Slashdot Mirror

This one is conveniently not-paywalled. Research on how exactly to kill the bastards(at least in environments such as whiny humans where expedients like "fire", "brutal doses of ozone", and similar reliable methods are disallowed) is ongoing; but it is apparently the case that a bacterial biofilm exhibits something approaching multicellular cooperation in surviving antibiotics. You can certainly cull the weak and the surface layer; but some combination of near-dormant sleeper cells and novel multi-cellular resistance mechanisms makes eradicating them very difficult indeed.

Actually, most laws that forbid civil liberties are based on third person effects. For example: *I* haven't been too adversely affected by violent media, but other less educated and less mature people are. Why else is there an epidemic in violence?

Moralists are always using third person effects. Moral outrage is always about some at risk group. Always has been.

There are a few flaws with the reasoning, but there is no point being reasonable with a moralist. They really do think that they are smarter than everyone else. I know, since I went head-to-head with them in academia, trying to get them to explain themselves. I found the lack of intellectual integrity disappointing, but pointing out that something is intellectual vacuous doesn't piece the veil of ignorance, even in academia.

You can read about the quality of the academic debate online here: Psychology’s Quixotic Quest For the Media-Violence Connection. Although this article dates back to 1999, it is surprisingly up-to-date. In my own research, I found the flaws in the research, and then attempted to get the researchers to explain them. I was met with the attitude: "there will always be doubters of everything." Hardly worthy of intellectual respect when you don't consider answering questions important.

The best book on the science is: Freedman, J., L. (2002). Media violence and its effects on aggression: Assessing the scientific evidence. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Even though this book is almost 9 yrs old, there is no rebuttal to it.

You can read what the other side has to say here: Huesmann, L., R. (2010). Nailing the coffin shut on doubts that violent video games stimulate aggression: Comment on Anderson at al. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 179-181.

Huesmann is one of the most respected media violence researchers, and responsible for a lot of the theory. His article is a joke, and he doesn't answer questions. How could he not know how absurd this all is? Never under-estimate the power of denial and group-think. These people think they are building a better world, but really they are propagating their madness about things that they do not understand.

On the plus side -- none of the violence causes any harm, or if it does, only in a small portion of individuals. I did a review of media violence research, and was appalled by what I found. Basically, we have two sides. One makes academic arguments, and use the scientific method. Their research does not support the main-stream view. The other side rides on the coat tails of real science, pretends to use the scientific method, but only responds to academic criticism with political arguments. They are almost always social constructionists, feminists, and environmental determinists.

It took me about a year of reading both sides of the argument to reach this conclusion. Consider that today we have the most depraved violence in history, and the lowest violence rate. Shockingly simple. See here for more details: Psychology's quixotic Quest For the Media-Violence Connection.

New Math never was more brilliantly explained than by Tom Lehrer:
http://curvebank.calstatela.edu/newmath/newmath.htm

Ahem...

Oh, trust me, they find a way. His quote about waiting two years set off a flag in my mind since 13 is the youngest that they'll consider someone for this program.
And how do I know? A good deal of my classes have at least one student from this program and I've been friends with a few since I started.

They do in fact have a good program to support the 'fitting in' part of the social aspects of the university culture, and luckily I've only meet the socially competent ones.
Now why am I not bothered by them? Because there's a plague known as the visual and performing arts.
The other ones are alright, but the ones belonging to dance and theater are HIGHLY disliked by the general school population.

Actually, one of my CS Professors loves using Netbeans and would ocassionally make crack remarks about me using Eclipse... So more than likely there's some hidden agenda to get you guys using Eclipse. I use it because it suits my taste and because Netbeans was finicky on the Mac last time I tried it... but that was around two years ago so YMMV

...this is only in a lab environment with only oxygen. The reality is that the split off oxygen cells bond with other gasses and molecules, not just with other O^1 molecules.

