Slashdot Mirror

foolishtook writes " The New York Times is reporting that a panel of experts is recommending NASA to keep the Hubble Space Telescope operating past 2010 when its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is currently slated for launch. NASA had stated that it wanted to bring the Hubble down in 2006 to make room in its budget for the Webb, but astronomers said that it still has a viable future and the launch date for the Webb is likely to be delayed."

foolishtook writes " The New York Times is reporting that a panel of experts is recommending NASA to keep the Hubble Space Telescope operating past 2010 when its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is currently slated for launch. NASA had stated that it wanted to bring the Hubble down in 2006 to make room in its budget for the Webb, but astronomers said that it still has a viable future and the launch date for the Webb is likely to be delayed."

Howard writes "Horrified by "There Be Monsters Here" tales, some members of Congress called for a ban on DNA research in the mid '70s. Because those calls were rejected, millions of people around the world can now hope for DNA-based vaccines against AIDS, malaria and other deadly diseases that have destroyed lives, communities and nations. Here's an illustration: The name of Joseph DeRisi keeps coming up in connection with deadly diseases. No, he's not a modern-day Typhoid Mary. Just the opposite. The University of California, San Francisco researcher is using his own custom-built DNA microarrays to look inside the "minds" of some serious serial killers. The "minds" are genes, and his home-brewed gene chips helped solve the SARS mystery earlier this year. Now, DeRisi has chosen malaria as his next victim. For the complete commentary, please go to Howard Lovy's NanoBot."

The New York Times reports on a British man who was accused of downloading child pornography, and who successfully convinced the court that a virus did it. This is at least the second time this has happened. These cases are extremely interesting since they bring together all sorts of issues of computerized agents - who is actually responsible when your computer does something?

grape jelly writes "A new website has been created by Rep. Harry A. Waxman, of California, by the name of Politics and Science that accuses the current administration of intentionally manipulating scientific data in order to further its ideology. The site was created as a result of a congressional report (pdf) request by Rep. Waxman, available on his site. A NYTimes article is also available about the report with a response from the administration."

fermion writes "The NYT(FRR) and others are reporting that a hacker has broken into a Acxiom server. Acxiom evidently is "one of the world's largest consumer database companies" and serves most top credit card companies and retail banks. There are a few items that stand out in this case. First, Acxiom had no idea that the breach occurred until the company was contacted by the police. Second, the theft was an inside job. The suspect, now in police custody, was an employee with legitimate access to the information. It amazes me that a such a company would have such lax security as to allow an insider to browse supposedly private data at will. Third, the company is taking no responsibility for the break in other than reporting it to the clients, who then may or may not inform their customers." Acxiom is a Certified Participant in the BBBOnline Privacy Program.

Boone^ writes "The New York Times has an article (free reg. req.) talking about Cray Inc.'s recent resurgence in the realm of supercomputing. It discusses a bit of Cray's decline when the Cold War ended, "the occupation" under SGI, and the rebirth of the company after the Tera (now Cray Inc.) purchase. Recently Cray Inc. has been shipping their vector-based Cray X1 machine, designing ASCI Red Storm, and recently was one of 3 (also Sun, IBM) to win a large DARPA contract (PDF link) to design and develop a PetaFlops machine by 2010. Could Cray Inc. be poised for a comeback? Wall Street seems to think so."

prostoalex writes "The New York Times tells the story of a Connecticut-based company called HoloTouch that is developing input devices that literally "float in the air". The technology will be licensed for information kiosks in New York city. Some other sample applications are available from the company's Web site. HoloTouch already managed to secure the patent on its technology."

MikeTRose writes "Today's NYT Circuits section has an article about the proliferation of digital television choices for cable and satellite customers. They mention that Time Warner Cable will be starting to offer DVR cable boxes to New York City subscribers in September 2003. Apparently the time-shifting features of the new Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 (flash demo) set-tops are unusually powerful, as I got mine in Brooklyn this past Tuesday. 80 GB drive, which equals an estimated 50 hours of digital cable programming (no quality controls a la TiVo or ReplayTV, everything is as-broadcast). Programming interface is integrated completely into the slightly-updated channel guide, and you hit one big ol' record button to save a show. The tuner can handle two channels at once, so you can watch one/record one, or record two programs while watching a prerecorded show (similar to the DirecTV TiVo units if I recall correctly). Works great so far, and there's no quality problem with recompressing the digital cable as there is with standalone DVRs, nor is there the annoying 2-3 second channel change lag while it caches video. At less than $10 a month -- no cost to the subscriber for the box -- that money we were saving for a TiVo is up for grabs."

