clm1970 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Online therapy: Taking mental health services out of the office (patexia.com)

Submitted by

techgeek0279

on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @06:34PM

techgeek0279 writes: "Web-based psychotherapy is emerging as an alternative to conventional therapy sessions, with Skype and other telecommunication technologies serving as platforms through which patients can communicate with their therapists from miles away. At first, video conferencing was used to provide therapy for patients in supervised facilities such as prisons, rural clinics, and veteran’s healthcare facilities. But the trend is expanding and now many patients are finding it easier to talk to a therapist from the comfort of their living rooms. Online psychotherapy sites dedicated to providing web-based therapy sessions are on the rise. Breakthrough.com is one such site and has enrolled 900 therapists over a two-year time span. There is also the Telemental Health Institute, an online training institution for telepsychiatry and online psychotherapy services."

Submission + - NYTimes says Cybercrime Risk Vastly Overstated (nytimes.com)

Submitted by retroworks on Sunday April 15, 2012 @09:45PM

retroworks writes: Dinei Florencio and Cormac Herley write that cybercrime, like unrestricted fishing, depleted gullible and unprotected users, producing diminishing returns (over-phishing?). They argue that the statistics on the extent of losses from cybercrime are flawed because there is never an under-estimation (or gain) reported. Do they underestimate the number of suckers gaining internet access born every minute? Or has cybercrime become the "shark attack" that gets reported more often than it occurs?

Submission + - Sixty Years On, B-52s Are Still Going Strong 1

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Sunday April 15, 2012 @11:02AM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Those who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s knew the B-52 Stratofortress as a central figure in the anxiety that flowed from the protracted staring match between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Now CNET reports that it was 60 years ago, on April 15, 1952, that a B-52 prototype built by Boeing took off on its maiden flight and although the 1950s-vintage B-52s are no longer in the US Air Force inventory, the 90 or so H models delivered between May 1961 and October 1962 still remain on active duty. “The B-52 has been a wonderful flying box,” says retired Brig. Gen. Peyton Cole. “It’s persevered all these years because it’s been able to adapt and still continues to fly. It started out as a high-level flying platform during the Cold War. Then as air defenses got better it became a low-level penetrator, and more than that was the first aircraft to fly low-level at night through FLIR (forward looking infrared) and night-vision TV." The B-52's feat of longevity reflects both regular maintenance and timely upgrades — in the late 1980s, for instance, GPS capabilities were incorporated into the navigation system but it also speaks to the astronomical costs of the next-generation bombers that have followed the B-52 into service (a total of 744 were built, counting all models) with the Air Force. B-52s cost about $70 million apiece (in today's dollars), while the later, stealth-shaped B-2 Spirit bombers carried an "eye-watering $3-billion-a-pop unit price." The Air Force's 30-year forecast, published in March, envisions an enduring role for the B-52 and engineering studies, the Air Force says, suggest that the life span of the B-52 could extend beyond the year 2040. "At that point, why not aim for the centennial mark?""

Submission + - Engineered Stem Cells Seek out and Kill HIV in Living Mice (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15, 2012 @05:24AM

An anonymous reader writes: Expanding on previous research providing proof-of-principle that human stem cells can be genetically engineered into HIV-fighting cells, a team of UCLA researchers have now demonstrated that these cells can actually attack HIV-infected cells in a living organism.

Submission + - Apple's 'Revolutionary' Project: 7 Possibilities (informationweek.com)

Submitted by

gManZboy

on Saturday April 14, 2012 @09:36AM

gManZboy writes: "Playing coy in a French radio interview, celebrated designer Philippe Starck on Friday primed the salivary glands of Apple fans worldwide with news that he's been working on a "revolutionary" project with Apple that will be out in time for the holiday season.

Don't get too excited yet. At Apple, you'd be hard pressed to find a product that isn't revolutionary.

