Slashdot Mirror

Even though Gene and DNA are directly related, Gene != DNA.

From the article:
"Drivers must have B1 level English, or the equivalent of a GCSE in the subject".

FYI This is nowhere near A level.

I provided a link with comparison of equivalencies, which lists B1 as "British general qualifications: GCE AS level / lower grade A-level".

It is so cause B1 is not a grade one gets on a test NOR is it a kind of a test one does.
It's a descriptor of a group of tests and minimum scores which one would need to take and pass in order to qualify for a visa.
Most equivalent tests are not a pass-fail test, so there is some overlap between grades and equivalency between the tests as well as the range of scores which fall under the B1 group.
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, these tests were intended for people who are COMING INTO UK.

Someone taking an IELTS test, which is one of the approved tests for a B1 level qualification, would be tested either for an academic or a general training grade.
I.e. For the purpose of enrollment into a university OR or into some other school - or to immigrate into UK.
It's the same test in both cases. The scoring and grading is the same. It's just that the "content, context and purpose of the tasks" are different.
I.e. Academic version uses bigger words.

The only difference being that one needs a slightly higher minimum grade to enroll into a university than one needs to immigrate into UK.
5.5 vs. 4.0, which are REALLY REALLY CLOSE due to rounding up of the raw scores as they are recalculated to a band scale.

Thus the situation is that the only people with a ready B1 (or higher) qualification are - LEGAL IMMIGRANTS.
There is no equivalence for a UK-born citizen, as B1 is a level intended for approximate equalization and naturalization of foreigners to UK, not the other way around.
They might as well be asking for a non-UK birth certificate.

ONLY point where both groups intersect in qualification being the enrollment into university.
Which for Brits means taking their GCE A-levels - and for immigrants taking the same IELTS test, only the "bigger words" version.
Which they already did to get in. UK and the university.
And while immigrants who DO take that test are ALL coming with an intent to enroll into a university - 55% of UK highschoolers decide not to.

Thus, a B1 level requirement becomes equivalent of an "university enrollment" for UK-born citizens of UK - and either an immigration visa or a study visa for immigrants.
Which doesn't sound as counter-intuitive when you consider Uber's standards.

Uber's driver-partners are highly educated. Nearly half of Uber's driver-partners (48 percent)
have a college degree or higher, considerably higher than the corresponding percentage for taxi
drivers and chauffeurs (18 percent), and above that for the workforce as a whole as well (41
percent). Only 12 percent of Uber's driver-partners have a high school degree or less, whereas
over half (52 percent) of taxi drivers and chauffeurs have a high school degree or less. Seven
percent of Uber's driver-partners are currently enrolled in school, mostly taking classes toward a
four-year college degree or higher.

Hey... That's their workforce in the US. People who took their college entry tes

Looks like a lot of volcanoes are there

Yes, there is growing evidence. If the oceans became anoxic in past global warming extinction events, then it stands to reason that anoxia is a risk in the anthropocene.

And that temperature risk is on top of the acidification risk which is already being felt.

http://thinkprogress.org/clima...
http://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean...

You have to be in deep denial to think the oceanic (or land-based) food chain "seems just fine". It is anything but.

There is no "do nothing" option. We have the choice of continuing current biosphere-damaging industrial processes (the real extreme here) or switching to processes that stay within ecological limits that the biosphere is able to handle.

And here's a very nice, easy-to-understand explanation of what happened, written by one of the SWIFT astronomers:

http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~pae9...

http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~pae9...

FORTRAN was *NOT* designed to support multidimensional arrays from the beginning. That only came in Fortran 90.

Not true. Multidimensional array were around at least as far back as Fortran 77. Now what is new in Fortran 90 are the ways to manipulate those arrays. In Fortran 77, one could do arithmetic on elements of arrays but not on arrays as a whole, so, for example, adding two arrays in Fortran 77 required DO loops. In Fortran 90, though, one can add arrays A and B with the expression "A + B".

Perhaps less privacy, but I cannot agree.

For instance, in India public kissing is heavily frowned upon.

A quick Google revealed academics actively look into the nuanced realities of the ancient world: https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/8947

I see the no-privacy argument come out a lot recently. I am not a conspiracy theorist but I do have to wonder if some element of the growth in the popularity of the argument comes from people working for social networks, contextual advertisers, cataloguers/mappers, wearable hardware companies, or government agencies, wanting to better have their position justified.

Seems like there's a bit more to the story. The current grave may not be the original one.

