Slashdot Mirror

Iorek writes "Both Ericsson and BT have launched telephony products that erode the barriers between mobile phones and landlines. Ericsson's One Phone is a PBX system that can treat any mobile phone as an extension of the corporate phone network, while the BT Fusion handset behaves like a conventional fixed line cordless phone when it's near its base station (Bluetooth connection), and connects to the Vodafone network once it's out of range."

Slashback tonight with updates and clarifications to previous stories on the 911/VoIP disconnect, the perception of scientific unanimity on global warming, Israel vs. Microsoft, and the march of Mozilla (Firefox). Read on for the details.

That damn eye of Sauron is just everywhere! Amigan writes "Over a year ago, the Israeli government did a buyout on their contract with Microsoft - and it was hailed as a great opportunity for OSS. It is now being reported that the Israeli government is back in the Microsoft fold - and again licensing software - not outright purchasing."

No good technology goes unpunished by the inertia police. First it was the state of Texas that decided to sue Vonage over consumer impressions of its support of 911 service; now, as kamikaze-Tech writes "Luispr, a member of the Vonage VoIP Forum has posted a TMC.net article titled VoIP E911: Michigan Atty. General Says Vonage Misleads." That article notes Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox's announcement "that Internet-based telephone service provider Vonage Holdings Corporation will now face legal action for misleading consumers about the company's emergency 9-1-1 service."

Note that this is specifically about ads alleged to mislead customers about 911 capabilities, related to but distinct from the objection to VoIP that it doesn't in the first place provide the same location information to 911 operators that conventional telephone service does. See also this earlier story about the FCC pushing 911 requirements on VoIP providers.

Anything you like as long as we already agree. Lawrence Person writes "According to this article, the widely reported study showing unanimous 'scientific consensus' on Global Warming ('not a single paper asserted otherwise') is not only deeply flawed, but that same consensus is artificially maintained by Science and Nature rejecting any papers which disagree with it. 'Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly. Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication - but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet."'"

Larger bounty could be a quicker picker-upper. crhylove writes "The good people over at downhillbattle.org have upped the bounty for their gaim filesharing plugin from $500 to a nice $1k. They say their initial developer has gone AWOL, and that there is an additional $332 in the fund for the developers discretion. I myself want this plugin! Go GAIM!"

It's so good that people give it away for free. Beth writes with what may be the most impressive of the various agit-prop, free-labor Firefox marketing campaigns undertaken around the event of the 50 millionth download of the browser; "To celebrate 50 million downloads of Firefox, a crew of six students from Oregon State University painted a 30 foot wide mural in the Memorial Union Quad. With kool-aid. And cornstarch. Over 20 pounds of it."

LPetrazickis writes "The Telegraph has reviewed the movie adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The review notes that the film is every bit as much a loving tribute to Douglas Adams as it is a joyous comedy. American actors acquit themselves well, and the sense of intelligent wonder transfers well to the technicolour screen. The many incarnations of The Guide are summarized at the end."

LPetrazickis writes "The Telegraph has reviewed the movie adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The review notes that the film is every bit as much a loving tribute to Douglas Adams as it is a joyous comedy. American actors acquit themselves well, and the sense of intelligent wonder transfers well to the technicolour screen. The many incarnations of The Guide are summarized at the end."

Gogogoch writes "The Telegraph is reporting a large study that shows that the less students use computers at school and at home, the better they do in international tests of literacy and math. The more access they had to computers at home, the lower they scored in tests, partly because they diverted attention from homework. Students tended to do worse in schools generously equipped with computers, apparently because computerised instruction replaced more effective forms of teaching. " Worth noting that it took almost 20 years for PCs in the corporate environment to actually have a positive impact on productivity; might the same be true in education?

Rollie Hawk writes "Ian Wilmut, leader of Dolly the sheep's team and Professor at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, has been given the green light by the British government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to start further cloning research. As a matter of fact, he is now a licensed human cloner. The license has a duration of one year and is the second of its kind given by Britain, the first country to officially sanction human cloning research. Research will be focusing on motor neurone disease (MND). The team hopes to perform cell nuclear replacement on the skin cells of MND victims in order to create stem cells, the jack-of-all-trades of the cell family and the supposed magic bullets for ailments ranging from Alzheimer's to paralysis.

