Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror

Comment: Re:Oh, the naivete. (Score 1, Insightful) 590

by AhNewBis (#31002744) Attached to: The Lancet Recants Study Linking Autism To Vaccine

Now the Vaccine Industry has scared or bribed the other doctors into recanting the evidence and they are going to destroy this Doctor's ability to practice medicine as a warning to anyone else that dares to come forward with the truth.

There isn't a rolleye big enough to express how likely it would be for this to end the discussion.

Privacy

T-Mobile UK employees sold customers' information->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "Workers at T-Mobile UK have been selling customer data to brokers who work for the competition, according to T-Mobile and the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office. "Many thousands" of customer account details were sold to several brokers for substantial amounts of money, the ICO said. In an announcement (PDF) from the ICO, the agency does not name the operator involved, but T-Mobile acknowledged that it alerted ICO about the data breach. The BBC reported that after the other mobile operators said they were not the subject of the investigation, T-Mobile confirmed its involvement."
Link to Original Source
Science

SPAM: Will In-Vitro Meat Let You Taste Extinct Species?

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes "This fascinating article describes eight ways in-vitro meat will change the world, including the ability to taste endangered animals and even extinct species like dinosaurs. "Future flesh" could also eliminate 51% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (and 90% of choking victims), and "test tube steak" is also cheaper, healthier, and greener. (A quarter of the earth's land is currently used to grow meat, along with 8% of the world's water.) It could reduce animal-to-human diseases while eliminating artery-clogging saturated fats from our diets, replacing them with heart-healthy Omega-3 — while eliminating hormones and mercury (as well as e. coli and salmonella). And someone will finally claim PETA's $1 million prize for anyone who can market a competitive in-vitro meat by 2012."
Link to Original Source
Space

Perseid Meteor Shower tonight

Submitted by AhNewBis
AhNewBis writes "The height of the Perseid Meteor shower has begun tonight (August 11, 2009) and will continue throughout the night until sunup. Grab a towel and a compass, lay down and look to the Northeastern sky, and enjoy the show!"
Science

Ten Things We Still Don't Understand About Humans 397

Posted by Soulskill
from the why-do-they-like-will-ferrell-movies dept.
ParticleGirl writes "New Scientist has an article examining 10 human features (bugs?) that we still don't understand, like blushing, laughing, and nose-picking. There are some interesting, speculative evolutionary explanations listed for each. '[Psychologist Robert R. Provine] thinks laughing began in our pre-human ancestors as a physiological response to tickling. Modern apes maintain the ancestral 'pant-pant' laugh when they are tickled during play, and this evolved into the human 'ha-ha.' Then, he argues, as our brains got bigger, laughter acquired a powerful social function — to bond people. Indeed, Robin Dunbar at the University of Oxford has found that laughing increases levels of endorphins, our body's natural opiates, which he believes helps to strengthen social relationships.'"
Censorship

Apple's Schiller Responds To iPhone Dictionary App Fiasco 200

Posted by Soulskill
from the not-so-sinister-after-all dept.
beef curtains writes "Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, responded by e-mail to a blog post discussing Apple's rejection of a dictionary app. If Schiller's e-mail is to be believed, it offers an interesting perspective on this whole issue. He said, 'The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable. ... The Ninjawords developer then decided to filter some offensive terms in the Ninjawords application and resubmit it for approval for distribution in the App Store before parental controls were implemented. Apple did not ask the developer to censor any content in Ninjawords, the developer decided to do that themselves in order to get to market faster. ... You are correct that the Ninjawords application should not have needed to be censored while also receiving a 17+ rating, but that was a result of the developers' actions, not Apple's.' PC World has an article summarizing the drama-to-date, the blog post, and Schiller's response."
The Courts

Examining Software Liability In the Open Source Community 241

Posted by timothy
from the three-letters-starting-f-u-d dept.
snydeq writes "Guidelines from the American Law Institute that seek to hold vendors liable for 'knowingly' shipping buggy software could have dramatic impact on the open source community, as vague language around a 'free software' exemption could put open source developers at litigation risk. Meant to protect open source developers, the 'free software' exemption does not take into account the myriad ways in which vendors receive revenue from software products, according to a joint letter drafted by Microsoft and the Linux Foundation. As such, the guidelines — which, although not binding, are likely to prove influential on future lawsuits, according to attorneys on both sides of the issue — call into question the notion of liability in the open source community, where any number of coders may be responsible for any given defect."

To give of yourself, you must first know yourself.