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That's their PR department talking. On their science page we get this little bit of information: "So far, the researchers have succeeded in isolating two types of gene promoters in the zebra fish -- an estrogen-inducible promoter and a stress-responsive promoter. These promoters have been used to drive the fluorescent colour genes in transgenic zebrafish. Such fluorescent-coloured transgenic fish will be able to respond to the presence of chemicals like oestrogen through the estrogenic promoter and heavy metals and toxins through the stress-responsive promoter. The fish will immediately display the colour depending on the type of environment the colour has been specified for." So the organism has to be in an environment that produces a stimulus inducing the production of red fluorescent protein*, ie either estrogen or something that hits the stress-response promoter. Otherwise the zebrafish has its natural color (which is pretty anyway--I have some in my aquarium). The red fluorescent zebrafish that the company is offering for sale are always expressing the red fluorescent protein, which means that it is under the control of a different promoter and not useful as a pollution (or estrogen) detector in any way. Which means that these guys intentionally produced a GM novelty that is useless for science.

* The red fluorescent protein is almost certainly DsRed aka drFP583, isolated from Discosoma sp. red, a sea anemonie. There are only 45 or 46 genes out there that have been cloned that are members of the GFP (green fluorescent protein) family, ie proteins having the same 3D fold and sequence similarity. Of these 46, only 3 or 4 are red with DsRed being the most commonly used in molecular biology. Most are green, one yellow, at least one cyan, and some others while brilliantly colored are nonfluorescent.

where are my Glowing green flourescent fish ?

What about the washing machine? Everyone does laundry, right?

If you're missing home, or you want to show off Earth to your Martian friends, do take time off to visit EarthLand (note the dark, grey sky, and the still reddish-brown rocks; a dead giveaway for the eagle-eyed!). Pretty amazing piece of terra-forming technology out there; it's very realistic! But if you're on a tight budget, don't bother visiting the place, unless you're dying to see some actual water; note that, as the parent said, water on Mars is expensive, so they charge the sky (pun intended) for entry.

Then again, you don't want to miss the classic Martian sunrise for the world; you know you've seen it on television, but it's quite breath-taking actually to be there!

Problem with Martian tourism is, because it's only recently been opened, there are a lot of touts around promising you Heaven. Don't get ripped off by falling for obviously Photoshopped images; yes, good ol' Martians have made some significant progress in Terra-forming, but no, water is still scarce. I'd say it's still a backpacker destination, and not quite somewhere you want to go with the family; I mean, you don't want to be caught in a situation where you'd have to use your family's water ration of the day just to clean Junior's diaper, for instance.

If you're missing home, or you want to show off Earth to your Martian friends, do take time off to visit EarthLand (note the dark, grey sky, and the still reddish-brown rocks; a dead giveaway for the eagle-eyed!). Pretty amazing piece of terra-forming technology out there; it's very realistic! But if you're on a tight budget, don't bother visiting the place, unless you're dying to see some actual water; note that, as the parent said, water on Mars is expensive, so they charge the sky (pun intended) for entry.

Then again, you don't want to miss the classic Martian sunrise for the world; you know you've seen it on television, but it's quite breath-taking actually to be there!

Problem with Martian tourism is, because it's only recently been opened, there are a lot of touts around promising you Heaven. Don't get ripped off by falling for obviously Photoshopped images; yes, good ol' Martians have made some significant progress in Terra-forming, but no, water is still scarce. I'd say it's still a backpacker destination, and not quite somewhere you want to go with the family; I mean, you don't want to be caught in a situation where you'd have to use your family's water ration of the day just to clean Junior's diaper, for instance.

If you're missing home, or you want to show off Earth to your Martian friends, do take time off to visit EarthLand (note the dark, grey sky, and the still reddish-brown rocks; a dead giveaway for the eagle-eyed!). Pretty amazing piece of terra-forming technology out there; it's very realistic! But if you're on a tight budget, don't bother visiting the place, unless you're dying to see some actual water; note that, as the parent said, water on Mars is expensive, so they charge the sky (pun intended) for entry.

