erfnet writes "The Technical University of Munich, along with a German beer-maker, have kindly published a 'Comprehensive Sensomics Analysis of Hop-Derived Bitter Compounds During Storage of Beer' They determined 56 hop-derived sensometabolites which contribute to bitter taste during storage, increasing with time and temperature. If we had only had this information during our College days, we could have been even geekier! 'Duuuuude, it's not skunked, it's suffering from proton-catalyzed cyclization of trans-iso-a-acids.'"

nloop writes "A group of file-sharers in Sweden have requested that their religion, Kopimism, be officially recognized in Sweden. Although this status has been denied once in the past the struggle for religious freedom from persecution continues. Aside from deeming CTRL+C CTRL+V as sacred symbols other beliefs include the flow of information being ethically right and closed source software being 'akin to slavery.'"

A good old-fashioned Iliad diorama just wasn't big enough for a group of Chicago area students. They decided to build a life-sized Trojan Horse for their class project instead. From the article: "As Newsradio 780s Mike Krauser reports, their teacher couldn’t believe it. 'It was a surprise and it was a big surprise,' said teacher Bob Pomykala. The students wouldn’t tell Pomykala what they were up to. 'They said they had a great idea, but they wouldn’t tell me what it was,' he said. What they did was build a giant Trojan Horse, which, according to Greek mythology was used to sneak soldiers into the city of Troy for a triumphant battle. They built it in senior Sergio Aguilar’s yard, and then moved it right in front of Marengo Community High School.

PolygamousRanchKid writes "Miss your tax deadline in the United States this weekend, and you might get a nasty letter at your door. In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, you might get Riffee and the gang. They are transgender tax collectors — whose weapons include flamboyancy, surprise — and a little lipstick."

kfogel writes "Karen Sandler (a lawyer at the Software Freedom Law Center) and Mike Tarantino (a professional musician) are getting married in May. They've sent out the coolest wedding invitation ever: a beautifully packaged flexidisc record where the invitation itself is the record player. The song was written by Mike, is performed by Karen and Mike together, and FTW is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. The person who designed the invitations — a friend of the couple's — has blogged about it."

An anonymous reader writes "A fellow art student of mine (yes, there are artists on Slashdot as well) has been sued by Louis Vuitton for depicting one of their bags in her painting. Her painting is wholly original, however LV is demanding 5,000 euros a day because the 'pattern of this bag infringes its design rights,' and for her to cease displaying her original artwork on her website. It might be preaching to the choir here on Slashdot, but these cases need all the attention they can get."

Since he hadn't been born yet, 33-year-old Charlotte Childs was shocked to get a letter from the police threatening to give her son an ASBO and inviting her to discuss how unruly he was. From the article: "Charlotte, who is 36 weeks' pregnant, said: 'The letter said there had been an incident of anti-social behavior and our child was identified. I would love to know how a 36-week-old fetus has managed to go to the park and cause trouble without me noticing.'"

fangmcgee writes "Nerd love alert: German researchers have just created the world's smallest wedding rings, measuring less than a thousandth of the width of a human hair. Goethe University professor Alexander Heckel and his doctoral student Thorsten Schmidt made the artificial structures from two interlocking loops of DNA — known as catenane — in a single drop of water."

Orome1 writes "A French hacker has effectually tied a noose around his own neck when he bragged about hacking into the systems of a big government contractor on national TV. He participated in a television program called Further investigation, and he said — and demonstrated — that he has gained access to computers belonging to the French Army and Thales Group, a French company that provides information systems and services for the aerospace, defense, and security markets. He was arrested 6 days after the program was aired. The police discovered on his computer a great number of compromised credit card and bank account data."

H_Fisher writes "Disrespect the Chinese government at your peril ... and this includes anything you do with the past. Time magazine's Techland blog reports that China is banning references to time travel which are disrespectful to the nation's culture and history. No word on whether this includes a travel ban on time lords."

