Raver32 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Digital music players unsafe in storms (monstersandcritics.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Saturday July 14, 2007 @04:20PM

Raver32 writes: "Following a recent study suggesting the Apple iPod could adversely affect the performance of pacemakers, a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine has warned that portable digital music players can be extremely dangerous if carried in a storm. "Most people hit by lightning get away with minor burns," outlined the report's lead author, Dr. Eric J. Heffernan of Vancouver General Hospital, before explaining that human skin is highly resistant and prevents electricity from entering the body. "It's called the flashover effect," he added in a Xinhua article, "although it can stop your heart and kill you.""

Submission + - VeriSign CFO resigns, restate stock results (canoe.ca)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Friday July 13, 2007 @09:13AM

Raver32 writes: "VeriSign Inc. said Thursday that its chief financial officer has resigned and that the company has recorded $171 million in compensation expenses to account for mishandled stock options grants. Mountain View-based VeriSign, which manages the ".com" and ".net" domain names registry, said in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that an internal review found problems with 8,164 stock option grants made on 41 dates between 1998 and 2006."

Submission + - Social Networking for the Deceased (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Friday July 13, 2007 @09:02AM

Raver32 writes: "Respectance.com marks the latest attempt to create a workable website for online memorials. The goal is to create a site where people can post online tributes to the departed; the Respectance twist is to add Facebook-style features to the effort. Some of these are genuinely useful: For instance, given its owner's blessing, anyone can upload photos to a Respectance tribute page. And it must be said that the site is a fair sight classier than many of its overwrought predecessors. But this isn't just a tribute site: It's a social network. This means that, alongside the condolence book and the wall of memorial photos, there's a list of the departed's "friends." If nothing else, it's trendy. To contribute, you first have to sign up for a Respectance account, then request to be added to the deceased's buddy list. Once you're on the list, your name links to your profile page, on which all of your deceased friends are listed, as well as the tributes you've made to each of them. It also means that you can send and receive private messages from other members, and check out their own networks of friends, living and otherwise. (Sure enough, dead celebrity tributes have appeared, thanks in no small part to Respectance itself, which posted dozens to get the ball rolling, leading to an immediate gravitas deficit.)"

Submission + - Website delivers last 'e-wishes' (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Friday July 13, 2007 @08:56AM

Raver32 writes: "In the old days, the family lawyer could be relied upon to handle much of the business of dying. But as modern life gets more complex and families split up or move, death needs more organization, said Collin Harris, 51, the entrepreneur behind the website. A new website, YouDeparted.com, delivers all your last "e-wishes" to family and friends after you pass away, and lets them know where to find important documents such as insurance policies. "There are 70 million baby boomers in the United States alone. The website is a nice organizer for you to put useful information, and when you die it is released to designated family and friends," he said."

Submission + - Major Breakthrough Boosts Stem Cell Hopes (thestar.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Friday July 13, 2007 @08:50AM

Raver32 writes: "A landmark discovery by researchers at Hamilton's McMaster University could radically alter the way scientists attempt to use embryonic stem cells to grow replacement tissues and treat cancer. The researchers found that human embryonic stem cells — "the great grandmothers" of all the other cells in our bodies — build themselves a nurturing cocoon that feeds them and directs their ability to turn into other types of tissues. By manipulating the products of this tiny, cellular placenta, it may be possible for scientists to prompt the stem cells to grow into desired tissues and organs, or to switch off tumour growth, says Mickie Bhatia, the lead study author. The study will appear in an upcoming issue of the scientific journal Nature."

Submission + - Lightning strikes reported by iPod users (yahoo.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Thursday July 12, 2007 @07:48AM

Raver32 writes: "Listen to an iPod during a storm and you may get more than electrifying tunes. A Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning traveled through his music player's wires. Last summer, a Colorado teen ended up with similar injuries when lightning struck nearby as he was listening to his iPod while mowing the lawn. Emergency physicians report treating other patients with burns from freak accidents while using personal electronic devices such as beepers, Walkman players and laptop computers outdoors during storms"

Submission + - Robot unravels mystery of walking (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Thursday July 12, 2007 @07:42AM

Raver32 writes: "Roboticists are using the lessons of a 1930s human physiologist to build the world's fastest walking robot. Runbot is a self-learning, dynamic robot, which has been built around the theories of Nikolai Bernstein. "Getting a robot to walk like a human requires a dynamic machine," said Professor Florentin Woergoetter. Runbot is a small, biped robot which can move at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second, slightly slower than the fastest walking human."

Submission + - Astronomers seek help to organize galaxies (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Thursday July 12, 2007 @07:36AM

Raver32 writes: "Scientists need help sorting through an unusual digital photo album: pictures of about a million galaxies. They are asking volunteers on the Internet to help classify the galaxies as either elliptical or spiral and note, where possible, in which direction they rotate. It would be the largest galactic census ever compiled, something scientists say would provide new insight into the structure of the universe. "We're in the golden era of astronomy," said Bob Nichol, an astronomer at the University of Portsmouth in southern England. "We have more data than we can assimilate, and we need help." Astronomers say computer programs have been unable to reliably classify the star systems."

