I_am_sci_guy - Slashdot User

Research Shows How Deaf Cats' Brains Re-Purpose Auditory Centers 100

Posted by Soulskill on Monday October 11, 2010 @04:39PM from the heard-that dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Deaf or blind people often report enhanced abilities in their remaining senses, but up until now, no one has explained how and why that could be. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario, led by Stephen Lomber of The Centre for Brain and Mind, have discovered there is a causal link between enhanced visual abilities and reorganization of the part of the brain that usually handles auditory input in congenitally deaf cats. The findings, published online in Nature Neuroscience, provide insight into the plasticity that may occur in the brains of deaf people."

Small Asteroid To Pass Close To Earth Tomorrow 126

Posted by Soulskill on Monday October 11, 2010 @03:56PM from the bruce-willis-alert-color-mauve dept.

Matt_dk writes "A small asteroid will pass very close to Earth this Tuesday. Astronomers are still tracking the object, now designated as 2010 TD54, and various estimates say it should come within anywhere from 52,000 km (33,000 miles) to 64,000 km (40,000 miles) on October 12, with closest approach at approximately 11:25 UT."

Why You See 'Free Public WiFi' In So Many Places 260

Posted by Soulskill on Monday October 11, 2010 @02:32PM from the deja-vu-all-over-again dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Almost anywhere you go these days (particularly at airports), if you check for available WiFi settings, you have a pretty good chance of seeing an ad hoc network for 'Free Public WiFi.' Of course, since it's ad hoc (computer to computer) it's not actually access to the internet. So why is this in so many places? Turns out it's due to a bug in Windows XP. Apparently, the way XP works is that if it can't find a 'favorite' WiFi hotspot, it automatically sets up the computer to broadcast itself as an ad hoc network point, using the name of the last connection the computer attempted. So... people see 'Free Public WiFi' and they try to log on. Then their own computer starts broadcasting the same thing, because it can't find a network it knows. And, like a virus, the 'Free Public WiFi' that doesn't work lives on and on and on."

LHC Spies Hints of Infant Universe 311

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @04:32PM from the spoiler-alert dept.

techbeat writes "The big bang machine may already be living up to its nickname, writes New Scientist. Researchers on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, have seen hints of what may be the hot, dense state of matter thought to have filled the universe in its first nanoseconds."

Google Preps Instant Search For Chrome 8 128

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @03:06PM from the integration-proclamation dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google is apparently playing with a nifty integration of instant search inside of its Chrome browser. Typing in the URL bar will automatically bring up a search page, while URLs apparently can be completed much faster as well. It seems as if Google isn't running out of ideas for its browser anytime soon."

Dept. of Homeland Security To Test Iris Scanners 221

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 13, 2010 @05:43PM from the eye-for-an-eye dept.

SonicSpike writes "The Homeland Security Department plans to test futuristic iris scan technology that stores digital images of people's eyes in a database and is considered a quicker alternative to fingerprints. The department will run a two-week test in October of commercially sold iris scanners at a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas, where they will be used on illegal immigrants, said Arun Vemury, program manager at the department's Science and Technology branch. 'The test will help us determine how viable this is for potential (department) use in the future,' Vemury said."

Gigabit Speeds At Home In the US 249

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 13, 2010 @05:00PM from the for-the-low-low-cost-of-way-too-much dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Electric Power Board of Chattanooga is preparing to offer 1 Gigabit speeds at home by the end of the year. 'The city-owned utility announced today it will boost its broadband service to 1 Gigabit throughout its service territory by the end of 2010. Such a connection will be 200 times faster than the average broadband speed in America and the fastest of any US city.' The NY Times reports that the service will cost $350 per month. 'Mr. DePriest of EPB does not expect brisk demand for the one-gigabit service anytime soon. So why offer it? "The simple answer is because we can," he said.'"

Canadian Government Muzzling Scientists 352

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 13, 2010 @02:54PM from the implausibly-impolite dept.

IllogicalStudent writes with this excerpt from The Vancouver Sun: "The Harper government has tightened the muzzle on federal scientists, going so far as to control when and what they can say about floods at the end of the last ice age. Natural Resources Canada scientists were told this spring they need 'pre-approval' from Minister Christian Paradis' office to speak with journalists. Their 'media lines' also need ministerial approval, say documents obtained by Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation. The documents say the 'new' rules went into force in March and reveal how they apply not only to contentious issues, including the oilsands, but benign subjects such as floods that occurred 13,000 years ago. They also give a glimpse of how Canadians are being cut off from scientists whose work is financed by taxpayers, critics say, and is often of significant public interest — be it about fish stocks, genetically modified crops or mercury pollution in the Athabasca River."

