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Arthur T Knackerbracket writes suggesting the following ComputerWorld story:

BitTorrent has long billed its Sync file-sharing service as a peer-to-peer alternative to cloud storage, but on Wednesday the company announced it's working with Onehub on a new, combined offering for large businesses.

Onehub Sync integrates BitTorrent Sync into Onehub's online file-storage service through what the two companies call a hybrid, peer-to-peer+one approach. The result is said to combine the benefits of syncing directly between peers with using Onehub as a "persistent peer" that's always available in the cloud.

BitTorrent's Sync service requires at least two peer computers to be connected for file sharing to occur. With Onehub Sync, the cloud part of the equation means that users' Onehub Sync clients will always have a peer to connect with, ensuring that their content can stay current.

"Sync is ideal for organizations with hundreds of people, or individual workgroups," said Erik Pounds, vice president of product management for BitTorrent Sync, in a blog post announcing the news. Onehub is well-suited to companies of all sizes and delivers key features for enterprises, he said.

The combined offering provides numerous benefits for large enterprises, including speed, scalability, reliability and security, Pounds said.

Phoenix666 writes:

The asteroid-mining industry has taken a step closer to becoming an actual thing, with the successful deployment of Planetary Resources' Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) spacecraft from the International Space Station Wednesday night. The A3R's three-month mission will be used to test and validate some basic technologies that the company hopes to incorporate in future spacecraft that will prospect near-Earth asteroids for potentially valuable resources.

"Our philosophy is to test often, and if possible, to test in space," says Planetary Resources president and chief engineer Chris Lewicki. "The A3R is the most sophisticated, yet cost-effective, test demonstration spacecraft ever built."

The small craft was sent to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 resupply mission in April. On Wednesday (July 15), it was sent out the Kibo airlock to begin checking out its avionics, control systems and software, among other systems. It will be followed up by the Arkyd-6 (A6), another demonstrator set to launch later this year. The larger A6 will check out next-generation attitude control, power and communication systems, as well as the sensors that will be used to detect resources with good potential for mining.

When I was a kid I found a science fiction novel on the shelves in a cabin in Glacier National Park entitled, "Assignment in Space with Rip Foster," in which the heroes try to steer an asteroid of pure thorium back to Earth orbit. The cover of the book was hokey, but the story was one of the better "science" science fiction stories I've read, in the sense that there were no magical technologies to make everything easy to accomplish; there was just plain old rocketry and physics. But as interesting as the concept of asteroid mining is, wouldn't the fabulous costs and potential to crash commodities markets once you brought something back to Earth defeat the profit motive?

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following from PhysOrg:

When a flash of light beamed from the arid New Mexico desert early on July 16, 1945, residents of the historic Hispanic village of Tularosa felt windows shake and heard dishes fall. Some in the largely Catholic town fell to their knees and prayed.

The end of the world is here, they thought.

What villagers didn't know was that just before 5:30 a.m., scientists from the then-secret city of Los Alamos successfully exploded the first atomic bomb at the nearby Trinity Site. Left in its place was a crater that stretched a half-mile wide and several feet deep.

Thursday mark[ed] the 70th anniversary of the Trinity Test in southern New Mexico. It comes as Tularosa residents say they were permanently affected by the test and want acknowledgement and compensation from the U.S. government.

Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders, said the aftermath caused rare forms of cancer for many of the 30,000 residents in the area surrounding Trinity. She said residents weren't told about the site's dangers and often picnicked there and took artifacts, including the radioactive green glass known as "trinitite."

Researchers from the National Cancer Institute are studying past and present cancer cases in New Mexico that might be related to the Trinity Test.

"It's a moral and ethical issue. It's about consent," said Cordova, a former Tularosa resident and cancer survivor. "We were never given the opportunity to do anything to protect ourselves, before or after."

Vera Burnett-Powell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice's Radiation Exposure Compensation Act program, did not immediately return a phone message and email from The Associated Press.

Additional resources follow.

