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Comment Re:Almost Cool (Score 1) 72

by ethogram (#50565771) Attached to: A Wikipedia-Style Tree of Life Emerges
The wiki aspect is the ability for anyone to upload a (published) tree and map its tips to names in the taxonomy. Literally, anyone with a github id can contribute. However, I do concede your point - the skill to map names to tips and access to trees are not attributes your average Joe is likely to display.

Comment Re:Almost Cool (Score 1) 72

by ethogram (#50564267) Attached to: A Wikipedia-Style Tree of Life Emerges
It's more complicated than that. Opentree builds a taxonomy which is a 'consensus' from taxonomies from NCBI, SILVA, Index Fungorum, WoRMS, etc. This taxonomy is then used to scaffold the assembly of a phylogeny from the set of accepted trees. These trees (478 in the current synthesis) are selected from the ~3000 studies that have been contributed to the database. There are groups (for example spiders) where the coverage by available trees is rather sparse or absent. In these cases, the synthetic tree necessarily falls back on taxonomy, but that represents a failure of coverage, not the intent of the project. I agree that the biggest benefit will be to scientists who have a relatively friendly, github backed, collection of published phylogenetic trees (thus, more like TREEBASE). The synthetic tree will help fill in the gaps where a tree is required that is not covered by any one existing phylogeny.

Submission + - Hubble Discovers 'Planetary Graveyard' (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered rocky remains of planetary material ‘polluting’ the atmospheres of two white dwarfs — a sign that these stars likely have (or had) planetary systems and that asteroids are currently being shredded by extreme tidal forces. Although white dwarfs with polluted atmospheres have been observed before, this is the first time evidence of planetary systems have been discovered in stars belonging to a relatively young cluster of stars. “We have identified chemical evidence for the building blocks of rocky planets,” said Jay Farihi of the University of Cambridge in a Hubble news release. “When these stars were born, they built planets, and there’s a good chance that they currently retain some of them. The signs of rocky debris we are seeing are evidence of this — it is at least as rocky as the most primitive terrestrial bodies in our Solar System.”
Crime

Submission + - DOJ, MIT, JSTOR Seek Anonymity in Swartz Case

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Responding to an earlier request by the estate of Aaron Swartz to disclose the names of those involved in the events leading to Aaron's suicide, counsel for MIT snippily told the Court, "The Swartz Estate was not a party to the criminal case, and therefore it is unclear how it has standing, or any legally cognizable interest, to petition for the modification of the Protective Order concerning others' documents." In motions filed on slow-news-day Good Friday (MIT's on spring break), the DOJ, MIT, and JSTOR all insisted on anonymity for those involved in the Swartz case, arguing that redacting of names was a must, citing threats posed by Anonymous and LulzSec, a badly-photoshopped postcard sent to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann and another sent to his Harvard Prof father, cake frosting, a gun hoax, and e-mail sent to MIT. From the DOJ filing: 'I also informed him [Swartz estate lawyer] that whatever additional public benefit might exist by disclosing certain names was, in this case, outweighed by the risk to those individuals of becoming targets of threats, harassment and abuse.' From the MIT filing: 'The publication of MIT's documents in unredacted form could lead to further, more targeted, and more dangerous threats and attacks...The death of Mr. Swartz has created a very volatile atmosphere.' From the JSTOR filing: 'The supercharged nature of the public debate about this case, including hacking incidents, gun hoaxes and threatening messages, gives JSTOR and its employees legitimate concern for their safety and privacy.'

Comment Moderate dress (Score 2) 106

by ethogram (#38724386) Attached to: I like to watch the stars ...
Although I own a couple of small (5",8") scopes, my generally preferred tool is a decent pair of binoculars. I've tried computer-based star finders without a lot of success, but nothing works quite as well as pointing the binos toward a constellation or region of sky between constellations I recognize.
Science

Submission + - New Virus Jumps From Monkeys to Lab Worker (sciencemag.org) 1

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: It started with a single monkey coming down with pneumonia at the California National Primate Research Center in Davis. Within weeks, 19 monkeys were dead and three humans were sick. Now, a new report confirms that the Davis outbreak was the first known case of an adenovirus jumping from monkeys to humans. The upside: the virus may one day be harnessed as a tool for gene therapy.
Science

Submission + - Lizards beat birds in intelligence test (mongabay.com) 1

Submitted by rhettb
rhettb writes: Reptiles have long been thought to be dim-witted, but a new study in Biology Letters finds that the Puerto Rican anole, a type of lizard, can match birds in intelligence. Using cognitive tests that have been previously used on birds, researchers with Duke University found that the lizards were capable of solving a problem they've never encountered before, remembering the solution in future trials, and even changing techniques when presented with new challenges. In fact, the tiny anoles solved the test with fewer tries than birds.
Science

Nature Publisher Launches PLoS ONE Competitor 62

Posted by Soulskill from the peer-to-peer-review dept.
linhares writes "Nature's Publishing Group is launching a new journal, Scientific Reports, announced earlier this month. The press release makes it clear that it is molded after PLoS ONE: 'Scientific Reports will publish original research papers of interest to specialists within a given field in the natural sciences. It will not set a threshold of perceived importance for the papers that it publishes; rather, Scientific Reports will publish all papers that are judged to be technically valid and original. To enable the community to evaluate the importance of papers post-peer review, the Scientific Reports website will include most-downloaded, most-emailed, and most-blogged lists. All research papers will benefit from rapid peer review and publication, and will be deposited in PubMed Central.' Perhaps readers may find it ironic that PLoS ONE, first dismissed by Nature as an 'online database' 'relying on bulk, cheap publishing of lower quality papers to subsidize its handful of high-quality flagship journals' seems to be setting the standards for 'a new era in publishing.'"
Image

