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What was highest label on your first car speedometer?

  • 80 mph
  • 88 mph
  • 100 mph
  • 120 mph
  • 150 mph
  • it was in kph like civilized countries use you insensitive clod
  • Other (please specify in comments)

[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:43 | Votes:94

posted by CoolHand on Tuesday May 03 2016, @11:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the red-dwarfs-can-be-ultra-cool-too dept.

Popular Mechanics reports:

An international team of astronomers has discovered three Earth-like exoplanets orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star—the smallest and dimmest stars in the Galaxy—now known as TRAPPIST-1. The discovery, made with the TRAPPIST telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory, is significant not only because the three planets have similar properties to Earth, suggesting they could harbor life, but also because they are relatively close (just 40 light years away) and they are the first planets ever discovered orbiting such a dim star. A research paper detailing the teams findings was published [May 2nd] in the journal Nature

"What is super exciting is that for the first time, we have extrasolar worlds similar in size and temperature to Earth—planets that could thus, in theory, harbor liquid water and host life on at least a part of their surfaces—for which the atmospheric composition can be studied in detail with current technology," lead researcher Michaël Gillon of the University of Liège in Belgium said in an email to Popular Mechanics.

[...] The fact that the planets are orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star is significant for other reasons. Stars like TRAPPIST-1 have incredibly long lifetimes—longer than the current age of the universe—giving life plenty of time to take root. TRAPPIST-1 is roughly estimated to be between 1 and 10 billion years old, according to Gillon, and the star's life will continue for tens of billions of years..

A mere 40 light-years away and tens of billions of years for life to evolve still remaining? That's beyond ultracool (if we start a stroll toward it at 6km/h, will get there in about 55 billion years. So, if no warp drive available, maybe we should use a bicycle)

Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star (DOI: 10.1038/nature17448)


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posted by takyon on Tuesday May 03 2016, @10:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the i-am-spartacus dept.

It's looking like, possibly (hopefully), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks between the U.S. and Europe may be falling apart. According to a BBC article, the French Minister of trade is saying that the trade talks "are likely to grind to a halt".

The French minister, who threatened to leave talks last year, said Europe was offering a lot with little in return. It comes a day after Greenpeace leaked documents from the talks. The environmental group released 248 pages of classified documents, which it said showed how EU standards on public health risked being undermined by the major free-trade agreement.

So, in my opinion, the French (and Greenpeace) deserve a toast (and not with a California red). Now all we have to do is do the same with the TPP!

This is what the trade 'deals' mean for our future if not defeated.

takyon: Also at Foreign Policy, The New York Times .

Previously: TTIP Documents Leaked


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @08:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the fountain-of-oops? dept.

Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of the biotech company BioViva, claims that her body's cells are 20 years younger after testing her company's age-reversing gene therapy on herself.

[...] Though details of the fast-tracked trial are unpublished, Parrish says it involved intravenous infusions of an engineered virus. That infectious germ carried the genetic blueprints for an enzyme called telomerase, which is found in humans. When spread to the body's cells, the enzyme generally extends the length of DNA caps on the ends of chromosomes, which naturally wear down with cellular aging. In a 2012 mouse study, Spanish researchers found that similar treatment could extend the lifespan of the rodents by as much as 20 percent.

Parrish claims that test results from March—which have not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal—reveal that her blood cells' telomeres have extended from 6.71 kilobases of DNA to 7.33 kilobases. The difference, she estimates, equates to a cellular age difference of 20 years.

Would you put your life on the line for your company?


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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the jungle-fever dept.

The Atlantic has an article detailing South Korea's effort to protect its athletes from the Zika virus:

Zika virus is now influencing fashion standards at the Olympics.

The South Korean Olympic committee has found a way to infuse mosquito-repellent chemicals into the team's uniforms for this summer's Games in Rio de Janeiro. All outfits, which are worn during ceremonies, training sessions, and in the Olympic Village, have long pants and long-sleeve shirts. The provisions will apparently prevent South Korean athletes from being bitten by mosquitoes that may be infected with the virus that's been linked to birth defects.

[...] While all athletes will be able to use mosquito-repellent spray during the competitions, their sporting uniforms won't have special protections "because of strict rules and performance concerns," reports the AP.

U.S. Olympic officials have expressed deep concern over the Zika virus in Brazil, but they have not changed uniforms just yet. During the closing ceremony, both the men and women will wear Ralph Lauren-designed shorts. Still, U.S. Olympic Committee officials did tell leaders of U.S. sport federations in a call in January that some athletes should consider not going to the Games if they are concerned with their health.

Also coverered in The Telegraph


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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday May 03 2016, @05:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the restoring-faith-in-gubmint dept.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/02/476475970/halliburton-baker-hughes-kill-28-billion-merger-amid-regulator-opposition

Amid pressure from both U.S. and European antitrust regulators, two of the world's biggest oilfield services companies, Halliburton and Baker Hughes, have called off their $28 billion merger. In April, the Justice Department sued to stop the merger saying it would have eliminated competition, NPR's Jim Zarroli reports for our Newscast unit.

