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Stanford, IBM Team To Explore Spintronics
saxylife writes "NYTimes and various other media are carrying a story on the latest venture between IBM and Stanford," which will concentrate on spintronics, in other words, controlling "the magnetic orientation of atoms to store data.
It's supposed to ease the pressure of hitting the barrier of Moore's law."
Haha... is it just me or are the moderators kind of retarded lately? I can't even count the number of times I've seen jokes like this moderated up as insightful or informative.
I saw a sig recently suggesting that instead of modding things funny, people should mod things underrated, until the "broken" moderation system is fixed. Well frankly, the very idea of the slashdot crew ever fixing the moderation system is utterly hilarious to me, but it's still a pretty good idea.
Why should providing humor be any less valuable than providing insight or information? Laughter is, or at least should be, an integral part of life.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hmm, interesting. I agree with the underrated idea, but using insightful or informative really seems like a bad idea..
I agree with you on the funny mod deserving karma too. Seems to me that on sites with non-threaded discussion (cough, FARK), cracking jokes can get in the way of more relevant discussion, but that's much less of an issue on Slashdot. It's much easier to follow or reply to specific parts of the discussion here (like how we have this totally off-topic branch here).
Br J Surg. 1995 Oct;82(10):1321-6. Related Articles, Links
Electrically stimulated colonic reservoir for total anorectal reconstruction.
Hughes SF, Scott SM, Pilot MA, Williams NS.
Surgical Unit, Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, London, UK.
Total anorectal reconstruction after abdominoperineal excision of the rectum has failed to achieve perfect continence. Electrically stimulated reservoir evacuation in combination with an electrically stimulated gracilis neoanal sphincter might improve results. A J pouch was constructed in an isolated colonic loop of seven dogs. Bipolar square wave pulses were delivered via two intramural stainless steel electrode pairs at 10 Hz. Stimulation parameters were varied to achieve adequate contraction. Serosal strain gauges recorded spontaneous and stimulated pouch motility. Evacuation was quantified by a volume displacement technique and observed fluoroscopically. Recordings were performed for a median of 3 (range 1-11) months. At 10 Hz and 0.5 ms pulse width, stimulation was required for 2 min and at voltages of 15 V (n = 4), 18 V (n = 1) and 20 V (n = 2) to obtain a contraction of amplitude comparable to that of a spontaneous contraction. Suprathreshold stimulation invariably resulted in colonic pouch contraction. The mean(95 per cent confidence interval (c.i.)) stimulus-response latency was 25.5(1.9) s. The mean(95 per cent c.i.) intraluminal pressure generated during stimulation was 114.1(17.0) cmH2O and 64.6(12.0) cmH2O during spontaneous activity (P 0.001). In conclusion, electrical stimulation via intramural electrodes produced contraction generating sufficient intraluminal pressure to effect evacuation of a canine colonic pouch. This has potential for incorporation with an electrically stimulated neoanal sphincter in total anorectal reconstruction to improve evacuation and continence.
PMID: 7489153 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"