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Dad Delivers Baby Using Wiki 249

Posted by samzenpus from the 9cm-edited dept.
sonamchauhan writes "A Londoner helped his wife deliver their baby by Googling 'how to deliver a baby' on his mobile phone. From the article: 'Today proud Mr Smith said: "The midwife had checked Emma earlier in the day but contractions started up again at about 8pm so we called the midwife to come back. But then everything happened so quickly I realized Emma was going to give birth. I wasn't sure what I was going to do so I just looked up the instructions on the internet using my BlackBerry."'"
Science

Aussie Scientists Find Coconut-Carrying Octopus 205

Posted by timothy from the concealed-carry-in-australian-waters dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. ... 'I was gobsmacked,' said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. 'I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh.'"
Space

Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242

Posted by Soulskill from the i-for-one dept.
likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."

Comment Re:gone (Score 1) 1093

by Biogenesis (#30421018) Attached to: The Limits To Skepticism
Just for the record, this is the simplest explanation for the difference between climate and weather I can think of: weather is saying that this next dice roll will be a five. Climate is saying that if you roll the dice many times about 1/6th of the results will be a five.

Comment KGB truth? (Score 1) 1093

by redelm (#30420510) Attached to: The Limits To Skepticism
OK, OK, FIS pravda. The UEA CRU emails were hosted on a server in Tomsk known to be used by the Russian intelligence services. Could the crack have been from them too? In what level of chess does this benefit the Rodina? They're still going to export the same at the same prices. Energy is less priced in the old or new worlds and more in the third, where more marginal volume sits. Or have they been listening to known capitalist running dogs like GoldmanSachs (vampire squid) and JPMorgan?

Maybe some siloviki is just mad some Carbon credits might expire worthless? Hammer everyone.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Why can't a computer be more like a brain?

Submitted by
newtronic
newtronic writes: "Jeff Hawkins, who founded Palm Computing, writes in IEEEE Spectrum, Why can't a computer be more like a brain? In this article, he brings us up to date with his latest endeavor, Numenta. He covers progress since his book On Intelligenceand gives details on Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) which is a platform for simulating neocortexial activity. Numenta has created a framework which allows anyone to build HTMs."
Programming

Submission + - Open Source Economics and why IBM is winning

Submitted by
driehle
driehle writes: "In an article published in IEEE Computer magazine I recently looked at the economics of open source. I argue that large system integrators will do best and that open source startups will keep struggling. For developers, open source creates independence and new career paths as committers, while non-committers will fall on hard times. The race is on!"

Feed On the hunt for unknown planets (com.com)

From feed by cnetfeed
Video: On the hunt for unknown planets. NASA held a press conference on April 12 to discuss its plans for using its new spacecraft, called Kepler, to search for planets that may have extraterrestrial life. CNET News.com's Zamir Haider reports.

Feed Why Doesn't The Justice Department Want An Identity Thief To Tell His Story To C (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
In what world would it make sense for politicians determining policy on a scam to be barred from speaking to an expert on that exact scam? Apparently, the world known as Washington DC. The Senate Finance Committee is holding hearings on identity theft, and asked a convicted identity thief to testify about his crimes. That certainly seems like one good way to learn about what's going on in the identity theft world -- but the Justice Department tried to stop it, claiming that allowing him to testify would violate laws that don't allow prisoners to have "elevated status" and also that it could pose a security risk. Apparently the Justice Department believes that if no one can talk about identity theft, maybe it won't happen. The good news, though, is that a judge has ruled against the DOJ, allowing the guy to testify before the Senate Committee. Identity theft is a serious problem, and hiding those who can best educate people about the problem doesn't help solve it.

Feed Storm Worm strikes again (com.com)

From feed by cnetfeed
Blog: A new variant of the Storm Worm (aka Snow Worm) is slamming into e-mail inboxes worldwide as an apparent patch or fix for a recent...

