pdclarry writes “A recent study by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University found that a piece of tuna sushi may not be tuna at all: ‘A piece of tuna sushi has the potential to be an endangered species, a fraud or a health hazard,’ wrote the authors. ‘All three of these cases were uncovered in this study.’ The study, published in PLoS ONE examined 68 samples of tuna sushi purchased from 31 restaurants in Manhattan (more…)

alphadogg writes “Attack code has been identified that could be used to break into a PC running older versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. The code was posted Friday to the Bugtraq mailing list by an unidentified hacker. According to security vendor Symantec, the code does not always work properly, but it could be used to install unauthorized software on a victim’s computer.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(more…)

Barence writes “Science fiction has long inspired real-world technology, but are the authors of sci-fi stories finally running out of steam? PC Pro has traced the history of sci-fi’s influence on real-world technology, from Jules Verne to Snow Crash, but suggests that writers have run out of ideas when it comes to inspiring tomorrow’s products. ‘Since Snow Crash, no novel has had quite the same impact on the computing world, and you might argue that (more…)

What a surreal, epic week in mass media. On Monday, Sarah Palin appeared on “Oprah,” then on Thursday Oprah announced she’s quitting her talk show. Meanwhile, vampires rule the Earth.

More…

Mr2001 writes “Consumerist reports that Apple is refusing to work on computers that have been used in smoking households. ‘The Apple store called and informed me that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, [the warranty has been voided] and they refuse to work on the machine “due to health risks of second hand smoke,”‘ wrote one customer. Another said, ‘When I asked for an explanation, she said [the owner of the iMac (more…)

Democrat Landrieu said she would vote to move forward with debate on health-care legislation, as the chamber moved toward an evening vote on whether to bring the bill to the floor. The support of at least one other centrist Democrat remained in doubt.

More…

18 months ago, South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius — famously known as the “Blade Runner”; because he was born without fibulas and runs on two crescent, carbon fiber lower legs — made global headlines when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned a ban by the IAAF and and allowed Pistorius to compete against able-bodied runners.

More…

An anonymous reader writes with this quote from a story at El Reg about an early look at the Silverlight 4 beta: “There are … major changes to Silverlight’s out-of-browser functionality, a loose equivalent to Adobe Systems’ AIR runtime for Flash. Even when fully sandboxed, which means having the same permissions that would apply to a browser-hosted Silverlight applet, out-of-browser applications get an HTML control, custom window settings, and the (more…)

itwbennett writes “Some very generous Alpha OS geeks have snagged the Chrome OS source code and compiled a version to share with the rest of us, writes blogger Peter Smith. ‘The build comes in the form of a virtual machine, which means you’ll need VMWare or VirtualBox running, and of course the image of Chrome OS itself. The folks at gdgt are distributing the latter, and they’ve set up a page with all the links you’ll need. You’ll need to create a (more…)

The human capacity for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me, so it shouldn’t surprise me that so many Republicans seem to genuinely believe that they are the party of fiscal responsibility.

More…