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Submission + - HUGO Winning Author Daniel Keyes has died. (locusmag.com)

Submitted by camperdave
camperdave writes: Author Daniel Keyes, 86, died June 15, 2014.

KKeyes is best known for his Hugo Award winning classic SF story “Flowers for Algernon” (F&SF, 1959), the Nebula Award winning and bestselling 1966 novel expansion, and the film version Charly (1968).

Keyes was born August 9, 1927 in New York. He worked variously as an editor, comics writer, fashion photographer, and teacher before joining the faculty of Ohio University in 1966, where he taught as a professor of English and creative writing, becoming professor emeritus in 2000. He married Aurea Georgina Vaquez in 1952, who predeceased him in 2013; they had two daughters.

Submission + - Duverger's law in political science predicts exactly two Bitcoin mining giants (economics.com.au)

Submitted by purnima
purnima writes: It's not every day that the old area of Political Science can help us think in a new way about technology. The linked article tells us that Bitcoin is different sort of technology: it has a democratic system built into the protocol. So when recently, the mining pool GHASH.IO achieved 54% of computational power amongst all Bitcoin miner there was a great deal of `weeping and gnashing of teeth’ in the Bitcoin community. You see, anyone controlling more than 50% of mining power exercises complete control over the recording of Bitcoin transactions. But all is not lost, “Duverger’s law” in political science predicts that the eventual stable market structure for Bitcoin mining will be two large mining pools of equal size. Equal size means two mining consortiums that will each frequently cross the 50% computational power line and have temporary control of the recording of Bitcoin transactions. And that, unlike a persistent monopoly, need not be a bad thing for the longevity of the currency.

Submission + - Yahoo's Diversity Record Is Almost as Bad as Google's 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Comparing Yahoo's diversity numbers to Google's, writes Valleywag's Nitasha Tiku, is "like comparing rotten apples to rotten oranges." Two weeks after Google disclosed it wasn't "where we want to be" with its 17% female and 1% Black U.S. tech workforce, Yahoo revealed its diversity numbers aren't that much better than Google's, with a U.S. tech workforce that's 35% female and 1% Black. The charts released by Yahoo indicate women fare worse in its global tech workforce, only 15% of which is female. So, with Google and Yahoo having checked in, isn't it about time for U.S. workforce expert Mark Zuckerberg and company to stop taking the Fifth and ante up numbers to show students what kind of opportunities Facebook offers?

Submission + - Remains of 'end of the world' epidemic found in ancient Egypt (foxnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of an epidemic in Egypt so terrible that one ancient writer believed the world was coming to an end.

Working at the Funerary Complex of Harwa and Akhimenru in the west bank of the ancient city of Thebes (modern-day Luxor) in Egypt, the team of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Luxor (MAIL) found bodies covered with a thick layer of lime (historically used as a disinfectant). The researchers also found three kilns where the lime was produced, as well as a giant bonfire containing human remains, where many of the plague victims were incinerated.

Pottery remains found in the kilns allowed researchers to date the grisly operation to the third century A.D., a time when a series of epidemics now dubbed the "Plague of Cyprian" ravaged the Roman Empire, which included Egypt. Saint Cyprian was a bishop of Carthage (a city in Tunisia) who described the plague as signaling the end of the world. [See Photos of the Remains of Plague Victims & Thebes Site]

Occurring between roughly A.D. 250-271, the plague "according to some sources killed more than 5,000 people a day in Rome alone," wrote Francesco Tiradritti, director of the MAIL, in the latest issue of Egyptian Archaeology, a magazine published by the Egypt Exploration Society.

Submission + - Tetris Turns 30 (pcmag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wildly popular video game Tetris launched 30 years ago today, and continues to capture the hearts of folks around the world.

Topping best-of video game lists for years, the colorful block puzzle has sold an estimated 170 million copies—about 100 million of which are played on mobile devices.

Submission + - Small Genetic Change Responsible for Blond Hair (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: For all those brunettes wishing they were naturally blond, a small genetic change could have made all the difference. Scientists have found that replacing one of DNA’s four letters at a key spot in the genome shifts a particular gene’s activity and leads to fairer hair. Not only does the work provide a molecular basis for flaxen locks, but it also demonstrates how changes in segments of DNA that control genes, not just changes in genes themselves, are important to what an organism looks like.

Submission + - What Caused a 1300-Year Deep Freeze? (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Things were looking up for Earth about 12,800 years ago. The last Ice Age was coming to an end, mammoths and other large mammals romped around North America, and humans were beginning to settle down and cultivate wild plants. Then, suddenly, the planet plunged into a deep freeze, returning to near-glacial temperatures for more than a millennium before getting warm again. The mammoths disappeared at about the same time, as did a major Native American culture that thrived on hunting them. A persistent band of researchers has blamed this apparent disaster on the impact of a comet or asteroid, but a new study concludes that the real explanation for the chill, at least, may lie strictly with Earth-bound events.

Submission + - Lectures Aren't Just Boring, They're Ineffective, Too, Study Finds (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Are your lectures droning on? Change it up every 10 minutes with more active teaching techniques and more students will succeed, researchers say. A new study finds that undergraduate students in classes with traditional stand-and-deliver lectures are 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in classes that use more stimulating, so-called active learning methods.

Submission + - West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse is under way (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which holds enough water to raise global seas by several feet, is thinning. Scientists have been warning of its collapse, based on theories, but with few firm predictions or timelines.

