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Submission + - Physics students devise concept for Star Wars-style deflector shields (phys.org)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: If you have often imagined yourself piloting your X-Wing fighter on an attack run on the Death Star, you'll be reassured that University of Leicester students have demonstrated that your shields could take whatever the Imperial fleet can throw at you.

The only drawback is that you won't be able to see a thing outside of your starfighter.
In anticipation of Star Wars Day on 4 May, three fourth-year Physics students at the University have proven that shields, such as those seen protecting spaceships in the Star Wars film series, would not only be scientifically feasible, they have also shown that the science behind the principle is already used here on Earth.

They have published their findings in the Journal of Special Physics Topics, a peer-reviewed student journal run by the University's Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Submission + - How to Win at Rock-Paper-Scissors (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by Uncle Robert
Uncle Robert writes: Today, Zhijian Wang at Zhejiang University in China and a couple of pals say that there is more to Rock-Paper-Scissors than anyone imagined. Their work shows that the strategy of real players looks random on average but actually consists of predictable patterns that a wily opponent could exploit to gain a vital edge.

Submission + - Improve Online Privacy With 'Tails': the OS Edward Snowden Used to Evade the NSA (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Whistle-blower Edward Snowden has been using a super-secure computer operating system called Tails that comes with encryption and privacy tools to make the user completely anonymous on the internet.

During his live video interview with SXSW last month, Edward Snowden mentioned that one way citizens could secure their data to prevent being spied on by their ISPs or government agencies was to use "full disc encryption".

Well, now we know that means. Meet Tails (which stands for The Amnesic Incognito Live System), a super-secure free operating system that runs on open-source Linux software.

All you have to do is download it from the official website, install it either on a DVD, a USB memory stick or an SD card, access the software on a computer, and immediately you're in a completely separate operating system that makes you anonymous on the internet.

In order to keep the user anonymous, all web traffic is routed through Tor (which stands for The Onion Router), a network of thousands of servers across the globe run by volunteers.

Another encryption tool called GPG email encryption, which offers public key encryption to keep your message encrypted until it gets to the other party, is also included.

Submission + - Solar Roadways Crowdsource (indiegogo.com)

Submitted by giveen1
giveen1 writes: "The implementation of our Solar Roadways project on a grand scale would change the world as we know it in significant ways. Imagine the possibilities of a post Solar Roadways world: Your home could be all or nearly off grid thanks to your solar driveway (which you no longer have to shovel or plow if you live in the north), patio, or walkways etc. When you leave home, you'll be driving on Solar Roadways which are snow and ice free, pothole free, and the LEDs help you see the lines clearly and easily, especially at night when many people suffer night blindness. A study in the UK showed that LED markers on road lines reduced nighttime accidents by 70-percent. If there is danger ahead from a deer in the road or a sudden accident, the intelligent road can sense this and warn you to "Slow Down". This will save the lives of countless animals and keep people safer too. If you go somewhere new, the intelligent road can direct you with an LED-lit arrow that you follow to your destination. If you have an EV, you can stop and charge at a solar parking lot while you work, shop or eat, using clean energy from the sun. Eventually, you'll be able to charge while you drive via mutual induction panels. Solar Roadways will provide the infrastructure to make this possible."

Submission + - Net Neutrality legislation approved.

Submitted by rwiggers
rwiggers writes: Known as the Marco Civil — or Bill of Rights — it would enshrine freedom of expression, the right to privacy and the principle of web neutrality. This could be understood as a response from the president Dilma to the NSA spying on her and is expected to be sanctioned soon.
Some aspects are quite interesting, content can only be removed by judicial order, net neutrality is written in law ans ISPs must take action to ensure privacy of communications.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-...
http://www.techweekeurope.co.u...
http://g1.globo.com/politica/n...

Submission + - 3-D Printed Skull Successfully Implanted in Woman

Submitted by djhaskin987
djhaskin987 writes: The first successful implantation of a 3-D printed skull has taken place in the Netherlands, according to NBC news:

Doctors in the Netherlands report that they have for the first time successfully replaced most of a human’s skull with a 3-D printed plastic one — and likely saved a woman's life in the process. The 23-hour surgery took place three months ago at University Medical Center Utrecht. The hospital announced details of the groundbreaking operation this week and said the patient, a 22-year-old woman, is doing just fine.

Submission + - "We need more scientific mavericks" (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Gotta love this letter published in the guardian.com this week. It comes from a number of scientists throughout the world who are obviously frustrated with the barriers being thrown up around them — financial, antiquated procedures and techniques to name a few — and would like to see changes. When you speak of scientific mavericks, you might look directly at Improbable Research's annual Ig Nobel awards which recognize the arguably leading edge of maverick scientific work.

