Submission + - Artificially intelligent painters invent new styles of art (newscientist.com)

Submitted by Dthief on Thursday June 29, 2017 @03:57PM

Dthief writes: Now and then, a painter like Claude Monet or Pablo Picasso comes along and turns the art world on its head. They invent new aesthetic styles, forging movements such as impressionism or abstract expressionism. But could the next big shake-up be the work of a machine?

Submission + - Samsung buys Quantum Dot Company (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Dthief on Saturday November 26, 2016 @11:43PM

Dthief writes: Samsung looks to focus on QLED over OLED with purchase of Boston's QD Vision and expand their current QD market which is limited to cadmium free quantum dots due to Korean regulations.

Submission + - Scientists achieve perfect efficiency for water-splitting half-reaction (phys.org)

Submitted by Dthief on Monday February 29, 2016 @09:03PM

Dthief writes: Splitting water is a two-step process, and in a new study, researchers have performed one of these steps (reduction) with 100% efficiency. The results shatter the previous record of 60% for hydrogen production with visible light, and emphasize that future research should focus on the other step (oxidation) in order to realize practical overall water splitting. The main application of splitting water into its components of oxygen and hydrogen is that the hydrogen can then be used to deliver energy to fuel cells for powering vehicles and electronic devices.

Submission + - Russians close to "reaching Mars" (myway.com)

Submitted by Dthief on Friday January 21, 2011 @01:56PM

Dthief writes: The all-male crew of three Russians, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian-Colombian has been inside windowless capsules at a Moscow research center since June. Their mission aims to help real space crews in the future cope with the confinement and stress of interplanetary travel. The six men are due to "land" on Mars on Feb. 12 and spend two days researching the planet. They then begin the months-long return flight to Earth, expected to be the most challenging part of the mission. In an effort to reproduce the conditions of space travel, with exception of weightlessness, the crew has living quarters the size of a bus connected with several other modules for experiments and exercise. A separate built-in imitator of the Red Planet's surface is attached for the mock landing.

Have they learned anything from this?

Submission + - facebook to own the word "face" (myfoxdc.com) 2

Submitted by Dthief on Wednesday November 24, 2010 @12:15PM

Dthief writes: The U.S. Patent And Trademark Office has sent Facebook a Notice of Allowance, which means it will grant the “Face” trademark to the popular social networking site.

Facebook now has three months to pay an issue fee before they officially own the word.

Submission + - No Good Samaritan Law? Firefighters let house burn (msn.com)

Submitted by Dthief on Tuesday October 05, 2010 @05:50PM

Dthief writes: Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.

Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat.

"They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.

Submission + - Caffeine addicts get no additional perk (reuters.com)

Submitted by Dthief on Wednesday June 02, 2010 @04:32PM

Dthief writes: Bristol University researchers found that drinkers develop a tolerance to both the anxiety-producing and the stimulating effects of caffeine, meaning that it only brings them back to baseline levels of alertness, not above them.

"Although frequent consumers feel alerted by caffeine, especially by their morning tea, coffee, or other caffeine-containing drink, evidence suggests that this is actually merely the reversal of the fatiguing effects of acute caffeine withdrawal," wrote the scientists, led by Peter Rogers of Bristol's department of experimental psychology.

Submission + - AG Corbett Subpoenas Twitter to Name Bloggers (whtm.com)

Submitted by Dthief on Thursday May 20, 2010 @05:57PM

Dthief writes: The state attorney general's office has issued a subpoena threatening officials of the social networking service Twitter with arrest unless they reveal the names of two bloggers who have been critical of Attorney General Tom Corbett and his public corruption investigation. ...
Vic Walczak of the American Civil Liberties Union told Pittsburgh's WTAE-TV that the court action "raises grave concerns about abuse of the grand jury process to retaliate against political critics and opponents." He said Americans "have a right to criticize government officials and to do so anonymously."

Submission + - Scientists Case on Background Check Reaches High C (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Dthief on Friday March 12, 2010 @07:17PM

Dthief writes: A long-running legal battle between the United States government and a group of 29 scientists and engineers of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, has now reached the U.S. Supreme Court.