A claim by South Korean scientists to have created the first cloned wolves is being investigated by officials at the team’s university. The team is led by a former colleague of disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk. The wolf cloning team is suspected of using erroneous data to inflate their claims of having created two cloned wolves, a university statement said. Lee Byeong-chun, a veterinary professor, announced last month that his team had succeeded in cloning the two wolves, named Snuwolf and Snuwolffy. The wolf clones were both born in October 2005.
Michigan is spending $38 million to distribute an iPod to every child, for learning purposes. The plan included measures to tax soda and satellite TV services to pay for it, among other things, to raise funds. If you recall, Duke University tried something like this with mixed results. How financially strained will Michigan residents feel about paying higher taxes to buy someone else’s kid an iPod?
A US federal judge has overturned a law designed to protect children from viewing internet pornography, saying it violated the right of free speech. The law made it illegal for websites to provide children access to harmful
material, but it was never enforced. Judge Lowell Reed of Philadelphia said other means of protection, such as software filters, were more effective
The British military is set to take one of its most significant steps into the digital age with the launch of the first Skynet 5 satellite. The spacecraft will deliver secure, high-bandwidth communications for UK and friendly
forces across the globe. It’s not yet the Skynet of Terminator, but how long before it becomes self aware?
The European Union’s consumer chief has hit out at Apple’s bundling of its iPod music players and its iTunes online music store
The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalises the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned
The Canadian parliament has voted against renewing anti-terror laws that had been introduced after 11 September 2001. The rejected laws included provisions to hold terror suspects indefinitely, and to compel witnesses to testify, and were in some sense Canada’s version fo the Patriot Act. The laws were voted down in the face of claims from the minority Conservative government that the Liberal Party was soft on terror, and despite the fact that Canada has faced active terrorist cells in their own country. The anti-terror laws have never been used, and it was viewed that they are neither relevant, nor needed, in dealing with terrorist plots. Hopefully more countries will come to the same conclusion — via Slashdot
Two circus clowns have been shot dead during a performance in the eastern Colombian city of Cucuta. The attacker jumped into the arena and fired before fleeing. Local reports say the audience of about 20 people, mostly children, thought the shooting was part of the show before realising both men had been killed. Last year, a prominent circus clown, known as Pepe, was also shot dead by a unknown assailant in Cucuta — via Warren Ellis
SWAT teams training for drug raids casually shoot target dogs, so guess what they do on the real raids? Fascist scumbags. In anything other than a police state, you’d expect the law enforcers to be held to the highest possible standards of conduct; in the US, the police with the biggest guns are unrestrained by ordinary decency. Slaughtering family pets is what I’d expect of a psychopath — via Pharyngula
A coronial inquest in Sydney has been told Indonesian forces involved in the attack on Balibo in 1975 dressed some Australian journalists in army uniform after they were killed. Former East Timorese soldier Fernando Mariz said he was also told the journalists had been shot or stabbed and their bodies dressed in Portuguese Army uniforms for a photo. When Mr Mariz asked why they had been dressed in uniform, the officers replied: In case someone in Australia complains
While the US continues to hash out concerns over the Real ID Act, which aims to create a national ID by standardising state driver’s licenses, China has already implemented a massive online ID database, which they say will help prevent fraud. Anyone can now send a text message or visit the country’s population information centre’s web site, to check if the name and the ID number of a person’s identity card match. If they do match the ID card-holder’s picture also appears, said the Ministry, adding that no other information is available to ensure a citizen’s privacy is protected. Completed at the end of 2006, China’s population information database, the world’s largest, contains personal information on 1.3 billion citizens. Giving public accessing to the database is also designed to correct mistakes if an individual discovers that their name, number and picture don’t match — via Slashdot
If you’re worried about what your neighbours think of you why not follow Malaysia’s lead and ban the journalists who are intent on asking those tricky questions
The New Media division will disappear under a wide-ranging restructure announced by ABC managing director Mark Scott today. Mr Scott says the changes will enable the ABC to maintain its leadership in the digital media world. The changes to be introduced in coming weeks in consultation with staff includes pursuing the potential for new revenue streams afforded by digital technology, including video-on-demand, the digitisation of the ABC archive and partnerships to disseminate ABC content more widely
To help make kids aware of alternatives to proprietary software the Ile-de-France, the political district of greater Paris, will give 175,000 school children and apprentices USB keys loaded with open-source software. With a word-processing program, audio and video playback capabilities, an email client and an IM client, these are essentially computers on a stick. The council touts this as representing for students a tool of freedom and mobility between their school, cybercafes and their home or friends’ PCs
Wolves in the northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list within the next year a move that would open the population up to trophy hunting. Federal officials are expected to announce the plan Monday. The agency also will finalise removal from the list of a separate population of wolves in the Great Lakes region
Europe is upping the pressure on Apple to open up its restrictive DRM that ties iTunes to the iPod. Norway ruled last year that the iPod-iTunes tie-in was unreasonable and gave Apple a deadline to make a change to its policies, but was unsatisfied with the response they got. Now France and Germany have joined forces with Norway, making it a lot harder for Apple to just walk away from those markets
Governor CL Butch
Otter said he will support public hunts to kill all but 100 grey wolves in the state once the federal government removes the animal from Endangered Species Act protections, and that he hopes to shoot a wolf himself
A samurai sword wielding vigilante has come to the rescue of two Police officers when they were attacked by an armed gang in South Shields, England. A group of men had forced their way into a house and were ransacking the place when passing plain-clothes officers were alerted by a woman inside screaming. The criminals outnumbered them and were armed with a hammer, knives and chains and attacked the Police officers. As one of them stabbed at a Policeman with his knife, a mysterious do-gooder appeared from nowhere and attacked him with a samurai sword. One of the burglars began running away but was stopped by the stranger who struck him on the arm with the sword. Two of the criminals were arrested, but in true hero style the samurai disappeared before police could speak to him — via Boing Boing
Google has struck a partnership with a Chinese peer-to-peer file downloading service, Xunlei Networking Technologies. The partnership will give users of the Xunlei service easier access to Google search services and multimedia content via a search link on Xunlei’s home page, the companies said Friday. The deal also involves marketing development and product co-operation
Senator Leahy introduced a bill, simply called The War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007, targeting fraud by gov’t contractors supporting the occupation of Iraq and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Such profiteering would be a felony under Leahy’s legislation, punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of $1 million — via digg
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