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Russian Village Church Disappears 6

Posted by samzenpus from the bring-it-back-and-no-questions-will-be-asked dept.
The Church of Christ's Resurrection, in the village of Komarovo, was built in 1809. But sometime in October it was taken away brick by brick, says Father Vitaly, a spokesman for the local Russian Orthodox Church. The church was in a very isolated area that was not visited very often, so the theft took place without anyone noticing. A survey of the large, two-story church a few months ago found that it was structurally sound, but now all that remains are the foundations and sections of walls. "This is not an isolated case," said Father Vitaly. "In many villages in central Russia sites of historical interest are being dismantled and people suffer by being deprived of their cultural heritage." I wonder how many years bad luck a person gets for stealing a church?

Comment Re:Like to see this replicated (Score 1) 639

I understand your argument. I don't agree with it, but I understand it.

First, for those reading, it should be noted that arth is not advocating sterilization if you simply don't have the genes--merely if you'd otherwise have been removed from the gene pool. That being said, I can't deny that it still smacks of 'genetic hygiene' programs...

But since you seem to be approaching this from a fairly purely logical standpoint, I'll dispense with the humanitarian side for the time being. The flaw I see in your argument is this: evolution is dumb. Which is to say, if you look at history, it's full of deadends, missteps, and mass extinctions. It is undirected. Unless you believe in ID, in which case, the appeal to natural selection seems unwarranted. One thing seems pretty clear to me, at least--in the general case, genetic diversity in a population tends to be significantly more advantageous than any single mutation when it comes to survival of that population. What is an advantage in one situation may prove to be fatal in another. Sickle cell anemia helps ward off malaria. Myopia mitigates age-induced presbyopia.

Example: a disease comes along and wipes out the part of the population that does not have the CCR5 receptor. The population then uniformly has no CCR5. If another disease were to come along that the CCR5 receptor were to play a significant part in fighting (which is not implausible), then that disease might rampage through the population unchecked, wiping it out completely.

I don't know about you, but personally, I would prefer that my species--or its derivative--survives. If I can weight the dice thus, I will. I don't think natural selection is anything holy, that we're not to stand against. If you, on the other hand, only care about the 'Law' of natural selection and evolution, then I don't think we have enough common ground to establish any sort of framework for discussion. Me, I've got a vested interest.
Biotech

Submission + - CPR not as effective as chest compressions alone

Submitted by
patiwat
patiwat writes: "A Japanese study has found that people suffering from cardiac arrest were more likely to recover without brain damage if rescuers focused on chest compressions rather than on rescue breaths, and some experts advised dropping the mouth-to-mouth part of CPR altogether. Interrupting chest compression to perform mouth-to-mouth ventilation might do more harm than good if blood flow to the heart was not properly re-established, a researcher from Tokyo's Surugadai Nihon University Hospital said. Also, people could be too squeamish to lock lips with a stranger, whereas more might be prepared to attempt hands-only resuscitation, noted the study published in the current issue of The Lancet. Dr Gordon Ewy, the chief of cardiology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, wrote in the same journal that the results "should lead to a prompt interim revision of the guidelines for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest." More than 300,000 Americans die from cardiac arrest each year. Roughly 9 out of 10 cardiac arrest victims die before they get to a hospital — partly because they do not get CPR."

Archive.org Sued By Colorado Woman 797

Posted by CowboyNeal from the legally-binding-http-requests dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Internet Archive is being sued by a Colorado woman for spidering her site. Suzanne Shell posted a notice on her site saying she wasn't allowing it to be crawled. When it was, she sued for civil theft, breach of contract, and violations of the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations act and the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act. A court ruling last month granted the Internet Archive's motion to dismiss the charges, except for the breach of contract claim. If Shell prevails on that count, sites like Google will have to get online publishers to 'opt in' before they can be crawled, radically changing the nature of Web search."
Security

