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... is amazing! Kinda looks like my son took 2 of his matchbox cars and drove them thru his dinner plate. :-P

How long has there been life on the Earth?

Single-celled life may be ~3 billion years old, but multi-cellular life is ~600 million years old.

How high had CO2 skyrocketed before 650,000 years ago?

We're still searching, but the current level is higher than at any point in at least the past 2 million years. Furthermore, as I mention in the article, the Sun was dimmer in the distant past, and the biosphere was totally different so the sources/sinks of CO2 weren't the same as today. Also, the positions of the continents have a profound effect on the climate, and they move on those timescales. Comparisons across distant geological time are tricky at best.

This is what I love about you semi-honest "scientists". Why are you limiting your dates to 650,000 years ago? That's not really a long time in the history of this planet.

Because as I mention in the article, that's the age corresponding to EPICA, the deepest antarctic ice core extracted so far.

There is accumulating evidence that certain viruses may cause obesity, in essence making obesity contagious, according to Leah D. Whigham, the lead researcher in a new study, "Adipogenic potential of multiple human adenoviruses in vivo and in vitro in animals," in the January issue of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology published by the American Physiological Society. The study, by Whigham, Barbara A. Israel and Richard L. Atkinson, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that the human adenovirus Ad-37 causes obesity in chickens. This finding builds on studies that two related viruses, Ad-36 and Ad-5, also cause obesity in animals. Moreover, Ad-36 has been associated with human obesity, leading researchers to suspect that Ad-37 also may be implicated in human obesity. Whigham said more research is needed to find out if Ad-37 causes obesity in humans. One study was inconclusive, because only a handful of people showed evidence of infection with Ad-37 -- not enough people to draw any conclusions, she said. Ad-37, Ad-36 and Ad-5 are part of a family of approximately 50 viruses known as human adenoviruses.

OK, here are the reasons why you are a retarded fuckwit:

1. You are engaging in a straw man fallacy, because no model of man made climate changes predicts an increase in global temperatures every single year; there will be fluctuations

2. You are opening your idiotic noise hole without citing any evidence of 'consistent temperature declines from 2002-2009'. You expect us to just take the word of some AC wanker.

3. You are in fact, plain wrong about there being a 'consistent temperature decline from 2002-2009' :
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080418112341.htm - 2008 was the second warmest year after 2002, meaning that it was hotter than 2003-2007 and thus there cannot possibly have been 'consistent temperature declines'

So you've opened your mouth, spouted off something factually incorrect, the admonished scientists for not predicting your factually incorrect information despite the fact that, even if it were true, it wouldn't actually impact on the correctness of their real life models.

You, sir, are a complete retard.

So you eat raw meat and other people? Chimps and gorillas will eat anything they can get their hands on for the most part.

Besides, a better role model might be the ourangutan.

Don't believe it? Google for polyphasic sleep or Uberman sleep schedule.
Turns out you can live on 20 minute naps every four hours. Not that I'd want to try it: every four hours you have to stop *right then* and sleep.
I wonder if they did any tests to make sure the women don't have memory loss.

Okay, so if you assume that these companies can totally eliminate profits ($40 billion) and all market research and advertising ($27 - 57 billion depending on who you believe), you'd STILL have billions more that need to get cut. I suppose you'll be getting rid of all executive pay next. :)

In reality, of course, no business can survive without ads and profits. Let's say they reduce their market research and advertising budget down to 6% (which I believe is normal in the service industries). 6% of $200 billion is $12 billion. Let's say they reduce profit margins to 8%, which is the average for corporations in the US over the last 25 years (not including this year!). 8% of $200 billion is $16 billion. So at their new run-rate of $200 billion with IMHO reasonable marketing and profits, let's do the math. $100 billion is no longer the number... it is now $100 - (40 - 16) - (57 - 12) billion, or $31 billion. So they have a $31 billion dollar hole that they have to dig out of. It will get cut somewhere, and I have a hard time believing that R&D would be spared.

Nevertheless, I suppose I should thank you for going back and refuting your own claim (that drug costs account for much of the US's ballooning healthcare costs). :)

It doesn't "refute" my claim, just puts it in perspective. The same analysis needs to be done on the medical equipment side.