Australian Politician Caught Viewing Porn 150

Posted by samzenpus from the stiff-opposition-party dept.
destinyland writes "An Australian Parliament member has resigned after admitting he'd used government computers to access porn and gambling sites. McLeay 'gave an uncomfortable press conference outside Parliament House,' notes one technology site, 'during which he admitted he had acted in a standard not expected of cabinet ministers.' Paul McLeay was also the Minister for Mineral and Forest Resources as well as the Minister for Ports and Waterways. In resigning, he apologized to his constituents and parliamentary colleagues, as well as to his wife and family."
Space

Submission + - Scientist: 'Galaxy is Rich in Earth-Like Planets' (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "In a recent presentation, Kepler co-investigator Dimitar Sasselov unexpectedly announced news that the Kepler Space Telescope has discovered dozens of candidate Earth-like exoplanets. Not waiting for the official NASA press release to announce the discovery, Sasselov went into some detail at the TEDGlobal talk in Oxford, UK, earlier this month. This surprise announcement comes hot on the heels of controversy that erupted last month when the Kepler team said they were withholding data on 400 exoplanet candidates until February 2011. In light of this, Sasselov's unofficial announcement has already caused a stir. Keith Cowing, of NASAWatch.com, has commented on this surprise turn of events saying it is really annoying "that the Kepler folks were complaining about releasing information since they wanted more time to analyze it before making any announcements. And then the project's Co-I goes off and spills the beans before an exclusive audience — offshore." Although Sasselov could have handled the announcement better (and waited until NASA made the official announcement), this has the potential to be one of the biggest astronomical discoveries of our time — so long as these Earth-like "candidates" are confirmed by further study."
Security

Submission + - Is open source SNORT dead? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Is Snort, the 12-year-old open-source intrusion detection and prevention system, dead?

The Open Information Security Foundation (OISF), a nonprofit group funded by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) to come up with next-generation open source IDS/IPS, thinks so. But Snort's creator, Martin Roesch, begs to differ, and in fact, calls the OISF's first open source IDS/IPS code, Suricata 1.0 released this week, a cheap knock-off of Snort paid for with taxpayer dollars.

The OISF was founded about a year and a half ago with $1 million in funding from a DHS cybersecurity research program, according to Matt Jonkman, president of OISF. He says OISF was founded to form an open source alternative and replacement to Snort, which he says is now considered dead since the research on what is supposed to be the next-generation version of Snort, Snort 3.0, has stalled.

"Snort is not conducive to IPv6 nor to multi-threading," Jonkman says, adding, "And Snort 3.0 has been scrapped."

According to Jonkman, OISF's first open source release Suricata 1.0 is superior to Snort in a number of ways, including how it can inspect network packets using a multi-threading technology to inspect more than one packet at a time, which he claims improves the chances of detecting attack traffic
Earth

"Argonaut" Octopus Sucks Air Into Shell As Ballast 72

Posted by timothy from the 8-legs-good dept.
audiovideodisco writes "Even among octopuses, the Argonaut must be one of the coolest. It gets its nickname — 'paper nautilus' — from the fragile shell the female assembles around herself after mating with the tiny male (whose tentacle/penis breaks off and remains in the female). For millennia, people have wondered what the shell was for; Aristotle thought the octopus used it as a boat and its tentacles as oars and sails. Now scientists who managed to study Argonauts in the wild confirm a different hypothesis: that the octopus sucks air into its shell and uses it for ballast as it weaves its way through the ocean like a tiny submarine. The researchers' beautiful video and photographs show just how the Argonaut pulls off this trick. The regular (non-paper) nautilus also uses its shell for ballast, but the distant relationship between it and all octopuses suggests this is a case of convergent evolution."
Earth

Aral Sea May Recover; Dead Sea Needs a Lifeline 131

Posted by timothy from the just-needs-feng-shui-adjustment dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It's a tale of two seas. The drying up of the Aral Sea is considered one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in history, but the northern sector of the sea, at least, is showing signs of life. A dam completed in 2005 has increased the North Aral's span by 20 percent, and birds, fish, and people are all returning to the area. Meanwhile, the Dead Sea is still in the midst of precipitous decline, since too much water is being drawn out of the Jordan River for thirsty populations and crops. To keep the sea from shrinking more, scientists are pushing an ambitious scheme called the 'Red-Dead conduit,' which would channel huge amounts of water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. However, the environmental consequences of such a project may be troubling."

Comment It's not Sophophora yet (Score 5, Informative) 136

by ethogram (#31798962) Attached to: The Fruit Fly <em>Drosophila</em> Gets a New Name
The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) ruling addressed a request to name D. melanogaster as the type species for the genus. Under the rules of nomenclature, another species in the genus has naming priority. As long as the genus (currently more than 1400 species) remains intact there is no name change for melanogaster. However, the biologist who submitted the petition to protect the name D. melanogaster did so because a revision and splitting of Drosophila is long overdue (and is apparently interested in taking on the project). The ICZN did not make this decision lightly, it has been under review for a couple of years.
Idle

Submission + - Couple raises virtual child.. and starves real one (cnn.com)

Submitted by NeutronCowboy
NeutronCowboy writes: According to CNN.com, a South Korean couple was arrested for allowing their baby to starve to death while they were out at an internet cafe. One of their activities there: raising a virtual child in the online game "Prius Online." While a South Korean professor calls it a case of Internet Addiction, it's probably more a case of bad coping mechanisms: they were jobless and had apparently little to look forward to.

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