Flesh-eating robots!?

No, really.

In less terrifying news, a Swiss lab thinks optical switches could replace transistors in a few years.


If you want to keep tabs on what's going on in the science and engineering world, here are a few sites to check out:

EurekAlert!

ScienceDaily

e! Science News

Chemical & Engineering News

CR4

News Tidbits

The Good:

• Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has launched a free online database of 7,800 chemicals, called Common Chemistry. It is intended mostly for use by the general public, but may be of use to students and researchers at CMU, as well. Here is the press release.
• NSF is spending stimulus money. From the linked story, "The ARRA funds set aside for new solicitations will be divided equally between facility updgrades and lab instrumentation purchases. NSF will invest $200 million to fund repairs and renovations to existing academic research facilities. Projects will be awarded up to $10 million each and can include research spaces such as buildings, mobile research facilities, and virtual facilities that use broadband-based technologies to bring scientists together. The other $200 million will fund the purchase and development of shared-use instruments. Up to $6 million each will go to individual projects."

The Bad:

• The Global Positioning System (GPS) may deteriorate in the near future. Maybe Galileo will be here in time, or maybe not (by the way, here is an article discussing interoperability between the systems).

The Incredibly Beautiful:

• We thought we'd share some Hubble photos.

Genetic Witness

Hello, it's Coral-the-friendly-IA, and I wanted to tell you about my experience reading Jay D. Aronson's Genetic Witness: Science, Law, and Controversy in the Making of DNA Profiling on the E&S Kindle. (That's right, we have a Kindle, and our Kindle has February's book discussion book on it! Finding it in Cameo is easy: just type "kindle" into the search field, and hit either "title" or "keyword." You can also type "Genetic Witness" into the search field and hit "title" to bring up the E&S Kindle. If you look at the Kindle's record, you can see that we have seven books on there right now. If you have suggestions for others you'd like to see on there, comment here or e-mail Donna Beck.)

On the whole, I've liked it. The Kindle feels a lot like a book to hold, and E Ink really does look like print on paper--it isn't hard on the eyes like a computer screen. It is also not back-lit; plan accordingly. I like the little status bar that tells me how far in the book I am, and I like that I can read for several hours after only plugging the Kindle in for fifteen minutes--I only ever remember to charge it right before I'm leaving the house.

The two frustrating things about reading this book on the Kindle have been the page turn time--there is a noticeable pause between hitting the "next page" button and the current page disappearing--and the size of the images. For the first, I've learned to hit the button before I get to the very last line on the screen, which usually works; on the other hand, sometimes I feel like I'm rushing to finish the last line before the page turns, which is somewhat counter-productive. I should probably just be patient. As for the images, Aronson has a fair number of explanatory images and diagrams with text in them, and I haven't found a zoom feature or any way to make the images large enough that the text on them can be read. (I found the feature to make the text in the book larger or smaller--which is quite nice--but not one for images.) So, either there isn't an image zoom, or it isn't immediately obvious where it is; I think that's a shame.

Still, I would absolutely read another book on a Kindle. I like the portability (it will carry more books than I will!) and that it remembers my place when I turn it off. I like that I can make the font smaller when I'm reading in good light and larger when I'm at a poorly lit coffee shop.

What about you? Have you used a Kindle, or some other e-reader? Do you agree that it's generally a pretty good technology, or are you not a fan? Did you find an image zoom feature, because I'd really like to know about that, if it exists?

How about Genetic Witness? We're discussing it in about a month, but do you have any preliminary thoughts about it? Anything in particular you want us to make sure gets discussed? As a reminder, the information on where and when we're meeting is available here. And suggestions for future books-for-discussion can be sent to Donna Beck, or left in the comments here.

Book Discussion - The Future of the Internet

Donna Beck, your friendly Engineering Librarian, hosted the Science Libraries' first ever Book Discussion this Wednesday at Maggie Murph Cafe. We had a lively (and sometimes on-topic!) discussion of The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It, by Jonathan Zittrain, with student representation from Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction.

Highlights of the discussion:

• We discussed Zittrain's point about the fight between generativity and control; there's a worry that because of problems with open platforms (viruses, spamming, etc.), people will move more and more away from general-purpose computers to appliances with strict control and little opportunity for customization (examples: the iPhone, the Wii, TiVo). On the other hand, we talked about the Wii as a tethered appliance and instances of people successfully hacking the Wii controllers--including CMU's very own Johnny Lee's low-cost Wii-mote smartboard.


• Privacy (p. 231) – Data is being centralized, and we can't monitor which applications are capturing which data about us. Do we just need to “get over it” in regard to invasion of our privacy? It seems to us that more and more (younger?) people are more willing to share their data. This bothers the librarians in the group, who have always been taught to keep patrons' data private.


• Security - is the Internet as dispersed as we believe? Will it be easier to compromise large amounts of PCs?


• Empowerment through technology - People in Tunisia are creating maps of prison locations using Google Maps so that prisoners' families can find and visit them.


• Democracy and the Internet - There's concern that people won't be properly informed; they'll get the news they hand-pick for their RSS reader and only opinions they agree with, resulting in an "echo chamber" effect. As a counter example, following the recent election on Twitter gave an idea of how the "Twitterati" felt about various news items, and you couldn't filter by opinion.


• Convenience vs. Security – People love Google Docs, Gmail, and other networked applications. But what would happen to your records if Google stopped offering these, or the Internet goes down? The convenience is great, but local backups are worth having.

We also have a matching game with terms from the book. If you're itching to know the answers, send an e-mail or leave a comment with your contact information!

Thanks to everyone who came out to discuss this book! If you'd like to get a head start for next time, we'll be reading Genetic Witness: Science, Law, and Controversy in the Making of DNA Profiling by Jay Aronson, a faculty member in our History department. The discussion will happen in early February.