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They're too slippery to bond that kind of thing effectively:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/05111 7114309.htm

here is a lot better article on it. They state they can make the materials. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/06052 5193729.htm

A ressource that could help with cancer, alzeihmer's disease or herpes, and wich is not used yet, thats not really unheard of:

"The active ingredient in marijuana may stall decline from Alzheimer's disease, research suggests."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4286435.stm

"The compound in marijuana that produces a high, delta-9 tetrahydrocannbinol or THC, may block the spread of several forms of cancer causing herpes viruses, University of South Florida College of Medicine scientists report."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/09/04092 3092627.htm

This doesn't really make sense to me. I had been taught that coral reefs required the photosynthesis of the Zooanthelae algae which therefore, restricted such reefs to shallow waters where sunlight could penetrate. This article is talking about coral reefs 2,000 to 3,000 feet deep! That makes no sense.

For those that don't know, sunlight doesn't penetrate into the depths. It is noticeably dimmer at 120 feet (an approximate limit for sport SCUBA divers.) and it is quite dark at 300 feet. No light whatsoever reaches 2,000 feet or deeper.

Further investigation shows that the originally discovery was coral reefs 200-300 feet down which, while quite deep for coral, is far above the darkness of 2,000 feet.

-FL

Oh, for fuck sake - I'm dealing with someone who's too stupid to google ...

Bottled water and bacteria counts can be WAY over what's allowed in tap water:

1. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/00032 2090356.htm

   Bacterial counts in the four tap water samples varied only slightly, from 0.2 to 2.7 bacterial colonies per milliliter. In the bottled water, bacterial counts ranged from less than 0.01 to 4,900 colonies per milliliter. Six bottled waters had bacteria counts of 1,500 to 4,900 colonies per milliliter.

2. http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content ?oid=oid:30865

   Even with widespread disinfection, consumer groups have raised numerous warnings about a host of different microorganisms and chemicals that have been found in bottled water. In a four-year scientific study, the NRDC tested more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of bottled water. The group concluded, "Although most bottled water tested was of good quality, some brands' quality was spotty." A third of the tested brands were found to contain contaminants such as arsenic and carcinogenic compounds in at least some samples at levels exceeding state or industry standards.

   Another area of potential concern is the fact that no agency calls for testing of bottled water after it leaves its initial packaging plant, leaving some to wonder what happens during months of storage and transport. To begin to examine this question, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment tested 80 samples of bottled water from retail stores and manufacturers. All 80 of the samples had detectable levels of chlorine, fluoride and sodium. Seventy-eight of the 80 contained nitrate (which can cause methemoglobinemia, or blue-baby syndrome), 12 had nitrite, 53 had chloroform, 33 contained bromodichloro-methane, 25 had arsenic and 15 tested positive for lead.

   Forty-six of the samples contained traces of some form of the carcinogen (and hormone disrupter) phthalate, while 12 of those exceeded federal safety levels for that chemical. According to Olson, phthalates may leach out of some plastic bottles into water. "Phthalates are not legally regulated in bottled water because of intense industry pressure," says Olson. Although Co-op America concludes that there is little evidence of a link between phthalate exposure from bottled water and any health problems, the group suggests using glass over plastic bottles as a precaution.

3. http://www.emagazine.com/view/?1125

   Further, while EPA rules specify that no confirmed E. coli or fecal coliform (bacteria that indicate possible contamination by fecal matter) contamination is allowed in tap water, the FDA merely set a minimum level for E. coli and fecal coliform presence in bottled water.

So, no contaminants from shit (human or other) allowed in tap water, just in bottled water.

Oh, except for the one between the fire hydrant and your home. You've dug that pipe out and cleaned it once or twice, right? No? And I'm glad there's a low risk of the flushing chemicals remaining in the water when it's re-connected.

The flushing chemical is just a higher concentration of what they normally use to treat the water - in my case, a surdose of chlorine. And you can eliminate it by simply letting the water stand for a bit. Easiest way - fill a jug, let it stand for an hour, then put it in the fridge.

