Slashdot Mirror

timbo_red writes "The BBC report that an international team of scientists have solved the STW conjecture. I vaguely remember what this is from reading the Fermat book, I'll have to check it again. " This really has me interested in the conjecture. Anyone have any good links for background reading?

Almost everybody sent it: "China successfully launches and retrieves its first unmanned spacecraft, moving it a step closer to becoming the third nation to send astronauts into space..." BBC story - SpaceViews story - official press release from China Daily.

Ant wrote to tell us of a story on BBC's Web site about the world's smallest transistor. The Vertical Transistor uses the thickness of a precisely-controlled layer of material, rather than light, to set the gate size, which makes for smaller circuits. With many scientists of the opinion that current transistor technology will hit a brick wall of physics soon, the vertical transistor offers a new way to get greater processing power.

Ant wrote to tell us of a story on BBC's Web site about the world's smallest transistor. The Vertical Transistor uses the thickness of a precisely-controlled layer of material, rather than light, to set the gate size, which makes for smaller circuits. With many scientists of the opinion that current transistor technology will hit a brick wall of physics soon, the vertical transistor offers a new way to get greater processing power.

calibanDNS writes "The BBC is running an article about Microsoft surrendering in its instant messaging war with AOL. According to the article, the latest version of AOL's instant messaging software 'blocks interoperability by exposing a very serious security bug in its software.'" MS would prefer it not be called a surrender, of course; see also the Nando Times article which hints at running arbitrary code on the client. Is this FUD, or will we carry a story next week about a new AOL IM exploit?

vivekb writes "Scientists at Ruhr University in Germany are using DNA to assemble microscopic structures. They attached matched DNA strands to construction materials, and use the DNA as an highly selective bonding agent. So far, basic polyhedra have been manufactured using gold spheres. The BBC presents this article. The paper is entitled Self-Assembly of Trisoligonucleotidyls. "

Thousands of miles of existing fiber still lie dark, but as schnucki writes, "Bell Laboratories believe they have broken two world records in the use of optical fibres to transmit information." They sent 160 gigabits/sec on one wavelength, and then in a separate experiment sent 1,022 separate wavelengths down one fiber. You do the math. Check it out.

Generic Specialist writes "There is an article on the BBC web-site reporting that the Hubble Space Telescope has finally shut itself down due to the failure of a fourth gyroscope. For some time it has been running on the minimum three out of its six gyroscopes, and on Saturday the failure of another one sent the telesope into its safe mode. We'll have to wait until after the next servicing mission, due next month, before any more science can be done. "

Tony pickering writes "Spotted on the BBC - "Professor Kevin Warwick is to have a silicon implant inserted in his arm in an attempt to find out whether the computer will be able to move his limbs by copying signals from his brain." Possibly has some medical apps, but a little spooky nonetheless - hey, now, I can lock my body up! " The really scary part is that the next step he's going to do is emotion control. /shiver/ Check out a recent interview with Kevin Warwick, as well as more info on human chip implants.

Arctic Fox writes "The BBC has a story reporting that Australian intellegence confirms the existance of Echelon. " Obviously there is no "Official" confirmation, but its still pretty interesting. "They" are definitely watching.

Adam Foster writes "SlugBot is no ordinary robot. SlugBot hunts down slugs, and is powered by fermenting the slugs' corpses, producing biogas fuel. Find out more from the BBC."

Anonymous Coward writes "A British trust has warned Celera Genomics that data from Human DNA should remain in the public domain to maximize benefits for medical research. Celera is about to patent DNA structures after decoding about one third of the human genome. The Wellcome Trust is leading moves to stop the information becoming the private property of corporations. " Celera has been brute-forcing structures, enabling them to beat The Human Genome Project to the punch - and are filing for 6000 patents. Please contact the Wellcome Trust to indicate your support of them. Patent attempts like Celera's stifle scientific progress.Update: 10/26 10:00 by H :Thanks to net_shaman for the pointer to a similar article in The Washington Post.

lawrence writes "The BBC is carrying this story about five post-grad students at the University of Hertfordshire who are planning on creating a glow-in-the-dark christmas tree. They would do this by adding the genes that cause glowing in fireflies and jellyfish, making the pine-needles glow all the time. They expect the cost of the trees to be about £200 ($330) Future possibilities involve coral genes that would make it multicolored. " I think my favorite part about this story is the comment about Americans being a likely market. *grin*

