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Tracy Woodhouse and Graham Peck have finished the unusual renovations to their beach house on the North Sea. What makes the project odd is that their house used to be a public restroom. The couple purchased the restroom five years ago and completed the $22,800 renovation with the blessing of local officials. "They gave us planning permission and praised the idea," Woodhouse said. "They called it the building's renaissance."

Officials say retired New York prison food services director Howard Dean had a really hard time waiting for the weekend, so he skipped work on Fridays for 17 years. Dean made sure, however, to include those Friday hours on his time cards. The extra hours and bogus travel expenses netted Dean nearly $500,000, according to officials. From the article: "State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Inspector General Joseph Fisch said their investigation found Howard Dean, 64, of Locke, bilked the state Treasury of about $230,000 by skipping work at the state's Food Production Center in Rome every Friday for 17 years but claiming the hours on his time cards, the New York Post reported Wednesday."

The state of Florida has delayed Rusty Cole's tax return for back child support of a child that was born in 1995. The problem is Mr. Cole was born in late 1987, making him seven years old at the time of the child's birth. Phone calls and office visits to state officials yielded no results, but an email to Governor Charlie Crist has led to a promise of straightening the records out. Just in case the allegations are true, let me be the first to say, that-a-boy Rusty!

A woman in Georgia was able to scare a would-be burglar off by pretending to be a dog. According to police, the woman dropped to the floor, scratched at the door, and acted like a large dog when a man tried to open her door. The noise scared off the mystery man and police were unable to find anyone matching his description. The woman and her property are reportedly fine and she hopes to be house trained in a few weeks.

For some reason people in Arvada, Colorado are upset that someone left a claymore mine in the Goodwill drop box at a local strip mall. Police were notified and the Jefferson County Bomb squad disposed of the explosive. Officials say they don't know if the mine was operational or not. I guess the residents of Arvada don't think the disadvantaged deserve a secure perimeter.

Officials say that a pair of New York state employees used taxpayer money to creating a "man cave" at the Capitol Building. The pair transformed a maintenance area in a Capitol garage facility into the mother of all break rooms equipped with a TV, board games, DVDs, couches, rolling papers and marijuana scales. The two are suspended without pay and one is charged with marijuana possession and criminal use of drug paraphernalia.

Noting that distractions cause 80% of vehicle crashes, the good people at Insurance.com have released a list of the 10 worst foods to eat while you are driving. It's unclear how they came up with this list as it includes such things as soda and coffee, but overlooks much more dangerous culinary/driving endeavors such as cheese fondue, and bananas foster.

The parents of a 2-year-old Chinese boy are seeking advice on how to help their child kick his smoking habit. The toddler has been smoking for over a year and was allowed to start to help deal with the pain of a hernia. His parents say that his smoking is getting out of control, but they are unsure on how to get him to quit. The terrible twos are bad, but imagine the horror of a 2-year-old in the middle of a nic-fit tantrum.

A printing mistake led some recent North High School grads to get a note with instructions to "leave the state immediately after the ceremony." The note should have read, "The graduates will leave the State Theatre immediately after the ceremony." The new note wasn't free of errors, however, as it now instructed students to be at the theater no later than 3:45 a.m. instead of the intended 3:45 p.m.

An increasing number of US schools are using time limits to battle the latest threat to our children, the epidemic of teenage hugging. Gabrielle Brown, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, says that this perilous form of physical intimacy, which involves closing or holding the arms around another person or group of persons, has become so popular that students easily slip into its dark embrace. Brown says, "If somebody were to not hug someone, to never hug anybody, people might be just a little wary of them and think they are weird or peculiar." Noreen Hajinlian, principal of George G. White School adds, "Touching and physical contact is very dangerous territory." For her sake, I hope Noreen will be spared the horror of learning what usually happens on prom night.

Hugh Pickens writes "Although most Americans take the safety of their drinking water for granted, ordinary tap water can become contaminated within minutes, says Prof. Abraham Katzir of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy who has developed a fiber-optic system that can detect poisons such as pesticides in water in amounts well below the World Health Organization safety threshold using 'colors' in the infrared spectrum which distinguish between pure and contaminated water. 'With our naked eyes we can't distinguish between pure water and water that contains a small amount of alcohol or acetone. They're all clear,' says Katzir. 'But we can clearly distinguish between liquids using an infrared spectrometer which can distinguish between "colors" in the invisible infrared spectrum.' Connected to a commercial infrared spectrometer, the fibers serve as sensors that can detect and notify authorities immediately if a contaminant has entered a water reservoir, system, building or pipeline. 'Toxic materials are readily available as pesticides or herbicides in the agriculture industry, and can be harmful if consumed even in concentrations as low as few parts per million,' says Katzir. Cities like New York are especially susceptible to a chemoterrorist threat. With many skyscrapers holding water reserves on the top of the building, a terrorist only needs to introduce poison into a tank to wreak havoc. 'A terrorist wouldn't have to kill tens of thousands of people. Only 50 deaths — as horrible as that would be — would cause nationwide panic,' says Katzir."

