A type of genetically engineered fly which eventually kills itself off could be an effective method of pest control, according to new research.

Helen Wallace from Genewatch, an organisation that monitors the use of genetic technology, is critical of the work. She said that the long-term effects of releasing millions of GM flies would be impossible to predict.

"Fruit grown using Oxitec's GM flies will be contaminated with GM maggots which are genetically programmed to die inside the fruit they are supposed to be protecting."

Marin County Sheriff's Lt Keith Boyd said Williams, 63, had been treated for depression and killed himself by hanging.

In the past Williams had talked, and even joked, about his struggles with alcohol and drugs. His representative said on Monday he had also been "battling severe depression".

Levison is now building out a new technology platform that aims to provide email security and privacy that won't be violated by anyone.

Levison said that the only way to provide privacy is with end-to-end encryption that is easy to use and automatic. He added that providing secure email in a manner that preserves privacy while still being easy to use is a difficult technical challenge.

"I'm not upset that I got railroaded and had to shut down my business," Levison said. "I'm upset because we need a mil-spec cryptographic mail system for the entire planet, just to be able to talk to friends and family without any fear of government surveillance."

The controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry Canadian oil through the US, will make climate change worse. It will boost global emissions of carbon dioxide by up to 110 million tonnes per year.

Its supporters argue it will boost the economy, while environmentalists say the toxic oil could be spilled and that it encourages the use of tar sands, which produce more greenhouse gases than normal oil.

"When do we begin to stop?" asks Schnoor. "If not now, when? If one accepts that climate change is a very serious problem, and I do, one concludes that investing in infrastructure that will last 50 years or more is simply not prudent."

Thanks to DRM support with HTML5 and Google's Chrome developers moving quick to implement the support that's backed by Netflix, you can today run Chrome and play Netflix videos.

It's not as easy though right now just firing up Chrome 38 Beta on Linux to play Netflix, but you first need to switch the reported HTTP user-agent string.

The company, best known for its FarmVille game on Facebook, has lost 57 million monthly active users since the same quarter last year, dropping to 130 million from 187 million farm fiddlers.

The social gaming company made a net loss in the second quarter of $62.5m, compared to a $16m loss in the same quarter last year and a $61m in the first quarter of 2014. The company’s shares had dropped 7.5 per cent in pre-market trading to $2.70 at the time of writing.

The police action against Immunicity is concerning as the service merely allows users to route their traffic through a proxy network, much like other anonimizing services such as TOR and VPNs do. The service itself doesn’t host or link to infringing content.

Based on letters that were sent out to registrars previously, the police accuse proxy services and sites of running a criminal operation. While no court order has been obtained, PIPCU claims to have launched an investigation into the sites and has asked the domain registrar to cooperate.

Emu has built a system that can monitor chats, infer what people are talking about, and insert relevant links—including ads.

Google, meanwhile, isn’t just interested in chats; the company has said that it may eventually show ads on internet-connected home devices, such as thermostats.

Though Emu could help Google smartphone users, it is also poised to further erode their privacy, putting one-on-one communication under centralized monitoring by a third party.

The principal cast of US sitcom The Big Bang Theory have tripled their pay-packets, negotiating reported salaries of $1m (£600,000) per episode after organising a walk-out during the first week of production.

The Big Bang Theory reached the syndication threshold in 2011, and it is consistently the most-watched re-run on US television. Not only that, but when the repeats started screening on the TBS network, viewing figures for the new episodes jumped by 21%.

"One of the doctors called it 'miraculous,'" Dr. Sanjay Gupta reported from Emory this morning, of Brantly's turnaround within hours of receiving a treatment delivered from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Writebol is also reportedly improved since receiving the treatment, known as zMapp. But to say that it was a secret implies a frigid American exceptionalism; that the people of West Africa are dying in droves while a classified cure lies in wait.

This Ebola outbreak is the largest in the history of the disease, in terms of both cases and deaths—729 known so far.