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Several readers noted the special section in Science, published today, with results from Messenger's flyby of Mercury last January. One conclusion is that volcanism has shaped the planet, contrary to earlier theories that Mercury had been "dead on arrival." The LA Time's coverage highlights the finding that Mercury has shrunk by a mile in diameter over its lifetime, due to shrinkage at its core.

An anonymous reader writes "The USENIX LEET workshop held earlier this week in San Francisco offered neat insights into the Storm botnet, including two papers showing the difficulty of accurately measuring the botnet's size, and one on the way it conducts its spamming campaigns (down to the template language used). There was a bunch of other cool work too, so check out the papers."

An anonymous reader writes "I had the misfortune several years ago of purchasing four IBM 75GXP hard drives. Three died within 6 months and the fourth is still running, though it had a slightly different capacity. I'm sure many of you purchased these drives as well and hopefully participated in the class action lawsuit. I was initially skeptical of ever receiving anything, but I filled out and submitted all four serial numbers to the claims process and a long time later receiver four denial letters since they were OEM disks. I no longer had receipts for hard drives I bought 4+ years ago that had died, and reluctantly gave up on the class action. I was surprised as can be to get four $100 checks in the mail today. So hopefully everyone who had one of these terrible drives got a chance to participate in the class action- apparently they do make good on their terms which just said I needed a serial number. It's nice to see a little corporate responsibility. What's the most you've ever received from a technology related class action?"

Anon E. Muss writes "Wired is reporting that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against Roommates.com in a Fair Housing discrimination suit. Rommmates.com can be held liable for specific "illegal" questions (e.g. age, gender, race, and religion) on their web forms. "Unlawful questions solicit ... unlawful answers" chief judge Alex Kozinsiki wrote. "If such questions are unlawful when posed face-to-face or by telephone, they don't magically become lawful when asked electronically online." There was also some good news for Roommate.com — the court upheld their immunity for the "additional comments" section on the forms, where users can write whatever they want. This is consistent with a prior case involving Craigslist."

USA Today is running a story about the emergence of robots in common aspects of life in Japan. Many simple yet social jobs are being filled by robots of increasing sophistication. The article suggests that Japanese culture is more open to such interaction than the majority of other cultures. Quoting: "For Japan, the robotics revolution is an imperative. With more than a fifth of the population 65 or older, the country is banking on robots to replenish the workforce and care for the elderly. The government estimates the industry could surge from about $5.2 billion in 2006 to $26 billion in 2010 and nearly $70 billion by 2025. Besides financial and technological power, the robot wave is favored by the Japanese mind-set as well. Robots have long been portrayed as friendly helpers in Japanese popular culture, a far cry from the often rebellious and violent machines that often inhabit Western science fiction."

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to EE Times, a California-based company called QuantumSphere has developed nanoparticles that could make hydrogen cheaper than gasoline. The company says its reactive catalytic nanoparticle coatings can boost the efficiency of electrolysis (the technique that generates hydrogen from water) to 85% today, exceeding the Department of Energy's goal for 2010 by 10%. The company says its process could be improved to reach an efficiency of 96% in a few years. The most interesting part of the story is that the existing gas stations would not need to be modified to distribute hydrogen. With these nanoparticle coatings, car owners could make their own hydrogen, either in their garage or even when driving."

TheProcess writes "Back in February 2003, IBM predicted that AMD would be dead in 5 years (original article here), with IBM and Intel the only remaining players in the chip market. Well, 5 years have passed and AMD is still alive. However, its finances and stock price have taken a serious beating over the last year. AMD was once a darling in this community — the plucky, up-and-coming challenger to the Intel behemoth. Will AMD still be here in 5 years? Can they pose a credible competitive threat to Intel's dominance? Do they still have superior but unappreciated technology? Or are they finally old hat? Can they really recover?"

Loconut1389 writes "According to CNBC, the strike may well be over. While light on details, the article states:

"A deal has been struck between the major media companies and the Writers Guild of America to end the writers' strike, former Walt Disney chief executive Michael Eisner revealed on CNBC", but adds "I know a deal's been made. I know it's over.", leaving me with the impression things aren't as concrete as he says."

Hollywood studios and striking writers reach a breakthrough in contract talks, which could lead to a tentative deal as early as next week.

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/topheadlines/~3/228494628/click.phdo

An anonymous reader writes "You would think that the NCAA would be thrilled to have reporters live blogging events in order to generate more interest and keep passionate fans talking about NCAA sports. Not so. The governing body of the NCAA has released new rules for receiving press credentials and it includes severe limits on live blogging. If you're covering NCAA football, make sure you don't blog more than 3 times in a single quarter. If it's baseball, one post an inning is all you get. If you don't follow the rules expect to get ejected and have your press credentials pulled."

crazyeyes writes "Just two weeks ago, a Thai journalist walked out of the hush-hush AMD event in Singapore over a controversial NDA that required him to 'send any stories to the vendor before his newspaper can publish it.' AMD categorically denied it happened, but today, we not only have proof that it happened, we also have the sordid details of the entire affair. Here's a quote from the editorial: 'First off, the non-disclosure agreement covered everything confidential said or written over the next two years on the product, and had a duration of five years, during which anything published or used in marketing would have to receive written approval from AMD before it could be used. Worse, at the end of the five years, all copies of the information made would have to be returned to the chipmaker.'"

iFrated informs us of a successful penetration of US Defense Department computers by the Chinese military last June. From the article: "The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defense secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the [Chinese] People's Liberation Army. One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there was a 'very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty' that the PLA was responsible." The PLA is also accused of breaking into German government computers, including a network in the office of the Chancellor.

nbauman writes "Brain researchers at University College London have a video game in which subjects are chased through a maze by a predator — a small red circle — and if it catches them, the subjects get a shock. Some of the shocks were "high-intensity." When the investigators warned the subjects that the chase was ready to begin, their brains lit up (under fMRI) in those areas involved in threat detection, and in planning to navigate the maze during the chase. An interesting finding was that there are 2 major circuits in the brain for worrying about predators: (1) the anxiety reaction, when the predator is far away, which takes place in the front of the brain (the prefrontal cortex and lateral amygdala), and (2) the fear reaction, during the chase, when the predator is getting close, which takes place further back in the brain (in the central amygdala and the periaqueductal gray, which is involved in organizing defensive responses). The subjects' brain lit up more when it looked like they couldn't escape the red dot. It also lit up more when the investigators raised the voltage, according to a pair of articles in the 24 August 2007 Science. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/317/ 5841/1043 [subscription] http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0708/07082 306 [free] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6962242.stm [free]"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6962242.stm

A 15-year-old girl has become the first Canadian to have an artificial heart removed after her own heart healed itself.
Doctors at the Stollery Children's hospital implanted the Berlin Heart, a portable mechanical device that keeps blood pumping in an ailing heart, so she could survive until a transplant became available.
But over the next few months, Melissa's overall condition improved dramatically, and her heart muscle regained much of its strength. After 146 days on the Berlin Heart, Melissa underwent surgery to have the device removed.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/08/28/ artificial-heart.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/08/28/artificial-heart.html