Kilrah_il writes"A German citizen was sued for copyright infringement because copyrighted material was downloaded through his network while he was on vacation. Although the court did not find him guilty of copyright infringement, he was fined for not having password-protected his network: 'Private users are obligated to check whether their wireless connection is adequately secured to the danger of unauthorized third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation,' the court said."
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
North Korea Announces Achieving Nuclear Fusion
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 12, @01:36PM
from the kim-jong-illin dept.
from the kim-jong-illin dept.
aftertaf writes"North Korea claims to have achieved nuclear fusion by building what it describes as a 'unique thermo-nuclear reaction device.' This announcement was met by skepticism on just about every news website this side of Saturn. Pyongyang claims its latest scientific breakthrough coincides with the birthday of the country's founder and eternal president Kim Il-sung. This is not the first time it seems that the laws of nature have been bent in his honor. According to official biographies, when his son, Kim Jong-il, was born, a new star appeared in the sky."No doubt the Dear Leader combined the atomic nuclei by hand.
Genetic Testing Coming To a Drugstore Near You
Hugh Pickens writes"The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Walgreens is slated to begin selling genetic-testing kits priced from $20 to $30 apiece that can tell people whether they're likely to get breast cancer, Alzheimer's disease, become obese, or suffer from a range of other maladies. However, to get the results of various tests, shoppers will have to fork over an additional $79 for drug-response results, $179 for 'pre-pregnancy planning' results, $179 for health condition results, or $249 for a combination of the three. Pathway Genomics and other companies already offer such tests online, but Walgreens will be the first brick-and-mortar retailer to sell them. FDA spokeswoman Karen Riley says Pathway overstepped its bounds when it announced its plans to market the tests directly to the consumer at 6,000 of Walgreen's 7,500 stores and wants Pathway Genomics to submit data showing that its tests give accurate results.'The claims have limitations based on existing science,' says Riley, 'and consumers should not be making important medical and lifestyle decisions based on these tests without first consulting a health-care professional.' Walgreen responded that FDA clearance is not required to sell the kit in its stores; and anyway, the drugstore chain already sells other diagnostic and testing products such as pregnancy tests, paternity tests, and drug tests."
Biofuel Chemistry More Complex Than Petroleum, Say Researchers
ScienceDaily (May 12, 2010) — Understanding the key elements of biofuel combustion is an important step toward insightful selection of next-generation alternative fuels.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Evidence Growing of Air Pollution's Link to Heart Disease, Death
ScienceDaily (May 10, 2010) — The scientific evidence linking air pollution to heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular death has "substantially strengthened," and people, particularly those at high cardiovascular risk, should limit their exposure, according to an updated American Heart Association scientific statement.
Untangling the Quantum Entanglement Behind Photosynthesis
ScienceDaily (May 10, 2010) — The future of clean green solar power may well hinge on scientists being able to unravel the mysteries of photosynthesis, the process by which green plants convert sunlight into electrochemical energy. To this end, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC), Berkeley have recorded the first observation and characterization of a critical physical phenomenon behind photosynthesis known as quantum entanglement.
Flaxseed-Fed Chickens Shed Light on Ovarian Cancer
ScienceDaily (May 4, 2010) — In the race to find answers about ovarian cancer, researchers now have something to cluck about. For five years, University of Illinois researchers have been using the chicken as a model to study this deadly disease and have recently discovered that a diet enriched with flaxseed decreases severity of ovarian cancer and increases survival in hens.
Zero Tolerance Ineffective in Schools, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (May 10, 2010) — Zero tolerance policy in schools -- which can mandate automatic punishment for weapons, drugs, profanity and various forms of disruptive behavior -- is failing to make students feel safe, contends a new study by two Michigan State University researchers.
