Everything You Need to Know About Kim Dotcom’s Mega

Click here to view the gallery: Hands On With Mega

Mega — the long-anticipated file sharing and cloud storage site from Kim Dotcom — is now open to the public.

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Thanks to its association with the now-defunct Megaupload — and the legal issues facing its founder Kim Dotcom — the amount of press, user interest and hype surrounding Mega is greater than any file hosting/cloud storage launch in recent memory.

According to Dotcom, more than 1 million users signed up for Mega in the first 24 hours. On Twitter, the larger-than-life entrepreneur has continued to share usage stats and traffic graphs that compare Mega with perennial cloud favorite, Dropbox.

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If you’re curious about the inner workings of Mega, how it works and how it handles security, we’ve got you covered.

The Phoenix of Megaupload

Mega is the spiritual successor to Kim Dotcom’s last business, the insanely popular file-hosting service Megaupload. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice shut down Megaupload and pursued criminal charges against Dotcom. Dotcom, a New Zealand citizen, is actively fighting U.S. extradition orders.

Megaupload was targeted by the DoJ because of its role in illegally distributing copyright material — including digital copies of movies, TV shows, books, music and software.

Rather than try to start a new service eschewing the potential for copyright material to be uploaded and shared, Dotcom is positioning Mega as a service that cares about and protects its user’s privacy. In fact, Mega’s tagline is “the privacy company.”

How It Works

On the surface, Mega is a bare-bones cloud storage host. After signing up for accounts, users can upload files and folders of all types to the service. Those files can then be shared with others.

The free plan gives users 50GB of file storage. There are no hard limits on file size, meaning users can use Mega as a way to back up photos, documents and other data. Obviously, this means users can use Mega as a way to store media content — video files, music, DVD images — as well.

For now, Mega is optimized to work on desktop web browsers. Mega strongly encourages users to use Google Chrome. And while Mega has big plans for developers and client-side apps, for now, the only way to access files is via the web browser.

Files can be uploaded to the service using drag and drop or a file-upload menu. Users can create folders in the file manager.

Uploads and downloads take place in parallel. If you upload a large number of files at once, each file uploads one at a time. In the future, Mega says users will be able to change the upload order. If you need to upload or download multiple files at once, simply open a new Mega tab in your browser and select that file.

You can upgrade to a higher-tiered storage plan from within your account. Mega doesn’t sell these plans itself; instead it has resellers who sell vouchers for a service. A 500GB storage plan with 1TB of enhanced bandwidth is 9.99 euros a month or 99 euros a year (a little over $ 110 U.S. dollars). That’s cheaper than most of its competitors.

The Importance of Passwords

It’s very important to remember the password you select when setting up your Mega account. The password is a big part of how Mega encrypts data on both ends.

During the sign-up process, Mega uses your password to create a 2,048-bit RSA key. This is the key that tells the system you are who you say you are. If you forget your password, you’re not going to be able to get into your account.

Right now, Mega doesn’t even have a password reset or recovery feature. In the future, Mega says it will have a reset mechanism but it will only allow users access to files or folders they have file keys for (more on file keys below). Users won’t be able to access other files until or unless they remember their password.

Because your Mega password is also your master encryption key, it’s important that users choose a secure password. We recommend using a password manager and printing a copy of the password to store in a safe place.

Understanding File Security

Mega is focused on end-to-end encryption. This means that files are encrypted both on upload and on download. With most traditional file hosts or cloud storage lockers, a public link to a file also includes a file path. With Dropbox, for example, the public or shared link includes the file name.

With Mega, things are a bit different. While users can share specific files to other Mega users or via email, the URL to a file doesn’t contain a file name; instead, a cryptographic key is appended to the URL. Without this key, you can’t access the file. Once decrypted by the server, a user has the option to download the linked file.

Mega’s promise, in other words, is that users control who has access to their files and accounts and no one else.

For important files or folders, users might want to make a note of the file key and keep it in a safe place — if they are worried about getting locked out of their account.