MikeTRose writes "Today's NYT Circuits section has an article about the proliferation of digital television choices for cable and satellite customers. They mention that Time Warner Cable will be starting to offer DVR cable boxes to New York City subscribers in September 2003. Apparently the time-shifting features of the new Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 (flash demo) set-tops are unusually powerful, as I got mine in Brooklyn this past Tuesday. 80 GB drive, which equals an estimated 50 hours of digital cable programming (no quality controls a la TiVo or ReplayTV, everything is as-broadcast). Programming interface is integrated completely into the slightly-updated channel guide, and you hit one big ol' record button to save a show. The tuner can handle two channels at once, so you can watch one/record one, or record two programs while watching a prerecorded show (similar to the DirecTV TiVo units if I recall correctly). Works great so far, and there's no quality problem with recompressing the digital cable as there is with standalone DVRs, nor is there the annoying 2-3 second channel change lag while it caches video. At less than $10 a month -- no cost to the subscriber for the box -- that money we were saving for a TiVo is up for grabs."

damiangerous writes "American chain Ritz camera has begun offering disposable digital cameras for $10.99. The price includes 4x6" prints and a Photo CD of the camera's 25 photo memory. Pictures can be deleted, but there's no LCD."

DrLudicrous writes "The NYTimes is running an article about how statistical language translation schemes have come of age. Rather than compile an extensive list of words and their literal translations via bilingual human programmers, statistical translation work by comparing texts in both English and another language and 'learning' the other language via statistical methods applied to units called 'N-grams'- e.g. if 'hombre alto' means tall man, and 'hombre grande' means big man, then hombre=man, alto=tall, and grande=big." See our previous story for more info.

D3 writes "This report on a solar power tower (pdf) looks extremely interesting. Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world? How cool would that be?" The NY Times has a good article on solar power in Japan.

Elysdir writes "DARPA is creating an idea futures market, the Policy Analysis Market, to try to predict events in the Middle East. See Bloomberg article for more info." Read this article. I mean it. This is amazing. Update: 07/29 14:45 GMT by J : The NYT story claims "The White House also altered the Web site so that the potential events ... that were visible earlier in the day ... could no longer be seen," but those example images are still being served: Jordanian overthrow, bidding on assassinations, cool graphics... Update: 07/29 16:44 GMT by M : Looks like the publicity was too much.

securitas writes "The NY Times has a nice feature about the diverging estimates of the costs of spam (Google). The estimates vary widely from $10 billion to $87 billion per year for American workers, and even more for global costs. Critics say that research firms' estimates vastly overstate the actual cost of spam. Public institutions like Indiana University have to be sensitive to the First Amendment rights of the spammers. And at companies like Nortel Networks, security architect Chris Lewis says that the real economic burden is the 10 to 15 percent - 5,000 to 10,000 messages a day - of the spam that still gets through, which costs the company about $1 in lost productivity per message. The costs can be much higher if a top executive is upset or mad about spam. "If someone in senior management gets spammed," Mr. Lewis said, "it could take 20 or 30 hours of everyone's time, up and down the chain." A chart of the per user amount of spam and the time spent processing it, as well as the varying estimates of the per user cost of spam are included in the article."

securitas writes "The NY Times has a nice feature about the diverging estimates of the costs of spam (Google). The estimates vary widely from $10 billion to $87 billion per year for American workers, and even more for global costs. Critics say that research firms' estimates vastly overstate the actual cost of spam. Public institutions like Indiana University have to be sensitive to the First Amendment rights of the spammers. And at companies like Nortel Networks, security architect Chris Lewis says that the real economic burden is the 10 to 15 percent - 5,000 to 10,000 messages a day - of the spam that still gets through, which costs the company about $1 in lost productivity per message. The costs can be much higher if a top executive is upset or mad about spam. "If someone in senior management gets spammed," Mr. Lewis said, "it could take 20 or 30 hours of everyone's time, up and down the chain." A chart of the per user amount of spam and the time spent processing it, as well as the varying estimates of the per user cost of spam are included in the article."

