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According to the first link:

Use of the 85th percentile speed concept is based on the theory that: the large majority of drivers: are reasonable and prudent

Unfortunately, 80% of participants in one study rated themselves as above-average drivers. This disproves the above theory that "the large majority of drivers are reasonable and prudent."

So the rationale behind the 85th percentile rule doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

If you have any further doubts that traffic engineers are raving lunatics, please watch this short video created by a recovering engineer. It's absolute madness.

1) "Eating late may influence the success of weight-loss therapy. "
You're not losing any weight from Circadian-rhythm eating. It might (literally: "may") affect the effectiveness of a diet that you are already on. Also, late-lunch = starving yourself.
2) Time-restricted eating helped stop the mice from gaining weight. It didn't help any of them lose weight.

Actually, the diets of the mice were wildly different and makes the conclusion suspect:
Normal chow (29% protein, 13% fat, 58% carbohydrates) vs. High fat diet (18% protein, 61% fat, 21% carbohydrates)
Low-protein and low-carbs mean those high-fat mice would be hungry all the time. Fat just isn't very filling.

On top of that, the high-fat mice just ate less (only about half as much). To me, those charts show that the time-restricted mice on the high-fat diet didn't gain weight because they were simply starving. Meanwhile, the ad lib high-fat mice were able to spread out their feeding times, which likely kept them from feeling so hungry, and they gained more weight because they weren't starving all the time. Single meal weight maintenance is well-known, supported, and fits the experimentation better.

So, yep, Circadian rhythm weight-loss is bullshit. But you can always just starve yourself to a better waistline with one meal a day. Well, as long as you're on a high-fat diet at least.

Citation on the mines causing radioactive contamination?

Ask and ye shall receive. http://www.nti.org/analysis/ar...

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/...

http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/tex...

http://cumulis.epa.gov/supercp...

http://thestarphoenix.com/busi...

http://masecoalition.org/navaj...

http://worstpolluted.org/proje...

http://technology.infomine.com...

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

http://forgottennavajopeople.o...

http://www.sric.org/uranium/do...

https://www.researchgate.net/p...

http://nuclear-news.net/2011/0...

http://thestarphoenix.com/busi...

Sounds like an education issue to me. Make sure consumers know the repercussions of their purchasing decisions, then let them choose for themselves. Just like organic food, if there is enough demand for exploitation-free products, a supply will be created. Given the current popularity of shopping at Walmart, I suspect most people don't give at shit how their products are created, as long as they are cheap!

First of all, your argumet that if the marked does not value non-explotation as an absolute unacceptability, then it is perfectly fine for some explotation to exists seems extremely unemphatically. Are you someone that don't give a shit over other people's health and dignity?

And secondly, educating consumers does not work, Zane, D.M. (et al.) Do less ethical consumers denigrate more ethical consumers? The effect of willful ignorance on judgments of others. Journal of Consumer Psychology (2015)

the problems that come along with conventional wind turbines - such as shade from the blades, accidents with birds, noise emissions, or impairment of the natural scenery - are negligible

OMG, someone thought of this 23 years ago.

Hire that guy instead.

Yucca Mountain was a no-brainer when we started looking into it and it's a no-brainer now. Those that oppose it are either (1) useful idiots, (2) financially interested in competing energy generation methods, or (3) actively and purposefully attempting to weaken or destroy the US.

So how do you apply your reasoning to the D.O.E who ruled it inappropriate to contain nuclear waste? Let's look at your points:

(1) useful idiots

Which Wikipedia defines as In political jargon, useful idiot is a term for people perceived as propagandists for a cause whose goals they are not fully aware of, and who are used cynically by the leaders of the cause., do you know who you are serving?

(2) financially interested in competing energy generation methods

You really don't know who is drinking who's milkshake do you? I suggest you read the 2005 Energy Act, Sec 638 onwards.

(3) actively and purposefully attempting to weaken or destroy the US.

Studies of Yucca mountain hydrology and the U.S Geological service's map of underground aquifers suggest that operating Yucca mountain would result in the gradual poisoning of the water supplies for Los Angeles and probably San Diego and Phoenix as well.

Sure, you can blind yourself to the facts, however if you do it in a way that ends up hurting a lot of people, it isn't a very good way to serve your country.