How Safe Are Your Files

Since Mega is touting itself as “the privacy company,” it’s important to look at how the company stores files and content.

The end-to-end encryption scheme is only part of how Mega secures data. Still, some are already criticizing the service, noting that it’s not as secure as it says it is. An article for Forbes cites two professionals who have problems with Mega’s security.

Matthew Green, a cryptography professor at John Hopkins University, is particularly critical of the way Mega uses JavaScript to verify its encryption method telling Forbes that “it makes no sense.”

Mega has responded to Green’s claims on its own blog, noting that its scheme “basically enables us to host the extremely integrity-sensitive static content on a large number of geographically diverse servers without worrying about security.”

Meanwhile, at Ars Technia Lee Hutchinson raises concerns about how Mega comes up with its crypto key at sign-up, as well as how the company handles deduplication, or how it eliminates duplicate copies of data.

Again, Mega has taken to its blog to attempt to clarify its policies and the way it handles data.

While Mega’s crypto system certainly doesn’t seem any less secure than any other file locker, we do agree with critics who note that the system might be more about giving Mega culpability against claims that it knows infringing content is on its servers, rather than about protecting that data itself.

The service is still in beta and much of its code is available via open source, so security purists might want to watch how Mega’s system evolves before trusting it with important, sensitive data.

Will Mega Stick Around?

While security experts can quibble and argue over the way Mega uses cryptography and how it stores data on its array of servers, the bigger issue, for us, is long-term survival.

While I would argue that most users who actively used Megaupload were not using it as a traditional cloud service, the fact remains that when the service was shut down, user files went with it.

Already anti-piracy groups are campaigning to shut down payment processors to Mega’s resellers. One of the reasons Mega isn’t taking payments itself and is instead using resellers is to prevent those groups from shutting down payment processors or trying to seize funds.

This is worrisome because in addition to outside capital, Mega needs professional accounts to keep its site working.

It’s too early to say if Mega will be around for the long haul or not, but our advice is not to use Mega as your only file storage solution. Keep backups of crucial files on disk or other cloud-based services.

What do you think of Mega? Let us know in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Protesters slam Egypt government two years after revolution

CAIRO -- Young men and boys clashed with security forces as tens of thousands of Egyptians protested Friday against the Islamist-led government’s failure to fix the economy and heal the politically divided nation two years after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

The anniversary of the revolution that led to Mubarak’s downfall was marked more by rancor than joy as familiar and troubling scenes played out across the country: Rock-throwing youths lunging at police through clouds of tear gas while peaceful demonstrators waved banners and shouted epithets against those in power.

President Mohamed Morsi has been engulfed by months of anger from secularists, who claim he and his Muslim Brotherhood party have turned increasingly authoritarian in a bid to advance an Islamic state at the expense of social justice. The protests were the latest reminder of the volatile politics and persistent mistrust that threaten Egypt’s transition.

PHOTOS: 2011 Egyptian protests

“Morsi is finished,” said Tarik Salama, an activist. “A big part of the population hates him now. It’s too late for him to turn around and say, ‘Hey guys, I love you.’ He’s in the same place as Mubarak was two years ago.

"Morsi’s biggest problem is that he failed to unify the country. A lot of people voted for him, but he failed.”

One banner raised in Tahrir read: "Two years since the revolution, and Egypt still needs another revolution." Protest chants harked back to the 18-day revolt that toppled Mubarak but were now directed at Morsi: “Leave, leave.”

The days ahead may prove more violent. Many of the youths clashing with police in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities are angry over an economy that offers little hope. They have been joined by hard-core soccer fans, known as Ultras, demanding that police officials be held accountable in the deaths of 74 soccer fans killed last year in a stadium riot.

A court verdict in that case is expected Saturday.

In recent days, youths in Cairo have battled police with stones and gasoline bombs around high cement barricades blocking streets leading from Tahrir Square to the parliament. Young men pulled part of the wall down but police drove them back, firing steady volleys of tear gas that cloaked the square and drifted over the Nile.

