Slashdot Mirror

First time accepted submitter Lindan9 writes "After an apparent increase of yeti sightings in the Kemerovo and Altai region of Siberia, a group of scientists from around the world are meeting to examine evidence possibly proving yeti existence. The scientists suspect there is a population of several dozen living in the area. The team hopes to spot a yeti or still living neanderthal man during their search of the area's mountains." I hope they find two pristine horns faster than I did.

Velcroman1 writes "At 11:49 a.m. EDT, a Minotaur IV+ rocket — essentially a decommissioned Peacekeeper missile built decades ago during the Cold War — launched the TacSat-4 satellite into orbit. Most troops today carry PRC-117 radios for communication, devices that rely on UHF transmissions. They relay calls and data back to a base station that's brought in and fixed in place, either set up on a hillside locally or carried overhead in a nearby plane. The TacSat-4 (or tactical microsatellite) lets the hundreds of thousands of military handheld radios currently in use communicate directly with an antenna orbiting in the most convenient spot imaginable: all that space overhead. 'If you're a mobile force, that requires a mobile infrastructure, the best place to put that infrastructure is in space,' said Dr. Larry Schuette, director of innovation for the Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR)."

Velcroman1 writes "The FBI arrested two alleged members of the hacking collectives LulzSec and Anonymous on Thursday morning in San Francisco and Phoenix. Search warrants were also being executed in New Jersey, Minnesota and Montana, an FBI official told FoxNews.com. A document purported to come from the FBI leaked online earlier this month called these hacker groups a national security threat. One individual was described as part of the LulzSec group, the other belongs to the group that calls itself Anonymous, the official said. The suspected hacker arrested in California is homeless and alleged to have been involved in the hacking of Santa Cruz County government websites."

An anonymous reader writes "Samsung Electronics said Sunday it has pulled its latest Galaxy tablet from the IFA trade show in Berlin, after a German court approved an Apple-requested injunction — the latest move in a wide-reaching patent dispute between the two firms."

Cutting_Crew writes "I am sure many of us have heard about this story, but it looks like Spaceport America is finally ready to take off (no pun intended). The latest construction pictures [Note: database might be slightly flaky] are up to view. Want to be one of the first to take a ride? It will set you back $200,000. I don't know how many people will be able to afford such a trip, outside of Las Vegas, Hollywood, Cupertino, Redmond, and few retirees, but I suppose they are thinking that they can make their money back with this project in the long term. Touring the space frontier seems a little steep. A lot of people are just trying to make living without being foreclosed on."

LibRT writes "The irony-challenged folks at the UN have named North Korea chair of the Conference on Disarmament, which is heavily focused on the prevention of a nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament. The Canadian government has boycotted the convention, calling it an 'absurd' turn of events: 'North Korea is simply not a credible chair of a disarmament body. The fact that it gets a turn chairing a United Nations committee focused on disarmament is unacceptable, given the North Korean regime's efforts in the exact opposite direction.'" Note that Libya was once president of the UN's Human Rights Commission, and only recently removed from its successor in interest, the Human Rights Council.

dutchwhizzman writes "A team of scientists has submitted a formal request to test the remains of William Shakespeare for drugs. Notably, for marijuana, since remains of clay pipes found in his garden have been tested positive for pot."

tripleevenfall writes "Clayton Morris reviews the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and finds it lacking, especially at the $400 price point, saying 'I can't in good conscience tell you to go out and spend $400 on this half-baked experience when the fully baked iPad experience can be had for just a few dollars more.'"

An anonymous reader writes "A patent application filed by Apple, and obtained by the Times, reveals how the software would work. If a person were to hold up their iPhone, the device would trigger the attention of infra-red sensors installed at the venue. These sensors would then instruct the iPhone to disable its camera."

Velcroman1 writes "The quest for the elusive Higgs boson seemed over in April, when an unexpected result from an atom smasher seemed to herald the discovery of the famous particle — the last unproven piece of the physics puzzle and one of the great mysteries scientists face today. Scientists with the Tevatron particle accelerator at Chicago's Fermilab facility just released the results of a months-long effort by the lab's brightest minds to confirm the finding. What did they find? Nothing. 'We do not see the signal,' said Dmitri Denisov, staff scientist at Fermilab. 'If it existed, we would see it. But when we look at our data, we basically see nothing.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Iran is taking steps toward an aggressive new form of censorship: a so-called national Internet that could, in effect, disconnect Iranian cyberspace from the rest of the world (summary of paywalled WSJ report). The leadership in Iran sees the project as a way to end the fight for control of the Internet, according to observers of Iranian policy inside and outside the country. Iran, already among the most sophisticated nations in online censoring, also promotes its national Internet as a cost-saving measure for consumers and as a way to uphold Islamic moral codes." The article also mentions unconfirmed local press reports suggesting that Iran is building its own national operating system.

