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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Weasel Award May 4, 2005 Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates
Post Date: 2005-05-12 15:53:07 by RickyJ
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The IT Professionals Association of America (ITPAA) has awarded its second Weasel Award of 2005 to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates for his recent remarks supporting the lifting of restrictions on the H-1b visa. The Information Technology Professionals Association of America (ITPAA), an advocacy group based in Wilmington, Delaware representing professionals in the high-tech field has handed out its second Weasel Award of 2005 to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates for his comments calling for the unrestricted importation of high-tech workers into the United States under the H-1b visa program. The organization, representing over 1,200 IT professionals nationwide, presents this award to business and ...
Dashboard Leaves Macs Vulnerable
Post Date: 2005-05-11 23:56:02 by RickyJ
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A security hole in Dashboard could expose users of Apple Computer's new Tiger operating system to attack, and may put personal information like passwords and credit card data at risk. A new feature of Mac OS X Tiger, Dashboard is a suite of simple programs called widgets that often access information on the internet. Tiger comes preloaded with 14 widgets, including a world clock, a dictionary and a weather station. For the convenience of users, most widgets automatically install themselves. But experts fear any program that auto-installs is ripe for exploitation. Dashboard allows any user with basic skills in HTML or JavaScript to build their own widgets. Apple's Dashboard widgets page, ...
Britain faces big chill as ocean current slows
Post Date: 2005-05-10 15:35:39 by robin
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CLIMATE change researchers have detected the first signs of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream — the mighty ocean current that keeps Britain and Europe from freezing. They have found that one of the “engines” driving the Gulf Stream — the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea — has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength. The weakening, apparently caused by global warming, could herald big changes in the current over the next few years or decades. Paradoxically, it could lead to Britain and northwestern and Europe undergoing a sharp drop in temperatures. Such a change has long been predicted by scientists but the new research is among the ...
Intruder Attack on Computer Net Is Called Broad
Post Date: 2005-05-09 22:50:59 by robin
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SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 - The incident seemed alarming enough: a breach of a Cisco Systems network in which an intruder seized programming instructions for many of the computers that control the flow of the Internet. Now federal officials and computer security investigators have acknowledged that the Cisco break-in last year was only part of a more extensive operation - involving a single intruder or a small band, apparently based in Europe - in which thousands of computer systems were similarly penetrated. Investigators in the United States and Europe say they have spent almost a year pursuing the case involving attacks on computer systems serving the American military, NASA and research ...
Gay and Straight Men React Differently to Sexual Odors
Post Date: 2005-05-09 20:23:32 by crack monkey
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Gay and Straight Men React Differently to Sexual Odors By NICHOLAS WADE Using a brain-imaging technique, Swedish researchers have shown that men and women respond differently to two odors that may be involved in sexual arousal, and that homosexual men respond in the same way as women. The two chemicals, one a testosterone derivative produced in men's sweat and the other an estrogen-like compound found in women's urine, have long been suspected of being pheromones, chemicals emitted by one individual to trigger some behavior in another of the same species. The role of pheromones, particularly in guiding sexual behavior, has been well established in animals but experts differ as to what ...
Critical Flaw Found in Firefox
Post Date: 2005-05-09 16:28:50 by Eoghan
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Firefox has unpatched "extremely critical" security holes and exploit code is already circulating on the Net, security researchers have warned. The two unpatched flaws in the Mozilla browser could allow an attacker to take control of your system. A patch is expected shortly, but in the meantime users can protect themselves by switching off JavaScript. In addition, the Mozilla Foundation has now made the flaws effectively impossible to exploit by changes to the server-side download mechanism on the update.mozilla.org and addons.mozilla.org sites, according to security experts. The flaws were confidentially reported to the Foundation on May 2, but by Saturday details had been ...
