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Comment Re:Satellites (Score 1) 403

Geostationary satellites collects in orbit at some places quite some distance out, and can be there for a very long time. Moon pull and solar wind may impact them, but it can take a long time before they leave their positions.

Satellites at the Lagrange points are probably going to stick around even longer.

Submission + - How birds got their beaks (sciencemag.org) 1

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: When birds got their wings, they lost the clawed fingers wielded by their dinosaur relatives. But they evolved a new "finger"—in their face. And what a boon that has been. Agile beaks of all shapes and sizes, from the gulping gape of a pelican to the needle nose of a hummingbird, have enabled the 10,000 avian species to thrive from the arctic to the tropics, build intricate nests, and eat many different foods. Now, researchers may have identified genes that transformed an ancestral snout into a bird's bill. By manipulating the genes’ proteins, they have seemingly turned back the evolutionary clock, producing snouts in developing chicken embryos that resemble those of alligators today.

Submission + - Australia: Your digital games (and movies!) will get more expensive (playerattack.com)

Submitted by dotarray
dotarray writes: Australians really are about to start paying more for digital services — including Steam games — as Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has confirmed plans to introduce a "Netflix tax" in this week's Federal Budget.

As mentioned last week, this is not a new tax, but an extension of Australia's current Goods and Services Tax to include digital services, adding 10% to virtual items and services purchased online. Details have not yet been revealed, but potential services include not only Steam games but also Netflix subscriptions and even Uber trips.

Submission + - Mutation, not Natural Selection, which led to the rise of new species (phys.org) 1

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Blair Hedges, a biologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, has proposed a provocative alternative to the natural selection view of evolution

According to Mr. Hedges, Adaptation had little to do with it. It was simply a matter of chance and time

No matter what the life form — plant or animal, insect or mammal — it takes about 2 million years for a new species to form. Random genetic events, not natural selection, play the main role in speciation

This controversial proposal stems from efforts by Hedges and collaborators to build the world’s most comprehensive tree of life — a chart plotting the connections among 50,000 species of Earth’s vast menagerie. Their analysis suggests that speciation is essentially random

Evolutionary biologists find the research effort intriguing, particularly in its size and scope, but they are also somewhat skeptical of the provocative ideas that have emerged. “It’s a huge tour de force” said Arne Mooers, a biologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. “There are lots of interesting claims — the devil will be in the details”

To build the tree, Hedges, his Temple colleague Sudhir Kumar, and their collaborators compiled data from nearly 2,300 published studies, gleaning from each the time when two species diverged from a common ancestor. They used those data to construct a map of relationships among different species, known as a “timetree.” To form a branch, the researchers started with the two species within a closely related taxonomic group that have the most recent common ancestor. Then they added the next closest species, and so on

In a family tree for example, it is akin to starting with siblings, then adding in first cousins and second cousins

Bringing all those branches together results in a comprehensive timetree of life

It will take some time for scientists to sort through the technical details of the paper, which was published in April in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. And while some scientists have been complimentary, others immediately challenged the results, questioning both the accuracy of the tree and the conclusions that Hedges has drawn. “I am very skeptical about inferring patterns of speciation from such a broad overview of the tree of life,” said Chris Jiggins, a biologist at the University of Cambridge in England

“The classic view of evolution is that it happens in fits and starts,” said Michael Benton, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol in England

A change in the environment, such as a rise in temperatures after an ice age, might spark a burst of speciation as organisms adapt to their new surroundings. Alternatively, a single remarkable adaptation such as flight in the ancestors of birds or hair in mammals might trigger a massive expansion of animals with those characteristics

Hedges argues that while such bursts do occur, the vast majority of speciation is more prosaic and evenly timed

To start, two populations become separated, driven apart by geography or other factors. New species emerge every 2 million years, on average, in a metronomic rhythm tapped out by the random nature of genetic mutations. He likens the process to radioactive decay. It’s impossible to predict when an individual radioactive nucleus will decay, but a clump of many atoms will decay at a highly predictable rate known as the material’s half-life

Similarly, mutations strike the genome randomly, but over a long enough time the accumulation of mutations follows a pattern. “There is a kind of speciation clock ticking along” Hedges said

Submission + - Hacker given in-game death sentence (bbc.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: A character controlled by a hacker who used exploits to dominate online game Guild Wars 2 has been put to death in the virtual world.

The character, called DarkSide, was stripped then forced to leap to their death from a high bridge.
The death sentence was carried out after players gathered evidence about the trouble the hacker had caused.

This helped the game's security staff find the player, take over their account and kill them off.

Over the past three weeks many players of the popular multi-player game Guild Wars 2 have been complaining about the activities of a character called DarkSide. About four million copies of the game have been sold.

Via a series of exploits the character was able to teleport, deal massive damage, survive co-ordinated attacks by other players and dominate player-versus-player combat.
To spur Guild Wars' creator ArenaNet to react, players gathered videos of DarkSide's antics and posted them on YouTube.

The videos helped ArenaNet's security head Chris Cleary identify the player behind DarkSide, he said in a forum post explaining what action it had taken. Mr Cleary took over the account to carry out the punishment.
The video shows DarkSide being stripped to his underwear then made to leap from a high bridge in one of the game's cities. It also shows the character being deleted by Mr Cleary.

"Oh yah, he's also banned," he wrote. Several other accounts belonging to the same player have also been shut down.

Submission + - DRM Torpedos Keurig Stock 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Green Mountain (Keurig) stock dropped by 10% this morning after a brutal earnings report. The reason? CNN Money reports that DRM has weakened sales of their Keurig 2.0. CEO Brian Kelley admits, "Quite honestly, we were wrong."

Submission + - Krita's Second Crowdfunding Campaign Goes Live (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by vurian
vurian writes: This year, the Krita team is crowdfunding a big speed improvement as well as the development of animation support. Krita is a a free and open source painting application for Linux and Windows, used by professional artists all over the world. This year's slogan is "Let's make Krita faster than Photoshop!".

Submission + - To Infinity and Beyond (inferse.com)

Submitted by dcw3
dcw3 writes: It seems that our understanding of physics requires reexamination after the discovery that it's possible to generate thrust without the loss of a propellant

Comment Re:Which browser? (Score 1) 240

by Z00L00K (#49605945) Attached to: Chrome Passes 25% Market Share, IE and Firefox Slip

So you work with a browser based on Nexus?

The first web browser was invented in 1990 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Berners-Lee is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the Web's continued development, and is also the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation. His browser was called WorldWideWeb and later renamed Nexus.

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