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Submission + - The Paradoxes That Threaten To Tear Modern Cosmology Apart

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: Revolutions in science often come from the study of seemingly unresolvable paradoxes. So an interesting exercise is to list the paradoxes associated with current ideas in science. One cosmologist has done just that by exploring the paradoxes associated with well-established ideas and observations about the structure and origin of the universe. Perhaps the most dramatic of these paradoxes comes from the idea that the universe must be expanding. What’s curious about this expansion is that space, and the vacuum associated with it, must somehow be created in this process. And yet nobody knows how this can occur. What’s more, there is an energy associated with any given volume of the universe. If that volume increases, the inescapable conclusion is that the energy must increase as well. So much for conservation of energy. And even the amount of energy associated with the vacuum is a puzzle with different calculations contradicting each other by 120 orders of magnitude. Clearly, anybody who can resolve these problems has a bright future in science but may also end up tearing modern cosmology apart.

Comment Re:Subject Cop To Same Spying They Use On Us (Score 2) 219

by SemperUbi (#48781667) Attached to: LAPD Orders Body Cams That Will Start Recording When Police Use Tasers
That's not the way do to it. The camera should be recording for the whole shift, but if the officer doesn't unholster a weapon, that day's footage gets erased at the end of the shift. If a weapon is drawn, footage around that event would be saved. Less privacy worries for the officers, and more incentive for them to resolve situations without firing.

Comment Custom progressives (Score 3, Interesting) 464

by SemperUbi (#48718577) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Are Progressive Glasses a Mistake For Computer Users?
I feel your pain. I wear progressives, and for my first pair, the optimal focal area was ridiculously small just as you describe. A couple of years ago I went to a new optometrist and explained that I wanted glasses that had a more natural feel for close viewing. That 'spot' effect isn't there, and I love them.

Submission + - In response to open access journals, Nature starts own (Beer-free) Library (nature.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The fact that access to scientific journals is expensive and that universities in developing countries can't afford them has been one of the key points for open access journals. Nature has started now a "world library of science" to offer content to developing countries (and everyone else) for free, but without a permissive license. Unesco also allowed to add its logo to the front page.

Submission + - Geologists Who Didn't Predict an Earthquake Aren't Killers, Italian Court Rules

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: Geologists who didn't warn a town about an impending earthquake are not murderers, an Italian appeals court ruled today.
A 2012 decision that rocked the scientific world was overturned today by an appeals court, according to Italy's Repubblica newspapers and confirmed by other Italian outlets. In that decision, six prominent geologists and one government worker were convicted of manslaughter for failing to notify the town of L'Aquila of a 2009 earthquake that killed at least 309 people. The scientists were originally sentenced to six years in prison and were to pay more than $10 million in damages.

Submission + - Gridlock In Action: Retailers Demand New Regulations To Protect Consumers (securityledger.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: How bad is the gridlock in Washington D.C.? So bad that the nation's retailers are calling for federal legislation on cyber security and data protection to protect consumer information — this even though they would bear the brunt of whatever legislation is passed.

The Security Ledger notes (https://securityledger.com/2014/11/retailers-demanding-federal-action-on-data-breach/) that groups representing many of the nation's retailers sent a letter to Congressional leaders last week urging them to pass federal data protection legislation that sets clear rules for businesses serving consumers. The letter, dated November 6, was addressed to the majority and minority party leaders of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives and signed by 44 state and national organizations representing retailers, including the National Retail Federation, the National Grocers Association, the National Restaurant Association and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, among others.

“The recent spate of news stories about data security incidents raises concerns for all American consumers and for the businesses with which they frequently interact,” the letter reads. “A single federal law applying to all breached entities would ensure clear, concise and consistent notices to all affected consumers regardless of where they live or where the breach occurs.”

Retailers would likely bare the brunt of a new federal data protection law. The motivation for pushng for one anyway may be simplicity. Currently, there are 47 different state-based security breach notification laws, as well as laws in the District of Columbia and Guam. (http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/security-breach-notification-laws.aspx) There is broad, bi-partisan agreement on the need for a data breach and consumer protection law. However, small differences of opinion on its scope and provisions, exacerbated by political gridlock in Congress since 2010 have combined to stay the federal government’s hand.

Comment Ebola is harder to catch than most people think. (Score 4, Informative) 349

by SemperUbi (#48275823) Attached to: Suspected Ebola carriers in the U.S. ...
From an editorial in this week's New England Journal of Medicine by Jeffrey Drazen et al:

"Health care professionals treating patients with this illness have learned that transmission arises from contact with bodily fluids of a person who is symptomatic — that is, has a fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and malaise. We have very strong reason to believe that transmission occurs when the viral load in bodily fluids is high, on the order of millions of virions per microliter. This recognition has led to the dictum that an asymptomatic person is not contagious; field experience in West Africa has shown that conclusion to be valid. Therefore, an asymptomatic health care worker returning from treating patients with Ebola, even if he or she were infected, would not be contagious. Furthermore, we now know that fever precedes the contagious stage, allowing workers who are unknowingly infected to identify themselves before they become a threat to their community. This understanding is based on more than clinical observation: the sensitive blood polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) test for Ebola is often negative on the day when fever or other symptoms begin and only becomes reliably positive 2 to 3 days after symptom onset."

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