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Robotics

Submission + - Sperm could power nanobots (msn.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "According to MSNBC, scientists are experimenting with using a sperm's flagellum or tail to overcome the problem of supplying energy to nanobots that could be implanted in the body as smart probes that would release disease-fighting drugs, monitor enzymes and perform other medical roles within a patient's body. Powered by a compound called adenosine triphosphate or ATP (produced by mitochondria), a sperm's flagellum can propel it at about 7 inches an hour. Energy from ATP could also power the pumps charged with dispensing the medication at a certain rate from the nanobots."
Government

Submission + - Stephen Hawking joins attack on UK science cuts

Submitted by
Laxator2
Laxator2 writes: " Here is the story in the Telegraph about the sweeping cuts that the UK government plans to apply to Physics and Astronomy. Scientists will be in the impossibility to continue their involvement in projects in which they have already invested years of work and millions of pounds, like the ILC and the Gemini Observatory. Understandably, the scientists have petitioned the government to revise its decision, and now Prof. Stephen Hawking has added his name to the list of 3500 people that have signed the petition so far. More details in the article."
Biotech

Submission + - Tagging Pratchett (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
Instine
Instine writes: "Alzheimer's patients are to be electronically tagged, if the UK government and the foremost charity in the field have their way, says the BBC:
"The government has said tagging could allow people to lead "fuller lives".

Science Minister Malcolm Wicks said sufferers would gain the freedom to "roam around their communities" without their families suffering the anxiety that such wandering can currently cause. " While the Alzheimer's Society suggest it is for the sake of the sufferers' safety, and the article states that "The Alzheimer's Society said decisions about whether to use a tracking device should be made in conjunction with the person with the disease in the earlier stages of dementia." many on Slashdot, and elsewhere will undoubtedly have their reservations...

I wonder how Terry Pratchett feels about the possibility of being tagged?"
Privacy

Submission + - Gmail Reveals Browsing History to Contacts as Ads

Submitted by
em8chel
em8chel writes: "We all know that Gmail scans your email messages for key words to display related ad links right next to your correspondence if you use the browser to access your Gmail account. However, it looks like Google might be doing more than just scanning your email messages. It's suspected that your googling history is also being converted to ad links, displayed not (just) to yourself, but also to your Gmail pals.

More details can be found here. Can someone please contact Google to get a confirmation about this?"
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Britain set to release secret UFO files (upi.com)

Submitted by dredwerker
dredwerker writes: Britain set to release secret UFO files.

Ater 'Radon360 notes that France has become the first country to open its files on UFOs. A new website lists over 1600 sightings dating back to the 1950s. ' here : http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/23/0337237

Now Britain is:

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2007/12/23/britain_set_to_release_secret_ufo_files/3551/
Networking

Submission + - Obama backs Network Neutrality (youtube.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Barack Obama, in a speech at Google (youtube link), said that he would "take a back seat to no one" in his support of network neutrality, and said he intends to double Federal funding for science and to make the R&D tax credit permanent. Could Obama be the first mainstream candidate to start understanding geek issues?
The Internet

Submission + - Felon Became COO of Wikimedia Foundation 1

Submitted by r
r writes: The San Francisco Chronicle recently found that the former COO of the Wikimedia Foundation had a questionable past, including being convicted of theft, drunken driving, and fleeing a car accident. "Before she left in July, Carolyn Bothwell Doran, 45, had moved up from a part-time bookkeeper for the Wikimedia Foundation and spent six months as chief operating officer, responsible for personnel and financial management. In March, she signed the small nonprofit's tax return, which listed more than $1.3 million in donations. At the time, she was on probation for a 2004 hit-and-run accident in Virginia that had landed her seven months in prison. Doran had multiple drunken-driving convictions, and records show earlier run-ins for theft, writing bad checks and wounding her boyfriend with a gunshot to the chest." How could Wikimedia fail to perform a basic background check on the person handling the foundation's financials?
Businesses

Submission + - In DRM world, customers have no rights (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
iweditor
iweditor writes: "Currently in the U.S., the only laws pertaining to Digital Rights Management (DRM) prohibit attempts to tamper with it. No constraints or responsibilities are placed on copyright holders for making sure their DRM doesn't unfairly deprive legitimate customers of their rights. Warning: this product contains DRM. InfoWorld contributor Ed Foster takes up the cause: Instead of vendors and the politicians who serve them telling us not to touch the DRM, we need to send them a warning of our own — those companies that use DRM do so at their peril."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Animation depicts how Disney saw future in 1958 (pollsb.com)

Submitted by
jellydonot
jellydonot writes: "An excerpt from the 1958 "Disneyland" TV Show episode entitled "Magic Highway USA". In this last part of the show, an exploration into possible future Transportation technologies is made. It's hard to believe how little we've accomplished on this front since 1958, and how limited the scope for imagining such future technologies has become. Witness an artifact from a time where the future was greeted with optimism. Note the striking animation style here, achieved with fairly limited animation and spectacular layouts."

Bees Can Optimize Internet Bottlenecks 128

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bee-all-that-you-can-bee dept.
prostoalex writes "Georgia Tech and University of Oxford scientists claim bees can help up develop a better Internet traffic algorithms. By observing bees, the researchers noticed that bees pass back information on route quality. 'On a basic level, the honeybee's dilemma is a tale of two flower patches. If one patch is yielding better nectar than the other, how can the hive use its workforce most efficiently to retrieve the best supply at the moment? The solution, which earned Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch a Nobel Prize, is a communication system called the waggle dance.' Any practical applications of that? Well, apparently ad servers, serving banners across a variety of servers, can report back on the time it took to generate the page."
Security

Submission + - Review of book on basic computer security

Submitted by
Russell Got
Russell Got writes: "I recently reviewed the Absolute Beginner's Guide to Security, Spam, Spyware & Viruses by Andy Walker and found it to be well-written, nicely organized, and easy to follow. Although I have been in the Information Security business for many years, there is always something more to learn. This book is oriented more toward personal use computers than for corporate implementations. But it is good to know what your Security Administrators have, are faced with and have in order to do to secure Corporate information and protect its customers (sometimes even from themselves). What Andy covers is what everyone should understand about who (generically identified), what's out there, what they're up to, and most important, what you can do about it.

Some of the features that I liked were: the Tips, Sidebars, and Notes. Another feature that I have not seen too often is the At-A-Glance Table of Contents. What I liked about this abbreviated TOC was that I could just focus on these topics (Basics, Strategies, and Tools) and have a fairly secure system, provided the reader actually implements his advice. The Tips, Sidebars, and Notes also allow the reader to skim the material and still end up with a more secure computer. The best feature is his easy to implement advice, if nothing else go to the end of each chapter and do "The Absolute Minimum."

I would recommend this book to those wanting a good introduction to the most common security issues today (2005,6) and what can be done to better secure your personal computer from these threats."

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