Slashdot Mirror

You actually wouldn't need to even start with Vaccinia virus. In 2008, scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute synthesized and assembled the genome of an entire bacterium from scratch (Gibson et al. 2008. Complete Chemical Synthesis, Assembly, and Cloning of a Mycoplasma genitalium Genome. Science 319: 1215 - 1220. doi:10.1126/science.1151721) . The bacterial genome they synthesized was 580,000 base pairs compared to the 186,000 base pair size of the smallpox genome. Of course, commercial gene synthesis companies would never sell anyone any sequence resembling a smallpox sequence, but given enough resources, a government or even some well funded group could conceivably resurrect smallpox without needing a sample of the virus.

True. The Vaccinia path is the shortest though - not only because of the small number of base pairs that need to be cutout/spliced in but because pox virus replication also requires some specialized enzymes that Vaccinia provides for free. And one must ponder how short a sequence one would need to order before it is recognized as being a subcomponent of small pox.

Eventually gene synthesis is going to percolate down to the level of undergraduate bio lab courses, and won't stop there either.

You actually wouldn't need to even start with Vaccinia virus. In 2008, scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute synthesized and assembled the genome of an entire bacterium from scratch (Gibson et al. 2008. Complete Chemical Synthesis, Assembly, and Cloning of a Mycoplasma genitalium Genome. Science 319: 1215 - 1220. doi:10.1126/science.1151721) . The bacterial genome they synthesized was 580,000 base pairs compared to the 186,000 base pair size of the smallpox genome. Of course, commercial gene synthesis companies would never sell anyone any sequence resembling a smallpox sequence, but given enough resources, a government or even some well funded group could conceivably resurrect smallpox without needing a sample of the virus.

The only acceptable default position in science is "We don't know", every other position (hypotheses) requires reasonable evidence.

We know that there is a limit to what strictly natural processes can cause, e.g. strictly natural cause will never result in something like the mac on my desk.

There is some interesting work being done in this field by some scientists oa by David L. Abel whom summarizes this limitation as “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone”.

"The prebiotic syntheses that have been investigated experimentally almost always lead to the formation of complex mixtures. Proposed polymer replication schemes are unlikely to succeed except with reasonably pure input monomers. No solution of the origin-of-life problem will be possible until the gap between the two kinds of chemistry is closed. Simplification of product mixtures through the self-organization of organic reaction sequences, whether cyclic or not, would help enormously, as would the discovery of very simple replicating polymers. However, solutions offered by supporters of geneticist or metabolist scenarios that are dependent on “if pigs could fly” hypothetical chemistry are unlikely to help." --- Leslie E. Orgel, The Implausibility of Metabolic Cycles on the Prebiotic Earth http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060018

See also Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2006.07.003

I lost the "instinctive" one long ago,

A curious statement. Unless you've been in a situation where you've had all intellectual impediments to killing removed and seen that you were in fact able and willing to kill, I'm not sure how you can assert this. Have you killed a human being?

judging from the amount of people that view/play violent entertainment,

"Viewing" and "playing" are completely different. Viewing does not train a behavior, playing does.

if at all (if it happens, there's no real evidence for it)

Remarkable how the /. groupthink simply disregards the existence of evidence on this issue. One can certainly argue that the evidence is not conclusive, but to say that it's nonexistent demonstrates either gross ignorance or a strong unwillingness to step beyond one's personal biases and look at the matter scientifically. It takes only a few minutes of Google-fu to turn up studies like these:

• "In Study 2, laboratory exposure to a graphically violent video game increased aggressive thoughts and behavior."
• An updated meta-analysis reveals that exposure to violent video games is significantly linked to increases in aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, and cardiovascular arousal, and to decreases in helping behaviour. Experimental studies reveal this linkage to be causal.
• In two experiments, we found that playing violent video games increased dehumanization, which in turn evoked aggressive behavior. Thus, it appears that video-game-induced aggressive behavior is triggered when victimizers perceive the victim to be less human.

Is the evidence conclusive? Maybe not. Does any amount of evidence that games cause an increase in aggression potential justify censorship? No. Censorship is real violence.

Please include a link to the work you are reporting on, not just to someone else reporting on someone else's reporting etc. I think this might be the link you are looking for: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.101101

Engineering Corynebacterium glutamicum for isobutanol production

or pdf download:

doi:10.1007/s00253-010-2522-6

The article linked in the summary is completely worthless. Here is the real article, in two parts:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2010.11.040
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2010.11.045
Hopefully, you have some university access or something.
Mark Z. Jacobson, Mark A. Delucchi, Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power, Part I: Technologies, energy resources, quantities and areas of infrastructure, and materials, Energy Policy, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 30 December 2010, ISSN 0301-4215, DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2010.11.040.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V2W-51TXP82-2/2/de5d9bb816ee92da3bfef3f8ecd54b1d)
Abstract:
Climate change, pollution, and energy insecurity are among the greatest problems of our time. Addressing them requires major changes in our energy infrastructure. Here, we analyze the feasibility of providing worldwide energy for all purposes (electric power, transportation, heating/cooling, etc.) from wind, water, and sunlight (WWS). In Part I, we discuss WWS energy system characteristics, current and future energy demand, availability of WWS resources, numbers of WWS devices, and area and material requirements. In Part II, we address variability, economics, and policy of WWS energy. We estimate that ~3,800,000 5 MW wind turbines, ~49,000 300 MW concentrated solar plants, ~40,000 300 MW solar PV power plants, ~1.7 billion 3 kW rooftop PV systems, ~5350 100 MW geothermal power plants, ~270 new 1300 MW hydroelectric power plants, ~720,000 0.75 MW wave devices, and ~490,000 1 MW tidal turbines can power a 2030 WWS world that uses electricity and electrolytic hydrogen for all purposes. Such a WWS infrastructure reduces world power demand by 30% and requires only ~0.41% and ~0.59% more of the world's land for footprint and spacing, respectively. We suggest producing all new energy with WWS by 2030 and replacing the pre-existing energy by 2050. Barriers to the plan are primarily social and political, not technological or economic. The energy cost in a WWS world should be similar to that today.