My point was that I didn't think O^1 would occur in "normal" conditions. I didn't say that other molecules are not possible - they are indeed mentioned by chemical equations in said Wikipedia article.

See http://www.oxygenmedicine.com/o3laymanview.html

While not being a scientist myself, I do have a cursory interest in science and I always attempt to not just believe what I read, but try to think with my own head and draw my own conclusions. And the article you mention has couple of "red flags" preventing me from taking it on a face value.

The article basically says that since anaerobic cells do not like oxygen, all we have to do is pump oxygen into our bodies (quote from the article: The basic concept is to "flood the body with oxygen" and ozone.) and we will be purified of many ailments.

This foregoes that fact that to parts of our own cells, including DNA and many organelles, oxygen is toxic (even O^2, not to mention O^3 and many compounds produced from it). As explained here and (more verbosely) here, our cells are product of evolution of both aerobic and anaerobic life. The life of an average eukaryote cell is a balancing act between metabolic need for oxygen and a need to protect its own DNA and organelles from it. Simply pumping oxygen indiscriminately into our bodies would offset this fine balance.

Later, the article even goes on to claim that Ozone has been used to "cure" cancer and aids and many other "incurable" diseases in Germany for more than 50 years!. Now to claim for a chemical that damages DNA to cure a disease that results from a damage to DNA is a very strange claim indeed!

In any case, we agree that "too large of a quantity is bad" :)

That's what I mean about the pacifism point.

k Strategy civilistions have the technology to defend themselves from R strategy ones, the question is whether they actually recognize the threat. If they don't see themselves as being better, and don't see k Strategy values as being worth fighting for, then they will likely be overwhelmed

That's what I mean about the pacifism point.

k Strategy civilistions have the technology to defend themselves from R strategy ones, the question is whether they actually recognize the threat. If they don't see themselves as being better, and don't see k Strategy values as being worth fighting for, then they will likely be overwhelmed

And just to nitpick further, we know from Archimedes' Arenarius that Aristarchos proposed the heliocentric model a couple of thousand years ago.

But Aristarchus of Samos produced writings of certain hypotheses in which it follows from the suppositions that the world is many times what is now claimed. For he supposes that the fixed stars and the sun remain motionless, while the earth revolves about the sun on the circumference of a circle which is placed on the middle road, but that the sphere of the fixed stars, which is placed about the same center as the sun, is so large in magnitude that the circle on which he supposes the earth to revolve has the sort of proportion to the distance of the fixed stars that the center of the sphere has to the surface.

(Archimedes, Arenarius 1.4-5, tr. Mendell)

The academic in the university produces a theory and a textbook, a new way of teaching math, but engagement with parents and teachers is superficial at best.

One of the grad students at my school developed this system as his masters project...

Don't know if it's of any help but you might try contacting a Dr. Sun since he was the advisor.

It doesn't automatically grade the homeword, but it does let you set time limits and since it uploads directly to the server, you won't have to deal with students saying they got the wrong email address.

The system, currently, is only for homework and old code retrival but many other things are planned for it.

One of the grad students at my school developed this system as his masters project...

Don't know if it's of any help but you might try contacting a Dr. Sun since he was the advisor.

It doesn't automatically grade the homeword, but it does let you set time limits and since it uploads directly to the server, you won't have to deal with students saying they got the wrong email address.

The system, currently, is only for homework and old code retrival but many other things are planned for it.

Then there are the World Builders

So, what are you willing to do to go to university? I worked full time while attending full time (CSULA, Class of 1994). Not the most prestigeous school, but it fit my needs and budget and was a great springboard to grad school.

No, I wasn't living at home, I rented. Yes, my spending on everything not related to rent, food & school plummeted to near 0. Yes, I got loan after loan after loan (now totally paid off). True, I had no social life. Yes, I kicked ass in my classes.

I'd say, given the determination that they've exhibited so far, that these guys have a pretty good shot.

