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Biotech

The 9 Most Tested Lab Animals 235

Posted by samzenpus from the not-a-list-you-want-to-be-on dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Discover Magazine has this odd photo gallery in which they explain why certain animals are used in scientific research. Why are high-tech contact lenses always tried out in rabbits? Why do we study monogamy in prairie voles? Etc. They say of the 9 animals: 'Taken (or stitched) together, they form a kind of laboratory doppelganger for humans.'"

Comment Re:Who has the gall to be surprised?! (Score 1) 492

by Bwerf (#27685461) Attached to: Biden Promises 'Right Person' As Copyright Czar

I don't sweden is where you want to move if you want to fileshare right now. We just implemented something called IPRED http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPRED . Basically it allows IP-owners to demand the logs from ISPs, without talking to the police/court, and makes it illegal to download copyrighted material (as opposed to giving it to someone else).

Comment Re:Swordfighting (Score 2, Interesting) 153

by Bwerf (#27643019) Attached to: Hands-on With the Wii MotionPlus

I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but I'm pretty sure that the wiimote isn't even close to being balanced like any real sword (possibly a lightsaber ^^).

To have a control scheme that let's you do "real" sword-fighting (or sword-drawing for that matter) is probably not a good idea. What you can do is get closer than with a gamepad, which doesn't really say much, but it would still be a game kind of control scheme.
Games

Tabula Rasa Goes Free, Brings New Content 87

Posted by Soulskill from the as-in-beer-with-lots-of-guns dept.
Last month we discussed NCSoft's announcement that Tabula Rasa would be closing its doors at the end of February, and their plans to remove the subscription fee for all players in January. Well, they've decided to go completely free a month early, alongside the release of a variety of new content. The game has finally gotten a first-person camera view, something many players have been asking for since launch. A new instance and several other bits of additional content are available as well. NCSoft also previewed player-controlled Mechs and PAUs, which will go live in the next major patch. Ten Ton Hammer has an interview with Net Devil's Scott Brown about the closure of Tabula Rasa.
Censorship

Australia To Block BitTorrent 674

Posted by CmdrTaco from the who-saw-that-coming dept.
Kevin 7Kbps writes "Censorship Minister Stephen Conroy announced today that the Australian Internet Filters will be extended to block peer-to-peer traffic, saying, 'Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial.' This dashes hopes that Conroy's Labor party had realised filtering could be politically costly at the next election and were about to back down. The filters were supposed to begin live trials on Christmas Eve, but two ISPs who volunteered have still not been contacted by Conroy's office, who advised, 'The department is still evaluating applications that were put forward for participation in that pilot.' Three days hardly seems enough time to reconfigure a national network."
Medicine

Injectable Artificial Bone Developed 105

Posted by kdawson from the no-op dept.
An anonymous reader writes in with the news that British scientists have invented artificial "injectable bone" that flows like toothpaste and hardens in the body. This new regenerative medicine technology provides a scaffold for the formation of blood vessels and bone tissue, then biodegrades. The injectable bone can also deliver stem cells directly to the site of bone repair, the researchers say. "Not only does the technique reduce the need for dangerous surgery, it also avoids damaging neighboring areas, said [the inventor]. The technology's superiority over existing alternatives is the novel hardening process and strength of the bond... Older products heat up as they harden, killing surrounding cells, whereas 'injectable bone' hardens at body temperature — without generating heat — making a very porous, biodegradable structure."
It's funny. Laugh.

The Smartest Browser and OS 436

Posted by kdawson from the correlation-is-not-causation dept.
The IQ League maintain a "60 Second IQ Test" online. Interestingly, they correlate the results of this test with a number of statistics available from their server logs. Along with the geographical distinctions like city and country, the referrer and OS/Browser user-agent strings are also mined, to determine the Smartest Browser and OS. Cutting to the chase, the very smartest is Firefox on Unknown (which internal evidence suggests is MacOS-Intel), and the dumbest, as of this writing, is IE on WinNT. Quick! Test out and move the bars on the pretty graph! Can we make Slashdot.org the "Smartest Website in the World?" (It's currently number 2 behind ScienceBlogs.com.)
Role Playing (Games)

Fox News / EA Spar Over Mass Effect 'Controversy' 192

Posted by Zonk from the nothing-to-see-here-move-along dept.
The whacked out rantings of Kevin McCullogh have been a hot topic on games blogs in recent weeks, as his lurid description of Mass Effect prompted vitriol from actual gamers. That exchange would have been easily left behind if not for the fact that Fox News stepped into the fray, adding a measure of 'fair and balanced' to the discussion. Their 'Sexbox Sexpose' drew in veteran games journalist Geoff Keighley, who optimistically thought he'd be given the chance to set the record straight. Instead they filled the airwaves with plainly false generalizations about the game's sexual content. Kotaku is reporting that EA is fighting back, protecting BioWare's property and demanding a correction. From EA's letter to Fox: "The resulting coverage was insulting to the men and women who spent years creating a game which is acclaimed by critics for its high creative standards. As video games continue to take audiences away from television, we expect to see more TV news stories warning parents about the corrupting influence of interactive entertainment. But this represents a new level of recklessness." I hope the EA folks aren't holding their breath.
Wireless Networking

Google et al. Want 700 MHz Auction Opened Up 170

Posted by kdawson from the third-helping-of-pipes dept.
The 700 MHz spectrum could give birth to the much-anticipated third pipe, but phone and cable lobbyists are currently pressuring the FCC to sell companies like AT&T and Verizon our airwaves — in a flawed auction process — so they can hoard this valuable spectrum and stifle competitive alternatives to their networks. Google and other would-be providers are not taking it lying down. They want the FCC to mandate that whoever wins the auction be required to sell access to those airwaves, at wholesale prices, to anyone wanting to provide broadband Internet service. They also want anonymous auctions to prevent the giant incumbents from manipulating the results against small players (as they have done in the past).

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