Comment Re:can you see me now? (Score 1) 282
Interesting story, posting to undo mod error
Comment This is just getting ridiculous (Score 1) 306
Seriously.
Submission + - Losing the Public Debate on Global Warming 3
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Dr James Hansen, director of the Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who first made warnings about climate change in the 1980s, says that public skepticism about the threat of man-made climate change has increased despite the growing scientific consensus and that without public support it will be impossible to make the changes he and his colleagues believe need to occur to protect future generations from the effects of climate change. "The science has become stronger and stronger over the past five years while the public perception is has gone in completely the other direction. That is not an accident," says Hansen. "There is a very concerted effort by people who would prefer to see business to continue as usual. They have been winning the public debate with the help of tremendous resources." Hansen's comments come as recent surveys have revealed that public support for tackling climate change has declined dramatically in recent years with a recent BBC poll finding that 25% of British adults did not think global warming is happening and over a third saying many claims about environmental threats are "exaggerated" compared to 24 per cent in 2000. Dr Benny Peiser, director of skeptical think tank The Global Warming Policy Foundation, says it's time to stop exaggerating the impact of global warming and accept the uncertainty of predictions about the rate of climate change. "James Hensen has been making predictions about climate change since the 1980s. When people are comparing what is happening now to those predictions, they can see they fail to match up.""
Comment All kidding aside (Score 2) 41
While it would be cool to highlight rapists and muggers with a red status bar, it would be really awesome if it could be tied into medical devices. Say you're a diabetic and you have a little device on your arm that constantly measures your blood sugar. Could help you maintain a more stable glucose level which has long-term health benefits. Or say you have a heart condition that leads to arrhythmias or PVC's? You could get a little readout that tells you that the alarming sensations you're feeling are ok within the baselines the device has set (or vice versa that you don't feel anything but that the device detects some serious abnormality). Something like a hitpoint meter that ACTUALLY shows some useful information regarding your medical condition.
Submission + - Dual-focus contact lens prototypes ordered by Pentagon (bbc.co.uk)
cb_is_cool writes: From the Beeb:
"The Pentagon has put in an order for prototype contact lenses that give users a much wider field of vision.
The lenses are designed to be paired with compact heads up display (HUD) units — glasses that allow images to be projected onto their lenses."
And any mugger within 50 yards will hopefully have a red status bar above their heads.
"The Pentagon has put in an order for prototype contact lenses that give users a much wider field of vision.
The lenses are designed to be paired with compact heads up display (HUD) units — glasses that allow images to be projected onto their lenses."
And any mugger within 50 yards will hopefully have a red status bar above their heads.
Comment Re:Ants with giant freaking heads (Score 1) 80
It wouldn't matter if they got free since soldiers do not reproduce.
Comment Doesn't matter (Score 1) 156
The story came from the Washington Post so all manner of journalists know of it, and internally, word of mouth is almost as quick and just as effective as tweeting, facebooking, etc.
When will governments realize that even their best efforts to control information are akin to holding back an ocean with a leaky sieve?
Comment Easy.. (Score 1) 238
By a really big bag of $5 wrenches
Submission + - Ancient Nubians Drank Antibiotic Laced Beer (blogspot.com)
eldavojohn writes: A new analysis of millennia old mummy bones shows high concentrations of tetracycline which indicates empirical knowledge and use of antibiotics — most likely consumed in beer. The researchers traced the source of the antibiotics to the soil bacteria streptomyces present in the grain used to ferment the beer. Astonishingly enough, 'Even the tibia and skull belonging to a 4-year-old were full of tetracycline, suggesting that they were giving high doses to the child to try and cure him of illness.' The extent of saturation in the bones leads the scientists to assert that the population regularly consumed tetracycline antibiotics knowing that it would cure certain sicknesses.
