__aaqpaq9254 - Slashdot User

Journal Journal: A pro-nuclear piece at the Guardian UK 3

Journal by doom on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @03:00PM

The Guardian UK -- a newspaper well-respected among the liberal/left crowd -- ran a pro-nuclear power opinion piece on their front page. It's not even the strongest case that could be made -- it hardly matters whether we're at "peak-oil", nuclear waste just isn't that big of a problem, etc -- but sometimes making a weaker case can b

Submission + - Scientific American's Fred Guterl explores the real threats posed by technology (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Lasrick on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @02:54PM

Lasrick writes: Fred Guterl is the executive editor of Scientific American, and in this piece he explores various real threats posed by technology that modern civilization relies on. Discusses West African and Indian monsoons, infectious diseases, computer hacking. Here's a quote: "Today the technologies that pose some of the biggest problems are not so much military as commercial. They come from biology, energy production, and the information sciences — and are the very technologies that have fueled our prodigious growth as a species. They are far more seductive than nuclear weapons, and more difficult to extricate ourselves from. The technologies we worry about today form the basis of our global civilization and are essential to our survival."

Submission + - Astronomers get picture of nearby exoplanet

Submitted by

The Bad Astronomer

on Monday November 19, 2012 @12:11PM

The Bad Astronomer writes: "While nearly a thousand planets are known to orbit other stars, getting direct pictures of them is extremely difficult due to the glare from their host stars. Fewer than a dozen images of exoplanets exist. However, we can now add one more to the list: Kappa Andromedae b, or Kap And b for short. It's about 170 light years away, and orbits Kappa And, a massive star bright enough to see with the naked eye. One hitch: its mass puts it right at the upper limit for a planet, and it may edge into brown dwarf territory. Further observations are needed to pin its mass down."

Submission + - Green Grid Argues That Data Centers Can Lose the Chillers (slashdot.org)

Submitted by

Nerval's Lobster

on Friday October 26, 2012 @11:31AM

Nerval's Lobster writes: "The Green Grid, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making IT infrastructures and data centers more energy-efficient, is making the case that data center operators are operating their facilities in too conservative a fashion. Rather than rely on mechanical chillers, it argues in a new white paper, data centers can reduce power consumption via a higher inlet temperature of 20 degrees C.

Green Grid originally recommended that data center operators build to the ASHRAE A2 specifications: 10 to 35 degrees C (dry-bulb temperature) and between 20 to 80 percent humidity. But the paper also presented data that a range of between 20 and 35 degrees C was acceptable.

Data centers have traditionally included chillers, mechanical cooling devices designed to lower the inlet temperature. Cooling the air, according to what the paper originally called anecdotal evidence, lowered the number of server failures that a data center experienced each year. But chilling the air also added additional costs, and PUE numbers would go up as a result."

Submission + - TechCrunch Launches CrunchGov, a Tech Policy Platform (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 26, 2012 @11:11AM

An anonymous reader writes: TechCrunch has launched a project called CrunchGov, which aims to bring educated people together to work on tech-related government policy. "It includes a political leaderboard that grades politicians based on how they vote on tech issues, a light legislative database of technology policy, and a public markup utility for crowdsourcing the best ideas on pending legislation." They give politicians scores based on how their votes align with consensus on policy in the tech industry. "A trial run of the public markup utility in Congress has already proven successful. When Rep. Issa opened his own alternative to SOPA for public markup, Project Madison participants came in droves with surprisingly specific legal suggestions. For instance, one savvy user noticed that current piracy legislation could mistakenly leave a person who owns a domain name legally responsible for the actions of the website administrator (the equivalent of holding a landlord responsible if his tenant was growing pot in the backyard). The suggestion was included in the updated bill before Congress, representing perhaps the first time that the public, en masse, could have a realistic shot at contributing to federal law purely based on the merit of their ideas."

Submission + - The half-life of DNA - seems that Jurassic Park was impossible (nature.com)

Submitted by another random user on Wednesday October 10, 2012 @12:47PM

another random user writes: Few researchers have given credence to claims that samples of dinosaur DNA have survived to the present day, but no one knew just how long it would take for genetic material to fall apart. Now, a study of fossils found in New Zealand is laying the matter to rest — and putting paid to hopes of cloning a Tyrannosaurus rex.

After cell death, enzymes start to break down the bonds between the nucleotides that form the backbone of DNA, and micro-organisms speed the decay. In the long run, however, reactions with water are thought to be responsible for most bond degradation. Groundwater is almost ubiquitous, so DNA in buried bone samples should, in theory, degrade at a set rate.

Determining that rate has been difficult because it is rare to find large sets of DNA-containing fossils with which to make meaningful comparisons. To make matters worse, variable environmental conditions such as temperature, degree of microbial attack and oxygenation alter the speed of the decay process.

By comparing the specimens' ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.

Comment Re:I'm confused... (Score 4, Insightful) 223

by __aaqpaq9254 on Tuesday October 02, 2012 @05:13PM (#41531015) Attached to: 82-Year-Old Nun Breaks Into Nuclear Facility, Contractors Blamed

Actually, the point for me is, rather, not that nationalized security would be better, per se (although I think ThatsMyNick's point is well taken), but that the constant calls for privatizing things that shouldn't be privatized is really ridiculous. Companies exist to make money, and they do that by keeping costs low wherever they can, even if it means low beyond the point of reason...beyond the point of doing a good job. True, I suppose the company would eventually be fired, but only after a huge mistake (as we see here). When we are talking about national security, and a few other things I can think of, that isn't such a good idea.

