I'd be a bit cautious here since the article we're discussing is from a pop press science website which has picked up a fairly technical psychology journal and summarized the article. There is no info on the guy writing the bit in "ScienceWorld" regarding whether he has the background to offer a summary on high-end psychology research.
The actual article was titled:
"Concurrent Validity and Clinical Usefulness of Several Individually Administered Tests of Children's Social-Emotional Cognition" published in "Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology"
Which is in my mind a fair stretch from what was reported in "ScienceWorld".
I'd simply blame the interpretation of a technical article into something it wasn't and then sticking it on a website where it was picked up by a slew of others so we have a completely misrepresented article spread around the world three times over.
A key point of the article that seems to have slipped past a fair number here is that the researchers are attempting to explain the robustness of the gene replication:
"Evidence for this lies in the genetic code, say Woese and Goldenfeld. Though it was discovered in the 1960s, no one had been able to explain how evolution could have made it so exquisitely tuned to resisting errors. Mutations happen in DNA coding all the time, and yet the proteins it produces often remain unaffected by these glitches. Darwinian evolution simply cannot explain how such a code could arise. But horizontal gene transfer can, say Woese and Goldenfeld."
And:
"In 1991, geneticists David Haig and Lawrence Hurst at the University of Oxford went further, showing that the code's level of error tolerance is truly remarkable. They studied the error tolerance of an enormous number of hypothetical genetic codes, all built from the same base pairs but with codons associated randomly with amino acids. They found that the actual code is around one in a million in terms of how good it is at error mitigation. "The actual genetic code," says Goldenfeld, "stands out like a sore thumb as being the best possible." That would seem to demand some evolutionary explanation. Yet, until now, no one has found one. The reason, say Woese and Goldenfeld, is that everyone has been thinking in terms of the wrong kind of evolution."
The point is that vertical evolution cant' get all the branches to the same point in the stability of gene coding. Their argument is that the fundamental mechanism that allows the system to move forward needed to evolve via vertical transfer and not horizontal.
It's true that its been known for a while, but the significance of horizontal transfer has not.
Reading the article and then jumping over and making use of "Google Scholar" it seems that the Boskops are not seen as a separate species or genus, but more of a grouping of larger skulls from the extant population of the time. John Hawks, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison has a fairly in-depth blog on the subject (http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brain/paleo/lynch-granger-big-brain-boskops-2008.html).
The other part of the picture, is fairly clear, and that is survival. As much as we seem to know of the "Boskops" they may have been an offshoot of the population of the time (but within the the larger envelope of homo sapien sapien). These larger skulled individuals, regardless if they were a population to themselves, faded. One of the points mentioned regarding brain size, is that they are "expensive" in the sense of the food and nutritional requirements. In considering their situation at that point in geologic time, they may have simply been a Formula 1 car showing up at the Baha 1000. Intelligence, like horsepower is but one aspect of survival (or winning) and whether their larger brain simply required too much "fuel" to finish, or that they were simply too specialized to be reflected in modern man, is open to speculation.
At some point in time we may collect enough comparative (fossil) evidence to look at DNA comparisons, between the "Boskops" and their contemporaries and then compare this to "modern" man and be able to fit these individuals into the larger evolutionary picture.
Hey, they even carried a decent photo; even science gets past their Narrow-Minded, Censoring Overlords.
My problem was the article came through as an email update from Science News, which had since pulled the larger write-up with the only to buy the article.
Back in March, there was an article in "Nature News"(the Nature News article is subscription, but a decent summary was posted by "The Free Republic") that the mineral Olivine when incorporated in a hydrothermal system may generate methane.
On Earth, the predominate source of methane is considered biological in origin, and the presence on Mars has been considered a possible indication of life on Mars. Recently, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at The Woodlands, near Houston, Texas, researcher Bethany Ehlmann (a PhD student at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island) proposed a geological process could be a potential source for methane. The article reports that under a hydrothermal process the mineral olivine can undergo conversion to serpentine, with methane and hydrogen as a by-product.
Not surprisingly, there are potential problems with the theory. Though the presence of the mineral could have been a source of methane, the surface mineral is ancient, 3.8BY. Too old to be the source of the methane currently detected. It may be though, that the conversion is active subsurface, and the generated methane reaches the surface via fissures, etc."
If you read the article in the Arizona Central Newpaper(http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/11/30/20091130searchforaliens1202.html) the bizarre thing is that though they found a bunch of the school district's PC's at his home, they sound more peeved about SETI. The quote from the superintendent Denise Birdwell; "We support educational research and certainly would have supported cancer research," However, as an educational institution we do not support the search for E.T." would seem to indicate that if he had picked one of the other projects, they would have been fine with that.
