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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

And now we've got the data that was missing from our last discussion (I also posted this there).

This year's thickness data shows that, just as I said, "Arctic ice cover is following a trend of becoming younger and thinner each year". The lead on the article:

Arctic sea ice may well have reached its lowest volumes ever, as summer ice coverage of the Arctic Sea looks set to be close to last year's record lows, with thinner ice overall.

So now will you please stop peddling your "Arctic Ice Is Increasing" bilge and other "Global Warming Is A Myth" nonsense?

--MarkusQ

Ok, now we've got some data.

This year's thickness data shows that, just as I said, "Arctic ice cover is following a trend of becoming younger and thinner each year". The lead on the article:

Arctic sea ice may well have reached its lowest volumes ever, as summer ice coverage of the Arctic Sea looks set to be close to last year's record lows, with thinner ice overall.

So now will you please stop peddling your "Arctic Ice Is Increasing" bilge?

--MarkusQ

the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent 24.4% of the sales dollar on promotion, versus 13.4% for research and development

Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds, Jan. 7, 2008

There is no brand of Creationism that is scientific.

I don't think we were arguing about what's knowable via science, but rather about what beliefs can be reasonably held. Recall that we were originally discussing whether or not Sarah Palin is given to irrationality and delusion.

The reason I'm pointing that out is that you may be falling into the trap of claiming that the only things we can reasonably believe are those things which are scientifically verifiable. I've heard some arguments in the past that convinced me that such as view is self-defeating, which is why I thought I'd mention it.

It's faith, which is the most unreliable way to know anything, and is completely different from science, which is determined by only proof.

Is it possible that you're over-romanticizing the scientific method? It has plenty of potential for fallibility as well. People can make up data, reason incorrectly, base their results on other people's incorrect work, etc.

That should give you pause regarding, at a practical level, you should accept all published scientific work as "proof" of anything. I'm not trying to argue for some radical form of skepticism - I'm just pointing out that most "scientific conclusions" we think we know are actually told to us by other people, and often are never verified. So the version of the scientific method that we have access to in our regular daily lives is actually pretty different from the idealized version of the method that seems like such a reasonable razor for beliefs.

Proof destroys faith, but Creationists prefer faith, to the point of denying any fact that they possibly can, usually by ignoring it.

All Creationists are anti-evidential, anti-scientific people who are intellectually dishonest even to themselves? I suppose many of them are, but certainly not all. I'd be more tempted to agree with you if you limited that claim to young-earth creationists + other dogmatic people. But in my own experiences I've met Creationists (mostly old-earth creationists) who have none of the qualities you ascribe to the overall group.

Really, I think that placebo surgery would have about the same result as placebo plumbing -- i.e. none.

But in those studies where placebo surgery has been used, many patients receiving the placebo improved.

The first placebo surgery test was for a treatment for angina pectoris called internal mammary artery ligation. This was at one time a popular procedure, but it's not used now because in a head-to-head comparison, 34% of those getting the surgery reported improvement, while 42% of those getting a placebo cut reported improvement.

A 2002 study of arthroscopic knee surgery found that the outcomes for a placebo procedure were as good as those of the "real" surgery.

In a 2004 study of transplantation of embryonic dopamine neurons into the brains of Parkinson's disease patients, "Those who thought they received the transplant at 12 months reported better quality of life than those who thought they received the sham surgery, regardless of which surgery they actually received," according to the researcher.

While double-blind tests have not been performed, the vastly reduced mortality from appendicits since the introduction of the surgical procedure should be enough for anyone. It's all about the statistics.

The reduced mortality could be many factors. We have to consider improvements in nursing care, improved antibiotics, or better diet: "The decline of appendicitis cases in the United States since the 1930s has led some to suggest that dietary fiber or household hygiene is important in the pathogenesis of appendicitis. According to the "fiber hypothesis," fecaliths develop more readily in people who consume a diet deficient in fiber, because their stools are more tenacious. Societies with high fiber intake (Asia, India, Africa) have less than one-tenth the incidence of appendicitis compared with locations where fiber intake is lower (Europe, North America). A high-fiber diet speeds stool transit times, reduces fecal viscosity, and inhibits fecalith formation."