And yes, I've dug up pipes from 50 years ago, they're fine inside. The deposits (mostly grit that got through the filters at the treatment plant - usually sand particles) are harmless to your health, unlike the

The Inuit peoples survived for thousands of years on a diet of pure raw meat

You obviously know it all, don't you? 'Eskimo' possibly means something like 'those who eat raw meat' (look in Wikipedia), However, there is no reason to think that they only ate raw meat - they have certainly known fire as long as they have been in existence. Also, one would think the existence of cooking pots to be indicative of something, though of course you never know.

The problem with modern diet is not meat as such, I think, but the fact that ready-made meals of poor quality as well as snacks are almost impossible to avoid. When I changed my lifestyle some years ago, my biggest problem was exactly that: if you have a little change in your pocket, it can be incredibly difficult not to end up eating something you shouldn't. I had to do almost silly things to change my habits, like never carry cash at all (it is after all a little bit too silly to buy an icecream on your creditcard), only eat a packed lunch at work, always only eat dinners I have cooked myself (thus removing additives that cover up the low quality of the ingredients), never go shopping when hungry etc etc.

Try reading 'You, The Owner's Manual' (http://www.sciencedaily.com/cgi-bin/apf4/amazon_p roducts_feed.cgi?Operation=ItemLookup&ItemId=00607 65313) - it's quite good.

In fact, computer use has been shown in studies not to be a major risk factor for carpal tunnel. Here's one article from a quick google search.

I can also personally confirm these claims. I worked in a bus factory for a couple summers and my hands would continually go to sleep at night after my 9 hours at the factory. Yet I have never had a problem from coding, even with weeks of 11-12 hour days.

Also, beyond all the other problems people have pointed out with using speech as input, it also interferes with the cognitive tasks needed for coding. Check out the article, for example.

It's not only insects we're mimicing, crustaceans too. Astronomers have investigated the eyes of lobsters and used the way they focus light to create a Lobster Telescope For X-Rays

Two different studies, coming to conclusion this week.
Now, along with the anthrax killer protien, we are making progress, indeed.
Whats more, this protien looks to be anti-resistant too.

That reminds me of another article that I had read on here about printing skin using ink jet tech. I believe there will be many great innovations derived from the principles behind it. From printing skin cells and creating solar cells for energy production. The possibilities are endless. Though I think that oil will be a lot harder to push through those tiny holes. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/2 0/2257252 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/04/02040 2080207.htm http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3079001/

Actually it has more to do with surviving in a hostile environment. Malaria kills millions and especially children under 5. When children have such a high probability of passing in the first few years of life, you tend to have more children. How would you like to survive drought, famine, and disease in a grass hut infested with malaria carrying mosquitos and then raise a family and keep them your defenseless children alive longer than 5 years? When you don't have to fend off such crippling disease, starvation, etc you could probably find the time to work, educate yourself, and live in something better than a grass hut.

I don't think you have any comprehension on this. The toll from malaria on a society is HORRENDOUS

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/01080 6074841.htm
http://junkscience.com/malaria_cost.htm

Do a Google Scholar search for publications in CS/EE, and you get... nothing.

His own web page is bare, with no details.

A Science Daily article from September 2005 (yeah, over 6 months ago) mentions this "algorithm", but scan details.

I highly doubt the novelty/effectiveness of this "algorithm" if it has been patented before being published in a peer-reviewed journal.

I find the fact that this old news story is garnering so much feedback quite interesting. Perhaps more accurately, the nature of the feedback is interesting. I guess news is always news no matter how old it is if the person hearing it is doing so for the first time and does not care to corroborate. One would think that News Carolina, when posting it, might have noted the part where it says, "The surgery is not yet performed in the United States, but Dr. Smith said he hopes it will be in the next five years," and then noted that it is now 4 years later. Perhaps a follow-up interview would be in order and of much interest. This shoddy journalism is so rampant and people have so much trust in journalists and reporting that hardly anyone searched this story online to figure this out. That is very telling. Gobble up what is fed and ask no questions. Make a Republican proud!
Oh, if you are interested in reading an article written closer to the time this event occurred, here is a story from 2002:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/02061 4075213.htm

There are a number of treatments for blindness, some much more promising (IMHO) than implants. Genetic therapy and stem cell research are two of these. Here is an article about some blind dogs that had their vision restored through genetic therapy. This is some pretty cool stuff. They inject a benign virus into the retina. It replaces defective genes with heathy ones. The dogs went from being totally blind, to being able to navigate mazes and dodge obstacles. This is not a fix for all, as a developed retina is needed to benefit, and the scientists have to completely map out all of the genes that cause blindness before it will help all of the various conditions. Still promising though.

