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Here's the abstract. Disassembling, yes. Accelerometers, not so much.

Disclaimer: I am a planetary scientist but do not work directly on the martian meteorites.

1) We know that the rocks are from Mars because they all have consistent isotope ratios between the various meteorites that are inconsistent with those isotope ratios on Earth but consistent with isotopic ratios on Mars
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Neutron_activation_analysis
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6T-41WBDHD-8&_coverDate=10%2F31%2F2000&_alid=445411040&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5823&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000053194&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1495569&md5=1c1b0d04dba7f06365b072655bef68b3 (May need a subscription)

2) The age(s) of the possible fossils are greater than the time the meteorites have been on Earth. Again, this can be calculated using various isotope ratios. In essence, these things formed while the rocks were still on Mars.

3) I agree with your discomfort with the word "prove." Most scientific study is based on the Popper philosophy of disproving something rather than proving its opposite.

A) The new instrumentation and techniques being used on these meteorites are greatly advancing our understanding of them. The press announcement that AH84001 might have evidence of life was premature (what we call "science by press release"), but the publications by the team were certainly good and valid work, whether they are falsified or not...

B) The scientific word "prove" is more about the lack of any valid competing hypotheses. If you can't come up with a reasonable alternative explanation for the data, you have to accept the presented explanation.

I've seen claims that mothers who have a Caesarean section give birth to kids who don' have the ability to handle stress. The theory goes something like: the final pains labor trigger the a release of hormones into the fetus that then give the child the ability to deal with stress.

I am extremely skeptical of these claims. The idea that there are particular hormones that are released during such a short time period with such life-long effects seems a bit of a stretch to me. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it does seem like a bit of deus ex machina to imply that there is some omnipotent hormone behind it all.

I find it much more likely that a combination of factors, particularly cultural and social, offers a better explanation. See here and here for a couple of articles examining the link between Cesareans and psychosocial effects. Cesareans often result in a certain amount of psychological trauma for the mother that often impairs the mother's ability to bond with her child immediately. To complicate matters, for multiple reasons, delivery rooms often take the child for a number of examinations immediately after the birth. As a result, some mothers do not get to see their child's face until almost an hour after they are born. In my opinion, it would be better to let the mother see the child right away, even if only for a few seconds, before whisking them away. Additionally, better post-partum psychological support would be greatly beneficial toward reducing the effect of this trauma.

Another factor to consider is what became the dominant US culture for child-rearing in the 20th century. Breastfeeding declined immensely (though it's been making a comeback recently). There is also a cultural bias toward early detachment (such as letting babies "cry it out") that is unique in the history of the world. Co-sleeping is another common element in other cultures that is frowned upon in the US. (And if you are concerned about the risks, there are plenty of products that place a barrier around the baby that makes it nearly impossible to roll onto them. There are also bed-side cribs that offer nearly the same benefits of co-sleeping without the risk of roll overs.) As an alternative, my wife and I adopted the attachment parenting philosophy. The basic idea behind AP is that developing a strong bond with your infant and toddler helps to create a much better foundation for life-long emotional and psychological stability. That is, babies first need to feel secure and loved before they can begin to mature into independent children. You may disagree, but we've been happy with the results.

I would also assume that a woman too afraid to go natural might also have a genetic predisposition of an inability to handle stress, but that is my own conjecture.

Wow. That is one hell of an audacious statement. I have yet to find a woman who is "too afraid to go natural" and would prefer to have a Cesarean. My wife and I spent months going through Bradley method classes (i.e., no medication at all), and still ended up with a Cesarean. The reality is that the vast majority of women do not want to have a Cesarean. But the current state of the American health care system has lead to a dramatic rise in their occurrence. Two major factors are the lack of adequate childbirth preparation and the scarcity of doulas to advocate for the mothers. The decision to have a Cesarean is often

No, it doesn't. The ice core shows one thing - and if you want to show that the current levels are higher you need to graft a completely different dataset (CO2 as measured at Mauna Loa) onto it.

So, a real scientist would now investigate if there's a reason to think the ice core might not show short term fluctuations - and lo and behold - there is :) It's called gas diffusion, and would cause peaks and troughs to become smoothed over time as the ice compresses.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V61-4F1GYYN-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1133886259&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=76ca7039c45b0a7d173716e8b8c8e8a2

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V78-48XV20J-TR&_user=10&_origUdi=B6TJ6-4BT7H1X-2&_fmt=high&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F1992&_rdoc=1&_orig=article&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f9e5b003426d2b42cad752f7fc6961d3

Thus, the headline of the post you link to is not scientifically accurate. The ice cores show no such thing - but a proxy with direct measurements tacked onto it does.

(Yes, that is exactly the same technique that was used to create the now-falsified temperature hockeysticks)

No, it doesn't. The ice core shows one thing - and if you want to show that the current levels are higher you need to graft a completely different dataset (CO2 as measured at Mauna Loa) onto it.

So, a real scientist would now investigate if there's a reason to think the ice core might not show short term fluctuations - and lo and behold - there is :) It's called gas diffusion, and would cause peaks and troughs to become smoothed over time as the ice compresses.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V61-4F1GYYN-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1133886259&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=76ca7039c45b0a7d173716e8b8c8e8a2

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V78-48XV20J-TR&_user=10&_origUdi=B6TJ6-4BT7H1X-2&_fmt=high&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F1992&_rdoc=1&_orig=article&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f9e5b003426d2b42cad752f7fc6961d3

Thus, the headline of the post you link to is not scientifically accurate. The ice cores show no such thing - but a proxy with direct measurements tacked onto it does.

(Yes, that is exactly the same technique that was used to create the now-falsified temperature hockeysticks)

Maybe you should read before just googling for links to prove your point.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7XNX-4NX2W1C-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1129045548&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=7c6f338c09d052a7154ec84c8c581f8f: Belgian Blue (BB) beef cattle is particularly prone to selenium (Se) deficiency due to the poor Se content of soil and roughages on rearing farms and the higher requirements of this hypermuscled breed.

The study then went on to test Se supplements to see which worked best.

http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/belgianblue/index.htm: Some sources stated that delivery in Belgian Blue cows is often by caesarean.

How very authoritative.

http://genome.cshlp.org/content/7/9/910.full: How much of a stress tolerance reduction? It doesn't say enough to know if its a problem or not.

http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/79/5/1162.pdf: The only mention of vitamins is saying more is better, and then it follows it with a high sodium / fat diet has a negative effect. Of course the same is true in any normal animal as well.

http://bioethics.agrocampus-ouest.eu/pdf2009/Bioethic_aspects_of_genetic_selection_of_animals_U-Korzecka.pdf: Really? You're linking to a powerpoint exploring BIOETHICS of genetic modification, which doesn't list its sources, as proof?

