Slashdot Mirror

I read about it in whatever took the place of PC Computing (can't remember the new name). Here is a link to a related story I posted in an earlier discussion. Additionally, This is a link showing some of the LEP displays.

At first I was under the impression that these two articles were covering differing technologies since they both came from the same source just a month or so apart, but then I thought about double posting of stories here on slashdot a month or so apart.....

carlos

I read about it in whatever took the place of PC Computing (can't remember the new name). is a link to a related story I posted in an earlier discussion. Additionally, is a link showing some of the LEP displays.

At first I was under the impression that these two articles were covering differing technologies since they both came from the same source just a month or so apart, but then I thought about double posting of stories here on slashdot a month or so apart.....

carlos

sorry to shout, but has anyone posting here other than Lionfire actually read the article properly? This technology is not about having video screens on paper (how would that work?). It's just about using a similar process to inkjet printing for making flat-panel displays. Sure, the headline is misleading, but please - can we all stop, read, post?
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There are some Spanish & Brazillian guys doing some reasearch on small electro-mechanical muscle fibles made from laminated electricaly conductive plastic that flex one way, then the other as an applied voltage is reversed. The research here was also done in 1997 (same as the P3).... Does anyone know any recent developments on this robot?

This article from this week's New Scientist covers similar ground - inteligent computers. The concept here is that the internet will become inteligent in it's form as a distributed network.

Does that sound like the movie Terminator 2 to anyone else?

They already have. Here is an article about a flexible display with low power requirements that's inexpensive to produce. Supposed to be shopped to manufacturers this summer.

carlos

Just thought some of you might like a more in-depth look at neutron stars. I've been doing some reading on neutron stars in the last few days, so I hunted around in my browser's history and found the two articles I had been reading.

The first one, by New Scientist, is a neat article on stars and their hunger for the planets around them.

The second one, by Scientific American, is a bit technical, but it describes how the X-ray emissions from neutron stars are being used to estimate their size.

--

Just thought some of you might like a more in-depth look at neutron stars. I've been doing some reading on neutron stars in the last few days, so I hunted around in my browser's history and found the two articles I had been reading.

The first one, by New Scientist, is a neat article on stars and their hunger for the planets around them.

The second one, by Scientific American, is a bit technical, but it describes how the X-ray emissions from neutron stars are being used to estimate their size.

--

By slowing light down to such low speeds, scientists are coming up with ingenious ways to create artificial black holes (not the same as the real ones) which will allow us to finally study the physics of black holes, such as Hawking radiation and various other problems.

You can find the story at: http://www.newscientis t.com/features/features.jsp?id=ns22301

Well, if you want to serve from your colon, start with the pill-sized camera with a transmitter.

It certainly sounds like an interesting frontier, but I wonder if it will ever really be practical.

grnarrow
www.bottomquark.com

napalm.firest0rm.org

And here's the New Scientist article:

http://www.newscientist.com /ns/19991002/quantumcon.html

Kynik
kynik@firest0rm.org
http://napalm.firest0rm.org/
http://www.gh0st.net/

The person who wrote the program was not a professional programmer. Her was a professional judge. I quote from the New Scientist's piece on it:

A keen programmer, Feu Rosa wrote the E-Judge program in the Visual Basic language. It presents the judge with multiple choice questions, such as "Did the driver stop at the red light?" or "Had the driver been drinking alcohol above the acceptable limit of the law?"

So, why didn't this amateur programmer use prolog? Because prolog is a crap language. Unless you are an expert system specialist. The VB program looks nice, and does no logic more than a traffic light control program.

In short, despite the fact the media report it as an AI program, it's not. That's why an AI language wasn't used. This is plainly evident from the New Scientist web page.

[Aside: Why do people trust the BBC's Sci-Tech web pages? They are, without exception, the worst reporting mechanism for science and technology news. The BBC generally is poor in that area, and litters articles with inaccuracies and bad reporting]

However, US iodine deficiency has quadrupled to 12%. Are people who are "eating healthy" by avoiding salt causing a problem?

For that matter, this New Scientist article caught my eye. This research shows that sperm count decrease may be simply due to iodized salt. What really caught my attention was the mention that iodine deficiency causes smaller brains. We may be smarter than our ancestors 80 years ago.

