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Submission + - High-Fiber Diet May Ward Off Asthma (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The fiber consumed in fruits and vegetables seems to help quiet the overzealous immune system activity that leads to such conditions as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, and possibly even colon cancer. Now it appears that a diet rich in fiber may also fend off asthma, an inflammatory condition that constricts the airways of the lung, by changing the way some immune cells are produced in the bone marrow.

Submission + - Ancient Pompeii Diet Consisted Of Giraffe And Other 'Exotic' Delicacies (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by Philip Ross
Philip Ross writes: New research into Pompeiians' daily lives is broadening our understanding of this ancient Roman culture, particularly their eating habits, before Mt. Vesuvius brought it all crumbling down nearly 2,000 years ago. Over the past decade, archaeologists excavating a row of building plots discovered remnants of food that would have been widely available and inexpensive in ancient Italy, like grains, fruits, olives, lentils, local fish, nuts and chicken eggs. They also uncovered evidence that Pompeiians enjoyed a variety of exotic foods, some of which would have been imported from outside Italy, including sea urchins, flamingos and even the butchered leg joint of a giraffe.

Submission + - Why Everybody Seems to Have Cancer 1

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: George Johnson writes in the NYT that cancer is on the verge of overtaking heart disease as the No. 1 cause of death and although cancer mortality has actually been decreasing bit by bit in recent decades, the decline has been modest compared with other threats. The diseases that once killed earlier in life — bubonic plague, smallpox, influenza, tuberculosis — were easier obstacles. For each there was a single infectious agent, a precise cause that could be confronted. But there are reasons to believe that cancer will remain much more resistant because it is not so much a disease as a phenomenon, the result of a basic evolutionary compromise. As a body lives and grows, its cells are constantly dividing, copying their DNA — this vast genetic library — and bequeathing it to the daughter cells. They in turn pass it to their own progeny: copies of copies of copies. Along the way, errors inevitably occur. Some are caused by carcinogens but most are random misprints. Mutations are the engine of evolution. Without them we never would have evolved. The trade-off is that every so often a certain combination will give an individual cell too much power. It begins to evolve independently of the rest of the body and like a new species thriving in an ecosystem, it grows into a cancerous tumor. "Given a long enough life, cancer will eventually kill you — unless you die first of something else (PDF). That would be true even in a world free from carcinogens and equipped with the most powerful medical technology," concludes Johnson. "Maybe someday some of us will live to be 200. But barring an elixir for immortality, a body will come to a point where it has outwitted every peril life has thrown at it. And for each added year, more mutations will have accumulated. If the heart holds out, then waiting at the end will be cancer."

Submission + - CES: Laser headlights edge closer to real-world highways

Submitted by jeffb (2.718)
jeffb (2.718) writes: Audi will display laser-headlight technology on a concept car at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show, joining BMW, whose plug-in hybrid should reach production in 2014. A November article on optics.org describes the technology in more detail. This approach does not scan or project a "laser beam" from the car; instead, it uses blue lasers as highly efficient light emitters, and focuses their light onto a yellow phosphor, producing an extremely intense and compact white light source and then forming that light into a conventional headlamp beam. The beam isn't coherent or point-sourced, so it won't produce the "speckling" interference effects of direct laser illumination, and it won't pose specular-reflection hazards. It's just a very bright and very well-controlled beam of normal white light.

HOWEVER, if multi-watt blue laser emitters go into mass production for the automotive market, it's likely to drive down their prices in other applications — for example, grey-market multi-watt "laser pointers". If you're looking for a tool to burn holes in the tires of drivers who offend you, this technology may indirectly help to fulfill your wish.

