Shane Cory Potter and his many and varied interest.

New BoingBoing 

SF in SF: science fiction night in San Francisco with Jedediah Berry & Laurie R. King

Mission Control radio: Space Shuttle Endeavour with ambient electronica soundtrack

Ornate early doorbells

New Christian Science Monitor 

Mardi Gras spirit fills New Orleans Saints victory parade

Oregon civil rights group offers scholarships to white students

Chicago mayor proposes greater oversight of city council

New ComputerWorld 

MS Word Tip: Print Multiple Copies of Individual Pages

Google Buzz: A visual tour

Update: Gmail gets social with Google Buzz

New Cool Tools 

Copic Markers

Kitchen Fire Extinguisher

Source Wanted

Sno Wovel

Freshette

New Engadget 

Conceptual Corky mouse gets charged through motion, doubles as a wine stopper

HTC Scorpion with 1.5GHz Snapdragon, WiMAX tipped in build file of dubious provenance

Adobe: Flash 10.1 will require 'some enhancements to existing versions of Android'

New GapingVoid Cartoons 

New MAKE Blog 

Arduino prototyping lap desk

Projects: Failure and mounting a "scratch monkey"

Battle Symets are GO!

Screw-in coffin patent issues

Beginner woodworking project for illusionists?

New Rolling Stone music videos 

Off The Cuff With Peter Travers: Sarah Silverman

Cold War Kids: "Long As I Can See The Light"

Cold War Kids: "Santa Anna Winds"

Cold War Kids: "Audience"

At The Movies With Peter Travers: "From Paris With Love" and "Dear John"

New Music Report: Los Campesinos

New Scientific American 

Unearthing Anthrax's Dirty Secret: Its Mysterious Survival Skills May Rely on Help from Viruses--and Earthworms

NEW YORK--Using a pipette as a makeshift rolling pin, Raymond Schuch spent some of his lab time last summer pressing the guts out of earthworms that he had collected, fresh from Manhattan soil. For his efforts, The Rockefeller University microbiologist extracted what looked like just a small pile of dirt, but was actually a microcosm teeming with phages--viruses that infect bacteria. Schuch was on the hunt for phages that could kill anthrax and become anti-anthrax therapies , but what he discovered were viruses that enable this deadly bacteria to grow and survive when the going gets tough. [More]

Condom exhibition opens in New York

A new exhibition in New York takes a look at the history of the condom.

National Robotics Week to highlight the past, present and future of robot research

More than eight decades after Westinghouse Electric Corp. introduced Televox --a crudely conceived humanoid that could answer the telephone and route calls--robots finally have a week out of the year that they can call their own. In addition to celebrating how far robots have come from their humble beginnings as strictly mechanized labor, National Robotics Week (April 10-18) is an opportunity for researchers and industry to promote a future where robots routinely perform delicate medical procedures, serve as companions to the elderly and infirm and aid troops in combat. [More]

Energy Storage on Ice

LOS ANGELES -- Ice Energy has a novel solution for the electricity challenges of the 21st century: Make Popsicles. Put another way, the company wants to freeze water at night in refrigerator-like boxes adjacent to commercial air conditioners and then thaw it during the day, when power demand is highest. This would theoretically allow AC-hungry commercial buildings in warm climates to cut energy use during heat waves, by shutting air conditioners down while still providing cool air to buildings from melting ice. [More]

How many scientists (and scientific instruments) does it take to sample seawater?

Editor's Note: Journalist and crew member Kathryn Eident and scientist Jeremy Jacquot are traveling on board the RV Atlantis on a monthlong voyage to sample and study nitrogen fixation in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, among other research projects. This is the second blog post detailing this ongoing voyage of discovery for Scientific American.com. RV ATLANTIS MAIN DECK--The winch makes a whirring sound as it slowly winds the quarter-inch galvanized wire out of the water, through the block and onto the drum. Rigged over the side of the ship, the sturdy wire extends deep below the water's surface where it is attached to a round metal frame holding plastic bottles and various sensors. [More]

Denial of global warming threat to the American pika means no protection from U.S.

