Damien1972 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Iran to Ban Women from Science and Engineering Classes (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by jasper160 on Friday August 24, 2012 @12:03PM

jasper160 writes: An August 20th, 2012 announcement from Iran places restrictions on female university students. Iran will be cutting 77 fields of study from the female curriculum, making them male-only fields. Science and engineering are among those affected by the decree. The announcement came soon after the release of statistics showing that women were graduating in far higher numbers than men from Iranian universities and were scoring overall better than men, especially in the sciences.

Senior clerics in Iran's theocratic regime have become concerned about the social side-effects of rising educational standards among women.

Submission + - 'Velociraptor' spider discovered in Oregon cave (mongabay.com)

Submitted by Damien1972 on Friday August 17, 2012 @02:50PM

Damien1972 writes: Scouring the caves of Southwest Oregon, scientists have made the incredible discovery of a fearsome apex predator with massive, sickle claws. No, it's not the Velociraptor from Jurassic Park: it's a large spider that is so unique scientists were forced to create a new taxonomic family for it.

Submission + - Rare 'penis snake' exposed in Brazil with new dam (mongabay.com)

Submitted by terrancem on Friday August 03, 2012 @05:26PM

terrancem writes: A creature discovered by engineers building a dam in the Amazon is a type of caecilian, a limbless amphibian that resembles an earthworm or as some are noting, part of the male anatomy. The animal was discovered while draining a portion of the Madeira River — a major tributary of the Amazon — for a controversial hydroelectric project. Six individuals were found according to biologist Julian Tupan, who identified the species as Atretochoana eiselti. Little else is known about the species.

Submission + - Scientists name 7000th amphibian, up from 4000 in 1987 (mongabay.com)

Submitted by Damien1972 on Tuesday July 31, 2012 @04:23PM

Damien1972 writes: The number of amphibians described by scientists now exceeds 7,000, or roughly 3,000 more than were known just 25 years ago. A big boost to the effort has come from AmphibiaWeb, a project has sought to document every one of Earth's living frogs, salamanders, newts, and caecilians. But while new species are being discovered, others are disappearing — at least 150 species have gone extinct since the early 1980s.

Comment another reason to legalize (Score 1) 1

by Damien1972 on Friday July 13, 2012 @07:54PM (#40645055) Attached to: Marijuana farms poisoning carnivorous beasts in CA

It's the clandestine pot farms in forests that are the problem. Not the commercial farms in the valley

Submission + - Jaguar vs sea turtle (mongabay.com)

Submitted by Damien1972 on Sunday May 20, 2012 @12:24AM

Damien1972 writes: At first, an encounter between a jaguar and a green sea turtle seems improbable, even ridiculous, but the two species do come into fatal contact every few years. Despite the surprising nature of such encounters, this behavior has been little studied. Now, a new study in Costa Rica's Tortuguero National Park has documented five years of jaguar attacks on marine turtles—and finds these encounters are not only more common than expected, but on the rise.

Submission + - MS will remove OEM 'crapware' for $99 (zdnet.com)

Submitted by

walterbyrd

on Saturday May 19, 2012 @01:20PM

walterbyrd writes: "Microsoft even offers up numbers to show how detrimental this OEM-installed crapware is to your system. Microsoft claims that Signature systems start up 39 percent faster, go into sleep mode 23 percent faster, and resume from sleep a whopping 51 percent faster compared to their crapware-ladened counterparts. (A "Signature" system is one without crapware). But now, Microsoft will offer customers the opportunity to give their Windows 7 PC the Signature treatment by bringing it to a Microsoft Store and paying $99, according to the Wall Street Journal."

Comment Clarification: Bigfoot vs. Orang Pendek/Yeti (Score 1) 2

by Damien1972 on Tuesday May 01, 2012 @02:19AM (#39854549) Attached to: New method for finding Bigfoot: leeches

Orang Pendek is a cryptid that according to legend lives in habitat -- Sumatra -- where terrestrial leeches are abundant. The same can be said for the Yeti, which is said to live in Bhutan and Nepal, both of which have terrestrial leeches.