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. Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash, you *need* granite for a serious facility. The proposed Swedish facility is better designed than Yucca and is a good template for the U.S to use when it finds a suitable granite mountain, like the Rocky mountains, for example.

"Compared to the domestic manufacturing scenario, the energy use efficiency is generally 30% lower and the carbon footprint is almost doubled in the overseas manufacturing scenario."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

"the countries that produce the most photovoltaics today typically do the worst job of protecting the environment and their workers ... The quartz is extracted from mines, putting the miners at risk of one of civilization’s oldest occupational hazards, the lung disease silicosis ... turning metallurgical-grade silicon into a purer form called polysilicon—creates the very toxic compound silicon tetrachloride ... So some operations have just thrown away the by-product. If exposed to water—and that’s hard to prevent if it’s casually dumped—the silicon tetrachloride releases hydrochloric acid, acidifying the soil and emitting harmful fumes ... one of the largest photovoltaic companies in the world, spilled hydrofluoric acid into the nearby Mujiaqiao River, killing hundreds of fish. And farmers working adjacent lands, who used the contaminated water to clean their animals, accidently killed dozens of pigs"
http://spectrum.ieee.org/green...

These are a lot of "ifs" -- both the stated ones, and the ones implied (such as that there are singularities). Given that the singularity at the big bang can be removed ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... ), probably so can those in black holes.

Liberatrians (aka "classical liberals") have been shown to be smarter than both liberals and conservatives and multiple studies.

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

Data contradicts your assertions that libertarians think like a teenage boy, unless you only know teenage boys with higher than average IQ.

What, you've never heard of a superconducting snake?

No, DEMO has been expected to include power generation from the start and supply power to the grid. Here is one such recent reference, although there are many more. PROTO would be intended to be an actual model for a commercial plant, while DEMO would still be a hybrid of a research and commercial plant.

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

My own guess is that it will probably be a wash.

There are plenty of design studies that vary from all physics to heavy economics, and they go into far more detail thank just guesing. The first search result for something recent pulls up papers like this one that amount to construction + decades of operation costs on the order of 10-20 billion euros for DEMO, which still includes science equipment, while being bigger than ITER. That is on par with just construction cost with ITER.

We can statistically detect the effect from very low dose received in CT scans in large scale studies:

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

http://www.bmj.com/content/346...

I'm from Sweden, almost half of our electricity has come from hydro power and the other half from nuclear power.

Well, you guys and Finland and the world leaders in this technology. I commend your countries pragmatic approach to spent fuel containment, of which Japan has none.

Just to give other people here some context, one of the most major criticisms of Yucca Mountain was that the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility could not be applied to Yucca's geology. The reason to choose a specific geology (in addition to being seisemically stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to control the the amount of time ground water took to travel through the facility carrying radioactive isotopes, eventually, into the water table. If the amount of time it takes exceeds the decay rate of the longest lived radio-isotopes then the facility was providing defense in depth.

In addition, as a site like that would be containing pu-239, whose half life is around 25000 years, after considering the daughter products you need a geology capable of containing it for 500,000 years, which is what the original specification called for.

Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology (pdf) 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. The reason is Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash.

Feild studies have established that crystaline rocks like granite and bentonite clays can acheive this control. So far Finland is on track to be the first with an active facility with a Swedish facility also in the works.

Curiously, getting this right should be the one thing pro and anti nuclear folk should be able to agree on, if only for their own reasons. For Nuclear power to continue operating such a storage facility is essential so that new reactors can be deployed and materials removed from reactor sites. For people against Nuclear power such a facility would improve the safety of the industry as a whole by providing a place to store the materials permanently where there ingress into the environment can be controlled.

We don't see any improvements to governance, containment or anything else in Japans Nuclear industry thus very little logic in restarting it.

I'm from Sweden, almost half of our electricity has come from hydro power and the other half from nuclear power.

Well, you guys and Finland and the world leaders in this technology. I commend your countries pragmatic approach to spent fuel containment, of which Japan has none.

Just to give other people here some context, one of the most major criticisms of Yucca Mountain was that the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility could not be applied to Yucca's geology. The reason to choose a specific geology (in addition to being seisemically stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to control the the amount of time ground water took to travel through the facility carrying radioactive isotopes, eventually, into the water table. If the amount of time it takes exceeds the decay rate of the longest lived radio-isotopes then the facility was providing defense in depth.

