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House Girds For Second Try on Financial Rescue more similar news »
House members are getting another chance to vote on a bill many would like to avoid: a massive financial rescue that has infuriated millions but is being promoted as critically needed to stave off a deep recession. It comes back to the House loaded with billions of dollars worth of tax cuts and other sweeteners added by Senators who passed their version in a 74-25 vote late Wednesday.
Wired.com
Thu Oct 02, 2008 more from this source»»
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The Telescope: 400 Years and Counting more similar news »
Quick -- name the invention that has done most to redefine our place in the universe.
Hint: This invention was also the most seditious, blasphemous instrument of all time, shaking the very foundations of society.
The answer, if you haven't already guessed it, is the telescope. It's hard to believe that this instrument, often sold as a cheesy toy in gift shops, is perhaps the single most important scientific instrument of all time.
Now that the telescope is celebrating its 400th anniversary, it's a good time to take stock of this marvelous invention.
For 99.9 percent of human history, most people held a Neolithic viewpoint of our world. It was a natural viewpoint: All our senses scream out to us that Earth is the center of the universe, and everything revolves around us. It's also a comforting point of view, since it means that we stand at the very center of God's creation.
Once in a while, scientists challenged this viewpoint -- the Greeks even calculated the size of the Earth around 200 B.C. -- but for the most part, it stuck around, largely because it dovetailed with powerful religious interests.
The invention of the telescope dealt a deathblow to that Earth-centric cosmology.
In antiquity, it was known to glassblowers that, while making stained glass, spherical blobs of glass could magnify images. But it took centuries for anyone to make the inventive leap of assembling two lenses into a telescope.
Most reliable accounts place the...
Wired.com
Thu Oct 02, 2008 more from this source»»
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Security Matters: The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Terrorists more similar news »
Most counterterrorism policies fail, not because of tactical problems, but because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what motivates terrorists in the first place. If we're ever going to defeat terrorism, we need to understand what drives people to become terrorists in the first place.
Conventional wisdom holds that terrorism is inherently political, and that people become terrorists for political reasons. This is the "strategic" model of terrorism, and it's basically an economic model. It posits that people resort to terrorism when they believe -- rightly or wrongly -- that terrorism is worth it; that is, when they believe the political gains of terrorism minus the political costs are greater than if they engaged in some other, more peaceful form of protest. It's assumed, for example, that people join Hamas to achieve a Palestinian state; that people join the PKK to attain a Kurdish national homeland; and that people join al-Qaida to, among other things, get the United States out of the Persian Gulf.
If you believe this model, the way to fight terrorism is to change that equation, and that's what most experts advocate. Governments tend to minimize the political gains of terrorism through a no-concessions policy; the international community tends to recommend reducing the political grievances of terrorists via appeasement, in hopes of getting them to renounce violence. Both advocate policies to provide effective nonviolent alternatives, like free...
Wired.com
Thu Oct 02, 2008 more from this source»»
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Gallery: Giants of Earth and Space more similar news »
: Photo courtesy H. Raab
On Oct. 2, 1608, officials in the Netherlands pondered over a patent application. It was submitted by spectacle-maker Hans Lippershey for a "device by means of which all things at a very great distance can be seen as if they were nearby." This is the earliest known record of a telescope. A few months later, scientist Galileo Galilei would get his hands on one.
Initially telescopes were simple, handheld gadgets made by combining a few small lenses of ground glass, housed in tubes of wood about as long as a man's arm. But now, 400 years later, the world's largest telescopes require footholds on great mountains and tons of iron and steel to support the giant mirrors that allow scientists to see astoundingly vast distances across space.
In a speech to astronomers in June 2008, author Dava Sobel asserted that looking through telescopes is some of the finest work that humans do as a species. Here's a glimpse at that work, with a few images produced by the ten largest ground-based optical telescopes.
You can also send us your own photos taken of or through telescopes.
Gran Telescopio Canarias
Currently, the largest ground-based telescope is the Gran Telescopio Canarias, or GTC, located on one of the Canary Islands, La Palma, home to several telescopes. GTC has a 10.4-meter mirror, formed by 36 custom-made hexagonal components, each engineered to within a millimeter to fit together perfectly. To tell them apart during construction, each segment was...
