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Science

Your Feces Is a Wonderland of Viruses 211

Posted by timothy from the and-so-can-you dept.
sciencehabit writes "Thanks to an anlaysis of fecal samples from four sets of Missouri-born female identical twins and their mothers, researchers have concluded that human guts harbor viruses as unique as the people they inhabit; the viral lineup differs even between identical twins. Even more surprising? These viruses may be doing good work inside of us."
Google

Submission + - Chrome OS to Support "Legacy" PC Apps

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: According to a message posted to a public mailing list dedicated to Chrome OS a new feature is in the works that will grant users access to "legacy PC applications" through some kind of remote desktop connection process. Google software engineer Gary Kamark, who first spilled the beans on the feature, calls the process, "Chromoting." The current speculation amongst Chrome enthusiasts is that the Chromoting process is more akin to a VPN/sharing functionality than anything else. In that case, one would have to leave one's Windows-based desktop or laptop system on in order to access apps via a connected Chrome OS computer—which, itself, is hardly a technological leap given that numerous applications today offer users an analogous screen-sharing / remote access functionality.

Submission + - North Korean Flash Games for Export (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by linzeal
linzeal writes: Despite it being pretty-much closed off to the world, North Korea is the next boom place for IT and tech outsourcing, PC World has reported. Flash games are being developed there for outside publishers, largely thanks to the home-grown talent. Does this mean that the the cartoon company that makes the Simpsons might use North Korea as well? Well it looks like they already have started.

Submission + - Expert designs FPGA-based logic analyzer in a day (techbites.com)

Submitted by TidbitsOfTrivia
TidbitsOfTrivia writes: Those little rapscallions at Opal Kelly are running an *Experts' Design Challenge*. The idea is to create an FPGA-based logic analyzer in a single working day. Well, the first expert to rise to the challenge is Rainer Malzbender, and his offering is a thing of beauty and a wonder to behold...

Submission + - A Battle of Wits on the Net's Effect on the Mind (roughtype.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There's a fascinating duel going on between two Harvard-associated authors, Steven Pinker and Nicholas Carr, on the topic of the Net's influence on the mind. In a New York Times op-ed, Pinker criticizes Carr's argument, as laid out in his new book The Shallows, that our use of the Net is encouraging us to become distracted, superficial thinkers. The Net and other digital technologies "are the only things that will keep us smart," writes Pinker. In a response on his blog, Carr tears apart Pinker's argument, claiming that Pinker's examples should actually make us even more worried about the possible "ill effects" the Net is having on our minds. Carr concludes: "We're training ourselves, through repetition, to be facile skimmers, scanners, and message-processors — important skills, to be sure — but, perpetually distracted and interrupted, we're not training ourselves in the quieter, more attentive modes of thought: contemplation, reflection, introspection, deep reading, and so forth." Behind the debate is the deeper controversy over whether the human brain is fundamentally adaptable ("neuroplasticity") or genetically locked into patterns of behavior ("evolutionary psychology").

Submission + - Help finding a good photo manager?

Submitted by JeremyDuffy
JeremyDuffy writes: Ask Slashdot: I have an photo project of over 7000 photos. I want to tag them based on location, time of day, who's in them, etc. Doing this by hand one at a time through the Windows 7 interface in explorer is practically madness. There has to be a better way. Is there a photo manager that can easily group and manage file tags? And most importantly, something that stores the tag and other data (description etc) in the FILE not just a database? I don't care if the thing has a database, but the data MUST be in the file so when I upload the files to the Internet, the tags are in place.

Submission + - Geek wedding ring? 13

Submitted by RoadNotTaken
RoadNotTaken writes: Dear Slashdot,
I finally bit the bullet and decided to get married. My fiance and I are looking for wedding rings and I find myself disappointed that they have so-few features. Are there any geeky rings out there that can do something useful? I'm thinking USB or RFID but am open to suggestions. There has to be SOMETHING good you can do with a chunk of metal on your finger...

Submission + - Plastic Antibodies Fight Off Antigens Like the Rea (popsci.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We use plastics to make everything from our computers to our toothbrushes, but a collaboration of researchers from the University of California at Irvine and the University of Shizuoka in Japan has made a big breakthrough by taking plastics to microscopic levels. Using plastic nanoparticles just 1/50,000th the width of a human hair, the team has created plastic antibodies that successfully function in the bloodstream of living animals to identify and fight a variety of antigens.
User Journal

Journal Journal: very late preliminary micro-review: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 1

Journal by drinkypoo

"Universal" direct-contact heat pipe cooler with real big fan, simple installation on AMD platform, not-too-complicated installation on Intel but I have AMD, three/four pin connector for full compatibility, super cheap (~$20), Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz O/C to 3.2 GHz via multiplier idles at 98 with ambient of about 80. Easy to install second fan, hardware for same included. Medium weight, minimal but attractive packaging, would buy again, unless it lets me down sometime soon. Comes with apparen
Security

Submission + - 'No Safe Harbor' From Record-Tying Patch Tuesday (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Microsoft says it will deliver 10 security updates next week to patch a record-tying 34 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and SharePoint. The patches will also quash two bugs that Microsoft acknowledged in February and April. 'I'd actually call this a moderate month,' said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security. 'Looking at the criticality of the bulletins, and the fact that the number [of bulletins] is low, it doesn't look like a huge month to me.' By the numbers, however, next week's updates will be huge. All six updates affecting Windows will impact Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows 7. And with one exception — Windows 2000 and Windows XP will not need Bulletin 9 — all currently-supported versions of Windows will require all the patches. 'There's no safe harbor this month,' said Storms.
Iphone

Submission + - Authorities Begin Examination of Gizmodo Computers (cnet.com)

Submitted by gyrogeerloose
gyrogeerloose writes: CNET reports that the San Mateo County DA's office has appointed a special master to examine the computers and other items seized in late April at the residence of Gizmodo's Jason Chen. A special master is "a neutral third party appointed by the court to assist in the carrying out of judicial orders." The job of the agent, who is unpaid, is to collect information he or she believes is pertinent to the investigation and present it to both the court and Chen's lawyers for discussion and final determination of what evidence will be provided to the district attorney for investigation. The process is expected to take up to two months.
Crime

Submission + - SEC charges Diebold with fraud (sec.gov) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday the SEC charged Diebold, Inc. and three former execs with accounting fraud spanning most of the last decade. The CEO was not formally charged, but agreed to reimburse the company for certain compensation granted during the time frame of the fraud.

Submission + - Grumpy People Think Better (bbc.co.uk) 2

Submitted by theshowmecanuck
theshowmecanuck writes: The BBC has a story on an Australian researcher's work which concludes that "grumpy people think more clearly."

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed. While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.

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