In addition, as a site like that would be containing pu-239, whose half life is around 25000 years, after considering the daughter products you need a geology capable of containing it for 500,000 years, which is what the original specification called for.

Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology (pdf) 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. The reason is Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash.

Feild studies have established that crystaline rocks like granite and bentonite clays can acheive this control. So far Finland is on track to be the first with an active facility with a Swedish facility also in the works.

Curiously, getting this right should be the one thing pro and anti nuclear folk should be able to agree on, if only for their own reasons. For Nuclear power to continue operating such a storage facility is essential so that new reactors can be deployed and materials removed from reactor sites. For people against Nuclear power such a facility would improve the safety of the industry as a whole by providing a place to store the materials permanently where there ingress into the environment can be controlled.

We don't see any improvements to governance, containment or anything else in Japans Nuclear industry thus very little logic in restarting it.

One of the most major criticisms of Yucca Mountain was that the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility could not be applied to Yucca's geology. The reason to choose a specific geology (in addition to being seisemically stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to control the the amount of time ground water took to travel through the facility carrying radioactive isotopes, eventually, into the water table. If the amount of time it takes exceeds the decay rate of the longest lived radio-isotopes then the facility was providing defense in depth.

In addition, as a site like that would be containing pu-239, whose half life is around 25000 years, after considering the daughter products you need a geology capable of containing it for 500,000 years, which is what the original specification called for.

Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology (pdf) 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. The reason is Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash.

Feild studies have established that crystaline rocks like granite and bentonite clays can acheive this control. So far Finland is on track to be the first with an active facility with a Swedish facility also in the works.

Curiously, getting this right should be the one thing pro and anti nuclear folk should be able to agree on, if only for their own reasons. For Nuclear power to continue operating such a storage facility is essential so that new reactors can be deployed and materials removed from reactor sites. For people against Nuclear power such a facility would improve the safety of the industry as a whole by providing a place to store the materials permanently where there ingress into the environment can be controlled.

The DOE have got to build a facility somewhere. The right location has to be chosen because of all the rail and other infrastructure required to move the spent fuel has to be funded and built. This should not be a difficult thing for America to achieve by applying a scientific approach to selecting the site and building it instead of the politics used to select Yucca Mountain.

One of the most major criticisms of Yucca Mountain was that the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility could not be applied to Yucca's geology. The reason to choose a specific geology (in addition to being seisemically stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to control the the amount of time ground water took to travel through the facility carrying radioactive isotopes, eventually, into the water table. If the amount of time it takes exceeds the decay rate of the longest lived radio-isotopes then the facility was providing defense in depth.

In addition, as a site like that would be containing pu-239, whose half life is around 25000 years, after considering the daughter products you need a geology capable of containing it for 500,000 years, which is what the original specification called for.

Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology (pdf) 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. The reason is Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash.

Feild studies have established that crystaline rocks like granite and bentonite clays can acheive this control. So far Finland is on track to be the first with an active facility with a Swedish facility also in the works.

Curiously, getting this right should be the one thing pro and anti nuclear folk should be able to agree on, if only for their own reasons. For Nuclear power to continue operating such a storage facility is essential so that new reactors can be deployed and materials removed from reactor sites. For people against Nuclear power such a facility would improve the safety of the industry as a whole by providing a place to store the materials permanently where there ingress into the environment can be controlled.

The DOE have got to build a facility somewhere. The right location has to be chosen because of all the rail and other infrastructure required to move the spent fuel has to be funded and built. This should not be a difficult thing for America to achieve by applying a scientific approach to selecting the site and building it instead of the politics used to select Yucca Mountain.

Found the updated, published version: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Not sure if it's behind a paywall, as I'm on an academic network.

The USA has phenomenally low socio-economic mobility, and americans routinely overestimate what there is:

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

You do have a class society, almost exactly as the old European style ones, you just don't admit it.

No-one's advocating hating other citizens, quite the opposite in fact - they're arguing that low social mobility is bad for the citizenry in general, and is bad for the very republic that we enjoy. When the rich get richer and the gap between rich and poor narrows, no-one should complain, but when the gap increases as it has over the last couple of decades, it's a clear sign that we're heading for serious problems.

