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United Kingdom

Periodic Table Etched Onto a Single Hair 59

Posted by samzenpus from the because-they-can dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "The University of Nottingham's Nanotechnology Center decided to help Professor of chemistry, Martyn Poliakoff celebrate his special day by 'etching' a copy of a Periodic Table of Elements onto a single strand of the scientist's hair using a 'very sophisticated' electron ion beam microscope. The microscope creates a very fine etching of the periodic table only a few microns across by shooting a 'focused ion beam' of gallium ions at the hair. The technology here is nothing revolutionary, but it is inspiring to see a grown man get so giddy with the prospect of seeing science in action."

Comment Re:The chemistry of carbon vs. arsenic (Score 1) 405

by theverylastperson (#34419400) Attached to: NASA Finds New Life (This Afternoon)

My understanding is that these would still be carbon based life forms, but would utilize arsenic instead of phosphorus. Then again, everything thus far is speculation. We're assuming it's a single celled life form, we're assuming it's an earthbound life form. Until this afternoon all we really know if NASA is going to announce something that has something to do with life and the search for it elsewhere.

Comment Re:What's the deal with the rush of TSA stories re (Score 2, Insightful) 1135

by theverylastperson (#34258160) Attached to: TSA Pats Down 3-Year-Old

Maybe, but we certainly have a constitutional right to voice our displeasure and disagreement with it. We also have the power to vote out people who think this is acceptable, we also have the right to gather and peacefully protest. Having a 'tough shit it's the rules' attitude is what creates the 'tough shit, we don't like it' attitude that led to the American Revolution in the first place.
Earth

The Story of My As-Yet-Unverified Impact Crater 250

Posted by Soulskill from the dent-in-the-world dept.
tetrahedrassface writes "When I was very young, my dad took me on a trip to his parents' farm. He wanted to show me 'The Crater.' We walked a long way through second generation hardwoods and finally stood on the rim of a hole that has no equal in this area. As I grew up, I became more interested in The Crater, and would always tell friends about it. It is roughly 1,200 feet across and 120 feet deep, and has a strange vibe about it. When you walk up to it, you feel like something really big happened here. Either the mother of all caves is down there, or a large object smashed into this place a long, long time ago. I bought aerial photos when I was twelve and later sent images from GIS to a geologist at a local university. He pretty much laughed me out of his office, saying that it was a sinkhole. He did wish me luck, however. It may be sinkhole. Who knows? Last week I borrowed a metal detector and went poking around, and have found the strangest shrapnel pieces I have ever seen. They are composed of a metal that reacts strongly to acids. The largest piece so far reacted with tap water and dish-washing detergent. My second trip today yielded lots of strange new pieces of metal, and hopefully, one day the truth will be known. Backyard science is so much fun. And who knows; if it is indeed a cave, maybe Cerberus resides there."

Comment Re:libertarians, free market fundamentalists, and (Score 1) 269

by theverylastperson (#33170110) Attached to: Samsung, Toshiba, Others Accused of LCD Price-Fixing

I'm looking at a 21" LCD I paid $129.00 for. Just fifteen years ago these didn't exist (If they did they'd cost a lot more than $129). Is a $129 an abusive price? The very system you argue against is the very system that produces, what I think, is an amazing product at an extremely affordable price.

Who would you rather be abused by? Toshiba or a Powerful Government? I know which one Stalin would pick.Now that's a man who had "idealistic idiocies".

There's a fine line we walk between protecting consumers and protecting liberties. Attacking a group of companies that have revolutionized our civilization by producing items that 100 years ago would be considered magic, seems somehow foolish. Left unchecked there is a high chance that they may some day abuse their market power, but I would have to see some kind of abuse that outweighs the true value of the product they produce.

