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Comment Stock price is not a be all and end all (Score 1) 90

by Taco Cowboy (#47745509) Attached to: 3 Years In, a "B" For Tim Cook's Performance at Apple

Apple Stock is at a record high. He did what he was hired to do

I too own stocks of corporations and also am major stock owner of several companies

Stock price for me is not a be all and end all - for me, the future of the company is much more important than the _current_ stock price

For this, Tim Cook has failed, and has failed miserably

Comment Could be the pesticide lobby which has killed it (Score 4, Interesting) 152

by Taco Cowboy (#47718245) Attached to: China Pulls Plug On Genetically Modified Rice and Corn

According to the info @ http://www.plosone.org/article...

The GMO rice requires much less application of pesticide than the non GMO counterparts (2 applications versus 5)

If the GMO rice is approved then the pesticide industry in China (both local / international vendors) will stand to lose a lot of sales

It could be their lobby which had killed the GMO rice

Comment Someone with no brain is running NASA (Score 2) 162

by Taco Cowboy (#47710471) Attached to: Wheel Damage Adding Up Quickly For Mars Rover Curiosity

Pic of the wheel ...

http://www.garrettbelmont.com/...

The first time when I saw the wheels I was wondering why the hell they spend so much money to send up a robot to Mars and then equip that thing with such flimsy wheels

And I did post question here on /, and there were people (NASA fanbois, perhaps) defending those flimsy wheels

Submission + - Last universal ancestor (LUA) may have a 'leaky' membrane (ucl.ac.uk)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Around four billion years ago the Last Universal Ancestor (LUA), most probably a single cell organism, appeared on Planet Earth. In order to be alive that single cell organism must be able to harness energy from its surrounding, and in order to do that, according to researchers at University College London (UCL), that single cell organism had a 'leaky' membrane which allowed protons to enter and exit at the same time

The UCL researchers came to the conclusion using mathematical modeling, in which the findings were published on August 13, 2014, in PLOS Biology

Illustrated picture at http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx...

The study claims this membrane may explain why all cells use the same complex mechanism to harvest energy, and it may also explain why two types of fundamental single-celled organisms — bacteria and archaea — have different cell membranes

The leakiness of the membrane allowed LUA to be powered by energy in its surroundings, most likely vents deep on the ocean floor, while holding in all the other components necessary for life. The team modeled how the membrane changed, enabling LUA’s descendants to move to new, more challenging environments and evolve into two distinct types of single-celled organism, bacteria and archaea, creating the deepest branch of the tree of life

Bacteria and archaea share many common features such as genes, proteins and mechanisms of reading DNA, initially leading scientists to believe they were just different types of bacteria. Their classification changed in the 1970s after extreme differences were found in the way they replicate DNA and in the structure of their cell membrane. As they both stemmed from LUA, scientists set out to find answers in the structure and function of LUA’s membrane

Data from the study strongly suggest that LUA lived in the area where ancient seawater, dense with positively charged particles called protons, mixed with warm alkaline vent fluid, which contained few protons. The difference in the concentration of protons across these two environments enabled protons to flow into the cell, driving the production of a molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which powered the growth of cells, just as it does today. However, unlike modern cells the scientists believe this could only happen if the membrane was 'leaky', enabling protons to leave the cell spontaneously so more protons could enter to power growth

From a single basic idea, the model can explain the fundamental differences between bacteria and archaea. In these deep sea vents, there is a continuous flow of alkaline fluids, which mix with the ocean waters. When they mix, the fluids neutralize each other, and that stops any build-up of charge which would otherwise prevent protons flowing into the cell

If the first cells had leaky membranes, then protons could enter and then be neutralized, or leave again, almost as if there was no barrier at all

The mathematical modeling shows that the rate at which protons enter and leave was high enough to power the growth of cells via proteins embedded in the membrane. LUA could have been powered by natural proton gradients in vents, but only if it had a really leaky membrane, completely unlike today’s cells

Submission + - Exercising to excess increases risk of death (medicalnewstoday.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: A new research involving 2,400 heart attack survivors conducted in Hartford Hospital reveals that too much exercise may increase risk of death to heart attack survivors

For normail heart attack survivors the more exercise they do, the less risk they face of dying from heart disease – up to a point.

Benefits began to decline among those who ran more than 48km per week; Among walkers, the turning point, when benefits were lost, was seen in those who did more than 74km per week, or 10.5km per day

Remarkable dose-dependent reductions in deaths from cardiovascular events of up to 65 percent were seen among patients who were running less than 30 miles or walking less than 46 miles per week

About 5 hours of vigorous exercise per week is the 'safe upper range'; Also, people should not engage in high-intensity exercise every day and should abstain from exercising 1-2 days a week

The researchers cautioned that since their study focused on heart attack survivors, their results might not be generalisable to the population at large

Submission + - The biggest iPhone security risk could be connecting one to a computer (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: Apple has done well to insulate its iOS mobile operating system from many security issues, but a forthcoming demonstration shows it's far from perfect. Next Wednesday at the Usenix Security Symposium in San Diego, researchers with the Georgia Institute of Technology will show how iOS's Achilles' heel is exposed when devices are connected over USB to a computer or have Wi-Fi synching enabled. The beauty of their attack is that it doesn't rely on iOS software vulnerabilities, the customary way that hackers commandeer computers. It simply takes advantage of design issues in iOS, working around Apple's layered protections to accomplish a sinister goal.