Wired.com
Thu Oct 02, 2008 more from this source»»
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A Simple Plan to ID Every Creature on Earth more similar news »
The utopian lepidopterist holds a pin in each hand. His style is ambidextrous and probably unique. He catches two forewings of a dead moth simultaneously and pins them to his drying board, and then, in a continuous sweep, he does the same with the hind wings. He repeats these motions again and again, like a conductor with tiny batons. Outside, it is hot and bright. Inside, it is hot and dark. The lepidopterist, whose name is Dan Janzen, has been working here in this Costa Rican forest for more than 40 years. He is married to his research partner, Winnie Hallwachs, and the two of them occupy a small house with a roof of corrugated metal whose eaves cast deep shade. During the day they work under artificial light. At night bats flit through the gaps at the top of the wall, do hairpin turns in the air, and exit again without slowing. The utopian lepidopterist's aim is to put names on all the moths and butterflies in the forest. He wants to know more than just the names, of course; he wants to know who lives where and who eats whom and to unravel the mysteries of the ecosystem. But his first question is always the most basic one. This moth, here on the drying board: What is it called?
All over the world, farmers, port inspectors, game wardens, exterminators, building contractors, and, of course, professional biologists are staring at some form of plant or animal life and wondering helplessly what it is. Matching living things to their names is so notoriously difficult that the...
Wired.com
Thu Oct 02, 2008 more from this source»»
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Show Us Your Favorite Telescope Photos more similar news »
In honor of the telescope's 400th anniversary, we here at Wired.com want to see your favorite telescope photo. Whether it's constellations, your telescope from home or a giant observatory you visited last summer, show us your best tribute to this epic invention.
Use the Reddit widget below to submit your favorite telescopes photo and vote for your favorite among the other submissions.
Please tell us who to credit the image to and submit images that are relatively large, the ideal size being 800 to 1200 pixels or larger on the longest side. Please include a description of your photo, which may include exposure information, equipment used, etc.
We don't host the photos, so you'll have to upload it somewhere else and submit a link to it. If you're using Flickr, Picasa or another photo-sharing site to host your image, please provide a link to the image directly and not just to the photo page where it's displayed. Using an online photo service that requires that you login will not work. If your photo doesn't show up, it's because the URL you have entered is incorrect. Check it and make sure it ends with the image file name (XXXXXX.jpg).
Please bookmark this page and check back periodically over the next two weeks to vote on new submissions!
Vote on telescopes photos submitted by other readers.
Show entries that are: hot | new | top-rated. Submit your telescopes photo.
Submit your telescopes photo.
(No more than one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed.)
...
Wired.com
Thu Oct 02, 2008 more from this source»»
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How to Stop a Fixed-Gear Bicycle more similar news »
Fixed-gear bikes may be all the rage, but your traditional "fixie" is
missing a component most cyclists take for granted -- a mechanical braking
mechanism. Stopping a bike with no brakes takes strong knees and heaps of
practice. Here's how to get started. Got extra advice? Share your knowledge
at Wired.com's How-to Wiki.
Wired.com
Wed Oct 01, 2008 more from this source»»
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Apple Abandons iPhone Developer NDA more similar news »
Apple has lifted the nondisclosure agreement attached to the iPhone developer's kit. Software developers building apps for the iPhone -- who had previously been forbidden from discussing the inner workings of their creations -- are now free to talk about their code, collaborate with one another and share knowledge publicly.
Wired.com
Wed Oct 01, 2008 more from this source»»
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Hack Apple TV With a Thumb Drive, Set It Free more similar news »
A developer on Tuesday released a free patch enabling Apple TV to play virtually any multimedia file with the insertion of a thumb drive into the box. Though similar hacks for Apple TV have been released in the past, Boxee is unique in that it will soon include a social networking feature allowing friends to view and listen to each other's media.