Here, by the way, is a fascinating look at that question from a century ago. The author finds a mortality rate of 6.6% in the period before appendectomy was used, and of 7.8% in the first few decades of its use. Of course the mortality rate is much lower today; but if mortality rates actually climbed after appendectomy was first introduced, then clearly the situation is more complex than "cut here, cut now, cutting good!"

Which is not to say that, under the right circumstances, I'm going to refuse an appendectomy. The surgery is a pretty good gamble.

Maybe that's because surgery gives results that are good enough and consistent enough to be above such suspicion.

Uh huh. You want to quantify that some? "Homeopathy gives results that are good enough and consistent enough to be above such suspicion." "Scientology gives results that are good enough and consistent enough to be above such suspicion." "My magic rock gives results that are good enough and consistent enough to be above such suspicion." And so on.

If we are scientifically investigating what treatments are effective, no modality can be "above suspicion". The guys in scrubs sellin

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030508074341.htm

"To conduct the study, the scientists prepared a paste of scrapie prion-infected brain tissue mixed with hot dogs. They then exposed the paste to temperatures of 120-135 degrees Celsius (250-275 degrees Fahrenheit) and short bursts of ultra high pressure, in excess of 100,000 lbs. per square inch. The scientists found that they were able to retain the basic texture and flavor of the processed meat while reducing the prions to non-infective levels. This may have application in improving the safety of meat products.

The combination of temperature and high pressure has been used commercially for the past 15 years to reduce the amount of bacteria in foodstuffs and to preserve ham, chicken, salsa, and other foods. Dr. Brown said his team "took the process one step further, to see if it would kill prions, which it did." He called the discovery a relatively inexpensive, practical step to potentially improve the safety of processed meats. "

There is also evidence of Polynesian contact in South America: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080729133618.htm

Solar and wind are scams.

I'll let you try to tell it to the Dutch! Or, maybe "scam" is some Russian slang, perhaps for something very advanced, or very successful.

One will not be able to fuel a vehicle with them, or with electricity.

You might be right -- about something else.

A battery is worse to the environment than a fossil engine.

Maybe a battery is worse,but not this type of battery. It will even be made in Russia, and other articles show that the design is very viable.

You do not like Putin because he started to tax and control properly oil companies, and oil costs not 7 USD as it used to be, but times higher, but people in Russia like him exactly for this. Because they build road, schools, etc. on this money. They even started to build autobahn from Pacific ocean to the Baltic sea.

I'm glad your gas prices have dropped, but it looks to me like your petroleum industry is holding you hostage, making clear to Russians without ever saying it directly, that if your petroleum industry is not the wealthiest industry in the world, nobody else will build you roads, schools, etc., you will be poor, maybe even starve. Our oil industry tries to do the same thing. In English, the word "scam" refers to something like taxpayers giving billions of $ to Exxon in years when the oil market is a little bit challenging for it, and not getting that money back from Exxon when it's able to succeed a few years later, in a kinder market. Excuse me, I meant to say, "the kindest market any US company has ever enjoyed."

I recall this http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080625140649.htm being reported. Huge under the ice volcanoes might have some impact wouldn't you think?

Cheers

je

Now you say the ice sheets are receeding. Graph of Artic Sea Ice Extent from National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO actually shows about a 10% increase from last year. Granted its lower than the average from 1979 to 2000, but it is growing compared to last year.

The latest data begs to differ. See Arctic Ice On Verge Of Another All-time Low.

--MarkusQ

Why should primates evolve into homo sapiens? Because that's what evolutionary theory said happened. So why would that process suddenly stop? You guys are all about testability and detecting false data - so answer the damn question. Why did the process stop? Why aren't monkeys still evolving? If the process has stopped happening, your theory should have a reason. Let's hear it.

And bodies don't last? Well then, why do we have these fossils of hominids from 30-50,000 years ago, and dinosaur fossils from your 65 million years? Have bodies suddenly started deteriorating more quickly?

For climate data, check out climateaudit.org which IS run by a guy who has studied these issues extensively. Read his story about the Mann hockey stick, and how when Mann finally released his program, Steve ran different data sets through it, and got a hockey stick every time. Oh, and go and check - many people who signed the IPCC report are NOT climatologists, and the main author of the report admitted using scare tactics and suppressing dissenting opinions in the final draft. This link describes the lack of due diligence and review of the data, which is why I said it doesn't sound like science to me (that gets back to your testability and verification thing) http://www.climateaudit.org/index.php?p=66 As the author points out, billions of dollars of economic decisions are being made and no one is checking the damn data.

