Beemageddon: White House reveals national strategy to tackle honeybee decline

© Reuters / Dominic Ebenbichler

    

The dwindling number of honeybees in the US has been a constant worry for farmers in recent years - and now the White House is buzzing into action. On Tuesday, the Obama administration unveiled a new strategy aimed at protecting honeybees' habitat.

The National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators will seek to manage the way forests are burned by wildfires and replanted, how offices are landscaped, and how roadside habitats where bees feed are preserved.

Drawing on the work of 14 agencies, along with the private sector, it aims to reduce honeybee colony losses during winter to no more than 15 percent within a decade. It also states that the government and private entities will restore or enhance 7 million acres of land for pollinators over the next five years.

The strategy is based on findings from the Pollinator Health Task Force, created by the White House in 2014 to study the honeybees' decline.

"I have to say that it is mighty darn lovely having the White House acknowledge the indigenous, unpaid and invisible workforce that somehow has managed to sustain all terrestrial life without healthcare subsidies, or a single COLA, for that past 250 million years," said Sam Droege, a US Geological Survey wildlife biologist and an expert on native bee identification, as quoted by The Washington Post.

But 'Beemageddon' has actually been on the White House's agenda for some time. In fact, the federal government launched an action plan on the dwindling honeybee population as long ago as 2007.

President Obama himself has also expressed ongoing concern about the insects' ever-decreasing numbers.

During an Oval Office meeting in 2013, Obama asked White House science adviser John Holdren: "What are we doing on bees? Are we doing enough?" That discussion started turning the wheels for the White House Pollinator Health Task Force.

The president also signed off on the placement of a beehive on the South Lawn of the White House in 2009. The approval of a pollinators' garden later followed.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) stated in an interview that preventing the honeybee genocide was "an essential thing [that] we need to pay attention to."

The plight of the bees - described as a potential ecological disaster by some environmentalists and experts - has been a source of ongoing stress for beekeepers, farmers, and environmentalists, as the insects are relied upon to pollinate the plants that produce a quarter of the food consumed by Americans.

A government report released last month found that 42.1 percent of the US honeybee population died last year.

However, the exact cause of the mass deaths remains unknown - and has sparked fierce debate in the US.

Some have pointed the finger at a class of insecticide known as neonicotinoids, or neonics, which is used on crops such as corn, as well as on standard garden plants. Others have blamed the varroa mite parasite, along with the stresses that bee colonies endure while being carted from farm to farm during growing seasons.

The Obama administration has proposed spending $82.5 million on honeybee research in the upcoming budget year - up from the current $34 million.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing a series of studies on the effects of neonics on bees and plants; the first in a series of assessments is expected to be released later this year. The agency will also implement new restrictions on which pesticides farmers can use when commercial honeybees are pollinating their crops.

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The IMF leaks Greece

© Reuters

    

Whenever secret or confidential information or documents are leaked to the press, the first question should always be who leaked it and why. That's often more important than the contents of what has been leaked. And since there's been a lot of hullabaloo about a leaked document the past two days, here's a closer look. Spoiler alert: the document(s) don't reveal much of anything new, despite the hullabaloo.

On Saturday, Paul Mason at Channel 4 in Britain posted an IMF document(s) that according to him says, among other things, that the IMF expects a June 5 Grexit - in one form or another - if there is no agreement before that date between Athens and its creditors, 'the institutions' (of which the IMF itself is one).

The leaking is simply what it is as long as we don't know the how and why. But the question will remain why somebody takes the risk to leak something only a small and select group of people are privy to. Is it leaked because it's politically important, does Paul Mason pay a lot of money for leaks? Or is it perhaps an intentional leak, in this case ordered by IMF higher-ups? And if so, for what reason? A veiled threat?

Fact is that when you look through the documents Mason published, you notice that he adds his own interpretation to them. Mason, to whom documents seem to be leaked on a regular basis - he wrote about 2 more leaked documents 3 months ago - for instance suggests quite strongly in his write up at Channel 4 that June 5th is the date for a possible default.

