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Comment Re:Contagiousness (Score 1) 475

by kwrzesien (#48039305) Attached to: Ebola Has Made It To the United States

Furthermore HIV is similar to Ebola and it has never become airborne. Even in the laboratory conditions when they tried to make it airborne it lost its lethality. For a virus to gain a function it usually loses a function too. In the last 100 years no known virus has gone from being contact transmission (including droplets - still fluids just traveling a short distance through the air) to "airborne" transmission via aerosols (dry virus floating in the air).

http://www.virology.ws/2014/09...

Comment Re:Price difference? (Score 1) 65

by kwrzesien (#47964943) Attached to: 2 Mars Missions Set For Arrival, Both Prepare for Orbital Maneuvers

15 days faster! Speed costs you money... (MAVEN launched November 18th, 2013, MOM launched November 5th 2013 and will get there Tuesday EST, two days after MAVEN)

Also the MAVEN has state-of-the-art science on board - this isn't our first dance with Mars. MOM is more of a test bed to prove ISRO has the launch facilities and technology to send interplanetary probes, now they can vie for more ambitious projects.

Comment Re:It's not really that bad (Score 1) 221

by kwrzesien (#47938983) Attached to: Obama Presses Leaders To Speed Ebola Response

No, it was more like 77% in Guinea back in May when it was almost controlled - no new cases for two weeks in the two major treatment centers - and with new cases getting quickly identified and taken to treatment there was a better chance for survival. Liberia has never been getting proper treatment and monitoring, the people are resisting or running, and all beds are taken at the few facilities they do have and have been turning away obviously symptomatic patients for three weeks.

Don't fall into the trap of dividing the number of currently known cases by the number of currently known dead. There is a 9-14 day window before death or recovery is for certain. If you divide the most recent numbers for death by 14 days ago cases the result is more like 70-80% depending on which of the three countries you look at.
Earth

New Interactive Map For Understanding Global Flood Risks 64

Posted by timothy from the seek-out-higher-ground dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Using computations on the massive near-global SRTM surface model from NASA, this map lets you query watersheds, interactively set the sea-level and flood the world (North America at 500m increase in sea-level), or play around with river thresholds on a global or regional scale (computed rivers around NYC/NJ). It can be used to get an understanding of the watersheds and water flow paths in your local neighborhood; do you know where rain (or pollutants) that falls in your backyard end up? The map is freely available to the public."
IBM

IBM Looking To Sell Its Semiconductor Business 195

Posted by Soulskill from the offloading-all-the-hardware dept.
jfruh writes "Having already gotten out of the low-end server market, IBM appears to be trying to get out of the chip business as well. The company currently manufactures Power Architecture chips for its own use and for other customers. Big Blue wants to sell off its manufacturing operations, but will continue to design its own chips."
Science

Graphene Conducts Electricity Ten Times Better Than Expected 161

Posted by Soulskill from the keeping-you-current-on-graphene dept.
ananyo writes "Physicists have produced nanoribbons of graphene — the single-atom-thick carbon — that conduct electrons better than theory predicted even for the most idealized form of the material (abstract). The finding could help graphene realize its promise in high-end electronics, where researchers have long hoped it could outperform traditional materials such as silicon. In graphene, electrons can move faster than in any other material at room temperature. But techniques that cut sheets of graphene into the narrow ribbons needed to form wires of a nano-scale circuit leave ragged edges, which disrupt the electron flow. Now a team led by physicist Walt de Heer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta has made ribbons that conduct electric charges for more than 10 micrometres without meeting resistance — 1,000 times farther than in typical graphene nanoribbons. The ribbons made by de Heer's team in fact conduct electrons ten times better than standard theories of electron transport they should, say the authors."
Security

20 Million People Exposed In Massive South Korea Data Leak 53

Posted by timothy from the at-least-everyone's-using-msie dept.
wiredmikey writes "While the recent data breach that hit Target has dominated headlines lately, another massive data breach was disclosed this week that affected at least 20 million people in South Korea. According to regulators, the personal data including names, social security numbers, phone numbers, credit card numbers and expiration dates of at least 20 million bank and credit card users was taken by a temporary consultant working at the Korea Credit Bureau (KCB). The consultant later sold the data to phone marketing companies, but has since been arrested along with mangers at the companies he sold the stolen data to. A similar insider-attack occurred at Vodafone late last year when a contractor made off with the personal data of two million customers from a server located in Germany. According to a study from PwC, organizations have made little progress developing defenses against both internal and external attackers, and insiders pose just as great a security risk to organizations as outside attackers."

Comment Re:Tesla (Score 1) 327

by kwrzesien (#45484605) Attached to: Monthly net electricity use in my household:
Just checked with my Georgia Power website, my average is 120 while min is 37 (about five months a year) and max is 550 (about four months a year). I'm amazed the range, apparently it is all due to the A/C in the heat of the summer here in Atlanta.

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