The article linked in the summary is completely worthless. Here is the real article, in two parts:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2010.11.040
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2010.11.045
Hopefully, you have some university access or something.
Mark Z. Jacobson, Mark A. Delucchi, Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power, Part I: Technologies, energy resources, quantities and areas of infrastructure, and materials, Energy Policy, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 30 December 2010, ISSN 0301-4215, DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2010.11.040.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V2W-51TXP82-2/2/de5d9bb816ee92da3bfef3f8ecd54b1d)
Abstract:
Climate change, pollution, and energy insecurity are among the greatest problems of our time. Addressing them requires major changes in our energy infrastructure. Here, we analyze the feasibility of providing worldwide energy for all purposes (electric power, transportation, heating/cooling, etc.) from wind, water, and sunlight (WWS). In Part I, we discuss WWS energy system characteristics, current and future energy demand, availability of WWS resources, numbers of WWS devices, and area and material requirements. In Part II, we address variability, economics, and policy of WWS energy. We estimate that ~3,800,000 5 MW wind turbines, ~49,000 300 MW concentrated solar plants, ~40,000 300 MW solar PV power plants, ~1.7 billion 3 kW rooftop PV systems, ~5350 100 MW geothermal power plants, ~270 new 1300 MW hydroelectric power plants, ~720,000 0.75 MW wave devices, and ~490,000 1 MW tidal turbines can power a 2030 WWS world that uses electricity and electrolytic hydrogen for all purposes. Such a WWS infrastructure reduces world power demand by 30% and requires only ~0.41% and ~0.59% more of the world's land for footprint and spacing, respectively. We suggest producing all new energy with WWS by 2030 and replacing the pre-existing energy by 2050. Barriers to the plan are primarily social and political, not technological or economic. The energy cost in a WWS world should be similar to that today.

You would have to run a fair few numbers to know for sure(once you get into total energy cost of manufacture, and similar considerations, things get kind of hairy...); but vehicle electrification might actually reduce pollution, even if fossil fuels are still being used to generate the power.

It definitely will, unless the electricity generation is 100% coal.

The main difference for manufacture, etc is the battery. Here's a paper on that:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es1029156

It basically says that the share of energy and other environmental costs for battery manufacture is small compared to the savings from using European electricity instead of an ICE. For example, the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions are more than 30% lower. If you substitute Australia's energy mix (basically the most coal-heavy around), you still get 6% lower life-cycle emissions from the electric vehicle.

Water thermochemical cracking is probably the most efficient method of converting solar energy to chemical energy that we have, perhaps that even exists considering the inefficiency of electrolysis.

First, with present technology, this is incorrect. Using solar photovoltaic plus electrolysis to produce fuels (hydrogen, carbon monoxide, or a mixture (syngas) appropriate for liquid hydrocarbon fuel synthesis) can be done with >30% sunlight-to-syngas efficiency using expensive concentrated photovoltaics (~40%) combined with high-efficiency high temperature electrolysis (>90%, see here and here). So far no thermochemical cycle has been demonstrated to achieve such a high efficiency.

Second, it is not about efficiency. In many cases one can achieve very high efficiency at the expense of using expensive materials. The idea here is to use cheap ceria-based oxide materials in the solar thermochemical reactor instead of expensive high-purity silicon semiconductors and other semiconducting materials in photovoltaics or photoelectrochemical cells.

There are a number of ways to produce hydrocarbon fuels from solar energy. This thermochemical cycle is one technology and it is a promising one. Others include solar to electricity followed by electricity to fuel. There is an excellent review article published recently that discusses the relative merits in detail including discussion of the economics.

The scientific paper can be found here.

In Section 1.1 the weight is defined as the weighted mean over all the isotopes. Caesium 135 still has atomic mass 134.9059770(11) and caesium 137 still has mass 136.9070895(5); the way in which the relative abundances of isotopes is measured - that is all.

I peeked at one or two of the articles citing this paper:

"The glucose and insulin responses to the OGTT were analyzed by calculating the area under the curve (AUC). The AUCs for glucose (AUCglucose) and insulin (AUCinsulin) were determined according to the Tai procedure for the metabolic curves (25)."

DOI:10.1373/clinchem.2004.043109
http://dx.doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2004.043109

I wonder if this is sort of an inside joke now. Rather than saying we used the trapezoidal rule to approximate XYZ, everyone in the field now says "we used the Tai procedure". It sounds so much more 'official'. Remind me to reinvent the central limit theorem tomorrow.

And this doesn't help the people trying to fight the stigma that biology isn't a 'hard science'.

K. S. Lackner and C. H. Wendt, “Exponential growth of large self-reproducing machine systems,” Mathematical and Computer Modelling 21, no. 10 (May 1995): 55-81. doi:10.1016/0895-7177(95)00071-9 ; see also wikipedia

Abstract
We address quantitatively the major issues involved in the design of self-reproducing machine systems that are capable of both rapid growth to a very large scale and the accomplishment of correspondingly large tasks. A minimal system that satisfies the growth requirement would consist of a large solar cell array and a colony of diverse and specialized machines. With solar energy, raw dirt, and air as its input, the collective purpose of the colony is to expand the solar cell array and build more machines largely without the aid of man. Once the desired size is attained, the entire production capacity of the system may be diverted to useful applications such as large scale energy collection, control of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and fresh water production. We consider the issues of resource availability, the suitability of current automation technology, and the required investment in land area. In the discussion of resources, we propose a high-temperature, metallurgical process for separating useful elements from raw dirt without the use of rare elements. Automation technology is judged by a formal productivity requirement in the production chain of each machine type, which must be satisfied to achieve a given overall growth rate. We estimate the time scale for exponential growth to be on the order of months, so that such a system could reach continental size in less than a decade. An area of 106 km2 is enough to provide the key elements of a sustainable world economy. At ten percent efficiency, a solar cell array of this size can collect energy at three times the rate of today's global energy consumption.

