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Comments: 1 +-   Fox Threatens to Leave TWC Unless They Pay Up-> on Wednesday December 23, @07:16PM wkurzius

Submitted by wkurzius on Wednesday December 23, @07:16PM
tv
wkurzius writes "News Corp. is demanding $1 per cable subscriber from Time Warner Cable and will pull their Fox channels as of January 1st if they don't comply. News Corp. believes that they need two revenue streams in this day and age in order to compete with cable networks, and Time Warner naturally doesn't want to pay. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) has stepped in to try and settle the argument."
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+-   Millions of Infant Blood Samples Ordered Destroyed-> on Wednesday December 23, @01:11AM fathom108

Submitted by fathom108 on Wednesday December 23, @01:11AM
news
fathom108 writes "From The Houston Chronicle:

'The state will destroy an estimated 5.3 million blood samples legally collected from newborns but kept without parental consent under a federal lawsuit settlement announced Tuesday.'

Infants born in Texas can all rest easier knowing their privacy is being watched over for them."
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+-   The US Economy Needs More 'Cool' Nerds on Monday December 21, @11:42PM Hugh Pickens

Submitted by Hugh Pickens on Monday December 21, @11:42PM
education
Hugh Pickens writes "Steve Lohr writes in the NY Times that the country needs more "cool" nerds — professionals with hybrid careers that combine computing with other fields like medicine, art, or journalism but not enough young people are embracing computing — often because they are leery of being branded nerds and educators and technologists say that two things need to change: the image of computing work, and computer science education in high schools. Today, introductory courses in computer science are too often focused merely on teaching students to use software like word processing and spreadsheet programs, says Janice C. Cuny, a program director at the National Science Foundation adding that the Advanced Placement curriculum concentrates too narrowly on programming. “We’re not showing and teaching kids the magic of computing," Cuny says. The NSF is working to change this by developing a new introductory high school course in computer science and seeking to overhaul Advanced Placement courses as well. The NSF hopes to train 10,000 high school teachers in the modernized courses by 2015 because knowledge of computer science and computer programming is becoming a necessary skill for many professions including jobs in science and technology, and also careers in marketing, advertising, journalism and the creative arts. “We need to gain an understanding in the population that education in computer science is both extraordinarily important and extraordinarily interesting,” says Alfred Spector, vice president for research and special initiatives at Google. “The fear is that if you pursue computer science, you will be stuck in a basement, writing code. That is absolutely not the reality.”"
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+-   Is Black Soot Melting the Himalayas? on Sunday December 20, @08:46PM Hugh Pickens

Submitted by Hugh Pickens on Sunday December 20, @08:46PM
earth
Hugh Pickens writes "The Himalayas, home to some 110 peaks that stretch along 1,550 miles of Asia and harbor 10,000 glaciers, is the main source of replenishment to lakes, streams and some of the continent's mightiest rivers, on which millions of people depend for their water supplies. Since the 1960s, the acreage covered by Himalayan glaciers has declined by more than 20 percent with a rate of warming twice the global average over the past 30 years. Now Live Science reports that tiny particles of pollution known as "black carbon" — and not heat-trapping greenhouse gases — may be causing most of the rapid melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. "Tibet's glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate," says James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. "Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest." The circulation of the atmosphere in the region causes much of the soot-laden air to "pile up" against the Himalayas. The soot mixes with other dust from nearby deserts, creating a massive brown cloud visible from space that absorbs incoming solar radiation. As this layer heats up in the Himalayan foothills, it rises and enhances the seasonal northward flow of humid monsoon winds, forcing moisture and hot air up the slopes of the majestic mountain range. Jeffrey Kargel of the University of Arizona, Tucson, says that the role of soot "adds a new wrinkle" to the story of glacier melting, but that in the big picture of climate change the main villains are still gases such as CO2. "I do want to make sure we keep our eyes on the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and that's greenhouse gases," he said."
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