Slashdot Mirror

Nah, not really. http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... (tardigrades) http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... (lichens and bacteria)

Oh. Interesting.

ADHD subjects fail to suppress eye blinks and microsaccades while anticipating visual stimuli but recover with medication https://www.sciencedirect.com/...

Highlights
Blink and saccade rates were higher in ADHD subjects in a continuous performance task.
Medication reduced the saccade rate to control levels, and lowered the blink rate.
ADHD subjects fail to suppress saccades and blinks while anticipating stimuli.

You do realize that you're linking to someone's blog, not an established news source? And that the author literally cites scientists that "poisoning from scavenging carcasses tainted by lead ammunition is likely responsible for many of the [bird] deaths", before wondering why "nobody" is concerned about windmills.

Well, here's the reason: As has been established repeatedly, the number of birds killed by windmills (on the order of half a million a year in the entire US) is completely dwarfed by, say, the number of birds killed by windows (on the order of one billion ), not to mention cars and cats.

That's not to say that people are not concerned with birds killed by wind mills, too. (And bats, porpoises and other animals.) The problem is fortunately entirely manageable by choosing appropriate locations for wind farms and other precautions. In particular, the construction (like all big construction) is a much bigger environmental issue than the actual operation of the windmills. E.g. here's Siemens Wind Power describing a solution to minimize noise pollution for endangered porpoise populations and other marine life during construction of off-shore wind farms.

(Then there's that other growing threat to birds: Climate change. Which is why the Massachusetts Audubon Society supported the Cape Wind project.)

Here is the abstract with a link to buy the paper. After reading the abstract, it still isn't clear to me what is "new" about this. If it is really just more inexpensive catalysts, then why include the "solar" angle, since that would irrelevant to the actual science? It would work just as well with electricity from any source.

Thank you for the link to the abstract, Bill.

Its both interesting and a little hybridish dual purposeish or maybe isn't, or something.

I see the main feature the electrolysis using less expensive electrode materials. and assuming it works, a one step removed from practical applications. The solar angle is probably a marketing spin, although with cheap production, you could set up panels in the back yard to make hydrogen to heat the house, or produce fuel in sunny locations without much labor costs or environmental impact.

Here is the abstract with a link to buy the paper. After reading the abstract, it still isn't clear to me what is "new" about this. If it is really just more inexpensive catalysts, then why include the "solar" angle, since that would irrelevant to the actual science? It would work just as well with electricity from any source.

Go into an tropical jungle, e.g. Amazonas. The mulch is not even 30cm thick

30 cm times the area of the Amazon rain forests is a huge volume of bound carbon. And for many other types of forests, the layer is quite substantially thicker. And has a large impact too.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Peatlands have the same property. It's not a fast process, by any means, but it is an ongoing process, and net positive.

No, it is not net positive.

Quoting Wikipedia:

The peatland ecosystem is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet,[2] because peatland plants capture CO2 naturally released from the peat, maintaining an equilibrium. In natural peatlands, the "annual rate of biomass production is greater than the rate of decomposition", but it takes "thousands of years for peatlands to develop the deposits of 1.5 to 2.3 m [4.9 to 7.5 ft], which is the average depth of the boreal [northern] peatlands".[2]

[2]: Hugron, Sandrine; BussiÃres, Julie; Rochefort, Line (2013). Tree plantations within the context of ecological restoration of peatlands: practical guide (PDF) (Report). Laval, Québec, Canada: Peatland Ecology Research Group (PERG). Retrieved 22 February 2014.

The *ultimate* subsidy is the US sending our kids to die in the middle East, due to oil. There's no way gulf war I happened if some sub Saharan country invaded another resource poor country.
[...]if musk can show we might be able to wean the US offa oil, I'd much rather subsidize that then our children getting killed by an IED.

Here's the problem: we already have the technology to replace 100% of our transportation fuels with biofuels from algae. You use solar thermal heat pipes to move seawater into the desert, and then grow algae on thermal raceways with solar paddlewheels. The lipids become green diesel and the remainder is processed for Butanol. Unfortunately, green diesel use actually went down due to the EPA's reduction of the renewable fuel requirement in 2014 (and through to today) although the EPA blamed it on "Limitations in the ability of the industry to produce suffcient volumes of qualifying renewable fuel, particularly non-ethanol fuels" — though this is a completely transparent lie, since they were making more before the EPA cut back the target. As for Butanol, we would have been able to buy it already if not for a patent dispute between Gevo and Butamax. The patent in question was developed in part at a public university, therefore it was developed in part with our money, but it is held by BP and DuPont's shell company Butamax who has been suing Gevo for years to prevent them from selling us Butanol fuel.

So yeah, go Musk, go EVs, but we are not using petrochemicals to fuel our vehicles because we have to. We are doing it because Big Oil is a branch of government, lying betwixt Congress and the rest of society.

