BenBoy - Slashdot User

Submission + - NSA targeting domestic computer systems (cnet.com)

Submitted by

Presto Vivace

on Sunday December 23, 2012 @04:28PM

Submission + - Samsung reaches milestone for 14nm technology (pcmag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23, 2012 @03:31PM

NASA Teams To Build Gyroscopes 1,000X More Sensitive Than Current Systems 91

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday November 01, 2012 @12:31AM from the any-which-way-you-can dept.

Comment Right to the cloud ... (Score 3, Funny) 770

by BenBoy on Saturday October 27, 2012 @10:05PM (#41793729) Attached to: Canadian Teenager Arrested For Photographing Mall Takedown

Comment Short story reference ... any help here? (Score 1) 658

by BenBoy on Saturday September 29, 2012 @04:19PM (#41501197) Attached to: If I had a time machine, I would first visit...

Ask Slashdot: Explaining Version Control To Non-Technical People? 383

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Tuesday September 25, 2012 @09:04PM from the it-will-cost-negative-ten-meelion-dollars dept.

Comment Arduino (Score 1) 423

by BenBoy on Sunday September 09, 2012 @08:10PM (#41283835) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Computer For a 7-Year Old?

Submission + - Species multiply as Earth heats up (nature.com)

Submitted by

DevotedSkeptic

on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:18PM

DevotedSkeptic writes: "Rather than kicking off the expected cycles of extinction, periods of warming in Earth's history were accompanied by increased biodiversity, according to a report published this week. But this does not mean that the mass extinctions that are taking place today, with Earth warming at an unprecedented rate, will be reversed in future.

Researchers examined the number of known families of marine invertebrates, as well as sea-surface temperatures, over the course of 540 million years of Earth's history. They found that when temperatures were high, so was biodiversity. When temperatures fell, biodiversity also declined.

The results contradict previous work, including findings from lead author Peter Mayhew's group, that reported an inverse correlation between high temperatures and biodiversity.

The reason for the about-face, says Mayhew, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of York, UK, is that the earlier work measured fossil diversity by tallying the first and last appearances of each group of species, then assuming that the creatures existed only during the intervening years. This might sound logical, but overlooks the fact that some geological periods are better studied than others.

To correct this, the new study looked only at the well-sampled periods. And, instead of interpolating organisms' presence from origination and extinction dates, it merely tallied species groups present during each period.

Even so, given that climate change is generally viewed as disruptive, Mayhew admits it was a "big surprise" to find that eras of warming were accompanied by increases in biodiversity. The work also provided a solution to another puzzle, Mayhew says. Tropical ecosystems are known to be Earth's most diverse, and the tropics would be expected to expand during warm eras. Yet in the past these eras were thought to be species-poor compared with cooler ones. The new results resolve that contradiction.

Warming produces both extinctions and originations, and in the past the originations of new species have outstripped the loss of old ones, says Mayhew. But this does not mean that today's climate change will be beneficial.

"The rate of change is very important," Mayhew says. For diversity to rise, he explains, new species need to evolve. And that takes between thousands and millions of years — much slower than the rate at which extinctions are likely to occur with today's rapid change."

Submission + - World's first Linux Ultrabook ships (pcworld.com)

Submitted by

Rozzin

on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:01PM

Submission + - Nuclear Powered LEDs Are Key to a Permanent Moon Base 1

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Monday September 03, 2012 @09:52PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Bruce Dorminey writes that the nearside of the Moon will never resemble your Granddad’s back forty, but agriculture remains the key to living and working off-world and nuclear-powered state of the art LED technology is what will drive photosynthesis so necessary to provide both food and oxygen for future lunar colonists. Future long-term lunar residents will need to grow their food either in sub-lunar lava tubes or in greenhouses shielded with several meters of lunar surface regolith because the moon is regularly exposed to lethal doses of cosmic rays, solar coronal mass ejections and x-flares, "not to mention micro-meteorites that would be enough to wreck anyone’s corn." Cary Mitchell, a plant biologist at Purdue University, says that as lunar light sources, LEDs, powered by Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG), not unlike the one powering the current Mars Science lab, would be cool, solid state and robust; lasting 50,000 hours at least, or some five times longer than conventional horticultural light sources. Mitchell and Gioia Massa have tested several cultivars of strawberries and found one variety, named Seascape, which seems to meet the requirements for becoming a space crop. "We're trying to think of the whole system — growing food, preparing it and getting rid of the waste," says Massa. "Strawberries are easy to prepare and there's little waste." LEDs will also allow growers to tailor their light spectrum to manipulate and maximize certain plant attributes, thereby increasing a plant’s given nutraceutical content. “For us, it’s not just sticking a plant under an LED,” says Kevin Folta, a horticulturalist at the University of Florida who conducts research in off-world farming. “It’s telling the plant how to grow by controlling the quantities and colors of lights we deliver. That’s a huge advantage in a lunar setting where you want lots of leaves on your lettuce.”"