Slashdot Mirror
Domain: cursor.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to cursor.org.
Stories · 10
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Italy To Build World's Longest Suspension Bridge
Rei writes "According to the BBC, Italy has just granted contracts to begin work on the world's longest suspension bridge, connecting the island of Sicily to the mainland. The nearly four kilometer-long bridge across the Messina Straits is to carry a double six-lane highway and four high-speed railway tracks. Its main span will be 3.3 kilometers long; this would over 1.5x the current record-holder, the 1991-meter Akashi-Kaikyo bridge." -
Nanotubes Start to Show their Promise
Rei writes "Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas have developed the highest quality nanotube sheets to date (the team previously set strength records with polymer-nanotube composites). Producable at a rate comparable to commercial wool spinning, the transparent cloth has exceedingly high conductivity, flexibility, has huge surface area to volume ratios, can potentially be made into very effective OLEDs and thin-film photovoltaic cells, and outperforms even our best bulk materials (such as Mylar and Kevlar) at strength normalized to weight. It strongly absorbs microwaves for localized heating (leading to applications in seamless microwave welding of sections and even windshield warming), changes conductivity little over a wide temperature range (very useful in sensors), and is expected to be used in commercial applications very soon. The research should even be expandable to artificial muscles! To head people off, while the exact tensile strength is not listed, it sounds like it is still far from the >100 GPa needed for a space elevator. Anyways, here's to process advancements!" -
Slashback: Summer, Sail, Sex Offenders
Slashback this evening brings you updates on recent and ongoing stories about the lost (or just possibly not lost) solar sail launched earlier this week, Website tagging (this time client-side), Google's Summer of Code, and more -- read on for the details.A new definition for optimism. Rei writes "According to a weblog entry from the Planetary Society, it appears that Cosmos 1 - the world's first controlled solar-sail spacecraft - has been found. The data is still tentative, but they have detected evidence of the spacecraft's signal in multiple tracking stations. There is a chance that it is in the wrong orbit, but it appears to be up there. This is after it was reported that the Volna rocket that launched it lost an engine after 83 seconds, and many had assumed that the craft was lost."
The power of the tag can only grow with time. An Anonymous reader writes "Saw your coverage of YubNub - I've been playing with a similar tool for a while that might interest your readers. It's called Ambedo and works in a way that you can tag search engines or bookmarks with a bookmarklet (you can also enter them manually if you want to). These are then added to you own tag directory. You then access these tags by typing them in a search box -- but all the matching is done client-side in javascript. It also has nice features like matching IP addresses, domain names, FedEx packages, calculator in the search box and so on."
If you like it so much, why don'tcha marry it? Mad Merlin writes "Groklaw has an interview with Chris DiBona of Google with regards to their Summer of Code program (as previously covered here). When asked why Google is doing the SoC program, Chris responds, 'It is simple: We love open source. A great number of Googlers have and are donating their 20% time to the open source efforts that we're doing.'"
Just kidding! scotty777 writes "Japan plans to give up its bid to have the world's first nuclear fusion reactor built in Aomori Prefecture. Japan Today reports the government decision, which means that the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) site decision can be made. Japan Times reports that the government announced the decision by saying 'it plans to back down [from the Aomori site proposal] if the European Union stands firm on bringing the project to Cadarache, in southern France.'"
Surely this won't cause any controversy. davenaffis writes "Here's a little site I developed that uses Google Maps to map sex offenders. Only Washington, D.C. data is available right now, but I'll be adding more states soon."
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Possible Cryovolcano Discovered on Titan
Rei writes "NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is reporting that the Cassini spacecraft has observed what appears to be a cryovolcano on Saturn's moon Titan. Given the absense of a global methane sea on Titan, the snail-shaped structure with what appears to be a caldera on top could explain how Titan's methane stays replenished. It could further explain the dry drainage channels discovered by the Huygens lander as being formed by heavy methane rainfall after eruptions." -
Europe Home to Majority of Zombies
Rei writes "According to a recent CipherTrust study, the majority of Zombie PCs reside not in the US or China, but in Europe. Of the European zombies, 2/3 were either in Germany, France, or Britain. The results were released with the announcement of CipherTrust's new ZombieMeter. As a response to previous reports of high zombie activity, the London Action Plan launched Operation Spam Zombies in cooperation with numerous governments around the world." -
MIT Making Computer Parts from DNA
Rei writes "Following in the footsteps of Lynn Conway's pioneering work on VLSI that allowed ordinary students to create their own processors, a group of MIT professors have almost completed doing the same thing using DNA, known as synthetic biology. While not all of the components of a basic computer are working yet, there is hope that some day ordinary students may be able to design living computers, producing everything from novel drugs to seeds that sprout into treehouses." -
NASA Hoping To Create Super X-Prizes
Rei writes "NASA is attempting to use a strategy of handing out contracts as prizes, akin to the Ansari X-Prize, instead of the contractor-preferred method of bidding and having payment before work is completed. They are hoping to have prizes worth as much as one billion dollars. The only hitch? Congress won't let them." -
NASA Considering Early Retirement of Shuttle Program
Rei writes "While publicly assuring the public that it has no plans to do so, leaks have indicated that NASA has been quietly investigating plans to get rid of the Space Shuttle as soon as possible, and finish the International Space Station with disposable rockets, even as NASA works on achieving Return to Flight in 2005." -
China Goes Nuclear
Rei writes "Wired reports that the People's Republic of China has announced plans to build 30 new nuclear reactors by the year 2020, and by 2050 have almost as much nuclear power as the entire world produces today. The reactors are to be pebble bed reactors, in which helium replaces radioactive, pressurized water. A Chinese research institution demonstrated the safety of their test reactor against meltdown by shutting off the coolant." -
Minnesota Spam And Privacy Act Takes Effect
2cv writes "The Minnesota Internet Consumer Information Privacy and Commercial Electronic Mail Solicitation Act takes effect today. An article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press focuses on the spam aspect of the law. However, its chief author admits the measure has no teeth. While not an earth-shattering event, the signing of the bill by former Governor Jesse Ventura did break ground. It was the nation's first online privacy bill. Jesse jokes are welcomed but likely to be modded down as irrelevant."
