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Biotech

Genetically Engineered Mouse is Not Scared of Cats 286

Posted by Zonk from the good-for-the-cat-not-so-much-the-mouse dept.
Gary writes "A team from the University of Tokyo has genetically engineered a mouse that does not fear cats. By tweaking genes to disable certain functions of the olfactory bulb (the area of the brain that receives information about smells directly from olfactory receptors in the nose) the researchers were able to create a 'fearless' mouse that does not try to flee when it smells cats, foxes and other predators. 'The research suggests that the mechanism by which mammals determine whether or not to fear another animal they smell -- and whether or not to flee -- is not a higher-order cerebral function. Instead, that decision is made based on a lower-order function that is hardwired into the neural circuitry of the olfactory bulb.'"
The Internet

Submission + - Al Qaeda declares Cyber Jihad on the West

Submitted by agenefs
agenefs writes: Debkafile reports that Osama bin Laden's followers announced Monday, Oct. 29, the launching of Electronic Jihad. On Sunday, Nov. 11, al Qaeda's electronic experts will start attacking Western, Jewish, Israeli, Muslim apostate and Shiite Web sites. On Day One, they will test their skills against 15 targeted sites expand the operation from day to day thereafter until hundreds of thousands of Islamist hackers are in action against untold numbers of anti-Muslim sites.
 

Feed The Register: After months of denial, Microsoft cops to IE vulnerability (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed
URI handling lockdown coming soon

Microsoft has finally accepted responsibility for its role in a security weakness that allows malicious websites to run harmful code on an end user's machine. The acknowledgment of the vulnerability in Internet Explorer comes after three months of saying the burden lay with third-party software makers whose programs actually accepted the nasty payloads.
Printer

Submission + - Ignorance is bliss. 1

Submitted by Ep0xi
Ep0xi writes: From The daily Mail.

How the irregular verb is being 'drived' to extinction
By DAVID DERBYSHIRE — More by this author Last updated at 01:25am on 11th October 2007

The process beginned hundreds of years ago and bringed a huge change in our use of the language.

Now researchers believe more of the irregular verbs that make English such a rich and varied experience are heading for extinction.

In future, 'stank' will evolve into 'stinked', 'drove' will become 'drived' and 'slew' will turn into 'slayed', a team of linguists and mathematicians say. And if the simplification becomes really serious, 'begun' could change to 'beginned', 'brought' to 'bringed' and 'fell' to 'falled'.

The prediction comes from the first study of its kind into how irregular verbs have evolved in literature over the last 1,200 years.

Around 97 per cent of verbs in English are regular. That means in the past tense they simply take an '-ed' ending — so 'talk' becomes 'talked', and 'jump' becomes 'jumped'.

Irregular verbs, however, do their own thing. Some like 'wed' stay the same in the past tense while others like 'begin' take a different ending to become 'begun'.

The study, carried out at Harvard University, found that irregular verbs are under intense pressure to change into regular verbs as language develops.

The team identified 177 irregular verbs used in Old English and tracked their use over the centuries from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf to the latest Harry Potter novel.

By the 14th century, only 145 were still irregular and by modern times, just 98 remained.

The less commonly used they are, the more they are likely to change, the team reports today in the journal Nature. The scientists predict that 15 of the 98 irregular verbs in the study will have evolved into regular verbs within the next 500 years. Verbs that they say are very likely to change are: bade to bidded; shed — shedded; slew — slayed; slit — slitted; stung — stinged; wed — wedded.

Verbs that are less likely to change are: broke — breaked; bought — buyed; chose — choosed; drew — drawed; drunk — drinked; ate — eated.
Spam

Submission + - Story on spammer Alexey Tolstokozhev a fake (taint.org)

Submitted by
wolfeon
wolfeon writes: "The story http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/11/2157244 posted today is a fake, sorry. After doing a simple google search, the facts were very clear on the following, http://taint.org/2007/10/11/203243a.html Please ignore the story and lets move on, this is a very bad practical joke. I was very excited and happy until I performed a google search and looked on the ROSKO list.

