36437285
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sciencehabit writes:
One of the biggest question marks hanging over the ITER fusion reactor project—a giant international collaboration currently under construction in France—is over what material to use for coating its interior wall. After all, the reactor has to withstand temperatures of 100,000C and an intense particle bombardment.
Researchers have now answered that question by refitting the current world's largest fusion device, the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, U.K., with a lining akin to the one planned for ITER. JET's new "ITER-like wall," a combination of tungsten and beryllium, is eroding more slowly and retaining less of the fuel than the lining used on earlier fusion reactors, the team reports.
36436567
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doug141 writes:
For 1/6th the cost of the war in Afghanistan, the US could build a national water grid that mitigates flooding in the midwest and provides arid western states with water. It would pay for itself in a single major flood event, and make your food cheaper.
36433353
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technonono writes:
MplayerX, a popular and free video player app on Mac OSX, is now leaving Mac App Store "after arguing with Apple for three months". The developer claims that Apple's sandboxing policies would strip the app into "another lame Quicktime X" thus unacceptable. The app is releasing updates on its own site while users bought it from Mac App Store would most likely never know. The situation was "foretold" by Marco Arment, at least for one app.
36430823
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matty619 writes:
MIT researcher Ramesh Raskar recently gave a Ted Talk detailing their new ultra high speed camera system that can capture light in motion. The implications for this technology include new medical imaging technologies, as well as the ability to see around corners, as detailed in the video.
36430435
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Ellis D. Tripp writes:
The inventor of the 555 timer IC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_timer_IC), Hans Kamenzind, has died at age 78. His invention (first introduced in 1972) will be warmly remembered by many electronics hobbyists, and was the first integrated circuit ever used by many of us. R.I.P., Hans!
36430345
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Freddybear writes:
A recent report from the US Energy Information Agency says that US carbon emissions are the lowest they have been in 20 years, and attributes the decline to the increasing use of cheap natural gas obtained from fracking wells.
Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said the shift away from coal is reason for "cautious optimism" about potential ways to deal with climate change. He said it demonstrates that "ultimately people follow their wallets" on global warming.
"There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources," said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado.
36427303
submission
sl4shd0rk writes:
Upon examining the PDF Engine behind Google Chrome, Google employes Mateusz Jurczyk and Gynvael Coldwind discovered numerous holes. This led them to also test Adobe Acrobat which turned up around 60 holes which could crash the PDF reader; 40 of them being potential attack vectors. The duo notified Adobe, who promised fixes, but as of the lastest updates (Tuesday of this week) for Windows and Macintosh, 16 of the reported flaws are still present (the Linux version has been ignored). To prove it, Mateusz and Gynvael Obfuscated the info and released it saying the unpatched holes could easily be found. The Google employees therefore recommend that users refrain from opening any PDF documents from external sources in Adobe Reader.
36427205
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bbianca127 writes:
Kentucky mandated that schools include tests that are based on national standards, and contracted test maker ACT to handle them. Legislators were then shocked that evolution was so prominently featured, even though evolution is well-supported and a central tenet of modern biology. One KY Senator said that he wanted creationism taught alongside evolution, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that teaching creationism in science classes is a violation of the establishment clause. Representative Ben Wade stated that evolution is just a theory, and that Darwin made it all up. Legislators want ACT to make a Kentucky-specific ACT test, though the test makers say that would be prohibitively expensive. This is just the latest in a round of states' fight against evolution — Louisiana and Tennessee have recently passed laws directed at teaching evolution.
36425897
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TrueSatan writes:
"There is a growing sense that Mark Zuckerberg, talented though he may be, is in over his hoodie as CEO of a multibillion-dollar public company," said Sam Hamadeh, head of research firm PrivCo. "While in many cases a company founder can, and does, grow into the job, things are happening so quickly that there is precious little time here for Zuckerberg to do that."
Zuckerberg would remain as the creative force propelling Facebook's technological innovation. But the 28-year-old would cede the CEO title to someone better suited to overseeing operations and building rapport with finicky investors — mundane but essential duties for which Zuckerberg has shown little appetite or aptitude.
