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This just in from 2006...

Man Power: Pressure Pads Under Pavements Could Generate Electricity From Every Step We Take
http://www.redorbit.com/news/t...

Stop promoting Forbes on Slashdot please.

Here's some alternative links:

- http://www.redorbit.com/news/s...

- http://motherboard.vice.com/en...

- http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_...

- http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_...

Did you RTFA? I'm not normally one to defend /. editors with their crappy proofing and duplicates, but in this case the click bait comes from outside /.

The original article and a few others:

• Diamond Nanothreads Could Support Space Elevator [2015-11-23]
• Diamond nanothread rivals graphene as the next big wonder material Now scientists want to build a space elevator out of it. [2015-11-27]
• We may soon be riding up to space in style in elevators made of diamonds [2015-11-23]
• Our Future Space Elevator May Be Built of Diamond [2015-11-21]
• Diamond Nanothreads Could Support Space Elevator [2015-11-19]
• Scientists Say We Could Build a Space Elevator Using Microscopic Diamond Chains [2015-11-19]

By the action of the ratchet of science, gains are made, promulgated and further gains built on those gains. The time between gain is variable, but gains are inevitable, as are forks with some growing faster, some slower and some withering or merging back. That is how radio and TV and all physics grew, and so will AI knowledge grow. The people without clean water choose their corrupt leaders, as we chose clean water. They are free to copy us, but they prefer to spend their money on faction fights and not on sanitation and clean water. We do have cures for cancer. There are many types of cancer. 100 years ago = all fatal. Now we can cure some and slow others. Every year we make gains on curing each of the disparate types of cancer, and hopefully solving the jumping gene viruses that seem to be responsible for many of them.
Oil will not run out. We now grow oil, not fossil oil, vegetable oil. Another 50 years and the Tesla type battery cars will rule all vehicles. Internal combustion engines will pass into history as the CO2 grows and the arctic ice all melts, and solar gets above 50% and most combustion processes will not be used for power or transportation.
The Lithium batteries get better year by year. They are now capable of gasoline range, another 10 years = 2-3 times gasoline range or smaller in size to suit the weight/cost needed to give 300-400 miles per charge.
The government does not have the power of will to eliminate corruption in construction. These unions need curbing.
We also need to make 500 year or 1000 year bridges. The Romans used iron reinforcing that were lead dipped to prevent rust. We can galvanize all steel used in construction. The concrete can also be made to endure. Just add 30% to the cost = 1000 year reinforced concrete. We do not do it now because the politicians are concerned with it lasting until the next election, not with endurance.
http://simplesupports.wordpres...

http://www.redorbit.com/news/t...

The article didn't mention this, but I would bet that they're also using hydrogen sulfide to help maintain that state of suspended animation.

With eight qualified candidates for every 10 openings

To me that means that the companies are being far too selective and / or not using screening methods that reflect positive employment outcomes.

.
As google's selection process has shown, rejecting qualified candidates just because they do not do well on some obscure testing hurdles is not the way to find qualified candidates.

What they have demonstrate is how a graphene structure can be made into a tunable oscillator by constructing a rather crude but working FM 'radio-transmitter' using one.

You are correct. And crude is an apt choice of wording... From the supplementary information (scroll to the bottom), there are links to: pdf containing data on setup, testing, and characterization as well as a .wav file (confusingly labeled "movie"). It appears to be a sample of a transmitted sound sample of "Gangnam Style!"

The sound quality of this sample is more on the order of a noisy AM radio broadcast, but given the technology being used, quite impressive, nonetheless.

FWIW, there is a (somewhat) better write-up at redorbit.

And, yes, the 100MHz in TFS refers to the carrier frequency, which is but one of several that they tested. But, it also happens to be in the FM radio band and hence the (attention-grabbing) title.

I use Kapersky and while I like the product I don't necessarily like this comment:

The reason is that the space station uses computer-controlled SCADA systems in order to manage various physical components of the satellite. As these systems are based on Linux, they are open to infection.

So even on the ISS there's no concept of an air gap when it comes to SCADA systems? I realize there's monitoring and management required but there are tools and policies for dealing with that but shit, what is being eluded to is that the Russian Astronauts gerfinkerpoked around with a USB thumb drive and now we have an F*d up multi-billion dollar, multi-ton object in orbit possibly out of control? I think that's a disservice to Russian Astronauts (Cosmonauts) everywhere.

