Short Science, November 23, 2014

Hackers have accessed household webcams, baby monitors and CCTV cameras with footage appearing online on a website in Russia, Britain's privacy watchdog has warned. The Information Commissioner's Office said that hackers were taking advantage of devices without security protection and with weak passwords. Homes and businesses across the UK have been targeted, including a gym in Manchester, a house in Birmingham, and an office in Leicester. "The website, which is based in Russia, accesses the information by using the default login credentials, which are freely available online, for thousands of cameras," said Simon Rice, ICO group manager for technology. AFP

Squirrel-size creatures that lived in the treetops of northern China with dinosaurs roaming below left a legacy in their fossils that may challenge textbooks on the origins of mammals. Indiana University of Pennsylvania paleontologist Bi Shundong said the discovery of six complete well-preserved skeletons identified as three new species of haramiyids pushes back further in time the first appearance of mammals - into the late Triassic period, or about 208 million years ago. The researcher, co-author of a Nature article about the discovery, said haramiyids were formerly known as "near mammals" but the full skeletons were found to have distinctively mammalian features such as a full set of teeth, a diaphragm and middle ear bones separate from the lower jaw. McClatchy Tribune