University of Washington researchers used detailed topography maps and computer modeling to show that the collapse appears to have already begun. The fast-moving Thwaites Glacier will likely disappear in a matter of centuries, researchers say, raising sea level by nearly 2 feet. That glacier also acts as a linchpin on the rest of the ice sheet, which contains enough ice to cause another 10 to 13 feet (3 to 4 meters) of global sea level rise. The study is published May 16 in Science.

“There’s been a lot of speculation about the stability of marine ice sheets, and many scientists suspected that this kind of behavior is under way,” said Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “This study provides a more quantitative idea of the rates at which the collapse could take place.”

Submission + - Thorium: the wonder fuel that wasn't (thebulletin.org) 1

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Bob Alvarez has a terrific article on the history and realities of thorium as an energy fuel: For 50 years the US has tried to develop thorium as an energy source for nuclear reactors, and that effort has mostly failed. Besides the extraordinary costs involved, In the process of pursuing thorium-based reactors a fair amount of uranium 233 has been created, and 96 kilograms of the stuff (enough to fuel 12 nuclear weapons) is now missing from the US national inventory. On top of that, the federal government is attempting to force Nevada into accepting a bunch of the uranium 233, as is, for disposal in a landfill (the Nevada Nuclear Security Site). 'Because such disposal would violate the agency’s formal safeguards and radioactive waste disposal requirements, the Energy Department changed those rules, which it can do without public notification or comment. Never before has the agency or its predecessors taken steps to deliberately dump a large amount of highly concentrated fissile material in a landfill, an action that violates international standards and norms.'

Submission + - China Using Troop of Trained Monkeys to Guard Air Base

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: No, they don't have guns and they're not trained to call down airstrikes. Instead the small troop of macaques have been trained to guard air bases from birds who often get caught in aircraft engines. Government sources say the monkeys have proven more effective than netting, scarecrows, firecrackers and soldiers with live ammunition in dealing with birds. From the article: 'The macaques are trained to respond to precise whistle commands from their handlers, according to the Chinese military, leaping into action, clambering up trees to destroy nests and scare away birds, according to an account on China’s Air Force News Web site on Sunday. The particular air force base employing the monkeys was left unidentified, described simply as being in the Beijing military zone. Base commanders in the account said the monkeys have destroyed more than 180 nests, at a pace of six to eight nests per monkey per day.'

Submission + - Astrophysicists Build a Virtual Universe (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: In the most detailed effort yet, astrophysicists and cosmologists have modeled the evolution of the universe right down to the formation of individual galaxies. The results of the mammoth computer simulation neatly match multiple astronomical observations, ranging from the distribution of galaxies in massive galaxy clusters to the amounts of neutral hydrogen gas in galaxies large and small. The findings once again neatly confirm cosmologists' standard theory of the basic ingredients of the universe and how it evolved—a result that may disappoint researchers hoping for new puzzles to solve.

Submission + - In SF: An App for Auctioning Off Your Public Parking Spot (sfweekly.com)

Submitted by trbdavies
trbdavies writes: "Only in San Francisco" used to refer to issues like whether public nudity should be restricted to certain hours of the day. Now I hear it most often in connection with the interplay between the city and tech companies. SF Weekly reports on one such development: "Anyone who's visited San Francisco for 35 minutes knows that easy parking is a rare find. Enter Paolo Dobrowolny, an Italian tech bro who decided San Francisco was the perfect spot to test out his new experiment. Here's how it works: You find a parking spot, revel a little, let Monkey Parking know where you're located, and watch the bidding begin. Finally, give your spot to the wealthiest victim willing to pay the highest price for your spot. Drive away that much richer. "

Submission + - How did Egyptians move pyramid stones? Mystery may be solved (cnet.com) 3

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Alien pyramid-building theories take a blow as a new study shows Egyptians may have used water to help move the massive stones.

Throughout history, people have looked upon the ancient pyramids of Egypt and scratched their heads, wondering how all those giants blocks of stone were moved across the desert and stacked up high. Physicists from the University of Amsterdam and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter believe they have an answer as to how those stones were moved.

The first part of the equation is that stones and statues were placed on sledges and pulled across the sand. If you've ever walked on a beach barefoot, you know it's slowgoing when you're in dry sand, but much easier when you're walking on wet sand. The physicists say the correct amount of dampness in the sand halves the amount of pulling force required to move a sledge with a honking huge stone on it.

To test the idea, the scientists created a lab model of how it would work, using a small version of a sledge pulled across a tray of sand. They measured the amount of pulling force needed to move the sledge as well as the stiffness of the sand.

"Capillary bridges arise when water is added to the sand. These are small water droplets that bind the sand grains together. In the presence of the correct quantity of water, wet desert sand is about twice as stiff as dry sand. A sledge glides far more easily over firm desert sand simply because the sand does not pile up in front of the sledge as it does in the case of dry sand," the report reads.

Submission + - Microsoft fixes big IE bug -- even on Windows XP (cnet.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: The browser bug was so severe that the US and UK governments had issued warnings. Surprisingly, this brings an update for the outmoded XP.

Microsoft has issued a fix for a dangerous Internet Explorer bug that left the browser highly vulnerable across every major version — including those that run on Windows XP.

The patch, delivered at 10 a.m. Thursday, comes out of Microsoft's usual Patch Tuesday cycle because of its severity. It affected IE 6 through 11, and allowed attackers to install malware on your computer without your permission that could be used to steal personal data, track online behavior, or gain control of the computer.

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