Slashdot Mirror
Domain: nature.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to nature.com.
Stories · 1,757
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Bose-Einstein Condensate: On a chip
The Evil Dwarf from Hell writes "This week's Nature has an article (paid subscription required) by a team that has created a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) using an "atom chip". The chip suspends atoms over the surface using various fields and allows them to be moved from one location to another. A couple of advantages are relaxed contraints on the vacuum and increased speed of BEC formation (down to less than 1 second). (A quickie is available on Physics News Update). This goes with a news story in last weeks Science about 1d and 2d BECs. (A search on arXiv.org gives 167 hits in the last year for BECs)." -
"Cool Tropics" Greenhouse Paradox Explained
DudeTheMath writes "The journal Nature reports that Paul Pearson et al. of the University of Bristol have found evidence that ocean temperatures were warmer than previously believed during the last "greenhouse warming" climatological period. It seems they've finally found undegraded shells, preserved in clay, that reveal the temperature at which they were formed." -
"Cool Tropics" Greenhouse Paradox Explained
DudeTheMath writes "The journal Nature reports that Paul Pearson et al. of the University of Bristol have found evidence that ocean temperatures were warmer than previously believed during the last "greenhouse warming" climatological period. It seems they've finally found undegraded shells, preserved in clay, that reveal the temperature at which they were formed." -
Macroscopic Quantum Entanglement
meckardt writes: "We laugh at the science fiction of such programs as Star Trek, but it can almost be stated as a truism that what is fiction today may be science tomorrow and engineering next week. Researchers at the University of Aarhus in Denmark report in the science journal Nature that they have been able to cause particles to interact over a distance using lasers. The effect, called quantum entanglement, has been observed before, but never with such large amounts of matter. Don't expect transporters next week, but it is interesting that this report hits the streets the same day that Enterprise debuts." -
The Funniest Joke in the World
Tackhead writes: "In another example of life imitating Monty Python, this article on nature.com says that the British Association for the Advancement of Science has created Laugh Lab, a project designed to find the funniest joke in the world. Weaponization possibilities are not discussed. Yet." -
Working Nerve Chip
poetic writes: "Two scientists from Munich have succeeded in creating a nerve chip with silicon and snail nerves. The cells were hindered from growing away from the silicon with a plastic fence. They managed to get a signal to go from silicon through a neural circuit and back to the chip again. Cute, one step closer to a decent uplink! See the abstract at Nature's site." -
Earth's Population Predicted To Peak In 2070
canning writes "This article from MSNBC reports the results from a new study that states the world's population will peak in the year 2070. The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the study's authors, say they have developed "a statistical computer model that considers uncertainties in migration, mortality and birth rates". The story is displayed on their home page.
The article has been discussed in other publications such as New Scientist and National Geographic. Also news agency Reuters, newspapers Washington Post, Guardian, and broadcasting stations BBC and ABC.
The Nature article can be found here." -
Vaccine from Fly Saliva
BrentRJones writes: "Fly saliva could protect us from a dangerous disease, says this article from Nature. Reality is always stranger than fiction." This disease is one of the possible causes of Gulf War Syndrome. -
Share The Pi!
freedumb writes "From this article in Nature: "Two mathematicians have now taken the first step towards proving that pi contains not a single message but every conceivable message, meaningful or not."" Actually, it's a discussion concerning whether "that all strings of the same length appear in pi with the same frequency: 87,435 appears as often as 30,752, and 451 as often as 862, a property known as normality." -
Resolution Of The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
bubblywatr writes: "A Caltech physics professor, Dr. Zewail, has apparently resolved the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (that the velocity and position of an electron cannot be determined simultaneously). He proposes in a recent issue of Nature(July 19: " The Fog that was not"), that one can solve, USING CLASSICAL PHYSICS (ie: f=ma), for the location and the position in space of a fundamental particle simultaneously by using FEMTOSECOND DATA COLLECTION (which can pick up atomic energy states), WHILE THE WAVEFORMS OF MATTER ARE IN COHERENCE (which minimizes the error of the femtosecond data because of the localizing effects of coherence). "What does this mean? Femtosecond resolution apparently provides the localization needed to treat electrons as classical spheres in space, nearly following Newtonian physics. However, femtosecond chemistry has been around for years, so why hasn't this worked yet? Well, there is a great deal of error in gathering energy values, even when energies are collected at femtosecond intervals. This is due to freaky quantum physics i don't understand. But, as Zewail states, 'this freaky quantum error can be nearly eliminated if the matter is made coherent'. This means that the wavelike properties of matter are superimposed leading to the addition or destruction of waveforms. This is like the 'double slit experiment', in which regular light is shown through two slits, the waveforms either completely add or subtract, and what you see on the wall is a bunch of tiny spots of light at a defined point in space."
