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Goddammit.  Another truckload of bees.

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Messages - Kai

#7036
I think someone took the BGP account.
#7037
No, I mean, different from before.

You don't act or sound the same. Your language is off.


Did someone steal the account?
#7039
....weeeooooooooooooo.....
#7040
August 8, 2008
Skin Cells Produce Library of Diseased Stem Cells

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—U.S. stem cell experts have produced a library of the powerful cells using ordinary skin and bone marrow cells from patients, and said Thursday they would share them freely with other researchers.

They used a new method to re-program ordinary cells so they look and act like embryonic stem cells—the master cells of the body with the ability to produce any type of tissue or blood cell.

The new cells come from patients with 10 incurable genetic diseases and conditions, including Parkinson's, the paralyzing disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, juvenile diabetes and Down's Syndrome. Writing in the journal Cell, the team at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital in Boston said the point is not yet to treat anyone, but to get as many researchers as possible experimenting with these cells in lab dishes to better understand the diseases.

http://snipurl.com/3cics

US Nuclear Submarine Leaked Radiation Over 2 Years

from the Seattle Times

TOKYO (Associated Press)—An American nuclear-powered submarine leaked radiation for more than two years, releasing the bulk of the material in its home port of Guam and at Pearl Harbor, Japanese and U.S. officials said Thursday.

On Aug. 1, the U.S. Navy notified Japan that the USS Houston had leaked water containing small amounts of radiation during three calls to the southern Japanese ports of Sasebo and Okinawa in March and April this year but caused no threat to people or the environment.

The U.S. Navy released a detailed chronology of the leaks over the past two years, showing that the cumulative radioactivity released was less than 9.3 micro curies—with 8 micro curies released in Guam alone. ... Navy Commander Jeff Davis said the Houston is still in Hawaii being repaired and the reactor is turned off.

http://snipurl.com/3ci75

Bullets Tagged with Pollen Could Help Solve Gun Crimes

from the Guardian (UK)

Pollen could be used to identify the perpetrators of gun crimes, thanks to developments in nanotechnology. The microscopic grains can be coated onto bullets during manufacture and are sticky enough to hold on even after the gun has been fired. Each 'nanotag' is made up of pollen and a unique chemical signature that can be used to identify the batch of ammunition.

The pollen grains—from one of two species of lily—are around 30 micrometres in diameter and are invisible to the naked eye. Thousands can be attached to each cartridge.

"The tags primarily consist of naturally occurring pollen, a substance that evolution has provided with extraordinary adhesive properties," said Prof Paul Sermon from the University of Surrey, who led the research.

http://snipurl.com/3ci4p

Cern Lab Set for Beam Milestone

from BBC News Online

A vast physics experiment—the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—reaches a key milestone this weekend ahead of an official start-up on 10 September.

Engineers had previously brought a beam of protons—tiny, sub-atomic particles—to the "doorstep" of the LHC. On 9 August, protons will be piped through LHC magnets for the first time.

The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the LHC will re-create the conditions present in the Universe just after the Big Bang. For the two-day "synchronisation test," engineers will thread a low intensity beam through the injection system and one of the LHC's eight sectors.

http://snipurl.com/3ci32

For Nanotech Drug Delivery, Size Doesn't Matter—Shape Does

from Scientific American

As nanotechnology to ferry drugs to their destinations is tested in both the laboratory and in clinical trials, scientists have made a surprising discovery about the kinds of nanoparticles that might be most effective for eventually transporting a number of different cancer-fighting therapies throughout the body.

The conventional wisdom is that the smaller, the better. But that may not be true, according to a team of scientists led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (U.N.C.) chemistry professor Joseph DeSimone.

DeSimone and his colleagues have shown that the shape of these microscopic drug carriers is much more important than size and can even mean the difference between whether a drug penetrates target cells effectively or ends up as a target itself, only to be destroyed by the immune system.

http://snipurl.com/3chv6

Solar Systems Like Ours May Be Rare

from New Scientist

Our solar system is a Goldilocks among planetary systems. Conditions have to be just right for a disc of dust and gas to coalesce into such a set of neatly ordered planets, a new computer model suggests.

Similar planetary systems are likely to be a minority in the galaxy, says model developer Edward Thommes of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Even so, if only 1 percent of the Milky Way's hundreds of billions of stars have a terrestrial planet with a stable orbit in the habitable zone, the Earth could have plenty of company.

Astronomers long thought planets orbited where they formed, with small terrestrial planets close to the star, gas giants near the middle, and smaller ice giants such as Neptune towards the edge of a 'protoplanetary' disc of gas and dust before it dissipated.

http://snipurl.com/3choy

Duck-Billed Dinosaurs "Outgrew" Their Predators

from National Geographic News

Talk about being a big baby. The duck-billed dinosaur Hypacrosaurus grew three to five times faster than the fearsome predators that hunted it, reaching its full size by age ten, according to a new study.

