An anonymous reader writes "The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could be stopped with an underground nuclear blast, a Russian newspaper reports. Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. The idea is simple, KP writes: 'The underground explosion moves the rock, presses on it, and, in essence, squeezes the well's channel.' It's so simple, in fact, that the Soviet Union used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities, and it only didn't work once."

theodp writes "Google says it's declined to pursue awesome job prospects to avoid an over-concentration of brilliance at the search giant. Speaking at the Supernova conference, Google VP Bradley Horowitz said the company intentionally leaves some brainpower outside its walls: 'I recently had a discussion with an engineer at Google and I pointed out a handful of people that I thought were fruitful in the industry and I proposed that we should hire these people,' said Horowitz. 'But [the engineer] stopped me and said: "These people are actually important to have outside of Google. They're very Google people that have the right philosophies around these things, and it's important that we not hire these guys. It's better for the ecosystem to have an honest industry, as opposed to aggregating all this talent at Google."'"

As Google Wave is about to be released to 100,000 beta testers tomorrow, reader snitch writes in with a link to an in-depth interview with Dhanji Prasanna, whose title is Core Engineer. It covers some of the technologies, tools, and best practices used in building Wave. "InfoQ: Would you like to give us a short technical outline of what happens to a message (blip) from the moment a user types it in the web client, until becomes available to every one else that is participating in that wave — humans or robots? ... Dhanji: Sure, a message written in the client is transformed into a series of operations that are sent to the server in real time. After authenticating and finding the appropriate user session, the ops are routed to the hosted conversation. Here these ops are transformed and applied against other incoming op streams from other users. The hosted conversation then broadcasts the valid set of changes back to other users, and to any listening robots. This includes special robots like the ones that handle spell checking, and one that handles livesearch (seen in the center search-panel), as well as explicit robotic participants that people have developed. Robotic participants write their changes in response to a user's and these are similarly converted into ops, applied and re-broadcast."

theodp writes "A week after new USPTO Director David Kappos pooh-poohed the idea that a lower patent allowance rate equals higher quality, Google was granted a patent on its Home Page. Subject to how the design patent is enforced, Google now owns the idea of having a giant search box in the middle of the page, with two big buttons underneath and several small links nearby. And you doubted Google's commitment to patent reform, didn't you?"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "It seems that SCO is never without a trick up its sleeve. In the new '$100 million' reorganization plan, $5 million of which is cash and $95 million credit, one of the creditors is protesting because SCO is hiding the Definitive Documents until there's no time to object. In their own words, 'The debtors are proposing to file the Disclosure Statement 33 days before the hearing, in compliance with the requirement that it be filed at least 25 days before the hearing (F. R. Bankr. P. 3017). However, it is clear that this Disclosure Statement will be inadequate for evaluating the Plan, because it will not include any of the Definitive Documents. The Debtors are proposing to file the Definitive Documents separately, and to do so a mere five business days before the hearing, which is zero days before objections are due.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "As many as three American Airlines passenger jets will be outfitted this spring with laser technology intended to protect planes from missile attacks. The tests, which could involve more than 1,000 flights, will determine how the technology holds up under the rigors of flight. The technology is intended to stop attacks by detecting heat from missiles, then responding in a fraction of a second by firing laser beams to jam the missiles' guidance systems. A Rand study in 2005 estimated it would cost about $11 billion to protect every US airliner from shoulder-fired missiles. Over 20 years, the cost to develop, procure and operate anti-missile systems could hit $40 billion."

mhackarbie writes "The current edition of the New Yorker magazine has up a story about endogenous retroviruses in the genomes of humans and other species. Although researchers have known about such non-functional retroviral 'fossils' in the human genome for some time, the large amount of recent genomic data underscores just how pervasive they are, in a compelling tale that involves humans, their primate cousins, and a variety of viral invaders. Some researchers are even bringing back non-functional viral remnants from the dead by fixing their broken genes."

