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Medicine

Blood From Mosquito Traps Car Thief 198

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the plausible-deniability dept.
Frosty Piss writes "Police in Finland have made an arrest for car theft based on a DNA sample taken from the blood found inside a mosquito. 'A police patrol carried out an inspection of the car and they noticed a mosquito that had sucked blood. It was sent to the laboratory for testing, which showed the blood belonged to a man who was in the police registers,' a police officer told reporters. The suspect, who has been interrogated, has insisted he did not steal the car, saying he had hitchhiked and was given a lift by a man driving the car. I'm wondering if the suspect should have denied any association with the car at all. After all, who knows where that mosquito had been?"

Comment Re:Since Lenovo took over, Thinkpads suck (Score 3, Interesting) 194

by file-exists-p (#26182719) Attached to: Lenovo's New ThinkPad Has 2 LCD Screens, Weighs 11 Pounds

I am the proud owner of a 570e, T41p, T61p and X61s. And indeed, the T61p is the most Lenovo of the four, and it sucks (huge and hot). The X61s is wonderful (netbook sized and amazing keyboard, CPU, HD, screen and linux compatibility) but it seems that it was IBM designed.

One of my relatives just bought a T400 and his comment was "pretty cool, but the keyboard sucks a bit" ... Knowing that one of the main reason to buy a Thinkpad was the quality of the keyboard, this is bad.

Now, maybe the expensive ones are better ? People do not seem to complain about the X[23]00, do they ?

Comment Re:I like Genetics personally (Score 1) 511

by file-exists-p (#26143697) Attached to: If I must catch a disease, I'd rather catch it via ...

One of my relatives has Crohn's disease, and by simply restricting her diet to a very limited group of food (i.e. rice, fish, certain fruits and vegetables, olive oil, and no diary, no meat, no spices, no alcohol, no cholocate, no coffee, no citrus, etc.) she does not need to take any med.

Before switching to that diet she was under corticoid, with all the associated side effects.
Programming

Evolution of Mona Lisa Via Genetic Programming 326

Posted by kdawson from the but-the-target-was-given dept.
mhelander writes "In his weblog Roger Alsing describes how he used genetic programming to arrive at a remarkably good approximation of Mona Lisa using only 50 semi-transparent polygons. His blog entry includes a set of pictures that let you see how 'Poly Lisa' evolved over roughly a million generations. Both beautiful to look at and a striking way to get a feel for the power of evolutionary algorithms."
Privacy

Replacing Metal Detectors With Brain Scans 327

Posted by kdawson from the what-is-it-you-intend dept.
Zordak writes "CNN has up a story about several Israeli firms that want to replace metal detectors at airports with biometric readings. For example, with funding from TSA and DHS, 'WeCU ([creepily] pronounced "We See You") Technologies, employs a combination of infra-red technology, remote sensors and imagers, and flashing of subliminal images, such as a photo of Osama bin Laden. Developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person's reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration — signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack.' Sensors may be embedded in the carpet, seats, and check-in screens. The stated goal is to read a passenger's 'intention' in a manner that is 'more fair, more effective and less expensive' than traditional profiling. But not to worry! WeCU's CEO says, 'We don't want you to feel that you are being interrogated.' And you may get through security in 20 to 30 seconds."
The Almighty Buck

EMA Suggests Point-Of-Sale Game Activation To Fight Piracy 244

Posted by Soulskill from the new-ways-to-break-things dept.
Gamasutra reports on a set of standards (PDF) published by the Entertainment Merchants Association to promote the use of technology that would "disable" games and DVDs until they are activated when purchased. "The effort is codenamed 'Project Lazarus,' and the EMA says it's assembled a consortium of retailers, home video companies and video game publishers to see how easily such 'benefit denial technology' could be implemented, and to evaluate possible cost-benefit analyses. The initiative is similar to security tags used in clothing retail that spill ink on garments if they're forcibly removed, thereby destroying the item. In such a situation, shoplifting is discouraged by implementing a solution that only the retailer can remove at the point of sale."
Patents