All systems can have vulnerabilities but if the systems onboard the ISS have been compromised by trojans, malware, viruses etc. I think the Linux community needs
to be made aware of the vulnerabilities so that these issues can be addressed and code fixed. Not that ol Kaspersky here needs to make a but right, but if they're not inherently part of Linux and are just stupid admin pet tricks, then that needs to be brought to public attention so that the ISS partners can address their IT problem. Playing coy and providing anecdotal commentary on "infections" and "bad things happened at a Nuclear plant" only mean that there are still vulnerabilities and bad practices that need to be addressed. I mean it's not like we wouldn't have that happen here in the US, say on a major Website, right?

On the other hand Microsoft should be smiling right now since it was announced that the ISS was going all Linux just this year. Maybe it was because the Astronauts couldn't find the Start Menu?

"We came here from another world" sounds more like an episode from Enterprise:TNG than a valid scientific theory.

It really depends on what you mean by 'we' and your stance on how life forms in the universe.

If by 'we came from another world' you mean the basic chemical precursors for life came to planet Earth through things like comets, and somewhere along the way something happened through chemical processes... sure. Because the elements in your body all came from burned up stars, so it's not like the selenium in your brain came from Earth. It ended up here from a bunch of other stuff floating around in space.

If you mean humans were transplanted here from another planet, then, yes, I'd say that sounds absurd.

and no possible way to test it until we can get to other planets and find some samples that haven't been corrupted by being on this planet

Actually, no. From TFS:

Comets contain a variety of simple molecules, such as water, ammonia, methanol and carbon dioxide, and an impact event with a planetary surface would provide an abundant supply of energy to drive chemical reactions

You can factually say that comets contain these things. We know that there's big clouds of alcohol floating around in space, for instance.

So, if you think life is simply a combination of chemical processes, a lot of time, and a lot of luck ... given that the precursors are floating around in space, life (of some form) is pretty much inevitable over large enough scales if the right conditions present themselves.

At which point, saying that 'life came from stuff in space' isn't exactly a stretch.

Nah, they already got Tor's number. They'll just arrest all the node operators on child porn charges.

To be precise, Google gave 15,708 Raspberry Pi. That's ten thousands pi / 2. Yes Google likes pi!.

So if Google stood up and said "we're not playing the patent game anymore", and got rid of all of their patents, what do you think would happen? Until the system changes, it would be kind of stupid to just sit back and get destroyed by everyone else's patent litigation. Participation doesn't mean that their primary goal isn't changing the system.

Most believed Google would be using the Motorola patents defensively. Instead they are using the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio to ban everything from smartphones, to tablets, to the Xbox 360.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112740990/motorola-microsoft-xbox-lawsuit-120312/

Unless that treatment were to be a simple virus either injected into a tumor or an IV drip. Then there wouldn't be much money for that treatment now would there? As you google the rio virus and other possible virus treatments for cancer you should notice a trend. All the companies that are doing clinical trials have tried to *modify* the virus in some way in order to make in "novel" so they can patent it. The goal is NOT to find a cure for any type of cancer - it is to find a "novel" cure that can be patented.

Did you read the article? The treatment is novel. The fact that a virus exists which can fight certain types of cancer cells means absolutely zero if you can't find a way to deliver the treatment. That's the treatment. Randomly infecting yourself with the virus isn't going to work. That's where the research comes in.

For the record: There are many, many examples of pharmaceutical drugs based on natural compounds. The novel parts of these compounds are their concentrations, what they're combined with, how they're administered, etc. It's why pharmaceutical companies exist: The stuff you dig up out of the ground can be, but often isn't, as effective as what you can synthesize if you know what you're doing with chemistry and biology.

Recently I read another article about a researcher who had a potential cure in his lab, but since he had already published his work it was no longer patentable, so they needed to find a way to make it novel before any serious funding (needed for more research and then clinical trials) could be had. He claimed he was not unique, there are many researchers that have something that works in certain conditions (rats, specific scenarios, etc) but it's hard enough to figure out who to fund without the problems of making sure the result is proprietary.

