"IPod Users Go Into the Closet"

Scientists have grown square bacteria in the laboratory.

Stanford researchers have used a common antibiotic to switch off a cancer-causing gene in mice. According to the article, "Mice remained cancer free for as long as they took the drug. The drug also turned cancer cells back to normal." Here's a related article.

Our friend Jimmy Wales, aka the founder of Wikipedia, is blogging again.

Practical psychology tip of the day: Top 10 Poker Tells.

How to make a ramjet from stainless steel coffee mugs. (Via Jason Rollette.)

The "approximate entropy" method might be able to predict when a stock market is about to crash.

Mathematics of disrupting terrorist cells.

Things that look like porn, but really aren't. Totally safe for work. (Via Solsberg.)

Fluid-based computer chips.

"Google, the Internet search engine, has done something that law enforcement officials and their computer tools could not: Identify a man who died in an apparent hit-and-run accident 11 years ago in this small town outside Yakima." (Via Linkfilter.)

Fan Google logos. Lots of 'em. (Via Madville.)

Invention of the day #2: Real-time handheld English-to-Japanese voice translator.

Now that commercial space tourism is coming soon, government regulations won't be far behind.

Invention of the day: Atomic clocks the size of a grain of rice, suitable for use in handheld devices.

All the other (less publicized) uses of peer-to-peer technology.

Update on XP vulnerability: A couple of people have pointed out that this is not a new discovery. Apparently, using any other OS boot CT (with appropriate file system software) allows one to bypass the OS not used. Thanks to Bryce Wilcox and Stewart Vardaman for writing in. So the story might not be as big a deal as portrayed in the article.

XP passwords rendered useless: A major XP security hole has been found.

Windows XP, which has been marketed by Microsoft as "the most secure version ever," has been found to have a flaw so bone-headed that it renders passwords ineffective as a means of keeping people out of your PC.

Reader Tony DeMartino alerted me to the problem, which all administrators of Windows XP machines should immediately take to heart:

Anyone with a Windows 2000 CD can boot up a Windows XP box and start the Windows 2000 Recovery Console, a troubleshooting program.

Windows XP then allows the visitor to operate as Administrator without a password, even if the Administrator account has a strong password.

The visitor can also operate in any of the other user accounts that may be present on the XP machine, even if those accounts have passwords.

Unbelievably, the visitor can copy files from the hard disk to a floppy disk or other removable media - something even an Administrator is normally prevented from doing when using the Recovery Console.

(Via Linkfilter.)

Optical illusion of the day: "Rollers".

Classic 19th century guide for making hand shadows. (Via Linkfilter.)