66398391
submission
superboj writes:
"From everything I can find, Mars One doesn’t appear to be in any way qualified to carry off the biggest, most complex, most audacious, and most dangerous exploration mission in all of human history. They don’t have the money to do it. 200,000 people didn’t actually apply. I wouldn’t classify it exactly as a scam—but it seems to be, at best, an amazingly hubristic fantasy."
66195149
submission
blastboy writes:
By pretty much any logic, Wikipedia shouldn't work: A vast website, built on the labor of volunteers, with very few tangible rewards and a fairly weird hierarchy. So why is it so successful? The site's top-ranking users explain what makes them tick.
57456437
submission
superboj writes:
Everyone wants a piece of Egypt's most famous pharaoh, including the media, the Muslim Brotherhood and even the Mormon church. But while scientists have been trying to excavate his DNA and prove who he was—Egypt's turbulent politics have been making progress hard. Will experts be able to make a major discovery? And what happens if they do?
56806621
submission
gallifreyan99 writes:
Scientists have spent decades trying to understand and fix social problems like violence and alcoholism, usually focusing on the poor and disadvantaged. But now a small band of researchers is claiming that biology plays a vitally important role—because trauma can change you at a genetic level that gets passed on to kids, grandkids, and perhaps even beyond. Astonishing story.
56641757
submission
blastboy writes:
“It’s just a tool.” I'd heard this many times before. It contains a modicum of truth, but buries technology’s impacts on our lives, which are never neutral. Often, I asked the person who said it if they thought nuclear weapons were “just a tool.” Humans have always fought, but few would say it doesn’t matter if we fight with sticks, knives, guns, or nuclear weapons." Great essay on Snowden, technology and the problem with how we think of surveillance.
56380541
submission
kalman5 writes:
Dennis Aabo Sørensen is the first amputee in the world to feel sensory rich information — in real-time — with a prosthetic hand wired to nerves in his upper arm. Sørensen could grasp objects intuitively and identify what he was touching while blindfolded.
More (french) on: http://actu.epfl.ch/news/une-p...
56225447
submission
KentuckyFC writes:
Americans spent $14.2 billion on veterinary care for their pets in 2013—and that doesn’t even include proprietary health diets and food supplements. Put another way, pet owners pay about $850 annually in veterinary expenses per dog, and about $575 per cat. Factor in the emotional energy we invest in keeping our companion animals healthy, and you’d hope for high confidence in the end results. But when one journalist investigated the science behind the meds being used to treat his aging dog's osteoarthritis, he was in for a nasty surprise. Glucosamine and chondroitin food supplements? Next to useless. Tramadol to kill pain? It's probably just getting dogs high. The one treatment that's been proven to help, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug called carprofen, is often left on the shelf because of fears—likely overblown—that it might damage dogs' kidneys. In part, you can blame this sorry state of affairs on a lack of financial incentives for drug companies to run clinical trials on animals. But often, vets aren't paying attention to the studies that have been done. If we want our dogs and cats to receive the best possible medical care, we need to ask our vets some tougher questions about why they think the drugs will work.
56217583
submission
Nerval's Lobster writes:
Microsoft’s next CEO will be Satya Nadella, if current reports prove accurate. According to Re/code, which drew its information from “numerous sources close to Microsoft,” Nadella could officially assume the role in early February. Meanwhile, anonymous sources speaking to Bloomberg suggested that co-founder Bill Gates could be forced to give up his longtime chairman role. Nadella (again, if confirmed) seems a logical choice for Microsoft. He’s been with the company for more than twenty years, eventually becoming executive vice president of its Cloud and Enterprise division. The enterprise remains a key—perhaps the key—customer segment for Microsoft, especially as its mobile and consumer efforts (excluding the Xbox) have floundered in recent years; in order to retain those business clients, Nadella and his team embarked on the creation of “Cloud OS,” the platform that powers Microsoft’s large-scale cloud services such as SkyDrive, Azure, and Office 365. Under his guidance, Microsoft’s revenue from cloud services has grown by several billion over the past few years, so he’s shown that he can expand a business. In addition, his technical background could afford him a measure of respect from Microsoft’s legions of engineers and developers. But if he’s ultimately tapped for the CEO seat, Nadella faces one of the toughest jobs in the technology industry: not only does he need to craft a plan that will allow Microsoft to grow and prosper in an integrated, holistic manner—he’ll need to do it while guiding the company through the massive internal reorganization initiated by his predecessor, Steve Ballmer.
56193109
submission
blastboy writes:
The potential upside to getting rid of drivers: "Today car horns are still a leading source of noise pollution in urban centers. India's honking problem is so severe that the response to it—from both activists and government officials—mirrors the response to an actual epidemic. Officials in Peru, meanwhile, began treating honking like a serious crime in 2009, threatening to confiscate the cars of people who honk when they shouldn't.
56187921
submission
fplatten writes:
I think this is all you need to see to know what legacy Steve Ballmer has left at Microsoft where it's IE browser market share has collapsed from a high of 86% in 2002 to just 9% now. I guess this is just another in a long list of tech companies that failed to maintain it's dominant market share. Also, IE may be the one product that never really deserved it, but just piggybacked on Windows and users left in droves once decent (more secure) alternatives and standards became popular.
56187607
submission
v3rgEz writes:
A new startup out of MIT offers early adopters a chance at the afterlife, of sorts: It promises to build an AI representation of the dearly departed based on chat logs, email, Facebook, and other digital exhaust generated over the years. “Eterni.me generates a virtual YOU, an avatar that emulates your personality and can interact with, and offer information and advice to your family and friends after you pass away,” the team promises. But can a chat bot plus big data really produce anything beyond a creepy, awkward facsimile?
56186699
submission
Daniel_Stuckey writes:
It's no secret that apps like maps or local weather know your current location, and you're probably cool with that because you want to use the handy services they provide in exchange. But chances are there are many other apps on your phone, anything from dictionaries to games, that are also geolocating your every move without your knowledge or permission. Now researchers are developing a new app to police these smartphone spies, by tracking which apps are secretly tracking you, and warning you about it.
Before your eyes glaze over at the mention of yet another privacy tool, it's worth noting that this new app is the first to be able to provide this line of defense between snooping apps and smartphone users for Android phones. Android's operating system is engineered not to allow apps to access information about other apps. But a team at Rutgers University found a way around that, by leveraging a function of Android’s API to send a signal whenever an app requests location information from the operating system. MIT Technology Review reported on the research today.
56151965
submission
gallifreyan99 writes:
The real revolution in drugs isn't Silk Road—it's the open web. Thanks to the net, almost anyone with a basic handle on chemistry can design, manufacture and sell their own narcotics, and in most cases the cops are utterly unable to stop them. This piece is kind of crazy: the writer actually creates a new powerful-but-legal stimulant based on a banned substance, and gets a Chinese lab to manufacture it.
54511323
submission
blastboy writes:
Every day in Britain, a vast system of cameras tracks cars on the road, feeding their movements into a database used by police. And because that data is networked, cops can use it to go back in time—or even predict your movements. But even though there are serious concerns about the technology, and it's regularly been abused by law enforcement, it has now been exported by the Brits and put in place by police departments around the world.