Dunning-Kruger proven for driving in 1981:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Every driver thinks they are better than average (including myself!)

From here

We employed these hybrid electrodes for building aqueous-based symmetric and asymmetric cells that can deliver energy densities up to 55.3 Wh kg-1, placing them among the best performing hybrid electrochemical capacitors.

any attempt to improve it makes it even more expensive.

Because standardization, mass manufacturing, simplified/fail safe designs will never, ever apply to nuclear technology.

Beneath that thin veneer of reasonableness lies a rabid anti-nuke zealot.

This is going to be an unpopular post. But the premise of the article - that the accident itself caused/will cause no deaths, only overreaction - is simply not true. And their "proof by ghost reference" doesn't help things any.

Here's proof by actual reference.

Radiation risks from Fukushima were more enhanced near the plant, while the evacuation measures were crucial for its reduction. According to our estimations, 730–1700 excess cancer incidents are expected of which around 65% may be fatal, which are very close to what has been already published (see references therein).

Estimates not good enough? Let's try actual measurements of thyroid cancer in children:

Assuming two years for duration on detectable level of cytology until clinical level, incidence rate ratio was 26.98 (95% confidence interval, 14.12-48.61) in the nearest area, and in Fukushima city, it was 19.41 (95% confidence interval,?9.62-37.31), compared with the Japanese mean annual incidence among those aged 15-19 years from 1975 to 2008 (i.e., 5 per 1,000,000).

They do note that there's a risk of screening effects, but given the correlation between rates and distance from the plant, they believe that the outbreak is real and needs further study

What did I mean earlier by "proof by ghost reference"? Their first two links just go to NYT search pages that aren't fruitful in backing up anything they claim. The third link takes some work but you can dig out the actual report in question. The NYT article describes it thusly:

Even among Fukushima workers, the number of additional cancer cases in coming years is expected to be so low as to be undetectable, a blip impossible to discern against the statistical background noise.

The actual report says:

The latency time for late radiation health effects can be decades, and therefore it is not possible to discount the potential occurrence of such effects among an exposed population by observations a few years after exposure ... Among the group of workers who received effective doses of 100 mSv or more, UNSCEAR concluded that “an increased risk of cancer would be expected in the future. However, any increased incidence of cancer in this group is expected to be indiscernible because of the difficulty of confirming such a small incidence against the normal statistical fluctuations in cancer incidence.”

Okay, so we do expect more cancer in them - the sample size however is low enough (174 people) that it's hard to prove statistical significance. But wait, this too is an indirect reference - what does its source say? Just a second, but first let's cite one more thing from the IAEA report the NYT article cites (a WHO study):

For leukaemia, the lifetime risks are predicted to increase by up to around 7% over baseline cancer rates in males exposed as infants; for breast cancer, the estimated lifetime risks increase by up to around 6% over baseline rates in females exposed as infants; for all solid cancers, the estimated lifetime risks increase by up to around 4% over baseline rates in females exposed as infants; and for thyroid cancer, the estimated lifetime risk increases by up to around 70% over baseline rates in females exposed as infants. These percentages represent estimated relative increases over the baseline rates and are not estimated absolute risks for developing such cancers”

But back to the UNSCEAR report: here's its section on cancer risks that the IAEA claim cited by the Times was based on:

40. For adults in Fukushima Prefecture, the Committee estimates average life

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

They can make formic acid much more efficiently than methanol, and it is actually a better option for fuel cells since it does not cross the polymer membrane.

There are more recent papers (in 2013 and more recently) that debunk the debunkers. We could do that kind of back-and-forth forever. You've proved nothing. The issue isn't settled. ... again, there have been more recent papers as well. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-09-10]

Jane, don't you see the irony here? I repeatedly gave you links and even gave you ready-to-run source code with data included, all showing that Houston and Dean 2011 was a massive cherry-pick. In response, you actually cited Houston and Dean 2011! Why, if all these other more recent papers (which Jane doesn't even name) supposedly exist? Again, read the 2013 IPCC AR5 SPM:

"Proxy and instrumental sea level data indicate a transition in the late 19th to the early 20th century from relatively low mean rates of rise over the previous two millennia to higher rates of rise (high confidence). It is likely that the rate of global mean sea level rise has continued to increase since the early 20th century."

