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If you truly care about your son, you will take the time to get informed as the CJS can screw with an AS sufferer in ways that will make you sick.

With regards to statistics that could be either UHI or the fact that we've for the last 2-3 decades been in a warm oceanic cycle (or both, of course). http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/heat-island-sprawl.html

I actually tried to make a long bet with someone who, like you, believe CO2 controls our climate a week ago. I would be making it very public, and I would like "the other side" to be a publically recognizable entity, but my suggestion was for $1500.

Short version: We'd both select _one_ climate model, he one from the CO2-crowd (note - a single one) and I one based on the solar->magnetic->clouds->oceans->atmosphere hypothesis, and in ten years we would see which model had tracked the observations most closely.

(I'd use Bob Tisdale's excellent work on integrating ENSO effects for one part - see http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/11/multidecadal-changes-in-sea-surface_17.html )

Unfortunately it seems he wasn't willing. I'm assuming that's because he knows that, so far, no CO2-based climate model has been successful at predicting anything when verified against observations ;)

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a928051726&fulltext=713240928

(Yes, I'm of the Popperian school of science. Feel free to launch hypothesises but if they have no predictive powers they're falsified)

The paper you mention cites numerous studies supporting the models of the IPCC. Additionally, it isn't without it's own critics.

In other words: No, not end of story. I'm not dismissing the paper, as I'm not qualified to do so, but this certainly does not prove the claim: "Models are garbage".

The paper you mention cites numerous studies supporting the models of the IPCC. Additionally, it isn't without it's own critics.

In other words: No, not end of story. I'm not dismissing the paper, as I'm not qualified to do so, but this certainly does not prove the claim: "Models are garbage".

Models are garbage, even hindcasted.

Peer reviewed study here: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a928051726&fulltext=713240928

End of story. We should not be making any decisions based on faulty models, and all of the models in use can't even accurately predict the weather that's happened in the past, with verifiable data.

Wearing a cycle helmet may increase your risk of a collision, because drivers leave less of a gap when overtaking cyclists with helmets than those without.

Research

Robinson shows that, despite significant increases in helmet-wearing, there was no greater improvement in cycle safety than for pedestrian safety over the same period. On the other hand, there were substantial reductions in cycle use, amounting to a significant loss of the health and other benefits of cycling. Robinson says: "This contradiction may be due to risk compensation, incorrect helmet wearing, reduced safety in numbers (injury rates per cyclist are lower when more people cycle), or bias in case control studies."

Research

Paul Hewson finds no detectable relationship between helmet-rates and on-road cycle safety in Great Britain. A second article, also by Hewson (this one published in Accident Analysis and Prevention journal), reaches the same conclusion for child cyclists. Hewson emphasises that this doesn’t necessarily mean that helmets are ineffective; an alternative explanation is that there might be some benefits for particular groups and/or for particular types of cycling, and he points out that his own data cover on-road cycling only. However, he also argues that road safety professionals have no grounds for being involved in helmet promotion, given the lack of detectable benefits for on-road cyclists.

Research

A report on children’s cycling from the National Children’s Bureau includes a very useful appendix surveying the literature on helmets. It states, “Those of us who cycle should be under no illusion that helmets offer reliable protection in crash situations where our lives may be in danger. Neither should we believe that widespread adoption of helmet wearing would see many fewer cyclists killed or permanently disabled. The evidence so far suggests otherwise.”

[The citation is currently unavailable]

You will be able to find counter views, but don't accuse me of being a neo-con just because I demonstrated the law of unintended consequences by citing research concerning cycling helmets. I'm sure you look like a twat wearing yours and have spent years explaining to colleagues and friends how your brain is now invincible because you're wearing one, by way of justification.

In all seriousness, take care on the roads. I've got a 4x4 and sometimes you cyclists are difficult to see, even with your silly hats and high visibility pants.

Looking at the matter with an oversimplistic view is potentially harmful.

But, as many folk aren't interested in thinking harder, I'll endorse the basic idea that standing up for yourself helps. Note that bullying is a dynamic that requires victims to complete it. It should probably be referred to as the Bully/Victim Dynamic to help people remember this fact. If you don't stand up for yourself, bullies will target you.

If you look into what makes bullies feel like they have to dominate others, you will gain a much deeper understanding of bullying.

Again, I highly recommend this article for anyone interested in understanding bullying better.

