bartkusa - Slashdot User

Comment Re:This isn't new a new idea at all. (Score 1) 471

by bartkusa on Friday January 22, 2010 @09:11PM (#30866264) Attached to: Electromagnetic Pulse Gun To Help In Police Chases

To get to the power output that will stop a vehicle from distances usually seen in car chases would require a massive arrangement, capacitor bank, and a dedicated power supply to keep the HERF pulses sustained. This certainly will not be the kind of device that will be mounted on police cars any time soon.
I have to also wonder how effective it would be in an actual car chase (assuming they could find as way of making it mobile). They would typically be shooting it at the rear of the car where the bodywork would act as shielding for the engine computer, and there is nothing to stop portions of the RF pulses reflecting off the metal bodywork and disabling chasing police cars.

Strap it to a police helicopter (or a police UAV, in 10 years).

Chrome 4.0 Vs. Opera 10 Vs. Firefox 3.5 354

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 07, 2009 @07:38AM from the three-enter-but-only-three-leave dept.

Jim Karter writes "In a three-way cage match, LifeHacker threw Chrome 4, Firefox 3.5, and Opera 10 into the ring and let the three browsers duke it out to see which would emerge as the fastest app for surfing the web. Quoting: 'Like all our previous speed tests, this one is unscientific, but thorough. We install the most current versions of each browser being tested — in this case, Opera 10, Chrome's development channel 4.0 version, and the final Firefox 3.5 with security fixes — in a system with a 2.0 GHz Intel Centrino Duo processor and 2GB of RAM, running Windows XP.'"

Joachim De Posada Talks About Delayed Gratification 105

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday August 13, 2009 @12:50PM from the a-bird-in-hand dept.

grrlscientist writes "Here is a short talk in which Joachim de Posada shares a landmark experiment on delayed gratification — and how it can predict future success. With priceless video of kids trying their hardest not to eat their marshmallow."

Database Error Costs Social Security Victims $500M 299

Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 12, 2009 @04:18PM from the drop-in-the-bucket dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Posts reports that the Social Security Administration has agreed to pay more than $500 million in back benefits to more than 80,000 recipients whose benefits were unfairly denied after they were flagged by a federal computer program designed to catch serious criminals. At issue is a 1996 law, which contained language later nicknamed the 'fleeing felon' provision, that said fugitives were ineligible to receive federal benefits. As part of its enforcement, the administration began searching computer databases to weed out people who were collecting benefits and had outstanding warrants. The searches captured dozens of criminals, including some wanted for homicide, but they also ensnared countless elderly and disabled people accused of relatively minor offenses such as shoplifting or writing bad checks and in some cases, the victims simply shared a name and a birth date with an offender." (Read more, below.)

Transparent Aluminum Is "New State of Matter" 406

Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 28, 2009 @12:01PM from the baseball-bats-will-never-be-the-same dept.

Professor_Quail writes with this interesting excerpt: "Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminum by bombarding the metal with the world's most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminum' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion."

Comment I've heard this somewhere before... (Score 1) 501

by bartkusa on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @12:25AM (#25971851) Attached to: Mad Scientist Brings Back Dead With "Deanimation"

While reading the article, Roth's ideas seemed familiar to me. After using Google for a few minutes, I was able to remember where: some articles about heart attack treatment. When someone has a heart attack, the current(?) practice is to give them oxygen through a face mask. The thinking is that with more oxygen, the heart doesn't have to work as hard, and can recover from the attack better.

However, some people have been looking into cell death from lack of oxygen, and it looks like the rate of cell death is quite low until oxygen re-enters the system, at which point it spikes up.

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/apr07/resuscitation-center.html

When a person has a heart attack, their cells are deprived of oxygen. So Dr. Becker began studying oxygen deprivation in cells. What we found when we studied oxygen deprivation in cells astounded us, explained Becker. When cells are deprived of oxygen for an hour there is only 4% cell death. After four hours, cell death is only around 16%. Both of these numbers are low. The amazing thing was once we re-introduced oxygen to the cells they died off rapidly to almost 60% cell death. This re-oxygenation injury we termed reperfusion injury. We concluded that the re-introduction of oxygen must be handled carefully for the majority of cells to survive. Our studies will be concentrating on ways to prepare cells deprived of oxygen for the re-introduction of oxygen.

This article also seems salient: Severe heart attack damage limited by hydrogen sulfide

Carbon-Neutral Ziggurat Could House 1.1 Million In Dubai 393

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday August 25, 2008 @03:54PM from the big-brother's-wet-dream dept.

Engadget is reporting that a new pyramid-shaped city of the future, dubbed a "Ziggurat," is being touted by Dubai-based environmental design company, Timelinks. Claiming that their design allows for an almost self-sufficient energy footprint and, obviously, economy of space, the real trick would be getting 1.1 million people to live in such close proximity. "Martijn Kramer, managing director of The International Institute for the Urban Environment told WAN: 'As a general reaction the Ziggurat Project is viable from a technical point of view. However reflecting from a more sustainable holistic approach we do wonder if the food supply and waste system are taken care for, as the concept seems rather based upon carbon neutrality and energy saving.' Kramer's initial reaction to 'Ziggurat' also raises a very important issue: are people willing to live in a mega building of 2.3 sq km? Will the thought of living in a machine comfort people?"

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