The companies perform various services in the oil production process, including managing geological data, drilling evaluation, well construction, as well as transporting and processing the oil, according to the companies' websites. The DOJ said the deal would have left just two dominant entities in this business: the newly formed company, and Schlumberger, which is the world's largest oil services company.

Halliburton has to pay $3.5 billion due to failure of the deal. Also at Marketplace, The New York Times , Bloomberg, Reuters.


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @03:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the teamwork++ dept.

Bottlenose dolphins have been observed chattering while cooperating to solve a tricky puzzle – a feat that suggests they have a type of vocalisation dedicated to cooperating on problem solving.

Holli Eskelinen of Dolphins Plus research institute in Florida and her colleagues at the University of Southern Mississippi presented a group of six captive dolphins with a locked canister filled with food. The canister could only be opened by simultaneously pulling on a rope at either end.

The team conducted 24 canister trials, during which all six dolphins were present. Only two of the dolphins ever managed to crack the puzzle and get to the food.

The successful pair was prolific, though: in 20 of the trials, the same two adult males worked together to open the food canister in a matter of 30 seconds. In the other four trials, one of the dolphins managed to solve the problem on its own, but this was much trickier and took longer to execute.

But the real surprise came from recordings of the vocalisations the dolphins made during the experiment. The team found that when the dolphins worked together to open the canister, they made more vocalisations than they did while opening the canister on their own or when there was either no canister present or no interaction with the canister in the pool.

Hmm. Now all we need are studies that prove mice chittering decodes to discussing the meaning of 42.


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @02:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the 'drawing'-conclusions dept.

Nvidia and Samsung have settled their patent infringement suits. A small number of patents will be cross-licensed:

Roughly a year and a half ago, NVIDIA opened up a patent infringement case against Samsung and Qualcomm, claiming that the various GPUs used by the two firms violated various NVIDIA patents. In response, Samsung opened up their own counter-suit, claiming that NVIIDA and its partners were violating Samsung patents. Since then, things have not progressed well for NVIDIA, with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling that Samsung's GPUs don't infringe on NVIDIA's patents, while also ruling that NVIDIA's GPUs did infringe on Samsung's patents.

Now with the final ruling on Samsung's counter-suit originally scheduled for today, NVIDIA has announced that they have buried the hatchet with Samsung, ending all litigation between the companies. In their announcement, NVIDIA notes that both companies have ended their suits with the US courts, US ITC, and the US Patent office, effective immediately.

Also at Bloomberg and The Register.


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the What-would-be-the-tax-rate-on-a-Danish? dept.

Climate change has become an ethical issue in the eyes of the Danish Council for Ethics, which suggested last week that the government consider a tax on beef, and eventually all foods depending on climate impact.

Denmark is considering a nation-wide tax on red meat. This would encourage people to eat less of it, which is necessary if global climate change is to be kept below the recommended limit of 2°C.

The Danish Council of Ethics, which proposed this tax, has called the Danish way of life unsustainable and said in a press release that "Danes are ethically obliged to change [their] eating habits." The Council recommends that the tax start with beef, then eventually extend to all red meats, with the long-term goal of applying to all foods depending on their climate impact.

Tempeh is fine, but a well-cooked steak is divine.


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @10:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the nice-boost dept.

When we [Ars Technica] reviewed the BMW i3 back in 2014, the little rear-wheel drive city car left us quite impressed. However, the i3 has always had a couple of flaws in comparison with other electric vehicles out there; it costs too much and the range isn't very good, even if you go for the optional two-cylinder range-extending engine. It appears BMW has decided to address the latter issue, because from this summer the i3 will now come with a 33kWh battery in place of the current 22kWh unit.

[...] The new battery is 50 percent bigger, so more than 100 miles (160km) should be possible on a full charge. The gas tank for the range extender engine will also grow by 25 percent; expect to stop for gas every 75 miles if you try road-tripping. These range tweaks should help boost the i3's appeal, but before long the Bolt and Model 3 are going to make people expect 200+ miles from their EV as a bare minimum.

Happily for existing (and even potential) i3 owners, BMW says that current i3s can have the new battery retrofitted as part of a special program, although no one is saying anything about how much that might cost yet. Again, this kind of thinking is a promising sign for an industry that's never really considered upgrades as important. Tesla has excelled at pushing out new functionality to owners across the world on a regular basis, with both software upgrades and hardware retrofits, offering a better battery pack for Roadster owners in the past and underbody "armor" for the Model S fleet.

Tesla has shaken up the car industry with its award-winning electric vehicles (EVs) and supercharger network. Nearly every major brand now offers EVs or is seriously planning to offer them. A couple like Nissan and BMW have begun to build out their own charging networks. But this article highlights another way in which Tesla has re-invented the car: it gets better after you've bought it, through over-the-air software updates and battery retrofits that dramatically improve your EV's range. Will this upgradeability prove to be the "killer app" of the EV?


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posted by takyon on Tuesday May 03 2016, @09:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the 死ぬ dept.

