News:

Hand drawn by monkeys in sweat-shop conditions.

Main Menu

Weekly Science Headlines

Started by Kai, July 30, 2008, 10:04:06 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Iason Ouabache

Quote from: Kai
Hope for Arthritis Vaccine 'Cure'

from BBC News Online

A single injection of modified cells could halt the advance of rheumatoid arthritis, say UK scientists. The Newcastle University team is about to start small-scale safety trials of the jab, which will hopefully stop the immune system attacking the joints.

The Arthritis Research Campaign, which is funding the project, said if successful, the treatment would be "revolutionary." It could be fully tested and available within five years.

Rheumatoid arthritis is one of a family of "autoimmune" diseases, in which the body's defence systems launch attacks on its own tissues. In the case of rheumatoid arthritis, this means painful inflammation and progressive damage to the joints, eased only slightly by courses of painkillers and immune dampening drugs.

http://snipurl.com/3g1rr

Holy shit!  That may be the best news I've heard all day.  It's amazing how medicine seems to be moving by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years or so.  If this keeps up I'll end up living until I'm 135 at which point I'll kill myself out of boredom.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck i do not give.
    \
┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘

Vene

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on August 17, 2008, 07:14:28 AM
Quote from: Kai
Hope for Arthritis Vaccine 'Cure'

from BBC News Online

A single injection of modified cells could halt the advance of rheumatoid arthritis, say UK scientists. The Newcastle University team is about to start small-scale safety trials of the jab, which will hopefully stop the immune system attacking the joints.

The Arthritis Research Campaign, which is funding the project, said if successful, the treatment would be "revolutionary." It could be fully tested and available within five years.

Rheumatoid arthritis is one of a family of "autoimmune" diseases, in which the body's defence systems launch attacks on its own tissues. In the case of rheumatoid arthritis, this means painful inflammation and progressive damage to the joints, eased only slightly by courses of painkillers and immune dampening drugs.

http://snipurl.com/3g1rr

Holy shit!  That may be the best news I've heard all day.  It's amazing how medicine seems to be moving by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years or so.  If this keeps up I'll end up living until I'm 135 at which point I'll kill myself out of boredom.
Just wait until gene therapy becomes mainstream.

nurbldoff

I like this thread. It probably already contains more information than the whole rest of the board.
Nature is the great teacher. Who is the principal?

Kai

August 18, 2008
Windmills Split Town and Families

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

LOWVILLE, N.Y. (Associated Press)—"Listen," John Yancey says, leaning against his truck in a field outside his home.

The rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of wind turbines echoes through the air. Sleek and white, their long propeller blades rotate in formation, like some otherworldly dance of spindly-armed aliens swaying across the land.

Yancey stares at them, his face contorted in anger and pain. He knows the futuristic towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by his community. But Yancey hates them. He hates the sight and he hates the sound.

http://snipurl.com/3hdek

Dr. Doom

from the New York Times Magazine (Registration Required)

On Sept. 7, 2006, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund and announced that a crisis was brewing.

In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.

He laid out a bleak sequence of events: homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt. These developments, he went on, could cripple or destroy hedge funds, investment banks and other major financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The audience seemed skeptical, even dismissive.

http://snipurl.com/3hdel

The Newest Generation of Drugs: Who Can Afford Them?

from the Seattle Times

Sally Garcia, a 53-year-old lawyer disabled by multiple sclerosis, was torn. A new-generation medication, Copaxone, was really working for her. After two decades of being in and out of hospitals, Garcia was taking steps to work again.

Her wallet, though, was in severe distress. Under her Medicare prescription plan, Garcia's share of the expensive drug was $330 per month. All together, medications were taking a third of her disability payments—her only income—and she couldn't swing it.