Here's the older topic:http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/08/0344248

And the older scientific publication: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7243/full/nature07971.html

The real difference in this publication compared to the previous one is that these researchers are making really compact bundles while the previous ones have more flexible (probably) hollow structures dependent on key localized interactions. These are more likely driven by the summation of lots of little effects.

Without having read the article yet, it seems to be a common theme of top-down vs bottom-up design, which is a topic that crops up frequently.

Junk DNA = We don't really know what it does

Not so much anymore; these days, it's more like it does not act in the simple, straightforward way that we expect genes to act. But then, genes don't seem to much, either. We're learning more and more about the many ways that "junk" DNA actually does play an active role in shaping human biology. (Original, more technical article.)

Nope: We have a greater-than-1% difference with chimps, our closest living relatives.

Apparently not:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090618084304.htm

Apparently we didn't look at enough DNA before

An interesting thing to say given the discussion at hand. Are you saying that "abnormal" brain structures that change the behavior of the host animal is strictly the providence of Man?

It's not, but dog_brain != human_brain;

but there's no evidence for it (if you have real citations to the contrary, as opposed to uninformed pop-sci speculation, I'll be glad to see it.)

I don't know where you draw that line. The original article I read went offline. Here's a bad synopsis:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090203130708.htm

the theorist in question: http://astro.fnal.gov/people/Hogan/

The basic idea is that gravity waves are missing. The detector we built to find them hasn't, but has found noise that is a near-perfect match for a predictive model by Hogan that our Universe is a 2D shell and the 3D we experience is a 'holographic' projection from that quantized shell. In a real universe there ought to be gravity waves.

I don't have a PhD in particle physics, but that's my understanding of the idea. To the GP's point, on Facebook I list my religion as 'Free Thinker'. To quote the philosopher Kevin Smith:

I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.

Yes, you can store energy in strained magnetic fields -- so-called "spin batteries". But it's poor energy density. Magnetic "batteries" are still trying to get up to the energy density of supercapacitors, which are in turn still trying to get up to the density of lead-acid batteries, which have been left in the dust by techs like lithium ion batteries. But it's a very new tech, so we'll have to see where it goes.

The exact numbers might not work in this case, but since they're all pulled from somebody's ass anyway I think it's the principle that's important. Because of the retarded MPG scale you guys use to measure fuel efficiency, going from a 10mpg truck to a 20mpg one is a much larger saving than going from a 25mpg car to a 50mpg one. More info here.

Not that I'm defending the program, IMO it's ridiculous for a number of reasons, including the broken window fallacy, having it effectively set a price floor on used cars, and a bunch of others economic and philosophical reasons.

It seems like a similar program would be introduced here too, but in addition to the usual problems, the requirements and the actual subsidy are such that it makes sense to almost nobody. Basically, you'll be able to get rid of a very old, very cheap car (== a complete shitbox because of age requirements and the subsidy amount) and replace it with a shitty, cheap, low performance new car (because of the requirements of CO2 emissions, price and some other parameters). Ugh.

Slashdot editors don't like their work, apparently.

These are better articles:

Mosquitoes against malaria?. Quote: 'In what AP describe as a "daring experiment" with "astounding" results, researchers found that ten people subjected to mosquito bites three times over three months whilst taking the drug chloroquine gained apparent immunity against malarial mosquito bites a month later.'

Effective Vaccine For Malaria Possible, Study Shows. Quote: "This unique method of immunization allowed the human immune system to direct its response to eliminating the P. falciparum parasite at the earlier, liver stage of its life cycle. (Chloroquine kills the parasite at the later blood stage.)"

We clearly have very different notions of the "empirical", as well as radically different philosophies of science.

Empirical, as in witnessing or recreating through experiments and the collection of date through that..

You can trust your guesses and assumptions but you can't ignore the fact that's what they are. You know, in the realm of atoms and so on, we can trust them to a point but we have to understand that a better assumption can come along or we can even view them and discover our interpretations are wrong. In the quantum fields, a lot of our understandings are being challenged and the rules don't seem to work as we might expect with normal mechanics. This is more evidence that we need to keep the mind open.

Have you read much philosophy of science? Because it sure seems like you haven't. The way you're using the the words, all science is "guesses" and "(well supported) assumptions". Which is a strange way of talking about it. Of course any scientific hypothesis could be wrong (that's almost axiomatic), the question is how well supported they are. The ones I mentioned are very well supported by multiple independent lines of evidence.

