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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 8 declined, 7 accepted (15 total, 46.67% accepted)

Submission + - Record companies sue internet archive for preserving old 78 rpm recordings (reuters.com)

bshell writes: Some of the world’s largest record labels, including Sony and Universal Music Group, filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive and others for the Great 78 Project (https://great78.archive.org), a community effort for the preservation, research and discovery of 78 rpm records that are 70 to 120 years old. The project has been in operation since 2006 to bring free public access to a largely forgotten but culturally important medium. Through the efforts of dedicated librarians, archivists and sound engineers, we have preserved hundreds of thousands of recordings that are stored on shellac resin, an obsolete and brittle medium. The resulting preserved recordings retain the scratch and pop sounds that are present in the analog artifacts; noise that modern remastering techniques remove.

Submission + - With 8.5 tons of lithium batteries, PlanetSolar ship is biggest mobile battery (theverge.com)

bshell writes: The Verge has a great photo-essay about Tûranor PlanetSolar, the first boat to circle the globe with solar power. The boat is currently in NYC. Among other remarkable facts, the captain (Gérard d'Aboville) is one of those rare individuals who solo-rowed across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, journeys that took 71 and 134 days, respectively. The piece has a lot of detail about control systems and design.

Submission + - Massive data leak reveals how the ultra rich hide their wealth (www.cbc.ca)

bshell writes: According to the CBC, there was a massive leak of "files containing information on over 120,000 offshore entities — including shell corporations and legal structures known as trusts — involving people in over 170 countries. The leak amounts to 260 gigabytes of data, or 162 times larger than the U.S. State Department cables published by WikiLeaks in 2010...In many cases, the leaked documents expose insider details of how agents would incorporate companies in Caribbean and South Pacific micro-states on behalf of wealthy clients, then assign front people called "nominees" to serve, on paper, as directors and shareholders for the corporations — disguising the companies' true owners." Makes a good read and there are some good interactive components. Perhaps slashdot readers can figure out how the source of the leak, the D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists got their hands on this data.
Canada

Submission + - Canadian regulator orders Internet telecoms to tell us what it costs (montrealgazette.com)

bshell writes: "Canada's CRTC (like the FCC) has finally asked the telecoms to provide information about how much their services actually cost. In this Montreal Gazette Story the writer says, In a report I wrote last year, I estimated the markup for Internet services was 6,452 per cent for Bell’s Essential Plus plan, which provides a two-megabits-per-second speed for $28.95 (prices may have changed since last year)."
The markup is likely similar in the US. It's about time that we consumers found out what it really costs to provide Internet, and for that matter telephone and wireless services, so we can get a fair shake."

It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - If programming languages were religions

bshell writes: With Christmas around the corner I know we are all thinking about religion, or at least maybe wondering why this one religion dominates the rest for these few weeks. A fellow named Rodrigo Braz Monteiro (amz) posted this list comparing each programming language to a religion. Guaranteed to make you chuckle and generate a good long thread here on slashdot. Great way to pass the time as work winds down this week and we relate to our own programming faiths during this very special time of year. Merry PHPmas.
Medicine

Submission + - Nanomaterials more dangerous than we think

bshell writes: "A Canadian panel of leading scientists warns that nanomaterials appearing in a rapidly growing number of products might potentially be able to enter cells and interfere with biological processes. According to a story in the Globe and Mail newspaper, the Council of Canadian Academies concluded that "there are inadequate data to inform quantitative risk assessments on current and emerging nanomaterials."

"Their small size, the report says, may allow them "to usurp traditional biological protective mechanisms" and, as a result, possibly have "enhanced toxicological effects." Chair of the panel is Pekka Sinervo, dean of the University of Toronto's faculty of arts and science. The council is an independent academic advisory group funded by the federal government, but operating at arms-length from Ottawa. The 16-member panel that wrote the new report included some of Canada's leading scientists and top international experts on nanomaterials.

When experts like this agree on something this big it's probably worth paying attention."
Biotech

Submission + - Human genome more like a functional network (nature.com)

bshell writes: An article in science blog says we may have to rethink how genes work. So called "junk DNA" actually appears to be functional. What's more it works in a mysterious way involving multiple overlaps that seems to be connected in some sort of network. From the article: The ENCODE consortium's major findings include the discovery that the majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional molecules, called RNA, and that these transcripts extensively overlap one another. This broad pattern of transcription challenges the long-standing view that the human genome consists of a relatively small set of discrete genes, along with a vast amount of so-called junk DNA that is not biologically active. The new data indicate the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network. In this network, genes are just one of many types of DNA sequences that have a functional impact. "Our perspective of transcription and genes may have to evolve," the researchers state in their Nature paper, noting the network model of the genome "poses some interesting mechanistic questions" that have yet to be answered. The Nature article is here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v447/n7146/fu ll/447760a.html

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