Submission + - A Lesson in Security:The Student vs Hacker Rematch

Submitted by monkeyboy44
monkeyboy44 writes: After last years entertaining hacker vs. student showdown, InformIT.com once again covered the annual Mid-Atlantic Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition where college students are put to the test. During the three day event, small teams from eight of the areas colleges are handed insecure networks that they have to lockdown and keep running — all while a team of hackers attempt to gain access any way they can. To keep it interesting, the teams also had to perform various tasks, such as program web applications, install IDS systems and more — and if hacked, the US Secret Service was on hand to determine if their was enough data to start an investigation. Once again, the hackers dominated — but not without a few surprises.
Biotech

Nanotechnology Reveals Hidden Fingerprints 26

Posted by CowboyNeal from the new-csi-devices dept.
valiko75 writes "Hidden fingerprints can now be revealed quickly and reliably thanks to two developments in nanotechnology. The thing is that they have invented an easier way to reveal hidden fingerprints, but the explanation is rather vague. The main point is that the experiments are not very stable at the moment, but with its development this technology will probably help in discovering many criminal mysteries."
Unix

Journal Journal: SCO says GNU doesn't have a license

Journal by Ritchie70

I was browsing SCO's website trying to figure out development tool options for SCO OpenServer 5.0.6 (I know, I know) and stumbled across this.

It describes one of the three options for OpenServer 5.0.7 as:
Mars

Caves on Mars? 99

Posted by CowboyNeal from the little-green-cavemen dept.
RockDoctor writes "The BBC is reporting that the photo-surveying of Mars has revealed seven suspected cave entrances in the Arsia Mons volcanic area. This has been hinted at before — long sinuous channels in the same region have been interpreted as collapsed 'lava tube' caves — but the scale of the suggested entrances (sheer drops of 80 to 130m from the surrounding surface) makes my troglodytic hands twitch for my abseiling gear."
The Internet

Registerfly's Accreditation Terminated by ICANN 111

Posted by CowboyNeal from the enough-of-that dept.
Punker22 writes "Effective immediately ICANN has terminated RegisterFly.com's accreditation. Between now and 31 March RegisterFly is required to unlock and provide all necessary Authinfo codes to allow domain name transfers to occur. Any and all registrants wishing to transfer away from RegisterFly during this period should be allowed to do so efficiently and expeditiously. 'Terminating accreditation is the strongest measure ICANN is able to take against RegisterFly under its powers,' Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN said today."
Power

Japanese Company Admits To Nuclear Cover Up 295

Posted by Zonk from the we-haven't-used-buckets-for-that-since-the-50s dept.
a-charles writes "Just as power companies are considering the first expansion of nuclear power usage in the US since the 70s, Reuters reports on a disturbing anouncement from the nation of Japan. On Thursday the Japanese power company Hokuriku Electric Power admitted it had covered up a 1999 incident in which mishandling of nuclear fuel rods led to an unintended self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction. The mishap caused the plant, located in central Japan, to enter a 'critical state' for much of those 15 minutes. Apparently, this was in the same year that two workers were killed in a separate incident in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo. A pair of workers were killed after using buckets to mix nuclear fuel in a lab, a test that also created an uncontrolled chain reaction for a short time. The nuclear power industry already has a bad name for safety violations in Japan, and these revelations are unlikely to help with that public image."
Music

RIAA Sues Stroke Victim in Michigan 328

Posted by Zonk from the finall-a-case-they-can-win dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has now brought suit against a stroke victim in Michigan in Warner v. Paladuk. The defendant John Paladuk was living in Florida at the time of the alleged copyright infringement, and had notified the RIAA that he had not engaged in any copyright infringement. Despite the fact that Mr. Paladuk suffered a stroke last year (pdf), rendering him disabled, the RIAA commenced suit against him on February 27, 2007. Suing the disabled is not new to the RIAA. Both Atlantic v. Andersen in Oregon and Elektra v. Schwartz in New York were suits brought against disabled people who have never engaged in file sharing, and whose sole income is Social Security Disability. Both of these cases are still pending. The local Michigan lawyer being used by the RIAA in the Paladuk case is the same lawyer who was accused by a 15 year old girl of telling her what to say at her deposition in Motown v. Nelson. In the Warner v. Scantlebury case, after the defendant died during the lawsuit, the same lawyer indicated to the court that he was going to give the family '60 days to grieve' before he would start deposing the late Mr. Scantlebury's children."

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