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Submission + - Surgical Snakebots Are Real, And Heading For Humanity's Orifices (popsci.com) 1

Submitted by malachiorion
malachiorion writes: Last week marked the first use of a surgical snakebot—the Flex system, from MA-based Medrobotics—on living human beings. It wriggled down two patient's throats, to be specific, at a hospital in Belgium. That's neat, and could mean an interesting showdown-to-come between this snake-inspired robot (invented by a Carnegie Mellon roboticist), and the more widely-used da Vinci bot. But this is bigger than a business story. The next era in general surgery, which involves making a single small incision after entering the anus or vagina, instead of multiple punctures in the abdomen, might finally be feasible with this kind of bot. This is my analysis for Popular Science about why instrument-bearing snakebots wriggling into our orifices is a technology worth rooting for.

Submission + - The Higgs Boson Should Have Crushed the Universe (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: This may seem a little far fetched, but if our understanding of the physics behind the recently-discovered Higgs boson (or, more specifically, the Higgs field — the ubiquitous field that endows all stuff with mass) is correct, our Universe shouldn’t exist. That is, however, if another cosmological hypothesis is real, a hypothesis that is currently undergoing intense scrutiny in light of the BICEP2 results.

Submission + - Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy (newrepublic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Work/life balance is a constant problem in the tech industry. Even though experienced and mature engineers have been vocal in fighting it, every new generation buys into the American cultural identity of excessive work being a virtue. Each generation suffers for it, and the economy does, too. This article backs up that wisdom with hard numbers: "The 40-hour workweek is mostly a thing of the past. Ninety-four percent of professional workers put in 50 or more hours, and nearly half work 65 or above. All workers have managed to cut down on our time on the job by 112 hours over the last 40 years, but we’re far behind other countries: The French cut down by 491 hours, the Dutch by 425, and Canadians by 215 in the same time period. ... This overwork shows up in our sleep. Out of five developed peers, four other countries sleep more than us. That has again worsened over the years. In 1942, more than 80 percent of Americans slept seven hours a night or more. Today, 40 percent sleep six hours or less. A lack of sleep makes us poorer workers: People who sleep less than seven hours a night have a much harder time concentrating and getting work done."

Submission + - BlackBerry back in profit (net4tech.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Upon arrival at the controls of BlackBerry last November, CEO John Chen seemed determined to turn things around. In only four months, it has already achieved its objectives, namely reducing operational costs by 30%. To do this, he has had to continue to cut in the workforce, reduced by half in two years.

John Chen estimated that BlackBerry has 80% chance of escape, against 50% a year ago. First positive sign. Results for the first quarter of 2014 During this period, it reported net income of $ 23 million against a loss of 84 million a year ago. However, these results take into account the sale of a building complex sold 500 million. Thus excluding exceptional items, BlackBerry still recorded a loss of $ 60 million, which is still two times lower than analysts' forecasts.

Submission + - Scientists Measure Magnetic Interaction Between Two Bound Electrons

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a paper published in Nature , scientists report successfully measuring the magnetic interaction of two bound electrons of two different strontium (Sr) ions. The two ions were suspended in a quadrupole ion trap (a.k.a. a Paul trap), and the effects of ambient magnetic noise were mitigated by 'restricting the spin evolution [of the electrons] to a decoherence-free subspace that is immune to collective magnetic field noise.' The scientists measured the magnetic interaction of the two electrons as a function of distance and found that the force acting between the two was inversely dependant on the cubed distance between the electrons, consistent with Newton's inverse-cube law.

Submission + - Will ASU Online's Starbucks Baristas Outearn Their Professors? (Yes. Duh!)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Following up on the recent slashdot story "Starbucks Offers Workers 2 Years of Free College" (http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/06/16/1927205/starbucks-offers -workers-2-years-of-free-college), Steve Foerster commented that "This is a major PR boost for ASU as well, and considering many adjuncts make less than the baristas they'll be teaching, I doubt ASU is losing money here." (http://chronicle.com/article/In-Deal-With-Starbucks/147181/#comment-1439171567)

Mr. Foerster's comment caused the Chronicle of Higher Education to ask "Is it possible that Starbucks baristas will be better paid than their instructors? (http://chronicle.com/article/Will-ASU-Online-s-Starbucks/147239/)" While the article is behind a paywall, the answer is obvious to anyone who knows how little adjunct professors are paid.

