ScienceDaily is reporting that researchers at the Mayo Clinic have identified two more cardiac genes that could contribute to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). From the article: "In the two recent separate studies, researchers examined caveolin-3 (CAV3) and the cardiac ryanodine receptor (RyR2) and found molecular and functional evidence in both to implicate them as SIDS-susceptibility genes. Researchers examined the tissue of 135 unrelated cases of SIDS -- in infants with an average age of 3 months old -- that had been referred to Mayo Clinic's Sudden Death Genomics Laboratory for molecular autopsy. In each study, two of the 135 cases possessed mutations in either CAV3 or RyR2."

Alien54 writes "The first official studio auction of memorabilia from all five 'Star Trek' television series and 10 movie spinoffs, to be held from October 5 to 7 in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the original 'Star Trek' series, was announced by Christie's on Thursday. CBS Paramount Television Studios is cleaning out its vaults for the sale, comprising more than 1,000 lots totaling some 4,000 items. Items to hit the block include props, weapons, prosthetics and set dressings unearthed from five Paramount warehouses, as well as many special and spectacular items highlighted in the various shows." Update: 05/21/2006 14:57 GMT by SM Several users have provided us with the direct link to the auction site for easy viewing.

minitrue writes "Pearl Jam released their first music video in quite a while under a Creative Commons license allowing anyone to "legally copy, distribute and share the clip" for noncommercial purposes. Creative Commons thinks this may be the first video produced by a major label ever to be CC-licensed. So although the file is only available as a free download via Google Video through May 24, fans can continue sharing it online themselves in perpetuity."

bblazer asks: "Beginning this next school year, there is a strong possibility I will be teaching an intro to Java and an intro to Python course at the local community college. I was wondering what the prevailing wisdom is when it comes to teaching languages - should students be taught with or without an IDE? I am a bit old school and wouldn't mind having them all use vi or emacs, but using a good IDE does have some advantages as well. I should note that the students I will be teaching will have had at least 1 semester of programming in VB or C++." Even though there is limited time in a semester, could a curriculum be constructed to accommodate both methods?

pipingguy asks: "I'm planning to purchase a large screen TV and I'm leaning toward DLP at this time. After doing research on-line, I'm more confused than before. One thing I don't like about DLP is the relatively limited vertical angle for best picture viewing. LCDs don't seem to be as bad in this regard, but my understanding is that LCD is more expensive per inch. What is the current state-of-the-art for DLP? I'd rather buy a smaller TV with a better picture than one with a larger picture that is less appealing to the eye. And what about the thousands of tiny mirrors in DLP units? If these are mechanically moving parts, isn't that a likely source of failure (so says a Sony rep who wanted to sell me a LCD projection TV). Thanks for any advice/experience you can provide."

astrojetsonjr asks: "A few days ago, Trillian_1138 asked about running Linux on a laptop. Yagu started a thread suggesting the use of VMWare to allow running multiple flavors of Linux and Windows at the same time. Lots of readers then posted their success stories using VMWare . My primary machine is an IBM laptop and I'm getting ready to move to using VMWare to allow me run Linux, Solaris and Windows at the same time. First, what is the OS/distro with which you have had the best success hosting VMWare? Finally, what host OS install and setup tips do suggest?"

KingAdrock writes to tell us Sciencemag is reporting that the US Patent and Trademark office (PTO) is floating the idea of an online pilot program to gather public input on patent applications. From the article: "Speaking last week at an open forum, officials said that tapping into the expertise of outside scientists, lawyers, and laypeople would improve the quality of patents -- and might also reduce a backlog that this month topped 1 million applications. "Instead of one examiner, what if you have thousands of examiners reading an application?" says Beth Simone Noveck of New York University Law School, who is an independent advocate of the idea."

Petey_Alchemist writes "SomethingAwful.com forum goon isnoop has developed a useless but fun app that takes advantage of the new sudden motion sensor available in Macbooks. The MacSaber 1.0 causes your Macbook or Macbook Pro to whoosh and crash like a lightsaber depending on how you swing it around. The reviews from those who have installed it say it is quite fun--although there is some concern about whether or not 'lightsaber battles' fall under warranty."

Roland Piquepaille writes "With special microscopes, scientists and engineers involved in nanotechnologies have been able to 'see' atoms for a while. But they couldn't clock the atomic response to events which typically occur in nanoseconds. Now, U.S. physicists have found a way to clock the movements of atoms at the nanometer scale. In their experiments, they were able to literally watch atoms switching positions in ferroelectric materials. Adding the dimension of time to the observation of the nanoworld could lead to easier developments of 'materials for improved memory applications in microelectronics.'"

PSP-Fanboy writes "More bad news for the UMD, which is already dying a speedy death at retail: not only are stores not stocking them, but no one really wants to buy UMD movies either. Although 40% of PSP owners claimed UMD media was a big reason why they plopped down a few hundred on Sony's pixel-spurting game brick, the complaint from actual owners is there just isn't anything worth goddamn buying on UMD."

NewScientist is reporting that a new telescope located in Chile is aiming to capture images of the entire night sky every three nights. From the article: "The telescope will use a digital camera with 3 billion pixels to image the entire sky across three nights, producing an expected 30 terabytes of data per night. This will allow astronomers to detect objects that quickly change their position, such as near-Earth asteroids, or their brightness, such as supernovae."

NewsForge (also owned by VA) has a short piece attempting to call into focus one of the major complaints of end users, the "CVS cop-out". From the article: "One of my biggest pet peeves with open source software is what I call the CVS cop-out. It works like this: I criticize (accurately) some shortcoming of an open source application either in an article or in conversation, and someone responds with, 'That's not true! That feature was fixed in CVS four weeks ago!' [...] I bring up the CVS cop-out not because I have an answer for it, but to air it out. Sometimes, giving a problem a name helps to foster discussion that leads to resolution."

CNet is reporting that a new proposal before Congress is attempting to increase the number of federal judges who specialize in patent litigation. From the article: "The proposal prescribes $5 million each year in federal funding over the next decade for "educational and professional development" programs for designated judges and to pay the salaries of new, specially appointed clerks with patent expertise. Under the bill, patent cases would continue to be randomly assigned to judges, but with a notable exception. Any judge who practices within a court district offering the pilot program but who chooses not to sign up for the extra training would have the option of transferring patent cases to a program participant." Techdirt also has a short writeup on why this specialization might not necessarily be a good thing.

Mike Peel writes "Science Blog is reporting that NASA is seeking proposals 'for creating and managing innovative activities, events, products, services, or other types of formal or informal education methods for the purpose of disseminating information nationally about NASA's projects and programs.'" Sadly I don't think simply providing them with a list of people you want shot into space counts.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "It's not just phone companies grappling with reported potentially privacy-intruding requests from the NSA and other branches of government: Banks, Internet-service providers and other companies that possess large amounts of data on their customers say that police and intelligence agencies have been increasingly coming to them looking for tidbits of information that could help them stop everything from money launderers to pedophiles and terrorists, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'According to AOL executives, the most common requests in criminal cases relate to crimes against children, including abuse, abductions, and child pornography. Close behind are cases dealing with identity theft and other computer crimes. Sometimes the police requests are highly targeted and scrupulously legalistic, while other times they were seen by the company as little more than sloppy fishing expeditions. AOL says that most requests get turned down.'"