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Eugenics was based on principles of plant biology and its evolution and extended well beyond race. It was the scientific rage at the time and started with observations by Gregor Johann Mendel who was studying evolution of strains of the pea plant.

Here is a scientific American article on it published in 1911. Notice the sentence "The absurdity of legislation to cure social evils without scientific facts to base that legislation upon, is no more apparent than in the disposal of the insane You will find it more closely resembles Darwinism and evolution rather then your claim of racist bigots. You will also find the alarming claim of scientific fact was actually a push to end a "cured" mans ability to reproduce based on this scientific fact.

As I said, look up the scientific theory of Eugenics. You will find quite a bit of science involved in it. Of course it is misapplied and bent in ways, but it was a crowning achievement of science at one time.

Yeah, sometimes, and I found my source after the fact with a bit of searching. It basically says what I did above and what you said - thorium and uranium are concentrated about 10x in the ash and are either processed out or go up the stack, but the added radiation is really not a big deal. The radiation burns you get from that giant fusion reactor in the sky are definitely a lot more risky.

You don't seem to be getting an answer to your "what percent is man made" question.

That's odd.

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+percentage+of+global+warming+is+man+made

Leading to:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=three-quarters-of-climate

Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed more than about one-quarter of the temperature rise observed in the past 60 years

Good enough for you?

Got to love the U.K. 'You viewed porn on your computer?! OMG You are a child molester! GAOL 4 U." Don't worry though, the religious right here in the U.S. desires Taliban like laws to the same effect.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-side-of-smut is a decent summary of a few studies that pretty much say 'What internet porn problem?'

If you google 'effects of porn on children' you'll get tons of results saying the terrible scary things that will happen, but most made on actual studies read more like this http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/webporn.aspx .

So it seems that all this hand waving by Cameron is about getting reelected and society control.

What regulation that allowed viable competition was removed? As far as I am aware, both cable providers and telephone providers have been regulated as local monopolies for almost as long as the former has existed and since before I was born for the latter. Unless someone else is allowed to run the cabling/fiber there can be no real competition. The fact that there are no more than two options just about everywhere is a product of regulation, not a product of the removal of regulation.

I believe he was referring to a wrongheaded 2002 FCC reclassification of broadband Internet service as an information service rather than a telecommunications service.

"In theory, this step implied that broadband was equivalent to a content provider (such as AOL or Yahoo!) and was not a means to communicate, such as a telephone line. In practice, it has stifled competition.

Phone companies have to compete for your business. Even though there may be just one telephone jack in your home, you can purchase service from any one of a number of different long-distance providers. Not so for broadband Internet. Here consumers generally have just two choices: the cable company, which sends data through the same lines used to deliver television signals, and the phone company, which uses older telephone lines and hence can only offer slower service."

Just by smoking a cigarette, you inhale radioactive Polonium isotope 210.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=radioactive-smoke

Hilarious. Alcohol is not only bad for your liver it's bad for your brain too. Alcohol kills your brain cells.

Interesting that no one here appears to be aware that the brain is created with THC.
Marijuana-Like Chemicals Guide Fetal Brain Cells: Scientific American

There are also significant studies showing benefits for Alzheimers (yes, imagine that - the disease that causes you to lose your mind/memory, helped by weed)
Research Reveals Medical Marijuana Has Benefits For Alzheimer's

Many other diseases have been shown to have their symptoms almost immediately lessened or completely abated from marijuana use: Depression, Schizophrenia, Chronic Pain Syndrome, among many others.

Can it make a better programmer? Possibly, depends on the programmer and the type of marijuana - of which there is basically an infinite variety - since it is so easily crossbred.
One of the effects of some types of marijuana is enhanced thought, as it is activating all the THC receptors in the brain (you know those things that developed the neural network that your brain functions with). Marijuana can speed the thought process, wherein instead of logically stepping through logical steps of A to B to C to D, your brain instead is able to almost time-warp from A directly to D.

Marijuana has also been shown to help people focus on a task - especially creative tasks like music, writing, or yes - even programming.

