Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Robotics

New Wave of Fusion and Robot Innovation at MIT 90

Posted by Soulskill from the not-cold-fusion-the-real-kind dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Popular Mechanics has been getting some great access inside the labs at MIT all week, and they've gotten some interesting looks at developing technologies. Robot-assisted rehab with gaming-style controllers comes out of the biomechanics lab, blind and crash-proof UAV testing with F/X cameras is being done at the aerospace controls lab, and work on electric scooters with super-cheap assembly is proceeding at the Media Lab. Perhaps most exciting is a fight for funding while the holy grail of clean fusion power in reach at the plasma center. The article on fusion predicts, "We'd see economically feasible fusion power by 2035, at the earliest, and increasingly efficient commercial reactors somewhere in the middle of the century."
Biotech

Submission + - Gigantic fossil rodent discovered (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
palegray.net
palegray.net writes: "The BBC brings us a story about a one ton fossilized rodent discovered by an amateur paleontologist. From the article:

The fossilised skull of the largest rodent ever recorded has been described by scientists for the first time. The remains of the one-tonne beast, found in Uruguay, indicate that it would have been as big as a bull. It is thought that the three-metre-long herbivore would have roamed estuaries and forests 2-4 million years ago.
I've seen some big rodents, but this thing was freakin' huge."
Oracle

Submission + - BEA acquired for US$8.5B by Oracle (placidthoughts.com)

Submitted by
ken_nyc
ken_nyc writes: "Oracle finally ate its words and offered a higher amount than the initial 6.5B to acquire BEA Systems for a new 8.5B deal. So much for Oracle conFusion and Larry Ellison's "If we made another offer [for BEA], the price would be lower," ... "Clearly the $17 price seems too high today. It seems unlikely anyone will want to buy them now. ... If their goal was to stay independent, I think they're doing a good job.". Here's a take on the deal..."
United States

Submission + - 9/11/07: General Strike (strike911.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: 'A general strike has been proposed for 9/11/07 in the USA. No work, school or shopping. The General Strike is a national call to action, from citizens to other citizens. It is not about a single issue. It is not an anti-war protest, a civil rights protest, an election fraud protest. It is not about torture, surveillance, corporate media, the 9/11 coverup, or the environment. This strike is about all these issues and more.' At the time of submitting, there are 4786+3374 diggs and 3783 members in the facebook group.
Mozilla

Thunderbird to Leave Mozilla Foundation 239

Posted by Zonk from the fewer-fowl-feather-firefox's-flanks dept.
An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine is reporting that Mozilla Thunderbird is to move to a 'new separate organizational setting' as the Mozilla Foundation focuses more and more on Mozilla Firefox. Citing a blog post by Chief Lizard Wrangler Mitchell Baker, MozillaZine outlines the three possibilities for Thunderbird that are being considered: 'one is to create a entirely new non-profit, which would offer maximum independence for Thunderbird but is organisationally complex. A second option is to create a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation for Thunderbird, which would keep the Mozilla Foundation involved but may mean that Thunderbird continues to be neglected in favour of Firefox. A final option is to recast Thunderbird as community project, similar to SeaMonkey, and set up a small independent services and consulting company to continue development. However, there are concerns over how the Thunderbird product, project and company would interact'. Lead Thunderbird developer Scott MacGregor favours the third option."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Analysts Get Codename Hurricane (pcper.com)

Submitted by AlexAtAMD
AlexAtAMD writes: While at the analyst day at AMD, the media was bombarded with new codenames: Bulldozer, Bobcat, Shanghai, Eagle, Spider and Python to name a few. These are all new products or platforms from AMD, discussed and detailed today over at PC Perspective in an article summarizing all the pertinent information. There are new details about Barcelona including a demo running at 3.0 GHz, AMD's plans for integrated CPU/GPU parts known as Fusion, their next ground-up, totally new CPUs dubbed Bulldozer and Bobcat and even some news on upcoming discrete GPU products.
Supercomputing

Submission + - Samsung Opens Largest Wafer Plant In Austin, Texas

Submitted by
morpheus83
morpheus83 writes: "Samsung has announced the opening of the largest 300mm NAND flash memory wafer plant in Austin, Texas. The 1.6 million square foot building — as large as nine football fields and one of the largest buildings in Austin — is one of the largest single semiconductor facilities in the United States. The first product of the new plant will be 16Gb NAND flash chips using 50-nanometer level process technology. The $3.5 billion facility will initiate operation in the second half of 2007 and ramp up to produce 60,000 wafers per month by 2008."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft to patent in-game stalking (newscientisttech.com)

Submitted by
b100dian
b100dian writes: "From NewScientist:

