AP's Malcolm Ritter reports that young chimpanzees were better at remembering a series of numbers flashed on a screen, than the Japanese college students used as a control group. Scientists plan to repeat the experiment using 5th graders against the great apes.

Beowulf opens nationally today. Official site. Featuring special effects including performance capture and digital 3D, the olde English public domain classic comes to life with cast including Angelina Jolie(nekked), Anthony Hopkins, Crispin Glover, Ray Winstone, John Malkovich and Randy Shelly. Crew includes Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Robert Zemeckis (Polar Express), Roger Avery (Pulp Fiction.) Tie-ins include a videogame. Coverage includes Wired, the New York Times, Reuters and Imdb.

XKCD is already featured on the slashdot front page, but some readers may have missed this week's exciting daily updates, which involve a discussion of section 408 of the DMCA and some hot mother/daughter action.

How Appealing reports that a court has struck down age verification requirements for porn sites, as a First Amendment violation.
While the average slashdot user has never been to such a site, porn has been a driving force in the economics and technology of the net.
The age verification requirements of U.S.C. Title 18, Section 2257 were yet another attempt to regulate to death what the government can't outright prohibit. The requirements intruded on the privacy and safety of the performers,and created headaches for sites like flickr, photobucket,and formerly yahoo which host images. It is has long been thought that the requirements wouldn't hold up in court, but this is the first actual ruling.

Walmart to enter broadband market, reports Business Week, in partnership with Hughes satellite. PCWorld blog. This could put price pressure on cable companies, and help bring broadband to the 10% of the county that is off-grid.

http://suicidegirls.com/news/celeb/22436/
Some parts of that site are NSFW.
"There has been a lot of hullabaloo as of late over the fact that Natalie Portman has gone back on her word and done a semi-nude scene in Wes Anderson's short film Hotel Chevalier (free on iTunes!)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Chevalier is a companion piece to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darjeeling_Limited.
"What is good about this film (and all decent short films and stories) is the amount of information (both literal and emotional) it is able to contain in so few words and images. For example, bruises on the ass can only mean one thing."

How Appealing reports that the 9th Circuit has granted a temporary injunction, so NASA Jet Propulsion Lab workers won't be fired for refusing to submit to highly intrusive background searches. Associated Press. Los Angeles Times.

Associated Press reports on a hearing held today in the case of a man convicted of felony spamming. There's no doubt the man, Jeremy Jaynes, was was a major spammer. The issue is whether the statute he was charged under is constitutional - whether Virginia has jurisdiction to regulate speech on the internet, and whether the state can make it a crime to speak anonymously online. There are cases on both sides of both issues, and we don't know what the court will decide.

At Volokh, Professor Orin Kerr notes a 6th circuit decision (pdf) about whether the 4th Amendment's expectation of privacy applied to Yahoo emails. Yes. Wired has more. EFF's friend of the court brief may have helped.

PhysOrg reports that nature has a letter describing an upcoming article in which scientists made proteins to block receptors of a fruit fly chemical, resulting in the flies living 30% longer.
The process has not yet been tested on slashdot users.
"High-affinity ligands that bind the ectodomain of the GPCR Methuselah increased the life span of Drosophila melanogaster by binding at an interface between the ectodomain and the extracellular transmembrane loops of the receptor."

Reuters reports that the 2nd circuit has struck down the FCC's rules on indecency, in a case brought by Fox. The court said the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was "arbitrary and capricious" in setting a new standard for defining indecency. Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin angrily retorted, "'shit' and 'fuck' bleep bleep children." The case is a victory for Nicole Richie and Bono and Cher, as some of the people Fox aired saying some of the 7 dirty words in casual conversation. No word yet on whether the agency will appeal.

Free WiFi, the sign said. So Sam Peterson parked his car outside the ReUnion Street Cafe in Sparta Michigan and surfed the net, until a cop got suspicious and busted him for hacking. Rather than face a felony charge, he's agreed to pay $400 and do community service. woodtv.com
This is the 8th such case nationally and the first in Michigan. statute.
An earlier case was discussed on slashdot.
wifi itsatrap

The upcoming movie Beowulf features a cluster of talented cast and crew. Imdb.
Neil Gaiman screenplay, Robert Zemeckis directing a Warner Brothers/Paramount release, expected 11/2007, not yet rated.
Cast includes Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovitz, Randy Shelly, Ray Winstone as Beowulf, .
The movie uses a new motion capture process described as a blend of animation and live video first seen in Polar Express. about.com

Ann Arbor Michigan googleplex unveiled. Will hold 1000 workers, helping to replace those lost as Phizer research center closes, and focus on Google's adsense program. Quarterly adsense income topped a billion $, up a google in the past decade, up 50% over this time last year. My blog has yet to see a nickel of that. Vark's theorem postulates that Google doubles ever two years, until world domination is achieved.

Embryonic stem cells may repair mouse eyes, reports Reuters.
Building-a-better-mouse-department
Stem cells made from human embryos can home in on damaged eyes, hearts and arteries of mice and rats, and appear to start repairs, said Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology.
Abstract of paper.
The mice are now dead.
tags: transhuman, itsatrap, python