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Medicine

The Future of the Most Important Human Brain 252

Posted by Soulskill from the do-neurosci-texts-read-as-cookbooks-to-zombies dept.
mattnyc99 writes "About a year ago, we watched live as neuroanatomist Jacopo Annese sliced the brain of Memento-style patient Henry Molaison (aka H.M.) into 2,401 pieces. Since even before then, writer Luke Dittrich — whose grandfather happened to be the surgeon to accidentally slice open the H.M. skull in the first place — has been tracking Annese and a new revolution in brain science. From the article in Esquire: 'If Korbinian Brodmann created the mind's Rand McNally, Jacopo Annese is creating its Google Maps. ... With his Brain Observatory, Annese is setting out to create not the world's largest but the world's most useful collection of brains. ... For the first time, we'll be able to meaningfully and easily compare large numbers of brains, perhaps finally understanding why one brain might be less empathetic or better at calculus or likelier to develop Alzheimer's than another. The Brain Observatory promises to revolutionize our understanding of how these three-pound hunks of tissue inside our skulls do what they do, which means, of course, that it promises to revolutionize our understanding of ourselves.'"
Earth

New Batfish Species Found Under Gulf Oil Spill 226

Posted by timothy from the had-to-flush-'em-out-somehow dept.
eDarwin writes "Researchers have discovered two previously unknown species of bottom-dwelling fish in the Gulf of Mexico, living right in the area affected by the BP oil spill. Researchers identified new species of pancake batfishes, a flat fish rarely seen because of the dark depths they favor. They are named for the clumsy way they 'walk' along the sea bottom, like a bat crawling."
Medicine

Submission + - FDA says Homeopathic Cure can Cause Loss of Smell

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The FDA has advised consumers to stop using Matrixx Initiatives' Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel marketed over-the-counter as a cold remedy because it is associated with the loss of sense of smell (anosmia) that may be long-lasting or permanent. The FDA says about 130 consumers have reported a loss of smell after using the homeopathic cure containing zinc, an ingredient scientists say may damage nerves in the nose needed for smell and health officials say they have asked Matrixx executives to turn over more than 800 consumer complaints concerning lost smell that the company has on file. "Loss of the sense of smell is potentially life threatening and may be permanent," said Dr. Charles Lee. "People without the sense of smell may not be able to detect life dangerous situations, such as gas leaks or something burning in the house." The FDA said the remedy was never formally approved because it is part of a small group of remedies known as homeopathic products that are not required to undergo federal review before launching. The global market for homeopathic drugs is about $200 million per year, according to the American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists. Matrixx has settled hundreds of lawsuits connected with Zicam in recent years, but says it "will seek a meeting with the FDA to vigorously defend its scientific data, developed during more than 10 years of experience with the products, demonstrating their safety.""
Earth

Submission + - Climate change is happening 'here, now' : US Gov (google.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: WASHINGTON (AFP) — The harmful effects of global warming are being felt "here and now and in your backyard," a groundbreaking US government report on climate change has warned.

"Climate change is happening now, it is not something that will happen decades or centuries in the future," Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, one of the lead authors of the report, told AFP.

Climate change, which the report blames largely on human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases, "is under way in the United States and projected to grow," said the report by the US Global Change Research Program, a grouping of a dozen government agencies and the White House.

The report is the first on climate change since President Barack Obama took office and outlines in plain, non-scientific terms how global warming has resulted in an increase of extreme weather such as the powerful heatwave that swept Europe in 2003, claiming tens of thousands of lives.

"We focused on regions of the US because another big message we wanted to get across is that not only is climate change happening now, but it's happening in your backyard," said Melillo.

AFP : http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jPMTGVoU8smsggVfQFkT2eTXEbtw
Google

Submission + - Google Considers Secure email as Default for All

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The NY Times reports that last year Google made it fairly easy for users to enable HTTPS in Gmail, though it is not clear that the company has done much to publicize the feature. Now Google is "planning a trial in which we'll move small samples of different types of Gmail users to HTTPS to see what their experience is, and whether it affects the performance of their email. Does it load fast enough? Is it responsive enough? Are there particular regions, or networks, or computer setups that do particularly poorly on HTTPS?" If the negative effects are limited, Google will turn on HTTPS protection for more Gmail users and perhaps even all users and the company will look into the possibility of providing the same security for Google Docs and Google Calendar. Google said it was not using HTTPS by default because it could slow down users' computers. "Your computer has to do extra work to decrypt all that data, and encrypted data doesn't travel across the internet as efficiently as unencrypted data. That's why we leave the choice up to you." Other providers including Yahoo, Microsoft, MySpace and Facebook — generally offer HTTPS when users are logging in to protect passwords, but do not make the security feature available more broadly. "Users of Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook and MySpace are also vulnerable to these attacks. Worst of all, these firms do not offer their customers any form of protection. Google at least offers its tech savvy customers a strong degree of protection from snooping attacks.""
Biotech

DNA Bar Coding Finds Mislabeled Sushi 285

Posted by timothy from the travesty-of-the-seas dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, who graduated this year from the Trinity School in Manhattan, took on a freelance science project to check 60 samples of seafood using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique called DNA Bar Coding to see whether the fish New Yorkers buy is what they think they are getting, and found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled: A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt." (More below.)