PHPNerd writes "According to experts, the English language has entered a state of evolution that is progressing so rapidly that we are adding a new word to it every 98 minutes. This kind of language development hasn't been seen since the days of William Shakespeare. One of the biggest words in nerd culture today is "noob" which could end up being the 1,000,000th word added to the English language by the Global Language Monitor. From the article, 'The word "noob" has its heavy roots in gamer culture, which should be obvious since we're talking about it. It's also seen a lot of use among online communities to "welcome" fresh faces, and has become an accepted term of abuse for anybody who looks like they don't know what they're doing. The Global Language Monitor accepts words once they have been used 25,000 times by media outlets.'"

A school bus driver in Hempstead, N.Y. found a pair of pipe bombs in her driveway last Friday. Since she has spent years of her life dealing with some of the most dangerous creatures on the planet, New York public school students, she didn't think twice about wrapping them up in a towel, putting them in the bus, and hand delivering them to the local police station. The police on the other hand didn't think it was such a good idea and told her to pull over immediately after she called and told them her plans. An Atlantic Express spokeswoman, the driver's employer, said, "It's unacceptable in every possible way. She will not be driving for this company again."

CWmike writes "Microsoft will not dump Vista when Windows 7 launches, and plans to keep selling it to computer makers, system builders, volume licensees and consumers at retail until at least January 2011, a Microsoft spokesman said, citing long-running policy. Earlier today, a Microsoft general manager hinted that the company might ditch Vista as soon as Windows 7 ships. He also said that support for all versions of Vista will end in April 2012. Neither is true, according to the company. Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said, 'to try to stop Vista or make it unavailable, that would just draw attention... The truth is, few people will be likely to order it once Windows 7 is available.'"

Children who attend St. Laurence School in Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire in southwest England got a lesson in swear words. Now their parents are so mad they could shove a pitchfork up the headmaster's &*@@# sideways until the little @*^**@# screams, &*%$#& in his pants and promises never to do something so @#&*$@** stupid again. The kids say the words were written on the board and the children had to shout them out. The school said the goal of the lesson, part of a sex and relationship curriculum, is to rob profanity of its mystique. "This is a total disgrace," a parent said. "Our children go to school to gain an education, not qualifications in swear words. Most kids had no idea what the words meant and were forced to grow up faster than their parents want. Heads should roll for this."

After stopping her car to revive her severely disabled son, Penny Batkin was given a parking ticket for making an illegal stop. Mrs. Batkins was taking her son to a hospice in Hampton when he began gasping for breath and turning blue. The ticket cost $145 and the Richmond Council's parking office was nice enough to refuse to rescind the ticket even after she explained what had happened. Richmond Aid officials say they hope local authorities can find it "in their hearts to rescind a parking fine incurred by a desperate mother who had no choice if she was to save the life of her child." Rules are rules. If the police make an exception in this case for a dying child they'll have to make exceptions for dying parents, or even dying extended family members. Where do you draw the line?

The US Department of Homeland Security is studying lies, damned lies, and smells. They hope to prove that human body odor could be used to tell when people are lying. The department says they are already "conducting experiments in deceptive behavior and collecting human odor samples" and that the research it hopes to fund "will consist primarily of the analysis and study of the human odor samples collected to determine if a deception indicator can be found."

The credit crunch has hit cave dwellers. A Missouri family has been forced to sell the 17,000-square-foot home they created in a cave. Instead of renting a few rooms to troglodytes or morlocks, the Sleeper family have decided to list the cave on eBay. Curt Sleeper said, "We don't want to move, but we need to protect our equity. We put everything we had into this home."

ndogg writes "While other companies are throttling their services, and capping bandwidth, Charter Communications, the cable company, is launching a 60/5 Internet service, starting in St. Louis, MO. It's certainly not cheap, starting at 129.99 per month (add another 10 if it's not being bundled with television or phone.) Currently, it's the fastest down stream speed available, and being a cable company, they potentially have greater reach than FiOS." However, there may be a risk to putting too much money down on this service; Charter Communications as a company faces some serious financial problems right now. As reader Afforess writes, "rumors abound that Paul Allen may just cut his losses and run," by selling the company. (Allen is the majority stockholder.)

