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All jokes aside (as I am sure many "two daddy trailerpark" jokes are immanent) but this is indeed quite an advancement in biotech, because we may see future developments arrive in the development of cloning endangered species back from the brink of extinction; now species threatened from a lack of suitable mates, could be quite possibly saved, with the proper funding. The hard part would be digging deeper gene pools, enabling a true future for endangered species (although, I guess that's next week on /., right CmdrTaco?). Also, I wonder if it's possible to grow offspring with only two male subjects.

I did a quick link to the "sound quality test" from the original Slashdot post, and we see a lone frequency response test chart. Umm, that's a half dozen tests and a few thousand words short, folks.

What's worse, I can tell from simply viewing the graph that the lone "test" is invalid. So, off we go to the test portion of the article to see what's up, and more importantly, if there is any other real audio data other than that chart that might be useful.

Aha. In plain English, there it is:

" ... To verify the ear buds' frequency response, we devised the Ear 2.0, a life-size silicone rubber ear coupled with a calibrated microphone and sound level meter {Italics mine}. We played our test files into audio spectrum analyzer software and used the RightMark Audio Analyzer test suite (www.rightmark.audio.org) to verify our observations. ..."

And pretty much that's it. Not even a voltage/impedance measurement a 15-year old nerd could do to see what 3rd party headphones would work best. Oh, well.

Kids playing at a pro's game. I won't go into all the reasons why this is a silly idea, but for starters who told them that silicone and flesh/cartiledge have the same sonic absorption/reflection factor? Well, nobody, 'cuz they don't.

Where is the correction factor for the ear's own frequency response in direct near-field? No, it most certainly is not the same as the response from a sound in free air at a distance.

You could google for, i dunno, about a thousand long, confusing papers, but a nice short one that still gives the idea of how difficult (and how non-linear) this is can be found here:
National Library of Medicine

For the lazy, the short answer is a correct earspeaker has nowhere near flat response in order for us to perceive it to be "flat" compared to sounds from what amounts to many thousand times the distance away. In their test, a "flat" response would actually be the worst performer.

The chart linked actually states "Minimal deviation from 0db is ideal." That's out and out wrong without correction factored in.

The problem starts with the assumptions they make for the "calibrated" microphone; it's only "calibrated" at a specific distance and frankly I don't see how you could calibrate it with their fixture at near-field. Most likely they just used a pre-calibrated mic (typically these are calibrated for a 1metre distance in free air) and ran with it. That alone could account for the wild swings, let alone their test fixture's own anomalies.

The graph shows swings of up to 30+ dB in the midrange, where the ear is most sensitive. This is like the difference between way loud and inaudible, and if that were the case each of these headphones/earbuds would sound terrible, perhaps worse than terrible. Since they don't sound that bad, why did they not glean the test must be flawed? Nah, just publish it, nobody will know the difference.

Excuse me, but I think I'll leave PCMac to the computer stuff and the audio stuff to the audio guys. Take it all with a grain of salt unless you're just interested in the digital details. These guys can't be trusted with a microphone.

Okay, firstly I'd like to point to an article stating that Japanese are more prone to alcohol poisoning than Westerners because they lack or are deficient in an enzyme required for to break the substance down. Ergo, people from different parts of the world have different reactions when exposed to the same substances.
There's a similar case here.
What got me thinking about this was that a friend of mine often does clinical trials, and he mentioned one 'live-in' trial, in which 50% of the people were British/caucasian, and 50% were of cantonese origin. The trial was for a drug which was already on sale in the US/Europe, but the corp wanted to open the Japanese market, and so it had to be tested all over again.
Apparently there were no side-effects for the western subjects, but their oriental counterparts were in need of diapers fairly soon.
If you are a medical expert, then you might like to read Geographical/interracial differences in polymorphic drug oxidation, and Prostate Cancer Test Works Well for Black Men, in which it is stated that Black males have more of a certain enzyme than white males.
Would it be so easy to find a mixture of 773 asians, orientals, afro-americans, latinos and caucasians in Delhi?

our buddies at the National Center for Bioinformatics now allow you to search for genomic sequences in the bacteria in mine sludge.

I hope this gives some people the hints they need to engineer some microbes to clean up the crap we humans produce.

Brazil Nuts are naturally high in barium (0.3% by weight) and radium -- making it one of the most radioactive foods.

I wonder if plants can be used to extract waste pharmaceuticals out of the ground, too, such as destruxol and THC.

I haven't seen anyone bring this up, on this story or otherwise...but I read in New Scientist last year about functional MRI being the phrenology of our time. I can't find reference to it on the website, but a google returns this among others.

Could anyone here shed any light on this?

I read those articles. The first one doesn't say anything about their relative toxicities; I expect that Dr. Cohen expected Mr. Nader to cease ingestion of caffeine at a point that would still be safe for both of them.

The second says that, under certain conditions, caffeine can be more toxic. It doesn't discuss the conditions.

The third was best. It stated that the chemical toxicity of caffeine was greater than that of plutonium, but I didn't see anything to back it up.

The fourth didn't address the issue. Dr. Cohen clarified what he said previously, and discussed ingestion vs inhalation, but regarding relative toxicities only said: "eating plutonium is about equal in danger to eating the same quantity of caffeine", but I couldn't find where he explains that claim. (Admittedly, since it's a 17-chapter book, I didn't finish the whole thing.)

The final link again makes the claim that caffeine is more toxic than plutonium, but doesn't discuss it further.

Now, I took it upon myself to do a bit of research, using TOXNET (which doesn't handle deep linking well). I couldn't find any toxicity reports regarding ingestion of plutonium. But there are a number of intravenious studies of both caffeine and plutonium.

It looks like the LDLo (smallest dose recorded to kill) of intravenious caffeine on a dog is 4 mg/kg, while the LD50 (50% kill) of intravenious plutonium citrate is merely 300 ug/kg. Note that since this is comparing an LDLo to an LD50, it doesn't tell us the relative toxicities, but it does seem to suggest that plutonium is more toxic. (Sources: plutonium citrate, caffeine).

To compare LD50 to LD50, we can first look at [JPETAB Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. (Williams & Wilkins Co., 428 E. Preston St., Baltimore, MD 21202) V.1- 1909/10- Volume(issue)/page/year: 82,89,1944]. This paper establishes the LD50 of caffeine administered intraveniously to a rat at 105 mg/kg. Now, [Venugopal, B. and T.D. Luckey. Metal Toxicity in Mammals, 2. New York: Plenum Press, 1978. 169 (peer reviewed)] establishes the LD50 for plutonium administered intraveniously to a rat at 0.0014 uCi/g. Now, since 5 ug of plutonium has a radioactivity of 0.3 uCi (reference), this figure is equivalent to 8.4e-5 mg/kg.

Perhaps the absorption rate of plutonium is 1e6 times less than that of caffeine. There are suggestions that plutonium is not absorbed easily. But 1e6 still seems like a lot, lacking any other evidence.

But pointing the other way, remember that plutonium builds up on the bones, leading to a chronic toxicity which is higher than its acute toxicity.

So, I'm going to remain skeptical for the time being. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that I'm not sure that I agree with that statement.

My god, what an intelligent arguement. Very, very good. that is why (and I know you hear this a lot) I am frankly disturbed by your sig. Here is the evidence. I am sorry, but HIV does, in fact cause AIDS.

Your other posts reveal a healthy skepticism towards religion and other dubious claims, but for some reason you buy into this frankly bizarre and irresponsible conspiracy theory...I am doing what you suggested and taking what good you said and leaving the rest, but seriously, I suggest you do more research on AIDS, examine the competing evidence and re-evaluate your conclusion...

Those notes are pretty good, but they seem to be missing Lanthier's trademark brain in a jar and other random images.

Here are the assignments, exams, and notes for that course as zip files.

There's also COMP1406 (main course page), the next Java course which focuses on GUI design. And here's the list of CS course web pages (not all of them have good notes, it depends on the prof).

Diesel exhaust exposure and lung cancer: adjustment for the effect of smoking in a retrospective cohort study

Lung cancer in heavy equipment operators and truck drivers with diesel exhaust exposure in the construction industry

Sorry Dude. I know you meant well.

I understand the concern often put forth towards new materials, and I would be the first to say extensive testing should come *before* extensive deployment of new compounds....but....

I'd love to know the sources for the carbon fiber health risk study. Most of the ones I was able to find describe physical problems (structural damage to cells, clumping in airways, etc) and not chemical reactions to the Carbon contained with the buckyball/tube. I was under the impression that the carbon bound within such structures gained its inherient strength from the relativly strong bonds between the carbon, thus making is unavailable to react with compounds in the body. I could also be completely wrong, hence my desire to read your sources.

Try this source for information of the effects of buckyfibers on lung tissue;
NASA: Pulmonary toxicity of single-wall carbon nanotubes in mice

Actually buckytubes have a variety of interesting chemical and electrochemical features... including possible superconductivity, and the ability to physically carry charge/ions along their structure. This makes them highly active in an organic environment. Such issues may indicate that their reactive properties may far outweigh their mass. If nothing else, they can penetrate cell walls and this is certain to cause trouble in cell function and tissue viability. Add to that the stability and longevity of buckyfibers and you have a structure which kills cells today and kills cells tomorrow...

I just fear for times when phrases like ... reacts in a serious way ...incredibly small concentrations...can cause tremendous and unexpectedly severe ...potentially serious and unpredictable impacts lead the debate, that we are building fear on a base of unmentioned facts.

This is precisely the issue regarding naotechnology. On the plus side, we become masters of our environment down to the atomic level, and on the down side we have the power to destroy ourselves and our environments ability to support life as we know it. How do you overstate the importance of being cautious, thoughtful, and rigorous when dealing with issues of this magnitude.

As few as six ebola virons can cause a full blown ebola outbreak... how much more devastating might a self assembling machine be if it ran amock? The tests done today suggest that buckytube fibers are more toxic than quartz fiber... the measure for industrial respiratory toxicity. The damage is persistent, and pervasive. The fibers don't go away, and they don't break down for a long time. This is by it's nature a serious health threat. That said, much of the materials used in industry these days are highly toxic. This means that from construction, to disposition, we must insure that people are not exposed to these products. This is doable... it just requires us to be steadfast in our commitment to put public safety above monetary gain.

Genda

On a strictly informative note, it's not the inert benzene's action on DNA that causes cancer; rather, it is the body's attempt to rid itself of benzene that leads to lukemia. You can check it out here. Other, similar compounds (e.g., toluene) do not share the carcinogenic properties of benzene.

Upcoming talk and demonstration on the development of Brain-Computer Interfaces: http://www.notacon.org/speakers.html#lowne (shameless plug)

Invasive, motor-cortical BCI development at Utah: http://www.bioen.utah.edu/cni/Projects/Motor.htm

Mike Gibbs' work with BCIs at Oxford University's Robotics Group: http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~mgibbs/research.html

The Neural Prostheses program at the National Institutes of Health includes calls for proposals in BCI development: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/npp/

The University of British Columbia's BCI research group: http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~garyb/BCI.htm

Results of the 2003 Brain Computer interface competition (focuses on signal processing techniques): http://ida.first.fraunhofer.de/projects/bci/compet ition/results/index.html

BCI development at the Cognitive Science and Technology group at the Helsinki University of Technology: http://www.lce.hut.fi/research/bci/

Dr. Jessica Bayliss's BCI work and extensive bibliography (very important, seminal work on BCI development): http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/ and http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/baylissThesis. pdf

Dr. Charles Anderson's work at Colorado State University with EEG pattern classification in BCI systems: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/eeg/index.html

Manchester University's Toby Howard has written some good articles on BCIs, mostly for Popular Science: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/toby/research/bc i/

Dr. Michael Black at Brown University teaches a course in BCI development: http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs295-7/home.html

Cyberkinetics, Inc. makes medical-use BCIs: http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/

What on earth is the "purpose of the web"???

Also, you probably shouldn't use Google to do research searches. Have you tried PubMed? It's one of the best, and free to search. Some non-free ones (which universities generally have subscription for) are BIOSIS Previews and ISI Web of Knowledge.

As a side point, I frequently use Google to look up stuff for reports at university, and am generally surprised at just how relevant the search results are, for a non-scientific web search engine. Google on!

NIH, The National Institues of Health, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States government, is using Beowulf clusters to help cure diseases such as cancer, Alzheimers, stroke, heart disease and kidney failure.

I'm definitely rooting for the Feds on this one.

It's been said that the cure for hemophilia is to let the bleeders die before they breed more bleeders.

Probably uttered by someone who is completely ignorant of genetics. Since hemophilia is caused by a recessive gene, just "letting the bleeders die" isn't going to do much. Just because someone has some bad genes, doesn't mean they don't have any good ones. My grandfather has usher's syndrome (which means I'm probably a carrier). He's also a genius (literally). Since genetics allows for the possibility that good genes will be passed on, while bad ones won't (at least in a portion of the offpsring) I don't see any reason to "selectively breed" people.

Argonne National Laboratory maintains a MPI (Message Passing Interface) implementation for parallel computing called MPICH

The National Center for Biotechnology Information(NCBI), run by the NIH, develops a suite of utilities and libraries for developing bioinformatics applications called the NCBI Toolkit

but exactly where did I reference the Hopkins study? That one reportedly dealt with a putative parkinsons/MDMA link. No matter, there's plenty of research for you to peruse on MDMA, much of which deals with the Neuropharmacology of the drug. The Hopkins study is hardly representative of the entire body of literature on the subject.

As a heads up, Prozac use often tags people with seratonin imbalances. Seratonin is in the MDMA equation and intensifies positive and negative effects of the drug on these people

Excuse me... what? I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here... In the animal studies currently available, Prozac has not been shown to intensify the effects of MDMA... in fact, the opposite is true. The mechanism has even been elucidated. Prozac can reportedly intensify some neurotransmitter effects of other amphetamines, but I've never seen research to suggest that effect exists with ecstasy.

Lastly, ecstacy tablets bought on the street are almost never ever pure and are often cut with speed,cocaine,heroin,DXM (this causes major overheating),drano or other nasties which are responsible for ER visits, imho.

Street drugs are often misrepresented... a point I made in my initial post. Even so, it an incredible stretch to blame the deleterious effects of ecstasy on adulterants. The adulterants you mentioned are harmful, but that hardly evidence that ecstasy is harmless.

I knew someone who died from a water overdose. I worked as an orderly in a locked psych unit while I was in college. We had one patient that was diagnosed with Psychogenic polydipsia. He was brought in after he passed out from an electrolyte imbalance. He spent several months with us while we treated him with anti-psychotics. A few months after he was released he quit taking his meds and drank himself to death.

Mar Biotechnol (NY). 2002 Dec;4(6):521-5.
Sharks: a potential source of antiangiogenic factors and tumor treatments.
Cho J, Kim Y.
Department of Microbiology, Pukyong National University, Pusan 608-737, Korea.

Since angiogenesis is a key feature of tumor growth, inhibiting this process is one way to treat cancer. Cartilage is a natural source of material with strong antiangiogenic activity. This report reviews knowledge of the anticancer properties of shark cartilage and clinical information on drugs such as neovastat and squalamine. Because their entire endoskeleton is composed of cartilage, sharks are thought to be an ideal source of angiogenic and tumor growth inhibitors. Shark cartilage extract has shown antiangiogenic and antitumor activities in animals and humans. The oral administration of cartilage extract was efficacious in reducing angiogenesis. Purified antiangiogenic factors from shark cartilage, such as U-995 and neovastat (AE-941), also showed antiangiogenic and antitumor activity. AE-941 is under phase III clinical investigation. Squalamine, a low molecular weight aminosterol, showed strong antitumor activity when combined with chemotherapeutic materials. The angiogenic tissue inhibitor of metalloprotease 3 (TIMP-3) and tumor suppressor protein (snm23) genes from shark cartilage were cloned and characterized.

PMID: 14961226

How about a recommending a balanced, healthy diet, with exercise, for pregrant mothers -- *and* soon-to-be-fathers ?

PS. I'm not a scientist.

How about a recommending a balanced, healthy diet, with exercise, for pregrant mothers -- *and* soon-to-be-fathers ?

PS. I'm not a scientist.

Apologies, I re-read the parent post and realized that what he was referring to was not my classification of anti-social behavior.

Someone anti-social is anti-social on a consistent basis.

Sometimes we simply need some time to ourselves, to call us anti-social in that situation is to simply misunderstand the meaning of the term anti-social.

That one's been done. A peer-reviewed medical study found that when you hook people up to metabolic monitors and found that when you watch TV you burn significantly fewer calories than when you sit and do nothing.

A different study found that when you actually looked at obesity, it was correlated with TV watching, but not video game playing. Moreover, if you factored in the role of the parents, siblings, and other aspects of the child's environment, TV stopped being a factor either.

In other words, stop the presses. Modern medicine has found that good parenting makes the difference, not TV or video games! TV won't make you fat if your mom makes you turn it off and go outside to play.

That one's been done. A peer-reviewed medical study found that when you hook people up to metabolic monitors and found that when you watch TV you burn significantly fewer calories than when you sit and do nothing.

A different study found that when you actually looked at obesity, it was correlated with TV watching, but not video game playing. Moreover, if you factored in the role of the parents, siblings, and other aspects of the child's environment, TV stopped being a factor either.

In other words, stop the presses. Modern medicine has found that good parenting makes the difference, not TV or video games! TV won't make you fat if your mom makes you turn it off and go outside to play.

Heh... note the email address Annalee Newitz is using here... she evidentally creates a new mail alias for every column: sugarpill@techsploitation.com

Ah, slash ids pushing a billion and whining about what a sewer it's become...

The premise, as others have noted, is that the mind can only focus on one thing at a time. Also, all pain is in the mind (paralyzed people cannot feel pain when they're injured...because the brain never gets the signals). If the mind is taught not to "register" the pain, it doesn't happen. Pain is separate from injury.

Before anyone dismisses this out-of-hand as quackery, consider that the NIH and JAMA have published studies on it (links found with a quick Google search and not comprehensive).

Also, since someone else in a different thread brought up childbirth: HypnoBirthing.

Simple google search on "women" and "ultramaraton" returns this as the FIRST hit. Next time google before you flame.

A leiomyosarcoma is a rare malignant tumor consisting of smooth muscle cells and small cell sarcoma tumor. ref

The govermnent already funds way more medical research than does NASA.

NIH's current budget is about $29 billion (NIH funds the vast majority of biology/medical research in the US). NASA's current budget is about $15.3 billion.

As olfactory cues are the only sense signals that are not intermediated before innervating with higher brain areas, this seems to me to be of the same order of interest as the recent nerve-on-chip story that was slashdotted recently. As a result, you could probably use something like this with more subtlety (with the right software etc) and to better effect than the suggested use (issuing the smell of bovine faeces as the latest 419 hits your inbox :)). Interesting background refs: (not related to the product) Link and Link

As olfactory cues are the only sense signals that are not intermediated before innervating with higher brain areas, this seems to me to be of the same order of interest as the recent nerve-on-chip story that was slashdotted recently. As a result, you could probably use something like this with more subtlety (with the right software etc) and to better effect than the suggested use (issuing the smell of bovine faeces as the latest 419 hits your inbox :)). Interesting background refs: (not related to the product) Link and Link

This isn't some statistical study where some big group in an uncontrolled environment shows some statistical anomaly. It's a straightforward experiment.

The main criticism of the study is that they need to try different field strengths, over at least a 1:10 range. If a clear relationship appears between field strength and DNA breaks, that provides a much stronger indication of a valid result.

According to the abstract, rats that were fed melatonin or Vitamin E weren't affected. So all you have to do is remember to take your vitamins in the morning before you shave or blow dry your hair. (Do not take melatonin in the morning - it's often used as a sleep aid.)

Pubmed link to the abstract for their research. Publisher's site sometimes holds a free copy of the full paper (depends on the journal).

it's already happened.

i was surprised to find that this is IGF-1 addition, it would have made more sense and been more impressive had it been a myostatin knockout construct.

This is the gene that generates freakishly large cattle and mice.

I can't wait till i can find an excuse to clone this into the flu virion so that everyone goes to be feeling like hell and wakes up packing 50 lbs. more muscle.

just as a public service to the scrawny and desperate out there, wait for the gene therapy construct, paying for myostatin blockers at GNC doesn't work.

You think with a language, not in one. I am loath to give long explanations here (ok, ok, mod me down), but some grammars really are underlined with different logics, such as, say three different truth values vs. two, tree-left vs. tree-right parsing, analytical vs. synthetical posessive case (English has both) and so on. Also keep in mind that particular syntax is a subset of a grammar, not the whole thing. Also, as another post points out, different semantic configurations (i.e. meanings) seem to map to different parts of the brain. That, to my mind, is one heck of an argument for the existence of varied thought modes.

Note that the definition of "embryo" is a fertilized egg after it has implanted in the womb. That is after weeks of development. These scientists did not create an embryo. Even if they call it an embryo (or the article cited above does), the fact is they admit they let it develop for only 5 or 6 days. At best that could be called a zygote or a blastocyst. And even if they let it develop for weeks (about the same amount of time before implantation would normally occur and it would be called an "embryo") it still wouldn't technically be an embryo since it wasn't implanted in the womb.

The womb is so important here, because we can't replicate it in a lab. And the womb is necessary for an embryo to exist and develop further into the child that will be born, breath air (instead of fluid), etc. That is why the womb is such an amazing creation, and why Christians emphasize the Bible's references to life existing in the womb in their quest against abortion. If scientists can ever replicate the womb (and they are *very, very* far from being able to do that) we'll need to have this debate in reference to cloning over whether or not embryo's are human.

For now... all they've done is harvest some stem cells.

Also see this same definition of "embryo" at this NIH site. These scientists did not create an embryo, clone an embryo, or even interact with an embryo in any way. We have no technology to do that... we'd have to create a fake womb... which is impossible for us right now.

In emergencies, European doctors inject hydergine directly into the carotid artery to protect the brain. Hydergine's mechanisms of actions include the reduction in the rate of lipofuscin deposition in brain cells, increased metabolism of brain cells by improving ATP synthesis and protection to the brain from free radical damage. [1]

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In emergencies, European doctors inject hydergine directly into the carotid artery to protect the brain. Hydergine's mechanisms of actions include the reduction in the rate of lipofuscin deposition in brain cells, increased metabolism of brain cells by improving ATP synthesis and protection to the brain from free radical damage. [1]

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Known fact: Electrical equipment operating in air may produce ozone if there are electrical discharges. Most Slashdotters have probably smelled ozone in the vicinity of electrical arcs. (This may also be accompanied by the release of magic smoke.)

Known fact: Ozone is toxic at high concentrations. It is an irritant to the lungs, and it has been identified as a serious ground level pollutant in many cities.

Known fact: Those negative ion air fresheners contain high voltage components exposed to the ambient air. The negative ions they generate are electrostatically 'sticky' and can be quite good at pulling particulates out of the air. In operation, most also generate some quantity of ozone as an unwanted side product.

This experiment placed rats in close proximity to an electrical source at high potential relative to ground, purportedly similar to what might be found in one of those ion generators. Something (presumably corona discharge) generated ozone in its vicinity. In the cage, a toxic (or at least greater-than-acceptable) level of ozone accumulated.

The only feature of note is that the ozone accumulation only occurred when rats or a pan of grounded water were present. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that of course these things increased the ozone generation rate. They provided a path to ground, and they increased the humidity (and consequently the conductivity) of the air in the cage, which should lead to a more intense corona discharge.

Does this translate to a danger from outdoor power transmission lines? Well, it's tenuous at best. First, the outdoors is a very well-ventilated space; any ozone that was created would not accumulated. Most homes aren't too bad, either--even if they're well sealed, they've got a pretty substantial air volume to dilute ozone produced around you.

The researchers looked at very extreme conditions: referring to their abstract, they placed the rats 1 cm from a 10 kV source. Power line electric fields of that magnitude are never seen in a residence. The authors note in their paper that the electric fields they used were an order of magnitude or more greater than those seen even for individuals standing directly beneath a transmission line. The authors also acknowledge that recent studies have tended to support the notion that moderate electromagnetic fields pose little or no risk. If someone went out and measured the ozone levels in homes near power lines, then I might find the power line theory more convincing.

This hardly seems the proper forum to ask for help with venereal disease.

A crucial distinction that is not being made in this discussion is the one between nanomaterials in general and nanorobots particularly. It is possible that one day we will be able to build functional nanobots that can live freely and replicate. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.

What is more relevant and has been less well-discussed by /. is nanomaterial remediation. Carbon nanotubes are very tough and have been demonstrated to be very toxic in mice . Thought has not been given about how to dispose of materials such as these without creating a public health hazard. It is clear that nanomaterials will be used in greater and greater quantities due to their exceptional properties. Therefore, we can work to solve the inevitable disposal problem now or later. It will cost less to address disposal now.

If it comes down to starvation and ingesting food fried in 1-ppt Dioxin, the world's population will accept marginally higher cancer and birth defect rates.

The Belgian PCB and Dioxin Incident of January-June 1999: Exposure Data and Potential Impact on Health

P.S. Google fucking rocks. I'd never heard of this incident until your post. 30 seconds later, I have the total casualty rate -- somewhere between 40 and 8000 cancers out of 10 million people.

So in answer to your question, something like that, planetwide, would result in the biggest class-action lawsuit in history, but no threat to the species.

I'm pretty sure the beer was named after the medical condition.

In my experience, a G4 processor "feels" about as fast as a P3 or P4 with twice its clock speed. Floating point and integer benchmarks usually come out this way too. Integer benchmark running in Java (client) here. Of course, the complie speed will also be affected by the compiler, but Apple's XCode and Project Builder have a pretty good reputation, I think.

Actually, the field that a physician with computer expertise would be extremely well-qualified for is medical informatics.

This is very, very different than bioinformatics or computational biology, both of which might use "supercomputers to solve biology problems".

Actually, there is talk that medical informatics and bioinformatics might be coming together. There is a relatively young field called pharmacogenomics, which is the study of how each individual's distinct genetic makeup affects how the drugs we take work.

Here is a PubMed link to an article about the potential for collaboration between bioinformatics and medical informatics. The abstract is free on PubMed, but unless you have access to a subscription to the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, the article will cost you $5.

With a little luck, and a few courses, I suspect that an MD might be able to get into this field without getting a CS degree. However, I am not all that familiar with hiring practices in the field (I'm more on the bioinformatics side), so it would be best to find someone in medical informatics to ask.

A particularly hot area right now (no guarantee it'll stay this way) is the management of clinical trial data. I get a lot of recruiters contacting me looking for people with this sort of expertise.

I second that. After my residency, I did a fellowship in Medical Informatics. It is a great way to combine both field. The National Library of Medicine funds 18 training programs in the field. Check out this website. I know work in part clinical, part implementation/research position and am very happy. Given the current interest in IT in medicine, and the unique problems of adapting IT to physician workflows, the job market is on the upswing. Good Luck!

Find a dedicated concept or conceptual area to exploit. How to do this? Simply ask folks what areas they are having problems with software needs.

I'll tell you that a number of folks are doing quite well at the interface between biotech and software. The amount of data that is being generated by biotech is truly mind boggling and we need software tools for analysis and visualization of that data. Software that is capable of analyzing multi-dimensional datasets is particularly in demand right now with gene chip analysis and the work we do in our lab on molecular phenotyping. For instance, we are adopting software used in the remote sensing community to analyze "multispectral" data sets in the retina and other tissues and the communities that this software came from (GIS, Remote sensing, Intelligence) are very interested in software that can help distill multispectral data real time to enable streamlined processing and analysis. Your link to DARPA is particularly informative for these potential projects, but don't forget about other resources as well like the National Institutes of Health.