As is often, it seems that there may be more behind the scenes than before.
I've been employed within the environmental industry, and there is a marked improvement in availability of information from the Federal government since Obama in terms of both what is available on their websites and the implementation of email updates on regulatory changes, proposals, research, etc.
Just the improved information availability is a significant improvement.
A long time ago, individuals worked for a company and the norm, not the exception, was that was where you retired. The difference was that this relationship was a two way street, strong pension, etc. Mergers followed by getting shown the door were the exception. The same was true (then) for contractual arrangements. Doubling rates or cutting what was delivered was the exception.
When was the last time you received a letter that you're credit card rate was going up, simply because they could?
Or for the same level of service from your cable/internet/phone provider "Due to Conditions Beyond Our Control" was going up in price.
The point is, that if a business or industry wants the customers to have a vested interest, it needs to be reciprocal.
More likely,
Can I order over the interplanet-net; a family box of your hot dead birds and a side of cholesterol laden deep fried tubers?
Deliver to ZZ9-plural-Z-alpha, 5th out from the sun, 6th moon. Knock twice. And do you still accept American Express?
I feel a bit remiss in this summary. I had submitted the stuff, but later that day, it struck me that the way I presented it was approaching slanderous (basically very strongly dismissing the original premise) and hoped that the summary wasn't posted. Slashdot editor kdawson took pity on me and re-worded; and frankly I'm grateful for it. My guess is that in re-wording, some was lost in the translation.
I happen to know that the Commander's relationship with farm animals is a completely enlightened and fulfilling one for all parties involved. It's narrowed minded individuals like yourself which sullies these otherwise warm and positive relationships. Kirk on the other-hand was clearly a sexist (as was the writers which always wrote into the universe aliens which had all the necessary parts to get him hot and bothered).
However, unlike your comment and mine, its easy to differentiate "reality". What has happened on in these cases that they are attempting to address is that the attack on the individual is such that a peer does believe the tripe. At the age we're talking about, both males and females, many are particularly vulnerable. Their friends and what their peers think of them is massively important.
whether we can legislate politeness is another matter. I don't believe that teens are any more villainous than before, its more that the internet allows a wider audience to attack while the anonymity makes it more difficult to defend oneself (though I would at the same time believe that net anonymity is massively important, though I'll post this, non-anonymously).
Sure - a bit contrived - but as I recall it was trying to "fix" him while this is simply a marketing scheme run amok. The next question to ask me is my opinion on current marketing trends: which if I gave my opinion would be modded as "flamebait".
Don't know if I type slow, think slow, or both, but one of my pet annoyances is when the screen saver kicks-in as I'm staring at the screen in thought (sure I know how to set it, but I am not always in front of my own PC, and oft away and then back a lot through the day).
If this will simply tell the OS, hold on, he's sitting there doing something, I'd find it a pretty neat idea.
I'm not quite sure how you'd word an "Op-In" agreement that would effectively cover this; "I consent to receive life threatening emails, harassed, etc."?
In other words anything that would, in plain English, explain what you were agreeing to, no one would sign.
And regarding $10M, though this may seem like a lot of money, the point to this type of suit is deterrent, and at $10M, I doubt that it is.
Agreed. But my point (and maybe not clearly communicated) was that the hyperdrive may be the "break-out" technology which changes the basic premise (liquid and solid fuel rockets). So long as we're chemical based, we're likely limited to wandering (with manned space flight) fairly close to home. Even our next nearest planets are highly impractical for manned flight with current technology.
Our problem with space travel has been our propulsion systems. Our major tech advances across the board tend to hinge on a single key break-through that then opens the door for subsequent refinements till we have a viable technology. If this pans out it may no longer "locked" to shuttling around the Earth and moon, and if someone's willing to make a likely one way trip to Mars.
I know Ajax was a decent bactericide; does it also handle viruses? Do I scrub my main board, hard drive, memory???? Regarding the law suit, with this novel of application of a kitchen cleanser, I would fully support them.
My first reaction was that this (assuming the theory is correct) is about as cool of a discovery - concept I've read about in a long time. At the same time it brings to point a thought that one of the problems with popular Sci-Fi is that it misses on potential of "stuff" "out-there" (space) being wilder and different (including life) than we've yet to imagine.
If you consider the variety of habitats that we find life in our tiny part of the cosmos (Earth) and that life keeps being discovered in more and bizarre places (by human standards) when you extrapolate that out, I tend to think it may be literally beyond our imagination.
