The Federal Government has been urged to fund the full cost of university research, with a report warning that Australia’s commitment to innovation is stalling development. The report received more than 700 submissions and has made 72 recommendations across a range of areas such as business and education. Report head Terry Cutler warns Australia’s innovation system must must be urgently remodelled
Schools in South Australia have complained they are being short-changed under Kevin Rudd’s education revolution, forcing them to buy cheaper laptops and spend up to 30 per cent of their grants on Microsoft licensing and government fees. South Australian public schools are paying $250 for licensing fees for each new computer and a $40 state government administration fee. They also pay $6 a student to cover existing licenses. Replacement computers do not attract the $250 fee. It is understood the NSW, Victorian and West Australian governments will absorb the licensing fees, passing the entire $1000 grant to schools
Tiny invertebrates called water bears
can survive in the vacuum of space, a European Space Agency experiment has shown. They are the first animals known to be able to survive the harsh combination of low pressure and intense radiation found in space. Water bears, also known as tardigrades, are known for their virtual indestructibility on Earth. The creatures can survive intense pressures, huge doses of radiation, and years of being dried out
Last night, physicists near Geneva switched on the largest, most powerful scientific tool ever built and the world did not vanish down a black hole, as alarmists had predicted. Instead, the $US8 billion ($9.9 billion) Large Hadron Collider successfully sent the first beam of protons — members of a group of subatomic particles called hadrons — hurtling around a 27km circular tunnel running beneath Switzerland and France. The event caused sighs of relief from more than 2000 scientists from 150 institutes in 45 countries, including Australia, who had waited 14 years for the moment
The federal Government’s plan to implement content filters at the internet service provider level is one step closer to reality with live trials set to commence after next month. The Government will seek expressions of interest in the second half of October for ISPs to participate in live trials
Google will begin selling ads on some cable networks owned by NBC Universal in a new partnership that will expand Google’s efforts to become a force in television advertising. Under the agreement, NBC Universal will make a relatively small amount of advertising time on networks like MSNBC, CNBC, Sci Fi and Oxygen available for sale through Google’s TV Ads program in the coming months, the companies said. The partnership could later be extended to other NBC Universal properties
Scientists say an understanding of how the Twin Towers collapsed will help them develop the materials needed to build fusion reactors. New research shows how steel will fail at high temperatures because of the magnetic properties of the metal. The New York buildings fell when their steel backbones lost strength in the fires that followed the plane impacts. Dr Sergei Dudarev told the British Association Science Festival that improved steels were now being sought. The principal scientist at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) said one of the first applications for these better performing metals would be in the wall linings of fusion reactors where temperatures would be in a similar range to those experienced in the Twin Towers’ fires
Google this week said it would anonymise user data received through search requests entered in its search engine and Chrome browser. In response to concerns over privacy, the company announced on Monday in the UK that it would anonymise the data within 24 hours of it being gathered. Writing on the official Google blog, senior vice president of operations Urs Holzle also noted that the data was, in any case, of limited potential use
to Google
Google is to halve the amount of time it stores users’ personal search data in response to continued pressure from the EU over its privacy policy. The search giant has said it will anonymise identifiable IP addresses on its server logs after nine months
Google is helping develop a system to bring high-speed internet connections to three billion people developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. The 03b Networks system aims to use satellites to provide broadband services at the same speeds as those on offer in rich countries. The service, which is due to begin in 2010, is also backed by cable operator Liberty Global and the bank HSBC. It aims to tap into booming mobile phone usage in the developing world. It will target markets in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East
A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life. It’s not as Frankensteinian as it sounds. Instead, a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building simple cell models that can almost be called life
And he’s back:
Dear Red Wolf et al., As you and your
Episode Guidehave been and are an extremely professional and notable resource as I have just begun my (4th) fourthorbitor circuit ofThe X Fileson SciFi and my own purchased(LEGAL) Series Seasons 1-9) You have earned my ulimate respect of your judgement! If I was itching (like now) to continue on with the X Files beginning with Mulder’s and Scully’s Son, William, Chris Carter, left the Series with so much to continue from…I would like toresurrectthe series! The cadre of Writers, Directors, and crew ofthirteen productions…which is now still, I am willing to go to Losa Angeles, California and facilitate a NEW AGE Am I being foolish? Forgive my Northeastern-naivete! I CANNOT BELIEVE CHRIS CARTER WOULD ALLOW David and Gillian to be so powerful Allowing his brainchild be so dependent on Two stars who gave their best and deserve rest! Please respond to me I am Serious William P. Simonetti
I’m still not getting the obsession.
