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Newspaper Takes Stand Against "Comment Trolls"

Chris Lefkow
PhysOrg
Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:00 UTC
Image
© PhysOrg
A woman reads the online version of the New York Times on January 2010.
They lurk in the comments sections of websites, firing off inflammatory messages behind a cloak of anonymity.

"Comment trolls," as they're called, are the scourge of many a news site or blog seeking to make their comments section a forum for intelligent discussion.

Amid a growing debate among US newspaper editors over the practice of allowing anonymous comments, one New York publication is taking a stand.

The Buffalo News announced on Monday that it will begin requiring identification from people who want to leave comments on its website, BuffaloNews.com.

"We will require commenters to give their real names and the names of their towns, which will appear with their comments, just as they do in printed 'letters to the editor,'" Buffalo News editor Margaret Sullivan said.
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Telescope

Six New Planets Discovered


ScienceDaily
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:00 UTC
Image
© CoRoT exoplanet program
The CoRoT family of planets.
An international team, including Oxford University scientists, has discovered six diverse new planets, from 'shrunken-Saturns' to 'bloated hot Jupiters', as well a rare brown dwarf with 60 times the mass of Jupiter.

The CoRoT (Convection, Rotation and Transits) space telescope is operated by the French space agency CNES. It discovers planets outside our solar system -- exoplanets -- when they 'transit', that is pass in front of their stars.

Once CoRoT detects a transit, additional observations are made from the ground, using a number of telescopes all over the world. Although astronomers cannot see the planets directly, they use the space- and ground-based data to measure the sizes, masses, and orbits of these new planets precisely. This is why, among all known exoplanets, those with transits yield the most complete information about planet formation and evolution.

"Each of these planets is interesting in its own right, but what is really fascinating is how diverse they are," said co-investigator Dr. Suzanne Aigrain from Oxford University's Department of Physics. "Planets are intrinsically complex objects, and we have much to learn about them yet."
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Sherlock

Canada: 4600-Year-Old Skeleton Discovered in Northern Ontario

Owen Jarus
Heritage-Key
Tue, 22 Jun 2010 06:18 UTC
Image
© Scott Hamilton
4,600 years ago a man was buried here, on the south shore of Big Trout Lake, in Northern Ontario.
A team of archaeologists, working with the Kitchenuhmaykoosik Inninuwug First Nation, has discovered a 4,600-year-old burial at the mouth of the Bug River, on the south side of Big Trout Lake in Canada.

Big Trout Lake is located in the far northwest of the province of Ontario. Even today it's difficult to access. The province's road system stops nearly 400 kilometres south of the area, making planes the most practical way to get in and out.

The lake is located on the same latitude as Manchester, but the climate is far colder. In the winter the temperature can go down below -30 degrees Celsius. The area around the lake is heavily forested with evergreen trees. The population encompassed by the Kitchenuhmaykoosik Inninuwug First Nation community is estimated to be around 1,200.

Kitchenuhmaykoosik Inninuwug chief Donny Morris told me in an interview that a group of fishermen were the first to come across the bones. Water levels were high on the lake last fall causing the shoreline to erode, exposing the burial.
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Telescope

7th-Graders Discover Mysterious Cave on Mars

Clara Moskowitz
Space.com
Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:14 UTC
Image
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
California 7th graders participating in the Mars Student Imaging Program, discovered this Martian pit feature at the center of the superimposed red square in this image while participating in a program that enables students to use the camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter. The feature, on the slope of an equatorial volcano named Pavonis Mons, appears to be a skylight in an underground lava tube.
A group of seventh-graders in California has discovered a mysterious cave on Mars as part of a research project to study images taken by a NASA spacecraft orbiting the red planet.

The 16 students from teacher Dennis Mitchell's 7th-grade science class at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, Calif., found what looks to be a Martian skylight - a hole in the roof of a cave on Mars.

The intrepid students were participating in the Mars Student Imaging Program at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University. The program allows students to frame a research question and then commission a Mars-orbiting camera to take an image to answer their question.
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Satellite

ISS 'naut Snaps Aurora Australis

Lester Haines
The Register
Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:43 UTC
Impressive photo of southern light show

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station has captured an impressive snap of the Aurora Australis, while the orbiting outpost was over the Southern Indian Ocean at an altitude of 350km:

Aurora Australis
© NASA
Aurora Australis
NASA explains: "This striking aurora image was taken during a geomagnetic storm that was most likely caused by a coronal mass ejection from the Sun on May 24, 2010."
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Sheeple

So That's Why Investors Can't Think for Themselves

Jason Zweig
Wall Street Journal
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:50 UTC
Image
© Christophe Vorlet
Investor
From February through May, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 1000 points in an almost uninterrupted daily march upward. Then came the "flash crash" of May 6 and day after day of losses through May. Now, in mid-June, the market has been up six of the past seven days.

What accounts for these sudden moves? Why do investors so often seem to resemble a school of fish, all changing direction together?

Sometimes the most interesting answers to financial questions come from scientific labs. A study published last week in the journal Current Biology found that the value you place on something is likely to go up when other people tell you it is worth more than you thought, and down when others say it is worth less. More strikingly, if your evaluation agrees with what others tell you, then a part of your brain that specializes in processing rewards kicks into high gear.
      Read More...
Robot

Forth Valley Royal Hospital to use robot 'workers'


British Broadcasting Corporation
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:15 UTC
A hospital in Scotland is to become the first in the UK to use a fleet of robots to carry out day-to-day tasks.

The robots will carry clinical waste, deliver food, clean the operating theatre and dispense drugs.

They are currently undergoing final tests ahead of the August opening of the new £300m Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, Stirlingshire.

The robots will have their own dedicated network of corridors underneath the hospital.
      Read More...
Cell Phone

Radiation warning labels for deadly mobile phones

Bill Ray
The Register
Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:18 UTC
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has passed an ordinance that will require warning labels on mobile phones, indicating their radiative output especially for the scientifically-illiterate and paranoid.

The ordinance, which was passed with an overwhelming majority (10 to 1), will require anyone selling phones within the city to provide information on the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of all stocked handsets, once the Mayor signs it into legislation following a 10-day consultation period.
      Read More...
Cell Phone

Apple asks US gov to hide iPhone details

Rik Myslewski
The Register
Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:49 UTC
No photos until, um, 28 days after launch

Apple has petitioned the US Federal Communications Commission to keep details of the iPhone 4 secret - some for a month and a half, some in perpetuity.

Saying that Apple is secretive is akin to saying that the sky is blue or that water is wet. Still, Apple's letter to the FCC, as revealed by Patently Apple, is a veritable goldmine for conspiracy buffs.
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Magnify

Discovery Of A New Palaeolithic Painted Cave In Romania

Alton Parrish
Before It's News
Sat, 19 Jun 2010 05:59 UTC
A rhinoceros head
© Andrei Posmosanu. Copyright FRS
A rhinoceros head.

Dr Jean Clottes visited Romania a few weeks ago to assess a new discovery in a deep cave. He has no doubt about the authenticity of the drawings (some were even scratched by cave bears). The paintings are attributable to the Gravettian or the Aurignacian - between 23,000 and 35,000 years. It is for the first time in Central Europe that a parietal art this old has been found and confirmed.
      Read More...
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