And of course, 1,000 years ago, long before CO2 was being dispensed in significant quantities, Greenland was actually green, according to Viking accounts. So if it happened before, why is it necessarily due to man's activity this time? And the reason I'm exercised about this is China has become the largest CO2 emitter in the world, but they get a complete pass on Kyoto, while I'm told I'm going to have pay more for oil and gas in Canada, where it gets pretty cold in the winter. I'll be damned if I'm going to do that while China pumps out ten times more CO2 than Canada does.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080104091616.htm - 2008 is set to be the coolest year since 2000. It's still higher by a fraction of degree than the long term average, I'll admit, but there has definitely been a cooling trend the last few years.

Couldn't find the story I read on Antarctica, so I'll concede that point. I did read that a couple of floating ice sheets are in danger of breaking off. That's where icebergs come from, right? Google "Larson ice sheet" for any number of links - the scientists are predicting a rise in the ocean levels of anywhere from 6 to 20 feet if it breaks off. Let's see how that works out, 'kay? I'm willing to bet money we don't see anything like that.

And hey, I said I'd like my kids to be exposed to other creation myths and religious literature. I haven't read the Analects, but I have read the Tao, and find that it contains much wisdom as well. I wish I had more time and money to get English translations of other myths, but there are only so many hours in the day, and I waste a lot of time here.

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology."
Plug his exoskeleton into an exercise program and he'll be buffed in no time.
Heck, you don't even need the exoskeleton if you have a "Superman bicycle".

Well, they've got something like 64 pixels for an artificial retina already, and several research projects are underway to improve this.

Here is a good list of articles about the University of Southern California Doheny Eye Institute's retinal implants.
There are also projects based on external cameras, new cameras being developed for artificial retina use, and so on.

Now imagine WoW with 20 years of hardware and software progress, as well as a direct neural interface ;-)

A queue is a line, or the act of getting into one. A cue(2) is the act of telling someone to start. Homonyms are fun, kids!

Sorry, that's one that always gets me.

Anyway, back on topic, it really bothers me that so many people are against nuclear power. Yes, it's a "limited" supply, but given the amount of nuclear material that we have, we could generate electricity for a LONG time while making wind power worthwhile without being so dangerous, and figure out a way for solar panels to not be so toxic. Yes, you have to be careful with nuclear material, but with a properly designed and maintained reactor (including re-processing of fuel to make it reusable), you can have a plant that provides a lot of power with a very, very small environmental footprint. Much better than the current crop of coal and oil fired powerplants that are the only other option to hydro at the large energy scales we need to keep up with demand.

Isn't the history of civilization generally based around water for animals, agriculture, transport, industry?

Yup. In the United States, around 53% of the population lives near the coast[.] Also, look at any map and notice how many major cities are right on major rivers.

Maybe time to start treating our seas with respect.

I hope we do, though right now I'm pessimistic. See this

I decidedly think helmet laws are your strongest point... because the people who die without them have some balancing effect on the people who live with more debilitating injuries with them.

It's also been suggested that safety features like seat belts and helmets lead to more collisions, because drivers who think they're well-protected respond by being more reckless (see moral hazard). So, despite making crashes less lethal on the average, motorcycle helmets may have the unfortunate effect of increasing motorcycle-related injuries.

Now we are told that our solar system with its incredibly beautiful planet that is our home might itself be very rare.

Don't believe everything you are told, question the article (like other commenters have done) and you might not end up blindly believing everything you read.

Recent analysis of ancient diamonds

Case in point: you're attaching quite a lot of weight to one article that "suggests that life may well have appeared on Earth long before the period of heavy-meteorite bombardment" based on the interpretations of light carbon values.