“These young men and kids have no jobs,” said Salama. “The young in Egypt feel there is no future for them. This is the big danger.”

By dusk Friday, youths with rags and scarves over their faces hurled stones and rushed barriers, preparing for another night of clashes. The unrest spurred the emergence of an anarchist group, known as the Black Bloc, whose masked, black-clad members threw Molotov cocktails and attempted to overrun the presidential palace and the upper house of parliament or Shura Council.  

More than 60 protesters and at least 30 police have been injured nationwide since early Friday in clashes that also led to attacks on offices of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The backlash against Morsi intensified in November when he expanded his presidential powers and, sidestepping the courts, pushed through a referendum on an Islamist-backed constitution. The liberal opposition, which has long been disorganized, attacked him for spoiling promises of democracy that inspired the 2011 revolution.

Morsi has said his actions were an effort to root out Mubarak-era loyalists from the government and propel the country toward parliamentary elections in the spring. But his biggest challenge, perhaps, is Egypt’s troubled economy that has lost more than half of its foreign reserves and worsened conditions for about 40% of Egyptians who live on $2 a day.

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Sundance heats up with a slew of sex-themed films

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — The Sundance Film Festival has never been sexier.

The annual independent-film showcase has featured a slew of sexually themed movies in its various categories this year. There are stories about women using sex to work through their mid-life crises, narrative and documentary examinations of pornography and its players, and coming-of-age stories in which sex plays a central role.

Festival founder Robert Redford says the on-screen sex of today is often devoid of the romance that was essential in late 1960s, when he first started making movies.

So what has inspired the Sundance sexual revolution? Stars and filmmakers weigh in on their sexy fare.

— "When I got in the film business in the early '60s, it was a romantic time. Sex and romance were pretty well tied together; sexuality was pretty well expressed through romance. Times have changed, so now, 40, 50 years later, we see that sexual relations have moved to a place where it doesn't feel like there's so much romance involved. The romance is not part of the equation, because relations have changed, and they've changed because of changing times, and because of new technology. People are texting rather than dating and all that kind of stuff. So what we do, we just show what's there." — Sundance founder Robert Redford.

— "It's relevant because people just started having sex. So I think because of that, because everyone just started having sex, it's extremely relevant right now." — Kristen Bell, star of dramatic contender "The Lifeguard."

— "Sex is trendy." — Actress Mamie Gummer, who co-stars in "The Lifeguard."

— "It's provocative. ... Filmmakers, I think you want to take people out of their comfort zone, and I think sex does that when you talk about it." — Tony Danza, who appears in the premiere film "Don Jon's Addiction."

— "I wanted to tell a story about how we work as human beings, and let's face it, that's what drives a lot of us. And what I was trying to get at with 'Don Jon's Addiction' is, yeah, let's talk about sex but let's really talk about it and not just go through the same cliches that we always go through. ... Those of us (who) — and we all do — consume this media, whether it's movies or porn or the news or, you know, the Bible, we consume these pieces of media and we form these rules for ourselves, these notions of how things are supposed to be. And to me, there's nothing less sexy than trying to fit in what you think you're supposed to be. What's sexy is when you're just being yourself and you're connecting in the present." — Joseph Gordon-Levitt, director, writer and star of "Don Jon's Addiction."

— "It's funny isn't it, because it's this great taboo, really. And yet it's something that is in all of our lives, if we're lucky — some of us three or four times a day. Ugh, exhausting." — Matthew Goode, a star of the premiere "Stoker," which blends sex and violence.

— "People's acceptance of new representations of sex is — I think it's a gradual thing that happens from all of these different kinds of outlets. Sundance is just one place, a nodal point in that trend." — James Franco, who produced the documentary "kink," produced and starred in "Interior. Leather Bar.," which explores leather-sex clubs and plays Hugh Hefner in "Lovelace."