Some but probably not enough.

But no matter how supported they are, you have to acknowledge that we made assumptions to the evidence availible to present the models we are working with. It didn't argue that they were wild guesses or wild assumptions as if a stab in the dark. The fact just remains, they fact until such time the process can be observed or recreated in an experiment. Testing to see if something could be true isn't really the same empirical evidence that it is true. However, the lack of empirical evidence doesn't make it not true, it just makes you want to assume it could be.

There are quite a few fitting theories on why the dinosaurs died out other then the meteor impact. They aren't main stream but Changes in gravitational forces is one, volcanic eruptions is another which also explains temperature changes and concentrating of fossils during flood run off. Curiously, the gravitational change theory supports why some survived while the largest did not. But the most interesting part I find is that there are pockets of fossils the seem to have been deposited long after the mass extinction even 65 million years ago. There are even some fringe evidence of Dinosaurs being alive then humans were with Incas having Currier pouches pottery and jewelry depicting them long before the concept was even known to modern man or the appearance was visualized by our modern conception of them.

Anyways, the problem I had was not with the theories popular today, it's that they are not being treated as such and are being claimed as fact where we haven't demonstrated that yet.

Good old appeal for the children and class warfare.

This study indicates that your blanket statement isn't quite true. The link indicates that in the first few years organic output does tend to be markedly lower. With proper organic techniques, however, the yields increased in those areas, and in some cases exceeded the conventional farming technique.

Organic farming, IMHO, has its place. In fact, your statement that "You cannot be against world hunger and for organic foods" is just plain wrong. In the third world countries, where fertilizer isn't really in the budget, organic methods greatly increased yields. It might be worth re-evaluating your stance.

Oh great. Were these discovered by a fourteen year old girl too?

Uh yea.... First, your definition of 'half' is suspect (more like 25% of warming occurred before 1940). And saying that the earth has been cooling since 1998 is practically lying. 1998 was indeed the warmest year, but to say we've been cooling since then is VERY misleading. The eight warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080116114150.htm

Sigh. I get that you are trolling, but just in case anyone else misunderstood the point...

The full article claims that "The most surprising finding from the 20-year study...was how help provided by the juvenile justice system substantially increased the risk of the boys engaging in criminal activities during early adulthood." My point was that this is not surprising, but rather predictable as it simply supports commonly and long-held theories in criminology that have been studied extensively before. Did you really think a study in 2009 (even with its longitudinal nature) is the first to explore social learning concepts outlined over 100 years ago?

From the article "Differential Association Theory" (Matsueda, Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior : Volume 1, Historical, Conceptual and Theoretical Issues, 2001. -- updated from Matsueda's original 1988 article):

Empirical research using survey data on adolescents has generally found support for this structure. Research finds that the process of learning definitions of delinquency is structured by delinquent peers, family structure, parental attachment, neighborhood problems, and social class...

...And then goes on to list a variety of past studies and over 30 references where this information came from. Also please note: In the social sciences, there is no such thing as a "law."

To correct a mistake in my original post, Sutherland's original uses of "differential association" occurred in the 1930s and 1940s (further expounded on in his 1978 work Criminology with Donald Cressey).

Coincidentally(?) another study (American Naturalist) claims more attractive MALES releasing fewer sperm (they don't mention any correlation as to the attractiveness of females). Not quite the same thing but related.
Found this article at ScienceDaily.com, a great website by the way. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090709095425.htm

I counter your ice melting with this Antarctic ice increasing:
Sea Ice May Be On Increase In The Antarctic
Late 20th Century increase in South Pole snow accumulation
South Pole: Ice Core and Snow Accumulation Studies

I'm not worried about global warming. I do however enjoy having clean air to breath. Those of you who have been to China in the last decade know what I'm talking about.

A single particle of Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus has a mass of about 1.5 femtograms, and its genome is 128 kilobases. If my calucaltions are right, you could store 1PB in 100 milligrams of virus particles. This was the only virus I've managed to find both figures for, so this result can probably be improved. For what I know, viruses can survive pretty harsh conditions, and this is a DNA virus, and DNA has two strands, so you're basically getting a RAID1. And it's the most popular data storage format on this planet.