The Dodger writes "I've just finished watching the Bill Gates interview on BBC. The first conclusion I came to is that he's very intelligent and quite good at controlling the conversation. Luckily, [BBC's] Jeremy Paxman is a very good interviewer. He's not afraid of asking difficult questions and he's prepared to risk antagonising his interviewees instead of sticking to nice safe topics. He challenged Gates on various issues, even mentioning Linus Torvalds, but unfortunately Jeremy isn't a technology expert, so the topic of open standards and protocols wasn't raised, and when Gates' asserted that the field was wide open for anyone to do what he and Microsoft have done, Jeremy didn't know enough to point out that when someone begins to look like they might challenge Microsoft's position, they get driven out of business or acquired." (More from The Dodger below).

However, the interview has enlightened me as to Gates' motivations. Some people have said he's motivated by money. I don't think so. Others say that he's power-hungry. I don't think he comes across as the sort of person who's massively concerned about power.

One significant thing I noticed was that Gates seems to believe that Microsoft is responsible for the success of the personal computer and he seems to believe that it's because of his company's software that the Internet has become as popular as it has. He asserted, during the interview, that Microsoft's software empowers people to publish their thoughts on the Internet, yet he later admitted that he didn't like the fact that others might use that same software to incite race hatred. He also spoke quite enthusiastically about what lay ahead and the sort of technologies (e.g. speech recognition) that Microsoft is currently working on.

I think Gates believes that he and Microsoft have, almost single-handedly, advanced the human race to the brink of the information age. I think he credits himself and his company as being directly responsible for the fact that there is "a computer on every desk and in every home".

I believe that Bill Gates sees himself as some kind of custodian. Because Microsoft has been so successful and because its software runs on nine out of every ten of the world's computers, he's come to the conclusion that he knows better than anyone else and, therefore, he has assumed the responsibility for leading humanity into the information age.

I think that he sees Microsoft as a tool - it is the company which will do the research, develop the technology and market the software which will help the human race advance. He sees himself as its custodian, rather than its owner. The fact that he has decided to leave his money, not to his children, but to a charitable institution which will fund research into health and education, supports this theory. Bill Gates does actually see himself as having been chosen, in some way, to help humanity.

I'm not saying that he sees himself as some sort of Messiah or genius; just that he has this perception of himself as someone who can change things for the better.

The problem is that he thinks he knows best and this explains his willingness to stomp all over any potential competition who might pose a threat to Microsoft's position (and thus, to his plans and vision of the future), as well as his arrogance towards the US Government.

Let me make it clear that I don't think Bill Gates is evil. I don't think his motivations are selfish. I merely think that he is misguided. He thinks that he knows best and he uses this belief to justify what he does, in effectively forcing the world to adopt the standards which his company has developed, under his supervision, not because he wants to be rich or powerful, but because he believes that he knows best than everyone else.

I don't blame Gates for his actions or the actions of his company. I think his intentions, deep down, are good. But I think that he may suffer from some psychological condition which blinds him to the fact that he doesn't have the right to disregard others just because he thinks he knows best. I suspect that he may believe that the end justifies the means. However, whilst I don't believe that Bill Gates' ultimate intentions are dishonourable, I do believe that he is dangerous because of the immensely powerful position Microsoft holds. Furthermore, I suspect that the people he has appointed to senior positions within Microsoft share his vision. As a result I really hope that the Department of Justice wins their antitrust court case against Microsoft, and that Microsoft is either broken up or has limits placed upon it which will prevent it from single-handedly controlling the development of the software, protocols and networks which will form the basis for the information age.

To be honest, the thought that Microsoft might be left intact or unfettered, to pursue its and Gates' goals, scares me. Not so much because their goal is a bad one, but because that, in achieving it, they could irrevocably stunt the development of the information age.

- The Dodger

Thanks, Dodger. An artful piece piece of writing. Please send your real name, shipping/mailing address, and t-shirt size to roblimo@nojunk.slashdot.org (minus the "nojunk") and we'll send you a Slashdot t-shirt from Copyleft, as we now do to all readers who contribute features or reviews.

