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Sound As the New Illegal Narcotic? 561

Posted by samzenpus
from the you-ever-see-the-back-of-a-$20-bill-on-sound? dept.
ehrichweiss writes "The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is warning parents and teachers of a new threat to our children: sounds. Apparently kids are now discovering binaural beats and using them to get 'physiological effects.' The report goes on with everyone suggesting that such aural experiences will act as a gateway to drug usage and even has one student claiming there are 'demons' involved. Anyone who has used one of those light/sound machines knows all about the effects that these sounds will give and to state that they will lead kids to do drugs is nonsense at best. It seems the trend in scaring the citizens with a made-up problem has gone to the next level."

Comment: Re:Further perspective (Score 2, Interesting) 560

by OldAndSlow (#22815672) Attached to: Questions Arising On Mercury In Compact Fluorescents
Last year, I spent a couple of hours googling to be able to calculate the average amount of mercury (the mercury content of coal varies a lot) emitted by electric power plants. I came up with CFLs containing a third of the mercury that would be released to generate the extra power needed for incandescent lights. And mercury that escapes out a smokestack seems to me to be more immediately dangerous than mercury in a modern landfill.
Biotech

Wrinkles in nanoscale-sized films

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes "An international team of scientists from Chile, the Netherlands and the U.S. has found a very simple way to measure the material properties of thin films having a thickness of only a dozen nanometers. The researchers just dropped water on thin film floating in a Petri dish. This causes wrinkles to appear on the ultrathin polymer films they've tested. And they found that the number and length of the wrinkles are determined by the elasticity and thickness of the film. In other words, they've found an easy way to discover the mechanical properties of films which might be used for applications such as cosmetics, coatings, and nanoelectronics. Read more for additional references and pictures of wrinkles in nanotechnology-based films."
Supercomputing

Birth, life and death of a photon

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes "Two days ago, I told you that German physicists had built a single-photon server (read more on Slashdot or on ZDNet). But French researchers also have used ultra cold atoms of rubidium to record the full life of a photon. This was one of Einstein's dreams, but it was thought as an impossible one before. In fact, a photon disappears when it delivers its information. But with what has been described as an 'experimental masterwork,' the physicists have observed the 'quantum jumps' done by single photons for as long as half a second. This discovery should lead to important developments for future high performance computers and quantum computing — and certainly to the field of physics. Read more for additional references and a picture of how the team recorded the full life of a photon — not present in the short AFP article"

Buy PC Without an OS... Get a Visit From MSFT? 639

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the sure-would-be-tragic-if-something-happened-to-your-kneecaps dept.
sebFlyte writes "'Don't sell PCs without operating systems or we'll send the boys round.' That seems to be the general message coming out of microsoft's antipiracy unit, according to ZDNet. While MS seems to accept that people might want to get hold of PCs without Windows so they can put Linux on them, they don't think that's a good enough excuse. "We want to urge all system builders -- indeed, all Partners -- not to supply naked PCs. It is a risk to your customers and a risk to your business," says Microsoft. The FSF has given this policy short shrift, saying: "It looks like a private sniffing service which is supposed to spy on these who do not want to pay the Microsoft tax anymore. It is an incredible piece of impudence.""

It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.