I suspect you and the author of the last link have something in common; you believe there to be some ethical problem with this, and thus are more interested in pushing an agenda then science.

Why do you assume myostatin is "there for a reason?" Have you considered that at one time we didn't have it? Or perhaps that we have it is just a random fluke?

I hate to break it to you, but there's no intelligent design.

Maybe you should read what has been posted before you try pontificating. Myostatin is actually there for a reason. Here is a list of health problems which arise in other mammals:

• Selenium (Se) deficiency.
• Birthing problems; sometimes resulting in the need for caesarean section.
• Reduction in stress tolerance.
• Very low fat concentrations; can result in health problems due to insufficient fat soluble nutrient/vitamin uptake.
• Weak bones.

Seems like there is probably a reason we have myostatin and if you disable it, other health problems may result. We're just don't know what they are yet.

Actually, while we do not know what health problems arise in humans, we do know of multiple health problems which arise in other mammals:

• Selenium (Se) deficiency.
• Birthing problems; sometimes resulting in the need for caesarean section.
• Reduction in stress tolerance.
• Very low fat concentrations; can result in health problems due to insufficient fat soluble nutrient/vitamin uptake.
• Weak bones.

What I don't understand is paywalls that seem to have been erected without any sane business model in mind. For instance, here is a physics paper that I needed to look up today. It describes a particle-physics experiment from 1979 that, as a side benefit, ended up producing one of the classic high-precision tests of special relativity. I teach at a community college, so we don't have scientific journals at the library. My wife teaches at a university, so she has electronic access to journals, but the access to this particular publisher's journal only goes back to 1995. So I find the article online, behind a paywall, and I'm all set to pay $10 for a copy, just to avoid the hassle of going to a university library and photocopying it. I click through on the link to buy a copy, and they want $31.50. That's just crazy. Since the price was insane, it motivated me to get in the car, drive 20 minutes to a university library, and find the article down in the basement stacks where they put old journals.

To me, this seems like totally irrational behavior on the part of the publisher. For any product you want to sell, there has to be a price that optimizes your profit. Price it too high, and you don't get enough volume. Price it too low, and you get volume, but not enough of a profit margin. I simply can't believe that $31.50 is the sane, profit-optimizing price for a single academic paper from 1979 -- especially not when it's electronic, so the marginal cost of distribution per copy is essentially zero. My guess is that some of these traditional print publishers simply have their heads in the sand. They believe that the advent of digital music has decimated the music business, so the lesson they take home is that anything digital is like dog poop -- don't touch it, or something bad will happen to you and your business.

Is it so hard to give enough information to find the actual publication that has the important details? I'm taking it as a given that the Telegraph can't be bothered to explain -how- this is different from earlier muscle cell cultures, but at least they could give me enough info to find articles that will tell me that. I mean, did these researchers actually publish a real paper in a peer-reviewed journal or did they just bypass that and go straight to the telegraph?

What's new about this?

Muscle cells have apperantly been cultured since 1968, although there isn't much about whether or not these cells proliferate in culture. A paper from 1988 claims to have gotten progenitor cells to turn into muscle cells in culture.

This article, still not a paper, from scientific american suggests that at least one Dutch researcher is interested in turning embryonic stem cells into meat. Those cultures don't last very long either according to the article: "Unfortunately, Roelen's cultures only survive a few months before they sputter, failing to reproduce because of genetic problems—their chromosomes become deformed or cells end up with too many copies. His group also works with adult stem cells extracted from skeletal muscle—a direct approach for in vitro meat."

I guess this might be the article in question, Roelen reports isolating a progenitor cell type that can be directed to either increase their numbers or turn into muscle cells. That’s almost a year old though. This article is more likely the one that sparked the telegraph article, the lab discusses factors that affect that culture system.

Post, quoted in the telegraph article, doesn't appear to be too directly involved, his research interests seem more about blood vessels and I couldn’t find any papers from his lab that looked relevant, but I didn’t do an exhaustive search on pubmed.

The Arecibo radar seems to transmit at 430 MHz which is not exactly low frequency. Submarine radio (at 100Hz) is highly unlikely to make it out of the ionosphere, let alone getting mast the termination shock. Anything which can get in, can by definition get out. So our radio telescopes tell us what frequencies make it into the solar system and the atmosphere.

Also on the subject of misleading claims:

A 550-watt, 0.75 horsepower hydrogen fuel cell will power the Ion Tiger with four times the efficiency of a comparable internal combustion engine

That would mean an efficiency of greater than 100%. Which is obviously nonsense. ICEs are generally 35-45% efficient in peak operation. If you want to say that you're not comparing peak operation, then you can't compare fuel cells at peak operation, either. For example, when driving the NEDC (the New European Drive Cycle, one that generally is gentler than our combined city/highway cycles), the tank-to-wheel efficiency of a fuel cell stack is about 36% (gasoline engines in the NEDC are generally 20-25% efficient, and diesels, 25-30%). Even at low, steady loads, fuel cells are about 45%. And that's tank-to-wheel -- i.e., doesn't include the losses in making hydrogen, which are significant. Yes, you can get really high efficiencies, 50-70% or so, with fuel cells in the lab. But to do that, you have to feed them pre-compressed oxygen rather than low-pressure air, and not count any accessory loads.

and seven times the energy of the equivalent weight of batteries

Notice they chose the one metric that favors H2 -- rather than, say, volume, durability, power, price per watt, fuel price per energy or fuel price per watt, or any other such metric that fuel cells bomb at. And they're almost certainly just comparing the fuel, ignoring how heavy the fuel cell stack is.

Another big advantage is the Ion Tiger's reduced noise, heat and emissions.

Fuel cells lose out to battery-electric in all three of those regards.

Now, I will say that UAVs are a better role for fuel cells than cars -- steadier loads, cost is less of an object, and a higher percent of the vehicle's mass needs to be energy storage. But they still aren't very attractive.

Since elasticity of demand for electricity in California is high, increasing the overall efficiency of electronic appliances will lead to an increase in demand for electricity, not a decrease.

If they were trying to decrease demand for electricity, they would do better to mandate that all televisions use ten times as much energy as the least efficient of them do today.

Actually, you're a bit off. Studies published in the dead-tree version of Scientific American a couple of decades ago showed that it was the change in refractive index, not the lens hardening. They showed that for the same amount of curvature, older lenses produced a different amount of light bending (refraction). Newer research here shows that the actual change in curvature wasn't what we originally believed, and that this new data explains the change in refraction as the eye ages. It is this change in refraction that makes people far-sighted, when the age-related lens thickening would have been expected to make people near-sighted with age.