The Dodger writes "I've just finished watching the Bill Gates interview on BBC. The first conclusion I came to is that he's very intelligent and quite good at controlling the conversation. Luckily, [BBC's] Jeremy Paxman is a very good interviewer. He's not afraid of asking difficult questions and he's prepared to risk antagonising his interviewees instead of sticking to nice safe topics. He challenged Gates on various issues, even mentioning Linus Torvalds, but unfortunately Jeremy isn't a technology expert, so the topic of open standards and protocols wasn't raised, and when Gates' asserted that the field was wide open for anyone to do what he and Microsoft have done, Jeremy didn't know enough to point out that when someone begins to look like they might challenge Microsoft's position, they get driven out of business or acquired." (More from The Dodger below).

However, the interview has enlightened me as to Gates' motivations. Some people have said he's motivated by money. I don't think so. Others say that he's power-hungry. I don't think he comes across as the sort of person who's massively concerned about power.

One significant thing I noticed was that Gates seems to believe that Microsoft is responsible for the success of the personal computer and he seems to believe that it's because of his company's software that the Internet has become as popular as it has. He asserted, during the interview, that Microsoft's software empowers people to publish their thoughts on the Internet, yet he later admitted that he didn't like the fact that others might use that same software to incite race hatred. He also spoke quite enthusiastically about what lay ahead and the sort of technologies (e.g. speech recognition) that Microsoft is currently working on.

I think Gates believes that he and Microsoft have, almost single-handedly, advanced the human race to the brink of the information age. I think he credits himself and his company as being directly responsible for the fact that there is "a computer on every desk and in every home".

I believe that Bill Gates sees himself as some kind of custodian. Because Microsoft has been so successful and because its software runs on nine out of every ten of the world's computers, he's come to the conclusion that he knows better than anyone else and, therefore, he has assumed the responsibility for leading humanity into the information age.

I think that he sees Microsoft as a tool - it is the company which will do the research, develop the technology and market the software which will help the human race advance. He sees himself as its custodian, rather than its owner. The fact that he has decided to leave his money, not to his children, but to a charitable institution which will fund research into health and education, supports this theory. Bill Gates does actually see himself as having been chosen, in some way, to help humanity.

I'm not saying that he sees himself as some sort of Messiah or genius; just that he has this perception of himself as someone who can change things for the better.

The problem is that he thinks he knows best and this explains his willingness to stomp all over any potential competition who might pose a threat to Microsoft's position (and thus, to his plans and vision of the future), as well as his arrogance towards the US Government.

Let me make it clear that I don't think Bill Gates is evil. I don't think his motivations are selfish. I merely think that he is misguided. He thinks that he knows best and he uses this belief to justify what he does, in effectively forcing the world to adopt the standards which his company has developed, under his supervision, not because he wants to be rich or powerful, but because he believes that he knows best than everyone else.

I don't blame Gates for his actions or the actions of his company. I think his intentions, deep down, are good. But I think that he may suffer from some psychological condition which blinds him to the fact that he doesn't have the right to disregard others just because he thinks he knows best. I suspect that he may believe that the end justifies the means. However, whilst I don't believe that Bill Gates' ultimate intentions are dishonourable, I do believe that he is dangerous because of the immensely powerful position Microsoft holds. Furthermore, I suspect that the people he has appointed to senior positions within Microsoft share his vision. As a result I really hope that the Department of Justice wins their antitrust court case against Microsoft, and that Microsoft is either broken up or has limits placed upon it which will prevent it from single-handedly controlling the development of the software, protocols and networks which will form the basis for the information age.

To be honest, the thought that Microsoft might be left intact or unfettered, to pursue its and Gates' goals, scares me. Not so much because their goal is a bad one, but because that, in achieving it, they could irrevocably stunt the development of the information age.

- The Dodger

Thanks, Dodger. An artful piece piece of writing. Please send your real name, shipping/mailing address, and t-shirt size to roblimo@nojunk.slashdot.org (minus the "nojunk") and we'll send you a Slashdot t-shirt from Copyleft, as we now do to all readers who contribute features or reviews.

gampid writes "The BBC has a story about the Casino-21 project which is running a SETI@home type program for climate prediction. " I'm a booster of Distributed.net, but this looks pretty cool as well. I dunno global warming just gives me the creeps anyway and I'd like to know if my house will be underwater.

craggyisland writes "One of BBC's top interviewers, Jeremy Paxman, has done an interview with Bill Gates where he "admits his company Microsoft will one day be replaced." Read the article on BBC News Online " The interview will air Oct. 17, but the conversations seems to have ranged from pornography, the DOJ case (of course), and the charities he's involved with.

