Rib Feast - Slashdot User

Water Ice On Mars 364

Posted by kdawson on Sunday June 22, 2008 @07:07PM from the not-wet dept.

cathector sends along a story from SpaceWeather.com on the discovery of water ice on Mars. "Scientists have figured out the mysterious white substance unearthed by NASA's Phoenix lander on Mars. It's frozen water. The breakthrough came last week when Phoenix's stereo camera caught the substance in the act of disappearing. Bathed in martian sunlight for four days, the white substance sublimated — i.e., it transformed from solid to gas without passing through the liquid state. This is how water behaves on Mars.... Some readers have asked, how do we know the white substance is not frozen CO2 (dry ice) instead of frozen water? Answer: Phoenix's landing site is too warm for dry ice. The average daily temperature is about -70 F while dry ice requires temperatures lower than about -109 F." The animated GIF showing the ice sublimating is pretty nice too.

SSL Encryption Coming To The Pirate Bay 267

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday June 22, 2008 @11:20AM from the privacy-arms-race dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Pirate Bay, in response to Sweden's new wiretapping law, will start offering SSL encryption to its user base this week. Although copyright issues really have little to do with national security, The Pirate Bay knows its population is uneasy with the recent legal change. The encryption will mostly benefit Swedish users living under the current law. Since The Pirate Bay and its servers are not hosted in Sweden, the additional security offered to outside users could be comparatively minimal."

Fingerprints Recoverable From Cleaned Metal 178

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday June 22, 2008 @09:19AM from the leaving-a-mark dept.

dstates points out a recent article from guardian.co.uk which discusses a new method by which to recover fingerprints from metal. The method relies on corrosion caused by sweat and other biological residues on the metal's surface. Quoting: "The patterns of corrosion remain even after the surface has been cleaned, heated to 600C or even painted over. This means that traces of fingerprints stay on the metal long after the residue from a person's finger has gone. The chemical basis of the change is not yet clear, but [Dr. John Bond] believes it is corrosion by chloride ions from the salt in sweat. These produce lines of corrosion along the ridges of the fingerprint residue. When the metal is heated, for example in a bomb blast or when a gun is fired, the chemical reaction actually speeds up and makes the corrosion more pronounced."

Submission + - Microsoft Defender under fire for failing spyware

Submitted by

thefickler

on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @03:52PM

thefickler writes: "Microsoft's Windows Defender was only able to block 47% of spyware threats in quick scan mode, in a recent test of spyware products by independent lab Enex TestLab on behalf of security and utility products vendor PC Tools. In full scan mode, Defender was only able to block 53% of threats."

Submission + - Solar panel tech claims to become cheaper than gas

Submitted by

UpnAtom

on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @03:28PM

UpnAtom writes: "The Daily Telegraph Business section reports on an Swiss invention that uses a copper indium semiconductor compound to produce electricity.
"The "tipping point" will arrive when the capital cost of solar power falls below $1 (51p) per watt, roughly the cost of carbon power. We are not there yet. The best options today vary from $3 to $4 per watt — down from $100 in the late 1970s.

Mr Sethi believes his product will cut the cost to 80 cents per watt within five years, and 50 cents in a decade."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/m oney/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml

Any chance this will save the world?"

Submission + - Vista not selling well because of...piracy?

Submitted by techmuse on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @03:16PM

techmuse writes: DailyTech reports that Steve Ballmer blames the slow sales of Windows Vista (down 60% compared to the launch of Windows XP) not on the 5 year delay in shipping, the failure to ship before the holiday season, the high system requirements, the poorly implemented user account control, the significantly harsher licensing restrictions, the price increase, the increased interest in Mac OS and Linux, or the much stricter antipiracy technologies already built into the OS. Rather, he blames the entire drop in sales on piracy, and promises to step up antipiracy efforts. What do you think?

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