Older people get bifocals because, with the change of curvature of the lens, they can no longer focus up close. Not because the lens has hardened, just because it's shape and refractive properties have changed so the same amount of muscle force results in less change in focus. Picture it as a camera that you've changed the lens on, so it can no longer focus from 2" to infinity, but is now limited to 3' to infinity, if that helps.

So what will happen as you age is that your eye will lose the ability to focus up close because its refractive properties have changed, and you'll be less myopic. It's a fair trade-off.

These reports come out every few years (re: DDT, et al.), and while they're not strictly incorrect, they tend to look at a very incomplete picture of what is going on. To be perfectly blunt, there's sexism going on in that these reports focus on just the environmental impact of chemicals on boys, and don't consider the larger picture of chemical impact on children in general.

Anyhow, if you take a look at the steroidgenesis diagram, you'll notice that testosterone is a precursor of oestrogen by way of aromatase:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Steroidogenesis.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromatase

Now, for those people who remember their organic chemistry and stoichiometry, rates of conversion reactions are increased with catalysts, and decreased with modulators. So, while aromatase will increase the rate at which testosterone converts into estrogen, an aromatase inhibitor will decrease conversion of testosterone.

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

And it turns out that Aromatase Inhibitors are naturally occurring:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B8JGN-4TWSRR1-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1093611464&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2bb4c9b03794595de88508b47078c134

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_collections/pritzker_lab/pritzker/people/people_images/stilbocarpapolaris.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_collections/pritzker_lab/pritzker/people/alumni_mitchell.html&usg=__Xc_RyM3WV_KmlfwEp0KCwul_DAk=&h=137&w=200&sz=9&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=jlXt6kpeBMYsJM:&tbnh=71&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBrassaiopsis%2Bglomerulata%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

And there's a growing list of known aromatase inhibitors:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exemestane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastrozole
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letrozole


So, simply put... what about the environmental chemicals that are masculinizing girls? Is it really just a matter of plastics feminizing boys? Or does it go both ways? Is it a matter of environmental toxicity in general?

Lastly, I'd also bring up the question whether feminization of boys is primarily caused by environmental chemicals, or if it's driven be completely different factors, such as 1) a cultural response to civil rights access for women, 2) decreased opportunities for war caused by nuclear detante, or 3) need for peaceful co-existance due to worldwide population increases a

> That time of sunlight needs to be multiplied by the solar flux to determine the total energy available per year. >The solar flux (W/m^2) in space is about 1,366 W/m^2. After passing through the atmoshpere at the equator, it's about half that.

Ummm, no. AM1.5, useful for the USA, is generally taken as 1000 W/m^2. That's a lot more than half. Do your homework.

AM1.5 is a test condition for solar cell comparison, not representative of actual earth-based power. It's just a benchmark at 1kW/m^2, which makes it easy to do the math to determine efficiency. Don't believe me? "In practice, no solar cell experiences such conditions...". I've already done my homework ;)

> Once you correct for daylight hours and cloud cover

I did, that's 1950 hours of "bright direct sunlight". As in "bright" and "direct" "sunlight".

Then use the numbers on that graph. An average of 150-200 W/m^2, all day every day, in Toronto and Japan to 225-250 W/m^2 in Arizona. Space gets 1,300 W/m^2 all day, every day.

> It's not like you're going to make things worse with SPS.

Unless you wipe out all LEO satellites as a side effect, which is a real possibility.

Maury

Really? They're talking GHz radiation. Is a radiation hardened, chassis grounded space satellite really going to be affected? Not if it was built by a competent Engineer. The chassis will act as a faraday cage, there will be no net current into the electronics. Besides, if electronics absorbed energy easily from these frequencies, Japan wouldn't need such a big receiver to collect the power, would it?

If that is still your concern, it is possible to detect satellites approaching the beam and turn it off during their transit.

Regardless, this is technically feasible right now, as long as someone takes the time to build one. It probably won't be economical, but that should come in time.

Just to get it out of the way, yes, IAADRS (I am a Disaster Recovery Specialist - the "speaks bit and byte" and "cosfi" datacenter visiting type...)

Concrete ? Well, yes. Under the raised floor. What did you want ? Marble ?

No cooling from the raised floor ? why not ?
Overhead network cables and a "newish" cooling solution like here :

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/

front page. Think...giant heatsink...(first overlord joke gets the boot 8p)

As for concrete, let me introduce you to this wonderful answer : it depends. Mostly on the concrete.

"Ramazan Demirboa

Civil Engineering Department, Engineering Faculty, Atatürk University, 25240 Erzurum, Turkey

Abstract

In this study, the effect of silica fume (SF), class C fly ash (FA), blast furnace slag (BFS), SF+FA, SF+BFS, and FA+BFS on the thermal conductivity (TC) and compressive strength of concrete were investigated. Density decreased with the replacement of mineral admixtures at all levels of replacements. The maximum TC of 1.233 W/mK was observed with the samples containing plain cement. It decreased with the increase of SF, FA, BFS, SF+FA, SF+BFS, and FA+BFS. The maximum reduction was, 23%, observed at 30% FA. Compressive strength decreased with 3-day curing period for all mineral admixtures and at all levels of replacements. However, with increasing of curing period reductions decreased and for 7.5% SF, 15% SF, 15% BFS, 7.5% SF+7.5% FA, 7.5% SF+7.5% BFS replacement levels compressive strength increased at 28 days, 7- and 28-days, 120 days, 28- and 120 days, 28 days curing periods, respectively. Maximum compressive strength was observed at 15% BFS replacement at curing period of 120 days."

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V23-4KPFKFY-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1085368183&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b8e7b8ce7b5e23b07db5805bf9ad9740

Frankly, I believe all you're hearing is your own confirmation bias. Wine tasters have the same problem. Your experiments were not controlled and couldn't tell you anything other than that you liked to think your expensive equipment was somehow worth it.

There's some weird evidence that placebos don't do what 'everyone' thinks they do.* It's not conclusive, but maybe we literally don't have a method to test your suspicion.

* Short form, opiate blocking drugs also block placebos if these are given as pain relievers, and maybe don't block them if they are given for other reasons.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0K-3W0NBP2-1C&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1067752221&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=da2d59bff82ca9795853596a37df11bb

So, maybe placebos don't work better on some people than others. Worse, maybe what you've said looks like one of those obvious things where some silly researchers deserve an ignoble prize for doing trivial research to confirm what everybody knows, only they came up with a real puzzler instead. Based on the research, it could be impossible to design an experiment that really disproves the claim "placebos have psychological effects", yet it could be untrue. It's becoming a sort of Godel's paradox in pharmacology.
      I'm sure you didn't intend to be serious, but I'm glad you got modded interesting instead of funny.