Scientific thinking for how the mtDNA proves who the skeleton is can be found on the University of Leicester dedicated website.

From the link you posted:

This means that Richard III, Edward IV and Anne of York all had the same mtDNA – from their mother, Cecily Neville – and as long as Anne’s daughters continued to produce daughters of their own (highly likely in an age when eight to ten children was common!), the mtDNA will have been passed down those lines of descent.

Another advantage of mtDNA is that there are many mitochondria within each cell. DNA starts to degrade after death but with so many copies of the mtDNA, there is a good chance of being able to sequence it – even after 527 years.

Consequently, if the remains found at Greyfriars are indeed Cecily Neville’s son Richard III, the mtDNA present should match that of her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson Michael Ibsen – because there are no males in the line of descent from Cecily to Michael.

I understand the science very well, I am not questioning it. But, if you notice in the last sentence, the one beginning with "Consequently..." the proof relies on their not being any males in the line of descent from Cecily to Michael. I don't have a problem with that since we know that there were such accurate records kept for children born out of wedlock and illicit unions back in those times As such, even though there are no males between Richard III and Michael Ibsen, is it not possible that Cecily Neville had another male offspring? If so, would not the mtDNA also match? I know that this is unlikely, but it is not outside the realm of possibility, history is filled with such stories.

What the science actually shows is that whomever was buried there is a descendent of Cecily Neville. No more or no less. That piece of information taken together with all the other information such as the location of the burial and the former church site, the wounds, etc. gives the probability that this skeleton is indeed Richard III, but it is only when taken together as a whole. The mtDNA, by itself does not prove that, nor does the other evidence, by itself.

Each piece of evidence is used to support the hypothesis that this is Richard III. That is how the scientific method works. If there is overwhelming pieces of evidence so that the probability of the hypothesis being false is so improbable, then we conclude that it is proved. Again, I think that standard has been met, but it is not met solely by the mtDNA because without the supporting evidence, all the mtDNA tells us is that this person is in the family tree (on the other hand, if the mtDNA showed they weren't in the family tree, it could be used to disprove the hypothesis, no matter how overwhelming the other evidence was).

Scientific thinking for how the mtDNA proves who the skeleton is can be found on the University of Leicester dedicated website.

Officially, we're not cattle. So when did making a buck off me start to take precedence over everything in the Bill of Rights?

That's not just a figure of speech. As the (great?)grandparent comment says, it's about impressions. There's plenty of evidence (1, 2, 3, for instance) that ads have the most effect on behavior when you're not paying attention. So the only way for me to stop manipulation of my own mind is not to have those ads in the background in the first place.

But advertisers have some sacred "right" to make a buck that's more important than me making my own decisions. Which is even weirder because, I'm told, the free market depends on informed consumers making free choices.

Let's face it. Advertisers are gunning for a world where our eyelids are propped open with matchsticks while we watch whatever we're told to watch.

This is the real paper, coming in at only 2 pages it's a light read: https://physics.le.ac.uk/journals/index.php/pst/article/viewFile/390/243

You weren't going to RTFA anyway, now were you?..
--

P1_1 Could Bruce Willis Save the World?
Back A, Brown G, Hall B and Turner S
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH.
November 1st, 2011

Abstract
The film Armageddon (1998) puts forward the possibility of using a nuclear weapon buried deep within an Earth-bound asteroid to split the asteroid in two, each half clearing opposite sides of the Earth with only relatively minor damage. This article investigates the feasibility of such a plan and shows that even using the largest nuclear weapon made to date, the bomb comes over 9 orders of magnitude short of the yield required.

[...]

Here are some speculative drawings of the creatures. Getting caught in a swarm of thrashing sharp dental structures would make a good horror film.

Yeah, but "Jawless" doesn't make for the most intimidating title.

Here are some speculative drawings of the creatures. Getting caught in a swarm of thrashing sharp dental structures would make a good horror film.

So, because I don't reject the crushing scientific consensus because you have linked to one paper (that doesn't contradict the consensus that much if you read it), I'm some kind of zealot? Simply because I require a bit more evidence from you, you throw a strop?

Here is a more appropriate paper for someone like you to read: https://physics.le.ac.uk/journals/index.php/pst/article/view/363/204

Close, but you missed the point. Sadly, it doesn't appear that science is well understood on Slashdot anymore.

I provided direct scientific evidence that warming since 1850 is NOT anomalous within the last 2,000 years of history,

See, right there. That's where you are clearly wrong, and prove beyond a doubt that you don't understand science. Nor does the guy who told you what to write here.