Despite documented threats posed to the American pika (Ochotona princeps ) by global warming, the rapidly disappearing mammalian species will not be protected under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) ruled last week. [More]

NASA Readies a Satellite to Probe the Sun--Inside and Out

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is what might be called a satellite for the information age. It is designed to provide scientists who study the sun with a torrent of data--the space agency says the observatory will return 150 million bits of data about Earth's host star per second, or about 1.5 terabytes per day. [More]

Banana bait lures trapped panda

A hungry, lost wild giant panda prompts a long rescue operation in southwest China, before a banana attached to the end of a stick proves too hard to resist.

What Happens in the Amygdala... Damage to Brain's Decision-Making Area May Encourage Dicey Gambles

Imagine you've lost your job. You have some money saved, and a chance to double it with a gamble. But if you lose the bet, you'll forfeit everything. What would you do? [More]

Python Predation: Big snakes poised to change U.S. ecosystems

Brought to the U.S. as pets, Burmese pythons have made headlines with their uncontrolled spread in the Florida Everglades and willingness to challenge alligators for the position of top predator. A report released by the U.S. Geological Survey last fall delivered more bad news: two other constrictor species, also former pets, are thriving in the area, and six others could pose similar threats. Researchers fear that reproductive populations could spread and eat native animals into extinction. The new interlopers--northern and southern African pythons, reticulated pythons, boa constrictors and four species of anacondas--have "ecological similarities," explains Robert Reed, a USGS biologist and one of the authors of the report. "They are large invasive predators that native birds and mammals aren't adapted to, and they are highly fecund, capable of producing up to 100 hatchlings in one nest." They're also big; some grow up to 20 feet and 200 pounds. They seize prey with their teeth and then wrap around the prey's body, squeezing it to death. [More]

Distracted Customers' Wait Times Fly

You know what it's like. Sit chatting with a friend, and the hours can zip by. But once someone puts you on hold [audio: bad on-hold music] or makes you wait in line, each second feels interminable. But Dan Zakay of Tel Aviv University has some tricks for businesses to keep waiting customers happy. He published the psychology research in the journal NeuroQuantology . [More]

The Advantages of Being Helpless

At every stage of early development, human babies lag behind infants from other species.  A kitten can amble across a room within moments of birth and catch its first mouse within weeks, while its wide-eyed human counterpart takes months to make her first step, and years to learn even simple tasks, such as how to tie a shoelace or skip a rope, let alone prepare a three-course meal. Yet, in the cognitive race, human babies turn out to be much like the tortoise in Aesop's fable: emerging triumphant after a slow and steady climb to the finish. As adults, we drive fancy sports cars, leap nimbly across football fields and ballet stages, write lengthy dissertations on every conceivable subject, and launch rockets into space.  We have a mastery over our selves and our environments that is peculiar to our species. Yet, this victory seems puzzling. In the fable, the tortoise wins the race because the hare takes a nap. But, if anything, human infants nap even more than kittens! And unlike the noble tortoise, babies are helpless, and more to the point, hopeless . They could not learn the basic skills necessary to their independent survival even if they tried. How do human babies manage to turn things around in the end? [More]

Scientists baffled by Amazon mystery

Aerial images show the remains of a mysterious ancient civilization in Brazil's Amazon forest.

