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Medicine

Taking Showers Can Be Harmful To Your Health 431

TheClockworkSoul writes "According to both the BBC and NewScientist, showering may be bad for your health. Apparently, dirty shower heads can be an ideal breeding ground for Mycobacterium avium, a bug responsible for a type of pulmonary disease more prevalent than tuberculosis in developed countries, cases of which have risen in parallel with the rise in showering. Tests revealed nearly a third of devices harbor significant levels of the critter."
Google

Sony To Put Chrome On Laptops 278

consonant writes "FT is reporting that Google has reached a deal with Sony to ship Chrome on the Vaio line of PCs. Google confirmed that Sony PCs carrying Chrome had started to go on sale and said it was in talks for similar deals with other computer makers. It said the arrangement was 'experimental' and part of wider efforts to boost distribution, including a deal to make Chrome available to internet users who download the RealPlayer software and the company's first use of television advertising. While mainstream media coverage and financial details were very sparse, El Reg terms it a 'Microsoft-snubbing deal.' Google also mentioned it was pushing for similar deals with other vendors. Could this spell the beginning of the end for IE?"

Comment Re:slip your hand? (Score 1) 123

Rather than modding you Troll for calling American football a pussy sport I am going to try to defend American Football. (I will be using the term Football to refer to American Football for the rest of this post) First of all I have to say that in my humble opinion Football is the most exciting/interesting sport to watch as a spectator. The goal off football, unlike soccer, and rugby isn't only about endorse and brute strength, but also relies heavily on strategy and skill. The stoppages between plays is not because the players are wimpy and require a break, they are there so that each side can play their strategy for the next play based upon the current situation. Yes they wear pads and rugby don't. They ware pads is because when a 350lb linemen hits you it hurts. In football different players are different shapes and sizes, and have different abilities depending on their potion. If they all had the same abilities, it would be boring, and less strategy. Pads allow the 145lb running back to go up against a 350lb linebacker with out being killed. As far as game play goes. I think what makes football so great is the first down. You have an ultimate goal of scoring a touch down, but you also have intermediate goals, You need to advance the ball 10 yards in 4 plays or you lose possession. Soccer and rugby lacks this intermediate objective, and makes it more boring to watch. Calling American football a wussy sport is a bit of a disservice. Yes, I am sure American football players would not be very good at rugby. But I also would bet rugby players wouldn't be equally as bad at American football, because, they are different sports, with different objectives and focuses with different rules.
Medicine

Drug Vending Machines 97

An anonymous reader writes "If you guessed San Bernardino County prisons as the ideal place to put drug vending machines, come claim your prize. From the article, 'Corrections departments are responsible for so many burdensome tasks that many of their everyday functions, like administering prescription drugs to inmates, are afterthoughts for the public. However, dispensing medication was so laborious and wasteful for the San Bernardino County (Calif.) Sheriff-Coroner Department that officials sought a way to streamline the process. The end product was essentially a vending machine that links to correctional facility databases and dispenses prescription medications.'"
Input Devices

Nintendo Working On Football Controller 123

Siliconera found patent filings from Nintendo for a football controller addon that will work with the Wii. After tucking the Wii Remote into a lateral slot on the football, you slip your hand through a strap so that your fingers touch the Remote's buttons. Then you mimic running and throwing, which is interpreted by the accelerometer. 'The pitch angle and force of the throw determines the trajectory arc of the throw. Side to side motion determines the yaw angle. Pressing buttons on the Wii remote can adjust other options.' The device is described as 'squishy,' so your TV is probably safe, but I'd try it at a friend's house first.
Windows

FSF Attacks Windows 7's "Sins" In New Campaign 926

CWmike writes "The Free Software Foundation today launched a campaign against Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows 7 operating system, calling it 'treacherous computing' that stealthily takes away rights from users. At the Web site Windows7Sins.org, the Boston-based FSF lists the seven 'sins' that proprietary software such as Windows 7 commits against computer users. They include: Poisoning education, locking in users, abusing standards such as OpenDocument Format (ODF), leveraging monopolistic behavior, threatening user security, enforcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the request of entertainment companies concerned about movie and music piracy, and invading privacy. 'Windows, for some time now, has really been a DRM platform, restricting you from making copies of digital files,' said executive director Peter Brown. And if Microsoft's Trusted Computing technology were fully implemented the way the company would like, the vendor would have 'malicious and really complete control over your computer.'"
The Internet

Pirate Bay Archive Goes Online 94

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "With the main Pirate Bay website experiencing DNS issues, downtime and uncertainty about both the lawsuits and potential sale to GGF, a Pirate Bay clone has already gone online. True to their principles, someone at TPB put up a torrent with a 21.3 GB copy of the site as it exists today. And now that archive is alive, at BTArena.net. Linus' old adage about backing up everything by putting it on FTP and letting the world mirror it may need to be updated. Torrents are much more efficient." "Downtime" may be a nice word for it; reader Underholdning writes "The Register has a story about a Swedish court ordering ISPs to disconnect The Pirate Bay or face a massive daily fine. The reason for the shutdown was an upcoming civil lawsuit by copyright holders. As usual, Torrentfreak has an updated story. It seems like the takedown until now has been successful." Believe what you will; the site itself says they'll be back up "in a few hours."
Science

How To Prove Someone Is Female? 1091

krou writes "Caster Semenya won the 800m at the World Athletics Championship in blistering style, leaving her competitors in the dust, but she has been thrown into the midst of a scandal amidst claims that she's not really a woman. According to the many press reports, she's believed to shave, is flat chested, has a very masculine physique, previously preferred playing physical games with boys, and shunned traditional female activities and clothing. Questions about her gender have dogged her entire career. Previously, acceptance that she is a women relied on simple inspection of female genitals. But now the IAAF claim that they want to conduct further tests to see if 'she may have a rare medical condition that gives her an unfair advantage.' An IAAF spokesmen noted that 'The [testing] process was started after Semenya made her startling breakthroughs — a 25-second improvement at 1500m and eight seconds at 800m, just some weeks ago.' I'm curious what the Slashdot community thinks: what can be considered proof of someone being male or female? Is it simply a case of having the right genitals, or are there other criteria that should be used? Is the IAAF right in claiming that someone should be prevented from competing because they have a rare medical or genetic advantage?"
Google

Amazon, MS, and Yahoo Against Google's Library 144

anonymousNR writes "From the BBC, 'Three technology heavyweights are joining a coalition to fight Google's attempt to create what could be the world's largest virtual library. Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo will sign up to the Open Book Alliance being spearheaded by the Internet Archive. They oppose a legal settlement that could make Google the main source for many online works. "Google is trying to monopolise the library system," the Internet Archive's founder Brewster Kahle said.'"
Input Devices

The Mice That Didn't Make It 202

Harry writes "For every blockbuster of the mouse world (such as Microsoft and Logitech's big sellers) there have been countless mice that flopped, or never made it to market. Mice shaped like pyramids; mice shaped like Mickey; mice that doubled as numeric keypads or phones. Even one that sat on your steering wheel. I've rounded up some evocative patent drawings on twenty notable examples."
Space

NASA's LCROSS Spacecraft Discovers Life On Earth 171

Matt_dk writes "On Saturday, Aug. 1, 2009, the LCROSS spacecraft successfully completed its first Earth-look calibration of its science payload. 'The Earth-look was very successful' said Tony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist. 'The instruments are all healthy and the science teams was able to collect additional data that will help refine our calibrations of the instruments.' During the Earth observations, the spacecraft's spectrometers were able to detect the signatures of the Earth's water, ozone, methane, oxygen, carbon dioxide and possibly vegetation."

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