securitas writes "The NY Times has a nice feature about the diverging estimates of the costs of spam (Google). The estimates vary widely from $10 billion to $87 billion per year for American workers, and even more for global costs. Critics say that research firms' estimates vastly overstate the actual cost of spam. Public institutions like Indiana University have to be sensitive to the First Amendment rights of the spammers. And at companies like Nortel Networks, security architect Chris Lewis says that the real economic burden is the 10 to 15 percent - 5,000 to 10,000 messages a day - of the spam that still gets through, which costs the company about $1 in lost productivity per message. The costs can be much higher if a top executive is upset or mad about spam. "If someone in senior management gets spammed," Mr. Lewis said, "it could take 20 or 30 hours of everyone's time, up and down the chain." A chart of the per user amount of spam and the time spent processing it, as well as the varying estimates of the per user cost of spam are included in the article."

securitas writes "The NY Times has a nice feature about the diverging estimates of the costs of spam (Google). The estimates vary widely from $10 billion to $87 billion per year for American workers, and even more for global costs. Critics say that research firms' estimates vastly overstate the actual cost of spam. Public institutions like Indiana University have to be sensitive to the First Amendment rights of the spammers. And at companies like Nortel Networks, security architect Chris Lewis says that the real economic burden is the 10 to 15 percent - 5,000 to 10,000 messages a day - of the spam that still gets through, which costs the company about $1 in lost productivity per message. The costs can be much higher if a top executive is upset or mad about spam. "If someone in senior management gets spammed," Mr. Lewis said, "it could take 20 or 30 hours of everyone's time, up and down the chain." A chart of the per user amount of spam and the time spent processing it, as well as the varying estimates of the per user cost of spam are included in the article."

Incognitius writes "The NYT (free reg. req.) has an article on the New York Video Festival's presentation of video games as an outpost of abstraction, eccentricity and avant-gardism. Various artists have used video games to make elaborate dramatic movies. In 'My Trip to Liberty City,' for example, Jim Munroe turns 'Grand Theft Auto III' into a comic travel diary, in which he chooses the 'skin' of a Canadian tourist and blithely ignores the criminal inducements that are the whole point of the game. Cartridge hacking, 'Halo,' and other elements of the gaming world are also mentioned, illustrating the amazing range of video games today."

Incognitius writes "The NYT (free reg. req.) has an article on the New York Video Festival's presentation of video games as an outpost of abstraction, eccentricity and avant-gardism. Various artists have used video games to make elaborate dramatic movies. In 'My Trip to Liberty City,' for example, Jim Munroe turns 'Grand Theft Auto III' into a comic travel diary, in which he chooses the 'skin' of a Canadian tourist and blithely ignores the criminal inducements that are the whole point of the game. Cartridge hacking, 'Halo,' and other elements of the gaming world are also mentioned, illustrating the amazing range of video games today."

drcobb writes "According to the New York Times, MCI is under investigation again. This time for spoofing SS7 point codes to avoid paying access tariffs. Federal prosecutors have opened an investigation in the United States and Canada into accusations that MCI, the nation's second-largest long-distance carrier, defrauded other telephone companies of at least hundreds of millions of dollars over nearly a decade, people involved in the inquiry said."

drcobb writes "According to the New York Times, MCI is under investigation again. This time for spoofing SS7 point codes to avoid paying access tariffs. Federal prosecutors have opened an investigation in the United States and Canada into accusations that MCI, the nation's second-largest long-distance carrier, defrauded other telephone companies of at least hundreds of millions of dollars over nearly a decade, people involved in the inquiry said."

DoraLives writes "Ok then, what are we going to do with Hubble? Eventually, it MUST come down. The New York Times has a piece that addresses this less than pleasant (at least for the astronomical community) subject. Additionally "The decision about what happens then has been complicated by the breakup of the Columbia." Read all about it."

cybercuzco writes "In an otherwise innocuous article at they NYT (FRRYYY) Bill Gates says that according to error reporting software in windows, 5% of all windows installations crash two or more times every day. Gates goes on to state that Microsoft is looking at charging for some of its software updates that it now distributes for free."

