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No wonder the FCC is up in arms. A new ISP that is independent from cables down here? That could cut into the profit margins of their masters!

Actually, the problem is that the satellites are smaller than 10cm in one of their dimensions and thus may become untrackable. The US has a duty and authority under the Outer Space Treaty to regulate their citizens to ensure continued access to space for all. Since Swarm Technologies is a US company, it falls under this jurisdiction. India is also a signatory to the treaty and shouldn't have launched this payload if the US didn't approve it.

From the wiki article:

"the activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty" and that States Parties shall bear international responsibility for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental entities.

What's absolutely retarded is that it's easy to make your tiny satellite larger artificially by inflating it. No additional mechanism, you just put a few grams of benzoic acid in a balloon and it will self inflate when it's in space.

Expensive Placebo Works Better Than Cheap One

A quick search reveals this:

http://mashable.com/2012/08/07/google-driverless-cars-safer-than-you/

And their math says 165,000 miles per accident for a person.

This one below says 5.7 crashes per million miles driven for women and 5.1 crashes per million miles. That gives you 175K or women and 196,078 for men. A bit off from the first, but not too far off.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980516133725data_trunc_sys.shtml

There are a few other links. So while you say 300,000 miles without a single at fault incident is not that good, it is almost twice what people do from the articles I can find.

While having any accidents will trigger panic and people screaming how terrible this is and how it should be banned, if people examine the data it says that at the present 300K we would reduce accidents by nearly 30%-50%. If it goes to 600K without an incident, we just reduced accidents and deaths to 25-30%% of what they were.

I wish people would stop bashing the non-vaccinators (I'm not one of them).

Pointing out the inevitable consequences of not vaccinating isn't "bashing".

those at risk should be vaccinated if they're concerned

Not everyone can be vaccinated, and many (such as the elderly) don't develop a strong immunity when vaccinated. For example, in my son's kindergarten class, there's a kid who have to have a liver transplant, and hence is on immunosuppressive drugs. Having my kids vaccinated helps protect that kid's life.

There is also a near certainty that a disease that is vaccinated but not eradicated will eventually evolve immunity to the vaccine - which could be construed as the vaccinated kids causing problems.

You don't understand how vaccines work.

They expose the adaptive immune system to the virus/bacterium in question. The adaptive immune system develops (in a pretty much evolutionary way) a response. It's unique to every individual - no two people produce the same antibodies. Some of them are more effective than others (hence the differing strength of immunity people display after being vaccinated, and why some rare people get really lucky and develop robust immune responses even to outliers like HIV) but there's such a variety that disease organisms can't "evolve immunity" in the way you're talking about.

Some fast-mutating viruses - like the flu, or even more, the cold viruses - can change enough to require new vaccines periodically, sure. But (a) that's not 'evolving immunity to a vaccine' and (b) the old vaccine remains just as effective against the old variants.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20040612014111data_trunc_sys.shtml

The main reason for this (for those of you who haven't seen a neocognitron in a fourth-year machine learning course) is that the eye does a lot more pre-work for the brain than just blitting a grid of pixels down the optic nerve. Recent efforts attempted to do that, however. There's much more complex pattern recognition going on even at this most basic level, in addition to the loss of precision for the non-focal area, and that helps reduce the cognitive load to something we can fully utilize.

"They could send one of these to Titan to discover once and for all if that moon could ever be settled..."

Beep beep boop boop Space Nutter detected!

I don't think you need to send a probe to Titan to see if it could be settled. We could, however, send you back to high school for some remedial reality classes?

"(or mining celestial bodies)"

Right, because one thing that a culture that's running out of energy is good at, is sending humungous mining robots into space (which don't exist BTW) to get back less energy than what it took to make the robot.

Space Nutter detected!

>> And the subsidies will get killed off. Because we are broke.

That's a total right wing lie. Our government is 'broke' because we're not charging the taxes necessary to pay for the services we provide. And with the interest rate on Treasury bonds hovering at 3%, it seems like now would be an ideal time to go into more debt to build the infrastructure that we'll be needing soon.

>> Green energy is energy without consequences and that just doesn't exist.

Strawman. Wise technological progress has always consisted of replacing one set of problems with a hopefully smaller set.

>> suddenly realize that making photovoltaic solar panels is a very nasty industrial process that consumes almost as much energy in producing a panel as it produces

Another right-wing lie. The actual energy payback time for a modern solar panel is 6-18 months. And it's going down. Nor is any "industrial process" static. If they have a mind to, they can redesign the processes to use less energy, fewer and less toxic chemicals, etc. The Rocky Mountain Institute has a long and rich history of assisting in such redesigns.

