Casai - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Easy one: Descent (Score 1) 518

by Casai on Sunday November 21, 2010 @11:46PM (#34302522) Attached to: FPS Games That Need a Remake

I came here to nominate Descent as well. Not sure if motion detection would be accurate enough, but it's time to bring back dogfighting with six axes of movement! And rotation! And charge-up fusion cannons. =)

Comment Re:Immunohistochemistry. Also, can't see circuitry (Score 2, Interesting) 95

by Casai on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @08:26PM (#34263114) Attached to: New Imaging Method Reveals Brain Connections

Also, I'd be interested to see how (or if) they managed to completely wash off antibodies between scans without damaging the tissue or disrupting synaptic structure. Many synaptic proteins recognize and bind each other in the same way that antibodies bind their antigens, so it stands to reason that disrupting antibody binding would also disrupt the binding of these proteins.

Comment Immunohistochemistry. Also, can't see circuitry. (Score 5, Informative) 95

by Casai on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @08:17PM (#34263036) Attached to: New Imaging Method Reveals Brain Connections

This is immunohistochemistry, just scaled up to many different antibodies for the same sample and realigned in space.

Also, the connectivity is lost. You can't tell which neurons are connected to which other neurons. The overall circuitry, essential for the functioning of neural networks, is invisible. All you can see is points of contact between neurons.

Perhaps combining this technique with super high resolution diffusion tensor imaging would be a way forward. Although, as far as I know, DTI is nowhere near neuron or axon resolution as of yet.

New Imaging Method Reveals Brain Connections 95

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @07:37PM from the look-at-the-big-brain-on-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, applying a state-of-the-art imaging system to brain-tissue samples from mice, have been able to quickly and accurately locate and count the myriad connections between nerve cells in unprecedented detail, as well as to capture and catalog those connections' surprising variety. A typical healthy human brain contains about 200 billion nerve cells, or neurons, linked to one another via hundreds of trillions of tiny contacts called synapses. It is at these synapses that an electrical impulse traveling along one neuron is relayed to another, either enhancing or inhibiting the likelihood that the second nerve will fire an impulse of its own. One neuron may make as many as tens of thousands of synaptic contacts with other neurons, said Stephen Smith, PhD, professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of a paper describing the study, to be published Nov. 18 in Neuron."

Comment Re:This is NOT what the central dogma says (Score 1) 196

by Casai on Tuesday November 09, 2010 @07:06AM (#34171776) Attached to: Central Dogma of Genetics May Not Be So Central

DNA polymerase does not transfer information from itself to DNA. It reads from a DNA strand and creates the complement of that strand. It is responsible for DNA -> DNA information transfer.

Comment Re:This is NOT what the central dogma says (Score 1) 196

by Casai on Tuesday November 09, 2010 @07:00AM (#34171756) Attached to: Central Dogma of Genetics May Not Be So Central

Um, citation please. Viruses can have protein components, but as far as I know their information payload is always stored as DNA or RNA.

Also, only protein -> DNA and protein -> RNA information transfers remain unknown. See reverse transcriptase and prions.

Spore-Inspired Action RPG Darkspore Announced 86

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday July 21, 2010 @03:23AM from the say-what-now dept.

Today Electronic Arts announced Darkspore, an action RPG in development from Maxis that is inspired by Spore's creature creator technology. The game is due to launch in February 2011, and a teaser is available on the official website. A more descriptive video is available from EA's live demo (start at 8:25). Quoting Joystiq: "...Darkspore will let up to three players traverse 'several' planets cooperatively, and while there will be PvP in the finished product, Maxis isn't providing details just yet. The basics will be the same whether going in solo or as a team: You'll be able to choose from a number (again, no specifics yet) of pre-created melee, ranged and support creatures that can have their stats and abilities augmented by equipment. ... When choosing to beam down from your starship to a planet, you will see a lineup of enemy types that you'll encounter. This gives you and your friends enough information to decide which three characters from your collection you'll want to deploy. The trio can then be switched between on the fly, albeit with a brief cool-down period afterward. The idea is to use the characters' various abilities strategically against what the Left 4 Dead-inspired 'AI director' decides to toss your way."

Warships May Get Lasers For Close-In Defense 482

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 20, 2010 @02:32PM from the hot-in-here-or-is-it-me dept.

King Louie writes "Raytheon and the US Navy have successfully tested a ship-borne laser capable of shooting down aircraft. Video at the link shows the 32-kilowatt solid-state laser shooting down an unmanned aerial vehicle. The technology is apparently mature enough to be deployed as part of ships' short-range missile defenses, a role currently filled by the Basic Point Defense Missile System (based on the Sea Sparrow missile) and the Close-In Weapons System (based on a 20mm Gatling gun)."

