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You mean like this: http://www.battelle.org/our-wo...

Maybe the time has finally come for large-scale transportation fuel production from biomass pyrolysis.

That's ten-year-old news!, reporting is going a bit slow today.
The railgun's projectile is to have an energy of 64 Megajoules. The DD(X) frigate (or destroyer, I don't know the difference much) was originally a candidate for getting a railgun ; that was canned at some point I think.

Here's a video with some testing and stuff done in October 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I had not watched it back then, I remember the high res, short one that simply showed the bangs and shot, I don't remember in which year. Sadly the PDF I remember from 2004 with schematic line drawings is offline ( http://www.battelle.org/navy/r... )
Here's one railgun news article from 2004. http://www.popsci.com/scitech/...

Woah, woah, what?

Except that my first take on this was what innovations.

Every single drug and test invented in the past twelve years has been absolutely dependent on understanding the sequence of the human genome and how its components play together. 15 new anti-cancer drugs were approved in 2012 alone, the most bountiful year for FDA approvals since 1995.

Yes, a lot of stuff is hyped up, but I've seen precious little utility for genomics in the trenches.

Then you've never heard of this? Or this? How much more trench-y do you need?

I think this study is total BS - especially since the methodology is hidden.

The third page links to the full report, noting that it includes the full methodology behind the study. The word "methodology" is right there in bright blue.

Sequencing the human genome is interesting, but the real key is sequencing other genomes and comparing them. That's happening with abandon now.

As far as human health is concerned, the primary questions are (a) how do we work? (b) how do the things that interact with us work? and (c) how does our environment affect us? While many model organisms provide excellent snapshots of simpler genomes that we can use to unravel complex mechanisms (like cell division in yeast), comparative genomics really only teaches us about evolution. It's not relevant to medicine, outside of predicting the evolution of pathogens. We're not benefiting human medicine by sequencing, say, red pandas or sea turtles, although these things are certainly important for other reasons. There are occasionally exceptional genomes, like the naked mole rat (immune to cancer), but these are rare.

And we're finally getting a handle on what controls the genome and how all the little pieces fit together.

The biggest recent contributor to that has been ENCODE, which, again, was a direct analysis of human data and did not involve any other species.

That should yield some better therapies but aside from a few edge cases in cancer treatment, there isn't much out there. And it's not like these cancer treatments have overwhelmingly improved survival - improvements of 20 - 50% are typical. Nothing to sneeze at, but not the Holy Grail.

We picked all the low-hanging fruit like phenylketonuria as soon as it became technologically feasible. Problems like cancer and severe autism are extremely complex, and the only hope we have to tackle them is through an extremely intimate understandinf of the human genome.

5% of $10 is a lot less then 3% of $100.

To get an idea on spending, here is a little PDF for you. Essentially, the US outspend every other country in the world by at least twice as much if not more.

you mean like the manattan project? the apollo project? Nasa?

No, I mean private investment in the same areas that increased taxes would siphon from.

Are you going to tell me "girls gone wild" is worthwhile and productive? because a lot of money goes into making those vids and the commercials for them. How about all the R&D being put into more efficiently off-shoring exceedingly higher skilled jobs?

I'm going to tell you that in combination of public and private sources of Science R&D in the US alone is more then twice that of any other nation in the world and that taking from private investments will be taking from the exact same thing it is working for. Currently the combined public and private spending in the US is around 377 billion (projected fro 2009) Girls gone wild really has nothing to do with investments as it is the profit that will be taxed which is in turn invested and yes, some of those profits will be funding Science R&D by nature of investing.

Economics does not have a "goal" of efficiency any more than nuclear physics has a "goal" of producing the biggest, most powerful bomb possible. It needs to be leveraged to the benefit of humanity.

I think your missing the forest for all the trees. Other investments have the exact same if not more benefit over profit and I wasn't limiting my statement to the singular. Other things that can benefit humanity is greater agriculture production, more nutritious foods, disease and drought resistant crops, computer programing that makes complicated tasks easier, devices that conserve energy or recycle waste into usable and productive materials or energy, medical improvements, people keeping their jobs or being secure in knowing they have a place to live, ability to feed their families and bunches of more in which is all in some way is privately funded through investments.

Or trading a short term loss for long term gains. There is no new money, just allocations and priorities, and frankly, we've been slacking on our basic research for a couple decades at least. If it can't be linked to a weapons program, it doesn't get funded.

Short term losses for long term gains is only beneficial if the long term gains are more then the short term losses. That's pretty hard to do when worthwhile investments already contribute to a large portion of the total US's Science R&D spending.

Unfortunately, we really would be robbing Peter to pay Paul. And yes, they are working on the same goals.

Between government and private investment in the US, the US outspends every other country in the world by more then twice as much. We come in as something like 388.5 billion dollarscombined between federal and private US science R&D spending.

You wouldn't necessarily need corporations to invest a percentage of their budget but rather a portion of profits to top the 420 billion number. This can be done by targeted tax cuts like the ones BigOil enjoyed but was criticized as subsidies during the last elections (where R&D and capitol costs of equipment designed to pull energy from less profitable sources of energy like solar, wind, shale oil, and tar sands was credited).