>> that large scale solar farms destroy the fragile desert ecology

The solution being to site on already degraded land and to build carefully. Or to put panels right on top of the buildings they provide power to. As solar power becomes cheaper (and it will, since the cost has been steadily cutting in half every six years for decades) it will make less sense to find the absolute sunniest possible place to put them.

>> Wind is just as bad. Sounds wonderful until you imagine a few hundred square miles of endless windmills making mincemeat out of the bird population

Bird kills are a concern, but they're greatly exaggerated. The Audubon Society is fully behind wind power. That should tell you something.

And the amount of land required may be overstated. A recent breakthrough showed the way forward for increasing the energy collected per acre tenfold. The basic technique is using small, vertical turbines sited closely together, spinning in opposite directions to create constructive interference.

If the efficiency breakthrough holds up, and is widely adopted, wind power providers will have greater leeway in where they put the installations. They won't have to reach as high into the sky.

But the broader point is that none of these problems are insoluble.

>> and the huge transmission lines to bring the power from the uninhabited barren wastelands that tend to have reliable wind to the coastal hives where people live.

We need a stronger national grid in any case. But as I said, if we can learn to harvest wind power more efficiently, siting will become less of an issue, and generation will migrate toward the areas that actually need the energy.

Even though BitZstream is using quite a few flame inducing words, he does have a point. A quick google suggests that we've identified life on Earth that uses gamma rays for energy. This was one of the examples I found by searching...

Monkeys being cute has everything to do with it (OK, not everything, but plays a big role). Related to cuteness - why do you think "save the pandas" is such a popular thing? Next to the animals that are endangered and which are important to the eco-tree, pandas are practically useless. They're only popular because they're cute (another case in point is WWF's logo). It's aptly named survival of the cutest. Another reason monkeys factor in so much is because in terms of appearance, they're closer to us than the rats.

Should have found the source .. here's one http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/space_blunders.shtml
"NASA appoints a mishap investigation board to find out why parachutes on its Genesis mission didn't deploy properly when the space probe returned to Earth in September 2004. It had been collecting samples of the solar wind which scientists on Earth were eager to study. The board found the likely cause was a design error involving deceleration sensors. These switches sense the braking caused by reentry into the atmosphere, initiating the sequence leading to deployment of the parachutes and parafoil. But because the design plans didn't indicate orientation, the components were installed upside down. As a result, the $264 million mission nose-dived into the Utah desert at 300kmh.

So you think. There's actually more going on due to ocean salinity changes then you would like to think. http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20031117204012data_trunc_sys.shtml

Yeah, I think there was a documentary on this some years ago and here's a Wired.com article on it from 2007: Mixed Feelings - See with your tongue

Here's a CBS News video on the Brainport from January 2007: Blind Learn To See With Tongue

And here's an article on the tech from way back in 2004: Tongue-Vision Allows The Blind To Lap-Up The Sights

There have been very small quantum computers demonstrated. IBM made a 7-qubit one and ran Shor's algorithm (for polynomial-time factoring) on it in 2001. As far as I can tell, that is the highest number of qubits anyone has demonstrated in a quantum computer.

I call bullshit. Here's one: http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00042081 Prevention of Autogenous Vein Graft Failure in Coronary Artery Bypass Procedures

This study -- which was actually of a drug used to treat tissue before transplantation, rather than of a surgical technique -- found that "Failure of at least 1 vein graft is quite common within 12 to 18 months after CABG surgery. Edifoligide is no more effective than placebo in preventing these events. Longer-term follow-up and additional research are needed to determine whether edifoligide has delayed beneficial effects, to understand the mechanisms and clinical consequences of vein graft failure, and to improve the durability of CABG surgery."

I was excited that you might have found a surgical technique that meets the placebo-controlled blinded test standard, now I'm disappointed. You really ought to read a study's findings before you cite it.

Try Googling randomized controlled trial surgery

Following your link I find studies where the "control" is drug therapy or another medical intervention. If you have one where surgery is compared versus a sham procedure, please, point it out to me -- perhaps there's one mentioned in a study behind a paywall.

It's no good to have a study find that "surgery X is better than drug Y" -- maybe the benefits were due to a few days of enforced rest, skilled nursing care, and hospital food, not to mention that nebulous "placebo effect", or even a side-effect of general anesthesia, rather than due to the actual cutting and sewing of flesh.

