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Original 11′ Star Trek Enterprise Model Being Restored Again

NormalVisual (565491) writes The original 11-foot U.S.S. Enterprise studio model from the original series has gone back into the shop again. The Smithsonian owns the model and has had it on display in a gift shop at the National Air and Space Museum for the last 13 years, but will be placed on display in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall in 2016, to coincide with the museum’s 40th anniversary. In the meantime, the model will be undergoing its fourth restoration to address a number of issues. The last restoration in 1991 was performed by Ed Miarecki, a professional modelmaker well known for his work in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, as well as films such as “Event Horizon”. This previous restoration had Trek fans up in arms owing to the paint job, which many feel doesn’t represent the way the model looked originally. Hopefully this next restoration will bring her back to her former glory. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Original 11′ Star Trek Enterprise Model Being Restored Again

Ozone Layer Recovering But Remains Threatened

First time accepted submitter i kan reed writes in with some good news from the ozone report of the United Nations. The Earth’s protective ozone layer is on track to recover by the middle of the century, the United Nations today reported, urging unified action to tackle climate change and curb continued fluctuations to the composition of the atmosphere. That is according to the assessment of 300 scientists in the summary document of the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2014, published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO). “International action on the ozone layer is a major environmental success story, ” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a news release. “This should encourage us to display the same level of urgency and unity to tackle the even greater challenge of climate change.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ozone Layer Recovering But Remains Threatened

Intel Releases SD-Card-Sized PC, Unveils Next 14nm Chip

szczys writes: Intel is upping their bid for a place at the efficient-yet-powerful device table. They’ve launched their Edison board, which features an x86 based SoC running at 100 MHz. The footprint measures 35.5mm x 25.0mm and offers a 70-pin connector to break out 40 pins for add-on hardware. Also at the Intel Developer Forum today, the company demonstrated a PC running on Skylake, a new CPU microarchitecture based on the 14nm process used for Broadwell. Intel is pushing to break into both wearable devices and household devices, as it sees both as huge opportunities for growth. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Intel Releases SD-Card-Sized PC, Unveils Next 14nm Chip

John Romero On Reinventing the Shooter

An anonymous reader writes: John Romero helped bring us Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein, but he’s also known for Daikatana — an immensely-hyped followup that flopped hard. After remaining on the periphery of game development since then, Romero announced last month that he’s coming back to the FPS genre with a new game in development. Today, he spoke with Develop Magazine about his thoughts on the future of shooters. Many players worry that the genre is stagnant, but Romero disagrees that this has to be the case. “Shooters have so many places to go, but people just copy the same thing over and over because they’re afraid to try something new. We’ve barely scratched the surface.” He also thinks the technology underpinning games matters less than ever. Romero says high poly counts and new shaders are a distraction from what’s important: good game design. “Look at Minecraft – it’s unbelievable that it was made by one person, right? And it shows there’s plenty of room for something that will innovate and change the whole industry. If some brilliant designers take the lessons of Minecraft, take the idea of creation and playing with an environment, and try to work out what the next version of that is, and then if other people start refining that, it’ll take Minecraft to an area where it will become a real genre, the creation game genre.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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John Romero On Reinventing the Shooter

Intel Launches Xeon E5 V3 Series Server CPUs With Up To 18 Cores

MojoKid writes Intel took the wraps off its Xeon E5 v3 server line-up today and the chip, based on Intel’s Haswell-EP architecture, is looking impressive. Intel’s previous generation Xeon E5 V2 chips, which were based on Ivy Bridge, topped out at 12 cores per socket. The new Xeon E5 v3 processors, in contrast, are going to push as high as 18 cores per socket — a 50% improvement. The TDP range is pushing slightly outwards in both directions; the E5 V2 family ranged from 50W to 150W, whereas the E5 V3 family will span 55W — 160W in a single workstation configuration. The core technologies Intel is introducing to the E5 V3 family pull from the Haswell architecture, including increased cache bandwidth, improved overall IPC, and new features like AVX2, which offers a theoretical near-doubling of floating point performance over the original AVX instructions. Full support for DDR4 DRAM memory is now included as well. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Intel Launches Xeon E5 V3 Series Server CPUs With Up To 18 Cores

