Modern laptops and desktops come with remote administration tools built into the chips on the board. (The vendors tout this as a feature, simplifying administration of a large company's workstations. It's easier and cheaper to build it into everything than to be selective, so it's in the machines sold to individuals, too.)

One example: Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) and its standard Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI), the latter standardized in 1998 and supported by "over 200 hardware vendors". This is built into the northbridge (or, in early models, the Ethernet) chip).

Just TRY to get a "modern laptop" (or desktop), using an Intel chipset, without this feature. (I suspect the old Thinkpad is how far back they had to go to avoid it.)

You can't disable it: Dumping the credentials or reverting to factory settings just makes it think it hasn't been configured yet and accept the first connection (ethernet or WiFi, whether powered up or down) claiming to be the new owner's sysadmins.

If the NSA doesn't know how to use this to spy on, or take over, a target computer, they aren't doing their jobs.

Some of the things this can do (from the Wikipedia articles - see them for the footnotes):

Hardware-based AMT features include:

                Encrypted, remote communication channel for network traffic between the IT console and Intel AMT.
                Ability for a wired PC (physically connected to the network) outside the company's firewall on an open LAN to establish a secure communication tunnel (via AMT) back to the IT console. Examples of an open LAN include a wired laptop at home or at an SMB site that does not have a proxy server.
                Remote power up / power down / power cycle through encrypted WOL.
                Remote boot, via integrated device electronics redirect (IDE-R).
                Console redirection, via serial over LAN (SOL).
                Keyboard, video, mouse (KVM) over network.
                Hardware-based filters for monitoring packet headers in inbound and outbound network traffic for known threats (based on programmable timers), and for monitoring known / unknown threats based on time-based heuristics. Laptops and desktop PCs have filters to monitor packet headers. Desktop PCs have packet-header filters and time-based filters.
                Isolation circuitry (previously and unofficially called "circuit breaker" by Intel) to port-block, rate-limit, or fully isolate a PC that might be compromised or infected.
                Agent presence checking, via hardware-based, policy-based programmable timers. A "miss" generates an event; you can specify that the event generate an alert.
                OOB alerting.
                Persistent event log, stored in protected memory (not on the hard drive).
                Access (preboot) the PC's universal unique identifier (UUID).
                Access (preboot) hardware asset information, such as a component's manufacturer and model, which is updated every time the system goes through power-on self-test (POST).
                Access (preboot) to third-party data store (TPDS), a protected memory area that software vendors can use, in which to version information, .DAT files, and other information.
                Remote configuration options, including certificate-based zero-touch remote configuration, USB key configuration (light-touch), and manual configuration.
                Protected Audio/Video Pathway for playback protection of DRM-protected media.

Additional AMT features in laptop PCs

Laptops with AMT also include wireless technologies:

                Support for IEEE 802.11 a/g/n wireless protocols
                Cisco-compatible extensions for Voice over WLAN

This just happens to be one I'm familiar with. I don't know whether (or which) other chip makers (such as AMD) have similar "features" built in as well (though I'd be surprised if they didn't, since they want to sell into big companies, too).

Who needs "clipper" when you have Northbridge with built-in AMT?

Tacoma? Smaug can have it!

From TFA:

Experiments showed that boosting NAD levels, by giving mice a chemical which they naturally convert into NAD,

The chemical used in the study is not mentioned in the linked abstract, either.

Does anyone know what the chemical, and dosage, in question might be?

... just look at the Apollo program.

A triumph of the human spirit, of technology, of ingenuity, sure - but mainly, an overwhelming triumph of project management.

And then NASA changed their management. And the new management dropped "belt and suspenders" "managing for Murphy's law" in favor of "managing for success". And they launched Challenger when the solid-fuel booster O-rings were too cold to seat properly, over the objections of the engineers.

And the space program was put on hold for 2 2/3 years.

What's so wrong with installing linux on a real laptop?