Does Anyone Really Prefer Glossy Screens? 646

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday July 20, 2010 @10:15AM from the no-way-no-how dept.

An anonymous reader asked a question that I've been wondering about too: "I live in a small southern European country where natural light abounds. This may sound good, but it is a pain when it comes to using laptops that come with a glossy finish, making it impossible to work unless you are doing it in the dark. To make matters worse, since we are a small market, most manufacturers only offer a subset of their product line, and don't allow you to choose any options available in other countries (like matte screens). Buying abroad is not an option since we have our own very specific keyboard layout. Why are manufacturers doing this? Does anyone really prefer using glossy screens for day-to-day activities?"

Ikaros Spacecraft Successfully Propelled In Space 229

Posted by timothy on Friday July 16, 2010 @07:36PM from the best-place-for-it-really dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Japan's IKAROS spacecraft has already successfully deployed the first solar sail in space, but today it made the only first that really matters: it successfully captured the sun's rays with its 3,000-square-foot sail and used the energy to speed its way through space. Each photon of light exerts 0.0002 pounds of pressure on the 3,000-square-foot sail, and the steady stream of solar exposure has succeeded in propelling the nearly 700-pound drone."

Wireless PCIe To Enable Remote Graphics Cards 181

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 14, 2010 @05:39PM from the no-cat-involved dept.

J. Dzhugashvili writes "If you read Slashdot, odds are you already know about WiGig and the 7Gbps wireless networking it promises. The people at Atheros and Wilocity are now working on an interesting application for the spec: wireless PCI Express. In a nutshell, wPCIe enables a PCI Express switch with local and remote components linked by a 60GHz connection. The first applications, which will start sampling next year, will let you connect your laptop to a base station with all kinds of storage controllers, networking controllers, and yes, an external graphics processor. wPCIe works transparently to the operating system, which only sees additional devices connected over PCI Express. And as icing on the cake, wPCie controllers will let you connect to standard Wi-Fi networks, too."

The Mouse Vanishes 292

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @01:12PM from the yesterday-upon-the-stair dept.

countertrolling sends in a clip from Wired that begins "...researchers at MIT have found a method to let users click and scroll exactly the same way they would with a computer mouse, without the device actually being there. Cup your palm, move it around on a table and a cursor on the screen hovers. Tap on the table like you would click a real mouse, and the computer responds. It's one step beyond cordless. It's an invisible mouse. The project, called 'Mouseless,' uses an infrared laser beam and camera to track the movements of the palm and fingers and translate them into computer commands... A working prototype of the Mouseless system costs approximately $20 to build, says Pranav Mistry, who is leading the project."

Comment Re:Why isn't this an iPhone App? (Score 1) 412

by Casai on Tuesday October 13, 2009 @05:29PM (#29737513) Attached to: Wikipedia In Your Pocket, $99

There IS an iPhone app for full offline Wikipedia browsing. http://collison.ie/wikipedia-iphone/ The site shows kids playing with the reader, implying that they're targeting users that you wouldn't necessarily trust with an iPhone or iPod Touch. However, I'm not sure I would trust kids with a $99 reader anyway. You could probably get a used previous-gen iPhone or iPod Touch for that much.

How a Team of Geeks Cracked the Spy Trade 187

Posted by kdawson on Friday September 04, 2009 @12:25PM from the connecting-the-dots dept.

drunken_boxer777 sends us to The Wall Street Journal for a lengthy article on a small tech company, Palantir Technologies, that is making the CIA, Pentagon, and FBI take notice. The submitter adds, "And yes, their company name is a reference to what you think it is." "One of the latest entrants into the government spy-services marketplace, Palantir Technologies has designed what many intelligence analysts say is the most effective tool to date to investigate terrorist networks. The software's main advance is a user-friendly search tool that can scan multiple data sources at once, something previous search tools couldn't do. That means an analyst who is following a tip about a planned terror attack, for example, can more quickly and easily unearth connections among suspects, money transfers, phone calls and previous attacks around the globe. ... With Palantir's software 'you can actually point to examples where it was pretty clear that lives were saved.'"

Microsoft Holding 'Screw Google' Meetings In DC 331

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday August 29, 2009 @08:15AM from the or-perhaps-screwgle dept.

Runaway1956 writes "Microsoft's chief Washington lobbyist has been convening regular meetings, attended by the company's outside consultants, that have become known by some beltway insiders as 'screw Google' meetings, DailyFinance has learned. The meetings are part of an ongoing campaign by Microsoft, other Google opponents, and hired third parties to discredit the Web search leader, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter. 'Microsoft is at the center of a group of companies who see Google as a threat to them in some combination of business and policy,' said a source who requested anonymity to avoid retribution. 'The effort is designed to make Google look like the big high-tech bad guy here.'"

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