Thursday, September 2, 2010
News: Another Gulf Oil Rig Explodes
on Thursday September 02, @12:20PM
A few readers have noted that another gulf oil rig has exploded. This one is off the coast of Lousiana. So far all the workers are accounted for, but they are in immersion suits waiting for rescue.
'You Kick Like a Girl': Men and Women Use Different Leg and Hip Muscles During Soccer Kick
ScienceDaily (Sep. 1, 2010) — Significant differences in knee alignment and muscle activation exist between men and women while kicking a soccer ball, according to a study published this month in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.
Too Much Aluminum in Infant Formulas, UK Researchers Find
ScienceDaily (Sep. 1, 2010) — The aluminum content of a range of the most popular brands of infant formulas remains high, and particularly so for a product designed for preterm infants and a soya-based product designed for infants with cow's milk intolerances and allergies, researchers have found.
Decrease in Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions; CO2 from China, India on the Rise
ScienceDaily (Sep. 1, 2010) — Global CO2emissions decreased in 2009, the first decrease recorded this decade. However, in China and India the emissions increased by 9 and 6 percent.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Hooked on Headphones? Personal Listening Devices Can Harm Hearing, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Aug. 31, 2010) — Personal listening devices like iPods have become increasingly popular among young -- and not-so-young -- people in recent years. But music played through headphones too loud or too long might pose a significant risk to hearing, according to a 24-year study of adolescent girls.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Older Adults Experience “destination Amnesia” And Over-Confidence With False Beliefs
ScienceDaily (Aug. 30, 2010) — I'm sure I told you that already! Older adults are more likely to have destination memory failures -- forgetting who they've shared or not shared information with, according to a new study led by Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute.
Building Prisons Without Walls Using GPS Devices
Hugh Pickens writes"Graeme Wood writes in the Atlantic that increasingly GPS devices are looking like an appealing alternative to conventional incarceration, as it becomes ever clearer that traditional prison has become more or less synonymous with failed prison. 'By almost any metric, our practice of locking large numbers of people behind bars has proved at best ineffective and at worst a national disgrace,' writes Wood. But new devices such as ExacuTrack suggest a revolutionary possibility: that we might do away with the current, expensive array of guards and cells and fences, in favor of a regimen of close, constant surveillance on the outside and swift, certain punishment for any deviations from an established, legally unobjectionable routine. 'The potential upside is enormous. Not only might such a system save billions of dollars annually, it could theoretically produce far better outcomes, training convicts to become law-abiders rather than more-ruthless lawbreakers,' adds Wood. 'The ultimate result could be lower crime rates, at a reduced cost, and with considerably less inhumanity in the bargain.'"
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tech's Dark Secret, It's All About Age
theodp writes"Universities really should tell engineering students what to expect in the long term and how to manage their technical careers. Citing ex-Microsoft CTO David Vaskevitch's belief that younger workers have more energy and are sometimes more creative, Wadwha warns that reports of ageism's death have been greatly exaggerated. While encouraging managers to consider the value of the experience older techies bring, Wadwha also offers some get-real advice to those whose hair is beginning to grey: 1) Move up the ladder into management, architecture, or design; switch to sales or product management; jump ship and become an entrepreneur. 2) If you're going to stay in programming, realize that the deck is stacked against you, so be prepared to earn less as you gain experience. 3) Keep your skills current — to be coding for a living when you're 50, you'll need to be able to out-code the new kids on the block. Wadwha's piece strikes a chord with 50-something Dave Winer, who calls the rampant ageism 'really f***ed up,' adding that, 'It's probably the reason why we keep going around in the same loops over and over, because we chuck our experience, wholesale, every ten years or so.'"
Shakespeare In Klingon?
Posted by samzenpus on Monday August 30, @10:15AM
from the you-have-not-experienced-Shakespeare-until-you-have-read-him-in-the-original-Klingon dept.
from the you-have-not-experienced-Shakespeare-until-you-have-read-him-in-the-original-Klingon dept.
stevegee58 writes"As if the Klingon opera described recently here at Slashdot weren't enough, here's an interesting offering for Shakespeare buffs. The Washington Shakespeare Company (based in Arlington VA) will soon be performing selections from "Hamlet" and "Much Ado About Nothing" in Klingon."
Exposure to Low Doses of BPA Alters Gene Expression in the Fetal Mouse Ovary
ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2010) — A new study published online in the journal Biology of Reproduction finds that exposure of pregnant female mice to the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A may produce adverse reproductive consequences on gene expression in fetal ovaries as early as 12 hours after the mother has first been exposed to the chemical.
It's Official — AMD Will Retire the ATI Brand
J. Dzhugashvili writes"A little over four years have passed since AMD purchased ATI. In May of last year, AMD took the remains of the Canadian graphics company and melded theminto a monolithic products group, which combined processors, graphics, and platforms. Now, AMD is about to take the next step: kill the ATI brand altogether. The company has officially announced the move, saying it plans to label its next generation of graphics cards 'AMD Radeon' and 'AMD FirePro,' with new logos to match. The move has a lot to do with the incoming arrival of products like Ontario and Llano, which will combine AMD processing and graphics in single slabs of silicon."
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