Indeed. The sobering thing though is the Sphinx, claimed to be 4000 years old exhibits the weathering of a structure 35000 or more years old and erosion from thousands of years of rain when there hasn't been rain on the Giza plateau for about 8000 years(IIRC).

According to whom? The last I read about weathering of the Sphinx was not due to rainfall but runoff of rainfall which is different.

Apologies, I did not see your reply.

I see what you mean about the sheet runoff, the implication being that chemical changes to the limestone may make it more susceptible to erosion, it's a good point. I reviewed my knowledge about the 35,000 year claim and found it was a documentary and the geologist concerned was expressing an opinion that the quarry structure looked between 35000 and 120000 years old. From the supporting evidence in research papers, you sent and I found it would seem that geologists are reluctant to challenge the archaeologists established dogma at this time. Thank you for helping me evolve my knowledge.

What the new geological evidence presents is a challenge to the claim that the Sphinx is 4000 years old. The structure could not have started to erode before it was built, or have water erosion after Giza turned to a desert so that leads me to doubt the archaeologists claims about the age of the structure and the interest in maintaining it. Additionally the Pyramid quarries do not exhibit as much erosion as the Sphinx quarry so it is possible the structures were built at different times.

As I pointed out in this post astronomical evidence connects the structures to their zodiacal counterparts. If you accept the alignment of the sphinx to Leo then the structure is over twice the age the archaeologists claim. Of course until astronomers and geologists present more evidence to challenge the established archaeological dogma it's all conjecture, however the math encoded into the great pyramid shows it was a sophisticated society that didn't do things by accident.

I'll no doubt regret agreeing with Spun on anything, but he's right.

Science, and for that matter logic has been condemned as an instrument of the patriarchy for around 30 years now. It's a core tenet of Post-Modernism that logic itself is a tool of oppression to be discarded, and Post-Modernism devoured academic feminism decades ago. I read peer-reviewed papers (in philosophy) to this effect in the early 90s, and it's only become more mainstream in academia.

If you look at history serious science (not pseudo-science) has been at best tolerated and worst condemned usually with loss of life since science has a tendency to find out how things actually work in the real world. This, of course, makes many religions very uncomfortable since the God of the gaps is shrinking.

You only have to look at the Theory of Evolution (not to be confused with Abiogenesis ) and Astronomy which is not to be confused with the so-called psudo science of Astrology.

Even today you have smart (I am being polite here) people who deny the evidence preferring to believe some "old" books that were purportedly written by their deity of choice but strangely all have earthbound writers and publishers.

Jesus Mary and Joseph...
I didn't realize I was defending a doctoral thesis here..
deaths from coal mining: https://arlweb.msha.gov/stats/...
non-mining deaths from coal: http://www.catf.us/resources/p...
Air pollution and health, from the lancet: https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
deaths attributable to AGW, so much here I'm not going to pick one: google scholar link, knock yourself out.. https://scholar.google.com/sch...
deaths attributable to Chernobyl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... I think you will find the numbers of the last link, are a tad smaller than the numbers in the first ones.

Now, would their be anything else, how was this morning's bowel movement, do you need me to go over your bum with a wet-wipe???

Those improvements are great. Yet, there is still pollution, whether it's the noxious kind or the stuff that leads to global warming and climate change, if you want to picky about which is which. One study recently pointed out that current estimates of pollution from traffic may be too low. My point really thought is that while the improvements have slightly reduced the impact, it's too little, too late and not enough people are that concerned with using the currently available solutions to try to get ahead of the problem.

There's lots of effects that you generally wouldn't think of. For example, as someone who's working on engineering a house to last many hundreds of years, one thing that's key to avoid is the key longevity limitation of traditional concrete: carbon dioxide slowly seeps into the concrete, turning calcium hydroxide to calcium carbonate (limestone) and thus lowering its pH; when the pH drops too much at the steel rebar, it no longer protects it, it rusts, increases greatly in volume, and the concrete spalls out. So I have to avoid steel rebar.

Now, most buildings aren't engineered for such long lifespans, and so they include steel rebar, with standard calculations on how long it will last relative to how deep it is within the concrete, local climactic conditions, and so forth, to meet a preset target lifespan. But as the CO2 level in the atmosphere rises, the rate at which CO2 reacts with concrete increases; this affects every concrete structure on Earth. The average building can expect its lifespan to be cut short 15-20 years in a "business as usual" CO2 scenario.

From 2014 http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... Our data confirm that e-cigarettes are not emission-free and their pollutants could be of health concern for users and secondhand smokers. In particular, ultrafine particles formed from supersaturated 1,2-propanediol vapor can be deposited in the lung, and aerosolized nicotine seems capable of increasing the release of the inflammatory signaling molecule NO upon inhalation. In view of consumer safety, e-cigarettes and nicotine liquids should be officially regulated and labeled with appropriate warnings of potential health effects, particularly of toxicity risk in children.