Kevin Poulsen has an interesting counterpart25 writes "little ditty in ZDNet's Commentary section about Chicken Little media folks preaching some sort of approaching cyberterrorism debacle. I thought this was particularly interesting in light of the recent Jane's article flap." Meanwhile, a BBC story submitted byThe Big D tells how the "Islamic group of Hackers (Al-Sooraj wing)" participated in the recent Pakistani military coup.

James Hunt writes "The BBC are doing an interview with Bill Gates on Sunday 17th October at 8pm BST on BBC2, and are looking for questions people might be interested in putting to him. Heavy hitting BBC interview veteran Jeremy Paxman - known for not holding back on interviewees is conducting the interview. Email: paxmanvsgates@bbc.co.uk to submit your questions. " <preach> Remember polite and incisive question will do a better job than flame. Let's be grown-ups. </preach>

James Hunt writes "The BBC are doing an interview with Bill Gates on Sunday 17th October at 8pm BST on BBC2, and are looking for questions people might be interested in putting to him. Heavy hitting BBC interview veteran Jeremy Paxman - known for not holding back on interviewees is conducting the interview. Email: paxmanvsgates@bbc.co.uk to submit your questions. " <preach> Remember polite and incisive question will do a better job than flame. Let's be grown-ups. </preach>

Apuleius writes "Here's a BBC story about a planet that may be orbiting the sun at 30,000 AU (Pluto's at 30 AU)...." This new wanderer, which may not have been created during the original formation of our system, according to the story, orbits the Sun backwards compared to the other planets. There's one in every crowd, isn't there?

Kartoffel writes "The Pizza Hut company has agreed to pay the Russian Space agency 2.5 million dollars for permission to paint the Pizza Hut logo the side of a rocket. The Proton rocket was originally scheduled to carry the Zvezda service module to the international space station on 12 November, however NASA today announced (finally) that the 12 Nov date is completely unrealistic and will slip until January 2000. BBC News has a funny article about Pizza Hut's advertising scheme. There is also a CNN story about the slipped launch date. "

SEWilco writes "The 1999 Ig Nobel winners have been announced. The PEACE winner's car flame thrower and the SCIENCE EDUCATION co-winner, the Kansas Board of Education were both /. articles. The PHYSICS co-winner, the biscuit dunking formula is my favorite. "

Quetzalcoatl sent in a link to a BBC story about new genetically modified plants from Monsanto that grow biodegradable plastic. Apparently the next step is to get the plants to produce enough plastic to be worth growing commercially, which may not be possible. But hey! You never know until you try, right?

Plinth writes "The BBC are running an article on MP3, and how it's being taken up by big rock stars, such as the ever current Pete Townshend. (CT:still waiting for his new live album to arrive) The meat of the story, however, is that Bill Wyman (of Rolling Stones fame) has released an album complete with mp3 player, which of course can be used to play other things as well." Its interesting cuz its got its own copyrighting system but afaict it plays straight MP3s too. I'm curious to learn more about this one.

Moose2000 writes " The BBC reports that NASA has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter. If it doesn't get back in touch, it's not just the immediate science stuff lost - it was supposed to stay in orbit as a communications relay for future missions too. " Communication has been lost for almost 3 hours now, it appears - so there's still hope. Update: 09/23 01:36 by H :It now appears that a steering problem may have caused it to crash into the planet.

The Dodger writes "The BBC is reporting that the UK and US Goverments are planning an agreement to prevent the 100,000 human genes being patented by private companies. Apparently, various bio-technology and drugs companies, such as Celera, are planning to patent the genes. Luckily, thus far, the UK's Wellcome Trust and the US National Institute of Health have been making each gene public as they are discovered. I think we should start a 'Keep the Human Genome Open Source' campaign." Software patents seem screwy enough, but I've never understood how anyone could have gall enough to patent a gene they merely discovered and didn't create. Or how governments could be dumb enough to issue gene patents, unless they are meant purely as welfare for lawyers, because that is surely what they will become.

