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Why is your assertion that computers can't (or worse, can, but should not be allowed to) determine what is an accurate statement any less "creepily religious" than the google fetishists who think it's inevitable?

This is a fair question, and rather than overly defend a statement that I threw in on a bit of whimsy at the end, I'll go the short route and just say: Maybe it's just as creepy. But I want to underscore that this statement, which I said partly just to be provocative, is dancing around a true philosophical/religious issue (where in the context of this paragraph I'll define religion to be "the pursuit of the answer to unanswerable questions like whether there's a reason we're here at all, what happens after death, where did the Universe come from, and is there any point to existence if we're doomed to die soon (as individuals) or later (as a society, due to supernova, heat death of the universe, or whatever)" rather than as the dogmatic attempt to answer such questions by fiat, which is more how I was using religion in my provocative remark). I didn't mean to say that computers can't assess truth, I meant to ask the question: if computers are to do this for us, what are we retaining to ourselves? Because it follows not logically but pragmatically that a huge number of people are lazy, and once told that the computer can assess truth, they'll simply believe it rather than work hard to find their own truth. And also, if not today then in some tomorrow, there is a likely scenario where people are forced to ask: are we the dispensible ones or are machines, and where machines might be asking the same question, and where it might be an us/them choice. Some people believe machines will eventually replace us, and in a distant future where machines were actually smarter, that doesn't disturb me. What disturbs me is if computers displace us when they are not in fact yet smart nor wise nor even intelligent but have only misassessed that they are because an arbitrary probability calculation has been mistaken for Truth with a capital T.

As long as we are still asking questions about truth, I think we're on track. Google as an entity for asking questions of the world does not disturb me (well, not as much). Google as an entity for dispensing answers that require computation disturbs me more. Because I want "competition" and the ability to challenge. If Google can tell me who's lying, how much bigger a leap is it to tell me who I should vote for? Hey, why not just let it assess public policy and say what's good and what's not? I don't own the resources to challenge that. Nor do I know anyone who does. So I guess we'll just have to take it's word. So it starts to resemble a religion, a government, a prison in ways that are at least disturbing and where any rational person would say we should err on the side of asking questions and challenging assumptions, not simply assuming "this is fine" until it's too late.

yes, an algorithm *is* immune to lying. It's output may be inaccurate, but lying requires intent to decieve

So it's impossible to write an algorithm that requires, employs, benefits from, or otherwise involves lying? I remember seeing papers out of Stanford's AI Lab (SAIL) on this issue decades ago and being fascinated by the issues of whether lying would optimize variations of the Prisoner's Dilemma scenario, for example. A quick web search for terms relating to this (heh--thanks Google!) turned up The Case of the Lying Postman: Decoys and Deception in Negotiation and Economic Implications of Agent Technology and E-Commerce as well as others. I haven't read these references myself, but I'm betting they'll support my

I'll conceed your point that violent acts change us, however I take issue with how you make that point. You say Muslims did these acts, not radical Muslims. This implys that all Muslims are responsible and condone these terrible acts. Here you are dead wrong, radical Muslims are a very small percentage of the Muslim population thankfully. We would stand no chance agains 1.3 Billion (1) determined attackers.

So yes acts of terror change us, but only as much as we let them change us. In 2005 14,493 people died in terrorist attacks (2) while 43,443 died in traffic accidents (3). So why are we so worried about terrorism when we are more likely to be killed by a jack-hole talking on a cellphone? We are letting a relativly minor problem get blowen way out of proportion.

I don't think most people here are denying that terrorism is a Bad Thing (TM) but that they take issue with how it is being used as an excuse to take away our cival liberties. Sure it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do but a goverment official saying your right to free speach end is scary and wrong. Its not like he was claming that carying a knife or some banned object was protected by free speach. He made a harmless critasism and was punished for it, that shouldn't happen.

1: Major Religious Groups
2: Page 4, Table I
3: DOT Traffic Statistics

A marine expert is quoted as saying about 30 people died in the last couple of years.

It's called "Trans-cutaneous Electronic Muscle Stimulation" (TEMS) or "Functional Electronic Stimulation" (FES), and contrary to those late-night infomercials for ab exercisers, they are generally accepted not to do anything to stimulate the development of new muscle tissue. I think TENS refers mostly to high-frequency stimulation sometimes used for pain control, and FES is the lower-frequency muscle stimulation.

I have however heard that they are useful in preventing the atrophy of existing muscle, during periods of inactivity. I knew someone who was doing research with them on comatose patients about 30 years ago, trying to see if they prevented tissue degeneration. Not sure of the results or if they still use them that way, though.

