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Comment One Thing Is Clear (Score 1, Interesting) 670

Many conditions that are treated with pills could as effectively be addressed with proper diet, nutrition and exercise. Curiously, doctors are rarely averse to prescribing medications for most of these; it is noteworthy that obesity is treated differently. On the other hand, maybe it's time the pills were left on the shelf and patients were required to take responsibility. Big pharma wouldn't like it, but a host of side effects would be avoided, billions of dollars would be saved, and "survival of the fittest" would actually mean something in the social context.

Submission + - "Uptalk" Becoming More Common in Men?

Rambo Tribble writes: The BBC reports that "uptalk" or "valleygirl speak", a raise in pitch at the end of a sentence, is becoming more common in California men. The study was small, but this didn't keep some from coming to conclusions. The opinion seems to vary from this hailing a new age in the use of inflection in human communication, to it just being another So-Cal, androgynous fad.

Submission + - Photorealism on an iPad

Rambo Tribble writes: For some artists, overcoming the limitations of technology is an art form in itself. Consider Kyle Lambert's lifelike images, purportedly created on an iPad, as detailed on Gizmodo.

Comment Creativity ... (Score 2) 453

... cannot and will not be confined to a 7-inch screen. Nor can the range of artistic inputs be entirely duplicated by a touch screen. In time holographic displays and other technologies will displace some of the current hardware requirements to run, say, multiple displays, but we aren't there yet.

Submission + - Plastic Waste Threatens Marine Diversity (bbc.co.uk)

Rambo Tribble writes: An article in Current Biology (abstract) details the finding that minute particles of plastic waste are affecting marine worms, potentially having grave impacts on marine biodiversity and leading to the accumulation of toxins in marine animals. Unfortunately, policymakers have routinely treated such wastes as benign. The BBC provides more approachable coverage of the findings.

Submission + - The Brains of Men and Women "Wired Differently" (bbc.co.uk)

Rambo Tribble writes: Research out of the University of Philadelphia concludes there are major differences in the neural pathways in the brains of men and women. Men, they say, are wired more front-to-back, women more side-to-side. They propose this may explain why women have been found to be better multitaskers. Of course, this may also have ramifications for what skill and career proclivities each sex exhibits.

Submission + - Urban German Herbin' (bbc.co.uk)

Rambo Tribble writes: The long-running struggles of Western society to reconcile official pogroms against recreational drug use with the popular and wide-spread practice of such pursuits, has turned a new page in Berlin. There, the city council has voted to legalize opening a cannabis cafe, apparently justified by a somewhat tortured interpretation of German law.

Submission + - U. S. Military Settles for Software Piracy (bbc.co.uk)

Rambo Tribble writes: The BBC reports that the U. S. government has agreed to pay software maker Apptricity $50 million to settle claims that the U. S. Army pirated thousands of copies of the firm's provisioning software. The report indicates 500 licensed copies were sold, but it came to light an army official had mentioned that "thousands" of devices were running the software.

Submission + - Online Shopping: Hazardous to Junk Food's Health (reuters.com)

Rambo Tribble writes: Reuters is reporting that the trend toward online shopping is reducing the sales of impulse-purchase items, most notably candy and snacks often displayed at the checkout counter. As even grocery shopping shifts online, junk food producers are feeling the squeeze.

Submission + - From Images, Common Sense (bbc.co.uk)

Rambo Tribble writes: The BBC is reporting on an effort at Carnegie Mellon University to teach a computer common sense through image analysis. The Never Ending Image Learner (NEIL) is using two clusters of computers that include 200 processing cores to analyze millions of images and form thousands of associations. The pearls of wisdom derived include such as: "Airbus_330" can be a kind of / look similar to "airplane", or "Leaning_tower" can be found in "Pisa". Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Department of Defense is funding the effort.

Submission + - Lethal Injection: Compounding the Problem (economist.com) 1

Rambo Tribble writes: The Economist reports on the increasingly difficult time states are having obtaining drugs to implement lethal-injection executions. Many of the larger pharmaceutical houses will not or cannot provide the requisite drugs when destined for that purpose. As an alternative, the states are turning to compounding pharmacies. A shadowy marketplace is evolving, with attempts being made to hide the drugs' origins. Of course, lawsuits and legal maneuvers are flying thick and fast.

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