Submission + - Could British Firm Force Pinterest To Change Its Name? (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: Pinterest could be in trouble — a British firm has successfully claimed ownership of the European trademark "Pinterest", even though it has not yet used the term in any public products. Pinterest was formed in 2011, and popular by 2011, but did not launch in Europe until 2012 — months after the UK company Premium Interest had registered the trademark. That trademark has now been confirmed by the European Commission's Office for the Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM). Since so much of Pinterest's business is based on its name, the ruling could force Pinterest to change its name — a move which has precedents: Microsoft is changing the name of Skydrive because it infringes the trademark of British broadcaster BSkyB, normally known as Sky.

Submission + - Yahoo Advertising Serves Up Malware for Thousands

Submitted by wjcofkc
wjcofkc writes: CNN and CNET News report that thousands of users have been affected by malicious advertisements served by ads.yahoo.com. The attack, which lasted several days, exploited vulnerabilities in Java and installed malware. The Netherlands based Fox-IT estimates that the infection rate was at about 27,000 infections per hour. In response to the breach in security, Yahoo issued the following statement, "At Yahoo, we take the safety and privacy of our users seriously. We recently identified an ad designed to spread malware to some of our users. We immediately removed it and will continue to monitor and block any ads being used for this activity." While the source of the attack remains unknown, Fox-IT says it appears to be "financially motivated." For an in depth analysis of the attack, check out this Fox-IT blog post. The Washington Post cites this incident as an reminder that Java has become and Internet security menace.

Submission + - Ecuadorian Navy Rescues Bezos After Kidney Stone Attack 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Hopefully, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos splurged on a Platinum Marketplace Health Insurance Plan for 2014 or he could be looking at some serious out-of-pocket costs. While vacationing aboard a cruise ship in the Galapagos Islands, where the State Department warns the quality of medical facilities and services are 'generally well below U.S. standards', Gawker reports that Bezos was rescued by the Ecuadorian Navy so he could receive treatment for a kidney stone attack on New Year's Day. The Ecuadorian Navy confirmed Bezos' rescue, which involved taking Bezos by Navy helicopter from Academy Bay in Santa Cruz Island to his private jet stationed on Baltra Island. Hey, it should make for a great Affordable Health Care Act ad!

Submission + - Edward Snowden Does Not Deserve Clemency 2

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Fred Kaplan, the Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relation, writes at Slate that if Edward Snowden's stolen trove of beyond-top-secret documents had dealt only with the domestic surveillance by the NSA, then some form of leniency might be worth discussing. But Snowden did much more than that. "Snowden's documents have, so far, furnished stories about the NSA’s interception of email traffic, mobile phone calls, and radio transmissions of Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s northwest territories; about an operation to gauge the loyalties of CIA recruits in Pakistan; about NSA email intercepts to assist intelligence assessments of what’s going on inside Iran; about NSA surveillance of cellphone calls “worldwide,” an effort that 'allows it to look for unknown associates of known intelligence targets by tracking people whose movements intersect.'" Kaplan says the NYT editorial calling on President Obama to grant Snowden “some form of clemency” paints an incomplete picture when it claims that Snowden “stole a trove of highly classified documents after he became disillusioned with the agency’s voraciousness.” In fact, as Snowden himself told the South China Morning Post, he took his job as an NSA contractor, with Booz Allen Hamilton, because he knew that his position would grant him “access to lists of machines all over the world [that] the NSA hacked.” Snowden got himself placed at the NSA’s signals intelligence center in Hawaii says Kaplan for the sole purpose of pilfering extremely classified documents and gained access to his cache of documents by lying to 20 to 25 of his fellow employees to persuade them to give him their logins and passwords, turning them into his unwitting accomplices. "It may be telling that Snowden did not release—or at least the recipients of his cache haven’t yet published—any documents detailing the cyber-operations of any other countries, especially Russia or China, even though he would have had access to the NSA’s after-action reports on the hundreds or thousands of hacking campaigns that they too have mounted over the years," concludes Kaplan. "If it turned out that Snowden did give information to the Russians or Chinese (or if intelligence assessments show that the leaks did substantial damage to national security, something that hasn’t been proved in public), then I’d say all talk of a deal is off—and I assume the Times editorial page would agree."

