FirstOne - Slashdot User

Submission + - Material Made From Crustaceans Could Combat Military Mortalities (acs.org)

Submitted by MTorrice on Friday March 27, 2015 @12:55PM

MTorrice writes: A foam composed of a polymer derived from crustacean shells may prevent more soldiers from falling victim to the most prolific killer on the battlefield: blood loss.

Pressure is one of the best tools that medics have to fight bleeding, but they can’t use it on severe wounds near organs. Here, compression could do more harm than good. First responders have no way to effectively dam blood flows from these noncompressible injuries, which account for the majority of hemorrhagic deaths. The new foam could help stop bleeding in these types of injuries.

It relies on chitosan, a biopolymer that comes from processed crustacean shells. By modifying the chitosan, the developers gave the material the ability to anchor blood cells into gel-like networks, essentially forming blood clots. The researchers dispersed the modified chitosan in water to create a fluid they could spray directly onto noncompressible wounds.

Submission + - Who Most Accurately Predicted the Explosion of Clean Energy Markets? Greenpeace.

Submitted by merbs on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @05:14PM

merbs writes: The US Department of Energy says we're in the midst of an “energy revolution,” and a report from Meier Consulting shows that just about no one saw it coming. The world’s biggest energy agencies, financial institutions, and fossil fuel companies, seriously underestimated just how fast the clean power sector could and would grow.

Meier identifies one group that got the market scenario closest to right, however, and it wasn’t the International Energy Agency or Goldman Sachs or the DOE. It was Greenpeace.

Submission + - US Government Doesn't Want You to Know How to Make a Hydrogen Bomb 3

Submitted by HughPickens.com on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @03:22PM

HughPickens.com writes: The atom bomb — leveler of Hiroshima and instant killer of some 80,000 people — is just a pale cousin compared to the hydrogen bomb, another product of American ingenuity, that easily packs the punch of a thousand Hiroshimas. That is why Washington has for decades done everything in its power to keep the details of its design out of the public domain. Now William J. Broad reports in the NYT that Kenneth W. Ford has defied a federal order to cut material from his new book that the government says teems with thermonuclear secrets. Ford says he included the disputed material because it had already been disclosed elsewhere and helped him paint a fuller picture of an important chapter of American history. But after he volunteered the manuscript for a security review, federal officials told him to remove about 10 percent of the text, or roughly 5,000 words. “They wanted to eviscerate the book,” says Ford. “My first thought was, ‘This is so ridiculous I won’t even respond.’ ” For instance, the federal agency wanted him to strike a reference to the size of the first hydrogen test device — its base was seven feet wide and 20 feet high. Dr. Ford responded that public photographs of the device, with men, jeeps and a forklift nearby, gave a scale of comparison that clearly revealed its overall dimensions.

Though difficult to make, hydrogen bombs are attractive to nations and militaries because their fuel is relatively cheap. Inside a thick metal casing, the weapon relies on a small atom bomb that works like a match to ignite the hydrogen fuel. Today, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are the only declared members of the thermonuclear club, each possessing hundreds or thousands of hydrogen bombs. Military experts suspect that Israel has dozens of hydrogen bombs. India, Pakistan and North Korea are seen as interested in acquiring the potent weapon. The big secret the book discusses is thermal equilibrium, the discovery that the temperature of the hydrogen fuel and the radiation could match each other during the explosion (PDF). World Scientific, a publisher in Singapore, recently made Dr. Ford’s book public in electronic form, with print versions to follow. Ford remains convinced the book “contains nothing whatsoever whose dissemination could, by any stretch of the imagination, damage the United States or help a country that is trying to build a hydrogen bomb.” “Were I to follow all — or even most — of your suggestions,” says Ford, “it would destroy the book.”

