Slashdot Mirror

Agreed. But just like last time, the Slashdot summary is completely wrong. Last time, the linked article was titled "Nanowire battery can hold 10 times the charge of existing lithium-ion battery" and the Slashdot summary summarized "A laptop that now runs on battery for two hours could operate for 20 hours..."

This time, the linked article mis-reported, and the Slashdot summary followed. The Slashdot summary is also inconsistent with itself: It refers to "increased battery capacity" and then has the title "Nanotech Anode Promises 10X Battery Life". "Capacity" is not "lifetime"; it is proportional to energy density.

In both cases it is about the same research and publication in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, which I link to in my first post in this story: abstract, fulltext, fulltext pdf - for some reason they are all freely downloadable. In terms of "battery life", they have only demonstrated 30 cycles (data in the supporting information for the paper), and only 10 in the actual paper!

Agreed. But just like last time, the Slashdot summary is completely wrong. Last time, the linked article was titled "Nanowire battery can hold 10 times the charge of existing lithium-ion battery" and the Slashdot summary summarized "A laptop that now runs on battery for two hours could operate for 20 hours..."

This time, the linked article mis-reported, and the Slashdot summary followed. The Slashdot summary is also inconsistent with itself: It refers to "increased battery capacity" and then has the title "Nanotech Anode Promises 10X Battery Life". "Capacity" is not "lifetime"; it is proportional to energy density.

In both cases it is about the same research and publication in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, which I link to in my first post in this story: abstract, fulltext, fulltext pdf - for some reason they are all freely downloadable. In terms of "battery life", they have only demonstrated 30 cycles (data in the supporting information for the paper), and only 10 in the actual paper!

The Slashdot summary correctly draws from the news.com article, but the news.com article is mis-reporting this news. It is not battery life that is being discussed but rather energy density. Capacity has never referred to battery life. The Nature Nanotechnology journal article in question (abstract, fulltext, pdf - for some reason they are all freely downloadable) reports that their Si nanowire anode has a little more than 10 times the capacity of common graphite anodes, and they have achieved that in charging and 75% of that in discharging.

In terms of cycles, they have data in their supporting info document that shows they have only tested a cell with this electrode up to 30 cycles! So no discussion of battery life can even be made.

Energy density can be found by knowing the capacity of each electrode, the electrolyte properties and volume, and the cell voltage (which is usually about 4 V for Li-ion batteries). They claim to have reached their theoretical maximum 4200 mAh/g capacity for a Si electrode. This is indeed ~10x the capacity of graphite anodes, which are the lowest capacity anodes used in Li-ion batteries (300-400 mAh/g). More common carbon (C6) anodes are about twice that. And, in fact, Li metal anodes have about the same capacity, 3800 to 4000 mAh/g, as these Si nanowires. So the capacity is hardly a breakthrough. However, they may be more safe than Li metal: "Li metal" batteries are Li-ion batteries with Li metal electrodes, which have had safety issues due to Li dendrites (trees) growing between electrodes and shorting out the cell. This article (needs subscription) from years back explains the details of electrode choices and other challenges regarding Li-ion and Li metal batteries. It seems these Si nanowire electrodes may yield similar energy density to Li metal, or several times that of the Li-ion batteries that are in common use.

The Slashdot summary correctly draws from the news.com article, but the news.com article is mis-reporting this news. It is not battery life that is being discussed but rather energy density. Capacity has never referred to battery life. The Nature Nanotechnology journal article in question (abstract, fulltext, pdf - for some reason they are all freely downloadable) reports that their Si nanowire anode has a little more than 10 times the capacity of common graphite anodes, and they have achieved that in charging and 75% of that in discharging.

In terms of cycles, they have data in their supporting info document that shows they have only tested a cell with this electrode up to 30 cycles! So no discussion of battery life can even be made.