Anyways, allowing up to 5-15% of corporate taxes owed to be placed into new R&D spending would more then increase the amount to above Obama's initiative.

You do realize that a good portion of defense spending is science related right?

Your trying to overly simplify something more complex then your allowing for. Currently, we spend about 26 billion on science and technology specifically but when you take the NASA budget, the Science related defense spending, the educational grants and spending, DOE, NOAA, and several other department spending, that number grows significantly. IF you add private research to the mix, we out spend every other country in the world by at least twice as much on Science R&D with a projected total for 2009 of $383,477,000,000 or about $383.5 billion.

My guess is that the Obama is talking about small increases in federal budget expenditures and increases (most likely through tax manipulation) of private expenditures.

• Battelle
• Limited Brands
• Big Lots
• Tons of Government Jobs

Is this the same technology or something different? http://nationalsecurity.battelle.org/news/inno_dis play.aspx?id=63

> I get the feeling most people on Slashdot work in inhumane hellholes

They can do what Battelle did to me. I gave my two weeks notice hoping that they would remedy the issues which I clearly addressed in my letter. When the two weeks passed without even the slightest attempt at negotiation I reiterated, in a meeting with my manager, the issues governing my decision to part ways with them. When I was treated with crude disdain I followed through on my notice and left.

The company then, over the course of the next week, notified me that I had been terminated unwillfully (making the official stance, in the eyes of corporate HR, a "firing") and made two direct deposits into my bank account. A month later they sent a collection letter to my address stating that I had been overpaid and demanding ~$1300 payment.

It's probably still on my credit record.

> If they don't want to pay for your unemployment, they need documented proof as to why they fired you

They can do what Battelle did to me. I gave my two weeks notice hoping that they would remedy the issues which I clearly addressed in my letter. When the two weeks passed without even the slightest attempt at negotiation I reiterated, in a meeting with my manager, the issues governing my decision to part ways with them. When I was treated with crude disdain I followed through on my notice and left.

The company then, over the course of the next week, notified me that I had been terminated unwillfully (making the official stance, in the eyes of corporate HR, a "firing") and made two direct deposits into my bank account. A month later they sent a collection letter to my address stating that I had been overpaid and demanding ~$1300 payment.

It's probably still on my credit record.

They can do what Battelle did to me. I gave my two weeks notice hoping that they would remedy the issues which I clearly addressed in my letter. When the two weeks passed without even the slightest attempt at negotiation I reiterated, in a meeting with my manager, the issues governing my decision to part ways with them. When I was treated with crude disdain I followed through on my notice and left.

The company then, over the course of the next week, notified me that I had been terminated unwillfully (making the official stance, in the eyes of corporate HR, a "firing") and made two direct deposits into my bank account. A month later they sent a collection letter to my address stating that I had been overpaid and demanding ~$1300 payment.

It's probably still on my credit record.

> What is unethical about cutting an employee loose who has expressed a desire to leave?

They can do what Battelle did to me. I gave my two weeks notice hoping that they would remedy the issues which I clearly addressed in my letter. When the two weeks passed without even the slightest attempt at negotiation I reiterated, in a meeting with my manager, the issues governing my decision to part ways with them. When I was treated with crude disdain I followed through on my notice and left.

The company then, over the course of the next week, notified me that I had been terminated unwillfully (making the official stance, in the eyes of corporate HR, a "firing") and made two direct deposits into my bank account. A month later they sent a collection letter to my address stating that I had been overpaid and demanding ~$1300 payment.

It's probably still on my credit record.

> they dont have a basis for suing you

They can, however, do what Battelle did to me. I gave my two weeks notice hoping that they would remedy the issues which I clearly addressed in my letter. When the two weeks passed without even the slightest attempt at negotiation I reiterated, in a meeting with my manager, the issues governing my decision to part ways with them. When I was treated with crude disdain I followed through on my notice and left.

The company then, over the course of the next week, notified me that I had been terminated unwillfully (making the official stance, in the eyes of corporate HR, a "firing") and made two direct deposits into my bank account. A month later they sent a collection letter to my address stating that I had been overpaid and demanding ~$1300 payment.

It's probably still on my credit record.

BASF Research
Batelle
BBC Research & Development
General Electric Global Research

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Motorola Labs
Microsoft Research
HP Labs
IBM Research
Intel Research
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Philips Research
Corporate Research
The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Toshiba Research Europa
Toyota Central R&D Labs
Viewpoints Research Institute

RE: Microsoft Research: I've used the Detours research project in many applications - most users (even tech savvy IT support) think I've accomplished something magical using it - it's extremely powerful software.

