sciencehabit writes "Gold, platinum, and other precioius metals were sucked into Earth's molten iron core soon after our planet formed. So where did all of the material for our fancy jewelry come from? According to high-precision measurements of two isotopes, or atomic variants, of tungsten in 4-billion-old rocks from Greenland published online today in Nature [the abstract adds a bit more; the full version is paywalled, though], precious-metal-bearing meteorites struck Earth around this time, coating the planet in a veneer containing gold, platinum, and other elements long after their native counterparts had disappeared into the planet's core."

LibRT writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "Tanks could soon get night-time invisibility thanks to a cloaking device that masks their infrared signature. Developed by BAE Systems, the Adaptiv technology allows vehicles to mimic the temperature of their surroundings. It can also make a tank look like other objects, such as a cow or car, when seen through heat-sensitive 'scopes. The hi-tech camouflage uses hexagonal panels, or pixels, made of a material that can change temperature very quickly. About 1,000 pixel panels, each of which is 14cm across, are needed to cover a small tank. The panels are driven by on-board thermal cameras that constantly image the ambient temperature of the tank's surroundings. This is projected on to the panels to make it harder to spot. The cameras can also work when the tank is moving."

intellitech writes "Using state-of-the-art theoretical computations, a University of Kentucky-University of Louisville team demonstrated that an alloy formed by a 2 percent substitution of antimony (Sb) in gallium nitride (GaN) has the right electrical properties to enable solar light energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, a process known as photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. When the alloy is immersed in water and exposed to sunlight, the chemical bond between the hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water is broken (abstract). Because pure hydrogen gas is not found in free abundance on Earth, it must be manufactured by unlocking it from other compounds. Thus, hydrogen is not considered an energy source, but rather an 'energy carrier.' Currently, it takes a large amount of electricity to generate hydrogen by water splitting. As a consequence, most of the hydrogen manufactured today is derived from non-renewable sources such as coal and natural gas. The team says the GaN-Sb alloy has the potential to convert solar energy into an economical, carbon-free source for hydrogen."

duh P3rf3ss3r writes "The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has just affirmed the District Court ruling in SCO v Novell (PDF) in its entirety. The decision is quite a good read and lays out the reasons why the court has rejected, in toto, SCO's attempt to re-argue the case before the Court of Appeals. Is this the last gasp for SCO or will they try to appeal this to the Supreme Court? The betting lines open at 11..." Realistically this is the end of the line for the case.

First time accepted submitter Quince alPillan writes "The bacteria behind the Black Death has a very unusual history. Its ancestor is an unassuming soil bacterium and the current strains of Yersinia pestis still infects thousands of people annually, but no longer causes the suite of horrifying symptoms associated with the medieval plagues. The radical differences, in fact, had led some to suggest that we had been blaming the wrong bacteria. Now, researchers have obtained DNA from some of London's plague victims, and confirmed that Y. pestis appears to be to blame. But the sequences also suggest that the strains of bacteria we see today may be different from the ones that rampaged through Europe."

MrSeb writes "With a masterful nail in the optical disc coffin, Microsoft has announced that its new operating system will natively mount ISO disc images. On the slightly more enterprisesque side of the equation, VHD files will also be supported by Windows 8. Both new features will be smoothly integrated into Windows 8 Explorer's ribbon menu, and mounting an ISO or VHD is as simple as double clicking the file. This is obviously an important addition with Windows 8 being available on tablets — and in a year or two, it wouldn't be surprising if all software is made available as an ISO on a USB drive which can be read by tablet and PC alike."

With his first accepted Slashdot submission, Zandamesh sends this excerpt from ZDNet: "On earth, nuclear reactors are under attack because of concerns over damage caused by natural disasters. In space, however, nuclear technology may get a new lease on life. Plans for the first nuclear power plant for the production of electricity to be used by manned or unmanned bases on the Moon, Mars and other planets have been unveiled at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society. 'The reactor itself may be about 1 ½ feet wide by 2 ½ feet high, about the size of a carry-on suitcase. There are no cooling towers. ... The team is scheduled to build a technology demonstration unit in 2012."

First time accepted submitter sjwaste writes "Slashdot posts a fair number of physics stories. Many of us, myself included, don't have the background to understand them. So I'd like to ask the Slashdot math/physics community to construct a curriculum that gets me, an average college grad with two semesters of chemistry, one of calculus, and maybe 2-3 applied statistics courses, all the way to understanding the mathematics of general relativity. What would I need to learn, in what order, and what texts should I use? Before I get killed here, I know this isn't a weekend project, but it seems like it could be fun to do in my spare time for the next ... decade."

darthcamaro writes "Remember the days of the viruses embedded in email attachments? They're coming back, according to a pair of researcher talking at Black Hat this week: '"If you have installed all Microsoft Office patches and there are no 0 day vulnerabilities, will it be safe to open a Word or Excel document?" TT asked the audience. "The answer is no."'"

ipsender writes with a NASA announcement: "NASA will host a news briefing on Thursday, Aug. 4, at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) about a significant new Mars science finding. The briefing will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The new finding is based on observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2006." You can catch the briefing online at the NASA TV site.

If physicist Amelia Sparavigna is correct, in addition to frogs, lice, and locusts, Egyptian schoolchildren were also plagued with useless geometry instruments in their new notebooks at the beginning of every school year. A mysterious object was found in the architect Kha's tomb in 1906 and its function has remained the subject of debate ever since. Sparavigna is certain the object is actually the world's first protractor. From the article: "The key, she says, lies in the numbers encoded in the object's ornate decoration,(Pdf) which resembles a compass rose with 16 evenly spaced petals surrounded by a circular zigzag with 36 corners."

MojoKid writes "Recently, Western Digital stepped out and announced their new 1TB 9.5mm Scorpio Blue 2.5-inch notebook drive. The announcement was significant in that it's the first drive of this capacity to squeeze that many bits into an industry standard 9.5mm, 2.5" SATA form-factor. To do this, WD drove areal density per platter in their 2.5" platform to 500GB. The Scorpio Blue 1TB drive spins at only 5400RPM but its performance is actually surprising. Since areal density per platter has increased significantly, the drive actually bests some 7200RPM drives."

An anonymous reader writes "Pakistan has a new Telecoms Law going into effect, which requires widespread monitoring of internet usage. In response, new reports are saying that the country is banning encryption, including VPNs, because it would interfere with the ability of ISPs to monitor internet usage."

oxide7 writes "A new, low cost semiconductor-based gene sequencing machine has been developed and may unlock the door to advanced medicines and life itself. A team led by Jonathan Rothberg of Ion Torrent in Guilford, Conn is working on a system which uses semiconductors to decode DNA, dramatically reducing costs and taking them closer to being able to reach the goal of a $1000 human genome test. The current optical based system costs around $49000 and is already on the market and being used in over 40 countries."

drspliff writes "Oracle today announced it's completed the acquisition of K-Splice, dropping support for Redhat, CentOS, and SUSE, and closing doors to new customers. Unless of course you want to become an Oracle Linux Premier Support subscriber — then it comes as standard."