ethogram - Slashdot User

Submission + - Mysterious star system's secret revealed. (space.com)

Submitted by Doctor Morbius on Wednesday April 07, 2010 @05:27PM

Doctor Morbius writes: The strange behavior of the Epsilon Aurigae star system has been known for a while but the reason for this behavior was unknown until now. For almost 180 years astronomers had observed that the star, Epsilon Aurigae, underwent a partial eclipse approximately every 27 years. The eclipse had the strange feature that in the middle of it there was a slight brightening. One theory for this was that Epsilon Aurigae, which is a red giant star, is orbited by a smaller companion which has a disk of dust orbiting it.A hole in the middle of the dust disk caused the brightening. Astronomers at the University of Michigan have now shown that this theory is correct. Using 4 linked telescopes they obtained an image of the star system that shows the disk of dust from the companion slowly passing if front of Epsilon Aurigae.

Submission + - Couple raises virtual child.. and starves real one (cnn.com)

Submitted by NeutronCowboy on Friday March 05, 2010 @05:13PM

NeutronCowboy writes: According to CNN.com, a South Korean couple was arrested for allowing their baby to starve to death while they were out at an internet cafe. One of their activities there: raising a virtual child in the online game "Prius Online." While a South Korean professor calls it a case of Internet Addiction, it's probably more a case of bad coping mechanisms: they were jobless and had apparently little to look forward to.

Submission + - Intel Details Upcoming Gulftown Six-Core Processor (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Wednesday February 03, 2010 @07:39PM

MojoKid writes: "With the International Solid-State Circuits Conference less than a week away, Intel has released additional details on its upcoming hexa-core desktop CPU, next gen mobile, and dual-core Westmere processors. Much of the dual-core data was revealed last month when Intel unveiled their Clarkdale architecture. However, when Intel set its internal goals for what its calling Westmere 6C, the company aimed to boost both core and cache count by 50 percent without increasing the processor's thermal envelope. Westmere 6C (codename Gulftown) is a native six-core chip. Intel has crammed 1.17 billion transistors into a die that's approximately 240mm sq. The new chip carries 12MB up L3 (up from Nehalem's 8MB) and a TDP of 130W at 3.33GHz. In addition, Intel has built in AES encryption instruction decode support as well as a number of improvements to Gulftown's power consumption, especially in idle sleep states."

"Tube Map" Created For the Milky Way 142

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 03, 2010 @04:39PM from the non-stop-service-to-the-Perseus-Arm dept.

astroengine writes "Assuming you had an interstellar spaceship, how would you navigate around the galaxy? For starters, you'd probably need a map. But there's billions of stars out there — how complex would that map need to be? Actually, Samuel Arbesman, a research fellow from Harvard, has come up with a fun solution. He created the 'Milky Way Transit Authority (MWTA),' a simple transit system in the style of the iconic London Underground 'Tube Map.' (Travel Tip: Don't spend too much time loitering around the station at Carina, there's some demolition work underway.)"

Comment Re: 65 new kinds of spiders (Score 1) 52

by ethogram on Thursday December 17, 2009 @10:59AM (#30473392) Attached to: 94 New Species Described By CA Academy of Sciences

Arthropods are a lot more than spiders, including things like insects (most of which are non-venomous) and crustaceans (some of which many people consider tasty). I would have been happy to hear about 65 new Arachnids, but that's not what the post said.

94 New Species Described By CA Academy of Sciences 52

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @10:37PM from the what's-in-a-name dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the California Academy of Sciences traversed four continents and two oceans to uncover 94 new species in 2009, proving that while sometimes in this digital age the world can feel like a small place, much of it has yet to be explored. Among the 94 discoveries were 65 arthropods, 14 plants, 8 fishes, 5 sea slugs, one coral, and one fossil mammal. Why does it matter? As Dr. David Mindell, Dean of Science and Research Collections at the Academy, explained, 'Humans rely on healthy ecosystems, made up of organisms and their environments. Creating a comprehensive inventory of life on our planet is critical for understanding and managing resources. Yet a great many life-forms remain to be discovered and described.'"

Aussie Scientists Find Coconut-Carrying Octopus 205

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 15, 2009 @02:40PM from the concealed-carry-in-australian-waters dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. ... 'I was gobsmacked,' said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. 'I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh.'"

Comment Re:Hundreds of billions??? (Score 1) 1747

by ethogram on Thursday December 10, 2009 @12:57PM (#30390004) Attached to: The Science Credibility Bubble

You really need a source for the 20 Billion over 30 years figure. What does fields does it cover?

Submission + - Google Launches Public DNS Resolver (blogspot.com)

Submitted by AdmiralXyz on Thursday December 03, 2009 @01:02PM

AdmiralXyz writes: Google has announced the launch of their free DNS resolution service, called Google Public DNS. According to their blog post, Google Public DNS uses continuous record prefetching to avoid cache misses- hopefully making the service faster- and implements a variety of techniques to block spoofing attempts. They also say that (unlike an increasing number of ISPs), Google Public DNS behaves exactly according to the DNS standard, and will not redirect you to advertising in the event of a failed lookup. Very cool, but of course there are questions about Google's true motivations behind knowing every site you visit...

