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Submission + - Thousands of leaked KGB files are now open to the public (cam.ac.uk)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Over 20 years after being smuggled out of Russia, a trove of KGB documents are being opened up to the public for the first time. The leaked documents include thousands of files and represent what the FBI is said to view as "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source." The documents include KGB information on secret Russian weapons caches, Russian spies, and KGB information on the activities of Pope John Paul II. Known as the Mitrokhin Archive, the files are all available as of today at Churchill College's Archives Centre.

Submission + - Radical Dual Tilting Blade Helicopter Design Targets Speeds of Over 270mph (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: As one of the contenders in the race to win a $100 billion contract from the US government for the next generation of attack helicopter in the Army’s Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD) program, AVX Aircraft Company has conceived a futuristic machine kitted out with coaxial rotors, ducted fans and a retractable undercarriage that could hit speeds of over 270 mph (435 km/h).

Submission + - Massive robbery in Samsung in Brazil (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In an operation that resembled the 1978 Lufthansa heist made famous in Martin Scorsese's film Goodfellas, one of Samsung's key manufacturing plants has suffered a massive raid by criminals on Monday that has resulted in reported losses of about R$80 million ($36m).

Submission + - Michael J. Fox Donates $2M USD to a Finnish Medicine Company

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Biotie Therapies from Turku, Finland has signed a USD 2 million research contract with The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) to investigate SYN120 in Parkinson's disease patients with dementia. SYN120 is a dual antagonist of 5-HT6 and 5-HT2a receptors and these two distinct modes of action could result in a unique therapeutic profile for SYN120 combining pro-cognitive and antipsychotic activities. MJFF will fund an 80 patient, Phase 2a, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 16 weeks duration in patients with Parkinson's disease dementia. In addition to assessing safety and tolerability, the main focus of the trial will be to establish efficacy of SYN120 on cognition using the Cognitive Drug Research (CDR) Computerized Cognition Battery as the primary efficacy endpoint. This trial, which is expected to begin in H2 2014, will be conducted by the Parkinson Study Group (PSG) at approximately 10 US sites specializing in cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease.

Submission + - How An Intelligent Thimble Could Replace the Mouse In 3D Virtual Reality Worlds (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by anguyen8
anguyen8 writes: The way in which humans interact with computers has been dominated by the mouse since it was invented in the 1960s by Doug Engelbert. A mouse uses a flat two-dimensional surface as a proxy for a computer screen. Any movements of the mouse over the surface are then translated into movements on the screen. These days, a mouse also has a number of buttons, and often scroll wheel, that allow interaction with on-screen objects.

The mouse is a hugely useful device but it is also a two-dimensional one. But what of the three-dimensional world and the long-standing, but growing, promise of virtual reality. What kind of device will take the place of the mouse when we begin to interact in three-dimensions?

Today, we get to see one idea developed at the University of Wyoming in Laramie by Anh Nguyen and Amy Banic. These guys have created an intelligent thimble that can sense its position accurately in three-dimensions and respond to a set of preprogrammed gestures that allow the user to interact with objects in a virtual three-dimensional world...

Submission + - Quantum state may be a real thing (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Physicists summon up their courage and go after the nature of reality.

At the very heart of quantum mechanics lies a monster waiting to consume unwary minds. This monster goes by the name The Nature of Reality. The greatest of physicists have taken one look into its mouth, saw the size of its teeth, and were consumed. Niels Bohr denied the existence of the monster after he nonchalantly (and very quietly) exited the monster's lair muttering "shut up and calculate." Einstein caught a glimpse of the teeth and fainted. He was reportedly rescued by Erwin Schrödinger at great personal risk, but neither really recovered from their encounter with the beast.

The upshot is that we had a group of physicists and philosophers who didn't believe that quantum mechanics represents reality but that it was all we could see of some deeper, more fundamental theory. A subclass of these scientists believed that the randomness of quantum mechanics would eventually be explained by some non-random, deterministic property that we simply couldn't directly observe (otherwise known as a hidden variable). Another group ended up believing that quantum mechanics did represent reality, and that, yes, reality was non-local, and possibly not very real either.

To one extent or another, these two groups are still around and still generate a fair amount of heat when they are in proximity to each other. Over the years, you would have to say that the scales have been slowly tipping in favor of the latter group. Experiments and theory have largely eliminated hidden variables. Bohm's pilot wave, a type of hidden variable, has to be pretty extraordinary to be real.

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