Astronomers Say Dying Sun Will Engulf Earth

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday February 27, @12:03AM
from the fire-next-time dept.

iamlucky13 writes "A minor academic debate among astronomers is the final fate of the earth. As the sun ages and enters the red giant stage of its life, it will heat up, making the earth inhospitable. It will also expand, driven by helium fusion so that its outer layers reach past the earth's current orbit. Previously it had been believed that the sun would lose enough mass to allow earth to escape to a more distant orbit, lifeless but intact. However, new calculations, which take into account tidal forces and drag from mass shed by the sun, suggest that the earth will have sufficiently slowed in that time to be dragged down to its utter destruction in 7.6 billion years. "

Encyclopedia of Life Launches First 30,000 Pages

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday February 27, @05:15AM
from the sure-is-loud-in-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes to let us know that the Encyclopedia of Life opened up to the public today with its first 30,000 pages in place — and, according to the AP, promptly crumbled even before being Slashdotted. (The site seems fine now.) We discussed this project last year when it was announced. The Telegraph has an overview of the launch, and reports that only 25 "exemplar" pages on the site are fully fleshed out to the extent scientists hope eventually to attain for all species; the other few tens of thousands are expanded placeholders. The project hopes to begin taking input from citizen-scientists late this year.

[+] earth, science (tagging beta)

Buzzing, copter-inspired Blowfly alarm clock goes on sale

Posted Jan 26th 2007 1:10PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Household

We see far too many fabulous ideas that simply never make it to market for one reason or another, but after a lengthy stint in proverbial purgatory, the Blowfly alarm clock has hit production. The design looks a bit more mainstreamed that previous conceptions, but the functionality remains in tact and looks to be the perfect annoyance to force you to rise in the early AM. Sporting a shiny black base, blue backlit LCD, large-format numbers, and the obligatory mini-copter launcher, this alarm clocks purportedly blasts the chopper into the air whenever you're supposed to awake, and unless you get up, catch the flying object, and place it back into the clock, that awful screeching nose simply will not cease. So if you're the world's worse snooze abuser, and you don't mind stumbling around your room with eyes half closed, you can cure that late arrival syndrome for just DKK299 ($53).

Fire alarm bell repurposed for waking the dead

Posted Jan 16th 2008 8:23AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Household

For those who could easily sleep through a tornado (or similar), there are a plethora of alarm clocks out there designed to wake even you up. Still, there's nothing like crafting a suitable alternative yourself, and the folks over at Hacked Gadgets decided to exemplify overkill in their latest concoction. 'Course, a "fire alarm bell alarm clock" is pretty self-explanatory, and while it certainly doesn't come through as loud over YouTube as we're sure it is in person, there's still ample reason to click through and peek the video yourself.

[Thanks, Alan]

The DangerBomb alarm clock: wake or go boom!

Posted Feb 13th 2007 8:06AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household

Already loosed in Japan, the DangerBomb alarm clock from Banpresto is yet another oddball way of coaxing you into the morning grind. To disable the alarm, you must reconnect the red, yellow, and blue cables in the correct order. Fail your mission and suffer the annoyance -- and possible death -- of a mocked audible explosion. Genius. Just ￥2,366 in Japan or $19... if you can get it back through customs.

Warning: not for use in the Boston Area.

[Via Akihabara News]

Homegrown alarm clock tests your math to gauge alertness

Posted Feb 26th 2008 4:38PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

We've seen some fairly sinister alarm clocks in our day -- ones that fly around, nearly make you go deaf and "explode" if you don't get up in time, for starters -- but this DIY creation is definitely lobbying for top honors. The Turing Alarm Clock, which has admittedly been making the rounds of late, starts making racket just as any other alarm clock when the time comes, but rather than letting you smash the snooze button, it forces you to answer math questions with varying levels of difficulty before quieting down. Evil? Sure. Effective? You betcha. Check the video after the jump.

[Via Hack-A-Day]

Retail stores suffering as people reduce their shopping

by Patricia Mayville-Cox
Feb 26th 2008 @ 3:30PM

Filed under: News

Retail is suffering these days, as chronicled by Daniel Gross in Newsweek. Just like there may be loads of empty McMansions sitting around soon, there is an ever-increasing amount of "McStrip" retail space going empty too.

According to Gross, extreme consumption has triggered a backlash. Judith Levin, author of Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, says, "There's a glut of stores, our physical, intellectual and emotional and psychological space is filled up with consumption." We're all buying less and of course, the Freegans take it to the extreme.