Energy density can be found by knowing the capacity of each electrode, the electrolyte properties and volume, and the cell voltage (which is usually about 4 V for Li-ion batteries). They claim to have reached their theoretical maximum 4200 mAh/g capacity for a Si electrode. This is indeed ~10x the capacity of graphite anodes, which are the lowest capacity anodes used in Li-ion batteries (300-400 mAh/g). More common carbon (C6) anodes are about twice that. And, in fact, Li metal anodes have about the same capacity, 3800 to 4000 mAh/g, as these Si nanowires. So the capacity is hardly a breakthrough. However, they may be more safe than Li metal: "Li metal" batteries are Li-ion batteries with Li metal electrodes, which have had safety issues due to Li dendrites (trees) growing between electrodes and shorting out the cell. This article (needs subscription) from years back explains the details of electrode choices and other challenges regarding Li-ion and Li metal batteries. It seems these Si nanowire electrodes may yield similar energy density to Li metal, or several times that of the Li-ion batteries that are in common use.

The Slashdot summary correctly draws from the news.com article, but the news.com article is mis-reporting this news. It is not battery life that is being discussed but rather energy density. Capacity has never referred to battery life. The Nature Nanotechnology journal article in question (abstract, fulltext, pdf - for some reason they are all freely downloadable) reports that their Si nanowire anode has a little more than 10 times the capacity of common graphite anodes, and they have achieved that in charging and 75% of that in discharging.

In terms of cycles, they have data in their supporting info document that shows they have only tested a cell with this electrode up to 30 cycles! So no discussion of battery life can even be made.

Energy density can be found by knowing the capacity of each electrode, the electrolyte properties and volume, and the cell voltage (which is usually about 4 V for Li-ion batteries). They claim to have reached their theoretical maximum 4200 mAh/g capacity for a Si electrode. This is indeed ~10x the capacity of graphite anodes, which are the lowest capacity anodes used in Li-ion batteries (300-400 mAh/g). More common carbon (C6) anodes are about twice that. And, in fact, Li metal anodes have about the same capacity, 3800 to 4000 mAh/g, as these Si nanowires. So the capacity is hardly a breakthrough. However, they may be more safe than Li metal: "Li metal" batteries are Li-ion batteries with Li metal electrodes, which have had safety issues due to Li dendrites (trees) growing between electrodes and shorting out the cell. This article (needs subscription) from years back explains the details of electrode choices and other challenges regarding Li-ion and Li metal batteries. It seems these Si nanowire electrodes may yield similar energy density to Li metal, or several times that of the Li-ion batteries that are in common use.

The Slashdot summary correctly draws from the news.com article, but the news.com article is mis-reporting this news. It is not battery life that is being discussed but rather energy density. Capacity has never referred to battery life. The Nature Nanotechnology journal article in question (abstract, fulltext, pdf - for some reason they are all freely downloadable) reports that their Si nanowire anode has a little more than 10 times the capacity of common graphite anodes, and they have achieved that in charging and 75% of that in discharging.

In terms of cycles, they have data in their supporting info document that shows they have only tested a cell with this electrode up to 30 cycles! So no discussion of battery life can even be made.

Energy density can be found by knowing the capacity of each electrode, the electrolyte properties and volume, and the cell voltage (which is usually about 4 V for Li-ion batteries). They claim to have reached their theoretical maximum 4200 mAh/g capacity for a Si electrode. This is indeed ~10x the capacity of graphite anodes, which are the lowest capacity anodes used in Li-ion batteries (300-400 mAh/g). More common carbon (C6) anodes are about twice that. And, in fact, Li metal anodes have about the same capacity, 3800 to 4000 mAh/g, as these Si nanowires. So the capacity is hardly a breakthrough. However, they may be more safe than Li metal: "Li metal" batteries are Li-ion batteries with Li metal electrodes, which have had safety issues due to Li dendrites (trees) growing between electrodes and shorting out the cell. This article (needs subscription) from years back explains the details of electrode choices and other challenges regarding Li-ion and Li metal batteries. It seems these Si nanowire electrodes may yield similar energy density to Li metal, or several times that of the Li-ion batteries that are in common use.

You are extremely naive. Sorry.

