Comment WWDZD? (What would Derek Zoolander do?) (Score 2) 155
"Welcome to the Derek Zoolander Center for kids who can't Statistics good, and who want to learn to do other stuff good too."
NASA Funds Projects For Asteroid-Capture Plan 65
An anonymous reader writes: NASA has announced funding for 18 different projects aimed at developing an asteroid retrieval mission. "The agency is working on two concepts for the mission. The first concept would fully capture a very small asteroid in free space and the other would retrieve a boulder off of a much larger asteroid. Both concepts would redirect an asteroid mass less than 10 meters in size to orbit the moon. Astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft launched on the Space Launch System (SLS) would rendezvous with the captured asteroid mass in lunar orbit and collect samples for return to Earth." Astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope have also identified and measured the size of a candidate near-earth asteroid. It measures roughly six meters in diameter, and seems to be held together lightly, possible as a "pile of rubble."
Comment The USA has become a war zone... (Score 1) 875
...and if you want to survive, you've gotta know where your towel is.
Comment Re:Total misrepresentation of Evolution (Score 2) 161
"the junkyard example"
I had to look that one up. Is it this?
Hoyle's fallacy, also known as the Junkyard tornado
I had to look that one up. Is it this?
Hoyle's fallacy, also known as the Junkyard tornado
Comment Re:Total misrepresentation of Evolution (Score 4, Interesting) 161
I agree with your general inputs and conclusions. However, I think that Mims is correct, in a sense.
"The evolution of these complex molecules, which had to exist in the earliest cells, is so improbable..." --Mims
Yes, it is improbable, on a small-scale, and that seems to be where Mims' analysis has stopped.
"If enough random things happen and the beneficial things survive, then not only is the evolution not improbable, it's almost inevitable given enough time." --parent
Yes indeed.
I found Mims' statement that he has "built thousands of circuits, none of which were made by randomly wiring together components" very telling. If he were to wire billions of circuits by randomly wiring together components, then he might end up with a few that were useful.
I'm having a hard time reconciling his beliefs with his electronic achievements. This is not meant as a slam.
Submission + - Bill Watterson (briefly) returns to comics 1
amosh writes: Bill Watterson was the author of the immensely popular "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip in the 80s and 90s, until he retired and removed himself entirely from the public eye. Since his retirement in 1995, he has become a recluse, and has not drawn a published daily comic strip — until now. This week, Watterson came out of exile to draw the 2nd panel of three of Stephan Pastis' "Pearls Before Swine" strips. Watterson has lost none of his style or talent, and a fourth strip — drawn by Pastis alone and published today, June 7 — is a lovely homage to Watterson's ending of Calvin and Hobbes. The Washington Post has the story of how it all happened.
Submission + - Wikipedia Mining Algorithm Reveals The Most Influential People In History 1
KentuckyFC writes: In 1978, the American researcher Michael Hart published "The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History", a book that became an international best seller. Since then, various others have published similar lists. But all suffer the same drawback: they are subjective list ultimately influenced by numerous cultural factors. Now data scientists have come up with a way to extract an objective list of the 100 most influential people in history using the network of links between biographical articles on Wikipedia and how they vary between 24 different language editions, including English, Chinese, Russian Arabic and so on. The researchers assume that people who are highly ranked in different language editions are influential across both language cultures and that the more appearances they make in different language editions, the more influential they are. But the actual ranking is done by PageRank-like algorithms that consider a biographical article important if it is pointed to by other important articles. The resulting lists of the most influential men and women might surprise. The top PageRanked individual is Carl Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish botanist who developed the modern naming scheme for plants and animals, followed by Jesus. The top PageRanked women are: Elizabeth II followed by Mary (mother of Jesus). For comparison, just under half of the top 100 most influential also appear in Hart's 1978 book. But this is just the beginning. By counting the individuals from one culture that influence other cultures, the team is able to work out which cultures have dominated others. And by looking only at people born before certain dates, they can see how the influence of different cultures has waxed and waned throughout 35 centuries of recorded history.
Submission + - Updating the Integrated Space Plan (kickstarter.com)
garyebickford writes: Space Finance Group (in which I'm a partner) has launched a Kickstarter to fund updating the "famous Integrated Space Plan", created by Ron Jones at Rockwell International in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and can be found on walls in the industry even today. The new Plan will be a poster, but also will provide the initial core data for a new website. The permanent link will be thespaceplan.com. As additional resources become available the website will be able to contain much more information, with (eventually) advanced data management (possibly including sources like Linked Data) and visualization tools to become a resource for education, research, entertainment, and business analytics. The group also hopes to support curated crowdsourcing of some data, and is talking to Space Development companies about providing data about themselves. They hope to be able to construct new timelines and show the relations between events and entities — companies, agencies, people, etc.
