Sad to see that even on slashdot, greed trumps curiosity.

That's quite misguided. Both Science and Nature have "magazine" parts written by science journalists that cover current research at a level suitable for a general but well-educated scientific public. The real meat is in the articles that use the traditional scientific publication method (i.e. written by scientists, peer-reviewed). These articles come from all areas of science, but they're not written to be understood by outsiders or anything like that. In essence, if the system works a breakthrough in any field will be covered in these journals (or PNAS), articles of lower importance will find their place in more specialized journals. Thus Nature published papers such as the discovery of X-Rays (physics), plate tectonics (geo) or the structure of DNA (biology).

That's not odd, that's how it's supposed to work. The editorial staff should be independent from the business side of the business. It's only after being exposed to Murdoch-media for too long that you think the owner should be the only one deciding the newspaper's opinions.

It's also possible that the owner is - shock! - able to disagree with someone on one issue but agrees on others. Or maybe he doesn't put his own interest ahead of what he thinks is good for society. OF course if you want to be cynical, maybe he wants the candidate to win so she can pay whatever he's suing for.

I've recently stopped reading the news, most blogs etc. and started reading books instead. While both qualifies as "reading", the knowledge gained from a good book stays with you for life, while Krugman's last editorial just fuels your rage and is useless after the next election.

I don't want a "range", developed with "partners". MS has repeated that mistake so often now, expecting different results every time. isn't there a witty saying that defines insanity this way?

"How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?"

Not by paying Seed/Scienceblogs, that's for sure. How about publishing papers if you have a scientific point to make? Or, if you want to avoid the formality of those, how about a blog at science.pepsi.com? Let the content speak for itself without paying anyone to get a ride on their reputation.

But the real question Seed is faced with is probably "How are we supposed to make money from ScienceBlogs if you won't let us sell out to a company that's probably killing more people than Philip Morris ever did?"

Also, what's to stop insurance companies from saying they won't cover you because you have certain genetic markers?

Very easy: A law

It's actually the other way around, but never mind.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to make of this. On one hand, this will certainly earn a fair amount of ridicule as it sounds like redefining reality to what Apple wants it to be. A fix to the Reality Distortion Field, so to say.

OTOH, I've had some experience with sensors, and there's sometimes ambiguity to how the signals should be evaluated/presented. I'd guess that a logarithmic scale is a better fit for the relationship of absolute signal strength and perceived quality than a linear one. If they previously used a linear scale, this update might be appropriate.

This doesn't change the fact that the signal strength changes with how you hold the phone. If the change manifests itself only in fewer bars, everything will be alright. If actual call quality or reliability is affected, this change won't do anything for that

The people actually using the internet are probably not the ones behind this policy. Denying them information won't solve anything. Nor will mocking them or their religion lead anywhere, even though it's so much fun.

...ever tried improvising on a piano? It's always difficult to find the right way to end, and so you go on and on, frequently repeating yourself. The summary's writer felt the same way.

OF course it's not possible, at least not yet. There isn't really any drug that has been developed starting with a genome sequence as in "oh, so that's the gene. Now I know how to cure x". There seem to be a few drugs like anti-depressant that have been found to work better in people with a certain version of a gene, but these effects were only found after many trials, and the mechanism is not always known.

It'll take about two years for every phone to be a smartphone. And if you think the developing world doesn't have cell phones, you're wrong. Africa isn't little children with big hungry bellies anymore, at least not for the majority. Is simply skipping the landline and going directly for cell phone. Millions of people are using it daily, to a point where prepaid credit has become a substitute for banking. There's at least one cellphone in any group of twenty people, and that would be more than enough to always have one around for medical purposes.

ps ax | wc -l 165

Because Africa isn't the cliche poverty you're thinking of, small children with big bellies etc. Here's a nice example how useful information can be in the third world: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/22/infoladies-of-bangla.html.

The costs of production (in which this fine will be a factor) only set a lower bound on prices. No company just takes costs+10% or something. They try to maximize profits by finding the sweet spot on the demand curve.

And before the anti-EU argument comes up again, I'd like to point out that Infineon is European. The US does the same btw, i. e. when they fined Daimler $500 million for corruption.