If all you know about Marijuana is what you've seen in the Movies or the pot-heads from high-school, then you don't know much.

The night sky on Earth (assuming it survives) will change dramatically as our Milky Way galaxy merges with its neighbors and distant galaxies recede beyond view.
The quickening expansion will eventually pull galaxies apart faster than light, causing them to drop out of view. This process eliminates reference points for measuring expansion and dilutes the distinctive products of the big bang to nothingness. In short, it erases all the signs that a big bang ever occurred.
To our distant descendants, the universe will look like a small puddle of stars in an endless, changeless void.

See also: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2012/09/10/the-science-of-pomato-plants-and-fruit-salad-trees/
http://www.fruitsaladtrees.com/
In theory you might be able to do tomato+ chilli + potato + other stuff in the same family. Not sure if they'd taste good though ;).

So each tray gets its time in the sun while going up the tower, and in the shade going down (or vice versa). It seems this would work well only if the plants you are growing are happy getting half the sunlight available at your location. I'm sure you could get a similar effect in horizontal format with little difficulty.

If you can get friction low enough, you might be able to make the whole thing run simply by watering the plants at the top of the down part of the cycle, so the weight differential makes it go.

Scientific American had an article on vertical farms some time back (paywalled here.) As I recall, they had a much more energy intensive design (growing lights etc.) My objection was that for anything like that you could make work in a sky scraper, you could much more cheaply put the same technology out in rural areas.

The Singapore plan only works if there are areas you're happy to cast into shade (and block views from) with these towers. They can't be close together, or they'll be in each other's shade.

Incidentally, Singapore's climate has remarkably little annual variation. The hottest month has average high temperature of 31.7C, the coldest month has average high temperature of 30.0C. Rain is more variable, but still by less than a factor of two through the year. (This is not from personal experience.) If anyone knows of somewhere with less weather variability, I'd be interested to hear of it.

Considering it wasn't too long ago that Italy put geologists on trial for failing to predict an earthquake, it's a bit difficult to give this latest development anything more than "there they go again...."

Not really. He was on trial for negligence in assessing the risks and developing the emergency plans.

...and a whole host of other norm breaking data: "Did climate change cause hurricane sandy"

You'd have to do some pretty liberal stretching of Genesis to make it fit what we know about evolution.

Not really. The creation account in Genesis has been understood by knowledgeable Bible followers as not literal since at least the 1st century BC by reading into it a mythic description of Platonic archetypes. These can, in turn, be easily made compatible with modern hard sciences, either directly or via some of its derivative versions, such as Aritotle's. So much so, in fact, that any Christian who follows some version of Aristotle's philosophy, meaning most Catholics and a ton of historic Protestants, don't mind evolution at all, ditto most branches of Judaism, the older Islamic ones etc. What doesn't necessarily mean they profess belief in it, only that they don't mind either way, as it just isn't an important subject.

The problem you guys have there in the USA with your Bible Belt Christian fundamentalists and related nutjobs is that most of its pastors, priests, reverends or whatever the favored term is nowadays are philosophically illiterate.

Yep, and are making their brains smaller.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=religious-experiences-shrink-part-of-brain

But who on earth is silly enough to take the bible literally? I was brought up a Christian, and not once did anyone tell me that the bible is a literal documentary on events, but rather a collection of stories written after they happened (especially the old testament, which is basically cobbled together from bits of the torah, and some other things). I've also not met a single Christian who takes the bible literally (and I even went to Sunday school).

Allow me to introduce you, then.

Here it is from the official website of the Southern Baptist Convention(in the context of the discussion of a book outlining creation):

Therefore be it RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, June 10-12, 1980 reaffirm our belief in a literal biblical creation and a literal heaven and hell

That's the 2nd largest denomination in the USA. Most of the so called Evangelical churches have also embraced it. If I were to write up a list of the churches in my town alone, I would feel completely comfortable laying money on the fact that a random selection from that list will believe in the literal interpretation of the bible.