The term surgeons use is not "placebo" but "sham surgery".

Sham surgery is a form of placebo.

It may be OK to thread a catheter into somebody's coronary arteries and squirt saline, but nobody is going to ask a patient to undergo abdominal or chest surgery, with a mortality of 1% or even 0.1%, just to satisfy somebody's idea of a perfect scientific design.

But sham thoracic and cranial surgery has been performed. The first, and most famous, use of a placebo surgical technique as a control was to investigate mammary artery ligation for relief of angina pectoris. And tests of transplantation of human embryonic dopamine neurons and of fetal pig cells into the brains Parkinson's patients, were also compared to sham techniques. In all three of these cases, the "real" operation was no more effective than the placebo.

We can add to that a test of arthroscopic surgery for knee arthritis which failed to show any benefit of a real surgery over a fake cut.

So again, I ask: if anyone has an example of a placebo-controlled trail of a surgical technique where the real technique proved more effective that the placebo, please post it.

1-sentence course in medical ethics: A doctor can't do anything to a patient that wouldn't benefit the patient.

The fact that it's difficult to te

Well, by 1996, chernobyl Voles who have only an annual breeding rate were showing adaption to radiation and proliferating in large numbers.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7D61439F934A35756C0A960958260

And then there is the fungus that uses radiation like plants use sunlight.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070422222547data_trunc_sys.shtml

Then there are the innumerable plants and grasses that *require* a major fire in order to reproduce.

--

So, no. It's more like saying ".1% survived some kind of interaction with the laser system long enough to reproduce". Those descendants almost all have that factor and may now tune it with each generation to be stronger. It could be they were at the fringe of the laser, or extreme range, or as others pointed out they fool the targeting system.

I thought I was being clear that you can't develop resistance if you have 100% fatality. But I'm certain that some of the survivors of hiroshima that reproduced survived because they were slightly more resistant to radiation-- just like the Voles above.

Yes.

The only real problem is getting to the iron, but it that's not a priority the situation is well in hand.

As a former nuclear engineer you must also be aware that nuclear material can and is frequently used with virtually no risk to anyone.

I'm not a former nuclear engineer, perhaps you meant you are one. And yes, I know nuclear material is used with little risk. They are used in Nuclear medicine.

I too am scared by unregulated, corner-cutting businesses working with the stuff. But no more afraid of a commercial farmer breeding a potentially lethal or ecologically dangerous super-crop though... and that's legal.

Surprise, surprise. I'm more concerned with, scared of, genetic engineering of crops than I am with nuclear power. I'm not opposed to GE but believe maximum precautions should be taken. Though GE haven't been done long super weeds are already being created.

The nuclear industry exists now, and there have been tremendous strides in the technology and safety. To suggest that we should not encourage an industry that may, with advances such as this article discusses, result in nearly zero net effect on the environment is pretty awesome if you ask me.

I'm not totally opposed to nuclear power or research but I don't want taxpayer money paying for it. If it is subsidized then I want alternative energy sources subsidized just as much. McCain campaigned saying he wanted to give the nuclear power industry billions of dollars, I say if you want to do that then give solar just as much, and wind, and tidal energy research. Otherwise let Wall Street pay for it. The Freemarket think-tank CATO Institute explains "Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power." And CATO isn't some environmentalist hippies.

Honestly, nuclear fission is probably the best energy source we could pursue right now. Why, because we can do it now with virtually no waiting and no chance of finding out later that we rushed into something we shouldn't have (like corn ethanol).

I agree about corn ethanol, corn is a poor feedstock for ethanol. Sugarcane is better, but even better is switchgrass. Right now both solar and wind work. A 5 megawatt wind turbine should be able to be erected in less than a month. Erect 20 a month for a year and you'll add 1.2 gigawatts of power in that year. The last nuclea rpower plant to go online in the US was the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station. Construction started in 1973 and unit 1 of 2 units was compleated in 1996, it took 23 years. And how much does it generate? It has a generating capacity of 1,167 megawatts. Using wind genies that capacity could be done in one year.

Falcon

Does the $300 keyboard have more than an expensive placebo effect?

water vapor would lead to a warmer climate not a cooler one http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19990904032112data_trunc_sys.shtml

So millenia of effective use don't count for anything?

On what basis do you claim that there has been millenia of effective use? Millennia of use sure, but no evidence that it's effective. In fact, until the invention of antibiotics medicine actually did more harm than good. Medicine was nothing more than superstition that gave desperate people an illusion of control. Where today we have "security theater" in the past it was "medical theater".