— "I think there's a sexual revolution going on, maybe. ... It's kind of moving in that direction, I would like to think. I would love if America kind of appreciated sex the way Europeans do. I feel like it's really not that big of a deal. There's so much stigma attached to it. I think it's better than violence. It's better than making movies about guns and people shooting each other and blood and stuff. ... It's a huge part of our culture. It's a huge part of every day. We all do it! So why are we not talking about it and why are we not portraying that in movies? I know why, actually. There are a lot of reasons. But I personally think that we need to see more of it. I mean, it's not that scary." — Amanda Seyfried, who plays pioneering porn star Linda Lovelace in the biopic "Lovelace."

— "Sex is a part of life, and to shy away from it would not be very truthful, especially if it's a movie about Allen Ginsberg and the beat poets. I mean, to me it's a part of becoming who you are as a person. The first time you have sex is a very important part of every person's life, so I think when you're making a movie about Allen Ginsberg becoming Allen Ginsberg, probably the first time he had sex is a very important, defining moment in his life." — Actor Dane DeHaan, who co-stars in dramatic contender "Kill Your Darlings."

— "If I track what might be the source of it now, it's that the civil rights movement of our era has to do with sex and sexuality. And so there's been this sort of repositioning of it as a central issue as opposed to a titillating side issue. It's a core issue to do with what and who we are. And to speak of it as anything but that is to diminish our humanity, really. And once that is cracked open, it applies to absolutely everyone, which is why the movement that starts with a gay and lesbian movement is actually a movement that is everyone." — Robin Weigert, who plays a woman who becomes a prostitute as a way of working through a mid-life crisis brought on by a baseball to the head in the dramatic contender "Concussion."

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AP Entertainment Writer Ryan Pearson and AP Movie Writer David Germain contributed to this report.

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AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy .

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F.D.A. to Vote on Restricting Hydrocodone Products Like Vicodin

Trying to stem the scourge of prescription drug abuse in the United States, an advisory panel of experts to the Food and Drug Administration plans to vote Friday on whether to toughen restrictions on hydrocodone products like Vicodin, the most widely used narcotic painkillers in the country.

The recommendation, which the F.D.A. would likely follow, would limit access to the drugs by making them harder to prescribe, a major policy change that advocates said could help ease the growing problem of addiction to painkillers.

The change would have sweeping consequences for doctors, pharmacists and patients. Under the new rules, refills without a new prescription would be forbidden, as would faxed prescriptions and those called in by phone. Only written prescriptions from a doctor would be allowed and pharmacists and distributors would be required to store the drugs in special vaults. The vote comes after similar legislation in Congress failed last year, after intense lobbying by pharmacists and drugstores.

Prescription drugs account for about three-quarters of all drug overdoses in the United States, with the number of deaths more than tripling since 1999, according to federal data. Since 2008, deaths from overdoses have outpaced deaths from car accidents.

The F.D.A. convened the panel, made up of scientists and other experts, after a request by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which contends that the drugs are among the most frequently abused painkillers in the country.

“This is the federal government saying, ‘we need to tighten the reins on this drug,'” said Scott R. Drab, associate professor of pharmacy and therapeutics at the University of Pittsburgh. “Pulling in the rope is a way to rein in abuse, and consequently, addiction.”

At a two-day hearing at F.D.A. headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., many speakers opposed the change, including advocates for nursing home patients, who said older, frail residents needing pain medication would be required to make the arduous trip to a doctor’s office to continue using hydrocodone products. Other experts questioned how effective the change would be. Oxycodone, another highly abused painkiller, has been in the more restrictive category since it came on the market, but the limited access does not seem to have stemmed abuse, they said.

But others including parents who had lost their children to prescription drug abuse, as well as doctors and pharmacists, testified, sometimes emotionally. . Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat of West Virginia, where the scourge has been particularly deadly, made an impassioned plea for tougher restrictions.

“When I go back to West Virginia, I hear how easy it is for anybody to get their hands on hydrocodone drugs,” Mr. Manchin said on Friday. “For underage children, these drugs are easier to get than beer or cigarettes.”

He added that the current, less restrictive status “is fueling the prescription drug epidemic today.”