There are: Our data confirm that e-cigarettes are not emission-free and their pollutants could be of health concern for users and secondhand smokers. In particular, ultrafine particles formed from supersaturated 1,2-propanediol vapor can be deposited in the lung, and aerosolized nicotine seems capable of increasing the release of the inflammatory signaling molecule NO upon inhalation. In view of consumer safety, e-cigarettes and nicotine liquids should be officially regulated and labeled with appropriate warnings of potential health effects, particularly of toxicity risk in children. http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

If you block people from expressing their views you make them "martyrs" and allows their group to grow...

You make an assumption regarding allowing oppressive ideologies to speak out that is wrong in two ways:

1. First, that you are being "fair" by doing so and that it has no effect on others taking up the same view that they would not have had already given their own outlook, which according to everything we know about psychology is false. Regardless of the validity of statements, if they are repeated often enough others will start believing them to be true. Fascists know this, which is why the current generation of neo-nazis put so much stock in their ability to create and spread memes on the internet. Adolph Hitler talked about the propaganda technique of große Lüge (The Big Lie), and of course, "if you repeat a lie often enough, people start believing it" (misattributed to Goebells)

2. Second, that the speech has no other consequences beyond that of political debate. What you forget is that oppressive and hateful speech has an impact on those it is directed at, it affects their state of mind and behaviour. Humans are social animals that cannot just "turn that off" or "ignore it" unless they are sociopaths. When fascists post hateful speech toward people they have killed and their families, damn right that should be taken down.

Although it seems kind of silly, you never know what you might get when you take a good look at nature. Nature is a cruel thing and it tends to favor more efficient solutions to survival. For as smart as humans can be, sometimes looking at the results of hundreds of thousands or millions of years of evolution can help to guide us in the right direction.

"""Monitoring driver attention by measuring the driver's touching of the steering wheel "was a poor surrogate for monitored driving engagement." """

How would you monitor their engagement?

Auto makers are working on attention monitoring tools, as they realize it is important human factors issue with partially autonomous driving systems;

http://www.loebermotors.com/bl...

https://electrek.co/2017/08/01...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

The Google is weak in this one...

You can not expect your opponent in a debate to do the research for you. You make a claim, you substantiate it.

according to the guy's own data, you're looking at a 4.8% ROI after 20 years. Anybody who complains about that is an idiot.

I really hope, you didn't mean to call me an idiot... Stipulating the figures you quoted are true, that's pitiful... I can put money into a saving account at 1.20% today. In 20 years that will have grown about 27% — and, unlike with purchased hardware, I will always have the option of pulling it out at a moment's notice. Other safe investment options exist without this immediate withdrawal option, but offering higher rates in return.

Third, the staggering size of fossil fuel subsidies is a matter of record in many, many places. Here's an easy one: [theguardian]

The Guardian carelessly (or deliberately?) conflates subsidies of different places. But they do refer to the original study:

Estimated subsidies are $4.9 trillion worldwide in 2013 and $5.3 trillion in 2015 (6.5% of global GDP in both years). Undercharging for global warming accounts for 22% of the subsidy in 2013, air pollution 46%, broader vehicle externalities 13%, supply costs 11%, and general consumer taxes 8%. China was the biggest subsidizer in 2013 ($1.8 trillion), followed by the United States ($0.6 trillion), and Russia, the European Union, and India (each with about $0.3 trillion). Eliminating subsidies would have reduced global carbon emissions in 2013 by 21% and fossil fuel air pollution deaths 55%, while raising revenue of 4%, and social welfare by 2.2%, of global GDP.

So, the real offender is China, where the market is decidedly not free and we do not know, how exactly they count in the first place. If, for example, they include road-building for accessing drilling sites, then that's not valid.

When I was complaining about solar subsidies, it was about direct help to the manufacturers and the incentives to buyers. In the US alone, that's been $4.4 bln just at the federal level — not including the state and town spending.

Even if you try to quibble about the amount (which would be unwise, because it's probably conservative)

Probably? Ha-ha... Try your Google strength again to find the real numbers.

He actually didn't use any citations of scientific publications, that may be where some quotes originated but no sources are shown.

Perhaps you read one of the early, incomplete copies of the document that circulated late last week, rather than the original, full document that he published internally (it wasn't an e-mail), which contained footnotes and citations? In just a quick skim, I found that he linked to at least five separate papers in the first six pages alone, as well as including numerous additional links to articles, Wikipedia, and other sources that he used to back up his points or clarify the way he was using various phrases.

Moreover, he recommended against Google continuing what he is saying are illegal hiring practices that, contrary to California laws against affirmative action, disproportionately favor minorities. He's calling for the same standard to be applied to all candidates, rather than for some to be measured against a more lenient standard, as he's suggesting is currently the case. That, in and of itself, is not a bigoted statement, since calling for equal treatment is not bigotry, though I'll agree with what I assume would be your viewpoint that a bigot would use those same arguments as a guise to push their agenda.

or missed the little pic with the bubbles

I see no picture of bubbles in either of these web pages:
From the /. post: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221128551730441X?via%3Dihub
From your comment: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-scientists-robust-catalyst-hydrogen-oxygen.html

Do you frequently bully the kiddies that way?

