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Education

Submission + - School Board Adopts GPA-Redistribution Plan (mydesert.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Citing the dismal state of education in America, and the area's high poverty rate, the Coachella Valley Unified School District of Riverside County, California, is transitioning to a planned GPA-redistribution system. The program, which the board passed with a 5-2 majority at their September 11th meeting, would redistribute grade point averages (GPA) among students at their four high schools and three middle schools according to a "tiered system of excellence." Students with the lowest GPAs from poor families would receive incremental GPA "boosts", which in turn would be deducted from students with higher GPAs.
Biotech

Researchers Create a Protein Map of Human Spit 110

Posted by samzenpus from the doctor-saliva dept.
Ant writes "United States researchers have identified all 1,116 unique proteins found in human saliva glands. It was a discovery they said on Tuesday that could usher in a wave of convenient, spit-based diagnostic tests that could be done without the need for a single drop of blood. As many as 20 percent of the proteins found in saliva are also found in blood, said Fred Hagen, a researcher at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York who worked on the study."
Space

Submission + - Gamma Ray Burst Visible at Record Distance (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "A gamma ray burst detected on March 19 by NASA's Swift satellite has set a new record for the most distant object that could be seen with the naked eye. The burst had a measured redshift of 0.94, which translates into a distance of 7.5 billion light years, meaning the explosion took place 7.5 billion years ago. The optical afterglow from heated gas was 2.5 million times more luminous than the most luminous supernova ever recorded, making it the most intrinsically bright object ever observed by humans in the universe. The previous most distant object visible to the naked eye is the nearby galaxy M33, a relatively short 2.9 million light years from Earth."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Worst Example of False Tech Advertising?

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "In several of the NCAA football bowls that aired this postseason, the DLP technology developed by Texas Instruments was advertised in a particularly misleading way — by plastering a bunch of "DLP" logos on a generic camera, they implied that this camera somehow utilized the DLP technology that's used in televisions and projectors. Several blogs complaining about the over-advertising of the "DLP Cam" mistakenly believed it was some sort of new technology. We also recently saw James Randi offer $1M to anyone who can prove that a pair of $7,250 Pear Anjou speaker cables do anything out of the ordinary. What other particularly egregious examples of false advertising in technology have other readers encountered?"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Most Absurd Example of False Tech Advertising?

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "In several of the NCAA football bowls that aired this postseason, the DLP technology developed by Texas Instruments was advertised in a particularly misleading way — by plastering a bunch of "DLP" logos on a normal camera, they implied that the camera somehow utilized the DLP technology that's used in televisions and projectors. We also recently saw James Randi offer $1M to anyone who can prove that a pair of $7,250 Pear Anjou speaker cables do anything out of the ordinary. What other particularly egregious examples of false advertising in technology have other readers encountered?"
Biotech

Submission + - Larger human brain led to larger penis (pressesc.com) 2

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "The human penis is comparatively larger than that of the other great apes because of our comparatively larger brains, gynecologist Edwin A. Bowman explains in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. Through millions of years evolution the infant babies' skulls became larger in order to accommodate bigger brains, explained Dr. Bowman. This in turn led to a female pelvis become larger to allow women to give birth to children with larger brains, and this led to the female vagina also becoming less tight."
The Media

Submission + - Subliminal Messages Manipulate Political Attitudes (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "As the US gets ready for the political ad onslaught, a potential new factor influencing voters — without their knowledge — may be right around the corner. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have repeatedly and conclusively shown that exposure to subliminal messages — that is, messages that are processed by our brains but never reach our consciousness — can indeed influence explicit attitudes and real-life political behavior. In three separate studies, half of the subjects were subliminally exposed to their national flag, while the other half were not. The results were the same in every study: the subliminal presentation of their national flag drew right wing, as well as left wing, individuals towards the political center."
Censorship

Submission + - Ebay Cancels NanoSolar's PV Panel Auction (nanosolar.com)

Submitted by Sledhead
Sledhead writes: "we had put up panel #2 for auction on eBay:". "The eBay auction started at 99 cents and quickly reached more than $13,000.00, and there was still more than 6 days left. At the point where it became clear that the auction would reach thousands of dollars, we decided it would be appropriate to use the proceeds after the auction for a charitable purpose. We regret that without warning eBay today decided to delete our auction due to the promised charitable use of the proceeds."
Graphics

Submission + - The World's Not Flat, So Map Companies Go 3-D (cio.com)

