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$0.87 trillion for defense is peanuts compared to $1.16 on welfare?! https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/

Hey bub, can I have a peanut?

Of course, those are only the official figures. A recent study found $21 trillion in unauthorized spending in the last 18 years.
https://scienceblog.com/498204/scholars-find-21-trillion-unauthorized-government-spending-defense-department-conduct-first-ever-audit/

a lot of people assume that we're a lot more special than we actually are.

That's an interesting thought, particularly in the light of the other tool-maker in the news.

"The use and fashioning of objects as tools has rarely been seen in the animal kingdom. Alice Auersperg and Birgit Szabo, both cognitive biologists at the University of Vienna, have for the first time observed this skill in a Goffin’s Cockatoo: It makes and uses wooden tools to retrieve toys and food."

http://scienceblog.com/57536/clever-cockatoo-with-skilled-craftmanship/

That suggest the ability to visualise and create tools isn't the hard bit. Communicating and retaining the knowledge across generations is where the real challenge lies.

Wrong....There are a number of generic traits which show an extremely high correlation with psychopathy. That doesn't mean they ARE a psychopath, however

You say I'm wrong, then go on to agree with me. You seem to be confused. I suggest you re-read my post and contemplate the difference between "one-to-one correspondence" and "extremely high correlation".

It would also be nice if you provided a link to appropriate research. My quick googling finds just one study of one genetic trait that corresponds to psychopathic tendencies only in those who grow up poor . If you've got other research, please link to it. Thanks.

"Science" doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is a product and a political statement.

If you don't already have an audience in mind for your research, who will pay for it? No one wants the truth -- we all want "truths" we can use.

If your sponsor is a Democrat, your science will be blue state science. If your sponsor is a pharmaceutical company, you may find yourself praising SSRIs. If you work for the government, torture = good. And so forth.

It's time we stopped pretending that science was anything but the work of humans, and funded by humans with different agendas. And as today's most interesting article shows us the effects are a polarization of the population from science.

There was a great thread about this on our forum which added another wrinkle. Science studies material. It's possible that not all of the universe is materiality. We may need to open our minds to keep our science from becoming controlled by only one voice in the debate.

I believe the item you are thinking about is this, but I'm not positive. Have at it.
http://scienceblog.com/44329/making-temporary-changes-to-brain-could-speed-up-learning/

I've thrown all the feeds from each of these sites into Google Reader. In no particular order:

wired.com
slashdot.org
spectrum.ieee.org
scientistscanvas.com
arxiv.org
techcrunch.com
techdirt.com
news.discovery.com
physicsworld.com
newscientist.com
physorg.com
nationalgeographic.com
scienceblog.com

I have plenty more. Any RSS feeder app works. You get some repeats but there's a constant stream of science news.

Addictive Potential

Long-term marijuana abuse can lead to addiction; that is, compulsive drug seeking and abuse despite the known harmful effects upon functioning in the context of family, school, work, and recreational activities. Estimates from research suggest that about 9 percent of users become addicted to marijuana; this number increases among those who start young (to about 17 percent) and among daily users (25-50 percent).

Long-term marijuana abusers trying to quit report withdrawal symptoms including: irritability, sleeplessness, decreased appetite, anxiety, and drug craving, all of which can make it difficult to remain abstinent. These symptoms begin within about 1 day following abstinence, peak at 2-3 days, and subside within 1 or 2 weeks following drug cessation.3

Physical Dependence

Two decades ago, addiction medicine doctors and counselors believed that the difference between substance abuse and substance dependence was whether tolerance and withdrawal were present. Now it is known that, although tolerance or withdrawal may occur in individuals with addiction, the condition of addiction can exist without any sign of tolerance or withdrawal. Still, a common question of interest is, does marijuana produce physical dependence (that is, tolerance or withdrawal)?