If Jane is hiding blockbuster peer-reviewed papers that overturn that latest 2013 literature review, why would Jane keep them secret? Unless they don't exist, and as usual Jane is just 100% bluster.

... if I am not mistaken the original Humlum paper wasn't even actually published until 2012. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-09-10]

Good grief. Jane, you're slipping again. The Humlum paper you and other Sky Dragon Slayers promoted had NOTHING to do with sea level rise! Here's what the Humlum paper was about:

Paper: atmospheric CO2 *lags* sea-surface temperature change by 12 months or so. Since surface temperature increases occur before CO2 increases, CO2 could NOT be the cause. bit.ly/YTcYvI [Lonny Eachus, 2013-02-25]

Lonny linked to Humlum et al. 2013 which mistakenly claimed that "Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980."

A real skeptic would wonder why Humlum et al. analyzed the long-term increase in atmospheric CO2 by taking its time derivative. Differentiation is a high-pass filter because it amplifies high frequency variations and attenuates slow, long-term variations.

Here's why. If A(w) is the amplitude at angular frequency "w", its time dependence is A(w)*exp(i*w*t). Its time derivative is i*w*A(w)*exp(i*w*t). So taking the time derivative multiplies the amplitude by a large "w" for fast frequencies, and multiplies it by a small "w" for slow, long-term frequencies. This amplifies high frequency variations and attenuates slow, long-term variations.

Since our CO2 emissions increase atmospheric CO2 over the long term, Prof. Humlum's analysis can't even detect the rise he claims to be analyzing. However, his method amplifies the faster annual carbon cycle. Prof. Humlum "discovered" summer and winter.

Ferdinand

There are more recent papers (in 2013 and more recently) that debunk the debunkers. We could do that kind of back-and-forth forever. You've proved nothing. The issue isn't settled. ... again, there have been more recent papers as well. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-09-10]

Jane, don't you see the irony here? I repeatedly gave you links and even gave you ready-to-run source code with data included, all showing that Houston and Dean 2011 was a massive cherry-pick. In response, you actually cited Houston and Dean 2011! Why, if all these other more recent papers (which Jane doesn't even name) supposedly exist? Again, read the 2013 IPCC AR5 SPM:

"Proxy and instrumental sea level data indicate a transition in the late 19th to the early 20th century from relatively low mean rates of rise over the previous two millennia to higher rates of rise (high confidence). It is likely that the rate of global mean sea level rise has continued to increase since the early 20th century."

If Jane is hiding blockbuster peer-reviewed papers that overturn that latest 2013 literature review, why would Jane keep them secret? Unless they don't exist, and as usual Jane is just 100% bluster.

... if I am not mistaken the original Humlum paper wasn't even actually published until 2012. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-09-10]

Good grief. Jane, you're slipping again. The Humlum paper you and other Sky Dragon Slayers promoted had NOTHING to do with sea level rise! Here's what the Humlum paper was about:

Paper: atmospheric CO2 *lags* sea-surface temperature change by 12 months or so. Since surface temperature increases occur before CO2 increases, CO2 could NOT be the cause. bit.ly/YTcYvI [Lonny Eachus, 2013-02-25]

Lonny linked to Humlum et al. 2013 which mistakenly claimed that "Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980."

A real skeptic would wonder why Humlum et al. analyzed the long-term increase in atmospheric CO2 by taking its time derivative. Differentiation is a high-pass filter because it amplifies high frequency variations and attenuates slow, long-term variations.

Here's why. If A(w) is the amplitude at angular frequency "w", its time dependence is A(w)*exp(i*w*t). Its time derivative is i*w*A(w)*exp(i*w*t). So taking the time derivative multiplies the amplitude by a large "w" for fast frequencies, and multiplies it by a small "w" for slow, long-term frequencies. This amplifies high frequency variations and attenuates slow, long-term variations.

Since our CO2 emissions increase atmospheric CO2 over the long term, Prof. Humlum's analysis can't even detect the rise he claims to be analyzing. However, his method amplifies the faster annual carbon cycle. Prof. Humlum "discovered" summer and winter.

