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For any regulators reading /.: All those things, and Chuck E Cheese, and McDonalds Monopoly, and games with loot drops and a real money auction house (or login credentials not tied immutably to a single human person) are "gambling", but none of them are Gambling.

If you want to ban companies from marketing rainbow strobelight Skinner boxes to kids because they're harmful to the kids (and their parents' bank accounts), go for it. With my blessing! But calling in-game orbs and in-game dragon sweaters—neither of which can be converted into currency—things of value sufficient to constitute gambling is quite a stretch.

in this case it's being done for a very positive reason, which is that it's known to reduce the transmission of AIDS

Nope, the preponderance of evidence say the transmission of AIDS is either unaffected or enhanced by circumcision.

Almost any claims that circumcision protects from AIDS quote the infamous Camp Orange/Orange Farms study. That study consists of an egregious list of scientific misconduct. For example, the circumcised group had received sexual education while the control group did not -- so it's not surprising that men who had a downtime and were taught safe(r) practices will have less AIDS. The researchers' bias was so strong they immediately destroyed the control group "so they can benefit too" before even the data was tabulated.

Let's take a look at other studies:small increase of risk; no effect; large increase. Or for gay men: UK, US, Scotland.

On the other hand, there's a significant increase of MtF transmission.

But, if a study is funded by the Gates Foundation, it will be stopped early "because of futility" of protection, while in fact the preliminary data show a strong increase of risk.

Or, papers outright lie about the conclusion: "Declining Rates in Male Circumcision amidst Increasing Evidence of its Public Health Benefit -- in all categories other than one the "benefit" is negative, and the only category where circumcision slightly wins (heterosexuals with syphilis) had a sample of 6.

(though I'm circumcised, as are most American men, and I don't consider myself "mutilated"

I'm sorry for you. Alas, people who suffer from some malady tend to have a strong bias that "it's the right thing to do". For example, the strongest driver for female circumcision are older women who were circumcised themselves. Same for the deaf.

even if it does (theoretically) reduce a little sexual pleasure

"theoretically", "a little"?!? While you're unable to make this test yourself, you can ask an intact friend: wear regular underwear (ie, not commando, not boxers), retract the foreskin, try walking. For extra bonus, do it where there are people around so you can't adjust (this randomly happened to me a couple times). The chafing is so strong it's a pain. If penises get so calloused such chafing is not noticeable, there's hardly any feeling left.

Yes, I've mentioned this before-- if there are bacteria on Mars, they will be extreme halophiles.
http://online.liebertpub.com/d...
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.js...

...in the absence of trees. We've removed half of them in the past 100 years. That's what's killing us here, we actually need the extra carbon or we'll starve, see the math here:

http://www.liebertpub.com/MCon...

However, the last 50 years has seen the size of this swing has increase by as 50%, for reasons that aren't fully understood. "

The fact we've cut 40% of the worlds trees down in the past 100 years are nothing to do with this. What does NASA know anyway?

Who writes this stuff?

Plants producing net CO2 gain has to be the the most asinine thing I've ever read about Co2.

Contraindication: http://www.liebertpub.com/MCon...

You're logic is bad, and you should feel bad for using it.

a recent comparison of aggression and hostility occurring during treatment with fluoxetine to placebo in children and adolescents found that no significant difference between the fluoxetine group and a placebo group.[62] There is also evidence that higher rates of SSRI prescriptions are associated with lower rates of suicide in children, though since the evidence is correlational, the true nature of the relationship is unclear.[63]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://online.liebertpub.com/d...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

It's easy enough to simulate martian conditions here on earth, which is a more controlled and far cheaper means of experiment. It was found that certain lichen can do quite well, although note that this was on the assumption that water would be available.

It would probably be best not to introduce earth microbes before a full terraforming plan is developed. The population might explode, consume all the available micronutrients, and then die off. Or it might become a pest, inhibiting the release of other, more useful microorganisms later on. And it might obscure any extant martian microorganisms or micoorganism fossils when those could provide a far better template than earth-based extremophiles. We'll want something robust and sustainable, a planned ecosystem genetically engineered to produce all the right byproducts and which changes in concert with the alterations to atmosphere, global temperature, and soil composition without any unintended extinction events.

Back in 1986 they regrew the thymus in rats. And actually a guy named Greg Fahy already regrew his own thymus a few years ago .. I dont understand how people can't use Google.

1986 article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...