Phoenix666 writes:

The challenge was to design "the next generation of 3D-printed cars," and qualifying entries had to demonstrate that the design could result in the world's first road-ready 3D printed car, which Local Motors really does plan to put into production in 2016.

The idea is to roll out a low-speed version at the beginning of the year, and follow it up with a "fully homologated highway-ready" model before 2017 (homologated is fancyspeak for a vehicle approved for a particular use).

The winning entry was announced last week, and it's a twofer that demonstrates the high degree of customization enabled by 3D printing. Kevin Lo, a long-time Local Motors collaborator known as Reload, won for a duo of designs called Reload Swim and Reload Sport.

Custom-printed cars sound fun, but who bears the cost of safety certification?

Arthur T Knackerbracket suggests the following from PhysOrg:

A simple, lower-cost new method for DNA profiling of human hairs developed by the University of Adelaide should improve opportunities to link criminals to serious crimes.

The researchers have modified existing laboratory methods and been able to produce accurate DNA profiles from trace amounts at a much higher success rate.

"Technological advancements over the last 10 years have allowed police and forensic scientists to profile crime-scene DNA from ever smaller and more challenging samples collected from fingerprints, skin cells, saliva and hairs," says Associate Professor Jeremy Austin, Deputy Director with the University's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA.

"DNA profiling of human hairs is critical to solving many serious crimes but most hairs found at crime scenes contain very little DNA because it has been severely dehydrated as part of the hair growth process. This makes DNA testing of hairs a real challenge."

[...] Lead-author Assistant Professor Dennis McNevin, from the University of Canberra, says: "Our simple modifications will allow this trace DNA to be analysed in a standard forensic laboratory with improved success rates of DNA profiling and without increased error rates.

"This is very important in forensic science as false positive results can lead to incorrect identifications and poor outcomes in the judicial system."

Phoenix666 writes:

You may have heard about Tesla's "insane mode," which accelerates a sedan from 0 to 60 mph in a mindboggling 3.2 seconds. But Tesla is already moving ahead with something even better: A "ludicrous mode" that sends you from 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds.

Shaving off half a second may not sound like much. But the $10,000 option on the Model S shows off some of the advances in battery technology that Tesla is building into its newer cars. Under ludicrous speed, said Musk, the car will accelerate at 1.1 times the force of gravity.
...
The Model S is also getting a battery capacity upgrade from 85 kilowatt-hours to 90 kWh, an increase of around 6 percent that will cost existing owners about $3,000 if they choose to upgrade. Not everyone should be upgrading every year, though, as Tesla expects to add around 5 percent capacity to its batteries every year on average. That translates to a roughly 5 percent annual increase in range. Musk said he expects most customers to upgrade batteries once every three to four years.

Not too much longer before "range anxiety" becomes an ICE problem.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found this:

Reef sharks at Ningaloo are largely home bodies but female blacktip reef sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus), might be swimming long distances to give birth in food-rich waters, research suggests.

Marine biologists tagged 83 reef sharks near sanctuary zones at Coral Bay and Mangrove Bay and tracked their movements to assess how much protection the marine park affords the sharks.

They examined the movements of blacktip reef sharks, grey reef sharks ( Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos ) and sicklefin lemon sharks ( Negaprion acutidens ) at Ningaloo Reef over two years.

Australian Institute of Marine Science experimental scientist Conrad Speed says reef sharks are essentially "home bodies", with most sticking to a fairly small area ranging from less than a square kilometre to more than 20km².

But, they determined some female blacktip reef sharks made long migrations in the summer months, including one who swam 275km.

"We had five female adult blacktips that we tagged initially in Coral Bay that swam between Coral Bay and Mangrove Bay," Dr Speed says.

"Each way it's about 130-odd kilometres, so it's quite a long distance for a shark that's only a metre and a half in length.

babbling5 writes, posing a question:

My company was recently acquired by a multinational corporation. Knowing that all IT was managed from corporate headquarters. I was concerned that my job was on the line. After inquiring directly with corporate I was assured my existing position was secure and I would not need to move, but 6 months later reality sets in and the rumor mill indicates I will soon be asked to move to HQ or look for greener pastures. So I ask SN, should I consider a move to an area with a higher cost of living (and under what conditions) or should I start the job search?