You are correct that the site did not correctly format the DOI link, but the research has been published. Here is the correct DOI link doi:10.1038/nature09518. Also, here is the link to the article on the Nature website: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature09518.html (link probably valid only for the next week or so)

Block copolymer self-assembly is an innovative technology capable of patterning technologically relevant substrates with nanoscale precision for a range of applications from integrated circuit fabrication to tissue interfacing, for example. In this article, we demonstrate a microwave-based method of rapidly inducing order in block copolymer structures. The technique involves the usage of a commercial microwave reactor to anneal block copolymer films in the presence of appropriate solvents, and we explore the effect of various parameters over the polymer assembly speed and defect density. The approach is applied to the commonly used poly(styrene)-b-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PS-b-PMMA) and poly(styrene)-b-poly(2-vinylpyridine) (PS-b-P2VP) families of block copolymers, and it is found that the substrate resistivity, solvent environment, and anneal temperature all critically influence the self-assembly process. For selected systems, highly ordered patterns were achieved in less than 3 min. In addition, we establish the compatibility of the technique with directed assembly by graphoepitaxy.

It's obvious because of the stability of lead that you won't be able to do it by chemical means (which is, I guess, often implied). However, with nuclear transmutation is definitely possible to change bismuth into lead and lead into gold. For now, it will cost you more than the gold is worth, but once energy becomes almost free...

The press release does not link the original article(s):

Bacteria determine fate by playing dice with controlled odds
Eshel Ben-Jacob and Daniel Schultz
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/30/13197.full
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1008254107

This is a commentary on:

Biological role of noise encoded in a genetic network motif
Mark Kittisopikul and Gürol M. Süel
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/30/13300.abstract
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1003975107

and makes ample reference to

Architecture-Dependent Noise Discriminates Functionally Analogous Differentiation Circuits
Tolga Çaatay, Marc Turcotte, Michael B. Elowitz, Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo and Gürol M. Süel
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2009.07.046

The press release does not link the original article(s):

Bacteria determine fate by playing dice with controlled odds
Eshel Ben-Jacob and Daniel Schultz
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/30/13197.full
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1008254107

This is a commentary on:

Biological role of noise encoded in a genetic network motif
Mark Kittisopikul and Gürol M. Süel
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/30/13300.abstract
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1003975107

and makes ample reference to

Architecture-Dependent Noise Discriminates Functionally Analogous Differentiation Circuits
Tolga Çaatay, Marc Turcotte, Michael B. Elowitz, Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo and Gürol M. Süel
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2009.07.046

Although graphene was observed in various experiments in the 70s, these guys have realized its true potential. Furthermore, the discovery came in just the right moment in (scientific) history, where we have the sophisticated tools to study this material. No use inventing the spaceship in the middle ages (if you pardon the crude analogy).

I think this is the comment you're referring to:
12. Bethany Says:
September 21st, 2010 at 8:20 am

Alright, here's what I calculated:
The protons are high energy with lorentz factor of gamma=7500, kinetic energy is about K=7×10^6 eV. The paper cited below says that the stopping power of a proton going 10^6 eV is about 2.5×10^8 eV cm^2 g^-1. Using the density of muscular tissue rho=1g cm^3 and the thickness of my hand of 1 cm, the energy deposited is 2.5×10^8 eV. In other units its 1.07×10^-11 calories, 4.49×10^-11 Joules, and 1×10^-14 grams of TNT. If there are hundred billion protons per bunch in the beam (as the video said) then for every bunch you get 4.49 Joules or 0.001 grams of TNT of energy. (emphasis mine)

There are two beams, each of which contains 2808 bunches. Don't worry about the effect of multiple passes, though, since there won't be any tissue left in the beam's path by the time the first pass is over.

A more informative comment showed up later:
31. Xerxes Says:
September 21st, 2010 at 10:45 am

I think the hand-beam question is best answered by this document: http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/BeamdumpInteraction.pdf

Granted, a carbon block isn't an exact model of the human hand, but it's probably close enough. The key points are:

1) "this energy deposit over 85 s is long enough to change the density of the target material. The density decreases at the inner part of the beam heated region because of the outgoing shock waves in the transverse direction. As an example, after the impact of 200 bunches with a size of = 0.2 mm, a maximum temperature of 7000K and a density decrease by a factor of 4 is expected." The results of heating your hand to 7000K and increasing its volume by a factor of 4 are probably best not imagined. Since a full beam is 2808 bunches instead of 200, you might want to scale that by a factor of 10 too.

2) But on the other hand (hehe): "The beam tunnels through the target and deposits the energy with a penetration depth of 10 m to 15 m" Since your hand is not 10m thick, you won't pick up the full effect. This paper goes into some detail of the spatial distribution of the energy dump: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/972357/files/lhc-project-report-930.pdf So at hand-thickness of 2ish cm, you'd only get maybe an eighth of the effects of #1, so your hand will only reach the more modest temperature of 1000K (times 10 for a full 2808 bunches?). The shockwave from the blast will extend several cm in the transverse direction; translation, the rest of your hand will be blown off by the middle of your hand exploding. Probably the part of the accelerator apparatus downstream of your hand picks up the rest of the energy. The rest of you probably wouldn't want to be standing next to it when it blows.

Cool pictures of the effects of a low-energy (450-GeV) beam on copper plates are in http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/PAC.2005.1590851

(I spent so much time looking up references, several other people made the same points. Oh well.)

Note particularly the fact that if one beam hit the solid graphite beam dump without being swept around during the pass, the surface would be at 7000 C, and would be well in the process of exploding, by the time the first 200 bunches had hit. Your hand, having a lower boiling point than graphite, would begin to remove itself from the path of the beam somewhat sooner, and would therefore probably absorb rather less energy. That may be small consolation, though, since it pretty much means that the splattered remnants of your hand wouldn't be as intensely radioactive as the carbon in the beam dump would be.

