Feeling a bit lonely on our blue marble? Never fear! 715 new neighbors just moved in!

Actually, they were there all along. We just started noticing. 

On Wednesday, NASA announced that their Kepler  telescope satellite had newly verified the existence of 715  planets orbiting 305 stars outside our solar system. This brings the total number of confirmed planets to almost 1700. In the words of NASA scientist Jack Lissauer,

“We’ve almost doubled today the number of planets known to humanity.”

Why so many new discoveries? The Kepler telescope uses something called the transit method to find  planets: the telescope detects regular dimming in the light of a star caused by an orbiting planet passing in front of it. 

However, this method can result in false positives, so additional confirmation is needed to verify the existence of planets found this way. The recent glut of discoveries comes from a new statistical technique used to convert planet candidates to confirmed discoveries.

So what does this say about the possibility of extraterrestrial life? (After all, there’s only so much chatting you can do with a planet.)  

The probability of finding aliens is notoriously difficult to even estimate, but the odds may be improving. Four of the newly-discovered planets are less than 2.5 times the mass of Earth and orbit in the so called “Goldilocks zone.”

Like Goldilocks in the fairy tale, humans are picky about their temperatures, and planets in the “Goldilocks zone” orbit their suns at a distance that is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water. 

Stay tuned, Earthlings. 

People thought 2011 was “The Year of the Protestor,” but it seems like 2014 might be challenging that title.

From Turkey and Bosnia, to Ukraine and Russia, protests are becoming the hallmark of 2014–and we’re only 2 months in. Adding to this protest bonanza is Venezuela, where demonstrators have intensified pressure on President Nicholas Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s handpicked successor.

Angry with myriad chronic issues–such as high inflation, violent crime, and limited basic resources–people have taken to the streets of Venezuela’s cities. The movement began in the far West, but has now spread to Caracas, in the North, despite the fact that the national media is not covering the conflict.

As the maladies mount for Maduro, his response has been to deploy the national guard to prevent “fascist” elements from overwhelming the country.

His harsh response has left around 12 people dead, and has caused the governor of Táchira state, the epicenter of the demonstrations, to denounce the government’s actions. This high-level dissent in Venezuela is extremely rare, and could indicate the that country’s political atmosphere has changed dramatically with Maduro’s assent.

With Maduro struggling to keep control of the protests and the government, it seems as if Venezula might be going the way of Ukraine.

We here at USDemocrazy, would like to know if you foresee 2014 being the next “Year of the Protestor.” Will change come to Venezuela, and will violence there escalate?

A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.

The Brain’s Inner Language
A profile of a neuroscientist who studies the anatomy and function of the visual cortex in mice explains what large collaborative research efforts are doing to understand how neurons process information.
—Susan Young, biomedicine editor

CSEE’s Dr. Rick Forno, Cybersecurity GPD and Assistant Director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, was a guest on WEAA’s ‘The Marc Steiner Show’ where he joined Dr. Lisa Yeo of Loyola University in discussing cybersecurity issues and best practices in light of recent high-profile data breaches such as those at the University of Maryland, Target, and Indiana University.

CSEE’s Dr. Rick Forno, Cybersecurity GPD and Assistant Director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, was a guest on WEAA’s ‘The Marc Steiner Show’ where he joined Dr. Lisa Yeo of Loyola University in discussing cybersecurity issues and best practices in light of recent high-profile data breaches such as those at the University of Maryland, Target, and Indiana University.

By tracking an older person’s movements at home, a new wearable device could help predict serious changes in health.

The newest wearable device isn’t for fitness fanatics or life loggers. It’s designed for older people who want to stay in their homes. Later this year CarePredict, a startup based in Davie, Florida, will begin shipping its first batch of wearable tracking systems intended to help relatives and other caretakers monitor the activity of older adults for early signs of serious health concerns. The system involves sensors worn on the wrist and stuck to walls inside the home to track activities in different rooms and alert someone of any suspicious changes.