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Medicine

Daily Sex Helps Improve Fertility 174

Posted by samzenpus from the use-it-or-lose-it dept.
mmmscience writes "While fertility studies lately seem to have been exclusively focused on in vitro fertilization [IVF], new data coming out of Australia may help with unaided successful conceptions. The study has found that men who have ejaculate daily produce sperm with less damaged DNA. While such actions decrease sperm concentration, it does increase motility, meaning healthier sperm have a better chance of making it all the way to the egg. Good news, as another report has found severe chromosome abnormalities in over 90% of IVF eggs, meaning artificial insemination is just now discovering a whole new field of problems."
Software

Submission + - World's "fastest" LISP-based web server re 2

Submitted by
Cougem
Cougem writes: "John Fremlin has released what he believes to be the worlds fastest webserver for small dynamic content, teepeedee2. It is written entirely in LISP, the world's second oldest high-level programming language. He recently gave a talk at the Tokyo Linux Users Group, with benchmarks, which he says demonstrate that "functional programming languages can beat C". Imagine a small alternative to Ruby on rails, supporting the development of any web application, but much faster."

Comment Robot rights (Score 1) 344

Today, my father, knowing my unequivocally positive position on robot rights, claimed that there was a scene in Terminator Salvation in which a group of activists is protesting on behalf of this cause, and are then ironically killed by a Terminator. I was utterly convinced, because it seemed utterly plausible.

I must wonder what we can deduce about our societies relationship with the idea of non-human, but conscious, beings (particularly non-organic conscious computers) from our apparent acceptance of mindlessly anti-robot media like the Terminator series.
Robotics

Submission + - Creating Artificial Consciousness (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by
jzoom555
jzoom555 writes: "In an interview with Discover Mag, Gerald Edelman, Nobel laureate and founder/director of The Neurosciences Institute, discusses the quality of consciousness and progress in building brain-based-devices (BBD's). His lab recently published details on a brain-model that is self-sustaining and 'has beta waves and gamma waves just like the regular cortex'."
Censorship

Calif. Petitions Supreme Court On Violent Video Game Bill 204

Posted by timothy from the high-priority-assignment dept.
eldavojohn writes "You know the drill, violent video game bill struck down because: "We hold that the Act, as presumptively invalid content-based restriction on speech, is subject to strict scrutiny and not the 'variable obscenity' standard from Ginsberg v. New York. Applying strict scrutiny, we hold that the Act violates rights protected by the First Amendment." Well, that didn't satisfy a PhD child psychologist turned Democratic California State Senator named Leland Yee who states in his press release that "California's violent video game law properly seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of excessively violent, interactive video games. I am hopeful that the Supreme Court — which has never heard a case dealing with violent video games — will accept our appeal and assist parents in keeping these harmful video games out of the hands of children. I believe the high court will uphold this law as Constitutional. In fact in Roper v. Simmons, the court agreed we need to treat children differently in the eyes of the law due to brain development." His appeal (in PDF) is here and you can find some industry reactions to the Supreme Court hearing at GamePolitics. Unfortunately Yee seems to be a bit more competent than old Jack Thompson, who is pushing a bill in Louisiana today."
Data Storage

Submission + - New memristor makes low cost, high density memory (arxivblog.com)

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: "A group of electronics engineers have discovered that a thin layer of vanadium oxide acts as a memristor, the fourth basic component of circuits after resistors, capacitors and inductors that were discovered last year. At a critical temperature, a current passing through the layer causes it to change from an insulating to a metal-like state, thereby changing its resistance (abstract). The effect lasts many hours--which is what makes the layer a memristor (a resistor with memory). The team say this could be scaled up to make resistive random access memory or RRAM at very low cost made of little more than layers of vanadium oxide ."
Media (Apple)

Software Update Makes iTunes Accessible To Blind Users 148

Posted by timothy from the rockbox-already-has-voice-guidance-note dept.
rickthewizkid writes "Recent updates to the iTunes software allow blind users to access the program without assistance. From the article: 'The new software — which transforms the written information on an iTunes-linked computer screen into speech or Braille — stemmed from an agreement between Apple, the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer company, the National Federation of the Blind and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.'" It's not just the actual iTunes app, though; the article notes that this update makes iTunes U useable as well.
Image

Slashdot's Disagree Mail 167

Posted by samzenpus from the crazy-is-as-crazy-does dept.
I get a lot of mail from obviously unbalanced people. Enough in fact, that I've often wondered if there was a institution that allowed their patients to only read Slashdot. We've even had a few visits from some questionable individuals. A man who tried to bribe me with a car if I let him "reverse engineer" Rob Malda's Life comes to mind. He insisted on Rob being present for the process and couldn't explain to me what it entailed, so I suggested he leave. The personal visits are rare, however, compared to the amount of mail I get. Here are a few of my favorites; let's hope these people have started to take their medication. Read below and don't be worried if you don't understand all of it.
Earth

1,500-Ship Fleet Proposed To Fight Climate Change 692

Posted by timothy from the sponsored-by-viagra dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to UK and US researchers, it should be possible to fight the global warming effects associated with an increase of dioxide levels by using autonomous cloud-seeding ships to spray salt water into the air. This project would require the deployment of a worldwide fleet of 1,500 unmanned ships to cool the Earth even if the level of carbon dioxide doubled. These 300-tonne ships 'would be powered by the wind, but would not use conventional sails. Instead they would be fitted with a number of 20 m-high, 2.5 m-diameter cylinders known as Flettner rotors. The researchers estimate that such ships would cost between £1m and £2m each. This translates to a US$2.65 to 5.3 billion total cost for the ships only."
Republicans

Paul Suspends Presidential Campaign, Forms New Org 341

Posted by timothy from the new-kind-of-paulist dept.
JoeKuboj writes "Texas Rep. Ron Paul announced Thursday he is suspending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination to focus his time on building an organization to help recruit and elect 'limited government Republicans.' Paul's decision to leave the race is an acknowledgment he had no chance of winning the GOP nomination. But even in loss, Paul is one of a handful of candidates who walked away from this presidential contest a winner. His presidential campaign had a broad base of support that included traditionally fiscal and socially conservative Republicans to young people who were angry about the U.S. decision to wage war against Iraq."
Space

Ghostly Ring Found Circling Dead Star 207

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the check-your-optics dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "An international team of scientists has found a strange ring around a dead star by using images taken by NASA's Spitzer space telescope. This star, called SGR 1900+14, belongs to a class of objects known as magnetars. According to NASA, a magnetar is 'a highly magnetized neutron star and the remnant of a brilliant supernova explosion signaling the death throes of a massive star.' So far, about a dozen magnetars have been found. An amazing thing about these stellar objects is their magnetic field. One of the researchers said that 'magnetars possess magnetic fields a million billion times stronger than the magnetic field of the Earth.'

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