However, the documents don't mention that date. They only talk about June, not June 5. Mason writes about IMF 'staff': "They point to the €1.5 billion due to the IMF in June as the first vulnerable payment."

The €1.5 billion is not one payment, though. The first June payment, at least according to a Bloomberg overview , which is indeed scheduled for June 5, is 'only' €310 million. There are then subsequent payments to the IMF scheduled on June 12 (€348 million), June 16 (€581 million), and June 19 (another €348 million). These are rough numbers, there are slightly different ones doing the rounds; still, they'll do.

But June 5 is by no means carved in stone as a default date (€310 million might be feasible for Athens), though Mason does make it seem like that. Every single day counts now in the negotiations. And a €310 million payment on June 5 would buy Greece at least another week. Which may prove crucial. For both sides of the negotiating table. Greece might even miss one or two payments; the consequences of such a move would be mainly a political decision, meaning there's some room to move.

We noticed, by the way, another example of 'Masonic' interpretation in the video that accompanies the article. In it, Mason claims (at about 1:10) that "..the writer of this document thinks Greek pensions are too generous even now." While it's possible that he talked to the writer, or received additional information that he doesn't mention, fact is that the document doesn't corroborate his statement in the video. There's no mention of this claim. Maybe it's Paul Mason's own opinion?!

The main sticking points with the 'institutions' now seem to be 'labor reform' (i.e. down with the unions -how IMF can you get?) and pensions. Syriza has once again said this morning that it refuses to cave in on either. And there's also the case of the 4000 or so re-hired cleaning ladies and school guards. The well-paid negotiators from Brussels and Washington want them out of their poorly paid jobs again. Not going to happen on Tsipras' watch.

Yanis Varoufakis has already made clear what Syriza thinks should be done with the debt it owes to Europe: it should be swapped for paper with a repayment schedule that stretches way into the future. Looking at (re)payment schedules, it becomes clear this is not just a hollow idea. If Europe would allow for such a swap, Greece's debt picture would change radically overnight. It would take away a large part of the burden this year:

    

And when this year is over, everything looks a lot sunnier:

    

The biggest speedbump in Greece's repayment schedule is summer 2015. Take that away and things look completely different. All the institutions need to do is to provide Greece with some leeway. It's very possible to do so. If the EC, ECB and IMF decide not to allow for that leeway, there can -again- be only one conclusion, as I said before: Greece Is Now Just A Political Issue.

The 'big kahuna' issue for Syriza has been, ever since it won the elections in late January, that its voters want something seemingly impossible: an end to austerity combined with continued membership of the eurozone. 'The institutions' won't let Greece have both. Which has a lot to do with the fact that polls show continued support for euro membership in Greece; it's one big hammer that Tsipras can be banged over the head with, day after day.

'The institutions', and indeed the international media, expect Greece to cave in to their demands for more austerity at the 'final moment', because the alternative would not only be horrific - at least presumably - it would go against the wishes of the Greek people. What not a lot of people seem to understand is that Syriza can't give in, because it would mean the end of Syriza.

However, if the institutions force a Greece default, that would bring a potential disintegration of the eurozone much closer than it is today. And whoever says they're confident it can be contained are delusional liars. The risks for all three, EC, ECB and IMF, would far outstrip the few billion euros on which they may receive repayment a few years later. And they should not want these risks. Not if they have functioning neurons left.

But the biggest threat to the negotiations may not come from the institutions after all. It may well come from inside Syriza. As the Greek Analyst site reported this morning:

Call For "Rupture Now" By The Political Secretariat & Central Committee Of Syriza

Prominent members of the Central Committee and the Political Secretariat of Syriza are preparing an event for tomorrow, Tuesday May 19. Quoting from the event description, as well as the title of the invitation-pamphlet, the message of the event seems quite clear: "the only way out [of the impasse] is the choice of rupture with the lenders." :

The Moment of Truth For Syriza: "Rupture now with the lenders."

