MozillaZine is reporting that Mozilla Thunderbird is to move to a new separate organisational setting
as the Mozilla Foundation focuses more and more on Mozilla Firefox
A two-year-old cat has become a telltale sign of death at a Rhode Island nursing home, curling up beside dying patients in their final few hours. Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, detailed the phenomenon Thursday in a brief essay titled A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat
. Since he arrived at the centre two years ago, Oscar has been at the side of 25 patients who have died — via Darren Barefoot
Australian researchers have developed woollen clothing that changes colour in the sun and blocks harmful UV rays. While other researchers have already developed colour-changing cotton and glass, this is the first time such photochromatic technology has been applied to wool. Tong Cheng, a PhD student from Deakin University, has created a polymer that is mixed with the photochromatic dye to trap its pigments. The polymer-dye mix is then used to colour the wool. The polymer also absorbs harmful UV rays and increases the fabric’s sun protection factor
Bloggers making Freedom of Information Act requests to the CIA will likely get them processed for free under new rules that broaden the definition of who is part of the news media
. Professional journalists have long been able to request free processing of their FOIA requests of the intelligence agency. As a general rule, they don’t have to pay fees for searching and retrieving files, although they may be charged for duplication costs — via Billboard
From some Iranian newspaper via the BBC via the Washington Post, dubiously sourced, definitely implausible, but please let this be true: A few weeks ago, 14 squirrels equipped with espionage systems of foreign intelligence services were captured by [Iranian] intelligence forces along the country’s borders. These trained squirrels, each of which weighed just over 700 grams, were released on the borders of the country for intelligence and espionage purposes. According to the announcement made by Iranian intelligence officials, alert police officials caught these squirrels before they could carry out any task
— via Boing Boing
The British Government has rejected extending copyright for sound recordings. This is an important development in the face of trends to extend copyright duration, although it leaves British copyright protection for music recordings at a shorter duration than for written works. The decision came despite fierce lobbying from the large British music industry. The music industry will now lobby directly to the European Commission, but without the support of the national government, its position is significantly weakened. British copyright for music recordings therefore remains at 50 years after the date of release of a recording, in contrast to 95 years in the US and 70 years in Australia — via Slashdot
The blueprint for a tiny, ultra-robust mechanical computer has been outlined by US researchers. The energy-efficient nano computer is inspired by ideas about computing first put forward nearly 200 years ago. The scientists say the machine would be built from nanometre-sized components, just billionths of a metre across. Chips based on the design could be used in places, such as car engines, where silicon can be too delicate
Jumbo squid that can grow up to 7 feet long and weigh more than 110 pounds is invading central California waters and preying on local anchovy, hake and other commercial fish populations, according to a study published Tuesday. An aggressive predator, the Humboldt squid — or Dosidicus gigas — can change its eating habits to consume the food supply favored by tuna and sharks, its closest competitors
Equipment failure Tuesday afternoon knocked out electricity to tens of thousands of Pacific Gas and Electric customers on the Peninsula and in San Francisco — including PG&E’s own office and the Financial District. 365 Main, a data centre on the edge of San Francisco’s Financial District, was affected by the outage, taking down a lot of its clients sites including; Six Apart’s TypePad, LiveJournal, Vox, TypePad and MovableType; Craigslist; local listings site Yelp; and blog search engine Technorati; have experienced downtime today due to a power outage in San Francisco. Still not as amusing as the early rumours of a drunk employee killing the servers or the comments on the SFGate article claiming that zombies had taken over San Francisco and the argument over whether or not zombies are cannibals
Haruo Suekichi has made thousands of watches, each with an individual name. And to think it all started with a one-armed man at a flea market in Japan — via William Gibson
Researchers from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University claim to have come up with a metal that can dampen vibrations, just like rubber. Their exotic material is a composite consisting of ceramic particles embedded in a metal matrix. The metal provides strength and stiffness, while the ceramics have a curious property known as ferroelasticity, meaning vibrations are converted into tiny rotations of crystals within the material. The composite offers the strength of a conventional metal with the vibration-dampening properties of rubber
Five years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production. Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines. Previously, the organisation behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable. The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology are working on a new type of nanogenerator that could draw necessary energy from flowing blood in the human body. The hope is to incorporate the new nanogenerator into biosensors, environmental monitoring devices and even personal electronics that will require no fuel source, internal or external. Once completed, this new cellular engine could find various applications, even beyond medicine — via Slashdot
Flash memory is in nearly every handheld gadget, from digital cameras to iPhones. Now Nanosys, a startup based in Palo Alto, CA, says it has found a material that can double the capacity of flash memory found in conventional chips by adding self-assembled metal nanocrystals to the flash manufacturing process. Nanosys, which has shown that the tiny particles of metal are compatible with today’s manufacturing processes, has deals with flash makers Intel and Micron Technologies and expects that metal nanocrystals will be in products as early as 2009
Microsoft said that it expects Windows XP, the operating system supposedly made moot by Windows Vista, to make up a significantly larger part of sales in the coming year
A new method of adult stem cell growth, designed in the Area of Cellular Therapy of the University Clinic (University of Navarra), has demonstrated its efficacy for its capacity to grow cornea stem cells. So Ana Fernández Hortelano, ophthalmologist at the Hospital demonstrated applying the growth technique in treating diseases of the cornea, using stem cells, in 70 test animals (rabbits). The aim of the procedure was to regain the damaged epithelium and thus restore transparency to the cornea
Google has rolled out some spectacular new layers for Google Earth. Astronaut Photography of Earth
is filled with images from the last 40 years of NASA Earth exploration, and Earth City Lights
has stunning views of our home planet at night, as viewed from space
Microsoft is currently aiming to release the next version of the Windows operating system in about three years. Previously known as Vienna, the OS is now simply known internally as 7
. Microsoft’s big goal with 7 is to recapture a regular release schedule for their operating system product
A howto guide for creating your own religion for fun and profit
A new moon has been discovered orbiting Saturn — bringing the planet’s latest moon tally up to 60. The body was spotted in a series of images taken by cameras onboard the Cassini spacecraft. Initial calculations suggest the moon is about 2km-wide and its orbit sits between those of two other Saturnian moons, Methone and Pallene. The Cassini Imaging Team, who found the object, said Saturn’s moon count could rise further still
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