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Comment Doing God's work? Seriously? (Score 5, Informative) 109

by MaxTardiveau (#40957707) Attached to: Nathan Myhrvold, Do-Gooder

>> is Zynga doing God's work? Is Facebook doing God's work?

Yes, Nathan, you're doing a lot of wonderful work. But that doesn't excuse *how* you're getting your money these days. Your business practices are hurting the entire industry, and putting a big crimp on innovation. The end does not justify the means.

Anyone who has not yet listened to This American Life's episode on Mr. Myhrvold really ought to:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack/
Data Storage

Submission + - Data Safety In A Time Of Natural Disasters (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "The National Weather Service has begun testing the way it labels natural disasters. It's hoping that the new warnings, which include words like "catastrophic," "complete devastation likely," and "unsurvivable," will make people more likely to take action to save their lives. But what about their digital lives?
Recommendations include: Keep all electronics out of basements and off the floor, Unplug your hardware, Buy a surge protector, Enclose anything valuable in plastic
If the National Weather Service issued a "complete devastation" warning today, would your data be ready?"
Space

Nearby Star May Have More Planets Than Our Solar System 102

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the told-you-space-lizards-were-real dept.
The Bad Astronomer writes "HD 10180 is a near-twin of the Sun about 130 light years away. It's known to have at least six planets orbiting it, but a new analysis of the data shows clear indications of three more, for a total of nine! This means HD 10180 has more planets than our solar system. And whether you think Pluto is a planet or not, all nine of these aliens worlds have masses larger than Earth's, putting them firmly in the 'planet' category."

Submission + - USGS Implies Connection Between Seismic Activity and Fracking (seismosoc.org)

Submitted by samazon
samazon writes: According to a recently proposed abstract by the United States Geological Survey, hydraulic fracturing, or more specifically the disposal of fracking wastewater, may be directly correlated to the increase in seismic activity in the midwest. Results of the paper will be presented on April 18th, but the language of the abstract seems to imply that there is a connection. After years of controversy regarding hydrofracking including ground water contamination and disclosure of chemical solutions, the results of the study, if conclusive, could influence the cost of natural gas due to increased regulations on wastewater disposal.

Submission + - unwinding vertebra (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by
mcswell
mcswell writes: "Daniël Noordermeer and Denis Duboule, two researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and the University of Geneva claim to have discovered how vertebrae get build in sequence in embryos (and by extension, how ribs, arms and so forth wind up in the right place). The story is that the DNA strands contain a linear series of HOX genes, and that the strands slowly unwind over a period of two days, successively exposing each HOX gene, thereby allowing it to be transcribed to form the segments of the vertebra.

Snakes, it seems, have a defect that causes the system not to shut down; eventually it "runs out of steam."

The same process is said to apply in many invertebrates, including worms (presumably segmented worms) and insects.

The report is coming out in the journal Science (behind a paywall)."
Science

Submission + - Science Recover Genome of Black Death, Hope to Rec (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by Richard.Tao
Richard.Tao writes: From the "what could possibly go wrong?" section of news today scientists have recovered the RNA of the virus that caused the plague through digging through an English mass grave and compiling the genetics of the virus's. Though the plague still persists, scientists have believe the ancient strain was different due to a different onset of symptoms.

Submission + - First observational test of the 'multiverse' (scienceblog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The theory that our universe is contained inside a bubble, and that multiple alternative universes exist inside their own bubbles – making up the ‘multiverse’ – is being tested observationally by UK physicists, who are searching for disk-like collision patterns in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Though CMB is generally thought of as a uniform schmere of radiation extending in all direction in our universe, in fact, they say, if a multiverse exists, there ought to be imprints, trapped in the muck like footprints, of where our universe banged into others.

Comment Re:Don't you love weasel language (Score 1) 124

by MaxTardiveau (#30637086) Attached to: Ideas For Exploiting NASA's SRTM Data
Well, as other posters have pointed out, there is little value in mapping the surface of the oceans (at least with this technology).

If you think that land north of 60N and south of 56S represents a major portion of the earth, you need to stop using Mercator projection maps. and graduate to something like the Gall-Peters projection.

Having said that, it's absolutely true that the SRTM data set does not cover Iceland, most of Norway and Sweden, northern Russia, etc... It's not that NASA doesn't like Nordic people, it's just a limitation due to the space shuttle's orbit.

Comment Re:Best GIS software ? (Score 1) 124

by MaxTardiveau (#30636616) Attached to: Ideas For Exploiting NASA's SRTM Data
To answer your original question -- all the screenshots in the article are from our iPhone apps, which cover about 20 U.S. states so far. They come with many layers, one of which is the SRTM data limited to (typically) 180-meter resolution, because you only have so much storage on a phone. The 30-meter resolution data is obviously even better than what I showed (nine times better, in fact :-)

Comment Re:SRTM-DEM CSI-CGIAR v4 + ASTER-GDEM and more (Score 1) 124

by MaxTardiveau (#30636560) Attached to: Ideas For Exploiting NASA's SRTM Data
ASTER-GDEM data is excellent, but unfortunately is not without restrictions:

"ASTER Global DEM (GDEM) data are subject to redistribution and citation policies. Before ordering ASTER GDEM data, users must agree to redistribute data products only to individuals within their organizations or projects of intended use, or in response to disasters in support of the GEO Disaster Theme."

Part of what makes SRTM data so great is that anyone can use it for any purpose. That makes a huge difference. I wish government agencies (especially state and local in the US) would follow the lead of NASA and USGS on this. You can create far more value by making the data available to the general public than by trying to control it. Sometimes I think the bureaucrats are afraid that someone will actually make something useful or (gasp) profitable from it.

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