] Dark Tips: Mag Stripe Secrets
] Being the curious lad that he is, Kevin wanted to know
] what information is contained on the little magnetic
] stripe on his credit cards, grocery club cards, Starbucks
] card, etc. With the V3-4 Magstripe Reader from Omron
] ($40) adapted by Yoshi to a DB-15 male connector, you can
] swipe your own cards to see what;s on them. Just get
] a copy of StripeSnoop and you're on your way; note
] that some stripe have multiple tracks

Werd Acidus...you rule!

Stripe Snoop.... ON THE SCREENSAVERS!

] In the beginning there was Darwin. And then there was
] intelligent design. How the next generation of "creation
] science" is invading America's classrooms

I am memeing this mainly so that I remember to go back and read it, but it looks like an interesting read for those interested in the "teaching evolution vrs teaching creationism in science classrooms" debate.

Wired 12.10: The Crusade Against Evolution

] Scientists who created Dolly the sheep, the world's first
] cloned mammal, applied for a license on Tuesday to clone
] human embryos to obtain stem cells for research into
] Motor Neurone Disease.

I am always happy to see news of the possibility of therapeutic cloning taking a step forward. Stem cells are powerful tools in which to study diseases. They want to generate stem cells from patients that have the disease and compare them to normal cells. It would be very interesting to do microarray analysis between the two to see which genes are expressed more/less in the diseased cells. This could very easily open the door to a possible therapy for the disease, and if that happens, then possibly current US legislation on stem cells will become a bit less stringent. I think this is very important work, and I am excited to see what comes of it. I am a total supporter of therapeutic cloning.

Wired News: Dolly Creators Seek Clone License

This is so great, and I am very excited about it. Basically, its a collection of grad students and post-docs in the Atlanta area that do consulting work for biotech, pharmaceutical, and health care companies. I just found this today, and I hope that I get to be a part of it. Sounds like fun:)

Atlanta Biotech Network

] Scientists can see how a virus causes infection by
] interacting with DNA, thanks to the first molecular-scale
] images of the phenomenon. Now that they can see how the
] virus does its dirty work, researchers can try to build a
] drug to block it.

Wow...so these scientists have actually been able to image an adenovirus attacking DNA and have created a computer model of the image....this will be the cover of the next Molecular and Cellular Proteomics....can't wait....science is so rad

Wired News: Catching a Virus in the Act

] Gmail was created by the web search company Google in
] April 2004 amid much excitement as every user is promised
] an unprecedented gigabyte of storage space for messages.
] Google encourages users to keep all their old messages
] and automatically searches these to determine what kind
] of web advertisements might interest users.
]
] But Gmail's copious storage space has inspired a number
] of programmers to come up with completely novel ways of
] using the service.
]
] These include a "weblog" or online message board that
] uses Gmail to store postings and a desktop file system
] that plugs straight into the Gmail system.

Article: Google's Gmail inspires imaginative 'hacks' | New Scientist

] Geneballs are tiny particles of silica one-tenth the
] diameter of a human hair. They work like a barcode on a
] can of beans. Each particle contains a warren of tiny
] channels 10 nanometers wide, which soak up fluorescent
] dyes like a sponge. The surface of the geneball is coated
] with a specific chain of DNA, with a unique dye for each
] gene.

This is going to be really amazing if they get it to actually work....the name makes me snicker for some reason though...I think they should change it if/when this is widely used

Wired News: Quick Read on Your Genetics

Rattle wrote:
] ] Government experts are investigating a claim that an
] ] unarmed nuclear bomb, lost off the Georgia coast at the
] ] height of the Cold War, might have been found, an Air
] ] Force spokesman said Monday.
] ]
] ] The hydrogen bomb was lost in the Atlantic Ocean in 1958
] ] following a collision of a B-47 bomber and an F-86
] ] fighter.
]
] And to think treasure hunters have been focusing all their
] attention on the Caribbean.
]
] ] The United States lost 11 nuclear bombs in accidents
] ] during the Cold War that were never recovered, according
] ] to the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
]
] Collect em' all!

How the hell do you just fucking "lose" a bloody NUKE.......its not like a contact or something....it doesn't blend well with its environment....sheesh

RE: CNN.com - Lost nuclear bomb possibly found - Sep 13, 2004

This is pretty neat. Scientists have isolated a bacterium that turns a toxin into a plastic...very useful:)

Bacteria turn toxin into plastic

] In a discovery that has left one expert stunned, European
] astronomers have found one of the smallest planets known
] outside our solar system, a world about 14 times the mass
] of our own around a star much like the sun.

Rad

CNN.com - Earth-like planet discovered 50 light-years away - Aug 26, 2004