Dr. James P. Rathmell, chief of the division of pain medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, said hydrocodone products have similar biological effects as oxycodone products, and should unquestionably be in the same category of restrictiveness.

“Knowing what we know today, it was a mistake,” Dr. Rathmell said, referring to hydrocodone products being placed in the looser category when they came to market. “It should be corrected.”

Dr. Timothy Deer, chief doctor at the Center for Pain Relief in Charleston, W.Va., said that he feared for older patients, particularly in rural areas, who would have to drive great distances to get prescriptions renewed. But, he said, hydrocodone products have been by far the most widely prescribed painkiller because the restrictions were so loose. And on balance, particularly in a hard-hit state like his, the public health benefits of a recommendation to toughen restrictions on the drug probably outweigh the harm of additional burdens on legitimate pain patients.

“At the end of the day, the benefits of reducing abuse will outweigh the harm to legitimate pain patients,” he said. “This will likely reduce the amount of drug falling into the wrong hands.”

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Exxon surpasses Apple as world's most valuable company

The king is, well, not exactly dead. But Apple's stock has taken a pretty serious knee-capping this week, compounding a slide that began in  September. And as a result, Exxon is once again king of the stock markets. 

On Friday, Exxon became the world's most valuable company as Apple's stock fell $10.46, or 2.32%, to $440.04.

In midday trading, Exxon boasted a $417.59 billion market cap; Apple's  was  $412.36 billion. The days of August, when people were debating whether Apple had set the record for the most valuable company in history, now seem like a dream from another era. 

QUIZ: Test your Apple knowledge

Apple's stock has now dropped 37% since its September high of $702.10. In just the last two days, the stock is down 14.6%. 

The question now facing Apple investors is just how far the stock can tumble before it reaches equilibrium.

While there has been a touch of schadenfreude as people watch analysts rein in bullish estimates and large Apple shareholders count their losses, it's worth noting that the company's stock is one of the most widely held in the world. It might be hard to find anyone with a pension fund or 401(k) who has not at least been affected a little by Apple's stock decline. 

Investors will now likely be waiting anxiously to see if the stock could approach the next psychological barrier of $400 per share.

Beyond that is another interesting milestone to note: Tim Cook's massive stock grant. When Cook officially replaced Steve Jobs as CEO in August 2011, the company awarded him 1 million shares of restricted stock units. Their estimated value at the time was $383 million, which assumed the grant price was about $383 per share. 

The RSUs are set to vest in two chunks: Half on Aug. 24, 2016 and half on Aug. 24, 2021. That means Cook can't sell them until those dates. RSUs are not options, which come with a strike price. That means that no matter what the ultimate price of the stock, Cook would make money when he sells. 

Still, if Apple has lost all the value Cook had created for investors since he was hired, investors might be less than pleased. 

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Women in Combat Stoke Twitter Debate

The Pentagon’s decision to allow women in combat has elicited some strong and controversial words from opponents of the move.

First, Tucker Carlson. Last night, the Daily Caller publisher tweeted: “Feminism’s latest victory: the right to get your limbs blown off in war. Congratulations.”

This drew some swift criticism on Twitter, and a counterpoint from The Week’s Marc Ambinder, who noted that one woman who lost limbs in combat, Tammy Duckworth, is now serving as a Democrat in the House of Representatives.

Then, Politico reported that Allen West, the former GOP congressman and Army lieutenant colonel, tweeted this morning: “Women in combat billets? Another misconceived lib vision of fairness and equality.”

West is already getting trashed on Twitter by users who took offense. After the controversial remarks made by Newt Gingrich in the mid-1990s and Rick Santorum last year, it’s no surprise that the Pentagon’s decision is stirring debate.

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'California did the impossible,' Brown says in State of the State

SACRAMENTO -- In a strident and sweeping State of the State address, Gov. Jerry Brown declared Thursday morning that "California did the impossible," bouncing back from the precipice of fiscal collapse to emerge as an economic leader.

With references to the Bible, the history of the California republic and Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Brown mapped out a vision for the state that includes big investment in its water and rail systems and schools free of regulations that he says inhibit flexibility and creativity.