The human psyche plays a significant role that pure science doesn't admit to because it can't be proven in a test scenario

The placebo effect is well documented in scientific studies. In fact an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that expensive placebos work better than cheap ones. This is real science, if you have data we listen.

We know the human body gives off energy but people refuse to accept the "auras" are possible or significant for some reason.

EKGs and EEGs measure the electromagnetic fields given off by the body, and they are extremely informative about the state of the heart and brain respectively. Again, if you have data we'll listen.

We know every brain has a distinct pattern with a general consistency to that pattern, but we refuse to believe it's anything more than electrical.

Do you have any data suggesting that there's anything else? Or are you just speculating wildly like you have been your entire post?

Cite! I know plenty of people who have received useless drugs. I cannot think of a single person I know who have had surgery that did not immediately have a dramatic positive effect on their condition.

Google "placebo surgery.

The first time this was tested was in 1959, when a placebo-controlled trial of a then-popular technique for treating angina, involving tying off the an artery in the chest, was found to be no better than a placebo technique. Other techniques so tested include stem cell implants for treating Parkinson's, arthroscopic surgery for knee osteoarthritis. I think there might have been one or two others.

Every surgical procedure that has been been tested versus placebo surgery, has proven to be no better than the placebo. (It is curious that many "skeptics" who demand rigorous double-blinded studies of "alternative" medical techniques, will go under the knife without a second thought.)

Most probably the population of Earth will be greatly reduced due to the shortage of energy.

I concur. But, the problem isn't just energy. Thinking of peak oil? What about peak metals Copper is already getting pretty thin. Not only that, the copper for our today's use has to be 99.95% pure. Zinc is on the list, too. The estimate is that there is 26% of Earth's copper bound in non-recyclable state (ie. landfills) and about 19% for zinc. Some estimates mention total depletion in 100yrs.

I guess we're living in the oil age between two stone ages. What's worse, humans are the first and last chance for highly intelligent and technologically advanced species. Think about it - our development effectively started when our ancestors started getting metals out of the Earth's crust. What is next intelligent species (or our human successors) going to use to transit themselves into the next iron/bronze/golden age? Nothing. If we fail to transform into successful space dwelling species while there is enough energy to escape the gravity well we're a failure because in that case we're designated for extinction. I guess this guy said it best.

We're getting improvements all the time - you don't just suddenly pop into being a new species. It's gradual.

Examples:

Autism. Most likely this is evolution trying out ideas for the next generation human brain. People with autism can occasionally do extraordinary things - but usually at a cost which makes the change non-beneficial, so evolution sorts them out. But eventually some selection will take place and we'll get a beneficial autism-like ability added to our species. Maybe someday soon we'll all be able to count cards ala Rain Man, or be able to tell you the square root of a six digit number without a calculator, or memorize the phone book.

It happens. Here's (most likely) a recent improvement to our species - extra cones in the eyes. Some women can see in more colors than the rest of us. They're called tetrachromats.

One argument for GMOs is that they are very heavily tested

DO you have evidence GMOs are heavily tested? How can they be thoroughly tested when they relatively new and it could take generations to test? Are they also test in combinations, tested X, Y, and Z altogether? One thing may seem to be safe and so may another but put them together and they can be deadly.

it also allows farmers to use less weed/pest killers

This is entirely wrong. While some GMOs may cut down on the need for chemical inputs others make is easier to use those inputs. Monsanto created Roundup Ready, RR, crops so even more Roundup, one of those chemical inputs or herbicides, can be used. Whereas before there was Roundup Ready crops, herbicides could not only kill so called weeds but could harm the crop itself, but now with RR crops all the herbicide Roundup can be applied to crops the farmers wants to use. Since RR crops have been used there has been a marked increase in herbicide, those weed killers, usage.

I doubt that the widely grown crops will be making any pollen. Most GMOs are designed to be sterile. Plants can hybridize very easily, and reproduce very quickly. You don't want some random species to acquire the modifications, nor do you want natural selection working with the modifications

Yet Super Weeds have been shown to be created by the cross breeding of GMO stock and wild relatives. Genetically-Altered Crops Can Produce Tough, Hard-To-Kill Weeds.

In the case of the farmers, they don't want the surrounding weeds to acquire the herbicide-resistance gene from their crops.

See above.

"Adolescence Lasts Into Twenties". You matured quicker than this kid.

