71145797
submission
StartsWithABang writes:
You know the fundamental principle of special relativity: nothing can move faster than the speed of light. But space itself? That's not a "thing" in the conventional sense. Two years after coming up with special relativity, Einstein devised the equivalence principle, and thus began the development of general relativity, where space itself would have properties that changed over time, responding to changes in matter and energy. This includes the ability for it to expand, even faster than the speed of light, if the conditions are right.
71145655
submission
mi writes:
We've always suspected, this may happen some day — and, according to FTC's investigation inadvertently shared with the Wall Street Journal, it did.
In a lengthy investigation, staffers in the FTC’s bureau of competition found evidence that Google boosted its own services for shopping, travel and local businesses by altering its ranking criteria and “scraping” content from other sites. It also deliberately demoted rivals.
For example, the FTC staff noted that Google presented results from its flight-search tool ahead of other travel sites, even though Google offered fewer flight options. Google’s shopping results were ranked above rival comparison-shopping engines, even though users didn’t click on them at the same rate, the staff found. Many of the ways Google boosted its own results have not been previously disclosed.
71068817
submission
mjgday writes:
Researchers at both Caltech and Yale have had breakthroughs in the complex details of making artificial photosynthesis work.
Caltech have found that plating the photo-cathode and photo-anode with Nickel Oxide can greatly improve their longevity.
and Yale meanwhile have discovered an iridium catalyst which help with water oxidation.
Maybe we won't need to give up on liquid fuels after all.
71020297
submission
CIStud writes:
The Audio Engineering Society (AES) has released its new 3D Audio Standard ( AES69-2015), covering topics such as binaural listening, which is growing due to increased usage of smartphones, tablets and other individual entertainment systems that offer audio using headphones. AES states that an understanding of the way that the listener experiences binaural sound, expressed as head-related transfer functions (HRTF) facilitates the way to 3D personal audio. The standard also looks into convolution-based reverberation processors in 3D virtual audio environments, which has also grown with the increase of available computing power.
71018295
submission
sciencehabit writes:
In 2013, the Syrian military allegedly launched sarin gas rockets into a rebel-held town, killing hundreds. After diplomats brokered a deal to eradicate the weapons, international organizations began the dangerous job of destroying them. One roadblock to chemical weapons disposal is that heat and humidity quickly break down enzymes that can disable the deadly chemicals. Now, researchers have developed a highly stable compound that can inactivate nerve agents like sarin in a matter of minutes.
71018259
submission
sciencehabit writes:
The origin of life on Earth is a set of paradoxes. In order for life to have gotten started, there must have been a genetic molecule—something like DNA or RNA—capable of passing along blueprints for making proteins, the workhorse molecules of life. But modern cells can’t copy DNA and RNA without the help of proteins themselves. To make matters more vexing, none of these molecules can do their jobs without fatty lipids, which provide the membranes that cells need to hold their contents inside. And in yet another chicken-and-egg complication, protein-based enzymes (encoded by genetic molecules) are needed to synthesize lipids.
Now, researchers say they may have solved these paradoxes. Chemists report today that a pair of simple compounds, which would have been abundant on early Earth, can give rise to a network of simple reactions that produce the three major classes of biomolecules—nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids—needed for the earliest form of life to get its start. Although the new work does not prove that this is how life started, it may eventually help explain one of the deepest mysteries in modern science.
71010435
submission
Deborahesuezh writes:
Mission scientists of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have spotted another habitable moon in our Solar System: Enceladus. The close analysis of the spacecraft’s observation reveals a mysterious hydrothermal activity underneath its surface. Such kind of chemical reaction usually happens due to high temperature of water. Thus, researchers conclude that Enceladus contain numerous warm subsurface oceans. The discovery is described in detail in the Journal Nature.
71009377
submission
stilborne writes:
The Kolab Collaboration Suite, the open source groupware system that scales from "Raspberry PI" installations to 100k+ seat enterprise deployments, has been adopted by companies and governments around the world, making it one of most successful "poster children" for Free Software and Open Standards. In order to chart the next steps forward, the Kolab community has announced the inaugural Kolab Summit to be held in The Hague on May 2-3, 2015. Along with workshops, BoFs and coding break-out sessions, presentations will be given by key developers from a number of open source projects including Kolab, Roundcube, cyrus imap, and KDE among others. Registration is free, and the call for presentations is live for the next few weeks.
