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Bacteria and fungus abundantly live on/in organisms with no free water. Such as cheese and bread. They may release water from the organic compounds in which they live, but that is really not the same as needing water. Although you could certainly argue that without the other beings that produced the bread or cheese they wouldn't exist. Which may or may not be valid.

These bacteria and fungi have cells which contain water. The cell structure wouldn't exist without it. That water has to come from somewhere, whether it's by absorption from the environment or by chemical breakdown of food... or gifted in part by an ancestor via mitosis.

I think you are underestimating the amount of water present in a typical loaf of bread, or for that matter, in a typical cheese. (Hard cheeses might have little water in them, but there are certainly different types of cheese.) The fungi and bacteria are also free to fix moisture from the atmosphere, even if none can be obtained from the food on which they live.

If the cells contain water, then water is a necessity for life, because the chemical reactions within the cell require it. I think you're playing a little fast and loose with your definitions and your reasoning here. Or maybe you're engaging in semantic games. Either way, what you're doing isn't science.

So, I stand on the water is not a necessary requirement for life. [...] I'm not a biologist, just casual reader of such topics.

So you have an opinion that you hold dearly in the face of evidence to the contrary, but you admit that you have no actual scientific credentials in this field, and that you're basically a dilletante?

But let me go on...

When I said alcohol, I was including the entire classification of alcohols, not simply your sterilizing ethanol.

Actually, all alcohols are toxic to cellular life -- some are simply more toxic than others. Ethanol can be tolerated by humans because we have enzymes that can metabolize it relatively quickly, but humans can and have died from ethanol poisoning. Obviously, single-celled organisms don't have the body mass of a large animal to render the absorbed alcohol dilute and spread damage around.

If you want to understand why alcohol makes a crappy solvent for life as we know it (and that includes all cellular life on this planet), you need to understand the biochemistry. I found a couple decent resources here and here which explain this in enough detail to get you started.

As for your rogues gallery of bacteria, I would point out that in no case have you provided the name of a single organism that can survive without water. (No, even Deinococcus peraridilitoris requires some water. Desert sand may be pretty darned dry, but moisture does collect at night, and during the cold season. A bacterium, or even a colony of bacteria, doesn't need much.) That they are extremophiles only proves that life can invade just about any niche, but these examples do nothing to blow away any of the basic requirements.

There's another organism I've read about and seen microphotos of in a NOVA science program -- sorry, don't have a specific scientific name handy, but it lives in small pockets inside rocks that are extracted from miles-deep bore holes. You can find a good jumping-off point here These bacteria live off the chemical energy derived from slowly dissolving the minerals of the rock around them, and they divide very slowly -- on the order of once every 100 years, perhaps longer. Even here, all of the basic given requirements (yes, even water) hold true and are met.

But the molecular mass (and therefore the density) is still less which, according to Graham's law, is what matters.

Perhaps the specimens and anticipated case-load for this lab are expected to come primarily from the surrounding areas. Bringing the lab close to where the incidents of interest are likely to occur offer some advantages. I know that whenever most of use hear of a Bio lab we immediately assume that it is meant for production of pathogens, but numerous such labs are actually diagnostic in nature. For example, many states have a Plant Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (such as this one).

Sure you could probably quarantine and relocate an entire herd to a remote lab in Alaska but it could be better to move them to a facility much closer. But even if it were placed in Alaska people would then become concerned about protecting the wildlife and how the facility would cope with the freeze hazards. No place would be good enough.

I was basing that on what my calculus teacher told me; that Newton called it "Leibniz' Rule" as a sort of mocking joke.

However, it would appear Leibniz did correct his mistake, after ten days. He did make the mistake at first but maybe it was just one of carelessness (see these websites and their citations if needed: http://www.math.tamu.edu/~dallen/history/calc1/calc1.html; http://www.math.usma.edu/people/rickey/hm/CalcNotes/ProductRule.pdf).

At any rate, I maintain that it's definitely possible to be able to compute integrals and not understand the concepts; as it is possible to understand the concepts and not be able to compute (difficult) integrals. After all, no practitioner living today computes integrals the same way as Newton did, except perhaps as an esoteric exercise. Computation is a skill which is partially orthogonal to understanding.

has more products
                                    http://stommel.tamu.edu/~baum/linuxlist/linuxlist/linuxlist.html/ [tamu.edu] Linux software encyclopedia
                                                                There are literally millions of unix scripts, programs, and utilities for Linux. (...)