Wired.com
Wed Oct 01, 2008 more from this source»»
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Palin Had a Third Private E-Mail Account more similar news »
An e-mail system set up for Sarah Palin and her staff comes to light, apparently put in place last spring on PalinForGovernor.com (a campaign domain). Palin and her close confidantes could use it to communicate outside the official government e-mail system before the private system was shut down in September (after her Yahoo account was hacked).
Wired.com
Wed Oct 01, 2008 more from this source»»
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Six New Directors Who Are Making Music Video Cool Again more similar news »
Not long ago, it seemed music videos were doomed to go the way of the radio star. Cool bands hated making them, MTV had stopped showing them, and innovative directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry had long since moved on. Then, somewhere between OK Go's treadmill-dancing "Here It Goes Again" on YouTube (more than 37 million views) and Feist's "1234" choreography lesson turned iPod ad, the music video made a comeback — and launched a new generation of directors more at home with URL than TRL. Meet the next wave of filmmakers and their greatest hits — so far.
Cat Solen
Signature style: Art-school aesthetic on the cheap.
Key video: Bright Eyes, "At the Bottom of Everything." As a jetliner plummets toward the ocean, the passengers gleefully embrace, and smiling stop-motion clouds play catch with the plane. "I want to keep making videos because they're artistic yet appeal to a mass audience," Solen says.
Rik Cordero
Signature style: Urban tales with a grime-noir twist.
Key video: Nas, "Be a Nigger Too." A nine-minute epic of narrative arcs within arcs about the most loaded of words, with nearly every directorial technique thrown in. "It used to be the only outlet for non-mainstream videos were street DVDs," Cordero says. "When YouTube came along, we just ran with it like purse snatchers."
Matthew Cullen
Signature style: Technical chops and enough whimsy to choke a dramatic prairie dog.
Key video: Weezer, "Pork and Beans." YouTube semi-celebs...
Wired.com
Wed Oct 01, 2008 more from this source»»
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Oct. 1, 1957: Thalidomide Cures Morning Sickness, But ... more similar news »
1957: Thalidomide, a drug developed to help women overcome the symptoms of morning sickness during pregnancy, is first marketed in West Germany. Forty-six countries approve its use before thalidomide's terrible side effects become apparent.
Thalidomide is a powerful synthetic tranquilizer, originally developed by Ciba, a Swiss pharmaceutical company. Unable to make it commercially profitable, Ciba gave up on the drug. A German company, Chemie Gruenenthal, took over and eventually began marketing thalidomide as a "completely safe" method for warding off morning sickness.
Except thalidomide wasn't "completely safe." In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Inadequate testing procedures were to blame for what followed. Had the pharmaceutical labs done a better job of testing thalidomide, they would have discovered that the drug's molecules were able to penetrate the placental wall, especially during the first trimester of pregnancy when the fetus is largely unformed.
This invasion of the womb resulted in a variety of profound birth defects, including deformed and missing limbs, deafness, blindness, cleft palate and a slew of internal problems.
By the early 1960s, more than 10,000 thalidomide babies had been born. Although many died in infancy (an estimated 40 percent died before their first birthday), quite a few survived into adulthood. Now in their 40s, most thalidomide survivors continue suffering from a variety of chronic health problems directly related to their...
Wired.com
Wed Oct 01, 2008 more from this source»»
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Gallery: Retired Drugs -- Failed Blockbusters, Homicidal Tampering, Fatal Oversights more similar news »
: Photo: Associated Press
The history of medicine is rife with missteps. Even with today's standards in biochemical sciences and well-funded clinical trials, bad drugs can get into consumers' hands.
We smirk that the words mercury and curative were once lumped together. Or that heroin was part of a physician-sanctioned regimen. But who knows what problems our present ignorance will cause in the future.
In an effort to know the past in order to avoid repeating it, let's take a look at some drug recalls from recent history and the stories that led to the drugs' demise.
Left: Thalidomide
From the late '50s to the early '60s, a German manufacturer sold thalidomide under 40 different brand names in 50 countries. Designed to relieve morning sickness and let pregnant mothers rest, the popular drug soon turned into a nightmare.
