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Education

How to Deal With an Aging Brain? 684

Posted by timothy from the swap-in-hans-delbrueck's dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I'm sure this is something all older Slashdotters are aware of: as I get older my once-sharp brain is, well, getting worse. In particular, I'm not able to remember things as well as I once did. As a geek my capacity in this area was always what defined me as a geek. Nowadays things seem to go in OK, but then leak out. A few weeks later I've mostly forgotten. So, I ask Slashdot: how do you cope with your mind getting older? What's your trick? Fish-oil? Brain Training on the DS? Exercise? Or just trying harder to remember things?"
Sci-Fi

David Tennant Stands Down From "Doctor Who" 245

Posted by timothy from the no-really-who dept.
Dave Knott writes "After winning the outstanding drama performance prize at the British National Television Awards, David Tennant announced that he will be quitting the iconic role of The Doctor. Quoting Tennant: 'When Doctor Who returns in 2010 it won't be with me. Now don't make me cry. I love this part, and I love this show so much that if I don't take a deep breath and move on now I never will, and you'll be wheeling me out of the Tardis in my bath chair.' Tennant will appear in a Christmas special, titled The Next Doctor, before filming four more specials in January. After that, the search will be on for the actor to play the 11th incarnation of The Doctor."
Biotech

Submission + - Dozens Blinded at Laser Light Show

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Dozens of partygoers at an outdoor rave near Moscow have been partially blinded after a laser light show burned their retinas. Moscow city health department officials say that 12 cases of laser blindness were recorded at the Central Ophthalmological Clinic in the city while another report adds 17 victims registered at another hospital in the center of the capital. Ravers at the Aquamarine Open Air Festival in Kirzhachbegan began seeking medical help days after the show, complaining of eye and vision problems. "They all have retinal burns, scarring is visible on them. Loss of vision in individual cases is as high as 80%, and regaining it is already impossible," Russian newspaper Kommersant quoted a treating ophthalmologist as saying. The damage seems to have been caused when laser beams that were intended for outdoor use to illuminate the sky, were somehow turned or reflected onto the crowd. The owner of a Moscow laser rental company says the accidental blindings were due to "illiteracy on the part of technicians. Somebody set up an extremely powerful laser for such a small space." Laser weapons that are intended to blind their victims were banned in 1998 by the United Nations but weapons that dazzle have so far escaped censure."
The Courts

Submission + - Warrantlessly wiretapped? Prove it!

Submitted by Hmmm2000
Hmmm2000 writes: With the recent FISA legislation passing the Senate, the vast majority of the lawsuits against telcos will be thrown out of court. However there is a fasinating and mind-boggling tale of a case still winding its way through the court system. The lawyers received proof that their clients were being spied on via the secret warrantless wiretapping program Bush put into place after 9/11: the DOJ accidentally included a top-secret document among some non-classified documents during the discovery phase. When the DOJ realized its mistake, it required all all copy of the document destroyed, or returned to the DOJ. Now the lawyers have to prove their case without using the document, to establish legal standing, before they can re-gain access to it.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - MIT uses nanotech to shrink chips to 25nm (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Sharon Gaudin reports that MIT researchers have discovered how to use nanotechnology to produce 25-nanometer chips, a huge leap considering Intel's move from 65nm to 45nm just last year. Intel has said it hopes to move to 32nm processors sometime in 2009; a 25nm chip would be one level below that. Take that, Intel — and they probably will (study the technique.) "The goal is to make smaller patterns on the chips," said Ralf Heilmann, a research scientist at MIT. "The integrated circuits and transistors that are the core of the chips — the smaller you can make them, the faster they are, and the more you can pack on a single chip. They're cheaper and more powerful at the same time.""
Networking

Submission + - SPAM: Anti-theft net could kill baying car alarms

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Those annoying and often ignored car alarms could be a thing of the past if researchers developing an anti-theft sensor network have their way. According to scientists at Penn State, the anti-theft car network would require a sensor (or multiple tiny slave sensors) in each auto that would then register it to a local master sensor. In a parking lot the cars would form a great big secure network. Right now the sensors we are testing are about the size of a dollar coin according to Sencun Zhu, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Penn State. "We will eventually make them only about a cubic millimeter, small enough to embed in a parking sticker and very inexpensive to manufacture." The researchers hope to be able to use existing wireless devices at intersections and roadsides, to track the sensors in the stolen car. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
The Internet

Submission + - IBM Boosts Web Access for Visually Impaired (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "IBM has launched an application that seeks to harness the collective efforts of Internet users to help make the increasingly rich media-packed Web more accessible to the visually impaired. Users can report these problems to a central database and ask for additional descriptive text to be added to a site. Others can then check the database, select one of the submitted problems and "start fixing it" by adding text labels. "This idea came from my own experience with inaccessible Web sites," said Chieko Asakawa, a researcher at IBM in Tokyo who led a six-person team on development of the software. Asakawa is blind and knows well the problems of navigating the Web and its increasingly rich multimedia pages."

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