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4-Winged Dinosaur Fossil Found
Anonymous Coward writes "Scientists in China say they have found fossilized remains of a dinosaur with four feathered wings that it probably used for gliding, a find they say strengthens the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. See the story on CNN or BBC with a cool rendering of what it possibly looked like or at NYTimes (yadda)."
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No slashdotters [d]evolved from mucus monsters.
Ancient terrible lizzard like monsters probably evolved into Jack Valenity.
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
"Republican senator slams database plan
Declan McCullagh, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
WASHINGTON--A Republican senator is lending his voice to criticism of a Pentagon data-mining project that could result in detailed electronic dossiers compiled on Americans.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said he will support legislation to curb the scope of the controversial Total Information Awareness (TIA) project and limit the FBI's involvement with it. The full Senate could vote on the proposal as early as Thursday as an amendment to a spending bill.
Grassley, who is a frequent critic of government abuses of power, did not go as far as some Democratic senators and call for a broad moratorium on TIA, which is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Instead, his proposal says TIA may not be used for "domestic intelligence or law enforcement purposes."
"Like many people, I have been concerned that this program could be used to invade the privacy of Americans by snooping around in our bank accounts, personal Internet computers, phone records and the like," Grassley said in a statement. If fully implemented, TIA would link databases from sources such as credit card companies, medical insurers and motor vehicle departments for police use toward snaring terrorists.
Support from Grassley, a senior Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance committee, substantially increases the chances that Congress will place at least some limits on the development and use of the TIA system.
In a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft on Tuesday, Grassley charged that the Justice Department and FBI are closer to using TIA than the agencies previously have acknowledged. That followed a letter to Grassley from Defense Department Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, who said the FBI is considering "possible experimentation with TIA technology in the future."
As previously reported, efforts in Congress to block the TIA program began last week with a Democratic proposal championed by Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. It's a standalone bill called the Data-Mining Moratorium Act that would create a moratorium on TIA.
A third proposal is backed by Democratic senators including Ron Wyden of Oregon, Dianne Feinstein of California, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. The Wyden-drafted amendment to the omnibus appropriations bill being debated this week goes further than Grassley's proposal and bans TIA after two months have elapsed unless Congress receives a detailed report or President Bush certifies that halting TIA would "endanger the national security of the United States." (as would promoting it?) [this 'rush' to 'resolution' about EVERYTHING, scares US a little. we think we know what the problems really are dough].
In a statement posted last month on the TIA Web site, the Defense Department defended the project as privacy neutral (what in the fud is that?)."
Dr. Xu said the new fossil represented a distinct species of the small predatory dinosaurs known as dromaeosaurs. It has been given the name Microraptor gui, honoring the Chinese paleontologist Gu Zhiwei.
Wrong! This is clearly a prehistoric ancestor to Microsoft Windows! It's amazing that GUI's existed so long ago.
China is a scientific nation, you can't move at most scientific conferences without bumping into a large contingent who are either directly from China or who are researching in Western Unis.
Yes, but why, if China is so scientific, do they have to come to the West to actually do their research?
I'm not down on the Chinese people, but China as a nation has historically not been a great place to innovate from. Could be down to Communism, could be Confucian tradition, could be simply the sheer size of China made collaboration difficult.
How many people from _your_ alma mater have been published in Nature ?
A search for UCL gives 112 matches on that site. Off the top of my head, UCL ranks second in the world (behind Harvard) for volume of research publications in all fields. You were saying?
...how many asses does it have?
I don't think this is Offtopic. When I read the article, I immediately thought of the monkey with four asses. Doesn't anyone watch South Park anymore?