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This is the second major study calling into question the idea that talking on the phone while driving is vastly more dangerous, as dangerous as drunk driving.

In the other study, A Wayne State study by Richard Young, Ph.D, found that procedural errors in the seminal research vastly over estimated the risk.

The actual risk of talking while driving was 1/4 of what the earlier studies found, putting it right in line with just simply driving.

Indeed, according to Wayne State, "Five other recent real-world studies concur with his conclusion that the crash risk from cellular conversations is not greater than that of driving with no conversation.". "Tasks that take a driver's eyes off the road or hands off the steering wheel are what increase crash risk," said Young. "Texting, emailing, manual dialing and so forth -- not conversation -- are what increase the risk of crashes while driving."

While texting poses serious risks, simply talking on the phone appears to pose no more risk than simply driving. The present study found that:

"Cell phone bans have reduced cell phone use by drivers, but the perplexing thing is that they haven't reduced crashes,"

.

In spite of this, in a fit of political correctness, the author feels compelled in the last paragraph of the story to print a quote from someone who has done no specific research on phoning while driving, but he still fees competent to weigh in suggesting bans be followed by stiffer enforcement.

population density is much reduced, I think when this happens a per capita death rate for the roads is expected to be less, as every day on the roads there are less opportunities for a crash per capita.

It's more complicated than that. You need to consider fatalities per vehicle instead of per capita (per capita might include many non-car travellers), and traffic density rather than population density.

For a death rate, you also need to consider the relation between traffic density and speed. Faster crashes are deadlier. Smeed's Law states that the accident rate per mile driven varies inversely with traffic density. That is, the denser the traffic the lower the accident rate per car. "increasing traffic volume leads to an increase in fatalities per capita, but a decrease in fatalities per vehicle." "regions of China with the lowest population density had the highest overall death rates per 100 000 motor vehicles"

If you check the statistics for fatalities per motor vehicle or per km driven, then UK and Norway are much closer.

Furthermore in 2010 Norway's per capita road deaths were higher than the UK

Probably England's per capita road deaths were higher than London's per capita road deaths; however, this says nothing about the increased fatalities of drink driving, and it certainly does not imply that drink driving in London is safe. You need to control the other factors in order to extract the relevant data.

Not only is the cure worse than the disease, but the severity of the disease appears to be widely overstated:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2011/12/14/wayne.state.study.shows.early.research.cellphone.conversations.likely.overestimated.crash.risk?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eScienceNews%2Fpopular+(e!+Science+News+-+Popular)&utm_content=Netvibes

I think you are right as it stands now there is no practical method for storing sufficient energy for off peak hours.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-cheap-abundant-cathode-material-hydrogen.html
http://esciencenews.com/sources/physorg/2011/03/22/research.team.develops.lightweight.portable.power.using.hydrogen.fuel.pellets

Though this problem maybe insurmountable. (Human nature.)
http://www.raptureforums.com/forum/breaking-news-world-events/50312-rhetoric-about-environmental-controls-killing-jobs-getting-louder-louder.html

You don't need perfect control, just "good enough" so that you avoid the complications of high blood sugar and insulin overdoses. Remember, people on a tight control regime have 3x the insulin reactions, and those reactions cause brain damage. Brain damage is cumulative. They used to purposefully put people into insulin shock as an alternative to electro-convulsive therapy for a reason - it can permanently alter^Wdamage the brain. Going low two or three times a wee will, over the long term, have side effects, same as chronic binge drinking will. It's called hypoglycemic diabetic dementia for a reason, and it's the dirty little secret you won't hear anyone talk about when it comes to the risks of too-tight control.

I agree with all of that and I don't get lows like that anymore. The reason is because of the sensor. It indicates to me whenever my bg level is dropping below a certain level (set by yourself). With that I can have tight control AND not get the lows. I also rarely get bg levels above 200 at this point too because of this.

And it's not the end of the world if you forget your insulin for a meal or two - you won't die if you're in good health. (Now if you're NOT in good health, that's another story).

You don't need perfect control, just "good enough" so that you avoid the complications of high blood sugar and insulin overdoses. Remember, people on a tight control regime have 3x the insulin reactions, and those reactions cause brain damage. Brain damage is cumulative. They used to purposefully put people into insulin shock as an alternative to electro-convulsive therapy for a reason - it can permanently alter^Wdamage the brain. Going low two or three times a wee will, over the long term, have side effects, same as chronic binge drinking will. It's called hypoglycemic diabetic dementia for a reason, and it's the dirty little secret you won't hear anyone talk about when it comes to the risks of too-tight control.