"Perfectly-immune organism" cannot exist. That's an oxymoron. All life is just an arms race. The attacking organisms need to feed to survive and will adapt to your defenses. Then defenses have to adapt to the new attack vector. For examples, see the super-resistant MRSA? Or other superbugs? The same thing will happen to any "supercow". That's why you can't have a perfect anti-biotic - eventually something will be resistant to that anti-biotic. After all, the cells of the organism that is using anti-biotic are not all killed by it :) So, organisms will just take the traits from that make cells of the anti-biotic taking organism resistant to the anti-biotic. Problem solved.

Oh, and bananas have an immune system too. :P If plants didn't have an immune system, I don't think they would have survived these hundreds of millions of years.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7117/abs/nature05286.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_immune_system

Well here is the newsstory on nature:

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080113/full/news.2008.435.html

Seems they removed cells from a rat heart and implanted the extracellular 'scaffold' tissue with heart cells from new-born mice. They got a contracting heart with 2% of normal heart capacity. Quite an achievement, but still quite a bit away from clinical use.

SPREAD THE WORD

Evolution is a scientific fact, and every organization whose research depends on it should explain why.

Three cheers for the US National Academy of Sciences for publishing an updated version of its booklet Science, Evolution, and Creationism (see http://www.nap.edu/sec). The document succinctly summarizes what is and isn't science, provides an overview of evidence for evolution by natural selection, and highlights how, time and again, leading religious figures have upheld evolution as consistent with their view of the world.

For a more specific and also entertaining account of evolutionary knowledge, see palaeontologist Kevin Padian's evidence given at the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial (see http://tinyurl.com/2nlgar). Padian destroys the false assertions by creationists that there are critical gaps in the fossil record. He illustrates the fossil-rich paths from fish to land-based tetrapod, from crocodile to dinosaur to feathered dinosaur to bird, from terrestrial quadruped to the whale, and more besides. Creationism is strong in the United States and, according to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, worryingly on the rise in Europe (see http://tinyurl.com/2knrqy). But die-hard creationists aren't a sensible target for raising awareness. What matters are those citizens who aren't sure about evolution -- as much as 55% of the US population according to some surveys.

As the National Academy of Sciences and Padian have shown, it is possible to summarize the reasons why evolution is in effect as much a scientific fact as the existence of atoms or the orbiting of Earth round the Sun, even though there are plenty of refinements to be explored. Yet some actual and potential heads of state refuse to recognize this fact as such. And creationists have a tendency to play on the uncertainties displayed by some citizens. Evolution is of profound importance to modern biology and medicine. Accordingly, anyone who has the ability to explain the evidence behind this fact to their students, their friends and relatives should be given the ammunition to do so. Between now and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth on 12 February 2009, every science academy and society with a stake in the credibility of evolution should summarize evidence for it on their website and take every opportunity to promote it.

Today is 11th of January and it is still not on the website.
[snip]
Is it that difficult to write "to be published" instead of "published"?

You realize that Nature is a physical, paper journal? Not a web-only publication like Salon.com or Newsmax.

Also, frequently these dead tree publications are post-dated so that -- with some luck -- they arrive in the subscriber's snailmail on the date of the issue (or in the case of porn rags, a month earlier), especially the weekly ones.

Just because it's not on the website doesn't mean it's "not published." If Nature published their articles on the web before most people received the laminar cellulose version, who would pay $199 per year for the latter?

Therefore "published" is correct.

It's up now: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7175/full/nature06490.html

I could not, would not, on a boat.
I will not, will not, with a goat.
I will not eat them in the rain.
I will not eat them on a train.
Not in the dark! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! You let me be!
I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I will not eat them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE!

Electrical spin injection and detection have been demonstrated in all-metal devices [4,5] and ferromagnet/semiconductor based spin valves [6-8] having distinct coercivity difference between ferromagnetic spin injectors and detectors.

Yeah. Sure. "The people is dumb".

Let's see...

> The 4,000 deaths of cleanup workers at Chernobyl is completely unexcusable.

This estimation was touted by the IAEA, which runs in order to disseminate nuclear powerplants, and by the OMS (censored by the IAEA for all nuclear-related matters).

