Category: News

En el Salón del Automóvil de Pekín hemos tenido la suerte de ver el nuevo Ford Start Concept, un prototipo de Ford para el mundo urbano que suena muy mucho al Ka global. Según la empresa norteamericana en 2050 el 70% de la población vivirá en áreas urbanas y este coche estará diseñado para ella.

Con una longitud de 3,68 metros, una anchura de 1,69 metros y una altura de 1,41 metros el Ford Star será sin lugar a dudas un vehículo tremendamente manejable. Las medidas son notablemente parecidas a las del actual Ford Ka, lo que hace pensar que puede tratarse del precursor de un sucesor.

El Start ha sido diseñado en California y uno de los aspectos que más se ha tenido en cuenta ha sido la utilización de materiales ligeros como el aluminio. Además, el reciclaje ha supuesto otro factor clave en la elaboración del vehículo, para que su impacto con el medio ambiente sea mínimo.

Ford todavía no se ha pronunciado acerca de la cilindrada exacta, pero ha anunciado que podría presentar el comportamiento de un propulsor de 1,6 litros, lo que nos dejaría un rendimiento de entre 100 y 120 cv. Más que suficiente. Además, las emisiones sería muy bajas, sobre los 100 gramos de CO2 por kilómetro recorrido.

Vía | ElMundo

Filed under: Morning Scoop

Each morning, we dish out a few links we love.

Is yoga good for weight loss? You bet — just ask this man, who says it helped him shed 365 pounds.

Does your star sign play a role in your love life? Judge for yourself by checking out this anaylsis of the astrological compatibilities of some of our favorite celeb couples.

Got a sweet tooth? Don’t fret — here are five sweet snacks that will hit the spot.

Here’s another great reason to make sure you’re eating well — studies show it can help prevent skin cancer.

Lost the momentum to go green now that Earth Day is over? Don’t worry — here are some simple ways to make your home more eco-friendly.

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The Economist has an interesting article on the ‘CSI effect’ which suggests that television crime dramas are altering jurors’ expectations of the relevance and power of scientific evidence and hence affecting how court judgements are made.

The article is largely based on a forthcoming paper to be published in Forensic Science International that argues the ‘CSI effect’ is influencing how forensic evidence is interpreted and understood by professionals and the public alike.

Nevertheless, both The Economist piece and the academic article in Forensic Science International are notable for the fact they are largely based on anecdotes.

Actually, empirical (shall we say, forensic?) evidence for the effect is harder to come by. One of the few people who have systematically investigated the effect is trial judge and law professor Donald Shelton who came to significantly less alarming conclusions.

In a study on the effect published in the National Institute of Journal, Shelton reported that although to effect did appear in places, it mainly effected expectations and the effect on actual decisions was inconsistent and largely insubstantial:

There was scant evidence in our survey results that CSI viewers were either more or less likely to acquit defendants without scientific evidence. Only 4 of 13 scenarios showed somewhat significant differences between viewers and non-viewers on this issue, and they were inconsistent. Here are some of our findings:

* In the “every crime” scenario, CSI viewers were more likely to convict without scientific evidence if eyewitness testimony was available.

* In rape cases, CSI viewers were less likely to convict if DNA evidence was not presented.

* In both the breaking-and-entering and theft scenarios, CSI viewers were more likely to convict if there was victim or other testimony, but no fingerprint evidence.

Law professor Kimberlianne Podlas was even more damning in a paper [pdf] published in the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review, writing:

Notwithstanding the popularity of such claims, they are not grounded in case-studies or statistical data of increases in acquittals. Rather, they are based on anecdotes about cases wherein law enforcement lost their case while believing it should have won. However, anecdotes are not an adequate substitute for empirical evidence or a logical theory of media influence.

The ‘CSI effect’, it seems, probably wouldn’t stand up in court.

UPDATE: Many thank to Mind Hacks reader Brett for emailing to say that the Stanford Law Review published an article on the supposed ‘CSI effect’ and why it lacks evidence last April, which is also notable for tackling the reasons for why it has gained a cultural foothold despite such flimsy support.

Link to The Economist on the ‘CSI effect’ (via @crime_economist)
Link to Forensic Science International paper.
Link to study on ‘CSI effect’
pdf of Podlas’ article on CSI effect ‘fiction’.