Half of the links on that list don't seem to exist (anymore). It's sourceforge-effect, which always comes into play when looking for non-standard Linux software: most of what you find is gone, no longer maintained, bugged, outdated and/or useless. If you actually find something usefull, the next hurdle is the compilation and the dependencies. With Linux you seem to have two choices: limit yourself to the software available in the distro's package manager, or fire up your terminal and prepare for some sweet hours of tinkering. Altough i don't mind the tinkering (or otherwise I wouldn't be running Linux), it is not an option for most users. So basically, the set of available software for Linux-users is rather limited, especially when you are looking for non-development related stuff.

Windows is as secure
                  http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10156617-56.html/ Windows UAC flaw
                  http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090204/second-windows-7-uac-flaw-malware-self-elevate/ Windows UAC flaw
                  http://www.linux.com/feature/131059/ Only Ubuntu survived Pwn to Own contest.

has more products
                  http://stommel.tamu.edu/~baum/linuxlist/linuxlist/linuxlist.html/ Linux software encyclopedia
                                There are literally millions of unix scripts, programs, and utilities for Linux.
                                I will concede that there are several 3rd party tools that are windows-only, and limit the adaptability
                                of some business's switching, but you'll never win the "more products" argument in windows favor.

Easier to install
                  This will vary with the flavor of linux. Some are definitely more challenging to get functional. If
                  you compare the installation / setup time for 50 computers, with ease of installation being a priority in your
                  choice of distributions, then you can have them up & running quicker, and more consistently with Linux than
                  with windows.

Checking this ephemeris server: http://observatory.tamu.edu:8080/solarsystem/planet.html Pluto does not seem to get above a declination of 24 degrees so it never passes over Il.

Tolerance is a level of homophobic prejudice, according to the Homophobia Scale by Dr. Dorothy Riddle. http://allies.tamu.edu/resources/riddle.htm

Everyone assumes one can grow plants in any old dirt. You not only need soil; but more importantly, you need the proper microbiology in the soil for the plants you are growing. Unfortunately, too many people in charge of things are more concerned with proving the existence of life on other planets then the advancement of humanity. If they would be replaced by people less concerned with ideology and more concerned with the future we would be able to take microbiology to mars. IMHO Until someone can figure out a way to prove to an ideologist something that can't be proven, or get rid of ideologists all together, Mars colonies will never happen.

I read TFA, but somehow I missed the part about the nth complexity binary loop.

i have yet to see any Picasso sketches that demonstrate technical skill beyond what an ordinary individual can draw simply by doodling in the margins of their class notes.

i'm not saying he's not a talented artist or that he doesn't deserve his fame, but he doesn't possess the technical mastery of realist or impressionist painters such as van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, etc.

Well, if you can manage to put the blotter down, why don't you start at age 14:

http://picasso.csdl.tamu.edu/picasso/WorksIndex?Year=1895

I don't mind people having strong opinions, but I do mind people having strong uninformed opinions.

I have discussed this issue with some friends who seem to believe that Obama will reverse the current warrantless surveillance practices. If history is to serve as a guide, it seems clear that he will not. I am convinced that contacting our legislators and voting for Democrats are two of the least effective means of protecting our rights. Indeed, the most effective way of protecting our rights is by asserting them. We as Americans have the responsibility of actively protecting our rights, rather than depending on the ineptitude and conflicted interests of our elected officials. This is why I propose not only opportunistic encryption, but also what I call gratuitous encryption. This means the ubiquitous use and advocacy of PGP, SSH, SSL, VPNs, tor, full disk encryption, and every other tool we have at our disposal.

Check out this page for ways to assert your rights.

I don't know if anyone has checked, but natural gas ain't exactly cheap either.

It might currently be expensive, but that's based on current demand & supply. Domestic oil companies recognize the possible vast availability of natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico. While other energy sources remained cheap, there was no incentive to develop infrastructure to harvest domestic natural gas on a large scale. Now that petroleum is expensive, natural gas is likely to draw a lot more attention both in demand which will spur development of supply.

Seth

http://engineer.tamu.edu/news/story/?p_news_id=1220

ants are causing a lot of damage to electrical devices in Texas: http://urbanentomology.tamu.edu/ants/exotic_tx.cfm

Andy

Not some fancy, expensive, uber-high-security bonded cleared and armored courier, either.

USPS Registered Mail.

