Small genes and thinking with sound

Source: PhysOrg It appears that the genomes of dinosaurs were "light", like those of modern birds. The smallest genomes are found among the theropods like T-rex and Velociraptor that had genome sizes similar to that of birds. Ornithischians like Triceratops, had genome sizes more like modern alligators. The genomes had fewer repetative and non-coding DNA, making their genome smaller that that of mammals.

Source: CBC News A team of Danish scientists claim that nerve transmit information through sound, not electricity as is currently believed. Their argument, and bear in mind that they are physicists, not medical scientists or engineers, is that nerves would heat up too much if electricity was being used to transmit information, so current theory violates the law of thermodynamics. There are many, many problems with their theory, the greatest problem being that it's not really "electricity" per se that is transmitted in a nerve cell, but what is referred to as an action potential due to ions passing across the cell membrane. The "last mile" between nerves is then handled by neurotransmitters. I would take their theory with very large blocks of salt.

Source: ComputerWorld Not satisfied with Vista simply messing with photos, Microsoft now wants to define a new standard in image storage, replacing the most popular format known as jpeg compression. They propose that their HD Photo format, formerly known as Windows Media Photo, "...causes less damage to photos during compression, with higher-quality images that are half the size of a JPEG." So far, camera manufacturers have ignored this format, but Adobe recently agreed to support it. HD Photo format is, of course, supported by Vista and XP.

Source: SlashDot Sieve, by Codeplay, is a scalable C++ system that makes it easy to parallelize your code. Sections of code to be performed in parallel are marked with sieve{...}, which causes the compiler to attempt to compile them for parallel operations by removing any "side effects", such as changes in variables that could occur if the same code segments were sun in series. This is of particular interest to people writing code for things like the Cell processor.

Source: Washington Times Homeland Security is taking another stab at snooping on its citizens by developing a new automated snooping system. Called ADVISE (Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement), this data mining system is currently being tested and will be used to sift through "...credit-card purchases, telephone or Internet details, medical records, travel and banking information..." with the supposed aim of sniffing out potential terrorist threats. Their last attempt was called TIA (Total Information Awareness) and was dropped by Congress after concerns were expressed that the program could violate the right to privacy of the average citizen.