Apple has applied the term "revolutionary" to more than 30 products and features. For the sake of your own health, do not attempt to recite this list on a single breath: iPad, iPhone, iPod Nano, Final Cut Pro X, iTunes and (separately) the App Store within iTunes, MacBook Pro, iPhone, Magic Mouse, iAd, Grand Central Dispatch, Gatekeeper, VoiceOver, Thunderbolt, Motion, iMovie, PowerBook G4, G4 Cube, AirPort, SuperDrive, GarageBand, Spotlight, iMovie HD 6's "revolutionary new Apple-designed motion themes," iDVD 2, OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), iTools, Smart Playlists in iTunes 3, Rendezvous, PowerMac G5, Aperture, the 30-inch Cinema HD Display, and Xcode.

What might the mystery project be? InformationWeek's Thomas Claburn has some good ideas."

Submission + - Man Creates "Tricorder" (reuters.com)

Submitted by

clm1970

on Saturday April 14, 2012 @08:24AM

clm1970 writes: "A PhD graduate of the Cognitive Science Laboratory at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, has developed a scientific measurement device based on the tricorders used by Captain Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy and other space adventurers on the classic TV series that has spawned numerous spin-offs in more than 45 years. Inspired to be a scientist by the series Dr. Peter Jansen, a 29 year old recent Ph.D. graduate has been working on his prototypes for 5 years."

Submission + - We Come From Earth Bearing Life

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Wednesday April 11, 2012 @04:41PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "About 65 million years ago, Earth was struck by an asteroid some 10 km in diameter with a mass of well over a trillion tonnes that created megatsunamis, global wildfires ignited by giant clouds of superheated ash and, the mass extinction of land-based life on Earth. Now astrobiologists have begun to study a less well known consequence: the ejection of billions of tons of life-bearing rocks and water into space that has made its way not just to other planets but other solar systems as well. Calculations by Tetsuya Hara and his collegues at Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan show that a surprisingly large amount of life-bearing material ended up not on the Moon and Mars, as might be expected, but the Jovian moon Europa and the Saturnian moon Enceladus also received tons of life-bearing rock from earth. Even more amazingly calculations suggest that most Earth ejecta ended up in interstellar space and some has probably already arrived at Earth-like exoplanets orbiting other stars. Hara estimates that about a thousand Earth-rocks from this event would have made the trip to Gliese 581, a red dwarf some 20 light years away that is thought to have a super-Earth orbiting at the edge of the habitable zone, taking about a million years to reach its destination. Of course, nobody knows if microbes can survive that kind of journey or even the shorter trips to Europa and Enceladus. But Hara says that if microbes can survive that kind of journey, they ought to flourish on a super-Earth in the habitable zone (PDF). "If we consider the possibility that the fragmented ejecta (smaller than 1cm) are accreted to comets and other icy bodies, then buried fertile material could make the interstellar journey throughout the Galaxy," writes Hara. "Under these circumstances fragments could continue the interstellar journey and Earth origin meteorites could be transferred to Gl 581 system. If we take it is viable, we should consider the panspermia theories more seriously.""

Submission + - Medicaid Hacked: Over 181,000 Records And 25,000 SSNs Stolen

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08, 2012 @07:00PM

An anonymous reader writes: The Utah Department of Health has been hacked. 181,604 Medicaid and CHIP recipients have had their personal information stolen. 25,096 had their Social Security numbers (SSNs) compromised. The agency is cooperating with law enforcement in a criminal investigation. The hackers, who are believed to be located in Eastern Europe, breached the server in question on March 30, 2012.

Submission + - Antibiotic Resistance And The Post-Antibiotic Era (yahoo.com)

Submitted by clm1970 on Tuesday March 20, 2012 @01:51PM

clm1970 writes: Speaking at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization aid antibiotic resistance could bring about "the end of modern medicine as we know it.". Diseases once easy to treat are becoming more and more resistant to conventional treatments. Even drug resistant strains of salmonella, E. coli, and gonorrhea have been discovered.

