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Oops: Backscatter x-ray machines "tear apart DNA" →
Though touted as completely safe because the level of radiation is so low, travelers have been nervous about the devices — and not just because it shows off a nice outline of their privates to the people manning the machines — but because they remain scared of the health problems they might propose.
Looks like a little healthy paranoia might have been a good thing. While the conventional wisdom has held that so-called “terahertz radiation,” upon which backscatter x-ray machines are based, is harmless because it doesn’t carry enough energy to do cellular or genetic damage, new research suggests that may be completely wrong.
Specifically, researchers have found that terahertz radiation may interfere directly with DNA. Although the force generated is small, the waves have been found to “unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication.”
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The City is a Battlesuit for Surviving the Future (via m1k3y: inky)
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The Real Story of Trading Software Espionage →
Much has been made of the 32MB of Goldman Sachs’ proprietary algorithmic trading code (“trading secrets”) allegedly stolen by Sergey Aleynikov, now portrayed in the financial media as the new Julius Rosenberg, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen and John Walker all rolled into one. That may prove to be true; but while it makes for a great news story at this point in time, it highlights the new significance of high frequency trading—which is built on this technology—in the marketplace.
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Snooping through the power socket →
Security researchers found that poor shielding on some keyboard cables means useful data can be leaked about each character typed.
By analysing the information leaking onto power circuits, the researchers could see what a target was typing.
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A Drug That Could Give You Perfect Visual Memory →
A group of Spanish researchers reported today in Science that they may have stumbled upon a substance that could become the ultimate memory-enhancer. The group was studying a poorly-understood region of the visual cortex. They found that if they boosted production of a protein called RGS-14 (pictured) in that area of the visual cortex in mice, it dramatically affected the animals’ ability to remember objects they had seen.
Mice with the RGS-14 boost could remember objects they had seen for up to two months. Ordinarily the same mice would only be able to remember these objects for about an hour.
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Transhumanism is about how technology will eventually help us overcome the problems that have, up until now, been endemic to human nature. Cyberpunk is about how technology won’t.
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'Robocop' gadget developed for police →
A police scanner reminscent of the hi-tech gadgets in films such as Robocop which can detect weapons hidden beneath a criminal’s clothing has been developed.
[viacyberpunk]
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Robots forming human-like societies: electronic evolution? →
Within fifty generations of this electronic evolution, co-operative societies of robots had formed — helping each other to find food and avoid poison. Even more amazing is the emergence of cheats and martyrs. Transistorized traitors emerged which wrongly identified poison zone as food, luring their trusting brethren to their doom before scooting off to silently charge in a food zone…
[via cyberpunk]
