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Medicine

Plasma Device Kills Bacteria On Skin In Seconds 237

Posted by kdawson from the it's-a-dry-cold dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "In medicine, plasma, the fourth state of matter, is already used for sterilizing surgical instruments; plasma works at the atomic level and is able to reach all surfaces, even the interior of hollow needle ends. Now the BBC reports that researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have demonstrated a plasma device that can rid hands, feet, or even underarms of bacteria, including the hospital superbug MRSA, by creating cold atmospheric plasma that produces a cocktail of chemicals that kills bacteria but is harmless to skin. 'The plasma produces a series of over 200 chemical reactions that involve the oxygen and nitrogen in air plus water vapor — there is a whole concoction of chemical species that can be lethal to bacteria,' says Gregor Morfill. 'It's actually similar to what our own immune system does.' The team says that an exposure to the plasma of only about 12 seconds reduces the incidence of bacteria, viruses, and fungi on hands by a factor of a million — a number that stands in sharp contrast to the several minutes hospital staff can take to wash using traditional soap and water. Morfill says that the approach can be used to kill the bacteria that lead to everything from gum disease to body odor and that the prototype is scalable to any size and can be produced in any shape."
The Internet

Submission + - Web Use Improves Brain Activity in Older Adults (livescience.com)

Submitted by krygny
krygny writes: An article on LiveSciences reports: Adults with little internet experience show changes in their brain activity after just one week online, a new study finds. The results suggest Internet training can stimulate neural activation patterns and could potentially enhance brain function and cognition in older adults. "We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing Internet searches for even a relatively short period of time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function," Dr. Gary Small, study author and professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, said in a statement.

Previous research by the UCLA team found that searching online resulted in a more than twofold increase in brain activation in older adults with prior experience, compared with those with little Internet experience. The new findings suggest that it may take only days for those with minimal experience to match the activity levels of those with years of experience, said Small.

Comment Default Settings (Score 1, Insightful) 491

by krygny (#28979365) Attached to: How Can I Tell If My Computer Is Part of a Botnet?

For some reason, he reset the config on the Linksys, and connected it up without wireless security, and also with the default admin password for some time.

He probably just stuck a pencil in the reset button. Maybe because he was having connection problems for some other reason and that "fixed" it and he was happy. Ignorance is bliss ... for a while.
Privacy

Submission + - "Orwellian" CARS Application Disclaimer 2

Submitted by krygny
krygny writes: I saw this on FNC's Glenn Beck Show yesterday and is recounted here. When a car dealer visits the cars.gov web site to apply for the rebate, he encounters the following disclaimer:

"This application provides to the DoT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a federal computer system and it is property of the United States government, ... Any and all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DoT and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign."

I haven't been able to duplicate the path described in the article, maybe because I'm not a registered dealer or maybe the process has changed as much as the program has in the past few days.

Comment Familiarity Breeds Contempt (Score 1) 491

by krygny (#28207411) Attached to: Best kind of engineering:

With a formal background in EE, a self-taught programmer and currently working in a mechanical industrial field, I am most impressed with engineering disciplines of which I am least knowledgeable. I am rarely if ever WOWed by a circuit design. Occasionally, I am impressed by a well-conceived, executed and documented software program (one of my favorites is the Apache project). But I marvel most at innovative and clever mechanical design.

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