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Science

Morphing Metals 121

Posted by samzenpus
from the forge-ahead dept.
aarondubrow writes "Imagine a metal that 'remembers' its original, cold-forged shape, and can return to that shape when exposed to heat or a magnetic pulse. Like magic out of a Harry Potter novel, such a metal could contract on command, or swing back and forth like a pendulum. Believe it or not, such metals already exist. First discovered in 1931, they belong to a class of materials called 'shape memory alloys (SMA),' whose unique atomic make-up allows them to return to their initial form, or alternate between forms through a phase change."

Dubai ends data services for Blackberry customers

Submitted by jggimi
jggimi writes "The United Arab Emirates has decided to end data services to its 500,000 users, according to widely publicized reports, such as this one in the New York Times. "The Emirates have been in a long dispute with Research In Motion, the smartphone’s producer, over the BlackBerry’s highly encrypted data system, which offers security to users but makes it more difficult for governments to monitor communications....The monitoring of information is a particularly thorny issue for autocratic regimes in the Persian Gulf worried that the Internet might be used for antigovernment purposes — a concern heightened by the passionate online response in Iran to the 2009 presidential election that helped energize the opposition and led to weeks of unrest.""
The Internet

Root DNS Zone Now DNSSEC Signed 94

Posted by timothy
from the signing-of-the-times dept.
r00tyroot writes with news that slipped by yesterday, quoting from the Internet Systems Consortium's release: "ISC joined other key participants of the Internet technical community in celebrating the achievement of a significant milestone for the Domain Name System today as the root zone was digitally signed for the first time. This marked the deployment of the DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) at the top level of the DNS hierarchy and ushers the way forward for further roll-out of DNSSEC in the top level domains and DNS Service Providers."
Math

First Self-Replicating Creature Spawned In Conway's Game of Life 241

Posted by Soulskill
from the emergent-gameplay dept.
Calopteryx writes "New Scientist has a story on a self-replicating entity which inhabits the mathematical universe known as the Game of Life. 'Dubbed Gemini, [Andrew Wade's] creature is made of two sets of identical structures, which sit at either end of the instruction tape. Each is a fraction of the size of the tape's length but, made up of two constructor arms and one "destructor," play a key role. Gemini's initial state contains three of these structures, plus a fourth that is incomplete. As the simulation progresses the incomplete structure begins to grow, while the structure at the start of the tape is demolished. The original Gemini continues to disassemble as the new one emerges, until after nearly 34 million generations, new life is born.'"

It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like. -- Jackie Mason