Go read Mann's paper I linked to yourself. His EIV method, which he admits is the more accurate, clearly shows a recreation of historic temperatures that exceeds the warming for any modern proxy data. The entire warming from 1850 through to 1990 had been seen or exceeded previously, on multiple occasions over the last 2,000 years. Take your head out of the sand and examine the actual paper.

So, because I don't reject the crushing scientific consensus because you have linked to one paper (that doesn't contradict the consensus that much if you read it), I'm some kind of zealot? Simply because I require a bit more evidence from you, you throw a strop?

Here is a more appropriate paper for someone like you to read: https://physics.le.ac.uk/journals/index.php/pst/article/view/363/204

Close, but you missed the point. Sadly, it doesn't appear that science is well understood on Slashdot anymore.

I provided direct scientific evidence that warming since 1850 is NOT anomalous within the last 2,000 years of history,

See, right there. That's where you are clearly wrong, and prove beyond a doubt that you don't understand science. Nor does the guy who told you what to write here.

So, because I don't reject the crushing scientific consensus because you have linked to one paper (that doesn't contradict the consensus that much if you read it), I'm some kind of zealot? Simply because I require a bit more evidence from you, you throw a strop?

Here is a more appropriate paper for someone like you to read: https://physics.le.ac.uk/journals/index.php/pst/article/view/363/204

Close, but you missed the point. Sadly, it doesn't appear that science is well understood on Slashdot anymore.

I provided direct scientific evidence that warming since 1850 is NOT anomalous within the last 2,000 years of history, and that similar warming to it has occurred multiple times previously. You dismissed the evidence by appealing to SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS!

You see, the scientific method and process doesn't care if 99 people in 100 believe the earth is flat, what matters is the one person with a space shuttle that flies around the earth taking pictures of the fact it is a sphere.

I am NOT misquoting Mann's paper what so ever. He reanalyzed his data with a different and by his own words more accurate statistical method, and his graphs of the results clearly show that the warming since 1850 has been exceeded multiple times before. My CORRECT reading of this very simple graph is further, and irrefutably evidenced by the fact Mann's own conclusion at the end of this paper is to observe that only the last decade is an anomaly, a far step down from his conclusion in his prior paper observing that the last century was the anomaly.

Please, demonstrate that I am wrong in my interpretation or that my source is biased and wrong. Just don't pretend like declaring CONSENSUS in any way trumps hard scientific evidence to the contrary, that's the work of zealots and ludites.

So, because I don't reject the crushing scientific consensus because you have linked to one paper (that doesn't contradict the consensus that much if you read it), I'm some kind of zealot? Simply because I require a bit more evidence from you, you throw a strop?

Here is a more appropriate paper for someone like you to read: https://physics.le.ac.uk/journals/index.php/pst/article/view/363/204

This is not my area at all, but I attended a lecture a couple of years ago by one of the top UK quantum computing researchers (I think it was one of these guys), and I asked him at the end of the lecture how they got the answers 'out' of the quantum element of the computer and into something more conventional to be looked at by humans, processed further etc; he conceded that this was very difficult, and when I pushed him on the hardest question they'd actually solved he wryly admitted that the best they'd done was to factorize 15. Of course, I'm sure that's a huge acheivement to have proved the principle in practice even in a small way, but it is funny everyone heralding the end of cryptography when it seems to be quite some way off.

No, there have however been discussion on the cost of the downlink from the Hubble space telescope: http://www2.le.ac.uk/ebulletin/news/press-releases/2000-2009/2008/05/nparticle.2008-05-12.4476906328

In essence, a sending data via text will give you bills for around GBP 350 per MB. The funny thing with this is of-course that sending texts is basically for the operator free of charge as it is only using excess capacity of the mobile networks, that is, text messages have no guaranteed delivery and will simply be dropped in case a link is congested. The only cost that texts infer are the operational costs with maintaining the servers that manages the texts, but you cannot expect that that will be a very high cost.

Yet it's still cheaper than sending a few text messages to your friends.

I'm sorry but that's crap. Many people die because their parachutes don't open or get tangled. They don't redesign the parachute every time. And the cost is irrelevant. How much more can you spend on a chute to make sure it deploys correctly ? For all we know the chute didn't deploy correctly or tangled, or the gas bags didn't inflate before landing. To say it failed because they spent too much on instrumentation is just ridiculous. And you realise that the Beagle2 used US suppliers (who later pulled out) for airbags and chutes ? Due mainly to their existing reliability record. And that US regulations regarding IP rights and arms shipments prevented the Beagle2 team from knowing the full technical details of the descent systems ? Sure you can throw money at a problem, but you can never ever guarantee success, even on earth let alone on another planet, on a first time mission. There are at least 16 different possibilities as to why the mission failed, ranging from abnormally low atmospheric pressure, to failure of the antenna once the probe was down. Even NASA has had data showing "surprisingly low atmospheric pressure" during the Spirit and Opportunity landings.