By the twenty-first century, the answers to these questions are clear. Tolerance does develop to THC (the active chemical in marijuana). Moreover, withdrawal definitely occurs in some users. The effects of this withdrawal are generally the opposite of the effects of intoxication: anxiety and insomnia instead of relaxation; loss of appetite rather than hunger; excessive salivation instead of dry mouth; and also decreased pulse, irritability, and sometimes tremor. People who have used marijuana as a way to control underlying anger may also experience irritability, increased mood swings, and even an increase in aggressive behavior, as symptoms of withdrawal.

Long-Time Marijuana Use Linked to Psychosis in Young Adults

Respiratory Effects of Marijuana and Tobacco Use in a U.S. Sample

Emphysema linked to smoking marijuana

"We knew blacks were human, for instance."

Lots of people seem not to know it to this very day.

http://scienceblog.com/cms/americans-still-linking-blacks-apes-15428.html

One vote for one person is the start of change to happen.

I don't know if you're talking about the UK or the USA or what, but I can't help but agree. At least in the USA we need to also end the disenfranchisement of felons . This is an absolutely critical step to real societal change, and for the better. Naysayers claim that these people have demonstrated their inability to make intelligent decisions, but there's so many ways to shoot a hole in that argument that it almost doesn't even bear doing. If someone wants to argue about it, though, we can do that.

Yup, all the proof you need: http://scienceblog.com/35508/children-with-home-computers-likely-to-have-lower-test-scores/

Your post is why sex still needs to be treated as special. Women are emotionally tied to their vaginas because of biochemical reactions before they are emotionally tied to them by social pressures (google: oxytocin). Humans mate for life, from a natural standpoint (because our children are completely worthless until the age of 14) and from a social/psychological standpoint. You don't bother to learn any of this because you're so sexually frustrated you can't see straight enough to read any writing on the wall.

If we don't treat sex as special, then we can ALL become emotionally and sexually jaded as you are. There are reasons why sex is expected to happen between two people who are married from a social standpoint that shows RESPONSIBILITY rather than what you seem to think is "Obnoxious stupidity." But since sexual responsibility is the opposite of what you're asking for, I can probably assume social responsibility is a moot point.

Your post is why sex still needs to be treated as special. Women are emotionally tied to their vaginas because of biochemical reactions before they are emotionally tied to them by social pressures (google: oxytocin). Humans mate for life, from a natural standpoint (because our children are completely worthless until the age of 14) and from a social/psychological standpoint. You don't bother to learn any of this because you're so sexually frustrated you can't see straight enough to read any writing on the wall.

If we don't treat sex as special, then we can ALL become emotionally and sexually jaded as you are. There are reasons why sex is expected to happen between two people who are married from a social standpoint that shows RESPONSIBILITY rather than what you seem to think is "Obnoxious stupidity." But since sexual responsibility is the opposite of what you're asking for, I can probably assume social responsibility is a moot point.

The mechanisms for most CAM modalities (such as say, homeopathy) are usually highly implausible and often would require a complete reworking of the Standard Model.

Homeopathy would require something weird, but one can construct plausible theories about some effects of herbs, acupuncture and acupressure, chiropractic, massage, and osteopathy, as well as health cultivation practices such as yoga and qi gong, without stepping outside (or with only minor tweaks to) the "Standard Model". Even various "energy healing" modalities can be understood psychosomaticly. (And I guess homeopathy could be too, at that.)

Then throw in the fact that rarely is there even good scientific evidence that shows CAM modalities do anything at all and where are you left?

Rarely is there good scientific evidence that shows conventional modalities do anything. Very little medicine is evidence-based.

Moreover, there is a perfectly good reason why there is not nor will there be double-blind placebo controlled trials for vaccines.

Bullshit, as demonstrated by this controlled study of an HIV vaccine candidate: "The study had two (blinded) groups, one control group (receiving placebo injections) and one experimental group (receiving four 'prime' doses of ALVAC HIV and two boost doses of AIDSVAX gp120 B/E), with over 8,000 volunteers in each group, lasting from 2003 until now."

You are basically accusing most physicians of being corporate shills.

