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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 28 declined, 5 accepted (33 total, 15.15% accepted)

Science

Submission + - American Grant Writing: Race Matters (ht.ly)

PHPNerd writes: You might expect that science, particularly American science, would be colour-blind. Though fewer people from some of the country’s ethnic minorities are scientists than the proportions of those minorities in the population suggest should be the case, once someone has got bench space in a laboratory, he might reasonably expect to be treated on merit and nothing else. Unfortunately, a study just published in Science suggests that is not true. The study looked at the pattern of research grants awarded by the NIH and found that race matters a lot. Moreover, Asian and Hispanic scientists do just as well as white ones. Black scientists, however, do badly.
Idle

Submission + - "Noob" to become 1 millionth official Engl (destructoid.com)

PHPNerd writes: "According to experts, the English language has entered a state of evolution that is progressing so rapidly that we are adding a new word to it every 98 minutes. This kind of language development hasn't been seen since the days of William Shakespeare. One of the biggest words in nerd culture today is "noob" which could end up being the 1,000,000th word added to the English language by the Global Language Monitor. From the article:

The word "noob" has its heavy roots in gamer culture, which should be obvious since we're talking about it. It's also seen a lot of use among online communities to "welcome" fresh faces, and has become an accepted term of abuse for anybody who looks like they don't know what they're doing. The Global Language Monitor accepts words once they have been used 25,000 times by media outlets.

"

Media

Submission + - New Study Finds Nobody Wants Blu-ray (techtree.com)

PHPNerd writes: "A new consumer survey recently released chronicles the woes of the winner of the hi-definition format war: nobody wants it. While consumers were very happy to embrace the DVD standard when it came about because it brought a huge jump in quality over VHS, the pros of switching to Blu-ray are not as obvious. From the article:

In contrast, while half of the respondents to our survey rated Blu-ray's quality as 'much better' than standard DVD, another 40% termed it only 'somewhat better,' and most are very satisfied with the performance of their current DVD players." Another reason cited was that a Blu-ray investment also dictates an HDTV purchase, something consumers are reluctant to do.

Now that Blu-ray has won the hi-def format war, can it convince consumers to actually purchase it?"

Government

Submission + - House of Lords Launches YouTube Videos, Blogs (ap.org)

PHPNerd writes: "In a bold move to connect with the next generation of young British voters, the House of Lords has launched a YouTube video series that will detail what it does and try to connect it to the younger generation. Accompanying it is a blog titled Lords of the Blog where various Lords blog about political issues and can receive feedback from anyone around the world. From the article: "We're trying to engage with younger people and people who may not be interested in politics," said spokesman Owen Williams. "We looked at YouTube because it appeals to people outside the political elite."

What do you think, Slashdot? Is this doomed to failure, or should more governments be doing something similar?"

Space

Submission + - First Space Lawyer Graduates (space.com)

PHPNerd writes: "Over at space.com is an interesting article about the first space lawyer to graduate, and the field to which he enters, Space Law. He graduates from the University of Mississippi. From the article:

Any future space lawyer might have to deal with issues ranging from the fallout over satellite shoot-downs to legal disputes between astronauts onboard the International Space Station. The expanding privatization of the space sector may also pose new legal challenges... "We are particularly proud to be offering these space law certificates for the first time, since ours is the only program of its kind in the U.S. and only one of two in North America," said Samuel Davis, law dean at the University of Mississippi.
What do you think about a degree in Space Law? Is it actually necessary, or is it about time we started training people in this field?"

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