teflon_king - Slashdot User

Submission + - Austria to pull out of CERN (google.com)

Submitted by andre.david on Friday May 08, 2009 @02:32AM

andre.david writes: From AFP: "Austria is pulling out of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), Science Minister Johannes Hahn announced Thursday, citing budget concerns.
The 20-million-euro (26.9-million-dollar) yearly membership in CERN [...] makes up 70 percent of the money available in Austria for participation in international institutes and could be better used to fund other European projects, he said.
Hahn said he hoped Austria could find "a new kind of cooperation" with CERN and described Vienna's withdrawal from the project as a "pause", noting that some 30 states were already working together with the Geneva-based centre without being members.
The newly-available funds will now allow Austria to take part in new European projects, boost its participation in old ones as well as help the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the country's main organisation funding research."
Austrian particle physicists are not happy with this. From HEPHY, the Austrian Institute for High Energy Physics: "All of a surprise Johannes Hahn [...] announced that he wants to terminate the Austrian membership at CERN [...]. This [would] affect spin-off projects like the planned cancer treatment center MedAustron [...] which is dependent on collaborating with CERN [...]. Strangely enough this intention just arrives at a time where scientists are about to harvest the fruits of LHC [...]."
Will other countries follow suit?

Submission + - Guardian to close move to Twitter: April Fool? (technologyandbusiness.com.au)

Submitted by teflon_king on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @06:50AM

teflon_king writes: Today's April fool joke by the Guardian that the newspaper will close and be replaced by a Twitter service is certainly amusing. However, despite the well-aimed kick at the much-hyped message service, the joke may linger as more a commentary on a newspaper industry under pressure. This is reinforced by the Guardian's recent submission to the UK govt Digital Britain report which has a go at search engines and content aggregators like slashdot.

Submission + - Interview with the Author of "Mastering cat

Submitted by

Shlomi Fish

on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @01:57AM

Shlomi Fish writes: "O'Reilly is publishing a new book titled "Mastering cat", about the UNIX "cat" command. Here is an interview O'Reilly-Net conducted with the author about it. Read it to see if this book should be part of your bookshelf of technical books."

Spacecraft to Fly Through Geyser Plumes On Saturn Moon 80

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday March 12, 2008 @03:24PM from the fueling-station-coming-soon dept.

Riding with Robots writes "Today the robotic Saturn probe Cassini will make its closest buzz ever over the surface of the enigmatic ice moon Enceladus, whose surprising giant water geysers hint at a hidden ocean of liquid water. The spacecraft will fly right through the tops of the geyser plumes in order to sample the material that originated beneath the surface. NASA is offering a video, interactive guide and image gallery in advance of the event."

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