Comment Re:Sounds fine to me (Score 5, Informative) 67

by ethogram on Saturday June 06, 2009 @07:41PM (#28237433) Attached to: China's First Mars Probe Ready To Launch

I believe Grunt is Russian for Ground and will be a sample return mission from Phobos. The Planetary Society is flying something as well: a long term biological exposure project called Life. I think the idea is to see whether cells can survive long term exposure to the radiation environment of interplanetary space (as opposed to low earth orbit).

Submission + - String Theory Predicts Behavior of Superfluids (newscientist.com)

Submitted by

schrodingers_rabbit

on Thursday June 04, 2009 @10:00PM

schrodingers_rabbit writes: "Despite formidable odds, condensed matter physicists have made a breakthrough most thought impossible- finding a practical use for string theory. The initial breakthrough was made by physicist and cosmologist Juan Maldacena. His theory states that the known universe is only a 2D construct in anti-de-Sitter space, projected into 3 dimensions. This theory manages to model black holes and quantum theory congruently, a feat that bas eluded scientists for decades, but fails to correspond to the shape of space-time in the know universe. However, it does predict thermodynamic properties of black holes, including higher-dimensional viscosity- the equations for which almost exactly calculate the behavior of quark-gluon plasma and other super fluids. According to Jan Zaanen at the University of Leiden, "The theory is calculating precisely what we are seeing in experiments." Unfortunately, the correspondence cannot prove or disprove String Theory, although it is a positive step. Another aspect of the theory has been entirely overlooked. Despite the myriad licensing opportunities for a physical prediction of the closest thing physics has to a quasi-religion, the only spinoff created so far is a spoofed Macarena in honor of Maldacena's theory."

Submission + - Amazon's Coming Publicity Crisis

Submitted by on Sunday April 12, 2009 @06:05PM

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon has instituted a new policy for "Adult" books that is sure to cause them problems. The company has decided that "Adult" books will not be included in sales ranks. This apparently affects what books will appear in bestseller lists, and because the site's algorithms are linked to sales rank, whether books will appear in searches, and where they will appear in those searches. Some books no longer appear at all when searched for, even when their complete titles are typed in, other books appear well down the list on the search.

The problem is Amazon's definition of "Adult" is very broad. This was first noted by Mark Probst, a gay author (the only books that appear on the "Gay and Lesbian Bestseller List" are now Kindle books, which use a different ranking system). Books without any sexual content like Andrew Sullivan's "Virtually Normal," "The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students," and Dr. Nathanial Frank's "Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America" have been affected, apparently because they discuss homosexuality. But the ban extends further: novels like D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" are also affected.

A fairly eloquent letter to Amazon can be seen here:

http://booksquare.com/open-letter-to-amazon-regarding-recent-policy-changes/

Probst received the following e-mail from Amazon:
In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

Submission + - Human Eyes Speak Volumes to Birds (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by

GrrlScientist

on Sunday April 05, 2009 @09:57PM

GrrlScientist writes: "Those of you who go birding will know what I am talking about when I say that birds are so capable of reading human body language that they know when we are looking at them, which frequently causes them to hide from our gaze. However, this capacity has never before been scientifically studied in birds, until now, that is. A newly published paper has found that Eurasian jackdaws, a member of the crow family, are so socially sophisticated that they are better at interpreting human eye gaze and body language than are dogs or even our closest relatives, chimpanzees."

Submission + - $1B of public domain research released to public! (wikileaks.org)

Submitted by

laird

on Sunday February 08, 2009 @10:21AM

laird writes: "Wikileaks has released nearly a billion dollars worth of quasi-secret reports commissioned by the United States Congress. The 6,780 reports, current as of this month, comprise over 127,000 pages of material on some of the most contentious issues in the nation, from the U.S. relationship with Israel to abortion legislation. Nearly 2,300 of the reports were updated in the last 12 months, while the oldest report goes back to 1990. The release represents the total output of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) electronically available to Congressional offices. The CRS is Congress's analytical agency and has a budget in excess of $100M per year.

Although all CRS reports are legally in the public domain, they are quasi-secret because the CRS, as a matter of policy, makes the reports available only to members of Congress, Congressional committees and select sister agencies such as the GAO. Members of Congress are free to selectively release CRS reports to the public but are only motivated to do so when they feel the results would assist them politically. Universally embarrassing reports are kept quiet."

Google Can Predict the Flu 289

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 11, 2008 @08:42PM from the sees-you-when-you're-sleeping dept.

An anonymous reader mentions Google Flu Trends, a newly unveiled initiative of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm. The claim is that this Web service, which aggregates search data to track outbreaks of influenza, can spot disease trends up to 2 weeks before Centers for Disease Control data can. The NYTimes writeup begins: "What if Google knew before anyone else that a fast-spreading flu outbreak was putting you at heightened risk of getting sick? And what if it could alert you, your doctor and your local public health officials before the muscle aches and chills kicked in? That, in essence, is the promise of Google Flu Trends, a new Web tool ... unveiled on Tuesday, right at the start of flu season in the US. Google Flu Trends is based on the simple idea that people who are feeling sick will tend to turn to the Web for information, typing things like 'flu symptoms; or 'muscle aches' into Google. The service tracks such queries and charts their ebb and flow, broken down by regions and states."

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