Even as the stores and portions of our economy suffer, there are real benefits to buying less stuff, for your wallet and for the earth. Less stuff, less junk that lands up in landfills, less resources that are consumed, less carbon emissions, the list goes on.

But don't get too excited. According to the column, frugality as a virtue only lasts as long as modern recessions do, about eight months and this "cultural anti-retail moment will likely pass." Darn.

Green by the Numbers: Encyclopedia of Life catalog of all living things

by Dalene Entenmann
Feb 26th 2008 @ 12:30PM

Filed under: Green by the Numbers

Did you know?

• On the planet, there are 1.8 million known species.
• 10 times more species are yet to be discovered.
  

If you owned a book cataloging every species known to date, it is estimated the book would be more than 300 feet wide. Not a realistic solution to publishing or owning a book of that size, scientists have come up with another option -- an interactive online version called the Encyclopedia of Life. A continual work in progress, each page will be written collaboratively by scientists and amateurs from around the world. The beauty of a web page, as opposed to a printed page in a book, is the web page can be updated whenever new information about a species is discovered.

The Encyclopedia of Life will launch on February 28, 2008 featuring 30,000 pages of information on different species. Scientists behind the project hope to add pages for the entire 1.8 million known species within the next decade.

The ambitious project is designed for both the scientific community and anyone interested in learning more about a specific species. Website designers to the project are working on ways to make it as useful as possible. As example, if you are going to visit a certain area, you could create a field guide of the area to take along with you.

The ultimate goal of the ever evolving Encyclopedia of Life that could only exist in a virtual world is to educate, inspire, and increase a collective understanding of life on Earth, while safeguarding the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity. And no one will need to build a new bookcase.

Related Link

Growing up today

'2 Million Minutes'

As soon as a student completes the 8th grade, the clock starts ticking. From that very moment the child has 'Two Million Minutes' to go from a teenager to an adult.

Check out the trailer. It looks a little slanted but interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS_QENuOYL8

Most carbon offsetters are on the lower end of performance, says group

by Patricia Mayville-Cox
Feb 26th 2008 @ 10:36AM

Filed under: Shopping Guide

Lots of folks aren't sold on carbon offsets. According to a recent poll here on Green Daily, 63% of respondents don't buy offsets, saying they don't believe the claims of the offsetters.

According to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, there is good reason to be skeptical. Currently, there is no certification or monitoring system in place, no way to confirm that the offsetting companies are doing what they say they are. In a recent ranking of carbon offsetters, by Clean-Air-Cool planet, 30 offset companies were rated on a scale of 1 to 10 and three-quarters of them scored below a 5. Ouch.

But there is hope! According to the Clean-Air-Cool Planet report, here are the top performing retail carbon offsetters in the US:

• Climate Trust
• NativeEnergy
• Sustainable Travel/My Climate

Judge Rejects RIAA 'Making Available' Theory

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 25, @05:26PM
from the need-a-new-revenue-strategy dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected the RIAA's 'making available' theory, which is the basis of all of the RIAA's peer to peer file sharing cases. In Atlantic v. Brennan, in a 9-page opinion [PDF], Judge Janet Bond Arterton held that the RIAA needs to prove 'actual distribution of copies', and cannot rely — as it was permitted to do in Capitol v. Thomas — upon the mere fact that there are song files on the defendant's computer and that they were 'available'. This is the same issue that has been the subject of extensive briefing in two contested cases in New York, Elektra v. Barker and Warner v. Cassin. Judge Arterton also held that the defendant had other possible defenses, such as the unconstitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory and possible copyright misuse flowing from the record companies' anticompetitive behavior."

Antidepressants Work No Better Than a Placebo

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 26, @07:02AM
from the sugar-pills-are-cheaper dept.

Matthew Whalley writes "Researchers got hold of published and unpublished data from drug companies regarding the effectiveness of the most common antidepressant drugs. Previously, when meta-analyses have been conducted on only the published data, the drugs were shown to have a clinically significant effect. However, when the unpublished data is taken into account the difference between the effects of drug and placebo becomes clinically meaningless — just a 1 or 2 point difference on a 30-point depression rating scale — except for the most severely depressed patients. Doctors do not recommend that patients come off antidepressant drugs without support, but this study is likely to lead to a rethink regarding how the drugs are licensed and prescribed."