And that is just one, albeit large, Protestant group. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholics also have sections of the bible which they believe MUST be interpreted literally, including pieces of the Old Testament. Indeed, the majority of Christians(I'd say 100%, but I'm sure there is some sect out there that says, "yeah, we're christian but we think it's all a metaphor") uphold a literal interpretation in some form. Tenets of the faith like Original Sin and the entire point of the blood sacrifice of Jesus are based on such interpretations.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=religious-experiences-shrink-part-of-brain

Stupid people with small brains. oh ya.

Yes, but the validity of the observation doesn't change regardless of whether it originated with Seneca or Gibbon or Gibbon paraphrased Seneca. The bottom line is that politicians find it far easier to manipulate the general populous by appealing to emotional beliefs than to facts and logic. Good article at Scientific American looking at how both the left and the right manipulate their followers by preying on the follower's irrational beliefs.

Cheers,
Dave

According to this study, nerds and bullies are similar. This would lend insight as to why each acts in very similar ways. Arrogance can be viewed as a way of self defense. It is the psychological equivalence to a physical response.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=bully-or-victim-more-similar-than-w-10-07-10

I have no doubt that we will create a life form from "scratch". Though all that will prove is that an intelligent being can create life from basic elements... that won't exactly rattle a religious person's belief, now will it? :)

Far more interesting would be an experiment that replicates some early conditions on earth and then looks for life-building steps to occur. They don't all need to happen at once - you just need a good estimate of the chances of each step occurring. From that point, statistics should tell you how likely it was for life to pop out of those conditions. There was a pretty cool article in Scientific American a few years ago that I cannot find. This one is a good read, even if it's not the one I was looking for.

Radiation from coal is not that the carbon itself is radioactive, it's that there are amounts of radioactive uranium and thorium in the actual material being burned. That material is released from the coal it is embedded in by the coal being burned as fly ash. The production of ash does in fact release some of the same elements and compounds that you might associate with a nuclear plant, but in somewhat greater quantities.

You are correct, however, in stating that it is a background threat, but so is a nuclear plant running in normal operation. So, the usual point about coal releasing more radioactivity on a daily basis than nuclear plants is 100% true, it's just also true that neither one of them is much of a threat.

From http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste&page=2:

"So why does coal waste appear so radioactive? It's a matter of comparison: The chances of experiencing adverse health effects from radiation are slim for both nuclear and coal-fired power plants—they're just somewhat higher for the coal ones. "You're talking about one chance in a billion for nuclear power plants," Christensen says. "And it's one in 10 million to one in a hundred million for coal plants."

Since there is a scare factor involved in nuclear plants, I don't think it is unfair to point out that coal plants, which are one option for base power generation that includes nuclear, also release the exact same material, in relatively larger quantities, and it is not considered as much of a threat. That means that the other pollutants of coal should not be overlooked in a comparison with nuclear, because the "scary" pollutant is released by both. In that comparison, coal should rightly scare more people, but it doesn't. This illustrates a bit of the irrationality of opposing nuclear plants while coal plants, which are worse on a daily basis, tend to get a pass.

Of course, if a nuclear plant goes Chernobyl, then all bets are off. Even then, an event of that size is a serious problem for the regional area, and events like that are extremely uncommon and due to older technologies and poor handing. Even factoring in the worst nuclear events, the average threat to humans worldwide is not much more than the background.

Considering it wasn't too long ago that Italy put geologists on trial for failing to predict an earthquake, it's a bit difficult to give this latest development anything more than "there they go again...."

Italy needs to get some clean water or something, they are seriously retarded. Probably has to do with having the Pope in their country.

People want to blame bad stuff happening on everything but the truth. Bad shit happens. That dude got a tumor. Would he have a tumor if there was no cell phones? Most likely. Would he blame something else? Definitely. Probably on a mp3 player because he wears it when he works out or something stupid like that.

Sure, there are people who get sick because they spend time exposed to stuff, and that sucks and is preventable, but mostly when people get sick they blame it on shit, other then life.

Some of us are going to be lucky, some of us are going to be unlucky. Some of us will get cancer, some of us will not get cancer. It's called life, take your blows and deal with it. I have.