Nano World: Ten overlooked nano firms
Post Date: 2005-05-09 12:46:32 by Eoghan
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Some relatively unknown companies could someday make as much of a splash in nanotechnology as the big companies that usually are regarded as the bellwethers, experts told UPI's Nano World. "I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the biggest winners in nanotech come from the overlooked companies," said Doug Jamison, president of Harris and Harris Group, a publicly held venture-capital firm in New York City and co-editor-in-chief of Nanotechnology Law & Business. In the NLB's latest issue, experts identified 10 nanotech companies with great potential from some 200 candidates that had not yet received significant attention either from venture capitalists or the media. Front ...
California to ban hunting over Internet
Post Date: 2005-05-07 21:04:43 by robin
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SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- Wildlife regulators took the first step Tuesday to bar hunters from using the Internet to shoot animals, responding to a Texas Web site that planned to let users fire at real game with the click of a mouse. The Fish and Game Commission ordered wildlife officials to prepare emergency regulations to ban the practice. A period of public comment will follow. "We don't think Californians should be able to hunt sitting at their computers at home," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game. A bill passed by the state Senate two weeks ago would prohibit use of computer-assisted hunting sites and ban the import or export ...
Student Organizes Time Traveler Conference
Post Date: 2005-05-06 13:52:17 by Mr Nuke Buzzcut
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Student Organizes Time Traveler Conference By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press Writer BOSTON (AP) -- Attention, time travelers: Amal Dorai hopes you enjoyed the party he's throwing this weekend. Dorai, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is hosting a Time Traveler Convention on campus this Saturday. Make plans now, because it's the last such party. "You only need one," he said. "The chance that anybody shows up is small, but if it happens it will be one of the biggest events in human history." There's no dress code. No need to R.S.V.P. Refreshments (chips and dip) will be provided. Dorai only asks his guests to show proof they come from the ...
Scientists Clueless over Sun's Effect on Earth
Post Date: 2005-05-06 11:02:02 by Mr Nuke Buzzcut
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Scientists Clueless over Sun's Effect on Earth Robert Roy Britt LiveScience Senior Writer LiveScience.com Thu May 5, 5:29 PM ET While researchers argue whether Earth is getting warmer and if humans are contributing, a heated debate over the global effect of sunlight boiled to the surface today. And in this debate there is little data to go on. A confusing array of new and recent studies reveals that scientists know very little about how much sunlight is absorbed by Earth versus how much the planet reflects, how all this alters temperatures, and why any of it changes from one decade to the next. Determining Earth's reflectance is crucial to understanding climate change, scientists ...
Government Set To Issue 20,000 New H-1B Visas
Post Date: 2005-05-05 19:30:10 by RickyJ
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There is a catch: To qualify for the additional H-1B visas, immigrant workers must hold a graduate degree from a U.S. institution. By Eric Chabrow InformationWeek A new law designed to ease the H-1B visa cap will allow an extra 20,000 foreign workers into the United States this year, provided they hold a master's degree or higher from an American institution, according to new regulations forwarded by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Wednesday to the Federal Register, the official daily publication for rules and notices of federal agencies. The H-1B visa program is designed to help employers hire foreign workers with special expertise when such know-how can't be found ...
THE CLIMATE OF MAN—II
Post Date: 2005-05-05 10:15:32 by crack monkey
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(This is a really long article, but it makes some great points and does a good job of explaining how some of the measurements were made and how some of the models work. It completely contradicts Limbaugh and Newsmax on the subject. Parts 1 and III can be found at: New Yorker) THE CLIMATE OF MAN—II by ELIZABETH KOLBERT The curse of Akkad. Issue of 2005-05-02 Posted 2005-04-25 The world’s first empire was established forty-three hundred years ago, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The details of its founding, by Sargon of Akkad, have come down to us in a form somewhere between history and myth. Sargon—Sharru-kin, in the language of Akkadian—means “true ...
Cells That Go Back in Time
Post Date: 2005-05-04 13:46:17 by RickyJ
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Lop off a newt's leg or tail, and it will grow a new one. The creature's cells can regenerate thanks to built-in time machines that revert cells to early versions of themselves in a process called dedifferentiation. Researchers who study this mechanism hope one day to learn how to induce the same "cell time travel" in humans. If the cells go back far enough, they become stem cells, which researchers believe hold promise for treating many diseases. Stem cells, which are often taken from embryos, are unformed and have the ability to become many different types of cells. If researchers succeed in inducing this cell time travel, they will also eliminate the ethical issues surrounding ...