Feed Nintendo gives Letterman DS, Brain Age for his 60th; top 10 reasons he needs it (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

In honor of David Letterman's 60th birthday -- and for a little bit of cheap PR, of course -- Nintendo sent him a cute little gift pack, not dissimilar to the one they sent President Bush recently, including a couple of DS Lites and some copies of Brain Age to take care of that aging gray matter of his. Here are our top 10 reasons why Letterman needs this package, other than the obvious one: he doesn't.
  1. Saw Leno in line getting a PSP, knew he had to take action.
  2. Heard he could get Miyamoto on the show; has no idea what that is.
  3. There's a DS port of "Will it Float" on the way.
  4. Got a great deal on some stolen games from the dude outside Hello Deli.
  5. Been doing standup so long he forgot simple arithmetic.
  6. Because he couldn't figure out how to do any stupid pet tricks in Nintendogs.
  7. He's always wanted to make his cranium as veiny and muscular as Paul Shaffer's.
  8. He's got a three year old who probably pwns him at video games.
  9. It will hopefully knock off twenty years, to when he used to be funny.
  10. He needs all the juice he can get to think up these stupid top 10 lists.
Peep Nintendo's letter to Dave after the break.

[Via Joystiq]

Continue reading Nintendo gives Letterman DS, Brain Age for his 60th; top 10 reasons he needs it

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Censorship

Dodgey DMCA Use May Lead To 'YouTube Veto Power' 129

Posted by Zonk from the stab-him-in-the-back-from-the-front dept.
BillGatesLoveChild writes "Bob Cringely reports that an interview potentially embarrassing to Steve Jobs was taken off YouTube. The interview was from Cringely's 1990s show Triumph of the Nerds. YouTube said it responded to a DMCA complaint made by NBD Television Ltd in London. Trouble is, NBD is not the copyright holder. They have nothing at all to do with the show and don't even sell it. PBS, who made and holds the copyright said they knew nothing of the complaint. Cringely tried to contact NBD Television Ltd who wouldn't respond. Neither would Youtube, who only speaks by form letter. 'Why did NBD Television make the complaint? Why did YouTube blindly enforce it? Is Steve Jobs behind this, or is it just another media company misusing the DMCA, at that, not even with their own copyrighted material? Why should a London-based company be able to issue DMCA takedowns, yet not be liable when they abuse the law?'"
Media

Submission + - How To Properly Archive Data On Disc Media

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Patrick McFarland, the well-known Free Software Magazine author, going into great detail on CD/DVD media. McFarland covers the history of these media from CDs through recordable DVDs, explaining the various formats and their strengths and drawbacks. The heart of the article is an essay on the DVD-R vs. DVD+R recording standards, leading to McFarland's recommendation for which media he buys for archival storage. Spoiler: it's Taiyo Yuden DVD+R all the way. From the article:

"Unlike pressed CDs/DVDs, 'burnt' CDs/DVDs can eventually 'fade,' due to five things that affect the quality of CD media: sealing method, reflective layer, organic dye makeup, where it was manufactured, and your storage practices (please keep all media out of direct sunlight, in a nice cool dry dark place, in acid-free plastic containers; this will triple the lifetime of any media)."
Education

Newton's Second Law, Revisited 171

Posted by Zonk from the my-favorite-law dept.
eldavojohn writes "Dust off your fundamental physics books, an aspiring astrophysicist by the name of Alex Ignatiev has published a paper that proposes testing special cases of Newton's Second Law on earth's surface. His goal is sort of ambitious. The time he has to test his theory is only 1/1000th of a second, twice each year, in either Greenland or Antarctica. What would he look for? Spontaneous motion. From his interview with PhysOrg: 'If these experiments were to take place, Ignatiev says that scientists would look for what he calls the SHLEM effect. This acronym stands for static high latitude equinox modified inertia and would be noticed in a condition where the forces of the earth's rotation on its axis, and of the orbital force of the earth as it moves around the sun, would be canceled out ... In the end, if Newton's Second Law could be violated, he would be forcing physicists to reevaluate much of what we understand derived from that law — which is quite a bit.'"

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