I'm smart enough to figure out that someone with a /. id number just slightly higher than mine is in no way shape or form a "kiddie". Thus, as usual, your comment is wrong.

And when you dig into the rabbit's hole of 2D:4D ratio studies it seems that testosterone exposure in the womb can be linked to numerous cognition and personality differences:

2D:4D values are associated with mathematics performance in business and economics students

In a sample of 516 freshmen (304 women), we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between digit ratio and mathematics grades. Males and females show the same pattern. Participants with both high and low digit ratios earn lower grades in mathematics, while participants which have intermediate digit ratios achieve the highest grades in mathematics. We also find that there is no statistically significant relationship between the digit ratio and the average grades earned by students in other courses except mathematics taken in the first semester at the Faculty of Business and Economics.

A low digit ratio has been liked to:

• Assertiveness in females[9]
• Psychoticism in females[81]
• Aggression in males[17][82][83][84][85]
• aggression in girls[86]
• hyperactivity and poor social cognitive function in girls[87]
• Masculinized handwriting in females[88]
• Perceived 'dominance' and masculinity of man's face[89][90]
• In an orchestral context, rank and musical ability in males[91]
• Right hand low digit ratio predicts academic performance[92]
• Mathematical ability[93]
• Decreased mathematical ability[94]
• Decreased empathy in response to adult testosterone levels[67]
• higher propensity to attack without being provoked[95]
• increased risk-taking behavior in men[96]
• preference for normative behavior[97]
• mean 2D:4D ratio among artists is lower than among controls[98]
• higher numeracy (compared to literacy) in children[99]
• higher criminal offending rates after puberty[100][101]
• attenuated socio-affective skills[102]

Where as a High digit ratio has been linked to:

• Personality traits correlated with digit ratio, higher being more feminized[103][104][105]
• greater Openness personality factor[106]
• Paranormal and superstitious beliefs among men with a higher digit ratio[107]
• Higher exam scores among male students[34][108]
• Higher neuroticism in both sexes with higher right hand digit ratio[109] and on left hand in females[81]
• Higher left hand digit ratio in response to high adult testosterone levels predicts musical orchestra rank in females.[110]
• Higher verbal fluency in both sexes.[52]
• Higher visual recall in females.[111]
• Higher literacy (compared to numeracy) in children[99]

He insults them ("neurotic" and spenders of men's hard earned money)

But those claims are absolutely true. Women are more likely than men to exhibit neurotic traits such as "depression, panic disorder, phobias," and so on. See

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/know-your-mind/201306/the-stressed-sex-1

And women place "greater emphasis on the earning capacity of a potential spouse". See

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016230959290021U

Also IIRC, these catalysts require very high temperatures.

Where do you get that from? From what is written here it appears to be happening in liquid water:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

oops forgot the link http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Someone did a study of the dust from tyres, and the amounts that EVs put out was quite high. The added weight of the EVs from the batteries resulted in greater dust from the tyres.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

How about you stop being as stupid as an anti-vaxxer, and be a bit more scientific and open-minded. I am not saying vaccines are bad. Just that, well maybe we need to look at new formulations of our vaccines for greater efficacy.

http://www.thv11.com/news/loca...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

https://www.scientificamerican...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/up...
"Among the 51 measles cases linked directly to Disneyland, six of the people had received their measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention" (honestly, since schools mandate this, do you really think less than 12% of people were vaccinated? Or is it more likely they simply couldn't provide proof of vaccination. Can you? Can you provide proof of your own vaccination or your children's? Most folks cannot.

Ok, if you want to have an inconsistent grid, that's fine. You don't need batteries. If you say so...Tesla's Powerwall and planned giant batteries are all lithium-based.

Disregarding scarcity (we know many rare earths aren't all the "rare"), rare earth mining and processing is highly toxic.

https://www.theguardian.com/en...

The town of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, is the largest Chinese source of these strategic elements, essential to advanced technology, from smartphones to GPS receivers, but also to wind farms and, above all, electric cars. The minerals are mined at Bayan Obo, 120km farther north, then brought to Baotou for processing.

The concentration of rare earths in the ore is very low, so they must be separated and purified, using hydro-metallurgical techniques and acid baths. China accounts for 97% of global output of these precious substances, with two-thirds produced in Baotou.

The foul waters of the tailings pond contain all sorts of toxic chemicals, but also radioactive elements such as thorium which, if ingested, cause cancers of the pancreas and lungs, and leukaemia. "Before the factories were built, there were just fields here as far as the eye can see. In the place of this radioactive sludge, there were watermelons, aubergines and tomatoes," says Li Guirong with a sigh.

https://www.theguardian.com/su...