Denver Latest City Hit By Viral Respiratory Infection That Targets Kids

A respiratory illness that almost exclusively infects children and for which there is no vaccine has struck Denver, Colorado, the latest in a series of infection clusters in the Midwest; one Denver hospital alone has treated more than 900 children for the illness since August 18, though no deaths have been reported. Health officials believe that the sickness is related to a rare virus called human enterovirus 68 (HEV68), the [Denver] Post says. HEV68, first seen in California in 1962, and an unwelcome but highly infrequent visitor to communities worldwide since then, is a relative of the virus linked to the common cold (human rhinoviruses, or HRV), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. … HEV68, which almost uniquely affects children, tends to first cause cold-like symptoms, including body aches, sneezing and coughing. These mild complaints then worsen into life-threatening breathing problems that are all the more dangerous to children with asthma. Since viruses do not respond to antibiotics, hospitals have treated the illness with asthma therapies. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Denver Latest City Hit By Viral Respiratory Infection That Targets Kids

L.A. Times National Security Reporter Cleared Stories With CIA Before Publishing

New submitter Prune (557140) writes with a link to a story at The Intercept which might influence the way you look at media coverage of the kind of government activity that deserves rigorous press scrutiny. According to the story, “Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a closely collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times.” Another telling excerpt: On Friday April 27, 2012, he emailed the press office a draft story that he and a colleague, David Cloud, were preparing. The subject line was “this is where we are headed, ” and he asked if “you guys want to push back on any of this.” It appears the agency did push back. On May 2, 2012, he emailed the CIA a new opening to the story with a subject line that asked, “does this look better?” The piece ran on May 16, and while it bore similarities to the earlier versions, it had been significantly softened. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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L.A. Times National Security Reporter Cleared Stories With CIA Before Publishing

Deadmau5 Accuses Disney of Pirating His Music

An anonymous reader writes After Disney objected to musician Joel Zimmerman [aka Deadmau5]’s trademark application in the U.S. (his logo is already properly trademarked in many other countries), a battle of trademarks and copyrights ensued. Apparently, Disney was (URL has since been disabled, as per DMCA law requires) hosting a video containing a remix of music which Zimmerman claims ownership of. Not only that, but the Deadmau5 logo was prominently displayed next to said video. The mouse fight was on and a few hours ago Deadmau5 retaliated with a rather surprising counter attack. As it turns out, Disney is hosting a Deadmau5 video on their website, without permission. “Disney prominently features the deadmau5 Mark next to the Infringing Video. implying a non-existent endorsement by Zimmerman, ” the letter reads. “Again. we are unaware of any license allowing you the right to reproduce, distribute or otherwise exploit the deadmau5 Mark or to exploit Zimmerman’s name and likeness in connection with same.” At the time of writing Disney hasn’t complied with the request, but it seems that they have no other option than to comply. Whether it will change anything in their stance towards the DJ’s mouse ear trademark application is doubtful though. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Deadmau5 Accuses Disney of Pirating His Music

Hitachi Developing Reactor That Burns Nuclear Waste

Zothecula writes The problem with nuclear waste is that it needs to be stored for many thousands of years before it’s safe, which is a tricky commitment for even the most stable civilization. To make this situation a bit more manageable, Hitachi, in partnership with MIT, the University of Michigan, and the University of California, Berkeley, is working on new reactor designs that use transuranic nuclear waste for fuel; leaving behind only short-lived radioactive elements. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hitachi Developing Reactor That Burns Nuclear Waste

Scientists Found the Origin of the Ebola Outbreak

Taco Cowboy sends this report from Vox: One of the big mysteries in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is where the virus came from in the first place — and whether it’s changed in any significant ways. … In a new paper in Science (abstract), researchers reveal that they have sequenced the genomes of Ebola from 78 patients in Sierra Leone who contracted the disease in May and June. Those sequences revealed some 300 mutations specific to this outbreak. Among their findings, the researchers discovered that the current viral strains come from a related strain that left Central Africa within the past ten years. … Using genetic sequences from current and previous outbreaks, the researchers mapped out a family tree that puts a common ancestor of the recent West African outbreak some place in Central Africa roughly around 2004. This contradicts an earlier hypothesis that the virus had been hanging around West Africa for much longer than that. Researchers are also planning to study the mutations to see if any of them are affecting Ebola’s recent behavior. For example, this outbreak has had a higher transmission rate and lower death rate than others, and researchers are curious if any of these mutations are related to that. … The scientific paper on Ebola is also a sad reminder of the toll that the virus has taken on those working on the front lines. Five of the authors died of Ebola before it was published. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientists Found the Origin of the Ebola Outbreak