The moment of truth has arrived. The lenders are pressuring the government to sign a Memorandum agreement of neoliberal strategy (privatizations, demolition of the insurance-pension system and of the labour rights, ENFIA, VAT tax, etc.)

It turns out that the agreement of the 20th of February facilitated, objectively, this attack and "creative ambiguity" favored the powerful. The assumption that a radical program of anti-austerity can be build with the tolerance of the neoliberal steering wheels of the Eurozone proved wrong. Now, we are moving to the critical hour of decisions for the government, the party of SYRIZA, and the social majority.

We need to choose between the signing of the looming austerity agreement and the rupture with the lenders. SYRIZA cannot be turned into a party of austerity; neither can the government implement the Memorandum. This is the reason why, both domestically and abroad, proposals for the internal "cleansing" of SYRIZA and governmental solutions for "national unity" are put on the table.

For all those reasons, the only way out is the choice of rupture with the lenders. With a suspension of repayments [of the debt], measures that restrict the "freedom" of capital flight, governmental control over the banks, taxation of capital and of the rich for the financing of pro-people measures, support of this policy with any and all possible means, and with the possible break from the EMU.

For all of the above, we invite you to discuss in the open event of Rproject on Tuesday 19/5 in 7:00pm at ESIEA. Today, the future of workers, unemployed, pensioners, young people is judged. And at the same time, the future of the Radical Left in Greece, but also internationally.

    

Anatole Kaletsky thinks Syriza will blink. I saw that a few days ago with all of its assumptions and I thought: whatever. I don't even think Kaletsky knows what Syriza is. There are too many opinions and too many assumptions out there that see the negotiations as just that: negotiations (that will end badly for Tsipras and Varoufakis). But Syriza is not just another thirteen in a dozen political party. It comes with principles that it will not and cannot sell to the highest bidder. That, more than anything else, makes this a political issue.

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Let the kids learn through play

© Bjorn Lie

    

Twenty years ago, kids in preschool, kindergarten and even first and second grade spent much of their time playing: building with blocks, drawing or creating imaginary worlds, in their own heads or with classmates. But increasingly, these activities are being abandoned for the teacher-led, didactic instruction typically used in higher grades. In many schools, formal education now starts at age 4 or 5. Without this early start, the thinking goes, kids risk falling behind in crucial subjects such as reading and math, and may never catch up.

The idea seems obvious: Starting sooner means learning more; the early bird catches the worm.

But a growing group of scientists, education researchers and educators say there is little evidence that this approach improves long-term achievement; in fact, it may have the opposite effect, potentially slowing emotional and cognitive development, causing unnecessary stress and perhaps even souring kids' desire to learn.

One expert I talked to recently, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor emerita of education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., describes this trend as a "profound misunderstanding of how children learn." She regularly tours schools, and sees younger students floundering to comprehend instruction: "I've seen it many, many times in many, many classrooms — kids being told to sit at a table and just copy letters. They don't know what they're doing. It's heartbreaking."

The stakes in this debate are considerable. As the skeptics of teacher-led early learning see it, that kind of education will fail to produce people who can discover and innovate, and will merely produce people who are likely to be passive consumers of information, followers rather than inventors. Which kind of citizen do we want for the 21st century?

In the United States, more academic early education has spread rapidly in the past decade. Programs like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have contributed to more testing and more teacher-directed instruction.

Another reason: the Common Core State Standards, a detailed set of educational guidelines meant to ensure that students reach certain benchmarks between kindergarten and 12th grade. Currently, 43 states and the District of Columbia have adopted both the math and language standards.

The shift toward didactic approaches is an attempt to solve two pressing problems.

By many measures, American educational achievement lags behind that of other countries; at the same time, millions of American students, many of them poor and from minority backgrounds, remain far below national norms. Advocates say that starting formal education earlier will help close these dual gaps.

But these moves, while well intentioned, are misguided. Several countries, including Finland and Estonia, don't start compulsory education until the age of 7. In the most recent comparison of national educational levels, the Program for International Student Assessment, both countries ranked significantly higher than the United States on math, science and reading.