Submission + - Federal judge rules NSA data collection legal (foxnews.com) 2

Submitted by CheezburgerBrown .
CheezburgerBrown . writes: A federal judge in New York has ruled the National Security Agency's massive data collection program is legal, one week after another federal judge ruled the opposite.

The conflicting rulings increase the likelihood that the challenges could someday end up before the Supreme Court.

The ruling on Friday came from District Judge William H. Pauley III, in the case of the ACLU vs. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. The judge agreed with the federal government's request to dismiss the court.

copy and pasted from fox news

Submission + - Google: Tax Loopholes Good, SEO Loopholes Evil

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "I view that you should pay the taxes that are legally required," quipped Google Chairman Eric Schmidt in a blame-the-victim-defense after Google came under fire for exploiting loopholes that allowed it to pay a mere £6m in UK tax on sales of £2.6bn. "If the British system changes the tax laws then we will comply." But don't try to get away with exploiting loopholes in Google's rules with your stupid Search Engine Optimization tricks, kids, or your site may end up sleeping with the fishes like Rap Genius. Google, you see, makes it crystal clear in its Webmaster Guidelines that it won't tolerate any BS letter-of-the-rules defenses: "These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here. It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit."

Submission + - Planet Earth Has 18.5 Million Developers (drdobbs.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dr. Dobbs refers to a study by the International Data Corporation which pegs the number of developers in the world at 18.5 million. This includes professional and hobbyists. "IDC's analysis shows that the United States accounts for 19% of worldwide software developers, both professional and hobbyists, followed by China with 10% and India with 9.8%. The United States also accounts for 22% of worldwide ICT-skilled workers, followed by India with 10.4% and China with 7.6%."

Submission + - PC makers plan rebellion against Microsoft at CES (foxnews.com) 1

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: Fearing rapidly plummeting sales of traditional laptops and desktop computers — which fell by another 10 percent or so in 2013 — manufacturers are planning a revolt against Microsoft and the Windows operating system, analysts say. At the 2014 CES in Las Vegas, multiple computer makers will unveil systems that simultaneously run two different operating systems, both Windows and the Android OS that powers many of the world’s tablets and smartphones, two different analysts said recently. The new devices will be called “PC Plus” machines, explained analyst Tim Bajarin. "A PC Plus machine will run Windows 8.1 but will also run Android apps as well," Bajarin wrote. Another analyst put the threat to Windows bluntly: "This should scare the heck out of Microsoft."

Submission + - Power-loss-protected SSDs tested: only Intel S3500 passes (lkcl.net)

Submitted by lkcl
lkcl writes: After the reports on SSD reliability and after experiencing a costly 50% failure rate on over 200 remote-deployed OCZ Vertex SSDs, a degree of paranoia set in where I work. I was asked to carry out SSD analysis with some very specific criteria: budget below £100, size greater than 16Gbytes and Power-loss protection mandatory. This was almost an impossible task: after months of searching the shortlist was very short indeed. There was only one drive that survived the torturing: the Intel S3500. After more than 6,500 power-cycles over several days of heavy sustained random writes, not a single byte of data was lost. Crucial M4: fail. Toshiba THNSNH060GCS: fail. Innodisk 3MP SATA Slim: fail. OCZ: epic fail. Only the end-of-lifed Intel 320 and its newer replacement the S3500 survived unscathed. The conclusion: if you care about data even when power could be unreliable, only buy Intel SSDs.

Submission + - FILM vs. DIGITAL – Can You Tell the Diffidence? (lensvid.com) 4

Submitted by Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth writes: Film is fading away and almost all of us use digital cameras almost exclusively. But can we really tell the diffidence between film and digital? Photographer Joey Shanks set out to test this question by recording thousands of images with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II (set to ISO 400) and a film camera – Canon 7E with a 400 ASA Fujifilm.

He shot a long series of images which he combined into several short clips he set side by side for you to look at and decide if you can actually tell which is which.

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