Dr. Ecstasy
Today's New York TImes Magazine has a big article about Dr. Alexander Shulgin, who invented more than 100 hallucinogens and was, in all likelihood, the first person to try Ecstasy (MDMA) in humans. Shulgin is a really good guy, he's...
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MaxPatrol Claims to Have Defeated Windows XP SP2 Heap Protection and DEP Bypass
No clue if this is legit or not, but MaxPatrol, a company that develops security tools, claims to have figured an exploit that gets around some of the new hacker protections that are built into Windows SP2....
Hopkins Students Crack RFID Security System
Students at Johns Hopkins have reverse-engineered the 40-bit encyrption system develoepd by Texas Instruments and used in both auto anti-theft systems and Mobil Speedpass. The attack involves sending some test messages to a token and then doing a brute force...
Venus Flytraps
Venus flytraps are just plain cool -- Darwin called the plant "one of the most wonderful in the world." But how do they snap shut so quickly? Scientists have mostly answered the question in a report in this week's issue...
Environmental Sustainability
The United States comes in a mediocre 45th in a just-released ranking of environmental sustainability, out of 146 countries. Finland, Norway, Uruguay, Sweden, and Iceland took the top five spots, with their high scores attributed to "substantial natural resource endowments,...
Quantum Diaries
2005 is the hundred year anniversary of Einstein's annus mirabilis (miracle year), in which he published five notable papers, any one of which would have made a name for himself. In honor of the anniversary, particle physics laboratories around the...
Fundraising & TV
Amid all the coverage of the Tsunami and its consequences, viewers around the world have been moved by the images of devastation, loss and displacement. Many thousands have been sufficiently moved to subsequently make phone or postal donations, or simply...
From Stephen to Zithromax
A fascinating story in The Harvard Crimson details a rather shocking security lapse in which "the confidential drug purchase histories of many Harvard students and employees have been available for months to any internet user, as have the e-mail addresses...
Wisconsin Professors Report on Growing Use of Games
According to this report recently published by three professors at the University of Wisconsin, immersive games are increasingly being used as training tools for "skilled professionals and leaders."The report also notes that the $10 billion-a-year gaming industry has already surpassed...
IPCC Dissension
A prominent member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has resigned after accusing a lead author of injecting his personal opinions into the science of global warming and hurricanes. The delightfully named Chris Landsea submitted his resignation from...