Submission + - New method for finding Bigfoot: leeches (mongabay.com) 2

Submitted by Damien1972 on Tuesday May 01, 2012 @02:16AM

Damien1972 writes: A new paper in Current Biology suggests leeches can be used as a cheap way to track rare mammals. The research found that the presence of mammals can be determined by testing the victim's blood for DNA stored in the leech. The blood may survive a year-and-a-half.

Submission + - Remote-controlled planes used for wildlife conservation (mongabay.com)

Submitted by Damien1972 on Thursday February 23, 2012 @07:09PM

Damien1972 writes: Conservationists have converted a remote-controlled plane into a potent tool for conservation. The drone — an HK Bixler equipped with cameras, sensors and GPS — has been used to map deforestation, count orangutans and elephants, and get a bird's eye view of hard-to-access forest areas. During their 4 days of testing in Sumatra, the drone flew 30 missions without a single crash. A mission, which typically lasts about 25 minutes, can cover 50 hectares. The drone, full equipped, costs less than $2,000.

Submission + - Scientists find way to produce ethanol from kelp (mongabay.com)

Submitted by Damien1972 on Saturday January 21, 2012 @12:16PM

Damien1972 writes: Scientists have devised a way to produce ethanol directly from seaweed. The breakthrough came from identifying the biochemical pathway used by a microbe to digest kelp's structural sugar alginate and inserting the gene into a strain of E. coli which was designed to convert the seaweed sugars directly into ethanol. The discovery offers the potential to generate biofuels that don't compete with terrestrial food production. The research is the cover story this week in Science.

Submission + - Dreamhost FTP/Shell passwords hacked (dreamhoststatus.com)

Submitted by Ccmods on Saturday January 21, 2012 @04:19AM

Ccmods writes: Below is a snippet from an email Dreamhost sent to subscribers early Saturday morning, describing an intrusion into the database storing FTP and SSH usernames and passwords:

"We are writing to let you know that there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your passwords at DreamHost today. Our security systems detected the potential breach this morning and we immediately took the defensive precaution of expiring and resetting all FTP/shell access passwords for all DreamHost customers and their users...Only the FTP/shell access passwords appear to have been compromised by the illegal access. Web panel passwords, email passwords and billing information for DreamHost customers were not affected or accessed. "

Submission + - Giant crab invasion looms in Antarctica (mongabay.com) 4

Submitted by Damien1972 on Sunday November 27, 2011 @11:31AM

Damien1972 writes: A 0.12 degree C rise in temperature will spur giant King Crabs to invade the Antarctic continental shelf, causing havoc for its unique ecosystem, reports a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Temperatures are currently rising 0.01-0.02 per year, meaning it could be less than a decade before the crabs chow down on the soft-bodied invertebrates that currently rule the shelf. “It's much more reminiscent of the Paleozoic era before all those shell-crushing crabs and bony fish and bottom-feeding sharks and rays evolved," said marine biologist Richard Aronson. “The bottom communities in Antarctica are anachronisms. They're a window to the past. They're going to get modernized when these crabs show up.”

Submission + - 15 years in jail for clicking "Like" (smh.com.au) 2

Submitted by

patiwat

on Saturday November 26, 2011 @11:56AM

patiwat writes: "Thailand has warned Facebook users that they could face 3 to 15 years in jail for if they press ''share'' or ''like'' on images or articles considered unflattering to the Thai monarchy. And it doesn't just apply to Thai subjects: a US citizen was arrested and convicted while visiting Thailand for posting a link to an unauthorized biography of King Bhumibol on his blog. Convictions for virtual lese majeste have sky-rocketed in recent years as efforts to defend the widely revered royal family from criticism have ramped up."

Submission + - Paul Allen lent personal ROV to study old fish (mongabay.com)

Submitted by crudmonkey on Thursday November 24, 2011 @11:24AM

crudmonkey writes: It took a custom-made submarine, billionaire Paul Allen, and a tenacious desire lasting well beyond two decades to unveil enigmatic details about the life of the coelacanth—the primitive fish that invariably hooks researchers. A study published earlier this year in the journal Marine Biology summarizes 21 years of coelacanth population research.

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