I'm not really certain what your first sentence means here. If it's a novel treatment, it's patentable. If the researcher already produced results that showed a treatment was possible with a certain compound, and he didn't use the compound somehow for his company, then just what were they paying him for? The whole point of research is to find these things out.

It's not clear to me what the solution to this is other than funding the researchers who are actually doing worthwhile research instead of trying to figure out a way to modify existing drugs in order to get another 20 years of patent protection on a new variant.

The system is, to a degree, self-correcting, in that sense. You can modify existing drugs and renew patents to a certain degree, but they give diminishing returns until the next breakthrough drug -- especially as patents run out on the original compound. Example: Tylenol is still a big drug, but not as big as before every major pharmacy had a generic brand of acetaminophen they sold.

Pain is one of those things that demonstrates my larger point, though: You've got lots of drugs to treat pain, but there's still a huge market for it. No "cure for pain" has decimated the market.

A 100% effective treatment for a specific cancer would be a multi-billion dollar a year drug, and would earn that revenue for years to come.

Unless that treatment were to be a simple virus either injected into a tumor or an IV drip. Then there wouldn't be much money for that treatment now would there? As you google the rio virus and other possible virus treatments for cancer you should notice a trend. All the companies that are doing clinical trials have tried to *modify* the virus in some way in order to make in "novel" so they can patent it. The goal is NOT to find a cure for any type of cancer - it is to find a "novel" cure that can be patented.

Recently I read another article about a researcher who had a potential cure in his lab, but since he had already published his work it was no longer patentable, so they needed to find a way to make it novel before any serious funding (needed for more research and then clinical trials) could be had. He claimed he was not unique, there are many researchers that have something that works in certain conditions (rats, specific scenarios, etc) but it's hard enough to figure out who to fund without the problems of making sure the result is proprietary.

It's not clear to me what the solution to this is other than funding the researchers who are actually doing worthwhile research instead of trying to figure out a way to modify existing drugs in order to get another 20 years of patent protection on a new variant.

I don't really see how this is a news story. I mean it makes completely sense to try and lure away experienced professionals away from another company on a similar project.

It's only news, because it's a rare event when corporations actually follow the law -- instead of just paying lip service to it.

Finally, Apple and Google are now poaching each other's employees/contractors. Remember this story.

Perhaps now, this will force Google to offer permanent positions and better salaries to some of its better contract programmers. Also now that Apple is going after Google's employees, Apple can't really complain if Google makes a targeted effort to hire away some of Apple's top designers.

It's not that simple. The African continent has more than enough arable land to feed its population. The problem is that their traditional small-scale farming methods economically cannot compete with imported food from emerging nations with more efficient farming methods, and food from developed nations that is, in addition, heavily subsidized (directly as well as indirectly by keeping oil prices artificially low). So starting from the 1960s, Africa's farming output has been lagging behind its population growth, and yes, if international food prices suddenly jerk up, this causes famine in Africa in the short term. However, if international food prices would stay high for a prolonged period of time, market forces dictate that Africa would ramp up its own food production and would probably be better off in the long run.

It should be added that we, the developed countries, have played a very cynical role in creating the situation as it is now. On the one hand, we have been pushing aggressively for these African countries to open their markets and decrease government interference such as subsidies, but on the other hand, we're not playing the game by our own rules, taxing and bureaucratically encumbering food imports, and heavily subsidizing our own food production, thereby undercutting African farmers' prices and driving them out of business. If we would play it fair, we would lose, becoming hopelessly dependent on foreign food and creating a runaway trade deficit against which the current situation pales. We have to either continue subsidizing or close our markets. The utopian unencumbered (and unsubsidized) international trade we have so long been advocating is simply not in our best interests. In that respect, rising international shipping costs as a consequence of rising fuel prices might actually help us as well as those African farmers. Not to mention that it will economically favor less fuel-intensive farming methods...

Either way, don't give me the utter BS that we're keeping our fuel prices low out of altruism with those poor African countries; I find it hard to believe that anyone here on /. would be gullible enough to swallow that.

Recommended reading: http://www.redorbit.com/news/international/1823226/what_is_crippling_food_production_in_africa/ and the original PNAS publication as well as other studies by the same authors.

