Slashdot Mirror

Stephen Williams sent us the BBC story that American Cell Technology had successfully cloned a human embryo, using a cell from a man's leg and a cow. The embryo was destroyed at 12 days-just prior to when naturally the embryo implants into the uterine wall. They did so wanting to "try and allay fears over artificial life." Wow. The Boys from Brazil indeed-what do you folks think?

wanderingstar writes "The BBC has an article about a prototype of little Turing machines that live in your body and heal you. It's being presented at conference going on at MIT right now about "DNA Based Computers". There was also a presentation yesterday about embedding information into DNA. " Mmm...nano-bio-tech.. All of hemos' favorite things.

Quite a number of people have been writing with the news that the Catholic Church is considering naming a patron saint of the Internet. The strongest current contender is St. Isisdore, an 8th century Spanish saint, with is created with making one of the first databases - a 20 volume encyclopedia.

mdmbkr wrote to us with the BBC coverage of the current legal situation surrounding Demon.co.uk. Demon has dropped an intended appeal against a libel ruling, in which the British High Court had made ISP's responsible for "any defamatory material they know they are carrying, irrespective of where it originated." Demon has decided to re-driect its' efforts to shaping legislation currently being shaped in Parliament.

brn writes "There is this BBC article that talks about hiding information inside the DNA. Very interesting and well worth a read, apparently information hidden this way is virtually undetectable. " It's the espionage agencies that first got interested, but the notion of "watermarking" is another that is brought up-and you thought PIII ids were bad.

Ralph Bearpark writes "The biological computer is born. A computer made of neurons taken from leeches has been created by US scientists. "I' I'd actually read about some of this research being done back in the early 80s at Bell Labs. Apparently they could actually get some read/write to the leech neurons, for use as storage devices, but they...uh...kept dying after for a few minutes. Anyone confirm/deny that?

gyges writes "According to the BBC, UK officials have backed down on their encryption-key escrow efforts in order to promote eCommerce within the UK. However they also report "uncertainty as how committed the UK government is to promoting e-commerce. " Wired weighs-in as well. "

geoff lane writes "Recently in the UK there has been a very strong move towards "free" ISPs. By doing deals with the telecom companies which split the call charge income between the telecom and ISP companies the ISPs can drop subscription charges. I've heard it reported that as few as 10,000 signed up users can move a small "free" ISP into a trading profit." I guess I'm not surprised. Telcos are big, how long can it be before they swallow the ISPs anyway? And how long before it here..."

evilandi writes "This BBC article reports on how the UK Trade and Industry Select Committee have condemned the British government over the proposed E-Commerce Bill. Now that Key Escrow has been 99% dropped, they don't see the point of the bill at all, they're "disappointed that the government should still hold a candle for key escrow", and they're concerned about proposed changes to the Interception of Communications Act (tapping). See also stand.org.uk " Wow-intelligent officials. Someone pinch me.

Evil Greeb writes "The BBC have written a fairly pro-Linux article, citing Gnome as "the operating system which could loosen Microsoft's stranglehold on the market". I thought it was a desktop environment myself, but that's not the issue: Linux promotion is! The page includes an audio snippet of Miguel de Icaza on Gnome. " Excellent-now if my Gnome-session would just run properly.

Mandos D Shadowspawn Esq writes " Four people are involved in an experiment to see if it is possible to survive only using Net available products." No, it ain't the Real World (thank god). If I could get groceries, I could do it, but living where I do doesn't quite cut it. Plus buying stuff over the net is usually more expensive and takes longer to get (I ordered some picture frames that took nearly 2 months to be delivered, although CDNOW and Amazon are typically quick-- I don't think you can wait even for next day air if you want milk)

Anonymous Coward writes "The BBC reports of a project to build a sculpture in honor of computing pioneer Alan Turing that's not doing too well, because attempts to raise money from industry have been fruitless so far... The BBC Story carries more information about the lack of support for this statue by anyone. "

Stephen writes "UK ISP Virgin Net is suing a former subscriber for loss of business caused by his alleged spam. " The subscriber supposedly spammed a quarter of a million people (advertising his email address list no less!) and got the ISP on the blacklist. It'll be interesting to see where this one goes. I personally think that we should legalize spam, but require the word 'SPAM' or 'AD' to appear in th subject so we can procmail it out. Or just set our sendmails up to discard it. And I think failure to clearly label spam should be punishable by death.

The first solar system other than our own has been discovered only 44 light years away. Its planets are Jupiter-sized and its discovery suggests that solar systems such as our own may be commonplace in the Universe... potentially providing a fertile ground for extra-terrestial life. The large size of the system's planets also invalidates all current planet-formation theories.

