proteonic - Slashdot User

Solar Cycle 24 Has Started 258

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday January 06, 2008 @10:20AM from the tell-me-where-the-flare-is dept.

radioweather writes "Solar physicists have been waiting for the appearance of a reversed-polarity sunspot to signal the start of the next solar cycle. As of Friday, that wait is over. A magnetically reversed, high-latitude sunspot emerged on the surface of the sun. Just a few months ago, an 'All Quiet Alert' had been issued for the sun. This reversed-polarity sunspot marks the beginning of the sun's return back to Solar Maximum. Solar Cycle 24 has been the subject of much speculation due to competing forecasts on whether it will be a highly active or a quiet low cycle. If it is a low cycle, it may very well be a test of validity for some CO2 based global warming theories. Only time will tell."

Notebook with Huge 20 Inch Screen Reviewed 307

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday June 07, 2006 @04:07PM from the desktop-replacement-not-laptop dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Trusted reviews has a look at the Acer Aspire 9800. This massive machine has a 20.1" screen, two 120GB hard drives in a RAID 0 array, super-multi DVD burner, analogue and digital TV tuners and an Intel Core Duo dual core CPU. And at over 17lb you can even use it for weight training!"

Comment Re:Evolution was not predicted, but observed (Score 1) 298

by proteonic on Saturday May 20, 2006 @08:57PM (#15373860) Attached to: Is Evolution Predictable?

The interesting thing about this experiment is not the fact that the bacteria developed adaptatory mutations in a given gene to deal with increased heat, as much as the fact that when the experiment was repeated, the same mutations were observed in the same gene in the DOMINANT bacterial strains at various time points.

Think about it.

It suggests that in a given species, there seems to be an optimal adaptation to a given set of environmental conditions, that is determined by the genetic make up of the population prior to attaining those conditions, and the path that the changes in those conditions take through time.

While that's just a paraphrasing of the definition of evolution, I don't believe anyone has shown that a given evolutionary path is experimentally reproducible.

The title of the aritcle is misleading though. Evolution is not being predicted. But if you've seen it once, it may be predictable.

Cutting Off an Over-Demanding End-User? 466

Posted by Cliff on Monday May 08, 2006 @08:55PM from the gently-saying-"no" dept.

SpaceNeeded asks: "Numbers of you will probably recognize the start of the situation. Because I work with systems, I perform occasional builds. This occasionally crosses over to support (especially where it's my kit I'm asked to support). This isn't a problem, nor is it a problem when I get the occasional support query from someone I haven't supplied a system to, but who needs assistance. This is all well and good, but I've had pretty poor year personally. I've lost two relatives and a third is in a pretty bad way in hospital. An eleven year relationship ended a couple of months back, and I'm now having to perform _all_ the domestic tasks that used to be shared. Between these few things and my regular job I'm finding I have a whole lot less time to allow to support calls. What methods do you know of for gently cutting off someone, support-wise?"

Fake Scientific Paper Detector 277

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday April 25, 2006 @04:22PM from the paper-unnoticed-amidst-conference-white-noise dept.

moon_monkey writes "Ever wondered whether a scientific paper was actually written by a robot? A new program developed by researchers at Indiana University promises to tell you one way or the other. It was actually developed in response to a prank by MIT researchers who generated a paper from random bits of text and got it accepted for a conference."

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