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Government

Over 400 Scientists Dispute ManMade Global Warming

Submitted by
bagboy
bagboy writes "A U.S. Senate Report claims over 400 prominent scientists around the world disputed the "consensus" of man-made global warming. Many of these scientists also claim numerous colleagues "share their views but are afraid to speak out for fear of retribution". The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works site has additional information."
Biotech

NIH Research To Go Public 1

Submitted by shofutex
shofutex writes "According to the Washington Post, the omnibus spending bill recently passed includes provisions to make NIH-funded research publicly available.

Under the bill's terms, scientists getting grant money from the National Institutes of Health would now have to submit to the NIH a final copy of their research papers when those papers are accepted for publication in a journal. An NIH database would then post those papers, free to the public, within 12 months after publication.
"
The Courts

RIAA ordered to divulge expenses-per-download

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Court has ordered UMG Recordings, Warner Bros. Records, Interscope Records, Motown, and SONY BMG to disclose their expenses-per-download to the defendant's lawyers, in UMG v. Lindor, a case pending in Brooklyn. The Court held that the expense figures are relevant to the issue of whether the RIAA's attempt to recover damages of $750 or more per 99-cent song file, is an unconstitutional violation of due process."
Supercomputing

A supercomputer to design better plants?

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes "Is it possible to create more productive crops than nature does without growing hybrids or genetically modified plants? According to researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the answer is yes . They've simulated photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert light to energy, with the help of supercomputers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Their models suggest that soybean productivity could be increased by 40 to 60 percent. They're also working with wheat and rice and expect that biotechnology companies will use this research to design more productive plants without altering their genes. But read more for additional details and to see how the researchers calibrated their supercomputing model."
Books

Top Ten Strangest or Cruellest Science Experiments 1

Submitted by
aalobode
aalobode writes "The Times of London has a current story based on the review of a book by Alex Boase, Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments. There they list the top science experiments — including the one from which the book gets its name — that were conducted by otherwise sane humans who tragically or otherwise ignored the effect of their research on the subjects themselves. Nowadays, most institutions have a review board for research on human subjects which would flag most proposals that could lead to harm for the subjects, but not so in the past. See for yourself at the url http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2779808.ece?OTC-HPtoppuff&ATTR=elephants"
The Internet

Are 'Achievements' in Online Games Worth It?->

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes "There's a brief rant by a writer from Kotaku who tells the story of losing his XBox360 'achievements' & rating. Instead of getting mad, throwing the controller & picking up a Steve Ballmer voodoo doll, he simply sat back and reflected on the inane requirements one must complete to achieve something so minuscule. Are we already back to grade school, walking around with the gold star stickers on our chest that we earned from tediously getting every math problem correct? Or, as the article puts it, "Jesus, since when was it fun to force yourself to play through parts of a game just to earn yourself an arbitrary point score?" Well?"
Link to Original Source
Technology (Apple)

Apple to face lawsuits over iPhone gift card issue->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "In an effort to reduce the number of iPhones that are purchased for the purpose of unlocking (250,000 since July), Apple has a recently introduced a ban on the use of cash and gift cards for iPhone sales, as well as limiting purchases to two-per customer visit. While the company is well within its rights to refuse to accept cash, Apple may have gotten itself into hot water with its refusal to accept gift cards. The company's own website states that customers using gift cards can buy "exactly what they want from any retail Apple Store." The company would appear to have pulled a bait-and-switch on consumers, and as CNET reports, could mean that yet another class-action is on the horizon for Apple."
Link to Original Source
Security

130 stolen laptops show lax security ->

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes ""The khaki bandit" posed as an office worker at several corporations and successfully stole over 130 laptops which he later sold on eBay. The ease of theft from the corporate offices (including FedEx and Burger King) shows just how bad corporate security can be. (In some cases, the career thief just walked into the office behind an employee with a security badge.) Two million laptops were stolen just in 2004, and of those 97 percent were never recovered. Ultimately it was the corporate headquarters of Outback Steakhouse who caught the thief with a bugged laptop that notified them when he re-connected it to the internet."
Link to Original Source
Media

NBC Chief, "Apple 'destroyed' music pricing-> 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "With the most colorful description yet, NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker on Sunday urged colleagues to take a stand against Apple's iTunes, charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.

"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business — in terms of pricing — and if we don't take control, they'll do the same thing on the video side,""
Link to Original Source
Privacy

Japan to fingerprint all foreign visitors->

Submitted by azuredrake
azuredrake writes "According to the BBC, Japan's government is planning to fingerprint and photograph all visiting foreigners beginning on November 20th of this year. As support for the controversial programs, the country's justice minister has said "a friend of a friend" was a member of al-Qaeda who had visited the country illegally several times and had been involved in one of the bombings in Bali. While this seems more like political suicide than a convincing argument to violate the privacy of all visiting foreigners, the program itself is interesting. If it succeeds, other countries would surely follow suit, leading to a vast national database of fingerprints and photographs of travelers."
Link to Original Source

To do nothing is to be nothing.