Filed under: Love & Relationships, Friends & Family, Advice, Happiness

According to a study co-written by Dr. Elizabeth Sharp – “I’m a Loser, I’m Not Married, Let’s All Just Look at Me” – women who are single into their mid-thirties are often made to feel like social pariahs by friends, family and co-workers. (“Why aren’t you married yet?” is a very popular question.) Here, Sharp, a single, 36-year-old associate professor of family studies at Texas Tech University who co-wrote the study explains what she found out about how single women are treated, and how it makes them feel.

Q: Can you explain what you found out by doing the study?

A: The study focused on messages these women got from their social environments. A lot of the messages were pretty pejorative and intrusive, and the major finding was that at this time in their life – ages 28 to 34 – there was a lot of focus on their single status. It underscored their visibility and invisibility. The invisibility is their actual life experience of not being married by a certain age; some people would just assume they had kids because they were 31. Their younger siblings were starting to marry and have kids, and this felt awkward and not natural. They don’t really have any visible role models. As for visibility, they felt like they were under a lot of public scrutiny for being single at their age. Co-workers would ask why they aren’t married. But it’s rare to ask someone why they got married or why they decided to have children. These women were dealing with the assumption that they would be a lot happier if they were married.

Q: Did you ask these women if they wanted to get married?

Continue reading How Single Woman Over 30 are Made to Feel Inferior

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Porsche Presents 918 Spyder High-Performance Concept

Porsche Presents 918 Spyder High-Performance Concept Sports Car
This car is a high-performance mid-engined concept sports car with ultra-efficient, low-emission drive technology.

With the release of the 918 Spyder, the company is further increasing its competence in hybrid technology.

The prototype combines high-tech racing features and electro-mobility to offer a fascinating range of qualities.

Homebrew coder blabla is back to release a new version of Pokemon Battle, a homebrew RPG game adaptation of the popular anime series for the Nintendo DS. The latest update of the homebrew has added some new

There may be few 3D Blu-rays available now, but come June/August when both the DBP-1611UD and DBP-2011UDCI are released, the situation should be looking up. Both players can handle 3D Blu-rays, as well as CD/DVD, SACD and DVD-Audio formats. More »

Article Tags: Carbon Trading

The Australian government has shelved plans for an emissions trading scheme (ETS), the centrepiece of its environmental strategy.

It has made repeated attempts to get the measure through parliament, but has been blocked in the Senate, where the government does not enjoy a majority.

The government will now not start the scheme until 2013 at the very earliest.

PM Kevin Rudd blamed the opposition for withdrawing its support for the measure and slow global progress on emissions.

Previously, Mr Rudd has called climate change the “greatest moral challenge of our generation”, and pledged to curb pollution by bringing in a comprehensive emissions trading scheme.

But his attempts to enact the measure into law have repeatedly failed because his party does not command a majority in the upper house, Senate, and the opposition Liberal Party is now led by a climate change sceptic who won the leadership of his party by vowing to block the reform.

Click source to read FULL report

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

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Filed under: Friends & Family, Fitness

Are certain people born to be athletic? Or is it something that’s cultivated in them through experiences and the environment they grow up in? That’s the question that researchers out of Britain recently asked, and the answer wasn’t really surprising: Both play a role, but one aspect definitely has a larger impact on your exercise habits.

By studying both genetically identical as well as fraternal twins, recent studies have found that some people are inherently more drawn to sports than others, but that can change drastically depending on environmental factors. The researchers investigated the exercise habits of over 100 sets of twins, testing them for attributes such as how fidgety they were and how often they got physical activity, and they concluded that 73 percent of the differences in athleticism were down to environmental factors. They also found that exercise habits were nearly identical even in fraternal twins, who only share 50 percent of genes.

Continue reading Exercise and Fitness Behaviours Determined by Environmental Factors

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Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Holistic Recipe

This is a recipe I whipped up in a hurry last night to go with some oven roasted chicken. It took no time at all, it was delicious, and it did my body some good. If you’re following the 30-Day Nutrition Challenge, this is a great dinner idea.

Inspiration for this recipe really came from the local, organic collard greens I found in Toronto’s Kensington Market. I fried onions and garlic in ghee (you could use olive oil if you don’t have ghee) threw in the collards and added a dash of curry powder and unrefined sea salt. That’s it! I had an amazingly tasty side dish and it was super easy.

Although collards are available all year, we’re coming to the end of their prime growing season (January through April), so get them while they’re at their best. Collards are a great source of vitamin K, vitamin C and beta carotene (precursor to vitamin A). They’re also high in niacin (B3), a nutrient found to help lower cholesterol levels. And, like all its cruciferous cousins, collards help to detoxify the blood; something helped along even more by the turmeric in the curry powder in this recipe. They’re also high in calcium, manganese and folate.