Of course, these countries are smaller, less unequal and less diverse than the United States. In such circumstances, education poses fewer challenges. It's unlikely that starting school at 7 would work here: too many young kids, disadvantaged or otherwise, would probably end up watching hours of TV a day, not an activity that promotes future educational achievement. But the complexities of the task in this country don't erase a fundamental fact that overly structured classrooms do not benefit many young children.

Some research indicates that early instruction in reading and other areas may help some students, but these boosts appear to be temporary. A 2009 study by Sebastian P. Suggate, an education researcher at Alanus University in Germany, looked at about 400,000 15-year-olds in more than 50 countries and found that early school entry provided no advantage. Another study by Dr. Suggate, published in 2012, looked at a group of 83 students over several years and found that those who started at age 5 had lower reading comprehension than those who began learning later.

Other research has found that early didactic instruction might actually worsen academic performance. Rebecca A. Marcon, a psychology professor at the University of North Florida, studied 343 children who had attended a preschool class that was "academically oriented," one that encouraged "child initiated" learning, or one in between. She looked at the students' performance several years later, in third and fourth grade, and found that by the end of the fourth grade those who had received more didactic instruction earned significantly lower grades than those who had been allowed more opportunities to learn through play. Children's progress "may have been slowed by overly academic preschool experiences that introduced formalized learning experiences too early for most children's developmental status," Dr. Marcon wrote.

Nevertheless, many educators want to curtail play during school. "Play is often perceived as immature behavior that doesn't achieve anything," says David Whitebread, a psychologist at Cambridge University who has studied the topic for decades. "But it's essential to their development. They need to learn to persevere, to control attention, to control emotions. Kids learn these things through playing."

Over the past 20 years, scientists have come to understand much more about how children learn. Jay Giedd, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, has spent his career studying how the human brain develops from birth through adolescence; he says most kids younger than 7 or 8 are better suited for active exploration than didactic explanation. "The trouble with over-structuring is that it discourages exploration," he says.

Reading, in particular, can't be rushed. It has been around for only about 6,000 years, so the ability to transform marks on paper into complex meaning is not pre-wired into the brain. It doesn't develop "naturally," as do other complex skills such as walking; it can be fostered, but not forced. Too often that's what schools are trying to do now. This is not to suggest that we shouldn't increase access to preschool, and improve early education for disadvantaged children. But the early education that kids get — whatever their socioeconomic background — should truly help their development. We must hope that those who make education policy will start paying attention to this science.

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Tower block inferno claims at least 16 lives in Baku, Azerbaijan

Hundreds fled for their lives when the inferno erupted in the 16-storey apartment building today

    

These shocking scenes show an inferno in an apartment block today in which at least 16 people have been killed and another 64 injured.

Hundreds fled for their lives from the deadly fire which spread rapidly amid allegations of an inflammable 'low quality of plastic' on the building.

Located in Baku, the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan, three children were among those killed in the 16 storey building, said local reports, among them a three-year-old girl.

A number were saved by firefighters, who were themselves held back by strong winds fanning the flames, while helicopters were scrambled to put out the mammoth blaze in the Caspian Sea city.

There were fears people were still missing in the carnage. The apartment block houses 408 residents in 107 flats.

The smoke from the blaze could be seen for miles after strong winds fanned the flames

    

A woman gestures for help from a burnt out window high up in the multi-storey residential building

    

Some 30 ambulances were at the scene in the Binagadi district of Baku, with initial reports saying 26 had been hospitalised.

Azerbaijan's general prosecutor Zakir Garalov accused planners of allowing 'low quality of plastic siding' on the building and said an investigation had been launched.

Among the dead was two year old Farakh Maharramova Elnur, Baku media reported.

Police officers at the scene of the fire run to avoid falling debris from landing on them

    

President Aliyev insisted that those guilty of causing the fire must be 'punished', said his aide Ali Hasanov.

