Thursday's News
Seattle-PI Mora returns to his roots, and where he wants to be, as Seahawks assistant Jim Mora is living a... (Read on Source)
PATA urges EU to Support Global Airline Emissions Scheme
PATA urges EU to Support Global Airline Emissions Scheme.
Social Bookmarking: How Not To Get Delisted!
What exactly is Social Bookmarking? It's a public list of your favorites. Not all your favorites, just the favorites you want to share with others. You may add simply any of your fav website to ...
Upcoming Events
Here we list some upcoming conferences and calls for papers.
Training Management: Employees Will Appreciate It
Anyone who has spoken to a hiring manager has heard the complaint that good people are very hard to find. The secret behind this is that there simply aren't any good people available! Now, there are p...
Wired Geekipedia - Intelligent Design: A Theory (or Not) for Blueprint of Life
To proponents of intelligent design, saying that evolution alone accounts for the wonders of biology is like proposing that sandstorms created the pyramids of Egypt.
Family Wants Ephedra Case Remanded For Approval Hearing
NEW YORK - The family of an ephedra multidistrict litigation plaintiff filed a motion to remand on Aug. 24, stating that they wish to attend the approval hearing for settlement of the case but are unable to travel because of their caretaker responsibilities of the plaintiff (Susan Griffin, et al. v. Richardson Labs, Inc., et al., No. 04-cv-04256; In Re: Ephedra Products Liability Litigation, 04 MD 1598, S.D. N.Y.). Full story on lexis.com
SPORTSbyBROOKS Girl Ashley New Photo On Venice Beach
SbB (Read on Source)
Brasil Telecom to use Alcatel-Lucents WiMAX platform
... rapid implementation of VoIP and broadband services such as mobile data, video streaming and VPN access in fixed, nomadic and mobile environments. Under the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will provide its ...
Picking A Webhost
Picking a webhost can seem like an exercise in futility to some. There are so many choices for everything from what operating systems the host supports to what specific feature sets will be ava...
Soaring Over the Alps on Homemade Jet Wings
Skydiving? B.A.S.E. jumping? Pfft. Child's play compared to flying 185 mph on rocket-powered wings you made yourself.
Sage Lewis on Sage Lewis: Growing Up
No one will ever get your email address from us! We just want to give you an easy way to check out our videos. (Read on Source)
FDA's Fraud Finding In Study Means Claims Against Company Are Not Preempted, Court Says
PHILADELPHIA - A plaintiff's claims against a contract research organization are not preempted because the Food and Drug Administration found that the company engaged in fraudulent reporting of clinical study data, a Pennsylvania federal judge said Oct. 25 in denying summary judgment (Eileen Wawrzynek, et al. v. Statprobe, Inc., et al., No. 05-1342, E.D. Pa.). Full story on lexis.com
Oco and Business Objects Sign Deal to Bring a Complete On-Demand Business Intelligence Solution to
Oco, Inc., a leading provider of software as a service (SaaS) business intelligence (BI) and data integration solutions, announced today they have formed a partnership with Business Objects, an SAP company. Oco will become a strategic go-to-market solution provider to BusinessObjects™ Business Intelligence OnDemand. Customers will acquire leading-edge on-demand business intelligence and data integration capabilities that are tailored to their specific industry and business requirements, allowing them to address almost any business issue, deploy very rapidly, and generate a return on investment in weeks. (PRWeb Jul 14, 2008)
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/business/objects/prweb1103884.htm
Griffin brings Vegas games to the App Store
Griffin Technology has recently released two new apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. Lucky 7 Slots and 5 Card Touch. Both of these apps are meant to bring a little bit of Vegas to your pocket. Lucky 7 Slots is a Vegas-style slot machine game, while 5 Card Touch simulates video poker. To play Lucky 7 Slots, one must simply place a bet and then start...
Egypt to test fetuses for Tutankhamun family tree
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian scientists are doing DNA tests on stillborn children found in the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun in the hope of identifying their mother and grandmother, who may be the powerful queen Nefertiti, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Wednesday. (Read on Source)
Evidence Nuker Review
Do you know that the computer you're using at this moment is also a recording device? Almost every action you perform on your computer, from browsing the web, to chatting online with another perso...
Hurricane Gustav Post-Mortem: 'The Bullet Dodged Us'
New Orleans survived Hurricane Gustav, but don't celebrate the city's half-rebuilt infrastructure just yet.
Pacific Office Properties sets 5-cent dividend
... for comprehensive search results and verified suppliers Come and check out our new ecommerce webdesign. We make one for you ...
Rumor: Dmoz Selling To BOTW
Jeremy Shoemaker, of the popular Shoemoney blog, posted that the owners of Best of the Web Directory are in talks to buy Dmoz from AOL and that a "deal could be reached fairly soon."
At least 80 people killed in stampede in India
At least 80 people were killed and more than 150 injured when thousands of pilgrims stampeded Tuesday at a Hindu temple in the ...
