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Biotech

Addicting Mice To Light 92

Al writes "In an attempt to better understand how the reward system in the brain functions in people suffering from addiction, scientists at Stanford have created mice that are addicted to light. They engineered light-sensitive proteins to trigger signaling pathways in the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain that responds to pleasurable stimuli. They then connected a fiber-optic cable to this part of the brain and delivered a blast of light whenever the mice wandered into a 'reward chamber.' In previous experiments the mice have been given drugs like cocaine or amphetamine when they enter these rooms. The light treatment works in exactly the same way but lets the researchers very precisely control timing and dose of reward administered to the brain. The approach could also provide a way to probe receptors that cannot be accessed using existing drugs."

Comment Re:Advertising (Score 1) 234

It took me forever to find a copy of Beyond Good and Evil. It was a great idea for a game, but unfortunately it wasn't actually playable. A couple hours in I reached a point with infinite enemy spawns and a way forward that had to be opened by the AI partner. Even if I killed all the present enemies and told the AI partner to open the way forward he would, instead, attack the next enemy to spawn.
Image

Robot Love Goes Bad Screenshot-sm 101

hundredrabh writes "Ever had a super needy girlfriend that demanded all your love and attention and would freak whenever you would leave her alone? Irritating, right? Now imagine the same situation, only with an asexual third-generation humanoid robot with 100kg arms. Such was the torture subjected upon Japanese researchers recently when their most advanced robot, capable of simulating human emotions, ditched its puppy love programming and switched over into stalker mode. Eventually the researchers had to decommission the robot, with a hope of bringing it back to life again."
Google

New Google Favicon Deja Vu All Over Again? 227

theodp writes "Last June, Google rolled out a new favicon, the small branding icon that graces your URL bar when you visit Google. Which, as it turned out, bore a striking similarity to Garth Brooks' Circle-G logo. Well, Google went back to the drawing board and has come back with a new favicon, which it says was inspired by — not copied from, mind you — its users' submitted ideas. Some are also seeing inspiration elsewhere for the new favicon, which consists of white 'g' on a background of four color swatches. Take the AVG antivirus icon, for instance. Or everybody's favorite memory toy, Simon. Or — in perhaps the unkindest cut of all — the four-color Microsoft Windows logo, shown here with a superimposed white '7'. Anything else come to mind?" What comes to mind for me is just how obsessed many people are with the Google favicon.

Comment Re:An order of magnitude over XML? (Score 1) 332

Try this on for size. Additionally when making this I noticed a few quirks in the protocol: VARINT available at wire level, not in definitions, ENUMs capped a 2^31-1, VARINT at wire level, Field numbers capped at 2048? VARINT at wire level. These seem like imlementation limitations. The uint64s below should probably be a new VARINT type.

FUCK THE LAMENESS FILTER:

message Proto { optional string package = 1; repeated string import = 2; repeated Proto imported = 3; repeated Message message = 5; repeated Extension extension = 6; repeated Enumerator enumerator = 7; repeated Option option = 8; repeated Service service = 9; } message Message { required string name = 1; repeated ScalarField scalar_field = 2; repeated EnumeratedField enumerated_field = 3; repeared MessageField message_field = 4; repeated Message message = 5; repeated Extension extension = 6; repeated Enumerator enumerator = 7; optional ExtensionRange extension_range = 16; } enum ScalarType { DOUBLE = 0; FLOAT = 1; INT32 = 2; INT64 = 3; UINT32 = 4; UINT64 = 5; SINT32 = 6; SINT64 = 7; FIXED32 = 8; FIXED64 = 9; SFIXED32 = 10; SFIXED64 = 11; BOOL = 12; STRING = 13; BYTES = 14; } enum FieldRule { REQUIRED = 0; OPTIONAL = 1; REPEATED = 2; } message ScalarField { required string name = 1; required ScalarType type = 2; optional FieldRule field_rule = 3; optional uint64 field_number = 4; optional string default = 5; } message EnumeratedField { required string name = 1; required string enumerator = 2; optional FieldRule field_rule = 3; optional uint64 field_number = 4; optional string default = 5; } message Enumerator { required string name = 1; repeated EnumeratorConstant constant = 2; } message EnumeratorConstant { required string name = 1; required uint64 value = 2; } message MessageField { required string name = 1; required string message = 2; optional FieldRule field_rule = 3; optional uint64 field_number = 4; optional string default = 5; } message ExtensionRange { required uint64 min = 1; optional uint64 max = 1; } message Extension { required Message extension = 1; } message Service { required string name = 1; repeated RPC rpc = 2; } message RPC { required string name = 1; optional string takes = 2; optional string returns = 3; } message Option { required string name = 1; optional string value = 2; }

Television

CNN To Release Debates Under Creative Commons 151

remove office writes "After calls from several prominent bloggers and a couple of presidential candidates, CNN has agreed to release the footage from its upcoming June presidential debates uncopyrighted. Senator Barack Obama was the first candidate to call for all presidential debates to be released under Creative Commons, with fellow Democratic hopeful John Edwards following shortly afterwards. CNN will be the first to do so with their June 3rd and 5th Democratic and Republican debates. MSNBC hosted the first presidential debates recently but refused to release them under Creative Commons, opting instead to post online only commercial-ridden clips in Windows Media format."
Censorship

Submission + - ABC - takes Gravel and Paul out of running

isotope23 writes: After leaving Ron Paul out of their online poll for "who won the Republican debates"? ABC now has left both Paul and Gravel out of their list of candidates running for president in 2008 How exactly does ABC "overlook" including the two staunchly anti-war candidates (both of whom were in nationally televised debates) in their list? Does ABC stand for "Already Been Chosen" at this point? Update after pressure from Digg users, ABC has listed Paul in their poll and restarted it, however both Gravel and Paul are still not listed in the PDF.
Censorship

Submission + - ABC Censorship

tres3 writes: "ABC News is in a running battle right now to censor Dr. Paul and his supporters from their online activities. Their phones are flooded (Call 212-456-2700 and ask to be connected with "dot com". Talk to the gentleman there about it.) and they are scrambling to remove posts that support Dr. Paul as fast as they can. The site in question is changing constantly as people are trying to get their comments reposted. The story is also all over Digg and the Digg Bury brigade 2 3 is in overdrive trying to stop it but the submission keep coming in ( 1 2 3 4 5 6) This stated with ABC leaving Dr. Paul off of their online poll. We have managed to get them to adjust that but he still isn't in their candidate guide so please call ABC's Dot Com desk and explain to them that this is why they are loosing the hearts and minds of their listeners/readers. This is the Internet generation and people want to be heard!"
Mozilla

Submission + - Thunderbird 2 Released!

chipwhisperer writes: "Finally, you can download the latest version of Mozilla's popular email client, Thunderbird 2. It sports a host of new features including Advanced Folder Views (such as favorites and recent), Message Tagging (similar to GMail), message history navigation, "Search as You Type", saved searches, and an informative message alert. It also includes Firefox 2's Add-Ons and Themes manager to make customizing Thunderbird a lot easier. You can get it here. Enjoy!"
Slashdot.org

Journal Journal: How to set your Comments Preferences

I recomend the following changes to your preferences for comments:
  • Threshold: -1 There is no reason to keep yourself from seeing all the posts. Its good to at least know that the oposing or contraversial view exists, even if you don't read it.
  • Redundant: +1 This moderation is used to censor views with little fear of being reprimanded in meta-moderation. Setting to +1 neutralizes this mod.
  • Anonymous Modifier: +1 Why punish someone for wishing

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