CWmike writes "After years of dominance in computer chips, Intel now is chasing the mobile chip market and trying to redefine its future. During Intel's financial analyst meeting Monday, CEO Paul Otellini announced that he is refocusing the company, moving its 'center' from PC processors to processors for the burgeoning mobile market. 'I think Intel recognizes that they absolutely have to get a win here,' said analyst Rob Enderle. 'All the activity is in mobile. A post-PC era would be a post-Intel era if they don't get a beachhead established.' Earlier this month, Intel made a move in this new direction when it unveiled its new 3D transistor technology that is expected to position the chip maker to grab a piece of the mushrooming tablet market."

Velcroman1 writes "Space shuttle Endeavour rocketed into space Monday morning from Kennedy Space Center, led by mission commander Mark Kelly on the final mission for the youngest vehicle in the space fleet. Over 6 million pounds of thrust from the shuttle's rocket booster carried Endeavour into orbit, at speeds of up to 19,000 miles per hour, for an expected meeting with the International Space Station on Wednesday. 'It's incredible how you can see this machine hurled into space like the fastest fastball ever thrown, going to Mach 25 — 25 times the speed of sound — and it's an incredible race to orbit,' former NASA astronaut Tom Jones said. 'It's one of the greatest physical sensations an human can experience,' he added."

RobertNotBob writes "In a gaffe of galactic proportions, a local newscaster in Germany apparently goofed a Google search and displayed a logo from the series Deep Space 9 instead of the logo used by the Special Operations team that is widely reported to be the group that recently killed that famous terrorist earlier this month, (name omitted because I am, quite frankly, sick of hearing about him). Enjoy the story, and see if you notice the bat'leths at first glance."

Reader Tom Hudson, and now several others, have submitted the news that Osama Bin Laden is reportedly dead, and that his body is in the hands of the US military. A statement from President Obama is expected shortly. Watch this space for more details. Update: 05/02 04:01 GMT by T : More coverage at ABC News, at CNN, and at Al Jazeera. The reports say that Bin Laden was actually killed about a week ago by a bomb in Pakistan, and the time taken to confirm his identity via DNA testing helped delay the news. In downtown Austin, Texas, in the time since the story broke I've heard what sound like numerous celebratory gunshots.

The good news is not all air traffic controllers are sleeping on the job. The bad news is that some of them are watching movies instead. From the article: "In the latest incident, the controller was watching a movie on a DVD player early Sunday morning while on duty at a regional radar center near Cleveland, Ohio that handles high-altitude air traffic, the FAA said in a statement Monday. The controller's microphone was inadvertently activated, transmitting the soundtrack of the movie — the 2007 crime thriller Cleaner, starring Samuel L. Jackson — for more than three minutes to all the planes in the airspace that the controller was supposed to be monitoring, the agency said."

Velcroman1 writes "My VCR is stashed in a closet, right next to a couple of CD-ROM players, a laser disc player, and other forgotten electronics. Is my Blu-ray player about to join them? Blu-ray really hasn't caught on — and probably never will. 'I'm surprised DVDs have continued to hang on,' said King, referring to the fact that player sales of over 20 million units in the US last year were pretty much evenly split between DVD and Blu-ray models. Blu-ray discs and players are clearly superior to DVDs, offering more features and a better picture overall. So why haven't shoppers been impressed?"

Velcroman1 writes "Elon Musk, the millionaire founder of private space company Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX for short) said the long-planned Falcon Heavy vehicle would be ready for lift off at the end of 2012. The rocket, which he called the most powerful in the world, would be capable of taking men to the International Space Station, dropping vehicles and astronauts on the moon — and maybe even cruising to Mars and back."

An anonymous reader writes "Recently the FBI asked for the public's help in solving the encryption in a note linked to a man's murder. Well, they got so much 'help' it has overwhelmed the agency's phone and email systems. Dan Olson, chief of the FBI's Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU), urged potential code-breakers to send their tips via mail rather than sending emails or flooding phone lines. 'We don't have the bandwidth to handle the emails we're getting,' Olson told FoxNews.com on Thursday. 'We're getting a bunch [of responses].' Suggested solutions range from a list of the dead man's medication schedule to instructions from a computer repair technician: 'He is speaking to a computer tech on how to fix his computer,' one message read."