Processing rare earths is a dirty business. Their ore is often laced with radioactive materials such as thorium, and separating the wheat from the chaff requires huge amounts of carcinogenic toxins – sulphates, ammonia and hydrochloric acid. Processing one ton of rare earths produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste; Baotou's rare earths enterprises produce 10m tons of wastewater per year. They're pumped into tailings dams, like the one by Wang's village, 12km west of the city centre.

"In China, the cost of environmental violations and damage is still way too low," said Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. "Rare earths is such a classic case of this – we basically export the resources at a rather cheap price, and much of the environmental cost is externalised to local communities."

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

The mining and processing of rare earth minerals along the coastline of Chavara, Kollam, Kerala has been a significant step in self reliance for the country in terms of being a strategically important industry but at the same time the grave enviromental consequences because of the improper manangenent of the industrial waste from the titanium dioxide (TiO2) pigment producing industry is a cause of concern. This has led to the geo-environmental degradation of surrounding area which is also a high background radiation area. This study attempts to compare the geochemical variation in the soil due to contamination and the extent of water pollution from different water sources in the study area. Analysis of the surface soil (0-30 cm) from contaminated land and inhabited land (supposedly less contaminated) provide a measure of the total concentrations of the elements present in the soil. XRF results indicate the increase in the concentrations of toxic heavy metals (e.g. Fe, Cr, V, Ni, Cu, Zn, Pb, Sr etc.) while concentrations of essential elements (e.g. K, Ca, Si, Ti, Zr) decreased due to contamination. Elements Mg, Ag, Au, Hf, Te, Nd, Yb, Ga present in inhabited area soil were found to be absent in contaminated soil. Co, Sn, W, Se, Br, Sm, Tb, Dy were detected only in contaminated soil. SEM analysis of the soil from residential area showed distinct mineral assemblage and that of contaminated soil, the signs of chemical weathering. The observed health problems in the local area indicate urgent need for health risk assessment and subsequent remediation of contaminated soil.

The northern hemisphere spring thaw has been advancing by about one day per year since 1988:
- https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqne...
- http://www.foodnutritionscienc...
- http://climatechange.lta.org/c...
- http://flatheadcore.org/featur...
- https://earthobservatory.nasa....
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

Perhaps you should read the links you post. Spring thaw of 'snow' and 'ice' in mountains or far south of the arctic circle are completely irrelevant for what is going north of the arctic circle.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. The first link I posted, for example was not about "snow and ice in mountains," it was about "boreal forests and tundra". ("Boreal" means "northern", but in context it's almost always used to mean the far north, Arctic and subarctic. By the way, your post says "north of the arctic circle," but I was talking about Russia. Much of Russia is subarctic, but very little is "north of the Arctic circle".)

Here is a quote from that first link, saying specifically what it was covering:

"Research scientists have been studying freeze/thaw dynamics in North America and Eurasia's boreal forests and tundra to decipher effects on the timing and length of the growing season. These regions encompass almost 30 percent of global land area. ... Large expanses of boreal forest and tundra are underlain by permafrost, a layer of permanently frozen soil found underneath the active, seasonally thawed soil.

Are you really such an idiot? None of you links has on the first glance ANYTHING to do with what we where talking about before. Who cars that land that already is farmland is thawing a week or two more early? You claimed that climate change would create new farmland in Russia, which it won't.

Are we talking about the same thing?

The "shortness of summer" is bounded by temperature, not sunlight
Wrong.
This will happen earlier, and it will stay thawed later.
How many days? 1or 2?

The northern hemisphere spring thaw has been advancing by about one day per year since 1988:
- https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqne...
- http://www.foodnutritionscienc...
- http://climatechange.lta.org/c...
- http://flatheadcore.org/featur...
- https://earthobservatory.nasa....
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

Before there is not enough sun, it won't thaw. Plain and simple. And that is depending on the length of the day, not on a magic temperature that comes from somewhere. (where should it come from? Hu? Polar night is polar night and everything is frozen ... )

Tell you what, why don't you do some research here and get back to me when you've learned enough to form an opinion

You're not doing any favours for the notion of probiotics having more scientific credibility than Revlon's latest innovation.

Linked in TFA, and then there's a trivial web search:

Probiotics are safe and appear to exert some beneficial effects in GI-related illnesses. The use of probiotics in non-GI illnesses is not sufficiently supported by current data.

Or a little more googling and you'll find plenty of peer-reviewed articles saying they have a small beneficial effect (*for certain diseases/ailments*), with some studies recommending caution for various groups.

No, they don't appear to be as medically useful as their "anti" counterparts, and they don't appear to cure cancer (though they can be good -- and bad! -- for cancer patients), but they are hardly in the same category as a beauty product.

And

Call us when you have gone through peer review by scientists who weren't hoping for a positive result before they even started.

