Slashdot Mirror

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."

Anonymous Coward writes "Seems all those scientists who've spent years tweaking exotic materials at freakily low temperatures to turn them into superconductors should've just looked on the lab shelf. Magnesium diboride superconducts at much higher temperatures than other metallics and could even bust the theoretical max T, says this story at New Scientist. There's more research on the same here but 40K's still pretty cold - when's my laptop gonna run for free?"

Anonymous Coward writes "Seems all those scientists who've spent years tweaking exotic materials at freakily low temperatures to turn them into superconductors should've just looked on the lab shelf. Magnesium diboride superconducts at much higher temperatures than other metallics and could even bust the theoretical max T, says this story at New Scientist. There's more research on the same here but 40K's still pretty cold - when's my laptop gonna run for free?"

Atomic Snarl writes "For those of you breathing fast and hard about user rights after the purchase, what would you think if your TV/VCR/Cellphone/Dishwasher would die if you moved it out of an "authorized usage area?" Got a great boom box bargan on your last visit to Hong Kong, but now it won't work in Cleveland? Yuk! Read the New Scientist article to find out about a GPS chip design intended to kill your unit if it isn't supposed to be marketed in your area!" The implications are wide-ranging and unpleasant.

Pyr0Cantha writes "Umm.......found this on New Scientist quite interesting that in 1786 it was discovered that frog muscles twitched when an electrical current was put through them, only now it has been put to use."

Anonymous Coward writes "According to New Scientist, researchers at Brookhaven NL have put a dent in the standard model of particle physics. Looks like a big deal and just what they've been waiting for - something to get their teeth into. Read the story here"

Anonymous Coward writes "According to New Scientist, researchers at Brookhaven NL have put a dent in the standard model of particle physics. Looks like a big deal and just what they've been waiting for - something to get their teeth into. Read the story here"

sacremon writes "There is an article in the New Scientist about research in Germany that has human cells able to produce a electrical signal large enough to be detected by a semiconductor that the cells are growing atop of. This could eventually lead to more tightly linked cell-to-electronics interfaces, like prosthetics. Cyberdecks anyone?"

tag writes "New Scientist has an article discussing 'mirror cells' -- neurons that fire both when you perform an action and when you observe someone else performing that action. Researches think this explains how we 'judge intentions and feelings' and may 'answer important questions about human evolution, language and culture.' The article links to an essay by one of the researchers."

tag writes "New Scientist has an article discussing 'mirror cells' -- neurons that fire both when you perform an action and when you observe someone else performing that action. Researches think this explains how we 'judge intentions and feelings' and may 'answer important questions about human evolution, language and culture.' The article links to an essay by one of the researchers."

Jeriten writes "NewsScientist puplished this story about how your chips could be cooled down without that huge and noisy fan. Answer is multiple fans sized smaller than head of a pin and growed directly to a surface of a chips." Now if they could just make hard drives silent, we finally could hear ourselves think in a room with 3-4 computers. I tell ya, the noise generated by a few PCs doesn't seem like much until you turn off the tunes.

ExRex writes "New Scientist has this article about a material developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology which is not only both a semi-conductor and ferro-magnetic at room temperature, but is also transparent. It may lead to flat panels which contain both image processing circuitry and memory in the screen itself." They're thinking laptops, but I'm thinking heads-up displays.

ExRex writes "New Scientist has this article about a material developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology which is not only both a semi-conductor and ferro-magnetic at room temperature, but is also transparent. It may lead to flat panels which contain both image processing circuitry and memory in the screen itself." They're thinking laptops, but I'm thinking heads-up displays.

Jayman2 writes: "New Scientist has a story on how NASA wants to drill holes in the Martian surface to examine the possibility of traces of life in the deeper layers of the planet. Due to the composition of the ground on Mars a conventional hole is likely to collapse, so the tip of the drill NASA intends to use will be heated up to 1500 degrees Celsius, cooling the shaft with the cold atmosphere of Mars itself. However, the high temperature of the drill bit is likely to destroy all carbon based life it would encounter...."

ArghBlarg writes: "As an update to their October report, New Scientist Magazine reports that the birth of the first animal cloned by placing the genome of one into the egg of another is only a week away. The egg of a domestic cow had its nucleus removed and the genes of a female gaur, which died in 1993, were inserted. If the birth is a success, it clears the way for endangered (or even extinct) animals with closely-related, extant cousins, to be re-created. Perhaps 'species banks' can become a reality eventually."