Brown also called a special session of the Legislature for implementation of President Obama's healthcare law, "to deal with those issues that must be decided quickly if California is to get the Affordable Care Act started by next January."

But he stressed that his top priority is keeping the state from falling back into financial chaos.

"We have promises to keep," Brown said, alluding to his successful campaign last fall to persuade voters to raise taxes by billions of dollars. "And the most important one we made to the people if Proposition 30 passed: that we would guard jealously the money…. Fiscal discipline is not the enemy of our good intentions but the basis for realizing them."

He praised lawmakers for helping the state dig out of its fiscal morass but also called on them to show restraint. "What we need to do for our future will require more than producing hundreds of new laws each year," Brown said.

He warned of the dangers of "constantly expanding the coercive power of government by adding each year so many minute prescriptions to our already detailed and turgid legal system."

The governor cited schools as an area where the deluge of laws has undermined good policy. Returning to one of his favorite themes, he urged lawmakers to consider the "principle of subsidiarity … the idea that a central authority should only perform those tasks which cannot be performed at a more immediate or local level."

Brown repeated the call he made earlier this month to free local districts from dozens of state mandates for school spending and to shift more state money to districts with poorer students and non-native English speakers.

He said the steady tuition hikes at the state's institutions of higher education need to stop.

"I will not let the students become the default financiers of our colleges and universities," Brown said, to standing applause in the packed Assembly chamber that held the entire Legislature.

In calling a special session on healthcare, Brown said the state will next year begin providing insurance to nearly 1 million Californians under the federal law and in the coming years will steadily reduce the number of uninsured.

But he warned of attendant risks: "The ultimate costs of expanding our healthcare system under the Affordable Care Act are unknown."

The governor also used his address to tout his ambitious plans for refurbishing the state's water systems. He acknowledged that it will be costly. But inaction, he said, would likely prove more expensive, leaving California exposed to an economic disaster on the scale of that wrought elsewhere by Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.

The governor also made a plug for his other costly infrastructure initiative, high-speed rail. He said the United States is lagging far behind other countries in this sector, saying that even Morocco is building a high-speed train system.

He called the state's bullet-train plan, which would eventually link San Francisco and Los Angeles, bold, like "everything about California."

The governor also announced will lead a trade mission to China to strengthen California's economic ties with that country and officially open the state's new trade and investment office in Shanghai.

evan.halper@latimes.com

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Singer Michael Buble, wife expecting 1st child

NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Buble has something new to sing about: becoming a father.

In an online video posted Thursday by the YouTube account of Buble's wife, Luisana Lopilato, a sonogram with the words "Mini Buble!!!" is shown. The 20-second video ends up with words: "We're having a baby Buble!!!!"

The 37-year-old Canadian singer and his 25-year-old Argentine actress-wife were married in 2011. The couple met in 2009 during a South American concert tour.

A representative for Buble confirmed that the couple are expecting.

Buble is a Grammy-winning pop singer who has sold millions of albums, including "Crazy Love" and 2011's "Christmas." Lopilato made her name as a model and in Argentine sitcoms and soap operas.

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New Mutations Discovered in Melanomas

In a leap forward in understanding the basic science of one of the most lethal cancers, two groups of researchers have found mutations in most melanomas that are unlike any they have seen before in cancer. The changes are in regions that control genes, not in the genes themselves. The mutations are exactly the type caused by exposure to ultraviolet light, indicating they might be among the first DNA changes in a cell’s path to melanoma.

The discoveries, published online Thursday in two papers in the journal Science Express, do not immediately suggest new treatments or ways to prevent melanoma, researchers said. But the findings help explain how melanomas — and, possibly, other cancers — develop and what drives their growth, insights that may be critical to long-term efforts to develop ways to prevent or stop the cancer.

For years, cancer researchers have searched for mutations in genes, but this time, they looked for — and found — mutations in a region that regulates genes. They did it by examining the entire DNA of multiple tumors, studying not just genes but also what has been called the dark matter, the 99 percent of the DNA that includes regions that control genes.