Submission + - Tesla releases electric car patents to the public (teslamotors.com)

Submitted by mknewman
mknewman writes: Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.

Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.

Submission + - Broken bolts found in all Salem 2 reactor cooling pumps (nj.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: PSEG Nuclear has now found broken-off bolt pieces inside all four of the huge pumps which help cool the nuclear reactor at its Salem 2 plant, officials said.

Errant bolt heads have been found in the bottom of the reactor coolant pumps and even at the bottom of the reactor core itself, settled under the nuclear fuel rods.

And some of the bolt heads that have broken off have not yet been accounted for, federal regulators confirmed Tuesday.

The bolts secure parts known as turning vanes on the inside of the pump. The vanes direct water out of the pump into the reactor where it circulates to cool the core.

Salem 2 has been shut down since April 12 when a rescheduled refueling outage began. During routine inspections, workers found all 20 of the bolts that hold turning vanes in place inside one of the four pumps had failed.

This discovery prompted plant officials to then inspect the three other pumps used to cool the reactor.

In two of the other pumps all of the bolts were found to have failed and broken off. In the fourth pump, nine of the bolts had severed heads, six were intact and the others showed signs of decay, according to Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Submission + - HP Just Unveiled The Machine - A New Type of Computer (businessweek.com)

Submitted by pacopico
pacopico writes: HP Labs is trying to make a comeback. According to Businessweek, HP is building something called The Machine. It's a type of server that will use memristors for memory and silicon photonics for interconnects and ship possibly by 2017 (good luck). As for The Machine's software, HP plans to build three open source operating systems, including a new one from scratch and its own versions of Linux and Android. The new computer is meant to solve a coming crisis due to limitations around DRAM and Flash. About three-quarters of HP Labs personnel are working on this project.

Submission + - There's No Wind Chill on Mars (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Even though daytime temperatures in the tropics of Mars can be about –20C, a summer afternoon there might feel about the same as an average winter day in southern England or Minneapolis. That’s because there’s virtually no wind chill on the Red Planet, according to a new study—the first to give an accurate sense of what it might feel like to spend a day walking about on our celestial neighbor. “I hadn’t really thought about this before, but I’m not surprised,” says Maurice Bluestein, a biomedical engineer and wind chill expert recently retired from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. The new findings, he says, “will be useful, as people planning to colonize Mars need to know what they’re getting themselves into.”

Submission + - Fasting triggers stem cell regeneration of damaged, old immune system (usc.edu)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In the first evidence of a natural intervention triggering stem cell-based regeneration of an organ or system, a study in the June 5 issue of the Cell Stem Cell shows that cycles of prolonged fasting not only protect against immune system damage — a major side effect of chemotherapy — but also induce immune system regeneration, shifting stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal.

In both mice and a Phase 1 human clinical trial, long periods of not eating significantly lowered white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles then “flipped a regenerative switch,” changing the signaling pathways for hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and immune systems, the research showed.

“PKA is the key gene that needs to shut down in order for these stem cells to switch into regenerative mode. It gives the OK for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system,” “And the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting. Now, if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or aging, fasting cycles can generate, literally, a new immune system.”

Submission + - How Cable Companies Are Keeping You From Enjoying Fiber (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by redletterdave
redletterdave writes: Everyone wants a piece of Google’s high-speed Fiber network, but the truth is, many cities and communities already have their own fiber networks — they’re just unable to use them. At least 20 states have laws or regulatory barriers that make it extremely difficult, if not illegal, for cities and communities to offer fiber access to their residents. And even in states without explicit public broadband laws, cable companies often have non-compete agreements with the local governments that disallow those communities from adopting fiber networks that might rival their own services.

Submission + - Testing 65 Different GPUs On Linux With Open Source Drivers (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: How good are open source graphics drivers in 2014 given all the Linux gaming and desktop attention? Phoronix has tested 65 different GPUs using the latest open source drivers covering Intel HD Graphics, NVIDIA GeForce, AMD Radeon, and AMD FirePro hardware. Of the 65 GPUs tested, only 50 of them had good enough open source driver support for running OpenGL games and benchmarks. Across the NVIDIA and AMD hardware were several pages of caveats with different driver issues encountered on Linux 3.15 and Mesa 10.3 loaded on Ubuntu 14.04. Intel graphics on Linux were reliable but slow while AMD's open-source Linux support was recommended over the NVIDIA support that doesn't currently allow for suitable graphics card re-clocking. Similar tests are now being done with the proprietary Linux drivers.

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