Submission + - University makes 80,000 Einstein documents publicly available

Submitted by

orgelspieler

on Tuesday March 20, 2012 @01:28PM

orgelspieler writes: "The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has scanned in some 80,000 of Albert Einstein's documents. According to the university's press release, the documents cover more than just scientific matters. The broad range of subjects include his solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict, a postcard to his mother, and a letter from one of his mistresses asking for assistance getting to America. Some documents have been translated and annotated and are completely searchable."

Comment How did the research even get this far? (Score 1) 382

by clm1970 on Friday February 24, 2012 @11:01AM (#39147425) Attached to: Vaccine Could Cut Heroin Addiction

I guess these scientists have never heard the phrase, "Don't shit where you eat". I wonder how they kept the research under wraps so the cartels didn't ventilate them. If I were them I'd get the hell out of dodge.

Comment Re:This actually seems like a good idea (Score 1) 93

by clm1970 on Thursday February 09, 2012 @01:43PM (#38984129) Attached to: Therapy Over IP Draws the Young, Isolated

It isn't uncommon (actually quite common) for stroke patients to be done over a video conference . Why should psyche be any different? I would think the doctor would and should be looking for subtle cues and body language just like a Stroke Neurologist is looking for signs and symptoms in their patient to decide a treatment plan. A clot buster drug given when it shouldn't be can be fatal. What if the person likes to cut themselves? He might want to see those signs.

Submission + - Tin Whiskers On Toyotas Revisited (eetimes.com)

Submitted by clm1970 on Monday January 23, 2012 @10:24AM

clm1970 writes: A recent investigation into the supposed "Tin Whiskers" on the Toyota acceleration problem has yielded some results. A symposium at the "International Tin Whisker Symposium" detailed that depending on how the accelerator pedals in Toyota vehicles were actuated could trigger sudden and unintended acceleration. It seems safe to say that "tin whiskers" are a big problem when there's enough interest to have an "international symposium" on the subject.

Comment Re:what will they do with stolen cars? (Score 3, Interesting) 272

by clm1970 on Thursday January 12, 2012 @04:47PM (#38678010) Attached to: The Future of Hi-Tech Auto Theft

Yep. I had an older but still running Toyota pickup. I sold it to a couple of guys who were taking it to Guatemala. Make them come to the bank first so they could certify the bills were not fake as they insisted on paying in cash. DA's office said no known scam going around like that but it was a little freaky to say the least.

Submission + - How Stephen Hawking Has Defied the Odds for 50 Yea

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Sunday January 08, 2012 @01:47PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Now aged 70, Prof Stephen Hawking, winner of 12 honorary degrees, a CBE and in 2009 awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, is an extraordinary man but what is perhaps most extraordinary about Hawking is how he has defied and baffled medical experts who predicted he had just months to live in 1963 when he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND), a disease that only 5% survive for more than a decade after diagnosis. Hawking started having symptoms shortly before his 21st birthday. At first they were mild — a bit of clumsiness and few unexplained stumbles and falls but, predictably, by the very nature of the disease, his incurable condition worsened. The diagnosis came as a great shock, but also helped shape his future. "Although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before. I began to make progress with my research, and I got engaged to a girl called Jane Wilde, whom I had met just about the time my condition was diagnosed," says Hawking. "That engagement changed my life. It gave me something to live for." Another important thing in Hawking's life has been his work and at the age of 70, Hawking continues working at the University of Cambridge and recently published a new book — The Grand Design. "Being disabled, or physically challenged, makes no difference to how my scientific colleagues treat me apart from practical matters like waiting while I write what I want to say." Finally the grandfather-of-three continues to seek out new challenges and recently experienced first-hand what space travel feels like by taking a zero-gravity flight in a specially modified plane. "People are fascinated by the contrast between my very limited physical powers, and the vast nature of the universe I deal with," says Hawking. "I'm the archetype of a disabled genius, or should I say a physically challenged genius, to be politically correct. At least I'm obviously physically challenged. Whether I'm a genius is more open to doubt.""

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