But no, in general you can't just hook you biceps up to a TEMS system and look like Ahnold a few weeks later. So I don't think they'd be particularly useful for conditioning vat-meat...but who knows. I'd imagine if there was anything that could actually 'exercise' meat in a vat, it would probably also be effective on conditioning our sedentary butts; whoever makes it will probably have both the farmers and the weight-loss companies beating a path to their door.

A Google Scholar search turned up some interesting stuff:
Effect of transcutaneous electric muscle stimulation on postoperative muscle mass and protein synthesis
MYOSTIM-FES to Prevent Muscle Atrophy in Microgravity and Bed Rest
I can only read the abstracts, but both seem to suggest that the systems can prevent muscle wasting to some degree.

Disclaimer: I'm a Jack Welch fan.

Rank and yank is not a viable long-term strategy for personnel management. It's great for the first few rounds when you can presumably cut large chunks of deadwood. However, once you've removed all the deadwood, there's only live wood left, and it's at that point that you begin hurting your organization. Here's a link to a statistical study that illustrates this effect: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j .1744-6570.2005.00361.x

Note: This may be why Jack did this for a few years at GE, then "made adjustments". Based on the study I've cited above, using rank-and-yank for more than 3-4 years is a complete waste of time.

The people in the southern reaches of the southern hemisphere do not think it is a hoax: the incidence of skin cancer mushroomed in southern Chile as the hole in the ozone increased. Not the end of the world, but a real and ongoing health hazard.

Okay, first the dislaimer: I am in the 'dissenter' camp. At least as far as the bandwagon goes. I think the models are incomplete and the issue far too politicized for the science to be trusted at this point in time.

But, to address your question about the solar input, there HAS been some work done on that. I found these links by searching "global warming, anticorrelation" on Google Scholar a while back.

Cosmic Rays and Climate

and

influences of solar radiation on the global climate

Okay, feel free to take with a grain of salt if you wish; the analysis of proxy data is fundamentally flawed: http://www.climateaudit.org/

The abstract: "Research on exposure to television and movie violence suggests that playing violent video games will increase aggressive behavior. A metaanalytic review of the video-game research literature reveals that violent video games increase aggressive behavior in children and young adults. Experimental and nonexperimental studies with males and females in laboratory and field settings support this conclusion. Analyses also reveal that exposure to violent video games increases physiological arousal and aggression-related thoughts and feelings. Playing violent video games also decreases prosocial behavior."

I haven't studied the topic in depth, but the research does appear to be there

We *need* this exposure. I'm worried for children growing up in sterilized environments today.

Pretty good article on the subject. The theory being a clean environment leads to an overactive immune system that can develop into severe allergies.

One of the biggest problems is that aspartame is trashed so frequently on the internet... posting an anecdotal report about how your "near photographic memory" is now gone simply makes you look like a quack.

Funny. Another problem on the internet is people calling someone else a "quack" after doing little more than a summary perusal of the literature themselves.

Many of the studies referenced in the document you provided are severely lacking in experimental design. For example, while headaches from aspartame frequently come the day after consumption, a study was presented in which aspartame and placebo are switched every 24 hours, and then the placebo was shown to cause more headaches. This was provided as the sole and primary source of evidence that aspartame does not cause more headaches than a placebo, yet it did not actually test what is commonly experienced.

As in the example of the Merck research, and in the case of some aspartame research, there is a significant problem with research being funded and directed by the food and drug companies that stand to profit from the results of the research. We are experiencing a significant problem with the quality of research performed in this way, and a change is required.

It is known that aspartame's primary ingredient, phenylalanine, crosses the blood brain barrier and significantly disrupts normal neural function. This effect can be directly measured. For a slightly more extended summary perusal of the literature, you can start here or here.

You'll find that studies exist which indicate significant caution about aspartame is warranted, with results such as seisures and headaches.

If you pay attention, you'll also find that many of the other "studies" in the literature are far from impartial. For example, here's a nice flowery "scientific review" of the safety of aspartame, except that if you check the author affiliations, you'll find that they work for NutraSweet. Oh, and if you're paying a lot of attention, you'll even notice that S.S. Schiffman, the author of the study I was complaining about above that was used by the EU to "show" that aspartame doesn't cause headaches, is on that list of the authors working for NutraSweet.

Please question your sources of information a little more carefully before you go throwing around the "quack" label next time.

