A team of researchers from the University of California at San Diego have found that thermal imaging cameras can be used to steal PIN numbers when people make a cash withdrawal from an ATM. Residual heat from a person’s finger when it touches the keypad to punch in their PIN can be viewed with an infrared camera to give away your combination without anyone having to actually see your finger on the button.

For criminals, thermal imaging has some advantages. Whether or not the user visually blocks the keypad while they type their number will make no difference, and PIN harvesting can still be automated to provide crooks with a leg up. Researchers Keaton Mowery, Sarah Meiklejohn and Stefan Savage of UCSD studied 21 volunteers punching in 27 randomly selected PIN numbers on plastic and brushed metal keys. The study showed that plastic PIN pads retain the heat signature from the finger the longest showing which numbers and which order they were pressed.

Fear is a universal language. At least it is for chipmunks and woodchucks. The two animals are completely different rodent species, and while they do not communicate directly with each other, new research has shown that chipmunks and woodchucks will respond to each others’ fear or alarm calls.

This kind of mutual understanding across species is a surprise for researchers because both species are known to be quite solitary. Within their own species the animals do not even live in family groups, so for lone animals to respond to the calls of another species is of interest. Published in the Journal of Mammology, the research explains that while individuals responding to the alarm calls of their own species is a well-documented phenomenon, interspecies understanding is not seen as often.

The only issue I take with this video is that a winged Pegasus-style horse could take a unicorn any day of the week. Besides that, sit back and enjoy the madness.

(via Neatorama)

It’s been a rough winter, and it’s only going to get worse. See that big, white, fluffy mass that looks delicious dessert topping smeared over most of the Easter and Midwest United States? Keep that positive thinking going because that’s a massive snowstorm that is making life very difficult for the next little while. NOAA and the Weather Channel are calling for snow, freezing rain, blizzard conditions, and have even issued a tornado watch for portions of Louisiana.

‘Thundersnow” is so last week. Welcome, friends, to Tornadsnow.

(via Gizmodo, image from NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center)

In an act of cartoonish, anthropomorphic revenge, a fox, after being shot by a hunter, somehow managed to slip its paw into the trigger and pull it, shooting the hunter in the leg.

From The Daily Mail:

The bizarre incident happened as the unnamed 40-year-old hunter tried to kill the fox with the butt of his gun after shooting it from a distance. The fox made its escape while friends took the injured man to hospital.

I hail from the midwest, and most people can tell because of how I seek out a refreshing “pop” as opposed to a heathen “soda.” But a new paper filed with the Linguistic Society of America, claims your location can be determined to within 300 miles based off your 140-character tweets alone.

The New Scientist is reporting on some of the results of the study, which drew on a source of 9,500 users totaling 4.7 million words.

The researchers found that if you are cool in the San Francisco area, you will probably write “koo” on Twitter, but in southern California, you write “coo”. You are “hella” tired in northern California, “deadass” tired in New York, and in Los Angeles you use an acronym for an obscenity.