Friday, June 02, 2006
The American War on Science
Why the country's reliance on imported brainpower is on a collision course with its home-grown distaste for science.
By most objective measures, the United States is the undisputed world leader in science and innovation, whether it's funding for research and development, the number of PhD students it graduates or its share of the world's patents. For the world's wealthiest nation, this is hardly a remarkable feat. What is remarkable is that the US accomplished this with a supply of domestic talent whose skills in math and science are, also according to most objective measures, merely mediocre.
Luckily, in the past, many excellent foreign students have shouldered the load, preferring to come here to study and work than stay in their home countries. This import of talent has been valued at more than $13 billion per year. In US science as a whole, a third of all doctoral students are foreign born; in engineering, the figure is nearly twice that.
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By most objective measures, the United States is the undisputed world leader in science and innovation, whether it's funding for research and development, the number of PhD students it graduates or its share of the world's patents. For the world's wealthiest nation, this is hardly a remarkable feat. What is remarkable is that the US accomplished this with a supply of domestic talent whose skills in math and science are, also according to most objective measures, merely mediocre.
Luckily, in the past, many excellent foreign students have shouldered the load, preferring to come here to study and work than stay in their home countries. This import of talent has been valued at more than $13 billion per year. In US science as a whole, a third of all doctoral students are foreign born; in engineering, the figure is nearly twice that.
read more | digg story
Aftermath of the Pirate Raids
While the IFPI, MPA and Antipiratbyrån are jubilant over the seizure of ThePirateBay.org, hundreds of other online domains taken off line stand to lose significant business and traffic.
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"Corruption Goes All the Way to the Top", Says Pirate Bay Chief
"Orders went straight top to bottom, from the Swedish minister of Justice,to Chief Prosecutor, etc, to the policemen doing the raid." minister of Justice,to Chief Prosecutor, etc, to the policemen doing the raid."
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AMD's Dual-Socket, Dual-Core "4x4" Platform To Be Announced
AMD plans to announce its 4x4 platform (a two-socket board, each containing a dual-core X2 processor) at its AMD Technology Day later this afternoon. AMD executives also talk about a possible partnership with ATI!
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Why We Could All Do With A Little Nap
Scientists at The University of Manchester have for the first time uncovered how brain cells or 'neurons' that keep us alert become turned off after we eat. The findings â?? published in the scientific journal Neuron this week â?? have implications for treating obesity and eating disorders as well as understanding levels of consciousness.
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WordPress 2.0.3 Released
The latest in the stable 2.0 series, 2.0.3, is now available for download. This is a bug fix and security release, and is recommended for all WordPress users. Theyâ??ve also backported a number of security enhancements from 2.1 to further enhance and protect your blog, including small performance enhancements.
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Sony and Warner Music Defaced
Both Sony and Warner Music have been defaced by a 2 different groups of hackers.
Could this be a retaliation for the recent takedown of ThePirateBay?
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Could this be a retaliation for the recent takedown of ThePirateBay?
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10 Stupid engineering mistakes.
Wired does a breakdown of what they view as they ten biggest engineering mistakes in recent history. From the Citygroup center to a mollasses brewing tank. Very interesting.
1. St. Francis Dam, 1928
Self-taught engineer William Mulholland built this LA dam on a defective foundation and ignored the geology of the surrounding canyon. He also dismissed cracks that formed as soon as the reservoir behind it was filled. Five days later, it ruptured, killing 450 people and destroying entire towns (along with Mulholland’s career).
2. Kansas City Hyatt walkways, 1981
Walkways crisscrossing the hotel’s multistory atrium collapsed, domino-style, raining debris and hundreds of people onto the packed dance contest below. The cause: grossly negligent design and use of beams that could support only 30 percent of the load.
3. Vasa, 1628
Three hundred years before the Titanic, the Vasa was the biggest sailing vessel of its day. The overloaded ship ruled the seas for all of a mile before she took on water through her too-low gun ports and promptly capsized.
4. Northeastern US power grid, 1965
A single protective relay tripped in Ontario, overloading nearby circuits and causing a cascade of outages that left 30 million homes without power for up to 13 hours. A fragile, redundancy-free design ensured that it would happen eventually. After decades of repairs and upgrades, it happened again in 2003.
