"Pope Francis, former Pope Benedict and others recently got together in The Vatican on a panel called 'Jesus is King: The Power Behind God.' According to coverage of the event, the panelists all agreed that Catholics — both regular people and priests — have more power, and thus opportunities, than ever. Even the marketing power of the papacy was acknowledged: 'The only way to convince a Catholic is by giving them a wafer and showing them how it's the body of Christ,' said Preston-Werner. 'The beauty is, you plant these seeds around the world, and those people will evangelize it for you. Because another thing that Catholics are great at is telling other people what works for them.'"
That was really easy. I didn't even have to change "evangelize."
There have been a number of these headlines the past few years and they all use the sensationalist headline of "HIV CURES DISEASE" which simply is not true. What is true is that genetic mechanisms that HIV, a lentivirus, uses to engineer cells are being re-purposed for medical benefit. The basic technique has been used in the laboratory for ages but the big headline here is not HIV but genetic engineering. This is as much HIV helping to cure a disease as getting X-rays at the dentist amounts to "DEATH RAY HELPS PREVENT CAVITIES!"
Methodology aside, the state happiness levels are actually the most dull aspect of this. Far more interesting are the correlations to certain words, obesity, and especially the supplemental data on other traits. Not necessarily anything surprising but definitely more interesting.
Highest correlation with being happy? Being white. Highest correlation for being sad? Being black. The word "cafe" is correlated with percentage of the population having a Bachelor's degree. "Cafe," "sushi," and "brewery" are the top food-related words correlating negatively with obesity.
Not really, no. The old article was from the 24th, stating that this was probably going to happen, and the new one is from the 28th, stating that yes, this is actually going to happen as the WTO has approved it. There's a big difference between a small country saying they will take US copyrights at whim and the WTO saying they are allowed to.
That you think so lowly of Neanderthals and cavemen is just proof of how critical art has been. We've all got some Neaderthal admixture in our history, they weren't truly so different from Homo sapiens (sapiens) cavemen. Humans largely indistinct from us have been around for tens of thousands of years, but it was the development of things like art, language, and civilizations that has allowed us to persist. Art can be used to tell stories and pass on information, and indeed was in the largely illiterate history of our ancestors. Art conveys ideas, and ideas are how you get Tesla and plastics. Don't tell me Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke or Da Vinci weren't pivotal to human intelligence because they created "art."
entries like "Human ancestors walk upright" and "art, early cities" are confusing in that I don't understand how they can be marked as epic achievements. Are you saying that if we had never learned to walk upright we would not have developed intelligence?
Walking upright allowed us to freely use our hands. Everything since was really put on hold until that could happen. Our hands are dextrous and capable to a degree of finery not seen elsewhere. That event was huge. Art is a sign of a creative intelligent process, I don't understand why you don't see that as something "epic." Art is an enormous part of what we call "culture" which is an enormous part of what sets us apart from our evolutionary cousins.
Are you saying that early cities were somehow superior to ant colonies? Didn't they help spread disease and cause sanitation problems?
Yes, if only because humans are superior (at least as far as intelligence goes) to ants. There's no point in grouping together the smartest viruses for a few thousand years and hoping to get a laptop, nor would you advise a company to hire only those with room-temperature IQs. Diseases and sanitation problems, sure, but the population has moved past those issues by an order of magnitude or three, at least in many places.
It's been said that the first person to live forever has already been born. In what sense is this conceivably true? How would such a medical/technological advance affect society, and how on earth could we avoid something catastrophic from occurring? (If you've ever read the Red Mars trilogy, I think of what happened when the longevity treatment was introduced)
He mentions Susan Kare but I'd like to give another shout out to her work. We are still using derivatives of her designs, and the brief simplicity of them really led the way for a lot of the icons we use now.
Preventing the release of your own information? Identification by genotype is a very real privacy issue, but what happened here is NOT the fault of researchers. People seeking familial ancestry information, posted some genotype information online PUBLICLY, in the hopes of finding a relative (in this case, fathers, who can be traced by the Y chromosome). Since last names are roughly patrilineal, a simple genotype match cross-referenced with last names and location made it trivial. Are people to be prevented from releasing their own information? It's the same thing as Facebook - until individuals realize that their private information can be used by anyone for anything once public, this will continue to occur.