Submission + - Robotics Engineers: "We don't want to replace humans. We want to enhance humans. (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: Scientists developing smart robotic prosthetics say the lines between robots and humans is beginning to blur and that someday soon people will be able to improve their body. For example, Robotic prosthetics, using a built-in computer, 100 sensors and 17 motors can take natural cues from a user's residual limb, giving him or her the dexterity and grace to play a piano. Robotic exoskeletons have helped people suffering from paralysis walk again and the U.S. military is just weeks away from testing a new exoskeleton, or Iron Man-like suit. And, more than six years ago, a University of Arizona researcher who had successfully connected a moth's brain to a robot predicted that by 2022 we'll be using "hybrid" computers that run a combination of technology and living organic tissue. "By utilizing technology, you're able to improve your body beyond anything you could do in the past," said Daniel Wilson, an engineer with degrees in machine learning and robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
Submission + - Fasting triggers stem cell regeneration of damaged, old immune system (usc.edu)
schwit1 writes: In the first evidence of a natural intervention triggering stem cell-based regeneration of an organ or system, a study in the June 5 issue of the Cell Stem Cell shows that cycles of prolonged fasting not only protect against immune system damage — a major side effect of chemotherapy — but also induce immune system regeneration, shifting stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal.
In both mice and a Phase 1 human clinical trial, long periods of not eating significantly lowered white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles then “flipped a regenerative switch,” changing the signaling pathways for hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and immune systems, the research showed.
“PKA is the key gene that needs to shut down in order for these stem cells to switch into regenerative mode. It gives the OK for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system,” “And the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting. Now, if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or aging, fasting cycles can generate, literally, a new immune system.”
In both mice and a Phase 1 human clinical trial, long periods of not eating significantly lowered white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles then “flipped a regenerative switch,” changing the signaling pathways for hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and immune systems, the research showed.
“PKA is the key gene that needs to shut down in order for these stem cells to switch into regenerative mode. It gives the OK for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system,” “And the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting. Now, if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or aging, fasting cycles can generate, literally, a new immune system.”
Comment Re:Good job capturing the "steamroller effect" (Score 2) 304
Right up there with Aaron Swartz
FBI Need Potheads To Fight Cybercrime 319
An anonymous reader writes "The rate of cybercrime is growing and growing, and law enforcement is struggling to keep up. The FBI is in the process of beefing up its headcount, but they're running into a problem: many of the hackers applying for these jobs have a history of marijuana use, and the agency has a zero tolerance policy. FBI Director James Comey said, 'I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview.' However, change may be on the horizon: Comey said the FBI is changing 'both our mindset and the way we do business.' He also encouraged job applications from former pot users despite the policy."
Comment Re:Not interested in cars or roads either (Score 1) 306
It kind of makes me wonder what the next great technological wonder will be and how everyone will jump on it
Slashdot Beta. Zing!
Chernobyl, In Games and In Real Life 20
An anonymous reader writes "Nick Rush-Cooper has an insightful article at Rock, Paper, Shotgun about his visits to Chernobyl. He's made many such trips for research purposes, and he's mapping radiation levels in the Exclusion Zone, which can 'vary by tenfold or more over the space of less than a meter.' But he's also a gamer, and he's played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl and other titles that take place there. He writes about the unusual perspective this afforded him: 'If you travel and recognize something you have seen in a film, that's visual recognition. You're seeing something you have seen before. With games it's a recognition of experience, not just a visual memory of a three dimensional space, but the sense of being somewhere you have been before. Even in Call of Duty 4, which uses Pripyat just as much as an aesthetic choice with little meaning as many movies have, its shooting gallery still requires the player to think of Pripyat as a space that requires positioning; identifying firing lines and choke points. It wasn't until I was actually in the Zone myself that I realized to what extent the games manage to capture the sense of the Pripyat landscape itself as a malevolent, even antagonistic, presence. Of course, guided tours in a hot, sunny summer bear little resemblance to Stalker's world. But, as an invisible presence known only through little blinking, chattering devices, I never really got used to radiation during my two-dozen trips to the Zone.'"
Submission + - Alternative to WordPerfect for merging lists with word processing documents?
Noxal writes: At my workplace we use the latest WordPerfect version for Linux to merge data into word processing templates, basically form letters with a letterhead that plugs in names, addresses, and any other custom data that might be necessary.
Unfortunately that latest WordPerfect version is from 1998 and it's getting to be quite a hassle to deal with. We've not had any luck finding an alternative though.
Requirements: Must be entirely Linux compatible (CentOS). Must be entirely command line based (we could have a graphical environment set up if necessary, but everything would still have to be handled over ssh or rsh). Must be able to pass a word processing document and a CSV (or similar) file to a program and have the program output the document with the data in the CSV file filled in and then print it via lp/CUPS. End users would also have to be able to easily edit the template documents.
Open/Libreoffice doesn't seem to be able to do this headless/automated, but I may be wrong. We do use LibreOffice almost exclusively, so finding a solution that uses LibreOffice in an automated fashion would be fantastic.
Unfortunately that latest WordPerfect version is from 1998 and it's getting to be quite a hassle to deal with. We've not had any luck finding an alternative though.
Requirements: Must be entirely Linux compatible (CentOS). Must be entirely command line based (we could have a graphical environment set up if necessary, but everything would still have to be handled over ssh or rsh). Must be able to pass a word processing document and a CSV (or similar) file to a program and have the program output the document with the data in the CSV file filled in and then print it via lp/CUPS. End users would also have to be able to easily edit the template documents.
Open/Libreoffice doesn't seem to be able to do this headless/automated, but I may be wrong. We do use LibreOffice almost exclusively, so finding a solution that uses LibreOffice in an automated fashion would be fantastic.