AIDS pioneers and cancer scientist win Nobel prize
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Two French scientists who discovered the AIDS virus and a German who bucked conventional wisdom to find a cause of cervical cancer were awarded the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine on Monday. (Read on Source)
SpiderOak 2.0 backup services offer faster retrieval
SpiderOak has announced the latest version of its backup service suite for personal and business use, SpiderOak 2.0. The update is claimed to increase the application speed fourfold, while also quickening file retrieval and using less memory during backups or browsing. The system uses a "SuperCloud" structure to offer a centralized server location for storage of files. Users can access the informa...
Mr. Know-It-All: How Green Are Rechargeable Batteries?
Dear Mr. Know-It-All Am I doing terribly wrong by the planet if I use alkaline batteries instead of rechargeables? I mean, recharging requires power, right?
The disposable-versus-rechargeable battery debate seems ripe for a contrarian conclusion. Sure, a rechargeable can replace dozens of Duracells, but you have to keep plugging it into the power grid, which usually means burning more and more coal.
But the fact is, it takes appreciably more energy to extract metal from the earth, making alkaline batteries the clear loser. A 2007 study by Bio Intelligence Service (admittedly sponsored by French rechargeable battery maker UniRoss) asserted that wearing out a single rechargeable has 28 times less impact on global warming than using alkalines.
Rechargeables are also easier to recycle, thanks to a federal law designed to keep potentially harmful metals—nickel, cadmium, mercury—out of landfills. If your local electronics retailer won't recycle them, the national Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation will help you find someplace that will.
Disposables have their place in mission-critical gadgets used on the go. But in general, on the food pyramid of batteries, alkalines are akin to fats and sweets—enjoy sparingly.
I'm convinced that a butterfingered airport security worker damaged my laptop during a search. Can I get Uncle Sam to pay for a fix?
There's a straightforward process for getting compensation via the Transportation Security Administration's Web site. But don't expect it to happen fast. You stand the best chance of success if you fill out a claim on the spot. The second you step away from the security area without filing a complaint (which sounds like what you did), your odds of obtaining a settlement drop significantly.
Any delay will make it harder to identify the worker involved and establish whether the alleged drop did actually occur. According to Lara Uselding, a TSA spokesperson, the video from security checkpoints is retained for only 30 days. Given that it takes up to three weeks to finally get to TSA's mailroom, you really have only nine days of leeway before all evidence of official clumsiness is deleted.
The TSA couldn't give any statistics on how many after-the-fact complaints result in payouts, but Mr. Know-It-All reckons your chances are slim. The next time you suspect a security employee of battering your precious hardware, conduct an inspection before waltzing off to the gate.
A genetic ancestry test revealed that 29 percent of my DNA is Native American, though I look like your basic white dude. Is it OK for me to mark "Native American" on my census form? Or, for that matter, on my grad school application?
It's always thrilling to discover that your backstory might be richer than you thought. But temper your excitement with the knowledge that DNA tests have serious limitations when it comes to discerning ancestry. While it's certainly possible that you have a Pequot or Cherokee blood, today's technology can't come close to proving such kinship.
Given the way you phrased your results, it sounds like you took an autosomal test, which looks at key markers on chromosomes inherited from both your parents. It is reputedly able to indicate descent from one of four population groups: European, African, East Asian, and Native American. These tests examine a broader swath of the genome than previously available Y-DNA or mtDNA analyses, which check ancestry from either your father or your mother.
Still, even autosomal tests have their limits. "Autosomal tests only examine hundreds or thousands of locations out of the billions of bases in the genome," explains Blaine Bettinger, a biochemist and associate editor at the Journal of Genetic Genealogy. So that Native American DNA cited in your results may well be the only such material in your entire genome, which is many million times bigger than what's been analyzed. As Bettinger notes, you could still be 99 percent European.
Even more vexing is the imprecision of what "Native American markers" really mean. They tend to show up in the results not only of Native Americans but people of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean extraction. So it could just be that you have a distant Greek forebear rather than a Navajo.
You also need to realize that genetic tests have no bearing on tribal citizenship policies. You might (inaccurately) claim to be 29 percent Native American, but no major tribe will enroll you as a member based on DNA alone. You must name an ancestor.
And you probably shouldn't mark "Native American" on any official documents, since universities and other institutions may ask for proof of tribal membership. Still, you're well within your rights to use your results as a genealogical starting point for further research. It's a worthwhile pursuit: Our genetic makeups are invariably more complex than conventional racial classifications. You may grumble over being a "basic white dude," but rest assured your ancestors spanned the globe. So even if, in the end, you do not have any Sitting Bull in you, there could be a little Genghis Khan.
Need help navigating life in the 21st century? Email us at mrknowitall@wiredmag.com.
Final ODI washed out
The final ODI between the Proteas and Bangladesh in East London has been called off due to heavy rain. The weather had been poor all night and there was no let-up in the morning and the umpires had no choice but to call the game off. This means South Africa take the series 2-0 and remain in [...] (Read on Source)
SearchBrains
So, we all know Google AdSense is cutting off holiday gifts this year. There were many insulted publishers. So, I figured Google would at least send out e-cards before the holidays. And some are now receiving these e-cards. But those. ... (Read on Source)
name: MAGPIE