Unable to find a baby with a bag of candy to steal, 20-year-old Gage Turner and 21-year-old Warner Robins decided to rob a lemonade stand. 13-year-old Chelsea Edwards set up the stand with the help of some of her friends to raise money for her critically ill cousin Logan. From the article: "'I still can't get over it,' said Logan and Chelsea's grandmother Judy Bailey. She said one of the suspects scratched Chelsea's leg during the robbery, but that wasn't what hurt the most. 'My grandaughter was lying on the ground crying, devastated. She's been really having a hard time at night, the last two nights. I said, 'It's going to be okay. We're going to get there. One way or another we're going to get to Cincinnati, all of us. Don't you worry.'"

blair1q writes "From the article: 'Sure, when I make a paper airplane it’s goofing off, but when a robot does it, it’s a phenomenal PR campaign. Doctor James Porter, head of the surgical robotic team at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, recently released a video of himself folding a tiny paper plane the size of a penny. Rather than risk a paper cut, the surgeon used the tiny pincers of the da Vinci robot from Intuitive Surgical to perform the origami.'"

An anonymous reader writes "In news that could make many lonely tech savvy men have more of a spring in their steps is the launch of 'Cloud Girlfriend' which is a start up tech company based in California whose service is to match a user to his perfect match. The sad part is the relationship will only be internet based. Reported by Sara Yin of PC Mag, 'Cloud Girlfriend' will be free as David Fuhriman co-founder is quoted with saying 'We allow people to define their ideal self, find their perfect girlfriend or boyfriend and connect and interact as if that person existed. We will fulfill the 4 steps on the landing page, but not create any fake accounts.'"

A group of 15 students along with their teacher are claiming a new paper folding record. The group claims to have folded (in the same direction) 13,000 feet of toilet paper in half 13 times, breaking the old 2002 record of 12 times. From the article: "[teacher] Tanton has been leading students from St. Mark's on attempts to break the record for five years. But after several failed attempts, Tanton asked the MIT origami club, OrigaMIT, to help him and his students get access to MIT's Infinite Corridor."

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game have put out a press release seeking to prohibit the use of electronic control devices for hunting. According to the release: "The department recognized the lack of authority to regulate the use of (Tasers) on wildlife and brought the concern to the Board of Game. Restricting the use of (Tasers) will reduce the risk of improper or unethical use on wildlife by the public or other agency personnel who are unfamiliar with the potential effects and hazards." This comes a few months after Taser announced a new wildlife management model.

bazzalunatic writes "The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T chili is grown and harvested by an Australian company, and not by the inmates of an Australian insane asylum as rumored. The chili is claimed to be the world's hottest (1,463,700 SU), surpassing the current Naga Viper chili at 1,382,118 SU. From the article: '"They're just severe, absolutely severe," says Marcel de Wit, The Chili Factory co-owner. "No wonder they start making crowd-control grenades now with chilies. It's just wicked." The chili is so scorching that Marcel and his team have to wear protective gear when handling the new variety. "If you don't wear gloves your hands will be pumping heat for two days later," he says.'"

An anonymous reader writes "One in four office workers reckon that the best way to get a new work computer is to smash up the one they have — either that or to take it down to the junk shop themselves. Some 40 per cent of office workers complain that their aging workplace PC hurts their productivity and many are tempted to resort to extreme measures to get an upgrade, including taking a hammer to the aging beast on the desktop. Some ten per cent of UK workers said they'd even resort to buying new parts for their work devices themselves to perform their own upgrade; particularly those who work in smaller organizations."

At 102 feet and 3 inches, the world's largest Lego tower resides in Sao Paulo, Brazil. An intense need to smash Lego constructs as a child means this beat my record by at least 100 feet.

cylonlover writes "Among other things, Einstein's theory of special relativity says that as an object's velocity increases, time as experienced by the object will slow down when compared to another object traveling at a lower velocity. This means that a 'relatively' short round trip on a space ship traveling at close to the speed of light would see you arrive home having aged less than those back on Earth. While the greater the velocities involved, the greater the effect, the theory applies to all relative movement. Now there's an iPhone app that will let you know just how many extra nanoseconds you've gained by getting moving as opposed to sitting on your rear end."

mikejuk writes "You may well have seen many simulations of sorting algorithms that aim to show how the algorithm works. However I guarantee that you have never seen anything quite in the same league as the videos made by Sapientia University — they are simply crazy but in the nicest possible way. They folk dance their way though bubble sort, shell sort, insertion sort and selection sort. Very, very weird but you find you can't but help checking that they are doing it right. Now anyone want to try quicksort?"