ArghBlarg writes: "As an update to their October report, New Scientist Magazine reports that the birth of the first animal cloned by placing the genome of one into the egg of another is only a week away. The egg of a domestic cow had its nucleus removed and the genes of a female gaur, which died in 1993, were inserted. If the birth is a success, it clears the way for endangered (or even extinct) animals with closely-related, extant cousins, to be re-created. Perhaps 'species banks' can become a reality eventually."

Will G writes: "3DRage has posted an article entitled "Quantum Computers: How they work and How they will effect us" by Alan Cline. Not only can quantum computers run one billion times faster than typical silicon-based computers, but also theoretically, they can run and consume no energy. That being true, quantum computers could obsolete the silicon chip much as the transistor did the vacuum tube. This paper is intended for the general reader, and explains basic quantum computer features, and the paradoxical effects quantum theory produces in a practical world. This paper discusses how quantum computers originated, the inevitability of their use, and how they differ from classical computers." An interesting nugget to add to this comes from leelaw2000, who writes: "New Scientist have published this little news story about the development of a kind of quantum shielding that might help the development of real quantum computers. Now if they can just get Quake on it ..."

Teahouse writes: "The U.S. Navy has developed this polymer "eel" that they dump in the water and get a trickle charge back. The biggest application for this would be for deep sea bouys that track weather across the pacific. This could extend accuracy, and lifespans...and save a few lives along the way. Here is the story." NOAA uses buoys that are solar powered and are left out for a year or more at a time, but I imagine that if this worked they'd be interested, too.

A computer that Madonna might approve of, ubiquitous boxes delivering Internet acccess all over paradise (and why not everywhere?), and some more insight about Moore's Law and Intel's tiny new transistors, from the horse's mouth. Read more below, in this edition of Slashback.

Insatiable demand and a limited supply mean ... slashdoter writes " Remember the Virgin webplayer? The co-op has got a deal to buy the unsold units at $100 each, add on $10 for shipping and some extra for the Beer fund for our fearless leader and you too can have a hackable webplayer (without a TOS). You only have 2 or 3 days to get in so come on over and read the small print."

It may be officially too late to join, but this still would be a smart site to inquire at if you're looking to find one of these cute little machines, and just like waiting outside a ("sold out") Elvis Costello show, you might find a reasonable re-seller.

"Oooh! It's so cute and little!" rm-r writes "The New Scientist has an interview here with Gerald Marcyk, the head scientist behind the world's smallest transistor announced by Intel last week. The article also has some interesting pieces about the problems chip makers have as they get smaller and smaller."

Now if these were everywhere, where would be put the AOL CDs? The mysterious unnamed correpsondent writes: "This article was published on Securityfocus.com today about Linux Kiosks. It seems that with the Costa Rican Government providing free internet access to all citizens, this is a timely followup about how a country could use a RedHat Linux system to offer Free Internet Access much like we see present day telephones...on every corner, in every restaurant, and at every gas station. It was written by Anton Chuvakin, a Ph.D student in Europe, and maintainer of the Pocket Linux Distribution HOWTO."

This certainly is an interesting vision, and not far-fetched. Can't we all pitch in and lay some fiber like Hands Across America?

[Update]-- until someone pokes an eye out. Here is part six of the continuing reprint of Jon Katz' Hellmouth Saga. Parts five, four, three, two and one are also available to digest if you've not before.

A computer that Madonna might approve of, ubiquitous boxes delivering Internet acccess all over paradise (and why not everywhere?), and some more insight about Moore's Law and Intel's tiny new transistors, from the horse's mouth. Read more below, in this edition of Slashback.

Insatiable demand and a limited supply mean ... slashdoter writes " Remember the Virgin webplayer? The co-op has got a deal to buy the unsold units at $100 each, add on $10 for shipping and some extra for the Beer fund for our fearless leader and you too can have a hackable webplayer (without a TOS). You only have 2 or 3 days to get in so come on over and read the small print."

It may be officially too late to join, but this still would be a smart site to inquire at if you're looking to find one of these cute little machines, and just like waiting outside a ("sold out") Elvis Costello show, you might find a reasonable re-seller.

"Oooh! It's so cute and little!" rm-r writes "The New Scientist has an interview here with Gerald Marcyk, the head scientist behind the world's smallest transistor announced by Intel last week. The article also has some interesting pieces about the problems chip makers have as they get smaller and smaller."

