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sudo rm -rf writes:

If you are a primary school teacher or if you like silly portmanteaus, you could be interested in this report by Queen's University, Ontario:

Four minutes of physical activity can improve behaviour in the classroom for primary school students, according to new research by Brendon Gurd.

A brief, high-intensity interval exercise, or a “FUNterval,” for Grade 2 and Grade 4 students reduced off-task behaviours like fidgeting or inattentiveness in the classroom.

Note: the link to the PDF in TFA is broken, you can find it here, full article can be found at NRC Research Press.

tonyPick writes:

Over at The Washington Post is the story on a request by Pianist Dejan Lazic asking the Washington Post to remove a negative review under the EU’s “Right to be Forgotten” law.

The article in question is a review by Anne Midgette from 2010 which is critical of Lazic's performance which:

The Washington Post is highlighting this case as a troublesome consequence of the European law

Hugh Pickens writes:

Jason Plautz writes at The Atlantic that the more the world's population rises, the greater the strain on dwindling resources and the greater the impact on the environment. "And yet the climate-change benefits of family planning have been largely absent from any climate-change or family-planning policy discussions," says Jason Bremner of the Population Reference Bureau. Even as the population passes 7.2 billion and is projected by the United Nations to reach 10.9 billion by the end of the century, policymakers have been unable—or unwilling—to discuss population in tandem with climate change. Why? Because "talking about population control requires walking a tightrope." writes Plautz. "It can all too easily sound like a developed world leader telling people in the developing world that they should stop having children—especially because much of the population boom is coming from regions like sub-Saharan Africa." Just look at what happened to Hillary Clinton in 2009, when as secretary of State she acknowledged the overpopulation issue during a discussion with Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh. Clinton praised another panelist for noting "that it's rather odd to talk about climate change and what we must do to stop and prevent the ill effects without talking about population and family planning."

A 2010 study looked at the link between policies that help women plan pregnancies and family size and global emissions. The researchers predicted that lower population growth could provide benefits equivalent to between 16 and 29 percent of the emissions reduction needed to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius warming by 2050, the warning line set by international scientists. But the benefits also come through easing the reduced resources that could result from climate change. The U.N. IPCC report notes the potential for climate-related food shortages, with fish catches falling anywhere from 40 to 60 percent and wheat and maize taking a hit, as well as extreme droughts. With resources already stretched in some areas, the IPCC laid out the potential for famine, water shortages and pestilence. Still, the link remains a "very sensitive topic," says Karen Hardee, "At the global policy level you can't touch population … but what's been heartening is that over the last few years it's not just us, but people from the countries themselves talking about this."

tonyPick writes:

The Scientist is running an article on DNA contamination and the effect this may have had on recent research.

The paper is available at PLOS ONE and concludes:

tonyPick writes:

Phys.org is reporting that a Chinese Lunar orbiter completed the return trip to Earth early on Saturday.

The probe, “Xiaofei” or "Little Flyer", was launched on the 23rd of October and spent eight days on a 520,000 mile (840,000 km) round trip to the moon and back, as a test run for China's next Lunar mission.

The journal phys.org has an earlier article on the original launch; this story is also covered at Space.com and The Telegraph

AnonTechie writes with news of a story in Ars Technica:

Apparently, time goes in one direction. But why?

The answer to why time has a direction takes many forms, usually described as "arrows of time." We've had time defined by how information increases or how entropy increases. But all of the arrows we've considered are a bit unsatisfactory. For instance, an arrow of time derived from entropy starts with the assumption that the Universe had to begin in a highly ordered state. If that assumption fails, so too does our explanation for time.

The thermodynamic arrow of time also conveniently ignores gravity. When gravity dominates, it spontaneously orders stuff—this is why we have galaxies. So although the thermodynamic arrow of time suffices for parts (any part) of the Universe, it doesn't work for the whole Universe or the whole of time.

A new paper ( abstract; pdf ) in Physical Review Letters presents a new arrow of time, which the authors hope might lead to a sort of general description from which all the other arrows can derive their power.

