Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Dave Prowse: Darth Vader actor dies aged 85 (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Shimbo
Shimbo writes: Dave Prowse, the Bristolian former bodybuilder best known for playing Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died aged 85.

"May the force be with him, always!" said his agent Thomas Bowington.

Submission + - Nasal Spray Could Prevent Coronavirus Transmission (columbia.edu)

Submitted by Snard
Snard writes: A nasal antiviral created by researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons blocked transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in ferrets, suggesting the nasal spray also may prevent infection in people exposed to the new coronavirus.

The compound in the spray—a lipopeptide developed by Anne Moscona, MD, and Matteo Porotto, PhD, professors in the Department of Pediatrics and directors of the Center for Host-Pathogen Interaction—is designed to prevent the new coronavirus from entering host cells.

The antiviral lipopeptide is inexpensive to produce, has a long shelf life, and does not require refrigeration. These features make it stand out from other antiviral approaches under development, including monoclonal antibodies. The new nasal lipopeptide could be ideal for halting the spread of COVID in the United States and globally; the transportable and stable compound could be especially key in rural, low-income, and hard-to-reach populations.

Comment Re:Microsoft got nailed to the wall for less (Score 1) 162

If you want to compete in the console industry you must support Sony Playstation. Which requires a Windows PC and a developer license to even publish something. It's about 59% market share in the US right now. Pretty large captive audience they've got there. Plus you have to buy devkits which are in the order of thousands of dollars per kit. The same applies to Nintendo and Microsoft. So, why the fixation with Apple?

Submission + - Inequality could be lower than you think (economist.com) 1

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes: Everybody knows that rich-world inequality has soared. People read about it in newspapers, hear about it from pressure groups and witness it in their daily lives. On both sides of the Atlantic politicians are building action against it into their campaigns. Yet our cover this week examines new research that suggests this growing inequality is not what it appears. Our cover story delves deep into the national account economists use to tease out the income and wealth of the top 1%, and trends in average wages and in how owners outearn workers. In each case, the growth in inequality is either smaller than most people think or, possibly, absent. That many claims made about inequality are debatable does not reduce the urgency of tackling economic injustice. The rich world’s housing markets are starving young workers of cash and opportunity. America’s economy needs a giant dose of competition. Too many high-income workers, including doctors, lawyers and bankers, are protected. But good policy starts with good data.

Submission + - Directed evolution teaches bacteria to eat carbon dioxide

Submitted by Tangential
Tangential writes: File this under remediation. Let bacteria dine on excess CO2.

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have created a new breed of bacteria that can effectively “eat” air. By carefully directing the evolution of E. coli in the lab, the team managed to wean them off their preferred diet of sugar, and make the switch to carbon dioxide in the air around them.

To start with, the team edited E. coli to add certain genes that plants use to fix carbon from CO2, as well as a gene that let the bacteria get energy from formate. The team then attempted to force the E. coli to evolve in a particular direction, by carefully manipulating their environment.

The bacteria were given just enough sugar so they wouldn’t starve to death, but had access to plenty of CO2 and formate. The process of evolution says that life finds a way to cope with stressful conditions like these, and some of the bacteria soon turned to the CO2 as a food source. Since this is plentiful and sugar is rare in this environment, that gives these bugs the evolutionary upper hand.

Comment Atari 800XL (Score 2) 623

by robcfg (#43850525) Attached to: How Did You Learn How To Program?
I got my 1st computer, an Atari 800XL from my grandmother in Germany as a First Communion present. When I got bored of playing Donkey Kong, I took a look at the manual, wrote the first example, and ran it. I was so amazed, that I started tweaking the numbers in the code and saw which effect they had. That's when I discovered the power XD
Music

Submission + - Computer Program 'Evolves' Music From Noise (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers have developed a program, called DarwinTunes, that produces 8-second sequences of randomly generated sounds, or loops, from a database of digital "genes." Now, with input from 7000 internet users who act as "natural selectors", the program has "evolved" these bits of noise into real music. Although the resulting strains are hardly Don Giovanni, the finding shows how users' tastes exert their own kind of natural selection on popular music, nudging tunes to evolve out of cacophony.
Ubuntu

Submission + - MIT Builds 96-Core, Solar-Powered Ubuntu ARM Super Computer (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Days after building a 12-core Ubuntu ARM cluster, Phoronix was at MIT participating in a build of a 96-core ARM cluster built out of 48 PandaBoards. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS was running on the nearly 100 cores and the entire computer — built inside of a trash can — was powered via a single solar panel.
Space

Submission + - Missing Matter, Parralel Universes ? (universetoday.com)

Submitted by
Phoghat
Phoghat writes: "Could mirror universes or parallel worlds account for dark matter — the ‘missing’ matter in the Universe? In what seems to be mixing of science and science fiction, a new paper by a team of theoretical physicists hypothesizes the existence of mirror particles as a possible candidate for dark matter. An anomaly observed in the behavior of ordinary particles that appear to oscillate in and out of existence could be from a “hypothetical parallel world consisting of mirror particles,” says a press release from Springer. “Each neutron would have the ability to transition into its invisible mirror twin, and back, oscillating from one world to the other.”"
Security

Submission + - Could Security Breaches Cost Lives? (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Over a quarter of companies believe that if their sites go down or they suffer a major security breach it could potentially cost customers' their lives, according to AlienVault. When asked who they most feared would violate their privacy, the answer was overwhelmingly the Chinese, with 40% of respondents admitting this was the country that worried them the most. The U.S. government and Russians tied at 13%; and the UK government trailed slightly at 12%. Aliens and Israeli’s came out at 4% each. Just 5% felt confident enough to claim they were not worried about anyone violating their privacy.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Money is the root of all money." -- the moving finger

Close