Submission + - "I beat a patent troll and you can too"

Submitted by heretic108 on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @01:49PM

heretic108 writes: Chris Hulls, the CEO of tech startup Life360, received $50m in new funding, only to be almost immediately set upon by a patent troll, Advanced Ground Information Systems.
But unlike other startups who simply pay the ransom (cheaper than a trial, most folks figure), this guy went medieval, attacking not only AGIS's claims, but also their entire patent portfolio. Result? Not only were the troll's patents defeated by a jury, but with the heavy publicity, Life360 sent a clear warning to patent trolls that bullies will not be tolerated, going so far as to offer free legal support to other startups who have fallen victim to this troll.

Submission + - FEMA targets climate change skeptic governors, could withhold funding (washingtontimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1 on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @09:57AM

schwit1 writes: The Obama administration has issued new guidelines that could make it harder for governors who deny climate change to obtain federal disaster-preparedness funds.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s new rules could put some Republican governors in a bind. The rules say that states’ risk assessments must include “consideration of changing environmental or climate conditions that may affect and influence the long-term vulnerability from hazards in the state.”

The policy, which goes into effect in March 2016, doesn’t affect federal money for relief after a hurricane, flood, or other natural disaster. But states seeking disaster preparedness money from Washington will be required to assess how climate change threatens their communities, a requirement that wasn’t included in FEMA’s 2008 guidelines.

Submission + - New Alzheimer's treatment fully restores memory function for mice (sciencealert.com) 1

Submitted by wrp103 on Saturday March 21, 2015 @09:36AM

wrp103 writes: Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques — structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients.

Submission + - LightEater malware attack places millions of unpatched BIOSes at risk (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson on Saturday March 21, 2015 @06:17AM

Mark Wilson writes: Two minutes is all it takes to completely destroy a computer. In a presentation entitled "How many million BIOSes would you like to infect?" at security conference CanSecWest, security researchers Corey Kallenberg and Xeno Kovah revealed that even an unskilled person could use an implant called LightEater to infect a vulnerable system in mere moments.

The attack could be used to render a computer unusable, but it could also be used to steal passwords and intercept encrypted data. The problem affects motherboards from companies including Gigabyte, Acer, MSI, HP and Asus. It is exacerbated by manufactures reusing code across multiple UEFI BIOSes and places home users, businesses and governments at risk.

Submission + - The stolen credit for what makes up the Sun

Submitted by StartsWithABang on Thursday March 19, 2015 @04:11PM

StartsWithABang writes: Sure, it's easy today to look at the Sun and know it's a ball of (mostly) hydrogen, generating energy by combining those protons in a chain into helium through the process of nuclear fusion. But before we even knew that nuclear fusion was possible, we needed to figure out what the Sun was made out of, a more difficult task than you'd imagine. The credit was given to Henry Norris Russell (of Hertzsprung-Russell diagram fame), but he completely stole the work from a woman you never heard of, his student, Cecilia Payne, after discouraging her from publishing her work on the subject four years prior.

Submission + - No fuel in the Fukushima1 reactor #1 (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19, 2015 @01:22PM

An anonymous reader writes: To nobody's surprise, the Japanese press reports that a new way to look at the inside of one of the Fukushima 1 damaged reactors has shown the fuel is not in place.

Engineers have not been able to develop a machine to directly see the exact location of the molten fuel, hampered by extremely high levels of radiation in and around the reactors, but a new scan technique using muons (details on the method in the media are missing) have shown the fuel is not in its place.

While Tepco's speculation is that the fuel may be at the bottom of the reactor, it is a safe bet that at least some of it has burned through and has gone on to create an Uruguay syndrom.

Submission + - AdBlock Plus Responds To Play Store Ban (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by schwit1 on Thursday March 19, 2015 @08:51AM

schwit1 writes: Yesterday Google began removing ad-blocking apps from its Play Store on the grounds that they violate part of its Developer Distribution Agreement. Now one of the removed apps, AdBlock Plus, has hit back publicly at what it dubs a "unilateral move by Google", putting out a statement slamming Mountain View for threatening consumer choice.

"By unilaterally removing these apps, Google is stepping all over the checks and balances that make the Internet democratic. People should be really alarmed by this move," said Till Faida, co-founder of Adblock Plus in the statement.

"I realize that advertising revenue is important to Google, but understand that AdBlock Plus does not automatically block all ads; we simply allow users the choice whether to block ads or whitelist them.

