Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Perpendicular Electric Fields (Score 3, Interesting) 241

I don't understand. They seem to be setting up two static, plane electric fields at some angle to one another. Surely the resultant field is just another field at a different angle? Say the two fields are E and J , with
E = ( E , 0 , 0 )
J = ( 0 , J , 0 )
Then you've just got the resultant field, E' = E + J , where
E' = ( E , J , 0 )
which is just another static, plane electric field. So, given that two fields are really equivalent to one, if you set up just the resultant field in the first place, would this motor effect still occur?
What am I missing?
Biotech

Designer Babies 902

Singularity Hub writes "The Fertility Institutes recently stunned the fertility community by being the first company to boldly offer couples the opportunity to screen their embryos not only for diseases and gender, but also for completely benign characteristics such as eye color, hair color, and complexion. The Fertility Institutes proudly claims this is just the tip of the iceberg, and plans to offer almost any conceivable customization as science makes them available. Even as couples from across the globe are flocking in droves to pay the company their life's savings for a custom baby, opponents are vilifying the company for shattering moral and ethical boundaries. Like it or not, the era of designer babies is officially here and there is no going back."
Displays

Photog Rob Galbraith Rates MacBook Pro Display "Not Acceptable" 504

An anonymous reader writes "Professional digital photographer and website publisher Rob Galbraith has performed both objective and subjective tests on laptop displays, finding that the late-2008 Macbook Pro glossy displays are 'deep into the not acceptable category' when used in ambient light environments. The Apple notebook came in dead last for color accuracy, and second to last in viewing angles (besting only the Dell Mini 9). He concludes: 'Macs are no longer at the top of the laptop display heap in our minds.'"

Comment Re:About time! (Score 1) 392

I've not heard of this twin-black-hole theory... Any references?

As for black hole mergers, progress is being made: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/gwave.html .

And what of the 'sides' of the galaxy? Are these the two ends of the galaxy's axis, or on the disc on opposite sides? In either case, due to the symmetries involved, I don't think what you say makes any sense.

Why is this modded +5 Interesting?

Microsoft

Windows 7 To Be Called ... Windows 7 772

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's Mike Nash came forward today in a blog post on the Windows Vista Blog and revealed the official name for Windows Code Name '7' as simply 'Windows 7.' The reasoning, by Mr. Nash, is that Windows 7 is 'the seventh release of Windows.' As much wonderful sense as this makes on first glance, it seems as if Microsoft's marketing teams pulled this number out of thin air: the Windows 7 kernel is version 6.1, and there's no way Windows 7 adds up as the seventh release of Windows anyway."
Biotech

Geneticist Claims Human Evolution Is Over 857

GogglesPisano writes "UK geneticist Steve Jones gave a presentation entitled Human Evolution Is Over. He asserts that human beings have stopped evolving because modern social customs have lowered the age at which human males have offspring, which results in fewer of the mutations necessary to drive evolutionary change. Apparently the fate of our species now depends upon older guys hooking up with younger woman. I, for one, welcome this development."
Announcements

Particle Physicists Share the Physics Nobel 67

somegeekynick writes "The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics has been jointly awarded to Yoichiro Nambu of the University of Chicago 'for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics,' and Makoto Kobayashi of the KEK lab and Toshihide Maskawa of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, both in Japan, 'for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature.'"

Slashdot Top Deals

Physician: One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well. -- Ambrose Bierce

Working...