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Biotech

Watching Brain Cells In Action 37

Posted by timothy from the as-if-mice-have-brains dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "A Stanford University team has developed a microscope weighing only 1.1 grams. It is so small that it can be mounted to the head of a freely moving mouse to watch its brain cell activity. According to what the lead researcher told New Scientist, 'A lot of work has been done using brain slices, or anaesthetised animals — even using animals that are awake but restrained. But so far it has been impossible to image cellular-level activity in a freely moving mouse.' Not any more. And as mice are the 'preferred' animals in medical labs, this new kind of microscope could lead to new ways to study human diseases."
Networking

One Failed NIC Strands 20,000 At LAX 293

Posted by kdawson from the comp-dot-risks dept.
The card in question experienced a partial failure that started about 12:50 p.m. Saturday, said Jennifer Connors, a chief in the office of field operations for the Customs and Border Protection agency. As data overloaded the system, a domino effect occurred with other computer network cards, eventually causing a total system failure. A spokeswoman for the airports agency said airport and customs officials are discussing how to handle a similar incident should it occur in the future.
Software

Submission + - Locating an earthquake in 5 minutes

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "When a powerful earthquake hit Indonesia's West Java on August 8, 2007, it took exactly 4 minutes and 38 seconds to be detected, located and sized by the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) currently under construction in Indonesia. Even more remarkable, the location of the earthquake was found after only 2 minutes and 11 seconds. 'For comparison, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Hawaii published the location and magnitude of this earthquake after about 17 minutes.' This very fast analysis was made possible by a combination of hardware and software developed in Germany. As said one German scientist who is leading the project, 'By the end of 2008 Indonesia will possess the most modern seismological network for tsunami early warning in the world.' Read more for additional references and an illustration showing the various GITEWS wireless components."
Music

Submission + - Multiformat Listening Test at 64kbps

Submitted by Anonymous
Anonymous writes: The Hydrogenaudio community is conducting a "Public, Multiformat Listening Test" (http://www.listening-tests.info/mf-64-1/) to see which codecs (AAC, WMA Pro and Vorbis) provide the best sound quality when compressing samples at 64kbps.

This test is open until the 5th of August and seems to be much, much harder than what one would expect, even for experienced developers of sound codecs, at bitrates that the public would find "too little", as the comments on the thread at the discussion forums (see: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?show topic=56397).

Do you think that you have good ears? That 64kbps is "too little"? Then try it for yourself and participate. Your participation will help us improve the codecs so that they are even closer to being "transparent" at such "low" bitrates.

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