Considering it wasn't too long ago that Italy put geologists on trial for failing to predict an earthquake, it's a bit difficult to give this latest development anything more than "there they go again...."

This is the second Scientific American article I've seen today glorifying psychopaths. I wonder what the deal is?

There is an ocean of difference between a tech company like Google and a pharmaceutical company. The latter openly seeks to offload expensive and time-consuming research to academia. Scientific research (particularly in Medicine and Chemistry) is just too time consuming, expensive, and risky for the short-term mentality of publicly-traded companies. And just because the founders still "control" a company, that does not mean that they are immune to share-holder pressure. The board can force a CEO out if they deem the CEO's actions detrimental to shareholder value, no matter who the CEO is.

APK's Genome Reveals Some Neandertal Lineage:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ozzy-osbourne-genome

* "I suck Neandertal cock"...

APK

P.S.=> I've got no problems with that, especially when I make tunes as good as this one on his bone flute ( "Sucker of Cock" ) -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXWPcFtra4A

... apk

Ozzy Osbourne's Genome Reveals Some Neandertal Lineage:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ozzy-osbourne-genome

* "Will wonders never cease"...

APK

P.S.=> I've got no problems with that, especially when he makes tunes as good as this one ( "Killer of GIANTS" ) -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXWPcFtra4A

... apk

Nah, it's so that it can learn to create cat pictures and videos, which is needed to solve the "peak cat" problem.

Scientific American covered the same topic a few months back. The article primarily focused on the U.S. but agrees with TFA. There is a link on the sidebar of the Scientific American article to a nice interactive presentation on "where you live determines whether your plug-in is better for the environment."

Cheers,
Dave

You can start here, where they'll tell you the organic farmer you consulted with is, at best mistaken, at worst lying through his teeth:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/07/18/mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/ (See especially, the section labeled "Myth #1," and its footnotes.)

Click through to some of the references, these aren't "myantiorganicblog.org" links, they're links to the relevant safety and regulatory agencies who approve and control the use of the term "organic." If you want "organic" to mean something different, that's very nice... but "organic" has a specific meaning defined by law, and if you use it in association with your crops, there are specific guidelines that your practices and production must meet. "Not using pesticides at all" is emphatically, unequivocally NOT one of those guidelines.

Pointing to a guy whose livelihood is tied to people's warm associations of the word 'organic' and saying "he said nobody uses anything harmful in organic production!" certainly raises questions of conflicts of interest.

When someone points out that I'm seriously wrong about something I believe and has research to educate me, I both hate it and appreciate it at the same time. I hate finding out when I'm ignorant of something but not as much as I hate remaining that way.

So when someone is ignorant, like say believing pesticides in organic production aren't chemicals spayed over the food, then I try to help them correct that ignorance with a bit of information they must not be aware of.

I found this interesting, perhaps you will as well: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/07/18/mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/ (she has good references on the subjects and there are even more of some potential value if you're willing to wade through miles of comments.)

Many large organic farms use pesticides liberally. They're organic by certification, but you'd never know it if you saw their farming practices.

Your organically labeled food may not be more nutrient rich and safer, or... maybe your sources are. It depends on your sources, not the label.

In the end, it really depends on exactly what methods are used by crop producers. Both organic and conventional farms vary widely in this respect. Some conventional farms use no pesticides. Some organic farms spray their crops twice a month. Of course, some conventional farms spray just as frequently, if not more so, and some organic farms use no pesticides whatsoever.

You know, there's something called "experience".

Also know as "anecdote", also known as "a poor substitute for evidence".

A statistical analysis of the evidence shows little if any benefit to head injury rates due to helmet laws. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410838/

Part of the problem is that it's possible that wearing helmets may provide impact protection in the event of an accident, and yet make someone more likely to get into an accident in the first place. There are several possible mechanisms whereby that could occur:

• putting a weight on your head affects your balance
• helmets affect vision and hearing
• people wearing helmets may unconsciously take greater risks
• helmets affect sweating and temperature regulation, and thus could affect fatigue and reaction time
• drivers and pedestrians may behave differently around helmeted vs. non-helmeted cyclists.

