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Resurrecting the mammoth? New research raises the prospect 
jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John via Ars Technica on Wed, 19 Nov. 2008
Sequencing DNA preserved in permafrost has allowed researchers to obtain roughly two-thirds of the genome of a mammoth. In conjunction with the announcement, Nature has published a perspective on what it would take to reverse the species' extinction.Read More...
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category research
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Monty Python Comes to YouTube (Legally)
Adam Ostrow via Mashable! on Wed, 19 Nov. 2008
YouTube was built in no small part by users uploading copyright clips of British comedy group Monty Python. Ok, it was built by users uploading copyright clips of lots of different media outfits, but nonetheless, the group’s influence on the video sharing site has been huge.
This week, they’ve decided to
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category YouTube
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RIAA Gets Tennessee Law To Force Universities To Filter Networks For Copyrighted Content
Michael Masnick via Techdirt on Tue, 18 Nov. 2008
After more than a decade of watching the entertainment industry (mainly the RIAA and the MPAA), one thing I've learned is that the organization never gives up in pushing its legislative agenda. If there's a setback in one area, you can be sure that others from the organization are eagerly pushing the exact same rules through some other angle. The typical MO is that they try to get federal
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category RIAA
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Secure OS Gets Highest NSA Rating, Goes Commercial
kdawson via Slashdot on Tue, 18 Nov. 2008
ancientribe writes "A hardened operating system used in the B1B bomber and other military aircraft has now been released commercially, after receiving the highest security rating by a National Security Agency-run certification program. Green Hills Software's Integrity-178B operating system was certified as EAL6+, which means that it can defend against well-funded and sophisticated attackers." The
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category Highest
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Magnatune -- sharing-friendly, artist-friendly label -- goes all-you-can-eat, no-strings-attached
Cory Doctorow via Boing Boing on Tue, 18 Nov. 2008
John Buckman, the founder of the radical, sharing-friendly, artist-paying label Magnatune, sez,
The Magnatune music service has been transitioning from a "buy album downloads" model to a "DRM-free, all-you-can-eat, pay-what-you-want" model. I believe that Magnatune is the only DRM-free all-you-can eat pay mus
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category model
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Socialized Medicine Can Kill You
Mark J. Perry via CARPE DIEM on Tue, 18 Nov. 2008
BLOOMBERG -- Jack Rosser's doctor says taking Pfizer's Sutent cancer drug may keep him alive long enough to see his 1-year-old daughter, Emma, enter primary school. The U.K.'s National Health Service says that's not worth the expen
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category Medicine
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TSA "behavior detection" is wrong more than 99 percent of the time
Cory Doctorow via Boing Boing on Tue, 18 Nov. 2008
Remember when the TSA rolled out its "behavior detection" system whereby slack-jawed, water-confiscating security officers would be trained to recognize your "micro expressions" and single you out on the basis of a twitchy eyelid or a sweaty upper lip? Turns out that over 99 percent of the IDs generated by the system are false positives -- less than one percent lead to arrests (and the ar
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category TSA
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Adobe Releases Preview of 64-bit Flash For Linux
CmdrTaco via Slashdot on Mon, 17 Nov. 2008
Rinisari writes "Finally, the day has come. Adobe has released a pre-release version of the 64-bit Flash player. It is available at the Adobe Labs Flash Player 10 download site immediately. Where are the Windows and Mac versions? "Release of this alpha version of 64-bit Flash Player on Linux is the first step in delivering upon Adobes commitment to make Flash Player native 64-bit across platforms.
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category Alchemy
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Ban on phone hacking means that cops don't know what bad guys can do
Cory Doctorow via Boing Boing on Mon, 17 Nov. 2008
India's prohibition on researching phone-hacking means that only terrorists and crooks get to know how this stuff works, while the cops sit around scratching their asses, muttering, "How'd they do that?"