The twist: my significant other works in a different division of the some company, so it has been made clear that both of our salaries are affected by this decision.

There has to be oodles of experience in the community with what typically happens to staff subsequent to a buyout / merger / acquisition - any gems of wisdom?

Arthur T Knackerbracket suggests the following story:

The effects of air pollution cost France some 100 billion euros ($110.1 billion) each year, a French Senate committee report estimated Wednesday, citing impact to health as the major expense.

The study said air pollution is not merely a health threat, but also represents "an economic aberration" costing the French state and businesses billions annually in treating illness, and financing employee sick leave, lost productivity, reduced agriculture yields and cleaning up sooty buildings and other venues.

It estimated the financial impact of atmospheric pollution for health reasons at "between 68 and 97 billion euros" per year, ranging from treatment of aggravated conditions like asthma to battling forms of cancer caused by smog.

It pegged the direct cost to France's health care system at least three billion euros per year. The remainder of the linked cost is largely attributed to time and productivity lost by businesses whose employees require sick leave during peak pollution periods.

Outlays for non-health reasons like lower crop production and the cleaning of blackened buildings were estimated at 4.3 billion euros.

Phoenix666 writes:

Gearbox Software ruined one of the best running jokes in software when they brought Duke Nukem Forever to market. At a recent developer conference in Brighton, they talked about working with independent developers to revive the character.

From Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford:

"I did not acquire the franchise merely to make sure we could all experience Duke Nukem Forever," Pitchford said. "That was sort of the toll we had to pay." He then explained that while Gearbox has carried out some concept development for the franchise, they'd need to work with the "correct developer" to make a new game.

One of the pitches:

Sam Barlow (Her Story)

Duke Nukem goes into a Vegas strip club at 4am, and it's kind of empty, and there's only two strippers working. He throws some money at them. Then, because there's no one else around, they sit down and they talk to him, and Duke sits there and he listens to this stripper talk about her life, why she's stripping, her family back home and how they live a state away but she flies into Vegas for two weeks of the month to earn money, then she goes go back and looks after her kids.

Then after an hour of this conversation, of him just listening to the woman talk, she asks Duke about his life, and then it flips. It's the first time anyone's actually asked about him, and he's forced to look inside himself and understand why he does these things, why he feels the need to kick ass, and it's just a lovely moment that they share. He walks away from it feeling like he understands himself a little bit better, but the ending is kind of ambiguous. We see Duke leave the strip club and we don't know what happens next.

What's your pitch, Soylent?

Phoenix666 writes:

A lighter piece on the performance of the CAN-SPAM anti-spam law:

...while I've accepted that my work inbox is going to be filled with junk, I go to great lengths to keep my private e-mail pristine. I use a personal domain instead of an emailprovider.com address, and the spammers haven't found it. Even my junk folder is empty. It's glorious.

Or at least it was, until I made the mistake of getting something at Best Buy. For a full four weeks, I received one or two e-mails a day from the ubiquitous retail store with subject lines like "4-HOUR SALE: Starts now," "You'd be crazy to pass on this," "Amazing deals end soon," and "Jon, save 15% on ink and toner."
...
It's been four weeks and my Best Buy account still hasn't been deleted. But the e-mails finally stopped, not through the efforts of Precious, Rod, or Helen, but because on June 25 I decided to write this article and contacted Best Buy's public relations team to give them a chance to comment.

I described the situation, mentioned that I had just filed a complaint with the FTC, and asked why it would take even 10 business days to stop spam e-mails or two to four weeks to delete an account.

"These are things that corporations with modern, functioning computer systems should be able to accomplish in seconds," I wrote. "I would be interested in learning the technical details of the system you are using so we can figure out what the problem is."

It's a common tale of woe. The author of TFA only got the spam to stop because of the PR hit he promised to land at Best Buy's feet. CAN-SPAM hasn't stopped them. What can, if you're not a journalist?

