Monday, March 31, 2003
Bridging The Gap Between Computer And Stereo
Bridging The Gap Between Computer And Stereo Turtle Beach's AudioTron-100 ($299) comes to the rescue. This device looks like a normal stereo system component, but hooks into a home Ethernet network to play your tunes. It connects to your computer via the network, scans the hard drive for up to 30,000 MP3 files and also plays Internet radio stations. If you have a wireless network (802.11b or Wi-fi), you can purchase a wireless Ethernet bridge for about $100 to $130 and connect the whole setup together sans wires. The coolness factor is off the charts.
The AudioTron is a good choice because it doesn't store the files on its own hard drive but instead streams them from the computer, leaving your music files in a centralized place. Create playlists on your computer and play them through the device's remote control or front panel.
Saturday, March 29, 2003
Life Made to Order
Life Made to OrderEfforts to create custom-made organisms—one DNA letter at a time—could yield new sources of energy or novel drugs.
By Alexandra M. Goho
April 2003
Life Made to Order
Life Made to Order "We’ve removed a billion-year-old constraint on what we can do with proteins," says a Scripps chemist, Peter Schultz. "And so we’re taking the point of view that if God had worked on Sunday, and he had more amino acids to work with, what would have been the outcome?" Would an organism with an expanded genetic code and amino acid inventory have an evolutionary advantage?
If scientists could answer such big theoretical questions, says Stephen Freeland, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Maryland, it might be possible one day to discover on other planets life that might not otherwise be recognizable. And if the synthetic-genome technologies in the works at Scripps, Egea, Venter’s institute, and elsewhere pan out, life right here on Earth could soon look a little less familiar -- and a lot more diverse.
Friday, March 28, 2003
News from the Washington File
News from the Washington File U.S. Marines on March 26 found more than 3,000 chemical protective suits, gas masks, nerve agent antidotes and a tank at a hospital near An Nasiriyah that was being used by Iraqi irregular forces as a base of operations. Brooks said the discovery by British forces of several thousand more chemical protective suits in the Ar Rumaylah oil fields in southern Iraq strongly indicate "a certain knowledge in the Iraqi forces that chemical weapons will be used." Since coalition forces do not have chemical weapons, Brooks said, there may already have been an Iraqi decision to use banned weapons at some point.
Mirror.co.uk - Basra civilians fired on by own troops
Mirror.co.uk - Basra civilians fired on by own troops Iraqi paramilitary forces in Basra have fired mortars and machine guns at a "couple of thousand" civilians trying to flee the city.
Members of Britain's Desert Rats 7th Armoured Brigade were trying to neutralise the fire.
Lt Col Ronnie McCourt, a spokesman for British forces in the Gulf, said UK troops were trying to evacuate the civilians and treat the wounded.
He said a "couple of thousand" Iraqi civilians had tried to break out from the north and west of the besieged city, but came under fire from Iraqi paramilitary forces inside.
Al-Qaeda fighting with Iraqis, British claim - War on Iraq - smh.com.au
Al-Qaeda fighting with Iraqis, British claim - War on Iraq - smh.com.au At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden's network are in the town of Az Zubayr where they are coordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war.
It was believed that last night (Thursday) British forces were preparing a military strike on the base where the al-Qaeda unit was understood to be holed up.
A senior British military source inside Iraq said: "The information we have received from PoWs today is that an al-Qaeda cell may be operating in Az Zubayr. There are possibly around a dozen of them and that is obviously a matter of concern to us."
If terrorists are found, it would be the first proof of a direct link between Saddam's regime and Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington.
The connection would give credibility to the argument that Tony Blair used to justify war against Saddam - a "nightmare scenario" in which he might eventually pass weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.
• Key Players in the Plame Affair
