X Prize for oil spill solutions

The X Prize foundation, best known for launching the private spaceflight industry, has launched a $1.4 million oil clean-up challenge.

The foundation, which states that its core aim is "to bring about radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity" announced its latest prize at a press conference in Washington DC.

This is its sixth "major incentive competition".

Research teams can register for the competition until April 2011.

The challenge has been called the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge, after president of the Schmidt Family Foundation, who provided the funding for the prize.

The X Prize foundation said: "The goal of the... challenge is to inspire entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists worldwide to develop innovative, rapidly deployable, and highly efficient methods of capturing crude oil from the ocean surface."
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Details of 100m Facebook users collected and published

Are you among them?

By Daniel Emery Technology reporter, BBC News

Personal details of 100m Facebook users have been collected and published on the net by a security consultant.

Ron Bowles used a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles, collecting data not hidden by the user's privacy settings.

The list, which has been shared as a downloadable file, contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user's profile, their name and unique ID.

Mr Bowles said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook said it was already public information.

The file has spread rapidly across the net.

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News:Neurons to inspire future computers

The way neurons communicate could inspire the next generation of computers.

Researchers are developing novel computers by mimicking the way that neurons are built and how they talk to each other.

Basing computers around neurons could lead to improvements in visual and audio processing on computers.

It might mean that computers learn to see or to hear in the future rather than just rely on sensors.

As well as building computers, the researchers are also helping to improve understanding of nerve cells and how they operate.

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Personal note: Depending on the way this research is carried out, would this result in computers that are thinking, or are the just 'thunking'?

Cyber Casanova targets NZ women

Published: 1:34PM Wednesday July 21, 2010

Source: NZPA

A man police describe as a cyber-casanova has been wooing women into allowing him to use their addresses to receive goods bought with stolen credit cards.

The "amorous Ghanaian man" befriended New Zealand women online and persuaded them to forward parcels on to him at a PO box address in his nation's capital, Accra, Detective Simon Everson, of Waihi CIB, said.

"Using the name Paul Blart, the man uses stolen overseas credit card numbers to purchase various items from New Zealand companies' websites and gets them delivered to the women's addresses by courier," he said. more here

Just when I was thinking of calling it a day

Life isn't always what you expect, is it? For a while now there hasn't been much work, so I decided to take down my sign and use the office for other interests. No sooner had I done it when work started coming in. Maybe things are not all they seem to be at present. Anyway, it is interesting to have new challenges. Wish me well, folks.

NASA delays shuttle finale until 2011

Published: 3:28PM Monday July 05, 2010

Source: Reuters
NASA postponed the final two missions of the space shuttle program until November and February due to delays preparing the last load of spare parts for the International Space Station.

Shuttle Discovery's launch on a cargo resupply mission will be postponed from September to November 1, under a plan approved by NASA managers.

Sister ship Endeavour, carrying the $2.1 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector, is now set to fly on February 26 on the program's 134th and final mission.
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China dairy products found tainted with melamine (again)

From the department of "some people never ever learn"
Chinese food safety officials have seized 64 tonnes of raw dairy materials contaminated with the toxic industrial chemical melamine.

The Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, reported that the quality watchdog in Qinghai province took the material from a dairy plant there.

Test samples showed the milk powder carried up to 500 times the maximum allowed level of the chemical.

The use of melamine in milk in 2008 killed six babies and made 300,000 ill.
China dairy products found tainted with melamine

Do you want to set up and manage an email group?

There is a fine site I have used for many years. It allows anyone to set up a list for the purpose of discussing a topic of interest. My own list, called 'pchelpers' is included among those lists. Services are free, but the person who creates a list will need to create a login and recruit interested people to the list.
Each list has an unique series of settings allowing a huge variety of managed lists. My own list is called 'pchelpers' (obvious what is about isn't it)?


Freelists is here
What kind of list would you like to create?

News:Belgian child sex abuse police probe death threats

Police investigating claims of child abuse by Belgian clergy have told the BBC they are probing death threats against witnesses and magistrates.

Last month police raided a meeting of Belgium's Catholic bishops as part of their investigation, seizing computers and documents.

They even searched the tomb of at least one cardinal, prompting an angry response from the Vatican.

The country is one of several where the Church has been shaken by abuse claims.

The investigation into child abuse allegations in Belgium's Catholic Church has already prompted extraordinary scenes, says the BBC's Dominic Hughes in Brussels.

But now the investigation has taken an unexpected turn.


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News:Zoo plans 'Jurassic Park' experiment

San Diego Zoo is planning to use frozen cells of dead animals in an attempt to bring endangered species back from the brink of extinction, the Daily Telegraph is reporting.

The Jurassic Park-style experiments are the collaboration of researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla and the zoo, who will create stem cells from a dead drill monkey, an endangered species native to Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Cameroon.

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