Phoenix666 writes:

Electric car sales keep climbing and climbing in Norway. In 2013, many of us were shocked to learn that electric cars were account [sic] for about 10–15% of new car sales in the country. We are now well aware of the fact that the Norway electric vehicle market is in a league of its own, and just yesterday I wrote about the breakdown of June electric car sales in the picturesque country. But I skipped one important note, the percentage of new car sales that were electric car sales.

Jeff Cobb reminded me of this important matter when he published an article yesterday highlighting that 22.9% of new cars in Norway are now plug-in electrified cars. And if you want some serious perspective here, catch this line: "Comprised of battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids, if the same thing were to happen in the US on a percentage basis, it would have meant 1,943,177 new [Plugin Electric Vehicles] PEVs on American roads since January." We have 50,503 new PEVs on our roads since January, about 2.6% of that number....

It's still a small fraction of the total vehicle fleet in Norway, but it signals a shift in car buyer preferences. What percentage or absolute number of EV purchases constitutes a tipping point?

Editor's Note: It's worth noting that while Norway exports a fair amount of North and Berents Sea oil and gas products, their domestic production of electricity is primarily from hydro-electric schemes with thermal and wind schemes thrown into the mix as minor contributors. Reference with interesting stats in the tables here: Statistics Norway

AnonTechie writes in with this article from Popular Science:

The FDA has just approved leg prosthetics that anchor directly to the bone, which could change the lives of amputees who cannot use typical ball-and-socket prosthetics.

Most prosthetics require a cup-shaped socket to be fastened to an amputee's residual limb, but some amputees don't have enough limb left to use this method of attaching a prosthetic. The Osseoanchored Prosthesis for the Rehabilitation of Amputees (OPRA) device solves this issue by using fixtures that are implanted directly into the amputee's bone, which allows them to attach a prosthetic to it, like a bionic K'Nex.

The device is surgically installed with two procedures. In the first procedure, a cylinder-shaped fixture is implanted directly into the remaining bone. The implant is made out of titanium so that the bone does not reject it. After about six months when the tissue has grown around the fixture, a rod is implanted that extends through the skin, which can be inserted and clasped to a prosthetic. The patient is then required to go through six months of training before being fitted with a customized prosthetic.

A 2014 study published in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation found that amputees using the device reported increased mobility, comfort, and function. Amputees using this device also don't have to worry about issues such as heat and chafing that prosthetic sockets give.

Phoenix666 writes:

"The GXE is based on a 2006 Z06 Corvette," Genovation notes. "The car will have a range of 150 miles during normal driving operation and will have a near 50/50 weight distribution while being optimized for a low center of gravity."

"We are using state of the art inverters, batteries and electric motors that will produce in excess of 700-hp and 600 lb-ft of torque," said Genovation CEO Andrew Saul. "We expect the car to achieve 0-60 mph in around three seconds and have a top speed of over 200 mph. And, most of the parts are designed and built in America."

I certainly wouldn't call this a "Tesla fighter," and imagine it won't really compete with any Tesla models on cost and the built-in tech package (if it ever gets to market), but it'll be awesome to see another street-legal electric car out there with such a high level of performance. And I imagine it will excite many a Corvette fan.

Will Corvette fans bite, or are the roar of the engine and tang of petrol essential to the experience?

Phoenix666 writes:

A new study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex suggests people who speak two languages have more gray matter in the executive control region of the brain.

In past decades, much has changed about the understanding of bilingualism. Early on, bilingualism was thought to be a disadvantage because the presence of two vocabularies would lead to delayed language development in children. However, it has since been demonstrated that bilingual individuals perform better, compared with monolinguals, on tasks that require attention, inhibition and short-term memory, collectively termed "executive control."

This "bilingual advantage" is believed to come about because of bilinguals' long-term use and management of two spoken languages. But skepticism still remains about whether these advantages are present, as they are not observed in all studies. Even if the advantage is robust, the mechanism is still being debated.

I find learning more languages makes it easier to acquire new ones because you get better at it, but idiomatic speech and use of metaphor seem to take a real hit.