...since that means the universe exploded into existence with no
creator and then life arose spontaneously on the billions of habitable
planets scattered around. Recent
analysis of ancient diamonds suggests that life existed on earth
4.2 billion years ago while the earth itself is now thought to be 4.6
billion years old which only allows 400 million years for the formation
of oceans on a newly-formed rocky earth followed by the spontaneous
auto-formation of ancient bio-molecules, membranes, and proteins that
could function as a living cell. Hardly seems long
enough. Now we are told that our solar system with its
incredibly beautiful planet that is our home might itself be very
rare. Maybe there really is a creator after
all? Either that or we are the product of an astounding
string of 1-in-a-trillion coincidences. Which is easier
to believe?

it was potatoes and rice, not meat.

all my life using lead solder on my kitchen table ... Oh that's right. I don't eat the solder! Fortunately, neither do these kids
 
And does your kitchen look like this? No, I didn't think so. But it's easier to ignore the real situation by making a flip comment from the clean safety of your wealthy home.
 
  full article for the interested

all my life using lead solder on my kitchen table ... Oh that's right. I don't eat the solder! Fortunately, neither do these kids
 
And does your kitchen look like this? No, I didn't think so. But it's easier to ignore the real situation by making a flip comment from the clean safety of your wealthy home.
 
  full article for the interested

About 3% of all cloud cover is caused by jet tails.

If there were no patent law, no new drugs would be made. It costs many millions of dollars to find a new drug, prove it is safe and effective, find the proper dose, and get it approved. Without patent protection, a drug company would have no way to earn their money back. The argument is a strawman.

This argument is a strawman. To give an example the National Cancer Institute, NCI, a part of the NIH or National Institutes of Health and therefore a government funded organization, spent $183 million to develop Taxol as a cancer treatment. Research started in 1967. The NCI sold all rights for the data needed by the FDA to win drug approval in 1988 or '89 to Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) for $43 million, $140 million less than the NCI spent developing it. Based on BMS's Form 10-K for 2000 BMS made $1.5 billion in 2000 om sales of Taxol.

It's also a strawman as "Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds".

Falcon

This is NOT free market. In a free market everyone is on a basic level playing field,so yes,they SHOULD be able to compete if they have cheaper leabor. That isn't the problem. The problem is their countries are dumping their costs on everyone else,while we don't. For example pollution so thick they affect the global weather. So what you REALLY have in this case is the high school football team going up against the state prison football team,who also happens to have shivs and brass knuckles in their waistbands.

If they don't play by the rules no country that does will be able to compete with them. That is why we should not allow free trade with these countries until they get their sh*t together and stop dumping their costs upon the world. But sadly,unless you kill the tree of corruption that has taken hold I just don't see that happening. Maybe when enough folks in the west have gotten poisoned by seafood,or the air is so bad the weather patterns are hell,but by then it may well be to late to reverse the damage.

And if you want to know why racism is growing here in the west,it is because folks see the game is rigged. The ground is quite fertile right now for a national fascist movement,simply because the populace is getting squeezed more and more by the Bill Gates of the world with "lets outsource everything." Before if you worked hard and got a college degree you could be pretty certain you could live a better life than those who came before you. Now you have to compete with those that have a degree that cost 1/10 of yours and can work for wages that wouldn't even allow you to feed your family. Do I hope we turn it around? Yes,of course. Do I see that happening with anything short of violent revolution? Sadly no,because the halls of power are bought and paid for. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV(and I sincerely hope it does)

Clearly something else as going on, how do I know? acu[uctures studies always have failed.

Not accurate. Studies have shown acupuncture to be effective in treating a variety of conditions including depression, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2567439">alcoholism, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis

Yes, there are some studies with negative findings. All such studies I've seen either don't apply the principles of Chinese medicine to treatment, and so don't test acupuncture as it's actually used; or use poor controls such as comparing acupressure to acupuncture, which is sort of like using aspirin as your placebo in a test of ibuprofen.

More thoughts on this, as well as links to several studies on acupressure, at my shiatsu website.

Og, by the way, the concept "Chinese Medicine" and "Western medicine" is a false dichotomy. There is just Medicine. It is falsifiable and pass, or it doesn't.

Western medicine uses a structural model based on anatomy. Chinese Medicice uses a functional model based on the concept of "qi". So there is clearly a distinction.

Very few therapies from either tradition have been well-tested with blinded studies.