That being said, yea, the organization is primarily at fault. This is their offsite storage method, according to their disaster of a recovery plan. That it hasn't bitten them in the ass before this is nothing more than luck.

No kidding. I'm amazed at what a lousy plan it is. Unencrypted tapes is bad enough but give them to an intern for off-site storage? That's insane. People need to get canned. This kid needs to sue the crap out of the State and his old bosses for a textbook case of slander (for the initial false comments) and libel for false statements made later to the media. This kid's been damaged for a long time. Anyone know of a PHB that would take a chance on him? I don't.

"Anyway, considering all the stuff in cigarettes, I don't think nicotine is the worst part"

That's right. News flash to Slashdot, nicotine != cigarettes. Every time nicotine comes up, people think it causes lung cancer or heart disease or other ridiculous things. No, smoking causes those. Nicotine doesn't. In fact, some benefits of nicotine have been known for a long time. Of course it's an effective stimulant and makes people feel good. It can make people work more productively. But more importantly, it's strongly protective against some terrible, high incidence neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson's Diseases and Alzheimer's. All that's already fairly well established.

So don't smoke, because inhaling smoke every day will kill you. The downside of nicotine is that it's addictive, but otherwise, it might be quite healthy.

Many smokers try to quit with the patch or the gum. They successfully get off cigarettes with their nicotine supplement, but then when they try to quit the supplement, they relapse into smoking. The clear solution here for protecting their health is this: don't try to quit the supplement. If you relapse when you quit the supplement, give up on ditching nicotine, it's not bad for you anyway, and may be pretty good for you. Ditch the cigarettes, stay on the nicotine supplement for the rest of your life.

Nope. The proposition that manmade greenhouse gases are causing "an enhanced greenhouse effect" is the proposition of a nutcase called James Hansen.

And you swallowed the lie whole with a side of bad climate modelling.

Funnily enough Triton is warming as is Pluto

Of course the biggest lie you've swallowed is that all of this is somehow disinformation by Exxon. It takes a very wide gullet to manage that one but you've taken it in your stride.

Pluto - http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warmin g_021009.html

Triton - http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143dat a_trunc_sys.shtml

Jupiter - http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_j r.html

Great. Now explain why the same thing is happening on Mars, Triton, and Pluto.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Personally I never watch South Park OR Al Gore. or other politicans... all are equally relavant and entertaining; not one whit
As to global warming I am sure it is warming Al's pocketbook but I foind hun causes to be somewhat...doubtful as do many who really view this with an open mind. To quote another on this; It seejms mankind's intervention must be causing warming even beyond this globe:

On Pluto: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warmin g_021009.html

On Triton: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143dat a_trunc_sys.shtml

On Saturn: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=2006 1109-022035-4126r

On Jupiter: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_j r.html

On Mars: http://www.mos.org/cst-archive/article/80/9.html

Remember; Piltdown Man was accepted as totally valid by the scientists of that day...
Any time lends itself to "present knowledge chauvanism"

Here's the obligatory link to more info on the estrogen-plastic issue.

In light of this revelation, it is important to note that according to research, the amount of estrogen one would ingest from plastic doesn't compare to the rate of testosterone aromatization in a young healthy male (let alone a steroid laden jock). The bottom line is that a body needs both estrogen and testosterone (though amounts do differ between M&F).

Doctors can't "opt out" of the system, practically speaking, since 95% of their potential patients are "in it"

Sure they can. If, according to your figures, 95% of the patients don't, that still leaves almost 2 million patients. Also, they can stay in the system and still do work that isn't covered by medicare, and bill for it, and plenty of them do. Additionally, a lot of them are taking patients from the US, who can't afford American rates.

What most Canadians appear to celebrate, I find downright evil and disgusting. It would not be an understatement to say that I hate Canada and typical Canadians for their attitudes. I hear that's a crime over there.

So you'd rather go to a system where the #1 cause of personal bankruptcies is medical bills? And where most of those who do file for bankruptcy (74%) HAD insurance?

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20050102023437dat a_trunc_sys.shtml

2 February 2005

Half Of All Bankruptcies Caused By Medical Bills

New research in the journal Health Affairs indicates that medical problems contributed to half of all bankruptcies in the U.S., involving 700,000 households. About 700,000 children lived in families that declared bankruptcy in the aftermath of serious medical problems. Another 600,000 spouses, elderly parents and other dependents brought the total number of people directly affected by medical bankruptcies to more than 2,000,000 annually.

