sciencehabit writes "Researchers have identified three genetic mutations that appear to have helped humans survive in the frigid climate of Siberia over the last 25,000 years. One helps the body's fat stores directly produce heat rather than producing chemical energy for muscle movements or brain functions, a process called 'nonshivering thermogenesis.' Another is involved in the contraction of smooth muscle, key to shivering and the constriction of blood vessels to avoid heat loss. And the third is implicated in the metabolism of fats, especially those in meat and dairy products—a staple of the fat-laden diets of Arctic peoples."

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies have developed software that enables control of PC video games using the Microsoft Kinect sensor. Their toolkit, known as the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), emulates custom-configured keyboard controls triggered by body posture and specific gestures. This video shows a user playing the online game World of Warcraft using the Kinect. Potential applications of this technology include video games for motor rehabilitation after stroke and reducing childhood obesity through healthy gaming."

thepacketmaster writes "In what is being hailed as a medical milestone, CNN reports a woman suffering from long-term tuberculosis had her lower trachea and bronchial tube replaced by tissue grown from her own stem cells. A team from the universities of Barcelona, Spain; Bristol, England; and Padua and Milan, Italy, decided to go ahead with the surgery instead of having to remove her left lung. The operation, reported Wednesday in the British medical journal The Lancet, has been hailed as a major leap for medicine that could offer new hope for patients suffering from serious illness."

NorthNitro writes "I live in a part of the world where quality technical books are not accessible from local distributors. When I order, from international distributors, I have to keep exchange rate and shipping costs in mind; so I really need to be careful with my choices when purchasing books. I am a graduate engineer (5 years experience) that focuses on analog and digital hardware design. Next year I will be starting a complicated analog design project. This design will include circuits that integrating Pico amp currents, a lot of discrete transistor circuits and high precision op-amp circuits. I don't want a cookbook; I rather want something that can provide me with solid theoretical descriptions/models of circuits. The kind of knowledge that gives you deep understanding of analog circuits design. Can anyone suggest good books and maybe where to order them from?"

Wired is running a story about the small but vocal, and growing, number of people who aren't waiting for automakers to deliver plug-in hybrids. They're shelling out big money to have already thrifty cars converted into full-on plug-in hybrids capable of triple-digit fuel economy. "The conversions aren't cheap, and top-of-the-line kits with lithium-ion batteries can set you back as much as $35,000. Even a kit with lead-acid batteries — the type under the hood of the car you drive now — starts at five grand. That explains why most converted plug-ins are in the motor pools of places like Southern California Edison... No more than 150 or so belong to people like [extreme skiing champion Alison] Gannett, who had her $30,000 Ford Escape converted in December. Yes, that's right. The conversion cost more than the truck."

toomuchtoomuchspam writes "According to Websense, Microsoft's CAPTCHA has been busted again. CAPTCHA was surely a logical move for different service providers to fight against spammers, but it seems to be melting down. 'Realizing the potential for massive abuse from spammers with anti-CAPTCHA capabilities, who could use the clean IP reputation to carry out various attacks over Email and Web space, Microsoft attempted to increase the complexity of their CAPTCHA system. The CAPTCHA system was revised in an attempt to both prevent automatic registrations from computer programs or automated bots, and preserve CAPTCHA's usability and reliability. As this attack shows, those efforts have failed,' says Websense security researcher Prasad. Could there be any better CAPTCHA? A better solution?"

Scientists at MIT have moved closer to being able to create an artificial nose after finding a way to mass-produce smell receptors. The MIT RealNose project seeks to recreate the most complex and least-understood of the five senses: smell. The team plans to work with researchers around the world to develop a portable microfluidic device that can identify various smells, including diseases with unique odors, such as diabetes and certain cancers.

For the last 10 years, I have been asking people more knowledgeable than I, "How big should my swap be?" and the answer has always been "Just set it to twice your RAM and forget about it." In the old days, it wasn't much to think about — 128 megs of RAM means 256 megs of swap. Now that I have 4 gigs of RAM in my laptop, I find myself wondering, "Is 8 gigs of swap really necessary?" How much swap does the average desktop user really need? Does the whole "twice your RAM" rule still apply? If so, for how much longer will it likely apply? Or will it always apply? Or have I been consistently misinformed over the last 10 years?

Plechazunga passes along this note from The Hill: "The House is limiting e-mails from the public to prevent its websites from crashing due to the enormous amount of mail being submitted on the financial bailout bill. As a result, some constituents may get a 'try back at a later time' response if they use the House website to e-mail their lawmakers about the bill defeated in the House on Monday in a 205-228 vote."

schliz writes "A new technique developed by HP Labs and Rice University could lower the cost of identifying 'dead zones' in large wireless networks. The technique '[combines] wireless signal models with publicly-available information about basic topography, street locations, and land use.' This enables Wi-Fi architects to test and refine their layouts cheaply before a network is deployed by focusing measurement efforts on areas that potentially could be dead zones. The technique requires only about one-fifth as many measurements as a grid sampling strategy."

Megaport writes "Finally, the news that every slashdot-meme poster have been waiting for. A rat-eating vine called "Tenax" has been discovered in the rainforests of the Cape York region in Queensland, Australia"