Comment: Bullshit. (Score 1) 296
I calls 'em like I sees 'em, Teller. Backward engineering a trick and selling the solution is legit.
Russian Scientists Revive Plant From 30,000-Year-Old Seeds 162
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the to-make-a-new-type-of-vodka dept.
from the to-make-a-new-type-of-vodka dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It was an Ice Age squirrel's treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists managed to resurrect an entire plant in a pioneering experiment that paves the way for the revival of other species. The Silene stenophylla is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated, the researchers said, and it is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds. ... 'The squirrels dug the frozen ground to build their burrows, which are about the size of a soccer ball, putting in hay first and then animal fur for a perfect storage chamber,' said Stanislav Gubin, one of the authors of the study, who spent years rummaging through the area for squirrel burrows. 'It's a natural cryobank.'"
Comment: If you've got nothing to hide... (Score 1) 572
then let me see under your blouse. Sorry, ma'am. Have to check everyone. That isn't fat or a dude.
Berkeley Scientists Develop Self-Assembling Nanorods 43
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the out-of-the-lab dept.
from the out-of-the-lab dept.
First time accepted submitter techgeek0279 writes "Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic structures."
Comment: ENSURE (Score 2) 150
There's a reason that there are two different words, one meaning "a fiscal investment against mishap" and the other meaning "to make certain."
Comment: This article is ripped off (Score 1) 768
The text of this article is more or less verbatim from this week's copy of The Economist's article "Nope, just debt." Some citation for credit would probably be appropriate.
Better Copyright Through Fair Use and Ponies 169
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the omg-fair-use dept.
from the omg-fair-use dept.
Balinares writes "With even harmless parody sites like Peanutweeter now getting shut down by twitchy lawyers in the name of brand dilution concerns, the situation with fair use has become bleak. Yet some companies are learning at last. Variery reports that when parodies of their latest production started popping up online, Hasbro not only allowed it to happen, but started contributing some of their own. Now their My Little Pony reboot has gained a huge following and reached cult status. Fair use does make everything better. That, or it's the ponies."
Scientists Breeding Super Bees 248
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the what-could-go-wrong dept.
from the what-could-go-wrong dept.
Elliot Chang writes "Over the last five years the world's honey bee population has been steadily dwindling, with many beekeepers citing 2010 as the worst year yet. In order to save these extremely important insects, scientists are working on breeding a new super honey bee that they hope will be resistant to cold, disease, mites and pesticides. If all goes well, the new and improved insect will continue to pollinate our crops for years to come."
Comment: Planck Length? (Score 1) 370
"So round, in fact, that if the electron were enlarged to the size of the solar system, its shape would diverge from a perfect sphere less than the width of a human hair."
I'm highly skeptical of the entire article. That measurement would be well under the Planck Length. Below that, isn't all geometry and spatial measurement meaningless? I'm asking, rather than asserting.
Sony Sued For PlayStation Network Data Breach 404
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the lick-em-while-their-down dept.
from the lick-em-while-their-down dept.
suraj.sun writes "Like clockwork, the first lawsuit resulting from the security breach of the personal data of more than 75 million Sony PlayStation Network customers has been filed. The suit was filed today on behalf of Kristopher Johns, 36, of Birmingham, Ala., in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Johns accuses Sony of not taking 'reasonable care to protect, encrypt, and secure the private and sensitive data of its users.' He also believes Sony took too long to notify him and other customers that their personal information had been exposed. Because of that, the complaint alleges, Sony did not allow its customers 'to make an informed decision as to whether to change credit card numbers, close the exposed accounts, check their credit reports, or take other mitigating actions.'"
Comment: Re:Physics (Score 1) 287
I think it has to do with transmission of q-bits within memory. It's not for communication between two different people, but communication of a q-bit from one memory location to another, which *would* be a big step forward... but not a step that was communicated well within the article. ^^()
DRM Broke Dragon Age: Origins For Days 214
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the hope-it-was-worth-the-pr-nightmare dept.
from the hope-it-was-worth-the-pr-nightmare dept.
Martey writes "Ars Technica reports that a server problem with the DRM authentication servers has caused Dragon Age: Origins players to be locked out of any saved games that include downloadable content. Quoting: 'Thanks to a combination of DRM idiocy and technical and communications failures on the part of EA and Bioware, I (along with thousands of fellow EA/Bioware customers) spent my free time this past weekend needlessly trapped in troubleshooting hell, in a vain attempt to get my single-player game to load. The problem, it turns out, was the Bioware's DRM authorization servers.'"
An update to the article indicates the problems have finally been resolved.
Which Comic Character Is the Greatest Engineer? 316
Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
from the evil-geniuses-for-a-better-tomorrow dept.
from the evil-geniuses-for-a-better-tomorrow dept.
ptorrone writes "From Bruce Wayne to Lex Luthor to Tony Stark — the most popular comic heroes are more than just beefy guys in skin tight suits, they're also business persons, titans of industry and brilliant engineers. While there will always be a lot of debate on who is the strongest or fastest, MAKE has an overview of their 14 top comic book engineers, scientists and hackers."
Kinect Self-Awareness Hack 82
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess? dept.
from the how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess? dept.
One can only imagine how enraged the Kinect would have been if it found out he had broken the ToS.
Comment: Re:Will this pass muster? (Score 1) 183
Trademark is very different than copyright. It can apply to a particular branch of products or services. For example, "Apple" is trademarked by multiple different companies that inhabit different economic fields. Nintendo could feasibly argue that they wanted to prevent people from using the phrase in video game related sales and promotions. That having been said, I think it's clear that the true intent is to strengthen control over the use of the words themselves. Trademark strength and applicability has been elevated nearly to that of copyright, and I worry that their goal might be to prevent anyone in any commercial (or even worse, *noncommercial*) field from using the phrase. Interpreted loosely enough, trademark law would allow this. And that would be terrible.