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Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of 2007
Josh Fink writes "Time Magazine has a piece about the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2007. '#1. Stem Cell Breakthroughs - In November, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and molecular biologist James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin reported that they had reprogrammed regular skin cells to behave just like embryonic stem cells. The breakthrough may someday allow scientists to create stem cells without destroying embryos -- sidestepping the sticky ethical issues and opposition from the U.S. government that surround embryonic stem-cell research -- but that day is still a ways off. ' Also included in the top 10 editorial are pieces on the top 10 medical breakthroughs, the top 10 man made disasters and the top 10 green 'ideas'."
Top 10 most duped articles.
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
Strange...Windows Vista didn't make the list...hmm
Warning: This article links to four top ten lists that only display one item at a time.
I hope Time gets paid per impression because that's the only way they'll get ad revenue from me. (And viewing all of those forty pages seems like a good way to punish the advertizers who enable articles like these.)
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A couple of the "scientific discoveries" weren't really that important to science. Discovering the brightest supernova or the oldest living animal have their merit, but really they're just interesting things that people found. Something like this deserved to be on the list instead: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/01/22/photon-storage.html
Seek and ye shall find.
And more importantly, since these stem cells will have the exact genetic material (slightly shorter telomeres, but theres so much junk at the end it would take a total of about 500 no-telomerase activity years of life before that cause any genetic difference that would impact organsim traits) of an organizm that can be examined and studied, a lot more use experimentation can be performed with them, with a lot less effort.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
1. Changing to D2 /. anniversary t-shirt.
2. Coming up with a good critique of why there isn't really a top "10"
3. extend that with how it belittles the rest of the work that has been done
4. complain about not gettin
5. Change sig
6.
import system.cool.Sig;
Soon to come... the Top Ten Green Ideas Turned Man-Made Disasters, and the Top Ten Man-Made Disasters Turned Medical Breakthroughs.
... 2007 hasn't ended yet!
(I hate these "top X of this year" before the year has even ended, though at least this one is less than a month early)
In October, researchers from Bangor University in Wales were trawling an ocean shelf off the coast of north Iceland when they stumbled on what is believed to be the world's oldest living animal: a 405 year-old clam. Or it was living, until researchers had to kill it to determine the clam's age by studying rings on its shell.
Aren't we just a great at discovering?
Inventing Toilet paper HAS to be high on the discoveries list... Unless you still get the Sears catalog. I've yet to meet a scientist who hasn't used it.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
This has to be the best....
They discover a 405 year-old clam... until researchers had to kill it to determine the clam's age by studying rings on its shell.
Then they killed it.
All very nice in a "boys book of wonders" way, but very little in the way of actionable information. Maybe that's the way of pure science, but I was rather hoping that at least one of these discoveries would have a material effect on my life. (
(and no, I don't think mapping Craig Venter's gemone counts).
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Um... toilet paper wasn't invented this year, buddy. Sorry if you just got the word.
Without this press release, I would not have realized that Time Magazine was still publishing. Who knew?
Going through the list of disasters, I'm left wondering where the Indonesian mud volcano is.
Considering its permanently displaced 11,000 people, over 10KM squared. I'd say thats a far larger disaster then for example, a bridge collapsing in the states, or a plane killing 300.
It's killed 200 people, and was probably caused by the gas drilling company cutting corners on its drilling.
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11025-indonesian-mud-volcano-caused-by-gas-drilling.html
I'd personally have that at #1 or #2, i also question having global warming as the #1 man made disaster, since i don't consider it being a disaster yet. The worst that comes to my mind is hurricane Katrina, and even then, there is no decisive link to the two.
To avoid criticism; Say nothing, Do nothing, Be nothing.
I love that line. Can be taken as a claim that we cause the majority of it or just .00001% of it.
But it gets better. Basically Global Warming is at fault for all weather bad, specifically all weather events that costs us money. Regardless if the earth was warmer before, regarldess of the fact we don't know out own planet's ideal temperature, regardless of the fact we can't even forcast a year ahead, and finally - regardless of the fact that the people who win from all the Global Warming scare mongering are politicians and big business.
Then we have a plane wreck as #2? Followed by a retinue of things that more accidental than "purposely caused" With mining accidents it amazes me we still ignore the thousands who die in China in these accidents. We lose six or seven in America and it makes the top 10???
IPCC as the #1 green idea? That bunch of bad science and fraud? Using names without permission to bolster their claims and using the power of government to intimidate others? The second entry was not much better. All that GW and the green push accomplish at the government level is to give politicians new ways to spend money, new titles, and even more travel to exotic locations. Carbon Capping? Basically new embedded tax passed onto consumers so big dirty corporations can still pollute. Oh I know there is that part about "refund" to consumers from the government - but we know better don't we. It will come as targetted benefits to buy votes. Most of these green ideas reek of deperateness to find something to make a top ten list. I can think of ten better stories - top ten green developments - like improvements in solar cell manufacturing, CFLs, how many companies recycle their waste for fuel (McDs in England) and such.
Now the medical section was much better. At least here we had some real good entries. The difference here is that this is real science, where the green section isn't science half the time. The diabetes news from last year was great. We are well on our way to getting people off of needles.
