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Science

Submission + - Ginkgo Doesn't Improve Memory or Cognative Skills (cnn.com)

Submitted by JumperCable
JumperCable writes: CNN reports

Ginkgo biloba has failed — again — to live up to its reputation for boosting memory and brain function. Just over a year after a study showed that the herb doesn't prevent dementia and Alzheimer's disease, a new study from the same team of researchers has found no evidence that ginkgo reduces the normal cognitive decline that comes with aging.

In the new study, the largest of its kind to date, DeKosky and his colleagues followed more than 3,000 people between the ages of 72 and 96 for an average of six years. Half of the participants took two 120-milligram capsules of ginkgo a day during the study period, and the other half took a placebo. The people who took ginkgo showed no differences in attention, memory, and other cognitive measures compared to those who took the placebo, according to the study, which was published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

And of course, the link to the study. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/302/24/2663?home

Submission + - Wanna join the EcoStasi? There's an app for that. (mnn.com)

Submitted by Dreadneck
Dreadneck writes: Karl Burkart at the Mother Nature Network opines that "EcoSnoop starts a new class of vigilante green apps for the iPhone. Now you can report neighborhood polluters."

EcoSnoop claims on its website that "EcoSnoop is Not Big Brother" in BIG bold letters.

It seems to me that if you have to declare that you're not Big Brother that you probably are, at the least, a kissing-cousin of Emmanuel Goldstein's arch-nemesis. Speaking for myself, this app — and the mindset it represents — smacks of the public shaming inflicted in "The Scarlet Letter" combined with the East German Stasi's encouraging of the population to be snitches for the state, with just a pinch of the Spanish Inquisition's anti-heresy effort thrown in for good measure. What else are we going to be encouraged to snitch on our neighbors about?

What say you, Slashdotters?

Submission + - Midwest Seeing Red Over 'Green' Traffic Lights 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Many municipalities have switched to LED traffic signals because they burn brighter, last longer and use 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs. But they also emit less heat, meaning they sometimes have trouble melting snow, causing problems across the Midwest. In Wisconsin, snow blanketed LED traffic lights in some towns, leading to crashes at intersections where drivers weren't sure whether to stop or go. The unintended consequences of the green technology were also identified as a 'contributing factor' in the death of an Illinois woman hit by a driver who blamed the snow-covered energy-efficient signal for giving the appearance of a normal green light instead of a left-turn signal. 'We can remove the snow with heat, but the cost of doing that in terms of energy use has not brought any enthusiasm from cities and states that buy these signals,' said the CEO of an LED traffic-signal manufacturer. 'They'd like to be able to take away this issue, but they don't want to spend the money and lose the savings.' In the meantime, some towns are addressing sporadic problems by dispatching crews to remove snow or ice from signals using poles, brooms, and heating devices.

Comment Re:Good start (Score 2, Informative) 76

by Gwala (#30335772) Attached to: Emulating <em>New Super Mario Bros. Wii</em> At 1080p

> What video game caused damage to your system and what copy protection system was in act? I bet with a simple Google search I could probably find an answer to your problem or maybe that you were the one who caused it, not the game.

Starforce. It sent commands to the DVD drives in question directly; in a manner which was not supposed to be done (to read some sectors outside the normal range). Some DVD drives apparently ended up with a mechanical failure as a result.

Submission + - The New Net: Google's Bandwidth Bill Is Zero (wired.com)

Submitted by Wired has a story on how YouTube may not be paying
Wired has a story on how YouTube may not be paying writes: Wired has a story on how YouTube may not be paying for its excessive bandwidth usage — thanks to how excessive it is. An interesting analysis of how that became possible with the recent changes of architecture of the Internet follows. From the article: "It’s much more complicated now with the top 30 websites serving up 30 percent of net traffic, either from their own sets of pipes or from data centers around the world that connect much closer to your computer — and for much cheaper — than ever before. (...) In 2007, the majority of the internet’s traffic came distributed by 30,000 [autonous systems]. In 2009, 150 [systems] served up half of the net’s traffic. +The internet is changing and it’s happening really quickly,+ [Craig] Labovitz [a longtime internet researcher] said. +I was blown away to find out that one-tenth of the internet is going [to] or coming from Google.+"

Submission + - World’s Smallest Linux Webserver? (deviceguru.com) 1

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: Within an elongated RJ45 Ethernet LAN connector, Lantronix's XPort Pro packs a 32-bit RISC CPU, 8MB SDRAM, 16MB flash storage, and a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN port. Its built-in webserver serves static web pages and java aplets. OK, so, what would you build with one of these?
Censorship

Submission + - Texas Requires Investigator License to Repair PC's (ij.org) 2

Submitted by JeremyGa
JeremyGa writes: The state of Texas now wants computer techs to obtain a private investigator license before they access data on the computers they work on, or else risk a year in jail, a fine, and civil penalties of up to $10,000 every time they fix a computer. Since 2007, anyone who accesses non-public files to gather information about the "causes of events" and the "actions of persons" is deemed by the government to have conducted an "investigation" and must therefore have a private investigator- license. Repairing a computer almost always involves looking at the data to determine the "causes of events" what went wrong with the computer. The cause of those events will frequently be tied back to the"actions of persons". Whether a careless child downloaded a virus or an unscrupulous employee visited prohibited websites that installed malware, the essence of computer repair is figuring out what happened to a computer and reporting the cause of the problem to the computer owner. The new law makes potential criminals out of thousands of PC technicians in Texas.
  Each licensed investigations company- including sole proprietorship's -must be managed by an individual who has completed either a criminal justice degree or a three-year apprenticeship under a licensed investigator. Each licensed investigator must submit his or her fingerprints to the FBI, pay a $441 licensing fee, complete a 200-question written examination, and obtain $200,000 in liability insurance.

Submission + - New Critical Adobe Reader Vulnerability (ioactive.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From the article:
"van Eeden discovered that many JavaScript methods of the Document Object do not honor the Privileged Context and Safe Path settings. IOActive was able to execute certain privileged JavaScript methods because Adobe Reader contains a vulnerability that supports calling "secure" functions in a non-secure context. This capability can be used to create arbitrary files and folders on a targeted file system, resulting in possible full-system compromise simply by opening the malicious PDF."
Idle

Submission + - Meteorite hits SUV (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by someyob
someyob writes: First of all, no one was hurt. With that out of the way, (a) do we need more proof SUVs are too big, and/or (b) is this a message of some kind?

Comment Re:A couple visions for the future (Score 1) 271

by Gwala (#29728153) Attached to: New Superconductor World Record Surpasses 250K

To be a pedantic bastard - 71.5% efficiency is waaay overstating it.

99% efficiency from a mirror is unhead of, also you are far more likely to see 50% efficiency on a mass produced alternator in the size range. I don't have any figures on hand for how much energy is lost in mirror transfer, and you will probably lose a bunch more energy in the conversion to steam. I'd say you would be extremely lucky to hit 40% efficiency out of the system, and much more likely to be in the high-20s/low-30s.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 80

by Gwala (#29317387) Attached to: OnLive Begins Beta Testing

No, it's pretty much impossible to tell the difference between 30fps and 60fps.

The reason why games want 120fps, is because you aren't getting a sustained 30fps. You are getting some frames that take longer than 0.03Â Hz to render, and others that take no time at all. Running at 120fps means that if there is a temporary dip in the framerate, the rig is at least fast enough that that dip is unlikely to drop you below that critical 30fps sustained.

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