I knew that iodine is added to salt to prevent goiter, but had missed the medical knowledge that it also prevents cretinism. Iodine is needed for proper brain development. The high incidence (17-60%) of goiter in affected areas indicates the level of the problem (still 43 million people).

So until the 1920s, perhaps half of the world population was less intelligent than now. Is it a coincidence that as the first iodized generation suffused society we had many fields boom in the 1960s?

go on, click the link, click it, you know you want to :)

the article (go ahead, click on it) agrees with you largely, to quote it:

Physicists generally concede that the task is so formidable that a practical quantum computer won't exist for decades.

The forces of evolution, he claims, may have solved the problem of quantum computing several billion years ago. It's a startling idea--but if true, it could explain a puzzle at the core of biology.

Essentially they're trying to figure out why information in DNA is encoded using 4 base pairs, when binary is way more efficient, and therefore should have won out in an evolutionary context. Apparently, if quantum computing is used at a couple points in DNA replication, 4 becomes more efficient than two, which isn't to say that it *does* it, but only that it might...

Anthony

go on, click the link, click it, you know you want to :)

the article (go ahead, click on it) agrees with you largely, to quote it:

Physicists generally concede that the task is so formidable that a practical quantum computer won't exist for decades.

The forces of evolution, he claims, may have solved the problem of quantum computing several billion years ago. It's a startling idea--but if true, it could explain a puzzle at the core of biology.

Essentially they're trying to figure out why information in DNA is encoded using 4 base pairs, when binary is way more efficient, and therefore should have won out in an evolutionary context. Apparently, if quantum computing is used at a couple points in DNA replication, 4 becomes more efficient than two, which isn't to say that it *does* it, but only that it might...

Anthony

go on, click the link, click it, you know you want to :)

the article (go ahead, click on it) agrees with you largely, to quote it:

Physicists generally concede that the task is so formidable that a practical quantum computer won't exist for decades.

The forces of evolution, he claims, may have solved the problem of quantum computing several billion years ago. It's a startling idea--but if true, it could explain a puzzle at the core of biology.

Essentially they're trying to figure out why information in DNA is encoded using 4 base pairs, when binary is way more efficient, and therefore should have won out in an evolutionary context. Apparently, if quantum computing is used at a couple points in DNA replication, 4 becomes more efficient than two, which isn't to say that it *does* it, but only that it might...

Anthony

go on, click the link, click it, you know you want to :)

the article (go ahead, click on it) agrees with you largely, to quote it:

Physicists generally concede that the task is so formidable that a practical quantum computer won't exist for decades.

The forces of evolution, he claims, may have solved the problem of quantum computing several billion years ago. It's a startling idea--but if true, it could explain a puzzle at the core of biology.

Essentially they're trying to figure out why information in DNA is encoded using 4 base pairs, when binary is way more efficient, and therefore should have won out in an evolutionary context. Apparently, if quantum computing is used at a couple points in DNA replication, 4 becomes more efficient than two, which isn't to say that it *does* it, but only that it might...

Anthony

go on, click the link, click it, you know you want to :)

the article (go ahead, click on it) agrees with you largely, to quote it:

Physicists generally concede that the task is so formidable that a practical quantum computer won't exist for decades.

The forces of evolution, he claims, may have solved the problem of quantum computing several billion years ago. It's a startling idea--but if true, it could explain a puzzle at the core of biology.

Essentially they're trying to figure out why information in DNA is encoded using 4 base pairs, when binary is way more efficient, and therefore should have won out in an evolutionary context. Apparently, if quantum computing is used at a couple points in DNA replication, 4 becomes more efficient than two, which isn't to say that it *does* it, but only that it might...

Anthony

Odd timing for this one, I just finished reading this article over at New Scientist on how DNA may use quantum computing techniques...

Anthony

Odd timing for this one, I just finished reading this article over at New Scientist on how DNA may use quantum computing techniques...

Anthony

As we have far to many derogative comments about the New Scientist here I thought that I would link to their article that not only deals with these calls but gets you deleted from the database! Personally, I think that they do a very good job (The new scientist, not the telemarketers)... but there is no pleasing everyone.

here's the link

all last weeks stuff I'm afraid

If you want something as little bit newer, then you can try http://www.newscientist.co m/features/features_22341.html for something to really argue about.

