Slashdot Mirror

Paul Smith writes: "New Scientist is carrying a story about a redesigned version of the programming language C called Cyclone from AT&T labs. "The Cyclone compiler identifies segments of code that could eventually cause such problems using a "type-checking engine". This does not just look for specific strings of code, but analyses the code's purpose and singles out conflicts known to be potentially dangerous.""

"Hard work, no pay, eternal glory." The Mars Society needs volunteers to simulate Mars exploration, so we're better-prepared for the problems the (hopefully) real astronauts will face. If you have a month free next summer and you'd like to spend it freezing your ass off, read on.

The Mars Society is looking for "anyone in good physical condition between 18 and 60 years of age... Scientific, engineering, practical mechanical, wilderness, and literary skills are all considered a plus." Only the passionate need apply: "conditions are likely to be tough and the job will be very trying." And that's before the robot switches into hunter-killer mode.

If you prefer roasting to freezing, there's a mission somewhere in the Australian Outback next year as well. Either way, go visit the Mars Society homepage and check it out.

I spoke with a friend of mine, Daniel Slosberg, who coordinated Mission Support for the Michigan Mars Society during two similar, less-audacious experiments this year. His was the easy job of sitting at home, coordinating communications (chiefly email, with simulated 20-minute round-trip delay), answering questions from the field, and giving advice.

Daniel happens to be working on an idea for distributed mission support; if you're interested in being part of the ground crew, drop him a line.

For the team that actually goes into the wilderness and lives in the "hab," you'll be simulating Mars isolation as accurately as possible. You'll be brutally far north, for one thing. You'll wear a mock-spacesuit every time you go outside, which will help identify where the problems are in e.g. mobility or hygiene. You'll also spend an hour in the airlock when you enter or leave, which will help remind you not to forget your hammer.

The excursions get more sophisticated each year: next year will be the first with an already-completed hab and the first with more than one mock-suit. Your chance to be part of history.

In related news, Odyssey continues aerobraking, and its mission looks good -- if you've read Robinson's Red Mars series, you know how delicate orbital insertion is. Great work, JPL.

And just for kicks, here's a New Scientist article about synthesizing fuel from the Martian atmosphere to power a "hopper"-lander. If you find the practical chemistry of planetary travel interesting, go read Robert Zubrin who is just all about using whatever resources already exist outside Earth's gravity well.

srand writes "So some scientists at HP developed this AI to mix new music tracks for dancers based on biofeedback from the clubbers. The clubbers are each given a heart monitor, which sends information to the DJ through a wireless link. The DJ itself mixes music using genetic algorithms to find the tracks the audience likes best. The tracks are the "genes", and feedback from the audience determines the fitness levels of the genes." I still think generative music has a lot of potential, although I'd love an intermediate step where some sort of biofeedback picked MP3s based on your mood.

A reader writes "Distributed computing seems once more to be succesful. The combined effort of many pc's joining Primenet in search for a new Mersenne prime may have found there fifth result. Among them many belonging to /. readers. There is an unconfirmed claim for Mersenne prime #39 of over 3,500,000 digits, for which a considerable amount of money has been awarded. SETI looks for ET's messages, but found none sofar. Mersenne primes are used to tell ET about us. A previous found Mersenne number was used to show the advance of science on our planet in a message send into outer space. " The Primenet list has confirmed that while they still need to totally test it out (which should be done by the 24th), they believe that the number found today is the 39th positive.

A reader writes "Distributed computing seems once more to be succesful. The combined effort of many pc's joining Primenet in search for a new Mersenne prime may have found there fifth result. Among them many belonging to /. readers. There is an unconfirmed claim for Mersenne prime #39 of over 3,500,000 digits, for which a considerable amount of money has been awarded. SETI looks for ET's messages, but found none sofar. Mersenne primes are used to tell ET about us. A previous found Mersenne number was used to show the advance of science on our planet in a message send into outer space. " The Primenet list has confirmed that while they still need to totally test it out (which should be done by the 24th), they believe that the number found today is the 39th positive.

Trevor Johnson writes "New Scientist reports that physicists from the NuTev collaboration at Fermilab have announced a result on their Web page. Bombarding iron nuclei with high-energy neutrinos, they found a 99.75% chance that neutrinos interact slightly differently from the way the Standard Model (the reigning theory which describes the strong, electromagnetic, and weak forces, but not gravity) says they should. Even though the discrepancy is small, it is likely to be significant. There is no theory to explain the difference, but it could indicate a hitherto unknown force. NuTev has submitted a "Physical Review Letter" paper. There is a press release from Fermilab and a plain English version."

