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Submission + - IBM's Watson to be used for cancer treatment (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Beeftopia
Beeftopia writes: The New York Genome Center and IBM will investigate whether Watson can be used to parse cancer genome data and then recommend treatments. The trial involves 20 to 25 glioblastoma patients with poor prognoses. The article states, "It should theoretically be possible to analyze [genomic] data and use it to customize a treatment that targets the specific mutations present in tumor cells. But right now, doing so requires a squad of highly trained geneticists, genomics experts, and clinicians. It's a situation that can't scale to handle the [number of] patients with glioblastoma, much less other cancers. Instead, that gusher of information is going to be pointed at Watson... Watson will figure out which mutations are distinct to the tumor, what protein networks they effect, and which drugs target proteins that are part of those networks. The net result will be a picture of the biochemical landscape inside the tumor cells, along with some suggestions on how clinicians might consider intervening to change the landscape.

Submission + - Time Dilation Drug Could Let Heinous Criminals Serve 1,000 Year Sentences 7

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Like something out of the movie "Inception," Rhiannon Williams reports in the Telegraph that Dr. Rebecca Roache, in charge of a team of scholars focused upon the ways futuristic technologies might transform punishment, claims the prison sentence of serious criminals could be made worse by distorting prisoners' minds into thinking time was passing more slowly. "There are a number of psychoactive drugs that distort people’s sense of time, so you could imagine developing a pill or a liquid that made someone feel like they were serving a 1,000-year sentence," says Roache. Roache says when she began researching this topic, she was thinking a lot about Daniel Pelka, a four-year-old boy who was starved and beaten to death by his mother and stepfather. "I had wondered whether the best way to achieve justice in cases like that was to prolong death as long as possible. Some crimes are so bad they require a really long period of punishment, and a lot of people seem to get out of that punishment by dying. And so I thought, why not make prison sentences for particularly odious criminals worse by extending their lives?" Thirty years in prison is currently the most severe punishment available in the UK legal system. "To me, these questions about technology are interesting because they force us to rethink the truisms we currently hold about punishment. When we ask ourselves whether it’s inhumane to inflict a certain technology on someone, we have to make sure it’s not just the unfamiliarity that spooks us," says Roache. "Is it really OK to lock someone up for the best part of the only life they will ever have, or might it be more humane to tinker with their brains and set them free? When we ask that question, the goal isn’t simply to imagine a bunch of futuristic punishments – the goal is to look at today’s punishments through the lens of the future."

Submission + - Celebrating a century of fossil finds in La Brea Tar Pits

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A century ago on Monday, the predecessor to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County began a two-year project to uncover the Ice Age creatures that became trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits. 'Digs over the years have unearthed bones of mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves and other unsuspecting Ice Age creatures that became trapped in ponds of sticky asphalt. But it’s the smaller discoveries — plants, insects and rodents — in recent years that are shaping scientists’ views of life in the region 11,000 to 50,000 years ago.'

Submission + - Science Has Lost its Way

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Michael Hiltzik writes in the LA Times that you'd think the one place you can depend on for verifiable facts is science but a few years ago, scientists at Amgen set out to double-check the results of 53 landmark papers in their fields of cancer research and blood biology and found only six could be proved valid. "The thing that should scare people is that so many of these important published studies turn out to be wrong when they're investigated further," says Michael Eisen who adds that the drive to land a paper in a top journal encourages researchers to hype their results, especially in the life sciences. Peer review, in which a paper is checked out by eminent scientists before publication, isn't a safeguard because the unpaid reviewers seldom have the time or inclination to examine a study enough to unearth errors or flaws. "The journals want the papers that make the sexiest claims," Eisen says. "And scientists believe that the way you succeed is having splashy papers in Science or Nature — it's not bad for them if a paper turns out to be wrong, if it's gotten a lot of attention." That's why the National Institutes of Health has launched a project to remake its researchers' approach to publication. Its new PubMed Commons system allows qualified scientists to post ongoing comments about published papers. The goal is to wean scientists from the idea that a cursory, one-time peer review is enough to validate a research study, and substitute a process of continuing scrutiny, so that poor research can be identified quickly and good research can be picked out of the crowd and find a wider audience. "The demand for sexy results, combined with indifferent follow-up, means that billions of dollars in worldwide resources devoted to finding and developing remedies for the diseases that afflict us all is being thrown down a rathole," says Hiltzik. "NIH and the rest of the scientific community are just now waking up to the realization that science has lost its way, and it may take years to get back on the right path."