It cites http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0195-9255(02)00025-2 which is a 2002 paper, behind a paywall for Environmental Impact Assessment Review - anyone have a subscription?

The '25 items or less' seems debatable, especially in areas where the delivery vehicle will be delivering to one area with optimised routing.

If you want an intelligent assessment from someone who knows the facts, you should go to Brooke Magnanti, PhD (who is smarter than most Slashdot readers).

One correction: The term used in the scientific literature is "commercial sex worker." If she went to work for the companies that made organophosphates, and lobbied to keep them selling dangerous products then she would be a prostitute.

(Although you might argue that charging $31.50 to read your paper is prostitution http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.toxlet.2009.06.835)

Belle de Jour: On science and prostitution
17:50 20 November 2009
Rowan Hooper

Under the name Belle de Jour, Brooke Magnanti wrote about her experiences as a prostitute for a London escort agency, and her blog became a bestselling book, The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, and a television series.

She has a master's degree in genetic epidemiology and a PhD from the University of Sheffield's department of forensic pathology.

She currently works at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health and told her agent: "if New Scientist asks for an interview, I'll do it". We did ask.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2009/11/belle-de-jour-on-science-and-prostitution.html

The 1200 number is 100% bullshit (ironically, a good source of dioxin). According to this 2001 study of American average dioxin intake, the average adult takes in 2.4pg/kg. That's 2.4 trillionths of a gram per kilogram of body mass. However, since dioxin is highly toxic, the EPA is proposing to limit it to 0.7pg/kg, which is 3.4 times lower than the current intake. One may note that 3.4 is not equal to 1200. (No really! Not even if you round up.)

Oddly enough, the same study indicates that infants take in 42pg/kg, which is 60 times the recommended dose. While 77 is more than 60, they might be using a different study. Why mix real numbers with bogus ones? My guess is because nobody will remember any number other than 1200, and when you get called out, you can claim it was a typo.

No it fucking doesn't. Just because there's something you don't like doesn't mean you can pretend like it's not really there.

You know, it's idiots like you that give science a bad name. Ooh, a scientific paper! It must be true! Never mind how shaky the evidence is, or the lack of confirmation. No.

"I must go out and buy a sports car, because a scientific survey showed that people who own sports cars, stay healthier and live longer."

"And their analysis shows an excess of extinctions every 27 million years, with a confidence level of 99%.". We're talking about hard statistical analysis, there's absolutely nothing that goes in the way of your bullshit "anomaly/bias/incomplete data" explanation.

Right, nothing at all... Because of course "growing consensus" (from TFA) means "irrefutable fact".

And never mind all scientific the evidence that "The apparent periodicity is probably due to a statistical fluke or subjective bias."

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(89)90017-1

Or that: "Only 25% of these fish and echinoderm extinctions are real (disappearance of a monophyletic group). The remaining 75% is noise, chiefly 'extinctions' of non-monophyletic groups, mistaken dating, and 'families' containing one species only. The signal-to-noise ratio is very similar in echinoderms (27:73) and fishes (23:77). Periodicity in our sample is a feature of the noise component, not of the signal."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v330/n6145/abs/330248a0.html

If your interpretation of Occam's Razor is "if I can't see why things are the way they are then they mustn't be like this" you need to do some reading.

As opposed to your belief that, if you like what the paper says, it must be true, despite all evidence to the contrary.

here's a link to the actual journal article (abstract only, need to pay for fulltext)
http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nchem.724.html
Or
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.724

you've got it spot on. it's a neat new material. no mention of applications anywhere in the abstract, where people will often at least hint of an application if they've got a concrete one to sell.

Yes, we host lots of similar traces on CRAWDAD and are always looking for more. This paper describes one of the largest traces, taken over five years on the Dartmouth campus (alternative link for non-academic users).

Novel infrared-to-visible light upconversion devices are demonstrated by fabricating an organic light-emitting diode with an infrared-sensitizing layer. With a SnPc:C60 mixed layer as an infrared absorber and fac-tris(2-phenylpyridinato) iridium (III) (Irppy3) as an emitter, an infrared-to-green up-conversion device is demonstrated under 830-nm irradiation (see figure, ITO=indium tin oxide). The maximum photon-to-photon conversion efficiency is 2.7% at 15V.

This is good development, to be sure... but I think TFA exaggerates by saying that the device can be so thin that it can be placed on a windshield. In order to be used for something like night-vision, you'll need some kind of lens/optics as well. This material will not maintain the directionality of light as it is converted (from IR to visible), so you can't just "look through" it and see a night-vision version of the world. But you could use a lens to focus an infrared image onto the film, and look at the visible-light emission from the film. Still, this technology should be able to help make night-vision systems smaller and cheaper.

It's also disappointing how media reports of new sci/tech developments insist on focusing on one possible application. It obscures the real potential. For instance, lighter/cheaper IR-to-vis conversion would not just be cool for night driving, but also for emergency workers, home security systems, scientific instruments (the journal article also lists "semiconductor wafer inspection"), optical computing, and so on...

It is 3D in the sense that it is a 2D image with topography (a height map). Basically they are using a very sharp (nano-sized) heated stylus to desorb ("burn") away nano-sized amounts of polymer. (This is basically a variant of "scanning probe" methods like atomic force microscopy.) By carefully positioning the probe in x-y you can draw a pattern, and by controlling the stylus height and burn time, you can control the depth. In this way you can create arbitrary topography at the nano-scale.

