DNA Nanorobot to Trigger Targeted Therapeutic Responses
18 Feb 2012 12:50am GMT This is apparently a thing that actually exists, not some Drexler fantasy.Using the DNA origami method, in which complex three-dimensional shapes and objects are constructed by folding strands of DNA, Douglas and Bachelet created a nanosized robot in the form of an open barrel whose two halves are connected by a hinge. The DNA barrel, which acts as a container, is held shut by special DNA latches that can recognize and seek out combinations of cell-surface proteins, including disease markers....
Clock porn!
17 Feb 2012 9:58pm GMT Time in the 10,000-Year Clock.Man, I love this stuff. Some choice excerpts:The SI second is defined based on specific transitions of a cesium atom. If this is measured on the rotating Earth, relativistic effects that depend in part on the earth's rotation will influence a cesium clock's rate relative to a clock in an inertial frame. Thus, even the measurement of the SI second that is used to define Terrestrial Time will be at least slightly dependent on the unpredictable rate of Earth's...
Go ahead, be evil
17 Feb 2012 9:22pm GMT This is amazing.How Companies Learn Your Secrets The only problem is that identifying pregnant customers is harder than it sounds. Target has a baby-shower registry, and Pole started there, observing how shopping habits changed as a woman approached her due date, which women on the registry had willingly disclosed. He ran test after test, analyzing the data, and before long some useful patterns emerged. Lotions, for example. Lots of people buy lotion, but one of Pole's colleagues noticed that...
SXSW 2012 torrent #1 out now
17 Feb 2012 9:31am GMT 771 files, 4.7 GB.Mirrored from jwz.org.
Google Circumvents Safari Privacy Protections
17 Feb 2012 9:25am GMT (I'm using this thumbnail a lot. What can I say, it is deserved.)Google Circumvents Safari Privacy Protections - This is Why We Need Do Not TrackEarlier today, the Wall Street Journal published evidence that Google has been circumventing the privacy settings of Safari and iPhone users, tracking them on non-Google sites despite Apple's default settings, which were intended to prevent such tracking. [...]As Google engineers were building the system for passing facts like "your friend Suzy +1'ed...