Unlike other plant-eating dinosaurs, duckbills such as Hypacrosaurus didn't have piercing horns, dagger-like teeth, or hulking body armor. So the ability to grow bigger faster provided the animals with a size advantage that likely served them well in their early years.

For example, baby duckbills were probably about the same size as Tyrannosaurus rex hatchlings, said study co-author Drew Lee of Ohio University's College of Osteopathic Medicine. But by five years old the duckbill would be the size of a grown cow, while the T. rex would be only as big as a large dog.

http://snipurl.com/3chkd

Making T Cells Tougher Against HIV

from Science News

I pity the fool who messes with these T cells. A method to deliver molecular "scissors" into T cells in mice makes the cells downright hostile to HIV. Not only do the cells reject the virus' advances, but copies of the virus already inside the cells get snipped up.

The technique is the first to deliver these HIV-fighting scissors—called small interfering RNAs, or siRNAs—into T cells in living animals, Premlata Shankar of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso and her colleagues report in the Aug. 22 Cell. Shankar performed the research while at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"I think they've shown very nicely that you can ... target T cells and knock down the virus," comments John Rossi, an AIDS researcher at the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif. "It's a nice proof of principle that I think could be developed into a viable therapy."

http://snipurl.com/3chy5

Fingerprints Yield More Telltale Clues

from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—Scientists have found ways to tease even more clues out of fingerprints' telltale marks—one in a string of developments that gives modern forensics even better ways to solve mysteries like the anthrax attacks or JonBenet Ramsey's murder.

For example, if a person handled cocaine, explosives or other materials, there could be enough left in a fingerprint to identify them, says chemist R. Graham Cooks of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

Progress in forensics comes from a combination of new techniques, like those involved in the anthrax investigation, and existing techniques, like those used in the Ramsey case, said Max M. Houck, director of West Virginia University's Forensic Science Initiative.

http://snipurl.com/3ciab

Anthrax Case Raises Doubt On Security

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

Revelations about anthrax scientist Bruce E. Ivins's mental instability have exposed what congressional leaders and security experts call startling gaps in how the federal government safeguards its most dangerous biological materials, even as the number of bioscience laboratories has grown rapidly since the 2001 terror attacks.

An estimated 14,000 scientists and technicians at about 400 institutions have clearances to access viruses and bacteria such as the Bacillus anthracis used in the anthrax attacks, but security procedures vary by facility, and oversight of the labs is spread across multiple government agencies.

Screening for the researchers handling some of the world's deadliest germs is not as strict as that for national security jobs in the FBI and CIA, federal officials said.

http://snipurl.com/3cvsk
#7041
Its faster, geared towards instant gratification, and means that people don't have to work through their problems and see reality.

In other words, sign of the times.
#7042
August 5, 2008
Medication Increasingly Replaces Psychotherapy, Study Finds

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Wider use of antidepressants and other prescription medications has reduced the role of psychotherapy, once the defining characteristic of psychiatric care, according to an analysis published today.

The percentage of patients who received psychotherapy fell to 28.9 percent in 2004-05 from 44.4 percent in 1996-97, the report in Archives of General Psychiatry said.

Researchers attributed the shift to insurance reimbursement policies that favor short medication visits compared with longer psychotherapy sessions, and to the introduction of a new generation of psychotropic medications with fewer side effects.

http://snipurl.com/3b3xi

Male Dominance Is No Guarantee of Genetic Success

from New Scientist

Genghis Khan spread his seed so liberally that nearly a tenth of men now living in the former Mongolian empire trace their ancestry back to the 13th-century warrior. However, a new analysis suggests that most socially dominant males contribute no more to the genetic pool than do their supposed inferiors.

"An individual really doesn't have the opportunity to set up things so their genetic information pervades the gene pool a long time in the future," says mathematician Joseph Watkins, of the University of Arizona in Tucson. "It could happen because life is chaotic."

Theories on how genes flow through populations of organisms generally support this idea, which has been dubbed neutrality. But some anthropologists argue that cultural dominance can seal a man's legacy. For instance, a rich and powerful father can ensure the status of his sons and grandsons.

http://snipurl.com/3b4l5

To Heal the Wounded

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

The pictures show shredded limbs, burned faces, profusely bleeding wounds. The subjects are mostly American G.I.'s, but they include Iraqis and Afghans, some of them young children.

They appear in a new book, "War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases, 2003-2007," quietly issued by the United States Army—the first guidebook of new techniques for American battlefield surgeons to be published while the wars it analyzes are still being fought.