Atomic Snarl writes: "New Scientist.com has this story on how to encrypt a underwater sonar message using multiple sound path timing. By detecting and adapting for the current variations on underwater sound channels, the transmitted message can be received intelligibly only at a single point. This holographic approach suggests a method of web encryption using multiple hop paths and ping times to create a message which can only be decoded when received at a specific target node!"

BdosError writes: "The Kursk (the Russian nuclear sub that sank 14 months ago) has finally surfaced, in its dry dock. New Scientist has the story. It's minus the nose/torpedo section, which was left on the sea floor as a safety precaution. Now, they have to remove the cruise missiles and defuel the nuclear reactors so that they can begin their investigation. The nose section will have to be raised later to complete the investigation."

BdosError writes: "The Kursk (the Russian nuclear sub that sank 14 months ago) has finally surfaced, in its dry dock. New Scientist has the story. It's minus the nose/torpedo section, which was left on the sea floor as a safety precaution. Now, they have to remove the cruise missiles and defuel the nuclear reactors so that they can begin their investigation. The nose section will have to be raised later to complete the investigation."

Bolie writes: "Trying to make high temperature super conductors yielded an unexpected result. The pure carbon bucky ball material was put under pressure to make sheets. That worked. Picture microscopic bubble pack. But the result was a sheet that was magnetic at room temperature. It has not escaped the attention of the discoverer, Tatiana Makarova, that this might be useful for a non-metallic computer memory. The material is also lighter than metals, flexible and transparent. Lasers anyone?"

fm6 sent in an article running at New Scientist talking about new technology that allows Inflatable Loud Speakers. The technology is apparently patented and there's not a lot of technical details, but I have to say the concept amuses me. And I somehow doubt that this technology will ever be used in high fidelity home systems.

how_would_i_know writes: "I've always suspected there was a coconut conspiracy... now there's proof. :-)" We might as well follow-up on our earlier story with a list of the IgNobel Winners. Stalin World! A study of glee! And of course, a true breakthrough, the solution to the shower curtain mystery.

admiral2001 writes "This article from NewScientist.com details the most mass market venture into copy protected CDs. Namely, NSync's new CD will be released in a least 3 different versions (with different copy protection techniques). Also, one of the types has (small) labelling saying that the CD cannot be played on computers."

schnippy writes: "New Scientist reports on new study from the University of Michigan that argues that steganography (the science of obfuscating communications) is not in wide use, or at least not on the 2 million images they scanned on eBay. Earlier this year, USA Today reported that Bin Laden was using steganography to disguise his communications. Full study is available here. Wonder how long before someone sets up a distributed computing client to help search for Bin Laden's secret communications? :p" Niels Provos' research was mentioned in Slashback not long ago, and this article is based on the same research.

A reader writes: "New Scientist has an article about buildings that incorporate numerous wind turbines. These neat office blocks can generate much of the own energy and the design of the building actually makes them more power efficient that regular turbines."

Miles writes: "I don't think I would want to rent a room over a nuclear reactor, even if Dr. Scientist says its completely safe..... Does he live in the apartment building or in a nice house in the suburbs?"

Self Bias Resistor writes: "According to an article in New Scientist, an antifreeze protein naturally produced by Antarctic fish has been synthesised by U.S. researchers at the University of California. Apparently, this discovery could have a wide variety of applications such as frost-resistant concrete, as well as making the storage of human organs and frozen food easier."

ianchaos writes: "According to an article in New Scientist, solar cells that 'self assemble' from a liquid have been developed by scientists at the University of Cambridge. The breakthrough could make it cheap and easy to cover large areas, like roofs, with efficient, ultra-thin solar cell coatings. Now they just need to try coating clothes with the stuff to make the wearables more viable."

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."

