Slashdot

TheKnightShift writes "The federal government has announced that it will soon begin swabbing the mouths of EVERYONE it arrests, in order to collect DNA samples. This will be regardless of whether or not a person is actually charged with a crime. The DNA will then be stored in a central database, and it will be extremely unlikely that anyone cleared of a criminal charge will be able to have their sample removed from it. The Department of Homeland Security is apparently eager to begin using this new power."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080416/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/dna_collection

Aglassis writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation noted that in the recent declassified Pentagon memo (PDF: pt 1 pt 2) that claimed that military interrogators are excempt from criminal laws against detainees (such as assault) since the President's authority as Commander-in-Chief overrode those laws, there is an interesting footnote. It reads on the bottom of page 8:

[The Office of Legal Counsel for the Department of Justice] recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.

Is this another attempt by the Bush Administration to dull the essential Constitutional protections of detainees such as the much criticized comments on habeas corpus by Alberto Gonzales?"

Nasa scientists claim to have found the smallest black hole ever.

It has a mass of 3-4x our sun's mass and it's size. This is the "kicker" ... for this smallest black hole ever found? 15 miles (24km)

That's "huge"...(IMO) compared with the talk about point singularities that have some suing over the Large Hadron Collider (et. al) about the possibility of single particles being created that would have "Black Hole" properties (and might/or could) suck in the rest of the planet.

With a minimum size of 15-miles across and over 3x the mass of our sun, for the smallest found in nature, its going to be hard for our atomic particle experimentation devices to have much of an effect.

So why do they call black holes "point singularities" if the smallest are likely to be measured in miles?

Attorney General Michael Mukasey claims that terrorists sell pirated software as a way to finance their operations, without presenting a shred of evidence for his case. He's doing it to push through a controversial piece of intellectual property legislation that would increase IP penalties, increase police power, set up a new agency to investigate IP theft, and more, according to a Computerworld blog. "Criminal syndicates, and in some cases even terrorist groups, view IP crime as a lucrative business, and see it as a low-risk way to fund other activities," Mukasey told a crowd at the Tech Museum of Innovation last week.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/feds_lie_about_link_between_software_piracy_and_terrorism

The BBC are reporting that NASA's twin spacecraft designed to obtain stereo images of the Sun have recorded the first Solar Tsunami. The feature includes a fasincating movie of the images captured.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7326097.stm

An anonymous reader writes "The merger of two science research councils, Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), in April 07 into the Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) was intended to lead to an improved situation regarding research opportunities in astronomy and particle physics. Alas, the STFC outcome from the recent 2007 comprehensive spending review (CSR07) has been the reverse. Even though the science minister claimed an overall %13.6 budget increase, the STFC will receive a 80 million pound cut. This cut will not only cut research in particle and astrophysics but will seriously reduce the number of post graduate places for the next few years. Staff at sheffield university have posted a detailed analysis http://pacrowther.staff.shef.ac.uk/stfc.html . Also there is a UK petition to change this situation http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Physics-Funding/"
http://pacrowther.staff.shef.ac.uk/stfc.html