear. That won’t be immediately available on the Audis, but it could be in the future.

Such systems might also be used to time a string of green lights and recommend a speed to help the driver make them all, or integrate with mapping systems to give advance warning of traffic tie-ups and suggest alternative routes.

The countdown clock is more than a gimmick. It’s an early indicator of dramatic changes in automobile transport as more connected cars hit the highways.

“Traffic engineers will do their jobs better. Vehicles and drivers will make better decisions,” said Kevin Balke, the research engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.

For decades, the US Department of Transportation has been working with academics, transportation officials and vehicle manufacturers to use data to make highways safer, using available technologies. Those bad weather road reports you can get by tuning into 1610 on your AM radio? That’s part of what’s known as Intelligent Transportation Systems.

With technology at the point where it’s cheap enough and pervasive enough for cars to begin communicating with each other and with traffic management systems, new applications are beginning to flood in, Balke said.

Some examples: When a cluster of vehicles hits their brakes hard around a curve, vehicles travelling behind and out of sight could be warned. Same for cars skidding on a suddenly icy road. The countdown clock could be improved to warn drivers trying to make it through a yellow light that they don’t have a chance. The potential applications are countless.

“It’s a huge benefit for the infrastructure and vehicles to talk to each other,” Balke said.

Other car companies are likely to follow Audi’s lead, according to Traffic Technology Services.

This is not the first foray into red light countdown timers for drivers. The EnLighten app for iPhones, Android devices and connected BMW vehicles has the same function, though users have given it mixed reviews.

Audi emphasised that the feature it announced Monday is not a smartphone app but is integrated into the automaker’s communication system.

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. intends to have a fully driverless vehicle — no steering wheel, no pedals — on the road within five years. The car will initially be used for commercial ride-hailing or ride-sharing services, with sales to consumers coming later.

“This is a transformational moment in our industry and it is a transformational moment for our company,” said CEO Mark Fields, as he announced the plan Tuesday at Ford’s Silicon Valley campus in Palo Alto, California.

Ford’s approach to the autonomous car breaks from many other companies, like Mercedes-Benz and Tesla Motors, which plan to gradually add self-driving capability to traditional cars. Just last month, BMW AG, Intel Corp. and the automotive camera maker Mobileye announced a plan to put an autonomous vehicle with a steering wheel on the road by 2021.

Instead, Ford is taking the same approach as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which supports moving directly to self-driving cars once the technology is perfected.

“We abandoned the stepping-stone approach of driver-assist technologies and decided we were going to take the full leap,” said Raj Nair, the chief technical officer of Ford.

Nair says Ford will continue developing systems that assist the driver, like automatic emergency braking or lane departure warning. But he said semiautonomous systems that can operate the car but then cede control back to the driver when an obstacle is encountered are actually dangerous in Ford’s view. Engineers couldn’t figure out how to make sure drivers stay engaged and ready to take over. So, Ford decided to remove the driver altogether.

“We learned that to achieve full autonomy, we have to take a completely different path,” Nair said.

Jeremy Carlson, a senior analyst with IHS Automotive, says he doesn’t know of another automaker that is taking Ford’s approach. But there are challenges either way, he said. Riders may have a hard time trusting fully autonomous cars, for example, but semiautonomous cars can be dangerous because drivers may not understand what the vehicles can and cannot do.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any one right answer,” he said.

But Dillon Blake, senior director of business development for Runzheimer, a transportation consulting firm, says Ford’s approach could go wrong very quickly.

“When you do it in steps, you get to make tweaks along the way. When you go all or bust, it’s like going ‘all in’ in Vegas,” Blake said.

Ford’s vehicle will be specifically designed for commercial mobility services, like taxi companies, and will be available in high volumes. Ford says personal ownership of self-driving cars will come later.

Ford didn’t say whether it would work with a ride-sharing partner or try to establish services on its own. Rival General Motors Co. has a partnership with the ride-hailing company Lyft and has also bought a self-driving software company called Cruise Automation.

Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford also said it plans to double the staff at its Palo Alto research centre by the end of next year to nearly 300 people. It will buy two more buildings next to its current building in order to expand its campus, Fields said.

Ford will also make several investments and partnerships to speed its development of autonomous vehicles.

Ford and Chinese search engine company Baidu will each invest $75 million in Velodyne, a company that makes laser sensors that help guide self-driving cars. Velodyne, based in Morgan Hill, California, says it will use the $150 million investment to expand design and production and reduce the cost of its sensors. Laser sensors — dubbed Lidar, which stands for light, detection and ranging — can also be used in conventional vehicles as part of driver assist systems.

Ford said it has acquired Israel-based computer vision and machine learning company SAIPS for its expertise in artificial intelligence and computer vision. It also invested in Berkeley, California-based Civil Maps for its three-dimensional mapping capabilities.

Ford has also formed a partnership with New York-based Nirenberg Neuroscience LLC, a machine vision company that has developed devices for restoring sight to patients with degenerative eye diseases.