As spectator sports go, video games are no match for the football terraces or the racing stands. But Microsoft hopes to change that by giving its video games a "dynamic spectator mode", in which the footage is streamed to a third party who becomes a virtual observer but takes no part in the action.
Read the full dynamic spectator mode patent application.
Question: can you mention at least one existing game that already has this?"
Power

Submission + - A Truly Inconvenient Truth

Submitted by
mattatwork
mattatwork writes: "I received an interesting email from my mother-in-law, and then had it forwarded again by my wife. According to WorldNetDaily, Compact Flourescent lamps (or CFL's) contain a significant amount of Mercury. While you're saving the world from global warming, you're also putting yourself and other carbon based life forms at risk to mercury poisoning. One of the victims of a CFL's mercury found out the hard and high priced way that removing the mercury couldn't be done with a simple vacuum, but by a specialized enviremental cleanup firm for around $2000. You would think someone like Al Gore, father of the Internet, would think twice before pushing a technology like CFL, still in its infancy, on consumers who don't or didn't know the risks. I know that when I get home tonight, I'm taking out my CFL's and replacing them with good ol' incandescents."
It's funny. Laugh.

Goatse.cx Is For Sale 211

Posted by kdawson from the dept.-would-be-redundant dept.
fm6 writes "The domain goatse.cx is being auctioned. Bidding, at the time of posting, has reached $15K after 109 bids (with 6 days to go). Some of you will recall that this site used to be linked in a lot of Slashdot articles, despite having only a few pages. Boing Boing, with their usual creativity, has managed to depict Goatse's most commonly linked photo while still remaining within the bounds of good taste."
Power

Submission + - Storing hydrogen into organic molecules

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "While it is possible to store hydrogen in metal containers to use as fuel in hydrogen-powered vehicles, it is not today a cost-effective solution. But now, researchers at the University of California at Riverside (UCR) have identified organic molecules that mimic metals. They've used carbenes, molecules which contain a carbon atom with only six electrons, to demonstrate that these organic molecules could be used for storing hydrogen. Read more for additional references and a picture of such a very special molecule."
Television

Submission + - BSG Renewed For 4th Season?

Submitted by BiteMyShinyMetalAss
BiteMyShinyMetalAss writes: According to the LA Times (reg required, SPOILER ALERT), the Sci Fi Channel is expected to announce on February 13th that Battlestar Galactica's 4th season will premiere in January 2008. Also of interest is discussion about the role of DVRs in calcuating viewship and advertising revenue:

[Mark Stern, head of programming for Sci Fi] also pointed out that 510,000 additional viewers in the 18-to-49 demographic are watching the show on digital video recorders. They bring the total demographic average closer to 1.6 million, the show's highest numbers since Season 1.
Advertisers, however, do not yet pay for the playback ratings because the general assumption is that viewers watching recorded programs fast-forward through the commercials. It could be a crucial point for the channel, and Stern is hopeful that the business model is shifting.

"Who knows? This upfront season you might find that we can monetize that DVR usage," he said. "The important thing is when you add in the DVR numbers, the audience is there."


Yay! I don't feel so guilty anymore :)
Real Time Strategy (Games)

Submission + - Supreme Commander has gone Gold

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After years of waiting, the "spiritual successor" to Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander has gone gold. The demo is also available now.
Biotech

Submission + - Scientists Find Cure For Cancer, No One Notices

Submitted by
Tastycat
Tastycat writes: "Researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada found a cheap and easy to produce drug that kills almost all cancers. The drug is dichloroacetate, and since it is already used to treat metabolic disorders, we know it should be no problem to use it for other purposes.

The drug also has no patent, which means it could be produced for bargain basement prices in comparison to what drug companies research and develop.

Scientists tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body where it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but left healthy cells alone. Rats plump with tumors shrank when they were fed water supplemented with DCA.

Cancer cells don't use the little power stations found in most human cells — the mitochondria. Instead, they use glycolysis, which is less effective and more wasteful. Doctors have long believed the reason for this is because the mitochondria were damaged somehow. But, it turns out the mitochondria were just dormant, and DCA starts them back up again.

The side effect of this is it also reactivates a process called apoptosis. You see, mitochondria contain an all-too-important self-destruct button that can't be pressed in cancer cells. Without it, tumors grow larger as cells refuse to be extinguished. Fully functioning mitochondria, thanks to DCA, can once again die. With glycolysis turned off, the body produces less lactic acid, so the bad tissue around cancer cells doesn't break down and seed new tumors.

Here's the big catch. Pharmaceutical companies probably won't invest in research into DCA because they won't profit from it. It's easy to make, unpatented and could be added to drinking water. Imagine, Gatorade with cancer control.

So, the groundwork will have to be done at universities and independently funded laboratories. But, how are they supposed to drum up support if the media aren't even talking about it?

All I can do is write this and hope Google News picks it up. In the meantime, tell everyone you know and do your own research."

Slashdot Top Deals

Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel

Close