Archive for January, 2012
Bullets with Guidance Systems
January 31st, 2012Via: Wired: The U.S. military has been after self-guided bullets for years. Now, government researchers have finally made it happen: a bullet that can navigate itself a full mile before successfully nailing its target. The breakthrough comes courtesy of engineers at the government’s Sandia National Laboratories. They’ve successfully tested a prototype of the bullet at […]
25 Things I Learned From Opening a Bookstore
January 31st, 2012Funny and sad, all at once. Via: Salon: 1. People are getting rid of bookshelves. Treat the money you budgeted for shelving as found money. Go to garage sales and cruise the curbs. 2. While you’re drafting that business plan, cut your projected profits in half. People are getting rid of bookshelves. 3. If someone […]
Bill Would Require Independent Study of X-Ray Body Scanners
January 31st, 2012The TSA gets to choose the laboratory? Via: Pro Publica: Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the homeland security committee, plans to introduce a bill in the coming days that would require a new health study of the X-ray body scanners used to screen airline passengers nationwide. … Shortly after our report, the European […]
U.S. Detained and Deported Irish and British Citizens Over Idiotic Twitter Messages
January 31st, 2012Via: The Sun: TWO pals were barred from entering the US after innocent tweets joking about “destroying America” were picked up by the country’s anti-terror cops. US special agents monitoring Twitter spotted Leigh Van Bryan’s messages weeks before he left for a holiday in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting. Leigh, who also quipped about […]
UC San Diego: Artificial Cell Membranes
January 31st, 2012“Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once – but one bot can become many, and quickly get out of control.” —Bill Joy, Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us Via: UCSD: Chemists have taken an important step in making artificial life forms […]
Jailbreaking the Internet
January 31st, 2012Via: Infoworld: If the baboons [6] succeed in constraining speech and information flow on the broader Internet, the new Internet will emerge quickly. For an analogy, consider the iPhone and the efforts of a few smart hackers who have allowed anyone to jailbreak an iPhone with only a small downloaded app and a few minutes. […]
Why Are the Chinese Buying Record Quantities of Gold?
January 31st, 2012Via: Forbes: This month, the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department reported that China imported 102,779 kilograms of gold from Hong Kong in November, an increase from October’s 86,299 kilograms. Beijing does not release gold trade figures, so for this and other reasons the Hong Kong numbers are considered the best indication of China’s gold […]
Freddie Mac Betting Against Struggling Homeowners
January 30th, 2012Via: NPR: Freddie Mac, a taxpayer-owned mortgage company, is supposed to make homeownership easier. One thing that makes owning a home more affordable is getting a cheaper mortgage. But Freddie Mac has invested billions of dollars betting that U.S. homeowners won’t be able to refinance their mortgages at today’s lower rates, according to an investigation […]
FDA Fired Employees Who Warned Congress About Approvals of Dangerous Medical Devices
January 30th, 2012Via: Washington Post: The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show. The surveillance — detailed in e-mails and memos unearthed by six […]
Portable DNA Sequencer Demonstrated at World Economic Forum
January 30th, 2012Via: Medical Express: It was the talk of Davos, grabbing the imagination of a forum otherwise shrouded in gloom: a miracle machine that cracks the code of life within hours and could revolutionise healthcare. Patients will no longer have to wait weeks to know if they have cancer and their doctors will know immediately what […]
