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Music By Natural Selection 164

Posted by samzenpus from the survival-of-the-grooviest dept.
maccallr writes "The DarwinTunes experiment needs you! Using an evolutionary algorithm and the ears of you the general public, we've been evolving a four bar loop that started out as pretty dismal primordial auditory soup and now after >27k ratings and 200 generations is sounding pretty good. Given that the only ingredients are sine waves, we're impressed. We got some coverage in the New Scientist CultureLab blog but now things have gone quiet and we'd really appreciate some Slashdotter idle time. We recently upped the maximum 'genome size' and we think that the music is already benefiting from the change."
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PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361

Posted by samzenpus from the load-photon-torpedoes dept.
darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."
Science

Aussie Scientists Find Coconut-Carrying Octopus 205

Posted by timothy from the concealed-carry-in-australian-waters dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. ... 'I was gobsmacked,' said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. 'I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh.'"
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The Perfect Way To Slice a Pizza 282

Posted by samzenpus from the equal-distribution-of-the-pie dept.
iamapizza writes "New Scientist reports on the quest of two math boffins for the perfect way to slice a pizza. It's an interesting and in-depth article; 'The problem that bothered them was this. Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-center, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-center cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighboring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza — and if not, who will get more?' This is useful, of course, if you're familiar with the concept of 'sharing' a pizza."
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Zombie Pigs First, Hibernating Soldiers Next 193

Posted by samzenpus from the fattening-up-on-brains dept.
ColdWetDog writes "Wired is running a story on DARPA's effort to stave off battlefield casualties by turning injured soldiers into zombies by injecting them with a cocktail of one chemical or another (details to be announced). From the article, 'Dr. Fossum predicts that each soldier will carry a syringe into combat zones or remote areas, and medic teams will be equipped with several. A single injection will minimize metabolic needs, de-animating injured troops by shutting down brain and heart function. Once treatment can be carried out, they'll be "re-animated" and — hopefully — as good as new.' If it doesn't pan out we can at least get zombie bacon and spam."

Comment Re:G-forces ???? (Score 4, Interesting) 384

by riboch (#29713957) Attached to: Gigantic Air Gun To Blast Cargo Into Orbit

They probably hope to discover "inertia canceling."

I could not find it in the article, so:
What are the power requirements for such a mechanism?
Where will it be located?
What about ITAR issues?
Why not make it longer for smaller accelerations?

The concerns about the hypersonic regime of fluid flow should not be an issue if they fire from a mountain, there are a hand full of craft that can handle the plasma, although none accelerate like that at such a low altitude.

Aside, what happens to fuel (liquid and solid) under such high g-load? I can find no studies on it.

P.S. I am an Aerospace Engineer.

Comment A suggestion: (Score 1) 250

by riboch (#29018575) Attached to: Music Labels Working On Digital Album Format

How about selling CD's much less? I am sick of paying EUR15 or US$18 plus shipping for a CD. There are these things called enhanced CD's, that have everything they described: video, artwork, even games (e.g. Deftone's "White Pony").

I love CD's, if you reduce the price, I will buy many more. I get a higher quality and something physical.
The Internet

Comcast the Latest ISP To Try DNS Hijacking 352

Posted by timothy from the c'mon-fellas dept.
A semi-anonymous reader writes "In the latest blow to DNS neutrality, Comcast is starting to redirect users to an ad-laden holding page when they try to connect to nonexistent domains. I have just received an email from them to that effect, tried it, and lo and behold, indeed there is the ugly DNS hijack page. The good news is that the opt-out is a more sensible registration based on cable modem MAC, rather than the deplorable 'cookie method' we just saw from Bell Canada. All you Comcast customers and friends of Comcast customers who want to get out of this, go here to opt out. Is there anything that can be done to stop (and reverse) this DNS breakage trend that the ISPs seem to be latching onto lately? Maybe the latest net neutrality bill will help." Update: 08/05 20:03 GMT by T : Here's a page from Comcast with (scant) details on the web-jacking program, which says that yesterday marked the national rollout.

Comment Re:What's a C student at Monroe College? (Score 2, Insightful) 1251

by riboch (#28938923) Attached to: Student Sues University Because She's Unemployable

You have to be very careful with those numbers as they are in no way comparable to other universities/"clown colleges" (read Community Colleges). My university's engineering college average is 2.8 (around a B-/C+ range) and has a bell curve distribution, very few courses can be graded straight scale due changing professors from semester to semester.

On top of that, there are some universities that have rampant GPA inflation that makes their graduates looking all the more appealing.

When it comes down to it, are you going to take a 2.7 from a prestigious university or an online university?

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