Rhinobird writes: "I was just catching up on some stuff and ran across this article on New Scientist. It describes a new Hitachi wearable computer which is planned for a release of Christmas 2001. More info can be found at Hitachi's site here(1) and here(2)." These will come with Windows CE officially, but unofficially, how long could it take to make them run other OSes as well? At $2000, wearables might finally hit a lot of toylists.

ianchaos writes: "According to an article in New Scientist, storm experts in the U.S. have made a cloud vanish from the sky for the first time. They achieved the feat by sprinkling a water-absorbing powder over the cloud, making it disappear from sight and weather station radar screens. They hope the powder will one day dry up deadly hurricanes and tropical storms."

parvati writes: "Newscientist.com is reporting that a new form of anti-piracy technology for audio CDs could potentially damage audio equipment. The new system, called Cactus, developed by Midbar Tech (Tel Aviv), is similar to Macrovision's but prevents both CD-to-PC copying and CD-to-CD copying (Macrovision doesn't prevent the latter). Cactus adds fake control data that's not decoded by the original player but, when copied, is read as music and produces distortion. However, certain audio wave shapes have the capacity to damage the circuitry of the player and/or speaker equipment. Midbar has already sold unidentified Cactus-embedded CDs in Eastern Europe."

Paintthemoon writes: "The European Space Agency is testing components for a system to recycle human waste in space. Saying that the ability to turn waste into food is crucial for long-haul missions (such as to Mars) or colonizing efforts, the ESA hopes that the entire system can be assemled and tested as a unit in 2005." The food is probably not a great reason to head to space, unfortunately.

Midnight Thunder writes "The Japanese have come up with a bionic suit designed to allow nurses to lift patients with out damaging their backs. This is just the sort of thing I need for lifting the monitors at work." And then there was mecha. Pretty cool idea - and maybe it could have helped Scoop.

Lee writes: "this article on BBC News (& This longer one on New Scientist, with a nice diagram) talks about an 'artificial passenger' being developed by IBM. It's built into the dashboard of your vehicle and will talk to you, tell you jokes, and monitor your responses ... why? To keep you from falling asleep at the wheel,and adding yourself to the 30% of road traffic accidents caused by falling asleep at the wheel. Some of the countermeasures are entertaining, but there's no mention of electrocution. Damn!"

Tabercil writes "According to this New Scientist article, the SafeAudio system has been employed here in North America in an unidentified CD which has already sold 100,000 copies." It'll be interesting to see what CD it is. My biggest concern is the car CD players that actually are computers not being able to play these discs. Presumably the copy protection will be broken soon enough, so thats not really an issue.

jparadise writes: "Seems folks over at the the U.S. National Fusion Facility in San Diego have figured out a way to fiddle with magnets to contain plasma and make their scale-model fusion generator produce energy significantly in excess of what they're putting in. It's not the final answer, doesn't look like, but it seems (maybe? hopefully?) like a step in the right direction ..."

Logic Bomb writes: "According to the New Scientist, NASA would like to explore replacing its chemical-based booster rockets with nuclear versions. Engineers think it could be the first step towards major reductions in launch costs that would eventually lead to widespread public access to space. NASA is aware that such a project faces massive PR difficulties. As a non-expert member of the public, I can verify that. :-)"

amyaimee writes: "Perfect for you hygiene-challenged computer geeks (you know who you are): New Scientist reports on a new clothing made of milkweed containing a special strain of e. coli designed to feed on human sweat and the proteins that cause B.O. Alex Lightman of Charmed Technology quips, "I wear the same pair of jeans all the time and I'm sure they have bacterial colonies living in them, but if they were selected to convert my sweat into sweet-smelling pheromones, that would be great," he says."

amyaimee writes: "Perfect for you hygiene-challenged computer geeks (you know who you are): New Scientist reports on a new clothing made of milkweed containing a special strain of e. coli designed to feed on human sweat and the proteins that cause B.O. Alex Lightman of Charmed Technology quips, "I wear the same pair of jeans all the time and I'm sure they have bacterial colonies living in them, but if they were selected to convert my sweat into sweet-smelling pheromones, that would be great," he says."

Anonymous Coward writes "New Scientist has posted an article about Russia reviving their Space Shuttle program. Its a neat story, and gives a few comparative stats between NASA's shuttles and the Buran shuttle; e.g. Buran has a 100 ton payload, nearly 5 times as much as the NASA shuttles!" And be prepared: space tourism may soon reach the almost-commonplace stage.

Anonymous Coward writes "New Scientist has posted an article about Russia reviving their Space Shuttle program. Its a neat story, and gives a few comparative stats between NASA's shuttles and the Buran shuttle; e.g. Buran has a 100 ton payload, nearly 5 times as much as the NASA shuttles!" And be prepared: space tourism may soon reach the almost-commonplace stage.