Several well-known security researchers have examined the code for Diebold's voting machines (which we last mentioned two weeks ago) and produced an extensive report (pdf). The NYT has a story on the report, which cuts to the bone: 'Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We highlight several issues including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. For example, common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal.'

emmastory writes "The New York Times is running a story on the phenomenon of lecture hall back-channeling - now that many conferences and universities have wireless access, some people discuss lectures via instant message or weblog as they happen. Although the article quotes an instructor at NYU, I haven't seen much of this in lectures I've attended there. I would guess it varies from department to department, but laptops aren't yet as common in classes as one might think. Either way, some people consider the practice rude, others consider it progress, and good arguments can be made on either side."

helixcode123 writes "According to the New York Times (also on Yahoo News), IBM is planning on moving a substantial number of high level jobs overseas to 'India and other countries.' IBM argues, in essence, that they need to do this to stay competitive. The article quotes that Forrester Research '...estimated that 450,000 computer industry jobs could be transferred abroad in the next 12 years, representing 8 percent of the nation's computer jobs.'"

Factomatic writes "With the supply of IP addresses expected to run out by 2005 due to the popularity explosion of the Internet and the expectation that everything from your phone to your washing machine will soon have its own IP address, Alex Lightman, CEO of Charmed Technology and chairman of last month's North American IPv6 Global Summit tells the New York Times "we're going to need something like 100 IP addresses for each human being." IPv6 will increase the supply of addresses from 4 billion today to a number in excess of 35 trillion that is "so big that there's not a word for the number," says Cody Christman, director of product engineering for Verio, which offers IPv6 in San Francisco, Washington and elsewhere. The article is a good layman's backgrounder on the looming IP crisis."

Factomatic writes "With the supply of IP addresses expected to run out by 2005 due to the popularity explosion of the Internet and the expectation that everything from your phone to your washing machine will soon have its own IP address, Alex Lightman, CEO of Charmed Technology and chairman of last month's North American IPv6 Global Summit tells the New York Times "we're going to need something like 100 IP addresses for each human being." IPv6 will increase the supply of addresses from 4 billion today to a number in excess of 35 trillion that is "so big that there's not a word for the number," says Cody Christman, director of product engineering for Verio, which offers IPv6 in San Francisco, Washington and elsewhere. The article is a good layman's backgrounder on the looming IP crisis."

prostoalex writes "Remember Flooz? Or Beenz? With a few notable successes (PayPal, and that's about it) online micropayment industry is saving its success stories for future generations. New York Times reports about two nascent micropayment systems, one coming out of Stanford, one out of MIT, that are supposed to help the content producers and Internet users to engage in less-than-a-dollar financial transactions without huge overhead costs, so typical of credit card payments. BitPass requires you to purchase a virtual debit card with a certain amount on it to pay for products and services, and PepperCoin consolidates numerous micropayments into one bill that is then split between the content providers that managed to sell their product to the Internet user." I still believe that single penny transactions will revolutionize the net.

prichardson writes "The New York Times has an article about a way to anonymously transfer cash online (NYT registration required)." The inventor, Carl Amos, believes the target market for his newly-patented 'Aunty IM' ATM machine "..might be teenagers.. [who] do not usually have their own credit cards, they usually have cash and are more than willing to spend it to download music or games", as well as "those who were worried about identity theft on the Internet, or who simply wanted the privacy it provided."

dki writes "Steve Wozniak's WozNet is covered in an article at the New York Times today. His company Wheels of Zeus, mentioned previously on Slashdot last year, plans to create wireless networks that use GPS to track clusters of electronic tags within a 1- or 2-mile radius of a base station. The tags "will be able to generate alerts, notifying the owner by phone or e-mail message when a child arrives at school, a dog leaves the yard or a car leaves the parking lot.""

emmastory writes "The New York Times is running a story (free registration required) about a new development at Amazon - they plan to assemble "a searchable online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction." Users would only be able to read a certain portion of the text from any one book, but it sounds promising nonetheless. The Times article suggests that this is part of a larger strategy to compete with Google and Yahoo by making Amazon an authoritative source of information on everything book-related."

ravenousbugblatter writes "The New York Times online ran an article yesterday titled Picking up the pieces that talks about new technology that can recover information from shredded documents. Not only can companies scan strip-shredded paper and recover the information, they can do the same with cross-shredded paper. It comes at a price though - one company charges $8,000-$10,000 to "reconstruct" the information in a cubic foot of cross-shredded material. How's it done? The shreds are glued onto a piece of paper and then scanned. Software then looks for matches (in one case using the pattern of ink at the edges of the pieces) and suggests possible combinations to the operator that can be accepted or rejected."