Regrowth of thymus in human: http://online.liebertpub.com/d...

They stopped regrowing the thymus in humans because they don't know if it may have a negative effect to have the thymus in an adult since the thymus normally is completely degraded (evolution may have programmed it to degrade for a reason).

Here's a paper that says unless we have more CO2 we're not going to be able to grow enough food to feed the world in the future:

http://www.liebertpub.com/MCon...

All plants have a temperature range they're happy in. Irelands used to grow wheat, but when it cold colder and wetter they switch to potatoes. The kind of temperature increases being talked about (that didn't happen) aren't going to affect anything.

Water matters more. And it's known when you cut down all the trees, rain sorta stops - think of trees as hydraulic pumps that squite water into the air from the ground and you'd not be too wrong.

We've killed half the trees in the last 100 years.

Is there a chance AGW is a smoke screen for that?

AGW has also attenuated discussion of pollution, any chance AGW is a smokescreen for that?

http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...

Co2 keeps going up, but temperatures haven't risen as projected. Does that mean mother nature is wrong or the IPCC model is? Pick one.

http://www.economist.com/news/...

And wrong. The link you gave does not disprove it, it simply points out they don't know. We knew that already. Others so though. They're called "botanists".

All plant life on earth is carbon limited. You are aware CAM plants can handle hundreds of times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere now, right? Why do you suppose that is?

Suggest you talk to people that actually grow plants. There isn't one that doesn't respond positively to increased CO2; it's used in commercial production of both aquatic and terrestrial plants and a whole industry exists to supply those needs.

People don't buy them because they don't work. THey're not cheap either. Even the coral reef guys have to add CO2.

These jokers have been denying CO2's role or ages. In 2010 they "discovered" this (what any firsr year botany student already knew)

"Forests play a larger role in Earth's climate system than previously suspected for both the risks from deforestation and the potential gains from regrowth, a benchmark study released Thursday has shown.

The study, published in Science, provides the most accurate measure so far of the amount of greenhouse gases absorbed from the atmosphere by tropical, temperate and boreal forests, researchers said.

"This is the first complete and global evidence of the overwhelming role of forests in removing anthropogenic carbon dioxide," said co-author Josep Canadell, a scientist at CSIRO, Australia's national climate research centre in Canberra.

"If you were to stop deforestation tomorrow, the world's established and regrowing forests would remove half of fossil fuel emissions," he told AFP, describing the findings as both "incredible" and "unexpected".

http://www.google.com/hostedne...

Cough. Choke. "unexpected". Please...

Maybe it's something to do with NASA in 2009 figuring out is plants get bigger because of more CO2, they use more CO2. It only took biologists 20 years of nagging to get them to add this term.

"8th December 2010 13:24 GMT - A group of top NASA and NOAA scientists say that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise."

"New NASA model: Doubled CO2 means just 1.64C warming
'Important to get these things right', says scientist"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

Then there's this paper that shows without more CO2 we won't be able to grow enough food for a more populous world:
http://www.liebertpub.com/MCon...

You really haven't read this stuff?

Whay do you feel qualified to discuss something you know so little about?

Actually what I meant to say is "Of course the military can't afford to be wrong. That's why they spend five trillion dollars in Iraq looking for WMD they could never find". Of course they knew they had them because they had the receipts from when they (covertly) sold them to them. (Ref: "_Why We Fight_")

The biggest threat of this century is crap like Fukushima, the BP oil spill, the Gulf dead zone. All that coral that was supposed to be dying from acidification and warming? Turns out it was all pollution - it only occurs near man - in the open ocean, they're fine and there are a bunch of papers on this.

One could argue AGW noise obfuscates public discourse of pollution:
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...

As for the crap about growing food, you are aware all plant life on earth is carbon limited, right?

Here's a paper that shows unless CO2 goes up we won't be able to feed an increased population:
http://www.liebertpub.com/MCon...

Dyson eludes to this, but here's some real numbers.

RE: http://lissakr11humane.com/201... The United States of America is on a global murder spree headed by fbi/cia/dod/nsa icluding threatening and overthrowing governments and assassinations all in favor of USA's plan for world inhumane domination. http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/part... fbi's Cointelpro operative seeks to discredit this combat war vet (& fbi whistleblower) by claiming that vet's service makes him a murderer and possibly a mass murderer. http://sosbeevfbi.ning.com/pro... ELF: http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/high... Synthetic Kidney Stone: http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/part... http://online.liebertpub.com/d... Dilemma http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/dile... Cointelpro: http://neworleans.indymedia.or... http://www.indymedia.org.nz/ar... Ad: http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/Reso... http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/holl... http://neworleans.indymedia.or... http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/fbic...

