An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post: "The precious Amazon is teetering on the edge of functional destruction and, with it, so are we," Thomas Lovejoy of George Mason University and Carlos Nobre of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, both of whom have studied the world's largest rainforest for decades, wrote in an editorial in the journal Science Advances. "Today, we stand exactly in a moment of destiny: The tipping point is here, it is now."

Combined with recent news that the thawing Arctic permafrost may be beginning to fill the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and that Greenland's ice sheet is melting at an accelerating pace, it's the latest hint that important parts of the climate system may be moving toward irreversible changes at a pace that defies earlier predictions...

In interviews, Lovejoy and Nobre said they decided to sound a dire alarm about the Amazon after witnessing the acceleration of troubling trends. The combination of rising temperatures, crippling wildfires and ongoing land clearing for cattle ranching and crops has extended dry seasons, killed off water-sensitive vegetation and created conditions for more fire. The Amazon is 17 percent deforested, but for the large portion of it inside Brazil, the figure is closer to 20 percent. The fear is that soon there will be so little forest that the trees, which not only soak up enormous quantities of rainwater but also give off mist that aids agriculture and sustains innumerable species, won't be able to recycle enough rainfall At that point, much of the rainforest could decline into a drier savanna ecosystem. Rainfall patterns would change across much of South America. Several hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide could wind up in the atmosphere, worsening climate change. And such a feedback loop would be tough to reverse.

That point of no return, commonly referred to by scientists as a tipping point, "is much closer than we anticipated," Nobre said in an interview.... In combination, the Amazon and Arctic news underscores that even as humans are largely failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth may increase such emissions yet further. Still, it is possible to slow the transformation of the Amazon through reforestation, researchers said. "A tipping point is a way to talk about a moment of system shift or system change," Lovejoy said. "In this case, it's not going to be instantaneous, and that's good news. It allows you to do something about it."

_Sharp'r_ writes: According to a new study by Uber's Advanced Technology Group, widespread adoption of self-driving trucks would happen primarily on long-haul routes. The increase in efficiency would lead to more goods being trucked, causing enough additional local delivery routes driven by humans to overall increase the need for truck drivers. Driver contracts may need to be updated to pay for more time spent waiting/delivering instead of physically driving. "Uber does not believe that self-driving trucks will be doing 'dock to dock' runs for a very long time," reports The Atlantic. "They see a future in which self-driving trucks drive highway miles between what they call transfer hubs, where human drivers will take over for the last miles through complex urban and industrial terrain."

As for how Uber came to this conclusion, they created a model of the industry's labor market based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data. "Then, they created scenarios that looked at a range of self-driving-truck adoption rates and how often those autonomous trucks would be on the road in comparison to human-driven vehicles," reports The Atlantic. Uber also calculated the utilization rate of the self-driving trucks. "Basically, if the self-driving trucks are used far more efficiently, it would drive down the cost of freight, which would stimulate demand, leading to more business," reports The Atlantic. "And, if more freight is out on the roads, and humans are required to run it around local areas, then there will be a greater, not lesser, need for truck drivers."

An anonymous reader quotes the Chronicle of Higher Education: A majority of Republicans and right-leaning independents think higher education has a negative effect on the country, according to a new study released by the Pew Research Center on Monday. The same study has found a consistent increase in distrust of colleges and universities since 2010, when negative perceptions among Republicans was measured at 32 percent. That number now stands at 58 percent. By comparison, 72 percent of Democrats or left-leaning Independents in the study said colleges and universities have a positive impact on the United States... In the Pew Research Center's study, distrust of colleges was strongest in the highest income bracket and the oldest age group, with approval levels of just 31 percent among respondents whose family income exceeds $75,000 a year and 27 percent among those older than 65.

Voline writes "Last Summer, after WikiLeaks released 90,000 leaked internal US military documents in their Afghan War Log, Pentagon officials went on a media offensive against WikiLeaks, accusing it of having the 'blood on Its hands' of American soldiers and Afghan collaborators who are named in the documents. The charge has echoed through the mainstream media (and Internet comment threads) ever since. Now, CNN is reporting that after a thorough Pentagon review, 'WikiLeaks did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods, the Department of Defense concluded.' And, according to an unnamed NATO official, 'there has been no indication' that any Afghans who have collaborated with the NATO occupation have been harmed as a result of the leaks. Will the Pentagon's contradiction of the charges against WikiLeaks get as much play in the media as those original accusations did?"

