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Submission + - Ancient DNA Found Hidden Below Sea Floor (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: In the middle of the South Atlantic, there's a patch of sea almost devoid of life. There are no birds, few fish, not even much plankton. But researchers report that they've found buried treasure under the empty waters: ancient DNA hidden in the muck of the sea floor, which lies 5000 meters below the waves. The DNA, from tiny, one-celled sea creatures that lived up to 32,500 years ago, is the first to be recovered from the abyssal plains, the deep-sea bottoms that cover huge stretches of Earth. The researchers say that the ability to retrieve such old DNA from such large stretches of the planet's surface could help reveal everything from ancient climate to the evolutionary ecology of the seas.
 

Comment Re:Handcuffs (Score 4, Interesting) 156

Once again, prison is to isolate dangerous people from the rest of society, not for harmless fraudsters.

harmless fraudsters?

In Dante's Inferno, Fraud is the 2nd most serious sin:

  • Circle 1: Limbo
  • Circle 2: Lust
  • Circle 3: Gluttony
  • Circle 4: Greed
  • Circle 5: Anger
  • Circle 6: Heresy
  • Circle 7: Violence
  • Circle 8: Fraud
  • Circle 9: Treachery

It's worthwhile considering why he thought that way. Who does more harm to society: a mugger or a corrupt banker? How many people do you know who have been mugged? How many people do you know who have been hurt by corruption?

Comment Re:fiber is fragile (Score 1) 242

Fiber optic is pretty fragile - far more so than a copper cable. Can't bend it past a certain radius, much less kink it.

Most copper data cables, including UTP, STP and co-ax react very poorly to sharp bends or kinking. If you take a Cat5 cable and kink it or stretch it, it's not going to work any more, at least not at Gbps rates.

Optical's main benefit is distance, not speed...

TOSlink and all that jazz worked because you connect stuff and that's it- the cable rarely gets disturbed. Think of your average business traveler - they'd go through optical cables like candy.

Good point, though I think the problem would more likely be the connector than the cable. Optical does not cope well with dust, grime etc.

This 100w power standard is pretty stupid, though. We're talking power levels where fires will definitely be possible from damaged USB cables.

Unless (and I have no idea if such is being implemented) a smart, bidirectional power protocol is in place that monitors the power sent vs the power received and shuts it down if there is a discrepancy---sort of like a super RCD.

Comment Re:Oh good, undersea mining (Score 2) 189

So which weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of aerogel? Who cares, my question is how did you fit an entire pound of aerogel in that room?

A pound of lead. No, really, unless you are weighing in a vacuum.

Think of weighing a pound of lead and a pound of wood underwater. The lower density of the wood and the weight of the water displaced makes for the difference. The same holds for air, but for most substances the difference is undetectable. However, lead vs aerogel is easily detectable. By my rough calculations, at room temperature, 1lb of lead weighs 0.99989418lb allowing for air displacement and 1lb of aerogel (at 1.9kg/m^3) weighs 0.368421053lb (and occupies 0.238732632m^3, so it'll fit in the room quite easily)

(Of course, to be ultra pedantic, I'm assuming you mean pound mass rather than pound force here)

Comment Re:I think what they should do is (Score 3, Insightful) 113

Your name is what you say it is.

Well, since the purpose of a name is to interact with other people, it is more accurate to say that your name is what other people call you. If 'Bud' is what everybody calls you every day in 'real life', then that is you real name.

Now is maybe a good time to post the link to the falsehoods that people[programmers] believe about names.

It's quite normal to have multiple names: one of my relatives was called by one name by half the family and another name by the other half. Was one of those names not her 'real' name?

If I am known by a nym in a community---a community that I interact with only using that name, then that is my name----in that community.

Comment Re:Resistance and temperature (Score 4, Insightful) 133

The question -- as it always is -- is: What is the operating temperature range for this material?

They don't say. The most we know from the article is

its effective operating temperature is higher than that of conventional superconducting materials such as niobium, lead or mercury.

which means higher than 9.3K (Nb critical temperature).

The article also says:

Currently, even unconventional high-temperature superconductors operate below -369 degrees Fahrenheit.

or about 50K. Still below the magic 77K of liquid Nitrogen at which point things become economically interesting---and I can't see any statement in the article that the substance is even as good as, never mind better than 50K, although there is an implication that it is.

All in all, the article says remarkably little, at some length.

Comment Re:MS Offfice 2013 - Javascript apps (Score 5, Funny) 332

Javascript is not too bad, but I suspect that it won't help in this case because the problem is not merely the language but the mind-rottingly horrible object model.

If you can keep it to rslt = function(cell1, cell2, cell3) then it's OK, but in practice it seems to involve rslt = use.of.some.object.you.didnt.expect where goat.sacrifice(was.successful) [but.I.lied.to.you]

Comment Re:Buy a harmonica (Score 2) 279

Bagpipes were given by the Irish to the Scots---who haven't gotten the joke yet.

