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Submission + - 'Apocalypse Zombies' a possibility says scientist (helium.com)

Submitted by Terrence Aym
Terrence Aym writes: A virulent rabies-influenza viral hybrid could lead to masses of infected victims turning into veritable zombies. The hapless former humans would exhibit all the classic features of the horror movies: the would become lumbering, mindless monsters with murderous tendencies and the ability to transform others into shuffling zombies with merely a bite. This gruesome possibility is discussed (quite calmly) by Samita Andreansky, a virologist at Florida's University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. Andreansky is one of the guests interviewed on the National Geographic special documentary "The Truth About Zombies" that aired during October 2010.
Google

Submission + - Can Google predict election results? (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: Google announced they've searched for clues about the upcoming U.S. election using their internal tools (as well as its "Insights for Search" tool, which compares search volume patterns for different regions and timeframes.) "Looking at the most popular searches on Google News in October, the issues that stand out are the economy," their official blog reported, adding "we continue to see many searches for terms like unemployment and foreclosures, as well as immigration and health care." But one technology reporter also notes almost perfect correspondence between some candidate's predicted vote totals from FiveThirtyEight and their current search volume on Google, with only a small margin of error for other candidates. "Oddly enough, the race with a clear link between web interest and expected voting is the unusual three-way contest [in Florida], where the breakdown between candidates should if anything be less clear-cut and predictable." And Google adds that also they're seeing national interest in one California proposition — Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Induction cooktop fun

Submitted by fishfrys
fishfrys writes: Besides generating heat quickly and efficiently in ferromagnetic pans, what sorts of fun things can you do with an induction cooktop? This seems like a pretty serious piece of electromagnetic equipment — boiling water can't be the only thing it's good for. I went to youtube expecting to find all sorts of crazy videos of unsafe induction cooktop shenanigans, but only found cooking. What sort of exciting, if not stupid, physics experiments can be performed with one? Hard drive scrubber... DIY Tesla coil? There's got to be something. Thanks.
NASA

Submission + - Chinese anti-satellite space junk count hits 3,000 (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Three years after the Chinese government blew one of its satellites in space with a missile the debris from that explosion continues to grow. NASA' s Orbital Debris Program Office this week said the number of debris officially cataloged from the 2007 Chinese the Fengyun-1C spacecraft anti-satellite test has now surpassed 3000. By mid-September 2010, the tally had reached 3037, of which 97% remained in Earth orbit

Submission + - Atheists know more about religion than anyone else (pewforum.org)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The Pew Research Center published the results of a survey testing Americans' knowledge of religious matters. Atheists/agnostics came in first, followed closely by Jews and Mormons. Among some of the findings: only half of all Protestants know who Martin Luther was, and less than half of all respondents know that the Dalai Lama is a Buddhist.
Apple

Submission + - Apple TV Teardown Gives App Store Clues (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Apple will add App Store functionality to its new, miniature Apple TV in the near future, a Wall Street analyst said on Wednesday. The $99 device is a close sibling of the iPad in its component composition and uses the same iOS 4.1 that runs on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, two huge hints that Apple will sell apps to consumers, not just rent content to stream to TVs, said Brian Marshall of Gleacher & Co. 'I'm a little disappointed that an App Store didn't make it into this first version, but it'll come,' Marshall said. 'Apps will give consumers a much more media-rich environment than simply consuming content.' One easy bet in Marshall's mind: Games to turn Apple TV into a de facto video game console. Earlier on Wednesday, the iFixit site published photographs and a step-by-step description of its teardown of the new Apple TV. That processor and amount of system memory — as well as the fact that the Apple TV uses iOS 4.1 — means the new device could run applications currently stocked in the App Store. Another clue that led Marshall to conclude that an Apple TV App Store was possible now — and even more likely when the device receives its inevitable upgrade — is the 8GB of flash RAM that iFixit uncovered.
Movies

Submission + - Unions urging Actors not to work on Hobbit movie

Submitted by lbalbalba
lbalbalba writes: Last we heard about The Hobbit, Guillermo Del Toro dropped out, Peter Jackson was unofficially directing and secretly auditioning actors, the movie had yet to be green-lit, and Ian McKellen was getting super-antsy about the whole thing and threatening not to play Gandalf. This shouldn't help the long-gestating movie happen any quicker: Actors guilds including SAG issued actual alerts yesterday against working on any of the Hobbit films, advising their members not to take parts in the non-union production, should they be offered them.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - US Hunters Shoot Down Google Fibre (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by aesoteric
aesoteric writes: Google has revealed that aerial fibre links to its data center in Oregon were "regularly" shot down by hunters, forcing the company to put its cables underground. Hunters were reportedly trying to hit insulators on electricity distribution poles which also hosted aerially-deployed fibre connected to Google's $US600 million data center in The Dalles. "I have yet to see them actually hit the insulator, but they regularly shoot down the fibre," Google's network engineering manager Vijay Gill told a conference in Australia. "Every November when hunting season starts invariably we know that the fibre will be shot down, so much so that we are now building an underground path [for it]."

Comment Re:Can we put one of these factories on a ship? (Score 3, Informative) 315

by WindBourne (#29453075) Attached to: Transforming Waste Plastic Into $10/Barrel Fuel
Much of the plastic is decomposing. Any net will ONLY catch large pieces while ignoring the bulk of it. Worse, it will destroy a lot of life. A decent skimmer boat would instead allow, in fact encourage, biologicals (seen as contaminate to the process) to get out of the way.

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