'The fire that occurred in the Binagadi district of Baku has caused serious concern to President Ilham Aliyev,' he said, adding the president ordered 'comprehensive aid to those affected'.

It has been claimed the building had used an inflammable 'low quality of plastic siding'

    

Baku has seen a facelift since its days as a dour Soviet provincial capital, and is now one of the most gleaming outposts of the former Kremlin empire amid the country's energy riches.

New skyscrapers have been built, but there are concerns that safety rules are abused in the rush to modernise Baku under iron-fisted dictator Ilham Aliyev.

The president expressed grave concern over the fire and took the criminal case into the incident under his personal control.

The Prosecutor General's Office, Interior Ministry and Ministry of Emergency Situations set up a joint task force to investigate the case.

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University students design solar-powered desalination system that produces potable ocean water

© Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University.
Ryan Wasserman, E'15, tests his group's solar desalination system on a particularly sunny day on campus.

    

Five Northeastern University student-researchers have worked to address the worldwide water crisis, designing a solar-powered desalination system that produces potable ocean water.

They created the device for their senior capstone project, which was supervised by mechanical and industrial engineering professor Mohammad Taslim. Team members comprised Eric Anderson, Jon Moll, Dave Rapp, Murphy Rutledge, and Ryan Wasserman, all E'15.

In their project report, the students pointed to the urgent need to solve the global water shortage: Some 750 million people lack access to clean water, according to water.org, and approximately 840,000 people die each year from a water related disease. Indeed, the water crisis represents the greatest risk facing the world today.

"We wanted to work on this project precisely because of the world's water problem," said Wasserman, who recently graduated with his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. "Developing nations like Haiti need a cost-effective method for obtaining usable water without power input."

The team's desalination system consists of a parabolic mirror, a copper heating pipe, and two tanks—a storage tank and a condenser tanked filled with cold water. Here's how it works: A user pours a small jug of salt water into the pipe. The mirror reflects sunlight onto the pipe, causing the water to evaporate. This process creates water vapor, which in turn flows through a condenser coil located inside the condenser tank. The resulting potable water drips from the bottom of the condenser tank into the storage tank, leaving the salt behind in the pipe.

In tests, the system produced one gallon of potable water per day. While comparable products on the market produce a fraction of this quantity, Wasserman plans to fine-tune the prototype before considering its marketability.

The prototype's design, he noted, was shaped by his co-op experience with Instron, the maker of materials-testing equipment, and QinetiQ North America, the defense technology company. "Both these co-op jobs were influential," Wasserman said, adding that he recently landed a full-time job with QinetiQ. "I took in a lot of general knowledge that I was able to apply to the assembly of the system."

Taslim underscored Wasserman's sentiments, saying that capstone represents the culmination of five years of hard work in class and on co-op. "During their senior year, students put all their engineering knowledge to work by going through the entire design process from A to Z to bring an idea to reality in a fairly short time," he said. "This is a real-life experience for them so they can join the engineering world prepared."

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Foster children in CPS custody are being enrolled in drug experiments without parental consent

Kayla and Hannah Diegel suffer from a rare form of mitochondrial disease, and were removed from the custody of their parents in 2014 for allegedly disagreeing with their doctors. Are they a subject of a drug trial?

    

The U.S. federal government has mandated drug research with children. The need for children to participate in drug company research is high, and the temptation to overstep parental rights to force children to participate is great. Researchers publicly admit using money and other rewards to obtain participation of children in their drug trials.

Organizations that advocate for the rights of parents to make decisions regarding their children's healthcare are finding that foster children in CPS custody are being enrolled in drug experiments without parental approval. State Child Protective Services are enrolling children in drug experiments without parental approval or court orders. However, those who conduct these drug experiments for pharmaceutical companies, and those who are charged with monitoring such research, do not see a problem with their recruitment methods.

There is a Shortage of Children for Drug Research Studies

In a 2011 article in the Journal Pediatrics, researchers discussed the problem of recruiting children for participation in clinical trials for drug testing. Researchers from Ohio State University (Columbus) and Case Western Reserve University, confirm that the US federal government is mandating that children be included in clinical research studies.

