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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 46 declined, 12 accepted (58 total, 20.69% accepted)

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Space

Submission + - Rogue Black Holes May Roam the Milky Way (physorg.com)

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "It sounds like the plot of a sci-fi movie: rogue black holes roaming our galaxy, threatening to swallow anything that gets too close. In fact, new calculations by Ryan O'Leary and Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) suggest that hundreds of massive black holes, left over from the galaxy-building days of the early universe, may wander the Milky Way.

Good news, however: Earth is safe. The closest rogue black hole should reside thousands of light-years away. Astronomers are eager to locate them, though, for the clues they will provide to the formation of the Milky Way. "These black holes are relics of the Milky Way's past," said Loeb. "You could say that we are archaeologists studying those relics to learn about our galaxy's history and the formation history of black holes in the early universe." According to theory, rogue black holes originally lurked at the centers of tiny, low-mass galaxies. Over billions of years, those dwarf galaxies smashed together to form full-sized galaxies like the Milky Way."
The Courts

Submission + - Why Google is the New Pirate Bay 1

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "Forbes is running a story discussing the verdict in the Pirate Bay case and its implications on file sharing, specifically with regard to Google. The article points out what most on /. already realize: Google provides essentially the same service that the Pirate Bay does. The Pirate Bay case may be far from over, accounting for appeals, but the Pirate Bay's assumption of being unchallengeable was shattered. The article raises the question of whether or not Google is untouchable in the matter. The story is quick to point out how the situation resembles a futile game of cat mouse, but given how the Pirate Bay's confidence was ultimately broken, is Google untouchable?"
Medicine

Submission + - Software "Mind Gym" Used to Treat Schizoph

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "New Scientist is running a story about a software based regimen of mental exercise used to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia that other treatments, like drugs, cannot reach.

From the article: BRAIN training in a computerised mind gym could help people with schizophrenia cope with the debilitating cognitive problems caused by the condition.

This is not the first attempt to use computer tools to treat the cognitive problems that come with schizophrenia, but it is more intensive than earlier efforts. Each volunteer did about 50 hours of brain training over 10 weeks. The approach is also unusual because it initially focuses on improving a person's ability to process sensory information, before honing higher-level cognitive processing."
Math

Submission + - Quantum Theory May Explain Wishful Thinking (physorg.com)

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "Humans don't always make the most rational decisions. As studies have shown, even when logic and reasoning point in one direction, sometimes we chose the opposite route, motivated by personal bias or simply "wishful thinking." This paradoxical human behavior has resisted explanation by classical decision theory for over a decade. But now, scientists have shown that a quantum probability model can provide a simple explanation for human decision-making — and may eventually help explain the success of human cognition overall."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Egalitarian revolution in the Pleistocene? (physorg.com)

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "Although anthropologists and evolutionary biologists are still debating this question, a new study, published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, supports the view that the first egalitarian societies may have appeared tens of thousands of years before the French Revolution, Marx, and Lenin.

These societies emerged rapidly through intense power struggle and their origin had dramatic implications for humanity. In many mammals living in groups, including hyenas, meerkats, and dolphins, group members form coalitions and alliances that allow them to increase their dominance status and their access to mates and other resources. Alliances are especially common in great apes, some of whom have very intense social life, where they are constantly engaged in a political maneuvering as vividly described in Frans de Waal's "Chimpanzee politics".

In spite of this, the great apes' societies are very hierarchical with each animal occupying a particular place in the existing dominance hierarchy. A major function of coalitions in apes is to maintain or change the dominance ranking. When an alpha male is well established, he usually can intimidate any hostile coalition or the entire community. In sharp contrast, most known hunter-gatherer societies are egalitarian. Their weak leaders merely assist a consensus-seeking process when the group needs to make decisions, but otherwise all main political actors behave as equal. Some anthropologists argue that in egalitarian societies the pyramid of power is turned upside down with potential subordinates being able to express dominance over potential alpha-individuals by creating large, group-wide political alliance."
Biotech

Submission + - Drug Ads Shown to Have Little Impact (publicradio.org)

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "Marketplace is running a story on the apparently sparse effectiveness of direct-to-consumer drug ads. The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars on direct-to-consumer advertising, but a Harvard Medical School study says the ads aren't really working. Researchers say that even when new drug therapies are introduced, direct-to-consumer advertising for the drug, there is only an initial slight "uptick" in sales."
Networking

Submission + - A New Boom in Undersea Fiber (economist.com)

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "The Economist has a write up on the coming boom in undersea cable infrastructure. Firms are expected to spend at least $7 billion over the next three years on new cables. These new investments are the first major expansions since the dot-com bust left telecoms with a load of fancy new fiber but no deluge of traffic to glean profits from. Even though three quarters of undersea fiber is still dark, the article says that along with the forecast for drastic increases in traffic, insuring redundancy is also important to those investing in new cables."
Businesses

Submission + - The Broadband Prouductivity "Myth"

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "The Economist is running an article that challenges what it calls the "myth" of increased access to broadband access leading to increased productivity across an economy. The article is frank when it says that, "'bigger is better broadband' is orthodoxy, not economics." The reason cited in the article is that so far only media and entertainment deliverers have effectively harnessed the power of high bandwidth on a large scale. Other than that, nobody in the rest of the business world has quite figured out how to use broadband to make a real change in productivity.