It's fascinating how some self-styled skeptics will demand double-blinded studies of herbs or acupuncture or "alternative" therapies, and yet willingly submit themselves to the surgeon's knife. Every placebo-controlled test of a surgical technique - there have only been a handful - has found the surgery being tested to be no more effective that placebo surgery.

Clearly something else as going on, how do I know? acu[uctures studies always have failed.

Not accurate. Studies have shown acupuncture to be effective in treating a variety of conditions including depression, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2567439">alcoholism, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis

Yes, there are some studies with negative findings. All such studies I've seen either don't apply the principles of Chinese medicine to treatment, and so don't test acupuncture as it's actually used; or use poor controls such as comparing acupressure to acupuncture, which is sort of like using aspirin as your placebo in a test of ibuprofen.

More thoughts on this, as well as links to several studies on acupressure, at my shiatsu website.

Og, by the way, the concept "Chinese Medicine" and "Western medicine" is a false dichotomy. There is just Medicine. It is falsifiable and pass, or it doesn't.

Western medicine uses a structural model based on anatomy. Chinese Medicice uses a functional model based on the concept of "qi". So there is clearly a distinction.

Very few therapies from either tradition have been well-tested with blinded studies.

It's fascinating how some self-styled skeptics will demand double-blinded studies of herbs or acupuncture or "alternative" therapies, and yet willingly submit themselves to the surgeon's knife. Every placebo-controlled test of a surgical technique - there have only been a handful - has found the surgery being tested to be no more effective that placebo surgery.

Stuff that matters, to people who don't think.

PhysOrg and Science Daily will fill your need for hard news. :)

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.

Muscle mass has been shown to improve overall metabolism, especially as you get older.

That being said, I don't think there is anything simple about staying fit. Needs vary from person to person. Some people have a naturally higher metabolism than others, and their bodies burn calories more effortlessly.

And it's not always the number of calories you consume, but often the type of calories, what interval you consume them, whether you're getting the right amount of protein, etc.

Also, many people who work out do so incorrectly. I have a friend who used to work as a weight trainer. He said that most people who came to his gym ended up only getting small gains from weight training because they didn't know how to do it.

He told me this: (1) Go slowly. I count 3 seconds down and 3 seconds up while doing push-ups, curls, dips, whatever. Doing 10 pushups slowly versus 30 as fast as you can go will yield much better results. (2) Your body adapts. Doing the same routine constantly will cause your body to plane out at some point, and you will never get past that level. I have a set of exercises that work various muscle groups, but I do them in a more-or-less random order throughout the week. Plus it doesn't hurt once in a while to throw in some completely different method -- like I recently tried out push-ups while keeping my feet on top of an aerobic ball. I spent the first set trying to keep my body from shaking from the movement of the ball. After that set, however, it wasn't as hard to stay up, and I could tell afterwards that my muscles had been worked in a way they weren't used to. (I.e. they hurt like the dickens.)

yeah it will do wonders to the organ most necessary to people working in IT.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060915204035.htm

First and foremost I am against nuclear power, but...

To be fair to it, uranium is not the only fuel.

Thorium breeder reactors will work as well.

Thorium is much more common, about as common as lead.

And in a breeder setup it "makes" uranium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#Thorium_as_a_nuclear_fuel

That being said, man's history with reactor safety is poor.

Wind, Solar, Geothermal, Tidal, Bio fuels, and Ocean Current
Capture is more than enough power by far.

The Antarctic current alone is 135 times the flow of all
the rivers on Earth Combined and the Aquanator style device
works well at capturing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current

Needless to say there are many other underwater currents
with a great deal of power, and some can be harnessed
to some degree without a negative impact.

So let's play SeaLab and make a modern Atlantis and end
this oil mess before it turns the oceans in a hydrogen
sulfide soup.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031104063957.htm

So in a range of choices, anything but oil.

The oceans are a giant CO2 sink, so as much as we measure
in the air it is worse in the oceans.

You're comparison with the most powerful laser is misleading. The power density of many ordinary lasers exceeds the luminosity per unit surface area of many ordinary non-supernovae stars. You don't need a very powerful laser. Take the Sun, which has an areal luminosity of 60MW/m^2; that's beaten by an ordinary 3kW 200um CO2 beam, which has a power density of 75GW/m^2.