Velcroman1 writes "The discovery of ancient stone tools at an archaeological dig in Texas could push back the presence of humans in North America, perhaps by as much as 2,500 years. The find was located 5 feet below materials left by the well-known Clovis culture, which was once thought to have been the first American settlers around 13,000 years ago. It was 'like finding the Holy Grail,' Waters said in a telephone interview. To find what appears to be a large open-air campsite 'is really gratifying. Lucky and gratifying.'"

Velcroman1 writes "Lockheed Martin on Tuesday unveiled the first Orion spacecraft, a part of what NASA had planned as the sprawlingly ambitious Constellation project that would offer a replacement for the space shuttle — and a means to ferry humans into outer space and back to the moon. Orion and the companion Ares heavy-lift rocket were part of Constellation, a program cancelled under President Barack Obama's 2011 budget proposal."

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists believe a spider could lead to a breakthrough in sexual health after finding a single bite can cause a four-hour erection. According to the report, researchers at the Medical College of Georgia believe the venom of the Brazilian wandering spider could lead to a new cure for erectile dysfunction. Dr Kenia Nunes, a physiologist at the college, said it works in a different way to Viagra. 'This is good because we know that some patients don't respond to the conventional therapy. This could be an optional treatment for them,' she said. Her study, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, involved experiments using hypertensive rats with severe erectile dysfunction."

Velcroman1 writes "The space shuttle Discovery has docked with the International Space Station for the final time at 2:15 p.m. EST, where it will make a last delivery to the orbiting space lab — before parking ultimately at a museum. With Discovery's presence, the ISS becomes a truly 'international' space station. This is the first time spacecraft from the United States, Russia, Europe and Japan have all docked simultaneously, NASA said. The station also hosts the Leonardo Multipurpose Module built by the Italian Space Agency and recently gained Dextre, the Canadian Space Agency's robotic handyman."

Phoghat writes "Overcoming a down-to-the-last-second problem, space shuttle Discovery made history yesterday, launching on its final mission to orbit. The most-traveled orbiter is carrying a crew of six astronauts and one human-like Robonaut, along with a new permanent storeroom and supplies for the International Space Station." The launch itself went as planned; a few pieces of foam insulation broke free of the external fuel tank on the way up, but it's not expected to be a safety concern, and they're planning an inspection to make sure. NASA has videos of yesterday's launch and a Discovery retrospective, and the Atlantic has a great collection of pictures involving the shuttle. Mike Coats, pilot of Discovery's first mission in 1984, spoke in an interview about his connection to the orbiter. Discovery comes back to Earth on March 7th.

Velcroman1 writes "The army's secretive technology division has been collecting dozens of ideas for the design of its in-the-works rescue vehicle via a social-media contest — relying solely on the power of the crowd to get the next big thing built. Local Motors of Chandler, Ariz., is running the competition, officially known as the Experimental Crowd-derived Combat-support Vehicle (XC2V) Design Challenge, through March 10. It's not so different from when multiple users edit a page on Wikipedia, Local Motors CEO John Rogers said. 'Effectively, we want to co-create all aspects of a vehicle,' Rogers explained. 'The Wikipedia method of co-creation is really not far off from the way we talk about it.'"

Velcroman1 writes "Last week, [the CIA] launched a revamped website with links to YouTube and Flickr containing Agency historical videos and picture galleries. 'The idea behind these improvements is to make more information about the agency available to more people, more easily,' Director Panetta said in a statement. 'The CIA wants the American people and the world to understand its mission and its vital role in keeping our country safe.' In terms of pure coolness the Flickr stream takes the cake — including never-before-seen gallery of special agent supergadgets."

ectotherm writes "The US Navy has broken the existing record for the power of a laser. Their new free-electron laser can burn through 20 feet of steel per second. 'Next up for the tech: additional weaponization. The Navy just awarded Boeing a contract worth up to $163 million to take that technology and package it as a 100 kW weapons system, one that the Navy hopes to use not only to destroy things but for on-ship communications, tracking and detection, too — using a fraction of the energy such applications use now, plus with more accuracy.' Now all we need to do is upgrade the sharks..."