Neil Halelamien writes "The LA Times has an article on various cognitive enhancement drugs which are currently undergoing clinical trials. These include ampakines which amplify the strength of electrical signals between neurons, HT-0712 which enhances the transfer from short-term to long-term memory, and gene therapy which revitalizes existing neurons. The article also describes successes with the drug Modafinil, which seems to sharpen attention and mental agility. The side effects of these sorts of drugs are not yet fully known, although many neuroscientists think that they may lead to 'mental clutter' or task-obsessiveness."

jd writes "The New Scientist, The Age (an Australian newspaper), Daily Telegraph (a British newspaper), BBC, and the Discovery Channel are talking excitedly about a strange primate, found in the Congo. Locals say it is notorious for killing fully-grown adult lions. Optimists hope that it is a new species, maybe related to the gorilla. Pessimists claim it's an overgrown chimpanzee. In either case, primates aren't discovered every day, making this a rare find indeed."

Ckwop writes "The Daily Telegraph is reporting that Amec, the company that cleaned up Ground Zero, have developed a new process for storing nuclear waste that lasts two hundred thousand years - far longer than any radioactivity will last. The process works by mixing eighty percent soil with twenty percent waste and then heating the mixture to three thousand degrees centigrade. When the mixture cools it forms into a glass harder than concrete. While this is not the first waste process of this type it is the first to be cost effective and produces a glass much harder than previous methods. " We'll see if we still need a ten mile field of spikes I guess. A pilot facility is being built in Washington State.

joncrie writes "The Telegraph is reporting that British MoD scientists are now testing a new electric armor to protect light armored vehicles against RPGs. The new electric armour is made up of a highly-charged capacitor that is connected to two separate metal plates on the tank's exterior. When an RPG warhead fires its jet of molten copper, it penetrates both the outer plate and the insulation of the inner plate. This makes a connection and thousands of amps of electricity vaporises most of the molten copper. The rest of the copper is dispersed harmlessly against the vehicle's hull. The initial development was mentioned previously."

joncrie writes "The Telegraph is reporting that British MoD scientists are now testing a new electric armor to protect light armored vehicles against RPGs. The new electric armour is made up of a highly-charged capacitor that is connected to two separate metal plates on the tank's exterior. When an RPG warhead fires its jet of molten copper, it penetrates both the outer plate and the insulation of the inner plate. This makes a connection and thousands of amps of electricity vaporises most of the molten copper. The rest of the copper is dispersed harmlessly against the vehicle's hull. The initial development was mentioned previously."

prostoalex writes "18 years ago on April 26, the Chernobyl disaster occurred in Central Ukraine. Nowadays, as British Telegraph reports, the radioactive disaster area is becoming a tourist hot-spot with 3000 visitors paying $200 for a guided tour each year."

securitas writes "New Scientist's Celeste Biever reports on the latest in biometric security devices: voice recognition credit cards. The device is three times the size of a normal credit card, has a 'microphone, a loudspeaker, a battery and a voice-recognition chip' and is intended to help reduce credit card fraud. The owner speaks a password into the card and the card emits an authentication squawk. Bruce Schneier loves the concept of BeepCard's related sound authentication technology. Other articles at the Telegraph and The Register."

Thanks to Video-Fenky for pointing out a UK Telegraph article discussing controversy over the content of Eidos-produced platform game Whiplash, which is "being criticized as 'irresponsible' by police and MPs" in England, because it "depicts animals being abused in a laboratory, including one experiment in which a hamster is fired from a cannon." Labor MP Ian Gibson said he "feared that children would gain a distorted view of animal experimentation", and a spokesperson against animal cruelty "claimed that the game made light of animal suffering, which was offensive." Whiplash is not yet out in the UK, and was released before Christmas in the States to little fanfare, though it garnered some critical adulation.

RandBlade writes "The Telegraph has an article about plans to launch mice into space with simulated low-gravity for five weeks, to test the effects of low-gravity on their bodies. This "will be the first time mammals of any kind have lived in partial gravity for an extended period." Hopes are that this will provide information useful for plans to launch men to Mars, which has one-third of the gravity of Earth."

RandBlade writes "The Telegraph has an article about plans to launch mice into space with simulated low-gravity for five weeks, to test the effects of low-gravity on their bodies. This "will be the first time mammals of any kind have lived in partial gravity for an extended period." Hopes are that this will provide information useful for plans to launch men to Mars, which has one-third of the gravity of Earth."

gexen writes "According to an article in the Telegraph Bill Gates is going to be knighted by the Queen of England for "services to the global enterprise." She's just handing them out like candy these days!"