Try reading the mission report.(pdf)

The biggest difference I see (as a Sysadmin, not a web developer) is that IIS on an Active Directory domain accessed via Internet Explorer provides single sign on access to web-based tools and applications.

First result on Google, http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/sh23/adldap.html

There is a brain dead easy way to do with YasT on SuSE with Apache's mod_auth_ldap support, by the way.

"more people voted conservative than Labour at the last general election."

Um, sorry but that is complete rubbish. From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4528655.stm
& http://www.le.ac.uk/mc/research/papers/mc05-1.pdf
& http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/2005_british_general_election.htm

Of all valid votes counted:
Labour got 36%,
Conservatives got 33%,
Liberal Democrats got 23%.

Also, although some polls (which are only estimates) did indeed put Conservative support among young people as the highest of the major 3 parties, adding up the votes of the two 'left leaning' parties (i.e. Labour & Liberal Democrats) shows far more young people voted for 'left leaning' parties rather than 'right leaning' parties (as is consistent with general political attitudes of younger voters in most western countries).

Perhaps that is part of the reason why we americans do not rate very highly on the global happiness scale.

Of course - you may want to have some kind of traceability but it shall not infringe on the vote secrecy. There may be valid cases where you actually want a specific traceability, like when each machine is set up you will want to verify that it actually works, which means that test votes has to be cast and these have to be dismissed when the votes are counted.

Wouldn't that assume substantial mixing with a larger gene pool? If there's little mixing then it wouldn't be surprising if the genetic propensity to, for example, have "big noses" -- thanks a lot to the Chinese for that joke at the expense of us Westerners! -- might well be inherited since it would come not from *one* ancestor but *many*.

But I suspect they will be looking at the Y-Chromosome, which is inherited in the direct male line. So there you have a single thread going right back. It's where I would start. If there's a possibility this population descends in part from foreign soldiers, the direct male line seems the place to look first.

http://www.le.ac.uk/genetics/maj4/project.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome#Genetic_ genealogy

We've had one of the proponents of yootles (I'm not going to embarrass him by name) on the International Journal of Community Currencies (ijccr) mailing list (on Yahoo).

All I see was/is an attempt to create a currency to monetize favours, which (IMHO) ought to be freely given in an elightened society anyway. This is probably an attempt to talk up something that is not to do with the 'wisdom of crowds' anyway.

For anyone interested in community currencies and with a little patience, I'd suggest the above list and http://www.le.ac.uk/ulmc/ijccr/ the journal itself.

Actually, Denmark is the happiest place to live with the happiest people so bollocks to Ireland at #11.

http://www.le.ac.uk/pc/aw57/world/sample.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/uol -uol072706.php

And that's completely false what you're saying about Germans, Dutch, and Scandinavian people having no sense of humour. The Dutch are pioneers of hilarious commercials and when you go out in the evening anywhere in Scandinavia all people are doing are telling jokes, funny stories, and laughing. Germans might not laugh very much, or smile very much at that, but it doesn't mean they don't have a sense of humour. They laugh at the fact that so many people in Ireland died of starvation during the "potato famine" of 1845-1849 when Ireland is completely surrounded by water. All they had to do was go fishing.

oh yeah, tell me about it.

My university (University of Leicester, wwwl.e.ac.uk) has just starting allowing remote access to files using webDAV. Internet explorer supports it so windows supports it, theres especially good apple support for it and KDE and Gnome have good support too.

you can check out their support page on it here: http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/cfs/files/webaccess.html

A couple of years ago an entirely different impact crater was discovered in Australia, with preliminary dating indicating that it happened at about the same time as this one. It, too, is huge -- not as monstrous as this here Antarctica sockdollager, but apparently about as apocalyptic as the one that reputedly KO'd the dinosaurs. Considering the history of our Solar System, I don't think that a multiple-impact armaggedon is at all out of the question. Hell, maybe we'll find even more impact craters, and have to come to the conclusion that it was some kind of supersized rain of fire that reset the planetary ecology switch.