While this implant research is cool, as you note, the resolution is limited, and probably will be for the foreseeable future. You have to surgically attach directly to each optical nerve to get a pixel of resolution. So if you want 100x100 resolution your looking at 10,000 individual connections. It's worth while to note that many people who are 'legally blind' are not totally blind, and have substantially better resolution than an implant can offer. This treatment is only a good option for a totally blind person. A low vision patient probably is better off with whatever they already have, or some other type of treatment.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/01061 5071248.htm

Have you seen this study (and the spate of related studies that came out around the same time)? The links on the right there also make for an interesting read.

Its easy enough: Just make school administrators liable for damages resulting from school bullying including psychological damage.

Science Daily reports that: "In addition to triggering a depression-like social withdrawal syndrome, repeated defeat by dominant animals leaves a mouse with an enduring "molecular scar" in its brain that could help to explain why depression is so difficult to cure".

...well, would you rather that scientists just sat on what they have until they're absolutely, positively sure they're right? That way we'd never need to deal with contradictory discoveries. We wouldn't know where babies come from, but at least we wouldn't need to deal with the embarassment of learning that mammalian ovaries don't work the way we always thought they did.

Stuff is complicated. Be glad that we strive to make progress, even when it means saying, "whoops, we were wrong."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/05032 9132436.htm

If you make ethanol from corn, what you produce will not even be enough to run the tractors of your ethanol farm. If you count all the energy costs of farming, you consume six units of energy to produce one unit of ethanol energy. And you destroy perfectly good land. This must be the dumbest investment ever, and the only reason people talk about it is because they want to win over "rural voters" who are slobbering for federal farming subsidies (tax handounts). Fucking leeches!

Although these events were separated by about 57 years (approximately 2 Saturnian years) there is yet no explanation why they apparently follow a cycle -- occurring when it is summer in Saturn's northern hemisphere.

As transistor-based microchips hit the limits of Moore's Law...
I don't think so.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/06021 3091816.htm

I was reading the other day how nearly half of Ashkenazi Jews can trace their decent back to four women. With that kind of heredity you'd expect some common traits to appear.

more...

Non-embryonic stem-cell research is already miles ahead in providing cures

Embryonic lines consistently develop mutations that make them unusable.

Non-embryonic lines are progressing towards embryonic flexibility.

All of this pales, however, in view of the green dollar signs that float in front of researcher's eyes. Somehow, money seems to make morally outrageous actions seem legit. I have no problem turning off the flow of cash to research that amounts to cannibalism.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/05051 0193918.htm

Seems to me that someone else other than Mr. Suk has used stem cells for spinal injuries with provable success.

Correction: There seems indeed a kind of Warp Drive as extension to the anti grav drive possible (according to the theory).

This link: http://www.uibk.ac.at/c/cb/cb26/heim/theorie_raumf ahrt/hqtforspacepropphysicsaip2005.pdf (someone else posted it already in this thread) is a modern paper about the drive (2004). Its a joint work from an austrian and a german Phd student.

The paper is 15 or some sides and quite understanable, if you don't look to close at the formulas ;D According to the paper, the magnetic fields needs to be somewhere in the range of 20 to 30 Tesla, which is quite a lot.

Just for refference: the earth has a magnetic field with the strength of ~1 Gauss.
1 Gauss is 1 * 10E-4 Tesla, so 10.000 Gauss is 1 Tesla and 20 Tesla is 200.000 times the earth magnetic field strength. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss

This page: http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/ask/a11654.html gives a table about natural magnetic fields and claims man made magnetic fields can get as strong as 40 Tesla.

Another site I found is this: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/05121 4220120.htm the actual record for a magnetic field is claimed as 35 Tesla there.

angel'o'sphere

(E.g. early Australians were H. erectus; later they had mixed erectus and sap. characteristics; eventually the erectus features faded and vanished, leaving pure H. sap.)