If we, by whatever means, met intelligent life, would we be able to communicate; sure math is universal, but consider the issues communicating ideas and values across cultures when its the same species. Consider a collective consciousness, what does the term "I" or "me" mean to it (them).
I suspect the the main hurdle will be at getting the individuals behind the businesses. Must admit that this is the first time I've read about this approach to malware distribution, but I may simply be out of the loop.
If I were to start anywhere, it would be at the elementary education level. Early on the child is a natural "scientist". Inquisitive, fascinated with why and how thing work. Somehow by the time they reach middle school, we've lost a large number of the kids. I am not blaming the teachers but more likely the means we teach science, but if you simply take a step back and look at the level of interest in "science" through the grade school years to the middle school years, I believe you would find an continual slide in interest.
The 2005 Harris poll reports that less than half of the US population does not believe in evolution. Now though this is significantly based upon religious belief, if the individual did not feel themselves alienated from science, I would doubt that we would see these types of numbers.
The one aspect of the situation I have not seen researched is if we are suffering a collective "Future Shock", quite simply too much information, often conflicting on the major situations affecting the world where it is simply more comforting to a lot of people to try to maintain the world in traditional, and simple compartments..
What I have been surprised at, in this discussion and when the subject was originally posted, was that for the chance to be the first to explore Mars, even if its a one way trip and the individual will spend the rest of their life as a first "Martian" the chance to explore and experiences in transit, exploration and survival on Mars would be "Worth-It" to a lot of people.
The comments have been largely takig the perspective of a suicide voyage, but that is only a very narrow perspective. There is a difference between "Being Alive" and "Living" and for some, "Living" with the experiences of attempting to survive on a different planet would be a very easy decision.
No, its not the moon landing was faked; what it means is (equally plausible) is that the capsule was pulled through a worm hole, to a point in time when the moon was forested. The piece of wood the astronauts were attempting to bring back, was not placed within the shielded area of the capsule so that when they went back through the worm hole, the piece of wood experienced the full impact of the millenia in between, and hence was returned as petrified. Because the shielding was somewhat worn by the initial trip, the memories of the astronauts were somewhat impacted. Film was subsequently created based upon what NASA believed happened.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be a bit cautious here since the article we're discussing is from a pop press science website which has picked up a fairly technical psychology journal and summarized the article. There is no info on the guy writing the bit in "ScienceWorld" regarding whether he has the background to offer a summary on high-end psychology research.
The actual article was titled:
"Concurrent Validity and Clinical Usefulness of Several Individually Administered Tests of Children's Social-Emotional Cognition" published in "Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology"
Which is in my mind a fair stretch from what was reported in "ScienceWorld".
I'd simply blame the interpretation of a technical article into something it wasn't and then sticking it on a website where it was picked up by a slew of others so we have a completely misrepresented article spread around the world three times over.
Liked it.
I guess your wronging (mod points) is pointing out the obvious.
A key point of the article that seems to have slipped past a fair number here is that the researchers are attempting to explain the robustness of the gene replication:
"Evidence for this lies in the genetic code, say Woese and Goldenfeld. Though it was discovered in the 1960s, no one had been able to explain how evolution could have made it so exquisitely tuned to resisting errors. Mutations happen in DNA coding all the time, and yet the proteins it produces often remain unaffected by these glitches. Darwinian evolution simply cannot explain how such a code could arise. But horizontal gene transfer can, say Woese and Goldenfeld."
And:
"In 1991, geneticists David Haig and Lawrence Hurst at the University of Oxford went further, showing that the code's level of error tolerance is truly remarkable. They studied the error tolerance of an enormous number of hypothetical genetic codes, all built from the same base pairs but with codons associated randomly with amino acids. They found that the actual code is around one in a million in terms of how good it is at error mitigation. "The actual genetic code," says Goldenfeld, "stands out like a sore thumb as being the best possible." That would seem to demand some evolutionary explanation. Yet, until now, no one has found one. The reason, say Woese and Goldenfeld, is that everyone has been thinking in terms of the wrong kind of evolution."
The point is that vertical evolution cant' get all the branches to the same point in the stability of gene coding. Their argument is that the fundamental mechanism that allows the system to move forward needed to evolve via vertical transfer and not horizontal.
It's true that its been known for a while, but the significance of horizontal transfer has not.
Reading the article and then jumping over and making use of "Google Scholar" it seems that the Boskops are not seen as a separate species or genus, but more of a grouping of larger skulls from the extant population of the time. John Hawks, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison has a fairly in-depth blog on the subject (http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brain/paleo/lynch-granger-big-brain-boskops-2008.html).