Now, let's move up a gear on both sides. The brightest star ever found has an areal luminosity of only 85TW/m^2 (40*10^6 * (solar luminosity 3.846*10^26)/(surface area 4*PI*(3.75*10^9)^2)). However, the power density of the brightest laser is 200YW/m^2 (YW is Yotta Watts, 2*10^22*10^4W/m^2), which is 12 orders of magnitude brighter than the brightest star, so laser massively beats star again.

Pulse duration makes no real difference to the visibility of the pulse. Small cross-section is ideal for aiming.

But where did you get this opinion? Did you do a lot of clinical research or did you just hear everyone else and the media saying it? The truth is the latter, making you the traditionalist. So how much of your argument is derived from popular opinion?

I used to think weed was benign even after I smoked it and found it was a nightmare. I had pseudo-hallucinations, I felt like I was dying, I was trapped in a time loop, I became painfully detached from my body, yet I still thought it must have been laced, and everyone told me the same or they said that sounds cool. It wasn't cool, and the detachment lasted for a long time.

It wasn't until I did some research about it and found those are all effects of weed alone, and they match negative experiences in the Erowid Vault, but you and everyone else like you overlook that and propagate a myth that weed is harmless and the stance about it is irrational.

I think alcohol should be restricted MORE; it just isn't. That doesn't mean that I irrationally think it's okay. And that alcohol is worse by this 'comparison' doesn't mean weed is now SOFT. Moreover, that we can't eliminate substance abuse is hardly a reason to do nothing about it.

As Gateway: cross-sensitisation of cannabis/opioid receptors

Two cases of "cannabis acute psychosis"

Psychological Responses To Cannabis

Animals Exposed To Marijuana's Active Component Will Self-Administer

The "food is more expensive 'cos people are growing biofuel" actually *is* true. For one thing, biofuels are more expensive to produce than petroleum-based fuels. For another, the farmers are being told "grow corn, we need more ethanol", instead of "grow food, we like to not starve". And finally, here's a link that may give you some food for thought. The gist of it appears to be "biofuels are not sustainable, and require more than a third again as much energy to produce as an equivalent amount of gasoline".

How about a NUhydro Power Plant. These generate electrickery to power a desalination plant (and potentially surplus power too), and have a by-product of Hydrogen (which can be used to power vehicles. - or the Hydrogen is the product and the desalination is the by-product ... er ... it generates electric and as a by-product you get desalinated water and hydrogen ... well, you get the idea anyway).

A variable for "marketing splash made by issuing bad marks to a given brand" appears to be given about equal weight to "legitimately wasteful or unnecessarily toxic practices", by Greenpeace. They get far more publicity for issuing a ticket to Apple for using 3 wire-inches of the wrong type of plastic in an iPod model than they would ever get for ticketing HP's stupid behemoth wasteful packaging, which has been seen by every corporate customer of HP. (I've seen strikingly similar examples of insanely wasteful packaging from both IBM and Dell, as well as HP).

Please note that I think Greenpeace is doing the world a service by calling attention to those 3 wire-inches of environmentally unsound plastic, but they need to get a little smarter about who, why and how they critique and praise. They are not doing a very good job of translating the attention that they get from issuing a ticket to Apple, into attention on the issue of the toxic compounds in question. There are zillions of tons of this stuff used in all manner of products and manufacturing processes. These compounds get into the water that we drink and the food we eat, and there is mounting evidence that some of them cause cancer and other serious health problems. Mercury and lead are no longer even controversial, decades of research confirms that even low level exposure to lead can cause serious problems, and probably knocked a bunch of IQ points off generations of exposed people. If, say, 1/4 to 1/2 of our population were 5 or 10 IQ points smarter, how much better off would the world be today? Yet we continue to allow tons of mercury to go up the stacks of coal fired power plants, and smaller amounts to be dumped in lakes and rivers as a result of manufacturing processes. Lead paint shows up on imported children's toys because the west has been willing to circumvent its own environmental policies by exporting the manufacturing to developing nations with un-enforced or non-existent environmental safeguards.