Sorry but Time's top ten lists are more politically motivated and to curry favor with certain groups than to provide any real knowledge or laud accomplishmen. Notice how their top ten disasters are not in countries that might react badly towards their reporters in the future? Stick to areas like the medical advances, put in another for technological advances, and ditch the political spin crap ideas and we might have lists worth a damn, lists that tell people what really means something.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Make top20. Then you can have 20 pages full of ads instead of just 10.
In October, researchers from Bangor University in Wales were trawling an ocean shelf off the coast of north Iceland when they stumbled on what is believed to be the world's oldest living animal: a 405 year-old clam. Or it was living, until researchers had to kill it to determine the clam's age by studying rings on its shell.
:P
Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
Maybe next year they will discover that you can put more than one paragraph on a web page.
Calling someone a "zealot" for not wanting to kill babies for research is a bit much. I'm not religious whatsoever, but I'm still morally against it. This is also not a step towards human cloning. We've had access to stem cells before, and some scientists have been progressing towards this goal for awhile. This will not progress them much. This is a step towards mass producing these cells for the purpose of cloning individual organs for patients requiring transplants.
Well, I'm sure about clams, and I can tell you they have no preference either way.
And they didn't kill it to prove it was the oldest living animal. They brought up a bunch of clams, started measuring ages, and found one of the dead ones had been 405 years old.
ResidntGeek
IMO, the discover that may end up having the most impact will end up being the guys who discovered what atmospheric conditions are most condusive to the transmission of Influenza.
Don't want to get sick?, crank up the heat, and plug in that humidifier.
Huh? If stem cells really have the potential their proselytizers would have us believe, the pharmcos would have their alleged puppet allow them to kill newborns for stem cells, if need be.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
First, we have established ourselves according to past climate, the climate was not always what it currently is, we inherit evolution and establishment from previous period, so our current climate may not be optimal. Second, even if we adapt to a specific environment, it does not imply we cannot be more fitted to another environment.
Your lack of intelligence is shining very brightly. Yes, of course climate has changed in the past and people have migrated. The problem is not climate change in itself, it is the RATE of change that makes it a problem. This is the first time in the history of the Earth that a species actions affect the climate so markedly. It's an impulse function and we don't know what the system's response will be until it's too late. Second, of course some other environment might be better, but changing it to even an ideal environment too quickly is devastating. The Earth is not your living room, where you can just crank up the furnace when you get cold!
They are not babies, they are embryos.
Ever heard of green algae? Those nasty little critters started releasing this toxic waste called Oxygen into the atmosphere poisoning practically the entire biosystem. The effects of their actions persist even to today.
And that tends to change on how you define an embryo. According to some an embryo is a fertilized ovum, according to others it is a partically developed organism that stands a fair chance of being carried to term. The line is blurry and as with all of natures works it defies definition and can not be caught in a simple binary category. It's a continuum, just like 'tall' and 'hot'. Some collections of cells are more of an embryo than others, with a 'peak' of 'embryoness' somewhere in those magical 9 months. A born baby is not an embryo, a fertilized ovum probably also isn't one.
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Damn that's funny. I haven't laughed so uncontrollably for a long time. And I spewed my drink all over the place, you jerk. Warn me next time.
I'd like a +1 underrated, please.
What a lot of people apparently don't realize is that those people opposed to embryonic stem cell research are also opposed to the creation of embryos for fertility purposes. Claiming that they would be discarded anyway and thus should be used for scientific purposes begs the real and insufficiently addressed ethical question of whether or not they should have even been created in the first place.
The laws of probability forbid it!
not if it is more profitable to treat a disease than it is to cure it.
I am living proof of this as my meds cost around 80k a month.
Oh yes. This is sometimes referred to the "Oxygen Holocaust" because, although it was a boon to life using energy and moving out of the oceans, the oxygen was toxic to many existing lifeforms and wiped them out. If Global Warming ever caused a change anywhere near as severe us humans would be royally and truly fucked. But you can be sure that life on earth would eventually thrive afterwards.
Happy people make bad consumers.
"#10. Real-Life Kryptonite
A mineralologist discovered a white, powdery mineral that has the same properties - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide -- as the fictional kryptonite."
Who did they test it on? Christopher Reeve is dead alreadymmm
wouldn't it be cheaper for them to put you into cryogenic storage and hope one day they can cure you cheaply?
:-)
Wow, what do you have? The war in Iraq?
Calling someone a "zealot" for not wanting to kill babies for research is a bit much.
Completely avoiding the issue of whether an embryo is a "baby" or not, we do lots of medical research on cadavers. We don't go around killing people in order to obtain cadavers for that research, any more than people go around creating and destroying embryos solely to perform research on. I find it strange that learning about human biology is perfectly okay with the remains of a 90 year old man, but not with the remains of an aborted fetus.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
But it gets better. Basically Global Warming is at fault for all weather bad
Now where does it say that?
Regardless if the earth was warmer before,
Thank you, this is known to everyone and accounted for. It is the rate of change that is scary.
regarldess of the fact we don't know out own planet's ideal temperature
There is no such thing as an ideal temperature, and no one has claimed that there is.
regardless of the fact we can't even forcast a year ahead
Climate is not the same thing as weather.
regardless of the fact that the people who win from all the Global Warming scare mongering are politicians and big business.
No, if global warming and its predicted consequences are real, we all lose.
IPCC as the #1 green idea? That bunch of bad science and fraud?
Any proof of these claims?
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die