Mutant gene find raises hopes of those at risk of melanoma

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14 November 2011
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In Health, Science
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Linda Seaman was 12 when doctors found her first melanoma. She was 29 when they found her second, which was hidden by hair on her scalp.

Melanomas run in Mrs Seaman’s family. Her mother and uncle have both had two, and she checks her children incessantly.

Today, researchers report the discovery of a mutant gene, carried by about 200,000 Australians, which increases the risk of developing melanoma by 2½ times.

The faulty gene is more common in those with a large number of moles and a family history of the disease — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Queen + Michael Jackson Duet Coming

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14 November 2011
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Queen guitarist Brian May has revealed that a duet featuring Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson will be released as a new Queen record in 2012.

May told London’s Evening Standard that the song was recorded at Michael Jackson’s house in the late 80s. Michael used to come and see us when we were on tour in the States. He and Freddie became close friends, close enough to record a couple of tracks together at Michael’s house, tracks which have never seen the light of day, he told the newspaper.

He also confirmed that the Jackson estate have approved the release — via redwolf.newsvine.com

‘Smog-eating’ material breaking into the big time

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14 November 2011
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In Science
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What material can you find in toothpaste, sunscreen, solar cells, on the baseline at Wimbledon, in a Roman church, and along a tunnel in Brussels?

Full marks if you guessed titanium dioxide, a nearly ubiquitous but wholly unsung material.

Its brilliant white has made it a staple in pigments – hence Wimbledon – but its eco-credentials are still coming to the fore.

Titanium dioxide does a couple of clever tricks that mean we may well be seeing a lot of it in the future: it’s self-cleaning, and it breaks down pollutants in the air.

And the fact that thin films of it are clear is the reason that a number of manufacturers use it in glass applications such as skylights — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Kraken Octopus Ring / OctopusME + Miyu Decay

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14 November 2011
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In Craft, Wildlife
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Originally commissioned as an engagement ring for the illustrious model and artist, Ulorin Vex, this show stopper is the first collaboration between OctopusMe and Stephanie Inagaki of Miyu Decay.

Stephanie designed the ring out of iconic OctopusMe tentacles and carved the Kraken head out of wax. I cast and did all of the finishing work on the piece — via Etsy

Sisters of St Francis, the Quiet Shareholder Activists

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13 November 2011
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In Business, Rights
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Not long ago, an unusual visitor arrived at the sleek headquarters of Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan.

It wasn’t some CEO, or a pol from Athens or Washington, or even a sign-waving occupier from Zuccotti Park.

It was Sister Nora Nash of the Sisters of St Francis of Philadelphia. And the slight, soft-spoken nun had a few not-so-humble suggestions for the world’s most powerful investment bank.

Way up on the 41st floor, in a conference room overlooking the World Trade Centre site, Sister Nora and her team from the Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility laid out their advice for three Goldman executives. The Wall Street bank, they said, should protect consumers, rein in executive pay, increase its transparency and remember the poor.

In short, Goldman should do God’s work — something that its chairman and chief executive, Lloyd C Blankfein, once remarked that he did. (The joke bombed) — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Aussie’s online bubble generating $10m a year

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13 November 2011
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In Business, Design, Technology
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With a couple of Macs, the internet and a great idea, Melbourne entrepreneur Martin Hosking has built a global business with more than 7 million unique products — a number that grows by more than 5000 a day.

The business, Red Bubble, is a kind of iTunes app store for artists and its success has some of iTunes’ hallmarks. All business transactions are completed online and now all in the cloud, even its accounts and personnel files.

It sells fascinating stuff at modest prices, is as fanatical as Apple about quality and its community has some of the cult aspects you find among Apple devotees.

It’s an all-Macintosh environment, even to the iMacs used to run daily Skype video conferences between the company’s headquarters in Melbourne and the US office it opened recently in Palo Alto, California — via redwolf.newsvine.com

NASA Develops Super-Black Material That Absorbs Light Across Multiple Wavelength Bands

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13 November 2011
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NASA engineers have produced a material that absorbs on average more than 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that hits it — a development that promises to open new frontiers in space technology.

