In the News
[Ironic] An Italian pensioner committed suicide after his wife fell in
Recalling the end of Romeo and Juliet, the 70-year-old man, Ettore, who had sat by his wife's bedside for four months after she slipped into a coma following a heart attack, finally gave up hope and gassed himself in the garage of his family home.Less than a day later, his wife, Rossana, woke up in her hospital bed in Padua and immediately asked for him. Academic rebellion
 Science is revolting! A revolution is underway and the battles are taking place on the Microsoft Office frontline. Science, the journal of the America Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is ditching support for Microsoft format office documents. In its notice to authorsit advises that:
“Because of changes Microsoft has made in its recent Word release that are incompatible with our internal workflow, which was built around previous versions of the software, Science cannot at present accept any files in the new .docx format produced through Microsoft Word 2007, either for initial submission or for revision. Users of this release of Word should convert these files to a format compatible with Word 2003 or Word for Macintosh 2004 (or, for initial submission, to a PDF file) before submitting to Science.” There is also a warning that Microsoft Word 2007 is no longer acceptable in revision documents because of problems with incompatibilities with Equation Editor. But, it is not just hefty Science magazine, Naturehas also weighed into the battle: “We currently cannot accept files saved in Microsoft Office 2007 formats. Equations and special characters (for example, Greek letters) cannot be edited and are incompatible with Nature’s own editing and typesetting programs.” Thanks to An Antic Dispositionfor bringing the S and N issues to our attention. But, is this the only evidence of a rebellion? Certainly not. While Science and Nature are ditching the various Microsoft proprietary formats for technical reasons but staff and studentsat Imperial College London are truly up in arms over the imposition their institution makes on them to use Microsoft products. The Software Freedom for Imperial College is hoping to persuade IC to implement a college-wide policy that ensures students are not coerced into purchasing M$ products in order to complete their studies. At present, many tutors and professors ask for Word format files, Powerpoint presentations, and Excel spreadsheets. All of which are infinitely more expensive than the Open Source equivalents of these Office products which are widely available and widely accepted in many quarters. The movement also hopes to discourage the use of Microsoft products for email attachments and to preclude Microsoft’s awful winmail.dat (workaround here). They want IC to ensure that all web services are standards-compliant and fully functional in all major web browsers, not just the dreaded IE. And finally, they want to see the use of free and open source software for services when high quality and reliable alternatives exist. Several top universities have already made the move to OS and ditched Microsoft either completely or partially. In fact, IC is the only one of the Top 20 academic centres of excellence around the world that still uses a proprietary web server that is not 100% standards compliant. This resulted, according to the site in 313 errors during testing compared to University of Cambridge: 0, University of Oxford: 0, MIT: 0, and Yale University: 1 error. SFIC hopes to negotiate with IC to rectify the problems. The main issue is probably inertia, even within academic science, Word, Powerpoint, Internet Explorer, Outlook, are all considered pretty much standard the world over. There are viable and better, free alternatives to almost all Microsoft products, such as Thunderbird email, Firefox, Safari, and Opera web browsers, OpenOffice etc etc as well as countless non-proprietary server systems. Today's Type 1 Diabetes Patients Enjoy Better Vision Than Those In Dec
People diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) in recent years are less likely to develop diabetes-related vision loss than those diagnosed in earlier years, says a new study. Forecasts of visual impairment prevalence in T1D patients may need to be amended, the researchers suggest, since current predictions assume that the earlier incidence rates will continue. University Of Alberta Linguist Puts Words In Video-game Characters' Mo
When Wolf Wikeley exchanged a few lines of Klingon with his prospective employer during a job interview, he just knew the job was his. Wikeley's near-fluency in the language, made for the Star Trek movies, paid off when he was making a presentation to the Edmonton-based video game-design firm BioWare, which was looking for someone to develop languages for their new games. Skytrax
Website for this aviation research organization that commissions the "World Airline Survey ... an independent consumer study."Features worldwide airport and airline ratings and rankings, flight reviews, data about "airline cabin seat pitch sizes for airlines around the world,"photos, and related material. Users may participate by filling out one of the online surveys. Listening Post: Radiohead Makes Business Plans the New Punk Rock
A simple, "pay what you like" offering breaks all the rules and helps set the stage for the splintered future of the music biz. Bands need to treat marketing and management decisions as a valid part of the creative process. Commentary by Eliot Van Buskirk. Today in History: March 30, Seward's Folly
"On March 30, 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward agreed to purchase Alaska for seven million dollars. Critics attacked Seward for the secrecy surrounding the deal with Russia, which came to be known as 'Seward's folly.'"This article provides information about events, and links to related photos and information about Alaskan and U.S. history. From the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress. Fifty Years of Supporting Children's Learning: A History of Public Sch
"Drawn from more than 50 sources, this [March 2005] report presents descriptive data about public school libraries since 1953. Along with key characteristics of school libraries, the report also presents national and regional standards, and federal legislation affecting school library media centers. Data from sample surveys are presented at the national, regional, and school levels, and by state."From the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education. Countries Most At Risk Of 'Small'Asteroid Impact Identified
Researchers have developed a software package for modelling asteroid impacts that enables them to assess the potential human and economic consequences across the globe. Early results indicate that the ten countries most at risk are China, Indonesia, India, Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Nigeria. Fast method for preparing flu vaccine: Use bioreactors instead of chic
A shortage of flu vaccines may soon become a problem of the past. Researchers have developed an alternative process for producing large quantities of safe and effective vaccines at twice to four times the usual speed. The process is based on using cells in bioreactors instead of fertilized chicken eggs, which have a limited availability.
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