Concerned Wikipedian writes "Starting December 4th, Wikipedia administrators noticed a surge of edits from certain IP addresses. These IPs turned out to be the proxies for the content filters of at least 6 major UK ISPs. After some research by Wikipedians, it appears that the image of the 1970s LP cover art of the Scorpions' 'Virgin Killer' album has been blocked because it was judged to be 'child pornography,' and all other attempts to access Wikimedia foundation sites from these ISPs are being proxied to only a few IP addresses. This is causing many problems for Wikipedia administrators, because much of the UK vandalism now comes from a single IP, which, when blocked, affects potentially hundreds of thousands of anonymous users who intend no harm and are utterly confused as to why they are no longer able to edit. The image was flagged by the the Internet Watch Foundation, which is funded by the EU and the UK government, and has the support of many ISPs and online institutions in the UK. The filter is fairly easy to circumvent simply by viewing the article in some other languages, or by logging in on the secure version of Wikipedia."

superstick58 writes "Reboot, one of the first CG animated TV shows is returning as a trilogy of feature-length films. This was a great cartoon for me, perhaps it also helped stimulate other developing nerds to embrace the computers that are supposedly run by these enjoyable CG characters."

Alexa drives me nuts. It uses a broken methodology to measure the internet and is, for reasons unclear to anyone, regarded as somehow definitive simply because it allows you to compare two sites with a single simple number. Its sampling methodology is flawed and the numbers it produces are meaningless. And if you want to help me prove this, please install their toolbar. Of course since most of you are Slashdot readers, most of you won't and that only helps prove my point. Read on for what I mean by all of this, and why it matters.

Late-Eight writes "Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology are working on a new type of nanogenerator that could draw necessary energy from flowing blood in the human body. The hope is to incorporate the new nanogenerator into biosensors, environmental monitoring devices and even personal electronics that will require no fuel source, internal or external. Once completed, this new cellular engine could find various applications, even beyond medicine."

The British Board of Film Classification recently released a study describing players' reactions to videogames. The synopsis of their findings makes for fascinating reading. "Gamers are starting to play at a younger age, even as the average age of gamers is increasing. Males and females differ greatly in taste in games, how long they play, and how involved they are in the gameplay. Negative press about a game significantly increases it's sales and many young gamers choose games based on word of mouth. Games provide a sense of achievement, unlike passive mediums like television. Active participation decreases the tendency to 'forget' your experiencing a fantasy vs. non-interactive visual mediums. Gamers find violence in television and movies more upsetting than violence in games. While parents agree that games should be regulated, some still consider the whole genre as 'kid's toys', even games that may include adult content." One of the most controversial findings is the assertion that games are less engrossing than other media, with players having less of an emotional connection to in-game events than the events in a book or movie. The Wonderland blog offers up the full report as well as commentary on their findings.

mikesd81 writes "Over at C|Net there is an article about Michigan spending $38 million to distribute an iPod to every kid, for learning purposes. From the article: 'On Thursday, House Democrats delivered a spending bill that includes the idea of putting $38 million worth of public funds toward outfitting every student with a digital music player.' The plan included measures to tax soda and satellite TV services to pay for it, among other things, to raise funds. If you recall, Duke University tried something like this with mixed results. How financially strained will Michigan residents feel about paying higher taxes to buy someone else's kid an iPod?"

An anonymous reader writes "An airliner jet traveling from Chile to New Zealand early today was in for an interesting ride. Flaming space debris — the remains of a Russian satellite — came hurtling back to Earth not far from a commercial jet on its way to Auckland, New Zealand. Here's further justification for the growing concern of the increasing amounts of space garbage orbiting our planet. From the article: 'The pilot of a Lan Chile Airbus A340 ... notified air traffic controllers at Auckland Oceanic Centre after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane...'"