Also, helmet laws and/or the perception created by helmet campaigns that biking is dangerous leads to fewer people biking; and making cycling rarer changes driver behavior and road planning strategies in a way that can raise accident risk

I used to wear a helmet, but lost the habit after spending a few months in Japan -- over there, almost everyone bikes and no one wears a helmet. (Also, bike lanes there are on the sidewalk, not the road.)

Your attitude is incredibly ignorant and short sighted. Look at this graph.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/multimedia/0212-spacejunk/img/chart-historical-debris-growth.jpg

Then tell me space debris will not become a problem.

And yes, collisions have happened.

http://www.space.com/5542-satellite-destroyed-space-collision.html

More will happen, if people don't come together and deal with it.

I remember an article on Scientific American about limb regeneration. Salamanders are the gold standard for regenerating limbs but the article stated that rat/mice are capable of fully regenerate fingers (don't remember if talking of common rat or MRL mice) and with treatment a human could regrow part of fingers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_(biology)#Mammals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Roths_Large http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218392774&cat=1_2 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=regrowing-human-limbs

Sorry to respond to myself, but the following article suggests it may be possible to recover DNA from celloidin-preserved brain tissue.

Shelf-Preservation: Researchers Tap Century-Old Brain Tissue for Clues to Mental Illness

Interesting summary from SciAm: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=our-big-pig-problem

Yes, everyone's so worried about the disposal of the spent nuclear fuel rods, while coal ash is scattered to the wind with reckless abandon: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

It's like a cult with you guys isn't it?
The governments are wrong, and handwaving weirdos selling you advice, like Atkins and Taubes know better, it's like the New Age thing all over.

Why don't you read the first two hits on google:
http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/05/16/thin-body-of-evidence-why-i-have-doubts-about-gary-taubess-why-we-get-fat/

Everybody knows no-carb diets are a quick fix for fat people wanting to become thin. But the question is, at what price?
It's like putting oxygen on a fire and then wondering why the surroundings are burning along with the BBQ.
Even if you feel comfortable risking your life, it's not ethical to go around telling others to do the same.

why obesity follows malnourished populations as well as over-nourished populations

The vast majority of the populations in the world is overnourished. The malnourished clearly look it, so I don't understand what you're trying to say (Hint: you don't need to be thin to look malnourished).

The government advice is widely ridiculed by anyone who pays any attention to the nutritional research.

Scientists frequently ridicule certain nutritional researchers, since the area of nutritional "research" contains such a large amount of loud self-proclaimed experts.
All their so called research falls flat because there is no reliable metric by which to measure the rate of health degradation based on foods, on spans shorter than 3 decades.
Proper research may surprise you. Have you read books like The China Study?

Yet not a one climate model (to my knowledge) takes into account the biggest heat source and the biggest driver of that heat source.

https://www.google.com/search?q=climate+change+sun+spots

First hit is:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=sun-spots-and-climate-change

most up-to-date climate models—including those used by the United Nations’ prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—incorporate the effects of the sun’s variable degree of brightness in their overall calculations.

This wasn't difficult. Are you being willfully ignorant?

Every time a discussion about wind power comes up, some troll (usually with a very high UID, sometimes with an account created solely for the purpose) asks how putting up windmills will affect weather.

The answer should be fairly obvious. We have cut down a shitload of trees, which normally slow down wind. Putting up windmills? Slows down wind slightly, increases turbulence significantly, causing minimal localized temperature effects. Kind of like putting up trees. If there is any significant effect, it will be moderating, which is a good thing.

In addition, wind turbines don't actually cause any heating worth mentioning, unless perhaps they catch on fire. This is covered in the linked article, which had the GP actually cared about this issue, they would have found with google and read already. They cause thermal mixing, which can raise temperatures at a specific point, but which don't raise temperatures in a region. It only results in higher measured temperatures in a relatively small area downwind. This is expected due to (fractionally) lower wind speeds and greater thermal mixing.

In summary, anyone who expresses concerns about wind farms affecting weather is a shill, a troll, or an idiot, because these are not real concerns, and this is a well-known fact.

