So they put a transister inside a cell membrane. How exactly does that make it part human? Every living creature has cells that have phospholipid bilayers.
More generally, it is not true to say that a lipid bilayer is even 'biological' in any meaningful sense. Ok, so the ion pump that they used is biological, since it was probably extracted from a cell. There have been designed (artificial) ion pumps, however, which could be used instead.
Perhaps this is too pedantic, but this is really bio-mimetics rather than bio-chemistry... Anyway, where is Dr Baltar and his detector when we need him? Fracking toasters everywhere!
Well put it like this then : some people are in a lifeboat, and a couple of them (the west) are eating up half the supplies, while the rest have to make do with much smaller amounts. At this rate, all the food will be used up, so something has to change. Is it that
a) The rations should be shared out equally. Or
b) The developing nations have the same, but the ones that were eating more have to cut down.
"Scientist" is retard. Loosing his funding would be the best thing that could happen to him.
One would think if his funding were loosed, he'd be quite happy.
"Dear Research Councils, I am very happy to be acquainted with you, and as a humble scientist, wish to loose my funding to the cash sum of 7 HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars..."
Sorry, not sure where I'm going with this.
What? Of course viruses have DNA (or RNA) otherwise there would be nothing to replicate...
Of course, there is also the mimivirus, with 1,000 genes that produces its own virion factory in the cell, so that it doesn't even have to put its genes into the cell nucleus.
Wow! Your argument is so powerful that it can be applied at the meta-level to arguing itself! Disagreeing with you means a lack of understanding of basic science?
Possibly the GP was talking about some hypothetical lesser theory that he might (theoretically) be in a position to disprove, and not evolution. The point was that understanding is essential to accepting OR rejecting a theory. In fact, it could be said that those who disprove a theory understand it better than those that proposed it in the first place.
Obviously, no one is saying that critics of the whole idea of evolution or the big bang have a deeper understanding of these topics than the supporters - although they would probably claim the opposite!
It's not a matter of belief. Scientific literacy requires an understanding of the evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming that all living things currently on Earth, including humans, evolved from earlier forms.
You find the evidence overwhelming, I find the evidence overwhelming, but there are some who don't. Have you ever seen a creationist website? It is full, absolutely chock full of scientific detail (and "scientific" detail:). Cherry-picked, and misinterpreted, to be sure, and the conclusions reached are ridiculous, but creationists are quite literate in a weird way. Just wrong.
Any person who is not aware of the evidence is scientifically illiterate, and any person who, when confronted with the evidence, refuses to accept it, is irrational. "Belief" doesn't enter into it... unless you're talking about the relgious beliefs which seem to have a remarkable ability to make people act irrationally on this particular matter.
Which we are talking about - religious belief, which can let people read the facts and come to the strangest of conclusions.
(a) And what exactly does methane turn into as it floats around in the atmosphere?
(b) You're correct - oxidation of one CH4 molecule produces one CO2 molecule and two H2O molecules.
Ha! At b) - indeed, I'm struggling to think of what the GP's point was. Can there be a mechanism that makes more than one CO2 from one CH4? Maybe with the involvement of some other carbon compound, which is broken down too...
This wikipedia page Anaerobic_oxidation_of_methane offers a reaction like this: CH4 + SO42- HCO3- + HS- + H2O as a biological reaction. Perhaps there are also geochemical degradation reactions as well, I don't know.
Anything ranging from just sketching out some informal package diagrams on some paper (I quite like using an A3 sketchpad) to something more like Code City which can work with code in smalltalk, java, and c++. There are UML diagram makers, of course, but automated diagrams like that probably need to be edited.
In fact, it is not the finished diagram that helps so much as the drawing of it, which is why paper and pencil is so good. Or a vector graphics package.
Yes, this is an argument pattern I call "ad logicam" (I don't care if that is terrible latin, it's been 17 years since I used the language).
What happens is that the arguer knows these terms like "ad hominem", "straw man", etc. and concentrates only on that aspect of an opposing argument. So, you could make the most well thought out reply that completely destroys their point, but end with "you idiot" and the argument is 'lost'. Not lost in the technical sense of having a better point, but lost to flame and bitter gall.
It doesn't help that slashdot is full of idiots as well...oh no! My point!...
I may be putting words into your mouth, but you are not confusing contagious with deadly are you? It is just that you say:
of the 152 people who supposedly died from it (which is what made people thinkit was highly contagious)
No insult intended, but to avoid confusion I would say that a disease can be contagious without being deadly since the word "contagious" means "can be spread from an infected person to a non-infected person". Colds are contagious, but not deadly, HIV is not skin-contact contagious, but deadly.