I believe you'll find that they don't just guess the epitopes that they produce the virus for, rather WHO uses data from the previous hemisphere flu season and the presence of current strains. I believe that the formulation changes every six months (February/September), using data from WHO collecting centres around the world (Atlanta, Tokyo, London, Melbourne, etc) and they formulate a vaccine with two strands in it that are at that point the most current and most likely.

The vaccine isn't created to treat potential mutants. It's created to treat the most likely continuing flu strains present in the system that are likely to continue to propagate into the next winter/flu season in the next hemisphere.

Not a year in advance, and not guesswork. Observation and projection.

WHO vaccine information for more if you're interested. Or here.

Maybe the Moon is made of green cheese. Your "popular" argument is old and lame.

Steve Ballmer's graphic showed that Linux already holds more than 10% of the desktop market share. By your metric we should already have a Linux bot farm that contains 130,000 Linux zombies. 770 zombies is totally insignificant. However, the Linux desktop market share is higher than 10% in other countries.

Five months ago it was reported that 30% of Chinas desktops ran Linux and 60% ran Windows. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Chinas-Red-Flag-Sees-Desktop-as-Linux-Battlefield These governmentscity and provincialcompared the performance, capabilities and price of desktop Linux and Windows and they considered whether they could migrate all their applications from Windows to Linux. So finally about 30 percent of desktops in China now use Linux. Microsoft has about 60 percent.
Thats from the agency that make RedFlag Linux, Chinas own version of Linux.

That would mean that if your argument is correct we should already be seeing a Linux bot farm with 390,000 Linux zombies. But we don't. If such a farm existed Microsoft's "Highly Reliable Times" would be crowing over it, just they way they crowed over their .NET solution to the London Stock Exchange... which, by the way, was replaced today by a Linux solution.

Within the next 8 years Asia will adopt 861 million computers, compared with 92 million in the US, 130 million in Europe and 160 million in South America. Linux will be running the desktop on more computers around the world than there are people in the USA. As the netbook sales increase, and older computers are brought back into service because of the economy it will be Linux that will be used to revitalize them. Linux and its applications are free.
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VFX-4X01P8S-2&_user=10&_co

The travesty is the fact that mainstream medicine is regulated and sued to death, to the point that care becomes unaffordable for many who could otherwise afford it, not that natural medicine is unregulated.

In any case, I don't think that you have 'big natural' in the same way that you have 'big pharma' since there's not the same barrier to entry with natural products that there is with pharmaceuticals. There are virtually no patents. No 100 mil to produce a drug (that you then want to see brough to market.) Those kinds of conditions strongly favor a few major players. And they favor regulatory capture.

While I'd agree that there are a lot of scams related to CAM (particularly homeopathy) and that people could afford to be more credulous I don't agree that there's no mechanism for how some of the stuff works (even some homeopathy), or evidence that it does. Naturopathy has well documented mechanisms. It's not unreasonable to think that acupuncture might relieve pain. Acupuncture demonstratably alters blood flow, among other physiological changes.

In addition, research shows acupuncture can help manage postoperative dental pain and alleviate chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. It also appears to offer relief for chronic menstrual cramps and tennis elbow.Mayo clinic

(Granted, pain related studies are very hard to objectively conduct. )

I'm not saying either method is more efficient, I'm just pointing out that we can't draw any conclusions without looking at the entire process.

The possibility that comes to mind, however, is this:
--Cooking food changes the chemical structure of the food. For example, the collagen in meat is converted to a more gelatinous form, which requires less energy to digest. Call this change in energy delta-Y.
--At the same time, enzymes in the food are partially destroyed during the cooking process, which must be replaced with enzymes produced by the body. Call the energy required to produce these enzymes X.
--If X is less than delta-Y, then we have a net gain.
--To use simple numbers, (and I'm pulling these out of my ass): if we reduce the energy required to digest meat by 25% by cooking it, but see a 10% increase in energy required to account for the initial production of enzymes, then we still have a positive gain in energy.

For example, consider this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VNH-4PF6B6Y-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a45168786fdaed44067b0781c320b9e3
I realize this is a study involving snakes, so take it it with a *big* grain of salt.

The big question in all this, that no one has shown numbers for (or maybe I missed it), is what percentage of total energy required to digest food does the production of the enzymes account for? If enzyme production is only 1% of the total energy required, it is a whole different story than if it accounted for 70%. Without any hard numbers, we can't really say anything conclusive.

And don't think there a correlation so profoundly stupid that someone won't publish a "scientific" paper on it.

Sunspots influence the global weather in a measurable (and well-understood) way. Grains grown in a climate either at the upper or lower end of the temperature scale at which they thrive (wheat in Britain, for example, or corn in Arizona) can be pushed into (measurable and predictable) lower harvests and even complete mis-harvests. Why and how global economic measures like the total GDP and the DJA can be sensitive to such things as the global success of food production is left as an exercise to the reader.

Can you find it in your heart to read up to these things? One of the very real, very measurable and very predictable dangers of global warming is the well-studied, well-known and well-understood link between just a degree or two global temperature change and the measurable economic penalties going with it. These things have been measured, tested and modeled for years. (Amongst a myriad of other things, this is one of the ways we know that sunspots are NOT responsible for the drastic global average temperature rise in the 20th century. Because their effect on the global energy budget is measurable.).

I'll tell you what else jumps out. The near immaculate periodic nature of the graphs. It's really regular. Something tell me this study has a lot more to do with the school cycle than it does with the season babies are born in. So I'm going to go ahead and guess that a lot of these births are nine months after proms or spring breaks or whatnot.

And how may I ask does the month your mother gave birth to you lead to a lifelong plight? If ever their was a classic junk study showing the usual correlation-causation woolly thinking, this is it. Apparently, a lot of unmarried, less educated mothers have more unprotected sex in May (or less in January). Why would this lead you to conclude that being born in winter disadvantages someone. I was born in winter and my mother was married, educated and employed. Has my life been deprived somehow? Do I need extra money or protection or something? Yeah sure, chuck me some money. I'll consider it an idiot tax; like the lottery.

Correlation is NOT Causation. Correlation proves nothing. Saturn is correlated to the S&P 500 with r=0.88. And don't think there a correlation so profoundly stupid that someone won't publish a "scientific" paper on it.

This research is junk. Correlation studies need to die.