Cold boot disk encryption attack is shockingly effective

Posted Feb 21st 2008 6:18PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Storage

It's an old adage that no security measure is worth anything if an attacker has physical access to the machine, but things like heavy-duty disk encryption are supposed to at least slow things down. Sadly, that may not actually be the case, as a group of Princeton researchers has just published a paper detailing an exploit that requires little more than a spray duster and a screwdriver. Since the encryption key for systems like BitLocker and FileVault lives in RAM, all an attacker has to do to get it is cool the RAM modules with the air duster held upside down, yank the DIMM, and insert it into another machine, where it can then be read to access the key. Of course, this assumes that you've already typed in your password, but check the video after the break to see how long bits in RAM stay written -- even if you've turned off your computer, there's a chance the key can still be read. Looks like there's an actual benefit to MacBook Air's soldered-in RAM after all, eh?

Tags: disk encryption, DiskEncryption, encryption, security

WowWee Dragonfly bots being hunted by hawks

Posted Feb 21st 2008 11:09PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Robots

We wouldn't have believed it, either, but the WowWee Dragonfly is attracting some unusual attention -- owners are reporting their bots are being attacked by hawks. WowWee says 45 people have reported hawk attacks in the past two months, and there's even a few pictures of the birds with their robotic prey out there -- like this one taken by fifth-grader Danny McGorry. We always knew the Dragonfly was fun, but this takes it to another level -- all we need now is a remote squirt gun mounted on the thing and we'll be ready to go. Check the whole article below.

Gallery: Dragonfly vs. Hawk

Scientists Find Believing Can Be Seeing

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 21, @07:58AM
from the the-mind-is-quicker-than-the-eye dept.

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Scientists at University College London have found the link between what we expect to see, and what our brain tells us we actually saw revealing that the context surrounding what we see is all important — sometimes overriding the evidence gathered by our eyes and even causing us to imagine things which aren't really there. A vague background context is more influential and helps us to fill in more blanks than a bright, well-defined context. This may explain why we are prone to 'see' imaginary shapes in the shadows when the light is poor. "Illusionists have been alive to this phenomenon for years," said Professor Zhaoping. "When you see them throw a ball into the air, followed by a second ball, and then a third ball which 'magically' disappears, you wonder how they did it. In truth, there's often no third ball — it's just our brain being deceived by the context, telling us that we really did see three balls launched into the air, one after the other." The original research paper is available on PLOS, the open-access, peer-reviewed journal."

US Claims Satellite Shoot-Down Success

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday February 21, @08:44AM
from the hope-your-foil-hat-was-on-snug dept.

Readers of Slashdot last valentines day will remember discussing US Plans to Shoot down a damaged spy satellite. An anonymous reader noted that the US is reporting success last night, thus saving us from hydrazine exposure. Of course this makes me wonder- if it's this easy, wouldn't an international super power war pretty much immediately mean the downing of every satellite in orbit?

Leaked RIAA Training Video

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 20, @09:05PM
from the gateway-crime dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has a clip of that RIAA training video produced with the NDAA for US prosecutors that was leaked to torrent sites a few days ago. It argues they should pursue piracy cases because it leads to bigger and badder wares, like handguns, drugs, terrorist orgs, and hardcore repeat offender criminals. It's kind of sad how far they're stretching to bring law enforcement into the matter."

Identical Twins Not Identical After All

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 21, @03:56AM
from the one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Contrary to previous beliefs, identical twins are not genetically identical. Researchers studied 19 pairs of monozygotic, or identical, twins and found differences in copy number variation in DNA which occurs when a set of coding letters in DNA are missing, or when extra copies of segments of DNA are produced. In most cases, variation in the number of copies likely has no impact on health or development but in others, it may be one factor in the likelihood of developing a disease (pdf). "Those differences may point the way to better understanding of genetic diseases when we study so-called discordant monozygotic twins....a pair of twins where one twin has a disorder and the other does not," says Carl Bruder, Ph.D. "If twin A develops Parkinson's and twin B does not, the region of their genome where they show differences is a target for further investigation to discover the basic genetic underpinnings of the disease.""

The Century's Top Engineering Challenges

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 20, @11:15PM
from the I-want-talking-fruit dept.

coondoggie writes "The National Science Foundation announced today 14 grand engineering challenges for the 21st century that, if met, would greatly improve how we live. The final choices fall into four themes that are essential for humanity to flourish — sustainability, health, reducing vulnerability, and joy of living. The committee did not attempt to include every important challenge, nor did it endorse particular approaches to meeting those selected. Rather than focusing on predictions or gee-whiz gadgets, the goal was to identify what needs to be done to help people and the planet thrive, the group said. A diverse committee of engineers and scientists — including Larry Page, Robert Langer, and Robert Socolow — came up with the list but did not rank the challenges. Rather, the National Academy of Engineering is offering the public an opportunity to vote on which one they think is most important."