How does this Greenpeace video and press release help educate people and motivate people about these issues? Missed call: the iPhone's hazardous chemicals. Well, it really doesn't. It just gets a bunch of headlines to the effect of "Greenpeace iPhone Smackdown". Greenpeace has figured out that they can get a lot of attention by poking at Apple now and then, but they haven't figured out how to turn that to advantage. They mention a few chemicals here, including phthalates, but they don't mention that these compounds are used in FOOD Containers, which is a much more likely source of exposure to the compound (most people do not eat their iPhones) and that it has been linked to obesity and diabetes ( Obesity In Men Linked To Common Chemical Found In Plastic And Soap )and might be a serious contributor to a global health crisis. Greenpeace could be turning these waves of press attention into a serious national discussion of phthalates, additional research on the topic, and removal of these compounds from food containers, which would be a rational application of the precautionary principle. Instead, they are squandering the opportunity for a few headlines and links to their web site.

why we use 13 loci (average match probability around 1 in a quadrillion or less)

So how many of the things they're looking for encode stuff like having 10 fingers, 2 legs, 2 eyes, etc?

Has anyone actually looked to see if the patterns they're trying to match really vary all that much between humans, given that roughly 90% of our DNA is identical? Judging by this story, I'm guessing not, and the FBI is fighting to keep it that way.

Admittedly, it IS in Chicago, so I cannot vouch for the humans getting back out again, but if worked as described by the researchers involved, the system is capable of resolving down to individual neural connections.

Has not this view been repeatedly disproved by now?

Uh, no. And it would have taken less time to find 10+ studies that suggest otherwise than it did to write your posting. Here's the first one that came up in google for me:
How Dads Influence Their Daughters' Interest In Math

As for your elmer fudd analogy - WTF are you smokin?

Yeah and it's just a coincidence that the 11 warmest years on record have been in the last 13 years.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.htm

Sigh head in the sand deniers may quite literally cause millions of people to die. :(

How can smoking up harm society if it has no impact on others?

Again, he said earlier, and we are not in agreement that weed is harmless or has no impact on others. Especially when said impact is a car. And then there's the whole concept of what drug abuse does to families and society. Don't deny these facts and promote weed irresponsibly, because I list that as another example of how people abuse drugs and therefore can't be trusted to responsibly use, distribute and recommend them to others.

I'm sensing this'll go in circles so I'll just state my opinion and provide some links.

Weed impairs motor skills, is a gateway drug in teens, causes seriously adverse and psychotic reactions, and hallucinations and depersonalization that can recur or persist.

So I think it's very powerful and unpredictable and therefore dangerous.

Two cases of "cannabis acute psychosis" following the administration of oral cannabis

Cannabis psychosis following bhang ingestion.

Psychological Responses To Cannabis
Cannabis and acute functional psychosis (in individuals who have no history of severe mental illness), chronic psychosis, amotivational syndrome, Evidence for dependence..

Animals Exposed To Marijuana's Active Component Will Self-Administer

"Tolerance and dependence"

As gateway in teens:
issue of cross-sensitisation of cannabis/opioid receptors

Cannabis use increases risk of psychotic illness

Cannabis link to mental illness strengthened

Erowid has an Experience Vault where you can read about negative reactions, but it probably never occurred to you to do that. I'd quote the relevant sections but there are a lot of them, and it's daunting. Maybe I'll organize them one day.

Psychosis and Eventually Schizophrenia

If we're going to use a gas as chemical energy storage, we should consider propane rather than hydrogen. Hydrogen is a bit of a problem for large scale use. It makes metals brittle by infiltrating their structure. It can diffuse through the walls of most gas cylinders. It has to be stored adsorbed (poor capacity) or under high pressure (danger of explosion, heavy cylinder).

In contrast, propane is easily liquified, relatively thin walled cylinders can store it safely, and it's fairly simple to convert a gasoline or diesel powered car to use it (disconnect fuel injectors, add regulator into air intake). We already have infrastructure to distribute propane. Many people are already familiar with it's safe use for grills, portable heaters, and RVs. Its safety track record is decades long. When it burns, it produces a visible flame.

