October 12, 2000 -
Sun
Sample Return Mission Nears Launch
- NASA's Genesis spacecraft, the first mission to
collect and return samples of the solar wind, is moving
closer to launch. Scheduled for liftoff in February 2001,
Genesis will help scientists refine our basic understanding
of the Sun's characteristics, and understand how the solar
nebula, an interstellar cloud of gas and dust, gave rise to
our complex solar system billions of years ago...
October 16, 2000 -
Research
Refutes Net Myths - By James E. Gaskin, Interactive
Week, The problem with saying, "everybody knows
..." about the Internet comes when someone actually
does some research. John Gantz, senior vice president and
chief research officer at International Data Corp., has
released results of extensive surveys and data computation.
He now says with confidence that everybody doesn't
necessarily know about the Internet. Everybody knows there
are a million dot-com companies running around, right?
"There are over 6.5 million small businesses in the
U.S., but we can only count 2,500 dot-coms," Gantz
says. To be counted as a dot-com, the company must be a
start-up backed by venture capital, he adds...
September 02, 2000 - You
have twenty seconds to comply - Robocop looks
a pushover compared with a robotic security guard that
shoots at will. It's been sixty years since writer
Isaac Asimov dreamed up his laws governing robot behavior.
But the message still hasn't sunk in. Researchers in
Thailand have developed a robot security guard that comes
armed with a gun, and has no qualms about whom it shoots...
October 16, 2000
- Doctors
get X-rays on the web - A leading British hospital
has introduced internet technology that could revolutionize
the way patients are diagnosed and treated. The system
installed by Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London will
enable doctors to view X-rays and scans on the web...
October 17 2000 - EFF
defends nameless Netizens, By Mary Jo Foley, ZDNN,
Two civil liberties groups have struck the latest blows in
the battle over the rights of users to post anonymous
messages on the Web. On Oct. 13, the Electronic
Frontier Foundation and Public Citizen filed a brief on
behalf of an individual, known as "Jane Doe," who
posted comments to a Yahoo! Inc. message board that an AK
Steel Corp. (formerly Armco Steel) executive said were
disparaging, threatening, and defamatory. AK Steel General
Counsel and Executive Vice President John Hritz subsequently
filed a petition for discovery in the state of Ohio against
Jane Doe. He used the petition to issue subpoenas to Yahoo!
and America Online Inc., requesting that they be required to
reveal Doe's identity...
October 18 2000 - FBI's
Carnivore hunts in a pack - WASHINGTON -- Carnivore,
the FBI's controversial e-mail snooping program, is part of
covert surveillance triad known inside the bureau as the
"DragonWare Suite," according to recently
declassified documents. The documents also outline how the
DragonWare Suite is more than simply an e-mail snooping
program: It's capable of reconstructing the Web surfing
trail of someone under investigation...
October 18 2000 - Hungry Robots!
-
"Could the future of robotics be a toy train with a
taste for flesh? - BEWARE: a hungry, flesh-eating robot
called Chew Chew could have designs on you. Not that you
won't hear the beast coming: Chew Chew is a 12-wheeled
monster that looks more like a train. But he's also the
first robot to be completely powered by food. He's
called a gastrobot--and he is set to make his public
debut in August, at a robotics conference in
Hawaii..."
What is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)?
- "Want to fight Carnivore?" PGP® or Pretty Good Privacy® is a
powerful cryptographic product family that enables people to securely exchange
messages, and to secure files, disk volumes and network connections with both
privacy and strong authentication...
September 06 2000 - Evidence
Show Ancient Cannibalism - Piles of human bones
burned and boiled, smashed and scraped. Cooking pots smeared with blood. A few
years ago, anthropologists in the American Southwest uncovered the grisly
remains of what appeared to be an ancient cannibal feast, but they lacked the
biological proof - until now...
September 26
2000 - Sun
Images May Help Solve Mystery - New,
detailed images of the fiery arches of gas in the sun's
outer atmosphere might help solve a decades-old mystery: How
can the atmosphere be so much hotter than the sun's surface?
...
September
18, 2000 - Report
Warns on Human Gene Trials -
"Attempting to change genes and create future
generations of perfect, healthy human beings is dangerous,
irresponsible and should not be permitted now, a panel of
experts says in a report. A committee of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, in a report
issued Monday, called for the creation of a public
committee to monitor and oversee the increasingly
sophisticated research into genetic modification..."