“You could think of this as one glimmer in what has been called cancer’s dark matter,” said Dr. Levi A. Garraway of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and M.I.T.

The complete DNA sequences of 70 malignant melanomas led to the new discovery. A small control region was mutated in 7 out of 10 of the tumors, and also, the investigators found, in liver and bladder cancers. The cancer cells had one of two tiny changes that together were more common than any mutation ever found in the genes of melanoma.

A team led by Rajiv Kumar of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg and Dirk Schadendorf of the University of Essen looked for the mutations in a family whose members tended to get melanoma. Four relatives who developed melanoma had inherited one of them, while four who remained melanoma-free did not have it. They also found the mutation in a 36-year-old member of the family who had not developed melanoma but had had many moles, often a sign of risk in families prone to melanoma.

Their findings indicate that those who inherit the mutations might be born with cells that have taken a first step toward cancer.

The mutations spur cells to make an enzyme, telomerase, that keeps cells immortal by preventing them from gradually losing the ends of their chromosome, the telomeres. When telomeres erode, a cell dies. But the enzyme also has other, poorly understood functions that are thought to keep cancer cells alive, said Robert Weinberg, an M.I.T. researcher who studies telomerase and cancer and was not involved with the research. “The paradigm that it does nothing but extend telomeres is a gross oversimplification,” he said.

Abundant telomerase is so important to cancers that it occurs in 90 percent of them, said Immaculata De Vivo, a Harvard Medical School researcher who studies telomerase and cancer and directs a DNA sequencing program. She, too, was not involved with the research.

The results of the two studies presented in the papers “are like a court of law — it’s the preponderance of the evidence,” she said. “We all knew telomerase was important for cancer, but now we are finding the mechanisms, the machinery.”

Scientists were surprised that the mutations in the dark matter of melanoma tumors were so commonplace. Dr. Garraway and his colleagues had the entire DNA sequences for a collection of melanomas — genes as well as the rest of the DNA including areas that turn genes on and off.

“We said, ‘Let’s just take a look and see if there are any mutations in a regulatory region,” Dr. Garraway said.

At first, they looked at the DNA sequences of 19 tumors. They were amazed to find one or the other of the two mutations in 17 of them. So the researchers decided to look at 51 additional melanomas and a handful of bladder and liver cancers. The mutations popped up again.

“It was really quite striking,” Dr. Garraway said.

But it’s not clear how to reverse the mutations’ cancer-causing effects, Dr. Garraway said. And although people have long wanted to block telomerase production in cancer cells, they have not found a drug to do it.

Still, the findings are highly significant, experts said.

“We have always known that just looking at genes alone would provide a limited number of answers about why cancer develops,” said Elaine Mardis of Washington University, who was not involved with the research. “The brakes or the gas that control the genes that cause cancer are as important as gene mutations,” she said. The new papers, Dr. Mardis added, “show where additional answers may lie.”

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Apple shares tumble after relatively unimpressive earnings report

Apple Inc. may still make products customers love, but its latest earnings report appears to have broken investors' hearts.

For the third quarter in a row, Apple reported revenue and profit that were impressive by normal standards, but short of what analysts had expected. Investors reacted harshly, driving Apple's stock price down more than 10% in after-hours trading Wednesday.

If that trend holds when trading opens Thursday, Apple will have lost almost $50 billion in market value in the blink of an eye, and its stock will have given up almost all the extraordinary gains it had made in the last year. Investors' and fund managers' belief in one of the world's most widely held stocks will be severely tested in the coming days.

More fundamentally, despite upbeat talk by Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, the performance is unlikely to quell growing worries that Apple's remarkable run of dominance might be over.

"Overall, compared to other companies, it's impressive. But for Apple's standards, it's not great," said Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy. "I do think this somewhat fuels the perception that Apple is slowing down a bit.... And it's driven by the fact that some of its competitors are catching up, and in some markets have already caught up."

