Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has been granted release from his prison sentence on compassionate grounds. Biggs, 79, is severely ill in hospital with pneumonia and doctors have said there is not much hope
for him
Professor Declan Murphy and colleagues Dr Michael Craig and Dr Marco Catani from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London have found differences in the brain which may provide a biological explanation for psychopathy. The research investigated the brain biology of psychopaths with convictions that included attempted murder, manslaughter, multiple rape with strangulation and false imprisonment. Using a powerful imaging technique (DT-MRI) the researchers have highlighted biological differences in the brain which may underpin these types of behaviour and provide a more comprehensive understanding of criminal psychopathy
Google’s adventures in the media world took a fresh twist today, after it announced it was selling off its radio assets while simultaneously spending more than $100m buying leading online video company On2
Telstra could face a fine of up to $300 million after admitting to the Federal Court it was guilty of misleading and deceptive conduct in denying competitors access to its copper network
ITV has sold Friends Reunited for ¬£25m, despite having agreed to pay a total of £175m for it in 2005. The buyer is Brightsolid Limited, which is owned by DC Thomson, Dundee-based publisher of comics such as the Beano
Media giant News Corporation Ltd intends to charge for all its news webhttp://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/News-Corp-to-charge-for-all-news-websites-pd20090806-UMS5P?OpenDocumentsites in a bid to lift revenues, as the transition towards online media permanently changes the advertising landscape
Yahoo will be able to quit its internet search deal with Microsoft if it fails to meet certain market share and revenue targets. Yahoo can abandon the deal if Microsoft does not produce advertising revenue per search within a certain — undisclosed — percentage of Google’s. It can also walk away if the share of search queries falls below a certain percentage of the market
Hoping to deal with a growing problem, Twitter has quietly introduced a feature to prevent users from posting links to malicious Web sites. But security experts say that it can be easily circumvented
Scientists have discovered that the spleen, long consigned to the B-list of abdominal organs and known as much for its metaphoric as its physiological value, plays a more important role in the body’s defense system than anyone suspected. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School describe studies showing that the spleen is a reservoir for huge numbers of immune cells called monocytes, and that in the event of a serious trauma to the body like a heart attack, gashing wound or microbial invasion, the spleen will disgorge those monocyte multitudes into the bloodstream to tackle the crisis
Over the years hundreds of stories of domain name theft have been reported, most famous among them of course is the theft of Sex.com. Even as recent as last week, reports of stolen domains sent a chilling reminder through the domain industry as valuable domains Before.com, Adios.com and others were stolen from Warren Weitzman. Until recently, there hasn’t been a case of a domain theft where the thief was caught and arrested. However, on 30 July, Daniel Goncalves was arrested at his home in Union, New Jersey and charged in a landmark case, the first criminal arrest for domain name theft in the United States
Human skin is a phenomenon — small scratches and cuts heal quickly, leaving no trace of a scar after just a few days. It’s a different matter with materials, such as metals — if the electroplated layer protecting the metals from corrosion is scratched, rust protection is lost. Engineers are working on transferring the self-healing effect of skin to materials. The idea behind this is to introduce evenly distributed fluid-filled capsules into the electroplated layer — rather like raisins in a cake. If the layer is damaged, the pellets at the point of damage burst, the fluid runs out and repairs
the scratch. Until now, these plans have failed due to the size of the capsules — at 10 to 15 micrometers they were too large for the electroplated layer, which is around 20 micrometers thick. The capsules altered the mechanical properties of the layer
In their most recent experiments with Geobacter, the sediment-loving microbe whose hairlike filaments help it to produce electric current from mud and wastewater, Derek Lovley and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst supervised the evolution of a new strain that dramatically increases power output per cell and overall bulk power. It also works with a thinner biofilm than earlier strains, cutting the time to reach electricity-producing concentrations on the electrode
Spanish researchers claim to have discovered evidence of a type of giant worm that lived 475 million years ago and was up to one metre in length. The fossilised tracks of the marine worms were found in the Cabaneros National Park in central Spain in an area that was a seabed during the Lower Ordovician period, the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) said. It said the creatures lived in horizontal galleries of five metres in length and 15-20 centimetres in diameter under the seabed
Criminals running an ATM card-skimming scam made a big mistake this week: They tried to hit the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas. As the conference was kicking off a few days ago, attendees noticed that an ATM placed in the Riviera Hotel, which plays host to the annual event, didn’t quite look right, according to a senior conference organiser who identified himself only as Priest. They looked at the screen where there would normally be a camera,
he said. It was a little bit too dark, so someone shined a flashlight in there and there was a PC
Optus has blamed a spam attack on an email outage that occurred between late Wednesday and Thursday morning. Optus’ IT security systems had detected an influx of spam directed towards its mail servers. Its engineers rebooted its email servers at around 10pm Wednesday night
Gorillas have been found, for the first time, to be a source of HIV. Previous research had shown the HIV-1 strain, the main source of human infections, with 33m cases worldwide, originated from a virus in chimpanzees. But researchers have now discovered an HIV infection in a Cameroonian woman which is clearly linked to a gorilla strain
Westpac and St George banks have joined the National Australia Bank in discounting their overdrawn fees
Fifteen senior Australian climate scientists have hit back at the resurgence of climate scepticism among the nation’s politicians and the media, warning that the threat from climate change is real, urgent and approaching a series of tipping points
where it will feed on itself. New findings suggest that the situation is, if anything, more serious than the assessment of just a few years ago
, say the scientists, who include the CSIRO’s Dr Michael Raupach and Dr John Church, along with the Australian National University’s Professor Will Steffen, who recently completed a report on climate change science for the Federal Government
Without a way to store their power, no number of solar panels will free a home from the electrical grid. Researchers at Utah-based Ceramatec have developed a new battery that can be scaled up to store 20 kilowatt-hours–enough to power an average home for most of a day. An easy sell for solar users, but it could also allow the grid-bound to stockpile energy during less expensive off-peak hours. The new battery runs on sodium-sulfur — a composition that typically operates at greater than 600 F. Sodium-sulfur is more energetic than lead-acid, so if you can somehow get it to a lower temperature, it would be valuable for residential use,
Ralph Brodd, an independent energy conversion consultant, says
The Futurama
characters won’t be sporting new voices after all. The five Futurama
cast members — John DiMaggio, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Maurice LaMarche and Tress MacNeille — have just sealed pacts with 20th Century Fox TV to return to the show as it reboots with 26 new episodes for Comedy Central. Both the actors and 20th are believed to have found a compromise. Move comes after 20th put out a casting call earlier this month to find replacement actors for the show
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