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+ - Robot 'fly' mimics full range of insect flight->

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes "A robot as small as a housefly has managed the delicate task of flying and hovering the way the actual insects do. The device uses layers of ultrathin materials that can make its wings flap 120 times a second, similar to the rate that a housefly manages. The robot's wings are composed of thin polyester films reinforced with carbon fibre ribs and its 'muscles' are made from piezoelectric crystals, which shrink or stretch depending on the voltage applied to them. Weighing in at just 80 milligrams, the tiny drone cannot carry its own power source, so has to stay tethered to the ground. It also relies on a computer to monitor its motion and adjust its attitude. Still, it is the first robot to deploy a fly's full range of aerial motion, including hovering (there's a video in the source)."
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+ - Webcomic TaraNormal plagiarized by big publishing company?->

Submitted by DaemonDan
DaemonDan writes "The webcomic TaraNormal, written and published by author Howie Noel, has had a fair deal of success since 2009 and when it started being published online, receiving a good deal of attention from Hollywood execs and book publishers alike. However:

The short of it is this; while Tara Normal was shopped around a few times, it never actually got picked up. However mysteriously enough a new book series titled “SaraNormal” (yeah tell me THAT doesn’t make your heart sink) hit bookstores in 2012. Not only is the name a blatent rip-off of Howie’s Tara Normal, the comparisons don’t stop there. SaraNormal features a young woman with the same abilities as Tara, hits some of the EXACT SAME plot points and even includes some of the same cast members!

But what can a little guy like Howie do against a big publishing company like Simon & Schuster? "
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+ - French intelligence agency forces removal of Wikipedia entry

Submitted by saibot834
saibot834 writes "The French domnestic intelligence agency DCRI has forced a Wikipedia administrator to delete an article about a local military base. The administrator, who is also the president of Wikimédia France, has been threatened by the agency with immediate reprisals after his initial refusal to comply.

Following a discussion on the administrator's noticeboard, the article (which is said to violate a law on the secrecy of the national defense) has been reinstated by a foreign user. Prior to pressuring the admin, DCRI contacted the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which refused to remove the article. WMF claimed the article only contained publicly available information, in accordance with Wikipedia's verifiability policy.

While the consequences for Wikimedia's community remain unclear, one thing is certain: The military base article – now available in English – will get more public awareness than ever before."
The Media

What Does It Actually Cost To Publish a Scientific Paper? 166

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the one-trillion-dollars dept.
ananyo writes "Nature has published an investigation into the real costs of publishing research after delving into the secretive, murky world of science publishing. Few publishers (open access or otherwise-including Nature Publishing Group) would reveal their profit margins, but they've pieced together a picture of how much it really costs to publish a paper by talking to analysts and insiders. Quoting from the piece: '"The costs of research publishing can be much lower than people think," agrees Peter Binfield, co-founder of one of the newest open-access journals, PeerJ, and formerly a publisher at PLoS. But publishers of subscription journals insist that such views are misguided — born of a failure to appreciate the value they add to the papers they publish, and to the research community as a whole. They say that their commercial operations are in fact quite efficient, so that if a switch to open-access publishing led scientists to drive down fees by choosing cheaper journals, it would undermine important values such as editorial quality.' There's also a comment piece by three open access advocates setting out what they think needs to happen next to push forward the movement as well as a piece arguing that 'Objections to the Creative Commons attribution license are straw men raised by parties who want open access to be as closed as possible.'"
Science

+ - Next-Generation Body Armor Could be Based on ... Sponges?->

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes "Chances are that if you were heading into battle, you wouldn’t wish that you were covered in sponges. It turns out that the sea sponge, however, has a unique structure that allows it to be flexible while remaining relatively impervious to predators. Scientists have now simulated this structure, in a lab-created material that may someday find use in body armor."
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Software

+ - Software lets scientists program new life forms->

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes "Biochemical engineers can now download a piece of software and with a few simple clicks, assemble the DNA for new life forms through their laptops. “With the proper computer tools, biologists can write their own genetic code — and then turn that code into life,” said biochemist Omri Amirav-Drory, who founded Genome Compiler Corp., the company that sells the software. He demonstrated for FoxNews.com at a Starbucks early one morning by manipulating a bacteria's genes on his MacBook. The synthetic biology app is still in beta; on Jan. 15, the company added an undo feature and support for new DNA file formats. Building creatures is increasingly like word processing, it would seem. But such is the strange reality in the age of cheap genome sequencing, DNA synthesizing and "bioinformatics.""
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GUI