Ferdinand

You do have to be careful with fertilizer, too much injures the soil's micro-flora which inhibits the crop's ability to absorb essential nutrients and minerals; modern farmers use a crop production service that analyses the soil, considers the crop being planted and applies a custom blended mixture of fertilizer and minerals. Production increases in Europe have been flat, it's hard to tell if this is because of their abhorance of GMO and pesticides, antiquated farming methods or increased bio-mass monoculture, but European soil is losing organic carbon compounds and fertility.

Boy, you're really going on that citation thing, you know? Completely missed where I posted sources?

Here, have another couple.

Well, here's one - Note "sham".
and another.

The study I'm remembering was slightly different, but I'm being drowned out by different studies.

As to Yucca being unsafe for nuclear waste according to the DoE... cite that please. I can't find anything that says that. What I found was report after report after report after article after article saying it was safe. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10... [nytimes.com] What are you talking about?

You are mis-quoting me. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is "inappropriate to contain nuclear waste". So the most appropriate way to move the Nuclear Industry forward is to develop a geologically stable containment facility (I am reluctant to call plutonium 'waste') inside a mountain. That could also, potentially, house a reactor facility, and an infrastructure plan to move that 70,000 tons of plutonium to that facility would begin to look like sound nuclear policy.

As for safe, well its seismic stability is a good measure of that and I doubt the NYT is qualified to make that assessment.

And then of course there is the whole issue with the storage for the spent fuel.

First of all lets clear up the time frame here, plutonium is radioactive for 25000 years before it decays into it's daughter product, which will then be radioactive for ??000 years and iterate 20 odd times. That's why I refer to it as 'geological time frames.

Yucca mountain is not a appropriate because it is made of pumice and 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. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste, and 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.

As to your rebuttal to my point about nuclear storage... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] "" The location has been highly contested by environmentalists and some Nevada residents[2]. It was approved in 2002 by the United States Congress. Federal funding for the site ended in 2011 under the Obama Administration via amendment to the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, passed on April 14, 2011.[3] The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons.[3] "" Quote: For political not technical or safety reasons.

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. 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.

Go look up the wiki on the act if you are not convinced and you'll see that Yucca was *put* in Nevada because their represenatives did not attend.

Common myth? I can't believe you said that. Seriously. That issue is categorically lost to you.

Act

But I wasn't aware of any "oh, it turns out" explanation for it

It wasn't an "oh, it turns out" but a prediction made before the event actually happened. This paper talks about some of the predictions in detail, although after the SN, but it also has some useful references.

When I see the word Toxins, my bullshit radar activates

I am a physician and yes, my BS meter usually goes up when people who have no understanding of human anatomy, physiology, histology, biochemistry, or pathology start rambling on about toxins. But take it from person who deals with sepsis and critical ill patients on a weekly basis. Bacterial endotoxins are the real deal. There are a significant source of morbidity and mortality in severely ill patients. Also, please realize that this research is in collaboration with Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard's Engineering department.

That being said, I pulled the original article and on first read, it seems to be a potential game-changer. My questions:

1. They liken this to dialysis. Many critically ill patients can not tolerate dialysis due to fluid shifts across the membrane....What sorts of flow are required scaled up to humans would be required. Could this be run on a CRRT-HF type circuit or a SLED schedule?

2. They use FcMBL adsorbed to dialysis tubing. I only see animal studies. What, if any, interaction does this with human proteins and cell lines. e.g. if it causes hemolysis or Agglutination, this would destroy the utility.

3. What is the observed length of endotoxin/pathogen clearance? Ties back into #1.

4. I presume this is Fc based (the only description I saw was "FcMBL protein was expressed and purified from a stable transfection of CHO-DG44 cells "), is this Fc, human, murine, equine, porcine, leporine, or bovine?

More questions will come up...but I have a lecture to prepare...

The current strategy to beat the drought is to cut back. Not bad for the short term, but technology can do much better if we worked on it. While desalination is expensive today it could be *much* cheaper with the application of much lower cost methods like carrbon nanofilters as described here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... http://www.industrytap.com/wat...

Whatever happened to encasing the waste in glass?

It's not glass, it's called C22 and this paper might help answer that question.