Now if these were everywhere, where would be put the AOL CDs? The mysterious unnamed correpsondent writes: "This article was published on Securityfocus.com today about Linux Kiosks. It seems that with the Costa Rican Government providing free internet access to all citizens, this is a timely followup about how a country could use a RedHat Linux system to offer Free Internet Access much like we see present day telephones...on every corner, in every restaurant, and at every gas station. It was written by Anton Chuvakin, a Ph.D student in Europe, and maintainer of the Pocket Linux Distribution HOWTO."

This certainly is an interesting vision, and not far-fetched. Can't we all pitch in and lay some fiber like Hands Across America?

[Update]-- until someone pokes an eye out. Here is part six of the continuing reprint of Jon Katz' Hellmouth Saga. Parts five, four, three, two and one are also available to digest if you've not before.

waimate writes: "This New Scientist article describes some physics that is claimed could be the basis of a new space drive, and a reactionless one at that. Our current knowledge of physics requires that a space craft throw most of itself away at high speed in the opposite direction to get anywhere, and this is why the Millennium Falcon won't exist any time soon. A drive that doesn't depend on reaction mass would change all that. But is this it? The article seems to sidestep the obvious flaw." Or flaws, maybe.

pythorlh writes: "NewScientist has an article about carbon-nanotube thread. Could this be the begining of "monofilament" that sci-fi has been drooling over for years?" Well, from the sound of the article, not yet. But soon, perhaps: according to the article, "The new nanotube threads are about 10 times stronger than buckypaper, and can be tied into knots without breaking. But they are still much weaker than many other fibres, such as iron thread."

Cainxinth writes "The New Scientist reports secure internet servers will blast-off into space for the first time on Thursday with a mission to get as beat up as possible. If the specially-toughened chips survive, they should allow future internet users to control satellites from their desktop." Sparc chips - interesting concept.

waimate writes: "The Riemann hypothesis is all about the fundamental nature of those mysterious individuals, prime numbers. Proving it will have ramifications for quantum mechanics and improve our understanding of the nature of the universe, but more importantly will now win you one million dollars. With that kinda money, who cares who's the president." I'm afraid this article loses me about halfway through, but it looks interesting. Any mathematicians in the audience want to take a crack at explaining the second half of the article? :)

Effugas writes: "New Scientist is running a surprisingly readable series about the nature of slime made from polymer chains. Far more fascinating set of articles than I would have expected; for all the theoretical talk of grey goo and nanotech robotics, chemists really are the ones doing the largest scale engineering on the smallest of scales. I especially enjoyed the article about the hagfish, which can when under duress turn the five gallons of water around it into utterly impenetrable sludge -- instantaneously." The article also has a great do-it-yerself recipe for some bouncy homemade slime.

Effugas writes: "New Scientist is running a surprisingly readable series about the nature of slime made from polymer chains. Far more fascinating set of articles than I would have expected; for all the theoretical talk of grey goo and nanotech robotics, chemists really are the ones doing the largest scale engineering on the smallest of scales. I especially enjoyed the article about the hagfish, which can when under duress turn the five gallons of water around it into utterly impenetrable sludge -- instantaneously." The article also has a great do-it-yerself recipe for some bouncy homemade slime.

arete writes "Apparently a simple injection (in rats and mice so far) can revive body functions before warming. Since you're cold, your brain isn't using oxygen, and doesn't go into oxygen deprivation. But it lets breathing and autonomic functions (like shivering) restart even in the absence of a brain restart. Sounds to me like a big leap towards suspended animation. Of course, you can't be frozen below 0 C using this techique, because all your cells explode when the water freezes. Plausibly with some mild oxygen influx you wouldn't need to be below 0 C, though. " I think I'll wait a while before planning my interstellar trip, tho'.

mach10 writes: "An article here shows that a scientist has been able to create fibers that collect ambient light, strong enough to power a dotted matrix for display. It can reach 30 times ambient light, and they are soon hoping to expand the area to replace signs on roads. Hrm ... But my sundial watch still doesn't work in the dark =\" Add this to some ultra-efficient light source (like white LEDs?), a low-power processor, human power and some solar cells, and most of my requirements for portable computing happiness would be met.

revision1_1 writes: "New bouncing robots could advance planetary exploration by leaps and bounds. The exploration of other planets could benefit from a giant leap for robot-kind, according to researchers in New Mexico. Rather than use wheels or legs, robots could rove across alien landscapes far more effectively by bounding over the surface in an almost random fashion, they say." Well, science hasn't given me talking fruit and a jet pack yet, but this looks pretty close.