There's a rather more informative article about it here.

To the conservatives, saying "don't do drugs, but if you do here's a free needle" would be the same as saying "drug use isn't encouraged, but isn't really bad either".

Why would it be that, and why only to conservatives? Surely if we live in an objectively real world, whether or not two things are the same as each other is independent of political bias!

My argument is not in the least intellectually dishonest: I am stating clearly and without equivocation what I believe to be true of the anti-drug side, based on my experience with them and other puritans over many years. I believe that their explicit arguments are incoherent, like the one you've presented here, and therefore infer that there is another reason they are against these things, and that they are either two cowardly to say it out loud or too unreflective to be aware of (it in fairness, I think the latter is depressingly common.)

The claim "making a dangerous activity less dangerous encourages it" fails the test of empiricism on many counts--so many that it is very, very difficult to credit anyone who makes that claim with any intellectual honesty whatsoever.

It is well-known and well-documented that the United States, one of the least free jurisdictions in the developed world, has a much higher rate of drug use than other, more-free jurisdictions: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080630201007.htm

This despite the conservatives doing everything they can to make drug use as dangerous as possible to users, including limiting access to needle exchanges and treatment, violent interdiction of drug supplies, and incarceration of everyone involved in the drug trade from high level dealers down to individual users.

So it is not clear why conservatives would think that liberal drug laws and programs like needle exchange and other public health measures, which have a record of getting addicts into treatment in other, more free, jurisdictions than the United States, constitute "condoning" drug use. It seems to me on the contrary that such programs do nothing but recognize the fact that drug use is bad... so bad that considerable public health resources need to be directed at the problem of treating addicts, to make things better.

It is ONLY if you take a purely punitive attitude toward drug use on the basis that it is "pure evil", in the sense that "whatever the consequences, it is still bad," that such an approach makes sense, at least to me. I really and honestly don't see any other way to read conservative policies, given the objective facts of the matter: freedom-oriented, health-oriented policies reduce drug use.

Conservative, punitive policies increase drug use by making it harder for addicts to get help and destroying the legal employment prospects of people found guilty of drug crimes. Conservative policies, at the same time, make drug use more dangerous.

Can you give me any non-punitive, non-desert-based account of why conservatives think this is the right thing to do? And failing that, can you give me any rational justification for the claim that drug users "deserve" to be harmed by their activity? I just don't see it.

They're working on it: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090514153022.htm http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/more-efficient-palladium-fuel-cell-catalysts/

Without significant fault lines? This article seems to suggest otherwise.

2. We expected that the genomes of different ethnic groups would be very different. They aren't.

Seriously, how surprised can we be? We share 98% of our DNA with chimps. Hell, we share tons of DNA with single-celled algae.

Think of the genome as a computer program, and genes are little subs that do helpful things. Lots of subs are sitting unused, abandoned, all over our genomes. Lots are called at different times by barely-related parts of our 'human program'. Very different programs can share lots of lines, lots of entire subs. Very different creatures can share lots of DNA, lots of entire genes.

(Statements like "siblings share half their genes" are super misleading. Yes, you get half from Mom and half from Dad, but 99.9% of those genes are the same anyway.)

The idea that circumcision promotes cock health is long since disproven.

You're mistaken. Here's a 1999 article on the subject, with some related links. Aside from the finding that circumcising heterosexual men reduces the risk of HIV, I'm not aware of any recent development. Circumcision remains medically slightly beneficial, but only slightly. Whether that's worth the loss of sensation... I dunno.

Fortunately, at least half the population has gotten the message, and there are some hospitals (like UCSD) where you can't get newborns circumcised at all.

You are also mistaken. UCSD delays circumcision but does it at the parent's request, as is the case with all other public hospitals I'm aware of. No hospital in America or Europe, public or private, would dare prevent a mohel or family practitioner from circumcising an infant.

And with a vague memory from high school you managed to disprove hundreds of scientists who spend all of their time studying the ocean as an ecosystem. Bravo.

In all seriousness, some of the media reports are over-hyped, but the concern of ocean acidification has been around for at least a decade and you'd think that someone would have raised your objection during that time. Are some proponents hysterical? Yes. Is their concern valid? Yes.

Regardless, are you willing to gamble that what we do now has no real impact on the planet? Furthermore, are you willing to gamble that if we don't begin to limit our footprint on the planet our descendants will do so?