Because it is already in use for RVs, grills, forklifts, and some trucks, it's much more readily available. If I needed 100 pounds of gaseous fuel today, I know exactly where to go to get propane (and I can get google maps of locations in any state. If I need hydrogen, I'm sol. Existing gas stations can afford to adapt to propane fairly easily, starting by getting an above-ground tank and signing up for regular delivery. Some gas stations have already done this for grills and RVs so it must be at least somewhat profitable for them to do so. If demand rises, more will find it profitable. In rural areas, many homes already have their own propane tank and regular delivery by truck. Practically any natural gas powered device can be converted to propane just by replacing the metering orifice and regulator. The needed part is readily cheaply available for most gas powered devices already. The conversion can be accomplished by nearly anyone using only pliers.

It burns cleanly, and if it was synthesized from carbon and hydrogen, it is carbon neutral.

Propane fuel cells already exist if/when needed for fuel cell electric vehicles. They are already in use in Alaska.

I really wonder if the "hydrogen economy" isn't more of an attempt to maintain the status quo while appearing to do something useful by insisting on a solution that requires multiple breakthroughs on several fronts and a brand new infrastructure just to get started rather than choosing one that requires only incremental improvements on proven technology and existing infrastructure.

Original PLOS article.

Sicence Daily article that doesn't totally suck.

Let's recap, so that's: invisible (1), silent (2), mind reading (3) with ray guns that make you hear voices.

George Orwell was an optimist.

1.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/researchers-develop-metamaterial-with-negative-refractive-index/
2.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080109104244.htm
3.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1172900547;fp;16;fpid;1

I am moderately surprised that this type of research is still going on/causing such controversy.

One would think that with all the evidence pointing at things like:

Multipotential Stem Cells from Menstrual Blood,
  Menstrual Blood Can Provide Adult Stem Cells,
  Menstrual Blood: A Valuable Source Of Multipotential Stem Cells?,
  Stem Cells Have Utility in Fighting Disease> and
  New type of stem cell from menstrual blood
 

would have convinced these scientists to give up splicing pig butts to people and go to the controversy free stem cells by now. Perhaps they don't wan't to get their fingers wet.

Mr. Garrison's: "Well, I'm sorry, Wendy. But I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die." Was supposed to be irony, you know irony, its a metal, like goldy and silvery.

-m

Most of the 1421 theory revolves around a map that seems to detail North America in some fashion.

Most of the global warming theory revolves around computer models that seem to detail future events in some fashion. As it turns out, those models are proven wrong through simple observation over and over and over again. Until somebody can find more proof to back up the global warming claim, it is an undecidable as to its veracity.

0:-)

Any reasonable person quickly realizes there will be no ice to "push" if it's all gone in the center. Models that have not predicted the rapidity of ice loss need to be recalibrated as do politicians who deny global warming and it's impact. The alarmists are alarmingly correct.

Are you sure that changing models to match what your seeing will disclose the cause? I mean what about all the volcanos erupting in unusual ways in the artic?

That would explain all the recent volcanic activity in the area and the phenomenal eruptions being recorded.

C02 is a clear, odorless, non-toxic gas. It doesn't leave a residue. It won't kill you so much as it doesn't displace your requisite amount of oxygen from your lungs.

C02 is plant and algae food. Infact NASA has recently reported increased vegetation. The biosphere is thriving as a result of slightly higher C02.

If you look at the rise of C02 it is 20% higher. But what they don't tell you is it is a trace component in the atmosphere. 360 parts per MILLION. How can a 0.002% for the past 200 years increase of carbon dioxide atmospheric component create run-away global warming?

When you look at the absorption profile of CO2 compared to other gasses in the atmosphere, you realize that .00002 * absorption profile of C02 = squat. Water vapor absorbs so much more energy. And yes water vapor has been increasing in the troposphere.

Secondly, solar radiance is a factor, since the theory goes that C02 holds in the sun. What if we had a period of increased solar radiance followed by a period of decreased solar radiance?

No one is for pollution, but to call C02 a pollutant is just wrong. It is a bi-product of industry and respiration. Don't allow yourself to be put into the camp of the brainwashing people who think a clean non-toxic gas is a pollutant.

If you're a AGW believer that is fine. I respect your concern for the environment. But realize that we are at a pivotal time. We are seeing decreased solar output now, and record low temperatures now, and some charts are now showing an 11-year cooling trend. We need 10 more years - just ten to connect the solar radiance with warming on earth. The time for the passage of these CO2 protocols is not now. If we do not establish a solar-radiance correlation, then I would be all for them. But we need more time to test this theory.