Moreover the IAEA announced "4,000 deaths, grand total, definitive and scientific (United Nations) estimation" in September 2005 (it wasn't definitive, nor sci, nor UN) before discreetling backing up in April 2006 ("9000, stated only for a subset of the Soviet population and for solid cancers"). Here is an overview and an article.

> 800 deaths are objectively fewer than the 105,000 reported in Wikipedia.

On WP (en and fr) there are too many pro-nuke agit-propers, eager to relay disinformation and censor facts.

> 4,000 deaths are objectively fewer than "the six-figure death counts that opponents of nuclear power once cited".

The most famous report published by the opponents (titled TORCH) was published AFTER IAEA's report.

The IAEA estimation ("4000 ...") is mainly based upon scientific material from E. Cardis (who served as the scientific secretary for the study which leaded to the report), and they properly credited her. Know what? As soon as the ''4000 deaths'' thesis was published she declared that 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths is "the right order of magnitude". See New Scientists and Nature. Her most recent study leads to "By 2065, models predict that about 16,000 (95% UI 3,400 72,000) cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 (95% UI 11,000 59,000) cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident and that about 16,000 deaths (95% UI 6,700 - 38,000) from these cancers may occur).". Abstract: no less than 6,700, approx 16,000, maybe up to 38,000 ... remember that the main "opponents" report (TORCH) authors estimated that 30,000 to 60,000 may die. Therefore the 'total mortality' estimation published by the very expert committed by the IAEA are more on the same ballpark of published by scientific "opponents" than IAEA's.

The IAEA's "4,000 total" is ridiculous. Quoting it, as you did, is at best naive.

> don't see people debating the accuracy of the numbers they use
> Grow up

Yeah. Sure. Good advice, chief. Thanx! Here is my hint: avoid propagating lies. The ongoing propaganda campaign "eat nuke! good for health! yummy!" is already well funded, they don't need any help.

Risks and nanotechnology: the public is more concerned than experts and industry - p67
Michael Siegrist, Arnim Wiek, Asgeir Helland & Hans Kastenholz

The first correspondence in the February issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

Sorry you have to pay for the journal to read the actual article.

4) Are there genetic conditions that promote obesity?
5) Are there viruses that promote obesity?
6) Are there different types of intestinal flora that promote obesity in humans?
7) Are there other causes that I can't think of that cause the human body to think it's in starvation mode and preferentially store every calorie it can as fat? Yes, I bet there are.

It would be nice if the "journalists" bothered to mention there's an article in Nature.

They are very kind, not aggressive and they don't bite.

Youngsters these days...know-it-alls...youth is indeed wasted on the young! :-)

Here's one of a myriad of examples of significant differences between human, mouse and monkey brains.
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v4/n9/full/nn0901-860.html

It is indeed correct to call 'bullshit', when extrapolating ANYTHING from one species to another without evidence! BASIC SCIENCE!!!!

Consider something far, far less complex than neurons, neural nets, etc., i.e. blood across species:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood
Yours is red (iron base) in the arteries...in some species, it is blue (copper base)! (And Spock may have been a genetic mutant leading to Sulphemoglobinemia!) :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfhemoglobinemia
http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg16121747.600-the-last-word.html

And then of course, there is nearly colourless penguin blood! ;-)
http://www.exploratorium.edu/imaging_station/gallery.php?Asset=Magellan%20Penguin%20blood&Group=&Category=Blood%20Cells&Section=Introduction

So, to say that ANYTHING is similiar across species without evidence (i.e. SCIENCE!), is bullshit.

In the 70's some physicists hypothesized that the Tunguska event might have been caused by a micro black hole passing through the earth.

Excellent point!

This abstract summarizes the situation quite nicely:

These results support the hypothesis that the apparently deleterious effects of marked thinness may be due to low FFM and that, over the observed range of the data, marked leanness (as opposed to thinness) has beneficial effects.

International Journal of Obesity (2002) 26, 410-416. DOI: 10.1038/sj/ijo/0801925

The way it was presented to me at an American College of Sports Medicine seminar last year was that some of the studies that claimed being overweight was beneficial to ones health had not controlled for the extremely old (and often very thin). That said, if it is fair to include over-eaters at one end, it is also probably fair to include anorexics at the other.