There's a lot of internet rage around HFCS but not a whole lot of solid evidence to support the assertion that it is much worse than sugar.

Wrong. Here you go:

Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain

Huge benefits to humanity? Really? I don't think so.

The hugest benefit to mankind is OIL, making EVERYTHING possible.

Rockets? Since 1957, you Space Nutters have had FIVE decades to show us these "benefits". Besides stoking the imagination of dreamers and deluded petulant children like GameboyRMH, there's precious little it has accomplished. Does it make clothes? Food? Materials?

Nope. Not denying the uses of communication satellites and weather satellites and a few fun probes, but let's face it, very little would be different today without access to space.

Now, watching people get old, weak, infirm, dumb, slow and weak from aging is a daily horror for everyone on this planet.

Wake me up when these rich dreamers remove advanced glycation endproducts from adult humans safely, cheaply and repeatably.

Where was the fanfare when the molecule LJ001 was shown to destroy all viruses? You want "huge benefits" to mankind? There's one right there! Suddenly a white metal tube filled with kerosene just seems like the silly toy it is.

You want to explore? Explore the workings of a cell. I think you'll find it immensely more challenging than Space Nuttery, and much more rewarding.

_We don't understand how matter arranges itself into US._

And you want pictures of rocks floating in a vacuum?

We live short lives, we get sick easily, we are fragile. This is what you want to colonize space with? Guess what, *we* won't. Maybe our modified descendents will, *if* there's enough energy !!!

Correct.

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/04/09/human.fossil.discovery.evidence.new.homo.species

and

Once We Were Not Alone, Ian Tattersall, Scientific American, January 2000, pp. 56-62

The food that most kids eat often contains flavor enhancers such as aspartame, sucralose, splenda, and MSG (aka 'autolyzed plant protein,' 'hydrolyzed plant protein') that have powerful neurological effects (that's why they are effective in stimulating the tongue nerve cells). Unfortunately, though, many of these substances also have toxic effects on nerve cells due to overstimulation or other means. Other neurotoxins in widespread use (compared with 1938) include solvents, lead, cell phone radiation, mercury, drugs, and high blood sugar (diabetes and pre-diabetes are much more widespread due in part to increased sugar consumption). It's likely that the increased environmental exposure of children to neurotoxins since 1938 has caused much of the increase in mental illness.

They already do this quite regularly with the oldest green source of power you managed to omit: Hydroelectric.

According to a UN study I read hydroelectric dams are economically poor, cost more than the proposals said, and do not return the economic benefits they were sold are providing. I didn't find the study but I found this: "UN study advises caution over dams". And then there are problems with dams like those on the Klamath River in southern Oregon and northern California or the Three Gorges Dam in China. Indian tribes in Oregon by treaty have rights to salmon that use the Klamath, however the dams prevent salmon from making it to their spawning grounds. In China the government forcibly relocated more than 1 million people, and India is doing the same for a new dam there.

Falcon

I think you've been living in the USA for too long. Health insurance isn't really ment to be something that you pay through the nose until you actually need it, at which point the insurer considers you an unacceptable risk and cancels the contract. It should be something that everyone pays for and is covered in the same way. The insurers should use thir "purchasing power" to demand lower cost, more efficient service - instead, they currently probably profit from the high cost of medical procedure, because not having an insurance is an enormous financial risk with 60% of private bankruptcies attributable to medical problems.

But scientists already determined it's not the lack of exercise that is making Americans fat, it's the excess intake of food.

Which makes your point moot, like that guy from 4chan.

Personal gain, or just simple enjoyment.

Bullies may enjoy seeing others in pain

Distance vs. intensity.

Science is so awesome, in the most original sense of the word. It inspires awe.
Look at what these people are doing. They have odd bits of animals that died uncountable millions of years ago (except they figured out ways of counting them) and put the bits back together. And now they think they can figure out what colour they were? That is fantastic!

True. This reminds me of the proven fact that dinosaur soft tissues still survive.

In unrelated news, what you see is not always what you get.

That said, considering the latter link, the possibility that both linked articles are false is not to disregard. ;)

http://feeds.esciencenews.com/eScienceNews/popular

Eureka Science News

Actually the link I submitted was http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/06/03/a.survivor.greenland.a.novel.bacterial.species.found.trapped.120000.year.old.ice

which has 3 pictures. For some reason the editor changed it.