galaad2 writes "Want to own the real castle that may have inspired the legend of Dracula? The Transylvanian castle associated with Vlad the Impaler, who may have been part of the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, is on sale for £40 million ($77 million). Bran Castle, near the historic city of Brasov, in central Romania, draws 450,000 visitors a year because of its association with 15th-century Prince Vlad Tepes III. (Wikipedia points out that Bran Castle's ties to Vlad are weak and disputed.) The local town council has been offered first refusal; they have 30 days to review the offer and then the property will be put on the market."

Johan Louwers writes "Robots will crawl tubes in a short while to investigate power cables running in the tubes to make sure they are still undamaged or in need for a repair. The Robotic Cable Inspection System is developed by Alexander Mamishev, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington. Making use of infrared thermal analysis and acoustic partial discharge analysis, the robot will be checking mile after mile of cable while crawling his way in the tubes."

NewYorkCountryLawyer asks: "In UMG v. Lindor, the RIAA has submitted an 'expert' report (pdf) and 26-page curriculum vitae (pdf), prepared by Dr. Doug Jacobson of Iowa State University who is the RIAA's expert witness in all of its cases against consumers, relating to alleged copyright infringement by means of a shared files folder on Kazaa, and supposed analysis of the hard drive of a computer in Ms. Lindor's apartment. The RIAA's 'experts' have been shut down in the Netherlands and Canada, having been shown by Prof. Sips and Dr. Pouwelse of Delft University's Parallel and Distributed Systems research group (pdf) to have failed to do their homework, but are still operating in the USA. The materials were submitted in connection with a motion to compel Ms. Lindor's son, who lives 4 miles away from her, to turn over his computer and music listening devices to the RIAA. Both Ms. Lindor's attorney (pdf) and Ms. Lindor's son's attorney (pdf) have objected to the introduction of these materials, but Dr. Jacobson's document production and deposition are scheduled for January and February, and we would love to get the tech community's ideas for questions to ask, and in general your reactions, thoughts, opinions, information, and any other input you can share with us. (In case you haven't guessed, we are the attorneys for Ms. Lindor.)"

ferd_farkle writes "Science Daily has an article about engineering advances meant to help steady the hands of surgeons working in really cramped spaces like eyes and throats. From the article: 'The tools include a snakelike robot that could enable surgeons, operating in the narrow throat region, to make incisions and tie sutures with greater dexterity and precision. Another robot, the steady-hand, may curb a surgeon's natural tremor and allow the doctor to inject drugs into tiny blood vessels in the eye, dissolving clots that can damage vision."

Adolytsi writes "MSNBC has an interesting article on an Italian study on alcoholism. While the obvious notion of overconsumption of alcohol being detrimental to one's health is supported, apparently drinking it in moderation can actually extend your lifespan. A study on over 1 million drinkers and 94,000 deaths yielded the results: "According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine. However, "things radically change" when consumption goes beyond these levels, study leader Dr. Augusto Di Castelnuovo, from Catholic University of Campobasso, said in a statement. Men who have more than four drinks per day and women who have more than two drinks per day not only lose the protection that alcohol affords, but they increase their risk of death, the data indicates.""

Xemu writes "Researchers at University College of London's Institute of Neurology have discovered that taxi drivers grow more brain cells in the area associated with memory. Dr Eleanor Maguire says, 'We believe the brain increased in gray matter volume because of the huge amount of data memorized.' She warns against the use of GPS and says it will possibly affect the brain changes seen in this study. This research is the first to show that the brains of adults can grow in response to specialist use." London cabbies, unlike their American counterparts, have to learn the layout of streets and the locations of thousands of places of interest in order to get a license.

Dekortage writes in with a new study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggesting that the North Pole may be clear of ice in summer as soon as 2040, decades earlier than previously thought. From the article: "'As the ice retreats, the ocean transports more heat to the Arctic and the open water absorbs more sunlight, further accelerating the rate of warming and leading to the loss of more ice,' Holland said in the statement. 'This is a positive feedback loop with dramatic implications for the entire Arctic.'"

An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports that a central campus database at UCLA containing the personal information (including SSNs) of about 800,000 UCLA affiliates has been compromised for possibly over a year. The data may have been available to hackers since October 2005 until November 21, 2006, when the breach was finally detected and blocked. Several other UC campuses have also been involved in significant data security incidents over the past few years." From the article: "'To my knowledge, it's absolutely one of the largest,' Rodney Petersen, security task force coordinator for Educause, a nonprofit higher education association, told the Los Angeles Times. Petersen said that in a Educause survey release in October, about a quarter of 400 colleges said that over the previous 12 months, they had experienced a security incident in which confidential information was compromised, the newspaper reported."

eldavojohn wonders: "With the recent acquisition of YouTube by Google, there has been a lot of speculation (on both Slashdot & The Toronto Star) that we are nearing the second economic bubble created largely in part by growth in the digital sector. While one may be able to debate that the revenue from advertising and sales can indeed back this growth, are we headed towards the second bubble and, if so, how hard is it going to pop? Keep in mind that popular voodoo economic theory has attributed the first bubble phenomenon to 'a combination of rapidly increasing stock prices, individual speculation in stocks, and widely available venture capital.' I think we're experiencing all those, although it is not as flagrant as it was during the first bubble. What do you think?"