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A 17-year-old Indian-American student at the Mississippi Institute of Mathematics and Science has identified a molecule that can inhibit the growth of a bacteria that causes a disease which can be deadly to people who have AIDS, cancer, or cystic fibrosis, according to a story posted at VOA News. According to the article, the student intends to publish her results to the public rather than seek a patent on her technology. The article quotes the student as follows: "If I were going to patent this, the rights would have to be sold to a pharmaceutical company, and that would greatly increase the cost of the drug once it's developed. So to prevent that from happening, by publishing it, the information becomes readily available and any company that wants to manufacture it, would be able to. So the price would be much lower due to competition and the people who need it most will have access to it."

My question regarding the firehose/submittal question has been sent to CmdrTaco. If i get a response, i will post it.

Thanks,

sol

Per Short Circuit

And yes, if you go to the Firehose you'll see this Journal there.

I can't even begin to fathom the thought process behind this "behavior change".

Obviously journals have always been public, but now you cannot prevent an editor from taking your journal, and reposting it as an Ask Slashdot, or YRO, or whatever else they feel like. You may find yourself with a much wider audience than your intended.

At 11:02 -0500 2006.12.04, Michael Mol wrote:

The "Submit" checkbox in journal writting is currently being
ignored---and treated as CHECKED.

That's not a bug, but a behavior change. Journal entries without a
checkbox are sent to the firehose, but come in at a lower score.

Thanks,
--
Chris Nandor chqtr@cbobk.pbz uggc://chqtr.arg/
Slashdot chqtr@fynfuqbg.bet uggc://fynfuqbg.bet/

(I ROT13'd part of the sig, to keep away the icky spiders.)

So, there, you go. Anything you write in your JEs now goes to the submission queue. Including this JE. (Hiya, editors! Love your work!)

jeremyclark13 writes "From AppleInsider

"Apple Computer on Monday posted to its website an update to Boot Camp, its software dual-boot solution designed to allow users of Intel-based Macs to install and run Microsoft's Windows operating system."

"However, the feature set listed on Apple's Boot Camp website is identical to that of previous versions, suggesting the only improvements are support for the latest Intel-based Macs — mainly the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro.""

FofR writes "Given the previous statements concerning the Halo Movie's stalled progress, it should come as no surprise that the movie is now officially on hold." From the article: "At this time Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, along with their partner, Microsoft, have mutually agreed to postpone making a feature film based on the Halo video game universe until we can fulfill the promise we made to millions of Halo fans throughout the world that we would settle for no less than bringing a first class film to the big screen. We are fully supportive of Director Neill Blomkamp's vision of the film. Neill is a tremendously gifted filmmaker and his preliminary work on Halo is truly awe-inspiring. While it will undoubtedly take a little longer for Halo to reach the big screen, we are confident that the final feature film will be well worth the wait." You'll be happy to know even if a Jackson-inspired Halo isn't coming our way, at least we can look forward to another Street Fighter movie.

An anonymous reader writes "The DOJ continues its investigation into RAM price fixing, as it has started looking at Sony's operations. With all the negative press Sony has been getting, this couldn't come at a worse time. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061031/japan_us_sony_probe .html?.v=11"

GeK writes "I work in a large data test center and I spend most of my time installing and removing test equipment from 19 inch racks. Most of this stuff weights around 50 kilo's and they tend not work after being dropped. Looking around I have found the SL500 Server lift which would make my job easier. I was wondering if anyone has any other solution that is both practical and affordable."

An anonymous reader writes "A Google spokesman has asked Microsoft to 'preserve user choice for search and other applications' with its future products, such as Vista. The spokesman made this comment after meeting with European Union antitrust regulators, though he added that at this point, the company has no plans to make antitrust allegations against Redmond. Notably, McAfee and Symantec have accused Microsoft of not being forthcoming with the code they need to ensure their security wares run smoothly on Vista, and the EU has already expressed concern about Microsoft's potentially anticompetitive plans."

An anonymous reader writes "According to Cnet, a company called Benefon has launched a cell phone with a built in GPS receiver — nothing new there. However, this particular GPS cell phone called the Twig does something extra. It can send your GPS coordinates to another Twig owner and then that person can navigate directly to you using the preloaded navigation software. Is it just me or would this save a lot of time and effort when trying to explain to the in-laws where your new apartment is?"

Pharmboy writes "Seems a 13 year old was trying to pose as a Steam employee to gain access to someone elses Steam account, but had the tables turned on him and ended up giving out his OWN Steam account information. In a battle of wits, it helps to be smarter than the next guy. Reported here at The Register, based on the forum exchange found here. I won't spoil the ending for you, it is something you just have to read for yourself."

Christian Pfeiffer Jensen writes "All the Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) reviews you can dream of. So far reviews from Linux.com, Arsgeek, Lunapark6, Element14, mo79online, sencer.de, Manufactured Enviroments, first impressions at Technical Itch + the Ubuntu forums and screenshot tours at TheCodingStudio + several blog entries. http://debian-news.net/modules/news/article.php?st oryid=1610"

hcdejong writes "Yesterday, the Dutch government announced that use of the SDU NewVote voting computer will not be allowed in the upcoming general election. The NewVote is one of two voting machines in use in the Netherlands, with a market share of about 10%. The NewVote contains a Windows PC with a touch screen. The AIVD (Dutch secret service) found they could read the signals broadcast by the NewVote from dozens of meters away, and determine which candidate was being voted for.

The machines built by competitor Nedap also broadcast readable signals, as shown by We don't trust voting computers. These have a shorter range (less than 10m). Nedap is working to reduce these emissions, and to remove any readable information from them. These modifications will be tested again before the election.

According to the letter (warning, PDF) written by minister Nicolai, there have been two investigations: one by the AIVD into reading votes remotely, and one by research lab TNO into hacking the machines themselves (changing the software etc.).

For the election, the machines will be sealed more thoroughly than before, and EPROMs will be replaced with ROMs. After the election, several hundred machines will be tested."

yannack writes "The French Aldebaran Robotics company, which is designing the Nao robot, is organizing a contest (French link) for the design of heads for its robot.
Here is the translated page by Google (translation is very readable, on one of my Firefox browsers, I needed to copy/paste the URL, it wouldn't just "open in a new tab").
These heads will actually be used as secondary heads for the robot.

I, for one, welcome our home-designed-headed French robot overlords."

j_to_the_ard writes "SpaceRef has an editorial today concerning NASA's seeming lack of interest in discussing the idea of Sex in Space. This is a very real concern if human spaceflights start lasting more than a week or so. To just put a cap on the whole idea and deny it's an important issue seems a little juvenile to me."