Some of the original research in this area was carried out by Angelika Domschke (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/angelika-domschke/19/709/824). For example, this study happened back in 2006 - http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/dia.2006.8.89.

Fun fact - Google tried to recruit her and she turned them down after meeting their team.

What does "boosted" actually mean? Fuck all

The study is linked to in the story. Are you saying that the abstract (extract below) or paper give enough details for you, or didn't you read them?

Hmm, something is up. I read the summary and the article. After reading your post I re-read the article looking for the details you linked. I still don't see them. Thanks for those links, cold fjord.

What does "boosted" actually mean? Fuck all

The study is linked to in the story. Are you saying that the abstract (extract below) or paper give enough details for you, or didn't you read them?

Hmm, something is up. I read the summary and the article. After reading your post I re-read the article looking for the details you linked. I still don't see them. Thanks for those links, cold fjord.

I'm not saying it's bad science, I'm just saying there's another article about junk science on slashdo

Or is it that you just didn't ready any of the study?

What does "boosted" actually mean? Fuck all

The study is linked to in the story. Are you saying that the abstract (extract below) or paper give enough details for you, or didn't you read them?

On the days after the reading, significant increases in connectivity were centered on hubs in the left angular/supramarginal gyri and right posterior temporal gyri. These hubs corresponded to regions previously associated with perspective taking and story comprehension, and the changes exhibited a timecourse that decayed rapidly after the completion of the novel. Long-term changes in connectivity, which persisted for several days after the reading, were observed in bilateral somatosensory cortex, suggesting a potential mechanism for “embodied semantics.”

What does "boosted" actually mean? Fuck all

The study is linked to in the story. Are you saying that the abstract (extract below) or paper give enough details for you, or didn't you read them?

On the days after the reading, significant increases in connectivity were centered on hubs in the left angular/supramarginal gyri and right posterior temporal gyri. These hubs corresponded to regions previously associated with perspective taking and story comprehension, and the changes exhibited a timecourse that decayed rapidly after the completion of the novel. Long-term changes in connectivity, which persisted for several days after the reading, were observed in bilateral somatosensory cortex, suggesting a potential mechanism for “embodied semantics.”

Triclosan is a widely used biocide that is considered as an effective antimicrobial agent against different microorganisms. It is included in many contemporary consumer and personal health-care products, like oral and dermal products, but also in household items, including plastics and textiles. At bactericidal concentrations, triclosan appears to act upon multiple nonspecific targets, causing disruption of bacterial cell wall functions, while at sublethal concentrations, triclosan affects specific targets. During the 1990s, bacterial isolates with reduced susceptibility to triclosan were produced in laboratory experiments by repeated exposure to sublethal concentrations of the agent. Since 2000, a number of studies have verified the occurrence of triclosan resistance amongst dermal, intestinal, and environmental microorganisms, including some of clinical relevance. Of major concern is the possibility that triclosan resistance may contribute to reduced susceptibility to clinically important antimicrobials, due to either cross-resistance or co-resistance mechanisms. Although the number of studies elucidating the association between triclosan resistance and resistance to other antimicrobials in clinical isolates has been limited, recent laboratory studies have confirmed the potential for such a link in Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica. Thus, widespread use of triclosan may represent a potential public health risk in regard to development of concomitant resistance to clinically important antimicrobials.

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/mdr.2006.12.83?journalCode=mdr

Forgot the link to the study I got that information from:

Li, Y., & Jin, L. (2011). Environmental release of mercury from broken compact fluorescent lamps.
Environmental Engineering Science, 28(10), 687–691. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/ees.2011.0027

Follow for PDF of complete article:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/ees.2011.0027

Gene therapy, in short. They would infect you with a virus (probably a retrovirus, ironically enough) that carries a mutant copy of the HIV-1 Tat gene. Normal Tat is a gene that drastically increases HIV production. HIV hijacks the machinery of human T-cells to make copies of its own genes. The protein that Tat codes for has a nasty trick- it binds to transcription factors in your cells and and increases their output- more HIV production, which includes more Tat production, which causes more HIV production, and the disease explosively progresses. It is thought that reaching a critical mass of Tat is a key element in the transition from HIV infection to AIDS. But if you had a mutant Tat that counteracted this activity, HIV production would only occur at a baseline rate- you'd never get that Tat-HIV-Tat positive feedback.