coondoggie writes to tell us that NASA has announced a new low-cost satellite that could be ideal for those who wish to get into space quickly and (relatively) inexpensively. "The Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology SATellite (FASTSAT) is 39.5 inches in diameter — not much larger than an exercise ball. It is hexagonally shaped and clocks in at a little less than 200 Lbs. It can carry a payload up to 110 Lbs. [...] NASA said FASTSAT is just the right size for earth observing missions, space science missions, and technology demonstrations. 'We think we can do whole missions for less than $10 million instead of the traditional $100s of millions, and that includes the launch vehicle, the satellite, and the widget you want to test,' said Marshall Space Flight Center's Edward 'Sandy' Montgomery in a release."

trogador writes to mention that a group of researchers is taking another swing at the idea of a cyclogyro design for a UAV. Even though the cyclogyro design was invented in the 1930's there are no records of a successful flight. "Cyclogyros have the potential to be highly maneuverable flying robots due to their method of operation, making them potentially more suitable for complex tasks than helicopters and other micro air vehicles (MAVs) with less maneuverability. The biggest challenge in designing the cyclogyros is varying the angle of attack of the rotating wings. This ability would enable the plan to change altitude, hover, and fly in reverse. To achieve this quick angle variation, the researchers introduced an eccentric (rotational) point in addition to a rotational point connected to a motor."

eldavojohn writes "A meteorite struck in Peru on Saturday leaving cinders, rock & water boiling out of the ground. Villagers nearby reported headaches & vomiting and attributed it to the event. From the article, 'Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said. Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.' It's not yet clear whether this is from the meteorite, gas trapped underground that was released or a chemical reaction between the two."

qubezz writes "The company MediaDefender works with the RIAA and MPAA against piracy, setting up fake torrents and trackers and disrupting p2p traffic. Previously, the TorrentFreak site accused them of setting up a fake internet video download site designed to catch and bust users. MediaDefender denied the entrapment charges. Now 700MB of MediaDefender's internal emails from the last 6 months have been leaked onto BitTorrent trackers. The emails detail their entire plan, including how they intended to distance themselves from the fake company they set up and future strategies. Other pieces of company information were included in the emails such as logins and passwords, wage negotiations, and numerous other aspect of their internal business."

rishimathew writes to tell us TechNewsWorld is reporting that the new RealPlayer 11, not even out of beta yet, has a lot of great new features including the ability to easily rip streaming videos from sites like YouTube, Revver, and Heavy.com. "With the release of RealPlayer 11, the company is boldly moving into another dicey realm: ripping streaming video. Sure, there are lots of means out there to capture video from sites like YouTube Latest News about YouTube, Revver, Heavy.com and such. There are programs like WM Recorder (US$49.95) and Replay A/V ($49.95), as well as Web sites like Keepvid.com and Mozilla Latest News about Mozilla Foundation Firefox add-ons like VideoDownloader. I've tried some of them. Few, though, can match the slick ease of use of RealPlayer 11 -- and it isn't even out of beta yet."

PoliTech writes "iPhone bills are surprisingly large - 'Xbox Large', according to Ars technica: 'AT&T's iPhone bills are quite impressive in their own right. We're starting to get bills for the iPhone here at Ars, and while many of us have had smartphones for some time, we've never seen a bill like this. One of our bills is a whopping 52 pages long, and my own bill is 34 pages long. They're printed on both sides, too. What gives? The AT&T bill itemizes your data usage whenever you surf the Internet via EDGE, even if you're signed up for the unlimited data plan. AT&T also goes into an incredible amount of detail to tell you; well, almost nothing. For instance, I know that on July 27 at 3:21 p.m. I had some data use that, under the To/From heading, AT&T has helpfully listed as Data Transfer. The Type of file? Data. My total charge? $0.00. This mind-numbing detail goes on for 52 double-sided pages (for 104 printed pages!) with absolutely no variance except the size of the files.' You would think that a data company would have a more efficient billing process."

An anonymous reader writes to let us know that a new X-Files movie is in pre-production, directed and written by Chris Carter and starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. Duchovny said in an interview that his understanding is that filming will start in November for a summer 2008 release. The article notes that in an earlier interview, Anderson said the film "would stay away from the series' (and first film's) sometimes tortured mythology" (quoting the article, not Anderson).