Seriously? a) That's why we have a peer review process in the first place, and b) do you honestly think we don't care one way or the other which way a study turns out? Obviously, it's our job to report the facts, but do you really think a scientist starts an experiment without, at some level, hoping for a remarkable result? There's no problem with personal bias, so long as it's just that -- *personal*, not professional.

his is about America and what a terrible treaty this would be for America and all Americans

Yeah, it would be terrible to prevent a few hundred thousand deaths a year. Terrrible.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

*Sigh* Are you aware that the air the average person breathes has actually improved dramatically since the advent of fossil fuel technology? So has average life expectancy. So I'm pretty sure the millions upon millions of early deaths averted by fossil fuel technology since its discovery surpass the linked papers assertions on any moral grounds. I know some people love the smell of campfire smoke and all, but if you had to live and breath that shit every day to stay warm, you'd be looking at an early death some time in your 40s.

his is about America and what a terrible treaty this would be for America and all Americans

Yeah, it would be terrible to prevent a few hundred thousand deaths a year. Terrrible.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Green energy isn't so green when you see this.

Oh, that's cute. We've got probably 200,000 people dying prematurely from air pollution from auto emissions.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

And if you want to compare apples to apples, Google "Deepwater Horizon".

I'm sorry, but the scientific method cares little for nationality ;)

During the Holocene Climatic Optimum it's likely there was no or little summer sea ice in the arctic. I.e, we likely didn't have as cold winters as we've had recently.

Arctic Ocean sea ice proxies generally suggest a reduction in sea ice during parts of the early and middle Holocene (6000–10,000 years BP) compared to present day conditions.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

(Please feel free to counter my science-based posts with links to scientific research articles rather than just claiming that it's "nonsense" based on your own personal views)

i jsut have no tolerance for people like you who think that driving is anything less than a serious responsibility. The sooner we get people like you out from behind the wheel, the better.

Nationwide in the US, ~30% of driver fatalities involve alcohol: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

I've lived in Japan for the past 6 years, and when I first got here I was amazed that they have these long-established taxi services called "daiko", to prevent drunk driving. ( https://japan365.wordpress.com... ) If we are serious about preventing road fatalities, why aren't these services prolific in the states? Why don't we have stiffer penalties for DUIs, and lower BAC limits?

I know a LOT of "recreational drivers". NONE of them go joyriding under the influence. So if anything they take the responsibility of operating a motor vehicle more seriously than the general population. Japan is where drifting was invented, and to this day there remains a large subculture of late-night street racing. Yet the country has significantly lower fatality rates than the US: ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... ). Also note that, unlike the US, Japan has almost no fatalities due to intoxicated drivers ( http://www.stat.go.jp/english/... ), despite the fact that BAC limit in Japan is 0.03 instead of the US's 0.08.

Insurance rates are all about numbers, and the instant the autonomous cars surpass human safety numbers, human-driving will be over.

If that's the case, and it's all about insurance liability, why aren't motorcycles illegal or otherwise priced out of the market? Hell, why aren't sports cars ALREADY so stupid-expensive to insure that no one could afford them?

Full disclosure: I used to drift here in Japan, until I wrecked my Toyota Chaser and parted it out (a single-vehicle, low-speed accident at ~2am, on a public road only used to access a fenced-off area on rare occasions). I still own a sports coupe (Toyota Supra) that is getting upgraded to ~600hp for non-drifting fun on the streets. Last year I got a motorcycle license and bought a 250cc naked bike. I ride ATGATT (All The Gear, All The Time). Outside of computers and women, automotive hobbies are the biggest allocation of my time, and by far biggest allocation of recreational funds. Yet my insurance is CHEAP compared to what people pay in America (No argument for Liberty can silence the 30,00 dead every year from auto collisions.

What is your objective? What number of auto fatalities is acceptable? 10,000? zero?

Enjoy it while you can, we are coming for exactly people like you

Are you this vitriolic in your efforts to prevent other sources of mortality, such as suicide (42,000+ in 2014)? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fasta...

Your post is a perfect example of why the Nanny State is so despised. You exaggerate the risk posed by some activity that you don't like (usually a position borne out of gross ignorance), and then go on a crusade to undermine people's ability to enjoy themselves by leveraging the government and other institutions to stuff other individuals back into the box of what your erroneous ideals tell you is the "approved" way of living. The sort of busybody that is active in Homeowner Associations, making everyone else miserable.

This guy gets it: ( https://books.google.com.vn/bo...)

Looking at the graphs, the models seem to reproduce the overall features pretty well. Heres the comparison graph from the paper you cite: http://www.pnas.org/content/11...

There are still some variances in the details, but overall, it's the way science works-- you start with getting the overall shape right, and then progressively refine details.

I should point out that it's hard to match the details of the Holocene thermal max because the details aren't really known. It's not even really clear if it was a global effect, or local-- looks like the arctic and northern Europe had a thermal max, but southern Europe cooling, and it looks like the warming was in summer, but not winter. Check out, for example: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... http://www.nature.com/ngeo/jou... http://www.medeltid.su.se/Nedl...