parvati writes "According to a newscientist.com story a 1968 Stanford University film demonstrating the use of the first mouse may be used to refute BT's claim of a 1976 patent on hyperlinks. In the film the mouse is used to click on hyperlinks." I've got a patent pending on swallowing, oxidation, and chewing gum.

tewl writes: "Saw this [article] on [New Scientist] -- 'BT's hopes of enforcing its U.S. patent on Internet hyperlinking (New Scientist, 1 July, p 17) may be dashed by an old movie clip. The U.S.-based Internet Patent News Service is pointing patent lawyers to a website which says it hosts film of a prior demonstration of hyperlinking prior demonstration of hyperlinking. BT is basing its claim on a 1976 patent (4873662) that through a legal quirk remains in force until 2006. The 90-minute film was shot by Stanford University in 1968 when Douglas Englebart showed 1000 people the first mouse -- using it to click on hyperlinks.'" What's not open-and-shut here?

tewl writes: "Saw this [article] on [New Scientist] -- 'BT's hopes of enforcing its U.S. patent on Internet hyperlinking (New Scientist, 1 July, p 17) may be dashed by an old movie clip. The U.S.-based Internet Patent News Service is pointing patent lawyers to a website which says it hosts film of a prior demonstration of hyperlinking prior demonstration of hyperlinking. BT is basing its claim on a 1976 patent (4873662) that through a legal quirk remains in force until 2006. The 90-minute film was shot by Stanford University in 1968 when Douglas Englebart showed 1000 people the first mouse -- using it to click on hyperlinks.'" What's not open-and-shut here?

kkelly writes: "This weeks New Scientist has an interesting article on 3-D Printers: 'THINK OF AN OBJECT and watch it appear before your eyes. All it takes is a click of a mouse, a flick of a switch and you can have almost anything, made to order. Researchers are on the point of creating a magic box that can bring the stuff of your imagination into the hard-edged material world.'"

kkelly writes: "This weeks New Scientist has an interesting article on 3-D Printers: 'THINK OF AN OBJECT and watch it appear before your eyes. All it takes is a click of a mouse, a flick of a switch and you can have almost anything, made to order. Researchers are on the point of creating a magic box that can bring the stuff of your imagination into the hard-edged material world.'"

Gleb sent us an IETF draft for electricity over IP (yeah it's old, but it's funny). dbcooper noticed that New Scientist mentioned a kit spaceship for $500k. Oh, and here's some (warning! Over 18 and over!) Odd Javascript that I can't even begin to describe, but it's so odd that I just had to share it. l@ps@n pointed out some Star Wars Origami that is actually pretty sweet. Mr. Fusion urges us to fry that Voodoo3 with two neon sign transformers and watch the fireworks. Phrogman noted that SpaceRef has posted some amazing time-lapse movies assembled from the Hubble space telescope showing stars blowing gas (insert joke here). zenray notd that this month's SC Magazine does a market survey about tools needed to do a forensics-quality copy of disk drives. Basically the requirement is to be an exact byte-for-byte copy; 'dd' gets their BEST BUY award. Congrats! mommydearest wrote in to plug that Ultimate Chaos is hosting the Ultimate AOL CD Invention contest here (grand prize is an IDE RAID controller!). Best I ever came up with was wallpaper (during my cubist period I filled up a wall). An anonymous reader found the x10-men which ain't exactly X10, and it ain't exactly X-Men, but it is truly frightening. And finally, what with election coming up and all, it's a good thing that LafinJack wrote in to let us know that Joe Leiberman and Dick Cheney have joined the ranks of political quake 3 skins available. Taunt and kill them before doing so becomes treason!

Trishank Karthik writes: "Have you been wondering whether those quirky, little, fashionable and convenient things are dangerous to you? Paranoid about cancer from mobile phones? Wanna know the latest findings? Cast your mobile phone aside for a while, read this, and have some coffee or tea."

SEWilco writes "Researchers are making progress toward causing muon-catalyzed fusion. A muon allows creation of a tritium-deuterium molecule, then forces the nuclei together. This is fusion by atomic-level trickery rather than the brute force approach of simulating the center of a star. Progress is being made on the two lab-level problems in the process; if those are solved then a muon-catalyzed fusion plant becomes an engineering problem."