Abstract from the paper

Note that this was submitted and accepted more than a year ago. If you have a subsciption (most universities), you can get it at this url

Abstract: Two spiders (Filistatidae) in Miocene Dominican
Republic amber, one newly identified and only the second
known fossil of this family, have autospasized legs (detached
at a predetermined locus of weakness when restrained by a
non-self-induced source) at the patella-tibia joint. In both
specimens, droplets of haemolymph (blood) are preserved
exiting the patellae. The autospasized legs and the presence
of haemolymph suggests that both spiders were engulfed in
rapid-flowing resin seeps of relatively low viscosity, rather
than having wandered onto a sticky exudate, becoming stuck
and then covered by a subsequent resin flow. These are the
first reported incidences of such fossilized blood droplets, the
shape, size and position of which provide clues to preservational
taphonomy, an understanding of which is necessary
for reliable conclusions concerning fossil communities and
ecosystems. In addition, haemolymph droplets may serve as
reservoirs for fossil DNA.
Key words: Dominican Republic, spider, Araneae, Filistatidae,
haemolymph, autospasy.

jericho4.0 (565125) sez: "Yeah. I'll take that as a hypothesis when I see any evidence of it, you know, actually working."

Then go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi and put in "Journal of the American Geriatrics Society" and keep checking until the PubMed listing in entered, or go to http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/jgs/0/0 and keep checking until the EarlyOnline posts it. It was just accepted and hasn't appeared yet.

But I'm betting most of the whiners really don't care nearly as much about TFA as they do about getting the chance to whine.

And for the dinks that can't follow links and at least read the release from ORI, reflexology IS a science where they noticed the effect and developed the hypothesis from. Put "reflexology" in the search window in the PubMed link and you'll get 187 references. People doing scientific investigation of something is the verb definition of "science".

Remember, NIH has a center devoted to studying "alternative" therapy, and some of these "alternatives" have been around since before the ancestors of most Europeans (from whence comes "Western" medicine) were tribes yet to gain the smarts and strengths enough to challenge the Romans.

Yes, the Office of Alternative Medicine has been able to "validate" very little of what's been presented to them. The fact that they can't do in 10 years what's worked for a thousand only means "it doesn't work" if you ignore the vast majority of the evidence, which is most often done by insisting it appear in peer reviewed journals, and the hell with centuries of success.

And if you'll notice, this study wasn't funded by OAM. The NIH centers themselves are going around OAM, because they ARE run by scientists who realize there must be something there. This may be in part due to the fact that 50% of the people doing research at NIH are not from the US. Or maybe it's the other way around.

Here is a reseach project:

See if you can find a single study showing that the active ingredients of most sunscreens are safe when absorbed through the skin into the bloodstream.

Refs:

Sunscreen ingredients are absorbed into the blood:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1506332 9

Sunscreen ingredients cause DNA damage:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046 %2Fj.1523-1747.2003.12498.x?cookieSet=1

Like the parent said, it's a therapy, not a vaccine. It looks like it can help people who have been infected with HIV keep from developing AIDS, but it's not a cure and it won't prevent infection. Still, it's a welcome development.

The fact is, HIV is the most daunting disease we have ever faced. If it had hit even 50 years earlier we may very well have faced an epidemic on the order of the Black Death. It infects and kills stealthily, and evolves within our bodies faster than our immune systems can recognize it. If it hadn't hit the gay community so severely and specifically we might not have even been able to identify it, and it's only thanks to advanced sequencing and crystallography technology that we can study it in the necessary depth. But what is really sobering is this: HIV has infected tens of millions of people, living and mutating within their bodies for decades, and as far as we know no one has ever fought off an infection. The human immune system may very well be completely unable to handle HIV, and that means we may never see a traditional vaccine.

But we live in an age of rapid technological progress, and I do know of three promising possiblities that could actually prevent infection. None of them has yet been tested.

The first is another line of french vaccine work. Sequence comparison between various strains of the virus had identified a highly conserved protein region on the GP41 surface protein. The antibodies produced against the peptide seems to target the virus extremely well in the lab. So why don't we see antibodies against this epitope in the real world? It turns out we sometimes do - but those people can still get sick. It may yet be useful but based on that simple fact I'm not holding my breath.

The second hasn't even had an in vitro experiment yet and technically doens't prevent infection, but is a highly unusual and novel approach. Researchers at Berkeley have come up with the idea of a virus that is a parasite of HIV itself. The trick is that the antivirus cannot push the level of HIV too low, or the antivirus itself will die out and latent HIV will come back, which they were able to demonstrate thanks to computer simulations of the population dynamics. However, it can mute HIV activity and thus prevent infection from developing into full-blown AIDS. What's more, if the carrier happens to spread AIDS to someone else, the antivirus will go with it, and when HIV mutates the antivirus can still affect it. HIV would become a virus that people could live with without it killing them. But there is no way to know whether or not something unforseen can happen with what is essentially genetic engineering, and at the very least moving that research from the computer to the real world will be a real task. There is a lot of work to be done there.