Yep, that is a peer-reviewed paper published by actual climatologists. So much for that "consensus", eh?

It's very tempting to say "here's one paper by one group that shows a discrepancy, and thus that overturns everything we thought we knew!" -- but that's only the way science works in the movies. In the real world, science really is a cooperative endeavor. Don't focus on any one paper-- that part about scientific consensus is actually important. You have many eyes looking at every paper, and many papers looking at different aspects of the problem.

But, in this case, the paper you're looking at merely says "here are some places where we need more details" (in the measurements, not just the models-- keep in mind that we know a lot more about contemporary climate than we do about the climate 10,000 years ago-- we directly measure the solar irradiance, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the global cloud cover, and the downwelling infrared, for example; all things that have to be inferred from proxies for the climate 10,000 years ago.

Except that the treatment itself is gender reassignment, and it's effective. Example study:.

RESULTS: After gender reassignment, in young adulthood, the GD was alleviated and psychological functioning had steadily improved. Well-being was similar to or better than same-age young adults from the general population. Improvements in psychological functioning were positively correlated with postsurgical subjective well-being.

Example:

Results

A difference in SCL-90 overall psychoneurotic distress was observed at the different points of assessments (P0.003), with the most prominent decrease occurring after the initiation of hormone therapy (P<0.001). Significant decreases were found in the subscales such as anxiety, depression, interpersonal sensitivity, and hostility. Furthermore, the SCL-90 scores resembled those of a general population after hormone therapy was initiated. Analysis of the psychosocial variables showed no significant differences between pre- and postoperative assessments.

Conclusions
A marked reduction in psychopathology occurs during the process of sex reassignment therapy, especially after the initiation of hormone therapy.

Example:

Longitudinal outcome studies of gender dysphoric individuals suggest improved psychological functioning after gender reassignment treatment.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

You're wanting to withhold effective treatment, why exactly? Because it makes you uncomfortable? Is your identity or sexuality so fragile that you can't deal with existing in a world with transpeople, and as a consequence want them to remain untreated? Because that is the treatment.

It's quite true that transpeople have higher suicide rates than the general population both before and after treatment (although not the same before and after). But what exactly do you expect when dealing with family rejection, workplace discrimination, medical discrimination, parenting discrimination, huge medical costs that they have to bear unlike people being treated for almost any other condition (aka, they pay in their insurance premiums for other peoples' treatments but other people don't do the same to them) and (combined with workplace discrimination) correspondingly higher rates of homelessness, higher rates of sexual assault, higher rates of physical assault, pricks passing "bathroom laws" and the like, and general anti-trans assholery, e.g. like you find here at Slashdot?

Well that seems to be at odds with what the IEEE found - http://spectrum.ieee.org/green...

I'm not sure what you mean by "at odds," since the IEEE Spectrum article doesn't even discuss energy payback time. Here's an article showing an energy payback time of 3.7 years for a typical home rooftop PV system, or 2 years for a slightly more efficient panel: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04o... Graph 2 shows a panel produces 20 times more energy over the 30-year lifetime (which is the PV panel typical warranty) than the energy used to produce it and mount it on the roof.

That's roughly comparable to the values shown in other sources. Here's a review paper saying that the Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is from 8.7 to 34.2 (depending on things such as where it's located, and what technology is used): http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

The IEEE article is a caution saying that the Chinese module manufacturers don't necessarily pay attention to the environmental effects of manufacturing. This is a problem with any manufacturing, though, not particular to solar panels. They export about 180 billion dollars worth of stuff to us every month, so if you're worried about the environmental impact of Chinese manufacturing, that's laudable, but solar panels aren't even one percent of that.

Coal Industries should invest more in cutting-edge technologies that reduce it's environmental impact, for example: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... and they must start using small and cheap remote controlled devices for mining...

Our school was given an old computer by a company upgrading to a Pdp8. We learned Eliot 803 autocode before many school kids saw a computer: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
Total cost of ownership and its potential implications for battery electric vehicle diffusion

The electric drive train generally has lower service and maintenance costs, better fuel economy and lower taxes compared to ICEV, but a significantly higher purchase price.

This is one study- there are more. It's known that maintenance costs will be lower because there are fewer systems requiring maintenance and you don't need things like regular oil changes.

It's more of a calculation of fuel costs and purchase price.

With fuel at $4 per gallon, an electric car can save you $1500 per year on fuel costs. So after 10 years, that's $15,000 dollars. With fuel higher- the savings are greater, with fuel lower- the savings are less. Fuel prices in the U.S. are likely to remain low for another 6-8 years based on our previous oil price spikes but... electric cars could go a long way in extending the duration of the price slump by killing the marginal price of fuel.

Maintenance is probably going to be on the order of about $500 per year, so that's about $5,000 (inflation adjusted 2017 dollars) over 10 years.

