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Submission + - Dark Matter Of The Universe Has A Long Lifetime (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
Tjeerd
Tjeerd writes: ""New research from the Niels Bohr Institute presents new information that adds another piece of knowledge to the jigsaw puzzle of the dark mystery of the universe — dark matter. Signe Riemer-Sørensen has analysed the one of the two clusters of galaxies that are in the process of colliding. The analyses show that it is a very heavy cluster with many galaxies, and measurement of the gravitation show that there is a very big amount of dark matter, up to 85 per cent of the collective mass. However, no x-ray of any consequence was measured.""
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - SPAM: Weird science: Harvard's annual Ig Nobels

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Skip the Grammys. The Oscars are boring. It's time to talk about the only award in the history of the Earth that has been presented both to ducks that practice homosexual necrophilia and Dan Quayle.That's right, it's time for the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are ... ahem ... "loosely" affiliated with Harvard University. It's not quite the anti-Nobel, since you're bound to learn about some real, if weird, science Thursday if you attend this year's ceremony at Harvard's Sanders Theater, or if you watch the live Webcast. [spam URL stripped]
Power

Submission + - Finally, water burns (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
benesch
benesch writes: "Associated Press reports that a cancer researcher stumbled upon a way of burning water: "John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.""
United States

Submission + - Help Find Steve Fossett (avweb.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: DigitalGlobe, one of Google's imaging partners, as acquired new high-resolution satellite imagery of the area where adventurer Steve Fossett disappeared on Monday. Using the Amazon Mechanical Turk, the public can now, go through this imagery and quickly flag any images which might contain Fossett's plane. Images which are flagged will receive further review by Search and Rescue experts.
Software

Submission + - BBC forced to back down over iPlayer

Submitted by The Flying Yorkshireman
The Flying Yorkshireman writes: The petition signed by many Slashdot readers to prevent the BBC launching a content player for Windows only has succeeded! The Prime Minister's Office has responded to that petition and you can view it here.
Books

Submission + - Poll: Favorite living author

Submitted by Xeth
Xeth writes: Poll: Favorite living author
  • Lois McMaster Bujold
  • Neil Gaiman
  • Joe Haldeman
  • George R.R. Martin
  • Neal Stephenson
  • Vernor Vinge
  • Gene Wolfe
  • I attend CowboyNeal's book signings
Microsoft

Submission + - ISO reform proposed: response to OOXML shenanigans

Submitted by qcomp
qcomp writes: In the aftermath of the irregularities surrounding the recent vote on Mircosoft's standard proposal OOXML Freecode CEO Geir Isene questions whether ISO is "prepared for a politicized process" and proposes ISO reforms "to safeguard future standardization and to ensure that the processes scale in the face of increased pressure" and calls for an "investigation" to determine if OOXML "was unduly put on the ISO fast track." There's interesting commentrary on the proposal over at Ars Technica.
Businesses

Submission + - Apple is the new Microsoft (in a bad way)

Submitted by
HairyNevus
HairyNevus writes: "PC World came out with an article today that compares how every bad practice Microsoft purportrated on it's users (bundling, monopolizing, copycatting, etc.) has become part of Apple's new business scheme. For example, the iTunes software is bundled with all iPods and even the iPhone. And unlike IE, which merely came with your new Windows PC, iPod users have no other option but to use the iTunes software. Additionally, once a user has received an iPod, started using it with iTunes, maybe bought a couple of songs, they're an iPod user for life; their files won't transfer to different portable MP3 player. The article goes into further details on recent copycatting and bullying.

Question is, will anyone care? Have we all gone so long hating Microsoft and adoring all the new, cool Apple toys to change our tune at this point?"
Music

Submission + - RIAA v. the People: Four Years Later (askstudent.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This week, we will mark the fourth year anniversary of the RIAA's legal campaign against music piracy where the RIAA has threatened, settled or filed lawsuits against more than 20,000 of its own customers. Inspite of all this, P2P is as popular as ever. RIAA might be winning legal battles, but it is losing the war on music piracy
The Internet

Submission + - Why we don't have a WWW for science (ft.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: James Boyle has an article in the Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/39166e30-5a7f-11dc-9bcd- 0000779fd2ac.html
on recent legislative proposals to require open access to the articles that come out of NIH funded research.
"The World Wide web Was designed in a scientific laboratory to facilitate access to scientific knowledge. In every other area of life — commerce, social networking,pornography — it has been a smashing success. But in the world of science itself? With the virtues of an open web all around us, we have proceeded to build an endless set of walled gardens, something that looks a lot like Compuserv or Minitel and very little like a world wide web for science."

The links to the $21,000 journal subscription on Amazon and the $150 per page per student photocopying fee for a nanoscience journal are worth clicking on.
Microsoft

Submission + - ISO says "No" to Microsoft's OOXML standar (noooxml.org)

Submitted by qcomp
qcomp writes: The votes are in and Microsoft has lost for now, reports the FFII's campaign website OOXML. The 2/3 majority needed to proceed with the fast-track standarization has not been achieved. Now the standard will head to the ballot resolution meeting to address the hundreds of technical commentsa submitted along with the "no" (as well as some "yes" votes.
Education

Submission + - Scientist must pay to read his own CC'd paper (cam.ac.uk)

Submitted by
Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: "Peter Murray Rust, a chemist at Cambridge University, was lost for words when he found Oxford University Press's website demanded $48 from him to access his own scientific paper, in which he holds copyright and which he released under a Creative Commons licence. As he writes, the journal in question was "selling my intellectual property, without my permission, against the terms of the licence (no commercial use)." In the light of this kind of copyright abuse and of the PRISM Coalition, a new FUD group set up by scientific publishers to discredit open access, isn't it time to say enough is enough, and demand free access to the research we pay for through our taxes?"

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