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Submission + - 80s ads are responsible for the lack of women coders (npr.org) 3

Submitted by gollum123
gollum123 writes: From NPR, Back in the day, computer science was as legitimate a career path for women as in medicine, law or science. But in 1984, the number of females majoring in computing-related subjects began to fall, and is now as low as 20 percent compared to those other three.It's a surprising trend that NPR's Planet Money has uncovered, and the show's latest episode seeks to answer a simple question: Why? According to the show's experts, computers were advertised as a "boy's toy," and combined with early '80s geek culture staples like the novel Hackers, as well as movies like WarGames and Weird Science, the knock-on effect was to exclude women.

Submission + - Man walks after nose cells repair spinal cord (medicalnewstoday.com)

Submitted by tiberus
tiberus writes: A 40-year-old paralyzed man from Bulgaria can now walk again with the aid of a frame after breakthrough surgery transplanted cells from his nose into his spinal cord, which had been severed in a knife attack.

After undergoing surgery to transplant cells from his nose to his spinal cord, a paralyzed man from Bulgaria is able to walk again. The procedure effectively provided a "bridge" over the injury site so nerve cells — encouraged by the special nose cells — could regrow across the scar tissue.

Submission + - Man sentenced for webcam sex with a "teen" computer avatar (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A man in Australia is believed to be the first to have been convicted as the result of an undercover sting in which charity workers posed online as a 10-year-old Filipina, using a computer avatar to produce an image of the fictional girl.

Details of other 1000 men who contacted the fictional child were sent to police around the world.

For now, the avatar was animated and the chat conducted by an undercover human operative. How long will it be till we have fully automatic computer programs fishing for sex offenders online?

Submission + - Kickstarter project anonabox has been suspended for potential fraud (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Anonabox is a project on Kickstarter to build a self-contained Tor router. It proved very popular, exceeding its funding threshold within days. Rumors and accusations started flying almost immediately. On 17 October, email went out from Kickstarter that the project had been suspended and the contributions would be refunded to backers. The official reason is "A review of the project uncovered evidence that it broke Kickstarter's rules." Early indications are that the project claimed to be building original hardware but was actually repacking cheaper hardware from elsewhere. They are accused of requesting a $51 pledge for a $20 router.

Submission + - Chemists Grow Soil Fungus On Cheerios, Discover New Antifungal Compounds (acs.org)

Submitted by MTorrice
MTorrice writes: Many drugs that treat bacterial and fungal infections were found in microbes growing in the dirt. These organisms synthesize the compounds to fend off other bacteria and fungi around them. To find possible new drugs, chemists try to coax newly discovered microbial species to start making their arsenal of antimicrobial chemicals in the lab. But fungi can be stubborn, producing just a small set of already-known compounds.

Now, one team of chemists has hit upon a curiously effective and consistent trick to prod the organisms to start synthesizing novel molecules: Cheerios inside bags. Scientists grew a soil fungus for four weeks in a bag full of Cheerios and discovered a new compound that can block biofilm formation by an infectious yeast. The chemists claim that Cheerios are by far the best in the cereal aisle at growing chemically productive fungi.

Submission + - How Nigeria Stopped Ebola

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Pamela Engel writes that Americans need only look to Nigeria to calm their fears about an Ebola outbreak in the US. Nigeria is much closer to the West Africa outbreak than the US is, yet even after Ebola entered the country in the most terrifying way possible — via a visibly sick passenger on a commercial flight — officials successfully shut down the disease and prevented widespread transmission. If there are still no new cases on October 20, the World Health Organization will officially declare the country "Ebola-free." Here's how Nigeria did it.