Quirk writes "The Telegraph has a bit on the challenge faced by the 280 team members who have had to leave Earth time behind and attune their circadian clock to the Mars solar day or 'sol'. '...the team's wake-up times and meal times two weeks after the landing will have shifted by nine hours.'"

Rogue-Lion.com writes "Take a time out to remember the accomplishments of two bicycle shop owners who changed the world immeasurably, 100 years ago today. The Telegraph is running a story about a recreation of the Wright's (and world's) first heavier-than-air powered flight. President Bush will be in attendance at the event." Setting aside even more exotic theories, rod writes with an alternative point of view: namely, that man's first flight took place in New Zealand, on March 31, 1902. "I admire the U.S.A and the Wright brothers,but there are facts to consider today, 17/12/03, on the centenary of Kitty Hawk." Update: 12/17 13:44 GMT by T : Or was it a Brazillian invention? (Thanks, Anderson Silva.)

spaceling writes "The BBC reports reporting on research published in the Institute of Physics Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering of the first new method of generating electricity in over 150 years. Larry Kostiuk and Daniel Kwok 'created a glass block, two centimetres in diameter and three millimetres thick, containing about 400,000 to 500,000 individual channels...[and] generated about 10 volts with a current of around a milliamp. This allowed the team to successfully power a lightbulb.'" This has also been covered all over the place.

ElGuapoGolf writes "According to the Daily Telegraph, Doctor Who is set to return to the airwaves. According to the article, it's going to be written by the same guy who created the series 'Queer As Folk'. Not sure if we'll get to see it in the US, but I guess it's a good time to start bugging your cable company to carry BBC America if they don't already."

windowpain writes "An article in the London Telegraph describes a 2,000 square meter 13,730 cell NiCad UPS that will provide backup power for the entire city of Fairbanks for up to seven minutes. 'This is enough time, according to ABB, to start up diesel generators to restore power, an important safeguard since at such low temperatures, water pipes can freeze entirely in two hours.' Now if they can just remember to keep it plugged in." Update: 08/28 14:58 GMT by M : A reader notes that the battery has enough juice for 12,000 people for seven minutes, and the city of Fairbanks has a population of over 80,000, so they couldn't keep the whole city powered up for even a minute.

windowpain writes "An article in the London Telegraph describes a 2,000 square meter 13,730 cell NiCad UPS that will provide backup power for the entire city of Fairbanks for up to seven minutes. 'This is enough time, according to ABB, to start up diesel generators to restore power, an important safeguard since at such low temperatures, water pipes can freeze entirely in two hours.' Now if they can just remember to keep it plugged in." Update: 08/28 14:58 GMT by M : A reader notes that the battery has enough juice for 12,000 people for seven minutes, and the city of Fairbanks has a population of over 80,000, so they couldn't keep the whole city powered up for even a minute.

ConfusedVorlon writes "The BBC is reporting the conviction of a man for the murder of a prostitute 15 years ago. The interesting twist is that his DNA was not on record - 'But it partly match[ed] that of a youth's who was known to the police - but who had not been born at the time of the murder. The teenager, it turned out, was a close relative of [the murderor].' There has been concern in the past at the idea of keeping DNA of those interviewed but not charged with crimes. I haven't previously heard of the privacy implications of being related to a criminal/suspect. If you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear?"

hype7 writes "The Daily Telegraph is running a piece on the world's temperature. Apparently, it was a lot hotter in the middle ages: "A review of more than 240 scientific studies has shown that today's temperatures are neither the warmest over the past millennium, nor are they producing the most extreme weather - in stark contrast to the claims of the environmentalists.""

quackking writes "Relentless price dropping continues. Samsung patents a system which navigates a robotic vacuum using infrared sensors, map matching. When I worked on this stuff at a gov't spook lab long ago our group budget was in the mid 8 digits. Read all about it here. How hard would it be to repurpose this technology to more sinister uses?"

Weirdolet writes: "Ananova are reporting that ultra-dense, pollen sized strangelets (aka nuggets of strange quarks) travelling at 900,000 miles per hour hit the earth, violently pass through it and have done on at least two occasions already. It's also reported, allegedly, in the Sunday telegraph but I haven't found it there yet :P Coming to a particle accelerator near you soon ... ?" Another reader has found the story at the Telegraph.

