Comment Re:We're at war, remember! (Score 1) 869
I accidentally rated your comment 'redundant'
posting to undo.
Submission + - Gene Therapy Causes Blind Woman to Grow New Fovea (technologyreview.com)
Al writes: "A woman with a rare, inherited form of blindness is now able to read, thanks to a gene therapy that caused a new fovea--the part of the retina that is most densely populated with photoreceptors--to grow in her eye. The patient suffers from Leber congenital amaurosis, meaning an abnormal protein makes her photoreceptors have a severely impaired sensitivity to light. SAhe received the experimental treatment twelve months ago when physicians injected a gene encoding a functional copy of the protein into a small part of one eye--about eight-to-nine millimeters in diameter. Along with two other patients receiving the same treatment, her eyesight improved after just a few weeks. Now the physicians report that this patient seems to have developed a new fovea, exactly where she received the injection. Because the woman has been effectively blind since birth, the results suggest that the brain is able to adapt to new visual stimuli remarkably quickly."
Submission + - Team Aims to Create Pure Evil AI (scientificamerican.com) 1
puroresu writes: Scientific American reports on the efforts of Selmer Bringsjord and his team at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who have been attempting to develop an AI possessed of an interesting character trait: pure evil.
"To be truly evil, someone must have sought to do harm by planning to commit some morally wrong action with no prompting from others (whether this person successfully executes his or her plan is beside the point). The evil person must have tried to carry out this plan with the hope of "causing considerable harm to others," Bringsjord says. Finally, "and most importantly," he adds, if this evil person were willing to analyze his or her reasons for wanting to commit this morally wrong action, these reasons would either prove to be incoherent, or they would reveal that the evil person knew he or she was doing something wrong and regarded the harm caused as a good thing."
"To be truly evil, someone must have sought to do harm by planning to commit some morally wrong action with no prompting from others (whether this person successfully executes his or her plan is beside the point). The evil person must have tried to carry out this plan with the hope of "causing considerable harm to others," Bringsjord says. Finally, "and most importantly," he adds, if this evil person were willing to analyze his or her reasons for wanting to commit this morally wrong action, these reasons would either prove to be incoherent, or they would reveal that the evil person knew he or she was doing something wrong and regarded the harm caused as a good thing."
Submission + - Genetic Mutation Enables Less Sleep (nytimes.com) 1
reporter writes: "According to an article by the "New York Times", "Researchers have found a genetic mutation in two people who need far less sleep than average, a discovery that might open the door to understanding human sleep patterns and lead to treatments for insomnia and other sleep disorders.
The finding, published in the Friday issue of the journal Science, marks the first time scientists have identified a genetic mutation that relates to sleep duration in any animal or human.
... [People possessing the mutated gene] routinely function on about 6 hours of sleep a night; the average person needs 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep."
Does 2 less hours of sleep mean 2 more hours in writing comments on SlashDot?"
The finding, published in the Friday issue of the journal Science, marks the first time scientists have identified a genetic mutation that relates to sleep duration in any animal or human.
Does 2 less hours of sleep mean 2 more hours in writing comments on SlashDot?"
Submission + - French teenager hurt by shattering iPhone 1
Submission + - Digsby quietly installs malware (lifehacker.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Instant messenging company Digsby has quietly included malware in an update to their client software that utilizes users' computing power and bandwidth while "idle" for a quick buck. When questioned, developers at Digsby claim that they have done no wrong and that users should not complain because the client software is "free".
Submission + - Installing DRM malware to watch a cable TV station (wordpress.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In Windows 7, Playready will prevent you from recording certain cable stations into open, non-MS formats. The third screen shot is quite chilling... Isn't it lovely when content owners and monopolists conspire together to scratch each others' backs?
Submission + - Space elevator: 'global warming cure'? (goodgearguide.com.au)
angry tapir writes: "Researchers gathered at the Space Elevator Conference at Microsoft's Redmond campus said that an elevator could make transportation to space so much more inexpensive than it is now that companies could build large solar-power farms in space to provide energy for people on Earth. That could eliminate the need to burn fossil fuels and thus reduce global warming."
Submission + - New battery could change world, 1 house at a time
An anonymous reader writes: In a modest building on the west side of Salt Lake City, a team of specialists in advanced materials and electrochemistry has produced what could be the single most important breakthrough for clean, alternative energy since Socrates first noted solar heating 2,400 years ago.
The prize is the culmination of 10 years of research and testing — a new generation of deep-storage battery that's small enough, and safe enough, to sit in your basement and power your home.
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/article_b0372fd8-3f3c-11de-ac77-001cc4c002e0.html
Submission + - US Airlines now need your date of birth and gender 2
avk77 writes: It is being reported on NPR (link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111854113&ft=1&f=1006&sc=YahooNews) that airlines will now be requiring your full name, date of birth and gender to book a ticket. This is being phased in and is mandated by the government.
Submission + - SPAM: Salk Proves Stems Cells Can Cure Genetic Diseases
destinyland writes: "The Salk Institute for Biological Studies just proved that genetic diseases can be cured by combining gene therapy with stem cells. With induced pluripotent stem cell technology, they actually corrected a defective gene linked to leukemia and other cancers in cells taken from a patient volunteer. "It's a pretty remarkable discovery that hasn't been extensively covered in the mainstream press," says their communications director, calling it "a major step in getting regenerative medicine from the laboratory to the clinic." A Salk researcher says that "If we can demonstrate that a combined iPS-gene therapy approach works in humans, then there is no limit to what we can do.""
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Best online home for an open source project?
An anonymous reader writes: I am interested in starting an open source project that would involve software engineers, hardware engineers, and people with civil service experience in the United States. The project will be an attempt to engineer/design the perfect government for the US (as an educational exercise, of course). The design goals would be the same design goals our founding fathers had when they were drafting the Article of Confederation and The US Constitution. The Bill of Rights would be the only existing code that would be re-used. The design should follow the object-oriented design methodologies. What would be the best online home for such a project? (+5 Funny for any suggestions concerning a non-US location)
Submission + - Woman With Police Monitoring Blog Arrested
Kris Thalamus writes: "The Washington Post reports that a Virginia woman is being held in custody by police who allege that information that she posted on her blog puts members of the Jefferson area drug enforcement task force at risk."
Submission + - SPAM: Rihanna's legs are worth $1.000.000!
Fashionista writes: "Long time has passed since I posted something with /about Rihanna! Today however I get these pictures of Rihanna wearing a leather/floral print skin tight dress, and lucky for me I can stare for hours at her perfectly shaped legs! Call me a freak, but if there's something I love about Rihanna, it's definitely her legs! Sure her ass and boobs are great too but today we only get to see her legs! Good enough I'd dare to say!"
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Google Chrome 4.0 on OS X: 59x faster than IE 7 (cnet.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: It's the fastest version of Chrome ever, the world's fastest browser on PC and Mac, and 34% faster than the quickest OS X browser to date, Safari 4. It's Google's still-very-early-in-development Chrome 4.0 and CNet benchmarking prove it's more than twice as fast as the original Chrome and (by my own calculations based on earlier benchmarks) 59 times faster than IE 7 on the PC!