Have you been in a fscking doctor's office lately? Notice all the freebies with the names of drugs on them that pharmaceutical sales reps give out to doctors? Are you aware of the way that big pharma spends over $20 billion a year to essentially bribe doctors to use their products? Did you not hear about that recent fraud case against Pfizer?

Many doctors are corporate shills, yes. Many others have simply declined to engage their critical thinking skills, and believed whatever bullshit Big Pharma spoon-fed them as they were plied with gifts. (I dread the day my physician -- honest, hardworking, intelligent, compentent, and kind -- retires,

The fact that things like herbal supplements are more or less highly unregulated.

In point of fact, the FDA has basically the same regulatory power over supplements it has over food. It has the power to make supplement manufactures provide a complete list of ingredients, and to remove supplements from the marketplace if a danger is found. This is certainly a preferable state of affairs to the days of federal paramilitary law enforcement raids on people selling herbs and vitamins, don't you think?

When a woman rapes a man, he must be hard, inb4 strapon.

If her victim is aroused, is it rape? If a man rapes a woman and she has an orgasm in the process, is it rape?

If a woman is twice as likely to become pregnant if raped, does that make rape immoral?

Finally, ATT sucks. Track their employees leaving the stores and beat the shit out of them, then vandalize their vehicles. Fuck man, it's obvious that they're a front for government spying. When their medical bills are greater than their paychecks and government stipends, the domestic spying will end.

Another study says attractive males release fewer sperm per mating.

So the conclusions are:
attractive women = faster sperm
attractive men = fewer sperm

While that may explain Ron Jeremy, I think that these studies show that the scientists have too much time on their hands, so to speak.

TFA: "Ligesh [from LxLabs] was also still coming to terms with the suicides by hanging of his sister and mother five years ago."

I suspect that this was the result of a lot of bad things going on in his life, and not just because of the software issues.

And very likely a genetic predisposition to suicide as well.

Woot. An option to link to new research that marijuana's THC helps fight certain types of cancers and tumours in a mouse model with preliminary evidence that the research likely will extend/apply to humans as well.

Need something for that cough perhaps?

"Despite a backdrop of meager funding and career-killing derision from mainstream scientists and engineers, cold fusion is anything but a dead field of research. Presenters at the MIT event estimated that 3,000 published studies from scientists around the world have contributed to the growing canon of evidence suggesting that small but promising amounts of energy can be generated using the infamous tabletop apparatus."

"MIT's Peter Hagelstein, on the other hand, said "cold fusion" reactions have yielded surplus energy from as far back as the initial experiments in 1989. Verification of these controversial results is not the problem -- many labs around the world have reproduced parts of the results many times. "

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/08/cold_fusion?currentPage=all#

Navy Discovers Cold Fusion (again):
http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2292

"Last March, scientists at the annual conference of the august American Physical Society heard presentations on cold fusion. Next month, the Second International Conference on Future Energy will be held in Washington, D.C. The vast majority of physicists remains skeptical, but at the Office of Naval Research, six of the nine experiments performed produced an unexplainable amount of excess heat."

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060808/REPOSITORY/608080316&SearchID=73253345954312

"Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a tabletop accelerator that produces nuclear fusion at room temperature, providing confirmation of an earlier experiment conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), while offering substantial improvements over the original design."

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/ny_team_confirms_ucla_tabletop_fusion_10017.html

Science in Neglect
Nobel Laureate Speaks Out For Cold Fusion:

http://newenergytimes.com/news/2005/2005Lietz-ScienceInNeglectJosephson.htm

"The foreword by Dr. Frank Gordon in a [extern] summary report of February 2002 is so far the strongest statement of the Navy about their research:

We do not know if Cold Fusion will be the answer to future energy needs, but we do know the existence of Cold Fusion phenomenon through repeated observations by scientists throughout the world. It is time that this phenomenon be investigated so that we can reap whatever benefits accrue from additional scientific understanding. It is time for government funding organizations to invest in this research. "

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/18/18580/1.html

"First, a dozen techniques have been found to produce anomalous energy and benign nuclear products in certain solids. These are listed in the table (p. 76). Most of these methods have been duplicated at independent laboratories, and several can be made to work by anyone who would take the time to learn how. "

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ01/cold_fusion/cold_fusion.html

Edmund Storms* discusses the methods used to generate low energy nuclear reactions (LENR).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltZhii3g2HY

* Retired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory after thirty-four years of service. His work there involved basic research i

Try here, here, here or well, any of the articles I found on Google under "adhd dopamine receptors".

