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Domain: einsurance.de
Stories and comments across the archive that link to einsurance.de.
Stories · 9
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Potential Landing Sites for EU Mars Rover Selected
kfz versicherung writes "In 2013 the European Space Agency will launch its mission to Mars - ExoMars. The multi-million-euro mission calls for a rover weighing just over 200kg that can trundle over the martian soil in search of past and present life. Now prime landing spots have been selected. The list includes two sites at Meridiani Planum, the flat expanse near Mars' equator where Nasa's Opportunity found possible evidence for an ancient sea. Early in Earth's history, all the primordial biochemistry took place in phyllosilicates, some kind of mineral that is a good matrix for preserving organic matter. Scientists are guessing that a similar site is the best place to start looking for fossil life on the Red Planet." -
Glowing Mosquitos Aid Malaria Battle
kfz.versicherung writes "The glowing mosquitos were created by attaching a gene for fluorescence found in jellyfish to a gene expressed only in a male mosquito's sexual organs. Even if this sounds funny, this technique is used to collect all males which are then sterilized and released in areas plagued by malaria flies. While sterile female mosquito can still transmit malaria, the sterile males will mate with the females but produce no offspring, so the insect population drops. An automated machine, capable of sorting 18,000 larvae per hour, detects fluorescence inside the larvae and a puff of air will divert the males into a separate area." -
Pi: Less Random Than We Thought
Autoversicherung writes "Physicists including Purdue's Ephraim Fischbach have completed a study comparing the 'randomness' in pi to that produced by 30 software random-number generators and one chaos-generating physical machine. After conducting several tests, they have found that while sequences of digits from pi are indeed an acceptable source of randomness -- often an important factor in data encryption and in solving certain physics problems -- pi's digit string does not always produce randomness as effectively as manufactured generators do." -
Where is Transmeta Heading?
Autoversicherung writes "Transmeta, once the darling of Silicon Valley, employer of Linus Torvalds and heralded as the new Intel is facing bleak times. Having $53.7 million in cash and short-term investments in its coffers, enough for just under two quarter's worth of operations and a reported net loss of $28.1 million and revenues of $11.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2004 the company's future is everything but certain. Will the planned restructuring to a pure IP company help?" -
Open Species Database Breaks Half-Million Mark
ferienhausversicherung writes "Biologists estimate that about 1.75 million species, from bacteria to blue whales, have already been identified on Earth. But there may be anywhere between 3 million and 12 million more yet to be discovered. An online catalogue of all known life on Earth now has half a million species in its freely available database. Another promising effort is Wikispecies. Started in August 2004, this is an offshoot of the Wikimedia group, whose free online encyclopaedia is constructed by users themselves." (And Wikipedia itself is about to publish its 500,000th English entry -- if you hurry, perhaps it will be yours.) -
Astronomers Find Star-Less Galaxy
Wohngebaeudeversicherung writes "Astronomers have discovered a galaxy about 50 million lightyears away from earth that appears to be composed entirly of dark matter. This galaxy, dubbed VIRGOHI21 is rotating like a real galaxy, at speeds only explainable through massive amounts of matter, thought no single visible star could be detected." -
Blazing Speed: The Fastest Stuff In The Universe
Unfallversicherung writes "'If you're light, it's fairly easy to travel at your own speed -- that is to say 186,282 miles per second or 299,800 kilometers per second. But if you are matter, then it's another matter altogether.' Astronomers are now measuring matter that moves at 99.9 percent of light-speed. Jupiter-sized blobs of hot gas embedded in streams of material ejected from hyperactive galaxies known as blazars." -
Getting Replacement Parts For Sun Clones?
Autoversicherung writes "Two of our production servers started to act up last week and after a few hours of testing and swapping in and out hardware we nailed it down to the power supply. Great, we thought -- probably the easiest part to get a replacement for. Was I wrong. The power supply was specifically made for Sun clones, and contains one standard ATX 20-pin and one EPS 24-pin connector to the motherboard. The original power supply is no longer in production, so far I haven't been able to dig up any suitable replacement for it. Am I able to modify a new PSU? I know how to use the tools required, I'm not sure what the implication are for things like 'separate voltage lines for each CPU complex' etc. The servers in question are EVU450 from Tritec, AFAIK clones of the E420R Sun server. The original Sun parts don't fit, though. Am I out of luck?" -
NASA Deep Space 1 Mission Is Over
Ashran writes "The Nasa DS1 site has the blurb: 'With highly successful primary, extended, and hyperextended missions behind it, the Deep Space 1 mission is over. The spacecraft continues to function, but engineers held a bittersweet retirement party for the veteran explorer today. The guest of honor was, of course, unable to attend because of travel commitments.'"