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Submission + - Motorcycle accident results in bionic bottom. (telegraph.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Noishe
Noishe writes: A man involved in a motorcycle accident in the UK has been given an alternative to the dreaded colostomy bag. He now carries around a remote control to activate his "bionic bottom" made out of muscles taken from above his knee. The muscles were wrapped around his sphincter and then attached to electrodes that are controlled by a remote control he now carries in his pocket.
Biotech

Submission + - Scientists say Chemicals Turning Boys into Girls

Submitted by pickens
pickens writes: Denmark has unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, sunscreen lotion and moisturizing cream with a picture emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminizing male children all over the developed world. Research at Rotterdam's Erasmus University found that boys whose mothers were exposed to PCBs and dioxins were more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes. "The amounts that two-year-olds absorb from the [preservative] parabens propylparaben and butylparaben can constitute a risk for oestrogen-like disruptions of the endocrine system," says the report. "This contribution originates predominantly from cosmetic products such as oil-based creams, moisturizing creams, lotions and sunscreen." The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising, so much so that some 250,000 babies who statistically should have been boys have ended up as girls in Japan and the United States alone. "Both the public and wildlife are inadequately protected from harm, as regulation is based on looking at exposure to each substance in isolation, and yet it is now proven beyond doubt that hormone disrupting chemicals can act together to cause effects even when each by itself would not," says Gwynne Lyons, director of Chem Trust.
News

Submission + - Caffeinated Alcoholic Drinks May Be Illegal (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymusing
Anonymusing writes: The FDA has announced an investigation into the "safety and legality" of alcoholic beverages with caffeine in them. As the Wall Street Journal notes, two major beer companies (MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch) stopped produce caffeinated alcoholic drinks last year after reports of increased negative effects compared to caffeine-free alcohol. CNN notes that, according to FDA rules, "food additives require premarket approval based on data demonstrating safety submitted to the agency" — and caffeine is a food additive. The targeted beverage makers have 30 days to respond.

Comment Addictive design (Score 1) 308

by hcetSJ (#28121373) Attached to: Understanding Addiction-Based Game Design

Are there specific elements of the design that can be pulled out, distilled, and used at will to give a game drug-like properties? Is it wrong to do so?

Might as well be asking:

Are there specific compounds in cigarettes that can be used to make them addictive? Is it wrong to do so?

The fact of the matter is that cigarette companies (and computer game companies) have no one to answer to but their customers and share holders, and both will be happiest when they produce the most addictive product possible. 'Right' or 'wrong' is irrelevant to them, only 'legal' and 'illegal,' so if we want to prevent the creation of addictive games, our only recourse is legislation.

Further reading: Supercapitalism by Robert Reich

Comment "e": The Story of A Number (Score 2, Interesting) 630

by hcetSJ (#26777131) Attached to: Mathematics Reading List For High School Students?
by Eli Maor. ISBN: 0691141347 I read this book the summer before taking calculus, and I learned the core concepts of calculus from it (limit, derivative, integral, fundamental theorem). I still had to learn the specifics in class, but having that conceptual foundation made everything easier. The book is full of interesting historical tidbits. For instance, did you know that the inventor/discoverer of the logarithm was excommunicated from the Catholic Church? I don't remember the circumstances now--I suppose Google could help, but I know it's in this book.

Comment Re:Captchas need to evolve (Score 1) 167

by hcetSJ (#24809827) Attached to: Inside India's CAPTCHA Solving Economy
Um, they speak English in India. At least, it's relatively common there compared to other parts of Asia (comes with the former-English-colony territory).

I've also seen a prediction that in some small number of years (like 10), China will become the world's largest English-speaking nation.
Displays

Computer Optional For AOC's New HD Display 118

Posted by kdawson from the now-that's-convergence dept.
MojoKid writes "As a 22-inch, HD flat-panel display, AOC's new 2230Fm LCD has nothing necessarily earth-shattering about its design. But what got our attention was the marketing tag for the device: 'No PC Required.' It turns out that, in addition to being a traditional flat-screen LCD with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050 (HDCP ready), the 2230Fm also includes a built-in media player, with what AOC calls its HD3 technology. The 2230Fm supports MPEG-1, 2, and 4 video formats. Supported audio formats include MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, FLA, and M4A. Supported photo formats include JPG, TIFF, PNG, BMP, and GIF images with resolutions up to 8000 x 8000 pixels. The display also has a low 2ms response time and high 20,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio."

Visual Exploration of Complex Networks 90

Posted by timothy from the rock-hammer-for-scale dept.
jweebo writes "Seed magazine has a story on complexity, and how it can be visually represented with fascinating results. From the article: 'Complexity is everywhere. It's a structural and organizational principle that reaches almost every field imaginable, from genetics and social networks to food webs and stock markets ...Collected here are a few of the many intriguing, and often beautiful, images that illustrate how the whole is more than the sum of its parts.'"

Torvalds on the Microkernel Debate 607

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the never-met-a-pointer-i-could-trust dept.
diegocgteleline.es writes "Linus Torvalds has chimed in on the recently flamed-up (again) micro vs monolithic kernel, but this time with an interesting and unexpected point of view. From the article: 'The real issue, and it's really fundamental, is the issue of sharing address spaces. Nothing else really matters. Everything else ends up flowing from that fundamental question: do you share the address space with the caller or put in slightly different terms: can the callee look at and change the callers state as if it were its own (and the other way around)?'"

ABC Launches Full Episode Streaming 261

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-thats-something-anyway dept.
Cjattwood writes "ABC.com has launched their free online episode streaming service earlier today. Shows available include Lost and Alias among others, and are available to watch for free, albeit with ads and commercials. It works pretty well so far, although no Linux support yet as it requires Flash 8." The first episode of Lost on there is a clip show. You can skip around to a segment of the show, but are forced through a commercial before you play. The quality is approximately what you would expect from flash video.

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