Oh, wait. The word was "pussy"? I naturally assumed that it was that word that is an anagram of an ancient Viking king of England - King Cnut...
Reminds me of the time some Californians told me to change my t-shirt because it had "Seriously Pissed-Off Cat" on (with a picture of a cat) and there were children around.
...the time line of events which are: Random guy makes post, Dir of social media takes offense, dir goes hunting for random poster, finds out it's a teacher on school property, teacher is forced to resign.
My understanding from the article was that he sent the complaint to the school without knowing who the poster was. It could have been a pupil, for all he knew.
Also, on a side issue - what is this strange mental disease that manifests itself as "someone who has an opinion different from you"?
What, the same movie where people get printouts of their DNA and it covers a few pages, not several crates of phonebooks? Yes, ultra-realistic, wasn't it? Perhaps it contained only snips, or just a list of mutated bases : "Base 10,123 on your X chromosome is A instead of T. Base 15,742 is a C instead of..."
Their children have the same genetic gifts as anyone else
Because stupid people don't pass on their genes?
Because traits that are inherited can still be affected by environmental conditions? Because most traits are anyway a combination of genetic and environmental factors?
In other words, stupid people may or may not be stupid due to their genes, and their children's intelligence will not be determined solely by the genes that they inherit from their parents.
You are aware that James Lovelock is a fucking kook who has been discredited more times than creationists in Kansas right?
Really? I wasn't aware of this. I have a book here by Lovelock called "The Ages Of Gaia", and in the preface he addresses the use of the term "Gaia" directly (emphasis added):
Towards the end of my talk... I said, "Perhaps Gaia likes it cold." This was intended simply as a verbal shorthand for some wordy technical phrase such as: the evidence suggests that the system, comprising the algal ecosystems of the oceans and those of the land plants, taken together with the atmosphere and the climate, maintain thermostasis only at global average temperatures below about 12C
So, yes he was using the word as an analogy. It is unfortunate that many people misunderstand the idea to mean a benevolent mother goddess, when - as you point out - the natural world is as indifferent to our needs and desires as we seem to be to.
I don't particularly care if Lovelock's theories are correct or not - I'm not some kind of science fanboy - but it does irritate me when slashdot readers decide to jump on a topic that they fancifully imagine they have a reasonable opinion on. Almost as much as the "but that's ad hominem!" macro response
Does the president now have the option of disconnecting people when they disagree with his policies?
Perhaps he could have a big red button on his desk labelled "BAN", and could amuse himself by disconnecting people that make fun of him? The summary seems a little alarmist...
The same search, "Why is Windows so expensive" in google has the "Why are Macs so expensive" page as 8th.
But if I search for "why is X so expensive?" in google, I get the same techradar.com result (http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/why-are-macs-so-expensive--609128) as bing does, so I don't know that this is all that significant.
Given that he (allegedly) tried to sue because of a citation, this should not come as a surprise. Especially since that case was about an employee researcher whose proof (that rule 110 is capable of universal computation):
it's entirely possible that extremely sensitive individuals can see the light coming off the extremely bright individuals.
If there are people who have vision that is 1,000 times normal, then they must get blinded by the sun really easily...
There may be something to metabolism... which could easily generate 10 or 100 x the intensity observed in this study, and thus be observable by many people.
Conversely, the 'brights' (don't tell Dawkins about this!) would be producing lots more free-radicals than normal. I sure hope they also have more efficient repair mechanisms in place to mop them up.
Unfortunately my first name is nearly unique, so I have no choice but to be readily identifiable online. At one point, I was 9 of the top ten hits on a vanity google search for my name. Not sure if this is good or bad.
It's probably an all-or-nothing thing - either you dive straight in the deep end, and try not to care, or you are ultra-careful.
As for using my real identity in online games, I guess I would - but I would also be quite careful about what I said, and to who!
Slashdot Mirror
So they put a transister inside a cell membrane. How exactly does that make it part human? Every living creature has cells that have phospholipid bilayers.
More generally, it is not true to say that a lipid bilayer is even 'biological' in any meaningful sense. Ok, so the ion pump that they used is biological, since it was probably extracted from a cell. There have been designed (artificial) ion pumps, however, which could be used instead.
Perhaps this is too pedantic, but this is really bio-mimetics rather than bio-chemistry... Anyway, where is Dr Baltar and his detector when we need him? Fracking toasters everywhere!