Welcome to Atlantis and the quest for nitrogen

Editor's Note: Journalist and crew member Kathryn Eident and scientist Jeremy Jacquot are traveling on board the RV Atlantis on a monthlong voyage to sample and study nitrogen fixation in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, among other research projects. This is the first blog post detailing this ongoing voyage of discovery for Scientific American.com. 20 00.0457S x 084'59.9745W [More]

Third-hand smoke contains carcinogens too, study says

Anyone walking into a smoker's abode can tell you that the traces of tobacco use don't vanish when a cigarette or cigar is extinguished. But just what happens to this "third-hand" smoke once the air has cleared--and can it still be harmful? [More]

City Dwellers Drive Deforestation in 21st Century

Globally, roughly 13 million hectares of forest fall to the blade or fire each year. Such deforestation has long been driven by farmers eking out a slash-and-burn living or loggers using new roads to cut inroads into pristine forest. But now new data appears to show that, at least for the first five years of the 21st century, big block clearings that reflect industrial deforestation have come to dominate, rather than smaller-scale efforts that leave behind long, narrow swaths of cleared land. [More]

Researchers Identify Genetic Variant Linked to Faster Biological Aging

There's no right answer when someone asks you: " How old do you think I am ?" Faced with such a dilemma, most of us aim low--erring on the side of flattery rather than honesty. But the truth is, accurately guessing someone's age is a difficult task, perhaps best left to amusement park workers and street performers. [More]

Virus hunting in Cameroon

Global pandemics, like swine flu, are often caused by viruses that have jumped from animals to people. Scientists in Cameroon are working with local bush meat hunters to monitor this viral transmission.

Serotonin May Hold Key to Halting Osteoporosis

A drug that reverses osteoporosis in mice looks like a promising candidate for treating the human version of the disease.

Space shuttle Endeavour blasts off after one-day delay

The fifth-to-last mission of the space shuttle program got under way early Monday, as the shuttle Endeavour rocketed up from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin a 13-day mission to the International Space Station . The orbiter launched at 4:14 A.M. (Eastern Standard Time), after a launch opportunity Sunday morning was scrapped due to cloud cover. [More]

Botoxed Face Impairs Bad Feelings

At one time or other, someone has probably told you "it's written all over your face." That's because your emotions can influence your expressions. Well, a study in the journal Psychological Science suggests that the reverse is also true: that the look on your face may influence your ability to process emotions. [More]

CERN Gears Up Its Computers for More Atom Smashing

A deluge of high-energy physics data is headed toward servers in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month. That's because the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) now says it plans to restart its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) soon for a run that could last as long as two years at a collision energy of seven TeV (tera-electron volts, 3.5 TeV per beam). As CERN ramps up the world's most powerful particle accelerator to operate well beyond its previous best performance , the lab's computer systems must likewise be tuned so they can properly capture and analyze all of this new output. [More]

Life at the Bottom: The Prolific Afterlife of Whales (preview)

On a routine expedition in 1987, oceanographers in the submersible Alvin were mapping the typically barren, nutrient-poor seafloor in the Santa Catalina Basin, off the shore of southern California. On the final dive of the trip, the scanning sonar detected a large object on the seafloor. Piercing through the abyssal darkness down at 1,240 meters, Alvin 's headlights revealed a 20-meter-long whale skeleton partly buried in sediment. On reviewing the dive video­tapes, expedition leader Craig Smith and his team saw that the skeleton was probably either a blue or a fin whale. The creature appeared to have been dead for years, but the bones and their surroundings teemed with life--wriggling worms, centimeter-size clams, little snails and limpets, and patches of white microbial mats. The skeleton was a thriving oasis in a vast, desertlike expanse. Almost a year later Smith, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, returned for a proper study of the skeleton site. His team described several species previously unknown to science, plus some that had been observed only in unusual environments, such as at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. [More]

Fewer than 50 wild tigers left in China: expert

By Ben Blanchard BEIJING (Reuters) - China has an estimated 50 or fewer tigers left living in the wild, but efforts to stabilize one population in the bleak northeast are starting to pay off, a conservationist said on Monday. [More]

Street Smarts: The BioBus Brings a Rolling Science Lab to Resource-Strapped Schools

It's halfway through first period, and 10th-grade students at Frances Perkins Academy in Brooklyn are in science class--not in school, but on a specially outfitted bus parked outside. [More]

Moving forward with electronic health records

NEW YORK--Almost a year since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which earmarked some $19 billion to get electronic health records off the ground, most of the country's medical and research institutions are still primarily pushing paper. [More]

Is climate change hiding the decline of maple syrup?