Modern laptops come with remote administration tools built into the chips on the board. (The vendors tout this as a feature, simplifying administration of a large company's workstations. It's easier and cheaper to build it into everything than to be selective, so it's in the machines sold to individuals, too.)

One example: Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) and its standard Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI), the latter standardized in 1998 and supported by "over 200 hardware vendors". This is built into the northbridge (or, in early models, the Ethernet) chip).

Just TRY to get a "modern laptop" (or desktop), using an Intel chipset, without this feature. (I suspect the old Thinkpad is how far back they had to go to avoid it.)

You can't disable it: Dumping the credentials or reverting to factory settings just makes it think it hasn't been configured yet and accept the first connection (ethernet or WiFi, whether powered up or down) claiming to be the new owner's sysadmins.

If the NSA doesn't know how to use this to spy on, or take over, a target computer, they aren't doing their jobs.

Some of the things this can do (from the Wikipedia articles - see them for the footnotes):

Hardware-based AMT features include:

        Encrypted, remote communication channel for network traffic between the IT console and Intel AMT.
        Ability for a wired PC (physically connected to the network) outside the company's firewall on an open LAN to establish a secure communication tunnel (via AMT) back to the IT console. Examples of an open LAN include a wired laptop at home or at an SMB site that does not have a proxy server.
        Remote power up / power down / power cycle through encrypted WOL.
        Remote boot, via integrated device electronics redirect (IDE-R).
        Console redirection, via serial over LAN (SOL).
        Keyboard, video, mouse (KVM) over network.
        Hardware-based filters for monitoring packet headers in inbound and outbound network traffic for known threats (based on programmable timers), and for monitoring known / unknown threats based on time-based heuristics. Laptops and desktop PCs have filters to monitor packet headers. Desktop PCs have packet-header filters and time-based filters.
        Isolation circuitry (previously and unofficially called "circuit breaker" by Intel) to port-block, rate-limit, or fully isolate a PC that might be compromised or infected.
        Agent presence checking, via hardware-based, policy-based programmable timers. A "miss" generates an event; you can specify that the event generate an alert.
        OOB alerting.
        Persistent event log, stored in protected memory (not on the hard drive).
        Access (preboot) the PC's universal unique identifier (UUID).
        Access (preboot) hardware asset information, such as a component's manufacturer and model, which is updated every time the system goes through power-on self-test (POST).
        Access (preboot) to third-party data store (TPDS), a protected memory area that software vendors can use, in which to version information, .DAT files, and other information.
        Remote configuration options, including certificate-based zero-touch remote configuration, USB key configuration (light-touch), and manual configuration.
        Protected Audio/Video Pathway for playback protection of DRM-protected media.

Additional AMT features in laptop PCs

Laptops with AMT also include wireless technologies:

        Support for IEEE 802.11 a/g/n wireless protocols
        Cisco-compatible extensions for Voice over WLAN

This just happens to be one I'm familiar with. I don't know whether (or which) other chip makers (such as AMD) have similar "features" built in as well (though I'd be surprised if they didn't, since they want to sell into big companies, too).

Why can't I buy a webcam with a lens cover and no microphone, or a physical on/off switch for the microphone anymore?

I wouldn't trust the switch to actually turn off the microphone any more than I trust the switch that supposedly turns off the WiFi and Bluetooth to actually do so (rather than tell the software to not use them - for the normal stack.)

Even if it DID physically turn off the Microphone, remember that the speakers built into a typical laptop can also act as microphones. If the chip driving them is designed appropriately it can have a stealth listen-through-the-speakers mode.

Back when I had my TRS-80 Model 1 you could 'listen' to the 1.77 MHz Z80 processor do its thing on any AM radio nearby. Now get off my lawn.

In those days I carried a transistor radio and used it for debugging - (on stuff substantially larger than a TRS-80). It gave subtle insights into how much time the machine was spending in different parts of algorithms. (The ear and its post-processing in the brain is really good at picking this stuff out.)

