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Biotech

DIY Biologists To Open Source Research 147

Posted by Soulskill from the meatware-hacking dept.
destinyland writes "Falling costs and garage tinkering are creating a grass roots movement of amateur biologists whose research is more transparent than that of academia. They are building lab equipment using common household items and even synthesizing new organisms, and their transparency also allows the social pressure which creates more ethical research. DIY Bio.org fosters lab co-ops for large equipment and provokes important discussions. (Would it be ethical to release a homegrown symbiote that cures scurvy in hundreds of thousands of people?) This movement could someday lead to bottom-up remedies for disease, fuel-generating microbes, or even a social-networked disease-tracking epidemiology. 'In much the same way that homebrew computer science built the world we live in today, garage biology can affect the future we make for ourselves,' argues h+ magazine, which featured the article in their summer issue."
Links

Submission + - Joomla 1.5 rc4 released (joomla.org)

Submitted by Bltann
Bltann writes: Just a week and a half ago people from all over the globe gathered in various locations to do a little Bug Squashing... today the fruits of their labour can be revealed as we announce the release of Joomla! 1.5 RC4. This release is code named Karibu which is Swahili for nearby, close, close by, at hand... all terms that we feel reflect the nature of this release."

There might still be a bug in the URL rewriting plugin that affects links embedded in articles in some cases.
However, the next release is targeted to be a major relase.
Media (Apple)

Submission + - Apple rumor site Think Secret settles, shuts down

Submitted by
ohthetrees
ohthetrees writes: "Think Secret, the longtime Apple rumor and news site is shutting down. An announcement on the site explains that they have reached a settlement with apple in which they didn't name any of their sources, but they are closing down. Other terms, if any, were not disclosed. Think Secret has been one of the more reliable rumor sites for years."
Announcements

Submission + - Digital mutiny: 2,000 page iraq leak (wikileaks.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Looks like them wikileaks guys are finally putting something out there.

from the site:

This spectacular 2,000 page US military leak consists of the names, group structure and equipment registers of all units in Iraq with US army equipment . It exposes secretive document exploitation centers, detainee operations, elements of the State Department, Air Force, Navy and Marines units, the Iraqi police and coalition forces from Poland, Denmark, Ukraine, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Armenia, Kazakhstan and El Salvador. The material represents nearly the entire order of battle for US forces in Iraq and is the first public revelation of many of the military units described. Among other matters it shows that the United States has violated the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Space

Submission + - Cosmic 'Bullets' Traced to Galactic Black Holes 1

Submitted by dork
dork writes: The Pierre Auger Observatory announced that active galactic nuclei are the most likely candidates for the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays that hit Earth. Using the Southern Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, the largest cosmic-ray observatory in the world, spanning over more than 3000 square kilometers, they found that the sources of the highest-energy particles are not distributed uniformly across the sky, linking the origins of these "cosmic bullets" to the locations of nearby galaxies, hosting active nuclei in their centers. These galaxies are thought to be powered by supermassive monster black holes that are devouring large amounts of matter. The exact mechanism of how particles get accelerated to energies 100 million times higher than achievable by the most powerful particle accelerators on Earth is still a mystery. A fraction of recorded events is also available through a public online event display.
Music

Submission + - Demonoid Taken Down Completely - Doesn't Look Good (demonoid.com)

Submitted by
msaleem1
msaleem1 writes: "Demonoid has been taken down once and for all. Accessing the site shows the following message "The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding." It's a sad day."
NASA

Submission + - Amazon Forest Unexpectedly Resistant to Drought (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
koalapeck
koalapeck writes: "NASA's earth observatory has an interesting article on the role drought plays in the Amazon Rain Forest.

"The extensive forests of South America's Amazon are turning out to be tougher than expected when it comes to withstanding the onslaughts of a changing climate. A team of U.S. and Brazilian scientists using the insightful eyes of two NASA satellites has shown that one of the worst droughts in decades could not stop the undisturbed regions of the Amazon forest from "greening up.""
Education

Submission + - Linux to be installed in every Russian school (cnews.ru) 2

Submitted by J_Omega
J_Omega writes: According to the Russian IT site CNews, Linux is slated to be installed in every Russian school by 2009. The article makes it appear that it will be going by the (unimaginative and nationalist) name "Russian OS." As stated in the article: "The main aim of the given work is to reduce dependence on foreign commercial software and provide education institutions with the possibility to choose whether to pay for commercial items or to use the software, provided by the government." Initial testing installations are supposed to begin next year in select districts. Is 2008/09 the year of Linux on the (Russian) desktop?
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - Sun Releasing 8-Core Niagara 2 Processor

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Sun Microsystems is set to announce its eight-core Niagara 2 processor next week. Each core supports eight threads, so the chip handles 64 simultaneous threads, making it the centerpiece of Sun's "Throughput Computing" effort. Along with having more cores than the quads from Intel and AMD, the Niagara 2 have dual, on-chip 10G Ethernet ports with crytopgraphic capability. Sun doesn't get much processor press, because the chips are used only in its own CoolThreads servers, but Niagara 2 will probably be the fastest processor out there when its released, other than perhaps the also little-known 4-GHz IBM Power 6.

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