24180254
submission
Doc Ruby writes:
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in MD, USA announced they've disrupted the means by which HIV stops the immune system from attacking it, after the HIV has stolen a cholesterol membrane from the immune system first responders:Scientists say they have found a way to disarm the AIDS virus in research that could lead to a vaccine. Researchers have discovered that if they eliminate a cholesterol membrane surrounding the virus, HIV cannot disrupt communication among disease-fighting cells and the immune system returns to normal. [...] 'By stealing cholesterol from the envelope of the virus, we can neutralize the subversion,' said Graham. 'We’ve broken the code; we can shut down the type of interference that HIV is having on the immune system.'
421933
submission
Doc Ruby writes:
Electronics Weekly reports:
Intel has developed a test chip for
software defined radio that can handle WiFi, WiMAX and DVB-H digital TV in one chip.
This kind of chip would allow equipment to access the WiFi network in the home, automatically handover to a WiMAX network when you leave the house and also access digital TV on the move, all through one chip.
It's also a proof that the entire class of SW radios that could also possibly converge CDMA, GSM and various other radio networks for opportunistic handoffs by a single device, a "universal radio" that could converge all wireless device types into a single device that can use content formerly locked into a single radio type.
94490
submission
Doc Ruby writes:
Welsh activists have released after an 8 year court battle a Russian study that shows increased cancer linked to eating Genetically Modified potatoes, supporting independent research by Arpad Pusztai:
Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and green campaigner, said: "These trials should be stopped. The research backs up the work of Arpad Pusztai and it shows that he was the victim of a smear campaign by the biotech industry. There has been a cover-up over these findings and the Government should not be a party to that."
Mr Simpson said the findings, which showed that lab rats developed tumours, were released by anti-GM campaigners in Wales. Dr Pusztai and a colleague used potatoes that had been genetically modified to produce a protein, lectin. They found cell damage in the rats' stomachs, and in parts of their intestines.
While the trials have flaws, those methodological defects seem to downplay an actually higher risk of cancer:
Half of the rats in the trial died, and results were taken from those that survived, in breach of normal scientific practice.
38024
submission
Doc Ruby writes:
As reported at GigaOM, 'Infinera has bonded 10 parallel 10 Gb/s channels into one logical flow while maintaining packet ordering at the receiver', bridging 100Gbps ethernet over 10 10Gbps optical WAN links:
Infinera, a San Jose, Calif.-based start-up, along with University of California, Santa Cruz, Internet2 and
Level3 Communications,
today demonstrated a 100 gigabit/second Ethernet connection that could carry data over a 4000 kilometer fiber network. The trial took place at the Super Computing Show in Tampa, Florida.
The experimental system was set up between Tampa, Florida and Houston, Texas, and back again. A 100 GbE signal was spliced into ten 10 Gb/s streams using an Infinera-proposed specification for 100GbE across multiple links. The splicing of the signal is based on a packet-reordering algorithm developed at the University of California at Santa Cruz. This algorithm preserves packet order even as individual flows are striped across multiple wavelengths.
[...]
[A]bout 14 months ago we wrote about the 10 GB/s network4 that connected the University of California, San Diego and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center over a dedicated optical path. [...] [Infinera co-founder and CTO Drew Perkins] said that the trial today shows that you can build scalable systems that can achieve higher speeds.
With most data we prosume now large multimedia objects/streams, mostly networked, we're all going to want our share of these 100Gbps networks. The current network retailers, mainly cable and DSL dealers, still haven't brought even 10Mbps to most homes, though they're now bringing Fiber to the Premises to some rich/lucky customers. Are they laying fiber that will bring them to Tbps, or will that stuff clog the way to getting these speeds ourselves?
23321
submission
Doc Ruby writes:
According to the Baltimore (MD) Sun:
Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials contacted the FBI yesterday after a former legislator received an anonymous package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland's polls in 2004. [...] The availability of the code — the written instructions that tell the machines what to do — is important because some computer scientists worry that the machines are vulnerable to malicious and virtually undetectable vote-switching software. An examination of the instructions would enable technology experts to identify flaws, but Diebold says the code is proprietary and does not allow public scrutiny of it.
Maryland's primary elections last month were ruined by procedural and tech problems. Maryland used Diebold machines, even though its Republican governor "lost faith" in them as early as February this year, with 6 months to do something before Maryland relied on them in their elections.
The Diebold code was secret, and used at least in 2002 even though illegally uncertified even by private analysts under nondisclosure. Now that it's being "opened by force", the first concern from Diebold, the government, and the media is that it could be further exploited by crackers. What if the voting software were open from the beginning, so its security relied only on hard secrets (like passwords and keys), not mere obscurity, which can be destroyed by "leaks" like the one reported by the Sun? The system's reliability would be known, and probably more secure after thorough public review. How much damage does secret sourcecode employed in public service have to cause before we require it to be opened before we buy it, before we base our government on it?
