» Day 3: Stein: "In 5-10 years, most of the software you use will be free" | Ed Burnette's Dev Connection | ZDNet.com: "Over time there's a pressure to move licenses on software down this stack. From commercial, to source available (restricted) to copyleft to non-copyleft. One of the reasons is that as you go down the stack there's more freedom. Developers want to take these more free licenses, extend, and provide more functionality to users."

Backs to the Future: "New analysis of the language and gesture of South America's indigenous Aymara people indicates they have a concept of time opposite to all the world's studied cultures -- so that the past is ahead of them and the future behind."

Space Telescope Science Institute: Black Holes: Gravity's Relentless Pull home page: "Black holes are places where ordinary gravity has become so extreme that it overwhelms all other forces in the Universe. Once inside, nothing can escape a black hole's gravity — not even light."

The dean of debunking - Sunday Times - Times Online: "In challenging string theory, Peter Woit is taking on the self-interest of the entire scientific establishment"

BPS Research Digest: Rare counting ability induced by temporarily switching off brain region: "Twelve healthy participants were given several chances to estimate, from 50 to 150, how many blobs appeared on a computer screen. The blobs appeared for just 1.5 seconds, and the number of blobs changed on each attempt. Remarkably, the performance of ten of the subjects improved drastically after Snyder’s team applied 15 minutes of low frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to their left anterior temporal lobe, a brain region that’s been implicated in autistic people with rare counting and calcluating abilities."

Food for Thought: Chocolate as Sunscreen, Science News Online, June 10, 2006: "Chocolate, these scientists note, is just the latest in a range of antioxidant-rich foods holding the potential to shield skin from sun damage. For nearly a decade, Stahl's group has conducted studies with cooked tomato products showing that their ingestion, too, can limit UV-induced skin reddening."

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Genes Governing Embryonic Stem Cell "Immortality" Discovered: "Embryonic stem cells differ from other cells in the body. They can divide seemingly endlessly; they do not perform a specialized function; and, ultimately, they can become any other type of cell. How they do this remains a mystery, but new research has uncovered some of the genes that allow these cells to renew themselves."

The Silver Bullet: "There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we create software. Contrary to conventional wisdom, unreliability is not an essential characteristic of complex software programs. In this article, I will propose a silver bullet solution to the software reliability and productivity crisis. The solution will require a radical change"

YouTube - Star Trek vs. Star Wars

BBC NEWS | Health | Eating pizza 'cuts cancer risk': "Researchers claim eating pizza regularly reduced the risk of developing oesophageal cancer by 59%.

The risk of developing colon cancer also fell by 26% and mouth cancer by 34%, they claimed.

The secret could be lycopene, an antioxidant chemical in tomatoes, which is thought to offer some protection against cancer, and which gives the fruit its traditional red colour."