NSA surveillance reach broader than acknowledged

The National Security Agency's surveillance network has the capacity to spy on 75 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Citing current and former NSA officials for the 75 percent figure, the paper reported that the agency can observe more of Americans' online communications than officials have publicly acknowledged.

The NSA's system of programs that filter communications, achieved with the help of telecommunications companies, is designed to look for communications that either start or end abroad, or happen to pass through the U.S. between foreign countries. However, the officials told the Journal that the system's reach is so broad, that it is more likely that purely domestic communications will be intercepted as a byproduct of the hunt for foreign ones.

The system works by using algorithms that act as filters, designed to let high-value information through amid more benign chatter. However, after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, a former to intelligence official told the Journal that the government changed its definition of "reasonable" intelligence collection, enabling the NSA to widen the holes in the "filtering" system. Read more >>

Scientists: Plants communicate with one another through microscopic sound waves

A study published Tuesday in the scientific journal BMC Ecology reveals that plants are able to communicate with each other even when light, scent and touch have been removed from the equation, leading scientists to speculate that there’s a wholly different mechanism they use to encourage each other’s growth.

Specifically, scientists suggested that plants might be communicating with microscopic sound waves that travel underground as a “signaling mechanism,” letting other plants know their presence and to plan accordingly.

It’s long been known that planting basil near other species can tend to encourage its neighbor’s growth, and it’s not new that plants communicate with each other through shade, chemical smells, root structures and other forms of touch.

What scientists at the University of Western Australia were looking at specifically is if there’s any other ways that plants communicate, and what they found is astonishing. By planting chili pepper next to basil, then separating them from all known methods of plant interaction, the chili plant still grew as if it knew the basil was there. Read more >>