If I may suggest some more modern papers, then I would point to these ...

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006A&A...454..201G

These are Birkeland Currents in space -- where the mainstream says they should not be.

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1367-2630/9/8/263/njp7_8_263.pdf

The idea that DNA might have electrical roots is nothing new to EU Theory. In fact, it's to be expected within their theory.

http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2504&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

This is actually a validation of one of Hannes Alfven's predictions, from what I've been told.

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12652-milky-way-keeps-a-light-grip-on-speedy-neighbours.html

These galaxies are quite filamentary.

http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/06_releases/press_060106.html

Another filament where we didn't expect it.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7155/abs/nature06003.html

Once again, a filament. You know, there is more than one way to make a repeating flash of light, as happens for pulsars. Is it a rotating beacon with a bowshock? Or, is it two stars electrically connected? People need to think very carefully about what holds these filaments together. Also, how does the filament remain illuminated for 30,000 continuous light years all at once?

There are multiple explanations for these things that people are not taking into consideration ...

Light IS radio.

It's just EM spectrum that we have receptors for (our eyes).

And it is now known that birds can see magnetic fields... and in red at that.

The video doesn't cover all of the details of the research since it is a high-level summary, but a more detailed description of the chromosome merger is in the section "Segmental duplications" in the original research paper here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7034/full/nature03466.html
The paper covers some methods how the merger could have have happened via genetic mutations and duplications, though some technical knowledge of genetics is assumed. More detailed theories concerning the exact temporal order and extent of the mutations and duplications are contained in the earlier research here:
http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/12/11/1651
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/215/4539/1525

Dr. Miller was an expert witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover ID trial, so I think he knows the arguments on both sides of the ID debate fairly well. Dr. Miller's main point in that lecture segment was that that evolutionary theory predicted the merging of a chromosome, and later we seem to have found the location in human DNA where the merging occurred when compared to ape chromosomes. He is trying to counter the argument that it is not possible that humans and modern apes share a common ancestor because we have different numbers of chromosomes, or because evolution can not create new species, etc. So this segment of the lecture is more pro-evolution than completely anti-ID. Much of the rest of the lecture (if you locate the full version) is what I would call anti-ID, though. He generally disapproves of ID books such as "Of Pandas and People" and groups like Answers in Genesis that he believes are also trying to push ID as thinly veiled creationism and he does not agree with the "irreducible complexity" ID arguments. You can view the full lecture and decide for yourself if his arguments counter the specific version of ID you have in mind, or if you think some versions of ID are immune to his criticisms, but be aware he is specifically talking about ID as it is being argued in Pennsylvania and Ohio by those wanting to integrate ID into science classes, and he would likely have other arguments against other variants of ID.

There are certainly ID proponents that believe in common ancestry (Michael Behe is one of those), but also believe that, for example, a supernatural being guides evolution, instead of unguided genetic mutations and natural selection alone. But keep in mind that about half of Americans do not believe in human evolution of any kind, and instead think that that a supernatural being created humans basically as they exist today. In effect, there are hundreds of millions of people that reject common ancestry, so Dr. Miller certainly has some people that he could try to convince with his arguments, even if some ID proponents do not need to be convinced of this specific point. That said, many scientists would note that it is a little odd that a supernatural being would create a world where life comes into being, but do so using a method that ends up making it very uncertain whether or not any supernatural being is even necessary. The view that common ancestry and evolution are true but that a supernatural being guides evolution may also be largely indistinguishable from materialistic evolution, though some people like Behe claim statistical methods and science can prove that random genetic mutations are not sufficient to drive evolution (though he is in the scientific minority on this topic). I'm happy to let Dr. Behe and others continue their ID research, but I don't expect much real evidence to come out of it, myself. To each their own.

> See Correlation does not imply causation. Not a wonder why biologists aren't logicians.

