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Submission + - Whales survive only after huge sharks died out (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Millions of years ago there were sharks as big as WW2 submarines. According to researchers from University of Zuric those gigantic sharks, or Megalodon, died out some 2.8 million years ago

The mega-shark was no lightweight. At 110 tonnes, it was about 30 times as heavy as a Great White and is thought to have had the most powerful bite of any animal in the Earth's history. With those humongous size sharks, whales don't get any fighting chance

It was such a ravenous predator, that its extinction may have allowed whales — today's heftiest seagoing fatties — to grow to the sizes we see nowadays. “When we calculated the time of Megalodon’s extinction, we noticed that the modern function and gigantic sizes of filter feeder whales became established around that time. Future research will investigate if Megalodon’s extinction played a part in the evolution of these new classes of whales,” said Catalina Pimiento of the University of Florida

Comment China is more capitalistic than the USA (Score 3, Informative) 73

by Taco Cowboy (#48238431) Attached to: First Commercial Mission To the Moon Launched From China

I am from China. At the time I left China it was really deep in communism, so deep that the entire society went upside down and a lot of people died because of it

But the China of today is very different. China of today is much more capitalistic than the United States of America --- since I am from China and that I am a citizen of the United States of America after staying in the US for decades, if I am to compare the two I would say that the USA is becoming more and more socialistic (turning more and more pinko) while China has turned blue, deeeeep blue
Star Wars Prequels

Jedi-ism Becomes a Serious Religion 268

Posted by Soulskill from the still-no-match-for-a-good-blaster dept.
An anonymous reader writes: 390,127 Brits declared their religion as Jediism in their last census — many as a joke, but some are quite serious, the BBC reports. Cambridge University Divinity Faculty researcher Beth Singler estimates at least 2,000 of them are "genuine," around the same number as the Church of Scientology. The U.K. Church of Jediism has 200,000 members worldwide. Their belief system has expanded well beyond the Star Wars universe to include tenets from Taoism, Buddhism, Catholicism and Samurai. Former priest, psychotherapist and writer Mark Vernon finds real power in the Jedi story: "The reason it's so powerful and universal is that we have to find ourselves. It's by losing ourselves and identifying with something greater like the Jedi myth that we find a fuller life."

Comment It's the shades of grey in between (Score 4, Insightful) 158

by Taco Cowboy (#48233081) Attached to: The Problem With Positive Thinking

The negative thinkers/pessimists get all the work done, then the positive thinkers say "See, there was nothing to worry about" and take all the credit

In reality no one can be said to be absolutely pessimistic nor absolutely optimistic

Most often the one who truly gets the work done follows the "Expect the _worst_ but hope for the _best_" adage

Submission + - More babies died in US than in Japan, New Zealand, Korea, Finland or Israel (politicalblindspot.com) 1

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Of the 29 OECD countries the United States ranked the 26th in term of infant mortality, behind behind most European countries as well as Japan, Korea, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand

This means that in the United States, more babies die before reaching the age of one year than in the vast majority of OECD countries

The United States had the highest rate of death in the 37 week or later birth bracket. While the full term for a pregnancy is 40 weeks, at 37 weeks babies are sufficiently close to full term as to have the highest likelihood of survival. While the CDC report found that America did better than three of the 29 OECD countries, a report prepared by Save the Children in 2013 found that the United States at the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world.

A chart is available @ http://politicalblindspot.com/...
Government

When Snowden Speaks, Future Lawyers (and Judges) Listen 221

Posted by Soulskill from the everybody-else-is-watching-duck-dynasty dept.
TheRealHocusLocus writes: We are witness to a historic first: an individual charged with espionage and actively sought by the United States government has been (virtually) invited to speak at Harvard Law School, with applause. [Note: all of the following links go to different parts of a long YouTube video.] HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig conducted the hour-long interview last Monday with a list of questions by himself and his students.

Some interesting segments from the interview include: Snowden's assertion that mass domestic intercept is an "unreasonable seizure" under the 4th Amendment; that it also violates "natural rights" that cannot be voted away even by the majority; a claim that broad surveillance detracts from the ability to monitor specific targets such as the Boston Marathon bombers; him calling out Congress for not holding Clapper accountable for misstatements; and his lament that contractors are exempt from whistleblower protection though they do swear an oath to defend the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.

