Slashdot Mirror

Nice weaving, but you didn't answer anything.

Vestigial is defined as "Refers to an organ or part (for example, the human appendix) which is greatly reduced from the original ancestral form and is no longer functional" in a medical dictionary.

And since you admit there is a function to the cases you cited, that means they are not vestigial. BTW the dictionary cites the appendix, now known to be integral to the immune system. For example if your spleen is knocked down or out (by radiation, let's say) then the appendix takes over a good bit of its function.

What would satisfy you to say something was created instead of evolved? Or is that beyond your consideration?

Here's a good page (paragraph?) about taurine.. http://www.graylab.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?query=taurine

Stem cells refers to any cell which produces dissimilar daughter cells. The human body is full of stem cells.

"I've always wondered why nobody has ever actually used nuclear explosives in civil engineering projects, if (and this is a BIG if) the blasts can be made reasonably radiologically clean."

it amazes me a little that someone talks about "radiological clean" blasts. There are no radiological clean nuclear blasts in nature and it is stupid to claim such thing.

The poster to whom you refer said reasonably clean, and made it a hypothetical. It'd be fine if it only produced a little residual radiation, since small amounts of radiation are good for you and might even reduce the local cancer risk. See any book or study on radiation hormesis; radiation is one of the many things that are deady in high doses but beneficial in low doses.

Here's the medical definition of hormesis.

Here's a Japanese study verifying radiation hormesis in laboratory animals.

Here's a page on radiation hormesis in humans.

The only way people get estimates to the contrary is by doing a straight-line estimation. So if being forced to drink ten gallons of water all at once drowns 99/100 people, being forced to drink a half gallon is assumed to drown 1/20th as many (about 5 people) and so on down the line; a straight-line estimate would allow you to deduce that even a cup of water a day is more deadly than no water at all. This is obviously the wrong way to estimate how dangerous water is; it's also the wrong way to estimate the danger of radiation (both ionizing and non-ionizing).

Here's a Japanese study called verifying radiation hormesis in laboratory animals.

The medical dictionary definition of hormesis is: "An effect where a toxic substance acts like a stimulant in small doses, but it is an inhibitor in large doses."

This page has some interesting examples, including the following:
Radiation hormesis in cancer mortality was found in 32,000 United States and 22,000 British military observers of atmospheric nuclear explosions (Robinette et al., 1985; Darby et al., 1988). The cancer mortality rate of Canadian military observers was only 88% of carefully selected military controls (Raman et al., 1987). The leukemia mortality rate of the Canadian observers was only 40% of that of the unexposed controls. In each study the cancer motality rate of exposed personnel was lower that that of the general population.

The cumulative data represents about 100,000 acutely exposed persons in four countries. This is convincing evidence that whole body exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation do not cause increased mortality. The supporting animal data showed that both acute and chronic exposure to low dose irradiation decreased cancer mortality (Luckey 1990, 1993). The combined animal and human results provide impressive evidence that cancer mortality is decreased by acute exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation.

There is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that small amounts of ionizing radiation help prevent cancer. The cancer rate might be a lot lower if there were more background radiation. If so, then even cellphones that produced ionizing radiation would still benefit rather than harm their users. You might want the one that gives the highest dose, to improve your health!

Here's a Japanese study called verifying radiation hormesis in laboratory animals.

The medical dictionary definition of hormesis is: "An effect where a toxic substance acts like a stimulant in small doses, but it is an inhibitor in large doses."

A relevant text (recommended on the web but I haven't read it) is:
Kondo, S.; Health effects of low-level radiation.
Osaka, Japan: Kinki University Press; Madison, WI: Medical Physics Publishing Co., 1993.

This page has some interesting examples, including the following:
Radiation hormesis in cancer mortality was found in 32,000 United States and 22,000 British military observers of atmospheric nuclear explosions (Robinette et al., 1985; Darby et al., 1988). The cancer mortality rate of Canadian military observers was only 88% of carefully selected military controls (Raman et al., 1987). The leukemia mortality rate of the Canadian observers was only 40% of that of the unexposed controls. In each study the cancer motality rate of exposed personnel was lower that that of the general population.

The cumulative data represents about 100,000 acutely exposed persons in four countries. This is convincing evidence that whole body exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation do not cause increased mortality. The supporting animal data showed that both acute and chronic exposure to low dose irradiation decreased cancer mortality (Luckey 1990, 1993). The combined animal and human results provide impressive evidence that cancer mortality is decreased by acute exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation.

Before you all get your panties in a twist you may want to look at what a Syndrome actualy is.

It is no more and no less than a set of coinciding symptoms it is not a diagnosis nor a cure.