No doubt. Bell Labs created the transistor. Perhaps you've heard of it. :)

I am firmly in the "outside world", and these are real products (even if they are internal to my employer, a Fortune 500 corp) - just because you are unaware of the innovation that is happening there

I think you are assuming too much. The company I work for is in the innovation business too. We produce scientific solutions for Fortune 500 companies and Microsoft is heavily embedded in our organization. We see plenty of Microsoft's best stuff because we manage USDOE laboratories. My point was, and is, that Microsoft will fund activities in Microsoft Research just like AT&T funded Bell Labs. There was a strong 'inventive' capability in the people they hired (they employed quite a few were Nobel-level fellows), they produced cutting edge technology, and some of what they produced was deployed in the field.

The problem is that much of what they produced/invented never saw the light of day as products. The reason that much of what they produced never became consumer or commercial products is because they didn't know what to do with it. It was perhaps a basic science discovery whose real application did not fit into their business profile. Not necessarily their fault, just an economic reality.

(and just because it is funded by Microsoft) doesn't mean you should automatically discount this research.

My comment shouldn't be interpreted as discounting the research. I have no idea where you got that from my post.

I fully endorse the grandparent post: there is cutting edge work going on there.

Who in this thread said they didn't?

If you read the pdf, it said that the flight time of the railgun round at 250 nm was 6 minutes, and that they include a guidence system. While this does not undermine the basic premise ("missles still have a purpose"), it does answer several of his points. In fact "railgun round" sounds like it has many of the benefits of "missile" that he was espousing.

If you read the pdf, it implies that the guidance system is GPS/INS, which means that the round's destination is fixed once it leaves the gun. This means it will not hit a moving target (unless one can accurately predict the target's position 6 minutes ahead at 250 nm).

Furthermore, the pdf referenced a study comparing a railgun's capabilities to that of a naval air wing, and (in the realm where the railgun would operate) it came out ahead.

It's entirely believable that a rail gun would be preferable to a conventional air wing in many situations. I did not state otherwise.

Finally, the ariticle plainly states that railguns (and all Naval Surface Fire Support) are just there to give more options and to augment the missile and air wing capabilities of task force.

You are repeating assertions of the article as if I have somehow contradicted or refuted them, which I have not. I think that having rail guns on navy ships is a great idea. And, for the reasons stated in my original post, I think keeping cruise missiles on ships and aircraft is also a good idea.

If you read the pdf, it said that the flight time of the railgun round at 250 nm was 6 minutes, and that they include a guidence system. While this does not undermine the basic premise ("missles still have a purpose"), it does answer several of his points. In fact "railgun round" sounds like it has many of the benefits of "missile" that he was espousing.

If you read the pdf, it implies that the guidance system is GPS/INS, which means that the round's destination is fixed once it leaves the gun. This means it will not hit a moving target (unless one can accurately predict the target's position 6 minutes ahead at 250 nm).

Furthermore, the pdf referenced a study comparing a railgun's capabilities to that of a naval air wing, and (in the realm where the railgun would operate) it came out ahead.

It's entirely believable that a rail gun would be preferable to a conventional air wing in many situations. I did not state otherwise.

Finally, the ariticle plainly states that railguns (and all Naval Surface Fire Support) are just there to give more options and to augment the missile and air wing capabilities of task force.

You are repeating assertions of the article as if I have somehow contradicted or refuted them, which I have not. I think that having rail guns on navy ships is a great idea. And, for the reasons stated in my original post, I think keeping cruise missiles on ships and aircraft is also a good idea.

If you read the pdf, it said that the flight time of the railgun round at 250 nm was 6 minutes, and that they include a guidence system. While this does not undermine the basic premise ("missles still have a purpose"), it does answer several of his points. In fact "railgun round" sounds like it has many of the benefits of "missile" that he was espousing.

Furthermore, the pdf referenced a study comparing a railgun's capabilities to that of a naval air wing, and (in the realm where the railgun would operate) it came out ahead.

Finally, the ariticle plainly states that railguns (and all Naval Surface Fire Support) are just there to give more options and to augment the missile and air wing capabilities of task force.

Quote from article: "Also, the networks would be unable to give the type of detailed explanations as to why voters voted the way they did this time around. For example, according to TV network analysts working the election, the networks wouldn't be able to tell viewers why particular demographic groups voted for specific candidates nor the issues that they considered most or least important when voting."

So, what this means is that people were able to go late to the polls, and cast a vote free from the influence of network prognostication.

More suspicious folk can speculate about connections between this fiasco and the many other things that Battelle Memorial Institute does for our government, and how well it does them.

Even so, I wouldn't put the waste in contact with the ocean water; I'd do what the Feds are doing, keep it nice and dry and cozy in a stable sub-surface mountain.

Having once worked at a National Lab (PNNL, operated by Battelle) I can say that if LANL is anything like where I worked, they're not lying. Nuclear material is handled very carefully and a forest fire is the least of their worries.

There are other issues with the Natl labs (namely, national security) that aren't all that great - but I don't think fire is going to be a problem.

(yes, I was certified as a level 1 rad worker, and no it wasn't my main focus - I was a computer tech who had to go into rad zones from time to time. if you think an old Quadra 605 is slow now, it feels ten times as slow when you're surrounded by geiger counters and have a quota as to how long you would be allowed to stay there)


- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)