Brain-Damaged Firefighter Talks after 10 years
Post Date: 2005-05-03 16:45:15 by Jethro Tull
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Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm...... *** ********** (Page 1 of 2) ORCHARD PARK, N.Y., May 3, 2005 (CBS/AP) Ten years after a firefighter was left brain-damaged and mostly mute during a 1995 roof collapse, he did something that shocked his family and doctors: He perked up. "I want to talk to my wife," Donald Herbert said out of the blue Saturday. Staff members of the nursing home where he has lived for more than seven years raced to get Linda Herbert on the telephone. "The word of the day was 'amazing,'" Herbert's uncle, Simon Manka, said. It was the first of many conversations Herbert, who will turn 44 Saturday, had with his wife, four sons and other family ...
Giant Earthquakes To Rock World In Next 15 Years
Post Date: 2005-05-02 23:35:53 by robin
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News.com.au May 2, 2005 The Indonesian earthquake behind the Boxing Day tsunami that killed 300,000 people could be the first of a series of giant quakes that will rock the world in the next 10 to 15 years, scientists have warned. The Mediterranean is among areas at high risk, particularly the coasts of Greece and Turkey, both popular tourist destinations. The scientists are urging the installation of a tsunami warning system there as a matter of urgency. They found that quakes such as the one in Indonesia can destabilise the whole of the earth´s crust, so that one is followed by others, often thousands of kilometres away, within a few years. "The four biggest earthquakes of ...
Microsoft's Gates Urges End to Tech Visa Limits
Post Date: 2005-05-01 22:50:33 by RickyJ
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States should remove visa limits to allow more skilled foreign citizens to work at U.S. companies if it wants to remain a leader in technology, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Chairman Bill Gates said on Wednesday. Microsoft is having a hard time finding skilled workers within the United States, and the lack of H-1B visas for skilled workers is only making the situation worse, Gates said in a panel discussion at the Library of Congress. "The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, don't let too many smart people come into the country. The whole thing doesn't make sense," Gates said. Gates echoed the concerns of other business ...
What we need more of is science
Post Date: 2005-05-01 01:30:35 by Elliott Jackalope
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If you click HERE and then select "Watch this Movie", you'll get the chance to watch a delightful animated music video starring M.C. Hawking as "Dr. Astro" versus his arch-nemesis, "The Fundamentalist". For extra fun, I'll post the lyrics here so you can read along with the song. Enjoy! What We Need More Of Is Science Verse 1 I'm a disciple of science I know the universe is compliance with natural laws, but many place reliance on the psuedo-science of quacks and morons and fools because, their educations deficient, they put faith in omniscient, make believe beings who control their fate, but the Hawk aint with it, dig it, their Holy writ aint the least bit ...
Itty-Bitty and Shrinking, Fusion Device Has Big Ideas
Post Date: 2005-04-27 22:14:34 by crack monkey
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Itty-Bitty and Shrinking, Fusion Device Has Big Ideas By KENNETH CHANG n a surprising feat of miniaturization, scientists are reporting today that they have produced nuclear fusion - the same process that powers the sun - in a footlong cylinder just five inches in diameter. And they say they will soon be able to make the device even smaller. While the device is probably too inefficient to produce electricity or other forms of energy, the scientists say, egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in spacecraft thrusters, medical treatments and scanners that search for bombs. The findings, by a team at the University of California, Los Angeles, led by Dr. Seth J. Putterman, are ...
Thousands of Amphibians Exploding In Germany, Experts Baffled
Post Date: 2005-04-25 21:09:21 by robin
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On a busy German road, a female toad makes haste, with her male partner clinging on, as a speeding car approaches. Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded.(AFP/DPA/File/Markus Farhrer) BERLIN (AFP) - Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded. According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre (three feet). It is like "a science fiction film", according to Werner Smolnik of ...
