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Earth

Dinosaur Feather Color Discovered 219

Posted by timothy from the horsefeathers-still-a-mystery dept.
anzha writes "Do you remember being a kid and told we'd never know what colors the dinosaurs were? For at least some, that's no longer true. Scientists working in the UK and China have closely examined the fossils of multiple theropods and actually found the colors and patterns that were present in the fossilized proto-feathers. So far, the answer is orange, black and white in banded and other patterns. The work also thoroughly thrashes the idea that fossils might not be feathers, but collagen fibers instead. If this holds up, Birds Are Dinosaurs. Period. And colorful!"
OS X

Apple Patches Massive Holes In OS X 246

Posted by timothy from the well-it-wouldn't-be-polite-to-patch-windows dept.
Trailrunner7 writes with this snippet from ThreatPost: "Apple's first Mac OS X security update for 2010 is out, providing cover for at least 12 serious vulnerabilities. The update, rated critical, plugs security holes that could lead to code execution vulnerabilities if a Mac user is tricked into opening audio files or surfing to a rigged Web site." Hit the link for a list of the highlights among these fixes.

Comment Can This Theory Support Black Holes? (Score 1) 650

by lcreech (#30719860) Attached to: The End Of Gravity As a Fundamental Force

I think not, I had this idea over 20 years ago that gravity was a a secondary effect of interactions of energy and matter, that in reality there are no black holes. Gravity lenses yes, but black holes no. Given the evidence in recent years supporting the existence of black holes I am not so sure anymore. But it does have some interesting predictions that better match observable reality, for instance a decrease in wavelength with increased entropy at the atomic level. Taking this theory one step further is the idea that there are no innate (attractive) forces. That forces are all reactive, which has even larger implications that just Gravity.

Comment Asimov saw this coming (Score 1) 108

by lcreech (#30502448) Attached to: Library Groups Ask DOJ To Oversee Google Books

Will all good the intentions I'm sure Google has (and I give them an A+, much higher marks that the norm of corporate America, which gets a C-). the problem is which Isaac Asimov pointed out in the Foundation Trilogy Series and his visions of tomorrow some 50 years ago is technology is that nothing out lasts simple tech, Steel, Stone or Paper to document things when technology changes or gets lost or power goes out. Google is doing a great things but old tech archives must also be renewed and kept alive just in case.
Space

Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242

Posted by Soulskill from the i-for-one dept.
likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."

Comment Windows 7 Lard Disk Problems? (Score 1, Offtopic) 412

by lcreech (#30293338) Attached to: Windows 7 Share Grows At XP's Expense

Or Just me? I have several NTFS formatted Seagate 2.0 Terabyte drives that are fine under Linux, XP SP3 and Leopard that appear as 99.9 Megabyte (NOT GigaByte) drives under Windows 7 and without any files. Rendering Windows 7 totally useless with my data. Yes, All drivers and the BIOS are both up to date for my GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard.

Comment One of 7 Transcends (Score 5, Interesting) 467

by lcreech (#29885183) Attached to: Reliability of PC Flash SSDs?

I have 7 Transcend SATA SSD's, 3 32GB and 4 192GB, one of the 192GB drives is flakey, random bad blocks and file curruption issues of files that had been fine but gone bad and have not been written to since their creation some months ago. I've reloaded it several times but eventually had to remove it from service because of its poor reliability.

Submission + - Honda's answer to the Segway 1

Submitted by
lcreech
lcreech writes: "The vehicle looks like a very modern unicycle and to ride it you simply lean your weight in the direction you want to go, whether that's forward, backwards or even sideways. It maintains its own balance travelling up to 3.7MPH. Not very fast..

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1215741/Honda-unveils-Segway-style-unicycle-travels-direction-want.html#ixzz0S2lY0hSd

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1215741/Honda-unveils-Segway-style-unicycle-travels-direction-want.html"
Image

Dad Builds 700 Pound Cannon for Son's Birthday 410

Posted by samzenpus from the targets-only-no-shooting-birds dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Charleston Daily Mail reports that machinist Mike Daugherty built his son a working cannon for his birthday — not a model — a real working cannon. 'It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg,' says Daugherty. The 700 pound cast iron and steel howitzer, designed to use comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories with a steep angle of descent, has a 4-inch gun barrel that is 36 inches long mounted on a wooden gun carriage with two 36- inch diameter wheels and took Daugherty about two weeks to build at a cost of about $6,000. 'I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I thought it would be a good gift,' says Daugherty's 11-year old son Logan. Daugherty said he is not worried about the federal government coming to get his son's cannon because he spoke to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and found it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin and is muzzle loaded so the government does not consider the weapon a threat. Two days after the family celebrated Logan's 11th birthday, father and son offered a field demonstration of the new cannon on top of a grassy hill overlooking Fairmont, West Virginia and on the third try, the blank inside the barrel went boom and a cannon was born. For a followup they popped a golf ball into the gun barrel, lit the fuse, and watched the golf ball split the sky and land about 600 yards away. 'Any rebels charging up this hill would be in trouble with a cannon like this at the top,' Logan says."
Earth

Scientist Forced To Remove Earthquake Prediction 485

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the not-quite-your-average-psychic dept.
Hugh Pickens writes to mention that Italian scientist Giampaolo Giuliani, a researcher at the National Physical Laboratory of Gran Sasso, recently gave warning about an earthquake that was to happen on March 29th of this year near L'Aquilla. Based on radon gas emissions and a series of observed tremors he tried to convince residents to evacuate, drawing much criticism from the city's mayor and others. Giuliani was forced to take down warnings he had posted on the internet. The researcher had said that a 'disastrous' earthquake would strike on March 29, but when it didn't, Guido Bertolaso, head of Italy's Civil Protection Agency, last week officially denounced Giuliani in court for false alarm. 'These imbeciles enjoy spreading false news,' Bertalaso was quoted as saying. 'Everyone knows that you can't predict earthquakes.' Giuliani, it turns out, was partially right. A much smaller seismic shift struck on the day he said it would, with the truly disastrous one arriving just one week later. 'Someone owes me an apology,' said Giuliani, who is also a resident of L'Aquila. 'The situation here is dramatic. I am devastated, but also angry.'"

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