Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - The Science of Godzilla

Submitted by GuyMannDude
GuyMannDude writes: Darren Naish at scienceblogs.com has written an overview of kaiju-biology, the study of giant Japanese monsters. The article focuses on Godzilla, both the original Japanese and the Hollywood version, and examines both his skeletal structure and his unique internal organs. Interested readers should also check out the analyses done by Michael Dexter, Connie Goodnow, and Mark Meloon.
The Internet

Submission + - Porn as a digital archive model

Submitted by EZCheese
EZCheese writes: Once again, porn leads the way into the next digital frontier. And where is it leading us this time? According to this researcher from the Long Now Foundation, toward a better archive of digital art: "'I guarantee that a wealth of pornography from the late 20th century will survive in digital distributed form (because) it's a social model that's working extremely well,' said Kurt Bollacker, digital research manager at the Long Now Foundation, a nonprofit fostering several digital-works preservation projects...He held up the adult industry — always the digital pioneer — as one example of a self-selected community on the Web that swaps images and videos so regularly and widely that that activity will ultimately help preserve an archive over years." Also citing MAME and other digital preservation efforts, he advises "Anyone interested in preserving digital art should evaluate ongoing distributed data efforts." Perhaps there are hidden lessons in all that bittorrenting of the Paris Hilton tapes...
Announcements

Submission + - World Energy Shortage is Over..ZPE is here!

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to website: http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file =article&sid=2206 the Chinese have a prototype electricity generator called the Wang Shum Ho Electricity Generator. Evidently a proof of concept device was demonstrated to Chinese officials on 15 Jan 2007. Lawrence Tseung, a colleague of the inventor states plans to build four 5kW units. One to be in Beijing, another in Hong Kong, the third one will be set up in the United Nations in New York, and the fourth one will be a roving demonstrator unit. All will be made available to universities for academic validation. Then 200 more will be produced. One each of these will go to every member country of the United Nations as a gift from China. Mass production is to begin in 2008. Nr Tseung has written that these devices take advantage of electromagnetic wave energy that ssurrounds us all the time. Some call this Zero Point Energy. He states that the world energy crisis is now over.
Biotech

Submission + - Brain Damage Cures Smoking Addiction

Submitted by gurps_npc
gurps_npc writes: A New York Time Story (free today, may require sign in tomorrow) discusses a recent discovery that strokes to a certain part of the brain instantly end addiction to cigarettes.

While they pretend that no one would want to intentionally damage that part of the brain, I disagree. Lots of people want to stop smoking so bad they would accept minor brain damage to do it. (From "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", best quote: "Technically, this procedure IS brain damage.")

The scientists found that damaging that particular area does not affect eating. The study was small (they had to find people that used to smoke that had a stroke, not give smokers a stroke), and did not examine other addictions.

Today, people that are so obese they have health problems engage in dangerous surgery to help reduce their weight, from liposuction to stomache stapling. It would not surprise me if in 10 or 20 years smokers had a nuerosurgeon burn out this part of their brain.
Data Storage

Submission + - Digital archivists take lessons from porn

Submitted by
yppiz
yppiz writes: "The Long Now Foundation had a seminar in Berkeley last week where digital archivists talked about the problem of maintaining and recovering digital art works. This is already affecting museums, as the first wave of video artists often used custom hardware that's now hard to find and repair.

One of the problems, however, is much simpler — preserving copies of the work so it's not lost. And in this domain, archivists are taking a cue from models that work well for porn — specifically the fact that the user community is motivated to keep multiple copies around the world, and uses peer-to-peer technology to keep the bits in transit, rather than worrying about maintaining a single (and expensive) well-guarded archive.

ZD Net has more of the story, and there's another article on xbiz.com."
Education

Submission + - The State of Mathematics Education

Submitted by Coryoth
Coryoth writes: Mathematics education has been subject to many fads over the decades, including New Math, and the resulting backlash against it. These days, however, math education in the US is moving more and more toward a highly applied approach, and an effort to "engage the student" by making math "relevant to them" and emphasising group work. The result has been a muddying of the math syllabus. This in turn is beginning to prompt a backlash. Indeed, math professors who actually look at public school texts are usually appalled by the lack of real content. Are these newer mathematics education programs detrimental to children's methodical analytic and logic skills, and what does this say for the future of US software programmers?
Education

Submission + - Changing to a career in science?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I'm a 37-year-old lawyer considering a career change into scientific research (the specific field is not relevant to my questions). I got into the legal profession for all the wrong reasons, and I would prefer a career doing something that excites and challenges me, even if the money isn't great. This will require significant educational retooling, including 5-6 years in a PhD program, so I need to look before I leap.

