Slashdot Mirror
Mythbusters to Test Cockroach Radiation Myth
redwoodtree writes "An article on the site for the Tri-City Herald sums it up perfectly: 'Contrary to popular belief, not a significant amount of research goes into cockroach radiation.' To test the old saw about 'the cockroaches being the only survivors of a nuclear war' Discovery Channel's Mythbusters are going out to Hanford Site, where plutonium was manufactured for the first nuclear bomb. It's the single most polluted nuclear waste site in the U.S. The Mythbusters are going to take cockroaches and other insects and apply successively higher doses of radiation in a controlled setting."
I wonder how they will handle the nuclear safety of their own and their crew.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
So what is your criteria for what you will and won't murder ?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Sheesh, this is obviously an attempt to create giant monsters to ravage America. Why do Mythbusters hate America?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
In a former life, I worked as an NDT technician. One of our biggest jobs was industrial radiography. Which, long story short, involves radioisotope cameras and lots of safety training. With an radiation safety expert, radiation alarms, survey meters, and proper equipment they'll be plenty safe.
The biggest problem for them would be to properly dose the cockroaches. What kinds and levels of radiation will they be receiving? Any clown can x-ray a roach until it dies, but what would the fallout profile of a world-ending nuclear war look like? What's the long-term effect of radioisotopes in their bodies? How much ionizing radiation will they receive?
There's alpha, beta, gamma, neutron... What kind of radiation are they going to use? Safety, while incredibly important for an experiment like this, is relatively easy to accomplish if they get an expert. Attacking the correct problem may prove far more troublesome.
Hell, I might do it for fun.
These kinds of "dilemma's" are nothing but intellectual masturbation. I'll tell you right now: in a real world situation, that man or that dog would be a greasy spot if it was only thought that their death would save 100,000 people.
And as for the reverse, you can bet, in a quarantine situation, they would kill as many as it took (or as they could) to keep the sick separated from the well. It's the only thing that can be done in that situation, 1, 100, or 1,000,000. The reverse also holds: if you were stuck in a quarantine, and you believed yourself or your family to be in danger of being infected, you'd do whatever you could to break quarantine, even at the risk of infecting countless others...That's why they defend barricades with guns, not pamphlets on disease control.
The desire to protect yourself and your loved ones trumps it all, when it comes down to it. That's just human nature.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Mythbusters is not pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is when people misuse scientific terms to tick people into believing in some manner of BS.
Mythbusters uses their science terminology properly, is open to peer review, and doesn't try to trick anyone. They even go so far as retesting things if their viewers find holes in their methodologies. It may not be formal, academic science, but it IS real science.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Yeah, that "life is valuable" line is a bunch of bull shit. If you look back over human history you would come to the conclusion that as a whole, humans do not believe other humans lives are valuable.
To all of those whining "oh, how can they just kill those living things???". Put down your fucking hamburger, take off your leather shoes, and head off into the woods. Go take up your own cause and live naked in a cave you overzealous assholes.
Actually, I think that's morally indefensible.
Who are you saving? What are you actually doing? You're just torturing some slob for dated information that's not going to help anyone. And torture is a crappy way of getting accurate information anyhow...Witness all the people who "confessed" to witchcraft during the inquisition, and the witch trials.
Traditional intelligence gathering methods were sufficient to get the information that would have stopped 9/11, if the methods of analysis were good enough. Now, they're gathering so much more information, and I've seen no proof that their methods of analysis have improved by anything even resembling a similar amount...Basically, they're drowning themselves in un-analyzed crap information, while giving concrete examples to the people who think that we're corrupt torturers, that we are in fact, corrupt torturers, and screwing the people at home who're finding it hard to think we really are the good guys when we're torturing POWs, and yes, if we're "at war" with terror, then people we capture in the war, are POWs...That's what it means.
In short, it's stupid, it's pointless, and it's immoral. We may be forgiven for taking the moral low road for an end like saving a million people, but when you take the moral low road for a worthless end, you should expect to be strung up by your nuts for it. Make no mistake; you sacrifice a human life because of something you think is right, that's still murder...If enough other people think you were right to do so, society may forgive you. Otherwise, they may put your ass in the electric chair.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Whereas you, noble and virtuous, will refuse. You will tell your pregnant wife, and your three kids, "Okay, we're all going to die so that the people outside can go on living their corrupt and venal lives like we don't exist."
I haven't been in that situation, so I'm not quite sure what I'd do. It'll depend on a lot of things. How long do I stay in quarantine if there is no food? How long if no water? No vague attempt at medical aid from the outside? No idea.
But you apparently know...Unlike all the "trample your fellow man" sheep of the world, you'd never act in anything but a selfless manner.
Or you're talking out of your ass. I've seen a lot of people talk a big line, and the bigger the line, the faster they crack when the shit hits the fan.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.