Perhaps, but this is a good example of what it means to be inherited as opposed to genetic. The work in the ever-growing field of Epigenetics has taught us that there are many, many influential and inherited things, be they methylation patterns, RNA transcripts or other small molecules, or even persistent environmental pollutants (PCBs, PBDEs, etc.), that affect us without being genetic. Expression and regulation of different genes is a huge factor in our development, and not always controlled by genetic factors, despite being something that can be affected whilst in the womb. There may well be a genetic component to families liking football (predisposition to athletics, competitive, etc.) but the fact that it is taught doesn't necessarily mean it isn't inherited, at least in the broad sense of the word. Nurture and nature aren't separate, they communicate back and forth.
- Science is too political to be trusted with decisions, leave it to those who are entirely political - The signal-to-noise ratio, while significantly higher than current political rhetoric, is less than one. - Not every scientist can be bought.
FTFY.
Okay, snark aside, at a time when Congress ranks below cockroaches are you truly suggesting this wouldn't improve the situation? Your points are, in a sense, all valid, but we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. An improvement is just that, and need not be perfection.
For under two months of work, it sure as shit is a step in the right direction. Accelerometer isn't perfect but it's a good way of getting around the "constantly sampling your drink" problem that provides a good estimate. It's cool, he was creative, we need more of this.
There's a local NRA backed gun club/firing range that I frequent for target practice. It has all kinds of targets depicting people... From what I gather, this is not uncommon.
I've never been but from what I gather from friends' Facebook pictures, about 87% of these targets are zombies. Say what you will about the NRA, and it's probably true, but we can't be soft on Zombies. Life for the living! Better dead than undead!
To follow-up, the kid in that video is apparently no longer a student at Ohio State University, although it is unclear whether or not it was voluntary or... encouraged.
Deadspin has been great about following this story (see the other links(, and this page from a few days ago is more in depth and has the video itself (and some choice quotes if you can't listen to this sort of thing):
Is it fair? Sure. But if they want to ban your phone in their office, politely tell them you are quite fairly banning their office on your phone. No work after 5, no emails over the weekend, no contact over holidays; that stick goes both ways and if you can't bring your life to work you shouldn't have to bring your work into your life.
This guy is seriously the number one reason I have and will ever have for wanting to move to Oregon. I am tired of writing letters to my representatives and senators telling them to be more like him, and tired of writing him letters thanking him for fighting for MY rights even though I can't vote for him.
The only dangers I see is that the original virus DNA might not be reliable removed, causing the (original!) virus to reproduce and attack the organism, or that the immune system identified the virus shell as dangerous, and starts an attack against the "infected" cells (which in the worst case might turn into a full-blown autoimmune disease).
The first part is actually pretty easy. You typically grow the virus using a plasmid construct you have created. That piece of DNA is just DNA without the viral mechanism, and you can easily sequence it to confirm you got what you wanted, as well as use various reporters for in vivo expression. When you express that plasmid in cells, the virus produced is only from your version and never came in contact with the original.
As for the second, I'm not sure why you would get an auto-immune disease from this - normal immune responses don't usually cause such diseases. In fact, that the immune system does attack and clear the virus (normal behavior), such that the virus is eventually cleared from the body. The goal is to have the gene inserted and expressed without persistent viral infection.
It is just that the entire commercial is as loud as the the loudest part of the TV show while the loud point in the TV show is only for a moment or two before the volume returns to much lower normal volumes.
That's what "louder" means. Put some averages and standard deviations in there if you like, but "peak loudness forever" is louder than "peak loudness for a brief moment." I usually drive my car around the speed limit but I went 100mph once, a car going 100mph all the time is faster than me.
It's there for the same reason "Minnesotan" is there - background. In fact, I'd say it's there only to modify the state she calls home. From a legal perspective, what state you are in has importance for various courts and precedence, so legally minded people would be interested. Saying she is from Minnesota might not be technically accurate since, as a Native American, her relationship to the state could very well be slightly different than one might expect.
No more Aspergers, Pluto is not a planet, life starts at conception, etc...
Decided by scientists, decided by scientists, decided by religious extremists.
That list is not parallel. Whether you agree or not with a naming decision, better it be based on sound evidence. Naming has important consequences for how something is treated, money is allocated, and perhaps more importantly, how language is used. That's why we have pro-life and pro-choice, instead of anti-choice or anti-life - names matter. They convey information, hopefully accurately. When the word planet is used, we all have a common understanding of what that implies. The PATRIOT ACT and Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act were named that way for exactly that reason, because names matter.
Slashdot Mirror
"Pope Francis, former Pope Benedict and others recently got together in The Vatican on a panel called 'Jesus is King: The Power Behind God.' According to coverage of the event, the panelists all agreed that Catholics — both regular people and priests — have more power, and thus opportunities, than ever. Even the marketing power of the papacy was acknowledged: 'The only way to convince a Catholic is by giving them a wafer and showing them how it's the body of Christ,' said Preston-Werner. 'The beauty is, you plant these seeds around the world, and those people will evangelize it for you. Because another thing that Catholics are great at is telling other people what works for them.'"
