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Comment Re:Liberals are still butthurt... (Score 1) 156

by azav (#46630451) Attached to: In the Unverified Digital World, Are Journalists and Bloggers Equal?

Well, I also agree with your point, but I stand by mine.

The problem, as I see it is that "opinion" and what is called "news opinion" has been blurred with what is "news".

In that case, people can spout opinion all they want while the look like news people and then corporations make money on the creation of infighting in society who feel this opinion is real and accurate.

The companies and people who do this perform a great disservice to society.

Submission + - Tamiflu-resistant influenza: parsing the genome for the culprits (actu.epfl.ch)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From the article.

It doesn’t take long for the flu virus to outsmart Tamiflu. EPFL scientists have developed a tool that reveals the mutations that make the virus resistant, and they have identified new mutations that may render ineffective one of the few treatments currently available on the market.

Open access to the paper in PLOS Genetics

Submission + - Corrupt Judge lets rich child rapist skate...

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Delaware Judge Jan Jurden was recently in the news for letting Super Rich Dupont heir Robert H Richards IV get away with raping his 3 year old daughter. Read about it here...

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Judge Jan Jurden is also a Sociology professor at University of Delaware. If you wish to discuss the inappropriateness of this sentencing, you may be able to catch here as her Campus number...

http://leadferret.com/director...
http://leadferret.com/director...
Jan Jurden
Job Title Supplemental Faculty, Sociology
Phone (302) 255-0665

Alternatively, you may perhaps send her a nice letter, explaining the message it sends to the rest of society when the super rich get special treatment while defenseless child rape victims get robbed of justice. This is her address of record...

http://www3.nccde.org/parcel/d...

Interestingly, the last two transactions on the purchase of their home was listed at $10. I wonder how much local tax they skirted with that. Guess being a Judge has many benefits aside from letting Rich people skate.

Maybe we should ask her Wife Cheryl. She seems like a sympathetic lady. Here is her facebook page. Maybe she has the special insight into how much more put upon Mr Richards would be by prison rape than his daughter was by paternal rape.

https://www.facebook.com/chery...

Sadly, Jan does not have a facebook page. Its SOP for the perveyers of so called 'justice' to hide from the public today. Now, I know what you are thinking, and you are right. I am not advocating cyberbullying here. But we, as members of the public have few avenues to be heard, and we should be. It is appropriate to 'speak truth to power', but please, be respectful. Or simply share this with someone else and let them speak.
#Occupy

Submission + - Apple buys iFixit, declares repairable devices "antiquated". (ifixit.com) 2

Submitted by ErichTheRed
ErichTheRed writes: Apparently, Apple is buying iFixit. iFixit is (was?) a website that posted teardown photos of gadgets and offered repair advice. According to the website: "Apple is working hard to make devices last long enough to be upgraded or irrelevant, making repairability an antiquated notion." It's all clear now — I can't replace the batteries, hard drives or RAM in new Macs because I'm expected to throw them in the landfill every 2 years!

It made it to CNN, so it has to be true, right?

Submission + - Ancient Virus DNA Discovery Could be a Breakthrough in How Diseases are Treated (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Understanding how retroviruses are passed down through our DNA could be the key to helping researchers re-programme normal cells to become stem cells for treating diseases.

Researchers from Canada and Singapore have discovered that the ancient viruses which entered our ancestors' genomes thousands of years ago have altered the way our cells behave; the material left by dead viruses in our cells is the answer.

1,000 copies of one particular class of retroviruses, known as the human endogenous retrovirus HERV-H, is still in our genome, and while the HERV-H retrovirus DNA is dead and cannot replicate itself, it continues to send out messages telling the embryonic stem cell how to become other cells in the body, and this is what makes the cells pluripotent.

Submission + - The Spam Battle Report 2014

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Like anything else, spam evolves, as do the means by which it gets delivered to your e-mail inbox and the manner in which sysadmins prevent it from doing so. If your thoughts on spam-fighting are a few years old, it's time for an update.