About the only advantage that neurons have over transisters is energy consumption. Compare the amount of energy that a computer takes that is computationally equivelent to a human (20 watts versus millions of watts): http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=computers-vs-brains

The global honeybee population demise is linked to a single pesticide not to mention the links to human disease

What's more, when you buy Organic, you are (in most cases) supporting a local farmer in your area rather than Del Monte or Dole or some other mega-corp grower. Indirectly, buying Organic means you are also not supporting the pesticide companies such as Monsanto who are out to destroy family farming.

Buy organic. TFA is a shill.

You are lying, anyone taking 1 minute searching on Google can find articles like this one:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=our-big-pig-problem

That explains quite clearly how US producers use low dosage antibiotics to fatten animals. Some other countries may do the same, but many do not.

And the problem is not direct harm to the end consumer, but to the environment as well as creating a breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria that might then infect people - infections that cannot be treated using common antibiotics because they are resistant.

Prisoners Dilemma has been shown to be far too simple in its normal usage to model the real world. Researchers into the evolution of societies have been troubled by the phenomenon of altruism for years. Finally computation and programming have reached the point where they can create a Prisoners Dilemma box 20 or 200 columns on a side and run it through a couple hundred iterations. Their findings are quite interesting At low population densities cooperators lose and defectors win, at high densities cooperators win. Sorry, paywalled, I'm sure there are other publications on the topic that aren't.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin-d-and-autism
http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/

BTW, eating more veggies can help with the some of the disease you mentioned:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Other.aspx
"Fibromyalgia is a disease highlighted by discomfort, pain and tenderness all over the body. The cause is unknown. Typical treatments involve pain medication and anti-depressants used to aid sleep. Better sleep has been shown to be of benefit.
    I have been utilizing a high antioxidant, acrlyamide-free diet for many years with marked success. Acrylamides are toxic substances produced by baking and frying carbohydrates. The diet-style I recommend for fibromylagia patients is rich in natural plant foods especially organic berries and green vegetables and restricted in animal products and baked grains. Vegetable soups and steamed vegetables are encouraged. Fibromyalgia patients routinely get well, and they get well quickly.
    Studies in the medical literature support this method of treatment.[ii] Though the researchers do not seem to have the experience and understanding of why what they are doing works, the effects are dramatic.
    Similar to the nutritional treatment of most diseases, it is not one photochemical compound or the removal of one toxic habit that works; it is the symphonic combination of removing multiple nutritional stresses along with the addition of multiple beneficial nutritional compounds that results in consistent and sustained results. The high intake of polyphenolic compounds such as quercetin, myricetin and kaempherol, and the high intake of lignans and bioflavonoids are just a few of the hundreds of nutrients with unpronounceable names that can only be obtained in large amounts from a diet rich in natural plant foods."

Apparently ScienceDebate.org partnered with Scientific American Magazine to ask the questions. SA's page can be found here Hopefully their servers can hold up better under the strain.

I think you mean this article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-hollywood-encouraging-onine-piracy

Pogue (don't get people started on him), said:

Of the 10 most pirated movies of 2011, guess how many of them are available to rent online, as I write this in midsummer 2012? Zero.

Note that while you added on "or purchase", the article never states this.

Which is a good thing, too, or Pogue would probably have been called out.
I don't know who 'the authority' on the 10 most pirated movies of 2011 would be, but I suspect torrentfreak would be a good source:
http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-2011-111223/

Amazon has all those titles available on DVD, Blu-Ray, some combo packs with 'ultraviolet digital copy' (yuck), instant purchase through Amazon's instant video and - yes - even one rental (127 Hours).

So "or purchase" is simply false.