Have other Slashdot readers made similar transitions? For those already doing scientific research as their career, what have been the high and low points of your education and career? Do you foresee any problems for an "older" PhD candidate?
Movies

Submission + - Economics, not morality key to onlinemovie piracy

Submitted by Number eight
Number eight writes: Around 32 million Americans have downloaded a full-length movie from the Internet. A recent survey finds that your average P2P movie downloader is a 29-year-old man with 16 movies on his hard drive, and that only 40 percent of the survey respondents believe that downloading is a 'very serious offense.' More importantly, the survey demonstrates how factors like economics and usability drive people to P2P networks. 'Illegal downloading is less the result of a moral calculation on the downloader's part than it is the result of a simple economic calculation. The illegal downloader looks at the risk vs. reward equation, factors in other terms like convenience and price, and ulimtimately finds the illegal download overwhelmingly more attractive than the legal download.' That's the case with the legal download services as well: 'Consumers who are interested in downloadable movies are turned off by restrictions on what they can do with the content afterwards, as well as lack of cross-platform and cross-device compatibility.'
America Online

Submission + - Ex AOL founder (Mr. Case) starts healthy start-up.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the last year, RevolutionHealth.com has been developing the largest RubyOnRails Web2.0 service, and recently "previewed" the site for the public to sign-up for the entry-level service. Its a community of patients and a private EMR (eletronic medical record). The user is encouraged to participate in providing health-data, and in the community approach to storing data (which is private) and sharing experiences, thoughts, and questions. The premise is that patients of disease-XYZ are not the first to suffer from disease-XYZ, and can benefit from the experiences of other patients. Also, the system hopes to introduce ranking systems for physicians, hospitals, treatment-types, etc. As we all sit in front of our computers all day, why not learn about that aching in our wrist-muscles: is it carpal-tunnel syndrome, or is it muscle-atrophy? Sign up and find out!
Media

Submission + - 911 Calls Reveal Dangers of Media Consolidation

Submitted by BendingSpoons
BendingSpoons writes: Five years ago, a 112-car train derailed outside of Minot, North Dakota. Over 240,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia leaked out of the car, resulting in one death and the hospitalization of hundreds. Why is this news? Because newly released 911 tapes reveal a breakdown in Minot's emergency broadcasting — a breakdown that some are attributing to media consolidation. When panicked residents called emergency dispatch, they were advised to tune into KCJB, the designated local emergency broadcaster. However, KCJB — along with Minot's five other commercial channels — was owned by Clear Channel; the music was piped in from out of state, and no one was in the station to respond to calls. 911 callers were therefore directed to radio stations that provided no emergency information. The problem of "local" news stations unable to transmit information about local emergencies is now raising concerns about both national security and media consolidation.
United States

Submission + - Geothermal energy will power America - MIT

Submitted by
amigoro
amigoro writes: " This article says that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth's hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity the United States will need in the future, probably at competitive prices and with minimal environmental impact, according to a new MIT-led study.

The panel also evaluated the environmental impacts of geothermal development, concluding that these are markedly lower than conventional fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants.

And that might counteract the "imaginary" fears the world leaders have that global warming causes economic hardship"
Education

Submission + - Climate Challenge game launched on BBC

Submitted by
Gobion
Gobion writes: "The BBC have launched our game "Climate Challenge" on their Science and Nature website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/cl imate_challenge/

The game mixes a Sim City style strategy game with real scientific and policy data from several sources, including several UK Department of Trade and Industry energy reports (especially on microgeneration), the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports (SRES), and EU data. Along with the scientific assistance we received from Oxford University Centre for the Environment and climateprediction.net (the distributed climate modelling project using BOINC), Climate Challenge game was designed to be both realistic and fun. It is the most ambitious game of its type. The game accompanies the David Attenborough programme "Climate Change: Britain Under Threat" and the BBC's Climate Chaos season.

Climate Challenge is aimed primarily at 20-40 year old professionals and during the development process we conducted extensive testing and found that most players came away from the game feeling more confident about their ability to help prevent major climate change, and also had a better understanding of the issues involved. Hopefully it will spur further discussion in the field!

As the game is meant as a starting point, the game is accompanied by further scientific notes for those interested in learning more about the subject."
Microsoft

Submission + - No surround sound in Vista?

Submitted by Kane22
Kane22 writes: A CNET article points out that according to audio experts Creative, Windows Vista will not support surround sound or EAX audio on a huge number of PC games. Nor will DVD movie surround sound be possible unless users splash out on expensive Dolby-enabled versions of their playback software. The reason: Microsoft has removed the hardware abstraction layer (HAL) for Vista — a piece of software that lets applications talk to your sound card. Games such as Call of Duty 2, World of Warcraft, F.E.A.R. and any other title that uses DirectSound3D (part of the DirectX application programming interface used to create many games) will have no surround sound or advanced hardware audio features as a result. No HAL or EAX means gamers are stuck with plain old stereo. ult.No HAL means gamers are stuck with plain old stereo.

Slashdot Top Deals

Work is the crab grass in the lawn of life. -- Schulz

Close