Smivs writes "Scientists have concluded that moons like the Earth's are actually quite rare. Only 5-10% of planetary systems are likely to contain moons formed by planetary collisions. 'By the time the Earth's moon formed, when the Sun was 30 million years old, the planet formation process in our Solar System should have been approaching its end. In the latest study, Dr Gorlova's team looked at the heat signature of stars using the infrared. This allows astronomers to predict how much of that heat comes from the star itself and how much is re-emitted by dusty material encircling it.'"

Sandia Labs has announced a new milestone in Linear Transformer Driver technology that aims to solve one of the biggest obstacles to practical fusion reactors. Getting the current needed to "spark" a burst of fusion is doable; getting a constant series of sparks going to create a continuous chain of fusion bursts has never been achieved. The LTD, which allows the Sandia Z machine to fire once every 10.2 seconds, makes it look achievable. The press release (which has been picked up in a few places, but with no further analysis) says that practical fusion power could now be 20 years off.

An anonymous reader writes "FairUse4WM, according to engadget, "can be used to strip Windows Media DRM 10 and 11". What does the slashdot community think of this development in the ongoing cat-and-mouse game going on between big media and what is available online?"

SaturnTim writes "Babylon 5 fans rejoice! It appears that our favorite space outpost is back. It will be returning soon in a series of direct-to-DVD 20min episodes, each featuring the past of one of our favorite characters."

BlueCup writes "Mathematician Peter Woit of Columbia University describes string theory in his book Not Even Wrong,. He calls the theory 'a disaster for physics.' Which would have been a fringe opinion a few years ago, but now, after years of string theory books reaching the best sellers list, he has company."

Bender writes "What would happen if you took NVIDIA's multi-GPU teaming capability, SLI, and stuck it onto a single graphics card? Probably something like the GeForce 7950 GX2, a 'single' video card with dual printed circuit boards, dual graphics processors, dual 512MB memory banks, and nearly twice the performance of any other 'single' video card. Add two of these to a system, and you've got the truly extreme possibility of Quad SLI. We've seen early versions of these things benchmarked before, but the latest revision of this card is smaller, draws less power than a single-GPU Radeon X1900 XTX, and is now selling to the public."

kieran writes "Archaeologists have apparently begun to unearth a massive pyramid which had been masquerading as a hill in the Bosnian town of Visoko. At an estimated 722ft in height, it is expected to be 1/3 taller than Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza."

WebHostingGuy writes "A patent application filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says researchers of the Netherland-based consumer electronics company have created a technology that could let broadcasters freeze a channel during a commercial, so viewers wouldn't be able to avoid it. Philips acknowledged that this technology might not sit well with consumers and suggested in its patent filing that consumers be allowed to avoid the feature if they paid broadcasters a fee."

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that wildlife has reappeared in the Chernobyl region even with high levels of radiation. Populations of animals both common and rare have increased substantially and there are tantalizing reports of bear footprints and confirmed reports of large colonies of wild boars and wolves. These animals are radioactive but otherwise healthy. A large number of animals died initially due to problems like destroyed thyroid glands but their offspring seem to be physically healthy. Experiments have shown the DNA strands have undergone considerable mutation but such mutations have not impacted crucial functions like reproduction. It is remarkable that such a phenomenon has occurred contrary to common assumptions about nuclear waste. The article includes some controversial statements recommending disposal of nuclear waste in tropical forests to keep forest land away from greedy developers and farmers"