YOUR BODY is teeming with quantum computers. Marching along your DNA and floating around your cells, several hundred million of these minuscule devices...

Sound interesting? Feel free to go beserk.

You might be strangling my chicken, but you don't want to know what I'm doing to your hampster.

The original New Scientist article is online, as is the full paper which has much more content.

This is interesting, but even if it turns out that they can be found (or built), there may be problems. If they can be moved, you can turn one into a time machine (giving causality the finger) by accelerating one end to relativistic speeds and taking it on a trip, as noted in the actual paper (but ignored by both the New Scientist and BBC articles).

A reasonable SF treatment of this particular idea is in Robert Forward's Timemaster. The characters make cardboard look 3D, and the prose isn't the most beautiful, but the main hook is the physics speculation--and Forward does that quite well.

Actually, it's not a theory, it's Einstein -Podolsky-Rosen, which was recently proved as a law of quantum mechanics with a neat little experiment...
In a nutshell, EPR implies that in an entangled state, certain particles would seem to violate local reality by "agreeing" on their quantum state, with no perceptible particle exchange (which means it's not limited by the speed of light), even when separated by great distances.

The problem is, for now, that we have no way of predetermining quantum states in entangled pairs, meaning we can't yet use it for FTL data transmission. But it is the principle behind quantum teleportation, which is unspeakably cool.

ObKomputerGeek->Relevance: Information stored in quanta has some freaky properties.

Yawn... Old hat. Can't you slashdotters have a look at history? Otherwise, you'll be condemned at repeating it... badly.

First, a brief word about ekranoplanes (a.k.a. Wing-In-Ground effect). Here is an actual picture of such a beast in flight (Gerry Anderson fans will be delighted by this one). They have been around for almost 40 years, having been devellopped in the defunct Soviet Union . You may look at this page for historic information, as well as pictures of enormous ekranoplanes as well as the 400 ton Lun ICBM launcher . For those who worry about greenhouse gas emissions, there is also a pedal-powered WIG !!! Oh, yes, those craft are already covered by a Canadian regulation, proof that they've been around long enough to rouse the attention of regulators...

Now, about trains. Nothing really new, there either.

In the 1960's, french engineer Jean Bertin (1917-1975) pursued the développement of his ill-fated Aérotrain , which, 30 years before the recently-canned german Transrapid maglev, almost reached the realization stage (both in a commuter rail line betwen Paris and the western sububurb of Cergy, and a line between Lyon and Grenoble for the 1968 winter Olympic games). Bertin's Aérotrains ran on a single inverted T concrete rail, and used a cushion of air for sustentation. An early prototype, the Aérotrain expérimental 02 (which looks like it was inspired by this), reached the speed of 400 km/h in 1966 and 422 km/h in 1969 (not an impressive achievement, since at that time, the rail speed record was achieved in 1955, when an ordinary locomotive pulling four totally normal cars reached the speed of 331 km/h on a perfectly standard railroad line). More pictures are available here.

Despite that, Jean Bertin built more prototypes, and a 20 km long rail line (which still runs accross the countryside, completely abandoned) on which a much bigger "train", which ran not much faster than today's TGVs do (note that the record certificate is issued by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale , and not the Union Internationale des Chemins de Fer ...).

Bertin's Aérotrain technology almost got selected in place of the current TGV, but at the last minute, State support was withdrawn from the Société Bertin. The Aérotrain (and any other newfangled guided transportation system such as maglevs and monorails - we're in the real world, here, not in Disneyland) suffered most from gross incompatibility with existing rail lines (necessary to enter the core of cities) and an extremely heavy implementation of switches, which precludes their widespread use and thus reduces the flexibility of their rail networks.

Jean Bertin never recovered from the shock of losing State support; he died a few months later, despite having built a prosperous engineering company which still thrives in high-technologies.

Throughout the Aérotrain's history, the French National Railroads (SNCF)'s attitude was extremely interesting. Despite all the media hoopla that surrounded the Aérotrain and the political interest, it did not say anything at all. Not a single word either for or against the Aérotrain was uttered in official french railroad circles. But during that time, the SNCF worked hard at perfecting what is seen today as the epitome of high-speed travel technology, the TGV.