Thanks to the New York Times for their article discussing the rise of movie-playing add-ons for Nintendo's GameBoy Advance (registration required). The piece says that "portable video players are beginning to change where and how people watch movies, cartoons and music videos," and points to multiple GBA movie devices in development, such as Majesco's Game Boy Video Pak and TuneIn's Pocket Cinema, which will have an interface to a 3-inch CD player. With other products like 4Kids' GBA-TV in development, and the Sony PSP and Tapwave Helix portables promising movie availability, has this idea come of age, and is it reasonable to expect the public to watch "video on a screen the size of a dollhouse window, with a resolution that is no match for even a standard TV set"?

securitas writes "The NY Times recently ran an article about locating and tracking users of 802.11b WiFi networks in three dimensions using triangulation (Google) with multiple base stations. The goal is to create context-aware networks that can allocate bandwidth and provide location-based services such as uploading relevant information to a PDA. The article can be seen in a new light when coupled with the growth in workplace surveillance of employees by corporate executives (Google / short version at IHT) and the associated practical, ethical and legal problems. Interlink Networks 802.11 wireless detection and tracking white paper (PDF)." (This seems as good a place as any to mention Kensington's handheld 802.11 detector; they claim it to be the only such device on the market today. This is the cheapest detector I've seen; have the others all disappeared?)

securitas writes "The NY Times recently ran an article about locating and tracking users of 802.11b WiFi networks in three dimensions using triangulation (Google) with multiple base stations. The goal is to create context-aware networks that can allocate bandwidth and provide location-based services such as uploading relevant information to a PDA. The article can be seen in a new light when coupled with the growth in workplace surveillance of employees by corporate executives (Google / short version at IHT) and the associated practical, ethical and legal problems. Interlink Networks 802.11 wireless detection and tracking white paper (PDF)." (This seems as good a place as any to mention Kensington's handheld 802.11 detector; they claim it to be the only such device on the market today. This is the cheapest detector I've seen; have the others all disappeared?)

securitas writes "The NY Times recently ran an article about locating and tracking users of 802.11b WiFi networks in three dimensions using triangulation (Google) with multiple base stations. The goal is to create context-aware networks that can allocate bandwidth and provide location-based services such as uploading relevant information to a PDA. The article can be seen in a new light when coupled with the growth in workplace surveillance of employees by corporate executives (Google / short version at IHT) and the associated practical, ethical and legal problems. Interlink Networks 802.11 wireless detection and tracking white paper (PDF)." (This seems as good a place as any to mention Kensington's handheld 802.11 detector; they claim it to be the only such device on the market today. This is the cheapest detector I've seen; have the others all disappeared?)

securitas writes "The NY Times recently ran an article about locating and tracking users of 802.11b WiFi networks in three dimensions using triangulation (Google) with multiple base stations. The goal is to create context-aware networks that can allocate bandwidth and provide location-based services such as uploading relevant information to a PDA. The article can be seen in a new light when coupled with the growth in workplace surveillance of employees by corporate executives (Google / short version at IHT) and the associated practical, ethical and legal problems. Interlink Networks 802.11 wireless detection and tracking white paper (PDF)." (This seems as good a place as any to mention Kensington's handheld 802.11 detector; they claim it to be the only such device on the market today. This is the cheapest detector I've seen; have the others all disappeared?)

ravenousbugblatter writes "The New York Times online has an article discussing grid computing and recent advances made by Dr. Ian Foster, among others. The article compares the state of grid computing over the internet to where the internet was in 1994, which was soon after the development of the software for the use of URL's, HTML, and HTTP. Predictions are made in the article that in the near future the massive power of grid computing will be available to anyone with an internet connection, not just to big companies that can afford to hire HP and Sun to run a grid project for them."

gnarly writes "NYT reports that the courts have struck down a law which censored posting of personal data of police officers, (home phones, SSN, etc, obtained from public sources) on a single website." (The decision in this case took place in U.S. District Court in May.)

HardcoreGamer writes "The New York Times has a long article on Xbox hacking, why Microsoft hates it, and who does it (Google). 'Xbox hackers are exploiting Microsoft's business model, which is to sell Xbox hardware at a loss...' but Microsoft doesn't make the money back on software -- as it planned to -- if you decide to load up Xbox Linux. Where else can you get a PIII-733 with graphics and audio for $180? The reporter talked to the IDSA; Andrew Huang, author of 'Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering'; a Manhattan exec who hacked his Xbox and said 'The reality is that if you could bypass Microsoft's operating system you would end up with a fairly powerful computer for less than $200;' and others. The article discusses the DMCA, modchips, the Xbox Linux Project and lots more. A good -- if long -- read. A shorter version of the story is at the International Herald Tribune. Best quote? 'Microsoft is a company passionate about innovation and creativity. We are also very committed to respect for others' intellectual property and we request the same respect applied to our innovations.'"

