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Medicine

Woman Successfully Grows Ear From Arm 74

Posted by Soulskill from the i-heard-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In 2008, Sherrie Walters, now 42 years old, discovered that she had rapidly spreading basal cell cancer in her ear. The disease is a type of skin cancer. The doctors pursued an aggressive treatment to combat the destructive disease, removing her ear, part of her skull, and her left ear canal. Though Walters was left without an ear, she was still able to hear with the help of a special hearing aid. A few months ago, doctors from the renowned Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore decided to try a new procedure on Walters. Using cartilage from her rib, the doctors stitched a new ear to match her right one. Then their creation was implanted under the skin of her forearm, where the ear grew for months. ...Doctors attached the ear and blood vessels surgically. Another surgery, conducted this week, gave the ear shape and detail. Dr. Patrick Byrne, a revered plastic and reconstructive surgeon, says that after the swelling goes down and the ear heals, Walters will have an ear that both looks and functions normally."
Biotech

GAO Slams DHS Over BioWatch Biological Defense System 88

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the your-taxes-at-work dept.
Mansing writes "Citizens need to evaluate if they are indeed safer for all the 'security precautions' put into place. 'The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has rushed to acquire a new, multibillion-dollar version of the BioWatch system for detecting biological attacks without establishing whether it was needed or would work, according to a new report by a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress. ... The existing system's repeated false alarms have triggered tense, high-stakes deliberations over whether to order mass evacuations, distribute emergency medicines or shut down major venues.' Is this just more money funneled to U.S. companies, or is this really keeping the U.S. safer? Are the same types of 'security precautions' being instituted in Spain and the UK? Or is this preying on fear a uniquely U.S. phenomenon?"

Comment Re:Just don't do it (Score 1) 120

by Eadwacer (#41299049) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Practices For Collecting and Storing User Information?
I think it was Robert X. Cringely who compared personal user data to toxic waste. You don't ever want to produce it. If you do produce it, it's your responsibility forever because you don't know where an undiscovered drum of it is hiding. If it touches something, that something becomes toxic also. Finally, the legal implications of it getting out into public are capable of destroying your company.

Comment Re:Old Plant? (Score 3, Informative) 116

by Eadwacer (#38557938) Attached to: Lax Security At Russian Rocket Plant
One of the photos is of an active test at the site (seen from a distance), and there's a link to a Russian news release that says (google translation): " The engine number A165 has been successfully fire tested: December 8th, 2011 at booth number 1-751 NEC JSC "NPO Energomash them. Academician VP Glushko "took LPS engine RD171M number A165 for" Zenit ". The test is successful, the comments on the process of testing have arisen. This was the last fire-LPS in the past year. " So, it's an active test facility
Earth

Is the Earth Special? 745

Posted by Soulskill from the i-think-captain-kirk-disproved-this dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Planetary scientists say there are aspects to our planet and its evolution that are remarkably strange. In the first place there is Earth's strong magnetic field. No one is exactly sure how it works, but it has something to do with the turbulent motion that occurs in the Earth's liquid outer core and without it, we would be bombarded by harmful radiation from the Sun. Next there's plate tectonics. We live on a planet that is constantly recycling its crust, limiting the amount of carbon dioxide escaping into the atmosphere — a natural way of controlling the greenhouse effect. Then there's Jupiter-sized outer planets protecting the Earth from frequent large impacts. But the strangest thing of all is our big Moon. 'As the Earth rotates, it wobbles on its axis like a child's spinning top,' says Professor Monica Grady. 'What the Moon does is dampen down that wobble and that helps to prevent extreme climate fluctuations' — which would be detrimental to life. The moon's tides have also made long swaths of earth's coastline into areas of that are regularly shifted between dry and wet, providing a proving ground for early sea life to test the land for its suitability as a habitat. The 'Rare Earth Hypothesis' is one solution to the Fermi Paradox (PDF) because, if Earth is uniquely special as an abode of life, ETI will necessarily be rare or even non-existent. And in the absence of verifiable alien contact, scientific opinion will forever remain split as to whether the Universe teems with life or we are alone in the inky blackness."
Security

Submission + - Microsoft Browser Security Site (readwriteweb.com)

Submitted by Eadwacer
Eadwacer writes: ReadWriteWeb has a story about the new Microsoft site for checking browser security Your Browser Matters, noting that it says it can't evaluate the Safari browser and downgrades Firefox and Chrome, but gives IE9 a perfect score. My guess is that there's a lot less here than meets the eye. When I went to the site with my Opera browser, it said it couldn't evaluate it. When I used the Opera site settings to tell it to lie and "Mask as Internet Explorer", it changed its rating to 4/4
Canada

CRTC Approves Usage Based Billing In Canada 381

Posted by timothy from the weigh-your-bits-at-the-counter dept.
qvatch writes with this from CBC News: "The CRTC has approved Bell Canada's request to bill Internet customers, both retail and wholesale, based on how much they download each month. The plan, known as usage-based billing, will apply to people who buy their Internet connection from Bell, or from smaller service providers that rent lines from the company, such as Teksavvy or Acanac. ... Customers using the fastest connections of five megabits per second, for example, will have a monthly allotment of 60 gigabytes, beyond which Bell will charge $1.12 per GB to a maximum of $22.50. If a customer uses more than 300 GB a month, Bell will also be able to implement an additional charge of 75 cents per gigabyte."
AMD

AMD Undercuts Intel With Six-Core Phenom IIs 361

Posted by timothy from the crave-7-and-11-core-options dept.
EconolineCrush writes "As Slashdot readers are no doubt aware, Intel's latest 'Gulftown' Core i7-980X is an absolute beast of a CPU. But its six cores don't come cheap; the 980X sells for over a grand, which is more than it would cost to build an entire system based on one of AMD's new six-core CPUs. The Phenom II X6 line starts at just $200 and includes a new Turbo capability that can opportunistically raise the clock speed of up to three cores when the others are idle. Although not as fast as the 980X, the new X6s are quick enough to offer compelling value versus even like-priced Intel CPUs. And the kicker: the X6s will work in a good number of older Socket AM2+ and AM3 motherboards with only a BIOS update."

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