Well put it like this then : some people are in a lifeboat, and a couple of them (the west) are eating up half the supplies, while the rest have to make do with much smaller amounts. At this rate, all the food will be used up, so something has to change. Is it that
a) The rations should be shared out equally. Or
b) The developing nations have the same, but the ones that were eating more have to cut down.
It's a matter of perspective.
"Scientist" is retard. Loosing his funding would be the best thing that could happen to him.
One would think if his funding were loosed, he'd be quite happy.
"Dear Research Councils, I am very happy to be acquainted with you, and as a humble scientist, wish to loose my funding to the cash sum of 7 HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars..." Sorry, not sure where I'm going with this.
What? Of course viruses have DNA (or RNA) otherwise there would be nothing to replicate...
Of course, there is also the mimivirus, with 1,000 genes that produces its own virion factory in the cell, so that it doesn't even have to put its genes into the cell nucleus.
Wow! Your argument is so powerful that it can be applied at the meta-level to arguing itself! Disagreeing with you means a lack of understanding of basic science?
Possibly the GP was talking about some hypothetical lesser theory that he might (theoretically) be in a position to disprove, and not evolution. The point was that understanding is essential to accepting OR rejecting a theory. In fact, it could be said that those who disprove a theory understand it better than those that proposed it in the first place.
Obviously, no one is saying that critics of the whole idea of evolution or the big bang have a deeper understanding of these topics than the supporters - although they would probably claim the opposite!
It's not a matter of belief. Scientific literacy requires an understanding of the evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming that all living things currently on Earth, including humans, evolved from earlier forms.
You find the evidence overwhelming, I find the evidence overwhelming, but there are some who don't. Have you ever seen a creationist website? It is full, absolutely chock full of scientific detail (and "scientific" detail :). Cherry-picked, and misinterpreted, to be sure, and the conclusions reached are ridiculous, but creationists are quite literate in a weird way. Just wrong.
Any person who is not aware of the evidence is scientifically illiterate, and any person who, when confronted with the evidence, refuses to accept it, is irrational. "Belief" doesn't enter into it ... unless you're talking about the relgious beliefs which seem to have a remarkable ability to make people act irrationally on this particular matter.
Which we are talking about - religious belief, which can let people read the facts and come to the strangest of conclusions.
(a) And what exactly does methane turn into as it floats around in the atmosphere?
(b) You're correct - oxidation of one CH4 molecule produces one CO2 molecule and two H2O molecules.
Ha! At b) - indeed, I'm struggling to think of what the GP's point was. Can there be a mechanism that makes more than one CO2 from one CH4? Maybe with the involvement of some other carbon compound, which is broken down too...
This wikipedia page Anaerobic_oxidation_of_methane offers a reaction like this: CH4 + SO42- HCO3- + HS- + H2O as a biological reaction. Perhaps there are also geochemical degradation reactions as well, I don't know.
Anything ranging from just sketching out some informal package diagrams on some paper (I quite like using an A3 sketchpad) to something more like Code City which can work with code in smalltalk, java, and c++. There are UML diagram makers, of course, but automated diagrams like that probably need to be edited.
In fact, it is not the finished diagram that helps so much as the drawing of it, which is why paper and pencil is so good. Or a vector graphics package.
Is Jmol going to teach them the difference between trans- and cis-, or dextro- and levo-?
Well, if you display a pair of molecules, one cis-, one trans- then maybe it could help :)
More interesting than Jmol itself are the many websites that use it as a teaching tool :
http://wiki.jmol.org/index.php/Websites_Using_Jmol
I particularly like this symmetry tutorial which is a bit advanced for high school, maybe.
" Feschotte said this virally transmitted DNA may be a cause of mutation and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and mood disorders."
Oh well done, well done indeed.
Yes, this is an argument pattern I call "ad logicam" (I don't care if that is terrible latin, it's been 17 years since I used the language).
What happens is that the arguer knows these terms like "ad hominem", "straw man", etc. and concentrates only on that aspect of an opposing argument. So, you could make the most well thought out reply that completely destroys their point, but end with "you idiot" and the argument is 'lost'. Not lost in the technical sense of having a better point, but lost to flame and bitter gall.
It doesn't help that slashdot is full of idiots as well...oh no! My point!...
I may be putting words into your mouth, but you are not confusing contagious with deadly are you? It is just that you say:
of the 152 people who supposedly died from it (which is what made people thinkit was highly contagious)
No insult intended, but to avoid confusion I would say that a disease can be contagious without being deadly since the word "contagious" means "can be spread from an infected person to a non-infected person". Colds are contagious, but not deadly, HIV is not skin-contact contagious, but deadly.
Oh, wait. The word was "pussy"? I naturally assumed that it was that word that is an anagram of an ancient Viking king of England - King Cnut...
Reminds me of the time some Californians told me to change my t-shirt because it had "Seriously Pissed-Off Cat" on (with a picture of a cat) and there were children around.
Pussies...
...the time line of events which are: Random guy makes post, Dir of social media takes offense, dir goes hunting for random poster, finds out it's a teacher on school property, teacher is forced to resign.
My understanding from the article was that he sent the complaint to the school without knowing who the poster was. It could have been a pupil, for all he knew.
Also, on a side issue - what is this strange mental disease that manifests itself as "someone who has an opinion different from you"?
No, exposure of their partners to ethanol is the important factor. I suppose I should say "our" partners, since I too have posted on slashdot.
Watch the movie GATTACA...
What, the same movie where people get printouts of their DNA and it covers a few pages, not several crates of phonebooks? Yes, ultra-realistic, wasn't it? Perhaps it contained only snips, or just a list of mutated bases : "Base 10,123 on your X chromosome is A instead of T. Base 15,742 is a C instead of..."
Their children have the same genetic gifts as anyone else
Because stupid people don't pass on their genes?
Because traits that are inherited can still be affected by environmental conditions? Because most traits are anyway a combination of genetic and environmental factors?
In other words, stupid people may or may not be stupid due to their genes, and their children's intelligence will not be determined solely by the genes that they inherit from their parents.
You are aware that James Lovelock is a fucking kook who has been discredited more times than creationists in Kansas right?
Really? I wasn't aware of this. I have a book here by Lovelock called "The Ages Of Gaia", and in the preface he addresses the use of the term "Gaia" directly (emphasis added):
Towards the end of my talk ... I said, "Perhaps Gaia likes it cold." This was intended simply as a verbal shorthand for some wordy technical phrase such as: the evidence suggests that the system, comprising the algal ecosystems of the oceans and those of the land plants, taken together with the atmosphere and the climate, maintain thermostasis only at global average temperatures below about 12C
So, yes he was using the word as an analogy. It is unfortunate that many people misunderstand the idea to mean a benevolent mother goddess, when - as you point out - the natural world is as indifferent to our needs and desires as we seem to be to.
I don't particularly care if Lovelock's theories are correct or not - I'm not some kind of science fanboy - but it does irritate me when slashdot readers decide to jump on a topic that they fancifully imagine they have a reasonable opinion on. Almost as much as the "but that's ad hominem!" macro response
Does the president now have the option of disconnecting people when they disagree with his policies?
Perhaps he could have a big red button on his desk labelled "BAN", and could amuse himself by disconnecting people that make fun of him? The summary seems a little alarmist...
The same search, "Why is Windows so expensive" in google has the "Why are Macs so expensive" page as 8th.
But if I search for "why is X so expensive?" in google, I get the same techradar.com result (http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/why-are-macs-so-expensive--609128) as bing does, so I don't know that this is all that significant.
Given that he (allegedly) tried to sue because of a citation, this should not come as a surprise. Especially since that case was about an employee researcher whose proof (that rule 110 is capable of universal computation):
From this review of 'A New Kind of Science'
So this essentially means that no-one will want to do anything generally useful with alpha, if they won't benefit from their work?
it's entirely possible that extremely sensitive individuals can see the light coming off the extremely bright individuals.
If there are people who have vision that is 1,000 times normal, then they must get blinded by the sun really easily...
There may be something to metabolism ... which could easily generate 10 or 100 x the intensity observed in this study, and thus be observable by many people.
Conversely, the 'brights' (don't tell Dawkins about this!) would be producing lots more free-radicals than normal. I sure hope they also have more efficient repair mechanisms in place to mop them up.
Caroline Quentin? Really? Okay, if you say so.
Can we have the cast of NCIS in return?
They are over the American Revolution. This is their response for us creating the "Three's Company".
Well, wikipedia says that was a remake of a British sitcom, so... we're sorry?
Unfortunately my first name is nearly unique, so I have no choice but to be readily identifiable online. At one point, I was 9 of the top ten hits on a vanity google search for my name. Not sure if this is good or bad.
It's probably an all-or-nothing thing - either you dive straight in the deep end, and try not to care, or you are ultra-careful. As for using my real identity in online games, I guess I would - but I would also be quite careful about what I said, and to who!