Of course they didn't literally say "take that, Tevatron!", they're not kids. Not to mention - The Tevatron found it first! They didn't have enough of them to claim it to 5 sigma (Seriously Slashdot? 2012 and I can't use even basic HTML entities, never mind Unicode???). But they definitely found the same thing. So... Take that, brie-eating Europeans! ;)

The Tevatron results are months behind what the CERN scientists have found, unveiling the same evidence that LHC showed teams last year. But I do like brie.

Per other comment in the tread:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112388659/nobel-prize-winner-leaves-group-over-global-warming/

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112388659/nobel-prize-winner-leaves-group-over-global-warming/

The assumption was a supply accessible to us humans with present or near term technology. On earth helium is actually in very short supply. Uranium on the other hand is relatively abundant. It might be one of the most common elements in the universe but that helium is staring at us from the other side of the fence.

Have used sketchy processors.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/180626/security_breach_costs_atlanta_based_credit_card_processor_two_huge/

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2009-01-20-heartland-credit-card-security-breach_N.htm

Soooo...speaking the truth is bad if it doesn't fit with your perception bubble? "All go to hell except cave 76! oh and Google!~ Rah!" please. Name a single thing the guy wrote that wasn't factual. Billion dollar web advertising company? simply look up their SEC filings and it says in black and white they make more than 96% of their income from ads, and they are a multi-billion dollar company, so check there. And Google having a history of privacy violations? I would say that's a pretty big yes. So I'm sorry if his post breaks your perception bubble but truth is truth.

As for TFA give me a damned break, we've tried that crap over and over and over and over its sucked the big wet titty. ChromeOS is going exactly nowhere,service across the country is spotty so good luck if you have anything important due soon and your connection takes a big crapola, and finally the performance sucks. As another wrote the future is rich native apps that have the ability but not the mandatory requirement of web integration. This way you have the speed of native and can choose whether or not to use the cloud for syncing or backups or getting the latest data.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/199043/the_high_cost_of_hipaa/

In addition, a study by the American Hospital Association determined that hospitals (in total) could incur as much as $22.5 billion in additional costs complying with merely three of the privacy provisions of HIPAA during its initial five-year period.

I didn't realize that 22.5 billion is a rounding error for hospitals.

You mean the lack of progress made so far, don't you? We're supposed go feel energized and positive about losing an entire decade of progress and having to push the goal to reach the moon (again) back another decade? It's not exciting. It's depressing and sad. Where in the article does it suggest that it's the same goal? It says that Obama has set a goal. Not that he has changed the date on the existing goal (which was set by Bush eight years ago).

http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/39144/bush_calls_for_return_to_moon_by_2020/

Did you even see her picture? She's quite attractive.

Actually, the Mediterranean Sea completely dried up about five and a half million years ago. The Straights of Gibraltar reopened at that point and reflooded the Mediterranean with a giant waterfall, or a huge river.

At that age no people would be around to watch the show, but some of our hominid ancestors could have taken their honeymoon at the Gibraltar Falls... maybe. Early bipedal hominids date to almost exactly that time period, maybe a little later.

http://clinicaltrialsfeeds.org/clinical-trials/show/NCT01029925

Additional suggestions that maybe a "simple" solution does exist, but in the same sense that Alexander had a simple solution for the Gordian Knot...

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1865024/dca_research_on_brain_cancer/
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100512/full/news.2010.236.html?s=news_rss

More about DCA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid

= 9J =

I don't mind negative comments, it's part of the layman peer-review process. If the information is worthwhile on Slashdot, it'll usually pick up a mix of knee-jerk negative reactions, knee-jerk positive reactions, a few funny comments (which I enjoy the most), and some thoughtful opinions after some reflection (that we can then learn from).

"It seems that DCA may be promising, although you probably should have included links to more objective websites. The study appears to be legitimate research, but a human trial of only five patients is hardly conclusive. I'm going to pass this information on and hope it isn't all nonsense."

That was the purpose of the post, to give an additional option most haven't heard of yet appears incredibly promising. I wish your friend the best of luck.

If you want more information about the trial, here it is...

