Net secrets

It may get a lot safer to leak sensitive documents about unethical behaviour by governments or organisations if a new online service goes ahead, according to a report in the magazine New Scientist. WikiLeaks, which hopes to launch in February, is designed to allow anyone to post documents on the website without the fear of being traced and thrown into jail. The website will exploit an anonymising protocol, which routes data through servers that use cryptography to safeguard the user’s identity.

New algae

An international group of researchers has succeeded in identifying a previously unknown group of algae. The newly discovered algae is found among the smallest members of photosynthetic plankton — the picoplankton. On account of the minute size of the organisms and the appearance of phycobili-proteins, researchers have termed the new group Picobiliphyta. “The gene sequences found in these algae could not be associated with any previously known group of organisms,” the researchers write in the journal Science.

Light echo

Astronomers have used Nasa’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to uncover evidence of a powerful outburst from the giant black hole at the Milky Way’s centre. A light echo was produced when X-ray light generated by gas falling into the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star), was reflected off gas clouds near the black hole, according to the Astrophysical Journal.