Here's the article abstract which has some of the technical details. MLV is the murine (mouse) leukemia virus.

"as ecosystems ADJUST, funny how log lasting natural systems tend to be highly resilient and self-adjusting"

I've been pointing this out since 1985. Nobody listens.

In 2010 NASA and the NOAA bitch slaped the IPCC with this. "Your model is broken".

"8th December 2010 13:24 GMT - A group of top NASA and NOAA scientists say that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/08/new_model_doubled_co2_sub_2_degrees_warming/

This guy says unless CO2 rises, we won't be able to grow enough food to feed a more populous world. Grow food... uses CO2... at this point some sort of light should go off over your head. http://www.liebertpub.com/MContent/Files/Kleinman_ch19_p379-398.pdf

Keep in mind it's not so much CO2 output from man as it is REMOVING ALL THE FUCKING TREES. It didn't work so well in the Dust Bowl (thank you Ken Burns) and apparently this is some sort of revelation to those who study CO2 (wot?)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j2BAdNIG5Q2FJlEdac1l-KXiTSCA?docId=CNG.dfe97e07f144a2d29eb615412e0c12be.a81

The rate of deforestation has increased. Go do a flyover of Borneo Island in the good and understand 95% of that island is unexplored. Now most of the trees are gone. Same in Brazil.

Actually there is a paper that's done the math and pointed out unless CO rises even further, then we're not going to be able to grow enough food to feed everybody. So quit whining and enjoy the warm weather until peak carbon kicks in.

http://www.liebertpub.com/MContent/Files/Kleinman_ch19_p379-398.pdf

Not only that, but this guy says if we don't have more CO2 we're not going to be able to grow enough food for the planet.
http://www.liebertpub.com/MContent/Files/Kleinman_ch19_p379-398.pdf

I hate to state the obvious but do you suppose there's a chance that the balance of trees to CO2 got a bit messed up when we cut them all down?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j2BAdNIG5Q2FJlEdac1l-KXiTSCA?docId=CNG.dfe97e07f144a2d29eb615412e0c12be.a81

Maybe... put the trees back? If everybody on the planet planted 10 fast growing and 10 slow growing trees... well, do the math.
Or maybe a lot of C4 plants, the ones that use crazy amounts of CO2 and do really well when CO2 is high (the historical maximum is 7000ppm, we're at about 400ppm now).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation
"Today, C4 plants represent about 5% of Earth's plant biomass and 3% of its known plant species.[13][9] Despite this scarcity, they account for about 30% of terrestrial carbon fixation.[10] Increasing the proportion of C4 plants on earth could assist biosequestration of CO2 and represent an important climate change avoidance strategy. Present-day C4 plants are concentrated in the tropics and subtropics (below latitudes of 45) where the high air temperature contributes to higher possible levels of oxygenase activity by RuBisCO, which increases rates of photorespiration in C3 plants."

And no excess heat. The plan in TFA sounds to me like introducing cane toads to Australia.

"We depend on a working ecosystem to perform vital tasks from cleaning air and water"

That's right, and if you want to accelerate that, add CO2. Ask anbody that actually knows about this stuff.

This guy says in a recent paper, if we don't make more CO2 we won't be able to feed the planet soon. And given they left the parts where accelerated plant growth has a cooling effect in their model, there's some speculation we haven't arrived exactly at the truth yet and calling it settled science is vastly premature.

http://www.liebertpub.com/MContent/Files/Kleinman_ch19_p379-398.pdf

Yes, a selected article from the daily mail the meets your bias. yes, how thoughtful you are. And by 'thoughtful' I mean 'wrong'.

http://www.kenburbary.com/2011/03/facebook-demographics-revisited-2011-statistics-2/

Did you even read you link? gosh, people between the age of 18 and 25 are insecure and narcissistic? wow, what a finding. Of course, it's not even the largest demographic on Facebook, and Facebook is larger then 1 Canadian college, and the tested 100 people.

So..nothing really.
in fact, the study was more focused on self presentation.
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2009.0257?journalCode=cyber

I mentioned somewhere in this thread that an old friend of mine is working on taking phage therapy mainstream in the US.