Apple executives did their best during an hourlong conference call with analysts to project optimism and excitement about both the last quarter and the months ahead. They noted that the company had trouble meeting demand for both iPads and Macs, and could have sold many more had they been able to build enough.

They also pointed to a growing business in China and the expansion of iTunes, which is now available in 119 countries.

"Apple is in one of the most prolific periods of innovation in its history," Cook said. "We continue to believe our fundamentals, our remarkable people, our clear and focused strategy will serve us well in the coming months and years ahead."

Cook praised the record numbers posted by Apple. For the three months that ended in December, Apple said revenue increased 18% to a record $54.5 billion. Profit also set an all-time high but was up only slightly from the year-earlier quarter, rising to $13.08 billion, or $13.81 a share, from $13.06 billion, or $13.87.

Apple said it sold a record 47.8 million iPhones last quarter, up from 37 million iPhones in the same quarter of 2011. Despite that massive figure, some analysts had hoped to see stronger demand with sales exceeding 50 million.

"Meeting expectations is not enough for Apple," said Colin Gillis of BGC Financial. "So that's a little bit of a disappointment…. International sales were a little weaker than people expected. So we'll see how that shakes out."

Last quarter saw the introduction of the iPad mini, a 7.9-inch version of Apple's popular tablet computer. The Cupertino, Calif., company said it sold a total of 22.9 million iPads in the quarter, also a record, up from 15.4 million a year earlier. The company didn't break out iPad mini numbers from its total tablet sales, but Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer told analysts that the smaller version has been a hit and that the company experienced significant backlog getting the product to store shelves. The 22% lower average selling price for Apple's tablets suggests the mini has performed well but probably cannibalized some sales of its 9.7-inch version.

Historic comparisons were challenging this year because the most recent quarter had only 13 weeks, compared with 14 weeks for the same quarter of 2011.

Like many retailers and consumer electronics companies, the quarter from October to December is typically Apple's largest because of the holiday shopping season. Last year, Apple managed to stun investors by beating its own revenue estimates by more than 25% and earnings forecast by nearly 50%. That sent the stock soaring.

But even as Apple extended its lead as the world's most valuable company, and set a record in August for most valuable company ever when not adjusted for inflation, doubts began to creep into the minds of analysts and investors.

Shares have plummeted 27% in the last four months. On Wednesday, shares rose $9.24, or 1.8%, to $514.01 during regular trading.

Apple reported strong earnings in both the third and fourth quarters last year, but the numbers missed analysts' consensus estimates. Gradually, analysts began lowering their forecasts for Apple's earnings for the current fiscal year. At the same time,

Apple experienced some uncharacteristic gaffes. The new Apple Maps app that replaced Google Maps on iOS 6 devices had reliability problems, prompting a rare apology by Apple. And the iPhone 5 that went on sale in September faced long shipping delays as Apple suppliers struggled to adapt to the new, longer screen size.

The dismissal of iOS chief Scott Forstall, a favorite of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, raised eyebrows. But so did a new strategy for launching products: Whereas Apple updates to products used to be few and far between, the company has lately begun increasing the number of products as well as the introduction of new versions.

The first quarter saw one of the busiest product launch cycles in the company's history. The quarter was the first full quarter of sales for the iPhone 5, a new iPod Touch and nano, the fourth iPad, a new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, and, of course, the first iPad mini.

Observers have pointed to this accelerated pace as an indication that Apple is facing more competitive pressure from rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co., which is now the world's biggest seller of smartphones, with its Galaxy series of phones. The concern is that the faster upgrade cycle plus the smaller iPad mini will cut into Apple's historically high profit margins.

Such fears over lower profits have also been stoked by the debate over whether Apple plans to release a cheaper iPhone aimed at capturing market share in emerging economies and the concern that Apple has not been able to strike a deal with China's largest carrier.

Now that the first-quarter numbers have been released, analysts will be busy recalibrating their projections over the next couple of days. But the focus is also likely to shift to renewed speculation about new products that investors are hoping will drive another big run for the stock.

chris.obrien@latimes.com

andrea.chang@latimes.com

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