Copaxone, Enbrel, Remicade: For some patients, such new-generation drugs, often called "biologicals" or "bioengineered" when they are created by genetically modified living cells, have performed magic. In some cases, they work when other drugs have failed, or for diseases that previously had no drug treatments at all. But they cost a lot—often $2,000 to $3,000 per month.

http://snipurl.com/3hdeo

Progress Against Toxins in Toys Takes Small Steps

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

When a nationwide ban on hormone-disrupting chemicals in soft plastic toys and cosmetics takes effect early next year, it will mark an important turning point in efforts to remove toxic compounds from consumer products.

The ban on a group of chemicals known as phthalates is part of a major overhaul of the nation's consumer safety system brokered last month by Congress. It reflects growing concerns among parents and public health advocates that children are absorbing a vast array of harmful substances, sometimes merely by sucking on a rubber duck, drinking from a plastic bottle or playing on treated carpet.

Indeed, new health concerns seem to be raised every month or so about some oddly named chemical that has been used for decades in toys, cosmetics and consumer products.

http://snipurl.com/3hdeq

Pluto Is Part of Hot Debate

from the Baltimore Sun

It was billed as a debate over the 2006 decision by the International Astronomical Union that kicked Pluto out of the family of planets, leaving just eight.

But in the end, after a jocular and noisy tussle before scientists and educators gathered at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, both debaters agreed that the IAU's definition only muddied the waters, and that more time is needed for science to sort out the increasingly complex range of objects circling our sun and other stars.

"Get the notion of counting things out of your system," said Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York's Hayden Planetarium. "The more we learn about anything, the more we have to tune the vocabulary we use to describe it."  The two debaters also expressed delight that a scientific debate has captured so much public attention.

http://snipurl.com/3hdew

F.B.I. Will Present Scientific Evidence in Anthrax Case to Counter Doubts

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON—Growing doubts from scientists about the strength of the government's case against the late Bruce E. Ivins, the military researcher named as the anthrax killer, are forcing the Justice Department to begin disclosing more fully the scientific evidence it used to implicate him.

In the face of the questions, Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have decided to make their first detailed public presentation [this] week on the forensic science used to trace the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks to a flask kept in a refrigerator in Dr. Ivins's laboratory at Fort Detrick, in Maryland. Many scientists are awaiting those details because so far, they say, the F.B.I. has failed to make a conclusive case.

"That is going to be critically important, because right now there is really no data to make a scientific judgment one way or the other," Brad Smith, a molecular biologist at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "The information that has been put out, there is really very little scientific information in there."

http://snipurl.com/3hdf0

Controversial Chemical Bisphenol A Is Safe, FDA Says

from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A draft document released Friday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declares that a chemical commonly found in baby bottles and aluminum can linings is safe.

The document comes on the heels of several conflicting reports by national and international agencies released this year on the safety of the chemical, bisphenol A.

It was immediately embraced by industry scientists, who commended the federal agency's "thorough analysis," and condemned by environmental groups that questioned the timing of the report's release and its reliance on industry funded studies.

http://snipurl.com/3hdfb

Summit Targets World Water Issues

from BBC News Online

While global attention has recently focused on energy and food, a global summit this week in Stockholm, Sweden, will tackle the key issue of water.

The World Water Week meeting starts on Sunday and will hear renewed calls to solve growing challenges of sanitation, climate change and drinkable supplies.

Sanitation in particular is one of the most important global issues. The organisers say lack of adequate sanitation is a scandal that costs the lives of 1.4m children every year.  Investing in this area, say scientists, is the most cost effective health intervention the world could make.

http://snipurl.com/3hdfh

Archaeologists Get a Glimpse of Life in a Sahara Eden

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

The tiny skeletal hand jutted from the sand as if beckoning the living to the long dead.

For thousands of years, it had lain unheeded in the most desolate section of the Sahara, surrounded by the bones of hippos, giraffes and other creatures typically found in the jungle.