Its 83 case descriptions from 53 battlefield doctors are clinical and bone dry, but the gruesome photographs illustrate the grim nature of today's wars, in which more are hurt by explosions than by bullets, and body armor leaves many alive but maimed. And the cases detail important advances in treating blast amputations, massive bleeding, bomb concussions and other front-line trauma.

http://snipurl.com/3b3wj

Soil Tests on Mars Spawn a Mystery

from the Arizona Daily Star

If you plant asparagus in Martian soil, will it grow? That's the question perplexing scientists with the UA-led Phoenix Mars Mission, who are trying to comprehend contradictory results from a series of soil tests that show the red planet's surface to be both friendly and unfriendly to life.

The seeming paradox was announced just days after mission scientists confirmed the presence of water in Mars' northern arctic region, a key finding as officials try to determine whether the red planet could support life.

Chemistry test results announced on Monday show that soil recently collected for the lander's wet chemistry lab contained perchlorate, an oxidizing agent that's the primary ingredient for jet fuel. The presence of perchlorate in the soil would be hazardous to plant life and undermine a preliminary hypothesis supported by test results from the same chemistry lab.

http://snipurl.com/3b44b

U.S. Panel Questions Prostate Screening

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

The blood test that millions of men undergo each year to check for prostate cancer leads to so much unnecessary anxiety, surgery and complications that doctors should stop testing elderly men, and it remains unclear whether the screening is worthwhile for younger men, a federal task force concluded yesterday.

In the first update of its recommendations for prostate cancer screening in five years, the panel that sets government policy on preventive medicine said that the evidence that the test reduces the cancer's death toll is too uncertain to endorse routine use for men at any age, and that the potential harm clearly outweighs any benefits for men age 75 and older.

"The benefit of screening at this time is uncertain, and if there is a benefit, it's likely to be small," said Ned Calonge, who chairs the 16-member U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. It published the new guidelines today in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "And on the other side, the risks are large and dramatic."

http://snipurl.com/3b3tw

A Dance of Environment and Economics in the Everglades

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—When Florida officials announced a plan last month to save the Everglades by buying United States Sugar and its 187,000 acres, they knew that the success of their plan could be defined by Alfonso Fanjul and his brother J. Pepe Fanjul.

The Fanjuls' family-run sugar company, Florida Crystals, owns what the state wants: about 35,000 acres needed to recreate the River of Grass's historic water flow from Lake Okeechobee south to the Everglades.

State officials have said they hope to trade some of United States Sugar's assets for the Fanjuls' property, and in their first interview since the deal was announced, the Fanjuls said they were "on board"—but with a few caveats.

http://snipurl.com/38fy9

Primates 'Face Extinction Crisis'

from BBC News Online

A global review of the world's primates says 48 percent of species face extinction, an outlook described as "depressing" by conservationists. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says the main threat is habitat loss, primarily through the burning and clearing of tropical forests.

More than 70 percent of primates in Asia are now listed as Endangered, it adds. The findings form part of the most detailed survey of the Earth's mammals, which will be published in October.

Other threats include hunting of primates for food and the illegal wildlife trade, explained Russell Mittermeier, chairman of global conservation group IUCN's Primate Specialist Group and president of Conservation International.

http://snipurl.com/3b461

Superbugs

from the New Yorker

In August, 2000, Dr. Roger Wetherbee, an infectious-disease expert at New York University's Tisch Hospital, received a disturbing call from the hospital's microbiology laboratory.

At the time, Wetherbee was in charge of handling outbreaks of dangerous microbes in the hospital, and the laboratory had isolated a bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae from a patient in an intensive-care unit.

"It was literally resistant to every meaningful antibiotic that we had," Wetherbee recalled recently. The microbe was sensitive only to a drug called colistin, which had been developed decades earlier and largely abandoned as a systemic treatment, because it can severely damage the kidneys. "So we had this report, and I looked at it and said to myself, 'My God, this is an organism that basically we can't treat.'"

http://snipurl.com/3aj0d

Ancient Moss, Insects Found in Antarctica

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—Mosses once grew and insects crawled in what are now barren valleys in Antarctica, according to scientists who have recovered remains of life from that frozen continent.

Fourteen million years ago the now lifeless valleys were tundra, similar to parts of Alaska, Canada and Siberia—cold but able to support life, researchers report.

Geoscientist Adam Lewis of North Dakota State University was studying the ice cover of the continent when he and co-workers came across the remains of moss on a valley floor. "We knew we shouldn't expect to see something like that," Lewis said in a telephone interview.

http://snipurl.com/3b4hp

Study: Kids Meals Pack It On

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

It's 7 p.m. and your tots are cranky and hungry. Where can you go for a fast kids meal that won't make you feel like a bad parent?