Brian McLaughlin writes "A company is working on software that can classify music with fractals and make it easier to find the tunes you want on the Web. Apparently, one can detect the type of music (jazz, heavy-metal, in-between, etc.) by detecting fractal patterns in the music."." I'm looking forward to the day when my music can be indexed and crossreferenced every which way: artist, tempo, year, style, similiarity, heck I wanna know when the Beastie Boys sample The Beatles and be notified and give the option to follow up on the samples within the songs. Someday... I hope.

waimate writes "This fascinating article describes a scheme devised by the Soviet Union for superfast underwater travel - faster than Concorde. The idea is to use Cavitation - an effect usually the enemy of marine architects, and turn it to an advantage, creating vessels (initially torpedoes) encased in a bubble of vacuum and powered by rockets. All under the water. Watch out for that mullet !"

LazyGun wrote to us about the next generation of Titan Explorers -- the Titan Organic Explorer. The cool part is that it's a helicopter, of sorts. The probe is an interesting proposal, especially to test some of the interesting potential organic properties of Titan's make-up.

Socramon writes "There's been a lot of discussion (and flaming) lately about genetic experimentation. For those who aren't sick of hearing about it already, there's an article on New Scientist about a Canadian company, Chromos, which has created an artificial chromosome that has (so far) been passed down through three generations of mice. The company's homepage, www.chromos.com is, unfortunately, "Under Construction"."

Socramon writes "There's been a lot of discussion (and flaming) lately about genetic experimentation. For those who aren't sick of hearing about it already, there's an article on New Scientist about a Canadian company, Chromos, which has created an artificial chromosome that has (so far) been passed down through three generations of mice. The company's homepage, www.chromos.com is, unfortunately, "Under Construction"."

AndrewD writes: "Picked this up from the print edition of New Scientist. It's about the development of web browsers for animals, in this case a 17-month-old african grey parrot. Here is the researcher's site." This does explain all that aol.com traffic.

wackypak writes: "Seiko / Epson have developed a new technology which allows it to print out a video screen onto paper! Believe it or not, they've even demoed the technology, and hope to use it for mobile phones! This may be the death of paper as we know it -- imagine being delivered an electronic video newspaper every morning, then *recycling* it. Or even delivering your speech as a multimedia piece of paper! Or having walls and walls of video wallpaper!" Or ending more sentences with exclamation points!

gclef writes "The New Scientist is reporting on a study done by the UK's Civil Aviation Authority that shows that older planes can't handle cell phone emissions. Hackernews has a little commentary on this as well. Good to hear that the newer planes can handle this, but why the heck were older planes *not* build with Faraday cages and shielded wires? Scary...." Look a ways down the page for the HNN piece - but at least now I know that this isn't simply one of the arbitrary rules that the airlines setup.

gclef writes "The New Scientist is reporting on a study done by the UK's Civil Aviation Authority that shows that older planes can't handle cell phone emissions. Hackernews has a little commentary on this as well. Good to hear that the newer planes can handle this, but why the heck were older planes *not* build with Faraday cages and shielded wires? Scary...." Look a ways down the page for the HNN piece - but at least now I know that this isn't simply one of the arbitrary rules that the airlines setup.

xmatt writes: "Eurekalert has a story posted from New Scientist about connecting neural material from a lamprey to light sensors and a cybernetic "body" made of two wheels and circuit board. Steve Grand, a expert in artificial life with Cyberlife Research in Somerset, describes the work as "laudably perverse" and likely to bring the world of cyborgs one step closer."

pgrote writes "The New Scientist is reporting about a pretty cool device you can add to your DVD for digital output to a Serial Digital Interface. As someone who didn't know the ins and outs of DVD signals and how restricted they were, this article opened my eyes."

cencini writes: "According to this article, U.S. engineers developed a device for $7,500 which generated UHF signals strong enough to jam mobile GPS systems. My question is, couldn't you build something like that for less?!" Update: 04/20 02:42 by H : The folks at New Scientist wrote with the original article - the device actually blocks UHF signals, but can be modified for other bands.

leb writes: "Engineers in Japan are developing trains that really do fly. Using the 'wing-in-ground' (WIG) effect, in which a high-pressure cushion of air forms underneath flying objects as they approach the ground, they believe they will be able to create trains that use only a quarter of the power required for magnetically levitated (maglev) trains. Read about it in this New Scientist article." This is rather nifty, but it isn't as cool as the flying train at the end of BTTF III. Put a flux capacitor on this baby, and we'll talk.