One can never expect any praise for such steps here on Slashdot. But allow me to put my cents in favor of this ban. First, you could look at Ted Bundy's last interview where he confesses that his career as the America's most dreaded serial killer kicked off due to pornography. And he witnessed the same in many other inmates of his: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Now, Ted Bundy was no social psychologist. So, here is one study done on the effects of pornography: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... So, blatantly saying that porn has no side effects and it doesn't mess with your brain is stupid. It is the first time in human history that pornographic material is so readily accessible to us. We don't yet know what harmful effects it can have in future. Besides inducing violence, it is a known fact that pornography also messes up the sexual preferences and real sex doesn't remain that beautiful.

The vast majority of deaths are caused by one species, though, Plasmodium falciparum . Infections from other species can cause serious illness but are rarely fatal.

However vaccines for any kind of parasite are difficult and only recently has real progress been made. As of this 1998 review there were no effective vaccines against any human parasite.

In any event, there is plenty of evidence of biological differences in the brains of men and women...

Vaague handwaving over common-sense notions isn't systematic evidence.

It took me about 3 minutes to find the following studies showing that brain structure/chemistry is indeed different for men and women:

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
http://nro.sagepub.com/content...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
http://www.brain-mind-institut...
http://scan.oxfordjournals.org...

The last two of the studies listed above don't just show gender specific biological differences in the brain, they link the differences to skills/behavior.

Honestly, a trained chimp could find this stuff. Why is it you can't?

In any event, there is plenty of evidence of biological differences in the brains of men and women...

Vaague handwaving over common-sense notions isn't systematic evidence.

It took me about 3 minutes to find the following studies showing that brain structure/chemistry is indeed different for men and women:

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
http://nro.sagepub.com/content...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
http://www.brain-mind-institut...
http://scan.oxfordjournals.org...

The last two of the studies listed above don't just show gender specific biological differences in the brain, they link the differences to skills/behavior.

Honestly, a trained chimp could find this stuff. Why is it you can't?

It's a case of some is good, more is not necessarily better. A few articles that came instantly to hand (tho the one I wanted, with hard data, managed to elude quick search):

http://www.medicinenet.com/scr...
http://www.thyroid.org/ata-sta...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
http://www.thyroidresearchjour...

To what degree it relies on underlying conditions...?? Fact is about 25% of the "healthy" population, and 80% of people over 50 years old, have some degree of thyroid dysfunction (an adaptation against starvation especially in less-productive ie. older individuals). Suddenly that risk pool doesn't sound so small, does it??

Increases in CO2 will cause lower yields for our staple crops, meaning more will have to be planted to maintain the supply.

Basic biology tells you that that is implausible, and experimental data contradicts what you are saying.

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

Probable effects of increasing global atmospheric CO2 concentration on crop yield, crop water use, and world climate are discussed. About 430 observations of the yields of 37 plant species grown with CO2 enrichment were extracted from the literature and analyzed. CO2 enrichment increased agricultural weight yields by an 36%. Additional analysis of 81 experiments which had controlled CO2 concentrations showed that yields will probably increase by 33% with a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Another 46 observations of the effects of CO2 enrichment on transpiration were extracted and averaged. These data showed that a doubling of CO2 concentration could reduce transpiration by 34%, which combined with the yield increase, indicates that water use efficiency may double.

http://www.nature.com/srep/201...

We evaluated how soybean yields have been enhanced by historical atmospheric [CO2] increases in three major soybean-producing countries. The estimated average yields during 2002–2006 in the USA, Brazil, and China were 4.34%, 7.57%, and 5.10% larger, respectively, than the average yields estimated using the atmospheric [CO2] of 1980.

We will lose a lot more than coral.

Yes we will.

I love how you put "mitigation and migration" in there as if they would take an afternoon's work to sort out.

No, they will take centuries to "sort out". But that's OK because climate change takes centuries and because humans tend not to even notice change on the scale of centuries.

You really are not too interested in being accurate, are you?

It is impossible to "be accurate" about the effects of climate change. Anybody who pretends to be able to "be accurate" about the effects of climate change a charlatan and a liar.

OP links only to a popular article, which does not reference the original study. Here is the full text of Lawrence NS, Verbruggen F, Morrison S, Adams RC, Chambers CD (2015). Stopping to food can reduce intake. Effects of stimulus-specificity and individual differences in dietary restraint. Appetite, 85, 91-103.: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666314005194.

