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NASA

NASA Snaps Mysterious "Night-Shining" Clouds 198

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the pretty-pictures dept.
coondoggie writes to tell us that NASA has captured some pretty impressive images of the Alluring noctilucent (or "night-shining") clouds. These clouds are made up of ice crystals and dust and are formed at high altitudes near the poles. "Very little is known about how these clouds form over the poles, why they are being seen more frequently and at lower latitudes than ever before, or why they have been growing brighter. AIM will observe two complete cloud seasons over both poles, documenting an entire life cycle of the shiny clouds for the first time. 'It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means,' stated AIM principal investigator James Russell III of Hampton University, Hampton, Va. 'These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed.'"
Robotics

Robots That Bounce on Water 137

Posted by CmdrTaco from the something-about-tigger-goes-here dept.
inghamb87 writes "The way water striders walk on water was discovered years ago. The insect uses its long legs to help evenly distribute its tiny body weight. The weight is distributed over a large area so that the fragile skin formed by surface tension supports the bug on the water. However, the ability of water striders to jump onto water without sinking has baffled scientists, until now." If nothing less, you need to see the picture: it's awesome.
Education

The Secret to Raising Smart Kids 614

Posted by samzenpus from the the-most-smartest dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American has an interesting article on the secret to raising smart kids that says that more than 30 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings. In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack of ability depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is to blame. One theory of what separates the two general classes of learners, helpless versus mastery-oriented, is that these different types of students not only explain their failures differently, but they also hold different "theories" of intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: you have only a certain amount. Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. Mastery-oriented children think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating offering opportunities to learn."
Software

New Software Could Warn Sailors of Rogue Waves 131

Posted by kdawson from the that's-no-wave dept.
Reservoir Hill writes "Sailors have been telling stories for centuries about monstrous ocean waves that tower over a hundred feet in the air and toss ships around like corks. While these were once dismissed as nautical myth, but a few years back synthetic aperture radar from ESA's ERS satellites helped establish the existence of these 'rogue' waves and study their origins. Such waves were far more common than anyone had expected. Now a researcher in Madrid has developed software that can detect rogue waves from radar images, with the possibility of providing advance warning to ships at sea. The software uses a mathematical model to evaluate and process the spatial and temporal dimensions of waves inferred from the interaction between the radar's electromagnetic energy and the sea surface. The result is displayed in a color-coded image."
The Almighty Buck

Is SETI Worth It? 806

Posted by CowboyNeal from the lights-are-on-but-no-one's-home dept.
njdube sent in this Space.com story about the money behind SETI that opens, "It's a risky long shot that burns up money and might never, ever pay off. So is searching for intelligent creatures on unseen worlds worth the candle? After all, aren't there better ways to use our monies and technical talents than trying to find something that's only posited to exist: sentient beings in the dark depths of space?"
GNU is Not Unix

Survey Says GPLv3 Is Shunned 382

Posted by kdawson from the opinion-is-divided dept.
willdavid writes in to note a survey of open source developers conducted by Evans Data that indicates a real rift in the community over GPLv3. The survey was based on in-depth interviews with 380 open source developers and no estimated margin of error was given. "Just 6 percent of developers working with open-source software have adopted the new GNU General Public License version 3... Also, two-thirds say they will not adopt GPLv3 anytime in the next year, and 43 percent say they will never implement the new license. Almost twice as many would be less likely to join a project that uses GPLv3 than would be likely to join... [Evans Data's CEO said] 'Developers are confused and divided about [the restrictions GPLv3 imposes], with fairly equal numbers agreeing with the restrictions, disagreeing with them, or thinking they will be unenforceable.'"
AMD

AMD Releases 900+ Pages Of GPU Specs 325

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the out-in-the-open dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ending off the X Developer Summit this year, Matthew Tippett handed off ATI's GPU specifications to David Airlie on a CD. However, the specifications are also now available on the X.org site. Right now there is the RV630 Register Reference Guide and M56 Register Reference Guide. Expect more documentation (and 3D specifications) to arrive shortly. The new open-source R500/600 driver will be released early next week."
Programming

Submission + - Listpic bas been shut down (listpic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Listpic, that indispensible tool for browsing Craigslist ads visually, has been shut down today without an explanation. I emailed Ryan Sit, the developer who created Listpic, and he said Craigslist slapped him with a cease-and-desist order. So why can't Craigslist do their own innovation? After using Listpic, I shudder at the thought of browsing the original Craigslist 1980s style lists of text headlines. Please give this the publicity it deserves, we need a lot of emails to Craigslist (polite ones) if we're going to stand a chance of getting this awesome innovative tool back.
Quickies

Submission + - Bike or Car?

Submitted by WebfishUK
WebfishUK writes: In my experience (read statistically insignificant sample), a greater proportion of professional software developers cycle to work than compared to other non-computing professionals. Is this just me being cyclecentric with a very small n or have others noticed this? Are we a greener bunch than our non-geek peers? How do you get to work?
Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox 3 Alpha 5 released

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Alpha 5 is now out with a lot of stuff to power some of the planned features for Firefox 3: new JavaScript features, FUEL 0.2, identity management, improvements to the download manager, support for web applications, better integration with Mac OS X and Places, the integrated history and bookmarks interface are some of the most relevant improvements. For some reason the URL is not accepted. Whatever, this is it: http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/06/firefox-3-alpha -5-is-out/"
The Internet

Submission + - Mount Your Server Racks on the Wall

Submitted by
1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: "A New Zealand company is selling wall-mounted server racks that can hold up to five 1U servers, which are mounted vertically on a swinging hinge that allows easy access for cabling and maintenance. The unit can be bolted to a wall and includes an internal fan system for cooling. There's a video demo from the Interop show floor. The system was developed for a company that wanted servers available at a construction site. It's being marketed for remote branch offices and instant offsite backup for disaster recovery."
The Internet

Submission + - Michigan Wi-Fi Freeloader Faces Felony Charge

Submitted by Aaron
Aaron writes: Broadband Reports has an interesting piece up about a Michigan man who was charged with felony "Unauthorized use of computer access" for using free Wi-Fi outside of a cafe. The charge comes with a maximum of five years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine. The interesting bit being that neither the man, the cafe, nor the police chief who chatted him up repeatedly had any idea he was committing a crime. At least not until the police officer decided to do some research and find a law he interpreted as being broken, anyway.

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