Children all over Europe and Africa were born with catastrophic birth defects because of the drug. No one knows exactly how many cases were linked to thalidomide, but one estimate of birth defects put the number at more than 10,000 children.
The United States was spared, however, thanks to the Food and Drug Administration. Frances Oldham Kelsey received a request from a company to bring the drug to the United States, but she had reservations about its safety. Despite pressure from the company, and the fact that dozens of other countries had approved the drug, Kelsey persisted in asking for further studies. Her fears were soon confirmed when...
Wired.com
Wed Oct 01, 2008 more from this source»»
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David Laibson: Tweak Human Behavior to Fix the Economy more similar news »
The collapse of the housing market. Runaway health costs. The dearth of retirement savings. At times, the challenges facing the US economy seem so insurmountable that we might be tempted to think we need a vast overhaul of our free-market principles. But David Laibson, a behavioral economist at Harvard, says many of our problems can be fixed relatively simply. Unlike classical economists, who assume everyone uses all available information to act in their self-interest, behavioral economists also study psychological factors to learn why consumers often act like confused procrastinators.
"The traditional economic model is too perfectly rational," Laibson says. "People tend to get a lot of important decisions wrong." But Laibson, 42, says there is no reason to despair. With an institutional nudge in the right direction, most consumers wise up pretty quickly. For instance, he says, only about half of US employees save enough for retirement, in part because the average worker waits two years to enroll in a 401(k) program. But one of Laibson's studies showed that when new workers needed to take action to opt out of a 401(k) program — the standard model requires effort to opt in — the participation rate for new employees jumped from about 50 percent to 85 percent in a year. "A lot of big problems can be fixed by introducing defaults," Laibson says. Given a little help, the most doltish consumer can act smarter — without even realizing it.
401(k)...
Wired.com
Wed Oct 01, 2008 more from this source»»
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Alt Text: Stash Cash in These Uniquely Geeky Investments more similar news »
With the markets seesawing like some sort of playground equipment that goes up and down, you may be thinking to yourself: "What should I do with the money I have invested in the stock market/sunk into certificates of deposit/hidden at the back of my closet in a box labeled 'anthrax and centipedes'?"
Clearly, traditional investments are no more secure than a Chevy Nova with a plastic sheet for a driver's side window. However, with the amassed intelligence of the online world -- the same amassed intelligence that has thoroughly documented all seven forms of lightsaber combat, including Soresu, or "The Way of the Mynock" -- surely we can come up with alternatives to stocks, bonds, precious metals and the assorted body parts of edible animals.
Alt Text Podcast
Download audio files and subscribe to the Alt Text podcast.
Panicky, unstable times call for panicky, unstable measures. I'm just going to throw some ideas out there and maybe one of them will develop into something that will save civilization and usher us into a new paradise of serenity and comfort. I think it's likely.
Computers
No matter what, computers are here to stay. I just don't see us going back to the days when the phrase "that poster is a troll" referred to a Tolkien fanatic's dorm-room decoration. So what better place to put your money than computers? Desktops, laptops, palmtops -- invest in anything that sits on top of something else and has a screensaver. Fill your garage and bathtub with all...
Wired.com
Wed Oct 01, 2008 more from this source»»
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'Orphan Works' Copyright Law Dies Quiet Death more similar news »
Legislation passed by the Senate reducing and sometimes nullifying damages for infringing uses of so-called "orphaned works" was dead on arrival at the House of Representatives. The House, mired in formulating a $700 billion economic bailout plan, won't take up the measure until at least after the November elections, if at all. Orphaned creative works are those in which the copyright holder cannot be promptly located.
Wired.com
Tue Sep 30, 2008 more from this source»»
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How to Use OpenID more similar news »
Wanna help solve the web denizen's identity crisis? Sites like
MySpace, Google and Yahoo are all joining forces to make sure you
only have one login on the web. It's a concept so simple, it's
complicated. Intrigued? Confused? Webmonkey treats you to the full
OpenID treatment.
Wired.com
Tue Sep 30, 2008 more from this source»»
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