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Growing Insulin 251

Posted by samzenpus from the hormones-growing dept.
McLuhanesque writes "The Globe and Mail reports that a Calgary biotech firm has developed a process to turn genetically modified safflower oil into human insulin in commercial quantities. The process reduces capital costs by 70% and product cost by 40%. 'SemBioSys says it can make more than one kilogram of human insulin per acre of safflower production. That amount could treat 2,500 diabetic patients for one year and, in turn, meet the world's total projected insulin demand in 2010 with less than 16,000 acres of safflower production.'"

Internet For All in Europe 186

Posted by Zonk from the what-about-here dept.
evileyetmc writes "It seems that the EU has taken the next big step in promoting the concept of Internet for All, by attempting to 'ensure that the most Web-disadvantaged groups can get online.'" From the article: "The EC has now pledged to increase broadband coverage across the continent to 90 percent by 2010. Rural areas are still underserved, according to the Commission, with about 60 percent penetration. Urban areas fare better and are already at the 90 percent mark. The EC has also committed to putting new measures in place to halve exclusion rates in skills and digital literacy by 2010. "

Designer Mice Made to Order 382

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the time-to-start-a-mouse-farm dept.
blackbearnh writes "CNN is reporting about the world of designer mice. No, not the kind you click, the kind that scamper around and eat cheese. An effort is underway to produce mice with each of the 20-25,000 individual mouse genes "knocked out", which could lead to novel new treatments for humans. It turns out that after fully sequencing the mouse genome, the little fellas are almost identical to humans. From the article: 'A mouse with arthritis runs close to $200; two pairs of epileptic mice can cost 10 times that. You want three blind mice? That'll run you about $250. And for your own custom mouse, with the genetic modification of your choosing, expect to pay as much as $100,000.'"

NJ Bill Would Prohibit Anonymous Posts on Forums 487

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the glad-we're-not-in-nj dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The New Jersey legislature is considering a bill that would require operators of public forums to collect users' legal names and addresses, and effectively disallow anonymous speech on online forums. This raises some serious issues, such as to what extent local and state governments can go in enacting and enforcing Internet legislation."

Future Plans for SWG? 99

Posted by Zonk from the hee-rollback dept.
Warcry has a short article with impressions from someone who was asked to participate in a Star Wars Galaxies focus group. The moderator evidently presented several options, and the group responded. From the article: "The final question/topic was whether we'd choose any one of the pamphlet outlines to add to the game, or if we'd prefer for them to work on bringing things back that were taken out. As soon as he was done talking, the group said 'Rollback' almost as one. The moderator seemed like he saw that coming, because he'd probably heard the term a dozen times already from the other groups."

Gold Buying - Time Saver or Cheating? 543

Posted by Zonk from the money-money-money-money dept.
Sunday's online version of The Wichita Eagle has a piece on buying gold in a MMOG. The author of the piece examines what's involved, and ponders whether such an action is cheating, or just a shortcut. From the article: "Getting my gold was a snap. The smallest quantity for sale by IGE was 500 pieces for $60, about twice what I wanted to spend. I decided to go for it, however, as I simply could not abide the prospect of skinning even one more level-10 boar. Within 20 minutes, the gold appeared in my WoW character's mailbox." From a Cathode Tan post. What is your opinion: Cheating or Shortcut?

Origami Not A Gaming Machine 69

Posted by Zonk from the waste-of-a-good-tablet dept.
Gamespot reports that despite earlier reports, Microsoft's Origami isn't intended as a portable Xbox. From the article: "As shown in the leaked video, Origami machines will feature a touch-sensitive screen a la Microsoft's tablet PC line, will run Windows XP, and will be priced lower than most full-size laptops, running from around $500 to $1,000. If that price tag seems too low for a mobile PC with a high-end graphics chip--which would be necessary to run the Halo footage shown in the leaked concept video--that's because it is. The AP article says flat-out that the Origami is 'not a portable version of Microsoft's Xbox videogame console,' nor is it 'a music player designed to take on Apple Computer Inc.'s mega-popular iPod.'"

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