Comment Re:How did it first appear? (Score 1) 49
Actually, some of the reactions required for abiogenesis work better in ice:
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/did-life-evolve-in-ice/article_print
Comment Re:So they're doing another type of immunosupressi (Score 1) 201
How MUCH more expensive than years of taking immunosupressants? A year of immunosupressants can cost as much as $25,000 (source[pdf]) and immunosupressants need to be taken for at least 3 years (sometimes a lifetime).
Comment Re:Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? (Score 2, Funny) 1582
better start karming?
Princeton Student Finds Bug In LHC Experiment 243
An anonymous reader writes "A Princeton senior has found a bug in the hardware design for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the hardware used to record and capture events in the LHC, she discovered errors that were leading to the appearances of double images because of particle streams known as jets. 'Xiaohang Quan '09 was working on her senior thesis when she found a miscalculation in the hardware of the world's largest particle accelerator. Quan, a physics concentrator, traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, last week with physics professors Christopher Tully GS '98, Jim Olsen and Daniel Marlow for the annual meeting of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). This year, however, they also came to discuss Quan's discovery with the designers of the hardware for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, which, as part of the Large Hadron Collider, has the potential to revolutionize particle physics.'"
Barbara Liskov Wins Turing Award 187
jonniee writes "MIT Professor Barbara Liskov has been granted the ACM's Turing Award. Liskov, the first US woman to earn a PhD in computer science, was recognized for helping make software more reliable, consistent and resistant to errors and hacking. She is only the second woman to receive the honor, which carries a $250,000 purse and is often described as the 'Nobel Prize in computing.'"
Demo of a New "Sixth Sense" Technology 187
TEDChris writes "Here's an intriguing attempt at a versatile new tech device that tries to augment the wearer's five senses. It comes out of Patty Maes's group at the MIT Media Lab. By combining a computerized personal projector with a camera and linking both to the Net, a host of surprising new applications becomes possible. This 8-minute demo created a lot of buzz at TED last month and was posted online today. Would love to know what the Slashdot community makes of it."
Comment Re:That's an aweful lot of porn. (Score 1) 182
The plant example is a little flawed because it is clear that one event follows the other. No one would ever say that the plant's death caused it to be deprived of sunlight and water.
"Correlation is not causation" isn't nonsense if you're talking about two events that don't have a clear hierarchy. Suppose that rather than porn causing blu-ray's success, porn went with blu-ray because it was more successful. I'm not knowledgeable about the porn/blu-ray relationship so one of these possibilities may be provably false. I just didn't want to have to come up with a car analogy, and the porn analogy was right there.
"Correlation is not causation" isn't nonsense if you're talking about two events that don't have a clear hierarchy. Suppose that rather than porn causing blu-ray's success, porn went with blu-ray because it was more successful. I'm not knowledgeable about the porn/blu-ray relationship so one of these possibilities may be provably false. I just didn't want to have to come up with a car analogy, and the porn analogy was right there.
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The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. -- Lew Mammel, Jr.
