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Biotech

Submission + - Toads Mate across the Species Barrier

Hugh Pickens writes: "Although mating with another species (hybridization) is often maladaptive and females typically avoid other species as mates, Nature magazine is reporting the first example of harsh environmental conditions driving an animal across the species barrier. When drought threatens, one species of spadefoot toad will mate with more drought resistant toads of another species so that their offspring will have the best chance of survival even if it means that those offspring will have a lower chance of reproducing successfully. One possibility is that the toads need their offspring to develop more quickly when water is in short supply and field tests confirmed that hybrid tadpoles were more likely to survive through metamorphosis in rapidly drying pools. "Females are probably assessing a lot more out there than just how long the male's tail is," says Maurice Sabelis, Professor of Population Biology at the University of Amsterdam. "They are probably more sensitive to their own condition and environment when choosing a male.""
Republicans

Submission + - Facism, Orwellian, surveilance (yahoo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: This guy, and his henchmen in the white house, scare the dog poop out of me. They don't like to do their job of protecting our privacy because it interferes with their idea of freedom (it ain't really freedom) so they want to redefine the english language. Reminds me of Mr. Orwell "all are equal but some are more equal than others." Substitute freedom for equal and see what you get.
Software

Submission + - OpenDocument Foundation closes down

Munchkinguy writes: "First, they dropped support for their namesake OpenDocument Format and switching to W3C "Compund Document Format". Then, W3C's Chris Lilley says that CDF is "was not created to be, and isn't suitable for use as, an office format". Now, the Foundation has mysteriously shut down, leaving the following message:

The OpenDocument Foundation, Inc. is closed. We sincerely wish our friends and associates in the OpenDocument Community all the best and much success going forward. Good-bye and good luck.
"
Social Networks

Submission + - Facebook under Fire over Breastfeeding Photos (breastfeeding123.com) 4

NewsCloud writes: "Facebook continues to struggle with when to enforce its own terms of service. While the 78,240 group members who want Facebook to shut down the F*** Islam group are still frustrated, those concerned with photos of breastfeeding mothers can rest more easily. The site has recently come under fire for removing pictures of breastfeeding mothers, and banning users on the grounds that they'd uploaded "obscene content" to their profiles. Says Facebook, "Photos containing an exposed breast do violate our Terms and are removed." In response, more than 33,431 concerned Facebook users have created the "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!" group. Apparently, scantily clad college co-eds, fine and dandy."

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