So, other than for the infamous Linux .iso's that everyone shares 24 hours a day, maybe Gates only need adjust his immortal 640k comment a little, to say 1.5 mb maybe? I joke, but the article does raise an interesting point."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Dialectic on Publicly Funded Research

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "Reason Magazine online is running an article on the "The Failure of Centralized Scientific Planning." The article is a review of a book, Sex, Science and Profits: How People Evolved to Make Money , on the subject of publicly funded research. The author of the article reinforces the main point of the book that public research has hindered scientific innovation. It makes some very imaginative historical links about private research yielding greater results than public research, going so far as to say that the Dark Ages brought about more innovation than the age of the Romans.

All in all, the article is a provocative read, if not an outright polemic. I personally rejected most of the article's claims in my comment on the article's discussion page. Despite my rejection, the article still incites interesting debate about the fundamental questions regarding the value of public research. We are in a tightening economy and an election year, a recipe for great change in the amount of and commitment to public funding. So, where should we be headed with regards to publicly funded science?"
Biotech

Submission + - Vote on British Embryo Research Bill (physorg.com)

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "British lawmakers will debate Monday a bill which would allow scientists to use animal-human hybrid embryos in research after Prime Minister Gordon Brown passionately defended the controversial plan.

Brown reportedly takes a personal interest in the issue because his youngest son Fraser, aged nearly two, has cystic fibrosis, which could one day benefit from embryo research. But the Catholic Church and some opposition lawmakers are opposed to the bill, with one senior churchman warning it may lead to "Frankenstein" style experiments.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill would give scientists a legal framework to create hybrid embryos, yielding stem cells which could be used in research into treating conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

The bill also backs the idea of "saviour sibling" children, who are created as a close genetic match for a chronically ill brother or sister, meaning their genetic material can help treat them."
Microsoft

Submission + - Xbox360 Sales Outpacing Sales of the Original Xbox (pcworld.com)

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "From the article: According to official NPD data, which tracks North American console sales, the Xbox 360 took 30 months to reach the 10 million units sold milestone, 20 percent faster than the original Xbox, which didn't achieve the same mark until month 36.

So, is this a sign of success for the 360 or has the market changed so completely, voiding the comparison?"
Biotech

Submission + - Made-to-Order Isotopes (physorg.com)

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "From the article:
Designer labels have a lot of cachet — a principle that's equally true in fashion and physics. The future of nuclear physics is in designer isotopes — the relatively new power scientists have to make specific rare isotopes to solve scientific problems and open doors to new technologies, according to Bradley Sherrill, a University Distinguished Professor of physics and associate director for research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University.

The chemical changes that brought about the formation of the elements in the bellies of stars are being recreated in laboratories such as MSU's NSCL. Advances in basic nuclear science already have given way to technologies such as PET scans — medical procedures that use special isotopes to target specific types of tumors. "
Space

Submission + - Plans for a Probe Closer to the Sun Than Ever

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "NASA has tapped the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory to develop the ambitious Solar Probe mission, which will study the streams of charged particles the sun hurls into space from a vantage point within the sun's corona — its outer atmosphere — where the processes that heat the corona and produce solar wind occur. At closest approach Solar Probe would zip past the sun at 125 miles per second, protected by a carbon-composite heat shield that must withstand up to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit and survive blasts of radiation and energized dust at levels not experienced by any previous"
Power

Submission + - 'Smart' Power Meters are the Wave of the Future

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "Utilities are now testing pricing schemes for power that vary with demand. These new pricing schemes are made possible by the ability that utilities now have to gather data about power usage in real time, from so-called 'smart' meters. The article showcases one man, Darrell Brubaker, who effectively used the new program from his utility and adjusted his power usage accordingly to save money. Some of the measures he took include running major appliances at night and cooking on the grill.

The article posits that these new real-time capabilities are already poised to revolutionize the grid. However, there are some that oppose the shift from the now conventional regimented monthly billing plans. Consumer advocacy groups warn that it would be a financial mistake for many to switch to a real-time rate."

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