Web inventor warns of 'dark' netThe web should remain neutral and resist attempts to fragment it into different services, web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said.
Recent attempts in the US to try to charge for different levels of online access web were not "part of the internet model," he said in Edinburgh.
He warned that if the US decided to go ahead with a two-tier internet, the network would enter "a dark period".
Sir Tim was speaking at the start of a conference on the futu... (more)
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Seven Indonesian Bird Flu Cases Linked to PatientsAll seven people infected with bird flu in a cluster of Indonesian cases can be linked to other patients, according to disease trackers investigating possible human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus.
A team of international experts has been unable to find animals that might have infected the people, the World Health Organization said in a statement today. In one case, a 10-year- old boy who caught the virus from his aunt may have passed it to his father, the first time offi... (more)
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Ethanol car wins fuel efficiency challengeHow far can you go on a tank of ethanol? Some students in France this weekend showed that the answer could be in the thousands of miles.
That is, of course, if you don't mind driving a car not much bigger than you are.
An ethanol-powered vehicle engineered by students from the Lycee La Joliverie took top honors at the Shell Eco-marathon, a contest to build a car that can drive as far as possible using the least amount of energy.
The vehicle averaged ... (more)
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Researchers Make Light Travel Backward, and Faster Than LightIt sounds nuts, but a scientist says his team has made light go backward. This is not a simple trick of mirrors.
Previous work has slowed light to a crawl. But in the new research, a pulse of light is given a negative speed and — as if just to make your head spin — the researcher says the experiment made light appear to exceed its theoretical speed limit.
If you are totally confused, don't worry. This reporter doesn't get it either. Nor do a lot of ... (more)
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GMO: Independent Scientists Demand A Ban on GM Food & Feed while All GM Crops Are Tested The following memo and report were sent to international and national regulators on behalf of the Independent Science Panel.
Please circulate widely, forward to your regulators and policy makers, and the press.
From: Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, member of Independent Science Panel ( www.indsp.org ),
Director, Institute of Science in Society ( www.i-sis.org.uk )
To: (see list at the end)
I am writing on behalf of the Independent Scienc... (more)
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House panel boosts Bush plan to build new nuclear warheadsA congressional committee took major steps this week toward financing the Bush administration's controversial program to build new generations of nuclear warheads, roughly doubling the budget for the design of the new weapons while reducing the money for maintaining the old stockpile.
The House Energy and Water Subcommittee passed on Wednesday a budget that increases funding for what is known as the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, or RRW, from the roughly $25 million the Whi... (more)
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Monkeys Really Do 'Talk To Each Other'Monkeys do indeed talk to each other just like humans - and scientists have started to unravel their primitive language.
It is the first time meaningful sounds have been identified in the animal kingdom after British researchers found putty-nosed monkeys share the uniquely human ability to string utterances together to convey messages.
The tree-dwelling creatures have two distinct calls to alert each other to danger.
So "pyow, pyow, hack, hack, hack"... (more)
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Stop Federal Regulation of Internet WASHINGTON -- A group of 24 conservative organizations have announced the formation of the Internet Freedom Coalition (IFC, www.internetfreedomcoalition.org) to oppose "net neutrality" regulations, which the groups say mark the first major attempt by Washington to regulate the Internet.
"We're proud to join with other leading free market and faith-based organizations to ensure that the Internet remains driven by the free market, not by Washington bureaucrats and politicians," sa... (more)
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Darpa's Far-Out Dreams on DisplayANAHEIM, California -- Conspiracy freaks, hold onto your tin hats.
Darpa, the Pentagon's far-out research arm, may have publicly abandoned its creepiest programs, like Total Information Awareness. But the agency, as shown at its DarpaTech conference, still has a project to make you run full-speed into your bunker.
Mighty Isis: Darpa wants to start planning for a blimp, three times the size of Goodyear's, that would keep watch over an entire city.
Hove... (more)
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DARPA's ISIS Project Seeks Slow, Soaring Surveillance SuperiorityDARPA's ISIS program is developing a stratospheric airship with sensor antennas that will include a radar nearly as large as the airship. This would create a battlefield surveillance platform with extreme endurance, and equally extreme resolution for its air and battlefield scans via radar and other carried sensors. This project is associated with Lockheed's High Altitude Airship program, which is intended to soar at over 65,0... (more)
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Controversial Experimental Weather Modification Bill in US CongressEXPERIMENTAL WEATHER MODIFICATION BILL FAST TRACKING FOR PASSAGE IN U.S. SENATE & HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
U.S. Senate Bill 517 and U.S. House Bill 2995, a bill that would allow experimental weather modification by artificial methods and implement a national weather modification policy, does not include agriculture or public oversight, is on the “fast track” to be passed in 2006.