Please look at the link you supplied:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Toxicity
"For infants (birth to 12 months), the tolerable upper limit (maximum amount that can be tolerated without harm) is set at 25 micrograms/day (1000 IU). One thousand micrograms (40,000 IU) per day in infants has produced toxicity within one month.[80]"

So, after some body gave an infant 100X the RDA every day for a month, the infant showed signs of toxicity. I'd venture the signs of toxicity probably went away when they stopped supplementing (given the examples I cites about East German infants getting massive doses and going on to win the Olympics). If an infant 100X the RDA for iron, in one day they might be dead? Based on that comparison, vitamin D is a very safe supplement for children. The health consequences of getting one tenth the RDA are far greater than getting 10X the RDA. Error here is much better on the side of abundance.

Still, for infants, I'd agree the US RDA is more or less correct, and there is probably no reason to ever give an amount about the RDA. Based on what I've cited from Dr. John Cannell's writings, the fears of what happens near that limit are overblown. And the "official" recommendations remain way too low for adults, as it is not much more than infants, and your comparisons while plausible sounding don't match the science, because vitamin D is used in every cell for signaling more than for "growth". (Even ignoring the RDAs are just probably wrong for lots of things -- his chatter on RDAs is all too true:
http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=329928 )

The bottom line is that humans are adapted to a life outdoors in the sun. That includes pregnant women getting enough sun. We deviate from that norm at the risk of our own health, and it is only in the past few decades that so many of us have become indoor creatures, with health consequences probably including autism. Some culture clashes even make that worse, like devout Somali Muslim women moving from near the equator where they lived in houses with open courtyards to northern latitudes around Minneapolis where they stay indoors all the times and wear a Burka otherwise, and then people wonder why so many of their children are autistic (as they do not know yet to supplement with 6000 IU D3 daily when pregnant and nursing):
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin-d-and-autism
"What If Vitamin D Deficiency Is a Cause of Autism? A few researchers are turning their attention to the sunshine vitamin as a culprit, prompted by the experience of immigrants that have moved from their equatorial country to two northern latitude locations"

P.S. I did not call you an "idiot" that I could see. But on this one issue, you are certainly echoing the conventional wisdom that has caused so much suffering over the past few decades (including bad advice we got from our own pediatrician). Good luck in finding the right amount of vitamin D3 that works for you and your family.

You remember correctly, people have been doing this for years. I have no idea why TFA calls this "world first bionic eye", perhaps there is something new about their particular method, although it doesn't sound very impressive compared to other options.

Here is a list of some companies producing retinal implants (incl. Bionic Vision from TFA): http://www.upgradeyourbody.com/catalog/bionics/eyes/ At least some of those are already past clinical trials and available commercially.

The latest, greatest breakthrough:
Scientists reverse engineer eye-brain signaling, enabling next generation of implants

More links on retinal implants:
Wikipedia - Retinal implant
1000-electrode implant developed in Stanford
Long-term trials started in Oxford in 2010
Phase II trials of 1500-electrode implant by Retina Implant AG (2011)
Argus II implant goes to market
Bio-Retina 576-pixel implant to start trials in 2013

Marijuana addiction does exist in heavy users.

In a stroke of irony, Scientific American just posted an article on "digital natives" found here.

Now, who hasn't done their research?

uuh... what?

It's Judith Curry

So basically they are taking it upon themselves to ban you from texting in a public transport, or as a passenger. Many rides are bumpy enough and anyone carrying on a conversation might seem distracted enough for the app to trigger. .

The linked article suggests otherwise.

They can distinguish between texting by the driver and texting by a passenger based on the cadence of typing.

Realize of course this was in a simulator. They plan to put it on a closed course with actual cars for further testing.

What if the martians ARE rocks?!

Maybe they feed on energy and like a fresh blast.

Meanwhile, pet rocks on Earth are nervous. Hopefully this won't stir religious conflicts on Earth involving those who believe the spirits of their ancestors live in rocks.

Curiosity will also be giving us data on energetic protons from solar events. Since Mars has essentially no magnetic field, much lower energy particles can reach ground level than on Earth. Measurements were made on the way there. From the background levels, it looks like about half makes it through the Martian atmosphere.
Studying solar weather on Mars may provide some insights as to what to expect when our magnetic field at home weakens. It's dropped 10% or so in the last 150 years which is a relatively fast rate of change.

http://www.stce.be/news/154/welcome.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-it-true-that-the-stren