Submission + - Uber shut down in multiple countries following raids (bbc.com)

Submitted by wired_parrot on Wednesday March 18, 2015 @09:47PM

wired_parrot writes: Worldwide raids were carried out against Uber offices in Germany, France and South Korea. In Germany, the raids followed a court ruling banning Uber from operating without a license. In Paris, raids followed an investigation into deceptive practices. And in South Korea, 30 people, including Uber's CEO, were charged with running an illegal taxi service.

Submission + - Apple dismisses screen faults as cosmetic damage

Submitted by Andy Smith on Wednesday March 18, 2015 @02:17PM

Andy Smith writes: MacBook owners who have experienced large "stains" on their laptop screens are trying to force a change of repair policy from Apple, who have dismissed the damage as cosmetic and want to charge $800 for repairs. So far 480 people have registered with the Staingate web site.

Submission + - Japan utilities set to scrap five aging nuclear reactors (reuters.com)

Submitted by mdsolar on Tuesday March 17, 2015 @07:07AM

mdsolar writes: Three aging nuclear reactors in Japan will be decommissioned due to the high cost of upgrading them in line with tougher safety standards set after the Fukushima disaster, their operators said on Tuesday.

Another two reactors were also likely to be scrapped, local media reports said, with announcements expected later in the week.

The moves are the first concrete sign that Japan's nuclear industry is heeding a government request to shut down older reactors that are considered more vulnerable to natural disasters in the hope that it will ease public concerns about a restart of other reactors.

All 48 of Japan's nuclear reactors were taken offline after an earthquake and tsunami set off meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011.

As many as two-thirds of the country's reactors may never return to operation because of high costs, local opposition or seismic risks, a Reuters analysis showed last year.

Submission + - People Who Use Firefox or Chrome Make Better Employees

Submitted by HughPickens.com on Monday March 16, 2015 @08:57PM

HughPickens.com writes: In the world of Big Data, everything means something. Now Joe Pinsker reports that Cornerstone OnDemand, a company that sells software that helps employers recruit and retain workers, has found after analyzing data on about 50,000 people who took its 45-minute online job assessment, that people who took the test on a non-default browser, such as Firefox or Chrome, ended up staying at their jobs about 15 percent longer than those who stuck with Safari or Internet Explorer and performed better on the job as well. Chief Analytics Officer Michael Housman offered an explanation for the results in an interview with Freakonomics Radio. “I think that the fact that you took the time to install Firefox on your computer shows us something about you. It shows that you’re someone who is an informed consumer,” says Housman. “You’ve made an active choice to do something that wasn’t default.” But why would a company care about something as seemingly trivial as the browser a candidate chooses to use? "Call centers are estimated to suffer from a turnover rate of about 45 percent annually (PDF), and it can cost thousands of dollars to hire new employees," says Pinsker. "Because of that, companies are eager to find any proxy for talent and dedication that they can."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Good Keyboard? (newegg.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16, 2015 @07:53PM

An anonymous reader writes: After five years of service, my keyboard is dying, and I'm starting to look for a new one. Since it's for my primary machine, and I spend a lot of hours there for both work and leisure, I'd like to invest in a high-quality replacement. What do you recommend? I've been using a Logitech G15, and it worked well enough — but not enough for me to buy another. (I've also heard that Logitech's build quality has been on the decline in recent years — has that been your experience, those of you who own their recent hardware?) Use cases include coding and gaming, so durability is a big plus.

I'd prefer something a bit less bulky than the G15, which has an area at the top for media controls and a tiny screen. I don't mind a thicker bottom bezel so much. I'm not a huge fan of ergonomic/split keyboard, but if you know a really excellent one, I wouldn't rule it out. Same with mechanical keyboards — love the action, but the noise is an issue. I don't need any particular bells and whistles, but don't mind them. As for a budget... as I said, it's for a heavy-use machine, so I don't mind investing in something. (That said, if I'm spending $150+, it better automatically make sure all my semicolons are in the right place.) So, what keyboard has served you well?

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