If it's good enough for the government to send Secret-level classified information, it'll do just fine for a bunch of identities.

These are different ants.

http://bexar-tx.tamu.edu/IPM/Household/F1/homeantbait.htm

...and now I just found this diagram that shows the first sighting was in 2002 in Pasadena!

Texas A&M page on the ants:
http://urbanentomology.tamu.edu/ants/exotic_tx.cfm

Sounds like bullshit to me. See Contacting the Presidential Libraries. It lists the addresses of all the presidential libraries. eg:

• Herbert Hoover http://hoover.archives.gov/
• Franklin D. Roosevelt http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/
• Harry S. Truman http://www.trumanlibrary.org/
• Dwight D. Eisenhower http://eisenhower.archives.gov/
• George H Bush http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/

Most are .edu or .gov, which squatters can't use at all. I guess it's because everyone thinks the have to have a .com. Thus all the presidential candidates have an entirely inappropriate .com site instead of .org for their campaign, for instance. So they can't get "GWBushLibrary.com". Too fucking bad. Get GWBush.archives.gov or a subdomain of whatever institution manages it (probably a .edu).

The rights that are spelled on in law, dumbass.

Do you truly believe law defines morality?

That's right -- it's illegal to eat onions in certain cities and at certain hours. I assert that I have the right to eat onions whenever the fuck I want.

How about we talk about rights, and not laws?

Here is some more reading for you:

Ah, yes, that would be this right. Specifically:

(c) Prohibition on Circumvention of the System. No person shall import, manufacture, or distribute any device, or offer or perform any service, the primary purpose or effect of which is to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or otherwise circumvent any program or circuit which implements, in whole or in part, a system described in subsection (a).

Is that the "right" you're defending? The right to require that no one ever circumvent your copy protection, no matter what the reason? Does it ever occur to you that there might be a legitimate reason?

What does preventing me from ripping a DVD to an iPod have to do with "promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts"? Sounds to me like it does exactly the opposite, which is why people actually creating content (instead of trolling on Slashdot) are signing up with Amazon MP3.

Looks to me like I read what you linked to, but you didn't even give what I linked to a chance. Try again.

It's not news that an old system was replaced by a new system. It is interesting that an old supercomputer wasn't replaced by a new supercomputer; a cluster of cheap commodity systems does the job just as well when you don't need real-time performance. This sort of creative use of PCs is what drove SGI into bankruptcy and irrelevance.

This Philipine newspaper story fills in some important details missing from the Australian PC News article: the age of the SGI system (10 years) and the reason it was costing so much to run (expensive to get application support for IRIX, an OS that hasn't had a major update in the same 10-year period).

This last issue is what really killed the SGI system: not its age (these big installations are often around for decades), but the fact that only a few people are working on SGI platforms any more, and those that do can command premium prices. If the system had been from Sun, HP, or IBM, or any company with an OS still under active development, it might have been cost effective to keep it in place. This is particularly relevant on Slashdot, where we're always hearing from folks who just don't understand why there isn't better application support for their favorite platform.

I'm still curious as to what specific SGI system got junked. Best guess: a low-end Origin.

http://www-viz.tamu.edu/staff/kglueck/images.php3?list=vizfire

Wasn't a UPS, but a 3-phase power conditioner for a machine room. Yes, it was a freak accident.

Well, you get up to 21 pounds of CO2 from a pound of crude oil - a 21:1 increase in "stuff". This sponge apparently can do a 1:83 reverse, so the whole system appears to be a 21:83 savings in space underground. Why not pump it right back into the ground?

That is so wrong that I am forced to suspend your Slashdot license.

First, that page page doesn't say "pound of crude oil"; it says "gallon". That's like 7.5 pounds of oil. So that's a 3x increase in stuff. (Which some would call "mass".) Then these crystals do 1:83 in volume, but more like 10:11 in mass. So to get rid of your pound of crude oil, you'd need about 30 pounds of these crystals.

Please go study Dimensional Analysis (aka the unit-factor method or the factor-label method). Once you have mastered that, you will be permitted to post on science-y topics again.

Newsflash - crops appear different in the IR spectrum, as well as their reflected visible spectrum. Just because your eyes can't see the difference doesn't mean that a computer can't.

Perhaps now we will finally catch live specimens which will prove the existence of the hotheaded naked ice borer once and for all!

http://meat.tamu.edu/beefgrading.html

Grade A is just one part of a system for meat classification, regarding age check it out

  The other grading system is based on marbling (prime, choice, etc). The scary stuff (hormones, growth hormone, feed content) are not part of that labeling system, sadly.