Then again, you don't want to miss the classic Martian sunrise for the world; you know you've seen it on television, but it's quite breath-taking actually to be there!

Problem with Martian tourism is, because it's only recently been opened, there are a lot of touts around promising you Heaven. Don't get ripped off by falling for obviously Photoshopped images; yes, good ol' Martians have made some significant progress in Terra-forming, but no, water is still scarce. I'd say it's still a backpacker destination, and not quite somewhere you want to go with the family; I mean, you don't want to be caught in a situation where you'd have to use your family's water ration of the day just to clean Junior's diaper, for instance.

If you're missing home, or you want to show off Earth to your Martian friends, do take time off to visit EarthLand (note the dark, grey sky, and the still reddish-brown rocks; a dead giveaway for the eagle-eyed!). Pretty amazing piece of terra-forming technology out there; it's very realistic! But if you're on a tight budget, don't bother visiting the place, unless you're dying to see some actual water; note that, as the parent said, water on Mars is expensive, so they charge the sky (pun intended) for entry.

Then again, you don't want to miss the classic Martian sunrise for the world; you know you've seen it on television, but it's quite breath-taking actually to be there!

Problem with Martian tourism is, because it's only recently been opened, there are a lot of touts around promising you Heaven. Don't get ripped off by falling for obviously Photoshopped images; yes, good ol' Martians have made some significant progress in Terra-forming, but no, water is still scarce. I'd say it's still a backpacker destination, and not quite somewhere you want to go with the family; I mean, you don't want to be caught in a situation where you'd have to use your family's water ration of the day just to clean Junior's diaper, for instance.

If you're missing home, or you want to show off Earth to your Martian friends, do take time off to visit EarthLand (note the dark, grey sky, and the still reddish-brown rocks; a dead giveaway for the eagle-eyed!). Pretty amazing piece of terra-forming technology out there; it's very realistic! But if you're on a tight budget, don't bother visiting the place, unless you're dying to see some actual water; note that, as the parent said, water on Mars is expensive, so they charge the sky (pun intended) for entry.

Then again, you don't want to miss the classic Martian sunrise for the world; you know you've seen it on television, but it's quite breath-taking actually to be there!

Problem with Martian tourism is, because it's only recently been opened, there are a lot of touts around promising you Heaven. Don't get ripped off by falling for obviously Photoshopped images; yes, good ol' Martians have made some significant progress in Terra-forming, but no, water is still scarce. I'd say it's still a backpacker destination, and not quite somewhere you want to go with the family; I mean, you don't want to be caught in a situation where you'd have to use your family's water ration of the day just to clean Junior's diaper, for instance.

Everyone knows that Nanyang Technological University in Singapore is the world's largest wireless network campus in the world, even though it's beta noir, and long time rival, National University of Singapore has implemented a wireless network waaay before those crummers even thought heard about 802.11b. :-)

Everyone knows that Nanyang Technological University in Singapore is the world's largest wireless network campus in the world, even though it's beta noir, and long time rival, National University of Singapore has implemented a wireless network waaay before those crummers even thought heard about 802.11b. :-)

Note that there might be some practical considerations having a cow in, say, L.A.

Video-conferencing for education, which is what's really mentioned in the article, has taken off in a big way in this part of the world. MIT offers webcast lectures to graduate students in Singapore, just as Eidenhoven, Georgia Tech and others do. Carnegie Mellon also has a similar programme in India.

The Indian President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, was a tenured lecturer at the Anna University before getting elected as a President; I remember reading somewhere that he still gives lectures to students in Madras through video-conferencing.

There was an earlier case where, again, Dr Kalam apparently got doctors in Hyderabad to consult, check and finally operate on an eight-year-old kid in Agartala with a heart problem. (They, of course, flew the doctors in for the operation).

