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Space

Making Babies In Space May Not Be Easy 262

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the just-try-harder dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Studies of reproduction in space have previously been carried out with sea urchins, fish, amphibians and birds, but Brandon Keim writes in Wired that Japanese biologists have discovered that although mammalian fertilization may take place normally in space, as mouse embryos develop in microgravity their cells have trouble dividing and maturing. The researchers artificially fertilized mouse eggs with sperm that had been stored inside a three-dimensional clinostat, a machine that mimics weightlessness by rotating objects in such a way that the effects of gravity are spread in every direction. Some embryos were ultimately implanted in female mice and survived to a healthy birth, but at lower numbers than a regular-gravity control group. Part of the difference could be the result of performing tricky procedures on sensitive cells, but the researchers suspect they also reflect the effect of a low-gravity environment on cellular processes that evolved for Earth-specific physics. '"These results suggest for the first time that fertilization can occur normally under G environment in a mammal, but normal preimplantation embryo development might require 1G," concludes the report. "Sustaining life beyond Earth either on space stations or on other planets will require a clear understanding of how the space environment affects key phases of mammalian reproduction."'"
Input Devices

Lenovo Tinkers With Larger Delete and Escape Keys 586

Posted by timothy from the boffins-are-everywhere dept.
Slatterz writes "After a year's research, Lenovo boffins have decided the time is right to install larger Delete and Escape keys on their updated ThinkPad laptop T400s range. While it is a small change, it is fairly radical to tinker with an area of hardware which has been largely unchanged since the 19th century. What convinced them to make the size-change was doing some tests on users to see which keys they use the most. They found that on average, people used the Escape and Delete keys 700 times per week, yet those were the only non-letter keys that Lenovo hasn't made any bigger." The article says Caps Lock may be next on the agenda; death is too good for Caps Lock.
Internet Explorer

IE 8.1 Supports Firefox Plugins, Rendering Engine 283

Posted by kdawson from the fruits-of-competition dept.
KermodeBear writes in to note that according to Smashing Magazine, the newest version of Internet Explorer, codenamed "Eagle Eyes," supports Firefox plugins, the Gecko and Webkit rendering engines, and has scored a 71 / 100 on the Acid3 test. The article is pretty gee-whiz, and I don't entirely believe the claims that IE's JavaScript performance will trounce the others. (And note that the current Firefox, 3.0.8, scores 71 on Acid3, and Safari 3.1.2 hits 75.) No definitive date from Microsoft, but "sources" say that an IE 8.1 beta will be released in the summer.

Comment Re:Trendsourcing (Score 1) 41

by MrNonchalant (#27324385) Attached to: Crowdsourcing JavaScript Testing

It's only buzz if you use it that way.

I can develop an app to crowdsource movie recommendations using Agile methodologies and heavy automation with SOAP communication between layers.

If I wrote a few paragraphs concerning this project these words would have far more meaning within the context of the description. This is a valid use of the word "crowdsourcing," because it's within the context of a real project and it communicates a real concept.
Supercomputing

Collaborative Map-Reduce In the Browser 188

Posted by kdawson from the suercomputer-on-the-very-cheap dept.
igrigorik writes "The generality and simplicity of Google's Map-Reduce is what makes it such a powerful tool. However, what if instead of using proprietary protocols we could crowd-source the CPU power of millions of users online every day? Javascript is the most widely deployed language — every browser can run it — and we could use it to push the job to the client. Then, all we would need is a browser and an HTTP server to power our self-assembling supercomputer (proof of concept + code). Imagine if all it took to join a compute job was to open a URL."
Google

Submission + - Google Chrome Released! 19

Submitted by
AKAImBatman
AKAImBatman writes: "Google's much anticipated web browser Google Chrome is now available for download. This new browser professes to have process-isolated tabs, the fastest Javascript VM on the market, extensive compatibility with existing web pages and web standards, and Google Gears pre-installed. For those who are concerned about the privacy of the browser, Google has a privacy FAQ to address your concerns."
United States

Copy That Floppy, Lose Your Computer 766

Posted by CmdrTaco from the god-bless-america-land-of-the-super-corporation dept.
Over the weekend we posted a story about a new copyright bill that creates a new govt. agency in charge of copyright enforcement. Kevin Way writes "In particular, the bill grants this new agency the right to seize any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime and auction it off. You would not need to be found guilty at trial to face this penalty. You may want to read a justification of it, and criticism presented by Declan McCullagh and Public Knowledge." Lots of good followup there on a really crazy development.

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