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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 52 declined, 15 accepted (67 total, 22.39% accepted)

Earth

Submission + - Humans nearly went extinct 70000 years ago (cnn.com)

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "From CNN "The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.

"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence, said in a statement. ""
Robotics

Submission + - Robocop of sorts patrols Atlanta Streets (cnn.com)

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "It seems that Rufus Terrill of Atlanta was rather sick of people bringing his neighborhood down. This local engineer created his own mobile robot that is complete with infrared camera, loudspeaker and even shoots icy water upto 20 feet to attack the local low-life. Fromt he article: "Terrill is chasing out unsavory-looking characters from a street corner that resembles a drug dealer's dream at night. More than 20 suspicious people were seen huddling in the dark in the front driveway and side parking lot on this night. Some were seen openly making drug deals....Terrill, an engineer by trade, is also a board member at the day care center. Tired of cleaning up after the shady characters, he decided to take action. That's when he built his downtown Darth Vader of sorts." A wonderful invention. I would like to know when we will see this running around every city shooting people with icy cold water."
Editorial

Submission + - Top ten scientific discoveries of 2007 (time.com) 2

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "Time Magazine has a piece about the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2007. While most of the items in the top ten are interesting, I do not know if they hold much value as the best top ten to pick from what has been discovered this year. Items such as "Kryptonite", stem cell research and the brighten supernova on file made it to the list though. Check out the editorial here. Also included in the top 10 editorial are pieces on the top 10 medical breakthroughs, the top 10 man made disasters and the top 10 green "ideas"."
Security

Submission + - A Look at Microsoft's Security War Room (news.com)

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "The folks over at C|Net have an interesting piece about Microsoft's Security War Room, or rather, shall I say rooms. This room came about when Microsoft's security chief, Mike Nash, had issues finding open conference rooms. The response; a dedicated room only for him and his staff to handle emergencies. "And while he was at it, why not have two? That way, the folks working on fixing a security crisis could have a little breathing room from those drafting the public and customer communications around the issue. ""
Security

Submission + - Teenager arrested in hacker ring (joshfink.net)

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "The Guardian has an interesting piece on "Akill" a teenager from New Zealand who was the ringleader of a hacking ring that totalled £9.7m. 'The teenager was the "head of an international spybot ring that has infiltrated computers around the world with their malicious software', Martin Kleintjes told New Zealand national radio....The FBI estimates that more than 1m computers have been infected, and puts the combined economic losses at more than $20m (£9.7m)." Eight people have been charged, pleaded guilty or have been convicted since June. The FBI really has been putting a crackdown on botnets / spyware recently. Yay."
Space

Submission + - Minor leak being investigated aboard the ISS

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "The folks over at Space.com are reporting on a story that the International Space Station has a minor atmosphere leak. "An inspection of a vestibule bridging the station's new Harmony connecting module and NASA's Destiny laboratory indicated a slight air leak of about three pounds (1.3 kilograms) per day, NASA spokesperson Lynette Madison, of the agency's Johnson Space Center..." While this is yet another technical issue with the ISS, when will this end? I am all for the space program, but there have been some major issues lately, as seen here and here."
Enlightenment

Submission + - French Train Breaks Speed Record

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "Seems like the French are at it again — They have broken the wheeled train speed record once again, coming close to breaking the all time record of 361 miles per hour, held by a Japanese maglev train. It was last broken back in 1990. The new train was clocked at going a little more than 350 miles per hour. The old record was 320.2 miles per hour. From the article: "The TGV, short for "train a grande vitesse," as France's bullet trains are called, is made up of three double-decker cars between two engines. It has been equipped with larger wheels than the usual TGV to cover more ground with each rotation and a stronger, 25,000-horsepower engine, said Alain Cuccaroni, in charge of the technical aspects of testing." You can check out the full article here."
Yahoo!

Submission + - Yahoo Mail goes to infinite storage

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "Yahoo! has announced that its popular Yahoo Mail service will be setting a new storage limit on user's mailboxes starting in May. The limit is well, there is no limit on how much you can store in your mail now. This is all apart of the 10 year anniversary of Yahoo Mail being launched in 1997. From PC Word: "The company says not all users will get limitless storage immediately — it needs time to roll this new feature out. One can only imagine: It must take awhile to buy and install an infinite number of hard disks." I guess it is time to buy stock in hard disk manufacturers since Yahoo will definitely be buying a lot of them. You can check out the PC word article here."
Space

Submission + - Changes in Earth's Orbit Linked to Extinctions

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "A group of Dutch Scientists have recently released a study stating that they have found a link between changes in Earth's Orbit around the sun are linked to mammal extinctions. From the article: "'Extinctions in rodent species occur in pulses which are spaced by intervals controlled by astronomical variations and their effects on climate change...' The cycles are associated with lower temperatures, changes in precipitation, habitats, vegetation and food availability which are the main factors influencing the extinction peaks, the study published in the journal Nature said." So on top of worrying about global warming, it seems we should also worry about the physics that govern the orbit of Earth around the sun. Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation."
Windows

Submission + - The Relavance of Windows

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "ZDNet has a very interesting article exploring whether of not Windows is still relavant. While I may not agree with the conclusion that Windows is still as relavant as ever, I do think it brings up some important history factors and how the fears of software writers are worried that Vista may contain competing software included in the newest installment of Windows; such as Adobe and Symantec. From the article: "At the risk of showing my age, I still recall when memory managers, firewalls, hard drive compression and defragmentation software, and any number of system tools, were sold separately (not to mention, of course, the Web browser). Most of those products — as well as the companies behind them — no longer exist because Microsoft has thrown everything it can inside Windows." Is Microsoft starting to spin out of control by offering 'too many features' that other companies offer that seem to always work better but cannot sell their product because of internal windows features? I think so, what do you slashdotters think?"
Space

Submission + - Bush reveils New Space Policy

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "Space.com is reporting that President Bush has unveiled his new Space policy. From the article: "U.S. assets must be unhindered in carrying out their space duties, the Bush space policy says, stressing that 'freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.'... ... As a civil space guideline, the policy calls upon NASA to 'execute a sustained and affordable human and robotic program of space exploration and develop, acquire, and use civil space systems to advance fundamental scientific knowledge of our Earth system, solar system, and universe.'" While this policy does seem to push for more civil involvement in space for exploration and research, the article does go on to say, "The policy calls upon the Secretary of Defense to 'develop capabilities, plans, and options to ensure freedom of action in space, and, if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries.'" So it will push into the intelligence community, and will supercede a similar policy from 1996. Read the entire policy here."
Security

Submission + - Chinese "Cyber-Attack" US Department of Co

Submitted by
Kranfer
Kranfer writes: "The register has an article about how the Chinese have recently launched an attack against the US Department of Commerce. From the article: "...attacks originating from computer crackers largely located in China's Guangdong province are aimed at extracting sensitive information from targets such as the Commerce Department's technology export office. Security consultants and US government officials reckon the assaults have at least the tacit support of the Chinese government..." This is not the first time Chinese hackers have attempted to gain access to US Government systems. Being that the hackers may have government support, what do all you slashdotters think the government should do to put an end to this? Check out the article in its entirity here."

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