The Home Depot takes LED lighting mainstream with $20 bulbs
By Sean Hollister 
posted May 11th 2010 3:57AM
Slowly but surely, LED light bulbs have been getting brighter and more efficient, but price has always been a major factor staying their adoption. Back in 2007, a single 308 lumen bulb cost $65, and the more things changed, the more they've stayed the same. Now, out of the blue, The Home Depot has stepped forward with a cost-effective alternative. For $20, the new EcoSmart LED bulb promises a 429 lumen, 40W equivalent with a 50,000 hour expected lifetime, making it cheaper and nearly as powerful as the450 lumen, $40-50 design industry heavyweight GE unveiled last month. Best of all, it's already available for purchase (though backordered) at our source link. Honestly, we're starting to wonder what the catch is. PR after the break.Monday, May 10, 2010
New HDD writing methods could boost platter densities by 5x or more
By Tim Stevens posted May 10th 2010 7:35AM
Just when we think that platter-based storage is on its way out it keeps on coming back with a vengeance. A few years ago it was perpendicular recording boosting storage densities by a few orders of magnitude, now it's a pair of new techniques that could push things much further. Your average disk today can manage a couple-hundred GB per square inch while still delivering reliable writes, but if all goes to plan the write methods called bit-patterned recording (BPR) and thermally-assisted recording (TAR) could raise that to 1TB per inch initially and upwards of 10TB per inch down the road. BPR relies on segregating the disk sectors with lithographed "islands" while TAR relies on heating and cooling techniques that preserve the data in nearby sectors. When these Wonder Twins combine, disk sectors can be as small as 15nm in diameter and write speeds can hit 250mb/sec. Yes, that's megabits, so while you'll be able to store a lot more data than on conventional platters, you won't be able to do so any more quickly than now.3rd-Grader Busted For Jolly Rancher Possession
Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 10, @11:10AM
from the step-away-from-the-candy dept.theodp writes"A third-grader in a small Texas school district received a week's detention for merely possessing a Jolly Rancher. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice. But school officials are defending the sentence, saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."
from the step-away-from-the-candy dept.
theodp writes"A third-grader in a small Texas school district received a week's detention for merely possessing a Jolly Rancher. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice. But school officials are defending the sentence, saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."
Common Mosquito Repellent No Longer Repels Certain Mosquitoes
ScienceDaily (May 6, 2010) — Mosquitoes can develop a resistance to substances used to repel them. This has been shown for the first time in laboratory tests at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and associates in the UK.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Underwater Ocean Kites To Harvest Tidal Energy
eldavojohn writes"A Swedish startup has acquired funding for beginning scale model trials of underwater kites, which would be secured to a turbine to harness tidal energy for power. The company reports that the kite device allows the attached turbine to harvest energy at 10 times the speed of the actual tidal current. With a 12-meter wingspan on the kite, the company says they could harvest 500 kilowatts while it's operational. This novel new design is one of many in which a startup or university hope to turn the ocean into a renewable energy source."
Hacker Develops ATM Rootkit
alphadogg writes"One year after his Black Hat talk on automated teller machine security vulnerabilities was yanked by his employer, security researcher Barnaby Jack plans to deliver the talk and disclose a new ATM rootkitat the computer security conference. He plans to give the talk, entitled "Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines," at the Black Hat Las Vegas conference, held July 28 and 29. Jack will demonstrate several ways of attacking ATM machines, including remote, network-based attacks."
Estimating Game Piracy More Accurately
An anonymous reader tips a post up at the Wolfire blog that attempts to pin down a reasonable figure for the amount of sales a game company loses due to piracy. We've commonly heard claims of piracy ratesas high as 80-90%, but that clearly doesn't translate directly into lost sales. The article explains a better metric: going on a per-pirate basis rather than a per-download basis. Quoting:"iPhone game developers have also found that around 80% of their users are running pirated copies of their game (using jailbroken phones). This immediately struck me as odd — I suspected that most iPhone users had never even heard of 'jailbreaking.' I did a bit more research and found that my intuition was correct — only 5% of iPhones in the US are jailbroken. World-wide, the jailbreak statistics are highest in poor countries — but, unsurprisingly, iPhones are also much less common there. The highest estimate I've seen is that 10% of worldwide iPhones are jailbroken. Given that there are so few jailbroken phones, how can we explain that 80% of game copies are pirated? The answer is simple — the average pirate downloads a lot more games than the average customer buys. This means that even though games see that 80% of their copies are pirated, only 10% of their potential customers are pirates, which means they are losing at most 10% of their sales."