The story originated from this site, http://loonov.com/russian-viagra-and-penis-enlargement-spammer-murdered.htm The creation date of loonov.com is "11-oct-2007". Did anyone else see this before making comments or giving a thumbs up on firehose?"
Windows

Submission + - WebKit Coming to Windows Mobile?

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: A Silicon Valley stealth-mode startup, reportedly has developed a Windows Mobile version of WebKit, the open-source HTML rendering engine used by Apple in its Safari Web browser. Wake3's 'WebKit for Windows Mobile' is said to be available now to device manufacturers, wireless operators, and enterprises. Its support for AJAX and other Web 2.0 capabilities may make it a strong competitor to Microsoft's own IE Mobile, Opera's Opera for Devices, and Access's Netfront browsers.
The Courts

Submission + - US faces US$100 billion fine for web gaming ban

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: A Brussels think-tank has accused the US government of reneging on commitments made to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over internet gaming. The forum believes that the US could be liable for up to US$100 billion in trade concessions to European industries after placing illegal discriminatory trade restrictions on European gaming operators. The disputed concessions arise from Antigua's victory earlier this year when the WTO ruled that the US violated its treaty obligations by excluding online Antiguan gaming operators, while allowing domestic operators to offer various forms of online gaming.

As a result, all 151 WTO members are considering seeking compensation for the withdrawal equal to the size of the entire US land-based and online gaming market, estimated at nearly US$100 billion.
The Internet

Submission + - Chinese internet censorship machine revealed

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: The Chinese government has instituted an elaborate system for Internet censorship that employs tens of thousands of censors and police responsible for maintaining control over the flow of information, a report released by international free press advocates showed. Entitled "China: Journey To The Heart Of Internet Censorship," the report issued by Reporters Without Borders outlines the inner workings of a bureaucracy that effectively clamps down on dissent, quashes articles the communist government deems unsuitable for publication, and uses online companies to distribute its own propaganda.

The report, much of which is based on information provided by an unidentified Chinese technician who works for the government's Internet sector, reveals that to control the information flow over such a vast network, three leading government agencies have evolved over the last several years: the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau, the Bureau of Information and Public Opinion, and the Internet Bureau, the report said. In Beijing, where most of China's leading commercial Web sites are based, a powerful local agency has been established called the Beijing Internet Information Administrative Bureau.

In general, the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau issues licenses to commercial Web sites, which entitles them to provide news stories and reproduce reports disseminated by official media. The licenses, however, do not allow for independent news gathering and publishing.
Security

Submission + - In Case of Death, Disclose Passwords

Submitted by cdoggyd
cdoggyd writes: Last year, a man, who kept his address book strictly online, died without telling anyone his passwords. This caused problems for his daughter when she tried to notify his contacts. I remember discussion of a "death clock" system that required user interaction at specific intervals to prevent it from disclosing information like passwords. This would have solved the problem for Mr. Talcott's daughter. Does anyone have the actual name and additional information on this system?
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Online Petition: Aliens, Contact Us Now! (alien-petition.org)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: This online petition wants to convince extraterrestrial life to contact now officially human mankind. It is widely accepted by many scientists that extraterrestrial life exists. Also an increasing number of people made observations of extraterrestrial activities. But an official message from this form of life is still pending. This petition asks for participation worldwide and creates a nice map with the comments of its visitors from all over the world. The project seems to end on December 15th, 2007. On that day everybody is invited to report every unexplainable activity in their forum.
User Journal

Journal Journal: iPhone 1.1.1 firmware jailbreak success! 4

Journal by djh101010
Well, it took a couple of weeks, but the smart folks on the iPhone Dev team have succeeded with a jailbreak on iPhone firmware version 1.1.1 There's a good description here: http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/08/announcing-a-preliminary-iphone-1-1-1-jailbreak It's "not ready for prime time" yet but, the fact is that they're in and can navigate the filesystem and deploy files to it. Springboard apparently has some tweaks to make life more difficult for 3p apps (GRRRR....) but ... th

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