Firefighters say a cat is the hero and a goat is to blame for a house fire that destroyed an Iowa home. The fire was believed to have been started by a goat that knocked over a space heater in an attached shed and it might have been fatal if the cat hadn't awakened the sleeping family. "My cat woke me up and I saw smoke coming out of my fan," John Hadley told KCCI-TV, Des Moines. "I made sure I got her (Hadley's mother) out and then I know she loves her animals, so I rounded all her animals up, and by that point, flames and smoke were everywhere." I'd think twice about not giving the goat what it wants in the future if I were the Hadley family.

Simon Belsky, 61, was issued a $115 parking ticket on Nov. 3, 2006, for blocking a fire hydrant. Simon claims the only hydrant was a good distance down the block from where he parked and has been fighting the ticket for more than two years now. The fine has since increased to $200 with penalties and Belsky estimates that he has spent $7,500 on legal fees so far, but he doesn't plan on giving up the fight. "I got nothing else to do. I'm retired," he said.

Four men are being questioned after they allegedly entered England illegally by hiding in a 32-foot-tall fake Christmas tree. "Following their arrest after being found in a lorry, four suspected illegal immigrants were apprehended and transferred to our specialist teams of officers," a Border Agency spokesman said. It sounds like someone mixed up "How not to be seen" with "How to recognize different trees from quite a long way away."

vsync64 writes "Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) spent 4 hours reading into the Congressional Record 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. Interestingly, those articles (63-page PDF via Coral CDN) include not just complaints about signing statements and the war in Iraq, but also charges that the President "Sp[ied] on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment,' 'Direct[ed] Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens,' and 'Tamper[ed] with Free and Fair Elections.' These are issues near and dear to the hearts of many here, so it's worth discussing. What little mainstream media coverage there is tends to be brief (USA Today, CBS News, UPI, AP, Reuters)." The (Democratic) House leadership has said that the idea of impeachment is "off the table." The Judiciary Committee has not acted on articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney introduced by Kucinich a year ago.

hhavensteincw writes "YouTube has declined a request from Sen. Joe Lieberman remove videos from terrorist organizations. Lieberman said that the videos made by groups like Al-Qaeda show assassinations, attacks on US soldiers leading to injuries and death, and weapons training, 'incendiary' speeches, and other material intended to 'encourage violence against the West.' YouTube said that while it removed some of the videos highlighted by the Senator, most were allowed to stay because they did not violate YouTube's community guidelines. YouTube went on to note that they are strong supporters of free speech."

This Wired piece is really a round-up about Coal: The Other Alt Fuel. One of the main stories is about an initiative to convert low-grade coal to other uses — like diesel fuel and so forth, but of course that nasty issue of carbon production comes up again.

lvmoon writes "Start saving up your airline miles. Alan Watts, a British businessman, was able to use his 2,000,000 frequent flyer miles for a space flight, a ticket aboard a 2009 Virgin Galactic space flight." From the article: "Electrician Alan Watts said he flew to and from the United States on Virgin Atlantic flights more than 40 times in the past six years, earning him enough miles to take the trip into space with Virgin's space wing, London's The Sun newspaper reported Friday. The trip cost 2 million frequent flier miles, compared to the 90,000 miles required for a first-class flight from London to New York." Besides being funny, does this say anything about space travel in the 21st century? Is space is no longer the final frontier? I'm pretty sure Roddenberry didn't have frequent flier miles in mind when he came up with the Enterprise.

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: An inside look at the AMD/ATI merger, school admins backing down on cell phone invasion policies, a new launch date for Scotty's ashes, a second test for China's Tokamak fusion device, Forbe's missed the mark on IBM destruction of evidence, Skype for Mac 1.5 released, and the courts rule that customs can still rifle through your laptop - Read on for details.

An inside look at the AMD/ATI merger. Spinnerbait writes "HotHardware spent some sit-down time with a few folks close to the AMD and ATI merger, asked some probing questions and received a few insightful answers in return. They dug in deep with AMD Execs, learned all there is to know currently and even got a hint of what the future might hold for the dynamic duo (no pun intended), now joined as one. A tighter coupling of the CPU and GPU is in our future perhaps?"