A chance discovery by a team of American scientists has led to the unearthing of a Stone Age cemetery that is providing the first glimpses of what life was like during the still-mysterious period when monsoons brought rain to the desert and created the "green Sahara."

http://snipurl.com/3gd5t

The 2003 Northeast Blackout—Five Years Later

from Scientific American

On August 14, 2003, shortly after 2 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, a high-voltage power line in northern Ohio brushed against some overgrown trees and shut down—a fault, as it's known in the power industry. The line had softened under the heat of the high current coursing through it. Normally, the problem would have tripped an alarm in the control room of FirstEnergy Corporation, an Ohio-based utility company, but the alarm system failed.

Over the next hour and a half, as system operators tried to understand what was happening, three other lines sagged into trees and switched off, forcing other power lines to shoulder an extra burden. Overtaxed, they cut out by 4:05 P.M., tripping a cascade of failures throughout southeastern Canada and eight northeastern states.

All told, 50 million people lost power for up to two days in the biggest blackout in North American history. The event contributed to at least 11 deaths and cost an estimated $6 billion. So, five years later, are we still at risk for a massive blackout?

http://snipurl.com/3g21o
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I hope medicine does advance to the point where we can enjoy extended health for an extra 50 years or so; I have a lot of stuff I'd like to do and at this rate I'll never get it all in by the time I'm 90.

Also if they could figure a non-invasive way to remove tumors that would rule.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Vene

Quote from: Nigel on August 18, 2008, 08:28:33 PM
I hope medicine does advance to the point where we can enjoy extended health for an extra 50 years or so; I have a lot of stuff I'd like to do and at this rate I'll never get it all in by the time I'm 90.

Also if they could figure a non-invasive way to remove tumors that would rule.
It's being worked on.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

That's totally cool!

Doesn't say whether it works on benign tumors but I am guessing no.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Vene

Quote from: Nigel on August 18, 2008, 09:08:53 PM
That's totally cool!

Doesn't say whether it works on benign tumors but I am guessing no.
I'd guess no too, especially as it looks like it just works for lymphoma.  But, that doesn't mean the knowledge gained can't help with other tumors.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I hope so 'cause that would be SWEET.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Kai

August 19, 2008
F.B.I. Details Anthrax Case, but Doubts Remain

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON—Federal Bureau of Investigation officials on Monday laid out their most detailed scientific case to date against Bruce E. Ivins, the military scientist accused of being the anthrax killer, but they acknowledged that the many mysteries of the case meant an air of uncertainty would always surround it.

"I don't think we're ever going to put the suspicions to bed," said Vahid Majidi, head of the F.B.I.'s weapons of mass destruction division. "There's always going to be a spore on a grassy knoll."

At a two-hour briefing for reporters, Dr. Majidi was joined by seven other leading scientists from inside and outside the bureau. They discussed in intricate detail the halting scientific path that led them from two main samples of anthrax used in the 2001 attacks, to four genetic mutations unique to the samples, to 100 scientists in the United States who had access to that particular strain, and ultimately to Dr. Ivins.

http://snipurl.com/3hozp

Spanish Fear Day When Tap Will Run Dry

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

BARCELONA, Spain—Water woes spiraled to such depths this year that the top regional environment minister here—a confirmed agnostic—confessed to climbing the stony shrine of the Virgin of Montserrat for a bit of solace.

Winter rains refused to fall, shriveling reserves to severe drought levels and prompting a water shipment from France. ... A monthlong downpour rescued Spain a couple of months later, ending the drought and adding yet another twist to Spain's unease over its water resource: The unrelenting rain marooned a section of a long-awaited world's fair in Zaragoza that, as luck would have it, touted water conservation.

Expo2008 rebounded to draw thousands of tourists for high-minded talk on sustainable development, but anxieties over water and market pressures now bedevil Spain's most development-hungry regions.

http://snipurl.com/3hi7j

Technology's Toll on Privacy and Security

from Scientific American

Computers, databases and networks have connected us like never before, but at what cost?

Scientific American presents a series of reports. Protesters, terrorists and warmongers have found the Internet to be a useful tool to achieve their goals. Our jittery state since 9/11, coupled with the Internet revolution, is shifting the boundaries between public interest and "the right to be let alone."

