Big-head mode returns in Wii Goldeneye 007, college days relived
The recently released Wii re-imagining of Goldeneye 007 does much to evoke feelings of nostalgia, and that includes goofy secret modes as well. One enterprising Kotaku reader managed to figure out a trio of cheat codes by dumping data from the main executable file. These codes add invisibility and tag mode to split-screen multiplayer, and the infamous big-head mode returns as well.
To get the big head mode, you simply need to enter the code "<477MYFR13NDS4R3SP13S>" though it's only available in local multiplayer. Invisibility, meanwhile, requires the code "Inv1s1bleEv3ryth1ng" and it can be activated by pressing B, which means it replaces the sprint move. Finally, to get tag mode , you'll have to input the code "NotIt!!!11." But the tag mode is only available in matches with three or more players. All codes are case sensitive.
The news of the big-head mode—or DK mode as it's affectionately known as—is especially interesting considering that Activision previously stated that it wouldn't be making an appearance in the game. Now we wait and see if someone manages to find the tiny Bond mode.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Hacked Kinect used to manipulate images, more to come
The Kinect is a very intriguing piece of hardware, one with more promise than may seem immediately apparent. There was a rush to create working drivers for hackers and third-parties upon the hardware's release, and now that those drivers are freely available, the flood of third-party applications has begun.Ars spoke to Florian Echtler, who created a program that allow you to resize and manipulate images. While the application is still in its early phases, Echtler claims that working with the hardware is easier than you'd expect. This is just the beginning.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Derailing inflammation using a fake DNA packaging protein
Researchers have figured out how to manipulate the packaging of DNA to shut down a harmful inflammatory response. Most of our cells contain the same complement of genes, but different cell types develop because they express genes at different times and levels. This continues to be true throughout our lives, as cells turn genes on or off in response to environmental signals. One way to switch genes on and off is to change the structure of the DNA.All DNA is spooled around proteins called histones. When it is wound more tightly, genes cannot be activated; when it is more relaxed, the DNA transcription machinery can get in. Histones that are chemically modified with an acetyl group bind to DNA loosely, and thus genes spooled around acetylated histones are more likely to be expressed.
Inflammation is used to mount an immune response, yet excessive inflammation can often damage their host. To modulate the expression of inflammatory genes, scientists have made a molecule that masquerades as an acetylated histone.
The BET family of proteins assembles histone-containing complexes that regulate inflammatory gene expression. So the researchers called their fake histone I-BET, since it was found by screening synthetic compounds for those that can Interact with BET.
The researchers posited that I-BET may work in two ways. By binding to BET, it blocks the protein from binding to acetylated histones, thereby leaving them accessible to enzymes that can deacetylate them. But its binding to BET may also prevent the formation of large complexes on the DNA.
I-BET has no obvious effect on its own. But, when it's around, immune cells have a reduced response to chemicals that are linked to bacterial infections. Those same chemicals can cause shock when injected into mice, but I-BET blocked that too.
I-BET seems to affect genes that come on later in the immune response; primary response genes were not affected. This is because these later genes had not yet formed the necessary complexes on their chromosomes to activate gene expression—their histones were not yet acetylated. This was the case in animals as well as cultured cells.
This suppression of inflammation by I-BET is a proof of principle for drugs that that can selectively regulate gene expression by interfering with the assembly of histone dependent transcriptional complexes on the chromosomes. And it demonstrated that the epigenetic state of genes—the presence of acetylated histones at their promoters—is a phenomenon we can exploit to therapeutic ends.
Nature, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/nature09589 (About DOIs).