Mike B writes "A leading UK scientist says he thinks genes from genetically-modified (GM) crops will inevitably escape into other plants. "What would happen, for instance, if a gene that conferred resistance against insects escaped? Suddenly we have no insects. With no insects you have no ecology, no ecosystem, no pollinators, no flowers, God knows what. " "

redbeard writes "BBC News has an article on the world's smallest harp. I guess the next step is a full Nanotech orchestra. . . " That, and the machines that are going to make me immortal, and able to survive at the bottom of the Marinas Trench.

redbeard writes "BBC News has an article on the world's smallest harp. I guess the next step is a full Nanotech orchestra. . . " That, and the machines that are going to make me immortal, and able to survive at the bottom of the Marinas Trench.

Ry Jones writes "The brits have found a way to maximize the best part of a chicken. " The scary thing is that I suspect this is going to get a lot wierder...

The BBC is reporting on new evidence that life existed on Mars. It revolves around the unique properties of magnetsomes: tiny magnetic crystals of iron that some terrestrial bacteria produce to sense the Earth's magnetic field. Magnetosomes are far purer than magnetite grains that occur naturally. The research of Nasa's Dr Kathie Thomas-Keprta indicates magnetite produced by bacteria-like microorganisms is present in the Allen Hills meteorite, a Mars rock picked up in the Allen Hills region of Antarctica.

Liquid-X writes "It looks like the Hilton Group is interested in the project of building a space station/hotel made from discarded space shuttle fuel tanks. Arthut C Clarke wants to be one of the first in there." It also appears the British Airways wants to be involved-the cost they estimate is marginal compared to International Space Station - Hilton figures 6 - 12 billion. Cool-anyone think they want banner ads? *grin*

Anthony Fuentes wrote in to tell us that Stanley Kubrick is dead. The director of so many amazing movies including The Shining, Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, and of course 2001: A Space Odyssey. He truly was a genius. He'll be missed.

Crazyscot writes "The UK Department of Trade and Industry have released a consultation paper suggesting they are willing to drop their proposals for key escrow. However, the BBC coverage of the story warns that if no alternative is found within three weeks, the escrow proposals may be revived. " I think a great alternative would be giving it to Rob and I. Yeah.

Sircus writes "The BBC have now joined USA Today in having a story on Winbloze refund day. Best quote - 'Linux users are mostly anti-Windows'. Mostly? Find more at this page "

Luca Lizzeri writes "The Europarliament voted with a two thirds majority to include temporary copies in a sweeping new copyright protection blunder^H^H^H^H^H^H^H act. Go see And MEPs lament the fact they don't have enough power. I for one am not going to advocate giving them more now." This is related to the Euro-Parls trying to deal with copy-right protection on the Internet-the 2/3 majority voted against amendments to the bill that would excluded caching. So, from what I can tell, it will be illegal to cache in Europe. Some people's children, I tell ya. The good side is that this will still have to be presented to the member nations, and UK is already saying they will argue against it. Update: 02/10 04:01 by S : The motivation and the actual result are explained in more detail by the BBC. Ireland and Luxembourg also oppose the strengthening of copyright laws.

Luca Lizzeri writes "The Europarliament voted with a two thirds majority to include temporary copies in a sweeping new copyright protection blunder^H^H^H^H^H^H^H act. Go see And MEPs lament the fact they don't have enough power. I for one am not going to advocate giving them more now." This is related to the Euro-Parls trying to deal with copy-right protection on the Internet-the 2/3 majority voted against amendments to the bill that would excluded caching. So, from what I can tell, it will be illegal to cache in Europe. Some people's children, I tell ya. The good side is that this will still have to be presented to the member nations, and UK is already saying they will argue against it. Update: 02/10 04:01 by S : The motivation and the actual result are explained in more detail by the BBC. Ireland and Luxembourg also oppose the strengthening of copyright laws.

Paul Crowley writes "The table of contents for "Open Sources" , O'Reilly's book for the lay reader from Slashdot's interesting-ideas department, is now available and the book itself should be coming out later this month; I've just now received mail warning me of a copy coming my way sometime this week. One chapter is already available online: Eric S Raymond's A brief history of Hackerdom . So you can all start flaming his attention-seeking ways again now, especially since on a related note he's also turned up on Slashdot's favourite news source, BBC News." I just got a copy of Open Sources as well- Chris DiBona mentioned both me & Slashdot in his intro. I've read the ESR and RMS sections already- both were great. A full fledged review of the book will be here whenever I have time to finish reading it.

Paul Crowley writes "The table of contents for "Open Sources" , O'Reilly's book for the lay reader from Slashdot's interesting-ideas department, is now available and the book itself should be coming out later this month; I've just now received mail warning me of a copy coming my way sometime this week. One chapter is already available online: Eric S Raymond's A brief history of Hackerdom . So you can all start flaming his attention-seeking ways again now, especially since on a related note he's also turned up on Slashdot's favourite news source, BBC News." I just got a copy of Open Sources as well- Chris DiBona mentioned both me & Slashdot in his intro. I've read the ESR and RMS sections already- both were great. A full fledged review of the book will be here whenever I have time to finish reading it.