Submission + - Launch your own Satellite for $8k (interorbital.com)

Submitted by theverylastperson
theverylastperson writes: The guy I work for calls me to come out to his house today. In honor of System Administrator Day he's going to help me fulfill a dream of sending a Satellite into space (We've had a VERY good year). We once had a conversation where we discussed childhood dreams and I had mentioned my desire to send something into orbit. Well, looks like I get my chance. For only $8,000 we can launch a TubeSat (similar to CubeSat). The volume and mass restrictions can be found on the linked page. The problem is, I can't decide what to send. So I'm curious what other Slashdot members would do. If you had a chance to send a TubeSat into space, what would you do? I have to present a plan to him by Monday, so I only have this weekend to come up with the right idea.

Submission + - how intellectual property (IP) stifles innovation

Submitted by freeasinrealale
freeasinrealale writes: This paper provides empirical evidence on how intellectual property (IP) on a given technology affects subsequent innovation. To shed light on this question, I analyze the sequencing of the human genome by the public Human Genome Project and the private firm Celera, and estimate the impact of Celera's gene-level IP on subsequent scientific research and product development outcomes. Celera's IP applied to genes sequenced first by Celera, and was removed when the public effort re-sequenced those genes. I test whether genes that ever had Celera's IP differ in subsequent innovation, as of 2009, from genes sequenced by the public effort over the same time period, a comparison group that appears balanced on ex ante gene-level observables. A complementary panel analysis traces the effects of removal of Celera's IP on within-gene flow measures of subsequent innovation. Both analyses suggest Celera's IP led to reductions in subsequent scientific research and product development outcomes on the order of 30 percent. Celera's short-term IP thus appears to have had persistent negative effects on subsequent innovation relative to a counterfactual of Celera genes having always been in the public domain.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w16213
Cellphones

Submission + - Free Android Apps Send Personal Data to China (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Between one and four million users of Android phones have downloaded wallpaper apps that swipe personal data from the phone and transmit it to a Chinese-owned server, a mobile security firm said on Friday. Lookout says a large number of free wallpaper apps in the Android Market scrape the phone number; the user-specific subscriber identifier, also know as the IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity); the phone's SIM card's serial number; and the currently-entered voicemail number from the phone. That information is then transmitted to a server that Internet records show is registered to a resident of Shenzhen, China. Over 80 wallpaper apps created by a pair of developers — "callmejack" and "IceskYsl@1sters!" — include code that accesses users' personal data, said Kevin Mahaffey, CTO and a co-founder of Lookout. 'All that is sent to a Chinese server in clear text,' said Mahaffey in an interview prior to Black Hat, where he and CEO John Hering presented findings of what the company called the 'App Genome Project,' an attempt to analyze the code of some 300,000 applications available in the Android Market and Apple's iPhone App Store. Lookout makes a free security app for Android.
Open Source

Submission + - Lessons in How to Open Source an Internal Project (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "Savio Rodrigues points to Lockheed Martin's EurekaStreams as an important lesson for IT shops considering open sourcing an internal project. Although the move to open source the internal social networking platform has been met with some measure of FUD, Rodrigues sees no need to question Lockheed Martin's motives. In fact, he sees a lot to learn from Lockheed Martin's approach. 'Eureka Streams is different than other open source projects, even commercial vendor-developed projects, in another way: The development and decision-making appear to be happening in the public. Lockheed engineers on the Eureka Streams project discuss build strategies and optimal search approaches on the Eureka Streams Google Groups forum. This helps prospective adopters understand and get involved in the project.'"
Government

Submission + - Justice Department Sues Oracle, Alleging Fraud (cnet.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: Justice department lawsuit argues that Oracle's government customers--a wide array of agencies, including the State Department, the Energy Department, and the Justice Department itself--got deals "far inferior" to those the enterprise software giant gave to its commercial clients.

The allegations stem from a software deal between Oracle and the federal General Services Administration that the Justice Department says involved "hundreds of millions of dollars in sales" and that ran from 1998 to 2006. Under the contract, Oracle was required to inform the GSA when commercial discounts improved and to offer those same discounts to government buyers.

Oracle misrepresented its true commercial sales practices and thus defrauded the U.S., the lawsuit contends.

"We take seriously allegations that a government contractor has dealt dishonestly with the United States," said Tony West, assistant attorney general for the civil division of the Department of Justice, in a statement.

CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20012193-92.html

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