  I would bet that Micky D's is not worried about the "quality" of the meat so much as the taste and quantity/cost.

  The cost to your body: somewhere around eating cardboard, regardless of taste.

A professor at Texas A&M University, Bruce McCormick, was pushing for this for years.

Check out Welcome to the Brain Networks Laboratory at Texas A&M University!.

The idea is to use a knife-edge scanning microscope to make images of very thing slices from brains.

I'm curious if Dr. McCormick has retired. His web page last list courses he taught in 2002.

That's your opinion, of course. I think they are quite beautiful, like driving through a kinetic sculpture. But even if for the sake of argument we agree that they are ugly to some people, they are still much less ugly than, say, an oil refinery, or mountaintop removal coal mining.

kinda reminds me of this http://plantpathology.tamu.edu/Texlab/Fruit/citrus/bups/citrus28.JPG

I guess you might want the customers to be underwater too ;-)? You can see from the cover of this Brochure that the land is pretty flat there: http://etidweb.tamu.edu/classes/entc359/STP%20Brochure%20June%2006.pdf. Here is how close 5 meters of sea level rise gets to the resevior: http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=28.6942,-96.0603&z=6&m=5. I doubt the resevior will avoid being breached in this situation. You can run the level up to 14 meters which we might see by 2200. 25 meters is not available but this is what a 3 C warming would likely cause. The interesting thing is that this seems to happen in centuries rather than millennia: http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/l3h462k7p4068780/?p=0f73dea5b8974dfa837377d459559a91&pi=1.

http://lowery.tamu.edu/Teaming/Morgan1/sld023.htm

See if technology will allow you to move down the pyramid.

The entire faculty of the largest atmospheric sciences department in Texa, A & M, with over twnety faculty, uinanimously signed a declaration in support of the IPCC position.

http://www.met.tamu.edu/climatechange.php

More examples here

http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensus. htm

The number of remotely qualified scientists who disagree that humans are responsible for a majority of recently observed warming is really, honestly, negligible.

The term "Intelli-Aggie" sounds like an oxymoron to me. Hint: Just ask any Longhorn, and he will tell you there's no such thing as an intelligent Aggie.

Hatshepsut is a very interesting historical figure.

She reigned during Egypt's New Kingdom, a little after Ahmose drove out the Asiatic Hyksos from the north, and unifying Egypt again under native rule, and bringing Egypt to it final age of glory in ancient times.

She was the Pharoah of Egypt, marrying her half brother, Thutmosis II (a common practice then), who had a son, Thutmosis III by a lesser wife, and co-ruled with her nephew.

She sent ships and explorers to the Land of Punt (thought to be Somalia).

The explorers who returned recorded their findings on the walls of her temple (El Deir El Bahari: modern name: the Northen Monastery, original "Djeser djeseru").

You can see amazing details of Red Sea fauna there, such as spiny lobster, squid and other creatures.

There are inscriptions of natives from Africa too in meticulous detail, as well as their dwellings (thatched huts). There is even an obese queen from Punt with some disfigurement.

You can see a replica of the inscriptions at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto (rather there was big room full of that when I was there a few years ago).

So, when Thutmosis III finally took over, he went through a campaign of removing her memory from history. Although being his aunt, she was also his step mother, and God knows what relationship they had when his father was alive.

Although other Pharoahs did this regularly, it was not targeted towards any particular one specifically, but rather an attempt to claim the monuments of predecessors as his own.

Her statues were toppled in wells (where they were discovered in the 19th century).

More detail here.

Traditional lectures are abysmal teaching methods.

http://lowery.tamu.edu/Teaming/Morgan1/sld023.htm

Because NSD 51 is only the latest in a long list of power grabs by Bush, now is one of the latter times.

Permission to use and/or modify this image is granted provided you acknowledge me lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP if someone asks.

The document is FOUO and should never have been released to the public, but FOUO is not classified. Read more on FOUO here.

No one can guarantee you can maintain your current lifestyle indefinitely. Growth curves are sigmoidal. We are in the exponential phase right now, but that doesn't last forever. Resources are finite, and growth must eventually approach an asymptote. You can stick your fingers in your ears and deny it, but that doesn't change anything.

That was a very interesting post, though prone to exaggeration. Your attitude seems to be that if American's change a foreign dish, we get credit for it but if
someone else changes an American dish, we still get credit.