By Matt Kaplan The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil releases carbon dioxide that alters the balance of carbon isotopes naturally found in the environment--an effect that is now being found in food, reveals a US study. Modern methods for tracking the origins of processed foods use isotopes--atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. [More]

Delays prompt reshuffle at ITER fusion project

By Geoff Brumfiel In an effort to put the world's largest scientific experiment back on track after delays and cost overruns, Europe is shaking up the agency overseeing its portion of the multinational ITER reactor. On February 16, Frank Briscoe, a British fusion scientist, will take the reins as interim director of Fusion for Energy (F4E), the agency in Barcelona, Spain, that manages Europe's ITER contribution--the largest of any partner's. [More]

Endeavour Set for Sunday Liftoff as Space Shuttle Program Winds Down

NASA launch managers this morning cleared space shuttle Endeavour to lift off before dawn Sunday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, one of the five remaining flights before the shuttle program concludes this year or early next. The planned launch comes less than a week after the future of human spaceflight in the U.S. was shaken by President Obama, whose budget request for fiscal year 2011, released Monday, would cancel Constellation , the planned successor to the shuttle. [More]

Ireland's failed snails: 2 species already extinct, dozens of other mollusks endangered

Poor water quality and habitat loss are driving Ireland's terrestrial and freshwater snails, along with related species into extinction, according to new research by the National Biodiversity Data Center (NBDC), a three-year-old organization established to study that country's biodiversity. [More]

New Slashdot 

Google Buzz — First Reactions

Google announced Buzz today, as we anticipated this morning. CNET has a workmanlike description of the social-networking service, which is integrated into gmail. CNET identifies a central obstacle Buzz will have to overcome to gain traction: "The problem, however, will be the increasing backlash Google is seeing from the general public over how much data the company already controls on their online habits." Buzz is being rolled out over the next few days so some people will see a Buzz folder in their gmail, but most won't yet (this Twitter post explains how Safari users can get an early glimpse). A blog posting up at O'Reilly Answers points out some of the distinguishing characteristics of Google Buzz — one interesting one being its ability to post an update either pubilcly or privately, at the user's option. This design choice places it between the public-by-default Twitter and the private-by-default Facebook. Lauren Weinstein sounds a note of caution about the inherent privacy risks of Google's method of filling out initial friend profiles by automatic friending. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A "Never Reboot" Service For Linux

An anonymous reader writes "Ksplice, the company based on the MIT Ksplice project, is now offering its 'never reboot' service for Red Hat, Debian, and other Linux distros. You subscribe and get real-time kernel security updates that apply in-memory instead of rebooting. Last summer we discussed the free service for Ubuntu. Cool tech, but will people really pay $4 a month for this?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Submit Your Comments About ACTA

alex_guy_CA Notes that the US Trade Representative — who has been negotiating the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement without input from the American people or Congress — is seeking public submissions on how to conduct US foreign copyright policy. This means that Americans can file comments with the USTR asking for ACTA to be made public. Public Knowledge explains the process: "Under the Special 301 process the USTR seeks input from US copyright, trademark, and patent owners about whether policies and practices in foreign countries deny them adequate IP protection. The process has generally been used by IP holders to complain not only about lax enforcement in other countries, but also about limitations and exceptions in their laws that are beneficial to libraries, to education, to innovation, and to the public interest generally. The ability to comment in the Special 301 process is not limited to IP owners only. Any member of the public is free to file comments. If you believe in the importance of balanced copyright policies, file comments with the USTR and make your voice heard. Comments can be filed electronically via http://www.regulations.gov/ docket number USTR-2010-0003. You have to include the term '2010 Special 301 Review' in the 'Type Comment and Upload File' field. ... Deadline for filing is February 16 by 5 pm" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Swiss Firm Claims Boost In Android App Performance