Dr. Tishler, PhD, and Dr. Staats Reiss, PhD stated:

Since 1994, federal guidelines have called for the inclusion of children in clinical studies. Related federal incentives and laws such as the "pediatric rule" (the Pediatric Research Equity Act) and the pediatric exclusivity provision have also been passed to increase the number of pediatric clinical trials launched by pharmaceutical companies. Despite these mandates, the allocations to pediatric clinical trials in federal and private research and development budgets have remained limited. In addition, pediatric researchers continue to experience difficulty locating children and families who are willing to enroll in clinical trials.

Recruitment for pediatric studies is hampered by several factors including ethical concerns with using children as subjects, regulatory oversight that is significantly more restrictive for child trials than for adult trials, a lack of research infrastructure, the need to obtain consent from parents, and the challenge of determining appropriate payments for participation that are not coercive. [1]

These researchers were struggling with ethical considerations concerning the use of money to entice parents to enroll their children in research studies. These researchers didn't think that parents should see the enrollment of their children in drug experiments as a money-making proposition. On the other hand, they realized that money and gifts were very useful for bringing more children into pharmaceutical drug research.

They also noted that the number of pediatric research participants has been increasing. In 2006, they found that there were approximately 45,000 children participating in experiments. There has also been an increase in the number of Phase I studies with normal healthy children. In their review, only 9,817 of the 39,628 studies listed on ClinicalTrials.gov included children.

The researchers indicated that one of the most pressing challenges in doing pediatric clinical research is the limited number of participants. Researchers often must network across sites or countries to gain adequate numbers of participants. They often must expend significant energy and resources locating potential subjects.

Dr. Tishler, and Dr. Staats Reiss discussed how money is often given in exchange for voluntary participation. They stated:

One review of the Centerwatch.com clinical trials listing service published in 2002 revealed that nearly 25% of pediatric trials offered payments to participants that ranged from $25 for an investigation of influenza medications to $1500 for a psoriasis-medication study. In another study, [researchers] sent surveys to the IRB chairs [institutional review boards] at member institutions of the National Association of Children's Hospitals and the Office for Protection From Research Risks.

Sixty-six percent of these institutions used paid participants, and there was wide variation in payment practices across the sites (ranging from $1 to $1000 in cash and $500 in savings bonds). Many of the institutions in the Weise et al study (42%) used a combination of incentives and/or payments for both the children and parents. [2]

CPS Violates Parental Consent and Freedom of Speech

Isaiah Rider suffers from a rare condition called neurofibromatosis. When his mother took him to a hospital in Chicago that specializes in his condition, they ended up taking custody of him over the objections of his mother. Is Isaiah part of a drug trial? More on Isaiah Rider.

There are two factors that normally limit child participation in medical and drug company research. The first is the requirement for parental consent. Children normally cannot participate unless a parent gives written consent. The second is the normal right that people have to publically speak out in situations where parents and their children are being coerced and compelled to participate in drug company experiments.

We would expect that these two constraining factors would keep children safe from becoming unwilling participants in drug research. However, there are situations in which state agencies are able to avoid both of these constraints and force children to become human guinea pigs.

The network of state operated child protective service agencies (CPS) routinely circumvent the rights of parents and children, and give permission for physicians/researchers to force children to participate in drug company experiments.

Children who are in the foster care system and who are under the control of Child Protective Services are easily targeted for involuntary inclusion in drug experimentation. Ideally, even if children are under CPS control, their natural parents should retain the right to give consent for medical treatment for their children whether it is routine or experimental.

In practice, however, once CPS steps into a family's private life and takes children out of the home and places them in foster care, then parental oversight regarding the healthcare of their children is routinely violated. Because these cases are involved in State Juvenile or Family Courts (as opposed to Civil Courts), records are sealed and kept secret, supposedly to protect the children.

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Hacker implants NFC chip to bypass security scans and exploit Android phones

© blog.avira.com
Chips in hand.