The third technology could be the real deal. The fact is, some lucky people are resistant to HIV infection. Their CCR5 receptors are knocked out, and apparently HIV is unable to fuse with the cells as a result. Genetically altering your immune system to suppress this gene might thus offer protection against AIDS. However, that same mutation may be associated with multiple sclerosis. Again, nothing like this has ever been tried.

That's as far as I know, really. I regret that society and the government cynically ignored the epidemic when it was in far fewer people and might have been stopped with quarantine because it happened to affect a group that many people weren't fond of. I suspect now society may have to accept the inevitable and stop people from having multiple sexual partners. I fear the possiblity that HIV could mutate into something that can infect even without sexual contact in the meantime.

When Harrods started suing every shop in the world whose owner was called "Harod" or "Herod" etc. the town of Otorohanga in New Zealand renamed itself to Harrodsville...

Thanks for your comment.

I looked at the emoscop. An emoscop adapter on a less expensive 2Meg or 4Meg pixel camera may be a very good way to reduce the cost of building a video headset for the Legally Blind. I'll be glad when I retire in a few (too many) years and have time to build a prototype (maybe someone will do it before me, ... I hope they won't patent what I consider an obvious application of available technology). After I retire ..., taking the SF farther may involve some of the concepts implied by the below websites.

Electroreactive and conducting polymers:

http://www.wcupa.edu/_acad emics/sch_cas.che/mrc.htm

Smart Optics:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/d oi/10.1046/j.1468-4004.2003.44126.x/abs/

Flexible water-filled lens concepts:

http://physics.ucsd.edu/students/courses /fall2002/physicslabs/physics1clab/

Maybe a smart/programable emoscop with eltroreactive fluid-filled lenses for .... As Annie always said to Daddy WarBucks; TOMORROW ....

OldHawk777

Thanks for your comment.

I looked at the emoscop. An emoscop adapter on a less expensive 2Meg or 4Meg pixel camera may be a very good way to reduce the cost of building a video headset for the Legally Blind. I'll be glad when I retire in a few (too many) years and have time to build a prototype (maybe someone will do it before me, ... I hope they won't patent what I consider an obvious application of available technology). After I retire ..., taking the SF farther may involve some of the concepts implied by the below websites.

Electroreactive and conducting polymers:

http://www.wcupa.edu/_acad emics/sch_cas.che/mrc.htm

Smart Optics:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/d oi/10.1046/j.1468-4004.2003.44126.x/abs/

Flexible water-filled lens concepts:

http://physics.ucsd.edu/students/courses /fall2002/physicslabs/physics1clab/

Maybe a smart/programable emoscop with eltroreactive fluid-filled lenses for .... As Annie always said to Daddy WarBucks; TOMORROW ....

OldHawk777

Can shoe size predict penile length?
J. Shah and N. Christopher

Objective To establish if the 'myth' about whether the size of a man's penis can be estimated from his shoe size has any basis, infact.

Subjects and methods Two urologists measured the stretched penile length of 104 men in a prospective study and related this to their shoe size.

Results The median stretched penile length for the sampled population was 13cm and the median UK shoe size was 9 (European 43). There was no statistically significant correlation between shoe size and stretched penile length.

Conclusion The supposed association of penile length and shoe size has no scientific basis.

Go to the source man! I generally refuse to make any comment on any scientific study until I've read the publication. Those of you submitting stories on a new biomedical science publication, please remember to at least point to the PubMed abstract of the paper. For those of you wanting to comment on the study, please read it, before doing so. If any of you can provide free access to the paper, please post it here! Thanks.

Try Durrer and Novosyadlyj MNRAS 324, (560-572)

For those with access:

link

Or you could try looking on:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

It isn't particularly hard to find out the latest stuff.

For everything that you ever wanted to know about X-ray novae, and a sketch of the evolution of the Disk Instability Model (DIM), go here. Its a technical journal article, but it has a very nice introduction that is almost understandable by someone who is unfamiliar with the field.

Also, because I am strangely compelled to come to the defense of the /. submitter, I think he might have been thinking of white dwarf novae, which fall under the category 'cataclysmic variables', when he was talking about fusion as the source for these x-ray novae. In cataclismic binaries, fusion is the main source of energy. The surface of the white dwarf builds up hydrogen quiescently until it reaches a breaking point, and then the whole thing ignites fusion at once, and goes off like a giant nuclear bomb. -white dwarf