Anonymous Coward writes "Internal organs grown in the laboratory have been successfully transplanted into animals for the first time. The achievement heralds a new era in tissue engineering and transplant medicine in which patients could receive new organs made of their own cells. Guess I don't have to quit smoking :) " Well, looks like I will be having drink(s) while watching the commercials...er..SuperBowl tonight.

EnglishTim writes "According to this BBC report, the Indonesian government orchestrated a massive 'virtual attack' on the East Timorese server, which is based in Ireland due to the Indonesian refusal to recognise East Timor's sovereignty. "

The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is now underway. Among the first presentations, further study on the notion that less food makes you live longer and have more mental energy (some Asian cultures also say this) and Disney's latest computerized animation.

The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is now underway. Among the first presentations, further study on the notion that less food makes you live longer and have more mental energy (some Asian cultures also say this) and Disney's latest computerized animation.

The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is now underway. Among the first presentations, further study on the notion that less food makes you live longer and have more mental energy (some Asian cultures also say this) and Disney's latest computerized animation.

Pete Bevin writes "Apparently, astronomers are taking a vote on Pluto is a planet! It turns out that it's just another ice-ball at the edge of the solar system, and that doesn't qualify it (or the 60-plus bodies like it) for planet status. "

Benedict Wright writes "Another nugget from the BBC... Researchers led by a German scientist have developed non-invasive brainwave sensors that enable totally paralysed people to type messages on a computer. Previous attempts required risky surgery to implant electrodes into the brain. The new electrodes just sit on top of the head."

Benedict Wright writes "Scientists from New York have created a naonmeter sized "robot arm". The two parts of the arm, made from synthetic DNA, can be made to move up to 6 nanometers apart by the addition of a special cobalt compound. Freaky!"

Jan Stette writes "This story has made the front page of the UK newspapers today. A 16 year old Irish girl has devised an encryption algorithm that is allegedly as secure as RSA but is much faster at performing the encryption. " Update: 01/15 02:24 by S : A picture of her talking to Gordon Moore.

Chase writes "Nation Public Radio reported this morning that the National Security Agency has deemed Furby's as a risk. The reason is each furby contains a microphone that records sound bytes from its environment and will play them back at any time. The NSA is concerned that a furby might over hear a classified conversation while in the building and then repeat it at a later time once it was removed from the building. As a response to the risk, the NSA has banned furbys from NSA buildings. " Update: 01/13 09:55 by B : Here's a CNN Story and a BBC Story for good measure.

Getting rid of weapons-grade plutonium is expensive, and there's a lot of it around due to the disarmament treaties. According to Itar-Tass, Russian scientists have found a method to convert it into usable reactor fuel to power existing nuclear power stations.

Cerb writes "NASA seems to be in need of a few good names for soil-penetrating probes that they plan on launching Jan. 3rd." Unfortunately the pair of people need to be related and dead, which reduces means we can't name them Linus and Alan. In related news, humanity's only tried and tested space-station, which was to be decomissioned this June, will get a new lease of life: an anonymous international investor will provide funds for another 3 years of service. (subject to Russian Gov't approval) Some comments say Salyut and Skylab were first. True, but they aren't currently functionnal in Space.

Space Island hopes to build a space station from 12 discarded Space-Shuttle fuel-tanks for tourism. The structure should be able to house 350 guests and 50 full-time staff within 5 years. Now, if the price depreciates, I might be able to afford it before I retire ;-) While I admit their website does not look too professional, you should have a look at the video on the webpage (works with my 28.8 modem). I would also point out that the BBC has a reputation of checking its stories... and it's not April 1st.

El Snatcher writes "Check out this story that the BBC is running about a recent study by the University of Hertfordshire that found that women are more likely to become addicted to the Internet, rather than the stereotypical, male, teenage geek. It also says that today 38.7% of Internet users are women, up from %5 in 1994." Maybe it's time to rerun the Sex poll on Slashdot?

If you're bored, there's a ton of strange links on the next page, selected by the warped minds of my slashdot co-authors ;-).

tom writes various stuffed Tux's (including a 1m high one), BSD Daemons and a TeX Lion at link (under "Un*x fan shop" and "ZU DEN ARTIKELN" - unfortunately the site's in German, but they speak English). Excellent quality, IMHO.

