Archive for April, 2010
New Zealand: Scientists Given Permission to Put Human Genes Into Goats, Sheep and Cows
April 16th, 2010Via: New Zealand Herald: Scientists have been given permission to put human genes into goats, sheep and cows for the next 20 years, to see if the animals will produce human proteins in their milk. But people will not be pouring the genetically modified milk on their Weetbix just yet – the milk will be […]
Apple App Store Bans Pulitzer-Winning Satirist for Satire
April 16th, 2010Via: Wired: Editorial cartoonist Mark Fiore may be good enough to win this year’s Pulitzer Prize, but he’s evidently too biting to get past the auditors who run Apple’s iPhone app store, who ruled that lampooning public figures violated its terms of service. Fiore irked Apple’s censorious staffers with his cartoons making fun of the […]
Ex-NSA Worker Charged in Classified Leak Case
April 16th, 2010Hmm. I’m throwing a tick in COINTELPRO because it strikes me as bizarre that someone at such a high level in the NSA allowed himself to get burned like this. Via: AP: A former senior executive at the National Security Agency was charged Thursday with lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation of leaks […]
Legislation Seeks to Wall Off Derivative Trading from Bank Depositors’ Money
April 15th, 2010Via: Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and their biggest rivals would be forced to wall off derivatives trading operations from their commercial banks under a measure to be introduced by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln, a congressional aide said. Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, will propose a “no-bailout provision” as part […]
Library of Congress Acquires Entire Twitter Archive
April 15th, 2010Via: Library of Congress: Have you ever sent out a “tweet” on the popular Twitter social media service? Congratulations: Your 140 characters or less will now be housed in the Library of Congress. That’s right. Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That’s […]
Jobless Claims Rise Sharply
April 15th, 2010Via: AP: The number of newly laid off people signing up for unemployment benefits rose sharply for the second straight week, suggesting that jobs are still hard to come by even as the economic recovery gains traction. The Labor Department reported Thursday that first-time requests for jobless benefits rose by 24,000 last week to a […]
NASA to Launch R2 Humanoid Robot to Join Space Station Crew
April 15th, 2010Via: NASA / YouTube: NASA will launch the first human-like robot to space later this year to become a permanent resident of the International Space Station. Robonaut 2, or R2, was developed jointly by NASA and General Motors under a cooperative agreement to develop a robotic assistant that can work alongside humans, whether they be […]
Afghanistan: U.S. Death Squad Executed Students While They Slept
April 15th, 2010U.S. taxpayers pay $2000 per executed child to grieving Afghan parents. Happy April 15th. Via: Times Online: A night-time raid in eastern Afghanistan in which eight schoolboys from one family were killed was carried out on the basis of faulty intelligence and should never have been authorised, a Times investigation has found. Ten children and […]
1Gbps Fiber Internet Connection for $26 in Hong Kong
April 15th, 2010Via: Ars: According to people like Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon’s CEO, the US is number one in broadband, no question about it. But one only has to look around the world to see just how specious such claims are. Take Hong Kong as an example. City Telecom made waves a few months ago with its US$13, […]
Robot Scores Drugs for Uncle Sugar
April 15th, 2010Via: Aviation Week: A U.S. Navy Fire Scout made its first drug bust April 3 off the deck of the USS McInerney. The MQ-8B Vertical Take-off and Landing UAV (VTUAV) launched for a regular test flight when the ship acquired a suspected narcotics “go-fast” boat on its radar. The Mission Payload Operator completed testing and […]