Your argument would be stronger if there were any non-controversial evidence for H. erectus in Australia:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/kowswamp.html

But I take that to be an unfortunately-choosen hypothetical example, rather than an actual error.

Your position is not entirely-dissimilar to the old The Multiregional Evolution Model: http://www.geocities.com/palaeoanthropology/Herect us.html

Gene complexes hardly ever travel without organisms wrapped around them, so what you seem to be arguing for is a specific mechanism for multi-regional evolution. It isn't impossible, but whatever happened is radically under-determined by the data, and it is very likely that we are quite wrong about at least some major components of any story we tell about human evolution.

For example, it is virtually certain that H. sapiens evolved much earlier than the earliest currently-known examples, simply because the sampling rate due to fossilazation and discovery is so fantastically low. The sum total of H. sapiens fossils antedating 10000 years ago is only a few dozen, out of hundreds of thousands or more inviduals who lived over the early history of our species. The odds of us just happening to have found a skeleton from the very earliest period, when the smallest numbers of individuals would be around, is very unlikely.

Indeed, the apparent concordance between the current "earliest human skeleton" (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/0502 23122209.htm) and the most-likely genetic date based on mitocondrial DNA is so improbable as to be disturbing.

I am therefore betting we will eventually find that H. sapiens evolved much earlier, but went through a genetic bottleneck 200,000 years ago, giving us our most recent common ancestor. Such bottlenecks can be seen in a lot of North American fauna, where you frequently see populations that can be traced back to a single, small, non-diverse population 10,000 years ago that was in a geographically-restricted range due to the last ice age.

Studies have shown (http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/09_16_2004/depres sion.html, http://www.ebsconewsletter.com/sutterhealth/e_arti cle000289498.cfm?x=b11,0,w ,http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/08/0408 18085048.htm ) that a combination of talk therapy and medication produce lasting results in chronic depression. If the holiday depression is severe, and seems to start earlier and last longer each year I would recommend seeking help. I have personally gone through this and usually around the holidays (starting at the beginning of November and lasting until a few days after New Year's Day) I am very depressed and have been suicidal (I got to the point a number of times as to where all I had left to do was take the pills or slash my wrists). I started a program that consisted of both medication and therapy (I had chronic depression and some other things so my treatment was longer than people with seasonal depression) and, after a lot of work and help from excellent doctors, I an no longer suffering from depression. It is very important that you get help. It is a disease, many people suffer from it (you are not the only one) and you can be helped. If you chose to enter therapy carefully select your theropist. There are two types that I am aware of: Cognative and Psychodynamic. Without getting into too much detail about the technical differences between the two, stylistically Cognative theropists are your stereo-typical "how does that make you feel" kind of theropist. They tend to maintain a disconnected, anylitical relationship with the patient. They usually have the patient do most of the talking and provide anylitical input. Psychodynamic theropists will connect more with their patients on an emotional level. They will participare more in the coversation (of course, discussing only the patient's issues) and provide more emotional support. The type of theropist you select is, of course, best based on your needs. I would also recommend that the doctor prescribing the medication be different than the person with whom you are receiving theropy. The problems are separate, the emotional issues and the chemical imbalance and, though they can affect eachother, should be delt with separately. If nothing else, get some help, you are not alone, many many people go through this and you do not have to continue to suffer. Help is available and it does work. If anyone out there suffering from depression, find help. It will work!

I read the press realease and things didn't sound like what I remember from a decade ago when I was in school, so I and it turns out that He(4) is superfluid at a higher temeperature than I remembered, 2.3K instead of 2K and He(4) becomes liquid at 4K

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/212_fall2003.web.dir/R odney_Guritz%20Folder/properties.htm

The news is that they did this with fermions instead of bosons. A press release from 2004 that seems to be a little more detailed. If this really does turn out to be fermion based super fluidity, It would suggests that one might be able to find a substance that is liquid at close to room temperature, (Iron (Fe) based compoundes are mentioned in the following release)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/04041 4003425.htm

I do not see any mention of the lamda point being observed, so I guess the people calling this the next wave of cold fusion articles may yet be proven right,

The other thing that makes me leary of their results is that the press release was citing tempratures notably colder than the lamda point of liquid helium.