So, it is quite safe to say that this oldfangled flying "train" will certainly not fly very far, because the theorical speed limit of ground travel, the speed of sound, is within reach of conventionnal steel-wheel-on-steel-rail technology, which without much pain, ran at 515,3 km/h on May 18th 1990 (gee! Almost 10 years ago!!!).

(What is the speed of sound at 20C at sea level anyway???)

--

I think this is the link we're looking for...

Article

the url doesn't work. this worked for me: here.

Here is the fix for that broken link.

A new study from this week's New Slashdot Science reveals that not only are trolls inescapable in /. message boards, but that they are actually woven into the "fabric" of slashdot itself, due to unpredictable interactions of certain aspects of the source code.

It is believed that this theory could answer many of the questions of current /. users. Such questions as:

1. Why are there so many useless, garbage posts?
2. Why do people persist in clogging the discussions with pure crap?

These questions become irrelevant and easily answered once it is realized that this sort of behavior is innate to slashdot and cannot be stopped. See newscientist.com for more information on this and other incredible scientific developments. Additionally please see Weekly World News for additional updates.

The physical chip can be purchased. It is what is known as a field programmable gate array. Essentially a "field" of gates (transistors). With the development software you can organize (program) the gates to do specific things.

Here are other fpga processor articles:
Article Article

It's fun to go nuts over these reports, and dream of a care-free life, but please, let's think about the overall thermodynamics of the situation.

What's really going on here?

What's going on here is that someone has found a way to use a natural (harmless to the environment, because already part of it) self-reproducing (cheap) organism to provide large amounts of chemical energy in a very useful form using what appears to be inexpensive methods. This is a huge advance because the expense of collection is radically lowered.

Is it realistic to expect this source of solar energy to compete with solar panels, which provide direct electric current, and which do not suffer from the inate energetic inefficiencies (I'm talking metabolic pathways here, not current efficiency levels) of biological processes?

For further reading see:
Burning Backwards (New Scientist), an article about converting CO2 back to methanol enzymatically (powered by hydrogen to convert NAD back to NADH), and
Viridian Note 129, regarding methanol fuel cells.
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People get them because there's a better selection of region-1's (the range of 2's is growing all the time but it still doesn't go that far beyond the mainstream), they're cheaper (going rate for a region-2 DVD in the UK is 18 pounds) and UK releases of movies tend to have heavier censored then US releases, usually cuts for violence. I know 4 people with DVD-players from different makers, they've all been hacked. I believe the manufactures know that a player with secure region coding simply won't sell in the UK.

This is also covered by New Scientist, here goes the link

check out do identical twins have... and why do identical twins... . They both say that the DNA of identical twins is notexactly the same due to slight changes caused by environmental influences (already starting before birth). Probably it hasn't always been easy to tell the difference between two pieces of DNA that similar. I wonder though - the articles seem to suggest that even the DNA of a clone could be slightly different from the DNA of the being the DNA for the cloning was taken from. Does this mean we might eventually find ways to change one's DNA enough to avoid identification with DNA-samples taken say a few years back, for instance through the influence of viruses that cut little DNA bits and insert them somewhere else...

Not that scary. Check out the article in the New Scientist on tha chance of this happening. Basically the ground will not open up and swallow you in a black hole.

It's frustrating. Despite much high-voltage engineering work, nobody has created ball lightning. GE used to have a large outdoor test facility in Ohio powerful enough to create full-scale lightning bolts, and they couldn't make ball lightning. There are some antenna towers that get hit by lightning hundreds of times a year, and have all their lightning hits recorded, yet ball lightning hasn't been seen there.

I don't know that it has any "real" significance, other than an interesting quick of our numbering system. But if the digits of numbers describing natural phenomena obey Benford's law, who knows what sort of wacky stuff number-theory geeks could find in dates?

Oh dear. This old chesnut again. See http://www.newscientist.com/alcohol/alcohol.jsp?id =21656100

• last year I read an
• excellent edition of new scientist on this exact topic. Here's the link to the online article so you can read it.
  