These points have been brought up before. But what may be most interesting to these students is Snowden's suggestion that a defendant under the Espionage Act should be permitted to present an argument before a jury that the act was committed "in the public interest." Could this help ensure a fair trial for whistleblowers whose testimony reveals Constitutional violation?
Government

Identity As the Great Enabler 58

Posted by Soulskill from the imagine-if-you-will dept.
New submitter steve_torquay writes: Last week, President Obama signed a new Executive Order calling for "all agencies making personal data accessible to citizens through digital applications" to "require the use of multiple factors of authentication and an effective identity proofing process." This does not necessarily imply that the government will issue online credentials to all U.S. residents.

The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is working towards a distributed identity ecosystem that facilitates authentication and authorization without compromising privacy. NSTIC points out that this is a great opportunity to leverage the technology to enable a wide array of new citizen-facing digital services while reducing costs and hassles for individuals and government agencies alike.

Submission + - Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Theft by government: The IRS admits to seizing hundreds of thousands of dollars of private assets, without any proof of illegal activity, merely because there is a law that lets them do it.

Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up and settle the case for a portion of their money. “They’re going after people who are really not criminals,” said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor who is now a forfeiture expert and lawyer in Virginia. “They’re middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law.”

The article describes several specific cases, all of which are beyond egregious and are in fact entirely unconstitutional. The Bill of Rights is very clear about this: The federal government cannot take private property without just compensation.

Classic Games (Games)

Tetris Is Hard To Test 169

Posted by Soulskill from the deceptive-tetrominomic-compexity dept.
New submitter JackDW writes: Tetris is one of the best-known computer games ever made. It's easy to play but hard to master, and it's based on a NP-hard problem. But that's not all that's difficult about it. Though it's simple enough to be implemented in one line of BBC BASIC, it's complex enough to be really hard to thoroughly test.

It may seem like you can test everything in Tetris just by playing it for a few minutes, but this is very unlikely! As I explain in this article, the game is filled with special cases that rarely occur in normal play, and these can only be easily found with the help of a coverage tool.
Science

The Problem With Positive Thinking 158

Posted by Soulskill from the take-that-optimists dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times explains research into how our mindset can influence results. The common refrain when striving for a goal is to stay positive and imagine success — people say this will help you accomplish what you want. But a series of psychological experiments show such thinking tends to have exactly the opposite effect. "In a 2011 study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, we asked two groups of college students to write about what lay in store for the coming week. One group was asked to imagine that the week would be great. The other group was just asked to write down any thoughts about the week that came to mind. The students who had positively fantasized reported feeling less energized than those in the control group. As we later documented, they also went on to accomplish less during that week." This research has been replicated across many types of people and many different goals.

Building on that research, the scientists developed a thought process called "mental contrasting," where people are encouraged to think about their dreams coming true only for a few minutes before dedicating just as much time to thinking about the obstacles they'll have to deal with. Experiments have demonstrated that subjects using these techniques were more successful at things like exercise and maintaining a healthy diet than a control group. "[D]reaming about the future calms you down, measurably reducing systolic blood pressure, but it also can drain you of the energy you need to take action in pursuit of your goals."

Submission + - When Snowden speaks, future lawyers (and judges) listen (youtube.com)

Submitted by TheRealHocusLocus
TheRealHocusLocus writes: We are witness to an historic 'first': an individual charged with espionage and actively sought by the United States government has been (virtually) invited to speak at Harvard Law School, with applause. HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig conducted the hour-long interview last Monday with a list of questions by himself and his students.

Some interesting jumps are Snowden's assertion that mass domestic intercept is an 'unreasonable seizure' under the 4th Amendment, it also violates 'natural rights' that cannot be voted away even by the majority, a claim that broad surveillance detracts from the ability to monitor specific targets such as the Boston Marathon bombers, calls out Congress for not holding Clapper accountable for misstatements, and laments that contractors are exempt from whistleblower protection though they do swear an oath to defend the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic. These points have been brought up before. But what may be most interesting to these students is Snowden's suggestion that a defendant under the Espionage act be permitted to present an argument before a jury that the act was committed "in the public interest". Could this pure-judicial move help ensure a fair trial for whistleblowers whose testimony reveals Constitutional violation?

Professor Lessig wraps up the interview by asking Snowden, Hoodies or Suits? “Hoodies all the way. I hope in the next generation we don't even have suits anymore, they're just gone forever.”