That said we have a few different teams that seem to be observing a subset of the actions only known to superfluids, so it may be babysteps. Either way the press releases seem more hype than news.

[Jin describes her team's work as the "first molecular condensate" and says it is closely related to "fermionic superfluidity," a hotly sought after state in gases that is analogous to superconductivity in metals. "Fermionic superfluidity is superconductivity in another form," says Jin. Quantum physicists are in a worldwide race to produce fermionic superfluidity because gases would be much easier to study than solid superconductors and such work could lead to more useful superconducting materials.]
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/03112 1070929.htm

I read the article.

I read it well.

But on the side (right side) there was a related news story thing and within one of the links it stated,

"(June 25, 2005) -- MIT scientists have brought a supercool end to a heated race among physicists: They have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity. ... "

So, being curious, I clicked the link and oddly enough, it basically stated the same exact stuff. The difference, though? It said MIT did it.

Who are the actual people who did this? Did MIT do it first and Rice got the credits? Am I mis-reading both articles and they're completely different?

TFA: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/05122 3090405.htm
MIT Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/05062 4100818.htm

I read the article.

I read it well.

But on the side (right side) there was a related news story thing and within one of the links it stated,

"(June 25, 2005) -- MIT scientists have brought a supercool end to a heated race among physicists: They have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity. ... "

So, being curious, I clicked the link and oddly enough, it basically stated the same exact stuff. The difference, though? It said MIT did it.

Who are the actual people who did this? Did MIT do it first and Rice got the credits? Am I mis-reading both articles and they're completely different?

TFA: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/05122 3090405.htm
MIT Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/05062 4100818.htm

The way the current H5N1 vaccine candidate is produced works around the "kills chicken eggs" problem.

BTW, this is not an issue with other "ordinary" influenzas. The H5N1 issue stems from its quite extraordinary lethality.

H5N1 vaccine starts with a "designer virus" containing enough elements of the H5N1 genome to provoke resistance when they are expressed as surface glycoproteins. But the "designer virus" has a much lower lethality and the chicken eggs mature to produce usable virus yields.

This trick was used a few years ago by NAIAD to produce a vaccine candidate for Ebola. Here is a short article on the design of the Ebola vaccine candidate, and the announcement of the beginning of human trials.

It should be mentioned in passing that the current H5N1 candidate is seriously flawed for a number of reasons. The most important of these is that it was designed using the strain prevalent in Vietnam in late 2004. The strain spreading like crazy across Eastern Europe right now, and moving into (oh, joy) the Middle East has a number of specific genetic and antigenic differences from the Vietnamese one. It is quite possible for the current candidate to fail quite badly to induce immunity to this new strain, should it be the one to finally go airborne H2H.

If you want more reading matter than you can handle on this subject, and reputable to boot, may I suggest two sites you folks should have been reading on a daily basis for the last six months:

Recombinomics

The Flu Wiki

The author of the Recombinomics site is a virologist who is one of the world's foremost experts on genetic recombination. I draw your attention to something that has gotten short shrift on Slashdot, which omission may shorten the lives of a few readers here - recombination and/or reassortment, NOT mutation, is how H5N1 is likely to achieve airborne human-human infectiousness.

The Flu Wiki has an editorial board which is very, very physician and virologist heavy. There is simply NFW that it will wander into the Wilderness Of Disrepute that Wikipedia now stands lost in.

Do your homework if you want to live. Verb sap.

The way the current H5N1 vaccine candidate is produced works around the "kills chicken eggs" problem.

BTW, this is not an issue with other "ordinary" influenzas. The H5N1 issue stems from its quite extraordinary lethality.

H5N1 vaccine starts with a "designer virus" containing enough elements of the H5N1 genome to provoke resistance when they are expressed as surface glycoproteins. But the "designer virus" has a much lower lethality and the chicken eggs mature to produce usable virus yields.

This trick was used a few years ago by NAIAD to produce a vaccine candidate for Ebola. Here is a short article on the design of the Ebola vaccine candidate, and the announcement of the beginning of human trials.

