Fedhax - Slashdot User

Submission + - Riding the Tesla Roadster

Submitted by

DigitalDame2

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @04:05PM

DigitalDame2 writes: "Due on the market this fall at a price of $92,000, the Tesla Roadster is powered by the same lithium-ion battery cells that drive the average laptop or smartphone, and you can charge it from an ordinary wall socket. Although PCMag's Cade Metz wasn't allowed to drive one, he did have the chance to ride in the passenger seat. Just how fast is it? It does zero to 60 mph in about 4 seconds. Plus, the dream car reaches 100 percent torque from the instant it starts forward. You don't wait even a moment for that acceleration to kick in! Check out over 50 images of the Tesla electric car, but wipe your drool!"

Old Islamic Tile Patterns Show Modern Math Insight 538

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday February 23, 2007 @04:12AM from the high-tech-tetris dept.

arbitraryaardvark writes "Reuters reports that medieval Muslims made a mega math marvel. Tile patterns on middle eastern mosques display a kind of quasicrystalline effect that was unknown in the west until rediscovered by Penrose in the 1970s. 'Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry.' It isn't known if the mosque designers understood the math behind the patterns or not."

Submission + - Ants 'Hate Each Other' But Work Together

Submitted by

notyavgkat

on Friday February 23, 2007 @12:54AM

notyavgkat writes: "http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070222_ants _coexist.html Different ant species can coexist because, as the saying goes, where one is weak another is strong. In what researchers describe as "un-peaceful coexistence," multiple ant species stake out the same territory and compete for the same food, but no single species wins out since some are better at finding resources and others better at guarding them."

Submission + - Circumcision reduces HIV risk

Submitted by wile_e_wonka on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:30PM

wile_e_wonka writes: From Yahoo! News:
"This is an extraordinary development," said Dr. Kevin de Cock, director of the
World Health Organization's AIDS department. "Circumcision is the most potent intervention in HIV prevention that has been described."

Circumcision has long been suspected of reducing men's susceptibility to HIV infection because the cells in the foreskin of the penis are especially vulnerable to the virus.

Submission + - Selling Homeowners a Solar Dream

Submitted by

slugo

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:30PM

slugo writes: "Instead of making you spring for $25,000 or more in gear, Citizenr says it will loan you a complete rooftop solar power system, install it for free and sell you back the power it generates at a fixed rate below what your utility charges. The company hopes to make back its investment with those monthly payments, augmented by federal tax credits and rebates."

Chimps Found Making Own Weapons to Hunt for Food 410

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:47PM from the boards-with-nails dept.

Pojut writes "The Washington Post has an article involving chimps and weapons. Apparently, there have been direct observations of chimps in the west African savannah modifying sticks to create spears. They then use these spears to kill small mammals and eat them. It is the first time that an animal other than a human has been directly observed in crafting a weapon for the purpose of hunting or killing."

Submission + - Shape Shifting Aircraft

Submitted by RebelSponge on Thursday February 22, 2007 @04:35PM

RebelSponge writes: Air & Space Magazine has an article concerning shape shifting aircraft."New "morphing" technology promises adroit aircraft that reshape themselves, bird-like, in flight." They have already developed a model of a Blackhawk helicopter blade and are awaiting further funding to develop a full morphing helicopter.

Submission + - Liposuctioned fat stem cells to repair bodies

Submitted by

stemceller

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @03:53PM

stemceller writes: "Expanding waistlines, unsightly bulges: people will gladly remove excess body fat to improve their looks. But unwanted fat also contains stem cells with the potential to repair defects and heal injuries in the body. A team led by Philippe Collas at the University of Oslo in Norway has identified certain chemical marks that allow him to predict which, among the hundreds of millions of stem cells in liposuctioned fat, are best at regenerating tissue."

New Software Stops Mars Rover Confusion 126

Posted by Zonk on Thursday February 22, 2007 @03:26PM from the robots-getting-smarter dept.

MattSparkes writes "The Mars rover Spirit used to get quite confused when it came upon a rock. Because it could only plan routes of a metre or two it couldn't understand how to navigate around large objects, and frequently used to rock back and forth for hours trying to figure it out. NASA have written new software called D* for the rover Opportunity, which should allow it to autonomously plan routes up to 50 metres long. The new software still won't be able to avoid sand-traps, though."

Building the Interplanetary Internet 334

Posted by kdawson on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:33AM from the ping-and-wait dept.

sighted writes "Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, now a Google VP, is leading a NASA effort to create a permanent network link to Mars within the next two years. As Cerf outlined in a recent talk, the 'InterPlaNet' protocol is designed to handle the delay caused by interplanetary distances. A signal traveling between the Earth and Mars can take up to 20 minutes."

Colossal Squid Landed Intact In Antarctica 85

Posted by kdawson on Thursday February 22, 2007 @10:40AM from the bigger-than-giant dept.

zakkie writes "New Zealand fisherman have caught a massive 450-kg colossal squid in Antarctic waters. This is by far the biggest yet found, measuring over 10 meters in length and weighing 450 kg. It has been taken back to New Zealand for study." The NZ government's announcement page features a downloadable backgrounder on the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) and a 1.1-MB popup portrait of the animal in the fishing boat's hold.

Fran Allen Wins Turing Award 79

Posted by kdawson on Thursday February 22, 2007 @10:12AM from the one-small-step-for-a-woman dept.

shoemortgage writes "The Association for Computing Machinery has named Frances E. Allen the recipient of the 2006 A.M. Turing Award for contributions that fundamentally improved the performance of computer programs in solving problems, and accelerated the use of high performance computing. Allen,74, is the first woman to receive the Turing Award in the 41 years of its history. She retired from IBM in 2002."

Submission + - Control water with electricity

Submitted by

MattSparkes

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:04AM

MattSparkes writes: "French researchers have discovered a new way to create super-hydrophobic surfaces, which could make completely electronic control of water possible. This could replace messy pumps and valves. By passing a voltage across a water droplet on the surface, it's shape can be deformed, and when the voltage is removed, it springs back into shape. Although the distortion is small, it should be enough to push droplets around by controlling the voltage between many different surface electrodes."

Submission + - Sex doesn't sell

Submitted by on Thursday February 22, 2007 @07:11AM

An anonymous reader writes: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1060 Sex won't sell ads, say British researchers who found that sexual content in a TV show prevents viewers from remembering accompanying ads.

Submission + - Machinima maker acquired by virtual world marketer

Submitted by

CousinLarry

on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @04:33PM

CousinLarry writes: "In what may be a first for Machinima authors (machinimators? machinimists? machinographers?) everywhere, perennial producers The Ill Clan (creators of Trash Talk) apparently have been acquired by virtual world marketing outfit Electric Sheep Company. Their first project together was actually a short super bowl advertisement. It begs the question: are virtual actors and machinima coming to your favorite TV station anytime soon?"

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