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Submitted by mrspoonsi

+ - Stephen Hawking claims "there are no black holes" ->

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes "Stephen Hawking has proposed a new solution to the black-hole firewall paradox, which has been vexing physicists for almost two years, after its discovery by theoretical physicists Joe Polchinski at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California, and colleagues. The paradox troubles physicists because if the firewall scenario is correct, Einstein’s general theory of relativity is flouted. But the classical theory black hole cannot be reconciled to the quantum mechanical prediction that energy and information can escape from a black hole.
Now Hawking has proposed a tantalizingly simple solution to the paradox which allows both quantum mechanics and general relativity to remain intact--black holes simply do not have an event horizon to catch fire. The key to his claim is that quantum effects around the black hole cause spacetime to fluctuate too wildly for a sharp boundary surface to exist. As Hawking writes in his paper, "The absence of event horizons mean that there are no black holes — in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape to infinity.""

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+ - Makerbot announces new 3D printers at CES

Submitted by Lockdev
Lockdev writes "In an unsurprising move, Makerbot announced a new line of 3D printers at the CES show in Las Vegas today. The new lineup includes a "big bot" machine that has a massive 12"x12"x18" build volume and a "mini" machine with a build volume of roughly 4"x4"x5". It appears Makerbot has been listening to their user community by upgrading many of the problematic components of their original Replicator/2/2x lineup. These upgrades include a glass build plate, a smart extruder, and a built-in camera to monitor your prints remotely."

Comment: Re:very understandable (Score 1) 784

In my mind it centers around this question:

Assume an arbitrary community of 100,000. Leaving out natural deaths, let's say you have an annual death rate of 10 by gun, 3 by knife, and 5 by other (beating by trout, scissors, whatever), for a total of 18.

Then remove all the guns. Does the death rate stay at 18, with just the distribution of causes changing, or does it go down, because some who would have died from gunshots now don't (from e.g. mass shootings, gun accidents).

Comment: Re:very understandable (Score 4, Interesting) 784

Annual number of handgun-related deaths per 100,000 people by selected country (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate)

Australia: 1.06
Canada: 2.38
Germany: 1.24
Israel: 1.87
Japan: 0.06
Netherlands: 0.46
United Kingdom: 0.25
United States: 10.3

Actually that's not as big a contrast as I expected -- I thought the US was 20-50 times higher than the norm, but it's significantly less than that for most western countries. The worst mostly in Central America, but Mexico is only slightly higher than the US at 11.17.

+ - Disabled Woman Denied Entrance to USA Due to Private Medical Records-> 4

Submitted by Jah-Wren Ryel
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "The latest from the front lines in the War on Dignity:


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Comment: Re:Paying for Blood Work? (Score 1) 4

by evenmoreconfused (#45468057) Attached to: Affordable Blood Work In Four Hours Coming To Walgreens

Ok, you're right.

Perhaps I should have said "included in the cover charge". But the cover charge is largely paid by the healthy, capable members of society, while the services are needed by, and provided to, the more needy and less capable members. Whether one considers this to be better or worse than the "user pays" model depends on your politics.

+ - Affordable Blood Work In Four Hours Coming To Walgreens-> 4

Submitted by kkleiner
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