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
PTC: bleeped broadcast expletives on the rise
The Parents Television Council has released a new report claiming that foul talk of every shape, size, and odor is all but taking over broadcast television. "These huge increases in harsh profanity should come as no surprise, given the Second Circuit Court's ruling last July—a ruling which overturned the FCC's authority to sanction broadcasters who air profanity on the airwaves the American people own!," the PTC declared in its press release accompanying the study.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Jaz drives, spiral notebooks, and SCSI: how we lose scientific data
Let's say you've got a nice, digitized version of some scientific data, and you've already made reasonable choices about how close to the raw data you want to get in what you preserve. Better yet, you've hounded your students often enough that they've placed it in a single format and provided all the annotations that are needed to make sense of the data. You're all set to preserve it and share it with the rest of the scientific community. Except you aren't, because doing so creates its own challenges. Saving the digits
Once the data is digitized, the next step is saving it. And here, the same issues that everyone else faces—bit rot, obsolete media, incompatible data formats—cause problems for scientists as well. For large organizations like the LHC computing grids or a genome sequencing center, these issues are handled at an institutional level. But for most of the small research groups, backups and archiving are handled on an ad-hoc basis, and usually left up to whichever current member of the staff happens to be most computer literate; organizing the archiving and ensuring it was complete was left up to individual users.Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Feature: From AM radio to satellite TV: seven decades of FCC regulation
It was 1926. Broadcast radio was all the rage. But most stations barely resembled the kind of outlets we listen to today. The majority were run by colleges, civic organizations, and in some instances, labor unions. Only 4.3 percent could be classified as "commercial broadcasters."
Less than a decade later, the situation had more than reversed itself. By 1934, nonprofit broadcasting added up to a mere two percent of all air time.
Why? Pressure from commercial stations had a lot to do with it. But ultimately the call was made by the precursor to the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Radio Commission. Although in the early 1920s most prominent voices agreed that commercial broadcasting would be the worst possible way to fund radio, the FRC now concluded that advertising was the only way to support the big range "clear channel" licenses that the agency had given to forty signals across the country.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Palin, Sizemore hacks: is getting into Yahoo e-mail too easy?
It has been a brutal week for celebrity Web account hackers. As we reported, on Friday a Federal judge sentenced a University of Tennessee student engaged in the pastime to a year in the slammer. David Kernell was caught sleuthing into former Vice-Presidential candidate and pundit Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account. He posted some of the photos he found on various image sites.In the course of the trial, the economics student's lawyers managed to dodge wire-fraud and identity theft charges. But the court found Kernell guilty of misdemeanor computer intrusion and a felony count of obstruction of justice (deleting evidence)—hence the prison time.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Risk aversion, funding mistakes block gaming masterpieces
Large game developers and publishers are too averse to risk. Independent game developers are lacking in resources and money. These two factors are preventing the medium of gaming from reaching it's true potential, according to Ron Carmel—one half of World of Goo developer 2D Boy and co-founder of the Indie Fund—who spoke on the subject during the 2010 edition of the Montreal International Game Summit. His solution? The creation of medium-sized studios that have the resources of a larger company but the autonomy of an indie.Ars had the chance to catch up with Carmel after his talk to discuss what needs to happen for a studio like this to exist and whether or not it's already happening.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Weird Science finds the testicular mass ratio champion
Testing evolution, finding large testes: In many species, females mate with multiple males, and evolution drives various responses, but the simplest one is that males of these species tend to have large testes in order to gain an advantage to the competition. A team of British researchers decided to see if this rule held in the insect world—after all, other people had apparently already measured insects' ejaculate volume (the authors looked it up). In the process, they came across the Tuberous Bushcricket (Platycleis affinis to its friends), which apparently devotes the highest ratio of its body mass to testes of any species yet described. For the curious, the figure is 14 percent. Weird Science readers are advised against seeing how they fare relative to these crickets, since the procedure involves dissecting out the testes. Those blue whales are looking a bit pink: Cetaceans can get sunburns and, when it comes to the whales, the blue whale is the equivalent of a fair-haired, pasty white guy. The researchers showed that the blisters and cell death normally associated with overdoing it in the sun appear on tissue samples of whales, and that some of these are big enough to be seen in aerial photographs. Like humans, the number of melanocytes normally present in the skin is protective, which means the sperm whale (few of which look like Moby Dick) does relatively ok with the sun. The blue whale, however, tends to have more serious problems.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
No comments:
Post a Comment