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Comment Creating life (Score 4, Insightful) 245

by stinkwinkerton (#19736731) Attached to: Synthetic Biology For Natural Fuel
I guess what is freaking me out on this (probably too much science fiction) is the whole "creating new life" thing. I don't consider myself a deeply religious guy, so it isn't that. It is more along the lines of the fact that we can barely understand what is going on with the life that CURRENTLY exists. That, and and the potential for this new type of life to make it into the ecosystem with unknown ramifications. Kind of like when a species from another continent hitches a ride on a cargo ship or something and decimates the native species. I realize that there is nothing we can do to stop the wheels of progress, I just wish there were a common code of ethics that was enforceable but not constraining to research and development. What a conundrum!

Comment Re:Predicting? How about controlling? (Score 1) 114

by jellisky (#19132187) Attached to: Hurricane's Eye Reveals a New Power Source
As one of those researchers seeking that more complete understanding, I can tell you that we're finding out that things are a whole lot more complex than expected. We're just discovering the physical processes that force some of the vital parts of the hurricane vortex. Rainbands are still a topic of active research and things like concentric (secondary) eyewalls are just beginning to have the spotlights turned on them. (Interestingly, there was a lull in hurricane research from about 1985 to 1995 (coincident with the tail end of the quiet Atlantic period). The field has exploded in popularity in the last ten years, though, thanks to some terrific new data sources and technological advances (computing, instrumentation like radar, satellite).)

Truthfully, and this is my humble informed opinion... controllable weather modification is still several decades away, at best. And that sort of stuff will be individual thunderstorm modification. I don't think the technology to even produce a significant, predictable change to something as powerful as the hurricane vortex is here yet.

It's definitely interesting stuff to think about, though.

-Jellisky
NASA

Tatooine's Double-Sunset a Common Sight 132

Posted by Zonk from the double-shadows-means-twice-as-scary dept.
anthemaniac writes "Thirty years ago, Luke Skywalker beheld something that scientists are just now realizing is likely quite common in the universe: double sunsets. Astronomers have long known that binary star systems are common. And models suggested that planets could form in these systems, even though there's a double-tug of gravity on the material that would have to form a planet. Observations from NASA's Spitzer telescope, show that binary systems are just as likely to be surrounded by planet-forming debris disks are are lone stars."
Education

Journal Journal: Genealogy Website Publishes Immigrants' Documents

Journal by taketheleap
CBC is reporting about a new online database website, ancestorsonboard.com, allows users to search through more than 30 million passengers of ships destined for Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand and the United States from as far back as 1890. The site's search can be narrowed by name, port of departure, destination country and destination port.
AMD/OSTG

Vendor AMD Announces New PC Case Standard

Submitted by OSTG Marketing
AMD is doing their part to spread small form-factor PCs with DTX . DTX is an open specification which will help vendors "make solutions that are 'smaller, quieter and desktop-friendly,' and also competes with Mini-ITX and its related form factors." "AMD said the standard would define just the minimum set of parameters necessary for interoperability, which would give vendors some room to create designs on their own. DTX should allo
Communications

What Solar Equipment to Power Disaster Recovery? 84

Posted by Cliff from the soak-up-the-sun dept.
MailtoDelete asks: "I work with a team that is involved with disaster recovery efforts after natural disasters, like Katrina. We have satellite based equipment that allows us to bring data connections up in devastated areas to help bring the infrastructure back online to serve the public. I have looked at the main networking equipment and determined that the power draw is usually low (about 50 watts) and was curious about the possibility of using a small solar setup to power the equipment rather than running a 8-10kw generator to do the same work (after all, fuel may be scarce). Can anyone suggest a good site or book that I can look into that would help me learn more about what equipment would best serve my purpose? There is a small business in town that does this sort of work, and they have suggested a 550 watt array with the controllers, etc for about $5100. Does this sound reasonable?"
Power

Submission + - Which rechargeable batteries?

Submitted by
kramer2718
kramer2718 writes: "I go through a lot of batteries in my digital camera, remote controls, etc. I'd like to go to the rechargeable route for the environment and for my pocketbook, but I don't know which rechargeable batteries are the best. Can the Slashdot readers out there give me some advice about which brand and types of batteries work well?"
Hardware Hacking

A 3D Printer On Every Desktop? 426

Posted by kdawson from the abs-fab dept.
holy_calamity writes "Two Cornell researchers have designed an open source 3D printer that costs just $2,400. The self-assembly kit is part of what they call the Fab@Home project — they hope it will spark development of rapid prototyping for the consumer market in the same way the Altair 8800 did for personal computing in seventies." Here is a video showing a completed machine constructing a silicone bulb (16-MB WMV).
Update: 01/10 04:02 GMT by KD : The developers of this kit are at Cornell, not Carnegie Mellon University as the original post erroneously stated.