Anonymous Coward writes "New Scientist has posted an article about Russia reviving their Space Shuttle program. Its a neat story, and gives a few comparative stats between NASA's shuttles and the Buran shuttle; e.g. Buran has a 100 ton payload, nearly 5 times as much as the NASA shuttles!" And be prepared: space tourism may soon reach the almost-commonplace stage.

alumniac.com writes "Good riddance to backlighting, full color electronic paper is set to take the market by storm. On another note, this will add a lot more zing to my paper airplanes." This is a little light on the technical details but it's an interesting read, especially because this isn't as far away from hitting the market as a lot of the stuff we see around here.

Erik Gryphon writes: "It looks like Aldous Huxley was right; in the future babies will come off an assembly line according to the New Scientist. The story here gives details of a chip for in-vitro fertilization. Now the question is, do we really need 16,00 Britney Spears?"

Slashback tonight with more on patents, Douglas Adams, and becoming a Jedi in New Zealand. Please read below for the details;)

Fitting tributes? SEWilco writes "New Scientist reports that an asteroid was officially named "18610 Arthurdent" on May 9; it is not known if Douglas Adams heard of it before he died May 11."

And dclydew writes "We at Binary Freedom would like to propose "Towel Day." May 25, two weeks after Douglas Adams' passing, all fans worldwide are encouraged to carry a towel around for the day."

It would be nice to see Thursday renamed as well.

Wait till the Jedi control the Senate. Slightly aging news, but CuriousGeorge113 writes "According to this Theage.com.au article, the Australian Government has issued yet another warning to Star Wars fans intent on writing in 'Jedi' as their religion in the upcoming census. It appears that this e-mail is beginning to pick up some steam."

Join the parade. Macki writes "Three weeks ago, Ford Motor Company sued 2600 over a DNS entry pointing FuckGeneralMotors.com at the Ford website. A hearing is set for May 18th in Detroit. Supporters are invited to join a caravan to Detroit that will go through up state New York and Canada in time for the hearing. A motion has already been filed for a protective order from legal shenanigans while in Michigan-- it's a good read and gives a thorough run-down of the case."

Open for the public, yes. Delphion may be about to start charging for certain of its formerly free services, but my note that the USPTO should put more documents on the Web was too harsh. A USPTO employee helpfully wrote:

"The United States Patent and Trademark Office offers the entire USPTO Patent database online for free (we've been doing this for some time now) -- just click any of the Search Patents links to get started.

You can search text for all patents since 1976 and view images of all patents since 1790 (except those files lost in the early Patent Office fires and fractional patents). We have the entire available patent database on line. You will need a TIFF image browser plugin (we offer a link to a free plugin on our site).

We also offer Patent Application Publications online. These are pending patent applications received after the new rules went into effect (from March 15 2001 through the present weekly issue). The database consists of the full text of US published applications (including new utility and plant). The full text of a published application includes all bibliographic data, such as the inventor's name, the published application's title, and the assignee's name, as well as the abstract, the full description of the invention, and the claims. All of the words (text) in the publication are searchable."

Thanks for the information. Sorry for being the source of FUD. Now where are the searchable PDFs? :)

GrokSoup writes: "How come planes can fly upside-down? The Bernoulli principle as applied to flight -- air moves faster over the top of the wing creates low pressure, sucking the plane upward -- always bugged me because it didn't explain inverted flight. Turns out I'm not the only one. The current New Scientist has an entertaining interview with Fermilab physicist David Anderson who explains why the Bernoulli explanation is only partial: lift from wing-shape is the least significant component of lift. Much more important is the wing's angle of attack."

An Anonymous Coward wrote: "According to an article in the 5 May 2001 issue of New Scientist , biologists in Norway have developed a computer program to datamine Medline to predict interactions between genes. Some of the relationships hadn't been predicted before and were found to be real. The scientists' PubGene database and tools are available for experimentation." Wow.

An Anonymous Coward wrote: "According to an article in the 5 May 2001 issue of New Scientist , biologists in Norway have developed a computer program to datamine Medline to predict interactions between genes. Some of the relationships hadn't been predicted before and were found to be real. The scientists' PubGene database and tools are available for experimentation." Wow.

TheSync writes: "NewScientist has a story about research into the 'religious brain,' the part of the brain responsible for a deep, calming, spiritual feeling. Brains of Tibetan Buddhists meditating and Franciscan Nuns deep in prayer were imaged using Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT). It was found that during these spiritual experiences, an area of the parietal lobe in the brain became much less active." The article is interesting as well for the other areas of brain research it touches on. Where can I get a God helmet?