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1865024/dca_research_on_brain_cancer/
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100512/full/news.2010.236.html?s=news_rss

It looks like UCLA is now paying attention and starting their own trial for using DCA on recurring breast cancer (breast cancer that was once treated, but has returned).

http://clinicaltrialsfeeds.org/clinical-trials/show/NCT01029925

= 9J =

There actually are, they are using them to
discover galaxy clusters....
http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1942032/new_galaxy_clusters_revealed_by_cosmic_shadows/

"An international team of scientists led by Rutgers University astrophysicists have discovered 10 new massive galaxy clusters from a large, uniform survey of the southern sky. The survey was conducted using a breakthrough technique that detects "shadows" of galaxy clusters on the cosmic microwave background radiation, a relic of the "big bang" that gave birth to the universe."

"Theorists Rashid Sunyaev and Yakov Zel'dovich predicted the shadow phenomenon 40 years ago, now known as the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, or S-Z effect. Shortly thereafter astronomers verified it by observing shadows cast by previously known galaxy clusters. The higher sensitivity and resolution of ACT now makes it practical for astronomers to essentially reverse the procedure – to search the cosmic background radiation for shadows that indicate the presence of unseen clusters.

"The 'shadows' that ACT revealed are not shadows in the traditional sense, as they are not caused by the galaxy clusters blocking light from another source," said Jack Hughes, professor of physics and astronomy at Rutgers. "Rather, the hot gases within the galaxy clusters cause a tiny fraction of the cosmic background radiation to shift to higher energies, which then makes them appear as shadows in one of ACT's observing bands."

Since many won't rtfa.

-AI

Some word out on the web, including NASA funded astrobiology teams (there are fourteen), seem to indicate the possibility of them finding something strange here on Mother Earth, probably something in or around Mono Lake according to some people and its arsenic based life forms. Since the major announcement last June by NASA concerning 'Titan and the Case of the Missing Hydrogen'. In fact one of the ladies on the panel this Thursday is in fact the researcher who is studying possible arsenic based life forms in Mono Lake. I'd say that she found something. One thing for certain, with the embargo we won't know for sure until Thursday. :)

There was an article a while back in Nature
At least for pigs, an aseptic environment for the piglet, actually leads to a less healthy individual. Researcher Denise Kelly (University of Aberdeen, UK) explains that for the study, piglets were divided equally between an outdoor environment, and indoor environment, and one where they were fed a diet high in antibiotics. The outdoor raised pigs intestinal tracts had a significantly higher population of "healthy" bacteria than their indoor raised brethren. Further, the indoor piglets gene expressed more genes for T-cell formation while the indoor raised pigs had more genes related to inflammatory immune response.

Kelly also explains that the pig is a good model for this type of research due to similarities between the organisms found in human and pig guts and their comparable size in organs."

Now about EDC's (Endocrine Disrupting Compounds) had an article a while ago by pickins. Basically these compounds have been shown to feminize males.

A somewhat more disturbing article was published by the National Research Council (http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12528) showing potential linkage between the chemical class called phthalates and decreased size of male testes. The article reports that the EPA needs to study the impact of phthalates as demasculinizing agents on male reproductive organs. Phtlalates are ubiquitous in the environment due to their use as a plasticizer. Traditionally the EPA has studied the effects of pollutants individually rather than as a class. The impact on exposure is permanent causing developmental problems (and if you want to see what an atrophied rat testicle looks ).

There also growing concern that this class of chemicals are actually impacting the ratio of male to female births. A decent summary is posted on .

As an analytical chemist working in the environmental industry, one of the challenges with this issue is that the concentrations we are attempting to measure are absurdly (though potentially significant) low. It is not uncommon for the studies to be needing levels of detection in the low parts per trillion range. Because we are not simply dealing with outright mortality (its fairly easy to tell when all the fish in a river are suddenly floating belly-up) and instead trying to understanding fairly subtle changes in the endocrine system of the impacted species (including homo sapiens) the issue is significantly more difficult to understand and address (slow shifts in the ratio of males-to-females)."

It seems that someone has been drinking those, "cesspool waters of American capitalism" again. Of course what better beverage to have with your "double bread with meat"?