Weirdolet writes: "Ananova are reporting that ultra-dense, pollen sized strangelets (aka nuggets of strange quarks) travelling at 900,000 miles per hour hit the earth, violently pass through it and have done on at least two occasions already. It's also reported, allegedly, in the Sunday telegraph but I haven't found it there yet :P Coming to a particle accelerator near you soon ... ?" Another reader has found the story at the Telegraph.

An anonymous reader submits: "From the SkyNet Terminator Death Beam Dept...The London Telegraph is carrying this article about U.S. military plans to outfit AC-130 Spectre gunships with a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) which can be used against personnel and materiel for lethal and nonlethal missions."

With the Fellowship of the Rings just around the corner, the Slashdot Submissions bin is overflowing with stories about the film since it premiered in the UK already for you lucky brits. If you don't mind a little spoilage, here is the guardian's review, the BBC review, the telegraph review, some pictures from the premiere, and one last review. Also, Scifi.com is reporting that the film has already been pirated. The reviews have their nitpicks, but on the whole its looking good. M : LOTR tattoos!

An anonymous naughty reader writes: "The Telegraph is running this story about the British police setting up a secret database of children who misbehave or commit 'trivial misdemeanors' so that they can be tracked throughout their childhoods. Officials cited a rise in youth violence as necessitating these measures." You have to admire the forward-thinking of a secret police "database of children as young as three who they fear might grow up to become criminals."

GFD writes "The Telegraph has a story about how a recently discovered impact crater in Iraq could have wiped out several civilizations that 'collapsed mysteriously' about 4000 years ago. This is the first find, AFAIK, of a meteor impact affecting human civilization directly. Very thought provoking."

GFD writes "The Telegraph has a story about how a recently discovered impact crater in Iraq could have wiped out several civilizations that 'collapsed mysteriously' about 4000 years ago. This is the first find, AFAIK, of a meteor impact affecting human civilization directly. Very thought provoking."

Tonight in Slashback: More on TransGaming's approach to the world (and licenses), another sweet box of French Linux goodness, another piece of the stolen-Enigma puzzle is pressed firmly into place, and a small piece of travel advice.

"Getting off easy" defined. dgroskind writes: "This AP story might be interesting as a slashback followup to an item about the theft of the Enigma machine from Bletchly Park. The accused got 10 months with the charge of blackmail left open for possible later prosecution. Also, this story today says a U.S. spy tipped off the Germans that the Enigma code had been broken but they didn't believe it."

Of course, you could tell your boss it got blown up. You may have already written your congressional representatives (especially if you live in South Carolina) about Fritz Holling's proposed SSSCA, but for air-traveling technical types, there's another post-bomb consideration. cloudscout writes: "In the past, I've always been nervous before travelling... am I remembering my toothpaste? Razor? Shoes? Now I've learned there is something else to remember. Charge my batteries. The current state of air travel security means more random searches and since I tend to travel with lots of electronic gadgets, these searches take a while and they test every device. I was chosen for a random search. Notebook, PDA, Digital Camera, Camcorder, Cellphone... the MiniDisc player had a dead battery. I was stuck. I didn't know what to do. They demanded that I prove the devices functionality. I dug around in my bag and, luckily, was able to take a battery from another device in order to power up the MD but it could have been a much worse situation if I didn't have a spare battery. The lesson here? If you're going to fly, be prepared."

Last week, flying between several supposedly very security-conscious airports (Dulles, Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt), I never had to turn my laptop on, probably because I had carefully charged the battery beforehand.

I'll believe it when I record my 2nd sample FMD disk. Perhaps unimpressed with the perpetually promised quarter-sized CDs mentioned the other day, an Anonymous Coward writes: "What optical medium has 8 layers, stores 24 GBs, and plays at 22Mbits/sec? And it's just the first age, with plans to reach 140 GB soon afterwards. Constellation 3D are developing FMD-ROM format that will change the capacity of data storage we use today, furtheir information can be obtained from FMD insider which is a news site that reports the progress and general information about this product. Constellation 3D seem to have lowered their expectations of their first line of products, to something more realistic and affordable, and they expect to make the technology available to some markets by the end of 2002.
Are you ready?"

Street performances need to beware Sturgeon's Law. joestar writes "As said on Slashdot this week-end, Transgaming is about to release - with Electronic Arts and MandrakeSoft - a special Linux distro aimed at games called Mandrake Linux Gaming Edition. Their technology - WineX - is actually a DirectX to Mesa translator that allows to port most recent Windows games to Linux apparently very efficiently compared to a simple Wine port. A great article with lots of details about that project GameSpyDaily has just been released. By the way, WineX is released under the Alladin License."