Submitted by
Chris Lindquist
Chris Lindquist writes: "Two on-board computers, a terabyte of storage, two lasers, six cameras and a GPS antenna: That pretty much describes the vans (50 of them) that TeleAtlas is using to create fully 3-D maps of the U.S. and Europe. Reporter Michael Fitzgerald took a ride in one of the vans to get the lowdown on the future of digital mapmaking. One hint: Can you say in-map advertising?"
Space

Submission + - Solar System Date of Birth Determined (ucdavis.edu)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "UC Davis researchers have dated the earliest step in the formation of the solar system — when microscopic interstellar dust coalesced into mountain-sized chunks of rock — to 4,568 million years ago, within a range of about 2,080,000 years. In the second stage, mountain-sized masses grew quickly into about 20 Mars-sized planets and, in the third and final stage, these small planets smashed into each other in a series of giant collisions that left the planets we know today. The dates of these intermediary stages are well established. The article abstract is available from Astrophysical Journal Letters."
Space

Submission + - Gamma Ray Burst From the Middle of Nowhere (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "A team of astronomers has discovered a cosmic explosion that seems to have come from the middle of nowhere — 88,000 light years from the nearest galaxy-sized collection of stars, gas, and dust. This "shot in the dark" is surprising because the type of explosion, a long-duration gamma-ray burst (GRB), is thought to be powered by the death of a massive star. The question is, how did such a massive star develop in a region completely devoid of gas or dust? One possibility is that the star formed in the outskirts of an interacting galaxy, as seen in the famous Hubble Space Telescope picture of the 'Tadpole' galaxy."
Biotech

Submission + - The Immune System can Deliver Cancer-Killing Virus (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Mayo Clinic researchers have designed a technique that uses the body's own cells and a virus to destroy cancer cells that spread from primary tumors to other parts of the body through the lymphatic system. This procedure triggered an immune response to cancer cells, which means that it could be used as a cancer vaccine to prevent recurrence. They combined infection-fighting T-cells with the vesicular stomatitis virus that targets and destroys cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. To deliver the virus, researchers removed T-cells from a healthy mouse, loaded them with the virus and injected the T-cells back into the mouse. Researchers found that once the T-cells returned to the lymph nodes and spleen, the virus detached itself from the T-cells, found the tumor cells, selectively replicated within them and extracted tumor cells from those areas."
Space

Submission + - Deep Impact Probe to Look for Earth-sized Planets (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "NASA has given University of Maryland scientists the green light to fly the Deep Impact probe to Comet Hartley 2. The spacecraft will fly by Earth on New Year's Eve at the beginning of a more than two-and-a-half-year journey to Hartley 2. During the first six months of the journey to Hartley 2, they will use the larger of the two telescopes on Deep Impact to search for Earth-sized planets around five stars selected as likely candidates for such planets. Upon arriving at the comet, Deep Impact will conduct an extended flyby of Hartley 2 using all three of the spacecraft's instruments — two telescopes with digital color cameras and an infrared spectrometer."
Biotech

Submission + - Artificial Blood Vessels Grown on a Nano-Template (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Researchers at MIT have found a way to induce cells to form parallel tube-like structures that could one day serve as tiny engineered blood vessels. The researchers found that they can control the cells' development by growing them on a surface with nano-scale patterning. The work focuses on vascular tissue, which includes capillaries, the tiniest blood vessels, and is an important part of the circulatory system. The team has created a surface that can serve as a template to grow capillary tubes aligned in a specific direction. The cells, known as endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), not only elongate in the direction of the grooves, but also align themselves along the grooves. That results in a multicellular structure with defined edges — a band structure. Once the band structures form, the researchers apply a commonly used gel that induces cells to form three-dimensional tubes."
Biotech

Submission + - Nanotube-Excreting Bacteria Allow Mass Production (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Engineers at the University of California, Riverside have found semiconducting nanotubes produced by living bacteria — a discovery that could help in the creation of a new generation of nanoelectronic devices. According to the lead researcher, 'We have shown that a jar with a bug in it can create potentially useful nanostructures.' This is the first time nanotubes have been shown to be produced by biological rather than chemical means. This research began when they observed something unexpected happening while attempting to clean up arsenic contamination using the metal-reducing bacterium Shewanella. In a process that is not yet fully understood, the bacterium secretes polysacarides that seem to produce the template for the arsenic-sulfide nanotubes. These nanotubes behave as metals with electrical and photoconductive properties useful in nanoelectronics. The article abstract is available from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

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