Bananas did not originate from Hawaii, though bananas were probably introduced there between 500 and 700AD.
According to wikipedia: "They are native to the tropical region of Southeast Asia, the Malay Archipelago, and Australia."

One of my ancestors, an American by the name of Minor Cooper Keith, was responsible for the global banana trade (before it became exploitative), starting around 1873. Although a few banannas had been imported to the mainland US, and probably other areas like Europe as well, by sailors, they were something that you would only eat on a dare (imagine a banana after a multi-month sea voyage). He created an enormous infrastructure to bring these highly perishable fruits to the US from Central America, including the worlds first fleet of refrigerated steamships and dedicated ports to take the fruit quickly (under 60 hours) from harvest to hold. The railroad express shipment within the US had to be orchestrated and retailers had to be specially trained in how to handle and ripen the fruit. He discovered the bananas while building the first transcontinental railroad (before the panama canal) across Central America, along with his Uncle Henry Meiggs who built the first railroad in Chile. Meiggs died during the building of the transcontinental railroad along with around 4000 people (mostly American's from New Orleans) building the railroad through territory the natives were wisely afraid to visit. The workers from the US did not follow recommended safety precautions
but workers who were imported from Barbados survived to complete the railroad. The fruit company they founded has been known over the years as United
Fruit Company, United Brands Company, and Chiquita Brands International and has had a checkered history since Keith's death. Keith himself meddled in
the politics of Costa Rica backing benevolent dictators during the country's transition to the first stable democracy (he married the daughter of the
first president) in the region (other attempts to transition to democracy in the region, which was unaccustomed to citizen participation, were unsuccessful
and bloody). He refinanced the debts of several Central American countries, built hospitals, schools, and railroads throughout the region, and paid
workers enough to get ahead (double what other workers in the region were paid).

http://www.freelabs.com/~whitis/clan/empire.html

Given that bananas existed for well over a thousand years in many parts of the world before Keith introduced them to Europe/America, I suspect that there are
many banana dishes that are not of American origin. Likewise, although the tomato originated in South America and was common in the US (but thought poisonous
before Jefferson rehabilitated it here), the tomato's history in England dates to around 1590, around the 18th century in France, and around 1550 in Italy. By
the mid 18th century, tomato consumption in Italy was widespread. So I am sure that the Italian's and others would take exception to the notion that anything
with tomatoes not of hispanic origin is created here. http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/publications/vegetabl etravelers/tomato.html

The American hot dog is a perversion of the german Wurst (pronounced Vurst) or Wiener, though the National Hot dog council, according to wikipedia, credits a butcher in Germany, not an American, with the invention of the Hot Dog (the bland miniature version).

The Hawaiians had a very healthy diet before western influence, now the Hawaiians are the highest per-capita consumers of Hormel products (or so I was told
in Hawaii).

As for chee

I challenge your religion, it is well known there is only one all powerful gnome.

Do you have _any_ idea of how ethanol production works, and why we're not all drinking distillates from hemp ? If you do - nice troll - otherwise, let me start an explanation: it's about S.U.G.A.R.

That's pretty stupid, given that Mark Holtzapple's group at Texas A&M have a process that can essentially turn ANY biodegradable mass into a mixture of alcohols with much higher energy density than ethanol.

(He also has completed the first half of a prototype motor that acheives above 70% thermodynamic efficiency. Not bad.)

Despite all the navigation systems available to the modern world, even to the United States Navy, we still have gaps in our knowledge of the ocean. Recently a US sub crashed into an undersea mountain! Cold War-era data on the seafloor has been declassified, but still our navigation isn't all that great.

By the way, here is a free oceanography textbook!

I thought the water was part of the sound suppression system:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/s ound-suppression-system.html

They had a problem with noise from the rocket engines reverberating off the platform and causing pressure variations near the nose of the shuttle.

The pad site itself is being damaged by the frequent heat-swings, causing the heat-resistant concrete to crack and come loose:
http://engineer.tamu.edu/news/story.php?p_news_id= 1220

Mark Raizen of the University of Texas at Austin has already shown a way to achieve Maxwell's Demon using sheet lasers in Cold Atom Systems. You use the Doppler cooling effect to do velocity selection of atoms and selectively slow them down as the sheet laser sweeps across the box.

http://graduateadvisor.physics.tamu.edu/talk/2006/ 20060216_MarkRaizen.txt