I don't know you from Adam. I have no knowledge of your personal/scholastic/financial situation. But the question still stands, what are you willing to do to go to school? What are you doing right now to further that goal?

You would think that a team that can build a car that gets 1,000 miles to the gallon could build a website out of something other then frontpage. I submit for your review Cal State LA's website

"So you end up with a trivial result, too - a finite volume can only hold a finite amount of information."
I'm not so sure about that. There's something called Torricelli's Trumpet/Gabriel's Horn that has an infinite area in a finite volume. That implies to me that since there's an infinite area, there would be an infinite capacity for storing information, but I don't think it could really be constructed, and as such may live only in the interesting, but not so useful realm of peculiar math things.

By way of analogy, check out Gabriel's Horn (or Torricelli's Trumpet). It's an example of a surface, infinite in extent, with finite volume but infinite surface area.

This seems to be a larger version (albeit by an order of magnitudes) of the kind of technology that has been employed in rapid prototyping and model making for manufacturing an other applications for quite some time. See, for example this and this.

• a story from the Southeast Missourian website that features several quotes such as this one from Professor Nicholas Tibbs of the Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau:
  
  "You can't accurately predict earthquakes," he said. "The technology to do that doesn't exist. It sounds like a scam to me."
  
  
• this entry on the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics" website identifying a Michael J. Kozuch, Ph.D. as being a geoscientist "with active interests in Honduras"
  
  Michael J. Kozuch; Ph.D., Peace Corps Volunteer Geologist, Honduras 1987-1990; Seismologist with the Institute of Geologic & Nuclear Sciences (New Zealand). Honduras Expertise: General geology of Honduras, tectonic modeling and geophysics Current activities: Investigation of novel approaches in seismic hazard analysis and collection of geophysical information relevant to Honduras, email: m.kozuch@gns.cri.nz Mail: P.O. IGNS, P.O. Box 1320, Wellington, New Zealand, Tel: 64-4-473-8208 (wk) or 225 Country Club Dr., San Francisco, CA 94132 USA. additional information at: http://www.gphs.vuw.ac.nz:80/staff/kozuch.html
• this web page listing Michael J. Kozuch in an academic reference to a geological map of Honduras.
• this web page listing him Michael as part of the GNS of New Zealand. The GNS, formerly New Zealand's Geological Survey, which was transformed into a government-owned company in 1992. Interestingly, the GNS website hosts the New Zealand Hazard Watch web page which provides "up-to-date information on volcanoes, floods, landslips, tsunamis, solar activity and earthquakes." The GNS website identifies Mike Kozuch as one of two project leaders of the Quake Tracker Development Team. Perhaps Michael used his experience with this development to try to make a website that was more financially rewarding.

Why is C14 not valid for dates past what you gave? Because there is no C14 present!!!

O.k. so you don't understand what "half-life" means. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with the insigths of Zeno. Here's a quick refresher quiz and applet on half-life. The general idea is that by always taking half of something away, you will always have something left over.

Anyway, back to what I'm guessing is your point.

Why can't C14 be used for dates greater than about 5000 years? Because there is supposedly no C14 left!!!

From the information provided in the link your 5,000 years is missing a zero. It's used from samples up to 50-60K years old. There is sill C14 left at this point and there will be for a long time, such is the nature of half-life. It seems that it is not deemed accurate beyond this point.

So, if we take a sample that is supposedly 50,000,000 years old, then we would expect to find NO C14. Now, if we take this sample, and there is enough C14 to give us a date, then two things can be concluded:

It gives you a date, but it is not an accurate date.

1. The dates given by different methods do not agree with each other

Yes, especially after the useful period for C14 dating is passed.

2. The sample is perhaps much younger than previously thought

No, it is simply being measured by the wrong device. And so the nitpicking concludes.

Here is a website I once did some work http://curvebank.calstatela.edu/
There is also some interesting Java and JavaScript tools to play with. Also, contributions are welcomed.