Not many restaurant chains, according to a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest that was released Monday. The CSPI study found a whopping 93 percent of all kids meals offered by 13 top chains contain too many calories. In fact, several meals hover around the 1,000-calorie mark, far above the roughly 430-calorie-a-meal recommendation from the Institute of Medicine for sedentary children 4 to 8 years old.

With so many restaurants called out for heavy use of soft drinks and fried foods on so many of their children's meals, it can be tough to guide your child's dining choices. But at least one dietitian points out that there are smart ways to eat at chain restaurants.

http://snipurl.com/3b4co
#7043
http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/2008/08/glow_in_the_dark_mollusk_used.php

Glowing gastropods allow detection of human sickness before onset of symptoms.

How cool is that?
#7044
August 4, 2008
Anthrax Case Renews Questions on Bioterror Effort

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON—Until the anthrax attacks of 2001, Bruce E. Ivins was one of just a few dozen American bioterrorism researchers working with the most lethal biological pathogens, almost all at high-security military laboratories.

Today, there are hundreds of such researchers in scores of laboratories at universities and other institutions around the United States, preparing for the next bioattack.

But the revelation that F.B.I. investigators believe that the anthrax attacks were carried out by Dr. Ivins, an Army biodefense scientist who committed suicide last week after he learned that he was about to be indicted for murder, has already re-ignited a debate: Has the unprecedented boom in biodefense research made the country less secure by multiplying the places and people with access to dangerous germs?

http://snipurl.com/3aimh

Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

Turns out, it is a small world.  The "small world theory," embodied in the old saw that there are just "six degrees of separation" between any two strangers on Earth, has been largely corroborated by a massive study of electronic communication.

With records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people from around the world, researchers have concluded that any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances.

The database covered all of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network in June 2006, or roughly half the world's instant-messaging traffic at that time, researchers said.

http://snipurl.com/3aju6

Sweet Peas Make a Second Skin

from the Guardian (UK)

Might sweet peas and a polymer help reduce disfiguring skin contractions after a skin graft? Sheila MacNeil, professor of tissue engineering at the University of Sheffield, thinks so. Thanks to a compound called beta-aminopropionitrile found in sweet peas, plastic surgeons may soon replace uncomfortable pressure garments with a drug-containing polymer gel.

MacNeil is also behind the development of an artificial skin scaffold. Now, she and her colleagues have turned to an ages-old problem with skin grafts that shrink, become lumpy and, for children with burns, give real problems as they grow.

She's combining polymer chemistry with tissue engineering—a technical challenge in itself—along with a desire to do something clinically useful.

http://snipurl.com/38g89

Stinging Tentacles Offer Hint of Oceans' Decline

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

BARCELONA, Spain—Blue patrol boats crisscross the swimming areas of beaches here with their huge nets skimming the water's surface. The yellow flags that urge caution and the red flags that prohibit swimming because of risky currents are sometimes topped now with blue ones warning of a new danger: swarms of jellyfish.

In a period of hours during a day a couple of weeks ago, 300 people on Barcelona's bustling beaches were treated for stings, and 11 were taken to hospitals.

From Spain to New York, to Australia, Japan and Hawaii, jellyfish are becoming more numerous and more widespread, and they are showing up in places where they have rarely been seen before, scientists say. ...
But while jellyfish invasions are a nuisance to tourists and a hardship to fishermen, for scientists they are a source of more profound alarm, a signal of the declining health of the world's oceans.

http://snipurl.com/3aimo

Inventors Flock to File Patents in U.S.

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

GENEVA (Associated Press)—The United States is again the favored destination to patent inventions after 43 years in which Japan and the now-defunct Soviet Union held the lead, a U.N. report said Thursday.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office received nearly a quarter of the 1.76 million patents filed worldwide in 2006—the latest years for which figures are available—according to the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO.

The Soviet Union briefly overtook the U.S. in 1964 at a time when technology was seen as the key to winning the space race—not to mention more mundane battles back on Earth. By 1970 Japan eclipsed both the superpowers, holding onto its lead until 2005.

http://snipurl.com/38gec

Genetically Modified Olympians?

from the Economist

For as long as people have vied for sporting glory, they have also sought shortcuts to the champion's rostrum. Often, those shortcuts have relied on the assistance of doctors. After all, most doping involves little more than applying existing therapies to healthy bodies.

These days, however, the competition is so intense that existing therapies are not enough. Now, athletes in search of the physiological enhancement they need to take them a stride ahead of their opponents are scanning medicine's future, as well as its present. In particular, they are interested in a field known as gene therapy.