Submission + - ATI takes crown away from Nvidia for almost half the price as fastest GPU (maximumpc.com)

Submitted by Billly Gates
Billly Gates writes: AMD may have trouble in their CPU department with Intel having superior fabrication plants. However, in the graphics market with GPU chips AMD is on fire! AMD earned a very rare Elite reward from Tomshardware as the fastest GPU available with its fastest r9 for as little as $550 each. NVidia has its top end GPU cards going for $1,000 as it had little competition to worry about. Maximum PC also included some benchmarks and crowned ATI as the fastest and best value card available. AMD/ATI also has introduced MANTLE Api for lower level access than DirectX which is cross platform. This may turn into a very important API as AMD/ATI have their GPUs in the next generation Sony and Xbox consoles as well with a large marketshare for game developers to target

Submission + - Nebraska scientists refuse to carry out climate change-denying study (salon.com)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: This is great: State researchers say they refuse to be used as political pawns: 'The problem, according to members of the governor-appointed Climate Assessment and Response Committee, is that the bill behind the study specifically calls for the researchers to look at “cyclical” climate change. In so doing, it completely leaves out human contributions to global warming.'

Submission + - NSA Declares War on President (yahoo.com)

Submitted by pupsocket
pupsocket writes: U. S. citizens can stop pretending that their secret agencies exist to provide deniability to the President. Yesterday the German newspaper of record, Frankfurter Allgemeine, reported that the President told German Chancellor Merkel that he would have stopped the tap on her phone had he known about it. Today, another German paper, Bild am Sonntag, quoted U. S. Intelligence sources that the President had been briefed in 2010. This violation of secrecy should end the myth that the White House tells the secret agencies what they can and cannot do. Sounds like blackmail, the endgame.

Submission + - Police Departments Work to Expand Capability to "Shut Down" Social Media (wordpress.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Workshops held by and for top police executives from throughout the world and widely available from vendors, were technologies and department policies that allow agencies to block content, users, and even devices – for example, “Geofencing” software that allows departments to block service to a specified device when the device leaves an established virtual geographic perimeter. The capability is a basic function of advanced mobile technologies like smartphones, “OnStar” type features that link drivers through GIS to central assistance centers, and automated infrastructure and other hardware including unmanned aerial systems that must “sense and respond.”

A senior police officer from the Chicago PD told a panel on Monday that his department was working with Facebook’s security chief to block users’ from the site by account (person), IP, and device (he did not say if by UUID or MAC address or other means of hardware ID) if it is determined they have posted what is deemed criminal content.

Comment Re:stfu. (Score 3, Informative) 263

by hajus (#45244007) Attached to: F-Secure's Hypponen: The Internet Is a 'US Colony'

Legislation for parliamentary members from the American colonies had already been passed before the American Revolution. Britain's parliament was supposed to offer parliamentary representation to anyone that was being taxed. Taxing the American colonists without representing them violated the guaranteed 'Rights of Englishmen'. Parliament had been trying to fix this since the puritan days of 1640. The governor of Massachusetts had reported in his journal ("Journal of John Winthrop") that he had been asked by Parliament to send representatives to England as either lobbyists or members but he had refused for he didn't want Massachusetts to become tax-liable.

This went on till just before the revolutionary war. People like John Grenville, Ben Franklin, Thomas Crowley, John Adams, and others all debated and wrote papers discussing parliamentary seats in London or federal representation with the empire that would have legal rights to tax the American colonies. However, there was no assembly or request sent to Westminster by the colonial powers.

During the debate for the Stamp Act, (which stated published written paper such as legal documents, and commercial paper like magazines and newspapers, had to be printed on specified stamped paper from England), several delegates from the colonies attended the sessions in New York, but not as members of Parliament. William Knox reported that these delegates were offered membership, but did not do so for they did not want to give England legal jurisdiction to tax them.

From wikipedia: William Knox submitted that,

        whilst [the radical colonists] exclaim against Parliament for taxing them when they are not represented, they candidly declare they will not have representatives [in Parliament] lest they should be taxed...The truth...is that they are determined to get rid of the jurisdiction of Parliament...and they therefore refuse to send members to that assembly lest they should preclude themselves of [the] plea [that Parliament's] legislative acts...are done without their consent; which, it must be confessed, holds equally good against all laws, as against taxes...The colony advocates...tell us, that by refusing to accept our offer of representatives they...mean to avoid giving Parliament a pretence for taxing them.[40]"

The "Conciliatory Resolution" was dated on Feb 27. "The Conciliatory Resolution declared that any colony that contributed to the common defense and provided support for the civil government and the administration of justice (ostensibly against any anti-Crown rebellion) would be relieved of paying taxes or duties except those necessary for the regulation of commerce." (wikipedia)

Comment Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score 1) 327

by hajus (#45242831) Attached to: Antigua Looks Closer To Legal "Piracy" of US-Copyrighted Works

You could say the same thing about Antigua. They passed (or could pass, I don't know) a law that applies to buying and selling stuff in their own country that may be protected by the IP laws of a foreign country. I don't suppose their laws regarding the sale of such would apply in the US. This is why we have treaties.
KDE

Amarok 2.8 "Return To the Origin" Released 99

Posted by timothy from the heavily-stimulating dept.
jrepin writes "Music player Amarok 2.8 has been released and it brings a fancy audio analyzer visualization applet, smooth fade-out when pausing music, many UI improvements and visual tweaks including better support for alternate color themes, significantly enhanced MusicBrainz tagger, power management awareness with a pair of new configuration options, and performance optimizations and responsiveness tuning all over Amarok."

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