Posted
by
samzenpus
from the update-your-resume dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Wanted: Bright graduate student to assist world-famous scientist. International travel, developing computer systems and dealing with the press required.
Renowned astrophysicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking has announced he is looking for a graduate student to work for him for one to two years. Dust off those CVs, kids!"
Posted
by
Zonk
from the need-better-than-a-jar dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In 'Shooting the moon,' the San Diego Union-Tribune describes how and why physicists from UCSD are using lasers to send light pulses in direction of an array of reflectors installed on our moon in 1969 by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. One of the goals of these experiments is to check the validity of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Another one is to measure the distance between the Earth and moon with a precision of one millimeter by catching photons after their round trip to the moon. But it is amazing to realize how difficult it is to capture photons after such a trip. I also have up a summary, which contains additional details and pictures, if you just want to learn how difficult it is to capture photons back from the moon."
An anonymous reader writes "Businesses and individuals in Britain may soon have to give their encryption keys to the police or face imprisonment. The UK government has said it will bring in the new powers to address a rise in the use of encryption by criminals and terrorists." From the article: "Some security experts are concerned that the plan could criminalise innocent people and drive businesses out of the UK. But the Home Office, which has just launched a consultation process, says the powers contained in Part 3 are needed to combat an increased use of encryption by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists. 'The use of encryption is... proliferating,' Liam Byrne, Home Office minister of state told Parliament last week. 'Encryption products are more widely available and are integrated as security features in standard operating systems, so the Government has concluded that it is now right to implement the provisions of Part 3 of RIPA... which is not presently in force.'"
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the at-least-it-wasn't-an-april-fools-joke dept.
Slippy Douglas writes "Apparently, Apple has made good on one of the 30th anniversary product rumours. Apple today announced the Boot Camp Public Beta, which allows Intel Macs to easily and legally multi-boot. Boot Camp will be a standard feature in Mac OS X 10.5."
Stuart Gibson writes "As predicted, the Gnarls Barkely single 'Crazy' has reached the number one spot on the official UK charts, based solely on legal downloads. The CD version of the single will not be released until tomorrow. This is the first single to be eligible for the honour as, until last month, download sales would only be counted if the track was also available to be bought as a physical copy."
Datagod asks: "Has anyone ever calculated the temperature you would need to be able to slice through steel like it was thin air? How hot would a light saber really need to be? Also, I am assuming that at least some of the metal would be vaporized and the expanding gas would fling bits of molten metal at the saber wielder. Wouldn't your average Jedi be horribly scarred from all this."