Raspberry Pi : Could tiny do-it-yourself PC help Britain to find the next Mark Zuckerberg?
The British-made wi-fi gadget is a credit-card-sized computer designed to teach school children how to programme, and goes on sale today.
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Windows 8 is available to test today as Microsoft revs up to battle Apple and Google
Microsoft is offering the public a free trial of its new operating system, which will run on tablets as well as PCs - it's a radical reinvention, and a make-or-break opportunity for the tech company.
Twitter bird logo is actually called Larry
Two days ago Twitter's Platform/API product manager Ryan Sarver let slip that the world-famous blue bird was in fact called Larry.
Inch-long fossil fleas with huge piercing mouth-parts could have fed on dinosaurs
Giant Jurassic fleas measuring more about an inch long may have fed on feathered dinosaurs, say scientists.
Fossils of several of the blood-sucking insects were unearthed at two sites in China.
Plants have a memory of pests that spans generations
In the age of industrial agriculture, seeds are often purchased in bulk from corporate growers that use heavy doses of pesticides. They then travel many miles to a farm where climate, soil and pest conditions are dramatically different. As a result, crops often encounter new ailments that never impacted first generation seed plants, which may have been protected from the most troublesome invaders.
This might not be the best approach, based on three studies published in the February issue of Plant Physiology. Not only does adversity in the parent generation appear to make the seed stronger, but it primes plants to fight the specific ailments that plagued their parents.
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Could fixing healthcare be as simple as a checklist?
Long Beach, California—Harvard's Atul Gawande says that the solution to our expensive (and growing) healthcare problems is simple. What we need, he told the TED audience, is a system—a real system that emphasizes the importance of simplicity. How could the complexities of our healthcare system possibly be handled by increased simplicity?
Gawande, who specializes in reducing risks in medical contexts, is in a position to appreciate the advantages of simplicity. A big challenge in medicine today starts at the doors of medical school. While we may be eager to blame governments or insurers, the cause of our health care troubles is the complexity that science has given us, which in turn dictates how we train our doctors. We end up with doctors that take on specializations, nurses that take on specializations, and drugs that are increasingly specialized as well.
This produces doctors that are trained to be cavalier and strongly individualist—cowboys of a sort. And thanks to movies and television, we idealize the arrogant cowboys, doctors who are capable of spotting the 1-in-1,000 exception to a standard diagnosis. But that, according to Gawande, is the wrong model to idealize. "We have trained, hired, and rewarded people to be cowboys," he said. "But it’s pit crews that we need."
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N Korea agrees to nuclear freeze
North Korea has agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, as well as nuclear and long-range missile tests, in return for food aid from the US, officials say.
Railgun: Video shows it can hit targets 100 miles away at 7 times the speed of sound
A futuristic supersonic weapon which fires ammunition from more than 100 miles away is another step closer to being deployed by the U.S. Navy.
DNA scans reveal 5,300-year-old mummified ‘Iceman’ had brown eyes, relatives in Sardinia – and suffered from Lyme disease
The 5,300-year-old 'ice mummy' known as Otzi suffered from the world's first-known case of Lyme disease, a bacterial parasite spread by ticks, according to new DNA analysis by Bozen researchers.
Jesus discovery: Does 1st Century coffin lid found in Jerusalem reveal Jesus’ resting place?
Archaeologists exploring a site in Jerusalem have uncovered a set of 1st century 'bone boxes' one of which carries an inscription that reads: 'Divine Jehovah, raise up, raise up'.