Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Bath Salts: Like a Fish Hook in your Brain (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: PBS NewsHour published an investigation into Bath Salts, the sometimes legal, little understood street drug that has been linked to bizarre and violent behavior. The chemistry behind bath salts, it turns out, is as fascinating as the side effects. Tests show that the most common application of bath salts works in two-phases with a time-release mechanism. The drug first blasts the user with dopamine, but then limits the ability of the brain to soak it back up. And, researchers think, a unique "fish hook" shaped molecule means that the drug can get locked in, and take days, or even weeks to wear off— often, too late for users who are driven to extreme violence or suicide.

Comment Re:Let's Just Hope They Leave Well Enough Alone (Score 1) 466

by VENONA (#41389839) Attached to: Dice Buys Geeknet's Media Business, Including Slashdot, In $20M Deal

In many cases, it probably depends on the workflow that a project uses. You don't get mailling lists on GitHub. Don't laugh at mailing lists--they're important to a lot of projects, including the Linux kernel. Also, Subversion support is still experimental on GitHub. If I had an older, mature project, based around these two things, I'd want to stay on Sourceforge. For example, there are probably lots of libraries dating back to the days when Sourceforge was the best of few choices, and that are nice and stable, get the job done, and require only maintainance. Why fix it if it isn't broke? Infrastructure doesn't have to be cool to be very, very useful.

Sourceforge also provides a means of distributing or completely elliminating download bandwidth needs. http://scipy.org/ is the Web site for important numeric Python stuff (scipy and numpy). But the download links point to Sourceforge. They also use GitHub; for some a mix of services is best.

So, yeah, I'd say Sourceforge is still important to a lot of people. Not all of whom are aware of it.

Comment Re:And probably an overpaid unionized workforce (Score 2) 335

by VENONA (#41389165) Attached to: TSA Spending $245 Million On "Second Generation" Body Scanners

I don't expect _any_ future president to disband TSA. At least not until the world become a Provably Safe Place (TM), or massive public resistance develops. Any politician skilled enough to be up for the job (or a Senate seat, etc.) is going to see that as accepting a lot of risk. There would certainly be an outcry from those who want the government to protect them from _everything_. If there were another attack afterwards, the politician(s) who were involved in dismantling it would then be toast.
Space

Submission + - The Asteroid That Dances With Earth (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: An asteroid is caught in a synchronized orbit with the Earth, dancing back and forth relative to our planet as both circle the sun, a team of Canadian scientists has discovered. The object, which for now is dubbed 2010 TK7, is a "Trojan" asteroid, meaning that it is trapped in a delicate gravitational balance between a tug from the sun and an equal tug from the Earth. It's long been known that Jupiter, Neptune and Mars have Trojans orbiting alongside them, but this is the first time one has been found alongside our planet.
Space

Submission + - New Soyuz Launch Facility Gets Equator Boost (pbs.org) 1

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: Russian and French teams are currently hard at work in French Guiana on the northern coast of South America, building the first Soyuz launch facility in the Western Hemisphere. Soyuz rockets normally carry 3,500 pound payloads into orbit, but from the French Guiana spaceport, the rocket will have an added benefit of being near the equator where the Earth's spin extremely fast. This extra boost allows it to deliver a 6,600 pound payload into orbit. The first launches are scheduled for October.
The Internet

Submission + - Drudge Generates More Traffic Than Social Media (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: A report released today by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism shows that the Drudge Report is a far more important driver of online news traffic than Facebook or Twitter. In fact, for the top 25 news websites, Twitter barely registers as a source of traffic. The report hits on several other interesting findings about news behavior.
NASA

Submission + - Solar Storm Nearly Wipes Out NASA's Messenger (pbs.org)

Submitted by
tcd004
tcd004 writes: "There was a close call last week when an enormous coronal ejection nearly hit Mercury, and the orbiting Messenger spacecraft. Scientists at the Space Weather Laboratory flew into action, modeling the event to determine how close it had come to the spacecraft using data from the twin STEREO sun observers. The group use an animated model called WSA-ENLIL, named after a Sumerian lord of wind and storms. Enlil, who wears a crown of horns, is known for being a kind but also cruel god who sends forth disasters, including a great flood that wiped out humanity. Fortunately Messenger escaped Enlil's wrath."

Submission + - Technology is Remaking Teenage Brains (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: The teen years are a critical "pruning" stage in the brain. Neural pathways that are needed are strengthened, and those that aren't are discarded. How is a twitter/facebook/texting/xbox lifestyle remaking the teen brain? DR. JAY GIEDD, a neuroscientist, National Institute of Mental Health is studying the affects of multitasking and constant communication on teens, and he thinks these influences may actually be building a better brain.
Facebook

Submission + - Old Facebook Apps Still Plunder Your Privacy (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: If you added the Youtube Facebook app prior to 2009, you're given YouTube free access to nearly all the data in your profile (as well as many of your friends). But if you install the same app today, it gets very limited access. Older versions of Facebook apps, it turns out, still have "grandfathered" access to data that the social networking service has restricted for new apps. If you're protective of your privacy, it might be a good idea to delete and reinstall any older apps in your profile.
Security

Submission + - Anon mining Gawker data leak to attack Governments (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: Documents obtained by the PBS NewsHour reveal a concerted effort to filter and verify U.S. and international government email accounts from the Gawker database leak. The group involved implores participants to keep the operation secret, because leaking their efforts "will only jeopordize the serious lulz fest about to hit the internet in the coming months." Agencies who have been breached allegedly include NASA, the U.S. Senate, the South African Judiciary, and others.
Moon

Submission + - NASA strikes gold and water on the Moon (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: The PBS NewsHour reports: there is water on the moon ... along with a long list of other compounds, including, mercury, gold and silver. That's according to a more detailed analysis of the cold lunar soil near the moon's South Pole. The results were released as six papers by a large team of scientists in the journal, Science Thursday. The data comes from the October 2009 mission, when NASA slammed a booster rocket traveling nearly 6,000 miles per hour into the moon and blasted out a hole. Trailing close behind it was a second spacecraft, rigged with a spectrometer to study the lunar plume released by the blast. The mission is called LCROSS, for Lunar Crater Observer and Sensing Satellite.

Submission + - Secret Drama Behind the Double Helix Revealed (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: Dozens of letters written by Nobel prize winner Frances Crick have just been released. The letters, which even Crick thought had been destoryed, reveal the intense, and sometimes playful competition among researchers to decode DNA in the 1960's. At one point, Watson and Crick were pulled off of DNA research because they incorporated works from a competing team at Kings College. Crick's letter to his rival (and friend) Maurice Wilkins read "Cheer up and take it from us that even if we kicked you in the pants it was between friends," he wrote. "We hope our burglary will at least produce a united front in your group!"

Submission + - Would You Eat Genetically Modified Salmon? (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: The FDA is currently considering approval of the first mass-market, genetically modified animal, a super salmon. The engineered fish grows to full size in half the time, making it cheaper to raise and lessening it's environmental impact. But critics argue that the testing that has been done on the fish so far amounts to junk science, and there are unknown consequences if the fish escapes into the wild. Would you eat a hormone-enhanced fish?

Slashdot Top Deals

It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

Close