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Resolution Of The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
bubblywatr writes: "A Caltech physics professor, Dr. Zewail, has apparently resolved the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (that the velocity and position of an electron cannot be determined simultaneously). He proposes in a recent issue of Nature(July 19: " The Fog that was not"), that one can solve, USING CLASSICAL PHYSICS (ie: f=ma), for the location and the position in space of a fundamental particle simultaneously by using FEMTOSECOND DATA COLLECTION (which can pick up atomic energy states), WHILE THE WAVEFORMS OF MATTER ARE IN COHERENCE (which minimizes the error of the femtosecond data because of the localizing effects of coherence). "What does this mean? Femtosecond resolution apparently provides the localization needed to treat electrons as classical spheres in space, nearly following Newtonian physics. However, femtosecond chemistry has been around for years, so why hasn't this worked yet? Well, there is a great deal of error in gathering energy values, even when energies are collected at femtosecond intervals. This is due to freaky quantum physics i don't understand. But, as Zewail states, 'this freaky quantum error can be nearly eliminated if the matter is made coherent'. This means that the wavelike properties of matter are superimposed leading to the addition or destruction of waveforms. This is like the 'double slit experiment', in which regular light is shown through two slits, the waveforms either completely add or subtract, and what you see on the wall is a bunch of tiny spots of light at a defined point in space."
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Antibiotics and Nanotechnology
Evil Pete writes: "In an article at Nature Update there is what appears to me is the first use of nanotechnology in a significant way. A team from Scripps Research Institute has used molecular assemblages to destroy bacteria by puncturing their cell walls. The tests on mice cured staph a. infections by injecting a solution of the nanotubes into the mice." -
Antibiotics and Nanotechnology
Evil Pete writes: "In an article at Nature Update there is what appears to me is the first use of nanotechnology in a significant way. A team from Scripps Research Institute has used molecular assemblages to destroy bacteria by puncturing their cell walls. The tests on mice cured staph a. infections by injecting a solution of the nanotubes into the mice." -
Recent Evidence Of Water On Mars Near Equator
mkasei writes "SpaceRef has an early press release with image from Brown University which reports evidence of recent liquid water near the surface of mars. What's important about this find is that it is near the equator making it more readily accessable for a mission, be it robotic or manned." Update: 07/25 09:49 PM by M : There's also a BBC story about water on Mars as well, and a brief Nature article about the possibility of water on Callisto. -
Space-Time-Gravity and Magnetism
BigDaddyMike wrote to us with a piece from Nature that discusses the latest in gravity and space time magnetism, casting some doubts on the theories of Universe Formation. -
The Future Of Scientific Publishing
KjetilK writes: "The Nature web site carries a section with a debate on the future of scientific publishing. Prompted by the Open Letter on the Public Library of Science, this important subject has been brought to the surface. While arXiv.org for many years have provided services similar to that wanted by the Public Library of Science and services such as Astrophysics Data System has been developed to support researchers find what they are looking for and crosslink papers, it is not before now this debate has really taken off. /.-ers will find papers submitted by people they know well, such as RMS, Tim O'Reilly and Tim Berners-Lee, but papers have been submitted from publishers, scientists, database maintainers and so on as well. The whole site contains many very interesting articles. My personal perspective on this, is that I love things like ADS and arXiv.org, and it is fine if the dead-tree publishers are obsoleted, but it is very important that institutionalized peer-review isn't undermined in the process." We've linked to this Nature debate before, but they've added a lot of new content since, and this is such a nicely written submission I can hardly refuse it. -
The Future Of Scientific Publishing
KjetilK writes: "The Nature web site carries a section with a debate on the future of scientific publishing. Prompted by the Open Letter on the Public Library of Science, this important subject has been brought to the surface. While arXiv.org for many years have provided services similar to that wanted by the Public Library of Science and services such as Astrophysics Data System has been developed to support researchers find what they are looking for and crosslink papers, it is not before now this debate has really taken off. /.-ers will find papers submitted by people they know well, such as RMS, Tim O'Reilly and Tim Berners-Lee, but papers have been submitted from publishers, scientists, database maintainers and so on as well. The whole site contains many very interesting articles. My personal perspective on this, is that I love things like ADS and arXiv.org, and it is fine if the dead-tree publishers are obsoleted, but it is very important that institutionalized peer-review isn't undermined in the process." We've linked to this Nature debate before, but they've added a lot of new content since, and this is such a nicely written submission I can hardly refuse it. -