A little digging on social networks, blogs and Internet search engines lets you put together information about people like pieces of a puzzle. It's not a pretty picture for security or privacy. And with less than three months before the presidential election, the hotly contested state, Ohio, along with others, continue to have problems with E-voting technology.

http://snipurl.com/3hi41

FDA Approves 1st Drug for Huntington's Disease

from Newsday

Federal drug regulators Friday approved a medication to treat a major symptom of Huntington's disease, marking the first time since the disorder was first described in a Long Island family 136 years ago that any kind of treatment has been available in the United States.

In Huntington's, a rare, devastating condition, brain cells degenerate because of a genetic miscue easily passed from one generation to the next. The disorder results in jerky, involuntary movements known as chorea.

The drug tetrabenazine controls the chorea, which affects about 90 percent of people with the disease. It was approved under the Food and Drug Administration's orphan products program, which is aimed at developing treatments for conditions affecting fewer than 200,000 people. Huntington's disease affects 30,000 people nationwide.

http://snipurl.com/3hhxr

The Winners' Body Language—It's Biological

from the Boston Globe (Registration Required)

Throwing their heads back, thrusting their arms in the air, puffing out their chests, and flashing big grins, Olympic athletes from across the world follow the same triumphant choreography each night.

They aren't just gold medal-clad copycats; a study released last week says that such displays of pride seem to have biological underpinnings, shared with chest-beating mountain gorillas and strutting monkeys.

For insight into pride and shame, scientists studied the aftermath of judo matches from the 2004 Olympic and Paralympic Games, comparing the behavior of winning and losing judo players. They found that victory looked the same across cultures, and even among athletes who were born blind, and could never have learned the behavior from watching their peers celebrate victory.

http://snipurl.com/3hhww

Bacteria Played a Role in 1918 Pandemic Flu Deaths, Scientists Say

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Most deaths in the 1918 influenza pandemic were due not to the virus alone but to common bacterial infections that took advantage of victims' weakened immune systems, according to two new studies that could change the nation's strategy against the next pandemic.

"We have to realize that it isn't just antivirals that we need," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and coauthor of one study. "We need to make sure that we're prepared to treat people with antibiotics," said Fauci, whose study will be released online this month by the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

In both studies, scientists analyzed a trove of historical documents from around the world, examining firsthand accounts, medical records and autopsy reports.

http://snipurl.com/3hhtr

'Big Pig Dig' Was Treasure Trove of Fossils

from the San Francisco Chronicle

(Associated Press)—The fossil field formally known as the Pig Wallow Site at Badlands National Park will close for good at the end of this summer, 15 years after student paleontologists started unearthing prehistoric remains.

"The main research of the site is to better understand how fossils are preserved and how bones accumulate in a particular setting. And the site is very unique here at the Badlands. We've never found a site like it in the White River Badlands," said Rachel Benton, park paleontologist.

Excavation started in June 1993 after two visitors found a large backbone sticking out of the ground near the Conata Picnic Area in what researchers think was a watering hole that trapped animals in mud.

http://snipurl.com/3hhup

Mummified Remains from 1948 Plane Crash Identified

from the San Francisco Examiner

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Associated Press)—Nine years of sleuthing, advanced DNA science and cutting-edge forensic techniques have finally put a name to a mummified hand and arm found in an Alaska glacier.

The remains belong to Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36-year-old merchant marine from Roanoke, Va., who was on a plane rumored to contain a cargo of gold when it smashed into the side of a mountain 60 years ago. Thirty people died in the crash.

"This is the oldest identification of fingerprints by post-mortem remains," said latent fingerprint expert Mike Grimm Sr., during a teleconference Friday, during which the two pilots who found the remains, genetic scientists and genealogists talked about the discovery.

http://snipurl.com/3hhvo

More than 50 Percent of College Students Felt Suicidal

from USA Today

BOSTON—A comprehensive study of suicidal thinking among college students found more than half of the 26,000 surveyed had suicidal thoughts at some point during their lifetime.