Surprisingly,over 75 percent of those bankrupted by medical problems were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. Among those with private insurance, however, one-third had lost coverage - usually due to job loss - at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy. Out-of-pocket medical costs (for uncovered services) averaged $13,460 for those with private insurance at the onset of their illness, vs. $10,893 for the uninsured. The highest costs - averaging $18,005 - were incurred by those who initially had private coverage but lost it in the course of their illness. Many families were bankrupted by medical expenses well below the catastrophic thresholds of high deductible plans that are increasingly popular with employers.

The research, carried out jointly by researchers at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School, is the first in-depth study of medical causes of bankruptcy. With the cooperation of bankruptcy judges they administered questionnaires to nearly 2,000 bankruptcy filers and reviewed their court records. "Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill Gates, you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy. Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick. Health insurance offered little protection. Families with coverage faced unaffordable co-payments, deductibles and bills for uncovered items like physical therapy, psychiatric care and prescription drugs. And even the best job-based health insurance often vanished when prolonged illness caused job loss - precisely when families needed it most. Too often, private health insurance is an umbrella that melts in the rain," said David Himmelstein, lead author of the study. (The authors of the study note that even their own coverage from Harvard leaves them at risk for out-of-pocket costs above levels that often led to medical bankruptcy.)

"When medical debts and lost income from illnesses leave families facing a mountain of bills, bankruptcy is their last chance to stop the collection calls and try to put their lives back on track," noted Elizabeth Warren, a study co-author at Harvard. "Bankruptcy costs these families substantial assets and deep personal shame. A person may recover physically from a medical problem, but millions of Americans will never recover financially from their encounters with the health care system."

I like the title of this report, on the study showing that making neurons sensitive to light could enable them to act like the natural photoreceptors of the eye: Pond Scum could restore Vision :)

To look at a rock in space and say, " I doubt there is life there" is to ignore the fact that we have yet to find a place where life can't exist (maybe the sun...). In essence, if there is energy, then there exists the potential for something to exploit that energy. And more often the not, something does.

The question should be "What is living on this rock, and why can't I find it?"

Now if only someone could figure out a way to replenish the stocks of large ocean fish that have been reduced by 90% since 1950.

And your situation is anomalous, if not patently false. Females are not as bloodthirsty as males in online or elsewhere; this isn't a sexist observation, it's a physiological one. (Unless your bloodthirstiness as unrelated to physical response, in which case I would urge you to submit yourself to law enforcement authorities as you are most likely a serial killer.)

Girls are people too, but they aren't guys.

I guess my dream of visiting every star in our galaxy just got a bit tougher.

...We can surf through Milky Way in our handy dandy Black Hole at a mere '5000 km/sec.'

It's my belief that this failure is largely a result of hardware and not software. Current analysis of the processing power of the human brain suggests that the raw computation power available to AI scientists have been pathetically inadequate. In the 80's researchers using PCs would have had the processing power of approximately a worm. There's only so much you can do with a small brain: tasks truly useful to humans (visual recognition, for example) are going to be impossible without similar processing abilities. There are good reasons that ants use chemical detection to identify other members of the colony instead of visualy recognizing them. This is starting to change.

It's all handwaving, the nano pundits can't put forward any kind of actual theoretical design for a universal contsructor.

Actually, several people have proposed designs for nano factories (and thus universal constructors). Incremental progress towards the components of these nanofactories is being made every day.

It's an interesting article that outlines many of the considerations and hurdles one encounters in this field, but there's no breakthrough here. We haven't had a breakthrough since December, 2000 when researchers at UCSB built their latest prototype capable of consistently detecting such photons. We're bound to make some more breakthroughs soon, it's premature to say we already have recently.

If you're still not clear on the whole quantum cryptography deal, idquantique.com has a good introduction (pdf, of course).

There are now plans to explore lakes under Earth's antartic ice sheets (see article below). Its possible that similar lakes exist on Europa, caused by pressure from overlaying ice and/or from a geothermal heat source. Given the presecne of liquid water it is possible that some form of life would develop. http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20011105201728dat a_trunc_sys.shtml

Go ahead and back up your proposterous claim that organic farming is somehow more harmful for the environment. This I gotta see.

http://www.scie nceagogo.com/news/19990109225423data_trunc_sys.sht ml

BTW, I am not the original poster. I do not have any sort of political agenda (actually, I do, but it's not related to this). I just thought you might like to get a little more informed before you go back to stuffing yourself with your beloved overpriced "natural" food. (By the way, how are the endemic species that were dislodged by your expansive and soil-consuming agricultural practices?)