The Future Of Scientific Publishing
KjetilK writes: "The Nature web site carries a section with a debate on the future of scientific publishing. Prompted by the Open Letter on the Public Library of Science, this important subject has been brought to the surface. While arXiv.org for many years have provided services similar to that wanted by the Public Library of Science and services such as Astrophysics Data System has been developed to support researchers find what they are looking for and crosslink papers, it is not before now this debate has really taken off. /.-ers will find papers submitted by people they know well, such as RMS, Tim O'Reilly and Tim Berners-Lee, but papers have been submitted from publishers, scientists, database maintainers and so on as well. The whole site contains many very interesting articles. My personal perspective on this, is that I love things like ADS and arXiv.org, and it is fine if the dead-tree publishers are obsoleted, but it is very important that institutionalized peer-review isn't undermined in the process." We've linked to this Nature debate before, but they've added a lot of new content since, and this is such a nicely written submission I can hardly refuse it. -
The Future Of Scientific Publishing
KjetilK writes: "The Nature web site carries a section with a debate on the future of scientific publishing. Prompted by the Open Letter on the Public Library of Science, this important subject has been brought to the surface. While arXiv.org for many years have provided services similar to that wanted by the Public Library of Science and services such as Astrophysics Data System has been developed to support researchers find what they are looking for and crosslink papers, it is not before now this debate has really taken off. /.-ers will find papers submitted by people they know well, such as RMS, Tim O'Reilly and Tim Berners-Lee, but papers have been submitted from publishers, scientists, database maintainers and so on as well. The whole site contains many very interesting articles. My personal perspective on this, is that I love things like ADS and arXiv.org, and it is fine if the dead-tree publishers are obsoleted, but it is very important that institutionalized peer-review isn't undermined in the process." We've linked to this Nature debate before, but they've added a lot of new content since, and this is such a nicely written submission I can hardly refuse it. -
The Future Of Scientific Publishing
KjetilK writes: "The Nature web site carries a section with a debate on the future of scientific publishing. Prompted by the Open Letter on the Public Library of Science, this important subject has been brought to the surface. While arXiv.org for many years have provided services similar to that wanted by the Public Library of Science and services such as Astrophysics Data System has been developed to support researchers find what they are looking for and crosslink papers, it is not before now this debate has really taken off. /.-ers will find papers submitted by people they know well, such as RMS, Tim O'Reilly and Tim Berners-Lee, but papers have been submitted from publishers, scientists, database maintainers and so on as well. The whole site contains many very interesting articles. My personal perspective on this, is that I love things like ADS and arXiv.org, and it is fine if the dead-tree publishers are obsoleted, but it is very important that institutionalized peer-review isn't undermined in the process." We've linked to this Nature debate before, but they've added a lot of new content since, and this is such a nicely written submission I can hardly refuse it. -
Smelling Trouble At Sea
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Smelling Trouble At Sea
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Greenhouse Gases and Carbon Sequestration
Nechton writes: "The results of a study discussed in an article in the May 24 research journal Nature indicate that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide may have more limited effect on forest growth than previously expected. While many short-term studies have shown atmospheric carbon dioxide (a "greenhouse" gas) increases tree growth, the experiments reported in Nature showed that without additional nutrients, initial growth increases of mature loblolly pine trees leveled off after the first three years of exposure. The presence of elevated levels of carbon dioxide alone, which is occurring due to global industrialization and land use changes, may not result in a long-term increase in the rate of tree growth. However, the results also suggest that forest fertilization, already a practice in Southern pine plantations, might become even more beneficial in a high carbon dioxide world." In a nutshell (or a pinecone): it doesn't seem that increasedw forest growth will "cancel" out increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. -
Computers That Solve Problems Without Being On