Many of the comments in this thread seem to be fixating on the uselessness of such a small map of the world. Making a world map was just a cute proof of principle (the paper also shows test patterns so that you can judge patterning fidelity). Basically this is a new way to pattern at the nanoscale in an fairly arbitrary way. Of course raster scanning a stylus is going to be very slow compared to optical lithography, but at this stage it's better to compare to something like e-beam lithography which is the raster-scanning of an electron beam. This is also slow, but can make very high-resolution patterns and is thus great for exploratory research and for creating the masters that are then used for optical lithography. This new nano-desorbing technique could be another way to make master patterns. In fact, the papers mention that the resolution and throughput are in fact comparable to e-beam methods. And this new technique has a couple of advantages:
1. The ability to not just pattern in 2D, but control the topography could reduce the number of patterning steps in microchip construction.
2. These mechanical 'scanning tips' can in principle be built into massive arrays, allowing parallel (high-throughput) patterning. In fact IBM has been working on a project called millipede for using these arrays of tips as a data storage device. (This most recent patterning work appears to be an offshoot, where instead of melting pits to store data, they are blasting away material to pattern.)

It's always difficult to predict whether these things will become real products one day, but the proof-of-principle for both tip arrays, and now for nano-scale patterning using heated tips, means that we're actually relatively close. If IBM pursues this, it could become a new nano-patterning method in the toolbox of the microelectronics industry (which is, of course, always looking for techniques that can push patterning to ever smaller scales).

For anyone interested (and with subscription access), here are the papers:
"Nanoscale 3D Patterning of Molecular Resists by Scanning Probes" by D. Pires, J. L. Hedrick, A. De Silva, J. Frommer, B. Gotsmann, H. Wolf, M. Despont, U. Duerig and A. W. Knoll was published by Science on the Science Express website on April 22, 2010, DOI: 10.1126/science.1187851
"Probe-based 3-D Nanolithography Using Self-Amplified Depolymerization Polymers" by A. Knoll, D. Pires, O. Coulembier, P. Dubois, J. L. Hedrick, J. Frommer and U. Duerig was published in Advanced Materials, advanced online publication on April 23, 2010, DOI: 10.1002/adma.200904386

It is 3D in the sense that it is a 2D image with topography (a height map). Basically they are using a very sharp (nano-sized) heated stylus to desorb ("burn") away nano-sized amounts of polymer. (This is basically a variant of "scanning probe" methods like atomic force microscopy.) By carefully positioning the probe in x-y you can draw a pattern, and by controlling the stylus height and burn time, you can control the depth. In this way you can create arbitrary topography at the nano-scale.

Many of the comments in this thread seem to be fixating on the uselessness of such a small map of the world. Making a world map was just a cute proof of principle (the paper also shows test patterns so that you can judge patterning fidelity). Basically this is a new way to pattern at the nanoscale in an fairly arbitrary way. Of course raster scanning a stylus is going to be very slow compared to optical lithography, but at this stage it's better to compare to something like e-beam lithography which is the raster-scanning of an electron beam. This is also slow, but can make very high-resolution patterns and is thus great for exploratory research and for creating the masters that are then used for optical lithography. This new nano-desorbing technique could be another way to make master patterns. In fact, the papers mention that the resolution and throughput are in fact comparable to e-beam methods. And this new technique has a couple of advantages:
1. The ability to not just pattern in 2D, but control the topography could reduce the number of patterning steps in microchip construction.
2. These mechanical 'scanning tips' can in principle be built into massive arrays, allowing parallel (high-throughput) patterning. In fact IBM has been working on a project called millipede for using these arrays of tips as a data storage device. (This most recent patterning work appears to be an offshoot, where instead of melting pits to store data, they are blasting away material to pattern.)

It's always difficult to predict whether these things will become real products one day, but the proof-of-principle for both tip arrays, and now for nano-scale patterning using heated tips, means that we're actually relatively close. If IBM pursues this, it could become a new nano-patterning method in the toolbox of the microelectronics industry (which is, of course, always looking for techniques that can push patterning to ever smaller scales).

For anyone interested (and with subscription access), here are the papers:
"Nanoscale 3D Patterning of Molecular Resists by Scanning Probes" by D. Pires, J. L. Hedrick, A. De Silva, J. Frommer, B. Gotsmann, H. Wolf, M. Despont, U. Duerig and A. W. Knoll was published by Science on the Science Express website on April 22, 2010, DOI: 10.1126/science.1187851
"Probe-based 3-D Nanolithography Using Self-Amplified Depolymerization Polymers" by A. Knoll, D. Pires, O. Coulembier, P. Dubois, J. L. Hedrick, J. Frommer and U. Duerig was published in Advanced Materials, advanced online publication on April 23, 2010, DOI: 10.1002/adma.200904386

I'm not saying you aren't a "damned good driver", but I am ready to question to claim to having driven "literally" millions of miles.

Assuming you drive an average of 30 miles every day, including weekends and holidays, for 50 years.

30 * 365 * 50 = 547,500 miles

Let's add a 2000 mile trip each year into that estimate.

2000 * 50 = 100,000

Still not at even one million.

Also, there have been multiple studies that suggest there is a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others when it comes to driving.

In both studies in the US over 80% of people ranked themselves in the top 50% of drivers.

I'm not saying you aren't a "damned good driver", but I am ready to question to claim to having driven "literally" millions of miles.

Assuming you drive an average of 30 miles every day, including weekends and holidays, for 50 years.

30 * 365 * 50 = 547,500 miles

Let's add a 2000 mile trip each year into that estimate.

2000 * 50 = 100,000

Still not at even one million.

Also, there have been multiple studies that suggest there is a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others when it comes to driving.

In both studies in the US over 80% of people ranked themselves in the top 50% of drivers.

Just for argument's sake, the jury is still out on 'thermal rectification'. The key is just that you can't ignore certain parts of entropy generation that will exist in such a device. Here's an abstract link from a young professor at UC-Riverside, currently getting a DARPA Young Investigator Award.

Solid-State Thermal Rectification With Existing Bulk Materials
http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.3089552

As long as the system results in a net entropy increase, some versions of the theory say its possible.