  

• last year I read an
• excellent edition of new scientist on this exact topic. Here's the link to the online article so you can read it.
  
  

• last year I read an
• excellent edition of new scientist on this exact topic. Here's the link to the online article so you can read it.
  
  

I found a page on bioluminescence after reading an an article on using bioluminescent dinoflagellates to monitor fluid flow about a month ago. I think most bioluminescent organisms use very similar proteins.

Something is fishy. (Pun pun pun) Why in the world do these people need to take that many expensive fishing trips? Luciferin-luciferase systems are understood. In fact, they are easy to buy and culture. Is there something special about jellyfish?

The toys are very cool, but this technology seems much less rare and expensive than the article implies.

SPECIAL REPORT
The facts versus the frenzy
Unpalata ble truths
A question of breeding
The great divide
Fears for the future
How to price what we put on our plate
Check out our comprehensive international coverage of GM crops
The GM debate: readers' letters
The GM debate: Editor's response

Future shock
Apocalypse when?
Running wild
Strange fruit
Brave new rose
Live and let live
Food for all

For some American work trying to figure what might happen when a GM fish starts competing with its unmodified brethren, see another New Scientist article.

New Scientist is one of the better science magazines, IMO (and I'm not a UK netizen). As you can tell, this is just a sampling from their site.

Another piece, "FARMERS IN THE FIRING LINE," has subtitle "Take a few million suspicious European consumers, a handful of dead caterpillars and what have you got? A crisis of confidence in America's corn belt ." It discusses the (unintended) effect on caterpillars (Monarch Butterfly) of pollen from "bt corn," the GM corn with built-in insecticide, and doubts raised. Elsewhere it's been pointed out that some people are seriously allergic to pollen, and there's no data (unless held by some who'd rather not tell) as to what GM content might do in this context.

In all this, it seems to me, we must not let "safety" be a smokescreen to let legislation pass that will deny us the ability to make informed choices for ouselves. When scientists in whatever employ do their studies, and committes "find" that things are safe enough that you don't need to know what is in your food or environment, be worried about the safety, but be outraged at the attempt to deny your free choice.

You have a right to reduce any small (or whatever size you think it is) risk to zero by making a choice in the marketplace. Nobody has a right to make choices about your body for you without your informed consent. Denying you that choice by misleading labeling is criminal, IMO, and those who put GM food on grocery shelves without identifying GM content in the labeling are setting themselves up for eventual class action suits, again IMO.

To any "scientist" who postures about "insignificant trace amounts with no effect on humans," I say let him swallow that same amount, by weight, of LSD.
--
Corporations should be resources for humans, not vice versa. No matter what the privileges, it is not a privilege to be used, except by God.

SPECIAL REPORT
The facts versus the frenzy
Unpalata ble truths
A question of breeding
The great divide
Fears for the future
How to price what we put on our plate
Check out our comprehensive international coverage of GM crops
The GM debate: readers' letters
The GM debate: Editor's response

Future shock
Apocalypse when?
Running wild
Strange fruit
Brave new rose
Live and let live
Food for all

For some American work trying to figure what might happen when a GM fish starts competing with its unmodified brethren, see another New Scientist article.

New Scientist is one of the better science magazines, IMO (and I'm not a UK netizen). As you can tell, this is just a sampling from their site.

Another piece, "FARMERS IN THE FIRING LINE," has subtitle "Take a few million suspicious European consumers, a handful of dead caterpillars and what have you got? A crisis of confidence in America's corn belt ." It discusses the (unintended) effect on caterpillars (Monarch Butterfly) of pollen from "bt corn," the GM corn with built-in insecticide, and doubts raised. Elsewhere it's been pointed out that some people are seriously allergic to pollen, and there's no data (unless held by some who'd rather not tell) as to what GM content might do in this context.

In all this, it seems to me, we must not let "safety" be a smokescreen to let legislation pass that will deny us the ability to make informed choices for ouselves. When scientists in whatever employ do their studies, and committes "find" that things are safe enough that you don't need to know what is in your food or environment, be worried about the safety, but be outraged at the attempt to deny your free choice.