Submission + - AOL to pay $3M, reform cancellation policies (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Thursday July 12, 2007 @07:30AM

Raver32 writes: "Averting a looming court battle over how it has handled the exodus from its Internet dial-up service, AOL has agreed to make it easier for its remaining customers to leave as part of a $3-million (U.S.) settlement with 48 states and the District of Columbia. The resolution announced Wednesday was driven by a deluge of complaints from AOL customers who said they tried to close their accounts, only to be thwarted in their attempts or discover they were still being billed for services that they thought had been cancelled. The outcry triggered a multistate investigation that would have culminated in a lawsuit if AOL hadn't agreed to ante up and change its ways, said David Tiede, a deputy attorney general in California. California was among the states that played a leading role in the settlement. New York and Florida were the only states that didn't participate in the inquiry."

Submission + - 'Whopper' squid washes up in Australia (thestar.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Wednesday July 11, 2007 @09:29AM

Raver32 writes: "A squid as long as a bus and weighing 550 pounds washed up on an Australian beach, officials said Wednesday. "It is a whopper," said Genefor Walker-Smith, a zoologist who studies invertebrates at the Tasmanian Museum. Giant squid live in waters off southern Australia and New Zealand — where a half-ton colossus, believed to be the world's largest, was caught in February. They attract the sperm whales that feed on them. The dead squid, measuring 3 feet across at its widest point and 26 feet from the tip of its body to the end of its tentacles, was found early Wednesday by a beachcomber at Ocean Beach on the island state of Tasmania's west coast, the museum said."

Submission + - Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by

Raver32

on Friday July 06, 2007 @12:58PM

Raver32 writes: "When Jon D. Miller looks out across America, which he can almost do from his 18th-floor office at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, he sees a landscape of haves and have-nots — in terms not of money, but of knowledge. Dr. Miller, 63, a political scientist who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at the medical school, studies how much Americans know about science and what they think about it. His findings are not encouraging. Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century."

Submission + - Bioengineers target cancer with electric pulses (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Thursday July 05, 2007 @02:29PM

Raver32 writes: "U.S. biomedical engineers expect clinical trails to start within a year on what they called a "minimally invasive method" of treating cancer using electric pulses, beginning with men who have prostate cancer. Using a process called "irreversible electroporation" (IRE), the engineers successfully removed tissue from the livers of male rats, the researchers said in a release issued Thursday. "We did not use any drugs, the cells were destroyed, and the vessel architecture was preserved," said Rafael Davalos, from the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Science. He is working with his former PhD adviser and published IRE researcher Boris Rubinsky, a bioengineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley."

Submission + - 6,000-year-old Arctic ponds drying out (thestar.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Thursday July 05, 2007 @02:12PM

Raver32 writes: "Global warming is destroying ponds that have supported life in the Arctic for thousands of years — bad news for the North and an ominous warning to the rest of the world, says a new report by two Canadian scientists. The small, shallow ponds on Ellesmere Island, high in Canada's Eastern Arctic, are drying up and could begin to release greenhouse gases that make the problem worse, says John Smol, a biologist at Queen's University in Kingston. "What happens in the Arctic will affect us all, and not in good ways," says Smol, co-author of the report with Marianne Douglas of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. It is being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their findings are the latest in a series of troubling studies that show how global warming is transforming the Arctic. The region is heating up further and faster than any other place on Earth, and "it's the first to show signs of change," Smol says. It's like the canaries that were kept in mines to warn of bad air: "The canary is singing — it's coughing and choking.""

Submission + - Perpetual Motion machine hits "technical snag& (vnunet.com)

Submitted by whoever57 on Thursday July 05, 2007 @01:55PM

whoever57 writes: The demonstration of Steorn's perpetual motion machine ("Orba") appears to have hit "technical difficulties". Most people might call this "difficulty" the law of conservation of energy, but the Irish company claims that the problem may be related to the heat from the camera lighting on the display.

Submission + - PC's 'Jade Empire' delivers solid game (canoe.ca)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Thursday June 28, 2007 @08:04AM

Raver32 writes: "It took almost two years but "Jade Empire" has finally made it from the Xbox to the PC. It's worth the wait for gamers who missed the original, but those familiar with the console version of BioWare's martial arts epic will wonder why there was such a long wait for so little extra content. The strong points of the original are intact in the PC version. Edmonton's BioWare have always had a knack for crafting games with engaging characters and epic storylines, and "Jade Empire" (rated M for mature) is no different. The characters and landscape are beautifully rendered, especially when played in a high resolution, and the characters and story are engrossing."

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