Archive for August, 2009

Scientists Deliver Bee Toxin To Tumors Via "Nanobees"

Monday, August 31st, 2009

ScienceDaily is reporting that Washington University School of Medicine researchers have found a way to deliver bee toxin to tumors using nano-spheres they call "nanobees." The results in mice showed a cessation of growth or even shrinkage of tumors while the surrounding tissue was protected from the toxin. "The core ...

OS Performance — Snow Leopard, Windows 7, and Ubuntu 9.10

Monday, August 31st, 2009

BeckySharp writes "With the nearly simultaneous release of Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" (available right now) and Microsoft's Windows 7 (available Oct. 22), you get the inevitable debate: Which is the better operating system, Windows 7 or Snow Leopard? To help determine that, Computerworld's Preston Gralla put both ...

Military Helmet Design Contributes To Brain Damage

Monday, August 31st, 2009

BuzzSkyline writes "Improvements in helmets have helped modern soldiers survive bullets and blasts that would have killed them in past wars. But increasing numbers of soldiers are suffering long lasting brain damage from explosions, partly as a result of what appears to be a flaw in helmet designs. Although the ...

The Myths of Security

Monday, August 31st, 2009

brothke writes "The Myths of Security: What the Computer Security Industry Doesn't Want You to Know is an interesting and thought-provoking book. Ultimately, the state of information security can be summed up in the book's final three sentences, in which John Viega writes that 'real, timely improvement is possible, but ...

Robotic Mold

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Canis Lupus writes to mention that researchers from the University of West England are designing the world's first biological robot, constructed from mold. The robot, "Plasmobot," will be created using vegetative slime mold called plasmodium (Physarum polycephalum) that is commonly found in forests, gardens, and most damp places in the ...

Texting Toddlers, How Young is Too Young?

Monday, August 31st, 2009

theodp writes "Toddlers don't need to be texting, concedes the NYT's Lisa Belkinbut, but since they have always had toy typewriters and toy telephones, why not toy Blackberrys? If your little tyke is itching to text, the NYT has a round-up of texting devices aimed at children as young as ...

Dad Builds 700 Pound Cannon for Son’s Birthday

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Hugh Pickens writes "The Charleston Daily Mail reports that machinist Mike Daugherty built his son a working cannon for his birthday — not a model — a real working cannon. 'It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg,' says Daugherty. The 700 pound cast iron and steel ...

Australian Defence Force Builds $1.7m Linux-Based Flight Simulator

Monday, August 31st, 2009

scrubl writes "The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has revealed its latest flight simulator runs on SUSE Linux-based clusters of Opteron servers and uses an open source graphics platform. The Defence Science and Technology Organisation's (DSTO) Air Operations Simulation Centre in Melbourne creates virtual worlds that allow pilots to experience real-world ...

Slackware 13.0 Released

Monday, August 31st, 2009

willy everlearn and several other readers let us know that Slackware 13.0 is out. "Wed Aug 26 10:00:38 CDT 2009: Slackware 13.0 x86_64 is released as stable! Thanks to everyone who helped make this release possible — see the RELEASE_NOTES for the credits. The ISOs are off to the replicator. ...

Nokia Releases Linux Handset

Monday, August 31st, 2009

galaxy writes "Nokia releases their first Linux mobile handset, the N900 The handset is based on the latest release of Maemo, the Nokia mobile Linux platform, and includes e.g. GSM and 3G access (with HSPA, giving datarates of up to 10Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink on suitable networks), WLAN, Bluetooth, ...