barnowldad - Slashdot User

Nearby Star Forecast To Skirt Solar System 135

Posted by Soulskill on Friday March 12, 2010 @07:36PM from the we're-doomed dept.

PipianJ writes "A recent preprint posted on arXiv by Vadim Bobylev presents some startling new numbers about a future close pass of one of our stellar neighbors. Based on studies of the Hipparcos catalog, Bobylev suggests that the nearby orange dwarf Gliese 710 has an 86% chance of skirting the outer bounds of the Solar System and the hypothesized Oort Cloud in the next 1.5 million years. As the Oort Cloud is thought to be the source of many long-period comets, the gravitational effects of Gliese's passing could send a shower of comets into the inner Solar System, threatening Earth. This news about Gliese 710 isn't exactly new, but it's one of the first times the probability of this near-miss has been quantified."

Bark Beetles Hate Rush Limbaugh and Heavy Metal 220

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 11, 2010 @02:24PM from the tiniest-minds dept.

Aryabhata writes "According to scientists, climate change and human activity have allowed bark beetle populations to soar. They decided to fight the beetles by using the 'nastiest, most offensive sounds' that they could think of. These sounds included recordings of Guns & Roses, Queen, Rush Limbaugh and manipulated versions of the insects' own sounds. The research project titled 'Beetle Mania' has concluded that acoustic stress can disrupt their feeding and even cause the beetles to kill each other."

Comment We're happy with FogBugz (Score 1) 129

by barnowldad on Thursday February 01, 2007 @07:58PM (#17852506) Attached to: Issue Tracking Ticketing Systems?

We are a small shop with about 15 active engineers and testers and tech support folks and we have been using FogBugz by Fog Creek Software (www.fogcreek.com). It's web-based (perfect for distributed teams, as ours is, incl. a couple of people in Russia), very flexible, very fast and not too expensive. Great support. I have no connection with FogCreek other than being a satisfied user.

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