Geek News

The early development of our universe is still quite a mystery, but in a new study published today in Nature , researchers describe what may be evidence of when the first stars began to form. After the Big Bang, which took place some 13.7 billion years ago, the universe was dark, hot and full of high-energy particles. Photons couldn't survive, but after around 380,000 years, the universe cooled enough to allow light to actually stick around. That's when the cosmic microwave background (CMB) came to be. It's our universe's first surviving radiation and researchers have looked to it in order to learn more about the earliest years of our universe. Researchers have theorized that we might be able to see when stars began to form by looking for a dip in the intensity of the CMB. The reasoning is that once stars started forming, they would have heated up the hydrogen gas permeating the universe. When that gas heated up, it would have absorbed radiation from the CMB, cau...

India's government Aadhaar database , which holds personal information of over one billion Indian citizens, was allegedly breached, BuzzFeed News reports. Along with demographic info, the database also contains biometric data like fingerprints and iris scans. Indian publication The Tribune reported earlier today that it was able to access any registered citizen's demographics after it was granted admin access by an anonymous individual. In just 20 minutes, a reporter was given an administrator ID and a password after contacting the individual through WhatsApp and transferring what amounted to less than $8. Afterwards, the reporter was able to plug in anyone's Aadhaar number and get their name, address, postal code, photo, phone number and email. For an additional $5, the reporter was also able to get software that allowed them to print an Aadhaar card with anyone's number. An officer with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the government authori...