The last time the annual Perseid meteor shower happened during a run of good moonless nights was in 2007. It turns out that every three years, the same phase of the Moon returns to roughly the same date each month (2.2 days earlier, on average). So in 2010 we’re on for moonless Perseids again!

The shower lasts for many days, but according to the International Meteor Organization this year’s peak should occur during a half-day-long window centered on 1:00 Universal Time on August 13th, which is ideal timing for skywatchers in Eurasia. For North Americans, the best viewing will probably be late Thursday night and early Friday morning, August 12-13, or possibly the night before.

Info here and here

This Is the Future of the Fight Against Cancer

Look close. You may be staring at the end of cancer. Those tiny black dots are nanobots delivering a lethal blow to a cancerous cell, effectively killing it. The first trial on humans have been a success, with no side-effects:

It sneaks in, evades the immune system, delivers the siRNA, and the disassembled components exit out.

Those are the words of Mark Davis, head of the research team that created the nanobot anti-cancer army at the California Institute of Technology. According to a study to be published in Nature, Davis’ team has discovered a clean, safe way to deliver RNAi sequences to cancerous cells. RNAi (Ribonucleic acid interference) is a technique that attacks specific genes in malign cells, disabling functions inside and killing them.

The 70-nanometer attack bots—made with two polymers and a protein that attaches to the cancerous cell’s surface—carry a piece of RNA called small-interfering RNA (siRNA), which deactivates the production of a protein, starving the malign cell to death. Once it has delivered its lethal blow, the nanoparticle breaks down into tiny pieces that get eliminated by the body in the urine.

The most amazing thing is that you can send as many of these soldiers as you want, and they will keep attaching to the bad guys, killing them left, right, and center, and stopping tumors. According to Davis, “the more [they] put in, the more ends up where they are supposed to be, in tumour cells.” While they will have to finish the trials to make sure that there are no side-effects whatsoever, the team is very happy with the successful results and it’s excited about what’s coming:

What’s so exciting is that virtually any gene can be targeted now. Every protein now is druggable. My hope is to make tumours melt away while maintaining a high quality of life for the patients. We’re moving another step closer to being able to do that now.

Hopefully, they will be right. [Caltech via Nature]

http://bit.ly/UT9DE

Here is an interesting perspective on Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Let us walk through my most recent purchase. I strolled into the store, located the CD I was after, paid for it in cash and left. At no stage was I asked to sign a licensing agreement – not even a post-sale agreement like those for software. It was a simple transaction of cash for a physical product.

”No,” cries the music industry, ”you are bound by the licensing agreement that you did not sign and that we cannot produce for inspection.”

Fine – let’s suppose I now have a licence for personal use applying to all the CDs I own. I should be able to take advantage of that. A CD I bought 10 years ago now has a scratch down the middle so that five of the 10 songs refuse to play. Luckily for me, this problem is solely with the physical medium. After all, my licence for personal use should allow me to reacquire ”my” content, especially since it is digital data and can be reproduced an unlimited number of times at virtually no cost.

”No,” cries the music industry, ”you bought a product, not a licence. You are not entitled to a free replacement, you need to buy it all over again. And when you do, you will be covered by another identical licence. Until something happens to this new physical medium.”

I tried unsuccessfully to get ZFS up and running, but just couldn’t get it to go!  So instead I reverted back to Raid 5.  Maybe the next upgrade will have better documentation on ZFS?

Second Degree Murder and Six Other Crimes Cheaper than Pirating Music

By Jesus Diaz, 10:00 AM on Mon Aug 24 2009, 5,089 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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I’m outraged that the Obama administration is supporting the RIAA on the case against Jammie Thomas, a single   mother of four who has to pay them $1.92 million for downloading songs. That’s more expensive than murder   and six other crimes:

• Child abduction: Fine of $25,000 and up to three years in prison, which can be accounted as $50,233 per year   (that was the median household income in 2007, probably down because of the economic crisis). Total:      $175,699.

• Steal the CDs: A total of $275,000, $52,500 fine for the CDs.

• Steal a lawnmower from your neighbour: A total of $375,000.

• Burn someone’s house while playing The Doors: Another $375,000.

• Stalk a Gizmodo editor (yes, you know who you are): A Class 4 felony that will result in just $175,000.

• Start a dogfighting ring: $50,000.

• Murder someone on the second degree, a Class 1 felony: $778,495, which accounts for a $25,000 fine and four to 15 years in prison.

Heck, you can do all these crimes, and the total amount will be only $2.2 million. Of course, you can’t really quantify years spent in prison using dollars, but I don’t care. The case of Jammie—and many like hers—is still absolutely outrageous.

Ms. Thomas got fined $1.92 million for downloading 1700 songs songs. For some reason, a popular jury thought that was fair. That’s ok. There are mentally disturbed people everywhere. But I don’t care if it’s 1700 or 17000 songs, nobody can be punished like this for downloading songs. It may follow a draconian law to the last comma and period, but that doesn’t make the verdict just. The law is what is at fault here, with a punishment that is not proportional to the magnitude of the “crime.” This goes against the most basic sense of justice.

I know that el Señor Presidente has more serious issues to worry about that this case, but something needs to be done about it. Something drastic. Unfortunately, nothing will happen, given the “class” of people now at the Department of Justice: