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Comment Re:Wrong conclusion (Score 2) 135

by hackertourist (#49149561) Attached to: Adjusting To a Martian Day More Difficult Than Expected

Damn you for making me read the entire FA ;-/

They did do a study that contradicts earlier experiments:

A person's natural circadian rhythm averages about 24 hours and six minutes for women, and 24 hours and 12 minutes for men. It varies for each individual, but doesn't stray very far from 24 hours. At about the time Pathfinder landed, Czeisler and his team began conducting studies at the hospital's special laboratory that shielded study subjects from all outside influences. With their test subjects in isolation, they simulated the Martian sol to see how the test subjects adjusted to the longer day. "What we learned was none of the people adapted their circadian rhythms to the Martian day," Czeisler said.

So either earlier studies were off, or Czeisler's experiment was wrong (having e.g. the HVAC on a 24-h cycle, or background noise etc.).

Comment Wrong conclusion (Score 5, Insightful) 135

by hackertourist (#49148837) Attached to: Adjusting To a Martian Day More Difficult Than Expected

Living on Mars time is difficult when you're living on Earth and are subject to Earth's day/night cycle.

Sensory deprivation experiments where people live without clocks and daylight for more than a few days show that people tend to lengthen their "day" to much more than a Mars sol (up to 36 hours IIRC), indicating that adjusting to Mars time is feasible when you're actually on Mars.
Medicine

Surgeon: First Human Head Transplant May Be Just Two Years Away 210

Posted by samzenpus from the brand-new-chassis dept.
HughPickens.com (3830033) writes "Michelle Star writes at C/net that Surgeon Sergio Canavero, director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group in Italy, believes he has developed a technique to remove the head from a non-functioning body and transplant it onto the healthy body. According to Canavero's paper published in Surgical Neurology International, first, both the transplant head and the donor body need to be cooled in order to slow cell death. Then, the neck of both would be cut and the major blood vessels linked with tubes. Finally, the spinal cords would be severed, with as clean a cut as possible. Joining the spinal cords, with the tightly packed nerves inside, is key. The plan involves flushing the area with polyethylene glycol, followed by several hours of injections of the same, a chemical that encourages the fat in cell membranes to mesh. The blood vessels, muscles and skin would then be sutured and the patient would be induced into a coma for several weeks to keep them from moving around; meanwhile, electrodes would stimulate the spine with electricity in an attempt to strengthen the new nerve connections.

Head transplants has been tried before. In 1970, Robert White led a team at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, US, that tried to transplant the head of one monkey on to the body of another. The surgeons stopped short of a full spinal cord transfer, so the monkey could not move its body. Despite Canavero's enthusiasm, many surgeons and neuroscientists believe massive technical hurdles push full body transplants into the distant future. The starkest problem is that no one knows how to reconnect spinal nerves and make them work again. "This is such an overwhelming project, the possibility of it happening is very unlikely," says Harry Goldsmith."
Crime

Uber Offers Free Rides To Koreans, Hopes They Won't Report Illegal Drivers 193

Posted by samzenpus from the what-happens-in-seoul-stays-in-seoul dept.
itwbennett writes Uber Technologies is offering free rides on its uberX ride-sharing service in the South Korean capital of Seoul, after city authorities intensified their crackdown on illegal drivers by offering a reward to residents who report Uber drivers to police. South Korean law prohibits unregistered drivers from soliciting passengers using private or rented vehicles and carries a penalty of up to two years in prison or fines of up to 20 million won.

Comment Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans (Score 2) 215

by hackertourist (#49037247) Attached to: Russia Seeking To Ban Tor, VPNs and Other Anonymizing Tools

That didn't work the last time. Remember the '80s? Oh, how we laughed at the KGB, Stasi et al. and their invasive ways. Listening to everybody, having half the population on the payroll and informing on the other half, reading all mail etc.
How superior we felt, with our freedoms.

Now look where we are.
Education

Washington May Count CS As Foreign Language For College Admission 259

Posted by timothy from the alle-menschen-sind-auslaender dept.
theodp writes On Wednesday, Washington State held a public hearing on House Bill 1445, which proposes a study "to allow two years of computer sciences to count as two years of world languages for the purposes of admission into a four-year institution of higher education." Among the questions posed by the House Higher Education Committee to a UW rep at the hearing was the following: "What's the case for...not just world language is good, world language is well-rounded, but world language is so super-duper-duper good that you should spend two years of your life doing them and specifically better than something else like coding?" The promise of programming jobs, promoted by Microsoft execs and other MS folks like ex-Program Manager Audrey Sniezek (ironically laid off last summer), has prompted Kentucky to ponder a similar measure.

Comment Re:Wow so negative here (Score 1) 214

by hackertourist (#48937987) Attached to: Latest Windows 10 Preview Build Brings Slew of Enhancements

If you don't know their name then are you just reading them all and hoping on jogs your memory?

Yes. Categories help, and once I see the name, recognition is usually instant.

How exactly do you go about this on other platforms currently?

In OS X, the Applications folder is one click away. Not ideal, I'd rather have a menu with all of my applications (and I used to have that in OS 9).

You're forgetting that there's not just one Start Menu folder in Windows, there are two: one user-specific and one for all users. So two locations to scan. Are you seriously suggesting this is a good replacement for the Start menu?

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