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Google Chrome: faster than a flying potato
By Donald Melanson posted May 5th 2010 4:36PM
Google's never been shy to make claims that Chrome is the fastest browser on the planet, but it's truly pulled out all the stops to drive that point home for its latest beta. Rather than rely on some simple benchmarks, Google decided to test Chome against some other things that are fast -- namely, a potato cannon, sound waves, and lightning. We won't spoil all the surprise for you, but you can rest assured that Chrome comes out looking pretty good, and that everything else gets a little messy. Head on past the break to check out the speed tests for yourself, as well as the requisite making-of video.
Sociologists Weigh In On Obesity Increasing The Length Of Hospital Stays
January 1, 2009 — Sociologists found a direct relationship between obesity and duration and frequency of hospital stays. Researchers found that, on average, obese persons stayed one and a half days longer than those with normal weight. Sociologists attribute the connection to disease--46 percent of obese adults have high blood pressure. Obesity is also linked to an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and other illnesses. The researchers also note that the longer a person has been obese, the more likely their hospital stay is lengthened.
Managing the Emotions Behind Eating
ScienceDaily (May 5, 2010) — How many times have you, after a particularly hard day, reached for some chocolate or ice cream? It's common for many people, but for those trying to lose weight, it can be detrimental to their long term success, and most weight-loss programs never even address it.
Storing Green Electricity as Natural Gas
ScienceDaily (May 5, 2010) — Renewable electricity can be transformed into a substitute for natural gas. Until now, electricity was generated from gas. Now, a German-Austrian cooperation wants to go in the opposite direction. In the future, these researchers and entrepreneurs would like to store surplus electricity -- such as from wind power or solar energy -- as climate-neutral methane, and store it in existing gas storage facilities and the natural gas network.
Study Shows Trend of Increasing Obesity in Pregnant Moms Contributing to Higher Body Fat in Newborns
ScienceDaily (May 4, 2010) — A new study has found for the first time that as Americans are gaining more body fat, so are their babies. The research, which reviewed data from more than 74,000 births, found that a key measure of body fat composition in newborns increased significantly over a 15-year period, mirroring similar increases among pregnant mothers.
Spider-Man Foils Comic Book Thief
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 05, @01:33PM
from the is-that-the-spidey-sense-or-indegestion dept.
from the is-that-the-spidey-sense-or-indegestion dept.
chebucto writes"The BBC reports that 'A comic book shop owner in Australia became a real-life superhero when he caught a robber red-handed. Michael Baulderstone, who was dressed as Spider-Man for a promotional event, spied a customer behaving suspiciously during an International Free Comic Day celebration. CCTV footage shows him "leap" into action and confront the would-be shoplifter who had slipped a AU$160 (£97) X-Men book into his bag. ... He said a group of Jedi knights blocked the door to prevent the thief from escaping, as The Flash looked on.'"
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
US Air Force Launches Secret Flying Twinkie
Spectrummag writes"One of the most secretive US Air Force spaceflights in decades, launched this month, is keeping aficionados guessing as to the nature of the secret. The 6000-kilogram, 8-meter X-37B, nicknamed the flying Twinkie because of its stubby-winged shape, is supposed to orbit Earth for several weeks, maneuver in orbit, then glide home. What's it for? Space expert James Oberg tracks the possibilities."
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Canadians Lead Longer, Healthier Lives Than Americans
ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2010) — Compared to their neighbours south of the border, Canadians live longer, healthier lives. Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Population Health Metrics has found this disparity between the two countries, suggesting that America's lack of universal health care and lower levels of social and economic equality are to blame.
NASA's Space Balloon Smashes Car In Australia
"Of more worldly issues, NASA's latest multimillion-dollar stratosphere-bound balloon launch has gone horribly wrong and crashed into a car, turning it over and narrowly missing two elderly people who were observing the launch. The payload fared worse, reportedly being smashed into a 'thousand pieces.'"
FAA Setting Up Commercial Spaceflight Center
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday April 28, @08:34PM
from the to-the-moon-with-you dept.
from the to-the-moon-with-you dept.
coondoggie writes"The FAA this week took a step closer to setting up a central hub for the development of key commercial space transportation technologies such as space launch and traffic management applications and setting orbital safety standards. The hub, known as the Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation, would have a $1 million yearly budget and tie together universities, industry players, and the government for cost-sharing research and development. The FAA expects the center to be up and running this year."
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