'unobtainium'

What a disappointment. If only there were some kind of material that could withstand the 1200C of near-surface magma, or some means of rapidly extracting the heat so we could use it for generating electricity.

Unfortunately, there's no economic incentive to develop these technologies.

Its not "foolish" its a fact. Perhaps you should google before calling people foolish, eh?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040105071229.htm

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5576/obesity_and_poverty_the_poorest_of.html

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/correlation-between-obesity-and-poverty-health-people-2010-should-increase-attention-those-poverty-14046.html

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/469027

http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/2/0/6/1/p20614_index.html

Links:

HSV1 and Alzheimer's link:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/05/000512083302.htm and http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/cold-sore-virus-might-play-role-in-alzheimers-12283.html and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18300070

Oh, and scratch that 3 years... make it 8, at least.

you still shouldn't out the others working on similar things:

-------------

By 1991, 92 groups of researchers from 10 different countries had reported excess heat, tritium, neutrons or other nuclear effects.[73] Over 3,000 cold fusion papers have been published including about 1,000 in peer-reviewed journals (see indices in further reading, below). In March 1995, Dr. Edmund Storms compiled a list of 21 published papers reporting excess heat and articles have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Physical Review A, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, and Journal of Fusion Energy (see indices in further reading, below).

The generation of excess heat has been reported by (among others):

* Michael McKubre, director of the Energy Research Center at SRI International,
* Giuliano Preparata (ENEA (Italy))
* Richard A. Oriani (University of Minnesota, in December 1990),
* Robert A. Huggins (at Stanford University in March 1990),
* Yoshiaki Arata (Osaka University, Japan),
* T. Mizuno (Hokkaido University, Japan),
* T. Ohmori (Japan),

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion#Experimental_reports

"Despite a backdrop of meager funding and career-killing derision from mainstream scientists and engineers, cold fusion is anything but a dead field of research. Presenters at the MIT event estimated that 3,000 published studies from scientists around the world have contributed to the growing canon of evidence suggesting that small but promising amounts of energy can be generated using the infamous tabletop apparatus."

"MIT's Peter Hagelstein, on the other hand, said "cold fusion" reactions have yielded surplus energy from as far back as the initial experiments in 1989. Verification of these controversial results is not the problem -- many labs around the world have reproduced parts of the results many times. "

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/08/cold_fusion?currentPage=all#

U.S. Navy Report Supports Cold Fusion:
http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue44/navy.html

""Last March, scientists at the annual conference of the august American Physical Society heard presentations on cold fusion. Next month, the Second International Conference on Future Energy will be held in Washington, D.C. The vast majority of physicists remains skeptical, but at the Office of Naval Research, six of the nine experiments performed produced an unexplainable amount of excess heat.""

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060808/REPOSITORY/608080316&SearchID=73253345954312

"Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a tabletop accelerator that produces nuclear fusion at room temperature, providing confirmation of an earlier experiment conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), while offering substantial improvements over the original design."

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/ny_team_confirms_ucla_tabletop_fusion_10017.html

Science in Neglect - Nobel Laureate S

Yeah, and it's dangerous up there.

I think you should reconsider how IMing is being used to communicate with the locals. No reason to be Luddite here ;-)

This reminded me of an article I read in the early 90s about territorialism and parking spots. Fortunately, I found a version of it on Google. Basically, people will pull out of parking spots more slowly when they know someone is waiting to take the spot after they leave. Ever since I first read that article, I've thought about territorialism when observing bad driving habits -- and working in the electronic tolling industry, I see a lot of it. Fun to see it's being confirmed in new and interesting ways.