The first person to bring Ebola to Nigeria was Patrick Sawyer, who left a hospital in Liberia against the wishes of the medical staff and flew to Nigeria. Once Sawyer arrived, it became obvious that he was ill when he passed out in the Lagos airport, and he was taken to a hospital in the densely packed city of 20 million. Once the country's first Ebola case was confirmed, Port Health Services in Nigeria started a process called contact tracing to limit the spread of the disease and created an emergency operations center to coordinate and oversee the national response. Health officials used a variety of resources, including phone records and flight manifests, to track down nearly 900 people who might have been exposed to the virus via Sawyer or the people he infected. As soon as people developed symptoms suggestive of Ebola, they were isolated in Ebola treatment facilities. Without waiting to see whether a "suspected" case tested positive, Nigeria's contact tracing team tracked down everyone who had had contact with that patient since the onset of symptoms making a staggering 18,500 face-to-face visits. The US has many of these same procedures in place for containing Ebola, making the risk of an outbreak here very low. Contact tracing is exactly what is happening in Dallas right now; if any one of Thomas Eric Duncan's contacts shows symptoms, that person will be immediately isolated and tested. “That experience shows us that even in the case in Nigeria, when we found out later in the timeline that this patient had Ebola, that Nigeria was able to identify contacts, institute strict infection control procedures and basically bring their outbreak to a close,” says Dr. Tom Inglesby. “They did a good job in and of themselves. They worked closely with the U.S. CDC. If we can succeed in Nigeria I do believe we will stop it here.”

Submission + - Is the E-Cat just the work of a charlatan?

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Last week, outlets reported an independent test of the E-cat, an alleged cold fusion device that could revolutionize energy for our world. Or, alternatively, it could simply be a hoax perpetrated by a charlatan and a team of either accomplices or incompetents. How would you distinguish between the two? When you look at the scientific standards, the results of the "independent test" leave a lot to be desired.

Submission + - Massachusetts city council blocks Comcast from entering the area

Submitted by _AustinPowell
_AustinPowell writes: Comcast is gunning for a cable television license in Worcester, Mass., as part of its purchase ofTime Warner Cable. In response, the City Council voted 8-3 to urge Worcester's city manager to let the companys license request die. The deadline for the decision is Wednesday, but the manager is not bound by the vote of the Council. "Its a terrible company," City Councilor Gary Rosen said. "In my opinion, they should not be welcome in this city. Comcast is a wolf in wolfs clothing; its that bad."

Submission + - Journalists Route Around White House Press Office

Submitted by Tailhook
Tailhook writes: Pool reports written by White House correspondents are distributed to news organizations via the White House Press Office. Reporters have alleged that the Obama White House exploits its role as distributor to `demand changes in pool reports' and has used this power to `steer coverage in a more favorable direction.' Now a group of 90 print journalists has begun privately distributing their work through Google Groups, independent of the Press Office. Their intent is to `create an independent pool-reporting system for print and online recipients.'

Submission + - Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details (aviationweek.com) 1

Submitted by Reddog99
Reddog99 writes: Hidden away in the secret depths of the Skunk Works, a Lockheed Martin research team has been working quietly on a nuclear energy concept they believe has the potential to meet, if not eventually decrease, the worldâ(TM)s insatiable demand for power.

Dubbed the compact fusion reactor (CFR), the device is conceptually safer, cleaner and more powerful than much larger, current nuclear systems that rely on fission, the process of splitting atoms to release energy. Crucially, by being âoecompact,â Lockheed believes its scalable concept will also be small and practical enough for applications ranging from interplanetary spacecraft and commercial ships to city power stations. It may even revive the concept of large, nuclear-powered aircraft that virtually never require refuelingâ"ideas of which were largely abandoned more than 50 years ago because of the dangers and complexities involved with nuclear fission reactors.

Submission + - My shitty phone (myshittyphone.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I hate my phone so much that I created a website for it.

Submission + - In defense of the BYOdeveloper (citeworld.com)

Submitted by rfran
rfran writes: It's more than clear that BYODev and the user developer movement are here to stay — and that they're a benefit to companies and organizations that adopt them.

Submission + - 1/10 Scale Model Cray Supercomputer built from FPGA (chrisfenton.com)

Submitted by bmurray7
bmurray7 writes: Chris Fenton has built a model Cray-1 supercomputer from an FPGA. The Cray-1 was the iconic supercomputer of the 1970s. It featured a then staggering 32 MB of RAM and could perform ~100 million floating point operations per second. To build his model, Fenton designed a Verilog-200 FPGA implementation of the Cray 1. The FPGA circuit board wasn't pretty, so he built case at 1/10 scale. The model runs at 50 mhz, close to the original's 80 mhz clock speed.

Submission + - Scientific Linux 7.0 x86_64 released

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientific Linux has released version 7.0 of its enterprise Linux clone. "Fermilab's intention is to continue the development and support of Scientific Linux and refine its focus as an operating system for scientific computing.". You can grab an ISO images by visiting this url. It is recommended to read both the Scientific Linux release notes and the RHEL7 release notes.

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