Velcroman1 writes "Two scientists at Yale University have built the laser's first doppelganger: the anti-laser. While a conventional laser emits a constant beam of light in one direction, the anti-laser simply does the opposite. It takes that same steady light stream and interacts with it in such a way that it absorbs and cancels out the light. And scientists hope the strange creation could help the fight against cancer. A. Douglas Stone, one of the two researchers behind the project, said he came up with the idea for a 'nega-laser' when working with equations for a random laser with his partner in crime, Hui Cao. 'I figured, if we just somehow illuminated the cavity, and replaced the gain medium with something that tends to absorb light, we could essentially reverse the process,' Stone said. Oh, that makes sense."

Stenchwarrior writes "A New York University professor temporarily removed the camera he had surgically installed in the back of his head to get rid of one of the apparatus' parts after his body rejected it, myFOXny.com reported Wednesday. Photography professor Wafaa Bilal was in near constant pain after part of a thumb-nail-size camera, implanted in December as part of an art project commissioned by a new museum in Qatar, was rejected by his body."

Velcroman1 writes "Androids are awesome, iPhones impressive ... but dumbphones still dominate. Of the 234 million cell phone users in America last year, a dominating 73 percent own traditional (aka non-smart) devices, according to market researcher comScore. Despite their more popular mindshare, intelligent devices like the Apple iPhone and phones based on Google's Android operating system own barely a quarter of the market."

Fox News took another shot at the video game violence debate earlier this week when they asked whether Bulletstorm, an upcoming M-rated shooter from Epic Games, is the worst game in the world. The article links violent games with an increase in rapes, and suggests there should be greater penalties for selling to minors. Gaming website Rock, Paper, Shotgun breaks down the problems with the article's sensationalist claims and highlights the disingenuous cherry-picking of quotes. "Scott Steinberg, CEO of TechSavvy Global, and all-round industry guru, got in touch with me to show me the answers he submitted to Fox when they approached him for comment. The full answers are reproduced below, because what results is a fantastic interview on the subject of adult game content and regulation. Fox chose to use none of Steinberg’s comments in their final piece, opting instead for the more sensational claims of those with no expertise in the subject (neither of whom have found time to reply to our emails). But seeing these answers also provides further insight into how the mainstream media coverage of gaming stories works. Far from being a reporter ignorant of the subject and twisted by naive contributors, Fox correspondent John Brandon was equipped with a wealth of factual information and informed opinion before composing his frantic article."

eldavojohn writes "The US government's Broadcasting Board of Governors has revealed in a completed FOIA request the development, testing and planned use of Feed Over E-mail (FOE) to push news through China's firewall. This FOIA request (PDF) indicates that the US government is interested in making sure Chinese people receive up-to-date news, and it wants to expand the arsenal of anti-censorship tools (for news at least). The FOE project is GPLv3 and maintained by Sho Ho of BBG."

suraj.sun writes "According to a Fox News report: 'Drug smugglers trying to get marijuana across the Arizona-Mexico border apparently are trying a new approach — a medieval catapult, capable of launching 4.4 pounds of marijuana at a time. National Guard troops operating a remote video surveillance system at the Naco Border Patrol Station say they observed several people preparing a catapult and launching packages over the International Border fence last Friday evening. The 3-yard tall catapult was found about 20 yards from the US border on a flatbed towed by a sports utility vehicle, according to a Mexican army officer with the 45th military zone in the border state of Sonora.'"

KermodeBear writes "Dungeons and Dragons — originally Satan's Game — has now been found to encourage gang-like behavior. In a finding by a three judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, D&D 'can mimic the organization of gangs and lead to the actual development thereof.' From the ruling: 'during D&D games, one player is denoted the "Dungeon Master." 'The Dungeon Master is tasked with giving directions to other players, which Muraski testified mimics the organization of a gang.'"

20 years after the fall of communism the United Russia party wants to ask the Russian people if they think Vladimir Lenin should be buried. Unlike the US, where we would put the body in a house with other famous dead people, and let the TV audience vote on who gets buried, they've decided to put up a poll. From the article: "It is not clear whether the government intends to abide by the outcome of the United Russia party's poll, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that the fate of Lenin's body will in the end be decided by the Russian people."

Velcroman1 writes "NASA has always been tight lipped on the subject of sex in space — which makes people all the more curious. How would it work? Has anyone done it before? Can a child be conceived in zero-G? With few animal tests (and virtually no human testing), there's been next to no scientific analysis of the issue. Until now. The Journal of Cosmology has published a special issue detailing the mission to Mars, which touches all the bases. In a chapter titled Sex on Mars, Dr. Rhawn Joseph from the Brain Research Laboratory in California discusses everything from the social conditions that would push astronauts to have sex to the possibility of the first child being born on another planet. Such an infant would be the first real Martian — at least by nationality, the researcher pointed out. 'On Mars, the light's going to be different, the gravity will be different, it's a completely different atmosphere,' he said. 'So if you put an infant on Mars, they would adapt to varying degrees of the new environment. And after several generations, you'd have a new species,' he said."