For instance, starting with the good news: According to Kaspersky, in 2013, the proportion of spam in email flows was 70%, which is 2.5 percentage points lower than in 2012. The bad news is that spam that does get through is far more dangerous. According to John Levine, chairman of the Internet Research Task Force's Anti-Spam Research Group and president of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail, "The ongoing threat is that spam is now essentially 100% criminal, and it's as likely to try to plant bank-account-stealing malware either directly or via links to compromised websites as to sell you something." As one example:

The content of spam is evolving to become more dangerous in new ways. For instance, Nick Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the security company Barracuda Labs, observes, “One new way we’ve seen are campaigns that use embedded Excel spreadsheets. The spammers break the words into individual cells to bypass the anti-spam tools. When viewed in an email it looks like a typical HTML attachment but it’s much more difficult to analyze."

So, here's the current state of the spammy art, and what you ought to know to fight it effectively.

Submission + - Progress reported in creating "homo minutus" -- a benchtop human to test drugs (vanderbilt.edu)

Submitted by Science_afficionado
Science_afficionado writes: Vanderbilt University scientists reported significant progress toward creating "homo minutus" — a benchtop human — at the Society of Toxicology meeting on Mar. 26 in Phoenix. The advance is the successful development and analysis of a human liver construct//organ-on-a-chip that responds to exposure to a toxic chemical much like a real liver. The achievement is the first result from a five-year, $19 million multi-institutional effort led by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), to develop four interconnected human organ constructs — liver, heart, lung and kidney — that are based on a highly miniaturized platform nicknamed ATHENA (Advanced Tissue-engineered Human Ectypal Network Analyzer). The project is supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Similar programs to create smaller-scale organs-on-chips are underway at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Institutes of Health.

Submission + - World's First Dolphin to English Two-Way Translator is on its Way to Us (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Scientists expect to be chatting with dolphins this summer after researchers developed a computer program that analyses dolphin whistles and translates them into English.

Together with Dr Thad Starner, the technical lead researching Google Glass at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the researchers have created the Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT), the world's first prototype dolphin translator.

CHAT is a small underwater keyboard fitted to the arm of a diver. It has four symbols which correspond to four artificial whistle sounds that researchers have taught the dolphins to mimic. Each sound represents an item the dolphins like to play with, such as seaweed, rope or a scarf. By pressing a button on the keyboard, the diver can activate a sound through an underwater speaker.

Since 2011, they have digitised the database and used it to collect data on all the different whistle sounds they make, many of which the human ear cannot hear, since dolphins' whistles are on frequencies up to 200 kilohertz, which is 10 times higher than the highest pitch a human can hear.

Submission + - Oyster Wears Glass Armor (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The windowpane oyster sports a shell so transparent and durable that some Indian and Philippine cities use the coverings as an affordable alternative to window glass. Yet windowpane oyster shells are made up of 99% calcite, a usually brittle material, with a small amount of organic material. A team of researchers wondered how the shellfish’s fingernail-thick armor could survive multiple blows while remaining transparent, a feat unmatched by humanmade materials. When forcefully jabbed with a diamond, the windowpane oyster shell resists shattering by dispersing 10 times more impact energy than raw calcite, the team reports . Peeking at the shell’s crystal structure using an electron microscope, the researchers discovered the oyster’s secret. When stressed, the shell’s crystal structure twists symmetrically, causing an atomic reorganization that forms a boundary quarantining any fractures that might form. This process, called deformation twinning, dissipates energy horizontally and allows the shell to survive multiple hits. The researchers say their work provides a natural template for developing sturdy, transparent materials for windshields and even see-through military armor.

Submission + - Rats Didn't Spread Black Death, Humans Did, Say Researchers (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Scientists studying the human remains of plague victims found during excavations for London's new Crossrail train line have concluded that humans spread the Black Death rather than rats, a fact that could rewrite history books.

University of Keele scientists, working together with Crossrail's lead archaeologist Jay Carver and osteologists from the Museum of London, analysed the bones and teeth of 25 skeletons dug up by Crossrail.

They found DNA of Yersinia pestis, which is responsible for the Black Death, on the teeth of some of the victims.

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