Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Media

Police Stop Journalists From Photographing Metrorail System 601

Posted by Soulskill from the don't-cloud-this-issue-with-facts dept.
schwit1 writes with this excerpt from Reason.com: "Carlos Miller, who runs the Photography Is Not a Crime blog, and veteran photojournalist Stretch Leford decided to test the photography rules in Miami-Dade's metrorail system. Before embarking on their test, they obtained written assurance from Metro Safety and Security Chief Eric Muntan that there's no law against non-commercial photography on the system. The two didn't make it past the first station before they were stopped. Employees of 50 State Security, the private firm contracted to provide the metro's security, stopped the pair first. They then called in local police. The private firm and the police then threatened the two with arrest, demanded their identification (to check them against a terrorist watch list), demanded multiple times that they stop filming, and eventually 'banned' Miller and Ledford from the metro system 'for life' (though it's doubtful they had the authority to do so)."
Math

First Self-Replicating Creature Spawned In Conway's Game of Life 241

Posted by Soulskill from the emergent-gameplay dept.
Calopteryx writes "New Scientist has a story on a self-replicating entity which inhabits the mathematical universe known as the Game of Life. 'Dubbed Gemini, [Andrew Wade's] creature is made of two sets of identical structures, which sit at either end of the instruction tape. Each is a fraction of the size of the tape's length but, made up of two constructor arms and one "destructor," play a key role. Gemini's initial state contains three of these structures, plus a fourth that is incomplete. As the simulation progresses the incomplete structure begins to grow, while the structure at the start of the tape is demolished. The original Gemini continues to disassemble as the new one emerges, until after nearly 34 million generations, new life is born.'"
Education

Science Luminary Martin Gardner Dead at 95 96

Posted by timothy from the sad-to-note dept.
From James Randi's blog comes word that science writer Martin Gardner has died at the age of 95. I never met Gardner, but one of his books (Entertaining Science Experiments With Everyday Objects) has been a favorite of mine since I was 6 or 7 years old; I didn't realize until just now quite how many books he authored.
Science

Matter-Antimatter Bias Seen In Fermilab Collisions 304

Posted by kdawson from the toe-of-god dept.
ubermiester writes "The New York Times is reporting that scientists at Fermilab have found evidence of a very small (about 1%) average difference between the amount of matter/antimatter produced in a series of particle collisions. Quoting: '[T]he team, known as the DZero collaboration, found that the fireballs produced pairs of ... muons ... slightly more often than they produced pairs of anti-muons. So the miniature universe inside the accelerator went from being neutral to being about 1 percent more matter than antimatter.' This finding invites theorists to explain why there is so much more matter than antimatter in the universe, when the Standard Model suggests that there should be equal amounts of each." Here is the paper as submitted to Physical Review (PDF). The DZero team is looking forward to getting detailed data from the LHC once it ramps up operationally.
Moon

Decades-Old Soviet Reflector Spotted On the Moon 147

Posted by Soulskill from the always-in-the-last-place-you-look dept.
cremeglace writes "No one had seen a laser reflector that Soviet scientists had left on the moon almost 40 years ago, despite years of searching. Turns out searchers had been looking kilometers in the wrong direction. On 22 April, a team of physicists finally saw an incredibly faint flash from the reflector, which was ferried across the lunar surface by the Lunokhod 1 rover. The find comes thanks to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which last month imaged a large area where the rover was reported to have been left. Then the researchers, led by Tom Murphy of the University of California, San Diego, could search one football-field-size area at a time until they got a reflection."
Power

Re-Purposing the Netherlands' Dike System For Power Generation 132

Posted by timothy from the let's-go-dutch dept.
vikingpower writes "Built in reaction to a major flood that killed 1,800 in the '50s, the Dutch system of dikes, sluices, surge barriers, and dams has been dubbed 'one of the seven wonders of the modern world' by the American Society of Engineers. Now there are proposals to use the system differently, e.g. as tidal power plants, by punching holes in them. Any civil engineer's mouth will probably be watering when thinking of the mega-projects this could give rise to."
Earth

Aral Sea May Recover; Dead Sea Needs a Lifeline 131

Posted by timothy from the just-needs-feng-shui-adjustment dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It's a tale of two seas. The drying up of the Aral Sea is considered one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in history, but the northern sector of the sea, at least, is showing signs of life. A dam completed in 2005 has increased the North Aral's span by 20 percent, and birds, fish, and people are all returning to the area. Meanwhile, the Dead Sea is still in the midst of precipitous decline, since too much water is being drawn out of the Jordan River for thirsty populations and crops. To keep the sea from shrinking more, scientists are pushing an ambitious scheme called the 'Red-Dead conduit,' which would channel huge amounts of water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. However, the environmental consequences of such a project may be troubling."