Note that I said "supports the assertion", not implying any kind of proof. Science isn't about absolute proofs, but instead is about formulating and testing theories that explain evidence. If it was a few hundred or thousand genes, maybe it wouldn't be worth noting, but this is millions of genes predicted to be found many years ago by biologists who noted the "missing" chromosome in humans and determined, based on evolutionary theory, that we would eventually find out where two chromosomes merged. Lo and behold, we found the exact merging location a couple of years ago. Such is the predictive power of good scientific theories. Good predictions aren't proof, but they certainly are evidence.

> Citing YouTube? That's classic. The wustl.edu reference is better ... Why don't you try to find a few papers from Google Scholar?

You are attacking the location of the material rather than the content. In case you didn't follow the link, it is a video of Ken Miller, who is a well-respected (Christian) biologist at Brown. It is a short lecture designed to be comprehensible to anyone about the merging process of human chromosome 2, but if you prefer technical details here is the original research for you including a link form Google scholar:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7034/full/nature03466.html
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=6874304214138842665

This paper was written by over 100 scientists collaborating at ~10 research institutions, peer reviewed, and accepted in one of the most respected science journals on the planet.

Maybe you think that genetic mutations can only result in less-adapted organisms. Though most mutations are either benign or harmful, some definitely are helpful to the organism, but often in complex ways that involve tradeoffs. For example, many Mediterranean and African people have genes that that give them resistance to malaria, but the downside is that same genetic gene also makes sickle cell disease more common, so there is a reason such a mutation is not as common in areas where malaria was not as serious a problem. For more information, see here:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673602082739/abstract
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?&cluster=7405924406367694750

The wolfram site is slashdotted but this link for the article in nature is not.

Do your own homework and research your own subjects.

I've already done so.

You're the one spewing empirically disproved ideas. The last link in particular is extremely pointed, direct and concise in its destruction of your blatantly false assertion.

And you have the audacity to accuse me of posing strawmen. Go back under your bridge, troll.

Mr Justice Burton identified nine significant errors within the former presidential candidate's documentary as he assessed whether it should be shown to school children. He agreed that Mr Gore's film was "broadly accurate" in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change but said that some of the claims were wrong and had arisen in "the context of alarmism and exaggeration".

...just referring to the things that Downes alleged were errors. Burton puts quote marks around 'error' 17 more times in his judgement....Burton is not even trying to decide whether they are errors or not. So what is Burton assessing in his judgement? Well, [the relevant law] says that where political issues are involved there should be "a balanced presentation of opposing views" so Burton states that the government should make it clear when "there is a view to the contrary, i.e. (at least) the mainstream view". Burton calls these "errors or departures from the mainstream".

Burton's point is thus that the "errors" are not necessarily incorrect, just that their distance from the mainstream requires that they should be balanced in the context of the applicable law. Happy to clear that up.

While loaded with buzzwords, this really involves nothing that's really new.

Yeah, I haven't looked at it too intensively myself yet, but the impression I get is that most/all what Hawkins proposed has been proposed in the past. He basically took what was done in the past and made it much more accessible, which is great and all, but he really should've cited more of the prior work by others (or been more aware of it). Besides Grossberg, I think there's also quite a bit of similarity with the work of Rao & Ballard (1999) and Lee & Mumford (2003).

Still, I credit Hawkins quite a bit for making the general public much more aware of this sort of modeling.

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.

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.

>(xkcd map of the internet)

Not short on IPv4 addresses at all.

While we're at it, xtraceroute already seems to know about Japans's secret future plans.

Holes in the Ozone layer were caused by CFCs, which chemically are interesting compounds, but one problem of which is that they were depleting the ozone layer.

the ozone depletion problem was solved with the ratification of the Montreal Protocol

Yarg! Does any one have a link to the actual Nature article that they are referencing to? Would it be too hard to put a direct reference to the article? A search for David Julius on Nature.com gives a result on a May article http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7150/abs/nature05910.html ... not the one that SciAm is referencing

Accepting quantum physics to be universally true, argues Max Tegmark, means that you should also believe in parallel universes.

