Keely - Slashdot User

Submission + - Is safe, green thorium power finally ready for prime time? (extremetech.com)

Submitted by

MrSeb

on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @01:01PM

MrSeb writes: "If you’ve not been tracking the thorium hype, you might be interested to learn that the benefits liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) have over light water uranium reactors (LWRs) are compelling. Alvin Weinberg, who invented both, favored the LFTR for civilian power since its failures (when they happened) were considerably less dramatic — a catastrophic depressurization of radioactive steam, like occurred at Chernobyl in 1986, simply wouldn’t be possible. Since the technical hurdles to building LFTRs and handling their byproducts are in theory no more challenging, one might ask — where are they? It turns out that a bunch of US startups are investigating the modern-day viability of thorium power, and countries like India and China have serious, governmental efforts to use LFTRs. Is thorium power finally ready for prime time?"

Smartphones Receive Holy Blessing 154

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday January 12, 2010 @02:50PM from the blessed-are-the-phone-makers dept.

jeffmeden writes "Plow Monday is normally for blessing laborers and their tools; as the name suggests it is aimed at those who work the land. A church service in London, England Monday decided to go after a more modern audience: office workers and their modern communication gadgets. From the Times article: 'The congregation at St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London raised their mobiles and iPods above their heads and Canon Parrott raised his voice to the heavens to address the Lord God of all Creation. "May our tongues be gentle, our e-mails be simple and our websites be accessible," he said.'"

Submission + - DRM and the Destruction of the Book 1

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @10:57AM

Hugh Pickens writes: "EFF reports that Cory Doctorow spoke to a crowd of about a hundred librarians, educators, publishers, authors, and students at the National Reading Summit on “How to Destroy the Book" and said that "anyone who claims that readers can’t and won’t and shouldn’t own their books are bent on the destruction of the book, the destruction of publishing, and the destruction of authorship itself." Doctorow says that for centuries, copyright has acknowledged that sacred connection between readers and their books and that when you own a book "it’s yours to give away, yours to keep, yours to license or to borrow, to inherit or to be included in your safe for your children" and that "the most important part of the experience of a book is knowing that it can be owned." Now with DRM companies like Amazon can revoke books like 1984 from its customers’ ebook readers. "Anyone who claims that readers can’t and won’t and shouldn’t own their books are bent on the destruction of the book, the destruction of publishing, and the destruction of authorship itself," says Doctorow. "The library of tomorrow should be better than the library of today. The ability to loan our books to more than one person at once is a feature, not a bug.""

Submission + - New sensory system found in the skin (examiner.com)

Submitted by mmmscience on Tuesday December 08, 2009 @10:31AM

mmmscience writes: Researches have found a new sensory system in the skin that is completely separate from the traditional nerve network that gives us the sense of touch. The new system, comprised of sensory nerves found on blood vessels and sweat glands, is not nearly as potent, but does allow people to sense temperatures and textures. The research suggests that the system may play a role in chronic pain disorders such as migraines and fibromyalgia, conditions whose causes remain a mystery.

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