spencebot - Slashdot User

Comment Re:its a story because (Score 1) 547

by spencebot on Tuesday August 17, 2010 @10:57PM (#33284336) Attached to: ISPs Lie About Broadband "Up To" Speeds

Power supplies for computers kind of work like this. Many of them advertise their peak power (a few advertise the rms), but obviously peak power is not nearly as meaningful. Wiki has some other good examples on their "power handling" page.

Naphthalene Found In Outer Space 180

Posted by timothy on Saturday September 20, 2008 @10:38PM from the wake-me-up-when-they-find-remulac dept.

Adam Korbitz writes with an excerpt from his blog on an exciting discovery in space: "A team of researchers led by Spanish scientists has published their discovery of the complex molecule naphthalene in an interstellar star-forming cloud, indicating many prebiotic organic molecules necessary for life as we know it could have been present when our own solar system formed. According to the new research — published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters — the naphthalene molecules were discovered 700 light-years from Earth in a star-forming region of the constellation Perseus, in the direction of the star Cernis 52."

The Tell-All Campus Tour 34

Posted by timothy on Saturday September 20, 2008 @03:22PM from the oh-it's-probably-not-all dept.

theodp writes "Want to check out colleges without the bother of having to read about them? Well, my YouTube-loving friend, the NY Times reports that old-school elephantine dead-tree college guidebooks may be a thing of the past thanks to startup unigo.com, which has launched a free, gigantic, student-generated web-based guide to North American colleges that's laden with photos, Flip-shot videos and reviews (OK, you may have to do some reading)."

US Army To Develop "Thought Helmets" 226

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday September 20, 2008 @05:09AM from the better-than-"thought-pants"-i-guess dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Time Magazine reports on a $4 million US Army contract to begin developing 'thought helmets' to harness silent brain waves for secure communication among troops that the Army hopes will 'lead to direct mental control of military systems by thought alone.' The Army's initial goal is to capture brain waves with software that translates the waves into audible radio messages for other troops in the field. 'It'd be radio without a microphone,' says Dr. Elmar Schmeisser, the Army neuroscientist overseeing the program. 'Because soldiers are already trained to talk in clean, clear and formulaic ways, it would be a very small step to have them think that way.' The key challenge will be to develop software able to pinpoint speech-related brain waves and pick them up with a 128-sensor array that ultimately will be buried inside a helmet. Scientists deny charges that they're messing with soldiers' minds. 'A lot of people interpret wires coming out of the head as some sort of mind reading,' says Dr. Mike D'Zmura. 'But there's no way you can get there from here.' One potential civilian spin-off: a Bluetooth Helmet so people nearby can't hear you when you talk on your cell phone."

Feed Science Daily: Origin Of Perennial Water-ice At South Pole Of Mars (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Monday July 16, 2007 @12:13AM

Thanks to data from ESA's Mars Express mission, combined with models of the Martian climate, scientists can now suggest how the orbit of Mars around the sun affects the deposition of water-ice at the Martian South Pole.

Submission + - MIT finds cure for fear (pressesc.com)

Submitted by

Doom con runs away

on Monday July 16, 2007 @12:03AM

Doom con runs away writes: "MIT biochemists have identified a molecular mechanism behind fear, and successfully cured it in mice, according to an article in the journal Nature Neuroscience. They did this by inhibiting a kinase, an enzyme that change proteins, called Cdk5, which facilitates the extinction of fear learned in a particular context."

Journal Journal: Protecting Our Children... From Ideology

Journal by gbulmash on Sunday July 15, 2007 @10:14PM

I've seen a lot of people shouting about how we have to protect our kids from porn on the Internet. But what about protecting them from ideology? Why is it not okay for someone to show my kid a picture of a bare breast, but it is okay for them to try to convert my child to their religion or political party? So, is ideology as dangerous as porn? If so, shouldn't we be doing as much to protect our kids from ideology as we'r

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