Submission + - AT&T calls telecommuters back to cubicle life (networkworld.com)
bednarz writes: "AT&T is requiring thousands of employees who work from their homes to return to traditional AT&T office environments, sources say. "It is a serious effort to reel in the telework people," says the Telework Coalition's Chuck Wilsker, who has heard that as many as 10,000 or 12,000 fulltime teleworkers may be affected. One AT&T employee says rumors have been circulating since AT&T's merger with SBC that the new upper management is not supportive of teleworking: "We'd heard rumors to that effect, and all of a sudden we got marching orders to go back to an office.""
Submission + - Oracle's Unbreakable Linux attacks Microsoft apps (techtarget.com)
OSS_ilation writes: Is Oracle Linux, a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a legitimate threat to Red Hat? At first glance the answer is yes: Oracle undercut Red Hat support by 50% when it announced the Unbreakable Linux program in 2006, and at OpenWorld Oracle executives couldn't wait to talk about the 1,500 new customers it signed throughout 2007. But Red Hat's strong quarterly results tell a different story (revenue was up to $400 million in 2007), as do Oracle's own actions when it comes to wooing customers running Microsoft applications like SQL Server. Basically, many observers today see Oracle's anti-Red Hat stance as window dressing for an overall strategy to take Microsoft out of the enterprise. A win for Linux is a win for Oracle, some say, as it immediately eliminates SQL Server, Exchange, and Visual Studio from the equation and increases the likelihood that a customer will choose Oracle applications.
Submission + - Is it Time to Start Ignoring Microsoft? (earthweb.com) 3
jammag writes: "It's time for GNU/Linux advocates to quit casting Microsoft as the Great Satan, opines Bruce Byfield, a leading GNU/Linux pundit. "Things were different ten years ago...Back then, the community was fragile," he writes. But now, FOSS thrives in data centers everywhere. However, "over the years, we've developed a culture of hate, where bashing Microsoft proves our membership in the club. We've come to count on this opposition as a central part of our identity." Give it up, Byfield writes: "If you value FOSS, there are aspects you should be promoting — not the taunts more suitable to a high school locker room.""
Submission + - Japan to start fingerprinting foreigners again
rabiddeity writes: "If you're planning to visit Japan sometime in the near future, you may want to reconsider. Last year, Japan's parliament passed a measure requiring foreigners to submit their fingerprints when entering the country. The measures, which apply to all foreigners over 16 regardless of visa status, take effect tomorrow. The worst part: the fingerprints are stored in a national database for an "unspecified time", and will be made available to both domestic police and foreign governments."
Submission + - A side-view mirror without a blind-spot
2.7182 writes: A mathematician at Drexel University who specializes in designing surfaces with differential geometry, has apparently invented a driver-side mirror without a blind-spot.
Submission + - You're Cute! Mind taking a test?
ThatWeirdo writes: A few weeks ago, my friends and I were talking about the singles' scene and that what it could really use is a quick and easy STD test. While there still doesn't appear to be a Universal test, it appears that there are several 3 minute AIDS tests on the market (Medmira and Biolytical). While these tests are primarily being geared towards 3rd World countries and trying to take advantage of programs like the President's $15 Billion Aid package, I can also see them one day being marketed here next to the condoms and lubricants.
Submission + - Black hole seen swallowing star (and belching)
mcgrew (sm62704) writes: "New Sceintest reports that the Swift satellite has detected GRB 070610. From the article:
Raise shields, Mr. Sulu!"A black hole has been spotted belching out a burst of gamma rays after gulping down part of a nearby star, something never seen before. Such violent burps may actually be the most common type of explosive "gamma-ray burst" in the universe.
Astronomers led by Mansi Kasliwal of Caltech in Pasadena, US, traced the burst to a star system in our own galaxy, where a black hole and a star slightly less massive than the Sun are orbiting each other.
Observing this black hole outburst from nearby would be a risky prospect. "If you were as close to the black hole as the [companion] star, things wouldn't be pretty," Kasliwal told New Scientist. "I don't think you'd want to be near it."
Submission + - Fourth-generation pig cloned in Japan (yahoo.com)
Raver32 writes: "A Japanese geneticist said Wednesday his research team created the world's first fourth-generation cloned pig, an achievement that could help scientists in medical and other research.
The male pig was born at Tokyo's Meiji University in July, said Hiroshi Nagashima, the geneticist at the university who led the project.
Earlier attempts to clone animals for several generations were problematic. Scientists had thought that was because the genetic material in the nucleus of the donor cell degraded with each successive generation, Nagashima said.
But the team's findings show that a large mammal can be cloned for multiple generations — in this case, the clone of a clone of a clone of a clone — without degradation, he said, while acknowledging that mice have already been successively cloned for multiple generations"
Submission + - Why Is There Almost No HIV/AIDS In Japan? (mens-sexual-health.org)
hurr1 writes: "Total cases in twenty years amount to only 7,500 or 375 a year.
By comparison, Cambodia, whose population is less than a tenth of Japan's, had 170,000 people living with HIV or AIDS, according to United Nations estimates.
See the Ten Myths Of HIV/AIDS video movie explore this problem in human society."
Submission + - Chernobyl Mushrooms Feeding on Radiation
cowtamer writes: According to a National Geographic Article certain fungi can use ionizing radiation to perform "radiosynthesis" using the pigment melanin (the same one in our skin that protects us from UV radiation). It is speculated that this might be useful on long space voyages where energy from the Sun is not readily available.