That'd be pretty great. the number of tickbites is certain to decrease, and, if it's identified as a major thread, can certainly be avoided almost entirely. But it's only been published in a single paper called "Medical Hypotheses" and there are a number of other diseases mentioned as possible causes: "In both AD and/or the tSEs, transmissible agents and infectious proteins have been postulated to be aetiological factors [4], [8], [11], [12] and [13]. These include bacteria such as Chlamydia pneumoniae [14], Borrelia burgdorferi [15] and [16] and Spiroplasma sp., a helical mycoplasma in scrapie [17], typical and atypical (unconventional) viruses [18], e.g., Herpes simplex virus [19] or L-particles of the latter [19] and [20], tobacco mosaic virus [21], retro-viruses [22], viroids and plasmids [23] and [24], virinos [25], scrapie-associated fibrils [26] and [27] and others [28] U. De Boni and D.R. Crapper, Paitred helical filaments of the Alzheimer-type in cultured neurons, Nature 271 (1978), pp. 566-568. Full Text via CrossRef | View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (4)[28].: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WN2-4N6FVHJ-6&_user=1676895&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2007&_rdoc=1&_fmt=full&_orig=search&_cdi=6950&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000054205&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1676895&md5=8536e295f899761700037b54b167c9c5#secx5

Should be easy enough to ask a sample of patients and a control what diseases they had and how much time they spent outdoors. So easy in fact that I'm sure it's been done and nothing came up.

Life doesn't exist 4 billion years. The earth itself barely makes that number.

True - first organisms appeared 3 billion years ago. That still is a LOOOOOONG time and you still missed the point.

Sure the "one species conquers all" event hasn't yet happened, but an "a few species conquer all" event has in fact happened.

I think you have a fanciful and incredibly wrong idea about how genetics and evolution, not to mention thermodynamics, work. Either that or you read too much science fiction. The only time there has ever been a relatively small number of species on this planet was after large scale extinctions and EVERY time the species diversity increased afterward. The data does not support your theory.

There are 4 "human" species alive today.

According to whom? Perhaps you are referring to studies which claim there were 4-5 direct predecessors? Methinks you have no idea what you are talking about or you are a troll.

The diversity you see today is still quite extensive, but it's pitiful compared to what existed even a few million years ago.

The number of species waxes and wanes. No reason to believe that won't continue to be the case unless we humans or a very large asteroid turn the planet into a cinder.

Microwaves don't alter DNA? You'd better tell a number of scientists and other researchers you know more than they do.

Quite frankly, if I was his neighbor, I'd sue the moron.

So if I lived next to you would it be alright if I opened a toxic waste dump next to you? Or would I have to sue you?

Falcon

If anything vegatables and milk should be intentionally irradated as is commonly done in Europe to:

...reduce their vitamin content, add toxic radiolytic products like 2-ACBs, and attempt to compensate for unsafe food handling practice that shouldn't have been allowed in the first place? Not to mention increasing the availability of radioisotopes that are perfect for a "dirty bomb"?

Yes, there are ignorant folks out there who think that irradiation makes food radioactive, which is plainly wrong. That does not mean that irradiation does not have deleterious effects.

Sorry, you just don't get it. One last try, in simple words:

On a long trip, across flattish terrain, there is NO ADVANTAGE to running the electric motor. None at all. For every horsepower than was drawn from the engine to charge up the battery, the motor can only deliver about 0.65. That's a basic fact. And it does not matter if the actual number is 0.68-- anything under 1.0, which is unachievable, is a net loss.

If you want references, well, Toyota is mighty coy about this, which should be a strong hint that it's not very good. The only referenfce I can find is to a technical paper where they claim with improved algorithms they can get the efficiency up to 72%: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T08-4RGFCYS-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1012703614&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e6affcf397e4f401e856c2e452ecb737

And I see you agree with me, the battery is worthless on the highway anyway. 1 to 2 horsepower hours translates to a trifling amount of help. Various sources write that the electrics cut off at 35 to 45 MPH, confirming my surmise.

Well anyway, I hope you turn around. Don't be beleiving everything you hear from salespersons.

I'm sorry you're a fanboy idiot. Really.

Are you too cool to google the site name and find other references?

http://www.inet.tsinghua.edu.cn/english2/academics.htm

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V4D-48125GS-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1006112585&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=32da2d87cd209d11a3cbe7c603567631

Of course, the journal article referencing the successful reactor and the university site are "under the best of circumstances less than reliable sources". Durrr

Even without further technological advance, nuclear power will suffice for several millennia.

Wow, the propaganda machine is on overdrive today. So lets examine your statements;

It produces zero emissions

It produces CFC114 emissions in the enrichment process. CFC114, a greenhouse gas 20,000 times more potent than C02 which leaks from Paducah at 1 million pounds, thats 453,592.27 kilgrams per year since the bans began. That is 8 618 255.03 kilograms *since* CFC114 was banned. That's the equivalent of 172,365,100,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide from the enrichment process alone and does not include the 1 Gigawatt of coal fired power used to run Paducah. One thing that is not immediately obvious is it's eventual effect on Phytoplankton which creates more breathable oxygen than the Amazon.

produces a tiny volume of solid waste that doesn't escape into the environment.

I suggest you read up on the emissions that the NRC permit from a Nuclear reactor every second day and that Nuclear power plants vent approximately 100 cubic feet of Noble gasses roughly every two weeks, and they decay into deadlier elements. Thats NRC standard operating procedure even *before* we start talking about unintentional or unauthorised radioactive effluent emmissions.

you'd jump at the chance to build the thing.

and over the time you live there you would have cumulative exposure to radioactive isotopes that you would never be aware of.

But if it isn't, then you can leave it in a cooling pond for a few years, and after that point, it's safe enough to handle, store, and bury. There are far worse industrial outputs than cooled-down nuclear waste.

Isn't it the case that the life span of the concrete containment casks have never been tested because it has never been funded? Are you sure your not just 'assuming' that they wont leak? Isn't part of the DOE response to the geology of Yucca Mountain a shift from geological containment to development of a material called 'C-22' to be used as drip shields to prevent water penetration into the 'dry casks' as they are unable to mitigate the egress of water from the casks. Why would the DOE bother funding their creation if they were confident the casks weren't going to leak especially when their original engineering specification of the geology of the site stated a specific geologic chemistry to mitigate an expected egress of water containing radioactive isotopes? Especially if, as you say, it's safe enough to handle, store, and bury.

What's wrong with a cave in the middle of the desert? There's no water table. The area is seismically stable,

You mean Yucca? The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is "inappropriate to contain nuclear waste". Yucca mountain is not a suitable site because it is made of pumice and actually *is* geologically active evidenced by recent aftershocks of 5.6 within ten miles of a repository that is supposed to be geologically stable for at least 500000 years. Long term corrosion data on C22 (the material to contain the Pu-239 and mitigate the ingress of water - yet another Yucca problem) is just not available.

Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology revealed that the passage cl-36 from atmospheric nuclear testing took less that 50 years in ground water through Yucca mountain so the reality of Yucca is it is inappropriate to contain *any* kind of radioactive products, especially the ones you are ref

For the filtered candidate mutations, we designed PCR primers by using Primer3 17 S. Rozen and H. Skaletsky, Primer3 on the WWW for general users and for biologist programmers, Methods Mol. Biol. 132 (2000), pp. 365-386. View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (1518)[17] (http://frodo.wi.mit.edu/) to amplify 400-700 bp fragments (primer sequences and PCR conditions are in Table S2), purified them by standard ExoSAP treatment, and sequenced them by using BigDye terminator chemistry on both forward and reverse strands [18]. Initial analyses were performed on the cell line DNAs from the two individuals. Candidate mutations confirmed in the cell-line DNAs were then sequenced in blood DNAs from the same individuals as well as five other family members (Figure 1). All the confirmed candidate mutations are supported by four or more capillary sequence reads.

And yet you don't include any estimates of the externalities. But "trust us, they're huge".

Because they're a pain in the ass to find and they're still not entirely complete to my satisfaction. ExternE did a good study of external costs and I would also recommend Internalization of the external costs of global environmental damage in an integrated assessment model. The glaring omissions that I see with these studies benefit fossil fuels by being omitted. Costs such as security of energy supply still have not been properly quantified or internalized, and these costs are inarguably huge. Studies that attempt to include climate change costs are remarkably conservative to avoid criticism. If the moderate concerns about climate change turn out to be well-founded, we'll be facing astronomical costs associated with that problem. And that's ignoring the suffering of over a billion people.

"And so, therefore, we'll be forcing you to buy higher-priced, inferior energy from politically-connected rent seeking alternative energy companies. Our self-serving estimates for externalities of our favored energy companies are low."

Or, if you bothered to read the studies, lower-priced energy. Where in the world did you get "inferior energy" from? I must have missed that in my high school physics class. Was it right between chemical and kinetic? Or were you trying to argue a straw man and claim that my argument is that we don't need base load power? That's utter bollocks. I'm a big fan of nuclear power, as well as ongoing research into energy storage. In the end, we desperately need better storage mechanisms, and it'd be awesome to see things like Power Tower able to provide base load power from solar alone.

I also find it pretty amusing that you're trying to accuse the environmental movement of favoring big, evil corporations. Seriously? Who's rent-seeking? The companies that manufacture windmills, all the companies manufacturing and researching solar tech? Are it those evil people who make double-paned windows? Maybe it's the evil bastards who retrofit homes with better insulation. Yeah, must be them. Gold-digging bastards will stop at nothing to conserve energy and make a profit!

It's pretty easy to decide these things when you get to use unlimited, unsupported, variable fudge factors. It's amazing how the answers always turn out beneficial to you and your point of view.

It's pretty easy to decide these things when you get to ignore all external costs simply because they're difficult to quantify. It's amazing how the answers always turn out beneficial to you and your point of view.

Now we've gotten the mudslinging out of the way, perhaps we can get back to having an intellectually honest discussion.

---

Do you at least acknowledge that we don't have an infinite supply of fossil fuels? If so, then surely we agree that at some point in the future we will have to switch to a renewable/sustainable model. The only serious disagreement we should be having, then, is over when that point is, and whether we should try to make the switch before we get there.

Also ,
here

and here are the details, if you read science.
study.

Moreover, there is empirical data to suggest that 12-Step programs are more effective than alternative treatments: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T63-4NT93TD-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3532d0365bafe068101e1d966398ec3a

No. That's 12 step vs 12 step.

In standard referral, patients received a schedule for local 12-step SHG meetings and were encouraged to attend. Intensive referral had the key elements of counselors linking patients to 12-step volunteers and using 12-step journals to check on meeting attendance.

I don't even know where to start with the rest of the study. Also keep in mind that once a person is indoctrinated into AA, they *are* likely to do worse without it, as they are indoctrinated to believe that not going to meetings means jail institutions or death. It's the AA equivalent of hell and creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here's some research for you. Remember. Contempt prior to investigation.

It's hardly Scientology, and if they need to use bait & switch to be effective, well, it's hard to argue with success.

But it's not *ethical*. Have you ever heard of informed consent? That's a hell of a rationalization there. Even if it worked, which i'm still waiting on, it would still not be right. People have the right to choose. Something can't be consensual if you don't know what you are consenting to or are deceived into it. I don't care how benign you claim it is. "It's for your own good" is not an idea I like very much.

Oops.. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt since the wording of my final sentence was somewhat ambiguous. I was not making a personal revelation of my experience, just stating what I have observed from others who have attended.

Moreover, there is empirical data to suggest that 12-Step programs are more effective than alternative treatments: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T63-4NT93TD-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3532d0365bafe068101e1d966398ec3a

I completely agree that it should not be mandatory. Beyond that, I don't see either a factual or ethical reason to attack the organization. It's hardly Scientology, and if they need to use bait & switch to be effective, well, it's hard to argue with success.

And finally, I completely agree that it should not be mandatory or state sponsored. Just wanted to make sure you get that point.

The breeder program would allow the longest-lasting wastes to be re-used as fuel. You don't need something that is going to be geologically active for a half-million years, if it becomes inert in 300 years.

Well first of all that was the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility. The reason to choose that specific geology (in addition to being stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to mitigate the effect of ground water traveling through the facility and carrying radioactive isotopes into the water table. The half lives of the actinides you speak of would be dependent on the reactor and I've heard of figures around 600 years but it would also have to contain the daughter products before they were inert. So they would be shorter lived but also much more radioactive placing an even greater emphasis on having the geology mitigate the ground water migration to contain the isotopes.

Now I'm not saying that a breeder/burner reactor program is a bad idea, given the appropriate materials technology but it has to be properly engineered. Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology revealed that the passage cl-36 from atmospheric nuclear testing took less that 50 years in ground water through Yucca mountain so the reality of Yucca is it is inappropriate to contain *any* kind of radioactive products, especially the ones you are referring to. Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash, you *need* granite if you want a serious facility. Even the Swedish test facility is better designed than Yucca and the design of the actual facility shows the U.S how it *should* be done.