It's been a problem with tumbleweeds and migratory ducks before....

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2001/C/200113639.html

According to this site, Dr. Chen is being quite devious, seemingly in order to discredit a colleague.

In truth, the 1956 experiment may have had flaws (though Chen's paper doesn't prove this), but many subsequent ones have upheld the original findings, and are not subject to the alleged problems.

And damned if you don't. I was just reading about a new study that found people who slept more than 6 or 7 hours a night were likely to die younger. I believe it was a BBC story, but I'm having trouble digging it up on google. Here are a couple of older studies though.

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/C/20025782.html
http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2002/02_08_Kripke.html

I have trouble sleeping more than 7 hours. During the week I get 6 hours a night on average. I spent several years in the navy getting 4 or less but I functioned well and survived.

Go to sleep when you're tired. Get up when you wake up. That's probably the amount your body needs.

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2000/B/200001082.html
http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/humanservicesnews/may06/study.htm
http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/0791.html
http://209.189.226.235/stories/080107/health_20070801002.php

The jury is out on emphysema, but there is no question that smoking marijuana (or probably anything else) is harmful to your lungs.

Also the article used the phrase 'non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy'. That is bullshit. For a drug to treat cancer it must be at toxic to at least cancer cells. And if a drug is used to treat cancer it is by definition chemotherapy.

Then how the hell do they explain this, this, this, and this? For those of you too lazy to look, the first and fourth have to do with how starving slows down your body, resulting in you living longer because your body doesn't wear itself out as quickly. The second has to do with starving reduces your changes of getting Parkinson's Disease. The third has to do with starving delays Huntington's Disease. And by "starving," they mean being hungry, not killing yourself by being anorexic.

Already been done. Other suggestions?

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates that EVs operating in the Los Angeles Basin would produce 98 percent fewer hydrocarbons, 89 percent fewer oxides of nitrogen, and 99 percent less carbon monoxide than ICE vehicles.

In a study conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, EVs were significantly cleaner over the course of 100,000 miles than ICE cars. The electricity generation process produces less than 100 pounds of pollutants for EVs compared to 3000 pounds for ICE vehicles. (See Table 3)

[...]

CO2 emissions are also significantly lower. Over the course of 100,000 miles, CO2 emissions from EVs are projected to be 10 tons versus 35 tons for ICE vehicles (5).

Many EV critics remain skeptical of such findings because California's mix of power plants is relatively clean compared to that in the rest of the country. However, in Arizona where 67 percent of power plants are coal-fired, a study concluded that EVs would reduce greenhouse gases such as CO2 by 71 percent (6).

[source]

From a pure energy efficiency standpoint (BTUs per mile), electric vehicles are about twice as efficient, even if the electricity generation process is only 39% efficient (about what you'd expect from coal, the lossiest form) (same source).

This doesn't even begin to cover the other benefits of electric cars, which I gush about elsewhere.

What is true for electric cars is doubly true for electric lawnmowers, which are about the most pollutingest things around. Unlike automotive ICEs, mower motors generally don't have catalytic converters. Thus, a little bit of mowing goes a long way.

I'd suggest going in on an electric lawnmower with the neighbors. Not because they're particularly expensive. There is an e-mower at costco.com for about $200, which is a hundred dollars cheaper than any of the mowers at sears.com. Froogle came up with one for $128 from ACE Hardware, and I found an old mower on eBay for fifteen bucks (supposedly it still runs). No, I suggest sharing because it's a way to put five or six mowers out of commission, while saving garage space.

Regarding the speculation that this particular car model might be vastly less efficient than normal electric vehicles, I don't see why you'd expect that. It's probably not that much heavier than a standard EV (fewer batteries, more motor, should just about wash out), and I can't think of anything else that would make this model orders of magnitude less efficient in EV mode.