Iron Monkey writes: "Nature has this article about how quantum computers can theoretically solve problems without ever actually being turned on! Maybe California can use a few of these to solve their energy crisis - the ultimate in conservation." -
Computers That Solve Problems Without Being On
Iron Monkey writes: "Nature has this article about how quantum computers can theoretically solve problems without ever actually being turned on! Maybe California can use a few of these to solve their energy crisis - the ultimate in conservation." -
Electronic Access to Scientific Journals
LMCBoy writes: "Nature is hosting an online debate on Future e-Access to the Primary Literature. There are points of view from scientists, librarians and publishers (both for-profit and not). It's a good place to get all sides of the issues." It's interesting, because extremely expensive and restricted journals are now competing with services like xxx.lanl.gov, and it isn't clear how peer review will work with more open systems, how they will be funded, etc. -
Electronic Access to Scientific Journals
LMCBoy writes: "Nature is hosting an online debate on Future e-Access to the Primary Literature. There are points of view from scientists, librarians and publishers (both for-profit and not). It's a good place to get all sides of the issues." It's interesting, because extremely expensive and restricted journals are now competing with services like xxx.lanl.gov, and it isn't clear how peer review will work with more open systems, how they will be funded, etc. -
"Cell Executioner" Gene
slantyyz writes: "A fascinating and possibly scary scientific discovery -- Toronto scientists have discovered a "chisel of life" gene that kills cells. Apparently this ancient gene, dubbed AIF [apoptosis (death) inducing factor] is found across all forms of life and acts as a cell executioner. While this could have uses in killing cancer cells, it could potentially open the discovery of a true fountain of youth." Nature has more, if you're a subscriber. -
New Human Ancestor?
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Microcoolers Could Change Processor Design
Skaven writes: "Nature.com is reporting about these nifty new microcoolers, tiny thermoelectric heat sinks that can be built directly onto CPUs. Using the new technology, scientists cooled a processor at 100 degrees C by 7 degrees. That's still a fried t-bird, but what this means is that if the technology gets good enough, cooling chips could soon be getting a lot easier. If anything, small 'hot spots' on the CPU could be avoided by strategic placement of microcoolers, thus helping all of us overclockers out. Heck, maybe even increasing the voltage to your CPU would make it run cooler...how weird would that be?" -
Chip Chiller
Wiesel Werkstätte writes "Nature (just call me Natureboy) reports that a team at the University of California/Santa Barbara have developed a a silicon nano-scale superlattice that can be fabricated directly on chips to cool individual components thermoelectrically." -
New Holographic Storage Medium Doesn't Shrink
Wiesel Werkstätte writes "Nature has an article reporting a new photopolymer suitable for long term holographic storage. previous materials are "read once" and they shrink and distort during the storage process. this new material, a combination of glass and plastic, can also be applied in thicker films." Which means that three-dimensional holographic storage is a tiny bit closer. -
Viral Propagation over Computer Networks
Wiesel Werkstätte writes "Nature has an article about how scale-free networks spread viruses in a manner different from the typical biological model." -
Silicon LED
Ian writes "Scientists at the University of Surrey have developed an LED made entirely from silicon. This is a different approach to optoelectonics which had previously concentrated on nanocrystals. Full report from Nature, also coverage from the BBC, stand back and watch the patents fly (although in this case they are much more deserved)." -
Silicon LED
Ian writes "Scientists at the University of Surrey have developed an LED made entirely from silicon. This is a different approach to optoelectonics which had previously concentrated on nanocrystals. Full report from Nature, also coverage from the BBC, stand back and watch the patents fly (although in this case they are much more deserved)." -
Leprosy Genome Decoded
xpccx writes "There's an article on Wired about a team of Anglo-French scientists that have "...sequenced the genetic map of the leprosy bacterium which could point to new ways to diagnose and treat the disfiguring disease that strikes 700,000 people every year." It's interesting to note that the scientists discovered that "...the bacterium that causes leprosy seems to have lost nearly half of its nonessential genes, more than any other organisms studied so far." This research was published in Nature." -
Leprosy Genome Decoded
xpccx writes "There's an article on Wired about a team of Anglo-French scientists that have "...sequenced the genetic map of the leprosy bacterium which could point to new ways to diagnose and treat the disfiguring disease that strikes 700,000 people every year." It's interesting to note that the scientists discovered that "...the bacterium that causes leprosy seems to have lost nearly half of its nonessential genes, more than any other organisms studied so far." This research was published in Nature." -
Dawn Of The Diamond Age?
