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+ - Asteroid Apophis Just Got Supersized->

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes "As the potentially hazardous asteroid makes closest approach to Earth today, astronomers using the European Herschel Space Observatory have announced something a little unsettling: asteroid 99942 Apophis is actually bigger than we thought. Herschel astronomers have deduced that Apophis is 1,066 feet (325 meters) wide. That's 20 percent larger than the previous estimate of 885 feet (270 meters). "The 20 percent increase in diameter, from 270 to 325 m, translates into a 75 percent increase in our estimates of the asteroid's volume or mass," said Thomas Müller of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and lead scientist of the study. In addition, the space telescope has re-analyzed the albedo of the space rock, providing a valuable heat map of the object's surface — data that will improve orbital trajectory models."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:Apologies to Lionel Richie (Score 1) 196

by fran6gagne (#41529757) Attached to: Galaxy Tab Sales Ban Lifted, Samsung Sues Apple Over iPhone 5

Sue you, sue me, sue it for always,
That’s the way it should be.
Sue you, sue me, sue it together, naturally.

I had a dream, I had an awesome dream.
People in the park,
Playin' games in the dark.
And what they played was a masquerade,
From behind the walls of doubt,
A voice was crying out.

Sue you, sue me, sue it for always,
That’s the way it should be.
Sue you, sue me, sue it together, naturally.

As we go down life’s lonesome highway,
Seems the hardest thing to do,
Is to find a friend or two.
That helping hand, someone who understands.
You’ve got someone there to sue, "I’ll show you."

Ooo-oooo.
Sue you, sue me, sue it for always,
Aw, that’s the way it should be.
Sue you, sue me, sue it together, naturally.

(So you think you know the answer, oh, no.)
Well, the whole world’s got you dancin'.
(That’s right, I’m telling you.)
(It’s time to start believin', oh, yes,)
(Believe in who you are,
(You are a shining star.)

Sue you, sue me, sue it for always,
Aw, that’s the way it should be.
Sue you, sue me, sue it together, naturally.
Sue it together, naturally.

Comment: Re:Billionaire. (Score 0) 418

by fran6gagne (#40794979) Attached to: Mark Zuckerberg's Big Facebook Mistake

He made billions by luring thousands of unsuspecting investors (including home 'mom and pop' type investors) into buying his overvalued bubble stock

I thought that getting shares from an IPO like the Facebook's one was very difficult for small investors, because the big banks or brokerage firms responsible of the IPO kept the stocks for their big clients. I guess the people who had enough money to be one of those clients had a clue of what they were buying.

Can you elaborate on those "thousands of unsuspecting investors (including home 'mom and pop' type investors)" ?

News

+ - Taxing junk food: A new public health campaign against obesity-> 2

Submitted by
ericjones12398
ericjones12398 writes "Today, many developed and developing countries including European Union nations, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh and Vietnam apply excise taxes on unhealthy products. Research has shown that both for tobacco and alcohol, excise taxes are an effective way of reducing consumption. With respect to tobacco, a 10 percent price increase in cigarettes is shown to reduce demand by 4 percent in high-income countries and by 8 percent in low-middle income countries. Taxes imposed on cigarettes have not only prevented people from starting to smoke, but have also reduced rates of relapse for those who recently quit smoking."
Link to Original Source
Displays

+ - MIT Researchers Invent 'Super Glass'-> 1

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes "On Thursday, researchers at MIT announced a breakthrough in glass-making technology, which basically involves a new way to create surface textures on glass to eliminate all of the drawbacks of glass, including unwanted reflections and glare. The research team wanted to build glass that could be adaptable to any environment: Their "multifunctional" glass is not only crystal clear, but it also causes water droplets to bounce right off its surface, "like tiny rubber balls." The glass is self-cleaning, anti-reflective, and superhydrophobic. The invention has countless applications, including TV screens, as well as smartphone and tablet displays that benefit from the self-cleaning ability of the glass by resisting moisture and contamination by sweat."
Link to Original Source

+ - Google Demonstrates 5s cold-boot using Coreboot at IDF->

Submitted by
DeathPenguin
DeathPenguin writes "Google recently demonstrated an upcoming Chromebook at IDF which is getting closer to the ever-elusive promise of instant-on functionality. The video demonstrates amazingly fast ~5s cold boot to login prompt time using Coreboot, a fully open-source x86 firmware implementation, without using suspend or hibernate tricks. The Coreboot portion takes roughly 650ms, the remainder is Linux kernel, system services, and X. Additionally, all stages of boot are verified for integrity to prevent malware and rollback attacks.

This follows the check-in of thousands of lines of Intel Sandy Bridge and and Panther Point support code to the Coreboot code repository."
Link to Original Source

Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics: Superiority is recessive.

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