That said, I know many doctors back in India, many of them in the hospital that did the actual surgery, and most of them don't quite believe that video-conferencing will revolutionise their work. Just doesn't happen; the doctors I met love the technology, but they really would like to meet their patients f2f.

A better question, then, would be "How effective is video-conferencing for medical consultations and education?". Your poser will, rightly I might add, draw emotional responses on nations ("Hey, India has the world's biggest graduate population!", or something like that), rather than sane responses effective use of technology, which, IMHO, is the real question here.

Video-conferencing for education, which is what's really mentioned in the article, has taken off in a big way in this part of the world. MIT offers webcast lectures to graduate students in Singapore, just as Eidenhoven, Georgia Tech and others do. Carnegie Mellon also has a similar programme in India.

The Indian President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, was a tenured lecturer at the Anna University before getting elected as a President; I remember reading somewhere that he still gives lectures to students in Madras through video-conferencing.

There was an earlier case where, again, Dr Kalam apparently got doctors in Hyderabad to consult, check and finally operate on an eight-year-old kid in Agartala with a heart problem. (They, of course, flew the doctors in for the operation).

That said, I know many doctors back in India, many of them in the hospital that did the actual surgery, and most of them don't quite believe that video-conferencing will revolutionise their work. Just doesn't happen; the doctors I met love the technology, but they really would like to meet their patients f2f.

A better question, then, would be "How effective is video-conferencing for medical consultations and education?". Your poser will, rightly I might add, draw emotional responses on nations ("Hey, India has the world's biggest graduate population!", or something like that), rather than sane responses effective use of technology, which, IMHO, is the real question here.

here

Intelligent Autonomous Systems, neat robot projects including a neural-network pole-balancer, with pictures and whitepapers
Link

Pole-Balancing Mini-Robot using neural networks
Link

Intelligent fuzzy logic and PCB fab with pictures and video
Link

Reinforcement Learning Pole-Balancing Applet by Appl
Link

Demonstrations of Several Solutions to the Pole-Balancing Problem by Jeff Lawson and Chris Lewis
Link

there is strong evidence that Water exists at the poles of Mars and on Europa

Hey, I already know about that. Take a look at this picture I took during my last visit to Cydonia!

FYI, HyperSCSI does roughly the same as iSCSI and claims to address some of its shortcomings.

Also, is a collection of links on mobile routing protocols, and mesh routing protocols that were originally designed for wired backbone links.

Point to note:- No, the machines don't accept dollar bills. Instead, they accept a cashcard for payment. I have a cashcard, but no, I never purchase anything from there. It's always more fun explaining how a cashcard works to that dumb hot babe at the counter... ("Hey, your queue is growing longer; tell you what, I'll pay now in cash. May be we could meet on Saturday night and I'll show you how I buy drinks with this? ")

This wasnt even close to the coolest thing at SIGGRAPH! Takeo Igarashi's work on predictive interfacing making easier 2d and 3d drawing tools was cooler. Digiplasty , a kind of 3d exquisite corpse as shown by Stewart and Makai was cooler. (For that matter the Studio, manned by Makai, Stewart, Scott and many others, where you could create 2d and 3d art and print 2d and 3d was AWESOME - you could work in there for hours, vs. the few seconds of playing with a silly virtual sword.) Scotts Dodecahedron was a wonderful example of taking something abstract and virtual and making it real and usable. Isa's overview of wearable tech and cyberfashion (she took out the notes, dammit!) was refreshing, if not so new to a frequent slashdotter. (She's a burner too!) Some of the mixed reality work being done at the University of Singapore was really neat. (This is an example of some of the most exciting stuff there. Several researchers showed some great work being done in augmented reality, and combining that with some of the reasonable priced wearable and wirelessable computing, we can see some real headway being made. One researcher even composites a virtual face back onto a fellow participant in the augemented reality environment, masking the HMD, even going so far as to track the eyes and simulate the gaze.) The results of last years meditation chamber research installation was an interesting and possibly VERY useful application of VR technology. W. Bradford Paley's work on applying alternative interfaces to explore other media was fascinating, where you can use this LARGE java tool named TextArc to examine graphically over 400 literary works. The Web3D Consortium's release of the final working draft of X3D (with tools) could end up being much more important than the newest video card from ATI. Dietmar Offenhuber's work on non-isotropic spaces at wegzeit was an interesting approach to mapping and representing real places. Zachary Simpson et al's delightfully simple shadow interactivity was many times more fun than the virtual swordfight. Fabric.ch's knowscape was also exciting, both for the viewers and the presenter, as he would find additions from his European counterparts each morning when he logged on to the shared 3d space. Kenneth Huff's beautiful art using maya was just one example of some wonderful digital work being done. Lastly, Michael J. Lyons soon-to-be-published research on the aesthetics of Tokyo's Kyoto Gardens was both informative and inspiring. And this is just a TINY PART of what happened there!