Gene therapy works by inserting extra copies of particular genes into the body. These extra copies, known as "transgenes," may cover for a broken gene or regulate gene activity. Though gene therapy has yet to yield a reliable medical treatment, more than 1,300 clinical trials are now under way. As that number suggests, the field is reckoned to be full of promise.

http://snipurl.com/38ggc

Rescued Dog Blazes a Surgical Trail

from the (Raleigh, N.C.) News and Observer

Three years ago, Cassidy Posovsky was a three-legged German shepherd mix hobbling homeless around the Bronx. Thursday morning, he was a medical pioneer getting fitted with a cutting-edge prosthetic that could one day help thousands of veterans and others who lose limbs in trauma.

If all goes well, Cassidy's artificial leg will fuse into his bone, and he should be on all fours in months—paving the way for veterinary orthopedic surgeons at N.C. State University to start working with doctors for human implantation.

With more than 1.3 million veterans seeking prosthetics from the Department of Veterans Affairs each year, and more service members in Iraq and Afghanistan wounded every day, the need for improved limb-replacement technology is becoming more acute. Futuristic technologies such as computerized legs, microprocessor knees and bionic nerve systems have become top priorities of VA research.

http://snipurl.com/38x2c

Light Goes Out on Pioneer Machine

from BBC News Online

The pioneering Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) based at the Daresbury Laboratory in Warrington, UK, will be switched off on Monday.

The machine, which probed the structure of materials down to the molecular and atomic level, developed the technology now used in some 60 centres worldwide. Its X-ray science has been behind new drugs and electronics, and was used in Nobel-winning research on cell energy.

UK synchrotron studies have now moved to the Diamond centre in Oxfordshire. Daresbury's future is envisioned as an innovation super-centre, where scientific ideas can better make the leap to business.

http://snipurl.com/3aira

AIDS Survey Signals 'Downturn in Treatment'

from USA Today

Half of AIDS patients worldwide appear to be stopping their medication or failing to begin treatment because of side effects from therapy, researchers will report today.

The survey of nearly 3,000 patients from 18 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas represents a sweeping effort to track patient attitudes about their social concerns and treatment, with side effects ranging from disfiguring fatty deposits to drug toxicity to clogged arteries.

... A separate study, released over the weekend, shows that thousands more people are getting HIV each year than experts realized. "The epidemic is—and has been—worse than was previously known," says Kevin Fenton, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The government's tally of the year-by-year impact of the AIDS epidemic offers the first clear picture of HIV in the USA. It appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

http://snipurl.com/3aivg

World's Smallest Snake Discovered, Study Says

from National Geographic News

The world's smallest snake—and perhaps the smallest possible snake—has been discovered on the Caribbean island of Barbados, a new study says.

At about ten centimeters long (less than four inches), the diminutive reptile might easily be mistaken for an earthworm, and could comfortably curl up on a U.S. quarter, researchers say.

A second new species, only slightly larger, was found on the neighboring island of St. Lucia. Genetic tests and studies of the snakes' physical features identified the animals as new species, said biologist Blair Hedges of Penn State university, who led the study team.

http://snipurl.com/3aize 
#7045
Quote from: fnord mote eris on August 01, 2008, 08:47:35 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/31/energyefficiency.energy

Scientists have found an inexpensive way to produce hydrogen from water, a discovery that could lead to a plentiful source of environmentally friendly fuel to power homes and cars.

The technique, which mimics the way photosynthesis works in plants, also provides a highly efficient way to store energy, potentially paving the way to making solar power more economically viable.

Thats actually really cool. Biologically inspired technology is the way of the future.
#7046
August 1, 2008
Test of Mars Soil Sample Confirms Presence of Ice

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Heated to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, a sample of soil being analyzed by NASA's Phoenix Mars lander let out a puff of vapor, providing final confirmation that the lander is sitting over a large chunk of ice.

"We've now finally touched it and tasted it," William V. Boynton, a professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona and the lead scientist for the instrument that detected the water, said at a news conference on Thursday. "And I'd like to say, from my standpoint, it tastes very fine."

The main goal of the lander is to analyze ice in the northern arctic plains. Since it arrived on the planet on May 25, scientists have visually seen what they were almost certain was ice: a flat, shiny patch beneath the lander and tiny white chunks in a trench dug by the lander's robotic arm.

http://snipurl.com/38uhg

Alarm Raised on Security Flaw in Internet's Basic Structure

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

Since a secret emergency meeting of computer security experts at Microsoft's headquarters in March, Dan Kaminsky has been urging companies around the world to fix a potentially dangerous flaw in the basic plumbing of the Internet.

While Internet service providers are racing to fix the problem, which makes it possible for criminals to divert computer users to fake Web sites where personal and financial information can be stolen, Kaminsky worries that they have not moved quickly enough.

By his estimate, roughly 41 percent of the Internet is still vulnerable. Now Kaminsky, a technical consultant who first discovered the problem, has been ramping up the pressure on companies and organizations to make the necessary software changes before criminal hackers take advantage of the flaw. Next week, he will take another step by publicly laying out the details of the flaw at a security conference in Las Vegas.

http://snipurl.com/37u6i

Ancient T. Rex Tissue, or Just Old Slime?