"Ironically, then, precisely at the time when both the Executive and Legislative branches of government are agitating for a reduction of gratuitous (and maybe non-gratuitous) violence in the media, the U.S. has been on a five-year downward trend in violence statistics. According to FBI crime statistics, both violent crimes (including murder) and property crimes are down substantially, in all regions of the country, both urban and rural. Some drops are very dramatic. For example, between 1993 and 1997 murder in Los Angeles dropped 48%. In Boston it dropped 56%. Divorce is down, marriages are up. Teenage pregnancies have dropped, unemployment is down. Moreover, recent government reports tell us that the number of weapons brought to high schools has dramatically declined" (http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/violenc e.html

Note that this is IN SPITE OF both increased amounts of violence in the media over the last ten years and a large increase in the number of children who spend a lot of time playing violent games. And it is additionally in spite of computer games being, as you say, "more seductive" and "more involving".

I'm afraid your view of a "downhill slide into violence and depravity" is not reflected in real statistics. More likely its just a popular view that you've adopted - possibly the usual jaded cynicisms that people get as they age .. the "when I was young kids were sweet and innocent, but kids today have no respect and don't read anymore, and society is going to the dogs" syndrome. In all likelihood, the "serious problem" you refer to is just perception. Society has always been violent. A few hundred years ago, for example, it was normal to take your kids on a "family outing" to see public executions (hangings or even beheadings) in the town square. That was normal then, but most people I know would think that todays 'precious fragile children' would be irreperably psychologically damaged by something like that.

Anyway, there is a lack of correlation between your gloom-and-doom viewpoint and real-world statistics. Such widespread negative perceptions are probably more likely the result of mainstream media focusing disproportionately on horrible, but statistically highly unlikely events, such as Columbine.

Genomic (and anti-genomics) Links [To Top]

Mapping the Icelandic Genome. "An Anthropology of the scientific, political, economic, religious, and ethical issues surrounding the deCode Project and its global implications." Contains useful pointers.

Indigenous people's coalition against biopiracy.

The Human Genome Diversity Project as explained by Stanford Professor and posted on the U.N. website.

Various UN reports on the Genome question.

An Outline : Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) Background.

Cultural Survival has issue 20.2 (sum 1996) dedicated to 'Genes, People, and Property' issues.

The archive for discover magazine. Nov. 1994 issue has a few articles about genome and diversity.

The gene letter. The Nov. 96 issue has an HGDP article.

High school lesson plan for teaching students about the HGDP.

"The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome." An excellent book review with bibliography and online resources.

National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has a Bibliography Page about the HGP.

Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) of the HGP.

The Human Genome Diversity Project: Scientific, Social and Ethical Issues .

A list of articles from Native-L mailing list, listing all articles related to HGDP posted to the list.

Six papers given at various genome-related conferences. Topics include:

*"Why Human Genetics is a Social Science"
* "Racism, Eugenics, and the Burdens of History"
* "Scientific and Folk Idea About Heredity"
* "The Spectrum of Human Variation"
* "The Human Germ-Plasm Project: Eugenics in the 1920s and the 1990s."

Native net letter to HGDP scientists.

Pilot Projects for a Human Genome Diversity Project - Special Competition.

Molecular Anthropology Symposium at Stanford.

Seeds of Destruction. A must read for anyone who eats french fries or is concerned with genetically modified crops.

Also see Patents and Jumpstations.

Comics [To Top]

Angels of Health/Medicine Cartoon by Quino. Here is another one of a dis-orderly girl.

Patent$ and Thing$ [To Top]

An Upside article discussing patents and its history. Very informative.

Gene Patents and Bioethics.

6,000 human gene patents sought in BBC News and also the Washington Post.

American Society of Human Genetics Position Paper on Patenting of Expressed Sequence Tags.

of course the list is continually updated, ... hope this helps, bobbaqATyouknowHOO