Some logical part of me does understand that most people are going to put their immediate sense of need or convenience ahead of abstract concepts like conservation. But for the most part, when I hear someone whining about how they can't bear to part with their conveniences, as they hungrily sap what little is left on this increasingly dessicated husk of a planet, it makes me want to go on a random crotch-punching spree. So please, don't bother trying to convince me that you're just being realistic. Fifty more years of

Well, since I am in the fortunate position of not having to formulate detailed public policy, and since my original statement was more of a throw away than an 'advocation', I wasn't intending to present a thorough and detailed argument.

However, since we are getting all deep and meaningful about this, I will respond. I'll try to keep the hand waving and generalisations to a minimum, but I'm afraid it is that sort of debate.

First to address the points you raised.

I can't refute the anecdotal evidence relating to your circumstances but, yes, I would say it has to do with social factors. Social factors are significant indicators for all sorts of things, like rates of crime, literacy, employment, education, health, drug use, etc, etc.

The additional evidence you provide shows that half the kids reaching sexual maturity are *not* abstaining. That is a pretty big proportion.

You then go on to assert that teenage parenthood is no big problem, which kind of eats into your abstinence argument. If it is no problem to raise a kid at 17/18 then why are 'near-100%' of the kids around your area too scared of parenthood to have sex? Can it be that they understand that having children is a massive and serious commitment and should, ideally, be undertaken in stable and economically viable circumstances.

Previous, middle class, generations could complete their education and find employment by their late teens. Consequentially they were in a stable position to settle and have a family early in life. Times have changed and these days very few people have completed their education and generally finished stuffing around before they are 21. Also having a child is a somewhat more serious undertaking than getting legally drunk. Anyway, it is a traditional number.

And to clarify my position:

I feel that teenage pregnancy and the propagation of STDs are bad things. Abstinence has the benefit of addressing both problems but unfortunately, as shown by your link, does not work for half the population. So other solutions are required and, apart from condoms, different solutions are required for the different problems. Disease control can be undertaken by education, treatment, vaccination (HPV) and the use of condoms. It is a multifaceted immunological problem. Birth control has drug, education and social control options. I am happy to admit that my 'proposal' is an extreme, and impractical, solution, but has the benefit of being 100% effective.

I'm not much interested in government intervention for the sake of it. But I am a firm believer of the Social Contract. If someone's actions are not going to impact other people, then I have no interest in what they get up to in their spare time. Nor do I think the government should care. However if someone's actions are going to make society in general poorer or less safe then I do care.

Well, that is too much response entirely. Apologies for the wall of text. You may rebut as you see fit, but I will close my remarks here.

Some additional information:

Health costs for the mother:
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/2117

Economic costs for the mother:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2kp7x4

Economic costs for society
http://gandini.unm.edu/research/Papers/RevisedCost s2006Paper.pdf

[quote]
Social and Economic Consequences of Early Childbearing
For young women just beginning their adult lives, the risks of childbearing do not end with delivery. Compared with a woman who delays childbearing until her 20s, the woman who has her first child before age 20 is more likely to:

* Obtain less education,
* Have fewer job possibilities and lower income,
* Be divorced or separated from her partner (405, 450), and
* Live in poverty.
[/quote]

http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/j41/j41chap2_5.sht ml

As far as I see it, there are two huge problems, and the FA did not touch on these at all.

First, as you mention it, is the isotopes. Not all Si atoms have the same mass, and different natural samples have different distributions of the different isotopes. So even if you can count the number of Si atoms, you can't be sure of the mass. I know that the semiconductor industry working on single isotope chips, http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2000/C/ 200002512.html, but how "single" is that?

Second, defects, in particular voids. If you have a perfect sphere, there is one configurational state. A SINGLE exlusion defect for a ~28 g sphere will have an Avagadro's number (~10^23) of possible configurations. So the question is, how easy is it to form defects? (very easy, because of the second Law of thermodynamics) So the question becomes, how many defects do you expect to have in a 1 kg sample of Si? Unfortunately, i've forgotten stat mech that lets me calculate that...