That was really easy. I didn't even have to change "evangelize."
There have been a number of these headlines the past few years and they all use the sensationalist headline of "HIV CURES DISEASE" which simply is not true. What is true is that genetic mechanisms that HIV, a lentivirus, uses to engineer cells are being re-purposed for medical benefit. The basic technique has been used in the laboratory for ages but the big headline here is not HIV but genetic engineering. This is as much HIV helping to cure a disease as getting X-rays at the dentist amounts to "DEATH RAY HELPS PREVENT CAVITIES!"
It's amazing to see how fast the field is shifting away from TALENs to CRISPR systems. The latter is just unbelievably powerful.
Methodology aside, the state happiness levels are actually the most dull aspect of this. Far more interesting are the correlations to certain words, obesity, and especially the supplemental data on other traits. Not necessarily anything surprising but definitely more interesting.
Highest correlation with being happy? Being white.
Highest correlation for being sad? Being black.
The word "cafe" is correlated with percentage of the population having a Bachelor's degree.
"Cafe," "sushi," and "brewery" are the top food-related words correlating negatively with obesity.
They only left it on for 15 minutes. How that translates, who knows - small mammals respond better to DNA vaccines than primates do.
Not really, no. The old article was from the 24th, stating that this was probably going to happen, and the new one is from the 28th, stating that yes, this is actually going to happen as the WTO has approved it. There's a big difference between a small country saying they will take US copyrights at whim and the WTO saying they are allowed to.
That you think so lowly of Neanderthals and cavemen is just proof of how critical art has been. We've all got some Neaderthal admixture in our history, they weren't truly so different from Homo sapiens (sapiens) cavemen. Humans largely indistinct from us have been around for tens of thousands of years, but it was the development of things like art, language, and civilizations that has allowed us to persist. Art can be used to tell stories and pass on information, and indeed was in the largely illiterate history of our ancestors. Art conveys ideas, and ideas are how you get Tesla and plastics. Don't tell me Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke or Da Vinci weren't pivotal to human intelligence because they created "art."
entries like "Human ancestors walk upright" and "art, early cities" are confusing in that I don't understand how they can be marked as epic achievements. Are you saying that if we had never learned to walk upright we would not have developed intelligence?
Walking upright allowed us to freely use our hands. Everything since was really put on hold until that could happen. Our hands are dextrous and capable to a degree of finery not seen elsewhere. That event was huge. Art is a sign of a creative intelligent process, I don't understand why you don't see that as something "epic." Art is an enormous part of what we call "culture" which is an enormous part of what sets us apart from our evolutionary cousins.
Are you saying that early cities were somehow superior to ant colonies? Didn't they help spread disease and cause sanitation problems?
Yes, if only because humans are superior (at least as far as intelligence goes) to ants. There's no point in grouping together the smartest viruses for a few thousand years and hoping to get a laptop, nor would you advise a company to hire only those with room-temperature IQs. Diseases and sanitation problems, sure, but the population has moved past those issues by an order of magnitude or three, at least in many places.
It's been said that the first person to live forever has already been born. In what sense is this conceivably true? How would such a medical/technological advance affect society, and how on earth could we avoid something catastrophic from occurring? (If you've ever read the Red Mars trilogy, I think of what happened when the longevity treatment was introduced)
He mentions Susan Kare but I'd like to give another shout out to her work. We are still using derivatives of her designs, and the brief simplicity of them really led the way for a lot of the icons we use now.
Preventing the release of your own information? Identification by genotype is a very real privacy issue, but what happened here is NOT the fault of researchers. People seeking familial ancestry information, posted some genotype information online PUBLICLY, in the hopes of finding a relative (in this case, fathers, who can be traced by the Y chromosome). Since last names are roughly patrilineal, a simple genotype match cross-referenced with last names and location made it trivial. Are people to be prevented from releasing their own information? It's the same thing as Facebook - until individuals realize that their private information can be used by anyone for anything once public, this will continue to occur.
Perhaps, but this is a good example of what it means to be inherited as opposed to genetic. The work in the ever-growing field of Epigenetics has taught us that there are many, many influential and inherited things, be they methylation patterns, RNA transcripts or other small molecules, or even persistent environmental pollutants (PCBs, PBDEs, etc.), that affect us without being genetic. Expression and regulation of different genes is a huge factor in our development, and not always controlled by genetic factors, despite being something that can be affected whilst in the womb. There may well be a genetic component to families liking football (predisposition to athletics, competitive, etc.) but the fact that it is taught doesn't necessarily mean it isn't inherited, at least in the broad sense of the word. Nurture and nature aren't separate, they communicate back and forth.