School admins back down on cell phone invasion policy. Reverberant writes "In a follow up to earlier coverage about school admins wanting access to students' cellphones, Framingham officials have decided to hold off on the policy for now because they need school committee approval. The head of the school policy committee has 'no interest in bringing it up.'"

New launch date for Scotty's ashes. wolfdvh writes "The BBC reports that Star Trek actor James Doohan, who played the engineer Scotty in the original TV series, will now have his remains blasted into space in October. The actor's ashes were supposed to be sent into orbit last year, but the flight was delayed as tests were carried out on the rocket."

Second test for China's Tokamak fusion device. Haxx writes "The first plasma discharge from China's experimental advanced superconducting research center dubbed 'artificial sun' is set to occur next month. The discharge, expected about Aug. 15, will be conducted at Science Island in Hefei, in east China's Anhui Province. The experiment will test the world's first Tokamak fusion device of this kind. The new device will be an upgrade of China`s first superconducting Tokamak device. The plasma discharge will draw international attention since some scientists are concerned with risks involved in such a process"

Forbe's missed the mark on IBM destruction of evidence. An anonymous reader writes "It turns out that Forbes.com was wrong and, based on analysis of Pacer no motion has been filed against IBM for destruction of evidence. Shortly following from a major collapse in SCO's share price, a recent article Slashdot reported Forbes.com's claim that a motion had been filed against IBM for destruction of evidence. In fact, Groklaw, the main site covering the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit, now reports that SCO has filed no motions of this type whatsoever in March."

Skype for Mac 1.5 released. Billy C writes "A few weeks after warez versions made the rounds on the Internet, the official Skype for Mac with video is here." While still only a preview version, brave users can now give it a shot.

Courts rule customs can rifle through your laptop. monstermagnet writes "On Monday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the files of a person's laptop may be searched at U.S. borders [PDF] without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion."

eliot1785 writes "DARPA is now developing a new breed of satellites that can be precision-maneuvered in unison and easily perform advanced operations with built-in sensors, computers and thrusters. From the article: 'David Miller, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Space Systems Laboratory, says such satellites might be used for such tasks as building giant space telescopes and closely monitoring Earth. The shuttle Discovery last week delivered the second of three satellite test "droids" that are undergoing experiments at the International Space Station.'"

deman1985 writes "As reported by UPI, Japan has unveiled their fastest supercomputer yet. Assembled from Hitachi and IBM components, the new system sports total performance around 59 trillion calculations per second and comes at a cool 5-year lease price of $30 million. Pictures of the beast can be found at Mainichi Daily News."

wheresjim writes "According to a study published in The Proceedings of The Royal Society, the world's oceans are now about 70% shark free. This is a bad sign for the sharks, the oceans and of course, journalists during slow news cycles."

dada21 writes to tell us UPI is reporting that the government is getting ready to spend $936 million to move its radio communication to an obscure segment of the spectrum to make room for next-generation mobile tech. From the article: "'With 90 megahertz of additional spectrum, today's cellular carriers will be tomorrow's next-generation broadband providers,' Michael D. Gallagher, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement."

jefu writes "According to this article from UPI Congress may be moving toward mandating 'Open Access' to the public for scientific papers. This move is prompted by the high prices scientific journals often charge for subscriptions and for reprints -- even when the papers were funded by government grants. The publishers and societies are opposed to the idea as it seems likely to cut into their financial base. This is an interesting move by politicians who usually find laws that make things more expensive for consumers all too attractive."

maggeth writes "The BBC is reporting that negotiations are under way to extending funding for the Mars rovers beyond this September. Originally designed to work for 90 Martian days, they now predict they may last well beyond the 250 Martian days they had announced previously." hoferbr writes "A new analysis by Phil Berardelli at the United Press International quotes Steve Squyres, chief scientist for the Mars rover mission, in which he says that the Mars rovers '... could go into 2005'. Spirit and Opportunity will complete six months on the Martian surface on July."

colonist writes "The Russian intercontinental ballistic missile known to NATO as SS-18 Satan was converted to a launch vehicle (called Dnepr) and is now launching American communications satellites for profit. 'The giant rocket boasted up to 10 Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicles, or MIRVs, each of which would have a carried a hydrogen bomb thermonuclear warhead to incinerate a different North American or Western European city. Even more terrifying, some of them were believed to have been fitted with aerosol warheads to spray smallpox virus over their U.S. targets.' However: 'With the Space Shuttle still grounded, the new generation of American boosters still being developed, and demand for reliable launching rockets building up around the world, the prospect of having a huge already-constructed supply of giant boosters built by the most experienced and reliable rocket engineers on earth has been embraced around the world.'"