Now, the source quoted in this /. article is appallingly fourth-hand and diluted. Here are some other sources:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article7133986.ece
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/health/18mind.html?pagewanted=print

And here's an abstract for the actual study (which took a while to track down): Mutual antipathies during early adolescence: More than just rejection

Remaining puzzle: I don't know of any 120km-diameter impact crater "off the WA coast" of about the same age (i.e. ~Late Eocene). The Earth Impact Database certainly doesn't show one, and the list of impact craters >100km is very short. In fact, it is unlikely for such a crater to exist off the coast of Washington because the continent quickly changes to deep ocean crust due to the subduction zone parallel to the coast, I'm not sure the crust there is even Eocene in age (it's pretty young due to the adjacent Juan de Fuca ridge), and hardly any impact craters are known from ocean crust anyway (the only ones known are quite small, and didn't really form an "impact crater" because of the deep ocean water). It's possible that this "crater off Washington" was confused with the large (85km) Late Eocene impact structure that exists off the East Coast of the USA in Chesapeake Bay and is not far from Washington, D.C..

Coincidentally both the Popigai impact and Chesapeake Bay impacts are mentioned in the abstract of the paper, so it's very likely a mix-up about the two Washingtons that explains the third one. We can't really blame the submitter for the mix-up. They just quoted the errors in the other article.

I suspect the author actually meant the Woodleigh crater off Western Australia (WA).

  http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images/woodleigh.htm

Okay, let's clear this up to the extent that is possible.

Correctly represented: the structure identified in the Timor Sea (the Mt. Ashmore dome) is 50km across, but it represents only the eroded central uplift of a complex crater, so the original crater diameter could have been 100km. The impactor for such a crater is roughly 10x as small (the 5 to 10km mentioned).

Incorrectly represented: the structure being referred to in Siberia is probably the Popigai crater, which is about 100km in diameter. This is incorrectly identified as the size of the impactor in both the summary and the article it cites.

Remaining puzzle: I don't know of any 120km-diameter impact crater "off the WA coast" of about the same age (i.e. ~Late Eocene). The Earth Impact Database certainly doesn't show one, and the list of impact craters >100km is very short. In fact, it is unlikely for such a crater to exist off the coast of Washington because the continent quickly changes to deep ocean crust due to the subduction zone parallel to the coast, I'm not sure the crust there is even Eocene in age (it's pretty young due to the adjacent Juan de Fuca ridge), and hardly any impact craters are known from ocean crust anyway (the only ones known are quite small, and didn't really form an "impact crater" because of the deep ocean water). It's possible that this "crater off Washington" was confused with the large (85km) Late Eocene impact structure that exists off the East Coast of the USA in Chesapeake Bay and is not far from Washington, D.C..

Coincidentally both the Popigai impact and Chesapeake Bay impacts are mentioned in the abstract of the paper, so it's very likely a mix-up about the two Washingtons that explains the third one. We can't really blame the submitter for the mix-up. They just quoted the errors in the other article.

Okay, let's clear this up to the extent that is possible.

Correctly represented: the structure identified in the Timor Sea (the Mt. Ashmore dome) is 50km across, but it represents only the eroded central uplift of a complex crater, so the original crater diameter could have been 100km. The impactor for such a crater is roughly 10x as small (the 5 to 10km mentioned).

Incorrectly represented: the structure being referred to in Siberia is probably the Popigai crater, which is about 100km in diameter. This is incorrectly identified as the size of the impactor in both the summary and the article it cites.

Remaining puzzle: I don't know of any 120km-diameter impact crater "off the WA coast" of about the same age (i.e. ~Late Eocene). The Earth Impact Database certainly doesn't show one, and the list of impact craters >100km is very short. In fact, it is unlikely for such a crater to exist off the coast of Washington because the continent quickly changes to deep ocean crust due to the subduction zone parallel to the coast, I'm not sure the crust there is even Eocene in age (it's pretty young due to the adjacent Juan de Fuca ridge), and hardly any impact craters are known from ocean crust anyway (the only ones known are quite small, and didn't really form an "impact crater" because of the deep ocean water). It's possible that this "crater off Washington" was confused with the large (85km) Late Eocene impact structure that exists off the East Coast of the USA in Chesapeake Bay and is not far from Washington, D.C..

Coincidentally both the Popigai impact and Chesapeake Bay impacts are mentioned in the abstract of the paper, so it's very likely a mix-up about the two Washingtons that explains the third one. We can't really blame the submitter for the mix-up. They just quoted the errors in the other article.

The water I prefer to drink doesn't tend to taste of anything unpleasant.

