Despite a 30-year lifespan that gives ample time for cells to grow cancerous, a small rodent species called a naked mole rat has never been found with tumours of any kind — and now biologists at the University of Rochester think they know why. The findings show that the mole rat’s cells express a gene called p16 that makes the cells claustrophobic
, stopping the cells’ proliferation when too many of them crowd together, cutting off runaway growth before it can start. The effect of p16 is so pronounced that when researchers mutated the cells to induce a tumour, the cells’ growth barely changed, whereas regular mouse cells became fully cancerous
The Electronic Frontier Foundation today has aimed a demonstrably potent weapon — the spotlight of public shame — at those corporations and individuals who abuse copyright claims to stifle free speech
Visitors to technology blog Gizmodo are being warned that they could have picked up more than tips about the latest must-have gadget. According to security firm Sophos, the web site was delivering advertisements laced with malware last week. A statement on the Gizmodo web site admits that it was tricked into running Suzuki adverts which were in fact from hackers. It follows a similar problem on the New York Times web site
A French court has convicted the Church of Scientology of fraud, but stopped short of banning the group from operating in France. Two branches of the group’s operations and several of its leaders in France have been fined. The case came after complaints from two women, one of whom said she was manipulated into paying more than 20,000 euros in the 1990s
The internet is on the brink of the biggest change
to its working since it was invented 40 years ago
, the net regulator ICANN has said. The body said it that it was finalising plans to introduce web addresses using non-Latin characters. The proposal — initially approved in 2008 — would allow domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts
A record 5,000 words have been added to the latest edition of the Macquarie Dictionary. The Australian dictionary is growing faster than ever before and the new additions to the fifth version are as varied as the rest of the English language. The dictionary’s editor, Sue Butler, says it is meant to be a snapshot of modern English in Australia
A Chinese-American academic has been sentenced to eight years in prison for selling human skulls unearthed in China to buyers overseas. The US national, 44, only identified by his surname Ding, was sentenced on September 21 for illegal business practices
. His arrest came after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation tipped off Chinese police last year, informing authorities that Ding was sending the skulls to the United States via express mail
Geocities We always imagined how this might end: GeoCities would finally take down all of the animated under construction
signs, and we’d hear one last Midi file to the tune of horns playing taps. Instead, GeoCities will probably go down with a whimper today. Time is up for Yahoo’s scheduled closing of perhaps the most significant virtual museum in recent history. Years ago a central meeting place for a massive chunk of American Web surfers, GeoCities will lock its doors and take millions of pages offline
With more than half a million visits a day, EZTV is the leading TV-torrent release group. It therefore comes as no surprise that rumours and confusion spread when the site went offline earlier this week. EZTV users can be reassured though, the downtime is caused by technical issues and not any legal trouble as some had suggested
The consumer watchdog says there will be a zero tolerance
approach to dodgy telecommunications companies while the Federal Government has threatened a legislative crackdown after new figures showed a significant rise in complaints against telcos
A new mobile phone charger that will work with any handset has been approved by the International Telecommunication Union. Industry body the GSMA says that 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers are generated each year. Currently most chargers are product or brand specific, so people tend to change them when they upgrade to a new phone. However, the new energy-efficient chargers can be kept for much longer. The GSMA also estimates that they will reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 13.6m tonnes
All 1.6 million books digitised so far by the Internet Archive, the San Francisco-based non-profit dedicated to the universal sharing of knowledge, will be available free to children around the world who have laptops built by the Cambridge, MA-based One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC)
The BBC is reportedly mulling over plans to come up with an international edition of its hugely popular iPlayer service, in a bid to allow global audience to catch up with some of its top shows, according to BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s profit-making arm. BBC Worldwide said that the move would help revamping its business model, and thereby help the corporation in raking in significant profits through its premium content
In a great blow for consumers everywhere, the prospect of 3-strikes for copyright infringers has returned with a vengeance, as both the EU Council and French Constitutional court pushed forward with their respective legislation. HADOPI is alive, and the EU has shredded requirements for judicial oversight
Discarded and left-for-dead, old TV broadcast channels (called white spaces
) that have been freed up by the transition to digital TV in the US are being given new life and used to wirelessly deliver high-speed Internet connectivity to business, education and community users. Under an experimental license granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Spectrum Bridge designed and deployed a wireless TV white spaces network to distribute broadband Internet connectivity in Claudville, Virginia. To ensure the local residents make the most of this new high-speed connectivity, Dell, Microsoft and the TDF Foundation have contributed software and hardware to the local school and the town’s new computer centre
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC has shut down no fewer than 800 scam web sites and arrested members of 18 syndicates behind the fraudulent scheme in a renewed bid to clap down on internet fraudsters through an initiative tagged project eagle claw
Profits at online auction giant eBay have fallen by 29% as it continued to struggle amid the weak economy. It made $350m in the third quarter from $492m in the same period a year earlier as customers showed reluctance to spend. But the firm’s overall sales rose 6% to $2.4bn as more people used its PayPal division to pay for things online
The Kindle International’s 3G connection may be free, but it comes with some serious restrictions. Upon trying to subscribe to various magazines and newspapers PC Pro were greeted with the news that Newspapers and magazines delivered outside the US will not include photos and other images
. This even applies to the UK-based newspapers Amazon has signed a deal with, including The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail The and Independent. And that’s not the Kindle International’s only limitation. Amazon has also disabled its inbuilt web browser, returning the message that Due to local restrictions, web browsing is not available for all countries, when you try to access it
Twitter, the microblogging company which lets users express their thoughts in text message-length bursts, has proven itself the most desirable property on the internet by announcing deals with both Microsoft and Google
It’s the technology that brought us high-speed wireless and and now, one of Australia’s most significant scientific breakthroughs is set to fund future discoveries. A team of CSIRO researchers has been the toast of the industry after finding the key to fast wireless networks and making $205 million in the process. The technology has put the CSIRO well in the black for the first time in five years and now the peak science body wants to put back. It has injected $150 million from the proceeds of its wi-fi technology to the once-defunct science and industry endowment fund, originally established by parliament in 1926
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