Halliburton Applies For Patent-Trolling Patent 244

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the meta-evil dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Halliburton, the company many folks know as Dick Cheney's previous employer, has apparently taken an interest in methods of patent trolling. In fact, according to Techdirt, the company has applied for a patent on patent trolling. Specifically, it's applied for a patent on the process of finding a company that protected an invention via trade secret, figuring out what that secret is, patenting it ... and then suing the original company. Hopefully, the patent office rejects this patent, because I somehow doubt that Halliburton is trying to get the patent as a way to block others from patent trolling."
Games

Non-Violent, Cooperative Games? 329

Posted by Soulskill from the play-that-myspace-game-to-befriend-monsters dept.
jandersen writes "While I generally don't play computer games, I do occasionally play games like Crossfire or The Mana World, because they have more of a story line and allow you to go at your own pace. What I don't care much about, though, is that they are still focused on killing monsters and amassing wealth, and it gets very tedious after a while. Are there really no games where the goal isn't so much about increasing your own power and defeating others, but where you instead grow by doing things that benefit others, where enemies shouldn't be killed out of hand, but befriended; where learning, teaching, research and social skills are more important than killing and conquering? Would people be interested in a game of that nature?"
Games

How Do Games Grow Up? 248

Posted by Soulskill from the not-with-wheaties dept.
Gamasutra is running a piece by game designer Brice Morrison questioning the lack of games for grown-ups — or, more accurately, the lack of an intellectual progression in games like that which exists for books, movies, and other creative works. "While my interests in other media grew substantially more adult — from Nickelodeon to CNN, from Dr. Seuss to George Orwell — games did not seem to have a more intelligent counterpart for me to move on to. As I entered college, I became less interested in mindless entertainment and more interested in encountering new ideas. I didn't want to kill time; I wanted to take advantage of it. I wanted to challenge myself with profound concepts, to learn of new paradigms, processes, and possibilities. ... So what exactly are the barriers of entry for great thinkers (or groups of thinkers) to leave their mark on games? What must happen for games — or interactive entertainment, if you will, to mature as a medium?"
Medicine

Scientists Erase Specific Memories In Mice 320

Posted by samzenpus from the where's-the-cheese dept.
Ostracus writes "It sounds like science fiction, but scientists say it might one day be possible to erase undesirable memories from the brain, selectively and safely. After exposing mice to emotionally powerful stimuli, such as a mild shock to their paws, the scientists then observed how well or poorly the animals subsequently recalled the particular trauma as their brain's expression of CaMKII was manipulated up and down. When the brain was made to overproduce CaMKII at the exact moment the mouse was prodded to retrieve the traumatic memory, the memory wasn't just blocked, it appeared to be fully erased."
Republicans

McCain Campaign Protests YouTube's DMCA Policy 597

Posted by kdawson from the sauce-for-geese dept.
Colz Grigor writes "It appears that CBS and Fox have submitted DMCA takedown notices to YouTube for videos from the McCain campaign. The campaign is now complaining about YouTube's DMCA policy making it too easy for copyright holders to remove fair-use videos. I hope they pursue this by addressing flaws in the DMCA."
The Almighty Buck

Game Devs Using One-Time Bonuses to Fight Used Game Sales 229

Posted by Soulskill from the thanks-so-much dept.
ShackNews reports on an emerging trend which sees game publishers offer one-time bonus codes to unlock extra content for certain titles. Rock Band 2, for example, comes with a code which will allow free 20-song download, but is only usable once. NBA Live '09 has functionality to update team rosters on a daily basis, but will only do so for the original owner. "'This information and data is very valuable and it wasn't free for us,' an EA representative explained on Operation Sports. 'T-Mobile is paying for it this year for all users who buy the game new. This is a very expensive tool to use, and if you don't buy it new, then you'll have to pay for this. It isn't greed at all.'"

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