Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Integrated Circuit Amplifier Breaches Terahertz barrier

Submitted by jenningsthecat
jenningsthecat writes: DARPA's Terahertz Electronics program has created "the fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit ever measured". The TMIC, (Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit), boasts a gain of 9dB — previously unheard of for a monolithic device in this frequency range. Plus, the status of "fastest" has been certified by Guinness — seriously! ('Cause you might not trust DARPA, but you gotta trust Guinness — right?).

In related news, DARPA has also created a micro-machined vacuum power amplifer operating at 850 GHz, or 0.85 THz.

Submission + - Most planets in the Universe are homeless

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: We like to think of our Solar System as typical: a central star with a number of planets — some gas giants and some rocky worlds — in orbit around it. Yes, there's some variety, with binary or trinary star systems and huge variance in the masses of the central star being common ones, but from a planetary point of view, our Solar System is a rarity. Even though there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy for planets to orbit, there are most likely around a quadrillion planets in our galaxy, total, with only a few trillion of them orbiting stars at most. Now that we've finally detected the first of these, we have an excellent idea that this picture is the correct one: most planets in the Universe are homeless. Now, thank your lucky star!

Comment Money, money, money... (Score 2) 124

by X-Ray Artist (#48216229) Attached to: Leaked Documents Reveal Behind-the-Scenes Ebola Vaccine Issues

It seems that this all about the financial bottom line. I understand things cost money, but it would nice if there was, for once, more concern about human lives.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I think this particular outbreak is being publicized to create FUD.
There have been outbreaks in the past that weren't nearly so well publicized. I think a few companies are close to having a cure/preventative and are using this FUD to get around a few regulations (we have a cure, but the rotten regulators won't let us use it and you could die because of the red-tape). I am not a fan of red tape, but to try to circumvent it for purely pecuniary reasons is not good, either.

Comment Re:non profits are run like for profits. (Score 1) 104

by X-Ray Artist (#48200321) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Event Sign-Up Software Options For a Non-Profit?

I think most of your small ones are legitimate. "Tax system gamer" is hardly applicable, as the taxing agencies know how to get around the "tax-exempt" status. Even non-profits must generate some profit just to maintain. Most of them have no "paid" executives. Just a handful of people trying to carry out the mission of helping others. So, please, do help the small ones, if you are so inclined. They need all the help they can get.

Some of the Big Ones, I agree, are a little shady.

Submission + - Court Rules Parents May Be Liable for What Their Kids Post on Facebook (wsj.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Parents can be held liable for what their kids post on Facebook, a Georgia appellate court ruled in a decision that lawyers said marked a legal precedent on the issue of parental responsibility over their children’s online activity.

The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled that the parents of a seventh-grade student may be negligent for failing to get their son to delete a fake Facebook profile that allegedly defamed a female classmate.

Submission + - Rosetta Stalks Dark Comet in Stunning New Space Selfie (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: At a distance of only 10 miles from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s surface, the European Rosetta mission has captured yet another dazzling self portrait with the dark comet lurking in the background. But the orbiter couldn’t have snapped this “selfie” without the help of a little friend — the attached Philae lander that is currently undergoing preparations for its historic comet surface landing in November.

Submission + - New material steals oxygen from the air (phys.org)

Submitted by The Grim Reefer
The Grim Reefer writes: Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have synthesized crystalline materials that can bind and store oxygen in high concentrations. Just one spoon of the substance is enough to absorb all the oxygen in a room. The stored oxygen can be released again when and where it is needed.

We do fine with the 21 per cent oxygen in the air around us. But sometimes we need oxygen in higher concentrations; for example lung patients must carry heavy oxygen tanks, cars using fuel cells need a regulated oxygen supply. Perhaps one day in the future even sunlight-driven "reversible" fuel cells will be made. With these we will have to separate oxygen from hydrogen in order to recombine them in order to get energy.

Now Professor Christine McKenzie and postdoc Jonas Sundberg, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Southern Denmark have synthesized a material that absorb oxygen in large quantities and store it.

"In the lab, we saw how this material took up oxygen from the air around us", says Christine McKenzie.

The new material is crystalline, and using x-ray diffraction the researchers have studied the arrangement of atoms inside the material when it was filled with oxygen, and when it was emptied of oxygen.

Submission + - Indonesian cave art may be world's oldest (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The world's oldest cave art may not lie in Europe but rather halfway around the globe in Indonesia, according to a new study. The images date to around 40,000 years ago, making them a similar age to cave paintings from Western Europe that represent the world’s oldest known cave art. The findings suggest that humans were producing figurative art by around 40,000 years ago at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world. Further research is needed to investigate whether rock art was an integral part of the cultural repertoire of the first modern human populations to reach Southeast Asia from Africa, or whether these practices developed independently in different regions.

Comment Re:HL7? (Score 1) 240

by X-Ray Artist (#48039491) Attached to: Back To Faxes: Doctors Can't Exchange Digital Medical Records

Yes, the consulting hours are a very lucrative incentive to have a "non-standard" standard. Our laboratory had a LIS installed. The EHR company charged alot of money to build an interface so the Lab Information could be sent to the EHR. So when our Radiology department installed a RIS, the EHR company charged alot of money to build a similar interface. As we went along in this process, it became apparent the the EHR company just "copied and pasted" the Radiology interface from the Lab interface. There was some "fine tuning" done so the Radiology system would quit getting Lab orders and vice versa. The Radiology results in the EHR look very similar to Lab results, which is not good, as Radiology reports are text notes, and the Lab results are numbers with reference ranges.

The HL7 "standard" has been perverted to make some companies very rich.

DICOM is the same way

Slashdot Top Deals

"Engineering without management is art." -- Jeff Johnson

Close