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Soft, organic material discovered inside a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil that scientists believed was 70-million-year-old dinosaur tissue may have been nothing more than ordinary slime, scientists said in a study published Wednesday.

Researchers reported in the online journal PLoS ONE that bacterial colonies infiltrating tiny cavities in the bones long after the dinosaurs died may have naturally molded into shapes resembling the tissues they replaced. Carbon dating performed on one sample showed that the tissue-like material was modern, circa 1960.

After further examination with light and electron microscopy, researchers concluded that the substances were most likely remnants of biofilms, or layers of bacterial cells and the sticky molecules they secrete. The finding sparked a strong response from the researchers who originally said they had found ancient dinosaur tissue.

http://snipurl.com/38fzx

Drug Gives Couch Potato Mice Benefits of a Workout

from the San Francisco Examiner

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Here's a couch potato's dream: What if a drug could help you gain some of the benefits of exercise without working up a sweat? Scientists reported Thursday that there is such a drug - if you happen to be a mouse.

Sedentary mice that took the drug for four weeks burned more calories and had less fat than untreated mice. And when tested on a treadmill, they could run about 44 percent farther and 23 percent longer than untreated mice.

Just how well those results might translate to people is an open question. But someday, researchers say, such a drug might help treat obesity, diabetes and people with medical conditions that keep them from exercising.

http://snipurl.com/38g1e

Geological Mapping Gets Joined Up

from BBC News Online

The world's geologists have dug out their maps and are sticking them together produce the first truly global resource of the world's rocks.

The OneGeology project pools existing data about what lies under our feet and has made it available on the web. Led by the British Geological Survey (BGS), the project involved geologists from 80 nations.

Between 60 percent and 70 percent of the Earth's surface is now available down to the scale of 1:1,000,000. "That's 1cm for every 10km of the Earth's surface," explained Ian Jackson from the BGS and leader of the OneGeology Project. "With that resolution, people can focus in on a small part of their city."

http://snipurl.com/38g5w

FDA Finds Salmonella Strain on Mexican Pepper Farm

from USA Today

The Food and Drug Administration came closer Wednesday to cracking the mystery of a massive salmonella outbreak with a finding of contaminated serrano peppers and irrigation water on a farm in Mexico.

The FDA said consumers should avoid fresh serrano peppers from Mexico and products containing them. It also reiterated its earlier warning that consumers avoid fresh jalapeno peppers from Mexico.

The new findings lend weight to the FDA's theory that several foods may be causing the outbreak, which has sickened more than 1,300 people nationwide since April. They also are the case's first positive samples of the rare salmonella saintpaul strain found in Mexico, a major chile pepper supplier to the USA.

http://snipurl.com/38g4j

Stem Cell Advance Turns Skin Cells into Nerve Cells

from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Researchers are one step closer to reprogramming skin cells into tailor-made, healthy replacements for diseased cells.

Applying the technique first developed by James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, scientists at Harvard and Columbia universities reported online Thursday in the journal Science that they had turned skin cells from two elderly patients with the neurodegenerative disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) into motor neurons, the nerve cells that become damaged in ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

This is the first time that scientists have coaxed embryonic-like cells from adult patients suffering from a genetic-based disease, then induced the cells to form the specific cell types that would be needed to study and treat the disease.

http://snipurl.com/38ujo

Big Bang Ripples Formed Universe's First Stars

from National Geographic News

Ripples in the early universe following the big bang 13.7 billion years ago caused gases to coalesce into the luminous seeds of the first stars, a new computer simulation reveals.

Such stellar embryos, or protostars, were the universe's first astronomical objects and its first sources of light.

Previous telescope observations have shown that very distant—and thus very old—cosmic objects contain heavy elements such as carbon and iron, which are formed only by the nuclear reactions inside full-grown stars. This suggests that massive stars must have existed even earlier in the universe's history than telescopes can see. Until now, the earliest stages of primordial star formation had not been modeled in detail.

http://snipurl.com/38ghn

Wake-Up Call for Sleep Apnea

from Science News

A common breathing disorder that disrupts sleep also, over time, increases the risk of death, a study in the August Sleep suggests. But people who use a nighttime breathing apparatus face less risk, the research shows.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a disorder marked by gaps in breathing during sleep that rob the blood of oxygen until a person gasps for air. People with apnea stop breathing many times in an hour, which can jar them out of restful sleep and wreak havoc with blood pressure, heart rate and internal stress responses.