Submission + - High speed evolution (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Normally the 'evolution conjures up an image of "super-long time frame" but at least in the case of lizards on Florida islands the evolution seems to have shifted to the fifth gear

Sientists working on islands in Florida have documented the rapid evolution of a native lizard species — in as little as 15 years — as a result of pressure from an invading lizard species, introduced from Cuba. After contact with the invasive species, the native lizards began perching higher in trees, and, generation after generation, their feet evolved to become better at gripping the thinner, smoother branches found higher up

The change occurred at an astonishing pace: Within a few months, native lizards had begun shifting to higher perches, and over the course of 15 years and 20 generations, their toe pads had become larger, with more sticky scales on their feet. "We did predict that we'd see a change, but the degree and quickness with which they evolved was surprising," said Yoel Stuart, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Biology at The University of Texas at Austin and lead author of the study

"To put this shift in perspective, if human height were evolving as fast as these lizards' toes, the height of an average American man would increase from about 5 foot 9 inches today to about 6 foot 4 inches within 20 generations — an increase that would make the average U.S. male the height of an NBA shooting guard," said Stuart. "Although humans live longer than lizards, this rate of change would still be rapid in evolutionary terms"

This latest study is one of only a few well-documented examples of what evolutionary biologists call "character displacement," in which similar species competing with each other evolve differences to take advantage of different ecological niches. A classic example comes from the finches studied by Charles Darwin. Two species of finch in the Galápagos Islands diverged in beak shape as they adapted to different food sources. The researchers speculate that the competition between brown and green anoles for the same food and space may be driving the adaptations of the green anoles. Stuart also noted that the adults of both species are known to eat the hatchlings of the other species

"So it may be that if you're a hatchling, you need to move up into the trees quickly or you'll get eaten," said Stuart. "Maybe if you have bigger toe pads, you'll do that better than if you don't"

Comment The US tech industry (Score 5, Insightful) 283

by Taco Cowboy (#48228567) Attached to: Ballmer Says Amazon Isn't a "Real Business"

Although I came in the tech field quite late (in the 1970's) I've still been around the block a few times, so here's my take ...

IBM
IBM was a sales company with strong tech foundation. Was. Now IBM has turned into a service company

Cisco
Cisco's strength was derived from teams of cracked engineers churning out amazing communication hardware. Was. Now that the cracked teams of engineers have mostly left Cisco has turned more and more like an Indian company

Microsoft
Microsoft used to be THE company that sells software that corporations need (from OS to their office suites). Used to. Now Microsoft is a company clinging onto new versions of legacy software

Apple
Apple used to be a very brave company that dare to come up with strange products that people crave for. Used to. Now Apple, much like Microsoft, is a company clingong onto new versions of legacy hardware

Submission + - Ocean could turn acidic (bbc.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The oceans absorb about a third of the CO2 that’s being produced by industrial society, and this is changing the chemistry of seawater. CO2 reacts with the sea water to form carbonic acid. UK's chief scientist, Sir Mark Walport warns that the acidity of the oceans has increased by about 25% since the industrial revolution, mainly thanks to manmade emissions

The consequences of acidification are likely to be made worse by the warming of the ocean expected with climate change, a process which is also driven by CO2. Until now studies have identified species with calcium-based shells as most in danger from changing chemistry. But researchers in Exeter have found that other creatures will also be affected because as acidity increases it creates conditions for animals to take up more coastal pollutants like copper

The angler’s favourite bait – the humble lugworm – suffers DNA damage as a result of the extra copper. The pollutant harms their sperm, and their offspring don’t develop properly. “It’s a bit of a shock, frankly,” said biologist Ceri Lewis from Exeter University, one of the report’s authors. “It means the effects of ocean acidification may be even more serious than we previously thought. We need to look with new eyes at things which we thought were not vulnerable”

The lugworm study was published in Environmental Science and Technology. Another study from Dr Lewis not yet peer-reviewed suggests that sea urchins are also harmed by uptake of copper. This adds to the damage they will suffer from increasing acidity as it takes them more and more energy to calcify their shells and spines. This is significant because sea urchins, which can live up to 100 years, are a keystone species — grazing algae off rocks that would otherwise be covered in green slime

“Our work means we are under-estimating effects of acidification for coastal invertebrates. We are now realizing there are many indirect impacts of ocean acidification on other processes. It could be that we are facing a lot more surprises ahead”

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