Wiesel Werkstätte pointed out this article in Nature about recent advances in the use of thin diamond films as semiconductors, a tantalizing possibility which has been thwarted thus far by the overlapping, misaligned structures left by the process of deposting diamond in a film. From the article: "Matthias Schreck and his colleagues from the University of Augsburg have found a way to eliminate the grain boundaries. They have not removed misalignments entirely, but they have restricted them to narrow bands that no longer isolate one crystalline region from its neighbours." -
World Wide Cluster
gwjc writes: "There is a pretty good Ian Foster article on Web-based computing clusters at the Nature site. The usual SETI@home, condor, and entropia mentions as well as a few that were news to me such as "Compute against Cancer" and "Fight Aids At Home" with links. I wonder how I go about declaring." -
First Sequencing Of Plant Genome
cthugha writes: "The genome of Arabidopsis thaliana has just been completely sequenced, making it the first plant species to have its genome fully sequenced. The fact that we have animal and plant genomes now should give us greater insight into the common aspects of eukaryotic life. Nature has good coverage here. The ABC has a shorter and easier-to-digest report, but the emphasis is on the fact that Australian scientists could not participate due to lack of funding rather than on the technical details." -
First Sequencing Of Plant Genome
cthugha writes: "The genome of Arabidopsis thaliana has just been completely sequenced, making it the first plant species to have its genome fully sequenced. The fact that we have animal and plant genomes now should give us greater insight into the common aspects of eukaryotic life. Nature has good coverage here. The ABC has a shorter and easier-to-digest report, but the emphasis is on the fact that Australian scientists could not participate due to lack of funding rather than on the technical details." -
Using A Microscope As A Hard Drive
An unnamed correspondent writes: "Nature reports that IBM Zurich is developing a practical method for braille hard disks that may eventually be able to pack 60Gbits per square inch, or about four times current disk technologies. I wonder how many moving parts there are with 1024 read heads." Well, they're not really braille; perhaps the analogy to clay tablets made in the article is closer. -
Using A Microscope As A Hard Drive
An unnamed correspondent writes: "Nature reports that IBM Zurich is developing a practical method for braille hard disks that may eventually be able to pack 60Gbits per square inch, or about four times current disk technologies. I wonder how many moving parts there are with 1024 read heads." Well, they're not really braille; perhaps the analogy to clay tablets made in the article is closer. -
Theory Tells How Egyptians Aligned Pyramids To True North
blackage sends us news about how the Egyptians may have aligned their pyramids. The craziest part seems to be that their accuracy was good enough in aligning with these stars that the pyramids can be dated to within five years! Nature has a nice description of the theory. -
Monkey Think, Robot Do
moximus writes "Today's Wall Street Journal details an experiment conducted by Duke University that utilized microwires implanted in a monkey's brain to move a robot arm 600 miles away at MIT. Apparently, after months of recording associations between monkey arm movement and brain activity, the computer can now predict what motion the monkey will make about one second before its arms actually moves, allowing the robot arm to mimic the monkey in real time. Free 30 day trial required on Wall Street, but it's mentioned that the experiment will be described fully this Thursday in Nature Magazine" -
Molecular Punchcards?