The team of engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Md, reported their findings recently at the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference, the largest interdisciplinary technical meeting in this discipline. The team has since reconfirmed the material’s absorption capabilities in additional testing, said John Hagopian, who is leading the effort involving 10 Goddard technologists — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The Internet Revolts Against Anti-Piracy Censorship

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13 November 2011
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In Politics, Rights, Technology
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In response to the pending SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), leading civil liberties and tech policy organisations are calling for a Internet-wide day of protest against censorship.

The event is dubbed American Censorship Day, because it will take place on the day of House hearings on the legislation that will introduce web censorship in the US.

The groups say that under the new legislation, America’s Internet could no longer be free and open as it is now, but controlled by large entertainment industry companies and their fear of piracy. As a result thousands of perfectly legitimate Internet services have to fear for their existence.

Sites are encouraged to participate. All the have to do is put a code snippet on their site so all US visitors will be alerted.

Visitors to these sites will then see a splash-page with a seizure notice that allows them to contact Congress to vote against the pending anti-piracy bills (they can click it away and it will only be shown once) — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The Public Library, Completely Reimagined

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13 November 2011
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In Technology
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Earlier this year, MAKE Magazine’s Phillip Torrone wrote a provocative article asking Is it time to rebuild and retool libraries and make ‘techshops’? In other words, should libraries join some of the other new community centers that are being created (such as General Assembly which we covered yesterday) and become hackerspaces or makerspaces?

Yes!, says librarian Lauren Smedley, who is in the process of creating what might just be the first maker-space within a US public library. The Fayetteville Free Library where Smedley works is building a Fab Lab — short for fabrication laboratory — that will provide free public access to machines and software for manufacturing and making things.

So far, the Fab Lab is equipped with a MakerBot, a 3D printer that lets you print plastic pieces of your own design. The potential for 3D printers to revolutionize manufacturing as we know it is huge: imagine being able to design and then manufacture — or print — whatever you want. Moreover, imagine the tools of manufacturing being in the hands of everyone, not just giant factories (and remember, since this is a public library, this is really putting the technology in the hands of everyone, not just those that can afford a membership at a traditional hackerspace) — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Bondi bicycle bandit strikes again? Second bank raided

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12 November 2011
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In Weird
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Two Sydney banks about 15 kilometres apart have been held up in the space of 90 minutes, with the gunman making his getaway on a bicycle both times.

Police said they are investigating the links between the latest robbery at a bank on Great North Road, Five Dock, about 2.30pm and an earlier attempted robbery at Westpac in Westfield Bondi Junction — via redwolf.newsvine.com

iCow: Kenyans now manage their herds via mobile phone

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12 November 2011
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In Technology, Wildlife
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As an organic farmer outside of Nairobi, Su Kahumbu could see the challenge that her cattle-herding neighbours had in handling the expenses of their most precious assets, the female cow.

If the cattle owner didn’t pay attention, he might miss the very brief window of time when his cow went into heat, missing a chance at expanding his herd. Some cattle men wasted their money on the wrong kind of feed, others were selling their cattle off at below the market rate, and yet all of them had the tool in their hands to get information: a cell phone.

So, Ms Kahumbu came up with iCow, a mobile-phone application that allows herders to register each individual cow, and to receive individualised text messages on their mobile phones, including advice for veterinary care and feeding schedules, a database of experts, and updated market rates on cattle prices. It’s an example of how high technology can help out even in the low-tech business of agriculture, in which 80 percent of Kenyans make a living — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Universal Music’s £1.2bn acquisition marks end of the road for EMI

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12 November 2011
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In Business
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Universal Music has triumphed in the auction of EMI’s recorded music division, home to the Beatles, Coldplay and Tinie Tempah, tabling a knockout offer of £1.2bn ($1.9bn).

The deal is about $500m more than that offered to owner Citigroup by rival Warner Music, which pulled out of the running a week ago, and marks the end of the road for the British company as a music major.

Friday’s sale is the first part of the break up of EMI, with the music publishing division tipped to go to a consortium led by Sony for about $2.2b — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Mini Silk Screens / Ashley

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12 November 2011
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In Craft
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When Ashley from Lil Blue Boo was preparing to attend her first trunk show, she needed a good solution for adding labels to her line. She makes clothes for kids, so traditional (read: itchy) tags were not going cut it. She finally settled on making a set of mini silk screens so she could print her logo and size information right onto the fabric of her pieces. In her mini silk screen tutorial, she’ll show you how to turn inexpensive wooden frames into tiny screens for making your own tiny prints — via CRAFT

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