Something's
Fishy about this Robot - "When it comes to speed and
maneuverability, fish leave man-made submersibles
floundering, but RoboTuna and friends may change all
that. In
a long and narrow basement room at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, RoboTuna has been taught to
swim..."
September 20
2000 - Study: Mammograms
don't reduce death -
WASHINGTON (AP) - Annual
mammogram screening for breast
cancer among women over 50 does
not reduce the rate of death
from the disease when compared
to women who receive competent
physical breast examinations
alone, according to a large
Canadian study. The study shows
that women who are unable or
unwilling to get mammograms can
protect themselves equally well
from breast cancer death by
getting thorough annual physical
breast examinations, said Dr.
Cornelia J. Baines of the
University of Toronto. Baines is
co-author of a study appearing
Wednesday in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute. Some
breast cancer experts questioned
the results of the Canadian
study. They noted that out of
seven similar studies in Europe
and North America, the Toronto
study is the only one to not
show a clear survival advantage
for mammography. And the
American Cancer Society is
continuing to recommend that
women over the age of 40 get
annual mammography examinations,
a position endorsed by the
American Medical Association.
September 18
2000 - -
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) _ Former
astronaut Rhea Seddon says one
of the toughest things about
being a woman in space was the
ill-fitting suits. At 5-foot-3,
the 52-year-old Tennessee native
was the smallest NASA astronaut
and had trouble fitting into her
flight gear, which was designed
for the average man. ``I called
it suit-wrestling. I hated it,''
she said in Monday's Commercial
Appeal. ``I would come back home
sore, bruised, dehydrated,
depressed and everything else,
but it was one of those things
you've got to do if you want to
do the job.'' Seddon orbited the
Earth 589 times in three
missions during a 20-year NASA
career that began in 1978. She
was one of six female astronauts
at the agency and now works as a
health official in Nashville.
Seddon said the memory of
liftoff is still a thrill. ``A
lot more vibration and a lot
more movement and a lot more
noise than I expected,'' she
said. ``It was pretty sporting,
as they say in our field.
September 15
2000 - , a development that
could speed up the laboratory
study of genes and their effect
on disease. In a study appearing
Friday in the journal Science,
researchers at Oregon Health
Sciences University in Portland
report that they altered a
target gene in mouse embryos so
that a special protein was
triggered when the mice were fed
an antibiotic. When the mice
were grown, the researchers
showed that feeding the animals
an antibiotic would cause the
gene to shut down. The gene
could be turned back on, the
researchers said, when the
antibiotic was removed from the
diet of the animals. John
Adelman, senior author of the
study, said in a statement that
being able to turn a gene on or
off will give researchers
"a clearer and more
detailed insight into the
specific functions of any
particular gene and its
corresponding protein."
This, in turn, will speed the
development of drugs for the
treatment of disease, he said.
August 10, 2000 - 'Antimatter
factory' starts work - Scientists
at Europe's biggest high-energy physics laboratory have
built an "antimatter factory" to study why the
world is made of matter, not its mirror image. The experiment at
Cern, in Geneva,
aims to produce antiatoms, and to slow them down long
enough to conduct experiments on them...
September 15, 2000 - La
Niña's Ghost - La Niña
has faded away, but will weather
patterns change? Some scientists
expect the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation to pick up where La
Niña left off. The El Niño/La
Niña one-two punch that caused
unusual weather to hit much of
North America over the last
three years has finally come to
an end, a NASA satellite image
shows -- leaving behind
"bruises" in the form
of charred forests and an
above-average hurricane season.
So the big question is: with La
Niña gone, will the weather
return to normal this
winter? Well... maybe...
Huge
Spring Storms Rouse Uranus from
Winter Hibernation - If
springtime on Earth were
anything like it will be on
Uranus, we would be experiencing
waves of massive storms, each
one covering the country from
Kansas to New York, with
temperatures of 300 degrees
below zero...
Revolutionary
Computing Technologies - Quantum
Computing - The
objectives behind the CISM
quantum computing initiative are
to develop novel quantum
algorithms, and designs for
quantum devices, that tackle
computational problems of
practical significance to
NASA...
Study
Probes Mental Illness -
Americans increasingly associate
mental illness with the
potential for violence despite
evidence the mentally ill are
not violence-prone, according to
a study that traced public
perceptions over four decades.
The researchers said their
findings pose a contradiction
because they also discovered
that the public has gained a
deeper understanding of the
causes of mental illnesses and
recognizes that such disorders
can be successfully treated...