Picking your poison gets more complicated. Red Hat 7.2 is out, but as you might expect, MandrakeSoft isn't sitting still: The newest Mandrake, 8.1, is also available in stores. (But when will 8.1 PPC be ready? ;))

Anonymous In Indy writes "How much of our learning comes from the toys we play with? Nobel prize winner Sir Harry Kroto (Chemistry, 1996) feels that the falling popularity of Meccano and the rise of Lego is inextricably linked to "the demise of British engineering." "Meccano teaches engineering and architectural skills in a way that Lego doesn't. If we had more Meccano, we would have railways that worked. There would be more engineers with better basic understanding." The Sunday Telegraph has the complete story. (USAians note: Meccano = Erector Set."

dublin writes: "The Electronic telegraph reports that two years ago, the first confirmed case of a CD-eating fungus was confirmed in Belize. (Ah, the price of living in paradise...) The fungus eats the aluminum right out from between the polycarbonate layers (and apparently muches a little on those, too) leaving clear spots on the CD. Have fungi always been this mean and we're just figuring it out, or have we been invaded by super-fungi? " The article, to say the least, is a little short on details. But something like this surprises me not in the least.

Beatlebum writes "A TEAM of British space scientists has devised a plan to nudge an asteroid out of its solar orbit and send it hurtling into the centre of a British Town. The story posted in the Electronic Telegraph describes how a few small atomic blasts could change a comet's trajectory enough to make it crash to any point on earth. The impact of even a small asteroid would make an ICBM look like a firecracker."

Beatlebum writes "A TEAM of British space scientists has devised a plan to nudge an asteroid out of its solar orbit and send it hurtling into the centre of a British Town. The story posted in the Electronic Telegraph describes how a few small atomic blasts could change a comet's trajectory enough to make it crash to any point on earth. The impact of even a small asteroid would make an ICBM look like a firecracker."

satch89450 writes: "The Electronic Telegraph says here that President Bush has retired his electronic mail habit, citing FOIA access. As a point in fact, The New York Times reportedly obtained a copy of the farewell e-letter to 42 of Bush's friends. Just how bad can it get? Here is an old news report from The Associated Press via amarillonet of an auction of the 1992 e-mail to John Glenn. Privacy advocates should be scared ..." And an Anonymous Coward who points to the same article asks: "Whatever happened to the right of the people to be secure in their ... papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures?" Good question -- what did happen to that?

Manuka writes: "The Daily Telegraph has an article that tells us that scientists have discovered that purring in cats is actually a self-healing mechanism that strengthens their bones and lends weight to the extraordinary resilience of felines. Tigers lack this mechanism for some reason. They are also exploring the possibilities of replicating this mechanism in humans with 'sound treatment,' to help treat bone disorders." This article does not address how cats purr, though, and that seems like just as burning a question, nor does it explain how those low-freq sounds actually do achieve the benefits attributed to them.

ThesQuid writes "I just caught this article about China possibly using nuclear blasts to help build a hydro project in Tibet. I've always wondered why nobody has ever actually used nuclear explosives in civil engineering projects, if (and this is a BIG if) the blasts can be made reasonably radiologically clean." Several U.S. nuclear tests were devoted to exploring the feasibility of this; obviously we decided it wasn't such a great idea.

HerbieTMac writes: "Colossus II has been declassified. After more than 50 years, the details surrounding the first programmable, digital computer have been declassified by the British Public Record Office." Well, will be released

swcox writes "Security restricted information on the first digital (semi) programmable computer has been released. A brief story and links to blueprints can be found in an article by the UK's Daily Telegraph. And for more details: Colossal code of silence broken Dr Donald Michie, at Edinburgh University, said: "Some will be startled to know that by VE Day Britain had a machine room of some 10 high-speed electronic computers on three-shift operation round the clock.""

swcox writes "Security restricted information on the first digital (semi) programmable computer has been released. A brief story and links to blueprints can be found in an article by the UK's Daily Telegraph. And for more details: Colossal code of silence broken Dr Donald Michie, at Edinburgh University, said: "Some will be startled to know that by VE Day Britain had a machine room of some 10 high-speed electronic computers on three-shift operation round the clock.""