The web-based survey conducted in spring 2006 used separate samples of undergraduate and graduate students from 70 colleges and universities across the country.

Of the 15,010 undergraduates, average age 22: 55 percent had ever thought of suicide; 18 percent seriously considered it; and 8 percent made an attempt. Among 11,441 graduate students, average age 30: Exactly half had such thoughts; 15 percent seriously considered it and 6 percent made an attempt.

http://snipurl.com/3hhyu

Mexican Peppers Posed Health Risks Long Before Salmonella Outbreak

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

FRESNO, Calif. (Associated Press)—Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy, disease-ridden shipments of peppers from Mexico in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was finally traced to Mexican chilies.

Yet no larger action was taken. Food and Drug Administration officials insisted as recently as last week that they were surprised by the outbreak because Mexican peppers had not been spotted as a problem before.

But an Associated Press analysis of FDA records found that peppers and chilies were consistently the top Mexican crop rejected by border inspectors for the last year. Since January alone, 88 shipments of fresh and dried chilies were turned away. Ten percent were contaminated with salmonella. In the last year, 8 percent of the 158 intercepted shipments of fresh and dried chilies had salmonella.

http://snipurl.com/3hp1w
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Kai

August 20, 2008
Statins: From Fungus to Pharma

from American Scientist

In 1966, Akira Endo, a young Japanese biochemist, started an adventure that would ultimately save thousands, if not millions, of lives.

Only 33 years old at the time, Endo was a research scientist at Sankyo—a pharmaceutical company, later known as Daiichi Sankyo, in Tokyo—where he was looking for enzymes in fungal extracts for improving the quality of certain foodstuffs. But his research was soon to enter a new realm.

As he would write years later: "In the mid-1960s, fascinated by several excellent reviews on cholesterol biosynthesis by Konrad Bloch of Harvard University, who received the Nobel Prize in 1964, I became interested in the biochemistry of cholesterol and other lipids." Endo's curiosity triggered research that eventually spawned one of today's most widely used families of drugs.

http://snipurl.com/3hpjt

China's Olympic Pollution Efforts Paid Off, Expert Says

from National Geographic News

Beijing's air for the opening track-and-field events at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games is "better than expected," said U.S. Olympic distance runner Amy Yoder Begley.

"When I came to China to race in 2002," Yoder Begly said in an e-mail earlier this week, "the air caused my lungs and nasal passages to burn." She also described the sensation as "swallowing glass."

Although air pollution in China's capital city is almost always worse than anywhere in the United States, Chinese efforts to clean up the air before the Games have paid off. The country shut down all nearby factories and ordered half the cars off the road, creating tangible improvements, scientists say.

http://snipurl.com/3hi1n

Methadone Rises as a Painkiller With Big Risks

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Suffering from excruciating spinal deterioration, Robby Garvin, 24, of South Carolina, tried many painkillers before his doctor prescribed methadone in June 2006, just before Mr. Garvin and his friend Joey Sutton set off for a weekend at an amusement park.

On Saturday night Mr. Garvin called his mother to say, "Mama, this is the first time I have been pain free, this medicine just might really help me." The next day, though, he felt bad. As directed, he took two more tablets and then he lay down for a nap. It was after 2 p.m. that Joey said he heard a strange sound that must have been Robby's last breath.

Methadone, once used mainly in addiction treatment centers to replace heroin, is today being given out by family doctors, osteopaths and nurse practitioners for throbbing backs, joint injuries and a host of other severe pains.

http://snipurl.com/3hhtd

Cybercrime: 'A Lot of People Just Don't Take the Basic Precautions'

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

At the end of the Black Hat hacker convention in Las Vegas this month, James Finch, head of the FBI's Cyber Division, sat down for an interview about crime and the Internet. About 4,000 people gathered at the annual convention to hear about research on the latest network and computer or electronic-device security vulnerabilities.

