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Submission + - Microsoft CFO Quits (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: NBC News is reporting that Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein is leaving the company to spend time with his extended family, as Microsoft "struggles with sharply declining personal computer sales and a lukewarm reception for its new Windows 8 operating system."

Klein is the latest in a line of top-level executives to leave the company, following Windows head Steven Sinofsky last November.

Submission + - Physicist Proposes New Way To Think About Intelligence

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A single equation grounded in basic physics principles could describe intelligence and stimulate new insights in fields as diverse as finance and robotics, according to new research, reports Inside Science. Recent work in cosmology has suggested that universes that produce more entropy (or disorder) over their lifetimes tend to have more favorable properties for the existence of intelligent beings such as ourselves. A new study in the journal Physical Review Letters led by Harvard and MIT physicist Alex Wissner-Gross suggests that this tentative connection between entropy production and intelligence may in fact go far deeper. In the new study, Dr. Wissner-Gross shows that remarkably sophisticated human-like "cognitive" behaviors such as upright walking, tool use, and even social cooperation (see video) spontaneously result from a newly identified thermodynamic process that maximizes entropy production over periods of time much shorter than universe lifetimes, suggesting a potential cosmology-inspired path towards general artificial intelligence.

Submission + - Terrible advice from a great scientist

Submitted by Shipud
Shipud writes: E.O. Wilson is the renowned father of sociobiology, a professor (emeritus) at Harvard, two time pulitzer prize winner, and a popularizer of science. In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Wilson provides controversial advice to aspiring young scientists. Wilson claims that math literacy is not essential, and that scientific models in biology, intuitively generated, can later be formalized by a specialized statistician. One blogger calls out Wilson on his article, arguing that knowing mathematics is essential to generating models, and that lacking what Darwin called the "extra sense" is essentially limiting to any scientist.

Submission + - The FAA Will Let Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Fly Again (vice.com)

Submitted by derekmead
derekmead writes: Having completed intense review of the aircraft's flight systems and functionality, component reliability, two weeks ago Boeing completed testing on the last item on its list, the plane's battery housing. The FAA on Friday approved the new system. That means the 787, which Boeing has continued to build while new battery solutions were developed, will now be able to resume regular flights as soon as workers are able to carry out an overhaul of the planes that need the upgrade.

"FAA approval clears the way for us and the airlines to begin the process of returning the 787 to flight with continued confidence in the safety and reliability of this game-changing new airplane," Jim McNerney, CEO of Boeing, said in a news release announcing the approval.

Submission + - Civet poop coffee may be threatening wildlife (mongabay.com)

Submitted by Damien1972
Damien1972 writes: Popularization of the world's strangest coffee may be imperiling a a suite of small mammals in Indonesia, according to a new study in Small Carnivore Conservation. The coffee, known as kopi luwak (kopi for coffee and luwak for the civet), is made from whole coffee beans that have passed through the gut of the animal. The coffee is apparently noted for its distinct taste, though some have argued it is little more than novelty. Now, this burgeoning kopi luwak industry is creating "civet farms," whereby civets are captured from the wild and kept in cages to eat and crap out coffee beans.

Submission + - Explosion rips through Texas plant (cnn.com) 1

Submitted by zippo01
zippo01 writes: An explosion ripped through a fertilizer plant Wednesday night in the area of West, Texas, sending a massive fireball into the sky and causing dozens of injuries, officials said.

Submission + - Prof. Stephen Hawking: Great Scientist, Bad Gambler (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has announced that he was likely wrong about his view that the Higgs boson doesn’t exist — an outcome he doesn’t find very exciting — conceding that he lost a $100 wager. Speaking at the Beckman Auditorium in Caltech, Pasadena, Calif., on Tuesday (April 16), the British physicist gave a public lecture on “The Origins of the Universe,” summarizing new revelations in modern astrophysics and cosmology. After the lecture, Caltech physicist and colleague John Preskill commented on Hawking’s fondness of placing bets when faced with conflicts of physics ideas. Hawking lost a famous wager to Preskill in 2004 in a debate over whether or not black holes destroy information (theory suggests they do not, opposing Hawking's argument). “To love Stephen Hawking is to not always agree with Stephen Hawking,” Preskill quipped. “He’s usually right, but he’s not always right. Sometimes we haven’t been able to resolve our differences and we’ve resorted to making bets it’s sad to say that although Stephen Hawking is without doubt a great scientist, he’s a bad gambler.”

Submission + - Low Levels Of Toxic Gas Found To Encourage Plant Growth (phys.org)

Submitted by olsmeister
olsmeister writes: Hydrogen Sulfide is a toxic, flammable, foul-smelling gas that some theorize may have been at least partially responsible for some of Earth's mass extinctions, including the Permian-Triassic event, which killed well over half of the species on the planet. Now, thanks to a fortuitous accident, doctoral student at the University of Washington seems to have discovered that very low doses of the gas seems to greatly enhance plant growth, causing plants to germinate more quickly and grow larger. The finding could have far reaching implications for both food and biofuel production.

Submission + - Why Intel's Decline Is Now Imminent (techdomino.com) 1

Submitted by allwinter
allwinter writes: Intel earnings have just been published for the last quarter, and they are not looking too good. Their profit declined. The worst part about it is that it will continue to decline, because Intel faces some major challenges that can’t be so easily fixed, and the market might not wait around for Intel to fix them.

Submission + - Anti-Incest App Built By Icelandic College Students (nbcnews.com) 1

Submitted by Kozar_The_Malignant
Kozar_The_Malignant writes: Students at the University of Iceland have written an Android app that helps you avoid dating your cousins. The app accesses the Icelandic national genealogical database that contains information on all living citizens and their ancestors going back 1,100 years. Tapping two phones together will bring up an alert if you share a common grandparent.

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