I'd suggest taking up the Bodhran. Don't worry too much about learning to play it---most people can't, so that doesn't matter, and if anyone gives you grief just explain that you made it yourself and that the skin is wearing out, which should ensure isolation.

Comment Re:Legit uses for legalized spyware (Score 1) 240

So, they do understand that means the Chinese government can install rootkits on their servers, because they bought kit with chips made in China, and packets passing through them need to be investigated to ensure there are no dissidents using them, in violation of Chinese law (that would be the contravention of the laws of a foreign state mentioned)?

Comment Re:On the other hand... (Score 2) 351

This seems to be only about "work produced for the school", meaning papers for class, lesson plans and the like. It doesn't seem as though they plan to lay claim to your Great American Novel (TM) if you plan on writing one while enrolled or employed there.

For the pupils at least, that claim also likely has no standing, notwithstanding any delusional beliefs to the contrary of the board.

As per analysis of the contract in the Hobbit

All contracts require some consideration from all parties to the contract. Consideration, in the contract sense, means a bargained-for performance or promise. Restatement (Second) of Contracts 71(1). Basically, this is something of value given or promised as part of the agreement. This can be anything that the parties agree is valuable; the classic example is a single peppercorn. Whitney v. Stearns, 16 Me. 394, 397 (1839).

That means, the school has to explicitly give the pupils something in exchange for their copyright. 'Teaching' can't be it, since they are obliged to do that anyway.

Comment Re:Demand More (Score 1) 665

As Mick Jagger said:

people only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn't make any money out of records because record companies wouldn't pay you! They didn't pay anyone! Then, there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone. So if you look at the history of recorded music from 1900 to now, there was a 25 year period where artists did very well, but the rest of the time they didn't.

Comment Re:Heads on pikes (Score 1) 131

not true even remotely.

While MAFIAA may be incredibly stupid, don't think their finance people are as stupid. It's not hard for them to figure out if it's not worth the money.

Apparently, it is.

If they thought about it, it's obvious that this isn't going to recover money. As the thread title says, it's about heads on pikes. The aim is to scare people into not downloading.

Of course, even that is not really the aim. The argument actually goes like:

  • 1. We used to make lots of money
  • 2. We don't make as much as we used to (actually, we don't think we are making as much money as we think we should be)
  • 3. The kids are downloading it and not paying us
  • 4. Let's count every download as a lost sale...There! that's where our money went
  • 4. If we can stop downloading, people will buy the music instead
  • 5. We can afford to spend a few megabucks if it stops piracy
  • 6. PROFIT

It's further complicated by a sense of moral outrage from point 3. They are CRIMINALS. It is our DUTY to PUNISH them.

And then they sign off on their advertising budgets and promotions and schmoozing and expense accounts, because that's just a legitimate and accepted cost of doing business. Sure, it'd be nice to cut those costs, but "spend a dollar, get two back" is good financial math.

So, the finance guys accept the cost, because of points 5 and 6.

They won't, they can't think of downloading as a legitimate business expense, despite strong indications that downloaders spend MORE money on purchases. They refuse to consider that, maybe, their business model is broken.

The music industry does not want to think of themselves as being like Polaroid, or Kodak, or Atari, or Nokia.

Their finance people may be smart and competent, but right now that equates to an optimal deck-chair rearrangement, whereas what's needed is a course change away from the iceberg.

Comment Re:The Problem is Bad Patents, More Than Trolls (Score 1) 259

You've got a contradiction in your logic there. The "NPE" is also known as an inventor. The patent system was created to separate the roles of invention from the roles of production.

To be pedantic, the patent system was created to encourage the production of more useful stuff. As I said, it's the production bit that's important, otherwise there is no point. A patent for an invention that is never produced is, by definition, useless. So a patent that prevents a useful thing being produced is worse than useless.

A consequence of the patent system was that it tended to encourage (but did not enforce) a separation between invention and production, but that was not the intent.

The troll, or NPE, has already done their part by creating the invention and gets paid for it via licensing fees, as intended. Even if the invention is sold by the original inventor to another NPE, the patent system still served the function for providing a market for inventions.

Now personally I hate all the bad patents floating around, and seriously question if the patent system isn't doing more harm than good anyways, even if only "good" patents were allowed, but the "troll" patent owner, as defined, is what patents are essentially there for.

Yes, markets are often a good thing. However, back to trolls. In practice trolls don't actually produce anything. A NPE doesn't seek to make the invention. The troll doesn't seek to sell the invention to someone to have it made. The troll waits under its bridge until someone tries to to make something useful and then slithers out and demands protection money.

We can look at that and decide that trolls are bad, but as you say, they are just a consequence of the rules we made. We can try to create anti-troll regulations—which just evolves smarter, tougher trolls—or we can go back to first principles and try a different way.

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