And then, of course, we shouldn't forget about the largest volcanic eruption in the history of the planet that sparked up at just about the same time, too. An area roughly the size of Scandinavia simply melted into a mass of sulfurous, poisonous, volcanic goo for a couple of million years before settling down. I'm not terribly firm on my Permian Era geography, but I'd be willing to bet that the Siberian Traps event was pretty close to the opposite side of the planet at the time of the impacts.

You are absolutely right. And if a random quick check reveals evidence for a BSE case in the US, then the material has to be validated again by a specialized (say qualified) lab in the UK where they use reliable tests.

But, you cannot donate blood in the US if you lived in Europe.
http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/blood/supp ly/tse/bsepolicy.html
Of course, Europeans donate blood for Europeans, without a problem. The problem is that people in the US confuse the UK with the EU. Anybody who thinks that there had been an epidemic in the EU should compare the numbers in the entire EU, except for the UK (!), with the US. Good morning, America!
The point is, we need to get the facts right and learn from mistakes. Otherwise we end up with a situation like the one we had in the UK. For some reason beyond my comprehension it seems we are facing a lot of FUD on the one hand side and total ignorance on the other hand.

BTW the biography of Dr. Hans-Gerhard Creutzfeldt and his family is quite interesting.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Gerhard_Creutzfe ldt
http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/91.html

Lots of information about prions has been published over the past century.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/marcblum/PageCreutzfeld-Ja cob.html
http://www-micro.msb.le.ac.uk/3035/prions.html

For the vast majority of open source projects, saying that they won't make it in "the Enterprise" is about as relevant as saying that cows will never use the iPod.

Are you sure about that? If they're not using iPods yet, it's only a matter of time. Maybe apple will make a cow-print-cover iPod shuffle with special bovine headphones available as an accessory from the apple store.

For those of you interested in what supernovae core collapse might look like, there are some simulated animations in the link below. Very pretty too.

http://www.astro.le.ac.uk/~rt53/work/index.html

Cheers,

Roger

bloat is bloat

I'm an rc user

i like my startup times to tend toward 0 =)

http://www-micro.msb.le.ac.uk/video/mite.html

The new standard

Vaporware.

My 4-year-old motherboard boots USB fine as does every one from the last five years I've ever seen

Limited, as I said.

I have yet to see a firewire-booting one.

All Macs with built in Firewire can do it. Vaio's can do it. Some Asus boards can do it. There are probably more computers that support 1394 booting that USB booting.

simply have the brain-damaged individual put all of his desk things into a cardboard box and walk him kindly to the exit.
Repeat the process until all the brain damage has been detected and burned away

Before and after.

-

yes, but significant climate change is occuring now in mere generations rather than over k's of years.
This article is more to do with global warming (as opposed to ozone depletion), but it gives a good perspective.

it was clear that the oceans would die by the turn of the century, the ozone hole would be so large it would cover parts of Africa, people would be dieing of radiation poisoning from the sun... etc etc etc.

Weren't the ice caps supposed to be all gone soon?

Proof has been constantly cited since the 70s and yet all the dire predictions have come to naught.

A few good volcanoes provide visible effect that the public can see and in some cases experience.

• RealClimate.org
• The Discovery of Global Warming
• Global Warming FAQ
• http://ebulletin.le.ac.uk/features/2000-2009/2004/ 12/nparticle-vkt-hgf-t4c
• International Panel on Climate Change

And the reason you think this, in spite of the evidence gathered by thousands of scientists and decades of research published in reputable peer-reviewed journals is... what, exactly?

> A volcano can dump more greenhouse gasses in an hour than man can
> produce in a year.
>

This is completely incorrect. It's just > WRONG. Human CO2 emissions are many, many times larger than the largest volcanic eruptions. I don't know where you think you're getting your information from...

> We can little affect the global climate fir good or bad.
>

You're so badly misinformed it hurts. Go get yourself a hot steaming cup of clue:

• RealClimate.org
• The Discovery of Global Warming
• Global Warming FAQ
• http://ebulletin.le.ac.uk/features/2000-2009/2004/ 12/nparticle-vkt-hgf-t4c
• International Panel on Climate Change

Hey, fella, guess what? You're in luck!The consensus on human CO2 emissions causing climate change is about as solid as you can get - despite what the oil-lobby, uninformed trolls and assorted net.kooks would have you believe.