Roland Piquepaille writes "Let's face it. Our computing devices are going faster year after year. But our laptop batteries don't show the same performance improvement. They still work only for a few hours, just a little bit more than ten years ago. Several companies want to change this, according to this UPI report, 'Nanotechnology improving energy options.' For example, mPhase Technologies plans to introduce smart batteries based on millions of silicon nanotube electrodes. These nanobatteries, to be introduced before the end of 2005, will last longer than traditional ones and will be respectful of our environment. Meanwhile, Konarka Technologies wants to reduce the weight of batteries with its flexible solar-fueled nanobatteries. You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."

colonist writes "NASA has a new insignia for the program set by the Vision for Space Exploration. This UPI article describes it: "Three spheres--Earth, the moon and Mars--are arrayed in sequence, with the streak of a rocket passing through each. A Latin inscription on the emblem says 'Audentes Fortuna Juvat,' which, translated into English, says 'Fortune Favors the Bold.'" Compare it with other space mission insignia."

914 writes "Mars rover Opportunity has found a rock (nicknamed 'Bounce') that "provides conclusive evidence not only of Martian meteorites on Earth, but also of the possibility of cross-seeding." Not only that, but according to the UPI article: 'The discovery of Bounce raises the distinct possibility that life arising from a common source could have existed for a time on both worlds.'"

chuckpeters writes "The battle over saving Hubble is just starting to heat up! The House Science Committee Democrats released their views and estimates report. Recommendation number two was that until Congress gets better information on the long term costs of Bush's Moon/Mars initiative, NASA's 2005 funding requests should go to existing programs. The House Science Committee has also decided that they want to hear from outside experts on Bush's space initiative. Just as Hubble isn't going quietly into the night, Bush's Moon/Mars plan isn't going quickly into space!"

fishbonez writes "According to this article, the President's new space exploration initiative parallels his military strategy for space. The article doesn't directly say that NASA will become an integral part of the military plan but clearly that conclusion could be drawn without the need for a tinfoil hat. We have already seen that Hubble will be allowed to expire prematurely as a result of this new initiative. Is the re-allocation of funds within NASA really for getting to the Moon and Mars? Or is it just a cover for shifting toward military space applications? If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?" UPI has a lengthy piece covering the development of the new space plan.

Myriad writes "A Canadian scientist has developed a new way of gathering DNA evidence for analysis using fingerprints. The new test can extract DNA in 15 minutes - even from a print stored for many years and in varying conditions. The patented extraction technique consistently produces ~10 nanograms of DNA. Analysis generally requires 5-10 nanograms, although it is possible with as little as 0.1 nanogram."

Slashback tonight with a round of corrections and updates to recent (and not recent) Slashdot postings. Read on to find out more on the fate of Larry Ellison's thin-client Linux machine, OpenTV vs. GNU, getting satisfaction instead of defective hard drives, and more. Enjoy!

Was it ahead of its time or vice versa? BreadMan writes "After limping along for years, the New Internet Computer (NIC) company finally went under. Founded by Larry Ellison, NIC sold a diskless workstation running Linux targeted at home users that wanted internet access. From the spec sheet it looks like this would be fun as a hacking platform if you can get one on the cheap."

Way to GNU! xarium writes "Seems that in response to pressure from the FSF OpenTV has released the source code to all of its compilers. You can download the full package here (~18meg)."

Because a hard drive should not be a rhythm section. Dynamoo writes "As previously noted in Slashdot, Fujitsu MPG3xx series hard drives have been failing in huge numbers. The U.S. law firm, Shepherd Finkelman Miller & Shah is currently conducting a class action against Fujitsu and HP for knowingly distributing faulty drives. According the this article in The Register, Gateway has now been lined up as a defendant.

The fault appears to impact MPG3102AT, MPG3204AT, MPG3307AT and MPG3409AT units manufactured in early 2001. If you have one of these, then it has probably failed already, if not you should replace it asap. If you're a customer of HP/Compaq you can visit the HP Hard Disk Drive Replacement Program site.
We had about 40 of these things fitted to Compaq DeskPro EXDs, and I can assure you the failure rate is pushing 100%."