- Science is too political to be trusted with decisions, leave it to those who are entirely political
- The signal-to-noise ratio, while significantly higher than current political rhetoric, is less than one.
- Not every scientist can be bought.
FTFY.
Okay, snark aside, at a time when Congress ranks below cockroaches are you truly suggesting this wouldn't improve the situation? Your points are, in a sense, all valid, but we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. An improvement is just that, and need not be perfection.
Perhaps that indicates a problem with politics rather than scientists.
I thought attachment was forbidden for a Jedi. It leads to jealousy, and last I heard the shadow of greed, that is.
this isn't it and isn't even close.
For under two months of work, it sure as shit is a step in the right direction. Accelerometer isn't perfect but it's a good way of getting around the "constantly sampling your drink" problem that provides a good estimate. It's cool, he was creative, we need more of this.
There's a local NRA backed gun club/firing range that I frequent for target practice. It has all kinds of targets depicting people... From what I gather, this is not uncommon.
I've never been but from what I gather from friends' Facebook pictures, about 87% of these targets are zombies. Say what you will about the NRA, and it's probably true, but we can't be soft on Zombies. Life for the living! Better dead than undead!
To follow-up, the kid in that video is apparently no longer a student at Ohio State University, although it is unclear whether or not it was voluntary or... encouraged.
https://twitter.com/OhioState/status/288327446175027202
Deadspin has been great about following this story (see the other links(, and this page from a few days ago is more in depth and has the video itself (and some choice quotes if you can't listen to this sort of thing):
http://deadspin.com/5972527/she-is-so-raped-right-now-former-student-jokes-about-the-steubenville-accuser-the-night-of-the-alleged-rape
Truly despicable.
Is it fair? Sure. But if they want to ban your phone in their office, politely tell them you are quite fairly banning their office on your phone. No work after 5, no emails over the weekend, no contact over holidays; that stick goes both ways and if you can't bring your life to work you shouldn't have to bring your work into your life.
This guy is seriously the number one reason I have and will ever have for wanting to move to Oregon. I am tired of writing letters to my representatives and senators telling them to be more like him, and tired of writing him letters thanking him for fighting for MY rights even though I can't vote for him.
The only dangers I see is that the original virus DNA might not be reliable removed, causing the (original!) virus to reproduce and attack the organism, or that the immune system identified the virus shell as dangerous, and starts an attack against the "infected" cells (which in the worst case might turn into a full-blown autoimmune disease).
The first part is actually pretty easy. You typically grow the virus using a plasmid construct you have created. That piece of DNA is just DNA without the viral mechanism, and you can easily sequence it to confirm you got what you wanted, as well as use various reporters for in vivo expression. When you express that plasmid in cells, the virus produced is only from your version and never came in contact with the original.
As for the second, I'm not sure why you would get an auto-immune disease from this - normal immune responses don't usually cause such diseases. In fact, that the immune system does attack and clear the virus (normal behavior), such that the virus is eventually cleared from the body. The goal is to have the gene inserted and expressed without persistent viral infection.
It is just that the entire commercial is as loud as the the loudest part of the TV show while the loud point in the TV show is only for a moment or two before the volume returns to much lower normal volumes.
That's what "louder" means. Put some averages and standard deviations in there if you like, but "peak loudness forever" is louder than "peak loudness for a brief moment." I usually drive my car around the speed limit but I went 100mph once, a car going 100mph all the time is faster than me.
It's there for the same reason "Minnesotan" is there - background. In fact, I'd say it's there only to modify the state she calls home. From a legal perspective, what state you are in has importance for various courts and precedence, so legally minded people would be interested. Saying she is from Minnesota might not be technically accurate since, as a Native American, her relationship to the state could very well be slightly different than one might expect.
No more Aspergers, Pluto is not a planet, life starts at conception, etc...
Decided by scientists, decided by scientists, decided by religious extremists.
That list is not parallel. Whether you agree or not with a naming decision, better it be based on sound evidence. Naming has important consequences for how something is treated, money is allocated, and perhaps more importantly, how language is used. That's why we have pro-life and pro-choice, instead of anti-choice or anti-life - names matter. They convey information, hopefully accurately. When the word planet is used, we all have a common understanding of what that implies. The PATRIOT ACT and Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act were named that way for exactly that reason, because names matter.