You have a right to reduce any small (or whatever size you think it is) risk to zero by making a choice in the marketplace. Nobody has a right to make choices about your body for you without your informed consent. Denying you that choice by misleading labeling is criminal, IMO, and those who put GM food on grocery shelves without identifying GM content in the labeling are setting themselves up for eventual class action suits, again IMO.

To any "scientist" who postures about "insignificant trace amounts with no effect on humans," I say let him swallow that same amount, by weight, of LSD.
--
Corporations should be resources for humans, not vice versa. No matter what the privileges, it is not a privilege to be used, except by God.

SPECIAL REPORT
The facts versus the frenzy
Unpalata ble truths
A question of breeding
The great divide
Fears for the future
How to price what we put on our plate
Check out our comprehensive international coverage of GM crops
The GM debate: readers' letters
The GM debate: Editor's response

Future shock
Apocalypse when?
Running wild
Strange fruit
Brave new rose
Live and let live
Food for all

For some American work trying to figure what might happen when a GM fish starts competing with its unmodified brethren, see another New Scientist article.

New Scientist is one of the better science magazines, IMO (and I'm not a UK netizen). As you can tell, this is just a sampling from their site.

Another piece, "FARMERS IN THE FIRING LINE," has subtitle "Take a few million suspicious European consumers, a handful of dead caterpillars and what have you got? A crisis of confidence in America's corn belt ." It discusses the (unintended) effect on caterpillars (Monarch Butterfly) of pollen from "bt corn," the GM corn with built-in insecticide, and doubts raised. Elsewhere it's been pointed out that some people are seriously allergic to pollen, and there's no data (unless held by some who'd rather not tell) as to what GM content might do in this context.

In all this, it seems to me, we must not let "safety" be a smokescreen to let legislation pass that will deny us the ability to make informed choices for ouselves. When scientists in whatever employ do their studies, and committes "find" that things are safe enough that you don't need to know what is in your food or environment, be worried about the safety, but be outraged at the attempt to deny your free choice.

You have a right to reduce any small (or whatever size you think it is) risk to zero by making a choice in the marketplace. Nobody has a right to make choices about your body for you without your informed consent. Denying you that choice by misleading labeling is criminal, IMO, and those who put GM food on grocery shelves without identifying GM content in the labeling are setting themselves up for eventual class action suits, again IMO.

To any "scientist" who postures about "insignificant trace amounts with no effect on humans," I say let him swallow that same amount, by weight, of LSD.
--
Corporations should be resources for humans, not vice versa. No matter what the privileges, it is not a privilege to be used, except by God.

SPECIAL REPORT
The facts versus the frenzy
Unpalata ble truths
A question of breeding
The great divide
Fears for the future
How to price what we put on our plate
Check out our comprehensive international coverage of GM crops
The GM debate: readers' letters
The GM debate: Editor's response

Future shock
Apocalypse when?
Running wild
Strange fruit
Brave new rose
Live and let live
Food for all

For some American work trying to figure what might happen when a GM fish starts competing with its unmodified brethren, see another New Scientist article.

New Scientist is one of the better science magazines, IMO (and I'm not a UK netizen). As you can tell, this is just a sampling from their site.

Another piece, "FARMERS IN THE FIRING LINE," has subtitle "Take a few million suspicious European consumers, a handful of dead caterpillars and what have you got? A crisis of confidence in America's corn belt ." It discusses the (unintended) effect on caterpillars (Monarch Butterfly) of pollen from "bt corn," the GM corn with built-in insecticide, and doubts raised. Elsewhere it's been pointed out that some people are seriously allergic to pollen, and there's no data (unless held by some who'd rather not tell) as to what GM content might do in this context.

In all this, it seems to me, we must not let "safety" be a smokescreen to let legislation pass that will deny us the ability to make informed choices for ouselves. When scientists in whatever employ do their studies, and committes "find" that things are safe enough that you don't need to know what is in your food or environment, be worried about the safety, but be outraged at the attempt to deny your free choice.

You have a right to reduce any small (or whatever size you think it is) risk to zero by making a choice in the marketplace. Nobody has a right to make choices about your body for you without your informed consent. Denying you that choice by misleading labeling is criminal, IMO, and those who put GM food on grocery shelves without identifying GM content in the labeling are setting themselves up for eventual class action suits, again IMO.

