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Comment Re:What Classes Are They Cheating In? (Score 1) 484

by cybercobra (#35140716) Attached to: 61.9% of Undergraduates Cybercheat

I think taking things like Classical History [...] during my CS degree made university more fun any interesting

Were that the humanities options always that interesting. Honestly, I wouldn't mind so much if they merely didn't involve writing essays; then I would personally be much more inclined to enjoy them. (Learning to be eloquent is a virtue, yes, but that's part of what high school is for.)

not to mention meeting more people of the opposite sex.

I can't argue with you there...
Books

Submission + - Japanese develop world's fastest book scanner (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: IEEE Spectrum reports that Tokyo University researchers have developed a superfast book scanner that uses lasers and a high-speed camera to achieve a capture rate of 200 pages per minute. You just quickly flip the book pages in front of the system and it digitizes the pages, building a 3D model of each and reconstructing it as a normal flat page. The prototype is large and bulky, but if this thing could be made smaller, one day we could scan a book or magazine in seconds using a smartphone.
Wikipedia

Submission + - Wikipedia's Assault on Patent Encumbered Codecs (videoonwikipedia.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Open Video Alliance is launching a campaign today called Let's Get Video on Wikipedia asking people to create and post videos to Wikipedia articles (good, encyclopedia style videos only!). Because all video must be in patent-free codecs (theora for now), this will make Wikipedia by far the most likely site for an average internet user to have a truly free and open video experience. The campaign seeks to "strike a blow for freedom" against a wave of h.264 adoption in otherwise open html5 video implementations.
Image

Tapping of Cemetery Maples Leaves a Bad Taste 3

Posted by samzenpus from the sweet-and-sorrow dept.
Maple syrup producers are taking some heat over tapping trees in a few Massachusetts cemeteries. From the article: "In Lancaster’s Old Settlers and Eastwood cemeteries, the Lancaster Cub Scout Pack 9 tapped trees as part of a project after receiving permission. But Lancaster selectmen said they didn’t know cemetery trees would be tapped and they received several calls about it. Walsh said tapping trees along roads is normal, but in cemeteries it’s 'a little tacky.'" It should be noted that grave syrup is an important part of a balanced goth breakfast.
Government

Submission + - Mastery of RareEarth Elements Vital to US Security (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Karl A. Gschneidner Jr., a senior metallurgist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, recently cautioned members of a Congressional panel that "rare-earth research in the USA on mineral extraction, rare-earth separation, processing of the oxides into metallic alloys and other useful forms, substitution, and recycling is virtually zero." To optimize the use of rare earths in current and future products, scientists combine rare earths with other elements to create alloys intended for specific purposes. Yet the United States and other nations have ceded much of this alloying knowledge to China, Gschneidner said.....[C]urrent methods used to manufacture the magnets produce hazardous byproducts. In contrast, the Ames Lab process eliminates production of these byproducts. Also significant, the Ames Laboratory process has the potential to enable the United States to produce neodymium-iron-boron magnets less expensively.
Games

Submission + - Gamers dress as zombies to raise R18+ awareness (computerworld.com.au) 1

Submitted by swandives
swandives writes: Australian gamers will dress as zombies to raise awareness about the lack of an R18+ rating for video games in the country. The protest will begin at Hyde Park Fountain on March 27 and lumber through Sydney, raising awareness of the need for a higher classification rating and hopefully causing a bit of havoc at the same time! Computerworld Australia has pictures of previous zombie protests in the lead-up to the event. Australia has a long history of lobbying for an R18+ games classification but, even after a decade, video games are banned from sale if they exceed the maximum M15+ classification.

So far, the list of banned titles includes 7 Sins, Risen, Left 4 Dead 2 and Dark Sector. Others, like Alien Vs Predator, were initially banned but appealed the rating and are now MA15+.
Science

Submission + - Scientists Demonstrate Mammalian Limb Regeneration (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by telomerewhythere
telomerewhythere writes: A quest that began over a decade ago with a chance observation has reached a milestone: the identification of a gene that may regulate regeneration in mammals. The absence of this single gene, called p21, confers a healing potential in mice long thought to have been lost through evolution and reserved for creatures like flatworms, sponges, and some species of salamander.