• RealClimate.org
• The Discovery of Global Warming
• Global Warming FAQ
• http://ebulletin.le.ac.uk/features/2000-2009/2004/ 12/nparticle-vkt-hgf-t4c
• International Panel on Climate Change

Only in the sense that 'no-one really knows how gravity works'. Strictly speaking it's correct, but it doesn't mean you want to go jumping off a tall building.

Please educate yourself.

• RealClimate.org
• http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
• Global Warming FAQ
• http://ebulletin.le.ac.uk/features/2000-2009/2004/ 12/nparticle-vkt-hgf-t4c

There's record levels of CO2 already. We will need to convert to a carbon-less form of fuel, like hydrogen. Hydrogen conceivably replaces gas in cars as the portable fuel of the future. Produced, of course, by non-fossil fuel sources.

That being said, I really love driving behind my friend's SVO biodiesel school bus....mmmmm, French Fries.

Read the second article for your answers, save you time, here's the link.

In fact, save you even more time researching such a boring subject, it will definitely be bad.

LOL. There is no such thing. Statistics are by definition quantitative. I thought you had taken a course in statistics.

First, HIV is a retrovirus. It doesn't care about receptors. If you read the linked reference, you'll observe they carry spikes to burst through the membrane. Hence, your argument that the receptor is blocked would appear to not be worth a damn, since the virus doesn't need to attach to one.

I might conceed on the B-cell/T-cell argument, as that seems to be the prevaling theory. Maybe not quite just yet, though. Since B-cells and T-cells work together, and viruses aren't exactly endowed with vision, I want a credible argument as to why you believe that B-cells aren't affected. And, no, just because that's the popular belief is NOT a good enough answer. Microbiology is not a democracy. Viruses don't give a damn about consensus. On the other hand, virologists DO give a damn, because most of their money comes from the Government, which is notoriously stingy when it comes to the sciences.

As for the self-destruct, that bit is insanely obvious. Remember the law of conservation of matter? Retroviruses don't just vanish, if they fail in an attack on a given cell. They'll keep on attacking, until they successfully invade a cell or are destroyed by some process or other.

If the immune system of person X is NOT detecting the virus and is NOT attacking it, then whatever process is used to eliminate the virus cannot include the immune system. Duh.

The virus, if it cannot do anything at all, will simply exist in the body. It won't multiply, because it can't break in anywhere, but it won't die off - viruses are practically immortal. They are very stable molecule chains, for the most part.

Under those specific conditions, the only way you're going to reduce the number is if the virus attacks a cell, but the cell incapacitates the virus by incapacitating itself. There are simply no other mechanisms that'll do the job. You're quite welcome to argue that "that doesn't happen in practice", or "it doesn't work that way" as much as you like. What happens in any given case is not the point.

The point is, if you have some given number of viral strands - N, say - then N can go up (the virus has turned a cell into a replicating factory for the virus), it can stay the same (the virus and the body don't interact at all), or it can drop. There are no other possibilities.

In the case where someone isn't (apparently) dying off from HIV, then it's reasonable to assume N is not increasing.

If, in that same case, we can prove that the immune system isn't responding, then we can eliminate the largest contributor to N falling.

Now all we have to show is that N is not remaining the same. That's tougher. For this, I'm going to assume that virologists have done the obvious, which is to take blood and cell samples from where HIV should be present, and injected those into labratory animals that can be infected with HIV.

Assuming this to be the case, and assuming that N is remaining constant, then some percent of these animals should become HIV positive. If that was happening, we'd know in an instant that these people were not immune to the virus at all.

Researchers, though, are pretty clear on their argument that some resistance must exist. They didn't just pluck this idea out of thin air. Ergo, they've done the tests and have shown a statistically low probability of the virus merely cohabiting the body.

None of this is rocket science, and I really cannot comprehend why you're so freaked out over it. Unless you're in line for next year's Nobel prize, for discovering an AIDS vaccine, you need to learn how to argue in a less hostile way.

Immunodeficiency is not incomp

"graduates are automatically awarded the status of Chartered Engineers."

Index Name: 1H-Purine-2,6-dione, 3,7-dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl- (9CI)

Other Names: Caffeine (8CI); 1,3,7-Trimethyl-2,6-dioxopurine; 1,3,7-Trimethylxanthine; 3,7-Dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione; 7-Methyltheophylline; Alert-Pep; Cafeina; Caffein; Cafipel; Guaranine; Koffein; Mateina; Methyltheobromine; No-Doz; Refresh'n; Stim; Thein; Theine; Tri-Aqua

Formula: C8 H10 N4 O2

Structure: Picture here

"I'm sorry, man. I'm just talkin' outta my ass."