It should be mentioned in passing that the current H5N1 candidate is seriously flawed for a number of reasons. The most important of these is that it was designed using the strain prevalent in Vietnam in late 2004. The strain spreading like crazy across Eastern Europe right now, and moving into (oh, joy) the Middle East has a number of specific genetic and antigenic differences from the Vietnamese one. It is quite possible for the current candidate to fail quite badly to induce immunity to this new strain, should it be the one to finally go airborne H2H.

If you want more reading matter than you can handle on this subject, and reputable to boot, may I suggest two sites you folks should have been reading on a daily basis for the last six months:

Recombinomics

The Flu Wiki

The author of the Recombinomics site is a virologist who is one of the world's foremost experts on genetic recombination. I draw your attention to something that has gotten short shrift on Slashdot, which omission may shorten the lives of a few readers here - recombination and/or reassortment, NOT mutation, is how H5N1 is likely to achieve airborne human-human infectiousness.

The Flu Wiki has an editorial board which is very, very physician and virologist heavy. There is simply NFW that it will wander into the Wilderness Of Disrepute that Wikipedia now stands lost in.

Do your homework if you want to live. Verb sap.

At least according to a study from the University of Alberta.

Summary being that sad workers make less errors, presumably because they focus harder to block out the relentless hell of their lives.

A high altitidue balloon based launch platform .

Imagine a platform at 160,000 feet, that uses a mass driver to toss cargo into low orbit .

High altitude ballons could carry the cargo to the platform 30 miles above the earth .

NASA has already done a small scale version of this :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/02082 7063353.htm

It would be a huge and complex task, but imagine a giant platform with many ballons in case one
fails, and a magnetic mass driver near the center to toss cargo into low orbit .

Power the mass driver would be difficult at that altitude with nearly zero oxygen .

Perhaps fuel cells, solar panels, or other non-combustion method .

I am curious how much a 30 mile headstart plus mag driver boost would help with fuel
cost to achieve Low Earth Orbit .

For the Anti Mass Driver crowd NASA has considered this before .

http://www.freeluna.com/spasnotes.htm

http://www.ssi.org/body_research.html#mass-drivers

http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/moondust.htm

Thanks !
Ex-MislTech

Glucose is used by every single one of your cells.

Not only that, but it's fuel for your brain. :o)

You forget, they have had to create axels and wheels anyway, these don't sprout from buds and need to be fabricated and poked through holes in the body, then they need to STILL create a rotating blade on the top and power it and position it where it wants to go.

This isn't going to be easy whichever way they look at it, MEMs movement would be easier using legs and levers - essentially building your device like origami from a single sheet.
We have the tools to do this now (chip fab techniques) and can build up resonating levers which already move when current is applied, get the timing right and you have a centipede.

I can't personally see wheeled MEMs devices as being feasible anytime soon, macro scaled building principles just don't work at the scales required.

Look here for a better alternative to this stupid idea.

First off, I don't believe Saxony is a country anymore.

And secondly, most folks have a relatively short memory. Considering France's repeated losses to Germany which required U.S. military liberation, despite the fact that we had no [tt]imetable for withdrawal or troop reduction plan, or a plan to deal with the resistance that did not want to be liberated, we persisted twice.

And then there's that fiasco with Greenpeace. As A. Whitney Brown put it, "France is the only country to have arguably lost a war to Greenpeace." So, while it's great France may have had success during the age of the longbow, tactics of enemies have changed. Planes and bomb vests are the preferred method of the enemy. Oh, and car fires.

no deformed animals have been found. at all.

In related news, a patent was recently granted for a perpetual-motion machine, breaking the rule to reject inventions that defy the laws of physics.

I agree with you on every point. Thing is, that doesn't really excuse the grandparent poster from either trolling or just spouting nonsense as though it were fact without any amount of knowledge about the subject.

I'm not in the financial industry as you are (readers: see his other reply to my original post). However, I do take an avid interest in the the automotive sector. I follow the automotive news from the "car guy" standpoint, yet I'm quite interested in the trends of the industry as a whole. So, needless to say, I've read my fair share about the ins and outs of being GM or Toyota.