Submission + - Security at nuclear Y-12 National Security Complex Nun Too good (thebulletin.org) 1

Submitted by Lasrick on Tuesday October 02, 2012 @12:18PM

Lasrick writes: Private security contractors strike again, this time at the Y-12 National Security Complex. How a nun, a gardener, and a housepainter cut through 3 security fences to find themselves 20 feet away from highly dangerous nuclear material. And of course, only 1 guard has been fired (the one who arguably acted the bravest and did the right thing). Contractors still have the contracts, etc.

Submission + - Misconduct, not error, is the main cause of retractions (nature.com)

Submitted by

ananyo

on Tuesday October 02, 2012 @12:16PM

ananyo writes: "One of the largest-ever studies of retractions has found that two-thirds of retracted life-sciences papers were stricken from the scientific record because of misconduct such as fraud or suspected fraud — and that journals sometimes soft-pedal the reason. The study contradicts the conventional view that most retractions of papers in scientific journals are triggered by unintentional errors.
The survey examined all 2,047 articles in the PubMed database that had been marked as retracted by 3 May this year. But rather than taking journals’ retraction notices at face value, as previous analyses have done, the study used secondary sources to pin down the reasons for retraction if the notices were incomplete or vague. he analysis revealed that fraud or suspected fraud was responsible for 43% of the retractions. Other types of misconduct — duplicate publication and plagiarism — accounted for 14% and 10% of retractions, respectively. Only 21% of the papers were retracted because of error (abstract)."

Submission + - Slashdot Gets Acquired as Part of $20 Million Deal (geek.net) 1

Submitted by wiredmikey on Tuesday September 18, 2012 @07:41AM

wiredmikey writes: Dice Holdings (Owner of Job sites including Dice.com) reported this morning that it has acquired Geeknet's online media business, including Slashdot and SourceForge.

"We are very pleased to find a new home for our media business, providing a platform for the sites and our media teams to thrive," said Ken Langone, Chairman of Geeknet. "With this transaction completed, we will now focus our full attention on growing ThinkGeek."

Dice Holdings acquired the business for $20 million in cash. In 2011, the online media properties generated $20 million in Revenues.

Submission + - Judge preserves privacy of climate scientist's emails (nature.com) 1

Submitted by

ananyo

on Tuesday September 18, 2012 @06:55AM

ananyo writes: "Climate scientist Michael Mann reported Monday that he and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville have prevailed in a court case against the conservative American Tradition Institute (ATI), which had sought access to emails he wrote while serving as a professor at the school from 1999-2005.
Now at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Mann says the ruling supports the University of Virginia’s argument than an exemption to the state’s freedom-of-information law “applies to faculty communications in furtherance of their work”. The Prince William County Circuit Court ruling came directly from the bench in and was not immediately available online.
The Virgina Supreme Court tossed out a case against Mann in March. The state's conservative attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, had, among other things, demanded access to the climatologist's emails, arguing that Mann might have manipulated data and thus defrauded the government in applying for scientific grants."

Submission + - NASA craft to leave asteroid heads for dwarf planet Ceres (mnn.com)

Submitted by

DevotedSkeptic

on Saturday September 01, 2012 @12:46AM

DevotedSkeptic writes: "NASA's Dawn probe is gearing up to depart the giant asteroid Vesta next week and begin the long trek to the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt.

The Dawn spacecraft is slated to leave Vesta on the night of Sept. 4 (early morning Sept. 5 EDT), ending a 14-month stay at the 330-mile-wide (530 kilometers) body. The journey to Ceres should take roughly 2.5 years, with Dawn reaching the dwarf planet in early 2015, researchers said.

"Thrust is engaged, and we are now climbing away from Vesta atop a blue-green pillar of xenon ions," Dawn chief engineer and mission director Marc Rayman, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "We are feeling somewhat wistful about concluding a fantastically productive and exciting exploration of Vesta, but now have our sights set on dwarf planet Ceres.""

Submission + - Twitter jokes: free speech on trial (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31, 2012 @10:27AM

An anonymous reader writes: On 6 January 2010, Paul Chambers typed a flippant tweet that would turn his life upside-down for the next two and a half years. As the courts repeatedly showed a lack of common sense and an ignorance of technology, for a long time it looked as though our right to free speech was under very real threat. Now it's over, we can step back and take a detailed look at how such an insane case even came to trial. This feature delves deep into the the Twitter Joke Trial: how it happened, what it means, and the epic struggle to balance civility and civil liberties.

Submission + - US colliders jostle for funds (nature.com)

Submitted by

DevotedSkeptic

on Thursday August 30, 2012 @02:02PM

DevotedSkeptic writes: "When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland seized the world record for the highest-energy collisions in 2010, it also sealed the fate of the leading US particle collider. The Tevatron, at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, was closed the following year to save money.

Now, physicists at another US physics facility, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, are trying to avoid a similar end. On 13 August, researchers at the ALICE heavy-ion experiment at the LHC at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics lab near Geneva, announced that they had created the hottest-ever man-made plasma of quarks and gluons. This eclipsed the record temperature achieved at RHIC two years earlier by 38%, and raised uncomfortable questions about RHIC’s future.

Tribble still hopes to avoid having to close any of the three facilities. In 2005, he notes, a similar crisis was averted after an advisory committee laid out the dire consequences of flat funding for the future of US nuclear science. In the end, Congress came through with the budgetary increases required. “What we want to do here is to spell out what will be lost under different budgets,” he says. His committee is planning to hold a final meeting in November, in time to influence the budget requests from US funding agencies for the next fiscal year."

Submission + - Is a nuclear fuelbank a good idea? (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29, 2012 @02:54PM

An anonymous reader writes: Another roundtable at the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences explores the notion of nuclear fuel banks: offer nations a guaranteed supply of low-enriched uranium if they renounce the right to enrich on their own. So far, two articles have been published in the roundtable.

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