In the public domain, no one knows you're a dog. smiff writes "United Press International reports on Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox. Reversing lower court rulings, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Dastar did not violate the origin-of-work provision of the Lanham act. Dastar had taken public domain video, made some modifications, and sold it as its own product. Twentieth Century Fox sued claiming they should have been given credit for the video. According to Antonin Scalia, Dastar would have violated the Lanham Act if it had simply repacked the material and sold it as its own. But since Dastar made some minor changes, the Lanham Act doesn't apply.

While Dastar has been cleared under the Lanham Act, the Supreme Court sent the case back for a rehearing. The Fox video entered the public domain in 1977, but the book it was based on is still protected by copyright."

... or get off the pot. Brazilian Joe writes "The LinuxTag folks, as you may know, are responsible for a restraining order against SCO's claims in Germany. As a result, SCO has shut down its Germany web site. Story here."

mhesseltine writes "According to United Press, researchers in Japan are developing transparent transistors. This could bring about see-through screens like those in Minority Report. Also, I imagine would be better heads-up displays (HUDs) for vehicles, layered flat panel displays, and new methods of interfacing with information screens."

Roland Piquepaille writes "This UPI Science News article says that eye diseases like glaucoma could one day be treated by pharmaceuticals delivered through contact lenses. "Patients might be able to one day receive prescription medications through tiny particles embedded in soft contact lenses, researchers said Sunday. They said they have developed a method to encapsulate a medication in nanoparticles, particles so tiny they are microscopic and cannot be felt or seen by the eye." However, the lenses are in the very early engineering design stages and have not been tested clinically. Check this column for more details."

Stranger4U writes "Researchers at New Mexico Tech and the NRAO have used the Aricebo radio telescope in Puerto Rico and some specilized equipment to more closely examine the pulses from the Crab Nebula pulsar. Some of the signals lasted less than two nanoseconds, meaning the originated from a volume no bigger than beach ball. Stories are here(1) and here(2)."

Willard B. Trophy writes "How does a US$13 plus an extra 16% tax on computers sound? That's what intense lobbying by publishing industry groups has forced the German government to consider. UPI has the story."

develop writes "Some folks from Israel have created a computer that runs on DNA and enzymes and is supposedly 100,000 times faster then today's PCs. Information at National Geographic, Telegraph UK and United Press." According to the National Geographic story, this DNA-based computer "can perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC." However, be aware that most of this is still future tense, and what these researchers have now is just a proof-of-concept.

Makarand writes "Tiny filaments of nickel, thinner than a wavelength of visible light, acting as magnetic sensors may expand the storage capacity of hard disks many times. Although, technologies exist to increase hard disk capacity, reading data bits reliably from such disks has proven difficult because as data bits become smaller their magnetic fields are weaker and difficult to pick up. Nickel filaments are capable of picking up of these weak magnetic fields using a phenomenon called "ballistic magnetoresistance" which is not completely understood. As the sensors are only a few atoms wide the electrons travel along a straight line in the conductor greatly enhancing the binary signal picked up from the data bits. These sensors could also be used to detect biomolecules in low concentrations."

Overcoat writes "NASA scientists have used a technique called 'astrometry' to determine the size of a planet orbiting Gliese 876, a star 15 light years away from our solar system. By measuring tiny changes in the 'tilt' of light emitted from the star, changes which were caused by the force exterted by the orbiting planet known as Gliese 876b, the scientists were able to determine that the planet is the size of a golfball. Just kidding: the planet's a whopper, coming in at between 1.89 and 2.4 times the size of Jupiter. This marks the first time astrometry, usually used to measure the distance between stars, has been used to measure a planet."

Linux_ho writes "UPI is reporting that Israeli researchers have developed a drill that can melt a small hole in glass, ceramics, or concrete with no dust or noise. Nature.com reports that it doesn't work very well with good heat conductors or materials with very high melting points, but the researchers envision a wide variety of manufacturing applications, and possibly some medical uses as well."

Ender writes "As if the NASA folks at KSC did not have enough problems to deal with a the moment, (see previous /. article on the engine cracks and the following CNN article on the repairs) a NEW problem has sufaced in the Apollo Era transporter which vehiculates the Shuttles to the launch pads (crawler). They found many cracked bearings in the cylinders that lift the shuttle and its launch platform on the transporter. After this discovery they took a look at the other crawler and it too had quite numerous cracked bearings. No word from NASA yet but these findings may further delay the next Space Shuttle launch which is currently scheduled for NET (no earlier than) Sept 28th and by the same token slow down the assembly of the ISS. Complete articles at SpaceFlightNow and United Press International."