InvisblePinkUnicorn - Slashdot User

Submission + - Larger human brain led to larger penis (pressesc.com) 2

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Thursday December 27, 2007 @11:10AM

Anonymous Coward writes: "The human penis is comparatively larger than that of the other great apes because of our comparatively larger brains, gynecologist Edwin A. Bowman explains in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. Through millions of years evolution the infant babies' skulls became larger in order to accommodate bigger brains, explained Dr. Bowman. This in turn led to a female pelvis become larger to allow women to give birth to children with larger brains, and this led to the female vagina also becoming less tight."

Submission + - Subliminal Messages Manipulate Political Attitudes (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by

Invisible Pink Unicorn

on Thursday December 27, 2007 @10:02AM

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "As the US gets ready for the political ad onslaught, a potential new factor influencing voters — without their knowledge — may be right around the corner. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have repeatedly and conclusively shown that exposure to subliminal messages — that is, messages that are processed by our brains but never reach our consciousness — can indeed influence explicit attitudes and real-life political behavior. In three separate studies, half of the subjects were subliminally exposed to their national flag, while the other half were not. The results were the same in every study: the subliminal presentation of their national flag drew right wing, as well as left wing, individuals towards the political center."

Submission + - Ebay Cancels NanoSolar's PV Panel Auction (nanosolar.com)

Submitted by Sledhead on Thursday December 27, 2007 @01:07AM

Sledhead writes: "we had put up panel #2 for auction on eBay:". "The eBay auction started at 99 cents and quickly reached more than $13,000.00, and there was still more than 6 days left. At the point where it became clear that the auction would reach thousands of dollars, we decided it would be appropriate to use the proceeds after the auction for a charitable purpose. We regret that without warning eBay today decided to delete our auction due to the promised charitable use of the proceeds."

Submission + - The World's Not Flat, So Map Companies Go 3-D (cio.com)

Submitted by

Chris Lindquist

on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @05:42PM

Chris Lindquist writes: "Two on-board computers, a terabyte of storage, two lasers, six cameras and a GPS antenna: That pretty much describes the vans (50 of them) that TeleAtlas is using to create fully 3-D maps of the U.S. and Europe. Reporter Michael Fitzgerald took a ride in one of the vans to get the lowdown on the future of digital mapmaking. One hint: Can you say in-map advertising?"

Submission + - Solar System Date of Birth Determined (ucdavis.edu)

Submitted by

Invisible Pink Unicorn

on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @04:33PM

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "UC Davis researchers have dated the earliest step in the formation of the solar system — when microscopic interstellar dust coalesced into mountain-sized chunks of rock — to 4,568 million years ago, within a range of about 2,080,000 years. In the second stage, mountain-sized masses grew quickly into about 20 Mars-sized planets and, in the third and final stage, these small planets smashed into each other in a series of giant collisions that left the planets we know today. The dates of these intermediary stages are well established. The article abstract is available from Astrophysical Journal Letters."

Submission + - Gamma Ray Burst From the Middle of Nowhere (nasa.gov)

Submitted by

Invisible Pink Unicorn

on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @10:47AM

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "A team of astronomers has discovered a cosmic explosion that seems to have come from the middle of nowhere — 88,000 light years from the nearest galaxy-sized collection of stars, gas, and dust. This "shot in the dark" is surprising because the type of explosion, a long-duration gamma-ray burst (GRB), is thought to be powered by the death of a massive star. The question is, how did such a massive star develop in a region completely devoid of gas or dust? One possibility is that the star formed in the outskirts of an interacting galaxy, as seen in the famous Hubble Space Telescope picture of the 'Tadpole' galaxy."

Submission + - The Immune System can Deliver Cancer-Killing Virus (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by

Invisible Pink Unicorn

on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @10:35AM

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Mayo Clinic researchers have designed a technique that uses the body's own cells and a virus to destroy cancer cells that spread from primary tumors to other parts of the body through the lymphatic system. This procedure triggered an immune response to cancer cells, which means that it could be used as a cancer vaccine to prevent recurrence. They combined infection-fighting T-cells with the vesicular stomatitis virus that targets and destroys cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. To deliver the virus, researchers removed T-cells from a healthy mouse, loaded them with the virus and injected the T-cells back into the mouse. Researchers found that once the T-cells returned to the lymph nodes and spleen, the virus detached itself from the T-cells, found the tumor cells, selectively replicated within them and extracted tumor cells from those areas."

Submission + - Deep Impact Probe to Look for Earth-sized Planets (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by

Invisible Pink Unicorn

on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @10:23AM

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "NASA has given University of Maryland scientists the green light to fly the Deep Impact probe to Comet Hartley 2. The spacecraft will fly by Earth on New Year's Eve at the beginning of a more than two-and-a-half-year journey to Hartley 2. During the first six months of the journey to Hartley 2, they will use the larger of the two telescopes on Deep Impact to search for Earth-sized planets around five stars selected as likely candidates for such planets. Upon arriving at the comet, Deep Impact will conduct an extended flyby of Hartley 2 using all three of the spacecraft's instruments — two telescopes with digital color cameras and an infrared spectrometer."