Velcroman1 writes "The most asked question in all of technology finally has an answer. When will Verizon get the iPhone? The answer: early next month. Verizon COO Lowell McAdam unveiled a new iPhone Tuesday during a presentation in New York that was short on surprises as most of the tech press already knew what was coming. 'If the press writes about something long enough and hard enough, eventually it comes true,' McAdam joked. Nevertheless, the move clears a major hurdle for Apple as they face increasing competition in smartphones, particularly from devices based on Google Inc.'s Android software which has exploded in popularity. Verizon's Lowell McAdam described the unveiling as a 'great day for wireless customers across the US.'"

Velcroman1 writes "An interplanetary trip to Mars could take as little as 10 months, but returning would be virtually impossible — making the voyage a form of self-imposed exile from Earth unlike anything else in human history. What would inspire someone to volunteer? A special edition of the Journal of Cosmology detailed exactly how a privately-funded, one-way mission to Mars could depart as soon as 20 years from now — and it prompted more than 400 readers to volunteer as colonists. 'I've had a deep desire to explore the universe ever since I was a child and understood what a rocket was,' said Peter Greaves, the father of three, and a jack-of-all-trades who started his own motorcycle dispatch company and fixes computers and engines on the side. 'I envision life on Mars to be stunning, frightening, lonely, quite cramped and busy,' he said. Given the difficulties of the mission, Lana Tao, the editor of the Journal, said she was surprised by the response. 'At first we thought the e-mails were a joke... then we realized they were completely serious.'" Of course, they'd have to compete with the thousands of you who said you'd go.

Velcroman1 writes "Intel has packed just shy of a billion transistors into the 216 square millimeters of silicon that compose its latest chip, each one far, far thinner than a sliver of human hair. But this mind-blowing feat of engineering doesn't really surprise us, right? After all, that's just Moore's Law in action isn't it? In 1965, an article in "Electronics" magazine by Gordon Moore, the future founder of chip juggernaut Intel, predicted that computer processing power would double roughly every 18 months. Or maybe he said 12 months. Or was it 24 months? Actually, nowhere in the article did Moore actually spell out that famous declaration, nor does the word 'law' even appear in the article at all. Yet the idea has proved remarkably resilient over time, entering the zeitgeist and lodging like a stubborn computer virus you just can't eradicate. But does it hold true? Strangely, that seems to depend more than anything on whom you ask. 'Yes, it still matters, and yes we're still tracking it,' said Mark Bohr, Intel senior fellow and director of process architecture and integration. 'Semiconductor chips haven't actually tracked the progress predicted by Moore's law for many years,' said Tom Halfhill, the well respected chip analyst with industry bible the Microprocessor Report."

Velcroman1 writes "A manned mission to Mars would be the greatest adventure in the history of the human race. And one man knows how to make it a reality. In fact, he just wrote the book on it — literally. Joel Levine, senior research scientist with NASA's Langley Research Center and co-chair of NASA's Human Exploration of Mars Science Analysis Group, just published 'The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet.' The book reads like a who's who of Mars mission science, featuring senators, astronauts, astrophysicists, geologists and more on getting to Mars, studying its atmosphere and climate, the psychological and medical effects on the crew and other details. The most interesting bit: Levine presents is a solution for funding the trip, something unprecedented for NASA: advertising. 'The suggestion is marketing to different corporations and professional sports leagues for advertising, which is something NASA never does.'"

Meshach writes "A report out of FOX News (I know, I know) says that there are far fewer unique species of plants than previously thought. The report states that only about a third of named species are actually unique. The rest have been 'discovered' multiple times, often by separate scientists."

Hugh Pickens writes "Fox News reports that Nintendo has posted a cautionary note on its Japanese website that 'vision of children under the age of six has been said [to be in the] developmental stage,' adding that 3D content 'delivers 3D images with different left and right images, [which] has a potential impact on the growth of children's eyes.' The notice went to say that Nintendo recommends that all viewers take regular breaks while watching 3D video or playing stereoscopic 3D games (google translation). Dr. Michael Ehrenhaus, an ophthalmologist with New York Cornea Consultants, thinks Nintendo and Sony may be getting ahead of themselves with these disclaimers. 'It's hard to say that it'll ruin development,' says Ehrenhaus."

