slick_shoes - Slashdot User

Submission + - Mother sues after Bebo story hits press (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by slick_shoes on Friday July 11, 2008 @09:43AM

slick_shoes writes: Amanda Hudson is suing six national newspapers for defamation and breach of privacy after they ran stories based on her 15 year-old daughter's exaggerated claims about her party, held at the family's £4m villa in Spain, where it was suggested jewellery was stolen and furniture and a television set thrown into the swimming pool.The case is expected to have far-reaching consequences for third parties who use or publish information from social networking sites. Lawyers say it could place a duty on all second-hand users to establish the truth of everything they want to republish from such sites.

Submission + - Researchers Simulate Rat's Brain (guardian.co.uk) 3

Submitted by slick_shoes on Sunday December 23, 2007 @10:42AM

slick_shoes writes: Researchers working on the 'Blue Brain' project have developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column — the basic building block of the neocortex, the higher functioning part of our brains — of a two-week-old rat, and it behaves exactly like its biological counterpart. The machine that simulates this column is an IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer. Project director Henry Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain.

Submission + - A step nearer to creating artificial life (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by

slick_shoes

on Friday September 07, 2007 @07:01AM

slick_shoes writes: "To the untrained eye, the tiny, misshapen, fatty blobs on Giovanni Murtas's microscope slide would not look very impressive. But when the Italian scientist saw their telltale green fluorescent glint he knew he had achieved something remarkable — and taken a vital step towards building a living organism from scratch. The green glow was proof that his fragile creations were capable of making their own proteins, a crucial ability of all living things and vital for carrying out all other aspects of life."

Slashdot Top Deals