Most people will find that the Japanese are taking hydrogen seriously, but they don't want to sink their money into more than delivering the vehicles that can run off of it. GM, on the other hand, has pretty much accepted that it's not competing well in the combustion engine market and Toyota and Honda hold too many patents for it to compete well in the hybrid market. That's why GM, to a much greater extent than the others, is investing in anything to do with hydrogen. They're betting the companies future on it and they know that without infrastructure it'll take too long to adopt and they won't be able to survive.

Some light reading:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/05012 2143455.htm
http://www.hydrogenforecast.com/April2005/hf_oeman nouncements040205.html
http://www.forbes.com/execpicks/global/2005/0509/0 32.html

Gene That Helps Mosquitoes Fight Off Malaria Parasite Identified

Researchers have identified a gene in mosquitoes that helps the insects to fight off infection by the Plasmodium parasite, which causes malaria in humans. Anopheles mosquitoes transmit the malaria parasite to nearly 550 million people worldwide each year with these cases resulting in more than 2 million deaths annually. The protective gene was identified in a study conducted by a team of investigators from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Malaria Research Institute, the Imperial College of London and the University of Texas Medical Branch. It will be published in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of October 24.

[...]

The slashdot article says Pluto is the only Kuiper Belt Object to have a moon. Not so: Tenth Planet Has A Moon

Unfortunately, scientists say there's no evidence of "feathered dinosaurs".

Eric

I don't understand all this excitement over fuel cells being used in mobile devices. No electricity isn't everywhere, but then again, neither are hydrogen stations to buy refills at. If you think electricity is spotty in the 3rd world, just wait till you try to get hydrogen. This whole idea is dumb. Electricity is the most commonly available energy source. I can understand making cars and other bigger machines run on hydrogen, since they already have refueling infrastructure, but the energy problem could be better served by using higher efficiency transmission of electricity with something like the SuperGrid would be a much more achievable goal and easier to phase in then a switch to hydrogen.

With so many places in the world don't have enough water already, or their water is poor quality, for them getting hydrogen for water would not be a good thing.

Arctic ice shrinking as it feels the heat

Antarctic Peninsula glaciers in major retreat

Wikipedia: Ozone depletion

Arctic ozone hole could reach record size

Pinatubo Volcano Research Boosts Case For Human-Caused Global Warming

It seems it is you who should preface your statements with a warning label of your ignorance.

I didn't say there was just one model - in fact, when I say one is "the most reliable", that implies there are others. But if you really do have the open mind that belief in science requires, I've got just the article for you.

As a pure bred Celt, I have a genetic condition called Hemochromatosis [American spelling]. This is basically a malfunction of the gene that regulates the iron absorption by the body. It is white European's version of Sickle Cell Anemia, except as opposed to being anemic, we absorp too much iron. It effects 1 in 200 in the US and is the most widely underdiagnosed genetic condition out there.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/03/99033 0071714.htm

If correctly diagnosed in time, the iron loading can be controlled and monitored. Current treatment is a series of blood letting or phlebotomies to get the iron levels under control.

Otherwise the iron levels build in the liver, and begin to effect other organs in the body, leading to diabetes, pancreatic cancer, or rheumatoid arthritis, and ultimately death.

The ferretin test is relatively cheap $100 US and can be a life saver.

As the gene is a rather new discovery [1999] you will do better with a younger doctor, fresh out of medical school, rather than a middle aged one.

If you can trace your ancestory to Europe, and you have diabetes, or feel like you have IBS or CFS, or feel chronically run down, do yourself a favour and ask for the iron [ferratin] test.

This [survival] gene developed to protect early man from long periods of starvation. Think Irish potatoe famine and you begin to get the idea.

Surprisingly the genes for European Celts that causes iron loading have been identified, but the genes for Asians and Pacific Islanders [who are even *bigger* iron loaders] have not been identified yet.

Many of the members of our support groups cite difficulties in getting insurance coverage, and feel that genetic discrimination is a very real issue in the US today. To avoid the discrimination, we are seeing a rise in genetic self testing kits, ie Health Check USA, which sells an at home genetic test kit. Results are known only to the patient. After getting insurance, people then begin to seek medical treatment for this genetic condition.

I applaud IBM's position on this.