To any "scientist" who postures about "insignificant trace amounts with no effect on humans," I say let him swallow that same amount, by weight, of LSD.
--
Corporations should be resources for humans, not vice versa. No matter what the privileges, it is not a privilege to be used, except by God.

SPECIAL REPORT
The facts versus the frenzy
Unpalata ble truths
A question of breeding
The great divide
Fears for the future
How to price what we put on our plate
Check out our comprehensive international coverage of GM crops
The GM debate: readers' letters
The GM debate: Editor's response

Future shock
Apocalypse when?
Running wild
Strange fruit
Brave new rose
Live and let live
Food for all

For some American work trying to figure what might happen when a GM fish starts competing with its unmodified brethren, see another New Scientist article.

New Scientist is one of the better science magazines, IMO (and I'm not a UK netizen). As you can tell, this is just a sampling from their site.

Another piece, "FARMERS IN THE FIRING LINE," has subtitle "Take a few million suspicious European consumers, a handful of dead caterpillars and what have you got? A crisis of confidence in America's corn belt ." It discusses the (unintended) effect on caterpillars (Monarch Butterfly) of pollen from "bt corn," the GM corn with built-in insecticide, and doubts raised. Elsewhere it's been pointed out that some people are seriously allergic to pollen, and there's no data (unless held by some who'd rather not tell) as to what GM content might do in this context.

In all this, it seems to me, we must not let "safety" be a smokescreen to let legislation pass that will deny us the ability to make informed choices for ouselves. When scientists in whatever employ do their studies, and committes "find" that things are safe enough that you don't need to know what is in your food or environment, be worried about the safety, but be outraged at the attempt to deny your free choice.

You have a right to reduce any small (or whatever size you think it is) risk to zero by making a choice in the marketplace. Nobody has a right to make choices about your body for you without your informed consent. Denying you that choice by misleading labeling is criminal, IMO, and those who put GM food on grocery shelves without identifying GM content in the labeling are setting themselves up for eventual class action suits, again IMO.

To any "scientist" who postures about "insignificant trace amounts with no effect on humans," I say let him swallow that same amount, by weight, of LSD.
--
Corporations should be resources for humans, not vice versa. No matter what the privileges, it is not a privilege to be used, except by God.

SPECIAL REPORT
The facts versus the frenzy
Unpalata ble truths
A question of breeding
The great divide
Fears for the future
How to price what we put on our plate
Check out our comprehensive international coverage of GM crops
The GM debate: readers' letters
The GM debate: Editor's response

Future shock
Apocalypse when?
Running wild
Strange fruit
Brave new rose
Live and let live
Food for all

For some American work trying to figure what might happen when a GM fish starts competing with its unmodified brethren, see another New Scientist article.

New Scientist is one of the better science magazines, IMO (and I'm not a UK netizen). As you can tell, this is just a sampling from their site.

Another piece, "FARMERS IN THE FIRING LINE," has subtitle "Take a few million suspicious European consumers, a handful of dead caterpillars and what have you got? A crisis of confidence in America's corn belt ." It discusses the (unintended) effect on caterpillars (Monarch Butterfly) of pollen from "bt corn," the GM corn with built-in insecticide, and doubts raised. Elsewhere it's been pointed out that some people are seriously allergic to pollen, and there's no data (unless held by some who'd rather not tell) as to what GM content might do in this context.

In all this, it seems to me, we must not let "safety" be a smokescreen to let legislation pass that will deny us the ability to make informed choices for ouselves. When scientists in whatever employ do their studies, and committes "find" that things are safe enough that you don't need to know what is in your food or environment, be worried about the safety, but be outraged at the attempt to deny your free choice.

You have a right to reduce any small (or whatever size you think it is) risk to zero by making a choice in the marketplace. Nobody has a right to make choices about your body for you without your informed consent. Denying you that choice by misleading labeling is criminal, IMO, and those who put GM food on grocery shelves without identifying GM content in the labeling are setting themselves up for eventual class action suits, again IMO.

To any "scientist" who postures about "insignificant trace amounts with no effect on humans," I say let him swallow that same amount, by weight, of LSD.
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Corporations should be resources for humans, not vice versa. No matter what the privileges, it is not a privilege to be used, except by God.