Precision writes to inform us about the Swiss firm Myriad, which claims a 3x boost in Android app performance and longer battery life with a new virtual machine. Myriad says that its technology is 100% compatible with existing Android apps. "The tool is a replacement for the Dalvik virtual machine, which ships as part of the Android platform, and retains full compatibility with existing software. Dalvik Turbo also supports a range of processors including those based on ARM, Intel Atom, and MIPS Architectures." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

XCore's EduBook, a Netbook That Runs on AA Batteries

I'm typing this on a netbook with no hard drive, not using a chip from Intel or AMD, and powered by AA batteries. Eight rechargeable AAs, to be precise, in a bank of cells right where a Li-Ion battery would sit in a conventional laptop. The batteries charge in place, too (regulation prevents overcharging) meaning that the power cord is a simple three-prong-to-cloverleaf cord, no wall-wart required. It's the EduBook from Xcore (see that page for some photos of the internals, too), and it's a cool concept. Despite some warts, it's one of the most interesting things I ran into on the CES show floor last month (Xcore's Michael Barnes kindly supplied the laptop, straight from the display case). Read on for my review. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft Says Windows 7 Not Killing Batteries

VindictivePantz sends word that the Windows 7 team has posted a new blog entry discussing their conclusions about the reported Windows 7 battery failures. "To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement. ...every single indication we have regarding the reports we've seen are simply Windows 7 reporting the state of the battery using this new feature and we're simply seeing batteries that are not performing above the designated threshold. ... We are as certain as we can be that we have addressed the root cause and concerns of this report, but we will continue to monitor the situation." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Re-Engineering the Immune System

destinyland notes a microbiology professor describing "Immunity on Demand" (or "Immunity 2.0") and wonders whether we could genetically engineer all the antibodies we need. "...there's a good chance this system, or something like it, will actually be in place within decades. Caltech scientists have already engineered stem cells into B cells that produce HIV-fighting antibodies — and an NIH researcher engineered T cells that recognize tumors which has already had promising clinical trials again skin cancer. Our best hope may be to cut out the middleman. Rather than merely hoping that the vaccine will indirectly lead to the antibody an individual needs, imagine if we could genetically engineer these antibodies and make them available as needed?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Hidden Treasures of Sysinternals

Barence writes "PC Pro contributing editor Jon Honeyball has written a nice feature on the latest treasures to be found on the Windows Sysinternals website. Among them are a tool for creating virtual hard disks from physical drives, a hard disk read-write monitoring tool, and a utility for putting ISO images onto flash drives. They're free, but they're effective." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BioShock 2 Released

BioShock 2 launched today for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows, ending the wait for a sequel to the original 2007 blockbuster. The events in BioShock 2 take place 10 years after the story from the original game. This time around, players control a prototype Big Daddy in an attempt to overthrow the new leader of Rapture. Early reviews for the game are quite strong, though the developers were prepared for fan backlash over some of the changes they made. The Guardian's Nicky Woolf praises the new storyline, and adds that "there is a fundamentally excellent shooter here too, with some of the best combat dynamics in the business." Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Alec Meer also had good things to say about the combat: "I can't stress this enough - as a game about shooting people, it's very responsive and very rewarding." However, Meer expressed disappointment that some of the impressive new concept art didn't get used and that the story and environment couldn't match the novelty of the original game. "Part of Rapture's great wonder was that it was just believable enough, if you squinted your brain a bit (or a lot), but this lathers on so much wild sci-fi that it's much harder to connect to it. The Sisters are elevated from horrifying genetic/psychological experiment into all-powerful messiah figures capable of pulling any old deus ex machina out of the hat. Making them into so much reduces the power and the sadness of what they are. As a result, the concept feels too exhausted to ever be used again." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How Do You Accurately Estimate Programming Time?

itwbennett writes "It can take a fairly stable team of programmers as long as six months to get to a point where they're estimating programming time fairly close to actuals, says Suvro Upadhyaya, a Senior Software Engineer at Oracle. Accurately estimating programming time is a process of defining limitations, he says. The programmers' experience, domain knowledge, and speed vs. quality all come into play, and it is highly dependent upon the culture of the team/organization. Upadhyaya uses Scrum to estimate programming time. How do you do it?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NVIDIA Shows Off "Optimus" Switchable Graphics For Notebooks