Tirelessly flogging the dead horses of industry, crunching gravel where Angels fear to tread past sundown, gathering wool that no sheep has ever known, and shooting nanodarts packed with moss spores deep into any stones which happen to roll by, here's another helping -- Large but not SuperSized -- of assorted errata and addenda. Even some lizards.

Igor, throw that switch, would you? It's getting drafty in here. After all the attention that the various projects working to codify the the Human Genome have gotten in the past few years, the audacity of what Celera and the Human Genome Project itself are doing has seemingly faded into the commonplace. That may change soon, as first drafts of the genetic sequence of a human being are expected both from Celera and the HGP.

Phasers back on stun, and bring us back to DefCon 3. Turn down that klaxon, ensign. According to this CNN story, that darn Serbian Badman Trojan may not have been much of a threat; despite dire predictions otherwise by NetSec echoed by everyone from CNN to Slashdot. At least, the FBI doesn't seem too concerned. Thanks to ghoti, who alerted us to the downgrade.

All I want is friggin' sharks with friggin' lasers on their heads ... If you enjoyed reading Time-Digital's recent Neal Stephenson interview, you may be intrigued by the article contributed by The Original Bobski, pondering questions like ""How can the future-fiction business hope to compete against our reality of humanoids who wear life-altering computers and elongate their lives with superdrugs and genetic mutation? How is it possible for any self-respecting science fiction writer to hope to stay ahead of the headlines?" Neal himself is quoted, along with a passel of SciFi writers who might be familiar to regular readers of the Slashdot Book Reviews section. Seems that The Future just keeps on arriving ...

iCrave TV: OK for Sasketchewanians, not Pittsburgers. julez writes "Back in April www.icravetv.com was taken offline because of numerous lawsuits. This article on CBC online says that they are set to relaunch their service in the fall on a subscription basis. Some stations will remain free, but, like cable, "specialty channel packages" will cost you $8-$9 a month. And of course, it will only be availble to Canadians via some unnamed security software." From the article: "The privately held Internet company showed 17 Canadian and U.S. stations when its site started last November. The service drew more than 800,000 viewers in its first month." That's a market, folks. ("Quick, shut it down! Somebody might make some money if we're not careful!") Read more about iCrave on Slashdot.

If Nike builds sneakers like this, we'd happily worship the swoosh. After the wall-climbing robot tech that hemos pointed out a few days ago, ABCNews.com serendipitously featured some more information about the Real Thing. Real Geckos, that is. How do they stick to walls? Well, here are some hints: no glue, no suction cups, no bubble gum and no special effects.

Moleman was one of the number of people who wrote in about the apparent move by the Japanese Government to restrict export of the Playstation 2. The reason? It has been apparently deemed to be a potential weapons development platform, in particular for missle guidance systems. Geez, get a couple and I can form my own rogue nation. The UK Telegraph has a more complete story - it's apparently only if you want to take two or more out of the country that they require permission - so you could fly and take one if you wanted without a problem.

sbryant writes "According to the Daily Telegraph (free login required): the earth has a second moon called 'Cruithne', which was discovered by a British team. The moon was previously thought to be an asteroid, but the experts now tell us that Cruithne, which is 3 miles across (4.8km), is in fact a Trojan asteroid, and has an eccentric horseshoe orbit around Earth which takes 770 years to complete. "

Arctic Fox writes "Astronomers at the Queen Mary & Westfield College in London have discovered a new moon. Named Cruithne, the 3 mile sized "moon" has a horseshoe shaped orbit that is 770 years in length." Heh. Lunar eclipses are just a bit rarer with this moon.

Ewen writes "The Daily Telegraph in England reports that the CIA has 'released a secret history of its investigations into UFO sightings, revealing that there was more truth in the popular television series The X-Files than is often believed.' Read the full story at The Telegraph. " Truth, that is, that agents screw up and some believe and some don't. The CIA ultimately concludes that the probability of contact with extra-terrestrial life is slim. But, then again, they would, wouldn't they? /impish grin/

garibald gave us the link to an article in the electronic Telegraph about researchers at MIT who have built an interactive AI robot called "Kismet" that is as cute as any George Lucas character, and is supposed to function on the emotional level of a human two-year-old. The cuteness is not gratuitous. As the article makes clear, there is a sound, scientific reason for it. (For pictures, and more technical depth than the Telegraph story, you may want to go directly to Kismet's Web Page.)