5. McDonnell Douglas DC-10, 1970s
Nearly a thousand people around the world lost their lives while the kinks were being ironed out of this 290-ton competitor to Boeing’s 747. Blown-out cargo doors, shredded hydraulic lines, and engines dropped midflight were just a few of the behemoth’s early problems.
6. Firestone 500 tires, 1970s
These steel-belted radials allowed water to seep under the tread, which caused the belting to rust and the tread to separate, typically at high speeds. Dozens of deaths later, Firestone blamed consumers, then recalled 10 million tires.
7. Purity Distilling Company tank, 1919
You gotta keep your molasses somewhere – how about a rickety tank 50 feet tall and 90 feet in diameter in the middle of Boston? The structure was painted brown to hide the leaks. Eventually it burst (possibly exploding from fermentation), sending waves of molasses up to 15 feet high into the city and killing 21.
8. Skylab, 1973
America’s first space station was hopelessly damaged at launch because designers failed to account for the aerodynamics of the meteoroid shield and solar panels. When crews weren’t busy making repairs, they complained of the extreme heat on board.
9. Citigroup Center, 1978
Last-minute changes to structural braces of this Manhattan tower left it vulnerable to collapse in high winds. With a hurricane bearing down on the city, builders rushed to strengthen it by welding 2-inch steel plates over 200 weakly bolted joints.
10. R101 airship, 1930
Seven years before the Hindenburg disaster, the British thought 5.5 million cubic feet of hydrogen in a bubble of fabric would make for a fun way to get around. On her maiden flight, the airship’s cover was blown open by wind, and from there it was oh-the-humanity city.
read more | digg story
1. St. Francis Dam, 1928
Self-taught engineer William Mulholland built this LA dam on a defective foundation and ignored the geology of the surrounding canyon. He also dismissed cracks that formed as soon as the reservoir behind it was filled. Five days later, it ruptured, killing 450 people and destroying entire towns (along with Mulholland’s career).
2. Kansas City Hyatt walkways, 1981
Walkways crisscrossing the hotel’s multistory atrium collapsed, domino-style, raining debris and hundreds of people onto the packed dance contest below. The cause: grossly negligent design and use of beams that could support only 30 percent of the load.
3. Vasa, 1628
Three hundred years before the Titanic, the Vasa was the biggest sailing vessel of its day. The overloaded ship ruled the seas for all of a mile before she took on water through her too-low gun ports and promptly capsized.
4. Northeastern US power grid, 1965
A single protective relay tripped in Ontario, overloading nearby circuits and causing a cascade of outages that left 30 million homes without power for up to 13 hours. A fragile, redundancy-free design ensured that it would happen eventually. After decades of repairs and upgrades, it happened again in 2003.
5. McDonnell Douglas DC-10, 1970s
Nearly a thousand people around the world lost their lives while the kinks were being ironed out of this 290-ton competitor to Boeing’s 747. Blown-out cargo doors, shredded hydraulic lines, and engines dropped midflight were just a few of the behemoth’s early problems.
6. Firestone 500 tires, 1970s
These steel-belted radials allowed water to seep under the tread, which caused the belting to rust and the tread to separate, typically at high speeds. Dozens of deaths later, Firestone blamed consumers, then recalled 10 million tires.
7. Purity Distilling Company tank, 1919
You gotta keep your molasses somewhere – how about a rickety tank 50 feet tall and 90 feet in diameter in the middle of Boston? The structure was painted brown to hide the leaks. Eventually it burst (possibly exploding from fermentation), sending waves of molasses up to 15 feet high into the city and killing 21.
8. Skylab, 1973
America’s first space station was hopelessly damaged at launch because designers failed to account for the aerodynamics of the meteoroid shield and solar panels. When crews weren’t busy making repairs, they complained of the extreme heat on board.
9. Citigroup Center, 1978
Last-minute changes to structural braces of this Manhattan tower left it vulnerable to collapse in high winds. With a hurricane bearing down on the city, builders rushed to strengthen it by welding 2-inch steel plates over 200 weakly bolted joints.