jrb writes "For the first time, a small planet (i.e. non-gas giant sized) has potentially been found outside the solar system, helped by a gravitational lensing effect that magnified it. The BBC is carrying the full story. "

hurin wrote to us with the story about scientists raising the level of learning and memory in the subject mice. Of course, they get into the potential for human genetic manipulation as well, something which is sure to spark a conflagaration of right vs wrong genetic engineering debates.

pigpogm writes "The remaining members of the Monty Python team are to return to do some new material for the BBC. It's part of the celebrations for their 30th anniversary - will they still 'have it'? Should be fun to find out." It's a one-time special scheduled to run this fall in the U.K. I hope it doesn't take too long for this to make it across the Atlantic. I saw the "remaining" Pythoners not long ago on HBO, with (the late) Graham Chapman appearing as ashes in an urn, and IMO they still "have it."

Many people wrote in with these links: Today (Wednesday) BBC has streaming video of the total solar eclipse visible from England to India. Friday the 13th, starting at 0300 US EDT, NASA will post live shots from the Perseid meteor shower taken from a camera mounted on a high-altitude balloon. Check the links for details galore. It's an excellent week for space and astronomy buffs online!

cah1 writes "BBC is carrying a story about another new search engine All The Web. The designers are planning to have the whole shooting match, all billion pages, indexed by the end of the year. " You can also read press from the company as well. I'm skeptical-they claim to be able to catch up within the first year, and keep up thereafter. But they claim to have 200 million already, so who knows?

There was an article titled THE NEW GILDED AGE: Rise of the Slacker Millionaires in yesterday's Washington Post that caught my eye. It's about Hal McCabe, a 28-year-old AOL employee who quit as soon as his stock options vested and made him a millionaire. He's retired now, but spending his take so fast that friends say he may need to un-retire in a few years. And in an unrelated story (submitted by dozens of readers over the weekend), we finally learn what Bill Gates plans to do with his money. Both stories make interesting reading. I wonder how many Slashdot readers share Hal and Bill's money "problem," and how they're handling it. Hmmm...

SEWilco writes "Lunar Prospector survived dead batteries caused by eclipse. Shoemaker will hit the moon at 09:51 GMT [05:51 EDT], July 31 1999. At least 21 telescopes will be watching for a water or dust plume. Amateur astronomers see lunarimpact.com. "

nsanch writes "The BBC is reporting that there may be an ocean of oil on Titan, the only open sea on a planet (other than Earth) that's in our solar system." And in other news, thanks to Corrado for the pointer over to the Deep Space 1 Mission Log, chuck-full of details from the recent Asteriod Braille fly-by. Amazing how much info you can get at 35,000 Miles per Hour.

So I've been running Slashdot for 2 years just waiting for the story that Bobby Geortgilakis sent me. Finally an excuse to plug The Who. The deal is that Pete Townshend (the brains and genius behind The Who, the greatest rock band ever, not that I'm biased) is supposed to be completing Lifehouse. But why is this appearing on Slashdot? Read the article: Started in 1971 as a followup to Tommy, Lifehouse talks about Virtual Reality and The Internet (although it uses terms like "The Grid" since nobody really heard of TCP/IP and VRML back then) and the relevance of Rock Music (a pretty common Townshend theme anyway). So anyway, there it is. I got to mention The Who on Slashdot. Its a good day. Who/Towshend/Lighthouse FAQ

Lighthouse was started after Tommy but aborted. The best tracks where filtered into 'Who's Next'. These include Baba O'Reilly and Behind Blue Eyes (2 of the most amazing tracks ever laid, and the among the first ever)

Pete==God. He is my musical idol. At this point I have every CD he has out- release Chinese Eyes on CD already!

Mods always win.

Roger was more than willing to roll around in the baked beans.

Sit back and get jiggy with tonights Quickies: First up, jamiemccarthy sent us a Magic 8-Ball that claims to be operated by Legos. And if you're into those remote control legos, Paddy noted that there is new stuff on the lego website. Todays stranges item comes from Chris Henesy who sent us official NASA procedure for Viking Raids. Michael Van Vertloo sent us linkage to a webcam from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depositoryso you conspiracy theorists can keep an eye on it. Bogatyr noted that there now is actually a website selling stuff from the matrix. No, not the minigun, but sunglasses and stuff. tj2sent us linkage to an interview where George Lucas blaims the internet for Jar Jar sucking so badly. Mike sent us a page that tracks Strange things sold on ebay. Finally, markhb sent us a Washington Post profile of Marc Andreeson where he talks about assorted things, and even plugs Slashdot as one of his favorite sites (thanks Marc!) And finally, to bookend this Fresh block of quickies, harb sent us lyrics to the classic (cough) Will Smith Song "Men in Black" for Linux geeks.