Biosphere 2 seems to have used 6 * 10^6 liters in its water cycle to sustain 8 peoples, since Biosphere 2 was a closed system it is much closer to a moon base then average water consumption in New York, as it includes agriculture, animals and all that stuff. Assuming no optimizations that would be enough for 8 million people in a moon colony, not that bad.

...is ginkgo biloba good for?

Well, according to Wikipedia:

Out of the many conflicting research results, Ginkgo extract may have three effects on the human body: improvement in blood flow (including microcirculation in small capillaries) to most tissues and organs; protection against oxidative cell damage from free radicals; and blockage of many of the effects of platelet-activating factor (platelet aggregation, blood clotting) that have been related to the development of a number of cardiovascular, renal, respiratory and central nervous system disorders. Ginkgo can be used for intermittent claudication.

Some studies suggest a link between ginkgo and the easing of the symptoms of tinnitus.

Preliminary studies suggest that Ginkgo may be of benefit in multiple sclerosis, showing modest improvements in cognition and fatigue without increasing rates of serious adverse events in this population.

A study conducted in 2003 by the Department of Dermatology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India concluded that Ginkgo is an effective treatment for arresting the development of vitiligo.

Sources:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2F0378-8741%2896%2901379-7
• http://www.bixby.org/faq/tinnitus/treatmnt.html#gingko
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2F1352458506071213
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1046%2Fj.1365-2230.2003.01207.x

...is ginkgo biloba good for?

Well, according to Wikipedia:

Out of the many conflicting research results, Ginkgo extract may have three effects on the human body: improvement in blood flow (including microcirculation in small capillaries) to most tissues and organs; protection against oxidative cell damage from free radicals; and blockage of many of the effects of platelet-activating factor (platelet aggregation, blood clotting) that have been related to the development of a number of cardiovascular, renal, respiratory and central nervous system disorders. Ginkgo can be used for intermittent claudication.

Some studies suggest a link between ginkgo and the easing of the symptoms of tinnitus.

Preliminary studies suggest that Ginkgo may be of benefit in multiple sclerosis, showing modest improvements in cognition and fatigue without increasing rates of serious adverse events in this population.

A study conducted in 2003 by the Department of Dermatology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India concluded that Ginkgo is an effective treatment for arresting the development of vitiligo.

Sources:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2F0378-8741%2896%2901379-7
• http://www.bixby.org/faq/tinnitus/treatmnt.html#gingko
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2F1352458506071213
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1046%2Fj.1365-2230.2003.01207.x

...is ginkgo biloba good for?

Well, according to Wikipedia:

Out of the many conflicting research results, Ginkgo extract may have three effects on the human body: improvement in blood flow (including microcirculation in small capillaries) to most tissues and organs; protection against oxidative cell damage from free radicals; and blockage of many of the effects of platelet-activating factor (platelet aggregation, blood clotting) that have been related to the development of a number of cardiovascular, renal, respiratory and central nervous system disorders. Ginkgo can be used for intermittent claudication.

Some studies suggest a link between ginkgo and the easing of the symptoms of tinnitus.

Preliminary studies suggest that Ginkgo may be of benefit in multiple sclerosis, showing modest improvements in cognition and fatigue without increasing rates of serious adverse events in this population.

A study conducted in 2003 by the Department of Dermatology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India concluded that Ginkgo is an effective treatment for arresting the development of vitiligo.

Sources:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2F0378-8741%2896%2901379-7
• http://www.bixby.org/faq/tinnitus/treatmnt.html#gingko
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2F1352458506071213
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1046%2Fj.1365-2230.2003.01207.x

Hmmm yes but no.

And yet it's being worked on.
e.g.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.elecom.2006.08.029

The debate 'overlapping vs tiling' is as old as window managers [1]... And novel interaction techniques have been explored in 2001, though we are far from the ideas presented in the second paper [2], check the video http://open-video.org/details.php?videoid=8280 ...

cheers.

[1] Myers, B. A. 1988. A Taxonomy of Window Manager User Interfaces. IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl. 8, 5 (Sep. 1988), 65-84. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/38.7762
A taxonomy for the user-visible parts of window managers is presented. It is noted that there are actually very few significant differences, and the differences can be classified in a taxonomy with fairly limited branching. This taxonomy should be useful in evaluating various window managers, and it will also serve as a guide for the issues that need to be addressed by designers if future window-manager user interfaces. The advantages and disadvantages of the various options are presented.

[2] Beaudouin-Lafon, M. 2001. Novel interaction techniques for overlapping windows. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology (Orlando, Florida, November 11 - 14, 2001). UIST '01. ACM, New York, NY, 153-154. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/502348.502371
This note presents several techniques to improve window management with overlapping windows: tabbed windows, turning and peeling back windows, and snapping and zipping windows.
http://open-video.org/details.php?videoid=8280

I was so sensitive that, if someone else were turning the Wifi on and off, I could be in a different room in the house and still tell when it was on.

That's rather hard to believe. Three different studies found people unable to make the distinction (see below).

I do believe Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity exists, though, in the sense that the complaints are real.

[1] Regel, Sabine; Sonja Negovetic, Martin Roosli, Veronica Berdinas, Jurgen Schuderer, Anke Huss, Urs Lott, Niels Kuster, and Peter Achermann (August 2006). UMTS base station-like exposure, well-being, and cognitive performance. Environ Health Perspect 114 (8): 1270–5. PMID 16882538. PMC 1552030.
[2] Rubin, James; G Hahn, BS Everitt, AJ Clear, Simon Wessely (2006). Within-participants, double-blind, randomised provocation study. British Medical Journal 332: 886–889. doi:10.1136/bmj.38765.519850.55
[3] Wilen, J; A Johansson, N Kalezic, E Lyskov, M Sandstrom (April 2006). "Psychophysiological tests and provocation of subjects with mobile phone related symptoms". Bioelectromagnetics 27 (3): 204–14. doi:10.1002/bem.20195. PMID 16304699

I've looked over this archive (before Slashdot posted it), and I found several articles which were very interesting to me.