[+] science, technology, usa, bestlistever, worstlistever (tagging beta)

CNN Fires Producer Over Personal Blog

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 20, @04:27PM
from the team-players-who-realize-their-team-sucks dept.

dangerz writes "CNN has fired one of its producers because of his personal blog. Chez Paziena, the ex-producer, has stated that he started the blog 'mostly to pass the time, hone my writing skills, resurrect my voice a little, and keep my mind sharp following the [brain tumor] surgery.' After a few months, CNN found out about it and ended up letting him go because his 'name was "attached to some, uh, 'opinionated' blog posts" circulating around the internet.'"

NIST Working on "Deathalyzer"

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 20, @01:36PM
from the welcome-humans-i-am-ready-for-you dept.

coondoggie writes to mention that a new optical technique for sensing small amounts of molecules in a persons breath has been developed by a researcher for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The goal is to create a fast, low-cost method for detecting disease. "In this approach, NIST researchers analyze human breath with 'frequency combs,' which are generated by a laser specially designed to produce a series of very short, equally spaced pulses of light. Each pulse may be only a few million billionths of a second long. The laser generates light as a series of very narrow frequency peaks equally spaced, like the teeth of a comb, across a broad spectrum."

Is air pollution making your kids stupid?

by Patrick Metzger
Feb 19th 2008 @ 4:27PM

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, Health, Kids and Parenting, News

Little Bobby-Jo and Billy-Sue not doing so well at their readin' and writin' these days? You might want to think about finding a house a little further from the interstate.

A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health has found that kids who grow up in neighbourhoods with lots of traffic pollution score lower in intelligence and memory tests than those who don't. Strong exposure to black carbon (a majpr particulate component of truck and car exhaust) is linked to an average 3.4 point drop in IQ, as well as poorer scores on memory and cognition tests. The effect is comparable to children who have been exposed to lead, or whose mothers smoked 10 cigarettes a day during pregnancy.

What's suprising is not that constant ingestion of brain-melting toxins can have an impact on a child's IQ, but that it took so long for someone to do a study that proves it. See - one more way that electric cars improve society.

Cheeseburger in a can: For use in case of society-crumbling eco-disaster

by Jonathon Morgan
Feb 19th 2008 @ 1:14PM

Filed under: Food

Clearly, the end is nigh. Whether it's peak oil sending society into Mad Max-style squalor, nuclear holocaust, or rising sea levels washing away our cities and causing international chaos, pretty soon you'll be hunkered down in your grandpa's Cold War bomb shelter, hiding from roaming gangs of mutants.

But before you go feeling down about our inevitable self-destruction, take heart -- at least you'll still have cheeseburgers!

Canned cheeseburgers, that is. I'm sure they don't taste great, but at that point you'll be happy for anything that doesn't taste like squirrel or rat. And more importantly, they don't require cooking -- which is useful, seeing as you'll be living in a damp cave without power.

OK, end of the world aside, this is equal parts genius and absurd. I can't believe someone spent money and time figuring out how to can a quarter-pounder, but it's still somehow amazing that this is even possible. That said, if you're really jonesin' for a burger, check out our Green Eating Guide, and make sure you're eating something that's at least half-way decent.

London not swinging for gas guzzlers

by Patrick Metzger
Feb 14th 2008 @ 11:45AM

The city of London has taken another step in declogging streets and cleaning up air in the center of town.

Mayor Ken Livingstone announced on Tuesday that the "congestion fee" for big-engined gas guzzlers and greenhouse gassers will rise to £25 ($50), while fees for vehicles producing less than 120g/km of CO2 will be removed altogether. Cars and trucks which make an intermediate contribution to global warming will continue to pay £8 ($16.)

The higher charges are aimed principally at wealthy Londoners for whom 16 bucks isn't enough to deter them from driving their Urban Assault Vehicles into town, and is expected to affect about 17% of vehicles coming into the city center. It won't actually go into effect until October 26, presumably to give Ferrari owners time to save their pennies so that they can afford to drive downtown.

The move is a modification to the existing congestion fee launched in 2003, which imposes a charge on most vehicles entering central London. The scheme has gotten mixed reviews over the last 5 years and remains controversial, although popular with environmentalists. Other cities dealing with severe traffic problems, including New York, have proposed or implemented similar models.

New Barrett Round

New sniper rifle round that goes 1.5 miles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-nIWl3Y6_Q