Velcroman1 writes "Iran's nuclear program is still in chaos despite its leaders' adamant claim that they have contained the computer worm that attacked their facilities, cybersecurity experts in the US and Europe say. Last week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after months of denials, admitted that the worm had penetrated Iran's nuclear sites, but he said it was detected and controlled. The second part of that claim, experts say, doesn't ring true. Owners of several security sites have discovered huge bumps in traffic from Iran, as the country tries to deal with Stuxnet. 'Our traffic from Iran has really spiked,' said a corporate officer who asked that neither he nor his company be named. 'Iran now represents 14.9 percent of total traffic, surpassing the United States with a total of 12.1 percent.'"

Velcroman1 writes "NASA has postponed the launch of space shuttle Discovery's final mission to no earlier than early February — the latest in a long string of delays that have kept the spacecraft grounded for more than a month. Discovery is now slated to launch no earlier than Feb. 3, with the delay allowing NASA engineers more time to analyze why small cracks developed in the shuttle's huge external fuel tank. The cracks have since been repaired, but NASA wants to make sure similar issues don't pose a future concern."

rbrander writes "Don't call it a 'rifle,' call it the 'XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System' and get your $35,000 worth. Much more than a projector of high-speed lead, this device hurls small grenades that automatically detonate in mid-flight with 1-meter accuracy over nearly 800m. The vital field feature is the ability to explode 1m behind the wall you just lazed — the one with the enemy hiding behind it."

Hugh Pickens writes "A shipment of radioactive rods used in medical equipment has vanished while being sent by FedEx from North Dakota to Tennessee. Based on tracking information, FedEx is focusing its search in the Tennessee area, but as a normal precaution the company alerted all of its stations 'in the event that it got waylaid and went to another station by accident.' Dr. Marc Siegel says if someone opens the container it could pose some serious health risks. 'I don't believe it has the degree of radiation that, if it were opened, your skin would suddenly slough off. But the concern would be, if this got opened inadvertently and someone didn't know what it was and then was repeatedly exposed to it over several days, it could cause a problem with radiation poisoning,' says Siegel. 'The people that use this equipment in a hospital use protective shielding with it.' The lesson is that active medical material must always be transported in a way that ensures the general public cannot get access to it. 'Medical devices should not be FedExed. They should be sent under a special service,' adds Siegel."

Velcroman1 writes "Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have created antimatter in the form of antihydrogen, demonstrating how it's possible to capture and release it. The development could help researchers devise laboratory experiments to learn more about this strange substance, which mostly disappeared from the universe shortly after the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. Trapping any form of antimatter is difficult, because as soon as it meets normal matter — the stuff Earth and everything on it is made out of — the two annihilate each other in powerful explosions. 'We are getting close to the point at which we can do some classes of experiments on the properties of antihydrogen,' said Joel Fajans, a University of California, Berkeley professor of physics, and LBNL faculty scientist. 'Since no one has been able to make these types of measurements on antimatter atoms at all, it's a good start.'"

olsmeister writes "For 18 minutes this past April, 15% of the world's internet traffic was routed through servers in China. This includes traffic from both .gov and .mil US TLDs." The crazy thing is that this happened months ago, and nobody noticed. Hope you're encrypting your super-secret stuff.

Velcroman1 writes "Whoever invented the 'laptop' probably didn't worry too much about male reproductive health. Turns out, unsurprisingly, that sitting with a computer on your lap will crank up the temperature of your nether regions, which could affect sperm quality. And there is little you can do about it, according to the authors of a study out today in the journal Fertility and Sterility, short of putting your laptop on a desk. The researchers hooked thermometers to the scrotums of 29 young men (!) who were balancing a laptop on their knees. They found that even with a lap pad under the computer, the men's scrotums overheated quickly. 'Millions and millions of men are using laptops now, especially those in the reproductive age range,' said Dr. Yefim Sheynkin, a urologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who led the new study."

Velcroman1 writes "On October 26, 2,000 Norwegians watched the sun set. The next time they'll see it rise? Sometime in February. Extended nighttime is an annual occurrence for the residents of Longyearbyen, Norway — Earth's northernmost town. Located at 78 degrees north latitude in the Arctic circle, Longyearbyen experiences a phenomenon called Polar Night, in which the town remains in perpetual darkness for four months each winter. To lighten up the seemingly endless night, Philips has started an experiment called 'Wake Up the Town.' And anyone who's complained about the brief daylight hours in winter will want to know how it works."