Really, SIGGRAPH was NOT just an exhibition floor with cheesey swag (although the little green LED lights were very nice) and some cool new toys. It was presentation after presentation by resesarchers, some barely able to speak engrish, but all excited about their work and open to collaboration. It was hours and hours of animation, some (Like Allain Escalle's "Le Conte du monde flottant") were so stunning as to make you forget where animation ended and life began. Disney's work on replacing one actors face with another, retaining ALL facial expression, was downright scary. And the Spiderman gag footage, his spidey-suit oddly replaced with a fully reflective silver surface, like most of the rest of SIGGRAPH'S less entertaining presentations, were surely an indication of things to come.
Take the time to go to SIGGRAPH2002 and look around. If you find something interesting, write the author. This is where the new VR and AR comes from - not ATI!

Here's a quick overview of Freenet, if you need to get up to speed.

English is spoken by just about everyone in Singapore and very widely in Malaysia and the Philippines

The PARCTAB has been under development since early 1992. In March 1993 we released the first system for general (non-project) use [...]

By early 1994 the system had stabilized and the software entered a maintenance stage where development was limited to bug fixes and applications. At this time there were 41 lab members using tabs

Here's a nice timeline for the development of the PDA, also showing one shipping before the Newton, the Amstrad PenPad.

http://www.thecore.nus.edu.sg/writing/ccwp10/james /pda_evo_timeline.html

Have you ever wondered why C uses octal? Or why Unix (and therefore chmod(1)) takes octal numbers for permissions? It's because C and Unix were initially developed on 36-bit DEC machines. A 36-bit word has four 9-bit bytes, each represented by three octal digits.

According to a long list of computers, the PDP-7 was an 18-bit machine and the PDP-11 was 16 bits. Not mentioned on the list, the GE 635 had a 36-bit word.

Early history of Unix according to Ritchie.

Problems with Hardware, Languages, and Compilers
Definable operators (was: Problems with Hardware, Languages, and Compilers)
Re: Definable operators

Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
If Al Gore invented the internet, why is it named after George W. Bush?

"Calculus" is just a term for a formal system, usually equational in nature, which supports some form of deduction based on rewriting. There are easily hundreds, probably thousands, of calculi which appear in the programming language theory and related literature, and few of them if any have anything to do with the differential calculus you are familiar with from high school.

If you are interested in learning about lambda-calculus, you might want to start with untyped lambda-calculus, unless you have a background in logic. There are many books on the subject; I started with Chris Hankin's "Lambda Calculi: A Guide for Computer Scientists", which is IMO quite readable. You can also find many tutorials and lecture notes on the web, for example here, here and here. If you know Scheme, or have read SICP, then you already know mostly what lambda-calculus is, though you probably don't realize why it's so remarkable. (Hankin's book is good for that.)

10 Myths about Linux Dispelled! and More!

10 Myths about Linux Dispelled! and More!