The BBC news is reporting (thanks to aspodf for the link) that Channel 4 News alleges that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been intercepting all phone calls between Britain and Ireland for the last 10 years. A similar article in The Independent presents similar information as fact. Apparently, the tower was used to scan every single message between Britain and Ireland for certain key words (sort of like Echelon), and the tower is now up for sale by the MoD.

Stephen writes "BT has opened the first payphone with internet access. It's expensive, however, at 10p (16c) per minute. Read all about it at the BBC. " Here's my question: The phone books always get destroyed, the booths managled-how long is it going to take for for hoodlums to destroy these things?

gilest writes "This BBC story describes the UK's (the world's?) first University degree in science-fiction. Students will be asked to write essays on topics like 'Will Robots Take Over The Earth?' "

Ford writes "The BBC is reporting that Internet Security Systems has "decoded the protocols and encryption algorithms of Back Orifice 2000 (BO2K) within 24 hours" of it's release. Microsoft has only issued only a warning, refusing to admit that there might be security vulnerabilities in WinNT. " The security agencies interviewed in the article are claiming that BO2k is child's play, and that they've already detection systems in place. I'm just waiting for the Defcon response to their claims.

McSnickered writes "This BBC article has some great information about NASA's upcoming plans to shoot a harpoon into a comet in 2004. " My thought has always been that whales and such are too small. No, a crater the size of a football field on a comet. That's cool.

TheSwitch writes "BBC News wrote a story about Stella, the first ATM machine that works completely on the eye. The machine from The Royal bank of Canada also talks on your birthday and the odds of a mistake are 1 in the 10 billion billion. Well, here's where I trust my cash... " British or American billion, I'd still say those are pretty good odds...

LarsWestergren writes "The BBC has an interesting article about some NASA documents which have been secret for 30 years, which reveal that if the astronauts of the first moon landing had been stranded because of some technical problem, communications would have been cut and they would have been left to die in silence. Richard Nixon even had a patriotic speech prepared for the possibility. The astronauts, however, did not know about this. "

Stephen Williams writes "Have a look at this BBC story. A mouse with tactile feedback (basically a built-in rumble pack) has been designed, apparently to enable Web users to "touch" what they see on the Web. I won't contemplate the uses that "adult" sites could put this to." The company is Immersion-the article's cheesy, but the thought's interesting.

Josh Picker writes "the BBC is running a good piece about Net Journalism. '..Net users are taking over their [journalists'] role, forging a new kind of people's journalism.' it even boasts 'Slashdot Threatens Extinction' as a heading. how ominous! overall, a good article that definitely pertains to you guys."

Well, this amused Rob and I so much that we just had to post it. Rather then continue to use the World-accepted Prime Meridian (Yeah, who needs standards?), the French Government has decided that the world' prime meridian runs through Paris. To celebrate, they're building groves of trees all the way down through France, which will be viewable from space. I should be clear: This is the Government, not a popular action by the people. And I think this is only 1/2 as stupid as US Crypto laws. I've been told that this is actually one of those many Millenium Celebration things, and not actually a revolt-thanks to those who write me.

atomly writes "It seems a British university is offering a degree in game programming with courses like the history of games, and game appreciation. " A class where you compare Sonic and Mario? God yes. Makes me wish I thought for more than 3/10ths of a second before rejecting the idea of grad school ;)

evilandi wrote in to send us a nifty bit from BBC Sci/Tech about Africa's Ring of Fire. Essentially its a fiber cable that will circle the continent and provide 40gbs net access all around. The cable will be laid by robotic subs and the article says it will be self healing. All this for a mere $1.2 Billion.

Stephen Williams writes "Have a look at this BBC story. Examination of Albert Einstein's brain has revealed that a section of it is larger than average. " Kinda a fluff piece, but it is friday and this is kinda interesting. And I think its the first time that we've used Einstein's mugshot there on a story about him. The section in question is the parital lobes, behind the ears. Apparently they were larger then normal from a young age on. As well, his brain was about 15% wider across then average.