Comment Re:Side effects (Score 5, Informative) 269

by DrRossi (#31923672) Attached to: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks

Needless to say, I refused to pay a dime to the guy, told him that if he didn't step out of the way he'd be lucky to walk away with a broken arm and a black eye. We went to another doctor who did prescribe antibiotics, after some pressure, and lo and behold, the fever went down a mere 15 minutes after administration.

Well, lo and behold indeed, as it is generally recognised that it takes several days before antibiotics start working we have a real miracle here.

Antibiotics do not have a (near) immediate effect as general painkillers have.
So either:
a) you are being dishonest and/or
b) the fever subdued to some other cause.

In any case, by your own admittance, you threatened the first doctor with severe physical violence, while he was right and simply doing his job, and nonetheless you are very self-righteous about it, and to top it of you refused to pay him as well!

Not only that, but you "pressured" (meaning he didn't want to give antibiotics either) the second doctor too, but he finally caved in.

You are talking about "medical practitioners" in your family, but none of them were evidently able to tell you that it takes days for antibiotics to start working, and also, as I found out by some light surfing on baby-sites, that baby fevers are not worrisome until about 40 C or 41 C. (!) Apparently they can come and go pretty quick. That also hasn't been told to you by the medical practitioners in your family.

For example, see http://mens-en-gezondheid.infonu.nl/ziekten/23242-koorts-bij-kinderen.html (dutch)

Originally I came here to reply to your first post which is full of all sorts non-truths (European doctors send you home with pain killing cream if you have a broken leg, yea, right!), but you second post was even more over the top so I ended up replying to that one.

All in all you look to me like an unpleasant, lying, bullying and self-righteous kind of person, and I'm happy I don't have any more business with you.

And, oh yeah, I'm Dutch.
Space

Rogue Brown Dwarf Lurks In Our Cosmic Neighborhood 188

Posted by Soulskill from the brown-dwarf-rogue-lurks-in-ironforge dept.
astroengine writes "The UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii has discovered a lone, cool brown dwarf called UGPSJ0722-05. As far as sub-stellar objects go, this is a strange one. For starters, it's the coolest brown dwarf ever discovered (and astronomers using the UKIRT should know; they are making a habit of finding cool brown dwarfs). Secondly, it's close. In fact, it's the closest brown dwarf to Earth, at a distance of only 10 light years. And thirdly, it has an odd spectroscopic signature, leading astronomers to think that this might be the discovery of a whole new class of brown dwarf."
Science

Yoctonewton Detector Smashes Force Sensing Record 214

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stop-being-so-sensitive dept.
KentuckyFC writes "A team of physicists has measured the smallest force ever recorded, at 174 yoctonewtons (yocto=10^-24), beating the previous best by three orders of magnitude. Their measurement device consists of a few dozen beryllium ions trapped in magnetic and electric fields using a device called a Penning trap. These ions vibrate at between a few mega and kilohertz, frequencies that can be accurately measured by bouncing laser light off the ions and measuring any Doppler shift they cause. Being charged, the ions are highly susceptible to the tiny forces associated with stray magnetic and electric fields, which change the frequency at which the ions vibrate. Hence the super-sensitive measurements. They team says that straightforward modifications should allow them to measure single yoctonewtons in the near future. This sudden leap in sensitivity could cause a problem for the system of SI prefixes, which don't yet come any smaller than yocto."
Medicine

First Anti-Cancer Nanoparticle Trial On Humans a Success 260

Posted by samzenpus from the smallest-medicine dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Nanoparticles have been able to disable cancerous cells in living human bodies for the first time. The results are perfect so far, killing tumors with no side effects whatsoever. Mark Davis, project leader at CalTech, says that 'it sneaks in, evades the immune system, delivers the siRNA, and the disassembled components exit out.' Truly amazing."
Data Storage

Need Help Salvaging Data From an Old Xenix System 325

Posted by timothy from the warrior-princess dept.
Milo_Mindbender writes "I've recently gotten ahold of an old Altos 586 Xenix system (a late '80s Microsoft flavor of Unix) that has one of the first multi-user BBS systems in the US on it, and I want to salvage the historical BBS posts off it. I'm wondering if anyone remembers what format Xenix used on the 10MB (yes MB) IDE hard drive and if it can still be read on a modern Linux system. This system is quite old, has no removable media or ethernet and just barely works. The only other way to get data off is a slow serial port. I've got a controller that should work with the disk, but don't want to tear this old machine apart without some hope that it will work. Anyone know?"
Handhelds

Apple Removes Wi-Fi Finders From App Store 461

Posted by timothy from the you've-been-very-very-naughty dept.
jasonbrown writes "Apple on Thursday began removing another category of apps from its iPhone App Store. This time, it's not porn, it's Wi-Fi. Apple removed several Wi-Fi apps commonly referred to as stumblers, or apps that seek out available Wi-Fi networks near your location. According to a story on Cult of Mac, apps removed by Apple include WiFi-Where, WiFiFoFum, and yFy Network Finder."

Slashdot Top Deals

What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the entrance?

Close