GM industry puts human gene into rice
Post Date: 2005-04-25 18:37:59 by DeaconBenjamin
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Scientists have begun putting genes from human beings into food crops in a dramatic extension of genetic modification. The move, which is causing disgust and revulsion among critics, is bound to strengthen accusations that GM technology is creating "Frankenstein foods" and drive the controversy surrounding it to new heights. Even before this development, many people, including Prince Charles, have opposed the technology on the grounds that it is playing God by creating unnatural combinations of living things. Environmentalists say that no one will want to eat the partially human-derived food because it will smack of cannibalism. But supporters say that the controversial new ...
Archaeologist finds 'oldest porn statue'
Post Date: 2005-04-24 21:05:51 by tom007
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Archaeologist finds 'oldest porn statue' Krysia Diver in Stuttgart Monday April 4, 2005 The Guardian Stone-age figurines depicting what could be the oldest pornographic scene in the world have been unearthed in Germany. Archaeologists have discovered what they believe to be the 7,200-year-old remnants of a man having intercourse with a woman. The extraordinary find, at an archaeological dig in Saxony, shatters the belief that sex was a taboo subject in that era. Until now, the oldest representations of sexual scenes were frescos from about 2,000 years ago. Article continues Harald Stäuble of the Archaeological Institute of Saxony, based in Dresden, discovered the 8cm lower ...
Earthquake Detector Finds Solid Earth Core
Post Date: 2005-04-24 17:36:40 by robin
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Cutaway of Planet Earth April 20, 2005 — For the first time, the solid inner core of the Earth has been directly detected and its existence confirmed, seismologists have reported. New evidence of a solid iron inner core to the planet comes from a digital broadband seismic array in Germany that is located in a lucky enough position to have captured a faint, but telltale, seismic signal. The signal was sent through the Earth from a particularly clear sort of earthquake deep in the crust on the other side of the planet. The seismic discovery was announced in the April 15 issue of the journal Science. "The earthquake they used was at the right depth and magnitude," said ...
Utah sits on huge oil reserve
Post Date: 2005-04-21 07:49:25 by Esso
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As a prominent advocate for encouraging unconventional energy sources, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was asked to testify today in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on his efforts to develop fuel from a vast untapped domestic oil reserve in tar sandsand oil shale -- a large part of which sits in eastern Utah. "Who would have guessed that in just Colorado and Utah, there is more recoverable oil than in the Middle East?" Hatch said. "We just don't count it among our nation's oil reserves because it is not yet being developed commercially. I find it disturbing that Utah imports oil from Canada tar sands, even though we have a larger tar sands resource ...
Down to the Wire
Post Date: 2005-04-19 07:31:01 by RickyJ
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Summary: Once a leader in Internet innovation, the United States has fallen far behind Japan and other Asian states in deploying broadband and the latest mobile-phone technology. This lag will cost it dearly. By outdoing the United States, Japan and its neighbors are positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life. Thomas Bleha, the recipient of an Abe Fellowship, is completing a book on the race for Internet leadership. Previously, he was a Foreign Service officer in Japan for eight years. BROADBAND NATION? In the first three years of the Bush administration, the United ...
Earth’s Gravity May Lure Deadly Asteroid
Post Date: 2005-04-18 10:55:29 by Brian S
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A HUGE asteroid which is on a course to miss the Earth by a whisker in 2029 could go round its orbit again and score a direct hit a few years later. Astronomers have calculated that the 1,000ft-wide asteroid called 2004 MN4 will pass by the Earth at a distance of between 15,000 and 25,000 miles — about a tenth of the distance between the Earth and the Moon and close enough to be seen with the naked eye. Although they are sure that it will miss us, they are worried about the disturbance that such a close pass will give to the asteroid’s orbit. It might put 2004 MN4 on course for a collision in 2034 or a year or two later: the unpredictability of its behaviour means that the ...
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