A bid to save Britain’s computing heritage has been given a $100,000 (£57,000) boost by a joint donation from US hi-tech firms IBM and PGP. The donation will help curate and restore exhibits at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Pa The two firms said they hoped the money would kick-start further donations from the technology industry to make up an estimated £7m needed to run the museum. Exhibits include Colossus, thought by many to be the world’s first computer
Over a period of twelve hours, between this Thursday night and Friday morning, American Rights Counsel LLC sent out over 4000 bogus DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, all making copyright infringement claims against videos with content critical of the Church of Scientology. Clips included footage of Australian and German news reports about Scientology, A Message to Anonymous/Scientology, and footage from a Clearwater City Commission meeting. Many accounts were suspended by YouTube in response to multiple allegations of copyright infringement. YouTube has yet to comment on the issue, and many of the accounts and videos pulled over the weekend have now been restored after those affected filed counter claims. However, the guilty-until-proven innocent method of dealing with notices like this may have to be re-evaluated. While filing a false DMCA notice is a criminal offense, prosecution in these cases rarely comes about
In its never-ending quest to organise the world’s information, Google started to digitise old editions from newspapers like Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, St Petersburg Times, Today’s News-Herald and make them available at Google News Archive
A giant statue of a Buddha has been discovered in central Afghanistan, near to the ruins of the world-famous Bamiyan Buddhas. Archaeologists say the 19m statue is in a sleeping position and dates back to the Third Century. Other relics such as coins and ceramics were also found. The Taleban blew up two giant standing Buddhas carved into the mountainside at Bamiyan — once a thriving centre of Buddhism — in 2001
Sony Australia has issued a recall for over 4000 Vaio TZ series laptops that could potentially overheat or burn a user. The company said it recently discovered flaws with certain TZ series notebooks sold between May 2007 and July 2008
Apple has admitted that a British man played a part in developing the iconic and extremely profitable iPod, although he has so far received no money for his invention. In 1979 Kane Kramer from Hertfordshire filed a patent for a digital music player that stored just three and a half minutes of music to a solid state chip — limiting media options to just one short song. Nonetheless, a company was set up by Kramer to bring the IXI to a commercial release, but it slipped into the public domain in 1988 when the firm failed to raise the £60,000 needed to renew international patents. Because of this patent lapse, Kramer has received no money from the sale of any of the 163 million iPods Apple has so far sold. However, Apple recently contacted Kramer and hired him as a consultant in a legal case against another company that claimed the iPod infringed on its own patents, Burst
The mobile telephone records of Queensland motorists involved in serious crashes are being scrutinised, police have confirmed. It is to determine whether they were talking or texting at the time of the accident
Yale Researchers Find ‘Junk DNA’ May Have Triggered Key Evolutionary Changes in Human Thumb and Foot
Out of the 3 billion genetic letters that spell out the human genome, Yale scientists have found a handful that may have contributed to the evolutionary changes in human limbs that enabled us to manipulate tools and walk upright. Results from a comparative analysis of the human, chimpanzee, rhesus macaque and other genomes reported in the journal Science suggest our evolution may have been driven not only by sequence changes in genes, but by changes in areas of the genome once thought of as junk DNA
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