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Comment Re:War is peace (Score 3, Insightful) 573

by Oricalchos (#28082765) Attached to: North Korea Conducts Nuclear Test

And no message could have been any clearer: if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.

In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any other force in human history. Show me someone who says, "Something must be done!" and I will show you a head full of vicious intentions that have no other outlet. What we must strive for always! is to find the natural flow and go with it. - The Reverend Mother Taraza, Conversational Record, BG File GSXXMAT9
Earth

Were Neanderthals Devoured By Humans? 502

Posted by timothy from the subsumed-or-consumed dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that a Neanderthal jawbone covered in cut marks similar to those left behind when flesh is stripped from deer provides crucial evidence that humans attacked Neanderthals, and sometimes killed them, bringing back their bodies to caves to eat or to use their skulls or teeth as trophies. 'For years, people have tried to hide away from the evidence of cannibalism, but I think we have to accept it took place,' says Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique. According to Rozzi, a discovery at Les Rois in south-west France provides compelling support for that argument. Previous excavations revealed bones that were thought to be exclusively human. But Rozzi's team re-examined them and found one they concluded was Neanderthal." (Continued, below.)

Comment Sigh. (Score 1) 289

by Oricalchos (#27780191) Attached to: Hospital Equipment Infected With Conficker

It's not clear how the devices (including heart monitors, MRI machines and PCs) got infected. Infected computers were running Windows NT and Windows 2000 in a local area network (LAN) that wasn't supposed to be Internet accessible, but the LAN was connected to one with direct Internet access.

Critical medical equipment running Windows and connected to the Internet? YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG! The sheer stupidity of humans never ceases to amaze me.
Mars

Submission + - Gecko-inspired dry adhesive set for space (canadianmanufacturing.com) 1

Submitted by
AndreV
AndreV writes: "Biomimetic adhesives aren't new, but a PhD graduate in British Columbia has developed a new method of creating microscopic, mushroom-like plastic structures in order to produce a dry adhesive that mimics the stickiness of gecko feet—and is prepping his glue-free innovation for outer space. A research group at his university, in collaboration with the European Space Agency, is engineering a spider-like, sticky-footed climbing robot destined to explore Mars, and it is also developing reusable attaching systems for astronauts to use where magnetic and suction systems generally fail. In the future, he says, single-use versions could be used in any number of medical applications as well as for replacements for everyday sticky needs, such as Post-It notes and Scotch tape."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Gone But Not Forgotten: 10 OSes We Left Behind (computerworld.com) 2

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "As the tech community gears up to celebrate Unix's 40th birthday this summer, one thing is clear: People do love operating systems. They rely on them, get exasperated by them and live with their little foibles. So now that we're more than 30 years into the era of the personal computer, Computerworld writers and editors, like all technology aficionados, find ourselves with lots of memories and reactions to the OSes of yesteryear (pics galore). We have said goodbye to some of them with regret. (So long, AmigaOS!) Some of them we tossed carelessly aside. (Adios, Windows Me!) Some, we threw out with great force. (Don't let the door hit you on the way out, MS-DOS 4.0!) Today we honor a handful of the most memorable operating systems and interfaces that have graced our desktops over the years. Plus: We take a look back at 40 years since Unix was introduced."
The Internet

Submission + - Kremlin-backed Nashi Admits Cyberattacking Estonia

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Russia's Kremlin-based youth movement Nashi admits being responsible for 2007 cyberattacks against Estonia. An interesting point is that when you DDoS the systems, it's not the fault of some people who want to crash it but instead the systems' for blocking their users due to technical limitations. So if I shot someone to death it's not my fault for shooting them, but theirs instead because of technical limitations of their body.
Biotech

Researchers Build Logic Gates With RNA 58

Posted by Soulskill from the finally-a-use-for-that-pesky-rna dept.
Ars Technica reports on research out of Cal Tech where scientists were able to create logic gates out of RNA molecules. Thus far, they've demonstrated AND gates and OR gates, with work proceeding on more complicated systems. The work shows promise for ability to easily detect the presence of particular chemicals. The abstract from the scientists' paper is available at Science. Quoting Ars: "Detecting tetracycline isn't especially interesting, but RNA that binds to specific small molecules is actually relatively easy to make; repeated rounds of amplification and selection for binding can evolve these RNAs in a couple of days. This means that, in a matter of days, researchers can grow yeast colonies that glow in response to a variety of chemicals, or even to combinations of chemicals. More complicated circuits should be possible if the ribozymes are inserted into messenger RNAs that encode transcription factors, which could, in turn, regulate genes that encode yet other ribozymes."

Comment Not to sound like a nutjob but... (Score 1) 138

by Protometheus (#25254697) Attached to: Seeing With Your Skin?
I can do this, in a manner of speaking.

I don't know if it's just that I have better proprioception than most people, but I can 'see' my body, without color, when I close my eyes. From what I can tell, it has nothing to do with light. It's more to do with my body knowing where everything's at, and assembling that information in my mind as a 'visual' data.
This works no matter where the body part is. For instance, if I close my eyes and put my hand behind my back, I can still 'see' it.
Moreover, it works to a limited degree for anything I'm touching as well. I can 'see' the areas of the object I'm holding. If I've touched the entire object, my mind retains the shapes it felt, and displays the whole object (as it was when I felt those areas) as if I were seeing it with my eyes.

I hope this research goes somewhere. I'd like a scientific explanation for this phenomena.

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For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!

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