Recipe for Curried Collards after the jump.

Continue reading Curried Collard Greens: Super Healthy, Easy Recipe

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The UN estimates that over a billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water and millions of people die worldwide each year as a result of diseases that are waterborne. Moreover, the rising levels of pollution in tap water makes most people opt for bottled water, which gives rise to plastic waste. Industrial designers have tried to solve these problems with ingenious water purification systems that are easy to use and also help in reducing plastic waste. Here is a list of 12 such water purification systems that are designed to help the environment and the society:

(more…)

Article Tags: Bob Ellis, Public Polls

Good news! What is perhaps the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on humanity is now sliding toward the ash heap of history: the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming.

The hypothesis never got much support beyond “fudged” computer models and a lot of conjecture and hysteria, but Al Gore and his fellow apostles of environmental doom wanted everyone to believe that all scientists believed it, and you should, too. Even the so-called “consensus” claim was a hoax; tens of thousands of scientists never bought it. Socialists like Al Gore simply wanted to appeal to people’s “herd instinct” and motivate them to move in the direction they perceived the herd was going.

People were already realizing in greater numbers that anthropogenic global warming claims were nothing but hot air, but when it was revealed that the Climate Research Unit in England, one of about four sources for all the “information” supporting the hypothesis of AGW, was playing fast and loose with the data, ClimateGate accelerated the demise of this already-thin theory.

Source: dakotavoice.com

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Article Tags: Geological Society of America (GSA), Statement

Position Statement

Decades of scientific research have shown that climate can change from both natural and anthropogenic causes. The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s. If current trends continue, the projected increase in global temperature by the end of the twentyfirst century will result in large impacts on humans and other species. Addressing the challenges posed by climate change will require a combination of adaptation to the changes that are likely to occur and global reductions of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources.

Purpose

This position statement (1) summarizes the strengthened basis for the conclusion that humans are a major factor responsible for recent global warming; (2) describes the large effects on humans and ecosystems if greenhouse‐gas concentrations and global climate reach projected levels; and (3) provides information for policy decisions guiding mitigation and adaptation strategies designed to address the future impacts of anthropogenic warming.

Source: geosociety.org

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With the increase in the use of renewable energy sources, the need for effective storage becomes greater. The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change recently awarded over £7 million to eight different firms to be spent on the creation of so-called smart technologies, including storage solutions.
Pump storage systems, like the one installed at Dinorwig power station in Wales, is one option which is already used when there is significant demand on the national grid. The pump storage system allows the generators at the plant to reach their maximum capacity in less than 16 seconds.  However, as the system works by transferring the water between two lakes situated at different elevations, the usage of pump storage is hugely dependent on an area’s geography. Hydrogen represents another opportunity. The  US Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) has recently provided even more funding, with $106 million (£68 million) going to 37 different projects, including some companies which are developing new types of batteries and  hybrid storage systems consisting of battery and a fuel cells. The last JTI call included funding for  storage and the renewable energy chapter of the next FP7 offers funding opportunites as well.  

Chris Rivera wrote:

Washington’s fast-growing life sciences community enjoys a strong and collaborative environment that has propelled it to No. 5 among the state’s largest employers according to recent data from the Washington State Department of Employment Security.

That was the conclusion of the ZINO Life Sciences Investment Forum panel discussion that I participated in earlier this week. Panel members—including David Schubert, president of Accelerator; Martin Simonetti, CEO of VLST; Michelle Burris, chief operating officer of Trubion Pharmaceuticals; and facilitated by Alan Smith, a partner at Fenwick & West—debated the state of the life sciences sector and discussed the opportunities and challenges facing the industry.

The half-day event also featured presentations by 15 impressive early stage companies to accredited investors, ZINO Society members and guests. The presenting companies were vying for a $50,000 investment to support their development. The presentations were broken down into three categories: Seed Stage, Launch Stage and Expansion Stage. Three companies were selected as fund finalists. Panelists then had the opportunity to grill company executives to shed more light on their ideas, plans and operations during a segment called “Due Diligence Live!”.

Their presentations, coupled with positive yet realistic comments from panelists, helped solidify my belief that our state’s life science sector is in a good position to fulfill its promise of becoming a global leader on many technological, clinical and health care fronts, as well as a major driver of Washington’s economy. The three finalists were Kevin Connolly of SRS Medical, Carole Spangler of Seattle Sensor Systems and Paul Slowey (aka “Dr. Spit”) of Oasis Diagnostics.