Vigile writes "Transformers jokes aside, NVIDIA's newest technology offering hopes to radically change the way notebook computers are built and how customers use them. The promise of both extended battery life and high performance mobile computing has seemed like a pipe dream, and even the most recent updates to 'switchable graphics' left much to be desired in terms of the user experience. Having both an integrated and discrete graphics chip in your notebook does little good if you never switch between the two. Optimus allows the system to seamlessly and instantly change between IGP and discrete NVIDIA GPUs based on the task being run, including games, GPU encoding or Flash video playback. Using new software and hardware technology, notebooks using Optimus can power on and pass control to the GPU in a matter of 300ms and power both the GPU and PCIe lanes completely off when not in use. This can be done without being forced to reboot or even close out your applications, making it a hands-free solution for the customer." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

KDE 4.4 Released Alongside Website Redesign

Cryophallion writes "KDE 4.4.0 has finally been released, along with a redesign of the KDE.org website. New features include tabbed windows, improved desktop search and social desktop features. 'Major new technologies have been introduced, including social networking and online collaboration features, a new netbook-oriented interface and infrastructural innovations such as the KAuth authentication framework. According to KDE's bug-tracking system, 7293 bugs have been fixed and 1433 new feature requests were implemented.' A feature guide is also available." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hardware TPM Hacked

BiggerIsBetter writes "Christopher Tarnovsky has pulled off the 'near impossible' TPM hardware hack. We all knew it was only a matter of time; this is why you shouldn't entrust your data to proprietary solutions. From the article: 'The technique can also be used to tap text messages and email belonging to the user of a lost or stolen phone. Tarnovsky said he can't be sure, however, whether his attack would work on TPM chips made by companies other than Infineon. Infineon said it knew this type of attack was possible when it was testing its chips. But the company said independent tests determined that the hack would require such a high skill level that there was a limited chance of it affecting many users. ... The Trusted Computing Group, which sets standards on TPM chips, called the attack "exceedingly difficult to replicate in a real-world environment."'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Signs of Water Found On Saturnian Moon Enceladus

Matt_dk writes "Scientists working on the Cassini space mission have found negatively charged water ions in the ice plume of Enceladus. Their findings, based on analysis from data taken in plume fly-throughs in 2008 and reported in the journal Icarus, provide evidence for the presence of liquid water, which suggests the ingredients for life inside the icy moon. The Cassini plasma spectrometer, used to gather this data, also found other species of negatively charged ions including hydrocarbons." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft Phasing Out FAST Search For Linux, Unix

viralMeme writes "Microsoft plans to begin phasing out Unix and Linux platform support for its FAST enterprise search products, as of its next release. According to a Thursday blog post from Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Bjørn Olstad, 'We've continued to sell, support, and update the Linux and UNIX versions of FAST ESP, and we've designed the next wave of FAST products (scheduled for release in the first half of calendar year 2010) to include a cross-platform search core that has been extended to take advantage of web services and support mixed-platform deployment models. With our 2010 products scheduled for release in a few months, we've just started to plan for our next wave of products. As a part of that planning process, we have decided that in order to deliver more innovation per release in the future, the 2010 products will be the last to include a search core that runs on Linux and UNIX. Many of our customers run FAST ESP on Linux and UNIX today, and we recognize that our future focus on Windows means change. To ease the transition, we're investing in interoperability between Windows and other operating systems, reaffirming our commitment to 10 years of support for our non-Windows products, and taking concrete steps to help customers plan for the future.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New SquidooCool Blog 

RIP Squidoo Groups

The $2000 Lens Challenge

#1 Most Important Thing… About Guestbooks

Pinging Your Lenses

New Squidoo Job – More Money For Lensmasters $