Comment Re:Not true. (Score 1) 152
The problem is whether it will happen fast enough. If it takes 100 years to fall to sustainable levels, we may have irreversible damage.
Comment Reddit (Score 1) 2
The founder of Mars One already did an AMA over at reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ufb42/ama_i_am_founder_of_mars_one_sending_four_people/ From the top comments, it seems like just some people trying to get publicity without having any technical details worked out. Such a shame.
Comment Re:windows only app up (Score 2) 176
Also, even Vista isn't officially supported.
http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-4664#Q_Why_is_Microsoft_Windows_Vista_not_supported_with_Intel_AppUpSM_center/
Comment Re:Basement lighting (Score 1) 149
Actually, there are special photoreceptors for UV light that you don't actually use to see that are directly connected to the SCN. Even if you were born without sight, as long as those work, you should still have a normal circadian rhythm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_ganglion_cell
Submission + - Canonical pulls Kubuntu personnel funding (itworld.com)
LinuxScribe writes: An announcement on the Kubuntu-devel mailing list tells the sad story: Canonical is pulling funding for in-house developers to work on the KDE-based Kubuntu flavor. Canonical now seems committed to its single vision of a GNOME-based Unity as a desktop and other Ubuntu flavors will now have to rely on community support and some infrastructure from Canonical.
Comment DDG (Score 1) 10
If it's just search, Duck Duck Go seems like it might fit what you're looking for. I've seen it mentioned a few times on /. but haven't really tested it out myself. http://duckduckgo.com/privacy.html/
Submission + - Pirate Bay to offer physical item downloads (zdnet.com.au)
lukehopewell1 writes: "The Pirate Bay is offering users the chance to download and print out real objects using 3D printers in what the pirate site is hailing as "the future".
The site, well known due to accusations of it aiding and abetting copyright infringement, took a philanthropic approach to the announcement, saying that it would likely change the world in a matter of years."
The site, well known due to accusations of it aiding and abetting copyright infringement, took a philanthropic approach to the announcement, saying that it would likely change the world in a matter of years."
Comment Re:IT idiocy? (Score 3, Informative) 181
Submission + - Genome of Controversial Arsenic Bacterium Sequence (sciencemag.org)
Med-trump writes: One year ago a media controversy was ignited when Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues held a press conference to announce the discovery of a bacterium that not only survived high levels of arsenic in its environment but also seemed to use that element in its DNA. Last week, the genome of the bacterium, known as GFAJ-1, which gets its name from the acronym for "Give Felisa a Job." (No joke!), was posted in Genbank, the public repository of DNA sequences for all who care to take a look. But it doesn't settle the debate over whether arsenic is used in DNA.
Submission + - Ask Slashdot - would you really want to live to 15 (theage.com.au) 3
Macgrrl writes: It was reported today in The Age newspaper that scientists believe that they will have a drug within the next 5-10 years that will extend the average human lifespan to 150 years.
Given the retirement age in Australia is 65, that would give you an extra 95 years past the current reitrment age, meaning you would probably have to extend the average working life to 100 or 120 years to prevent the economy becoming totally unbalanced and pensions running out.
That assumes that the life extension is all 'good years', and not a prolonged period of dementia and physical decline.
Would you want to live to 150? What do you see as being the most likely issues and what do you think you would do with all the extra years?
Given the retirement age in Australia is 65, that would give you an extra 95 years past the current reitrment age, meaning you would probably have to extend the average working life to 100 or 120 years to prevent the economy becoming totally unbalanced and pensions running out.
That assumes that the life extension is all 'good years', and not a prolonged period of dementia and physical decline.
Would you want to live to 150? What do you see as being the most likely issues and what do you think you would do with all the extra years?
Submission + - Lulzsec announces that it is done (businessinsider.com)
MaxBooger writes: LulzSec, the notorious hacker group that's been on a rampage, just announced that it's disbanding.
This follows 50 days chaos during which time it took down several websites (including CIA.gov at one point), exposed passwords, exposed documents of the Arizona penal system, and at one point threatened to hit Too Big To Fail banks.
Obviously, it's possible that the group will not abide by its promise to quit. Nobody knows.
This follows 50 days chaos during which time it took down several websites (including CIA.gov at one point), exposed passwords, exposed documents of the Arizona penal system, and at one point threatened to hit Too Big To Fail banks.
Obviously, it's possible that the group will not abide by its promise to quit. Nobody knows.
Submission + - Just Months After Jeopardy!, Watson Wows Doctors (singularityhub.com) 2
kkleiner writes: "Following its resounding victory on Jeopardy!, IBM’s Watson has been working hard to learn as much about medicine as it can with a steady diet of medical textbooks and healthcare journals. In a recent demonstration to the Associated Press Watson demonstrated a promising ability to diagnose patients. The demonstration was a success, and it is the hope of IBM and many medical professionals that in the coming years Watson will lend doctors a helping hand as they perform their daily rounds."
Submission + - Officials Agree on Global Nuclear Stress Tests
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Bloomberg reports that government ministers and officials from the European Union countries who met to discuss atomic energy safety have agreed to carry out stress tests on reactors to test the capacity of nuclear reactors to withstand major incidents like the earthquake and tsunami that rocked the Fukushima plant in March. “The accident at Fukushima in Japan has affected us all,” says French Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko- Morizet. “It quickly became apparent there is a need to learn lessons from the accident and to improve and raise our standards and ways of cooperating on nuclear safety.” The stress tests will be performed on Europe’s 143 working reactors and other atomic installations. "You have to move the safety envelope," says Roger Mattson, former leader of the US task force that investigated the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979, and an organizer of the group issuing the letter. "You have to take these severe accidents into account and do more to prevent the very low-probability events." Mattson added that the added safety measures likely to result from a more demanding look at nuclear plant vulnerabilities should not impose unreasonable costs on most plants. "I don't think it's breaking the bank," Mattson said in an interview. "A higher sea wall [at the Fukushima Daiichi plant] wouldn't have broken the bank compared to what Japan will have to pay without the sea wall."
Comment Re:Evolving (Score 2) 144
The mutations are generally costly. Antibacterials, for example, target molecules that only bacteria have to have a minimal effect on humans, like how penicillin works on bacterial cell walls. Those molecules are originally there basically because it benefits them in some way. Since taking even a huge cost is better than dying, those that do away with what the antibacterial attacks would live and propagate. Naturally, once you stop using the antibacterial by switching to Z/AA, there's no benefit to living without the original molecule, but there is a heavy cost, so generations later it'll come back, letting us use X/Y again. The key is having enough time to make sure resistance is completely gone before going back to X/Y, otherwise it won't be long until they're completely resistant again.
Submission + - A Piece of Internet History Lost: IO.com Sold (prismnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The former Illuminati Online domain, IO.com, has been sold, and all existing customers will lose all services associated with the domain. A 1990 Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games, then owner of the Illuminati Online BBS and later the IO.com domain led to the creation of the EFF and was an important milestone in the fight for online rights. While the domain has been sold in the past, the services offered to customers always remained unchanged. However, this most recent sale, to an unnamed party, will result in all services being dropped on July 1, and people will lose email addresses, web pages, and shell accounts that many have had for 15+ years.
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