copsi - Slashdot User

Submission + - Higgs Boson Discovery: The Full CERN Statement (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by asavin on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @05:06AM

asavin writes: The latest results from CERN experiments observed a particle consistent with long-sought Higgs Boson.

"We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of 5 sigma, in the mass region around 126 GeV. The outstanding performance of the LHC and ATLAS and the huge efforts of many people have brought us to this exciting stage," said ATLAS experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti, "but a little more time is needed to prepare these results for publication."

Submission + - New Particle Discovery Announced by CERN

Submitted by Roger W Moore on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @04:38AM

Roger W Moore writes: The ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN have just announced the discovery of a new particle which is consistent with a Standard Model Higgs boson. There is still a lot of work to do to confirm whether this really is the Higgs, and if so whether it is a Standard Model Higgs, but this is a major result.

Comment Re:I thought these were pretty much known already (Score 2) 414

by copsi on Sunday May 27, 2012 @04:27PM (#40130203) Attached to: 350-Year-Old Newton's Puzzle Solved By 16-Year-Old

Solving that differential equation analytically (as opposed to numerically) will yield an analytic solution to this problem. Also, accounting for the initial conditions is part of solving an equation. A differential equation itself does not give an answer (neither exact or approximate) - you have to solve it using some method (which can be exact, approximate or numerical).

The right hand side of the closed form solution might also include integration (eg if there are some integrals which cannot be represented using elementary functions), infinite series etc and it would still count as an analytic solution (although I suppose it depends on the exact definition of "analytic solution"), even though evaluating it for some particular point in time (in this particular case) can not be done exactly (you would have to numerically evaluate the integrals etc).

Granted, as has been pointed out, GP has not provided us with an analytic solution to that equation.

Submission + - Chemical reaction eating CO2, producing energy (acs.org)

Submitted by MistrX on Tuesday May 22, 2012 @05:11AM

MistrX writes: "While there are plenty of ways to make carbon-based products from CO2, these methods usually require a lot of energy because the CO2 molecules are so stable. If the energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels, then the net result will be more CO2 entering the atmosphere. Now a material scientist at Michigan Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that not only soaks up CO2, but also produces useful chemicals along with significant amounts of energy."

http://www.gizmag.com/co2-li3n-reaction/22620/

Submission + - SpaceX's Falcon9 Successfully Reaches Orbit (latimes.com)

Submitted by terrymaster69 on Tuesday May 22, 2012 @04:50AM

terrymaster69 writes: After an aborted launch attempt last week, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon9 rocket Tuesday at 3:44 am EST. SpaceX's founder Elon Musk tweeted: "Falcon flew perfectly!! Dragon in orbit, comm locked and solar arrays active!! Feels like a giant weight just came off my back :)" The Dragon capsule is scheduled to dock with the ISS on May 25th.

Submission + - Anonymous Hacks Bureau of Justice, Leaks 1.7GB Of Data

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 21, 2012 @07:50PM

An anonymous reader writes: The hacktivist group Anonymous claims to have leaked 1.7GB of data belonging to the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The file, which has been uploaded as a torrent and posted on The Pirate Bay, reportedly contains internal e-mails as well as the website’s “entire database dump.”

Submission + - EU offers Google Chance to Settle Prior to Anti-Trust Enquiry (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by

Fluffeh

on Monday May 21, 2012 @07:33PM

Fluffeh writes: "The EU has accused Google of abusing its dominant position in advertising to benefit its own advertising services at the expense of competitors. In a twist however, rather than initiating formal proceedings, the EU has given Google a chance to settle the whole matter without much fuss. They outlined four changes that Google can make that will put it firmly back in the good graces of the EU. Google has been given "a matter of weeks" to propose remedies to the four issues — which all tie in with how search results are displayed, their format and their portability to other platforms. This matter has come before the EU based on complaints by a few small companies and Microsoft."

Submission + - SpaceX launch To ISS Aborted (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by megla on Saturday May 19, 2012 @05:13AM

megla writes: News is only just starting to come in, but according to the BBC SpaceX's milestone launch to the ISS was aborted at the last second due to a pressure abnormality in one of Falcon's nine engines.

The next launch opportunity is Tuesday.

Submission + - Scientists Unravel the Mystery of the 'Dark Day' 1

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Saturday May 19, 2012 @01:43AM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "BBC reports that 232 years ago a strange event occurred that remains shrouded in mystery to this day. On May 19, 1780 the sky turned yellow in New England and Canada, animals ran for cover and darkness descended, causing people to light candles and start to pray. By lunchtime night had fallen. With little scientific knowledge amongst the populace, people were afraid and some lawmakers in Connecticut believed it was the day of judgment. "There are some verses in Matthew that might have led them to believe that this is the second coming of Christ," says historian Mike Dash. "At the time, natural events — even birds fighting in the sky — were a sign of God's intentions. The Dark Day would have seemed like a warning to Man." A solar eclipse can be ruled out as there is a record of when these occur — and they only last for a matter of minutes, there is no record of volcanic activity in 1780 making a huge ash cloud an unlikely explanation, and a meteorite is equally unlikely. Now scientists may have found the answer in the trees. Academics at the University of Missouri's Department of Forestry analyzed tree trunks inland from New England, where westerly prevailing winds would originate and found signs of fire-scarred rings in tree trunks dating back to that period in the area that is today occupied by Algonquin Provincial Park. Eyewitness accounts in New England support the forest fire hypothesis as soot was spotted in rivers, and one letter noted that the air had the "smell of a malt-house or a coal-kiln". Whatever the cause in 1780, geography must have exacerbated the fear, says Dash with European settlers living on the edge of a vast unknown continent. "When it goes dark for them, there's no guarantee it is ever going to get light again," says Dash. "In those days it would be quite natural to think it was the Second Coming.""