The key point is that parallel universes are not a theory in themselves, but a prediction of certain theories. For a theory to be falsifiable, we need not observe and test all its predictions -- one will do.

Because Einstein's general theory of relativity has successfully predicted many things we can observe, we also take seriously its predictions for things we cannot, such as the internal structure of black holes. Analogously, successful predictions by unitary quantum mechanics have made scientists take more seriously its other predictions, including parallel universes.

I'm not sure if this is the same article that you saw previously, but this paper discusses that topic:
Seth Lloyd, "Ultimate physical limits to computation" Nature 406, 1047-1054 (31 August 2000) | doi: 10.1038/35023282 (for those without access to Nature articles, this arXiv preprint appears to be the same article).

The article reviews the absolute maximum limits for computation, based on current understanding of thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics.

The basic conclusion of the paper is that a theoretical 1 kg computer (confined to a volume of 1 liter), operating perfectly at the edge of what is physically possible could compute 10^51 operations/second on 10^31 bits of information (as compared to our current computers: 10^10 operations/second on 10^10 bits). Naively scaling Moore's law from current sizes, this suggests that we will reach such limits in 250 years. Of course the paper repeatedly points out that this is for an unrealistically 'perfect' computer, that is somehow able to perfectly organize all its internal matter solely for performing the computation at hand. For instance when running a computation it effectively has a temperature of ~10^9 Kelvin, which is considerably hotter than any known material could withstand.

Nevertheless, it's interesting to see what the fundamental principles of relativity and quantum mechanics indicate as a boundary for any sort of computation. The article is an interesting read.

There's an interview with David Cassidy about this in the 13th September Nature Podcast (the page also has the podcast as a direct MP3 download and a transcript).

Damn.. forgot to mention: The current Nature podcast has an interview with David Cassidy:
http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/index.html

Well, part of it, anyway:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7159/abs/nature06094.html

It's not just medical research. The scientific community works like any other community: the greater the implications, the greater the scrutiny, attempts to replicate, etc. The Huang embryonic stem cell study is a great case-in-point: the image-manipulation fraud was uncovered because of the vast number of researchers looking at the micrographs he published. (That sounds familiar, doesn't it: "Many eyes make all bugs shallow.") Global warming has many, many people working on models, taking ice cores, doing other analysis. Of course, the vast majority of published research isn't reported in Science or Nature, and so it doesn't get as much exposure. That's why around here (the University of Wisconsin), it's standard practice that if your work depends on someone else's result, you first replicate her experiment and make sure you get the same result. (If you can't, you write a letter to the appropriate publication making note of your inability to replicate the result.) This means that eventually the mistake gets uncovered, and your research doesn't get burned because someone else has been sloppy.

Assuming it's all true, well done sir.

Thanks. The "assuming it's true" is clearly just "rigorous in scientific caution" rather than an active challenge, but I'll be "rigorous" in return backing up my post for you and for anyone who may have been actively skeptical.

I think I read most of the stuff about the foraminifera evolutionary record a long time ago in dead-tree format, but I googled a couple of links to back up the general issue. Ok, I probably went overboard on the links... oh well :)

PhD Paul Pearson writes:
In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin lamented that the imperfection of the fossil record detracts from the glory of geology. Fossilization is such a rare and capricious event, our collections are so poor, and sedimentary formations are so full of gaps, that Darwin could not point to a single example where fossils in successive geological strata showed evolution from one species to another.
Unknown to Darwin, uninterrupted sedimentation does occur in the open ocean, especially on aseismic ridges and plateaux. These areas experience a continuous rain of particles to the sea bed, and are among the most geologically quiescent places on Earth. A steady build-up of sediment is the result.
Now, after thirty years of systematic ocean drilling, many of these sites can be studied. Piston coring generally allows hundreds of meters of sediment to be fully recovered, spanning millions of years of deposition. Where gaps occur, they can easily be identified.
[]
The sediments in question are composed mainly of the shells of microscopic plankton such as foraminifera, radiolaria, diatoms and coccolithophorids. Large numbers of individuals can easily be extracted. Their evolution can be followed through geological time, simply by comparing one closely spaced sample with the next.