A Fully Programmable Mobile Robot 86

Posted by kdawson from the aye,-robot dept.
paxmaniac writes "iRobot has announced Create: a new fully programmable mobile robot based on the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. People have been hacking the Roomba since the day it came out. Well, hacking just got a whole lot easier. A command module for the Create provides a programmable 8-bit Atmel micro controller, four DB-9 ports for your own sensors, and a number of sample programs that can be compiled and uploaded to the command module via USB. Botmag has more details and some cool applications. This looks like the perfect robotics platform for hobbyists, schools, and universities alike."
Privacy

Germany Searches Credit Cards For Child Porn Payments 283

Posted by kdawson from the variable-pricing-coming-soon dept.
narramissic writes "According to an ITworld article, police in the German state of Sachsen-Anhalt have teamed with credit card companies to sift through the transactions of over 22 million customers looking for those who may have purchased child pornography online. To date they have identified 322 suspects." From the article: "German data privacy laws allow police to ask financial institutions to provide data about individuals but only if the investigators meet certain conditions, including a concrete suspicion of illegal behavior and narrowly defined search criteria, according to Johann Bizer, deputy director of the Independent Center for Privacy Protection... In the case under investigation, police were aware of a child pornography Web site outside of Germany that was attracting users inside the country. And they asked the credit-card companies to conduct a database search narrowed to three criteria: a specific amount of money, a specific time period and a specific receiver account."
The Internet

iPhone, Apple TV Headline MacWorld Keynote 1619

Posted by Zonk from the iphone-looks-pretty-good-eh dept.
Steve Jobs kept his audience rapt at the MacWorld keynote today. He rehashed the announcement of the iTV, now called Apple TV, and announced the iPhone, a revolutionary phone/ipod/wrist-computer that had MacWorld attendees sitting on the edge of their seats. Retailing for $499 (4 gig)/$599 (8 gig), it has to be seen to be believed. It uses a touch screen with a new form of input control, runs OSX and many standard applications, and connects to the internet via WiFi. It has a camera, functions as a movie player, a music player, and can send emails and photos in the middle of a phone call. From the Engadget coverage: "'[OSX] let us create desktop class applications and networking, not the crippled stuff you find on most phones, these are real desktop applications.' He's quoting Alan Kay - 'People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.' 'So we're bringing breakthrough software to a mobile device for the first time.'" Seriously, go check this out. They're going to print money with this thing.
The Courts

SCO Bankruptcy "Imminent, Inevitable" 234

Posted by kdawson from the quebrada dept.
mattaw writes "From analysis by Groklaw it seems that SCO may owe Novell nearly all the SCOSource licensing fees, and has been hiding the fact for 3 years. Imminent. Inevitable. Bankruptcy. Those are the words from Novell's lawyers. Perhaps the IBM/SCO case could close earlier than planned? Perhaps we can finally be rid of this specter once and for all?"
Space

Brightest Comet In Decades Now Visible 35

Posted by kdawson from the dust-off-the-binoculars dept.
mlimber writes "Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1), the brightest comet in decades, is currently visible to the naked eye in the early evening and early morning sky for the northern hemisphere. The northern latitudes have the best view, but it can be seen even in the southern hemisphere during the day with the right equipment. Another image is available as NASA's astronomy picture of the day." Here is a graphic of the comet's evening location from 40 degrees north latitude.
GNU is Not Unix

Stallman — 20 Years of Explaining Free Software 218

Posted by kdawson from the evolution-of-an-idea dept.
H4x0r Jim Duggan writes "The first recorded talk by Richard Stallman on free software was in 1986, so I've picked from the 2006 recordings and have made a transcript of a recent talk: The Free Software Movement and the Future of Freedom. Those two are the only transcripts of his general free software talk. Others that exist are on specific topics such as patents, GPLv3, copyright, etc. For those who've been reading Slashdot during the gradual evolution of Stallman's pronouncements, it's interesting to see what has changed over 20 years."
Space

Detection of Earth-like Civilizations in Space Now Possible 345

Posted by Zonk from the in-spaaaaaaace dept.
Mr. McGibby writes "Astronomers have come up with an improved method of looking for extraterrestrial life with an Earth-like civilization. Theorist Avi Loeb proposes to use instruments like the Low Frequency Demonstrator (LFD) of the Mileura Wide-Field Array (MWA), an Australian facility for radio astronomy currently under construction. The array could (theoretically) detect civilizations broadcasting in the same frequencies as our own society. From the article: 'Loeb and Zaldarriaga calculate that by staring at the sky for a month, the MWA-LFD could detect Earth-like radio signals from a distance of up to 30 light-years, which would encompass approximately 1,000 stars. More powerful broadcasts could be detected to even greater distances. Future observatories like the Square Kilometer Array could detect Earth-like broadcasts from 10 times farther away, which would encompass 100 million stars. ' The original paper describes the details."

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