I hope somebody more knowledgeable, at SN, would be able to explain this.

sudo rm -rf writes:

The Kashmir musk deer (Moschus cupreus) has last been sighted in Afghanistan in 1948. Now a handful of them have been spotted in northeast Afghanistan.

From the UPI article:

After an absence of more than 60 years, a handful of rare fanged deer have been spotted in Afghanistan — just in time for Halloween. The sharp-toothed mammal known as the Kashmir musk deer hadn't been seen in the country since 1948.

But as researchers recently reported in the journal Oryx [abstract; full article paywalled], a team of field observers with the Wildlife Conservation Society spotted several of the rare specimens — on multiple occasions — in the remote alpine fields of northeast Afghanistan, meadows lush with juniper and rhododendron and accented with forested slopes and rugged rock outcrops.

[Ed's note: this story was submitted on Nov 1st so we just missed the window for a timely Halloween story. But, it is the weekend... so let's see if we can have a little fun with this story. Or use this opportunity to share your favorite haunted tale, tech-related or not.]

gewg_ writes:

AlterNet reports:

So, hey, let's say you're an old guy in a tiny town in central Wisconsin. Old, like, seventy-five, let's say, and the tiny town is farm country where you have a twenty-acre plot of good old American heartland. Now, let's say that the municipality hasn't appreciated the fact that you've kept your tractors out on the land you own and even went so far as to get a judge to level thousands of dollars of fines on you for not putting your toys away, because that's apparently a thing that can happen. Now let's say you've been ignoring these civil fines for some time. Under those conditions, would you expect this to show up on your lawn?

Yes, along with a couple dozen SWAT officers, 75-year-old Roger Hoeppner had his property assaulted by a BearCat armored vehicle for the crime of not keeping things as tidy as the local government would like and refusing to pay the fines they levied.

gewg_ writes:

El Reg reports:

Following mass protests across the country over the past week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced on Friday that he would scrap a planned internet tax.

The idea of taxing internet service providers for every gigabyte of data flowing across their networks was condemned by everyone from telcos and Hungary's opposition party to Steelie Neelie of the European Commission. A Facebook group opposing the tax garnered more than 200,000 members and tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets last Sunday and again on Tuesday night.

In the face of such opposition, Orban said on a radio show early Friday morning that he would drop the tax for now and instead hold a nationwide public consultation on internet regulation at the beginning of next year.

... it seems Hungarians have developed a taste for street marching: there have been calls on social media for another mass gathering at 5pm tonight in Budapest to celebrate the government's decision.

Reports say that the headquarters of the ruling party had been surrounded and pelted with objects that did some damage.
Some said those were stones; some said they were old computer kit and surplus cellphones.

Related: Hungary to Introduce Per Gigabyte Internet Tax

AnonTechie writes:

Officials from Guinness World Records today recognized DARPA’s Terahertz Electronics program for creating the fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit ever measured. The ten-stage, common-source amplifier operates at a speed of one terahertz (10^12 Hz), or one trillion cycles per second—150 billion cycles faster than the existing world record of 850 gigahertz set in 2012.

"Terahertz circuits promise to open up new areas of research and unforeseen applications in the sub-millimeter-wave spectrum, in addition to bringing unprecedented performance to circuits operating at more conventional frequencies,” said Dev Palmer, DARPA program manager. “This breakthrough could lead to revolutionary technologies such as high-resolution security imaging systems, improved collision-avoidance radar, communications networks with many times the capacity of current systems and spectrometers that could detect potentially dangerous chemicals and explosives with much greater sensitivity."

Hugh Pickens writes:

HyperCard, an application program and programming tool released for the Apple Macintosh in 1987, represented the ‘computing for the people’ philosophy that enabled users to go past the pre-built software that came on their machines, and to program and build software of their own. "Mac users could use Hypercard to build their own mini-programs to balance their taxes, manage sports statistics, make music – all kinds of individualized software that would be useful (or fun) for individual users." Now Jer Thorp writes that the end of HyperCard left a huge gap that desperately needs to be filled – a space for an easy to use, intuitive tool that will once again let average computer users make their own tools. According to Throp, this type of plain-language programming makes sense, particularly in an application that was designed specifically for non-programmers. "I find the largest concern for learners to be not with the conceptual hurdles involved in writing a program, but with obscure and confusing syntax requirements. I would love to be able to teach HyperTalk to my students, as a smooth on-road to more complex languages like JavaScript, Java or C++." By putting the tools of creation into the hands of the broader userbase, we would allow for the creation of ultra-specific personalized apps that, aside from a few exceptions, don’t exist today."