10. R101 airship, 1930
Seven years before the Hindenburg disaster, the British thought 5.5 million cubic feet of hydrogen in a bubble of fabric would make for a fun way to get around. On her maiden flight, the airship’s cover was blown open by wind, and from there it was oh-the-humanity city.
read more | digg story
Gates comments hint at Microsoft push in mobile devices
Speaking at a conference organised by the Wall Street Journal in California yesterday, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has made comments implying that the firm may be preparing new initiatives in the portable device space.
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NASA Confident Shuttle Tank Won't Shed Dangerous Debris
Officials decided the issue would not be an obstacle to Discovery's planned liftoff in July. Their conclusion: Small bits of the foam insulation that covers the tank's exterior still will break loose during launch, but the pieces are "an acceptable risk" not expected to cause serious damage.
CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA managers expressed confidence today that the space shuttle's redesigned fuel tank won't shed dangerous debris during launch despite ongoing concern about at least one potential hazard.
After a two-day engineering review at the Kennedy Space Center, shuttle officials decided the issue would not be an obstacle to Discovery's planned liftoff in July. Their conclusion: Small bits of the foam insulation that covers the tank's exterior still will break loose during launch, but the pieces are "an acceptable risk" not expected to cause serious damage.
"There will continue to be foam coming off the external tank," said Wayne Hale, NASA's shuttle program manager. "What we have done in a very systematic manner is eliminate the largest hazards."
The debris review was ordered in the wake of Discovery's flight last July.
During launch, the tank shed more than a dozen large pieces of debris, including a one-pound piece of a foam ramp that narrowly missed hitting the spaceship. The mission was the first to test a two-year redesign of the tank that was ordered after a debris strike caused the Columbia accident in 2003.
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CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA managers expressed confidence today that the space shuttle's redesigned fuel tank won't shed dangerous debris during launch despite ongoing concern about at least one potential hazard.
After a two-day engineering review at the Kennedy Space Center, shuttle officials decided the issue would not be an obstacle to Discovery's planned liftoff in July. Their conclusion: Small bits of the foam insulation that covers the tank's exterior still will break loose during launch, but the pieces are "an acceptable risk" not expected to cause serious damage.
"There will continue to be foam coming off the external tank," said Wayne Hale, NASA's shuttle program manager. "What we have done in a very systematic manner is eliminate the largest hazards."
The debris review was ordered in the wake of Discovery's flight last July.
During launch, the tank shed more than a dozen large pieces of debris, including a one-pound piece of a foam ramp that narrowly missed hitting the spaceship. The mission was the first to test a two-year redesign of the tank that was ordered after a debris strike caused the Columbia accident in 2003.
read more | digg story
Why you should support animal testing
Instead of being cowed by activists, scientists should trumpet the virtues of animal testing.
How disgraceful that a 16-year-old boy has put the medical and scientific establishment, drug companies and universities to shame. Laurie Pycroft was in Oxford when he was outraged to see animal rights protesters marching through the street. He wrote out his own pro-testing placard and waved it furiously. Within days Laurie had enthused thousands of students and academics. The whole tenor of the discussion changed, and a debate at the Oxford Union voted massively in favour of animal research.
It is also a shame that no minister or official from the Home Office, which regulates animal research, was prepared to speak in that debate; the department wanted all kinds of guarantees before it would consider sending a representative.
read more | digg story
How disgraceful that a 16-year-old boy has put the medical and scientific establishment, drug companies and universities to shame. Laurie Pycroft was in Oxford when he was outraged to see animal rights protesters marching through the street. He wrote out his own pro-testing placard and waved it furiously. Within days Laurie had enthused thousands of students and academics. The whole tenor of the discussion changed, and a debate at the Oxford Union voted massively in favour of animal research.
It is also a shame that no minister or official from the Home Office, which regulates animal research, was prepared to speak in that debate; the department wanted all kinds of guarantees before it would consider sending a representative.
read more | digg story
Forbes: PirateBay Raid Won't Stop Piracy
Teenage boy blows up the house with deodorant
...And that caused a can of Sure deodorant to explode with such force that it not only blew out windows but cracked a wall and even, briefly, lifted the roof off the bungalow.
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Extortion virus code gets cracked
Poor programming has allowed anti-virus companies to discover the password to retrieve the hijacked data inside a virus that has claimed at least one UK victim.
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