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United States

Journal Journal: Martial Law In The U.S.?

Journal by cybermage

Since 9/11, several major hurdles to martial law inside the United States have been removed by the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress. All that really remains at this point is an excuse.

The first domino on the road to martial law comes in the form of the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by Congress on September 18th, 2001. The Authorization says:

Feed Science Daily: Removing A Sugar Turns Protective Antibodies Into Attackers (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
In autoimmune diseases like arthritis and lupus, proteins whose job it is to recognize and fight foreign invaders somehow stop recognizing the body as "self" and begin to attack. But exactly what happens to these antibody proteins to transform them into pathological "autoantibodies" capable of causing tissue damage and disease has remained a puzzle to immunologists. New research is slowly putting some of the pieces in place.
United States

Submission + - DOJ Accidentally Gives Lawyer Wiretap Transcript

Submitted by good soldier svejk
good soldier svejk writes:
It could be a scene from Kafka or Brazil. Imagine a government agency, in a bureaucratic foul-up, accidentally gives you a copy of a document marked "top secret." And it contains a log of some of your private phone calls. You read it and ponder it and wonder what it all means. Then, two months later, the FBI shows up at your door, demands the document back and orders you to forget you ever saw it.
That is what happened to Washington D.C. attorney Wendell Belew. His lawsuit takes on special significance given today's Sixth Circuit Court ruling that surveillance victims can only sue the DOJ if they can prove they were affected. Also in light of that decision we can safely add Catch-22 to the list of literary references above.
Wireless Networking

Google et al. Want 700 MHz Auction Opened Up 170

Posted by kdawson from the third-helping-of-pipes dept.
The 700 MHz spectrum could give birth to the much-anticipated third pipe, but phone and cable lobbyists are currently pressuring the FCC to sell companies like AT&T and Verizon our airwaves — in a flawed auction process — so they can hoard this valuable spectrum and stifle competitive alternatives to their networks. Google and other would-be providers are not taking it lying down. They want the FCC to mandate that whoever wins the auction be required to sell access to those airwaves, at wholesale prices, to anyone wanting to provide broadband Internet service. They also want anonymous auctions to prevent the giant incumbents from manipulating the results against small players (as they have done in the past).
The Internet

Online Reputation Is Hard To Do 224

Posted by kdawson from the to-say-nothing-of-trust dept.
Symblized writes "A new article from InformationWeek argues that not only does the Web need ways to verify identity, it also needs better ways to measure reputation . The article uses Digg, Wikipedia, and eBay as examples and muses whether their models could be applied more widely. There's also a profile of Opinity, a company that tried to introduce a reputation system and didn't make it. Choice quote from a source in the article: 'The idea of a transferable, semantic reputation is identity nirvana.'"
Toys

Submission + - Nanoglue being used to make Spidermans web-shooter (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: A team of US researchers is using the super-adhesive properties of nanoglue to create a super-sticky web-shooting device much like the comic-book hero Spiderman's, an announcement sure to prick the ears of Peter Parker aficionados the globe over. The nanoglue is also being trialed in the production of computer chip circuitry and is expected to miniaturize the process, meaning faster and more powerful chips.

From the article: "If we can find a way to create threads and/or intertwined bundles using the molecules in a scalable fashion, while retaining the adhesive properties, then creating web-shooters similar to Spiderman's is a real possibility," Ramanath said. "There are ways in which molecular threads/bundles can be created in large quantities. The challenge will be, however, to simultaneously engineer adhesion on certain surfaces (and not others, since we want the suit only to form on the desired surface) and also with each other during the thread formation."

Feed Physicists Devise Viable Design For Spin-Based Electronics (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Physicists have proposed a design for a semiconductor computer circuit based on the spin of electrons. They say the device would be more scalable and have greater computational capacity than conventional silicon circuits. The "spintronic"--or spin-based electronic--device would extend the scope of conventional electronics by encoding information with the magnetic--or spin--state of electrons, in addition to the charge of the electrons. The researchers used a novel geometry to overcome the weakness of the magnetic signal, the current limitation to developing spintronics in silicon semiconductors.
Biotech

Submission + - Scientists Identify How Body Senses Cold

Submitted by Vicissidude
Vicissidude writes: As an ice cream melts in your mouth this summer, take a moment to contemplate the protein that may be bringing you that sense of cool relief — and numbing your tongue. Researchers have pinned down the particular protein in mice used by the body to sense cold temperatures, and think that a similar one in humans does the same job. Mice rely on a single protein, called TRPM8, to sense both cold temperatures and menthol, the compound that gives mints their cool sensation. The sensor also controls the pain-relieving effect of cool temperatures, but does not seem to play an important role in the response to painfully cold temperatures below 10 C. TRPM8 is in the same family as the protein that detects heat and capsaicin, the compound that makes peppers hot. These proteins lie in the cell membranes of select neurons, and form channels that open and close in response to external signals.

Feed LED bulb is a tribute to Uncle Fester (cnet.com)

From feed by cnetfeed
Much of the stuff that comes out of Hong Kong-based Brando ranges from the curious to the bizarre, but every once in awhile there's something that tickles our fancy. From Crave, CNET's gadgets blog.

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There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence)

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