With statewide employment of 22,349, the life sciences are closing in on computer and electronic product manufacturing for the No. 4 position among the state’s largest employers. Transportation equipment manufacturing, agriculture, and food and beverage manufacturing hold the first three spots.

Washington in unique in its willingness to collaborate at the highest level, which contributes to this job growth. Many of the presenting companies are also companies that have come through the WBBA’s commercialization program, or have been an applicant or presenter at WINGS, Washington’s newly formed medical technology angel network, facilitated by the WBBA.

It is exciting to see so many quality early stage companies, see all of the excitement evolving in many of our world’s leading research institutes and how our global health community continues to lead by example and how our industry leaders are partnering with many of these organizations to face some of the most challenging health care issues facing us and citizens around the world. I believe that life sciences in our state is in a very good position to fulfill many promises. Those include becoming a global leader on many technological, clinical and health care fronts. By doing those things, life sciences will become an increasingly important economic driver in our state.

UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

Amidst suspicions that Hydrophobia is nothing more but vaporware, Dark Energy Digital set out to clear the air and reassure awaiting fans that yes, it will definitely be coming, and yes, it will be coming to both

Here is the official gallery of the Zagato TZ3 complete with all the details of the new supercar. The result of the collaboration between Alfa Romeo and Zagato was on display at the Concorso d’Eleganza at the Villa d’Este and was commissioned by German collector, Martin Kapp. The TZ3 Corsa celebrates 90 years of Zagato and 100 years of Alfa Romeo, and has been built with a tubular structure and carbonfibre monoshell with handmade aluminium bodywork.

The Zagato TZ3 weighs just 850 kg and has a weight-power ratio of 2.02 kg/hp. It’s 4.34 metres long, 1.94 metres wide and 1.2 metres high. The TZ3 Corsa is equipped with a 4.2-litre V8 with dry carter and 420 hp and a ‘Tractive’ six-speed sequential transmission. It has an acceleration time to 100 km/hr of 3.5 seconds and a top speed of over 300 km/hr. The suspension is from Ohlins and is described as “push-road” technology.

Zagato TZ3 Corsa – Concorso d’eleganza Villa d’Este 2010

Back in September of last year I wrote up an article on how to get osTicket to authenticate with Active Directory. That article was based on version 1.6 RC5. It actually worked very well for my company. Users could simply login to the staff panel with their domain\username credentials.

Well, we started getting weird database errors recently, so I thought it might be good to move away from the RC5 version, and move to the final release. Well, if you read the comments at the bottom of my previous article you will know that my customizations didn’t carry over to the final release. That is ok though, because I found an even better and easier way to get osTicket to authenticate with AD. I got it working in about 2 minutes in Ubuntu Server 10.04.

First you will need one little perquisite package, php5-ldap. Just run the following:

>sudo apt-get install php5-ldap

Next you will want to manually create a user with a username that matches active directory. For instance is your AD username is jsmith create a user in osTicket called jsmith and give it a temporary password of 123456 (Doesn’t matter because osTicket will look to AD right?)

Once that is installed, edit include/class.staff.php:

>sudo nano include/class.staff.php

Replace the following code:

/*compares user password*/
function check_passwd($password){
return (strlen($this->passwd) && strcmp($this->passwd, MD5($password))==0)?(TRUE):(FALSE);
}

With:

/*compares user password*/
function check_passwd($password){
// Change made for LDAP Auth based on -> http://osticket.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3312
// Change this line to the FQDN of your domain controller
$ds=ldap_connect('mydc.mydomain.local') or die("Couldn't connect to AD!");
// Change this line to the name of your Active Directory domain
if ($ds) {
$domain="mydomain";
$ldapbind = ldap_bind($ds);
if (!@ldap_bind( $ds, $domain."\\".$this->username, $password) ) {
// Auth failed! lets try at osTicket database
return (strlen($this->passwd) && strcmp($this->passwd, MD5($password))==0)?(TRUE):(FALSE);
// return(FALSE);
}
else{
// Auth succeeded!
return(TRUE);
}
// End Changes
}

}


After you do that change the items in red to match your environment then restart Apache:

>sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Bam! You now have Microsoft Active Directory authentication, and you don’t have to specify a domain name at login either!

If you are looking for additional functionality, check out the osTicket Forums, there are a lot of cool customizations I am sure you will find useful!