    

Going by hacker stereotypes, it'd be pretty easy to physically identify anyone committing an act of digital crime. A combination of pallid skin, hoody and laptop is the biggest giveaway. Such hackneyed images of hackers are, of course, evidently wrong, bordering on offensive. Real hackers penetrating business networks have the common sense to avoid cliched clothing and try to conceal their tools.

For those who can bear the pain, biohacking, where computing devices are injected under the skin, provides a novel way to acquire real stealth to sneak through both physical and digital scans. That's why US navy petty officer Seth Wahle, now an engineer at APA Wireless, implanted a chip in his hand, in between the thumb and the finger - the purlicue apparently - of his left hand. It has an NFC (Near Field Communications) antenna that pings Android phones, asking them to open a link. Once the user agrees to open that link and install a malicious file, their phone connects to a remote computer, the owner of which can carry out further exploits on that mobile device. Put simply, that Android device is compromised. In a demo for , Wahle used the Metasploit penetration testing software on his laptop to force an Android device to take a picture of his cheery visage.

He'll be showing off the surreptitious attack at the Hack Miami conference taking place this May, alongside the event's secretary of the board and security consultant Rod Soto. They admit it's a rather crude piece of research, given it's using off-the-shelf tools and a known attack technique over NFC, but claim this implant-based attack could provide criminals with a particularly useful "tool in their social engineering toolset".

And, at a time when airlines and federal agencies are cracking down on anyone even thinking about testing the security of in-flight communications systems, implantable chips provide a clever way to sneak electronics past checks at airports or other high-security locations. Wahle says he put the chip in when he was still employed by the military and it was never detected despite going through scanners every day. "They would have to put me through the X-ray [if they were going to detect the chip]."

"This implanted chip can bypass pretty much any security measures that are in place at this point and we will show proof of that," says Soto.

Looking at the widespread adoption of NFC in business, implants could provide a route into various networks. More sophisticated code on the chip would increase the potential for more serious damage, especially if a zero-day (an unpatched,previously-unknown vulnerability) was put into action via a chip, warns Soto.

But implants aren't for the squeamish. Wahle says the needle was bigger than he'd expected when he had the chip implanted by an "unlicensed amateur" for $40, enough to make him want to vomit. He says he had to go through a backstreet operation due to Florida's restrictive body modification laws. He first had to acquire the chip, designed to be injected into cattle for agricultural uses, from Chinese company Freevision. But the chip, which has just 888 bytes of memory and is encapsulated in a Schott 8625 Bio-glass capsule, is now barely noticeable, Wahle says, poking at the cylindrical object over his webcam during a Skype call with .

There are some clear limitations to an implant-based attack, but they can be overcome through various means. The malicious Android file created by Wahle and Soto, for instance, loses connection to the attacker's server when the phone is locked or if the device is rebooted, but having the software run as a background service that starts on boot would fix that, according to Wahle's whitepaper on the attacks. As the rogue code has to be manually installed, some decent social engineering will also be required, though making the malicious file appear legitimate, using Google GOOGL =0.65% Play signatures and initiating an additional exploit to cause a forced installation, would minimise the amount of charm and cunning needed.

Kevin Warwick, who claims to be the first human to have implanted an NFC chip inside his body, told it was "good that this particular application is being tested as it gives some idea of what might be possible and some of the dangers apparent". Warwick, now professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading in the UK, also noted the inability of security systems to pick up on the technology. "Such an implant doesn't get picked up at airports and so on, the amount of metal in it is far far less than wearing a watch or wedding ring. Even my neural implant of 2002, with a length of platinum wire implanted was not picked up. In fact I still have some of the wires in my arm and fly regularly."

In Miami, Wahle and Soto are planning to detail the steps hackers will need to go through to add implants to their arsenal, including how to acquire the hardware and program the chip. Could this be the beginnings of the democratisation of malevolent biohacking? "This is just the tip of the iceberg... anyone can do this," adds Soto.

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