destinyland writes "Falling costs and garage tinkering are creating a grass roots movement of amateur biologists whose research is more transparent than that of academia. They are building lab equipment using common household items and even synthesizing new organisms, and their transparency also allows the social pressure which creates more ethical research. DIY Bio.org fosters lab co-ops for large equipment and provokes important discussions. (Would it be ethical to release a homegrown symbiote that cures scurvy in hundreds of thousands of people?) This movement could someday lead to bottom-up remedies for disease, fuel-generating microbes, or even a social-networked disease-tracking epidemiology. 'In much the same way that homebrew computer science built the world we live in today, garage biology can affect the future we make for ourselves,' argues h+ magazine, which featured the article in their summer issue."

ryanguill writes "Wired has an article about expanding your five (maybe six) senses to allow you to sense other things such as direction. It also talks about hijacking other senses to compensate for missing senses, such as using electrodes in your mouth to compensate for lack of eyesight. Another example is a subject wearing a belt with 13 vibrating pads. The pad pointing north would vibrate giving you a sense of direction no matter your orientation: '"It was slightly strange at first," Wächter says, "though on the bike, it was great." He started to become more aware of the peregrinations he had to make while trying to reach a destination. "I finally understood just how much roads actually wind," he says. He learned to deal with the stares he got in the library, his belt humming like a distant chain saw. Deep into the experiment, Wächter says, "I suddenly realized that my perception had shifted. I had some kind of internal map of the city in my head. I could always find my way home. Eventually, I felt I couldn't get lost, even in a completely new place."'"

Ponca City, We love you writes "The number of children with asthma has been rising for many years. About 1 in 10 children in the UK develop asthma, compared with about 1 in 25 in the 1960s. The reason for this isn't clear, although several theories have been put forward such as keeping our homes cleaner, and having central heating and more soft furnishings where house dust mites can multiply. Now based on more than 3,000 children whose respiratory health was tracked from birth to 11.5 years of age, researchers have found a new correlation with young children who spend more than two hours glued to the TV every day doubling their subsequent risk of developing asthma. 'This study has shown for the first time a positive association between increased duration of reported TV viewing in early childhood and the development of asthma by 11.5 years of age in children with no symptoms of asthma in early childhood,' said the researchers, led by A. Sherriff, from the University of Glasgow. It's not clear exactly how sedentary behaviors like television watching are tied to asthma, but there is some evidence to suggest exercise and deep breaths that come with it stretch the smooth muscles in the airways, while lack of exercise may make the lungs overly sensitive. The results add asthma to a catalog of undesirable outcomes, including obesity, diabetes, smoking, and promiscuity, tied to TV viewing."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Assemblymen Jonathan Bing and Micah Kellner, along with a number of co-sponsors, have introduced proposed legislation in New York State which would grant a tax credit to individuals acting as volunteers who develop open source programs. The idea of the credit is to ensure that volunteer developers, who could not otherwise deduct their expenses because they are not part of a 'business,' should nevertheless be able to receive a tax benefit for their contribution. The credit would be for 20% of the expenses incurred, up to $200. The preamble to the bill notes that the New York State Assembly itself currently uses 'Open Source programs such as Mozilla for email, Firefox for web browsing, and WebCal for electronic calendars,' and that these programs have led to significant cost savings to taxpayers. The preamble also cited a 2006 report authored by John Irons and Carl Malamud from the Center for American Progress detailing how Open Source software enhances a broader dissemination of knowledge and ideas."

CWmike writes "A just-leaked build of Windows 7 lets users remove Internet Explorer, the first time that Microsoft has offered the option since it integrated the browser with Windows in 1997, two bloggers reported today. The move might have been prompted by recent charges by the European Union that Microsoft has stifled browser competition by bundling IE with its operating system, the bloggers speculated. One solution under consideration by the EU would require Microsoft to disable IE if the user decided to install a different browser, such as Mozilla's Firefox or Google's Chrome. Microsoft had no comment when asked to confirm whether Windows 7 will let users dump IE8 or whether the option was in reaction to the EU charges."

Hugh Pickens writes "California Assemblyman Joel Anderson plans to introduce a bill to force Google Earth and similar services to blur images of so-called 'soft targets' like schools, hospitals, churches and government buildings to protect them from terrorists. 'All I'm trying to do is stop terrorists,' said Anderson. 'I don't want California to be helping map out future targets for terrorists.' Concerns that detailed satellite imagery and photographs available on Web services could help terrorists plan attacks are not new, with reports that terrorists have used such imagery to carry out attacks in Iraq and Israel, and an Indian court is considering a ban on Google Earth following reports that its imagery played a part in the Mumbai terrorist attacks."