Robert Ennals writes A writer for the guardian/observer has a mention of one of their articles being linked from slashdot and considers this honour to be the "nearest I'll get to a Nobel prize" link

Kam writes Furniture Porn. Not much else to say... link

Louis Bertrand writes The December issue of DaemonNews, the monthly ezine devoted to the three open-source BSD operating systems (FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD) is available at link

SpaceDust writes No URL on this one, and not sure if it is really a /. thing. A friend who works at EA, tells me they are currently in Beta for Sim City 3000. Supported platforms will be Windows (mid Jan) and MacOS (in 6 months) I guess Linux gets squat (though, the /. effect may convince them otherwise) It's not too much different than "SC2k" except for a couple of new buildings, an improved interface, and now you have to manage garbage as well. They're in late Beta now, it's pretty stable and most of the major problems have been resolved but it still needs some tuning.

Josh Mast writes According to ,"> link A new opensource DOOM port has been started. "The Open Gaming Resource Engine project has been launched. This is a manifestation of the "Merger" project among members of leading DOOM source code projects, and will be an open source project. Looks nifty, maybe we'll finally have a decent port of DOOM for Linux now.

che guevara writes You bet it!!! I was surfing around on Camneerg- and saw this site that has an iMac that was hacked for a disk drive. You can get some info here, but don't try this if you don't want to void your warranty! Peace.

Brent Dearth writes ever since i got their demo tape at an underworld site, i've been searching for Market's webpage. well, i found it, and they have a couple mp3's full length for download. not really news, but i recall Hemos having good taste in music. link (sorry didn't paste)

Ben Smith writes The Onion has a silly little iMac joke in their new issue. In the left side column they have a neon blue stapler, and the caption says " New Stapler Makes All Other Staplers Look Like Worthless Shit". Good for a midday laugh.

Anonymous Coward writes Steven Hawking will appear on the Simpsons. Go figure. link

Anonymous Coward writes Kinda slow site.. (geocities) but well worth it :))))) link

Anonymous Coward writes More GNOME screenshots are available on the GNOME web site.

An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us about Lin Hai, who ischarged with ' internet subversion' in the PRC. His crime is apparently to pass a list of 30,000 chineese EMail address to an on-line magazine run by Chineese dissedents abroad. He faces life imprisonment if found guilty. Here is the original story. These reports will not be seen in the PRC as the BBC's Mandarin Service is blocked by the 'Great Firewall of China'. I bet Slashdot is too.

An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us about Lin Hai, who ischarged with ' internet subversion' in the PRC. His crime is apparently to pass a list of 30,000 chineese EMail address to an on-line magazine run by Chineese dissedents abroad. He faces life imprisonment if found guilty. Here is the original story. These reports will not be seen in the PRC as the BBC's Mandarin Service is blocked by the 'Great Firewall of China'. I bet Slashdot is too.

ian writes "Under new proposed EU legislation, taping TV for personal use at home would be illegal, as would converting books into Braille. Makes the CDA look sort of nice and cuddly, doesn't it ?"

The International Space Station will be launched Friday from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, by the largest rocket in the world: the Russian Proton. The Space Station will be so large it will be visible from the ground. The lauch will be shown live on the internet at 6:40 GMT.H:As a quick update, the launch was succesful, and things are on track for the unmanned station to meet with the US shuttle Endeavour in two weeks time.

The International Space Station will be launched Friday from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, by the largest rocket in the world: the Russian Proton. The Space Station will be so large it will be visible from the ground. The lauch will be shown live on the internet at 6:40 GMT.H:As a quick update, the launch was succesful, and things are on track for the unmanned station to meet with the US shuttle Endeavour in two weeks time.

WeThree (Brian) wrote to tell us of a message he received on a newsgroup that an alien signal had been detected. Here is the BBC's report on the discovery. Update! Apparently this discovery has not been confirmed. It might have been a spy satelite... This was the message Brian received. " All those with a radio receiver capable of receiving 1450 Mhz take a listen... something strange is happening... hoax or real? Observatories around the world are buzzing...

The BBC claims "intelligent" signal being received from star EQ Pegasi 22 lights years away......

Exact frequency: 1453.07512Mhz plus or minus about +400 hz due to the doppler shift "

WeThree (Brian) wrote to tell us of a message he received on a newsgroup that an alien signal had been detected. Here is the BBC's report on the discovery. Update! Apparently this discovery has not been confirmed. It might have been a spy satelite... This was the message Brian received. " All those with a radio receiver capable of receiving 1450 Mhz take a listen... something strange is happening... hoax or real? Observatories around the world are buzzing...

The BBC claims "intelligent" signal being received from star EQ Pegasi 22 lights years away......

Exact frequency: 1453.07512Mhz plus or minus about +400 hz due to the doppler shift "

Intrepid reader Alex Buell sent this story over our way. Yes, the news is true: Microsoft has surpassed General Electric, and is the biggest company on the planet. Granted, it's mostly because their stock trades at astronomically high prices, but still 261,000,000,000$USD is a whole lotta zeros. Of course, good luck getting it out of the bear market.