This bill is designed to implement experimental wea... (more)
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Video will kill the Web, claims comms companyUS comms companies have been massively overcharging for ages and fear that video telly will butcher their cash cow, according to new research.
Verizon is warning that video downloads will slow the Internet down to a snail's pace unless users pay it a huge amount of cash to build a two tier web. But according to this site, the problems are down to the greed of ISPs in the past. The article quotes a research firm TeleGeography as claiming that an always-on, 1 megabit-per-second tap into t... (more)
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Brainwashing our youth: Skinny Barbie blamed over eating disordersBARBIE dolls, the rite of passage for many young girls, may contribute to eating disorders in adolescence, according to new research.
The study found that the Barbie dolls, which are far thinner than traditional shapes, particularly at the waist, make girls want to be unrealistically slim when they grow up.
The researchers from two British universities claim Barbie dolls could promote girls’ insecurity about their image which in turn may contribute indirectly ... (more)
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A future with no bananas?Go bananas while you still can. The world's most popular fruit and the fourth most important food crop of any sort is in deep trouble. Its genetic base, the wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in India, has collapsed.
Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety, the Cavendish, the genetic roots of which lie in India. Three years ago, New Scientist revealed that the world Cavendish crop was threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caus... (more)
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Congress may clamp down on MySpaceNew legislation from Congress would block access to social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook in schools and libraries, including instant-messaging services.
The bill known as the "The Deleting Online Predators Act" introduced by Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., aims at protecting minors from online child predators.
According to the bill, it "prohibits access to commercial social networking Web sites or chat rooms through which minors" can acc... (more)
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AP reports 'gay brain' study incorrectlyA new and widely reported Swedish study that suggests that lesbians respond differently from heterosexual women when exposed to sex hormones has been seriously misinterpreted, one of the researchers says.
The Associated Press story noted that a similar study was done last year on men, and that with the new female study, "the findings add weight to the idea that homosexuality has a physical basis and is not learned behavior."
In response to an e-mail inquiry from Gro... (more)
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MySpace.com Pot Photo Leads To Placer Co. ArrestPLACER COUNTY, Calif. A photo posted on MySpace.com showing a Placer County high school student smoking marijuana has led to his arrest on numerous felony charges including intention to make destructive devices.
Placer County Sheriff's deputies arrested 18-year-old Del Oro High student Daniel Blanchard on Friday May 5th. The investigation into Blanchard started after the Placer County Deputy Sheriff Ryan Berry saw a picture of Blanchard smoking a "bong" on MySpace.com.
... (more)
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Chinese encyclopaedia censors itselfBAIDU has decided a Chinese encyclopaedia called Baidupedia, has software which prevents anyone writing anything that the government would not like to hear.
According to New Scientist, the site is modelled on the banned Wikipedia, but uses a filtering system before content is added to the site.
The FAQ says that Baidupedia bars users from including any "malicious evaluation of the current national system", any "attack on government institutions", and prevents the "p... (more)
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Electronic smog: The curse of the mobile phone age: around your home there are countless gadgets whose electrical fields, scientists now warn, are linked to depression, miscarriage and cancerInvisible "smog", created by the electricity that powers our civilisation, is giving children cancer, causing miscarriages and suicides and making some people allergic to modern life, new scientific evidence reveals.
The evidence - which is being taken seriously by national and international bodies and authorities - suggests that almost everyone is being exposed to a new form of pollution with countless sources in daily use in every home.
Two official Department of ... (more)
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Honey, our bees are vanishingWhen a fire hazard light flashed in the cockpit of a British Airways jumbo jet that was heading from Sydney to London two weeks ago, its pilot, Dave Meggs, knew he had only one course of action. He diverted his craft, and its complement of 350 passengers, to the nearest airport, a tiny landing strip at Uralsk in Kazakhstan.
His emergency touchdown was a flawless copybook affair. It was also, as it turned out, completely unnecessary. There was no fire in the hold of the plane despi... (more)
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UFOs don't exist, say MoDThere is no evidence for the existence of alien life forms, according to a secret report by the Ministry of Defence.
The four-year study on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) was completed in 2000 and stamped 'Secret: UK Eyes Only', but it has just been made public.
Most UFO sightings could be explained by atmospheric phenomena, the MoD said.
Glowing "plasmas" of gas, which are created by charges of electricity, can appear to fly at great speeds throu... (more)
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Panel Faults Pfizer in '96 Clinical Trial In Nigeria: Unapproved Drug Tested on ChildrenA panel of Nigerian medical experts has concluded that Pfizer Inc. violated international law during a 1996 epidemic by testing an unapproved drug on children with brain infections at a field hospital.
That finding is detailed in a lengthy Nigerian government report that has remained unreleased for five years, despite inquiries from the children's attorneys and from the media. The Washington Post recently obtained a copy of the confidential report, which is attracting congressiona... (more)
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