The FBI's Cyber Division is responsible for investigating high-tech crimes, including computer and network intrusions and child pornography cases. Each of the FBI's 56 field offices has a cyber squad, which pulls from a pool of 500 to 600 agents specializing in the area.

According to an FBI spokesman, there are currently about 50 FBI-led cybercrime task forces across the country working cases with state and local authorities and with investigators from other law enforcement agencies. The Washington Post presents excerpts from aninterview with James Finch.

http://snipurl.com/3htsm

Researchers Produce Blood in Lab from Stem Cells

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Scientists said [yesterday] that they have devised a way to grow large quantities of blood in the lab using human embryonic stem cells, potentially making blood drives a relic of the past.

But experts cautioned that although it represented a significant technical advance, the new approach required several key improvements before it could be considered a realistic alternative to donor blood.

The research team outlined a four-step process for turning embryonic stem cells into red blood cells capable of carrying as much oxygen as normal blood. The procedure was published online in the journal Blood. The ability to make blood in the lab would guarantee that hospitals and blood banks have access to an ample supply of all types of blood, including the rare AB-negative and O-negative, the universal donor.

http://snipurl.com/3htqv

Bird Flu Hopes from 1918 Victims

from BBC News Online

Survivors of the devastating 1918 influenza pandemic are still protected from the virus, according to researchers in the US.

American scientists found that people who lived through the outbreak can still produce antibodies that kill the deadly strain of the H1N1 flu. The study, published in the journal Nature, could help develop emergency treatments for future outbreaks.

The Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. Some experts say it was the most devastating epidemic in history, affecting even healthy adults.

http://snipurl.com/3htup

Bloating Galaxies Confound Astronomers

from New Scientist

Astronomers continue to puzzle over the recent discovery of a strange population of dense, compact galaxies that existed in the early universe but are nowhere to be seen today.

They suspect the galaxies somehow puffed up into the bloated behemoths we see around us, but new research shortens the timescale during which this mysterious swelling could have happened.

In April, astronomers reported finding extremely compact galaxies as far back as 10 billion years ago, or 3.7 billion years after the big bang. The galaxies contained the same number of stars as modern, blob-shaped galaxies known as ellipticals—but were two to three times smaller on average. Now, observations have turned up compact galaxies roughly a billion years later, when the universe was almost 5 billion years old.

http://snipurl.com/3htvz

Songbirds Show Signs of Recognizing Their Own Bodies in Mirrors

from Science News

Magpies sing a self-reflective tune to themselves that until now has gone unheard. When placed in front of a mirror, these songbirds realize that they're looking at themselves, raising the possibility that they have independently evolved the brain power to support a basic form of self-recognition, a new study suggests.

Magpies are the first non-mammal to demonstrate a rudimentary affinity for self-recognition, psychologist Helmut Prior of Goethe University in Frankfurt on Main, Germany and his colleagues report in the Aug. 19 PLoS Biology.

Members of the corvid family, which includes crows and ravens, magpies join apes, bottlenose dolphins and elephants as the only animals other than humans that have been observed to understand that a mirror image belongs to their own body.

http://snipurl.com/3htwy

A Monster Discovery? It Was Just a Costume

from ABC News

In the end, it seems Bigfoot was nothing more than a frozen Halloween costume. Last Friday, two men, Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, announced they had found the remains of the elusive legend, Sasquatch, better known as Bigfoot.

The two men had teamed up with self-proclaimed Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi, creating a media bonanza replete with claims that they had a real half-human, half-ape body in their possession.

Biscardi, who himself has a history of dubious Bigfoot sightings, claims the story started to unravel over the weekend. And he apparently tried to shift responsibility to Whitton and Dyer claiming the pair "deceived him." But several Bigfoot academics say all three men appear to have been perpetrating a hoax.

http://snipurl.com/3i0r1

Researchers Say Numbers Aren't Needed to Count

from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—Answer this without counting: Are there more X's here XXXXXX, or here XXXXX? That's a problem facing people whose languages don't include words for more than one or two. Yet researchers say children who speak those languages are still able to compare quantities.