The other part of the picture, is fairly clear, and that is survival. As much as we seem to know of the "Boskops" they may have been an offshoot of the population of the time (but within the the larger envelope of homo sapien sapien). These larger skulled individuals, regardless if they were a population to themselves, faded. One of the points mentioned regarding brain size, is that they are "expensive" in the sense of the food and nutritional requirements. In considering their situation at that point in geologic time, they may have simply been a Formula 1 car showing up at the Baha 1000. Intelligence, like horsepower is but one aspect of survival (or winning) and whether their larger brain simply required too much "fuel" to finish, or that they were simply too specialized to be reflected in modern man, is open to speculation.
At some point in time we may collect enough comparative (fossil) evidence to look at DNA comparisons, between the "Boskops" and their contemporaries and then compare this to "modern" man and be able to fit these individuals into the larger evolutionary picture.
Hey, they even carried a decent photo; even science gets past their Narrow-Minded, Censoring Overlords.
My problem was the article came through as an email update from Science News, which had since pulled the larger write-up with the only to buy the article.
Back in March, there was an article in "Nature News"(the Nature News article is subscription, but a decent summary was posted by "The Free Republic") that the mineral Olivine when incorporated in a hydrothermal system may generate methane.
On Earth, the predominate source of methane is considered biological in origin, and the presence on Mars has been considered a possible indication of life on Mars. Recently, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at The Woodlands, near Houston, Texas, researcher Bethany Ehlmann (a PhD student at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island) proposed a geological process could be a potential source for methane. The article reports that under a hydrothermal process the mineral olivine can undergo conversion to serpentine, with methane and hydrogen as a by-product.
Not surprisingly, there are potential problems with the theory. Though the presence of the mineral could have been a source of methane, the surface mineral is ancient, 3.8BY. Too old to be the source of the methane currently detected. It may be though, that the conversion is active subsurface, and the generated methane reaches the surface via fissures, etc."
If you read the article in the Arizona Central Newpaper(http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/11/30/20091130searchforaliens1202.html) the bizarre thing is that though they found a bunch of the school district's PC's at his home, they sound more peeved about SETI. The quote from the superintendent Denise Birdwell; "We support educational research and certainly would have supported cancer research," However, as an educational institution we do not support the search for E.T." would seem to indicate that if he had picked one of the other projects, they would have been fine with that.
As is often, it seems that there may be more behind the scenes than before.
I've been employed within the environmental industry, and there is a marked improvement in availability of information from the Federal government since Obama in terms of both what is available on their websites and the implementation of email updates on regulatory changes, proposals, research, etc.
Just the improved information availability is a significant improvement.
A long time ago, individuals worked for a company and the norm, not the exception, was that was where you retired. The difference was that this relationship was a two way street, strong pension, etc. Mergers followed by getting shown the door were the exception. The same was true (then) for contractual arrangements. Doubling rates or cutting what was delivered was the exception.
When was the last time you received a letter that you're credit card rate was going up, simply because they could?
Or for the same level of service from your cable/internet/phone provider "Due to Conditions Beyond Our Control" was going up in price.
The point is, that if a business or industry wants the customers to have a vested interest, it needs to be reciprocal.
More likely, Can I order over the interplanet-net; a family box of your hot dead birds and a side of cholesterol laden deep fried tubers? Deliver to ZZ9-plural-Z-alpha, 5th out from the sun, 6th moon. Knock twice. And do you still accept American Express?
I believe that's what the off button is for. Or pulling the battery.
And if it would come to fruition, then it would be time for a new unit without this bunch of bull.
I feel a bit remiss in this summary. I had submitted the stuff, but later that day, it struck me that the way I presented it was approaching slanderous (basically very strongly dismissing the original premise) and hoped that the summary wasn't posted. Slashdot editor kdawson took pity on me and re-worded; and frankly I'm grateful for it. My guess is that in re-wording, some was lost in the translation.
Greg
And I always found the "Three Stooges" thought provoking!
I happen to know that the Commander's relationship with farm animals is a completely enlightened and fulfilling one for all parties involved. It's narrowed minded individuals like yourself which sullies these otherwise warm and positive relationships. Kirk on the other-hand was clearly a sexist (as was the writers which always wrote into the universe aliens which had all the necessary parts to get him hot and bothered).
However, unlike your comment and mine, its easy to differentiate "reality". What has happened on in these cases that they are attempting to address is that the attack on the individual is such that a peer does believe the tripe. At the age we're talking about, both males and females, many are particularly vulnerable. Their friends and what their peers think of them is massively important.
whether we can legislate politeness is another matter. I don't believe that teens are any more villainous than before, its more that the internet allows a wider audience to attack while the anonymity makes it more difficult to defend oneself (though I would at the same time believe that net anonymity is massively important, though I'll post this, non-anonymously).
