Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Court releases DOJ memo justifying drone strike on US citizen

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Monday released a secret 2010 Justice Department memo justifying the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S citizen killed in a drone strike in 2011. The court released the document as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union to make the document public. Then-acting Assistant Attorney General David Barron, in the partially redacted 41-page memo, outlines the justification of the drone strike in Yemen to take out al-Awlaki, an alleged operational leader of al Qaeda.

Submission + - A 2,250-Foot Tall Tower in New Mexico Will Produce Both Wind and Solar Energy

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: Wind and solar energy only provide us with power as nature allows, but solar-wind hybrid towers could soon overcome this limitation. The company Solar Wind Energy has received the necessary startup capital for the construction of a 2,250-foot-high tower in New Mexico, which would be the tallest freestanding structure in the US.
The concept is simple. A mist of water droplets is sprayed over the opening of the tower. The fog evaporates and absorbs the heat of the surrounding air. The cooled air then falls to the bottom, because it is denser than warm air, and that wind gets up to 50 miles an hour. At the base of the tower the horizontal downdraft is diverted through the wind turbines, which then generate electricity.

Submission + - US releases memo justifying drone strike on American citizen (theverge.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Under orders from a US appeals court, the Obama administration has released a memo justifying the killing of American citizens with a targeted "drone strike." The memo presents a case for killing Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda propagandist who was killed in Yemen in 2011. The strike on al-Awlaki has been widely debated since then, especially after a separate attack inadvertently killed al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son Abdulrahman. Now, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request made by the ACLU and others, it's possible to read both the court's reasoning and the 30-page legal debate on whether he and others could be killed without due process under the CIA's drone program.

Submission + - NOAA: Earth smashed a record for heat in May, 2014, effects to worsen 2

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: Driven by exceptionally warm ocean waters, Earth smashed a record for heat in May and is likely to keep on breaking high temperature marks, experts say. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Monday said May's average temperature on Earth of 15.54 C beat the old record set four years ago. In April, the globe tied the 2010 record for that month. Records go back to 1880. Experts say there's a good chance global heat records will keep falling, especially next year because an El Nino weather event is brewing on top of man-made global warming. An El Nino is a warming of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean that alters climate worldwide and usually spikes global temperatures.

Submission + - Teacher Goes Back To Classroom After Being Removed For Science Fair Project

Submitted by As_I_Please
As_I_Please writes: In a followup to a previous story, Greg Schiller, a high school biology and psychology teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, returned to his classroom this past Monday after two months of suspension. The suspension came after complaints that two of his students built allegedly dangerous science fair projects: a pneumatic marshmallow launcher and a coil gun capable of launching a metal projectile several feet.

In addition to students being deprived of a qualified teacher for two months with just a week before AP exams, the school's fencing team was without a coach and could not compete in competitions, and the teacher's union was without their representative during contract negotiations.

The school district has not announced whether it will pursue any other disciplinary action.

Submission + - The UK "Porn" Filter Blocks Kids' Access To Tech, Civil Liberties Websites (blogspot.ca)

Submitted by badger.foo
badger.foo writes: It fell to the UK Tories to actually implement the Nanny State. Too bad Nanny Tory does not want kinds to read up on tech web sites such as slashdot.org, or civil liberties ones such as the EFF or Amnesty International. Read on for a small sample of what the filter blocks, from a blocked-by-default tech writer.

Comment Just imagine this... (Score 2) 85

by Chronus1326 (#45202341) Attached to: Cow Burps Tapped For Fuel
(to be funny) Imaging this implemented on an industrial scale...Warehouses filled with pens of cows hooked up to all sorts of tubes, and strange looking devices, possibly a treadmill, lol. This is interesting in theory, but in practice...I don't see it working.lol

Submission + - First Evidence Of Comet Striking Earth Found (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by starr802
starr802 writes: A 28-million-year-old comet that collided with Earth over Egypt, killing all signs of life in its path has been identified by a team of scientists. The discovery is the first evidence of a comet striking Earth.

New research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, reveals how the comet entered Earth’s atmosphere over Egypt, exploding and heating up the sand to a sweltering 3,632 degrees Fahrenheit. What remained became a 2,316 square mile area of yellow silica glass in the Sahara Desert known as Libyan Desert Glass – a remnant of which was found in Tutankhamun’s brooch.

Submission + - AMD Launches Radeon R7 260X, Radeon R9 270X, and Radeon R9 280X (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: AMD officially launched their Radeon R7 and R9 series graphics cards today, with three new midrange to high end boards. The Radeon R9 280X is built around AMD’s Tahiti GPU, which also powers the Radeon HD 7970. The R9 270X features the same GPU core as the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition and the Radeon R7 260X is powered by AMD’s Bonaire GPU, which first arrived on the Radeon HD 7790. These new cards, however, have been tweaked and enhanced in a number of ways. The Radeon R7 260X sports higher engine and memory clocks than the HD 7790 and 260X’s default memory configuration is 2GB as well. The R9 270X’s clocks have been goosed up as well with a GPU clock that peaks at 1.05GHz and its memory clock has been increased to an effective 5.6Gbps. The Radeon R9 270X offers slightly higher compute performance but much more memory bandwidth--179.2GB/s vs. 153.6GB/s to be exact. Finally, the Radeon R9 280X isn’t clocked higher than AMD’s current flagship Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. In fact, the R9 280X has a slightly lower peak engine clock, though memory bandwidth is similar. All told, AMD's new Radeons offer competitive performance to NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost, GeForce GTX 760 and GeForce GTX 770 cards but at significantly better price points.

Submission + - Pluto's 'Thick' Air Isn't Going Anywhere (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: When the proposition for NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto was put forward, there was an air of urgency. The dwarf planet is moving away from the Sun in its eccentric orbit, so astronomers were concerned that the Pluonian atmosphere would freeze out and collapse onto the surface as fresh nitrogen-methane snow before they could get a spacecraft out there to observe it. But according to new research [arXiv], it appears there's little risk of a Pluto air freeze-out. From recent occultation measurements, it appears the atmosphere is becoming denser and more buoyant, meaning it will remain as an atmosphere all (Pluto) year 'round — 248 Earth years long.

Slashdot Top Deals

Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags. -- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise"

Close