Senate Trying To Slip Internet Kill Switch Past Us 461

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday September 01, 2010 @03:08PM from the your-govt-at-work dept.

sanermind writes "Sensing Senators don't have the stomach to try and pass a stand-alone bill in broad daylight that would give the President the power to shut down the Internet in a national emergency, the Senate is considering attaching the Internet Kill Switch bill as a rider to other legislation that would have bi-partisan support."

The Nuclear Bunker Where Wikileaks Will Be Located 187

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday August 31, 2010 @12:16PM from the can-we-have-a-party-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Engadget has photos of 'Pionen White Mountains, the nuclear bunker in which Wikileaks will locate some of its servers. It was excavated 98 feet underground, in a rock hill in the center of Stockholm, Sweden, during the Cold War.' It looks like they hired the same interior designer who decorated Batman's lair."

Oxford Dictionary Considers Going Online Only 153

Posted by Soulskill on Monday August 30, 2010 @05:08PM from the wonder-if-they'll-blame-google dept.

Kilrah_il writes "Oxford University Press has confirmed that they are considering offering their next version of the Oxford English Dictionary as an online version only, with no option for a hardcopy. The 20-volume set, whose last edition (2nd) was published in 1989, weighs 145 pounds (65kg) and costs about $1,165. It is considered the 'accepted authority on the meaning and history of words.' In 2000, the dictionary was offered online for $295 a year and has been getting 2 million hits a month from subscribers. The printed version, on the other hand, has sales of only 30,000. Work is now progressing on the 3rd edition, but it's still a decade or more away from completion. Oxford University Press is considering going online-only with the next edition of their flagship product, but not for other products such as their best-selling Advanced Learner's Dictionary. At least for now."

Sit Longer, Die Sooner 341

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 26, 2010 @06:29PM from the hence-supine-on-couch dept.

mcgrew writes "Bad news for most of us here — The Chicago Tribune is reporting that even if you get plenty of exercize, sitting down all day reduces your lifespan. From the article: 'Even after adjusting for body mass index (BMI) and smoking, the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die. People who exercise regularly had a lower risk, but still significant, risk of dying. Those who sat a lot and moved less than three and a half hours per day are the most likely to die early: researchers found a 94 percent increased risk for women and 48 percent increase for men, they announced recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology.'"

Pentagon Confirms 2008 Computer Breach — 'Worst Ever' 157

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 26, 2010 @05:44PM from the ok-ok-uncle-sam dept.

jowifi writes "The New York Times reports that the Pentagon has confirmed that, in 2008, a foreign agent instigated 'the most significant breach of US military computers ever' using a USB flash drive. While the breach was previously reported on Wired and the LA Times, this is the first official confirmation of the attack that led to the banning of USB drives on government computers."

Follow Up On Solar Neutrinos and Radioactive Decay 183

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 26, 2010 @02:11PM from the blaming-xenu-for-their-misperception dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A few days ago, Slashdot carried a story that was making the rounds: a team of physicists claimed to have detected a strange variation in radioactive decay rates, which they attributed to the mysterious influence of solar neutrinos. The findings attracted immediate attention because they seemed to upend two tenets of physics: that radioactive decay is constant, and that neutrinos very, very rarely interact with matter (trillions of the particles are zinging through your body right now). So Discover Magazine's news blog 80beats followed up on the initial burst of news and interviewed several physicists who work on neutrinos. They are decidedly skeptical."

How Star Wars Trumped Star Trek For Scientific Accuracy 495

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday August 26, 2010 @01:34PM from the set-phasers-to-awesome dept.

An anonymous reader writes "When George Lucas added the 'ring around the Death Star' effect to his 1997 re-release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the revision was almost as hated as Greedo shooting first, and to boot was seen as a knock-off of the seminal 'Praxis effect' in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). But a debunking astronomer claims that the Federation got it wrong and the fan-boys should thank Lucas for adding some scientific accuracy to his fictional universe."

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