A story at CongressDaily points out that the Entertainment Software Alliance (ESA) is busily lobbying for policies to spur broadband adoption across the country. "Opportunities to play games online and download games and game-related content from a range of legitimate download services help drive demand for broadband, the Entertainment Software Association said in a briefing paper sent to President Obama's transition team. 'We're the only form of entertainment online that's interactive — movies and music are linear.' Gallagher told CongressDaily. 'We're very pleased with the president's strong embracing of broadband deployment as a high value goal for our country.' The $6 billion-plus in broadband funds in Obama's economic stimulus package was a good start, he added. Gallagher's group also supports efforts to free up wireless spectrum as gaming moves from PCs and plasma screens to handheld devices."

CWmike writes "Red Hat used to be in the desktop business along with all the other Linux distributors. Then, they left. Now, however, Red Hat is switching from Xen to KVM for virtualization. As part of that switchover, Red Hat will be using not only KVM, but the SolidICE/SPICE desktop virtualization and management software suite to introduce a new server-based desktop virtualization system. Does this mean that Red Hat will be getting back into the Linux desktop business? That's the question I posed to Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, in a phone call after the Red Hat/KVM press conference, and he told me that, 'Yes. Red Hat will indeed be pushing the Linux desktop again.'"

bossanovalithium writes to tell us that details are emerging about the theft of a top secret prototype mobile device stolen from an executive's pocket. Time to start watching eBay. "There are fears that leaks regarding the features and early bugs in the software could mar the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 which the company hopes will give it the edge over the iPhone and the new Google Android operating system. The new product includes support for touch-screen technology similar to that found on the Apple iPhone. Among the features offered in the new service unveiled by Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, on Tuesday, is a version of Windows Marketplace for Mobiles, which is set to compete with the popular Apple's App Store and provide easy ways to download music and products to mobiles. "

Several readers have remarked on a new technique developed by scientists at UC Berkeley and University of Massachusetts Amherst that has the promise of achieving storage densities of 10 terabits per square inch. "The method lets microscopic nanoscale elements precisely assemble themselves over large surfaces. ... Xu explained that the molecules in the thin film of block copolymers — two or more chemically dissimilar polymer chains linked together — self-assemble into an extremely precise, equidistant pattern when spread out on a surface... Russell and Xu conceived of the elegantly simple solution of layering the film of block copolymers onto the surface of a commercially available sapphire crystal. When the crystal is cut at an angle... and heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade... for 24 hours, its surface reorganizes into a highly ordered pattern of sawtooth ridges that can then be used to guide the self-assembly of the block polymers."

suraj.sun notes CNet reporting on bills filed in the US House and Senate that would require all ISPs and operators of Wi-Fi hotspots — including home users — to maintain access logs for 2 years to aid in law enforcement. The bills were filed by Republicans, but the article notes that the idea of forcing data retention has been popular on both sides of the aisle over the years. "Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that... would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates. ... Each [bill] contains the same language: 'A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user [i.e., DHCP].'"

nickull writes "Microsoft is tracking incompatible Web sites for its upcoming Internet Explorer 8 browser and has posted a list that now contains about 2,400 names — including Microsoft.com. Apparently, even though Microsoft's IE8 team is doing the 'right' thing by finally making IE more standards-compliant, they are risking 'breaking the Web' because the vast majority of Web sites are still written to work correctly with previous, non-standards-compliant versions of IE."

CWmike writes "Attackers are already exploiting a bug in Internet Explorer 7 that Microsoft patched just last week, security researchers warned today. Although the attacks are currently in 'very, very small numbers,' they may be just the forerunner of a larger campaign, said Trend Micro's Jamz Yaneza. 'I see this as a proof-of-concept,' said Yaneza, who noted that the exploit's payload is extremely straightforward and explained that there has been no attempt to mask it by, say, planting a root kit on the victimized PC at the same time. 'I wouldn't be surprised to see this [exploit] show up in one of those Chinese exploit kits,' he added. The new attack code, which Trend Micro dubbed 'XML_Dloadr.a,' arrives in a spam message as a malicious file masquerading as a Microsoft Word document."