The rise of multitasking, with fine-grained time slices, ruined this approach by cutting up the signal of interest and mixing it with bits from other programs running "simultaneously". Then the march of Moore's Law and its variants nailed up the coffin by cutting the run time of most stuff of interest down to such short periods that even a bat couldn't get anything useful from their radio-to-accoustic signatures.

But modern cryptography involves deliberately long computations, on machines that are otherwise so fast that other tasks are mostly idle,. So the technique rises from the grave...

... the trademark dispute between the two was settled with a pittance and an agreement by Apple, Inc. not to sell music. However, they managed to win over a judge when iTunes came out and then wrest control of the trademark away from Apple Corps ...

But isn't that also part of why the app and store is named "iTunes" - generalizing the iMac naming scheme into "iWhatever" - with no mention of the word "Apple"?

Well I hope it's a *bit* faster than that, since it looks (haha) like I'm going to get MD later in life just like my Dad.

I have the same worry. So far I'm doing OK (and taking my vitamin A) but it's still a worry.

(I also worry that, with the increasing governmental takeover of medicine, research on and deployment of new treatments will grind to a halt as a cost-cutting measure.)

I really wish we could the body itself to grow these cells, since obviously it was able to do it once before.

If you follow this link from TFA, you'll find that (as of last January) they've also been able to inject "precursor" cells into blind mice and get them to grow a new, fully differentiated, and possibly fully functional, retina in about two weeks.

(I presume by "precursor cells" they mean "stem cells that have been partially differentiated into pluripotent cells along the developmental path to retina tissue" or perhaps "harvested pluripotent cells from the same developmental stage".)

The new retina tissue definitely connected well enough to produce behavioral evidence of light sensitivity, though more work was needed to determine whether/how well it hooked up to the brain's image processing.

Thanks. (The media had me thinking they'd specifically banned incandescents and I hadn't read the actual law.)

The light temperature is off for the wood interior. We had it the way we want it and intend to keep it that way.

The TEMPERATURE is too high, too. (Halogens last long because the gas reacts with the evaporated tungsten that's landed on the inside of the capsule - picking it up as a tungsten halide, then depositing it as tungsten metal again at the hottest - i.e. thinnest - part of the filament.)

Take away the crimes of two inner city subcultures from the statistics and then the murder and violent crime rates are the same as Europe.

Actually we're lower even without that. It turns out there's a BIG difference in how crimes are reported - especially vs. Great Britain. For instance:

In the US we count a murder when there's a body and suspicious circumstances. In Great Britain they count a murder when they have a CONVICTION.

In the US, if a gang robs an apartment house it's one robbery per unit. In GB it's one robbery.

In the US if daddy comes home and shoots his wife, three kids, and himself, it's four murders and one suicide. In Japan it's five suicides.

This kind of stuff goes on and on...

One thing that's not in question:
  - People of European ancestry have a lower vicitmization rate in the US than in Europe.
  - People of African ancestry have a lower victimization rate in the US than in Africa.
  - People of Asian ancestry have a lower victimization rate in the US than in Asia.
And so on.

Did a little checking. It's Xenon that they were playing with back then. Xenon is reasonably easy to convince to make covalent bonds, and some of its compounds are used industrially and available in commercial quantities.

Argon is less reactive, and they didn't get it to form compounds until 2000, with some encouragement from an ultraviolet light source to kick an electron up to another level.

Argon forms compounds without too much coercion. Back in the mid '60s chemists were playing with them regularly. As I understand it (I'm NOT a chemist and haven't done this myself):

Just mix argon and fuourine in a pressure vessel and heat it up. (VERY CAREFULLY! Fluorine gas is deadly!) You'll quickly get copious amounts of argon difluoride, tetrafluoride, and even some hexafluoride. These are stable enough to stick around once you bring things down to room temperatures.

Once you've got them, there are techniques for substituting other stuff for one or more of the fluorines.

But you DO have to be careful, even after the fluorine is out of the picture. I hear these compounds tend to be explosive, due to argon's propensity for dumping the riders and flying away alone.