Some tilapia taste like mud[1] to me. Not all though. I guess it's a matter of what they eat or drink. Perhaps you could try putting them in a "clean flushing tank" first for two weeks before eating them[2] (not sure what you should feed them to make them tastier during those two weeks, but I guess you could experiment ).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosmin

[2] http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a902885434&db=all

There is plenty of evidence that women are discriminated when they look for loans or investments. A good read is Blake 2006 "Gendered Lending: Gender, Context and the Rules of Business Lending" in Venture Capital 8(2) pp. 183-201. Basisiaclly, there are pretty large, statistically signifigant, differences in loan approval rates between men and women, after controling for a host of factors like education, business plan, experience ect.

I have looked up that study and I must say that I find the statements here a bit misleading. The abstract says it is "a case study involving interview data from loan officers in Worcester, Massachusetts in the US". While a case study can be interesting for other reasons, statistically speaking it's on the level of anecdotal evidence. Furthermore this study "[looks] through the lens of geography" (presumably because the author works for a Department of Geography). Hard to extrapolate from such a tiny sample of VC lending in the USA, isn't it?

So you say that there is "plenty of evidence that women are discriminated" and "statistically significant differences", and in the same breath you mention a study that doesn't support what you just said because it's not statistically significant. If there is plenty of evidence why not pick a study that supports your rather strong statement?

I remembered that most of the new work on prosthetic arms these days focuses on using EMG to drive the arm behaviour (including Dean Kamen's new bionic arm), and there's a bunch of stuff done (and papers released) with driving the mouse for people with disabilities.

Surely this patent application has to be thrown out, and isn't Microsoft just wasting the Patent Office (and our) time with applications that are so easily shown to have been demonstrated before?

Look Ma, No Pen! Electrical Impulses Can Reproduce Handwriting
SmartHand: Merging Mind and Machine
Application of facial electromyography in computer mouse access for people with disabilities
Demonstrating the feasibility of using forearm electromyography for muscle-computer interfaces
Electromyography sensor based control for a hand exoskeleton

What's the original part here? The patent application does not specify any specific software application (just talks about interpreting the signals), so all the prior art should hold.

Sorry for replying to my own post, but I've just found two interesting links on ozone depletion caused by rockets. Apparently, there is something to consider here.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/01/space_rockets_kill_ozone/
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a909005018

Microwaves don't alter DNA? You'd better tell a number of scientists and other researchers you know more than they do.

Quite frankly, if I was his neighbor, I'd sue the moron.

So if I lived next to you would it be alright if I opened a toxic waste dump next to you? Or would I have to sue you?

Falcon

Couldn't read the articles because i don't have an account there. But the abstracts look interesting: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ol/abstract.cfm?uri=ol-30-13-1710 http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/440892722-27397378/content~content=a911227137~db=all~jumptype=rss http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/EUM0000000004246 and there seem to be already patents on manufacturing these integrated optic curcuits: http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4400052/claims.html

Or maybe someone is using Microsporidia as an insecticide already. From Cornell university:

Some microsporidia are being investigated as microbial insecticides, and at least one is available commercially, but the technology is new and work is needed to perfect the use of these organisms.

http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/pathogens/protozoa.html

But according to this paper, it is naturally present in insect populations, and that other factors allow it to multiply to fatal levels.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713568331~db=all~order=date

http://www.physorg.com/news127915025.html http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a790823168~db=all Subtle and in long term cumulative gene regulation might give unexpected results, especially considering still partly unclear mechanisms causing autoimmune diseases. The effects are agreeably hard to test if time frame extends to 5-20 years. Also, vaccine boosters might have some immunomodulatory effect on immune processes that occur naturally in subject at time. Combined with endemic virus infections (known correlation with autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes) at random times might give range of conditions that are difficult notice statistically. Considering previous, one should do risk evaluation taking into consideration hereditary predisposition, antibody titers, current epidemiologic situation to name few of the aspects... There hardly is yes/no clearly defined options. Movement against vaccination seems to be more like movement against indifferent administration without asking any relevant questions that can be asked to avoid possible complications.

Yet another think-of-the-children article. First off not all Zombies are bad. There has been a lot of negative and biased media regarding Zombies, most of which is complete fiction. The media always likes to sensationalize and dwell upon the negative.

From the Canadian Society Counteracting The Unfair Treatment Of The Living Impaired (CSCTUTOTLI):

Zombies are people too and should not be judged by the few of their kind that are actually bad or the stereotypes depicted by television and movies.