In addition, as a site like that would be containing pu-239, whose half life is around 25000 years, if you were to implement a breeder program to utilise that spent fuel it would imply a reactor that did not have the same decommissioning issues that these articles are all about. So that would imply a reactor with a much longer life span than our materials technology can currently support. Even negating the reactor life span issue you would want to situate the reactor facility close (say within a mile) of the pu-239/du-238 fuel source and fissile ash containment facility to avoid having any long term logistic issues moving those materials long distances. That implies having a facility with a geology appropriate the the amount of time you expect it to take to use the fuel and for the pu-239 alone thats 5000 years.

Sure that's a thousand times less than what the DOE specified, but in terms of human civilisation exactly the same thing.

Heads up displays do help keep the eyes on the road, better than looking at a screen in one's lap. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WGR-4CYNN20-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2052654b82aa1ddd87883c50d4c2ccaf. But paying attention to a HUD is still less responsive than watching the darn road. If you have a moment, the next time you're in your car, focus your eyes on the windshield, which is what you're doing when you look at a HUD. You aren't, generally watching, or seeing the road clearly, you're seeing the inside of the car.

Possible Conjecture on my part: :-)

1) For over 100 years Jupiter has been observed with fairly good equipment and we have not see such large changes such as these impacts.

2) It is possible we are in the middle of a Comet Swarm. The frequency of these sorts of large impacts seems to be out of the ordinary, considering the last one was in 1992. (Shoemaker-Levy)

3) What is caused by this? Could it be the alignment of our Solar System with respect to the Galactic plane:
http://www.optcorp.com/edu/articleDetailEDU.aspx?aid=1114

I bring this to the communities attention because the gravitational behaviour of the Galaxy as a whole, seems to be at odds with how we understand gravity on a large scale.

For example, when Astronomers look at the velocities of Stars on the outside of the Galactic Core, too many of them are moving at a speed or the same speed as those closer inward.

Which should not be the case.

http://www.astrophysicsspectator.com/topics/galaxies/Spiral.html

This could suggest that we are in the middle of a comet swarm.

Which of course, would be right on schedule as we ARE over due for a major impact.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WGF-47314XP-1C0&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ab7211f1bb44a0d677303b1cc08eb8c8

-Hack

I do. See for example the IPCC 4th assessment report, working group 3, chapter 4 "Energy Supply". In particular 4.3.2 pp. 269-270 "Nuclear Power", and also the summary graph Figure 4.19 on page 283, which compares the lifecycle CO2 emissions per unit energy of different primary sources.

The conclusions reached in that chapter are based on Vattenfall and they build nuclear power plants so it's not surprising the results favor nuclear power. Whilst they are the best run nuclear reactors in the world and an example of what a *baseline* nuclear program should look like, U.S reactors fall dreadfully short.

The work of Vattenfall *and* Storm van Leeuwen and Smith, upon which that chapter cites as references, both use the same method to calculate energy consumption funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy and are used in 80 odd industry sectors. The exceptionally detailed work of Dr Phillip Smith, Nuclear Physicist and Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen (MSc) (Stormsmith.nl), who both work in the nuclear industry and have specialisation on energy system analysis, is mostly ignored in the IPCC report. They have no vested interest in the outcome whilst Vattenfall does.

Their criticisms of Vattenfall include "Process analysis leads to a large underestimation of the total construction energy requirements when labor and supporting activities of the construction are not included".

One thing that is not immediately obvious is that the primary greenhouse gas from the Nuclear industry is not Carbon Dioxide but Chlorinated Fluro-Carbons (CFC114) a greenhouse gas 20,000 times more potent than C02. Whilst it's equivalent effect is slightly over 8 megatons of C02 more potent is the destruction this compound causes to the ozone layer and it's eventual effect on Phytoplankton which creates more breathable oxygen than the Amazon.

If that wasn't serious enough, long term it's not radiation but radioactive isotopes that will eventually make it into the food chain via bioaccumulation. As the hidden cost of carbon is imposed on our generation in the form of a Carbon tax, so we pass on a cost to future generation forced to have to deal with radioactive isotopes and other environmental externalities. Wouldn't it be better to develop a longer term strategy wrt Nuclear power than we currently have that actually addresses the very real problems the industry has?

This isn't surprising at all, when you consider the extreme energy density of nuclear fission.

Which is only relevant if you use the energy density of the enriched isotope and currently PWR use 0.3% of the available energy density. This brings us back to Storm van Leeuwen and Smith whose analysis was to asses the net energy return of the Nuclear industry. For example, for the expected 300TWh's output of a new AP-1000 (low side Vattenfall, high side Storm/Smith) energetic estimates for construction of a nuclear power plant is somewhere between 11TWh and 35TWh, energy cost for demolition around 55TWh to 70TWh, that's around a third before you start. Yet you still have to factor dismantling and clean up of the core alone 5.6TWh's - 16TWh's. They talk in Peta-joules but I've done the conversions to put it in a frame of reference that will be easier to understand.

Using a conservative energy expenditure of 1528Kwh per ton of rock (containing Uranium) you have to process 500 tons of rock, that's 763500Kwh's, to produce one kilo of Uranium. Assuming an extremely optimistic extraction efficiency approaching %50 AND assuming you have a high grade ore that's roughly 763Gwh's per ton and you need 160tons for your first core. Even before enri

Many studies in other countries have shown use of cell phone (even hands free) is the equivalent to driving with a mid range blood alcohol level or worse

Speaking of which, I seem to recall hearing somewhere that those effects have been exaggerated a bit by the transformation of anti-drunk groups into anti-alcohol groups. This was a while ago so I'm not sure where I got it from, trying to find a chart/table of driver BAC vs. number of crashes only turns up this site with their awesome title keywords.

Hmm, there's also this meta-analysis, which makes me think maybe what I saw was related to one of the studies that didn't show a meaningful relation.

True, but the properties of crocodile immune proteins are well documented. Here is a less idiotic link on the matter:

Abstract from Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2R-49KSKF9-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=961247909&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a1d6189fa9fc622240974a24a20b098e

So one book concerning so-called outliers references one study that finds no relation between IQ and academic success. And no study has found the opposite? (I'll answer the last question for you: the correlation of IQ to academic success is well established through 100 years of empirical research. Do a Google Scholar search.)

Keep in mind that correlation to achievements in school was the validator Alfred Binet used when developing his original test questions; his interest was in mental age, though, so he didn't do a longitudinal study (others have, and have found IQ to be fairly stable).

Has the one referenced study been replicated? Otherwise, you're talking anecdotal evidence here.

I'll give you that IQ isn't an extremely strong predictor, but then there are loads of other factors that influence academic success, such as "work drive" (although others have found that cognitive abilities (i.e. IQ) were by far the best predictor of school achievement), and of course the fact that many high-IQ people are so intellectually lazy and arrogant that they turn out stupid. IQ is, of course, only an indicator and not a direct objective metric of "intelligence".

