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Submission + - Mystery company blazes a trail in fusion energy (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Of the handful of startup companies trying to achieve fusion energy via nontraditional methods, Tri Alpha Energy Inc. has always been the enigma. Publishing little and with no website, but apparently sitting on a cash pile in the hundreds of millions, the Foothill Ranch, California-based company has been the subject of intense curiosity and speculation. But last month Tri Alpha lifted the veil slightly with two papers revealing that its device, dubbed the colliding beam fusion reactor, has shown a 10-fold improvement in its ability to contain the hot particles needed for fusion over earlier devices at U.S. universities and national labs. “They’ve improved things greatly and are moving in a direction that is quite promising,” says plasma physicist John Santarius of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Submission + - Perl 5.22 Released (perlnews.org)

Submitted by kthreadd
kthreadd writes: Version 5.22 of the Perl programming language has just been released. A major new feature in this release is the double diamond operator; like the regular diamond operator it allows you to quickly read through files specified on the command line but does this in a much safer way by not evaluating special characters in the file names. Other new features include hexadecimal floating point numbers, improved variable aliasing and a nicer syntax for repetition in list assignment. Also, historical Perl modules CGI.pm and Module::Build are removed from the core distribution.

Submission + - Study proves adults can learn 'perfect pitch' (uchicago.edu) 1

Submitted by anavictoriasaavedra
anavictoriasaavedra writes: For ages we’ve assumed that early musical training in childhood is needed to have perfect pitch and that it’s just not possible for adults to acquire the skill. But new research proves that, with a little training, adults can learn how and that the effect can last for months.

Submission + - Biologist creates self-healing concrete (cnn.com)

Submitted by Mr.Intel
Mr.Intel writes: No matter how carefully it is mixed or reinforced, all concrete eventually cracks, and under some conditions, those cracks can lead to collapse. "The problem with cracks in concrete is leakage," explains professor Henk Jonkers, of Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands. "If you have cracks, water comes through — in your basements, in a parking garage. Secondly, if this water gets to the steel reinforcements — in concrete we have all these steel rebars — if they corrode, the structure collapses."

But Jonkers has come up with an entirely new way of giving concrete a longer life. "We have invented bioconcrete — that's concrete that heals itself using bacteria," he says.

Submission + - IBM develops silicon photonics chip to boost data transfer beyond 100Gb/s (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: IBM has announced a new photonics technology which will allow silicon chips to use light as an alternative to wired electrical signals to transport data more rapidly over long distances. Scientists have developed and trialed the new fully integrated wavelength multiplexed silicon photonics chip which Big Blue claims will allow the creation of 100Gb/s optical transceivers. The firm hopes that these speeds will enable data centers to reach greater data and bandwidth rates for the growing demand from the cloud computing and Big Data industries.Silicon photonics works by deploying minuscule optical units to transfer light pulses to send large volumes of data at very high speeds between server computer chips, data centers, supercomputers. The optical technology aims to tackle the limitations on transporting data such as congestion and expensive interconnects.

Submission + - Scientists discover first warm-bodied fish (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers have discovered the first fish that can keep its entire body warm, much like mammals and birds. The opah, or moonfish, lives in deep, cold water, but it generates heat from its massive pectoral muscles. And it conserves that warmth thanks to body fat and the special structure of blood vessels in its gills. Having a warm heart and brain likely allows the little-known fish to be a vigorous predator, the researchers suspect.

Comment Re:Standard Law (Score 1) 312

by BECoole (#49641431) Attached to: Defense Distributed Sues State Department Over 3-D Gun Censorship

It is legal to produce guns for your own personal use. It is also legal to sell those guns. It is illegal to produce & sell guns on a commercial basis.

The law is not quantitative on this issue, it is qualitative. So, if you make and sell, say, for instance 5 guns, you could be charged and convicted for unlicensed commercial production and sale, or you could just as easily be no-billed. It depends upon how bad they want you and who the judge is, and, of course, whether or not you have the resources to appeal.

Making and later selling 1 gun is extremely unlikely to result in any charges.

Comment Printed Guns are Dangerous! (Score 1) 312

by BECoole (#49641367) Attached to: Defense Distributed Sues State Department Over 3-D Gun Censorship

Yes, they are - dangerous to the shooter, not the target!

It's going to be a looonngggg time before a gun can be made completely by a 3D printer and be safe to the user, muchless approach any semblance of firing accurately. Non-metallic components just can't put up with the stresses of containing nearly explosive charges of propellent nor can they deal with the stress involved in the engraving of a bullet by the rifling. It is far simpler and safer to make a firearm out of iron pipe.

In the meantime, I'll seek out 100 year old machine tools if I want to make a gun.

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