6:29 PM
http://www.asd-network.com/press_detail_B.asp?ID=22921&NID=284998
Breakthrough by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla might lead to an AIDS vaccine. The two human antibodies identified can block infection from many kinds of HIV:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/sep/04/discovery-antibodies-could-lead-aids-vaccine/?uniontrib
Federal agencies will hire more than 270,000 workers over the next 3 years, 40% more than the previous 3 years. About 20% of those hires will be in the medical and public health arena (including a lot of nurses and therapists for veterans and others), and another 20% will be in security and protection (DHS has 34,500 of those hires, with the highest concentration in transportation security officers):
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/08/31/daily71.html
The Arctic is warmer than it has been in 2,000 years, even though changes in Earth's orbit should have caused it to cool because it is getting less direct sunlight now. Human-produced greenhouse gasses are identified as the cause for the warming trend:
http://www.rdmag.com/Environment-Arctic-reverses-trend-now-is-warmest-in-two-millenia/
Researchers have been able to observe magnetic monopoles for the first time:
http://www.azom.com/news.asp?newsID=18829
German researchers have developed velcro made out of *steel*! The steel-based velcro can be opened and closed like regular velcro but it can withstand 800 degree celcius temperatures and has an adhesive strength of up to 35 tons per square meter:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/04/steel_velcro/
Baltimore's police department will give every patrol officer a BlackBerry (through $3.5 million in federal stimulus money). This allows cops to be more efficient and spend more time outside of their cars because they can run warrants, check vehicle registrations, and pull up criminal histories and suspect photos on their phones instead of using the laptops in their cars. Before making this decision they had 100 officers do a 3-month trial and found that cops with BlackBerries ("Pocket Cops") made *twice* as many arrests than those with the standard radios or laptops! In addition to making police more efficient, it costs just $1,700 to purchase a BlackBerry with a year's service plan, much less than the $7,800 it costs to install a laptop and software in a police car:
http://www.officer.com/online/article.jsp?siteSection=1&id=48237
AT&T customers who pay for 3G service but do not have iPhones complain that iPhones hog resources and bandwidth. They say that their 3G quality of service is declining, with lots of dropped calls, sometimes completely unavailable service, text and voice messages delayed by days at times, and download speeds sometimes slower than dial-up modem rates:
http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=45445&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10#
AT&T announced that iPhone customers will finally get to use MMS beginning on September 25:
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=1574
Bank of America branch in Florida insists on thumbprint identification to cash checks, so when an armless man tried to cash a check from his wife's account (showing two photo IDs) they refused:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090903/us_nm/us_bank_thumbprint