In describing his work in non-linear dynamics in evolution, PhD Timothy Patterson comments:
Due to their exceptional fossil record, planktic foraminifera are ideal for studies of evolutionary processes.

PhD student Nadia Al-Sabouni
Institute of Micropalaeontology
Biodiversity and evolution of planktonic foraminifera
Google cache of missing PDF:
Planktonic foraminifera have the best fossil record of all organisms, spanning the
last 150 million years. Owing to the completeness and continuity of their fossil
record, planktonic foraminifera can be used as model organisms to study patterns
of evolution at time scales that are not replicable under laboratory conditions.

A science paper from 40 years ago:
Rates of Evolution in Some Cenozoic Planktonic Foraminifera
William A. Berggren
Micropaleontology, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Jul., 1969), pp. 351-365
doi:10.2307/1484931
Link to first page
I'd copy/paste the Introduction first two paragraphs, but it's a jpeg scan of the text. Click and read.

Testing the Molecular Clock Using the Best Fossil Record: Case Studies from the Planktic Foraminifera
multiple authors
Abstract near bottom of this page
Since many major groups (e.g. birds, mammals, reptiles) have a poor fossil record, it is often difficult to test and refute these limitations. Planktic foraminifera represent an exception to this rule. Deep-sea sediments are super-abundant in foraminifera, and large numbers of specimens and occurrences are easily garnered from Ocean Drilling Programme cores. Planktic foraminifera therefore represent an ideal model group with w

Transdermal drug delivery has been around for ages, as well as microfabricated needles. For a recent state-of-the-art, see:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/100/24/13755

The main problem (most of the physical fabrication issues have been overcome) is that almost any material used to fabricate the needles will quickly be recognized by the immune system, which will not only attempt to push the needles out but will also form a "fibrotic capsule" around the needles, preventing them from dispensing drug. How does HP intend to get around these problems? Smoke and Mirrors! This is the grand challenge of transdermal drug delivery, and it doesn't look like HP has gotten much further at all.

Additionally, I don't know about the (rest of the) heathens out there, but I wouldn't want needles permanently implanted in my arm, leaving my insides exposed to the outsides (and how do they plan to control backflow [i.e. bleeding] or prevent blood clots from blocking the needles, by the way??).

A much more promising approach for transdermal drug delivery is actually ballistic injection of (gold) (micro or nano) particles through the skin that are decorated with the drug of interest. This is reminiscent of Star Trek because it's an old idea that is based on some solid science. It might even be possible to use this for ballistic injection of DNA for vaccines, without having any of the drawbacks as described above for microneedles. Ask Dr. Google or see:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/7218/19491/00900385.pdf
and even better:
http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v5/n12/full/nri1728.html

You also have to keep in mind that the skin MUST be properly disinfected before either microneedles are implanted or ballistic injection is performed, otherwise you may introduce bacteria or other nasties into you deeper dermal layers (does anyone remember flesh eating bacteria?).

I love how the strength of people's biases filter through to so control how we think and act in this world. The majority of responses here seem to complain about Democrat or Republicanism or some hardly veiled tack. Take a look at TFA, it purely distinguishes between liberals and conservatives (small l and small c) not Democrats and Republicans. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE. And to assume or extrapolate otherwise is a hugely incorrect step on all our parts. As a matter of fact, the word Republicans isn't even mentioned in the report! Strangely, the word Democrat appears once describing John F. Kerry (which is the most douchebagish way of saying John Kerry...), but regardless. Another important issue, is we cannot link directly to the ACTUAL study in question" (for a separate reason: due to the controlled access of knowledge by academic institutions, which sucks). How do we know truly what the study entails, how the methodology is controlled, etc., without access to the actual paper. This is only possible if you have $30 for the article entry, btw. Nonetheless, as long as Americans continue to automatically draw the line between liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, black and white, etc., as the article quotes the author of the study: "liberals and conservatives are never going to agree". And articles like this do nothing to help. But ultimately, its all our faults for drawing lines in the sand and being so damned stubborn to the detriment of life, society, and wellbeing.