The conclusion is OK, the details presented suffer. That's common in pop-science writing, and sadly increasingly common in SciAm.

Left side = language: Based on the largest group of similar orientation, right handed males. Not even a majority -- 40%. Left handed males are right-side language almost the same proportion but are few overall. There are 'ipsilateral language' (same side as dominant hand, as opposed to 'contralateral', other-side), as well as 'undifferentiated', with language capability on both sides. Females are somewhat similar in breakdown but more undifferentiated overall. Also, the generalization is for non-tonal based languages such as English. See "right/other side" below.

Amygdala is "under the right": The amygdala is bilateral, with left and right parts. The right part is however functionally predisposed to processing stress handling behavior http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6SYP-4CT63XM-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=955088512&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=7d34a0fd5e2952f900c2698ce0abe684 .

Left cortex vs. right deep: All language functions are handled in the outer few millimeters of the brain, the cortex. Some processes may be driven by deep structures, but all higher order processing relies on cortical activity.

Right/other side cortex: Opposite (or mixed with, in 'undifferentiated' brains) the language centers there is an equally employed structure that controls "prosidy", or emotional processing, understanding and expression in language. It is more oriented to tonal processing making it central to music as well as to tonal-based languages. "Right side" or prosidic region damage can result in flat monotone response to expression about both winning the lottery and death of a loved one. Or it can result in inappropriate response, such as laughter, to everything.

If you consider the necessity of 'other-side' processing in tonal language and the large population that uses it, the western/English, right handed, males, contralateral language center "dominance" becomes a great deal less world wide (there are brains world wide, honest) than the 40% usually quoted in western language research literature and texts.

Moving the expresssion of distress from the language structure dominant area to the prosidic/emotional area does tap into underlying emotion processing. Then again, so would singing. I'd like to see replication with singing instead of cursing -- betcha it's similar in outcome. Evidence: stuttering is stress based; stutters frequently don't stutter when they sing, ask (according to his belt buckle) M-M-M-M-Mel Tillis. And, a naive hypothesis: I'd bet that while those that use tonal languages may curse in pain and such, they are far more likely to use coherent language with stress (in both senses) placed in the tonal aspect of what they're expressing. Any speakers or Chinese dialects or other east Asian languages care to comment?

Lastly, an aside: The 'left side' language centers make the brain larger on the left. This is taken as a dominance of language processing over other kinds. However (1) chimps have the same assymetry, with the same proportion of 'other-sided-language', larger on the right, as with humans; (2) cortical localization is both redundant (more than one area can do the job) and plastic (one can take over when another fails); and (3) the amount of cortex devoted to something implies it requires that much effort. The same amount of processing and behavioral control can be handled by smaller areas when the processing is made mo

May I remind you that Iceland has been doing that for a while.
Japan also started with no eQuake ;)
Has for Basel, Geothermal Explorer Ltd. are still in business and still drilling in Basel... The NYT is not well known for it's scientific rigorousness.

you might enjoy this paper Characterisation of the Basel 1 enhanced geothermal system

It tells you everything about the process what actually happened (i.e. they followed a plan which included microseismic maximum threshold), thta the drilling by itself has absolutely nothing to do with the mini-eQuake (ML of 3.4 was the maximum reached and it's pretty minor. There are probably 50,000+ eQuake like that every year on the planet) and this 2006 geothermal well has been successfully stimulated, is active and still used as a test plot...

Your not adding anything to the conversation

"You're". Not: "your".

See, something has been added. Your grammar was frequently atrocious in your earlier screeds, but I decided to give you a free pass for those ones. You really should concentrate on getting the basics of English down, because using it poorly reflects badly on your message, no matter what you are saying. Or trying to say.

I addressed the merits of your case earlier, with regard to the physical location of the plant used to operate the gaming, versus the residence of the gamers. You argued that the WTO had no remit in this case. The WTO panel disagreed, and in accepting arbitration, the US *and* Antigua both accepted remit. You are, in effect, second guessing the legal and political teams from two countries as well as an international panel of jurists. As with idiosyncratic stock picking, there is a very, very small probability of you being correct in this instance, versus a very high probability of you not being correct in this case. I have read your bloggish/fisking-style arguments againt the WTO decision and they are unconvincing and merely reiterate or restate many of the initial arguments of the US deposition in the first round of hearings. These arguments were judged at the time to be of insufficient merit to prevent the arbitration from proceeding. Your stubborn refusal to recognise that a legally constituted body delegated to come to a resolution of this difficult problem bespeaks a cognitive difficulty in accepting wisdom.

Sometimes, you just have to admit that you are wrong. The problem is that when your intellectual capabilities constrain you from recognising the domain borders of your inexpertise, there is a high probability that you will overestimate your capabilities.

That aside, I don't see how any government can possibly take light pollution seriously. Too much investment to satisfy too small a group - who cares if it's world heritage.

Except it's not just astronomers that suffers from light pollution. Animals suffer as well. For instance sea turtles. Turtle hatchlings mistake beach front lights as light being reflected from water. Some in the US are concerned about the effects of net fishing wherein trawlers drag large nets which ensnares dolphins, ie the "Dolphin Safe" labels on some tuna cans, and turtles. But light pollution can have as much a negative impact on for instance leatherback turtles as nets do. There are many other species that are impacted by light pollution.

Falcon

But I think most reasonable people can see that they aren't the same thing, and that rape is bad, and rape fantasy is just a fantasy like any other.

I know that sociology and psychology are soft "sciences" and can produce dodgy results, but the literature does indicate that rape fantasies can in fact "lower the bar" regarding the acceptability of forced sex.

Too bad this is just an abstract: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VH7-4B2CMD0-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a656bfe084f145afca4196b9c062ddc8

Do you get this up in arms over war games ("murder fantasy") as well?

War is not murder!

I do, though, think that violent games like the GTA series can slowly desensitize the player towards AFK violence, and, among younger players, permanently twist the brain.

Another example: a (theoretical?) KKK game where the purpose is to drive around shooting/maiming "niggers" and "kikes".

0.6% seems like a good ballpark figure for false positives.This research paper claims 0.6%. This article says "Commercial facial recognition technology ... had a 1 percent false positive rate."

15000 faces/sec * 0.6% false positives = 90 false positives per second.

How many cops does it take to ask 90 people per second to come to the police station to answer a few questions? How many busses does it take to take 90 people per second to the police station?

Once they get there, if it takes five minutes to look at each suspect's papers, run them through the computer, and clear them, that police station waiting room will need to be big enough to hold 27,000 people.