As for links, there are quite a few. Forgive me if you can't see them all, as I am at a terminal in a university right now, so lots of things are available to me for free:

http://ramsites.net/~mhickson/1934.pdf
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51637351_Bacteriophage_therapy_potential_uses_in_the_control_of_antibiotic-resistant_pathogens
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-03/next-phage
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jamp.2008.0701

There are many papers out there. You can google "phage therapy" and probably come up with many more.

And to answer your question, it is out of the "good idea" stage, and is now moving out of the "FDA approval" stage and into the clinic. I don't know if you can get it just yet, but if you can't, it won't be long. You just have to find some place that does it.

Yeah this is a pretty unscientific study. Disappointing from Cornell.

Come now, you're dissing this 'must read' journal:

The journal is a "must read" for psychologists; sociologists; designers and developers of internet technology, mobile devices, and online and virtual games; business executives; educators, and opinion leaders interested in the effects of interactive technologies. The journal’s expanded coverage explores the impact of Social networks, Internet, multi-media, and virtual reality on behavior and society.

I mean, it was peer reviewed! Scientific Goodness! Truth, justice and the American Way! This will change everything! While not bothering to read TFA, I would wager there is a p value or two thrown about in an intellectual manner.

/snark attack OFF

Sounds like another publication to feed the ever expanding appetite for junk 'science'. Grr. I'm just going to crawl back in bed until it's time for my noonday meds.

Mehdizadeh went on to say "that's why so many people get paranoid if their boss sees them on Facebook. They're worried that they don't project the same image there that they project in their workplace."

Yeah or you know the reason the rest of us get nervous is the fact that you're not doing work if you're on Facebook. Unless he means 'on Facebook' outside of work and then it's probably closer to the fact that you can't always control what goes on on Facebook unless you don't allow anything on your page. It's for socializing, not working so therein lies the paranoia regardless of whether or not you're a narcissist.

Here is the abstract of the article:

Lavert, PH et al. A Preliminary Study of Intravenous Surfactants in Paraplegic Dogs: Polymer Therapy in Canine Clinical SCI. Journal of Neurotrauma. December 2004, Vol. 21, No. 12, Pages 1767-1777

Hydrophilic polymers, both surfactants and triblock polymers, are known to seal defects in cell membranes. In previous experiments using laboratory animals, we have exploited this capability using polyethylene glycol (PEG) to repair spinal axons after severe, standardized spinal cord injury (SCI) in guinea pigs. Similar studies were conducted using a related co-polymer Poloxamer 188 (P 188). Here we carried out initial investigations of an intravenous application of PEG or P 188 (3500 Daltons, 30% w/w in saline; 2 mL/kg I.V. and 2 mL/kg body weight or 300 mL P 188 per kg, respectively) to neurologically complete cases of paraplegia in dogs. Our aim was to first determine if this is a clinically safe procedure in cases of severe naturally occurring SCI in dogs. Secondarily, we wanted to obtain preliminary evidence if this therapy could be of clinical benefit when compared to a larger number of similar, but historical, control cases. Strict entry criteria permitted recruitment of only neurologically complete paraplegic dogs into this study. Animals were treated by a combination of conventional and experimental techniques within 72 h of admission for spinal trauma secondary to acute, explosive disk herniation. Outcome measures consisted of measurements of voluntary ambulation, deep and superficial pain perception, conscious proprioception in hindlimbs, and evoked potentials (somatosensory evoked potentials [SSEP]). We determined that polymer injection is a safe adjunct to the conventional management of severe neurological injury in dogs. We did not observe any unacceptable clinical response to polymer injection; there were no deaths, nor any other problem arising from, or associated with, the procedures. Outcome measures over the 68-week trial were improved by polymer injection when compared to historical cases. This recovery was unexpectedly rapid compared to these comparator groups. The results of this pilot trial provides evidence consistent with the notion that the injection of inorganic polymers in acute neurotrauma may be a simple and useful intervention during the acute phase of the injury.

Eponymous Mallard. "It it quacks like a duck, it may be the Eponymous Mallard."

The original paper in question here was called "Reassessing the Possibility of Life on Venus: Proposal for an Astrobiology Mission" and published in a journal called "Astrobiology."

Please note that the title of the damn paper is not "Merchants of Venus Discovered, Are Selling Us Meat," but, it appears to me to be an optimistic proposal for another venusian probe.

The original publication by the authors describing their methods and partially also their motivation is available for free. You can get it here.