Folks, it appears Kuro5hin is dead:

The site was founded by Rusty Foster in December 1999, having been inspired by Slashdot.[10] Kuro5hin's membership once numbered in the tens of thousands,[11] but its popularity declined significantly from its peak in the early 2000s.[13] On May 1st, 2016, the site was closed down permanently.

I didn't visit it. It seemed then like the bunker where the tinfoil hat brigade hung out. In the Slashdot days it served as the guardrail for conventional wisdom. But now that the tinfoil hat brigade has been entirely vindicated, and Kuro5hin is dead, it makes me a little sad. What are your favorite memories of Kuro5hin, and will we see its like again?


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @08:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the sweet-idea dept.

Researchers at the Instituto Tecnológico de la Energía (Technological Institute of Energy, ITE) are developing a bio-battery that uses blood glucose to produce energy. Such a battery would cut down on the number of surgical interventions a pacemaker user must endure.

Current batteries are hard-wearing and work well for implants that do not require much energy. However, when they run out, the patient must undergo surgery to replace them. Even devices that do not use much electricity, like pacemakers, have a limited useful life given this dependence on batteries.

The challenge of research in this area lies in developing electrodes made from materials that are compatibile with the human body and able to oxidise blood glucose and convert it into fuel.

Using glucose to fuel implants is not bad, but using lipids would make the inventor a trillionaire.


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @06:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the something-you-have,-something-you-are,-something-you-know dept.

FBI is quietly waging a different encryption battle in a Los Angeles courtroom. The authorities obtained a search warrant compelling the girlfriend of an alleged Armenian gang member to press her finger against an iPhone that had been seized from a Glendale home. The phone uses Apple's fingerprint identification system for unlocking. It's a rare case were prosecutors have demanded a person provide a fingerprint to unlock a computer, but experts expect such cases to become more common.

In a Circuit Court decision in Virginia 2014, the judge ruled that a criminal defendant cannot use Fifth Amendment protections to safeguard a phone that is locked using his or her fingerprint. According to Judge Steven C. Fucci, a criminal defendant can't be compelled to hand over a passcode to police officers for the purpose of unlocking a cellular device, law enforcement officials can compel a defendant to give up a fingerprint. The Fifth Amendment states that "no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," which protects memorized information like passwords and passcodes, but it doesn't protect fingerprints in the eyes of the law. Frucci said that "giving police a fingerprint is akin to providing a DNA or handwriting sample or an actual key, which the law permits. A passcode, though, requires the defendant to divulge knowledge, which the law protects against.

In other words fingerprints are bad security. On the other hand... maybe some fingers like 9 out of 10, instead can trigger a silent self-destruct?


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @04:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the interest-ing dept.

Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States, has missed a debt payment for the third time. The island has $72 billion of debt:

Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla calls it a "humanitarian crisis," which a step above an economic emergency. He claims he is prioritizing paying Puerto Rico's police and teachers over Wall Street. "I had to make a choice. I decided that essential services for the 3.5 million American citizens in Puerto Rico came first," the governor said in a speech Sunday. This is the third time the island has defaulted on bond payments. The island paid the interest due Monday, but not the principal amount, resulting in a default of about $370 million, Puerto Rico's largest yet.

Also at NPR, The New Yorker , The Washington Post , The Atlantic , Reuters.


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @03:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the lighter-shade-of-pale? dept.

Is this a cleverly crafted Radiohead album launch, a protest, or something else?

Radiohead's internet presence is disappearing. As Reddit users noted, their website slowly decreased in opacity until it went entirely blank. It appears that tweets and Facebook posts from their accounts have been steadily disappearing. Update (5/1, 2:00 p.m. ET): There are no longer any tweets or Facebook posts on the band's accounts. Their profile pictures and cover photos have gone completely blank, as well. This comes one day after fans of the band received mysterious flyers with the words "Sing a song of sixpence that goes/Burn the Witch/We know where you live." It's unclear what it is, but something seems to be happening. Update (5/1, 2:28 p.m. ET): Now, it appears Thom Yorke has deleted his tweetsUpdate (5/1, 3:18 p.m. ET): Their Google+ page has now gone blank.

In the age of Napster, the band has been forward-thinking, so it could be anything.


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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @01:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the rocket-booster dept.

The payload capabilities of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets have increased, and Falcon 9 will apparently be able to carry payloads to Mars:

A day after releasing the new video, SpaceX also announced upgraded capabilities for its rockets.

The Falcon 9 rocket, used on resupply missions to the space station, can now haul up to 22.8 tonnes into low-Earth orbit, up from 13.2. It will also be able to carry up to 8,300 kilograms into geosynchromous transfer orbit – a more distant orbit used for many communications satellites – and 4,020 kilograms to Mars.

And the new, bigger Falcon Heavy, set to debut later this year, will be able to launch 54.4 tonnes into low Earth orbit, 22.2 tonnes to geosynchronous transfer orbit, and 13.6 tonnes to Mars.

Also at The Register . SpaceX will deliver to Mars for under $100 million. SpaceX was recently awarded its first certified launch contract with the U.S. Air Force.


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