Submission + - Jaguar and Land Rover to be built in China (autoblog.com)

Submitted by

ourlovecanlastforeve

on Friday May 18, 2012 @03:56PM

ourlovecanlastforeve writes: "Those of you still hanging on to Jaguar and Land Rover as the last vestiges of the truly British automobile in the States may find yourselves grasping at straws as Chery announces a nearly two billion dollar joint effort with the auto brand to move production to Changsu in China."

Submission + - Indian pharmaceutical Cipla slashes cancer drug prices by 76% (yahoo.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun on Sunday May 06, 2012 @04:41AM

suraj.sun writes: Indian generic drug company Cipla said Friday it had slashed by up to 76 percent prices of three anti-cancer medicines in what it called a "humanitarian" move and promised to cut the costs of more products. There are 2.5 million cases of cancer diagnosed in India each year, according to the World Health Organisation, with most patients receiving inadequate treatment as drugs are priced beyond their reach. "Business is business, but it has to be linked with one's social responsibilities. This initiative of price reduction is a humanitarian approach by Cipla to support cancer patients," company chairman Y.K. Hamied said. The family-led company first hit headlines in 2001 when it offered to supply life-saving triple therapy AIDS drug cocktails at prices sharply below those of multinational firms with Hamied saying the move was for "social reasons". Cipla has been pushing the Indian government to allow widespread use of so-called "compulsory licences" for production of life-saving patented drugs to overcome barriers for people in accessing affordable medicines. Compulsory licences are allowed under the World Trade Organization's TRIPS Agreement, which governs trade and intellectual property rules. Analysts said Cipla's move could prompt a price war in the 15-billion-rupee Indian drug market — challenging multinationals which sell costly patented medicine and Indian firms whose generic range is less expensive but not as cheap as Cipla's.

Submission + - Android now on over half of US smartphones (examiner.com)

Submitted by somebodee on Sunday May 06, 2012 @01:06AM

somebodee writes: ComScore released new data today, suggesting that Android has finally taken over half of the US smartphone market. This comes from a 3.7% market share increase from the previous quarter, ending in December, 2011. Similarly, iOS's market share grew by 1.1% to 30.7%. RIM and Microsoft's market share both dropped, with RIM having the sharpest decline. RIM's market share fell by 3.7%, placing it at 12.3% of the total US market. Microsoft's smartphone market share fell by .8% to 3.9% total, and Nokia's market share for Symbian remained steady at 1.4% of the total market.

Submission + - Study Aims to Read Dogs' Thoughts (techzwn.com)

Submitted by jjp9999 on Sunday May 06, 2012 @12:29AM

jjp9999 writes: A new study at Emory University is trying to figure out what dogs think. The study uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to scan the dogs’ brains while they’re shown different stimuli. Results from the first study will be published by the Public Library of Science, where the dogs were shown hand signals from their owners. ‘We hope this opens up a whole new door for understanding canine cognition and inter-species communication. We want to understand the dog-human relationship, from the dog's perspective,’ said Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy and lead researcher of the dog project.

Submission + - The GPL and Copyrightability APIs (publicknowledge.org)

Submitted by dgharmon on Saturday May 05, 2012 @02:48PM

dgharmon writes: "There's a dangerous meme going around that if Oracle loses its novel copyright claims against Google that suddenly the GPL will become unenforceable. This idea hinges on a misunderstanding about the difference between linking to a code library and merely using an API".

Submission + - When did it become OK to just take content? (pcpro.co.uk) 2

Submitted by

Barence

on Tuesday February 28, 2012 @06:44AM

Barence writes: "PC Pro has a blog post asking when it became OK to take other people's content without permission, based on content "curators" such as Pinterest and Zite.

Nothing that Pinterest's response to allegations of copyright infringement was to offer webmasters a snippet of code allowing them to prevent Pinterest from taking their content, PC Pro's editor remarks: "It’s like a burglar claiming that it was perfectly legitimate to run off with your television set, because there wasn’t a sign on your front door saying you didn’t want him – specifically – to ransack your house."

Meanwhile, he claims iPad/iPhone app Zite, which scrapes photos and words off websites and presents them within its own app, "rips up the unwritten contract that exists between website owners and their visitors: that we provide you with free, high quality content in exchange for viewing (and potentially clicking on) advertisements on our site.""

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