In the United States, about one in six people may have sleep apnea, with one-fourth of those cases severe, Terry Young, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, estimates.

http://snipurl.com/38ull

Anthrax Scientist Commits Suicide as FBI Closes In

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- A top U.S. biodefense researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a published report.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. The Times, quoting an unidentified colleague, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine. Tom Ivins, a brother of the scientist, told The Associated Press that another of his brothers, Charles, told him Bruce had committed suicide.

http://snipurl.com/38une


Also, whatever to the current discussion.
#7047
I was raised as a catholic, went to mass weekly, was really hardcore catholic in my early teens. My mother was catholic but fell out of it years ago, disgusted with the church. Her mother and sisters believe in reincarnation, one of them is sorta newagey,and her father is a famous physicist that is more like a deist than anything. I think she doesn't want to support something that doesn't accept her child either, the whole homosexuality/bisexuality is a sin stuff. My dad was raised Lutheran but hes read so much about eastern religions I don't know if he even believes religious stuff anymore. At some point I fell out of Christianity because it felt like bunk and clashed with my scientific leanings. I got into Taoism after reading the Tao Te Ching, fell out of that into Buddhism, and then two summers ago I wrote my own personal manifesto which finally made sense to me. During this whole time I was getting to know Discordianism through this forum, and I guess I stick around here for the discussion and the people more than any sense of a religion. The whole "think for yourself schmuck" philosophy always jived with me. I enjoy writing fiery rants about stupid religious folks and the reception they get here.

Its a bit more complex than that but I'd rather keep the rest to myself.
#7048
Or Kill Me / Re: Mockery is as old as civilization
August 01, 2008, 02:58:21 PM
Quote from: LMNO on July 31, 2008, 04:41:03 PM
Needs moar Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler.

:lulz:
#7049
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/world/asia/01algae.html

Story about the huge algal bloom in China. I can't find the species name but it seems to be one of the more prolific marine greens (Division: Chlorophyta). If it was a bluegreen (Division: Cyanophyta), the other group that tends to have these massive filamentous blooms, the toxins coming off this bloom would have been highly destructive, kinda like dinoflagellates can do (Division: Dinophyta). The only recorded people ever killed by algae were two kids done in by bluegreen toxins.
#7050
Guess it was (semi) daily and not weekly. so, postings whenever I get them.

July 31, 2008
As Olympics Near, Beijing Still Can't Beat Pollution

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

BEIJING -- Despite removing 1.5 million cars from the roads, shutting down hundreds of factories and construction sites and bringing much of the city's economic life to a standstill, Beijing remains stubbornly shrouded in a persistent, gray haze on the eve of the Summer Olympics.

The poor air quality just 11 days before the opening ceremonies has left Chinese government officials scrambling for explanations that include statistical anomalies and the 90-plus-degree heat.

The state-run China Daily reported Monday that the Chinese government may be forced to implement an "emergency plan" if air quality hasn't improved 48 hours before the Games begin Aug. 8. One possible measure would expand the recently implemented system that allows cars on the road only on odd or even days, depending on license plate numbers, to a ban of up to 90 percent of private traffic.

http://snipurl.com/37ot1

Eclipses in Ancient China Spurred Science, Beheadings?

from National Geographic News

The Olympics aren't the only epic event occurring in China next month. A total solar eclipse, the first since 2006, will turn day to night on Friday, the first of August.

The eclipse will also be visible in parts of northern Canada, Greenland (Denmark), Siberia (Russia), and Mongolia. Many Chinese will celebrate the celestial event with parties and viewing festivities—but it wasn't always so.

The Chinese have a long, sophisticated history of charting the skies and have recorded eclipses for thousands of years. The events were once considered ill omens and, if the ancient records are to be believed, dramatic eclipses may have caused more than one unfortunate astrologer to lose his head.

http://snipurl.com/37tm1

Thin Films: Ready for Their Close-Up?

from Nature News

From the 1950s onwards, big chunks of crystalline silicon have dominated the world of solar cells. But the dominance of these traditional cells—which make up 90 percent of today's 10-gigawatt-a-year installation market—is now being challenged by 'thin-film' solar cells that are micrometres or mere nanometres thick, and frequently made of materials other than silicon.

Some argue that such a change in technology is the only way that solar-cell technology can hope to maintain the 50 percent annual growth it has enjoyed during the past five years.

... Most thin-film cells sold today still use silicon, but in its amorphous, rather than crystalline, form. This makes the cells thin and cheap but costs them half or more of their efficiency compared with traditional designs. The hope, and to some extent the hype, is focused on new technologies.

http://snipurl.com/37tom

Nature's Chronic Boozers

from Science News

Out boozing for several hours every night—that would be drinking like a tree shrew. Except the tree shrews can scurry a straight line afterward.

The pentailed tree shrews (Ptilocercus lowii) of Malaysia average more than two hours each night sipping palm nectar that has naturally fermented, report Frank Wiens of the University of Bayreuth in Germany and his colleagues in the July 29 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This is the first recorded case of chronic alcohol consumption by a wild mammal," Wiens says. ... But tree shrews may not have the same metabolism as humans when it comes to detoxifying alcohol.

http://snipurl.com/37tr1

After the Tragedy: Vent? Not Necessarily

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

"The more [Virginia Tech students] can talk about what they've lived through, the more that they can be encouraged to emote ... that gives them some security and insulation against burying those feelings and then having them surprise them later in life."

In the aftermath of the April 16, 2007, fatal shootings of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech, [Keith] Ablow was simply voicing post-Freudian conventional wisdom: When something horrible happens, vent.

... But hold on a minute. That has simply not been proved true for all people in all circumstances, [Mark] Seery says. His most recent research, in the June issue of Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, shows that after a large-scale traumatic event, such as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, quickly talking about one's emotions isn't necessarily for the best.

http://snipurl.com/37ouv

Termite Bellies and Biofuels

from Smithsonian Magazine

Falk Warnecke peered down through a mounted magnifying glass and poked gently at a small pile of bugs. ... With a pair of fine-tipped forceps, he grabbed one of the insects at the base of its thorax and lifted it off the block. It was brown, and hardly bigger than an eyelash. With a second forceps, he pinched the end of its abdomen. He tugged gently, and pulled it in two. A shiny, reddish string slid smoothly out of the exoskeleton.

... The gut has bulbous chambers that are swollen with vast quantities of microbes that the termites employ to break down cellulose from the wood or grass the insects consume. When he's not calling termites "cute little animals," he refers to them as "walking bioreactors," and considers their juicy interiors a kind of liquid gold.

For now, he's interested only in the biggest bulb on the string, what's known as the third proctodeal segment, or, in the vernacular of microbial ecology, the "hindgut paunch." This microliter-sized compartment ... is home to a distinct community of microbes that some people think may help solve the energy crisis.

http://snipurl.com/37tt5

Scientists Confirm Liquid Lake, Beach on Saturn's Moon Titan

from Scientific American

Just in time for a summer holiday, scientists have discovered the solar system's newest beach destination. Too bad there's no way to get there—at least not easily. Researchers report in Nature today that they identified a dark liquid lake, surrounded by a lighter shoreline and a "beach," on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan.

The foot-shaped lake is the first verified extraterrestrial body of liquid, and is likely filled with hydrocarbons, simple compounds also common on Earth.

"This is the first definitive evidence for both liquid and liquid hydrocarbons on Titan," says lead study author Robert Brown, a professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) in Tucson.

http://snipurl.com/37tw2

Gene Mutations Reveal Schizophrenia's Complexity

from New Scientist

The three largest genetic schizophrenia studies to date have uncovered several ways in which changes to the genome may increase the risk of developing the mental disorder.

The studies bring to light several common variations that increase the risk slightly, and rarer ones that raise it significantly, researchers say.

While previous studies have suggested several genes with roles in schizophrenia, small sample sizes gave these findings limited statistical significance. Most recently, differences in copy number variations (CNVs) ... were identified between healthy and schizophrenic people. But the study was too small to implicate specific CNVs in causing the disease.

http://snipurl.com/37txk

Ancient Greek 'Computer' Displayed Olympics Calendar

from the Guardian (UK)

An ancient Greek "computer" used to calculate the movements of the sun, moon and planets has been linked to Archimedes after scientists deciphered previously hidden inscriptions on the device.

X-ray images of the bronze mechanism, which was recovered from a shipwreck more than a century ago, also revealed a sporting calendar that displays the cycle of the prestigious "crown" games, including the Olympics, which were held every four years.

Corroded remains of the device were found in 1901 by spongedivers, who happened upon the shipwreck of a Roman merchant vessel while sheltering from a storm near the tiny Greek island of Antikythera. The ship, which was laden with treasures from the Greek world including bronze statues, pottery and glassware, is believed to have met its fate in the notoriously dangerous stretch of water en route to Italy.

http://snipurl.com/37u1a

Not Quite Rocketeer, but Jet Pack's a Start

from the Seattle Times

OSHKOSH, Wis. — This isn't how a jet pack is supposed to look, is it?

Hollywood has envisioned jet packs as upside-down fire extinguishers strapped to people's backs. But Glenn Martin's invention is more unwieldy: a 250-pound piano-size contraption that people settle into rather than strap on.

As thousands watched Tuesday, the New Zealand inventor's 16-year-old son donned a helmet, fastened himself to a prototype Martin jet pack and revved the engine, which sounded like a motorcycle. Harrison Martin eased about 3 feet off the ground, the engine roaring with a whine so loud that some kids covered their ears.

http://snipurl.com/37u47