Wiesel Werkstätte writes "Nature describes an atomic-force microscope used for data storage by "punching" molecular bits into a plastic substrate." Looks like a long time, if ever, before it could replace hard drive technology, but interesting nonetheless. -
Fun With Nanotechnology Advances
wieselwerkstatte sent us a link to a Nature article that talks about the possibilty for self-soldering molecular wires. In related news, demon-cw sent us a C't story about .2 buckyballs that they are using to create nanotubes. Use the fish for those who don't speak German. -
Germany OK's Human Gene Patents
Masem writes "According to the Oct 26, 2000 issue of Nature, Germany has allowed the patenting of human genes, or parts thereof. There is currently an initiative thoughout the EU to push similar regulation through all other member countries, but many have been slow to adopt it (shades of UCITA). Many are protesting these decisions, which they argue continues to undercut privacy and the value of a human being for commercial purposes. The Netherlands are suing the EU for even having this initiative. Particularly at issue is that subsets of the gene structures can be patented, which could lead to a number of trivial but valid patents. Germany officials say they will try to limit such subset patents to those that perform the useful function they are supposed to." -
Slashback: Titanium, Art, Israel
A long outing this time -- a litany of updates and corrections for your edification and amusement. Microsoft apps that run on Free OSes? An art contest that you won't have to go through your high-strung middle-school art teacher for (and is judged by the family Johansen)? A titanium tank which could fall from the sky? All this and more, if you're willing to read on.You want fries with that software? If the recent report of Microsoft porting apps to *nix, intrigued you, see Paul Thurrott's piece in Windows 2000 Magazine (yes, there is such a thing). Thurrott says, in part: "I can't tell you that the port is going to produce actual products. But I can tell you that Microsoft is looking into it. No, I don't think it's smart. No, it's not what I'd do. But yes, I believe it's true. So why would Microsoft try to port its desktop applications to a platform that has absolutely no desktop market share? I've no idea." Too bad for Microsoft Linux has "absolutely no desktop market share."
Silly! The sky isn't falling! It's just sinking a little each day ... Johann writes "Here is a follow up story to last week's NY Times article which was debated here on Slashdot. The article states that 'Open water at the top of the world isn't evidence that the North Pole is melting, as an article this month in The New York Times suggested.' There are numerous quotes in the article that do suggest that global warming is fact, not fiction."
To which the dapper and elegant Party Remover adds: "The Associated Press reports that a recent New York Times story about liquid water at the North Pole was rather overstating the seriousness of the situation. It seems that the Arctic Ocean is typically 10% ice-free during the summer." And the wording of the correction is amusing, for those of us easily amused.
Getcher doo-dads! Red-hot, computer-generated doo-dads! Get 'em while they're hot, ladies and gents ... ussphoenix writes: "Regarding the /. story about Computer Makes Robot Offspring, here is an article in the journal Nature describing the system. There are also mpegs of the virtual machines and the corresponding real machines moving!"
Next week we explain the buggy-whip makers' case, too. breillysf writes: "Eric Sinrod has condensed the complicated legal issues surrounding 2600's hyperlinking ruling. You can read the article here: Upside Counsel DeCSS article. The article is concise and not filled with legal jargon. A good contribution for those with little time to understand the fundamentals of the case."
And on the DeCSS note, Jim Tyre writes "Tom Vogt, a defendant in the California DeCSS lawsuit brought by DVD CCA, has started DeArt, the DeCSS Art Contest, to further explore the expressive aspects of DeCSS. Original creations only, obviously must be related to DeCSS. The contest runs through Dec. 31, and there will be prizes. Tom and Jon Johansen are the current judges, Emmanuel Goldstein has been asked to be an additional judge. Time for Slashdotters to express their creativity in a new way." I think the most strategic contest area would be performance art. Since it must be digitized, a video recorder would be necessary, I guess. Anyone here watched Roger and Me?[grin]
And if you're feeling less artistic, don't worry: Carpman writes, "I have set up a project to create a letter to congress about the DMCA and its effects. I'm running this like an open source project, you submit, it gets reviewed, and added. Also, you can submit stand alone letters to send allong with the big letter. The page is here." Of course, note the verb sense of "carp" and this makes perfect sense ...
Oh, no, you must have misunderstood. What we meant was something totally different. thebaron writes "Here is a interesting back-pedaling by Sony in this article. One should think before opening mouth and inserting [one's] own foot, even if you're a company exec." Or perhaps especially then. As roblimo pointed out recently, big companies have trouble tying their collective shoelaces sometimes, never mind effecting their own conspiracies.