A larger question which isn't known yet is how well these cars will hold resale value. Given current prices for electric cars, that could swamp the fuel and maintenance savings. Or it might be a non-factor.

If the price for an electric car is similar to the ICE car (say due to price subsidies or new lower costs of production) then the electric car seems like a no brainer to me for people who mostly travel in the city. As the electric fueling stations are built out tho, they'll be more suitable for casual long distance travel.

So show the controlled studies that prove that giving people free stuff results in poverty in the long run.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

You mean the tips of the Himalaya?
That is not in the north but east.
China has no real perma frost regions. You seem not to understand what the word means.
It means: soil that is frozen in winter, and from a certain depth, like 1 meter, or two, is not thawing in summer.

Here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
Perma frost areas are not even 1% of the whole countries land mass.

Yes there is an increase of about 10% on those first few days that DST kicks in, and there is also a DECREASE (about 10%- surprise) when it switches back.

It's hard to not argue about the benefits of DST in reducing car accidents due to more driving during daylight hours.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Because if I understand quantum theory correctly, it both works, and doesn't. There is no measurement for a half binary state in a binary world of absolute on and off.

I'm not sure what you mean by "it" here, but pretty much every interpretation of this is wrong. In fact, measurement of quantum superpositions do return specific classical states, with a probability based on the superpositions.

I think pursuing analogue supercomputers might be a better place to start.

We have specific theorems about what analogue classical computers can do. See for example http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0196885888900048 and https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0502072. In general, analog computers cannot do error correction and can when used to do optimization get easily stuck in local minima.

A more reasonable argument would be "We need more money to continue milking this quantum cow that never produces anything."

Quantum computing is still in its infancy and is best thought of as still in the basic research category. But even given that, there's been massive improvement in the last few years, both in terms of physical implementations (how many entangled qubits one can process) and in terms of understanding the broader theory. One major aspect where both the experimental and theoretical ends have seen major improvement is quantum error correction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_error_correction.

There are some newer finds than what are referenced (directly or indirectly) in that Fact Sheet.

The most interesting is this one:
Tumor promotion by exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields below exposure limits for humans.
Alexander Lerchl et al. April 2015. Jacob's University, Bremen, Germany.

The thing that most people don't understand about cancer is that cells are turned into cancer cells quite often but that the human immune system usually is very good at identifying and killing microtumours before they start posing any threat.
You are more likely to have a few microtumours in your body right now than not.

What is shows in this paper is that while EMF is not ionizing radiation that would directly cause cells to become cancer cells, EMF at cell phone frequencies can promotes tumour growth - thus increasing the risk of microtumours growing past the threshold at which the immune system can kill them on its own.

The man leading this research - Alexander Lerchl - isn't a crackpot on the fringe somewhere. He has been a relatively public figure in the debate about EMF in Germany and has previous to these finds been quite adamant that cell phones would be completely harmless.

But if I found out my favorite single malt balvenie was actually blended and not disclosed, the fact that they lied about what it was would bother me immensely.

Wait really? If you found out that the beverage that you enjoyed (for years?) due to its taste was produced in a different fashion, your reaction would be to be upset at the purveyor rather than to re-evaluate your preference for single malt?

I mean, I get that they shouldn't lie. And in many cases the labeling implicates important nutritional, ethical or ecological concerns where lying is a direct affront to the consumer's preferences. But in the example you gave, there are none of those concerns: the only relevant concern is how the scotch tastes.

It's like the cookies that consumers rate as tastier because they are labeled organic. The empirical approach when confronted with information that challenges your beliefs is to reevaluate them, not to get upset at the guy that gave you that info.

[ There's probably a political lesson here too. ]

Lunar distant retrograde orbit (DRO) turns out to be pretty stable. It's the close orbits that are unstable.
http://ccar.colorado.edu/asen5...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
Another virtue of lunar DRO is that when they do decay, they tend to drop into the moon or to escape, not down to the Earth

If your lazy mind cannot extrapolate what happens when you take ten times the amount of fuel that is in a nuclear reactor, pack it close together then remove the moderator from between the fuel rods then we're back to you having inadequate knowledge of the things we are discussing.

A mechanism for plutonium pyrophoricity and THE EXTINGUISHING OF PLUTONIUM FIRES.

At 8 - 10 times the size of the reactor core good luck getting close enough to it to put it out.

there are "ethical" funds out that don't invest in "dumping trash in oceans, distributing child labor, sex trafficking" (I'm not sure which S&P500 companies do that last one on your list though) - but guess what? They make much poorer returns than funds who have no such restrictions.

No they don't. To quote from the abstract:

After controlling for investment style, we find no evidence of significant differences in risk-adjusted returns between ethical and conventional funds for the 1990â"2001 period.

Also more recently in the same vein:
https://ideas.repec.org/p/jau/...
http://link.springer.com/artic...