- http://www.ifyouwereazombie.com/50-we-get-letters...-zombies-eh.-take-off-hoser.html

If we could make an effort to live with them instead of demonizing them the world would be a far better place.

One must first try to solve the problem instead of merely dealing with the consequences. If people don't like Zombies in the first place then "scientists" should stop experimenting with genetic engineering, human cloning etc. Stop trying to play god with life forms. Prevention is always better than a cure.

One of the best methods for dealing with unruly Zombies is proper and professional training, make sure they are properly leashed and muzzled when in public, and make sure that children don't approach Zombies without proper parental supervision.

Before posting such lame and biased topics on slashdot people should first do some research. While there is very little scientific research on the topic of Zombies, I have listed a couple of related articles:
- http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/1441495520-41605750/content~content=a714022128~db=all
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W84-4D1MX3K-6&_user=10&_origUdi=B75JF-4DHWX0N-F&_fmt=high&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2004&_rdoc=1&_orig=article&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=db53fa206b2c098c5c0ce2758901d679

If you are really interested in helping the cause against Zombie discrimination then you should try to find a local chapter of PETZ (People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies).

Let's see... We have one arsenic atom per bit. Let's assume a one (decimal) megabit quantum storage unit. That means one million arsenic atoms.

Arsenic has a nuclear mass of about 74.92159 u with one u being about 1.660538782 * 10^(27) kg.
Google tells us that 74921590 u = 1.24410212 * 10^(-10) micrograms (0.000000000124410212 ug). Note that you already eat several ug of arsenic a day, so eating your megabit quantum storage chip is unlikely to give you arsenic poisoning. That is not what you should worry about at that moment.

Point three is called cracking. A quick google search finds some more information pretty quickly, and if you have disposable funds,
this or this seem like pretty good resources. There's also a Journal of Petroleum Geochemistry, if you're interested.

Lab re-creation is not really necessary; the commercial form of cracking is called petroleum refining.

Well, I'd really like to completely shoot this down, but it would seem I can't. Using Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) I searched for, and found, several research papers on the subject. The couple I checked (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a785684944~db=all and http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1807747&blobtype=pdf {WARNING: PDF}) indicate that there might be something to this, but also indicate the need for much more research. The studies currently published, when taken together, only show confusion since many, but far from all, show some impact while none show the operational mechanisms (the why and how) at work.

All that being said, I still think most of these claims are probably BS. My reasoning is this: we've been inundated with various EM fields of all kinds of frequencies for as life has existed. We've added a lot to this mix with our artificial sources like TV, AM/FM/CB/HAM radio and many other sources. We also have power transmission lines (which do produce their own magnetic fields and many communities now do not allow residential space to be located beneath). Certainly, over the last several years, we have added a lot to this with cell phones and WiFi. However, take a broad-spectrum measure of the RF energy around you. Except for certain circumstances (like living under a power line or radar dome), the total will be fairly low. So the question becomes one that is similar to the question of lead in paint: how much is too much? If there is a reaction that is generalized to the average person, at what level does this average person begin to react? And, since some might prove to be 'allergic' and thus have a stronger reaction to a smaller stimulus and since this is more like smoking than lead paint in that it is pervasive, how would we regulate its use (if this proves to be true at all)? I can see the sign in front of the courthouse now: No smoking, WiFi, or cell phone use within 20ft.

re: "Citation?"

TY - JOUR
JO - Molecular Physics
PB - Taylor & Francis
AU - Tranter, G. E.
TI - The parity violating energy differences between the enantiomers of -amino acids
SN - 0026-8976
PY - 1985
VL - 56
IS - 4
SP - 825
EP - 838
UR - http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/00268978500102741

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a740197360~db=all~jumptype=rss
best I could do without resorting to wiki.

point is...yes...yes it is a word.

Cite or get off the pot. Speaking of which, I would suggest this paper and this paper as a good start. There is major concern from Thimerosal toxicity in long term treatments, such as blood plasma programs, due to the introduction of more Thimerosal to the system then ethylmercury, the type of mercury that Thimerosal becomes, can be cleared. However, there seems to be more risk from dental amalgam then a single vaccination. Concern should be for long term series, such as a long term gamma globulin series, which is becoming rare.

There are aspects of our immune system that deal with macroscopic threats - parasites, foreign bodies, etc. In modern, industrialized society intestinal parasites and unremoved splinters aren't really a problem so a part of our immune system is left with very little to do. Like a bored child or pet, our immune system goes looking for something to do. It overreacts to pollen, proteins in common foods, and animal dander.