Police had no idea that one SIM card could be used simultaneously from two handsets before the detention of Nazir Ahmed for interrogation. Nazir was picked up from Morigaon
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category sim
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UK local governments use anti-terror spying powers to catch litterbugs and people who put out trash early
Cory Doctorow via Boing Boing on Mon, 17 Nov. 2008
Half of the local councils in Britain are using anti-terror laws to plant secret cameras and enlist snitches in order to catch people who put out their trash-cans too early.
Back when Britain was ushering in its dramatic new Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, those of us who questioned whether it was a good idea to take all reins off the power to spy on people was a good idea were called par
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category catch
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FOIA docs show feds can lojack mobiles without telco help
(unknown author) via Ars Technica on Mon, 17 Nov. 2008
Shared by trygve
So the government can track the location of anyone with a cell phone without oversight, judicial review, probable cause, or even cause for suspicion. But I'm sure that would *never* be misused.
Documents obtained by civil liberties groups suggest the feds can track cell phone locations without the help of providers.
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category without
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Radio host jailed over couch
Michael Hampton via Homeland Stupidity on Fri, 14 Nov. 2008
Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Ian Freeman will spend 100 days in jail because he questioned the legitimacy of a system which would penalize him for having a couch in his yard and conduct his trial in secret.
Keene resident Nick Ryder wrote on the Free Keene blog that the court
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category Freeman
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Employee "Free Choice" Act
Stephan Kinsella via Mises Economics Blog on Fri, 14 Nov. 2008
I just received an ominous (but informative) update from my company's excellent outside employment lawyer (Trey Wood, of Alaniz and Schraeder), regarding the mis-named "
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category Employee
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Vitamin C lowers levels of inflammation biomarker considered predictor of heart disease
(unknown author) via KurzweilAI.net Accelerating In on Fri, 14 Nov. 2008
A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley adds to the evidence that vitamin C supplements can lower concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), a biomarker for elevated risk of cardiovascular problems and diabetes.
However, they also found that treatment with vitamin C is ineffective in persons whose levels of CRP are less than 1 milligram per liter. The researchers
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category CRP
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'Elixir of youth' drug could fight HIV and ageing
(unknown author) via KurzweilAI.net Accelerating In on Fri, 14 Nov. 2008
TAT2, a drug that boosts telomerase and that is extracted from the Astragalus plant (used in Chinese medicine), has helped immune cells fight HIV and raises the possibility of slowing the aging process in other parts of our bodies, UCLA scientists have found.
(Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16035)
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category fight
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EFF, ACLU Ask Court To Strike Down Kentucky's Domain Name Seizure
(unknown author) via Techdirt on Fri, 14 Nov. 2008
Shared by @ErikJHeels
Extraordinarily bad domain name law in Kentucky.
You may recall that a judge recently allowed Kentucky's governor to seize a bunch of domain names that were related to gambling -- even if neither the
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category appeals
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An Anarchic Publisher Spawns Books That Fight Authority [Publishing]
Charlie Jane Anders via io9 on Thu, 13 Nov. 2008
Why is Tor Books arguably the most successful science fiction publisher in the world? A new piece in Reason magazine offers two competing explanations. It's because Tor publishes a lot of books that argue for individual freedom and against
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category fiction
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The Paper On Network Neutrality That Any Policy Maker Needs To Read
Michael Masnick via Techdirt on Wed, 12 Nov. 2008
As regular Techdirt readers are surely aware, Tim Lee has been writing a series of posts here about issues having to do with network neutrality. The five part series, was based on research he was doing for a position paper for the Cato Institute on network neutrality. If you haven't read the series of posts, you can find them here:
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category Internet
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How Regulations Hamper Chemical Hobbyists
timothy via Slashdot on Tue, 11 Nov. 2008
An anonymous reader writes "Chemical & Engineering News just ran this story that relates how government regulations create a terribly restrictive atmosphere for people who do chemistry as a hobby. (A related story was previously posted.)" The article gives some examples of why hamfisted regulations are harmful even to those who aren't doing the chemistry themselves: "Hobby c
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category financial
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