The urls in the article did not work for me. So I looked them up myself.
This is what I found: The article and its source.

I just tossed the splitting idea off of the top of my head. Yah, lots of energy to split it which makes burning C so useful. So I decided to see if there really was any investigation into this and found this article right off the bat. Looks like it is an idea still in its infancy though.

Each of the two processor cores can execute up to 16 out-of-order operations
vs
Current high-performance processors are typically designed to sustain a maximum execution rate of four operations per cycle.

They are comparing oranges against apples (!), as you can not compare 16 OoO executed instructions per cycle versus 4 *resulting in-order* instructions per cycle (where for achieving these 4 instructions/cycle may be you had to execute 10, 20 or more OoO instructions (!)). Please, where is the rigor? Fair play anyone?

Quite. Except the lack of gun control makes it far easier to cause a large amount of damage

Wrong in places that gun controls true believers have won they see skyrocketing crime.
Ask England, it is the people that are determined to commit the crimes not what ever they use to commit them. Note that criminals by definition do not follow the laws can you explain how yet another gun law is going to keep them from doing it? When they are what? ...11k+ gun laws on the books that haven't stopped them?
If a gun is not handy they use a bat or explosives or they drive their SUBs into crowds.

Again England is a nice example, they have banned guns and now feel the need to ban knives to protect people. That is right it is not a joke they really want to ban knives.
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/8021
That's right they want to ban knives. Something that you can make with a grinder and a few minutes. Because they will protect people by banning them.
And even though the evil guns are gone their crime rate is still going up.

How about taking just a little responsibility here people?

Most animals are preditary, they will kill if threatend, they will not face a court, they will not go to jail if they are found guilty. If Chimps were on the same level as humans they would have established simular laws and higher archys that we have as a sociaty. This isn't Planet of the Apes just yet(or chimps what ever). If you want to put on chimp on the same level you would have to deal with http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/050209_war frm.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4938620.stm and this http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/killer-chimps-found -hunting-with-spears-12650.html . Yes we are simular to them, they may even evolve at some point to be like us, or at least the missing link. But the point still remains that they are not us, don't have the same reasoning as us, and it takes 100 chimps to write a play that one man wrote(that was a joke). Chimps deserve chimp rights, if they attack people they should be taken care of, I'm not sure if this should include killing them as it is just instincts that they may have not learned to controle or just the enviroment they live in. They should be protected from unfair treatment. They do posses traits that put them above other species, but I don't think that you could give them the same or even simular rights as humans based on some traits that they show.

Maybe we should watch over them and help them develop their growth, but then again no one did that for us and we turned out okay. Except maybe the war and killing.

One must also ask, and this is something I rarely see in the general debate : "What about all the nitrogen?"

Even back in 1994 the global warming potential of fertilizers were known :

"In wet soils, denitrifying bacteria convert nitrate to nitrous oxide and gaseous nitrogen. The former is a greenhouse gas that has an energy reflectivity per mole 180-fold higher than that of carbon dioxide."

I came across the notion in an MIT courseware video lecture (16 or 17 I think)

On a slightly different tack nitrogen's role in reducing carbon fixing was documented in 1996
  and thus warning against adding nitrogen to the ecosystem because it reduces the ability to fix the dreaded carbon, ignoring N's own contribution.

Yet here we have Nasa saying that carbon fixing is nitrogen limited and we should add more nitrogen to the system.

Not that all modern thinking is pro-nitrogen.

Add into the mix the world's estimated 1,300,000,000 cattle belching out 400 litres of methane each per day : 520,000,000,000 litres

Here's more on methane

Methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together. Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. While atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have risen by about 31% since pre-industrial times, methane concentrations have more than doubled. Whereas human sources of CO2 amount to just 3% of natural emissions, human sources produce one and a half times as much methane as all natural sources. In fact, the effect of our methane emissions may be compounded as methane-induced warming in turn stimulates microbial decay of organic matter in wetlands--the primary natural source of methane.

and more

What conclusions?
My conclusion is that reducing one's carbon footprint will not suffice. The way to fix more nitrogen is to grow more pulses and legumes which is good because you're going to need something to replace the cows you're eating now. Stop pouring nitrogen on to the fields and start eating more organic produce.