Leeuwenhoek's description of the "little animals" he saw with his early microscope (1677) -- this one is quite long and many entries are repetitive, but it is a detailed account of Leeuwenhoek's regular experiments and observations with microscopic life forms.

Surviving in a room heated to 260 degrees Fahrenheit (1775) -- this paper strikes me as absolutely incredulous in its claims; I did not know that people could survive such heat (I have not yet found any modern information supporting or disproving this claim, so information about this from a modern science perspective would be nice!).

I have a large backlog of papers which I would like to read, but which I cannot right now due to time constraints. I certainly would like to read more of these if I had the time to do so.

Bravo to the Royal Society for making these publicly accessible and easily explored. I now have an urge to read some of the early Philosophical Transaction papers not highlighted in Trailblazing.

I've looked over this archive (before Slashdot posted it), and I found several articles which were very interesting to me.

Leeuwenhoek's description of the "little animals" he saw with his early microscope (1677) -- this one is quite long and many entries are repetitive, but it is a detailed account of Leeuwenhoek's regular experiments and observations with microscopic life forms.

Surviving in a room heated to 260 degrees Fahrenheit (1775) -- this paper strikes me as absolutely incredulous in its claims; I did not know that people could survive such heat (I have not yet found any modern information supporting or disproving this claim, so information about this from a modern science perspective would be nice!).

I have a large backlog of papers which I would like to read, but which I cannot right now due to time constraints. I certainly would like to read more of these if I had the time to do so.

Bravo to the Royal Society for making these publicly accessible and easily explored. I now have an urge to read some of the early Philosophical Transaction papers not highlighted in Trailblazing.

Here's the actual research paper being cited:

Lee H, McKeon RJ, Bellamkonda RV. Sustained delivery of thermostabilized chABC enhances axonal sprouting and functional recovery after spina chord injury. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2009. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0905437106.

The summary is slightly incorrect in saying that this group discovered that the chondroitinase enzyme can aid in recovery after spinal cord injury (this has been known for a while, see Bradbury et al. (2002) Nature 416:636–640, whom the authors cite). The authors contribution is to engineer a version of the enzyme that is more stable and works better than the natural version of the enzyme. Because the enzyme is more stable than the natural enzyme, the authors can implant a hydrogel at the site of injury that slowly releases the enzyme over the course of two weeks. The authors show that this sustained delivery improves neuron regrowth and the locomotor function of the injured animals compared to just a single dose of the natural enzyme (which degrades relatively quickly after injection).

I found this paper which suggests 1.4 meters of sea level rise over 500-600 years 8500 years ago, the largest freshwater pulse into the North Atlantic in 100,000 years. However, some parts of that rise were rapid and they calculate that it could have caused massive flooding around the Black and Mediterranean Seas over a period of 120 years. I wonder if that's fast enough, recent enough, and global enough to account for global flood myths. The worst effects were localized around the Black Sea which would have been flooded, see here. But the last link suggests that the flooding wasn't so abrupt after all.

I wish journalists would be more diligent about actually citing the relevant paper from which the news releases are derived. If it is on the web, is it *that* hard for people to stick a link in there?

Anyhow, I haven't read the paper because I can't get the full article yet, but if some of the recovery they are interpreting after the Cretaceous is related to dinoflagellates (which can be detected as dinosteranes in organic geochemistry work), it wouldn't be surprising that they bounced back fairly quickly: A) many of them form highly resistant cysts as part of their life cycle, and those cysts can survive for years before "hatching" and going back to business as usual, B) many dinoflagellates are heterotrophic or mixotrophic -- i.e. they eat things or they eat things at the same time as using photosynthesis. As a result they could probably survive better than many other planktonic "algae" that are exclusively autotrophs (i.e. photosynthetic). This expectation is confirmed to some extent by the observation of relatively few dinoflagellate extinctions across the K/T boundary compared to many other planktonic organisms.

It's not the nicotine, it's the smo-o-o-o-oke

fa-a-a-a-a-il

P.S. Where do you think you get the nicotine? Though you can pick up many of the nasty compounds in cigarettes by touching surfaces in a smoker's home, usually, it's in the smoke. Did you mean the tar? Or perhaps one of the dozens of other compounds often added to cigarettes, and found in some form in the smoke?

Keep in mind that until last week, we had no direct evidence of something so basic to modern physics as the Bohr model

We still have no direct evidence of the Bohr model, because the Bohr model is basically wrong. This has been know for over 80 years. I don't know what you are referring to that happened last week, but as far as the quantum theory of electronic structure, we have had vast quantities of direct evidence for decades.

e have numerous alternative theories that explain, without resorting to saying the universe consists of 96% invisible voodoo, various anomalies such as gravitational rotation and the implied anisotropy of the CMB.

Competing theories have been proposed, vetted and discarded. For a relatively recent data-oriented paper, see: N. Spergel et al 2007 ApJS 170 377-408 10.1086/513700, arXiv.
Selected quote:

1. Cold dark matter serves as a signiïcant forcing term that
changes the acoustic peak structure. Alternative gravity models
(e.g., MOND), and all baryons-only models, lack this forcing
term so they predict a much lower third peak than is observed by
WMAP and small-scale CMB experiments (McGaugh 2004;
Skordis et al. 2006). Models without dark matter (even if we
allow for a cosmological constant) are very poor ïts to the data.

For a more far ranging, theoretical discussion: Bertone,Hooper,Silk. Physics Reports. 405 2005 279-390, arXiv.
As well as a comparison of alternative theories, this includes a few sections that concern efforts to determine the precise identity of dark matter, as well as future attempts to detect it directly.