HyperTalk wasn’t just easy, it was also fairly powerful. Complex object structures could be built to handle complicated tasks, and the base language could be expanded by a variety of available external commands and functions (XCMDs and XFCNs, respectively), which were precursors to the modern plug-in. But ultimately, HyperCard would disappear from Mac computers by the mid-nineties, eclipsed by web browsers and other applications which it had itself inspired. The last copy of HyperCard was sold by Apple in 2004. "One thing that's changed in the intervening decades is that the hobbyist has largely gone by the wayside. Now you're either a user or a full-fledged developer, and the gulf is wider than ever," writes Peter Cohen. "There's really nothing like it today, and I think the Mac is lesser for it."

SpaceMan writes:

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the The Apache Software Foundation's (ASF) formation, beginning with the Apache HTTP Server[http://projects.apache.org/projects/http_server.html]. The ASF has grown significantly since then, and today houses more than 150 top-level projects, exceeds 500 individual members, and over 4,000 committers have collaborated on ASF projects. This anniversary gives us a great opportunity to take a look back at what has made the ASF so successful, and what that means for its future.

The ASF welcomes those who will join us in the years to come - looking forward to not only the next 15 years, but many more!

tt2636124 writes:

Facebook just took the surprising step of adding a way for users of the free anonymizing software Tor to access the social network directly.

The address is: https://facebookcorewwwi.onion/

Meanwhile, Soylent's Tor address seems to have been inaccessible for the last couple of weeks.

tonyPick writes:

3ders is reporting on the announcement by Autodesk that it intends to invest $100 Million in 3D printing companies through the Spark Investment Fund.

The Spark is Autodesk's open 3D printing platform, which is used as the basis for the Autodesk Ember product.

The objective of the Spark Fund is to:

...invest in entrepreneurs, startups and researchers to push the boundaries of 3D printing technology and accelerate the new industrial revolution.

The announcement is available at the spark blog, and there's some comments on the motivation behind this over at Pando Daily.

By giving it away they get a lot back. If Autodesk can make Spark the Android of 3D printing, an allusion CEO Carl Bass has made in the past, the company can remain well placed to retain an 85 percent market share for its AutoCAD software, which doesn’t go cheap.

Also covered at Techcrunch, PE Hub and 3D Print amongst others.

Hugh Pickens writes:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan says the Education Department wants to make sure that loan programs that prey on students don’t continue their abusive practices. Now Kimberly Hefling reports at PBS that for-profit colleges that don’t produce graduates capable of paying off their student loans could soon stand to lose access to federal student-aid programs. In order to receive federal student aid, the law requires that most for-profit programs, regardless of credential level, and most non-degree programs at non-profit and public institutions, including community colleges, prepare students for "gainful employment in a recognized occupation." To meet these “gainful employment” standards, a program will have to show that the estimated annual loan payment of a typical graduate does not exceed 20 percent of his or her discretionary income or 8 percent of total earnings. "Career colleges must be a stepping stone to the middle class. But too many hard-working students find themselves buried in debt with little to show for it. That is simply unacceptable," says Duncan . "These regulations are a necessary step to ensure that colleges accepting federal funds protect students, cut costs and improve outcomes. We will continue to take action as needed."

But not everyone is convinced the rules go far enough. "The rule is far too weak to address the grave misconduct of predatory for-profit colleges," writes David Halperin. "The administration missed an opportunity to issue a strong rule, to take strong executive action and provide real leadership on this issue." The final gainful employment regulations follow an extensive rulemaking process involving public hearings, negotiations and about 95,000 public comments and will go into effect on July 1, 2015