+ - Minority Report's Legacy Of Terrible Interfaces->

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes "More than a decade ago, the special effects artists working the Steven Speilberg film "Minority Report" synthesized experimental thinking about GUIs to produce a floating interface that Tom Cruise manipulated with his hands in one of the film's "wow" moments. In 2013, surrounded by iOS and Android and Windows 8 devices, we use stripped down versions of this interface every day — and commercial artist Christian Brown thinks that's a bad thing. Such devices may look cinematic, he argues, but they completely ignore the kinds of haptic and textured feedback that have defined how we interact with devices for centuries."
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Security

+ - Could the Election of the New Pope be Hacked? 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The rules for papal elections are steeped in tradition. John Paul II last codified them in 1996, and Benedict XVI left the rules largely untouched. The "Universi Dominici Gregis on the Vacancy of the Apostolic See and the Election of the Roman Pontiff" is surprisingly detailed. Now as the College of Cardinals prepares to elect a new pope, security people like Bruce Schneier wonder about the process. How does it work, and just how hard would it be to hack the vote? First, the system is entirely manual, making it immune to the sorts of technological attacks that make modern voting systems so risky. Second, the small group of voters — all of whom know each other — makes it impossible for an outsider to affect the voting in any way. The chapel is cleared and locked before voting. No one is going to dress up as a cardinal and sneak into the Sistine Chapel. In short, the voter verification process is about as good as you're ever going to find. A cardinal can't stuff ballots when he votes. Then the complicated paten-and-chalice ritual ensures that each cardinal votes once — his ballot is visible — and also keeps his hand out of the chalice holding the other votes. Ballots from previous votes are burned, which makes it harder to use one to stuff the ballot box. What are the lessons here? First, open systems conducted within a known group make voting fraud much harder. Every step of the election process is observed by everyone, and everyone knows everyone, which makes it harder for someone to get away with anything. Second, small and simple elections are easier to secure. This kind of process works to elect a pope or a club president, but quickly becomes unwieldy for a large-scale election. And third: When an election process is left to develop over the course of a couple of thousand years, you end up with something surprisingly good."

Comment: Re:No it can't (Score 5, Interesting) 42

by DaemonDan (#42936095) Attached to: Bionic Hand Wired To Nerves Can "Feel" When Touched
Previous models of this same device did actually provide some sensation. "An earlier, portable model of the hand was temporarily attached to Pierpaolo Petruzziello in 2009, who lost half his arm in a car accident. He was able to move the bionic hand’s fingers, clench them into a fist and hold objects. He said that he could feel the sensation of needles pricked into the hand’s palm." (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/a-sensational-breakthrough-the-first-bionic-hand-that-can-feel-8498622.html) So they have pretty good reason to hope that it will provide some feeling at least.

+ - Kickstarter Projects begun to fund Death Star andX-Wing Construction->

Submitted by
DaemonDan
DaemonDan writes "Following the We The People pledge to build a Death Star (http://1.usa.gov/TNA4n0), and the government's subsequent refusal (http://1.usa.gov/11ohHeR) some creative jokesters created a Kickstarter project to fund and build it themselves. In response, a group of Rebels have launched a campaign to raise funds to build a fleet of X-Wing Fighters (http://kck.st/YLcycB)."
Link to Original Source
Science

+ - Virtual Superpowers Translate to Real Life->

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes "You don't have to be Superman to help those in need, but you might be more willing to do so if you get a taste of his powers. When subjects in a new study strapped on virtual reality helmets, half of them were given the ability to fly around a simulated city, while the others sat passively in helicopters. Some were allowed to merely explore the city from their aerial vantage points; others were told they needed to find a missing diabetic child and deliver his lifesaving insulin. Regardless of which task they performed, the subjects granted the superpower of flight were more likely to help a researcher pick up spilled pens after the experiment was. The results have researchers wondering if our brains might react to the memory of a virtual experience as though it had really happened. If so, we may be able to use virtual reality and gaming to effectively treat psychological disorders such as PTSD."
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Comment: Re:Kind of obvious (Score 1) 189

by DaemonDan (#42746309) Attached to: Walk or Run: Are We Built To Be Lazy?
Reminds me of an article I saw from BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21142870) showing that one of the key differences between dogs and wolves was in brain development. Dog are essentially mentally handicapped and stuck in a permanent state of puppyhood. Maybe that's why they don't move in "energy efficient" ways. Either that or running is just fun.

Repel them. Repel them. Induce them to relinquish the spheroid. - Indiana University fans' chant for their perennially bad football team

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