Submission + - Artificial Blood Vessels Grown on a Nano-Template (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by

Invisible Pink Unicorn

on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @10:52AM

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Researchers at MIT have found a way to induce cells to form parallel tube-like structures that could one day serve as tiny engineered blood vessels. The researchers found that they can control the cells' development by growing them on a surface with nano-scale patterning. The work focuses on vascular tissue, which includes capillaries, the tiniest blood vessels, and is an important part of the circulatory system. The team has created a surface that can serve as a template to grow capillary tubes aligned in a specific direction. The cells, known as endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), not only elongate in the direction of the grooves, but also align themselves along the grooves. That results in a multicellular structure with defined edges — a band structure. Once the band structures form, the researchers apply a commonly used gel that induces cells to form three-dimensional tubes."

Submission + - Nanotube-Excreting Bacteria Allow Mass Production (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by

Invisible Pink Unicorn

on Friday December 07, 2007 @05:59PM

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Engineers at the University of California, Riverside have found semiconducting nanotubes produced by living bacteria — a discovery that could help in the creation of a new generation of nanoelectronic devices. According to the lead researcher, 'We have shown that a jar with a bug in it can create potentially useful nanostructures.' This is the first time nanotubes have been shown to be produced by biological rather than chemical means. This research began when they observed something unexpected happening while attempting to clean up arsenic contamination using the metal-reducing bacterium Shewanella. In a process that is not yet fully understood, the bacterium secretes polysacarides that seem to produce the template for the arsenic-sulfide nanotubes. These nanotubes behave as metals with electrical and photoconductive properties useful in nanoelectronics. The article abstract is available from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Submission + - Toyota Unveils Violin Playing Robot (reuters.com)

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Thursday December 06, 2007 @01:54PM

eldavojohn writes: "Toyota has unveiled a robot that play the violin. From the article,

The race to produce the first practical home robots has heated up with Toyota's new range — including one that plays the violin. In a demonstration of the new robots' achievements, Toyota brought out a 152 cm (5 ft), two-legged robot dexterous enough to play a few stanzas — complete with vibrato sound — from Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance", a popular tune at graduation ceremonies. Toyota said it planned to further advance the robot's dexterity to enable it to use tools and assist with domestic duties and nursing and medical care. The robot has 17 joints in both of its hands and arms now.
It seems there have been small — or maybe even strange, impractical — advances in robotics repeatedly with demonstrations of robots performing a specialized task. Are we merely struggling to hard code each human activity as we strive for an all purpose android? Is there a chance artificial intelligence & robotics will ever become generalized enough to make interaction interesting?"

Submission + - Best Windows Error Ever May Rip Time-Space Continu (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by

stoolpigeon

on Thursday December 06, 2007 @01:53PM

stoolpigeon writes: "In what computer analysts and physicists all over the world have classified as "a clear and present danger to the survivability of the Human Race and the Universe as we know it," LA area-man and Gizmodo reader Kevin Barbee reports that his Windows Vista Problem Reporting has reported that it has stopped reporting."

Submission + - Microsoft's OOXML claims its first scalp! (theopensourcerer.com)

Submitted by

The Open Sourcerer

on Thursday December 06, 2007 @01:24PM

The Open Sourcerer writes: "In what is an astonishingly outspoken report, Martin Bryan, Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 WG1 has given insight into the total mess that Microsoft/ECMA has caused during their scandalous, underhand and unremitting attempts to get — what is a very poorly written specification — approved as an ISO standard. "The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles. The days of open standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting "standardization by corporation", something I have been fighting against for the 20 years I have served on ISO committees. I am glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible. I wish my colleagues every success for their future efforts, which I sincerely hope will not prove to be as wasted as I fear they could be." The Open Sourcerer"

Submission + - YouTube Breeding Harmful Scientific Misinformation (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by

Invisible Pink Unicorn

on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:32PM

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "University of Toronto researchers have uncovered widespread misinformation in videos on YouTube, related to vaccination and immunization. In the first-ever study of its kind, they found that over half of the 153 videos analyzed portrayed childhood, HPV, flu and other vaccinations negatively or ambiguously. They also found that videos highly skeptical of vaccinations received more views and better ratings by users than those videos that portray immunizations in a positive light. According to the lead research, 'YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination. Our study shows that a significant amount of immunization content on YouTube contradicts the best scientific evidence at large. From a public health perspective, this is very concerning.' An extract from the Journal of the American Medical Association is available online."

Submission + - 'Flying Fish' Plane Takes Off and Lands in Water (umich.edu)

Submitted by

Invisible Pink Unicorn

on Thursday December 06, 2007 @12:19PM

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed an autonomous 'flying fish' sea-plane with a 7-foot wingspan — the first such plane that can initiate and perform its own takeoffs and landings on water. According to the article, the plane 'drifts until its onboard GPS tells the craft it has floated too far. That triggers the takeoff sequence, which gets the plane airborne in just 10 meters. Other GPS coordinates trigger the landing sequence.' The project homepage includes photos of the plane taking off and landing."

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