For instance, the widespread pollution of rivers by industrial chemical plants occurred rampantly throughout the US. Then we realized, "Hey! We have an impact on the environment!" It was a hard-earned and costly lesson, which fortunately we managed to clean up, for the most part. It could be argued that we didn't know any better at the time. But I think we know better now, and to argue that we don't have an effect on our environment is negligent. To argue that there's nothing we can do and we'll let future generations sort it out (in the meantime the situation worsens and the population continues to increase, compounding the damage) is downright evil.

By the way, it's already been published that even if the earth doesn't warm from human CO2, ocean acidification will still be a problem.

You're out of date. Please check your facts before you run your mouth on something you clearly know nothing about.

Fucking idiot!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511122425.htm

Or maybe it isn't stupid. Genetics play a strong role in who gets addicted, and a huge role in the carcinogenic effects of smoking as well. I know there is a certain public-health mentality that abhors these studies fearing they might give some people license for risky behavior, but if you ask me that's just ignoring the facts to fit the risk model as it was previously understood. The fact is, people do have different risk/reward ratios depending on individual differences. My fair skin means I have to mess with sunscreen more than black people. But I don't have to regulate my intake of sugar like my diabetic friend does.

There is some amount of "inducement" that lawyers provide. Get enough lawyers (or people in general), and you are bound to have more than a few that don't give a shit about ethics, even if they pledged to uphold them and know them. The phrase "ambulance chaser" isn't commonly known because it sounds funny... it's commonly known because there are a few lawyers that fuck it up for all the honest ones. Just like it only takes one fucknugget to screw up traffic for everyone else driving. The point is, if you want to sue someone over something, you can almost always find a lawyer to take your case, and places like hospitals make huge targets because of the emotions, physical risk and money involved.

Cross-species cloning has been done. What is not clear is just how close the species have to be. If birds don't work, you could try a species that has remained morphologically basically the same since the time of dinosaurs--the alligator.

It's called bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS), a.k.a. Popcorn Worker's Lung, and the chemical in the artificial butter responsible for it is diacetyl.

The thing is, neither lions nor humans typically wandered around alone (at least, not for long). We had the whole team effort thing going for us. That and a knack for making pointy things good for stabbing.

One interesting on topic aside: it is postulated that Neanderthals were pretty much carnivours:

Through bone-chemistry analyses, the team determined the Neandertals must have feasted on meat. The Neandertal diet - which may have included mammoths - was similar to other top-level carnivores from the time period, such as wolves and lions, the researchers said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/06/000613071408.htm

We being able to munch on pretty much anything would be a massive advantage.

Ah, found a reference to the report I was thinking of.

Fact: average global temperatures have fallen since 1999(98?) YET you state: an eruption in 1997/98 temporarily lowered temperatures and when it is taken out of the equation there is a warming trend. Since 1999 was warmer than 2009, how does a temporary cooling effect in 1999 explain this?

Citation needed. 1999 warmer than 2009? 2009 just started.

Now here's my own citation:
Top 11 Warmest Years On Record Have All Been In Last 13 Years.

Falcon

how come all the climatologists predicting global warming based on man's CO2 emission failed to predict that temperatures would remain steady and fall slightly after 1998

Perhaps because they hadn't included that El Nina of 1997/8 raised temperatures before declining slightly? Eleven of the warmest years recorded were in the past 13 years.

So until a year ago, they hadn't factored in something that occurred in 1997/8. What else haven't they figured in? You list the "warmest years recorded. How long do we have recorded temperatures? That are global enough to actually tell us what the temperature was around the world?
You want me to accept the word of people who tell me that polar bears are dying off at a time that there are more polar bears than ever before recorded?

how come all the climatologists predicting global warming based on man's CO2 emission failed to predict that temperatures would remain steady and fall slightly after 1998

Perhaps because they hadn't included that El Nina of 1997/8 raised temperatures before declining slightly? Eleven of the warmest years recorded were in the past 13 years.

Oh yeah, what is the relationship between the temperature rise on other planets circling our sun and that of Earth?

"Recently, there have been some suggestions that "global warming" has been observed on Mars (e.g. here). These are based on observations of regional change around the South Polar Cap, but seem to have been extended into a "global" change, and used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars (e.g. here and here). But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data."

