Election ballot
Voters in Colorado who are just now looking over their choices for president may find one surprise: the sheer number of candidates. Check out the field of presidential contenders after the break. (Pics)
Continue reading… “Who are all of the candidates in the race for the White House?”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVfCUATWZzk[/youtube]
DaVinci Institute, the futurist think tank based in Louisville, CO, celebrated its 15th Anniversary on Aug 9, 2012. As part of the celebration there was a ribbon cutting ceremony and an open house to show off its many accomplishments made over the years…
Continue reading… “DaVinci Institute’s 15th Anniversary Bash”
New rulings mean big changes in the online poker world.
Two weeks ago, online poker site PokerStars.com reached a settlement agreement with the United States Department of Justice in the amount of $731 Million dollars in relations to charges brought against them in April of 2011. In addition, the settlement included terms that saw PokerStars purchase rival online poker site Full Tilt Poker.
For those unfamiliar with the story, the US Department of Justice unsealed an indictment on April 15th, 2011 against PokerStars, Full Tilt, and Absolute Poker that charged them with numerous crimes that included money laundering, bank fraud, and violations of the UIGEA. In addition, their .com domains were seized by the US Government.Since that time, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker have both been forced out of business and PokerStars pulled out of the United States…
Continue reading… “Recent PokerStars-DOJ Deal Will Change the Future of Online Poker Forever”
Authorities are doing their best to clamp down on the internet.
Bill C30, the sweeping Canadian warrantless Internet surveillance bill, is back from the dead. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (who declared that opposition to his bill was tantamount to support for pedophiles) has been working behind the scenes to resurrect his legislation, joining forces with the US government in the name of “perimeter security.” This proposed deal would expand the warrantless surveillance to US authorities, who could also access Canadians’ private information…
Johnson & Johnson’s Zytiga is kind of a big deal. The FDA approved its use last year for advanced prostate cancer patients who had already received chemo but whose cancer had still metastasized. Prostate cancer is typically treatable for the 200,000 American men who contract it annually, as long as it is caught before it spreads…
Continue reading… “Science may have just beaten Prostate Cancer”
Will the internet be in better hands now?
Cybersecurity and the government have been a volitile combination lately, with proposed bills like SOPA, PIPA, and the still-up-in-the-air CISPA at the center of on-and-off internet outrage. So it’s kind of a big deal when the White House replaces its chief of cybersecurity affairs.
Last week, longtime chief Howard Schmidt stepped down…
Continue reading… “White House hires a new cybersecurity boss”
Teleportation is one step closer to reality.
Though quantum teleportation has existed for well over 10 years, it has never actually happened at a distance that would be of any use to people in the real world. But for the first time, Chinese researchers were able to teleport a quantum object nearly 100 kilometers, ramping up the real world applications for the idea.
According to Technology Review, the quantum teleportation does not involve dematerializing and then re-materializing physical matter, but rather using a photon to transmit the quantum state of one object to another, thus allowing the recipient to become a clone of the sender (think of it kind of like your consciousness inhabiting someone else’s body)…
Continue reading… “Quantum object teleported 100 kilometers by Chinese Scientists”
From left: physicists Luis Delgado-Aparicio and David Gates.
Physicists have discovered a possible solution to a mystery that has long baffled researchers working to harness fusion. If confirmed by experiment, the finding could help scientists eliminate a major impediment to the development of fusion as a clean and abundant source of energy for producing electric power…
Continue reading… “Scientists see solution to critical barrier to fusion”
Dr. Julie Palais (left), NSF-OPP Glaciology Program Manager, and Anais Orsi (right) inside a back-lit snow pit at WAIS Divide
Because of global warming, ice sheets in Antarctica are melting and ancient creatures, which have been trapped there for hundreds of thousands of years, are being released into the world.
A well-worn premise for a sci-fi movie? No, actually – it’s happening for real…
Continue reading… “Ancient bacteria emerge from melting ice sheets”
In an article in today’s New York Times, “A sharp rise in retractions prompts calls for reform,” Carl Zimmer documents and analyzes the sharp increase in the proportion of papers retracted in the scientific literature. From 2000-2009 the trend is disturbing (pictured above).
The article notes:
In October 2011, for example, the journal Nature reported that published retractions had increased tenfold over the past decade, while the number of published papers had increased by just 44 percent. In 2010 The Journal of Medical Ethics published a study finding the new raft of recent retractions was a mix of misconduct and honest scientific mistakes…
Continue reading… “Scientific retractions increasing exponentially”
Isolation of MAP requires collection of infected white bloods cells from blood samples via centrifugation. For direct nPCR analysis, DNA directly isolated from white blood cells is purified in multiple steps prior to amplification and detection by gel electrophoresis. Meanwhile, culture-based nPCR requires the growth of MAP in specialized liquid media for 12 weeks, followed by DNA isolation before nPCR. Hybridizing magnetic relaxation sensors (hMRS) can detect MAP DNA in minimally processed blood samples via changes in magnetic signal (”¤2) in 1 hour, as opposed to 24 hours for direct nPCR and 12 weeks for culture nPCR.
Researchers at the University of Central Florida have developed a novel technique that may give doctors a faster and more sensitive tool to detect pathogens associated with inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn’s disease.
The new nanoparticle-based technique also may be used for detection of other microbes that have challenged scientists for centuries because they hide deep in human tissue and are able to reprogram cells to successfully evade the immune system…
Continue reading… “Nanotechnology Used to Hunt for Hidden Pathogens”
Last night saw the announcement of the 2012 nominees for science fiction’s prestigious Hugo Award. It’s a particularly fine ballot, reflecting a record number of nominating ballots (wisdom of the crowds and all that). Included on the ballot are our own moderator Avram (as part of the team that publishes The New York Review of Science Fiction) and one of my all-time favorite books, Among Others. Also noteworthy: the much-deserved John W Campbell Award nomination (for best new writer) for the fabulous Mur Lafferty, a nomination for the indispensable Science Fiction Encyclopedia, Third Edition, a nomination for IO9’s Charlie Jane Anders’s story Six Months, Three Days, and a fourth nomination for much-favored Fables graphic novels…
Continue reading… “2012 Hugo Award nominees announced”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.