70971027
submission
theshowmecanuck writes:
CBC Radio in Canada has just posted an interview with Mike Godwin, the originator of the famous (infamous?) Godwin's Law. Unbelievably it comes after a week where politicians started flinging the H word at each other. If you haven't been on Slashdot pretty much ever, say lived under a rock for the past 15 or 20 years, you will understand the interest to this site. :) So as a matter of that interest, enjoy.
70896139
submission
merbs writes:
Not all oil is created equal. Depending on where it’s extracted, refined, and sold, some crude is much more poisonous to the climate. A team of energy researchers has unveiled an ambitious new accounting project that helps to detail oil’s true greenhouse gas emissions, and to pinpoint where the worst oil for the climate is being unearthed. So far, the leading offenders are Canada, China, Nigeria, Venezuela—and California.
70895025
submission
jfruh writes:
With every PC and most commodity servers running x86 chips, you'd be forgiven for thinking that, outside of mobile, the battle for chip architecture was over. But x86 doesn't always do best when it comes to specialized kinds of processing — and one big data startup claims its FPGA-based servers blow x86 out of the water.
70890729
submission
wabrandsma writes:
DutchNews.nl writes:
Internet providers no longer have to keep their clients phone, internet and email details because privacy is more important, a Dutch court ruled on Wednesday.
Digital Rights organisation Bits of Freedom writes in a Blog:
The law’s underlying European directive was meant as a tool in the fight against serious crimes. The Dutch law, however, is much more expansive, including everything from terrorism to bike theft. During the hearing, the state’s attorneys avowed that the Public Prosecution does not take the law lightly, and would not call on the law to request data in case of a bicycle theft. The judge’s response: it doesn’t matter if you exploit the possibility or not, the fact that the possibility exists is already reason enough to conclude that the current safeguards are unsatisfactory.
70588171
submission
DrJimbo writes:
Dan Gillmore says; "When I became a technology columnist in the mid-1990s, the public Internet was just beginning its first big surge. Back then, I advised my readers to avoid the semi-political, even religious battles that advocates of this or that technology platform seemed to enjoy. Appreciate technology, I urged, for what it is—a tool—and use what works best.
So why am I typing this on a laptop running GNU/Linux, the free software operating system, not an Apple or Windows machine? And why are my phones and tablets running a privacy-enhanced offshoot of Android called Cyanogenmod, not Apple’s iOS or standard Android?"
70588129
submission
MojoKid writes:
It's long been a pet peeve of many end users that Microsoft has made it such a challenge to procure a legitimate ISO image of its various operating systems. It seems like the company should have no problem offering them in an easy-to-find spot on its website, because after all, it's not like they can be taken utilized without a legal key. Sometimes, people simply lose the disc or ISO they had, and so it shouldn't be such a challenge to get a replacement. Fortunately, with a new feature on the MS site, you are now able to get that replacement Windows 7 ISO. However, it's behind a bit of protection. You'll need to provide your legal product code, and then the language, in order to go through to the download page. If you've somehow lost your key but are still using the OS that it's tied to, you can retrieve it through a few different third party tools. However, it does seem like not all valid keys work properly just yet, since some users are reporting valid keys throwing errors or not enabling a download for some reason.
70587267
submission
mdsolar writes:
A significant majority of Americans say combating climate change is a moral issue that obligates them – and world leaders — to reduce carbon emissions, a Reuters/IPSOS poll has found.
The poll of 2,827 Americans was conducted in February to measure the impact of moral language, including interventions by Pope Francis, on the climate change debate. In recent months, the pope has warned about the moral consequences of failing to act on rising global temperatures, which are expected to disproportionately affect the lives of the world’s poor.
The result of the poll suggests that appeals based on ethics could be key to shifting the debate over climate change in the United States, where those demanding action to reduce carbon emissions and those who resist it are often at loggerheads.
Two-thirds of respondents (66 percent) said that world leaders are morally obligated to take action to reduce CO2 emissions. And 72 percent said they were “personally morally obligated” to do what they can in their daily lives to reduce emissions.
