Comment Tu B'Shevat - the New Year for Trees (Score 1) 219
Why not?
Comment DNA Viruses (Score 1) 414
There are certain viruses that contain DNA, such as the ones that cause herpes. Although some of these replicate via a DNA-RNA-DNA path, others, I believe, replicate their DNA directly. Thus, these viruses would not be affected by the new treatment.
Submission + - Wikileaks posts mysterious "insurance" file
betterunixthanunix writes: Wikileaks has posted a mysterious "insurance" file, which has no description but is encrypted with AES256. Cryptome has posted some speculation that this file may have been posted in case something happens to the Wikileaks website, in which case the passphrase would be divulged by Wikileaks staff.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-file/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-file/
Submission + - Medical Nanobots to Harvest Bloodstream Energy (blogspot.com)
An anonymous reader writes: They say its 7 years out, so don't get too excited, but these researchers claim a piezoelectric energy harvester will someday power nanobots that patrol our bloodstreams, which reminds me of a new sci-fi saga "Nanobot Wars"!
"In the future, nanobots could swim in your bloodstream, constantly on the lookout for early signs of disease, according to researchers creating a piezoelectric power source that harvests mechanical motion. Look for self-powered pacemakers and other medical implants using piezoelectric energy harvesting within seven years."
"In the future, nanobots could swim in your bloodstream, constantly on the lookout for early signs of disease, according to researchers creating a piezoelectric power source that harvests mechanical motion. Look for self-powered pacemakers and other medical implants using piezoelectric energy harvesting within seven years."
Submission + - New PS3 firmware causing HDD upgrade problems? 1
Channard writes: While there have been occasional reports of previous PS3 firmware upgrades causing system crashes and so forth, Sony's new firmware upgrade for the system, 3.41, is apparently stopping PS3 owners upgrading their hard disks, Slim PS3 owners at least. This problem has been encountered by many users on Sony's forums and occurs when you try to put a new hard disk into a PS3 that already has the firmware upgrade installed. The general course of action for upgrading a PS3's drive is that you download the latest PS3 firmware onto a memory stick and after swapping the hard drive in the PS3, plug the stick in allowing the PS3 to properly prepare the disk for use. But as of upgrade 3.41, the PS3 fails to recognize the firmware on the stick, complaining that it can't proceed until you insert the correct firmware. Repeating the process and re-downloading the does not fix the problem, as I can confirm, having encountered the problem myself.
Users can put the old hard disk back in, provided they've not reformatted it for some other purpose, so all is not lost. Sony have apparently told gaming website CVG that 'The information available to our Consumer Services Department does not suggest that this is a problem PlayStation(R) owners are likely to experience when upgrading the HDD with 3.41 update.' This seems to fly in the face of the currently available information — although whether or not this statement was issued by Kevin Butler is unclear. Either way, PS3 owners encountering this problem will likely have to wait a few days for a fix and use their old HDDs for now.
Users can put the old hard disk back in, provided they've not reformatted it for some other purpose, so all is not lost. Sony have apparently told gaming website CVG that 'The information available to our Consumer Services Department does not suggest that this is a problem PlayStation(R) owners are likely to experience when upgrading the HDD with 3.41 update.' This seems to fly in the face of the currently available information — although whether or not this statement was issued by Kevin Butler is unclear. Either way, PS3 owners encountering this problem will likely have to wait a few days for a fix and use their old HDDs for now.
Submission + - New fast, reliable method to detect gravesoil (scienceblog.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Gravesoil. Yes, just what it sounds like. Nothing against bloodhounds, but finding bodies buried by someone who wanted them to stay undiscovered can be difficult. A new technique developed by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, can reliably detect biochemical changes in a decomposing cadaver. Typically, cadaver-sniffing dogs or ground penetrating radar are used to detect clandestine gravesites. But these methods are not always useful in all scenarios, such as if a body is buried under concrete.
Steampunk Con Mixes In More Maker Fun 50
California has once again been blessed with another steampunk convention, this time to be held in Emeryville, CA on March 12-14 as the "Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition." This year's event promises to mix in much more of the DIY/maker flavor for a greater hands-on feel. Steampunk has been gaining much broader appeal in recent months with the continued growth of maker communities, and the many delightful varieties of music and literature. The con will feature, among other things, a 2 day track of 2-hour how-to, hands-on, and interactive workshops gear towards makers, DIY-ers, mad scientists, and evil geniuses. Of course, if you are an evil genius you probably don't need a workshop except as a gathering for potential test subjects.
Comment Sunspots, Anyone? (Score 3, Interesting) 100
All these data centers failed at roughly the same time as the sunspots returned, but that's just a coincidence, right?
Comment Re:Wow, now that's a trick! (Score 1) 106
Linux kernel 2.6.27 was released this afternoon.
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 16:59:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
To: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Linux 2.6.27
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.0810091651220.3210@nehalem.linux-foundation.org>
Submission + - AMD Sells Its Fab Lines
Craig Milo Rogers writes: "According to this breaking story, AMD will announce that it has sold its fab lines (and a good chunk of itself) to Abu Dhabi."
Submission + - Break in LKML Traffic
Craig Milo Rogers writes: "There's been no traffic for the last few hours in the Linux kernel mailing list or its main archive (http://lkml.org/). Have aliens abducted all Linux kernel developers? Is there a massive DOS attack on the Linux kernel infrastructure? Or, has a single, critical disk broken somewhere?"
Scientists' Success Or Failure Correlated With Beer 349
mernil sends in an article from the NYTimes that casts a glance at a study done in the Czech Republic (natch) on what divides the successful scientists from the duffers. "Ever since there have been scientists, there have been those who are wildly successful, publishing one well-received paper after another, and those who are not. And since nearly the same time, there have been scholars arguing over what makes the difference. What is it that turns one scientist into more of a Darwin and another into more of a dud? After years of argument over the roles of factors like genius, sex, and dumb luck, a new study shows that something entirely unexpected and considerably sudsier may be at play in determining the success or failure of scientists — beer."
GCC 4.3.0 Exposes a Kernel Bug 256
ohxten sends news from earlier this month that GCC 4.3.0's new behavior of not clearing the direction flag before a string operation on x86 systems poses problems with kernels — such as Linux and BSD — that do not clear the direction flag before a signal handler is called, despite the ABI specification.
Arthur C. Clarke Is Dead At 90 538
Many readers are sending in word that Arthur C. Clarke has died in Sri Lanka. He wrote over 100 books including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous With Rama, and popularized the ideas of geosynchronous communications satellites and space elevators.
Submission + - MIT researchers invent clutter detector (computerworld.com.au)
StonyandCher writes: "Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have come up with a way to measure visual clutter, a breakthrough that could help everyone from fighter pilots to Web site designers."
