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Science

Submission + - Simpler, Cheaper HIV Testing (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: Alexander Revzin, a biomedical engineer at the University of California, Davis, developed a simple strip that has an array of antibody molecules printed on it. The molecules bind to white blood cells as well as certain proteins. By counting the different types of cells, one can tell whether a person has HIV, and whether they are at risk for full-blown AIDS.

Comment Simple solution, don't use your router for DNS (Score 3, Insightful) 179

by Passman (#32926522) Attached to: Millions of Home Routers Are Hackable

As someone pointed out a comment on the Forbes story, this exploit can only affect you if you are getting DNS through the router.

Simply using a static IP & DNS for your computer on your local network would make you immune to this. In situations where using a static IP is not possible (a friend's house, public wifi, etc.) just set your DNS servers statically and you should be fine.
Space

Submission + - 'Superstorm' on planet HD209458b (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by krou
krou writes: A team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and its CRIRES spectrograph have identified longitudinal winds measuring around 2km/s on exoplanet HD209458b, which orbits a star in the constellation Pegasus. Ignas Snellen, who led the team, said: "By studying the poisonous carbon monoxide gas with great accuracy we found evidence for a 'super wind', blowing at a speed of 5,000 to 10,000km per hour." The winds are created by the extreme temperatures reached (1000 C) on one side of the planet. Mercedes Lopez-Morales, from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, US, (who was not part of the team) said: "Measuring spectral lines from molecules in the atmosphere of an exoplanet and using them to derive the planet's mass directly is a remarkable achievement. Equally striking is the fact that the observations have been made using ground-based telescope facilities. Until a few months ago, such challenging precision measurements were thought to be possible only from space-based platforms." The team were also able to measure how much carbon was present, and it's believed HD209458b is as carbon-rich as Jupiter.
Iphone

Submission + - Apple dictates naming of corporate networks. (apple.com)

Submitted by Gattman01
Gattman01 writes: After updating our company's iPhones to iOS 4.0 the phones suddenly stopped communicating with servers on the local network. It turns out Apple has decided in iOS 4.0 to disallow resolving domain names ending in .local. Their resolution, change your company's internal domain name.
Software

Submission + - SPAM: Company liable for software defects rules Court

Submitted by normsky
normsky writes: A software company's stipulation that customers could not take action against it for the poor performance of its software was unfair and could not be enforced, the High Court has said.

"Pursuant to `the Sale of Goods Act 1979, a term is to be implied into the contract that Entirety would be fit for the purpose for which it was bought, namely that the system would increase revenue and occupancy levels and would allow quicker check-in and check-out, including accurately processing groups and making changes to group reservations while preserving the accuracy of the system," he wrote.

"I am satisfied that Entirety was not fit for the purpose for which it was sold ..
Link to Original Source

Submission + - What Happened to Obama's Open Source Adviser (whitehouse.gov)

Submitted by gov_coder
gov_coder writes: Back in January of 2009, various new articles announced that former SUN CEO, Scott McNealy was to become the Obama administration's Open Source Technology adviser. Currently, however, a search for Scott on the whitehouse.gov website yields zero results. Searching a bit more — I found that Scott is currently working on CurriWiki, a kind of wikipedia for school curriculum. So my question is what happened? Did some lobbyist block the appointment? Did Scott decide his other activities were more important? Scott, if you are out there — please tell us what happened. There are many people working in government IT, such as myself, who were really excited about the possibilities of an expanded role for open source software in government, and are now wondering what went wrong.
Microsoft

Submission + - Did Facebook migrate to Windows Servers? (tumblr.com) 1

Submitted by jonklinger
jonklinger writes: A rather esoteric report this morning about the Hebrew letter 'Nun' (Unicode 05E0) being unreadable in Facebook and replaced with a non-breaking-space (Hebrew link) reminded me an old discussion from the WordPress discussion group (Hebrew link) where it was explained that in a limited number of Windows IIS servers there's a bug that does not allow displaying such character. Of course, historically Facebook worked on Linux Servers, but there might have been a connection between Facebook's new changes and this
Businesses

Submission + - Amazon Patents Selling Used Goods at Starbucks, BN

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Having already been burned by Amazon's 1-Click patent, one imagines Barnes and Noble will be fuming to learn that the USPTO granted Amazon a patent Tuesday covering the use of Barnes and Noble's physical stores to fulfill orders placed for used goods on Amazon. The e-tailer was awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,702,545 for its System and Method for Facilitating Exchanges Between Buyers and Sellers, legal-speak for arranging a place to meet to exchange cash for used goods ordered online. From the patent: 'In an exemplary embodiment, buyers and sellers are permitted to designate exchange locations in the system 100. An exchange location may be a location that the user regularly visits. For example, users may designate locations such as health clubs, schools, coffee shops, book stores, and so on, as acceptable exchange locations.'
Medicine

High Fructose Corn Syrup Causes Bigger Weight Gain In Rats 542

Posted by timothy from the subsidies-cause-fatter-corn-farmers dept.
krou writes "In an experiment conducted by a Princeton University team, 'Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.' Long-term consumption also 'led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides.' Psychology professor Bart Hoebel commented that 'When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight.'"
Hardware

Submission + - Ultra-Efficient Gas Engine Passes Test (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by chudnall
chudnall writes: Technology review has a story on a new gas engine injection system that promises increased efficiency of up to 50%.

The key is heating and pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber, says Mike Rocke, Transonic's vice president of business development. This puts it into a supercritical state that allows for very fast and clean combustion, which in turn decreases the amount of fuel needed to propel a vehicle. The company also treats the gasoline with a catalyst that "activates" it, partially oxidizing it to enhance combustion.
Media

Submission + - Popular Science posts their archives for free (popsci.com)

Submitted by
DesScorp
DesScorp writes: "Popular Science magazine has scanned every issue they've ever produced, and posted the archives at their website, at no charge. "We've partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It's an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology's incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.""

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