Yes, they used ancient equipment, without explaining why (although that would be irrelevant in a neuroscience paper). Perhaps a Matlab script on a second-hand machine makes for an easily-configured (by experimental psychologists) appliance for various "see an image and type a response" tests. If it is user friendly, the psych lab won't throw it out until they can't load images onto it (no more 5.25" floppies, zip disks, token ring network, etc.).

From the abstract:

"Western diets are high in fat and sucrose and can influence behavior and gut microbiota. There is growing evidence that altering the microbiome can influence the brain and behavior. This study was designed to determine whether diet-induced changes in the gut microbiota could contribute to alterations in anxiety, memory or cognitive flexibility." http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Surely you can understand that much without getting your panties in a twist. It's not a public policy document. It's a straight forward research paper published in a peer reviewed journal. The topic is pretty easy to understand and the experiment rather straight forward.

The paper is here if anyone wants to cough up the cash to read it: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Before the Civil War they said freeing the slaves would ruin the economy

Emphasised that for you.

But yeah, there's little doubt that the value of slaves as assets and production & fears of economic catastrophe were a major factor in the Civil War, though the war itself was an even bigger economic disaster.

The primary byproducts are carbon dioxide and water, neither of which is a poison at the concentrations at which they are currently generated.

CO2 isn't a poison - but CO is, as are SO2, NOx, formaldehyde, benzene, mercury etc, all of which are produced by burning fossil fuels. Of course our economy isn't "based on" these poison gases, but it is based on the burning of fossil fuels, and the resulting toxic byproducts from fossil fuel electricity alone in the US is estimated at "$361.7–886.5 billion annually, representing 2.5–6.0% of the national GDP."

Mod parent down for misrepresenting what GP wrote by dishonestly converting "just as reasonable" to "equal estimated probability". There is no reasonable argument for assigning probability either way because extrapolating backwards beyond a singularity at creation is not possible. Any assertion to the contrary is falling for the Bayesian bullshit epistemology that Popper and then other critical rationalists discredited time and again throughout the 2nd half of the 20th century. Selecting one option is no more or less reasonable than choosing another and, in the cases of those showing a preference, just reveals their biases.

While GP would have preferably written that it's just as (un)reasonable to say any one thing created the universe vs. any other thing whatsoever, rather than just mention the two ideas that he did, it's quite clear he did not intend to imply it's a dichotomy.

Both parent and GP failed to note that a creation event isn't necessary, because there is no contradiction to or evidence against a model without an initial singularity that posits an eternal pre-inflatinonary universe: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... (note that in this case, the Big Bang is not a discontinuity as in, say multiverse models where a quantum fluctuation may spawn another universe).

Okay, nothing in the linked article (that I could find) points to the actual study. After some googling, people are apparently reporting on this paper.

The paper has these highlights:

A survey of nearly 7000 Internet users tested associations between personality traits, past behavior, and viewing cat-related media online.

The study also examined Internet users’ motivations for consuming cat-related content, including emotion regulation and procrastination.

Additionally, it explored effects of Internet cat consumption on emotional states and enjoyment of this type of digital media.

Results point to certain personality types being more strongly associated with Internet cat consumption.

Furthermore, results support a conceptual model arguing that the happiness gained from viewing Internet cats can moderate the relationship between procrastination motives, guilt, and enjoyment.

None of this, and nothing in the abstract, is anywhere close to what others and linked articles in the post summary claim.

However, taking an austere view of the highlights, note that 7,000 people were polled and *self reported* that they felt good after watching cat videos.

Also, what does "[viewing] can moderate the relationship between procrastination motives, guilt, and enjoyment" mean? What is this study reporting, and how does one use this information?

"Moderate the relationship between things" is complete non-content speech. It's the thing one would expect from a politician trying to dodge a question.

Also - papers have "highlights" sections now?

And this is the trick: continuity is a core aspect of the experience of consciousness; otherwise, this scenario is identical to killing the original and "activating" the cloned mind.

One thing that could throw a kink into the scenario, however, is the possibility (albeit, IMHO, less than even) that some core aspects of consciousness are encoded as quantum information, in which case it cannot be cloned (by the no-cloning theorem). Some hints that this may be the case are to be found in recent experimental research: the most important result is http://www.researchgate.net/pu... but also see http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... and http://iopscience.iop.org/1742... as well as, for an overview of this area, http://journals.sfu.ca/jnonloc...