Aside from local search engines that serve one nationality, like Yandex, really the only reasonable alternative is Bing (whether directly from Microsoft or via Yahoo, whose search engine is Bing, as of this week http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1906048/yahoo_and_bing_partner_up_to_combat_google/index.html?source=r_technology).

What makes you so confident that Mozilla could easily receive the same income from Yahoo or Microsoft? I mean, maybe. But I didn't think either company made as much profit per ad as Google does, which would mean that even with the same revenue sharing agreement, you would predict a drop in Mozilla income.

(And if you're alluding to a source outside of search, then why aren't they tapping it today?)

• 5 versions of the .Net Framework and Visual Studio
• 2 generations and 6+ versions of the Xbox gaming system
• 4 generations of the Zune music player
• 2 major desktop, 2 major server, and 4 Mobile/Embedded Operating Systems Updates

Not to mention large investments in online search, software as a service, and cloud computing. With the exception of their Online Services Division (MSN, Bing, Hotmail, advertising) Microsoft makes significant income from each of their product divisions and has more than twice the income that Apple does. Many of their business products are doing very well, and Sharepoint recently became their latest billion dollar sales product.

I will admit that Apple's products are more popular than Microsofts, but that is because they are tailored to the consumer market. Most business uses Microsoft because it costs less and makes users more productive. I personally think that the Zune HD and Windows 7 are great consumer products, and the Windows Phone 7 is designed to compete with the iPhone as opposed to the Palm OS for Windows Mobile, so it will be interesting to see how the next 10 years progresses.

(Sorry reposting with corrections - lost a chunk due to forgetting how slashdot processes "plain old text")

> For example, well over 90% of American adults have had some form of herpes infection during their lives, such as chicken pox or herpes simplex.
> This becomes a permanent addition to the DNA in the infected portions of the body, but it is NOT passed down to offspring.

In most cases no. But in other cases see this: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1833268/herpes_virus_can_integrate_its_dna_into_human_chromosomes/index.html

Quote: "The USF team also confirmed preliminary results by other investigators that, a long time ago, the virus inserted its DNA into the DNA of human sperm and egg cells. As a result, some people (about 1 percent of people in the U.S.) are born with the virus's DNA in every cell in their body. Indeed, HHV-6 is the first functional virus of any type reported to be passed through the human germ line."

As for other sorts of DNA transfer, I wouldn't say "never", after all an aphid can somehow get a fungus gene...

> Hell, the difference between a human and a chimpanzee's genome is only about 4%. The difference between individual humans is far smaller than that,

A bit offtopic, but since this keeps coming up, I find it strange that scientists can say that sort of stuff and also say there are no racial differences in humans.

If 4% can make such a big[1] difference between chimpanzees and humans, it seems foolishness to say that humans are all the same (and also DNA fingerprint humans ;) ). Yes, race is very imprecise term, but there are certainly breeds of humans. They're not as clearly distinct as say dog breeds, but there are differences.

Lots of diseases affect different breeds of humans differently: http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.aspx?docid=638412

Plenty of other examples. Even the ability to digest milk, and process alcohol differs significantly. And the ability to run 100 metres really fast ;).

So to me it's silly to not think there's a human significant[2] difference between a 7 foot tall "West African" human breed and a Mbenga pygmy human breed. Maybe dogs can even smell the difference between those two breeds.

[1] This "big difference" is of course relative, to some alien creature made of "dark matter and dark energy", all the stuff on the Earth could look pretty much the same to them - and rather strange (we're the abnormal ones since most of the universe is apparently made of something else ;) ).

[2] Significant for human stuff, at a human level.

> For example, well over 90% of American adults have had some form of herpes infection during their lives, such as chicken pox or herpes simplex.
> This becomes a permanent addition to the DNA in the infected portions of the body, but it is NOT passed down to offspring.

In most cases no. But in other cases see this: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1833268/herpes_virus_can_integrate_its_dna_into_human_chromosomes/index.html

Quote: "The USF team also confirmed preliminary results by other investigators that, a long time ago, the virus inserted its DNA into the DNA of human sperm and egg cells. As a result, some people (about 1 percent of people in the U.S.) are born with the virus's DNA in every cell in their body. Indeed, HHV-6 is the first functional virus of any type reported to be passed through the human germ line."