Possible Treatment For Ebola 157
RedEaredSlider writes "Researchers at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have found a class of drugs that could provide treatment for Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fever. The new drugs are called 'antisense' compounds, and they allow the immune system to attack the viruses before they can do enough damage to kill the patient. Travis Warren, research scientist at USAMRIID, said while the work is still preliminary -— the drugs have been tested only on primates — the results are so far promising. In the case of Ebola, five of eight monkeys infected with the virus lived, and with Marburg, all survived. The drugs were developed as part of a program to deal with possible bioterrorist threats, in partnership with AVI Biopharma."
Newsweek Easter Egg Reports Zombie Invasion 93
danielkennedy74 writes "Newsweek.com becomes the latest in a long list of sites that will reveal an Easter egg if you enter the Konami code correctly (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, enter). This is a cheat code that appeared in many of Konami's video games, starting around 1986 — my favorite places to use it were Contra and Life Force, 30 lives FTW. The Easter egg was probably included by a developer unbeknownst to the Newsweek powers that be. It's reminiscent of an incident that happened at ESPN last year, involving unicorns."
Cheap Cancer Drug Finally Tested In Humans 363
John Bayko writes "Mentioned on Slashdot a couple of years ago, the drug dichloroacetate (DCA) has finally finished its first clinical trial against brain tumors in humans. Drug companies weren't willing to test a drug they could not patent, so money was raised in the community through donations, auctions, and finally government support, but the study was still limited to five patients. It showed extremely positive results in four of them. This episode raises the question of what happens to all the money donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it, if not to actual cancer research like this."
Submission + - Cancer Breathalyzer
Tiger4 writes: Cancer researchers in the UK have come up with a way to sniff for lung cancer on the breath.
"From the results, the researchers identified 42 "volatile organic compounds" (VOCs) present in the breath of 83% of cancer patients but fewer than 83% of healthy volunteers.
Four of the most reliable were used to develop a nine-sensor array made from tiny gold particles coated with reactive chemicals sensitive to the compounds.
Other sources have picked up the story as well. Obviously, this would be a big breakthrough for rapid screening, and early detection significantly improves outcomes.
Submission + - Internet's First Registered Domain Name Sold (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: "Believe it or not, it wasn't iternet.com or dot.com that was purchased when the Internet was "born." Instead, it was the somewhat off-the-wall name of symbolics.com. The Symbolics company was the first
to use an internet domain name to guide Internet viewers to its line of Lisp machines, which were single-user computers optimized to run the Lisp programming language. XF.com
Investments, which is a Missouri-based Internet investments firm,
has managed to secure the domain name from its original owner for an undisclosed sum and XF's CEO was quick to proclaim his excitement over the acquisition. It's hard to say why this domain name was the first purchased back on March 15, 1985, but for obvious reasons it holds a special place in history. There has been one original owner for nearly 25 years. Over that time, we've seen the Internet grow to the tune of 180,000,000+ registered domains, and thousands more are being added each and every day."
Submission + - Electric Company Wants Monthly Fee For Solar Users
7-Vodka writes: Xcel Energy customers who have their own solar panels are worried about a new fee being proposed by the company.
The monthly fee to pay for transmission and distribution of energy would be charged to customers who have solar panels irrespective of their energy use for the month.
An Xcel Energy spokesman said that the fee is to ensure that regular customers don't subsidize the "connectivity fees" for the solar panel customers who don't pay their fees when they use no electricity. Unfortunately, when pressed the spokesman admitted that nobody actually pays a "connectivity fee" yet however they wanted to prevent the mooching from occurring in the future (presumably when they hit everyone with such a fee) and also called the absence of a connectivity fee for solar customers a "double subsidy" because many solar customers receive rebates to install the panels.
An Xcel Energy spokesman said that the fee is to ensure that regular customers don't subsidize the "connectivity fees" for the solar panel customers who don't pay their fees when they use no electricity. Unfortunately, when pressed the spokesman admitted that nobody actually pays a "connectivity fee" yet however they wanted to prevent the mooching from occurring in the future (presumably when they hit everyone with such a fee) and also called the absence of a connectivity fee for solar customers a "double subsidy" because many solar customers receive rebates to install the panels.
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