"We argue that humans possess an innate system for enumeration that doesn't rely on words," says Brian Butterworth of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London.

In an attempt to prove it, Butterworth compared the numerical skills of children from two indigenous Australian groups whose languages don't contain many number words with similar children who speak English. All the groups performed equally well, his research team reports in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

http://snipurl.com/3i0sr
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Golden Applesauce

Quote from: Kai on August 19, 2008, 03:20:49 PM
Technology's Toll on Privacy and Security

from Scientific American

Computers, databases and networks have connected us like never before, but at what cost?

Scientific American presents a series of reports. Protesters, terrorists and warmongers have found the Internet to be a useful tool to achieve their goals. Our jittery state since 9/11, coupled with the Internet revolution, is shifting the boundaries between public interest and "the right to be let alone."

A little digging on social networks, blogs and Internet search engines lets you put together information about people like pieces of a puzzle. It's not a pretty picture for security or privacy. And with less than three months before the presidential election, the hotly contested state, Ohio, along with others, continue to have problems with E-voting technology.

http://snipurl.com/3hi41

This is a big one.  Some retarded faculty member at my college decided it would be a good idea to post a searchable directory with students name, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses online.  At the moment some faculty members have photos as well; I'm hoping they aren't going to apply that to students as well.
Q: How regularly do you hire 8th graders?
A: We have hired a number of FORMER 8th graders.

Kai

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on August 21, 2008, 03:33:33 AM
Quote from: Kai on August 19, 2008, 03:20:49 PM
Technology's Toll on Privacy and Security

from Scientific American

Computers, databases and networks have connected us like never before, but at what cost?

Scientific American presents a series of reports. Protesters, terrorists and warmongers have found the Internet to be a useful tool to achieve their goals. Our jittery state since 9/11, coupled with the Internet revolution, is shifting the boundaries between public interest and "the right to be let alone."

A little digging on social networks, blogs and Internet search engines lets you put together information about people like pieces of a puzzle. It's not a pretty picture for security or privacy. And with less than three months before the presidential election, the hotly contested state, Ohio, along with others, continue to have problems with E-voting technology.

http://snipurl.com/3hi41

This is a big one.  Some retarded faculty member at my college decided it would be a good idea to post a searchable directory with students name, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses online.  At the moment some faculty members have photos as well; I'm hoping they aren't going to apply that to students as well.

We have that here, but you actually have to be a student or staff/faculty to access it, requiring a logon.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Requia ☣

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on August 21, 2008, 03:33:33 AM
Quote from: Kai on August 19, 2008, 03:20:49 PM
Technology's Toll on Privacy and Security

from Scientific American

Computers, databases and networks have connected us like never before, but at what cost?

Scientific American presents a series of reports. Protesters, terrorists and warmongers have found the Internet to be a useful tool to achieve their goals. Our jittery state since 9/11, coupled with the Internet revolution, is shifting the boundaries between public interest and "the right to be let alone."

A little digging on social networks, blogs and Internet search engines lets you put together information about people like pieces of a puzzle. It's not a pretty picture for security or privacy. And with less than three months before the presidential election, the hotly contested state, Ohio, along with others, continue to have problems with E-voting technology.

http://snipurl.com/3hi41

This is a big one.  Some retarded faculty member at my college decided it would be a good idea to post a searchable directory with students name, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses online.  At the moment some faculty members have photos as well; I'm hoping they aren't going to apply that to students as well.

I used one of those for nefarious purposes a while back.  They are a seriously bad idea.  But then, so are online phone books.
Inflatable dolls are not recognized flotation devices.

Kai

Yeah, you could easily find out who I am, where I live, what classes I take, and a thousand other little but revealing things about my identity with only a little digging, assuming you knew where to look.

Thats a risk I'm willing to take.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish