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Also note that the DVD writer software and everything _is_ included in the price.

So is the Macs.

A more exact comparison would be a 2 GHz Celeron machine with el-cheapo SDR RAM. That's still faster than the G4, but not as overkill as the P4.

Completely false. The G4 in the iMac is a far superior chip to the Celeron, and is on par with the P4 in some respects and much better in others,/a>

Plus, the iMac has the same type of RAM, its not SDRAM. You should read more closely.

Tax software also comes with the Mac, and there is no difference between the Pro and Home computer's OS - its identical because Mac OS X is completely scalable for anyone's individual needs.

Plus the Mac has 2 FireWire, 3 USB 2.0, TV out as well, MUCH smaller footprint, is silent, higher-quality audio input and output, PLENTY of games available (I already linked to a crapload of games in another post, so I won't bother here - you're obvioulsy stuck in 1996), iLife software built in (Please - tell me what's equiavalent to GarageBand for PCs - and is free with any new PC).

And when did I say that all PCs were cheaper? Never. I was more taking a shot at Element for their highly overpriced PCs that should be much cheaper because they DON'T pay the MS Tax.

Also note that it involves _no_ assembling stuff on your own.

This should go without saying.

Macs also come WITHOUT spyware, which I would consider worth a ton of money. And without the ability to get the horrendous viruses that plague Windows. See, even though the hardware may seem overpriced to you, the SOFTWARE is what REALLY differentiates Macs, you PC people can't seem to realize that. My time is worth so much more than having to spend it reinstalling Windows every 6 months due to the fact its performance degrades exponentially over time without any sort of user intervention, having to religiously update Virus definitions, fret over e-mail attachments, rebuilding the whole system every time a virus takes it down.

Again, it seems you saved a few bucks, but your personal time is absolutely worthless. Sorry to hear that.

Will the microwave beams "cook" humans and animals?

No. This common concern arises from the everyday use of microwave ovens. Microwave power in an oven has five times or more the intensity of noon sunlight. Power beams can operate at, or less than, one-fifth of the intensity of sunlight or 4% of the intensity in a microwave oven. In addition, the tightly confined beams are directed to receivers, termed rectennas, erected several meters above restricted and fenced industrial zones. Beams can be turned off in a few seconds for unusual conditions. Outside the fenced area and under the rectennas, the microwave intensity will be far less than that allowed for continuous exposure of the general population.

Time to take that old copy of Dianetics out of mothballs, I guess. Here I've been ignoring it because scientologists say it's the greatest thing since sliced hobo when I really should have been looking beyond that.

Seriously, dude. What did you expect the guy to say? "Um, I guess we'll close the SERVE project down because a minority of our experts had some problems with it"?

Sheesh, next you'll be telling me that those 9 out of 10 dentists who recommend Trident are full of shit and we should really be listening to the one dissenting prankster who recommends Bubblicious to his patients who chew gum!

For a long time sleep paralysis was treated with SSRI's, usually tricyclic antidepressants that, in light doses, would keep REM light enough to fully emerge from the paralysis stage. But if you've ever been on an SSRI, the side effects can be pretty miserable.

Um, SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors -- the new generation of antidepressants, of which Prozac is the most famous) are a completely different beast from the older generation of tricyclic antidepressants. I've previously been on Paxil before for social anxiety and depression, and the only noteworthy side-effect was decreased sex drive (and my experience was pretty typical).

For a long time sleep paralysis was treated with SSRI's, usually tricyclic antidepressants that, in light doses, would keep REM light enough to fully emerge from the paralysis stage. But if you've ever been on an SSRI, the side effects can be pretty miserable.

Um, SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors -- the new generation of antidepressants, of which Prozac is the most famous) are a completely different beast from the older generation of tricyclic antidepressants. I've previously been on Paxil before for social anxiety and depression, and the only noteworthy side-effect was decreased sex drive (and my experience was pretty typical).

For a long time sleep paralysis was treated with SSRI's, usually tricyclic antidepressants that, in light doses, would keep REM light enough to fully emerge from the paralysis stage. But if you've ever been on an SSRI, the side effects can be pretty miserable.

Um, SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors -- the new generation of antidepressants, of which Prozac is the most famous) are a completely different beast from the older generation of tricyclic antidepressants. I've previously been on Paxil before for social anxiety and depression, and the only noteworthy side-effect was decreased sex drive (and my experience was pretty typical).

Yes. Dreaming during REM sleep is primarily done with the right brain, which is mostly concerned with emotions and imagery. The reason they seem so jumbled and non-logical is because the act of *remembering* the dream afterwards is done by the left brain, which of course can't seem to make anything of the stream of images and emotions flowing from the right brain's memory.

However, if you dream during non-REM sleep, such as when you doze off in class for a second or two or during the first few hours of a night's rest (that's the Matrix-like experience of not really knowing if you're awake or still dreaming), it's the *left* brain that does the dreaming. Consequently, the dreams are more about speech and logic than normal dreams. This is the state that leads to talking in your sleep.

So based on that, we should all bring pillows with us to lecture. "But Professor, I was learning!"

Here are a couple of sources.

Hopefully anyone who made the mistake of a Blade 1000 will stay far away. Performance from Sun workstations has been sub-par for years now.

I had a good laugh when one of my Intel workstations and a colleague's Blade 1000 were both hooked up to a compute grid. The benchmarks for BLAST, the bioinformatics tool we were running on the grid, showed my PIII running circles around the bioinformatics geek's favorite machine. What's better is that the Intel machine (an IBM), was bought new for less than $1000, and the Blade had been purchased for over $5000!

I suppose its analogue would be mandatory drug tests in sports.

Somehow I suspect sporters have less trouble departing of a "sample" of their work, One would have to be really really famous to be able to make money with these things (I havent checked e-bay prices though, perhaps its worth a shot?). Then again, fame and fortune are not garanteed with ones first paper...

• lateral gene transfer in eukaryotes
• viral incorporation into germline

• lateral gene transfer in eukaryotes
• viral incorporation into germline

My wife is a Child Psychiatrist and medical researcher. In addition to reasearch and clinical work, she works 10 hrs a week with an agency that helps foster and adoptive parents.

I have heard stories from both ends of the spectrum. One where a foster parent wanted to medicate a perfectly normal child just so they could more easily manage an inquisitive child in a boring environment.

And an other case where the parents were strongly opposed to med's but ther little boy was literally climbing the walls knocking books of the self in a 15 minute interview. After meds the boy was much, much, much better, and happier. The parents could not believe the difference and felt bad about the boy suffering so long.

True ADHD is socially very difficult on the child. Untreated, an ADHD child has an increased chance of drug abuse.

I mentioned Cliff's post to my wife and she, like an other poster, recommend Strattera. Strattera is a non stimulant ADHD drug that is as effective as Ritalin.

ADHD is both the most under-diagnosed, and over-diagnosed childhood desease. As much as 30% of ADHD children are left undiagnosed. Many times their parents think "boys will be boys" or "I was like that" (Umm there is strong genetic basis). On the over-diagnosed side, upto 15% of diagnosed children may actually be bipolar. If your child is not responding well to ADHD Meds, talk to a Child Psychiatrist. A pediatrician is not as trained to make the distinction between ADHD and Bipolar Disorder.

There is a spectrum ADHD severity. There are very severe cases where it is totally unfair and hurtful to call it "bad parenting". And there are mild cases where coping strategies alone may help.

Also confusing matters in the mild cases, sometimes "labeling" the child as ADHD can make the difference in getting extra reasources to an acedemically struggling child.

My wife is a Child Psychiatrist and medical researcher. In addition to reasearch and clinical work, she works 10 hrs a week with an agency that helps foster and adoptive parents.

I have heard stories from both ends of the spectrum. One where a foster parent wanted to medicate a perfectly normal child just so they could more easily manage an inquisitive child in a boring environment.

And an other case where the parents were strongly opposed to med's but ther little boy was literally climbing the walls knocking books of the self in a 15 minute interview. After meds the boy was much, much, much better, and happier. The parents could not believe the difference and felt bad about the boy suffering so long.

True ADHD is socially very difficult on the child. Untreated, an ADHD child has an increased chance of drug abuse.

I mentioned Cliff's post to my wife and she, like an other poster, recommend Strattera. Strattera is a non stimulant ADHD drug that is as effective as Ritalin.

ADHD is both the most under-diagnosed, and over-diagnosed childhood desease. As much as 30% of ADHD children are left undiagnosed. Many times their parents think "boys will be boys" or "I was like that" (Umm there is strong genetic basis). On the over-diagnosed side, upto 15% of diagnosed children may actually be bipolar. If your child is not responding well to ADHD Meds, talk to a Child Psychiatrist. A pediatrician is not as trained to make the distinction between ADHD and Bipolar Disorder.

There is a spectrum ADHD severity. There are very severe cases where it is totally unfair and hurtful to call it "bad parenting". And there are mild cases where coping strategies alone may help.

Also confusing matters in the mild cases, sometimes "labeling" the child as ADHD can make the difference in getting extra reasources to an acedemically struggling child.

There's a reasonably strong body of literature that suggests that increasing your intake of omega 3 fatty acids (fish oil) and decreasing your intake of omega 6 fatty acids (margarines, oils, junk foods) can aid treatment of ADHD in at least some cases.

Some references:

Deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids tied to ADHD in boys

Increased levels of ethane, a non-invasive marker of n-3 fatty acid oxidation, in breath of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

There are more papers available from PubMed, including one describing a sudy which showed no measurable improvement. Evidence in favour of the general health benefits of a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids is strong, however, so it seems (to me, at least) like a pretty simple and worthwhile thing to try.

As the father of a Type I diabetic and the son of a Type II diabetic, I have a suggestion. Why not cure diabetes, save thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Here is what was spent on diabetes care in the U.S. in 2002:

• Direct medical costs: $92 billion
• Indirect costs: $40 billion (disability, work loss, premature mortality)

There are numerous possible cures: Stem cells, INGAP peptide, etc. With 5-billion dollars and the right amount of political will you could cure it.

In 2000, there were 69,301 American deaths directly caused by diabetes, but the NIH states that diabetes contributed to a total of 213,062 deaths in that year. And it happened again in 2001 and 2002, and it will happen again this year.

How many people do YOU know with Type I or Type II diabetes? Cure this damned disease and then see what can be done with an extra $132 billion in the U.S. economy. Use a few billion to get to Mars? Why not!

Check out National Diabetes Statistics to see where these stats come from.

If you read the link I originally posted, there are excerpts from many medical publications. No, the references are not hyperlinked. But they are in text form, so it is a small step for the reader to highlight any particular publication reference and right click "Web search" (in Mozilla). Thus with a miniscule effort, the nasty naysayer could have explored all the medical publications. Note that many online medical journals require registration and/or subscription which may be why the author of the page I linked to does not have hyperlinks. Some of the references can be tracked down using the method I described above at other sites, though.

For example, one of the referenced publications on misdiagnosed atypical dementias is available on the NIH site.

Additionally in a later post, I provided a link to a site that contained 66 citations regarding CDJ and Alzheimer's. I am certainly not going to go through all 66 publications and find all the appropriate bits and pieces, compile them, and then post them here all because someone is too lazy to read through the supplied links (all of which are hyperlinked).

As I have said before, it is Stanley Prusiner, the Nobel prize winning scientist who discovered prions, who first suspected the linkage between BSE and CJD. There has been a lot of research, including the findings that CDJ is being misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's and other dementias. So if for some reason you think it is all a hoax, I would suggest looking into Prusiner's research as well as the research of other scientists in this subject area.

In sum, I have provided links or text references to nearly 100 pieces of information supporting what I originally posted. I would invite you (and any others) to do the reading and then continue on with research sufficient to your needs.

Cheers.

The big problem with prions (the things that cause mad cow disease (or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE), as well as scrapie in sheep and some other diseases) is that there is no microorganism to blame, like a virus or bacteria.

Instead, prions are just mis-folded proteins. Take your normal protein, fold it wrong, and suddenly it acts funny because it can't do its normal job correctly. It also induces other proteins to fold incorrectly (that whole replication thing). Because this misfolding has to start somewhere, there are (very, very rare) cases of spontaneous Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (the human equivalent of mad cow disease).

Now, because the protein itself is technically correct, the body doesn't see anything wrong with it, so it doesn't kill it (like it would if it saw a mutated cell). This also means that cooking prions won't change anything.

Because a prion is a single incorrect protein, the transmission rate is really pretty low, especially between species. That is, eating a single wrong protein probably won't infect you. However, your hamburgers are probably a bit larger than single proteins.

There is no evidence of prions in muscle meat. The largest concentration of prions is in the brain/nervous system. Stay away from brains and ground meat (since you don't know exactly where the ground stuff comes from) and you're probably fine, even if the animal was infected.

Try this page for some info, slightly technical, from the UK.

Try this page from NOVA

Good, simple info from NIH

As the article says, it's possible that tens of thousands of cases of CJD in the US are going unrecognized.

Modern research is showing that prion-like proteins are involved with memory according to this article (note the links to Cell at the end).

There's a lot more information out there. It's not to say that everything is 100% understood at this point in time. What we do know...

(1) Alzheimer's is on an incredibly fast ramp to the point where there is something called "early onset Alzheimer's".

(2) It is likely that CJD is vastly underdiagnosed in the US.

(3) There is a possibility that Alzheimer's may be caused, at least in part, by CJD. I am not alone in this assertion. Stanley Prusiner, awarded the Nobel prize for the discovery of prions, has similar suspicions and there is currently research being funded that is investigating the role of prions in memory and Alzheimer's.

If you are a beef eater, I'd suggest looking into the matter. Life is precious and as the British and Europeans found out the hard way... better not left solely in the hands of governments and industry.

As you are going into some sort of medical field, I hope you learn how to be a pro-active thinking sort of person, not just a reactive "lose your rag" naysayer.

Let me remind you from your study of the history of science that you know many ideas that turned out to be right at first met violent opposition from the scientific community. History has shown us that many scientists do very poorly at considering and accepting new ideas. At least in your ability to reject new ideas, you seem well on the way to being a good run of the mill mediocre scientist.

Stanley Prusiner, the scientist who coined the term prion, originally speculated that Alzheimer's may in fact turn out to be a prion disease. This speculation came in the mid 1980's.

Of course you know that Stanley Prusiner was award the Nobel prize for his work with prions, don't you?

I would at least consider the ideas of a Nobel prize-winning scientist, not reject them outright. It may not be that 100% mad cow = Alzheimer's as the body is a very complex system. However, mad cow could certainly be a leading factor in why Alzheimer's is growing at an amazing pace and being found in many younger people.

In today's most modern research, we are finding evidence that prion-like structures are involved with how memory works. Here's some information from a dementia site, note the links to Cell at the end.

Here's a December 29, 2003 recap from a government website of some of what is going on.

I could provide you with many many links and sources, but I suspect you will be a closed-minded doubter until either CJD rears its ugly in your life or you go ahead and do the research yourself.

Here are a few more places to start exploring --

#123400 CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE; CJD

variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease Citations 1-10 of 66 total displayed.

That's all. If you eat beef, I would strongly urge you to do the research. Your life and the lives of people you care about may be at stake :-)

As you are going into some sort of medical field, I hope you learn how to be a pro-active thinking sort of person, not just a reactive "lose your rag" naysayer.

Let me remind you from your study of the history of science that you know many ideas that turned out to be right at first met violent opposition from the scientific community. History has shown us that many scientists do very poorly at considering and accepting new ideas. At least in your ability to reject new ideas, you seem well on the way to being a good run of the mill mediocre scientist.

Stanley Prusiner, the scientist who coined the term prion, originally speculated that Alzheimer's may in fact turn out to be a prion disease. This speculation came in the mid 1980's.

Of course you know that Stanley Prusiner was award the Nobel prize for his work with prions, don't you?

I would at least consider the ideas of a Nobel prize-winning scientist, not reject them outright. It may not be that 100% mad cow = Alzheimer's as the body is a very complex system. However, mad cow could certainly be a leading factor in why Alzheimer's is growing at an amazing pace and being found in many younger people.

In today's most modern research, we are finding evidence that prion-like structures are involved with how memory works. Here's some information from a dementia site, note the links to Cell at the end.

Here's a December 29, 2003 recap from a government website of some of what is going on.

I could provide you with many many links and sources, but I suspect you will be a closed-minded doubter until either CJD rears its ugly in your life or you go ahead and do the research yourself.

Here are a few more places to start exploring --

#123400 CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE; CJD

variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease Citations 1-10 of 66 total displayed.

That's all. If you eat beef, I would strongly urge you to do the research. Your life and the lives of people you care about may be at stake :-)

I googled the paper mentioned in that cyber-dyne link, and found that in numerous other articles, that paper is referenced for the sole purpose of quoting the 13% statistic which results from a sample of 46 individuals.

The abstract is listed in PubMed, but does not purport to make any statements on mad cow/BSE.

In fact, at least 13% [cyber-dyne.com] of Alzheimer's cases are indeed CJD caused by mad cow.

A citation. Please. A *real* one, not the drivel that appears on that website you linked to, which I can only presume is your own. Go on, find that article in PubMed and let us read more than that. That's not evidence, it's a statement. I'm convinced that you're a hysterical idiot without the first bloody idea what you're on about. You might just convince me that your brains aren't completely rotted if you can at least produce a proper citation for this fact of yours.

*deep breath*

I don't normally lose my rag with people like this, but *pul-lease*. As a science graduate and clinical Vet student, this kind of thing really really does my nut. Hysterical, unfounded, poorly argued pseudo-scientific bullshit. You might as well argue that gastric ulcers and appendicitis are the same thing 'cos they both cause acute stomach pain. Come back when you have the first idea what you're on about, or better, don't come back at all.

Heck -- humans colonizing Mars could work out really well for the same reason.

In regards to your claim "Chelation IS NOT an FDA approved treatment for ANYTHING!", the nih.gov link provided above states

"Over 800,000 patient visits were made for chelation therapy in the United States in 1997. Chelation therapy involves the use of EDTA (ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid), a synthetic amino acid that is administered intravenously (through the veins). EDTA, which effectively speeds removal of heavy metals and minerals such as lead, iron, copper, and calcium from the blood, is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in treating lead poisoning and toxicity from other heavy metals. Although it is not approved by the FDA to treat coronary artery disease, some physicians and alternative medicine practitioners have recommended EDTA chelation as a way to treat this disorder."

All of the Python core team (including Guido until recently) live in DC. Granted, it's better if the conference was held in Vegas, on a cruise ship or in Monaco parhaps, but you're forgetting that the organizers of it are volunteers and do not get paid. The days when you could get a sponsor to shell out a few hundred grand to fly everyone to Vegas are gone.

DC is home to places like NASA, NIST, NIH... Quite a few well known open source folk live out this way.

I don't get out much these days, but before the .com craze, there were quite a few interesting places for programmers to meet. The DCLUG (past meetings) was one of them. I don't know what the status of the DCLUG is these days, but I remember Linus's talk in 95, this is way before most people even heard of Linux.

Maybe Ebola is not the best example. It seems that we already have a very promising vaccine candidate. I have lost all respect for that wimpy virus. I think we need a new box jellyfish of the virus world.

Maybe Ebola is not the best example. It seems that we already have a very promising vaccine candidate. I have lost all respect for that wimpy virus. I think we need a new box jellyfish of the virus world.

and, when combined with booze, it's a treatment for stroke!

Google is about having good quality results with a very simple interface, one that anyone can use. Go to an academic library and look at the various journal search engines like "America: History and Life" or PychINFO, or better yet just try out MedLine. See anything wrong? Busy page, weird syntax, a huge instruction page about "how to search".

Engines like Vivisimo may make it if they can keep Google's simplicity and ease of use and only add value with categorizations. And personally, I think they better get out of 1996 with the frames. Yech!

No, but you can visualize prion proteins within intact cell with a conventional electron microscopy. I kid you not. Here's an article with some really pretty pictures of prion proteins trafficking in cells.

Yes, his post is completely wrong. However, there have been advances in STM so that you can do STM with fixed organic samples now. Here's an example of a recent published study. Also atomic force microscopy (AFM) has become fairly common with fixed organic samples. I'm not calling you wrong - I'm just updating Slashdot readers to the state of the art in biological microscopy.

(This is a response to an AC that questioned my weight. I am assuming it was not a troll, but actually wanted information.)

I am 6'4" tall and weigh 235 lb. According to this, I am slightly overweight, but not obese.

I do not understand the judgement. I could lose a little from my belly, but the rest of me is muscular. I exercised constantly about 1.5 years ago. My belly was trim and started to show a six-pack. I initially lost weight to about 225 lb, then gained it back in muscles to reach 245 lb.

---
If you were questioning my ability to drink over a gallon of Pepsi or water each day, this site suggests drinking 1/2 oz of water daily per 1 lb of body weight. So at my current weight I should drink almost a gallon of water every day. But my intake has always been excessive.

Actually these numbers are hard to apply because my weight changed over the course of the caffeine addiction. When I started drinking Pepsi full-time, I weighed 175 lb. When I started the support job 8 years later, I weighed 185 lb. 8 months of being chained to a desk and I weighed over 260 lb (which was also a major factor in the acid reflux problems. Gaining 70 lb in <8 months is not good.) When I started the process of kicking the caffeine addiction 4 months later, I was around 250 lb. I stabilized around 240 lb a few years later. The major exercise program June-September 2002 is mentioned above, and as I lost muscle I have stabilized at 235 lb. I exercised some this Autumn, and am trying to make it a habit so I can lose a few inches off my belly.

In related news, I eat more than any other 2 people I know, and have since I was very young. I can easily eat a 30oz steak and be hungry a few hours later. My friends joke that I need to be rich just to supply myself with food. A few people have mentioned the possibility of diabetes. I keep getting checked; the doctors keep telling me that my eating habits are awful, but the only number that concerns them is my high cholesterol count (very likely related to my constant diet of cow.) I have changed my diet several times for several months; there is absolutely no correlation between the quantities I eat and my body weight. As mentioned earlier, I gained 10 lb over 8 years with a diet that varied (depending on my budget) between mostly pasta and mostly steak. In trying to lose weight, I did cut back for several months, but the only effect was fatigue. The only thing that affects my weight is the amount of exercise. (I usually lose weight when I have a girlfriend because I get more "exercise", but the girlfriends always gain weight from imitating my eating habits.)

I'm glad you're actually posting evidence now.

It seems from the link you provided that people tested using cell phones were able to keep their cars inside the lane just fine.

Now, keeping your car inside the lane is just one aspect of driving. Other studies show that using a phone markedly impairs reaction times to traffic signals and brake lights.

Even if phone use is not significantly impairing, you can't conclude that computer use is also non-impairing. Phone use mostly involves your auditory and language facilities, which are not used much in driving. Computer use requires your vision to look at the screen, and vision is essental to driving. There is mountains of evidence (like this and this) showing that while people can multitask easily between tasks using different sensory modalities, they cannot multitask efficiently between two tasks requiring the same sensory modality.

When I inadvertently kicked the habit in mid-August, I wondered why, so I looked up a few things. I found an article that explained that the number one reason why people suffer caffeine withdrawal symptoms is their awareness of the withdrawal. I found this particularly interesting because I did not intentionally stop consuming caffeine; rather, there was none around, and I was so busy doing other things that I had no time to think about chasing down some caffeine.

Honestly, I expected a massive headache (because I always got them within 24 hours of my last dose of caffeine), but this time none came. After a week had passed I decided that I would just avoid the stuff, and I have ever since.

I have read elsewhere that all painful symptoms of caffeine withdrawal pass within 48 hours, and all that's left after that is fatigue as the body adjusts to working for itself without the aid of the stimulant. So, best of luck to you!

p.s.-- In retrospect, quitting was a good idea. I have since been diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse, and caffeine is a significant no-no for that condition. I should have had many episodes before now with as much as I consumed, and I'm lucky that I haven't suffered any major pains before now. Oh well.

Some doctors have considered prescribing nicotine as a cure for a variety of ailments, including schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, attention deficit disorder and colitis.

I'm thinking about it!

Memory storage in the brain is believed by pretty much everyone in the field to be stored in the "strength" of synapses that connect neurons to each other. The connection between synaptic plasticity and "memory" depends on what one means by memory. There are multiple types of memory, and the mechanisms likely differ, but all of them probably involve synaptic plasticity. It's certainly possible that certain types of memory (such as pavlovian conditioning) would be more likely to involve more localized grandmother-cell-esque connectivity changes, while memories of a movie you saw would be more likely to involve widely-distributed connectivity changes that alter what attractor a big complicated dynamical system is going to settle into.

Anyway, the brain is extremely complex, but neuroscientists know much more about it than is generally recognized. In any case, there is experimental evidence that one can selectively erase memories from a human brain from as long ago as the late 1960s. I read a review article about it fairly recently, but I can't remember where. The basic idea is that retrieval of a memory renders that memory unstable, and if you electrically shock the head after getting the patient to retrieve the memory, you can selectively erase it. Given the obvious connection to the movie, I was surprised that McGaugh didn't mention it. This is the first reference to the phenomenon I can find. Here is a more recent review, for those with access to Nature Reviews Neuroscience. The review I read recently said that people were starting to consider using this for patients who had undergone extremely traumatic experiences.

First you tell me I'm wrong to say that asthma is an immune disorder because one web site says we don't what causes asthma. When I bring you to task for that, you give me another page of assertions that asthma is caused by air pollution.

You must have searched a while for that one, because while there's a ton of evidence that air pollution can trigger asthma attacks, that's a far cry from saying that pollution causes the disease.

In fact, if you're worried about my "assertion" that there is no correlation between between pollution and asthma. Well, doctors specializing in asthma research agree with me.

The work was published in PNAS - not exactly a minor publication.

AIAAD (Actually, I am a doctor). In fact, my specialty is Infectious Diseases.

By 1888 vaccination against smallpox using cowpox or vaccinia virus was a common practice, as opposed to "variolization" (inoculation with actual smallpox virus, aka variola virus), since the former was so much safer. This is touched on only briefly in the Washington Post article. So even if there is viable virus in the scab, it may not be smallpox. For reference see the first part of this chapter.

>K

"What happened to this woman was completely her own fault."
Mostly true, which is why the courts reduced the damages. What it came down to was that McD, according to their policy, keeps their coffee at a temp which can cause serious burns very quickly. Yes, she put the coffee in between her knees. But in most cases, if you spill hot coffee in your lap, it's just gonna be uncomfortable and embarrassing, and not require time in the hospital for skin grafts. It's measures of what you can expect as far as consequences. Most people do not equivocate a cup of coffee with a cup of near-boiling water, because in 99% of cases (i.e. non-McDonalds), it isn't. Keep in mind, the judgement was also because of the other 700 reports of burns.
Someone in my family spilled homemade coffee(from a coffee maker) in her lap and got the same kind of burns as this woman. She also had to get skin grafts. She was given silver sulfadiazine, which is pretty strong stuff, for the pain. If that can happen because of coffee made in a coffee maker, then I don't really think McDonald's did anything wrong in this case.

Put the wrong link on - This is right.

Are also being tried.

No. They don't have to be *those* types of herpes - there are many types.

The idea is pretty simple - and pretty fascinating - cancers basically occur when the replication processes refuses to shut down in a cell (actually it usually starts up again before it should). So if a virus can be found that interferes with the replication processes - hopefully before the cancer gets to it - voila. The lesser of two evils.

Here's one of many research articles online. These papers are *all over* the journals right now.
This has been in the medical news for a while.

Dude

Their bacteria Shenwala alga, reduces the iron from Fe(III) to Fe(II) ( uses the iron as oxygen in it's metabolism ) . Other bacteria ( Desulfovibrio Ferrireducens ( sp ) ) have shown to reduce uranium from U(VI) to the less soluable U(IV) and have been used to clean up mine tailing drainage by making all the uranium insoluable.

Since any chemical reaction that is not allowed to go to completion causes isotopic enrichment ( presumably the lighter isotope is the preferred reactant ) and metabolism by bacteria is really just a chemical reaction there is some enrichment there.

Other bacteria which oxidize iron like Thiobacillus Ferrooxidans have been used to leach uranium out of ores by oxidizing it to a soluable state.

Since any chemical reaction not completed results in some isotopic enrichment one might enrich U235 by, feeding the dissolved Uranium oxide produced by Thiobacillus Ferrooxidans from raw ore to the anaerobic Desulfovibrio ferrireducens where it would reprecipitate. Then feed the precipitated uranium oxide back to thiobacillus ferrooxidans to produce more uranium liquor to feed to desulfovibrio ferrireducens forming cascaded stages which would gradually enrich the U235 until it was useful for fuel rods etc.

The question is: how much energy does this take, and how efficient is the enrichment? How much sugar/light/whatever-these-bugs-eat do you need to feed them per stage and is it more economical energy-wise than other uranium enrichment methods already in use?

A home experimenter interested in developing this into a patentable process would be breaking the law by enriching uranium. After learning how to grow these beasties ( I'm sure they'd sell them to you since they are not dangerous ) you would have to measure the enrichment achieved bu sending a sample off to a mass spectometry lab. It would behove one to send the depleted uranium rather than the enriched uranium so as not to piss anyone off ( hope it wasn't the heavy isotope the bugs liked better! ). Then you could measure how much it costs you to feed the bacteria per kilo of metabolized uranium and compare it to the cost of existing enrichment methods by looking it up, and decide if you have something worth patenting. Profit.

Most people who want restrictions in place are opposed to using _embrios_ or _fetuses_ as the source of the cells; getting stem cells from other sources is OK with most people.

If scientists can change the way they do experiments on animals because of groups like PETA, why can't they just choose a less controversial source of stem cells?

Note the problems with embrionic cells vs adult cells here

My database professor gave us the run down of the technologies that the NIH databases employ- its some impressive business! Researchers all over the world are indexing and adding papers... SCREW amazon!

I'm absolutely shocked that the NCBI's (National Center for Biotechnology Information - part of the NIH) genomic and proteomic search engine BLAST isn't included in the list. BLAST is consistantly used by scientists worldwide to search the genome of several organizms. I'm similarly shocked that MEDLINE / PubMed isn't included as it's the primary database for searching published scientific literature. When I think of databases, I think of these two sites - not Amazon.

I'm absolutely shocked that the NCBI's (National Center for Biotechnology Information - part of the NIH) genomic and proteomic search engine BLAST isn't included in the list. BLAST is consistantly used by scientists worldwide to search the genome of several organizms. I'm similarly shocked that MEDLINE / PubMed isn't included as it's the primary database for searching published scientific literature. When I think of databases, I think of these two sites - not Amazon.

I'm absolutely shocked that the NCBI's (National Center for Biotechnology Information - part of the NIH) genomic and proteomic search engine BLAST isn't included in the list. BLAST is consistantly used by scientists worldwide to search the genome of several organizms. I'm similarly shocked that MEDLINE / PubMed isn't included as it's the primary database for searching published scientific literature. When I think of databases, I think of these two sites - not Amazon.

I agree that patents can help the process -- they attract capital to research by making it a worthwhile investment. But some parts of this process need more capital than others.

A lot of the sequence analysis we need to do right now can be studied on inexpensive equipment. You need bright, tech-savvy people working on it, but there are a lot of these people at universities, research institutions, and open-source groups. Governments do fund these groups (um, NCBI ?). They get a lot of bang for their buck, motivating and releasing research without giving away restrictive patents. Corporations doing research often benefit from the open standards and published methods they create.

Writing sequence analysis algorithms is one thing, but verifying your work experimentally is another. You need thousands or millions of dollars of specialized equipment and lab labor to do wet work. For that, we need pharmas, and the pharmas need patents.

But maybe we can make intellectual property laws that protect their contribution to the process, while encouraging different incentive schemes for work that can be developed more efficiently by a more open community?