TheSync writes: "NewScientist has a story about research into the 'religious brain,' the part of the brain responsible for a deep, calming, spiritual feeling. Brains of Tibetan Buddhists meditating and Franciscan Nuns deep in prayer were imaged using Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT). It was found that during these spiritual experiences, an area of the parietal lobe in the brain became much less active." The article is interesting as well for the other areas of brain research it touches on. Where can I get a God helmet?

Mike Wilson writes: "New Scientist has an article about a 'dim-witted' robot which may survive in circumstances where smarter devices would fail." Hope you're not paranoid about a 50cm metal scorpion sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. I know I'm not, those are good folks with good intentions and robot slaves.

Mike Wilson writes: "New Scientist has an article about a 'dim-witted' robot which may survive in circumstances where smarter devices would fail." Hope you're not paranoid about a 50cm metal scorpion sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. I know I'm not, those are good folks with good intentions and robot slaves.

CMiYC writes: "The New Scientist has a short story on a new kind of paint. In the winter it'll make your house darker to heat it up and in the summer it'll might your house's color light to help cool it down. For the best effect your house would have to go from black to white, but I don't know many people that would like their house to be black... Kind of gloomy."

CMiYC writes: "The New Scientist has a short story on a new kind of paint. In the winter it'll make your house darker to heat it up and in the summer it'll might your house's color light to help cool it down. For the best effect your house would have to go from black to white, but I don't know many people that would like their house to be black... Kind of gloomy."

Ant sent this link to a story about solar-powered clothes, well, solar-powering, maybe. This may be the breakthrough we've been waiting for to convince computer geeks to spend some time in the sun.

Starting the show off with some cool do-it-yourselfer sorta projects: Diederik Meijer submitted the The Silicon Graphics Refrigerator Project (or: How To Turn a $175.000 High-End SGI Challenge DM Server into a Fridge). Next up, mdaughtrey built a Mechanical Hit Counter jrbx1 sent us a link to an in-dash Atari 2600. Even coolor is that the dash its in is attached to a 1978 volkswagon ;) rednax sent us a review of a kit for adding neon to your PC. If you're not skilled enough to hack how it works, at least you can pretend you're cool and hack how it looks! I Nothing is more dangerous then glewtion's link to a story about a sculpture in england that that worries people since the heat it generates cook fry a bird mid-air. Oh, and I lied: even more dangerous then art is amasci's link to making pet ball-lightning. In your microwave, duh. If you've got some spare time, MxTxL submitted something that we've been seeing more of, email games. This one is battlemail, which apparently is glorified addictive paper rock scissors. f you were an Anime character, here's some helpful hints to keep in mind. Hieronymus Coward sent us a bit about The Drew Carrey Show featuring a 2 minute segment based on the sims. I wonder if they will use the vibromatic bed, actually the next expansion comes out soon (today?) so I probably am gonna have to resurrect my neighborhood sometime soon. Thirsty? Dipfan sent in a story about Coke wanting to put soda fountain style coke in every house right next to the water dispenser. Got Carbonated Milk? Finally for a little random product plugging, Rustin H. Wright found a place selling penguin crossing signs. Finally, anotherone noted that you can use Google in full swedish bork bork chef glory.

alnapp writes: "It appears that international efforts to track asteroids are missing the main worry, according to Bill Napier of the Armagh Observatory speaking to New Scientist. Comets, it would seem are more likely to cause us grief. I know that as kids we were told that space dust was bad for you (is that a too "UK" centric reference) but this seems like just another panic waiting to happen."

speck writes "Here's a link to an article in New Scientist about mathemetician Gregory Chaitin, who seems to have thrown some of the basic foundations of math into question with his work on the 'omega number.' Among the more provocative statements in the article: '[Chaitin] has found that the core of mathematics is riddled with holes. [He] has shown that there are an infinite number of mathematical facts but, for the most part, they are unrelated to each other and impossible to tie together with unifying theorems. If mathematicians find any connections between these facts, they do so by luck.' Also of interest is the transcript of a lecture Chaitin gave at CMU, which explains some of the theory in quite accessible language."

An anonymous submitter sent in: "New Scientist has an interesting feature on peer to peer systems, taking a less copyright orientated approach, and going into some technical detail about how the various P2P systems work and compare to each other."