Submission + - Lucid Dreams may be better in solving problems (scienceworldreport.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: According to a study of University of Lincoln, UK, lucid dreamers have better problem-solving abilities

In the first empirical study on the subject, "Lucid Dreamers”, those who actually know they are dreaming while the dreams play out, exhibit better problem-solving abilities in their day-to-day lives

"It is believed that for dreamers to become lucid while asleep, they must see past the overwhelming reality of their dream state, and recognise that they are dreaming," said Patrick Bourke, senior lecturer at the Lincoln School of Psychology. "The same cognitive ability was found to be demonstrated while awake by a person's ability to think in a different way when it comes to solving problems"

For the study, the researchers observed the cognitive ability in 68 participants, aged between 18 and 25 years, who had experienced different levels of lucid dreaming, ranging from never to several times a month. The participants were asked to solve 30 problems intended to test their insight.The researchers said that each problem comprised of three words and a solution word. Each of the three words could be combined with the solution word to form a new compound word. For example, with the words 'sand', 'mile' and 'age', the linking word would be 'stone'

They found that frequent lucid dreamers solved 25 per cent more of the insight problems than non-lucid dreamers

Submission + - Boy charged with "Sedition" for placing a "Like" on "I Love Israel" FB page (malaysia-chronicle.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Stupidious Maximus strikes again !

A 17-year old Form Five student in Malaysia has been arrested and charged under the Sedition Act for placing a "Like" in the "I Love Israel" Facebook page

The Form Five student is a non-Muslim minority and his case illustrates the racial arrogance and religious bigotry which are being practice in Malaysia — in which the majority race (who are Muslims) oppressing the minorities for whatever reason they can find
Space

Historians Rediscover Einstein's Forgotten Model of the Universe 35

Posted by samzenpus from the rough-draft dept.
KentuckyFC writes In 1931, after a 3- month visit to the U.S., Einstein penned a little known paper that attempted to show how his theory of general relativity could account for some of the latest scientific evidence. In particular, Einstein had met Edwin Hubble during his trip and so was aware of the latter's data indicating that the universe must be expanding. The resulting model is of a universe that expands and then contracts with a singularity at each end. In other words, Einstein was studying a universe that starts with a big bang and ends in a big crunch. What's extraordinary about the paper is that Einstein misspells Hubble's name throughout and makes a number of numerical errors in his calculations. That's probably because he wrote the paper in only 4 days, say the historians who have translated it into English for the time. This model was ultimately superseded by the Einstein-de Sitter model published the following year which improves on this in various ways and has since become the workhorse of modern cosmology.

Submission + - Portable Router That Conceals Internet Traffic Revealed at Def Con

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ryan Lackey of CloudFlare and Marc Rogers of Lookout revealed a new OPSEC device at Def Con called PORTAL (Personal Onion Router to Assure Liberty). It "provides always-on Tor routing, as well as 'pluggable' transport for Tor that can hide the service's traffic signature from some deep packet inspection systems." In essence, PORTAL is a travel router that the user simply plugs into their existing device for more than basic Tor protection (counterpoint to PogoPlug Safeplug and Onion Pi). On the down side, you have to download PORTAL from Github and flash it "onto a TP-Link compatible packet router." The guys behind the device acknowledge that not many people may want to (or even know how to) do that, so they're asking everyone to standby because a solution is pending.

Submission + - Stem cell research breakthrough from transparent fish 1

Submitted by brindafella
brindafella writes: Australian scientists have accidentally made one of the most significant discoveries in stem cell research, by studying the transparent embryos of Zebrafish (Danio rerio). The fish can be photographed and their development studied over time, and the movies can be played backwards, to track back from key developmental stages to find the stem cell basis for various traits of the fish. This fundamental research started by studying muscles, but the blood stem cell breakthrough was a bonus. They've found out how hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), among the most important stem cells found in blood and bone marrow, is formed. The scientishs are based at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University. The research has been published in the Nature medical journal. This discovery could lead to the production of self-renewing stem cells in the lab to treat multiple blood disorders and diseases.

Submission + - DARPA contemplates vast ocean network (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Probably one of the last and perhaps unforgiving areas of the world not truly “wired” is above and below the ocean. Researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) want to explore the possibility of seriously changing that notion and develop what it calls “a system-of-systems architecture and critical components to support networked maritime operations, to include undersea, surface, and above surface domains.”
Image

Murder Suspect Asked Siri Where To Hide a Dead Body Screenshot-sm 160

Posted by samzenpus from the worst-laid-plans dept.
An anonymous reader writes A Florida man currently on trial for murder reportedly attempted to use Siri to garner ideas about where to bury the body of his dead roommate. According to police allegations, a University of Florida student named Pedro Bravo murdered his roommate via strangulation in late September of 2012 over a dispute involving Bravo's ex- girlfriend. According to a detective working the case, Bravo subsequently fired up Siri on his iPhone and asked it "I need to hide my roommate."

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