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Biotech

Submission + - Countering Antibiotic-Resistance

Submitted by
DrHow
DrHow writes: "David Ewing Duncan, blogging for MIT Technology Review, reports some some exciting news about a new approach which promises to prevent the development of antibiotic resistance by suppressing the ability of bacteria to mutate.

From the article:
In 2005, biochemist Floyd Romesberg of the Scripps Research Institute, near San Diego, announced that his lab had discovered a gene called LexA that switches on the error-prone DNA, enabling the microbe to mutate rapidly. ... Now Romesberg has announced the discovery of a molecule that inhibits LexA'sability to cause mutations; ..."
Programming

Submission + - Open Source Takes on the Giant in Testing Market

Submitted by xtricity
xtricity writes: Thought this story by Sean Michael Kerner was interesting, especially considering that $4.5 billion dollar acquisition of Mercury Interactive by HP back in July. Innovative business strategies are being used with open source as a core way to get market penetration. The co-founder of Mercury Interactive is trying to use open source to take on HP with his new company, RadView. Hey, more power to them. It just means that the rest of us get increasingly more sophisticated open source products. Hope this trend keeps up. I wanna get good stuff without all the hoops and horrible pricing of enterprise software. I mean, I'm willing to pay a normal fee, but $100K for HP Mercury. Come on, I'd rather use open source and hack my own.
Patents

Successful Startups and Patents? 35

Posted by Cliff from the minefields-for-businesses dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "Is there a strategy for software startups wanting to make it big with a product in this world of software patents? Particularly, how can a software startup, wishing to take its product to the international market, hope to compete with the large software companies and their armada of patents?"
Businesses

Submission + - Custom Replica Model - Made With LEGOs

Submitted by
modelbuilder
modelbuilder writes: "Detailed scale models can be built of any stadium, public building, landmark, or home. Each model is made with LEGO blocks then meticulously hand painted to match your building. Unique LEGO replicas look great in offices or homes & provide wonderful gifts. Explore our site & discover why Pro Sports Teams, Companies, & Individuals have commissioned us. www.burikmodeldesign.com"
Education

Billions Face Risks From Climate Change 659

Posted by Zonk from the please-buckle-your-seatbelts-its-going-to-be-a-bumpy-ride dept.
gollum123 writes with a link to a kind of grim BBC story. According to a report drawn up by 'hundreds of international environmental experts', billions of people face drought and famine, as well as an increase in natural disasters, as a result of climate change. Individuals in the poorest countries face the most danger, due to a lack of infrastructure and geographic location. "The scientific work reviewed by IPCC scientists includes more than 29,000 pieces of data on observed changes in physical and biological aspects of the natural world. Eighty-nine percent of these, it believes, are consistent with a warming world. Several delegations, including the US, Saudi Arabia, China and India, had asked for the final version to reflect less certainty than the draft."
Television

Submission + - Green Cars, Electric Cars, Electric Vehicles, Elec

Submitted by
massivacom
massivacom writes: "Imagine a 21st century family sedan that can do 400 kph and doubles as an mobile conference room, while being powered by a 640 hp, pollution-free electric drive system. To illustrate the potential of the car the students created several videos."
Intel

Submission + - Intel's Penryn & Nehalem Cores, Details Emerg

Submitted by
TrackinYeti
TrackinYeti writes: "Roughly two years ago, Intel talked about their proposed "tick-tock" product strategy which entailed the shift to a new process technology followed by an enhanced or entirely new microarchitecture approximately every year. HotHardware has new details regarding Intel's 2007 "tick", the Penryn core, and next year's "tock", the Nehalem core, which also all ushers in significant changes with Intel's platform architecture as a whole. According to this new information, Nehalem can execute two threads per core, and in some configurations will feature on-die memory controllers and integrated graphics cores. Penryn will be the first core to benefit from the 45nm High-K and metal gate transistor technology and will be the foundation of future processors that span each product segment (mobile, desktop, and server) and power envelope."
KDE

Submission + - KDE 4.0 the holy grail of Desktops ?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With KDE 4.0 being expected some time this year, expectation runs high in the linux/unix users camp and the media read a lot between the lines of what the KDE developers say and do. In some ways KDE will provide a standard as to how a desktop should look and behave. This interesting article wonders whether KDE 4.0 will become the complete desktop which will meet the needs of a wide cross section of computer users. One of the common complaints that some Linux users have over KDE is that it is too cluttered. And by addressing this need without putting off the power users, the KDE developers could make it an all in one Desktop. Keep in mind that KDE 4.0 is based on Qt 4.0 and so can be easily ported to Windows and other OSes too which makes this thought doubly relevant.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Colleges deceive financial aid applicants

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "Looking on the bright side, this practice no doubt gives young people an early lesson in the potential pitfalls of any major financial transaction: Universities are hiring student-loan companies, whose call-center operators pose as school employees, in order to "advise" applicants about financing their educations. According to this morning's New York Times, some schools actually require that the call-center operators maintain the ruse. The arrangement has drawn attention from regulators and lawmakers. Meanwhile, the Army actually has a better idea and its technology is being adopted by at least one university to "talk" financial aid.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1305 8"
Republicans

Submission + - Bush Adminstration and emails

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Follow the e-mails, From Salon "The discovery of a previously unknown treasure chest of e-mails buried by the Bush administration may prove to be as informative as Nixon's secret White House tapes." "The discovery of a hitherto unknown treasure-trove of e-mails buried by the Bush White House may prove to be as informative as Nixon's secret White House tapes. Last week the National Journal disclosed that Karl Rove does "about 95 percent" of his e-mails outside the White House system, instead using a Republican National Committee account."
Emulation (Games)

Submission + - Linux OS specific to gaming?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Now that Dell has a (supposed) plan to get Linux onto a more mainstream market, I find myself wondering again on when I'll be completely free of the shackles put on by Microsoft. However, the one huge hurdle that still binds me to its chains is games. I've already looked into WINE and, although it seems to have made a lot of progress so far, the range of games being supported still seems to be limited. Is there any other Linux or Linux supported software being developed specifically focused on supporting gaming?

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