HardcoreGamer writes "The New York Times has a long article on Xbox hacking, why Microsoft hates it, and who does it (Google). 'Xbox hackers are exploiting Microsoft's business model, which is to sell Xbox hardware at a loss...' but Microsoft doesn't make the money back on software -- as it planned to -- if you decide to load up Xbox Linux. Where else can you get a PIII-733 with graphics and audio for $180? The reporter talked to the IDSA; Andrew Huang, author of 'Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering'; a Manhattan exec who hacked his Xbox and said 'The reality is that if you could bypass Microsoft's operating system you would end up with a fairly powerful computer for less than $200;' and others. The article discusses the DMCA, modchips, the Xbox Linux Project and lots more. A good -- if long -- read. A shorter version of the story is at the International Herald Tribune. Best quote? 'Microsoft is a company passionate about innovation and creativity. We are also very committed to respect for others' intellectual property and we request the same respect applied to our innovations.'"

twitter writes "This NYT story describes how thousands of PCs have been used as porn spambots and reverse proxy servers, and mentions that they could be used for kiddie porn. Finally, though Microsoft is not mentioned, people might start to understand what a monoculture of poor quality software enables."

crymeph0 writes "NASA has found the oldest known planet in a globular star cluster in the constellation Scorpius. At 13.7 billion years old, it's just slighly (~1 billion years) younger than the universe itself. Get more info from HubbleSite"

Markian Hlynka writes "The University of Alberta's research into Poker AI is featured in this New York Times article. There is also detailed discussion of the game of Poker, and the 'new breed' of players who have honed their abilities online. See the U of A's poker project for more information."

securitas writes "After having its funding cut off by Congress a decade ago, the SETI program has just received a NASA five-year grant (Google link) to participate as a lead team in the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which investigates the origin and future of life in the universe. For more information, see the Astrobiology Institute's announcement and the NASA press release."

securitas writes "After having its funding cut off by Congress a decade ago, the SETI program has just received a NASA five-year grant (Google link) to participate as a lead team in the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which investigates the origin and future of life in the universe. For more information, see the Astrobiology Institute's announcement and the NASA press release."

scientistguy writes "In case you missed it, Harold Varmus, Nobel prize winning retrovirologist and cancer biologist, former NIH director, and current head of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, has written a review of 28 Days Later in this weekend's New York Times. One would think that his time is more valuably spent running important medical institutions, searching for new cancer insights/cures, etc, but the dude's also an English lit major and has a penchant for sci-fi. 28 Days Later is the new flick from director Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, etc.) about a virus termed rage that is advertently released from a Cambridge primate research facility and goes on to devastate much of merry old England more rapidly than the dragons did in Reign of Fire. Although Varmus appears to go out of his way to be even handed, it's clear that he has a problem suspending disbelief on a topic (virology) that is near and dear to him. Reviews from professional movie critics on 28 Days Later have been mixed, but Ebert and another NY Times reviewer were into it. Good, clean summer fun - aside from 'the scenes of maiming, dismemberment, clubbing, shooting, bayoneting and shoplifting'."

scientistguy writes "In case you missed it, Harold Varmus, Nobel prize winning retrovirologist and cancer biologist, former NIH director, and current head of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, has written a review of 28 Days Later in this weekend's New York Times. One would think that his time is more valuably spent running important medical institutions, searching for new cancer insights/cures, etc, but the dude's also an English lit major and has a penchant for sci-fi. 28 Days Later is the new flick from director Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, etc.) about a virus termed rage that is advertently released from a Cambridge primate research facility and goes on to devastate much of merry old England more rapidly than the dragons did in Reign of Fire. Although Varmus appears to go out of his way to be even handed, it's clear that he has a problem suspending disbelief on a topic (virology) that is near and dear to him. Reviews from professional movie critics on 28 Days Later have been mixed, but Ebert and another NY Times reviewer were into it. Good, clean summer fun - aside from 'the scenes of maiming, dismemberment, clubbing, shooting, bayoneting and shoplifting'."