Comment Re:This means what? (Score 1) 638

by MighMoS (#23827813) Attached to: Wine 1.0 — Uncorked After 15 Years

Even if you get an app working, chances are it will break with every update. How do you sell that to someone? "Here is this new cool operating system, and here is the guy you're going to have to employ to configure every single windows-based application you want to try out...Oh, and no guarantees, he may not be able to get it to work."
Guess what? Don't upgrade. That's just not smart. I know of ZERO companies who installed Windows Vista the day it came out on their production servers, and if anyone does the same with Wine, bad things can happen. Quite frankly Wine is understaffed for the purposes of recreating a whole operating system, but your argument of "These two secret apps don't work and never will" doesn't really hold much water. Even "These two secret apps don't work because...blah blah blah" would be better. "It dont work" is NOT a valid technical issue. And adding references to shit does't exactly make you more credible.
Music

Jobs to Labels- Lose the DRM & We'll Talk Price 459

Posted by CmdrTaco from the ten-bucks-a-gig dept.
eldavojohn writes "Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been talking smack about DRM and has recently issued a verbal offer to major music lables stating that if they are willing to lose the DRM, he'd be willing to raise his 99 cent price for those iTunes songs. These tracks (such as the recent EMI deal) would also have better sound quality & cost about 30 cents more."
Printer

Submission + - 3D Printers a Reality

Submitted by mikepl
mikepl writes: Though slashdot had a recent article on 3D printers , this article from the NY Times shows other technologies, possible uses, and the possibility of a home/consumer model within a couple of years. I can't wait to make my own army men!
United States

Submission + - Library of Congress irked at Washington Watch wiki

Submitted by BackRow
BackRow writes: Washington Watch, a site devoted to tracking the cost of federal legislation, has raised the hackles of the Library of Congress with a new wiki that makes an unfavorable comparison to the LOC's THOMAS legislative search engine. After Jim Harper, Washington Watch's creator and the director of information policy at the Cato Institute, announced the wiki, he received a nastygram from the director of communications from the LOC. 'After the announcement, he was contacted by Matt Raymond, the Director of Communications at the Library (and the author of the Library of Congress' blog. Raymond said that he possessed "statutory and regulatory authority governing unauthorized use of the Library's name and logo and those of Library subunits and programs," and he asked that Harper stop using the names "Library of Congress" and "THOMAS" in his marketing materials.'
Supercomputing

Submission + - The Ability to "controllably Couple qubits"

Submitted by Timogen
Timogen writes: While large-scale quantum computers remain in the domain of science fiction, a joint team from Japan announced Thursday that it has been able to take a small but crucial step in pursuit of this advanced goal. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007 /05/quantumcoupling NEC, the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, or RIKEN, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency, published a paper in the May 4 issue of the journal Science, outlining the ability to "controllably couple qubits." In classical computer science, bits — or binary digits — hold data encoded as ones and zeros. In quantum computing, data is measured in qubits, or quantum bits. As such, a qubit can have three possible states — one, zero or a "superposition" of one and zero. This unique property theoretically makes quantum computing able to solve large-scale calculations that would dwarf today's supercomputers. But qubits in isolation are not very useful. It's only when they can be connected to one another that large-scale processing becomes possible.
Music

Submission + - How the RIAA has dodged RICO charges

Submitted by Gerardo
Gerardo writes: Wondering why the RIAA hasn't been hit with racketeering charges over its shady legal fight against file-sharing? Ars Technica looks at why the RIAA has been able to dodge RICO charges. '"Right off the bat there are some problems with the predicate claims for RICO," explained IP attorney Rich Vazquez. "You have to have a pattern of racketeering activity: either criminal acts where there is a one-year jail penalty, or mail or wire fraud." Any RICO action brought against the RIAA would have to focus on the wire fraud component, likely accusing the record labels of poking around someone's PC without permission.' That's going to be a difficult argument to make, given that Kazaa's default settings give users no reasonable expectation of privacy.

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