Falcon

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/1009-slower_growing_grass.htm

Yes, you can reprogram adult stem cells to have the same properties as embryonic stem cells. They actually have the advantage of being patient-specific, meaning they are less likely to be rejected during a treatment.

The problem with them however is that usually a virus is required to do the reprogramming, which means being treated with the stem cells makes you sick. Trying to get rid of the virus causes the stem cells to revert to their original state. I think scientists have found a way around this though, as of last month I guess: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090305121649.htm

OK, so some of the latest stats show drug companies only spend twice as much on advertising as R&D.

Seeing as how only recently were drug companies allowed to spend money on direct-to-consumer advertising, it's amazing they manage to spend even a small percentage of their overall budget on advertising, much less 100% of their R&D budget. But, no, they manage 200% with no real effort. Of course, it's OK, because it doesn't raise the price we pay for drugs. Oh, wait, it does.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081006180815.htm

It's not that the increased surface temperatures directly melt the ice, it's that they lead to increased storm activity, which causes more of the ice to drift out into warmer regions. Unfortunately I'm not seeing an actual paper to go with this, it looks like NASA put together a press release or something.

It's close enough, considering that he was speaking hypothetically, and you knew it. Run along now.

Bone doesn't seem to mind at all. They do make mention of immune response, however.

Sorry if this is a repeat post, I am a noob Slashdot poster. I saw this article on the web a few days ago, before the article you linked to and found it interesting. I believe it is what you are looking for and also lists the journal study in the bibliography. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090414084220.htm

What gets me is this part:

" in a bid to tackle ethical pitfalls before they become a problem."

Ok, I'm stumped, what are the ethical pitfalls of the current things like twitter, facebook, etc?

Aside from a great deal of inane banter, and some bad webpages...what is ethically bad about these things?

It appears to be an obscure reference to a study done at USC that has some dubious claims about how information overload makes us amoral.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, but if I cared about contributing to the discourse I'd say it's made me apathetic.

Human being are individuals. They have a genome (well, actually, two, 'cause of the mitochondria), they evolved, they form a population of interbreeding animals.

That said, they provide an ecosystem to a large number of microbial species, some of which are symbionts, some are parasites, some can be both. In general, we cannot live without our symbionts, and our symbionts are depending on us.

All that isn't news. This perspective on a human individual has been here for decades. What is new is that with 2nd generation sequencing it is now possible to thoroughly investigate the microbial composition of our symbionts parasites. This is an exciting new technology which allows such projects as the 1000 genomes project, Neanderthal genome sequencing, metagenomics and much, much more.

Just one more remark: given a population of genetically identical bacteria, it is sometimes wrong to call each bacterial cell an "individual". These cells can collaborate, exchange information, shape their environment and act more like an organism than a single invdividual. There are even some bacteria that can actually get together, differentiate and form a macroscopic, multicellular structure. So saying that we are colonised by 100 trillion of individuals is an exaggeration.

That said, we too can view ourselves as a colony of (mostly: think sperm / eggs and t-cells) genetically identical cells that communicate, collaborate and shape their environment, and also are (mostly, think: blood cells) physically linked together. And each our cell can be viewed as a symbiont between two organisms, each with its own genome and even its own genetic code (yep, the genetic code of the mitochondria differs from that used in the nucleus in our cells).

j. (IAAB)

The study raises questions about the emotional cost-particularly for the developing brain-of heavy reliance on a rapid stream of news snippets obtained through television, online feeds or social networks such as Twitter.

Greenhouse gasses unquestionably contribute far more to recent warming than solar activity, although solar activity is definitely a factor.

I question it. NASA also questions it. Quote: "Indeed, the model suggests aerosols likely account for 45 percent or more of the warming that has occurred in the Arctic during the last three decades."

Agreed. The aerosol question is interesting. I was only commenting on the relationship between greenhouse gases and solar output. I agree that these are not the only factors. I don't know of any serious (ie peer-reviewed) model which attributes nearly as much recent warming to solar output as ggs.

And sure, that's all (well, mostly) anthropogenic, but it's not the dreaded carbon dioxide (which actually has a much lower greenhouse effect than the water vapor in the atmosphere).

Well, yes, but the amount of H2O in the air is relatively stable.