Hit that high hat, swing that hook! PenguinRadio writes: "The Washington Post notes in Tuesday's paper that Motorola has begun the necessary reporting to certain government agencies so that they can burn up the $4 billion in Iridium satellites. Interesting in this announcements is the fact that their engineers feels certain pieces of the birds may actually reach the Earth and not burn up completely. Most notably a 2 foot by 3 foot titanium fuel tank may make it through the atmosphere. Wanna bet we see it on e-bay if it does fall to earth?"
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Slashback: Titanium, Art, Israel
A long outing this time -- a litany of updates and corrections for your edification and amusement. Microsoft apps that run on Free OSes? An art contest that you won't have to go through your high-strung middle-school art teacher for (and is judged by the family Johansen)? A titanium tank which could fall from the sky? All this and more, if you're willing to read on.You want fries with that software? If the recent report of Microsoft porting apps to *nix, intrigued you, see Paul Thurrott's piece in Windows 2000 Magazine (yes, there is such a thing). Thurrott says, in part: "I can't tell you that the port is going to produce actual products. But I can tell you that Microsoft is looking into it. No, I don't think it's smart. No, it's not what I'd do. But yes, I believe it's true. So why would Microsoft try to port its desktop applications to a platform that has absolutely no desktop market share? I've no idea." Too bad for Microsoft Linux has "absolutely no desktop market share."
Silly! The sky isn't falling! It's just sinking a little each day ... Johann writes "Here is a follow up story to last week's NY Times article which was debated here on Slashdot. The article states that 'Open water at the top of the world isn't evidence that the North Pole is melting, as an article this month in The New York Times suggested.' There are numerous quotes in the article that do suggest that global warming is fact, not fiction."
To which the dapper and elegant Party Remover adds: "The Associated Press reports that a recent New York Times story about liquid water at the North Pole was rather overstating the seriousness of the situation. It seems that the Arctic Ocean is typically 10% ice-free during the summer." And the wording of the correction is amusing, for those of us easily amused.
Getcher doo-dads! Red-hot, computer-generated doo-dads! Get 'em while they're hot, ladies and gents ... ussphoenix writes: "Regarding the /. story about Computer Makes Robot Offspring, here is an article in the journal Nature describing the system. There are also mpegs of the virtual machines and the corresponding real machines moving!"
Next week we explain the buggy-whip makers' case, too. breillysf writes: "Eric Sinrod has condensed the complicated legal issues surrounding 2600's hyperlinking ruling. You can read the article here: Upside Counsel DeCSS article. The article is concise and not filled with legal jargon. A good contribution for those with little time to understand the fundamentals of the case."
And on the DeCSS note, Jim Tyre writes "Tom Vogt, a defendant in the California DeCSS lawsuit brought by DVD CCA, has started DeArt, the DeCSS Art Contest, to further explore the expressive aspects of DeCSS. Original creations only, obviously must be related to DeCSS. The contest runs through Dec. 31, and there will be prizes. Tom and Jon Johansen are the current judges, Emmanuel Goldstein has been asked to be an additional judge. Time for Slashdotters to express their creativity in a new way." I think the most strategic contest area would be performance art. Since it must be digitized, a video recorder would be necessary, I guess. Anyone here watched Roger and Me?[grin]
And if you're feeling less artistic, don't worry: Carpman writes, "I have set up a project to create a letter to congress about the DMCA and its effects. I'm running this like an open source project, you submit, it gets reviewed, and added. Also, you can submit stand alone letters to send allong with the big letter. The page is here." Of course, note the verb sense of "carp" and this makes perfect sense ...
Oh, no, you must have misunderstood. What we meant was something totally different. thebaron writes "Here is a interesting back-pedaling by Sony in this article. One should think before opening mouth and inserting [one's] own foot, even if you're a company exec." Or perhaps especially then. As roblimo pointed out recently, big companies have trouble tying their collective shoelaces sometimes, never mind effecting their own conspiracies.
Hit that high hat, swing that hook! PenguinRadio writes: "The Washington Post notes in Tuesday's paper that Motorola has begun the necessary reporting to certain government agencies so that they can burn up the $4 billion in Iridium satellites. Interesting in this announcements is the fact that their engineers feels certain pieces of the birds may actually reach the Earth and not burn up completely. Most notably a 2 foot by 3 foot titanium fuel tank may make it through the atmosphere. Wanna bet we see it on e-bay if it does fall to earth?"