As for other sorts of DNA transfer, I wouldn't say "never", after all an aphid can somehow get a fungus gene...

> Hell, the difference between a human and a chimpanzee's genome is only about 4%. The difference between individual humans is far smaller than that,

A bit offtopic, but since this keeps coming up, I find it strange that scientists can say that sort of stuff and also say there are no racial differences in humans.

If http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.aspx?docid=638412

Plenty of other examples.

Even the ability to digest milk, and process alcohol differs significantly. And the ability to run 100 metres really fast ;).

To me it's silly to not think there's a human significant[2] difference between a 7 foot tall "West African" human breed and a Mbenga pygmy human breed. Maybe dogs can even smell the difference between those two breeds.

[1] This "big difference" is of course relative, to some alien creature made of "dark matter and dark energy", all the stuff on the Earth could look pretty much the same to them - and rather strange (we're the abnormal ones since most of the universe is apparently made of something else ;) ).

[2] Significant for human stuff, at a human level.

The charges and the character assasination were ALL bullshit.

No they weren't. By your own words you were a drug addict who lost control of themselves and used tannerite on at least one piece of property that you did not own. Not just "took a plea" you made actual statements about yourself. You admitted to the charges and assasinated your own character. This doesn't sound like an innocently targeted man at all, can you refute any of this? I am not intentionally being derisive; rather I hope you would respond with a statement to exonerate you of this all, be it hearsay or otherwise.

See also this. Did you not consent to be interviewed? You even posted a review of the book this excerpt is from on slashdot!

and what about this? Of course the statements that your anger and gun issues were escalating is pure hearsay; who knows what kind of person you are? But you really glossed over the use of tannerite didn't you? That's WAY more serious than you made it sound. Another article here

Sadly, I agree with everything you say about our overly intrusive gov't and the erosion of out rights, so it's unfortunate that your case doesn't back up those positions. By attempting to be an example of a problem, you are supporting their cause. Please stop.

More here and here. You'll want to read the last couple of comments on this one, bruce. The posters sound like old friends of yours that want to get back into contact with you. This guy too.

You seem to have conceded in your original post, by omission, that severe depression exists.
But I still feel like I should be asking if you believe depression exists at all.

I believe that severe depression exists, but it is a small minority of those people currently being treated. There really is evidence that instead of taking drugs some people just need to get off their ass and stop being whiney bitches.

If you consider the sun in conventional terms, that is, energized by fusion in the core with a 6000K surface temperature then yeah, it is hard to believe. But observations indicate that the sun is rather different.

Take for example the factor-of-three variation in the 260-330 Angstrom window during the solar cycle (see the graph I linked earlier in this thread). The conventional model says nothing about that.

And why the 1-2M degree hot solar corona? It cannot be thermal heating from the surface as heat flows from warm to cold. There are some hand-waving hypotheses about ions surfing magnetic waves, but these models cannot provide for the high energy flux needed to deliver compensation for the massive coronal emissions.

Then there are the relatively dark sunspot umbra. They are 1000-2000K cooler than the rest of the surface. How can that be if all the energy is supposed to come from the inside?

If you consider the x-ray image I linked earlier, you'll notice that it looks as if energy is being produced in the corona. And anomalous energy production is exactly what is being found in laboratory experiments of hydrogen/helium plasmas. The catalytic mechanism referred to in the referenced paper lacks a good theoretical description, but it definitely explains the hot corona, the variability of the coronal emissions, and some other oddities such as the strong dependence of the solar wind on Helium

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I think you're confusing Germany with Japan. Japan gloss over their ww2 history with the atrocities they inflicted upon their neighbors and that is part of an on going problem to this day.

The Germans do not have a culture of denial. Time is spent covering this theme although it varies from instructor to instructor what material is covered. On average I would say anywhere from 3 to 4 months is spent studying but it is not a tabu thema.

Damals war es Friedrich is a book that is usually covered in class. The reason for the ban of symbols, greetings etc. are set in the constitution. Example: Imagine if you will that Democrats are outlawed - to be a member is illegal, the party is not official, the symbols are illegal. Fast forward 60 years and it becomes a big PC issue.