Somewhere you got the idea that scientists sort of waved their hands, said "It must be dark matter," and then stopped thinking about it. Scientists have eliminated well known explanations, and so are exploring the unknown explanations, trying to make them known. This is not as scandalous as everyone seems to think.

Theories come and go, and without reproducible, experimental evidence, we have at best a model that fits the data - NOT, as far too many people seem to believe, a necessarily accurate description of objective reality.

Strictly speaking, all science can do is provide models that fit the data. All "reproducible, experimental evidence" is but more data. The argument that science actually reveals and describes objective reality is largely a philosophical one
(and to certain extent a semantic one). For an excellent discussion (unfortunately only for those who have access to Physics Today), see:

N. David Mermin, Phys. Today 62, 8 (2009). What's bad about this habit

Keep in mind that until last week, we had no direct evidence of something so basic to modern physics as the Bohr model

We still have no direct evidence of the Bohr model, because the Bohr model is basically wrong. This has been know for over 80 years. I don't know what you are referring to that happened last week, but as far as the quantum theory of electronic structure, we have had vast quantities of direct evidence for decades.

e have numerous alternative theories that explain, without resorting to saying the universe consists of 96% invisible voodoo, various anomalies such as gravitational rotation and the implied anisotropy of the CMB.

Competing theories have been proposed, vetted and discarded. For a relatively recent data-oriented paper, see: N. Spergel et al 2007 ApJS 170 377-408 10.1086/513700, arXiv.
Selected quote:

1. Cold dark matter serves as a signiïcant forcing term that
changes the acoustic peak structure. Alternative gravity models
(e.g., MOND), and all baryons-only models, lack this forcing
term so they predict a much lower third peak than is observed by
WMAP and small-scale CMB experiments (McGaugh 2004;
Skordis et al. 2006). Models without dark matter (even if we
allow for a cosmological constant) are very poor ïts to the data.

For a more far ranging, theoretical discussion: Bertone,Hooper,Silk. Physics Reports. 405 2005 279-390, arXiv.
As well as a comparison of alternative theories, this includes a few sections that concern efforts to determine the precise identity of dark matter, as well as future attempts to detect it directly.

Somewhere you got the idea that scientists sort of waved their hands, said "It must be dark matter," and then stopped thinking about it. Scientists have eliminated well known explanations, and so are exploring the unknown explanations, trying to make them known. This is not as scandalous as everyone seems to think.

Theories come and go, and without reproducible, experimental evidence, we have at best a model that fits the data - NOT, as far too many people seem to believe, a necessarily accurate description of objective reality.

Strictly speaking, all science can do is provide models that fit the data. All "reproducible, experimental evidence" is but more data. The argument that science actually reveals and describes objective reality is largely a philosophical one
(and to certain extent a semantic one). For an excellent discussion (unfortunately only for those who have access to Physics Today), see:

N. David Mermin, Phys. Today 62, 8 (2009). What's bad about this habit

Keep in mind that until last week, we had no direct evidence of something so basic to modern physics as the Bohr model

We still have no direct evidence of the Bohr model, because the Bohr model is basically wrong. This has been know for over 80 years. I don't know what you are referring to that happened last week, but as far as the quantum theory of electronic structure, we have had vast quantities of direct evidence for decades.

e have numerous alternative theories that explain, without resorting to saying the universe consists of 96% invisible voodoo, various anomalies such as gravitational rotation and the implied anisotropy of the CMB.

Competing theories have been proposed, vetted and discarded. For a relatively recent data-oriented paper, see: N. Spergel et al 2007 ApJS 170 377-408 10.1086/513700, arXiv.
Selected quote:

1. Cold dark matter serves as a signiïcant forcing term that
changes the acoustic peak structure. Alternative gravity models
(e.g., MOND), and all baryons-only models, lack this forcing
term so they predict a much lower third peak than is observed by
WMAP and small-scale CMB experiments (McGaugh 2004;
Skordis et al. 2006). Models without dark matter (even if we
allow for a cosmological constant) are very poor ïts to the data.

For a more far ranging, theoretical discussion: Bertone,Hooper,Silk. Physics Reports. 405 2005 279-390, arXiv.
As well as a comparison of alternative theories, this includes a few sections that concern efforts to determine the precise identity of dark matter, as well as future attempts to detect it directly.

Somewhere you got the idea that scientists sort of waved their hands, said "It must be dark matter," and then stopped thinking about it. Scientists have eliminated well known explanations, and so are exploring the unknown explanations, trying to make them known. This is not as scandalous as everyone seems to think.

Theories come and go, and without reproducible, experimental evidence, we have at best a model that fits the data - NOT, as far too many people seem to believe, a necessarily accurate description of objective reality.

Strictly speaking, all science can do is provide models that fit the data. All "reproducible, experimental evidence" is but more data. The argument that science actually reveals and describes objective reality is largely a philosophical one
(and to certain extent a semantic one). For an excellent discussion (unfortunately only for those who have access to Physics Today), see:

N. David Mermin, Phys. Today 62, 8 (2009). What's bad about this habit

I think I can see where we are disagreeing here. I think you are generalizing and I am speaking to Meta/SR of RCTs in medicine. I am not sure what you do for a living, but in terms of medicine and medical education and medical research, which is what I do, the pyramid I provided from the center for evidence based medicine at Duke is the real deal. There are similar concepts from McGill in Canada who were really some of the pioneers in this. Here is a link to the pertinent paper. I don't know enough about the methodology of meta-analysis in other fields to comment on that. I can comment that, again in medicine, the Cochrane Reviews are pretty much the gold standard in medical research. You are right, it is some of the most complicated research to partake in, and you are right again, especially in the field of cancer research most trials still go unpublished. But when done well, and there are many, many, well done reviews, they are without peer.

The reason meta-analyses are often used as a gold standard is that they can (usually) command a sample size that is far beyond that of the usual primary study.

Correct, and therein lies the power....... Come on...you've gotta laugh at that one!

Here are some interesting articles that discuss your concerns.