In 2010, divers rescued some amazingly old alcohol from a shipwreck off the coast of Finland. They’ve already published some detailed tasting notes about the beer —but now they’ve carried out an in-depth analysis of the champagne. Read more…
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This Is What 170-Year-Old Champagne From a Shipwreck Tasted Like
A team of sophisticated hackers with insider trading ambitions has been targeting executives at over 100 organizations for over a year. While their hacking techniques aren’t all that sophisticated, they appear to have a deep understanding of the investment banking industry. Read more…
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Hackers Are Gaming the Stock Market With a Stupid Simple Approach
When it’s hot out, buildings have a hard time staying cool: bombarded with ambient heat and generating yet more inside, their air conditioning systems have to work hard to keep temperatures down. Now, a new super-thin coating developed at Stanford could be applied to buildings to help them cool themselves more effectively. Read more…
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A New Super-Thin Coating Could Cool Buildings Without AC
Architect and computer scientist Skylar Tibbits heads up MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab , a sort of cross-disciplinary skunkworks that is completely re-thinking how objects are manufactured and assembled. By combining digital manufacturing techniques with the study of how particular materials react to particular types of energy, Tibbits’ team seeks to create things that, well, put themselves together—whether large or small—when the appropriate energy is introduced as a catalyst. Self-Assembly is a process by which disordered parts build an ordered structure through local interaction. We have demonstrated that this phenomenon is scale-independent and can be utilized for self-constructing and manufacturing systems at nearly every scale. We have also identified the key ingredients for self-assembly as a simple set of responsive building blocks, energy and interactions that can be designed within nearly every material and machining process available. Self-assembly promises to enable breakthroughs across every applications of biology, material science, software, robotics, manufacturing, transportation, infrastructure, construction, the arts, and even space exploration. The Self-Assembly Lab is working with academic, commercial, nonprofit, and government partners, collaborators, and sponsors to make our self-assembling future a reality. The concept sounds difficult to wrap your head around, until you see the video: Here’s a TED Talk Tibbits gave earlier this year going into more detail: (more…)
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Skylar Tibbits’ 4D Printing: Energy + Materials + Geometry = Self-Assembly
An anonymous reader writes “MIT announced that despite a long history of running an open network (so that any student can run a server on any port, without any questions asked), it will now end this policy due to recent denial-of-service attacks and gunman hoax. From a letter sent by Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz: ‘I am deeply and personally committed to safeguarding our community, protecting our campus and securing our systems. Together with our colleagues dedicated to campus safety and security, with the support of senior academic leadership and in collaboration with the campus community, we are deploying all necessary resources to this effort. It will require the dedication of all of us to promote safety awareness, complete necessary emergency training, and adhere to reinforced cyber security guidelines. IS&T staff members are working with information technology (IT) leadership and partners across campus in making the changes described above. We continue to explore all opportunities to further strengthen our preparedness, and will communicate additional information as these plans evolve.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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MIT To End Open-Network Policy In Response To Recent Attacks
johnsnails writes “Around 60 students at Harvard University have been suspended and others disciplined in a mass cheating scandal at the elite college, the campus newspaper reports. The Harvard Crimson quoted an email from Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean Michael Smith that said more than half of the cases heard by administrators in the scandal, which erupted last year, had resulted in suspension orders. ‘After professor Matthew B. Platt reported suspicious similarities on a handful of take-home exams in his spring course Government 1310: “Introduction to Congress,” the College launched an investigation that eventually expanded to involve almost half of the 279 students enrolled in the course.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Dozens Suspended In Harvard University Cheat Scandal