Submission + - SPAM: It was the worst industrial disaster in US history—and we learned nothing 1

Submitted by superboj
superboj writes: Forget Deepwater Horizon or Three Mile Island: The biggest industrial disaster in American history actually happened in 2008, when more than a billion gallons of coal sludge ran through the small town of Kingston Tennessee. This story details how, five years later, nothing has been done to stop it happening again, thanks to energy industry lobbying, federal inaction, and secrecy imposed on Congress.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - U.S. Cedes Control of DNS to ICANN (doc.gov)

Submitted by Midnight_Falcon
Midnight_Falcon writes: Sixteen years after Jon Postel's famed attempt to bring the DNS system under IANA control, the U.S has agreed to cede control of the root DNS servers of the internet to ICANN. With NSA spying (some of which utilizing the U.S's privileged access to the internet system) a hot button issue, this may indicate a step in the right direction for internationalizing the internet.

Submission + - U.S. aims to give up control over Internet administration (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move likely to please international critics but alarm some business leaders and others who rely on smooth functioning of the Web.

Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance last year.

Submission + - NASA-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse?

Submitted by Snirt
Snirt writes: A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilization could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to "precipitous collapse — often lasting centuries — have been quite common."

Submission + - Federal Student Aid Requirements at For-Profit Colleges Overhauled

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Department of Education has released a proposal for new regulations that would hold colleges that receive federal student aid accountable for the employment success of their graduates. The overhaul is prompted by the fact that students from for-profit colleges account for nearly 50% of all loan defaults yet only account for about 13% of the total higher education population. '[O]f the for-profit gainful employment programs the Department could analyze and which could be affected by [the proposed regulations], the majority--72%--produced graduates who on average earned less than high school dropouts.'

Submission + - Blood Test of 4 BioMarkers Predicts Death Within 5 Years (plosmedicine.org) 1

Submitted by retroworks
retroworks writes: NHS and the Daily Telegraph report on two studies (original and repeat duplicating results) in Estonia and Finland which predict whether an apparently healthy human will likely die within 5 years. The four biomarkers that appeared to determine risk of mortality in the next five years were:

alpha-1-acid glycoprotein – a protein that is raised during infection and inflammation
albumin – a protein that carries vital nutrients, hormones and proteins in the bloodstream
very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) particle size – usually known for being “very bad” cholesterol
citrate – a compound that is an essential part of the body’s metabolism

Researchers found that people in the top 20% of the summary score range were 19 times more at risk of dying in the next five years than people in the lowest 20%.

Submission + - Gladiator Training Prison Discovered (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Gladiators had it rough. In addition to living a life of combat and bloodshed, archaeologists are finding that they were imprisoned in training schools, too. A study published online yesterday in Antiquity describes the discovery of a fortress near Vienna, with a practice arena, small cells to sleep in, and an infirmary. The facility was mapped with noninvasive earth-sensing technologies and had only one exit. There’s also a video overview of the facility.

Submission + - The Science of Solitary Confinement

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Joseph Stromberg writes in Smithsonian Magazine that although the practice of solitary confinement has been largely discontinued in most countries, it's become increasingly routine over the past few decades within the American prison system and now it's estimated that between 80,000 and 81,000 prisoners are in some form of solitary confinement nationwide. Once employed largely as a short-term punishment, it's now regularly used as way of disciplining prisoners indefinitely, isolating them during ongoing investigations, coercing them into cooperating with interrogations and even separating them from perceived threats within the prison population at their request. "We really are the only country that resorts regularly, and on a long-term basis, to this form of punitive confinement," says Craig Haney. "Ironically, we spend very little time analyzing the effects of it." Most prisoners in solitary confinement spend at least 23 hours per day restricted to cells of 80 square feet, not much larger than a king-size bed, devoid of stimuli (some are allowed in a yard or indoor area for an hour or less daily), and are denied physical contact on visits from friends and family, so they may go years or decades without touching another human, apart from when they're placed in physical restraints by guards. A majority of those surveyed experienced symptoms such as dizziness, heart palpitations, chronic depression, while 41 percent reported hallucinations, and 27 percent had suicidal thoughts and one study found that isolated inmates are seven times more likely to hurt or kill themselves than inmates at large. But the real problem is that solitary confinement is ineffective as a rehabilitation technique and indelibly harmful to the mental health of those detained achieving the opposite of the supposed goal of rehabilitating them for re-entry into society. "We are all social beings, and people who are in environments that deny the opportunity to interact in meaningful ways with others begin to lose a sense of self, of their own identity," says Haney. "They begin to withdraw from the little amount of social contact that they are allowed to have, because social stimulation, over time, becomes anxiety-arousing." Rick Raemisch, the new director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, voluntarily spent twenty hours in solitary confinement in one of his prisons and wrote an op-ed about his experience in The New York Times. "If we can’t eliminate solitary confinement, at least we can strive to greatly reduce its use," wrote Raemisch. "Knowing that 97 percent of inmates are ultimately returned to their communities, doing anything less would be both counterproductive and inhumane."

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