Researchers found mice lacking the gene p21 regrew limbs instead of creating scar tissue.

Here is original link for those with PNAS access.
Power

Submission + - Toshiba ends incandescent bulb production (goodgearguide.com.au) 1

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Toshiba has ended production of mass-market incandescent light bulbs, putting to a close a 120-year manufacturing history of the products. The company, which is one of Japan's largest makers of lighting products, had planned to halt production next year but brought up the date by a year. It will now focus on more energy efficient products including LED (light-emitting diode) lights, which contain a handful of white LEDs and draw a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs."
Biotech

Submission + - Frog Foam Photosynthesis (uc.edu)

Submitted by Garrett Fox
Garrett Fox writes: University of Cincinnati researchers describe a method of getting photosynthesis from a high-surface-area foam containing enzymes that produce sugar using light and CO2. (Abstract). Oddly, the foam itself is derived from a species of frog. More interesting is that the technique doesn't use whole cells or apparently even chloroplasts. The researchers claim "chemical conversion efficiencies approaching 96%", as well as tolerance for deliberately high-CO2 environments.

Submission + - ACLU sues re "targeted killing" by drones (myfoxdc.com) 2

Submitted by MacAndrew
MacAndrew writes: The ACLU has sued the United States Government to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for "the release of records relating to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles—commonly known as “drones”—for the purpose of targeting and killing individuals since September 11, 2001." (Complaint: http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-v-doj-et-al-complaint .) The information sought includes the legal basis for use of the drones, how the program is managed, and the number of civilian deaths in areas of operation such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. The ACLU further claims that "Recent reports, including public statements from the director of national intelligence, indicate that U.S. citizens have been placed on the list of targets who can be hunted and killed with drones."

Aside from one's view of the wisdom, effectiveness, and morality of these military operations, the inclusion of U.S. citizens suggests that summary remote-control executions are becoming routine. Especially given the difficulty in locating and targeting individuals from aircraft, risks of human and machine error are obvious, and these likely increase as the robots become increasingly autonomous (please no Skynet jokes). This must give pause to anyone who's ever spent time coding or debugging or even driving certain willful late model automobiles, and the US government evidently doesn't want to discuss it.
Science

Submission + - Complex life found under 600 feet of Antarctic ice (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Chroniton
Chroniton writes: NASA ice scientists have found a shrimp-like creature and a possible jellyfish "frolicking" beneath 600 feet of solid Antarctic ice, where only microbes were expected to live. The odds of finding two complex lifeforms after drilling an only 8-inch-wide hole suggests there may be much more. And if such life is possible beneath Earth's oceans, why not elsewhere like Europa?
Transportation

Submission + - The Bloodhound Will Stay on the Ground at 1000 mph

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "BBC reports that engineers designing the world's fastest car, the Bloodhound SSC, built to smash the world land speed record of 763 mph set by the Thrust SuperSonic Car in 1997, believe they have a solution to keep the vehicle flat on the ground at 1,000 mph after initial iterations of the car's aerodynamic shape produced dangerous amounts of lift at the vehicle's rear. "Up until this point, we've had some big issues," says John Piper, Bloodhound's technical director. "We've had lift as high as 12 tonnes, and when you consider the car is six-and-a-half tonnes at its heaviest — that amount of lift is enough to make the car fly." The design effort has been aided by project sponsor Intel who brought immense computing power to bear on the lift problem. Before Intel's intervention, the design team had worked through 11 different "architectures" in 18 months while the latest modelling work run on Intel's network investigated 55 configurations in eight weeks. By playing with the position and shape of key elements of the car's rear end, the design team found the best way to manage the shockwave passing around and under the vehicle as it goes supersonic. "At Mach 1.3, we've close to zero lift which is where we wanted to be," says Piper. In late 2011, the Bloodhound, powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, will mount an assault on the land speed record, driving across a dried up lakebed known as Hakskeen Pan, in the Northern Cape of South Africa."

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