A recent Time article about the virus and vaccination said that the 2 billion for this round of H1N1 vaccines may very well have saved the vaccination companies. The big drug companies don't usually want to make vaccines, not sexy enough or profitable enough. The few small players in it do a steady business but don't get big chunks of money for R+D. This vaccination for everyone changes this a bit. It also may encourage the big pharm companies to get back into the game, I heard a recent radio news bit about that happening.

In a way I can see encouraging companies that can help combat a pandemic to stay in business. But really this H1N1 strikes me as a 2 billion bailout for the vaccine makers.

there was a lot of music recorded prior to 1959, but afaik none before 1909.

Duh!

There is a lot older recording:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1315449/experts_uncover_worlds_oldest_recording/
OK, that's really odd but this was mainstream:
http://www.otrcat.com/cylinders-18801890s-p-48720.html

...it is a ceramic, which can hardly be used as a cable conductor.

You mean except for the ceramic cables that are already in use? I think your "information" may be a wee bit out of date.

It just not so bad that theres any need for something as expensive as the shuttle yet. No immediate crisis for government action, and certainly no profitability for the private sector.

No crisis? So there was no problem when China used a "ballistic missile to destroy one of its defunct weather satellites"? And the experts are all wrong? It was just a mirage when an American commercial satellite and a Russian retired satellite collided? " Close calls in orbit happen all the time--scientists estimate that launch vehicles and other objects come within striking distance of one other over 1000 times a day." That article says how the collision of the two satellites created a cloud of debris that spread around the world in a few hours. Further it says "The junk was in the orbital path of the Hubble Space Telescope and just 250 miles higher than the orbit of the International Space Station."

there really isn't that much salvage value in most of the stuff floating around

There isn't? The Pop Mechanics article above says that best possible space-junk solution: salvage isn't allowed by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. It prevents businesses from salvaging defunct crafts. I don't know if without the treaty it would be profitable now or not, but when one or more critical crafts collides with space junk people will think differently. Personally I think those who put the junk in space should be responsible for it, but because the US put a lot of it there I doubt that will happen. Nor do I think Russia or China will agree.

Falcon

ATV has already delivered cargo to the station, the shuttle is not required for that.

Soyuz has already proved more than capable of shuttling crew, so the shuttle is not required for that either.

The Shuttle really isn't required (except as a sop to NASA's pride) once the station is built and operational, and trying to extend its lifetime by yet another expensive mission leads me to think that NASA really has lost its way in internal politics and power struggles.

The shuttle should have been shut down years ago and a more efficient alternative explored when it became apparent it was a whole bundle of contradictory solutions looking for a problem. It is well past retirement age.

This is a great example of sensationalized cherry-picked anecdotal evidence...which in reality means nothing. The picture showing ice was taken during an abnormal year. The ice melts away every year, usually in July. It took longer to melt in 2006 thanks in part to their being more than normal amounts of "multi-year" ice shoved down from the arctic that year.

Article (from AP): http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/372343/arctic_ocean_ice_crashes_on_alaska_shores/
Video (from NASA): http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/nasaNAS~10~10~71195~176482:Ice-Surge-in-Barrow,-Alaska

They have a homepage with a bio of Dr. Gudkov (look under "Board of Directors" http://www.cbiolabs.com/ and they obviously have been working on this for some time and are now in clinical trials: 2007: http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/811854/cleveland_biolabs_chief_scientist_andrei_gudkov_discusses_recent_stem_cell/index.html

The eight-year study was based on 24,519 measurements of ocean pH. It represents the first detailed dataset on variations of coastal pH where the world's most productive fisheries live, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington.

"The acidity increased more than 10 times faster than had been predicted by climate change models and other studies," Wootton said. "This increase will have a severe impact on marine food webs and suggests that ocean acidification may be a more urgent issue than previously thought, at least in some areas of the ocean."

During their lives those ovum are bombarded by radiation and just plain get old.

Those ovum can also be harvested and stored.

Boys are different. We just make what we need, over and over and over and over.

Yes, males do reproduce sperm throughout their lives., but like female eggs those sperm suffers from damages in old age. "More DNA Damage to Older Men's Sperm". There are more articles like that, sperms damage "old age" health OR medicine.

Falcon