Sure - a bit contrived - but as I recall it was trying to "fix" him while this is simply a marketing scheme run amok. The next question to ask me is my opinion on current marketing trends: which if I gave my opinion would be modded as "flamebait".
Don't know if I type slow, think slow, or both, but one of my pet annoyances is when the screen saver kicks-in as I'm staring at the screen in thought (sure I know how to set it, but I am not always in front of my own PC, and oft away and then back a lot through the day).
If this will simply tell the OS, hold on, he's sitting there doing something, I'd find it a pretty neat idea.
Greg
I'm not quite sure how you'd word an "Op-In" agreement that would effectively cover this; "I consent to receive life threatening emails, harassed, etc."?
In other words anything that would, in plain English, explain what you were agreeing to, no one would sign.
And regarding $10M, though this may seem like a lot of money, the point to this type of suit is deterrent, and at $10M, I doubt that it is.
Agreed. But my point (and maybe not clearly communicated) was that the hyperdrive may be the "break-out" technology which changes the basic premise (liquid and solid fuel rockets). So long as we're chemical based, we're likely limited to wandering (with manned space flight) fairly close to home. Even our next nearest planets are highly impractical for manned flight with current technology.
Our problem with space travel has been our propulsion systems. Our major tech advances across the board tend to hinge on a single key break-through that then opens the door for subsequent refinements till we have a viable technology. If this pans out it may no longer "locked" to shuttling around the Earth and moon, and if someone's willing to make a likely one way trip to Mars.
I have to assume that the Phoenix Brands licensed Ajax to Eolas.
I know Ajax was a decent bactericide; does it also handle viruses? Do I scrub my main board, hard drive, memory???? Regarding the law suit, with this novel of application of a kitchen cleanser, I would fully support them.
My first reaction was that this (assuming the theory is correct) is about as cool of a discovery - concept I've read about in a long time. At the same time it brings to point a thought that one of the problems with popular Sci-Fi is that it misses on potential of "stuff" "out-there" (space) being wilder and different (including life) than we've yet to imagine.
If you consider the variety of habitats that we find life in our tiny part of the cosmos (Earth) and that life keeps being discovered in more and bizarre places (by human standards) when you extrapolate that out, I tend to think it may be literally beyond our imagination.
If we, by whatever means, met intelligent life, would we be able to communicate; sure math is universal, but consider the issues communicating ideas and values across cultures when its the same species. Consider a collective consciousness, what does the term "I" or "me" mean to it (them).
I suspect the the main hurdle will be at getting the individuals behind the businesses. Must admit that this is the first time I've read about this approach to malware distribution, but I may simply be out of the loop.
Greg
If I were to start anywhere, it would be at the elementary education level. Early on the child is a natural "scientist". Inquisitive, fascinated with why and how thing work. Somehow by the time they reach middle school, we've lost a large number of the kids. I am not blaming the teachers but more likely the means we teach science, but if you simply take a step back and look at the level of interest in "science" through the grade school years to the middle school years, I believe you would find an continual slide in interest.
.
The 2005 Harris poll reports that less than half of the US population does not believe in evolution. Now though this is significantly based upon religious belief, if the individual did not feel themselves alienated from science, I would doubt that we would see these types of numbers.
The one aspect of the situation I have not seen researched is if we are suffering a collective "Future Shock", quite simply too much information, often conflicting on the major situations affecting the world where it is simply more comforting to a lot of people to try to maintain the world in traditional, and simple compartments.
Greg
What I have been surprised at, in this discussion and when the subject was originally posted, was that for the chance to be the first to explore Mars, even if its a one way trip and the individual will spend the rest of their life as a first "Martian" the chance to explore and experiences in transit, exploration and survival on Mars would be "Worth-It" to a lot of people.
The comments have been largely takig the perspective of a suicide voyage, but that is only a very narrow perspective. There is a difference between "Being Alive" and "Living" and for some, "Living" with the experiences of attempting to survive on a different planet would be a very easy decision.
No, its not the moon landing was faked; what it means is (equally plausible) is that the capsule was pulled through a worm hole, to a point in time when the moon was forested. The piece of wood the astronauts were attempting to bring back, was not placed within the shielded area of the capsule so that when they went back through the worm hole, the piece of wood experienced the full impact of the millenia in between, and hence was returned as petrified. Because the shielding was somewhat worn by the initial trip, the memories of the astronauts were somewhat impacted. Film was subsequently created based upon what NASA believed happened.