As we've been saying for a while : "think globally, act locally"

I suggest you read the two papers I referenced.

I was already familiar with the Wikipedia cite, what other papers did you refer to?

You say the CO2 emissions correlate with global temp curves, did they cause the Medieval Warming Period or Holocene?

No.

Other than solar activity, the only explanation for the extraordinary Holocene warming is a recent (1999) theory that the Earth's tilt may have changed for a couple thousand years. That theory is based on a model, there's no evidence as of yet. But it could be that the change in tilt and unusual sunspot activity caused the warming.

So maybe it's manmade CO2 and sunspots together causing the current warm spell?? Possibly, except that the Earth's history shows the global climate has little sensitivity to CO2 levels. For example, over the last 600 million years:

- CO2 levels have dropped from 7000 ppm to approx 400 ppm

- Average global temps have remained steadily within a 72F (22C) to 54F (12C) range while CO2 levels have plunged to current levels These fact alone show that the Earth's climate is not as sensitive to changes in CO2 levels as the models indicate

Finally, there have only been three periods during which temps have been as low as they are today, and the other two took place during mass extinctions (Ordovician and Permian). Also, the Permian extinction period is the only other time when CO2 levels have been as low. Just another coincidence? Or proof that we're in an unstable period of cooling and the Earth's climate is eventually going to get warmer no matter what we do.

So there you have it: wide swings in CO2 levels have occurred at the same time temps have remained relatively stable; certainly there haven't been runaway greenhouse effects that the current models would lead us to expect. In short, I question your science.

The main issue that they have to deal with is the pressure inside the mud volcano. How long this mud volcano continues to erupt is anybody guess, since it's eruption period depends on the pressure of the gas (maybe also water, I am not sure on that) that creates this mud eruption. This might continue for years or decades if they can't stop it now.

Here is a interesting blog about this mud volcano.
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/mud-volcano-in-java -may-continue-to-erupt-for-months-maybe-years-1242 9.html

Actually, there IS a drug that could be made to work this year in humans if the regulations and safety requirments weren't so onerous. See : http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2004/10 /20049284.shtml

Essentially, think of it as chemotherapy for fat (or a "molecular liposuction"): the drug cuts off the blood flow to fat cells, those tissues die and are reclaimed by macrophages, and the lysozomes in the macrophages evidently destroy the fatty acids.

Of course there's an element of danger in this approach, but it seems managable. Lot safer than being fat.

Well, those mice are. They also produced miserable mice in the process of doing so. Which isn't funny.

P.S. Your singing mice link points to the plague-infected story?

Sciendaily, and Science Blog.

Actually a better example would be the testing that has already been performed on supposed "lie detectors."

Scientists have been working with showing images to people, and measuring their EEG trace (P300). If you recognized an image of a crime commited, it is thought you are the guilty person. Evidently we are unable to control the brains reaction to viewing these images.

Take a look at http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2001/C/ 200113631.html for more details.

As another poster said, not everything rotates in the same direction. The danger of orbital debris is pretty well known and is a problem that is hard to anticipate because a lot of the things up there are small and dark.

Cellular collapsing walls are all well and good, but what happens when you hit a wrench, or some other larger piece of debris? Here's some of those fancy scientifical things we all love so much:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/050305_shuttl e_debris.html
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/archive s/D/archnas2398.html

I seem to recall from my childhood (3-2-1 Contact magazine? National Geographic?) a picture of an orbital vehicle windshield (viewport) with a pretty deep crater inflicted by a paint chip. Alas, google fails me for now.

Yes. Lack of Insurance a Universal Health Risk

And yet ... Weekly religious attendance nearly as effective as statins and exercise in extending life, according to a story today at Science Blog.