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Biotech

Carbon Nanotubes Can Exist Safely Inside the Body, Help Treat Cancer 86

Posted by Soulskill from the series-of-tubes dept.
iandoh writes "A team of scientists at Stanford University has tracked the movement of carbon nanotubes through the digestive systems of mice. They've determined that the nanotubes do not exhibit any toxicity in the mice, and are safely expelled after delivering their payload. As a result, the study paves the way toward future applications of nanotubes in the treatment of illnesses. Previous research by the same team demonstrated that nanotubes can be used to fight cancer. The nanotubes do this in two ways. One method involves shining laser light on the nanotubes, which generates heat to destroy cancer cells. Another method involves attaching medicine to the nanotubes, which are able to accurately 'find' cancerous cells without impacting healthy cells."
Mandriva

Nigerian Government Nixes Microsoft's Mandriva Block 327

Posted by Zonk from the money-well-spent dept.
An anonymous reader writes "After trying to bribe a local supplier with a $400,000 marketing contract, Microsoft has still apparently lost out in trying to woo Nigeria's government to use Windows over Linux. Microsoft threw the money at the supplier after it chose Mandriva Linux for 17,000 laptops for school children across Nigeria. The supplier took the bait and agreed to wipe Mandriva off the machines, but now Nigeria's government has stepped in to stop the dirty deal."

Comment Re:Brace yourselves people, creationist onslaught (Score 1) 235

by resonte (#20880343) Attached to: Purpose of Appendix Believed Found
I would argue the opposite. This is a positive discovery for evolution. That the appendix has a function makes more sense than being just being detrimental to health.

Evolution would select out useless body parts unless a sudden change in environment/diet is observed which makes the body part useless/redundant. Such as the rise of human civilisation.

But only a god/gods would create an organ that is useless and has been useless for many many generations of our ancestors. This discounts a sudden change in environment as an explanation, since it should only affect the first few generations.
Science

Does Sprawl Make Us Fat? 659

Posted by kdawson from the spreading-out dept.
Ant writes "A Science News article talks about the relationship between city design and health. New cross-disciplinary research is exploring whether urban sprawl makes us soft, or whether people who don't like to exercise move to the sprawling suburbs, or some combination of both." From the article: "So far, the dozen strong studies that have probed the relationships among the urban environment, people's activity, and obesity have all agreed, says Ewing. 'Sprawling places have heavier people... There is evidence of an association between the built environment and obesity.' ... However, University of Toronto economist Matthew Turner charges that 'a lot of people out there don't like urban sprawl, and those people are trying to hijack the obesity epidemic to further the smart-growth agenda [and] change how cities look.' ... 'We're the only ones that have tried to distinguish between causation and sorting... and we find that it's sorting,' [says Turner]. 'The available facts do not support the conclusion that sprawling neighborhoods cause weight gain.'"
Spam

Spam is Back With A Vengence 510

Posted by CmdrTaco from the bring-me-my-bazooka dept.
Ant writes "The Red Tape Chronicles reports that just last December (2006), the FTC published an optimistic state-of-spam report. It cites research indicating spam had leveled off or even dropped during the previous year. It now appears spammers had simply gone back to the drawing board. There's more spam now than ever before. In fact, there's twice as much spam now as opposed to this time last year. And the messages themselves are causing more trouble. About half of all spam sent now is "image spam," containing server-clogging pictures that are up to 10 times the size of traditional text spam. And most image spam is stock-related, pump-and-dump scams which can harm investors who don't even use e-mail. About one-third of all spam is stock spam now."

OMG BARBIE LINUX LOL!!1!!!! 124

Posted by Zonk from the comes-with-ponyos dept.
tini1212 writes "LIKE OMG!! Have you guyz seen Barbie Linux!!??!?!?!? It's like totally cool! It's open source too!!! We can spend long nights patching the kernel, and look at pictures of that total hottie, Linus Torvalds!" From the site: "Making a bid for a piece of the emerging desktop Linux market, Mattel, Inc. announced the immediate availability of downloadable beta ISOs for BarbieOS 0.99, and said it hoped the final 1.0 retail version would be on store shelves in time for Christmas. The new OS was created by Mattel to power the upcoming revision of its popular B-Book line of laptops for girls between the ages of four and eleven. The original B-Book laptop, which ran a modified version of PalmOS, was a huge hit with consumers last holiday season, so much so that many stores had trouble keeping them in stock."

Open Source Dress for Success University Opens 69

Posted by Zonk from the learn-to-dress dept.
Roblimo writes "Linus Torvalds and his bosses at OSDL have finally realized that the biggest problem getting businesses to adopt GNU/Linux is that most FOSS programmers wear sandals and have ponytails. They've teamed up to offer style tips for the IT set. NewsForge Reports on comments from OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen, saying that if OSDSU works as planned, the open source community 'can be as successful at delivering new products, bug-free and on time, as Microsoft is doing with Vista.'" NewsForge is part of the OSTG family, along with Slashdot.

The Cure for Information Overload 94

Posted by Zonk from the technological-success-story dept.
Ged writes "Those librarian blogerati have done it again: they've just discovered 'The Cure for Information Overload'. It's a very elegant formula if you ask me, with obvious SRU/SRW applications, and maybe even TLA ramifications. I'm not sure about all of the conclusions, but it sure is an interesting theory."

RIAA Approved mp3 Player Reviewed 73

Posted by Zonk from the not-cool-not-pink dept.
buckminster writes "Medialoper has an exclusive review of the soon-to-be legendary Prism DuroSport 6000. According to the review, 'if the RIAA had had designed an industry approved digital media player this is what it would look like'. The player has an extraordinary collection of features including 'disposable flash memory' and built-in DRM system with 'opt-in listening'."

Microsoft Blogger Robert Scoble Goes to Google 51

Posted by Zonk from the busy-business-day-for-a-saturday dept.
Brian Puccio writes "Possibly as a result of their recent purchase by Chinese national interests, Robert Scoble, (in)famous Microsoft blogger and evangelist, has decided to go work for Google: 'I just got off the phone with Larry Page. He's offered me a job to run Google's PR department and I've decided to take him up on it. Why? Because I finally realized that Steve Gillmor is right. Microsoft Office is dead and I wanted to be at the company that is the future of everything... My first project will be to convert the Scoble Dashboard over to a Linux box.'"

CUTE USB SUSHI DISK DRIVES!!! 64

Posted by CmdrTaco from the almost-as-cute-as-ponies-lol dept.
Buttons98 writes "Yeah sushi is TOTALLY GROSS but I found USB SUSHI DRIVES!!! that are memory storage sticks that I can use to store pictures of ponies and kittens and unicorns and all my short OC fan fiction (ryan is SOOOOOOO CUTE LOL!!!) The BEST part is that the drives are available in 32MB, 128MB :) :) :) and are shaped like little SUSHIS!!"

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