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User: turtledawn

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Comments · 376

  1. Re:my mom has macular degeneration on Embryonic Stem Cell Retinal Implants Seem Safe, So Far · · Score: 1

    The retinal cells of interest are neurons. Neurons differentiate very early in development - to my knowledge no one has yet developed an IPS that can reliably be made to differentiate into high-quality neurons.

    As to scarcity, in order to maintain the totipotentency of the existing lines my understanding is that they _must_ be divided occasionally (early blastocyte stage I think), or they devolve into pluripotent cells. The process generates spares by its very nature.

  2. Re:have these people ever seen a raw medical recor on Putting Medical Records Into Patients' Hands · · Score: 1

    Do you know what I do when I'm handed one of those insulting little sheets of paper? I look at the staff and say something like "I'm not a functionally illiterate idiot. Tell me what I really need to know."

  3. Re:First Yea!!! on IBM Tracks Pork Chops From Pig To Plate · · Score: 2

    You may be interested in CSA programs. Here's a good place to start: http://www.localharvest.org/

  4. Re:77,000 years? Bah! on Earliest Human Beds Found In South Africa · · Score: 1

    He already did, though I don't recall the username. It was somebody who's pretty reasonable most of the time. A few months ago.

  5. Re:Did SHE do it? on 17-Year-Old Wins $100K For Creating Cancer Killing Nanoparticle · · Score: 1

    We never see this kind of bullshit statement when it's some teenage guy who wins these prizes. Yes, she has an advisor. So does every single PhD candidate in the country, and no one questions their work. In fact, those students are often fighting to have their work recognized at all!

  6. Re:Biology Question on 17-Year-Old Wins $100K For Creating Cancer Killing Nanoparticle · · Score: 2

    How would you know? You compare the genetic profile of the new tumor and the old and if they're the same (or closely similar, with a base mutation profile that fits while allowing for some subsequent mutation - cancer cells' DNA replication procedures being obviously a bit off) well gosh, they missed a cell. It's pretty easy to do, after all, we're talking on the order of a few microns. As for how it can come back after some period of time, typically one only stays on cancer-suppressing drugs for a few years, for very good reasons relating to side effects and decreasing efficacy.

    It would be fairly uncommon though not impossible to have multiple spontaneous oncogenic changes in a single individual, and if that did occur, they were likely exposed to some nasty stuff at some point in their life.

  7. Re:As I stated before in the Ars Comments on Quantum Coherence Found Fueling Photosynthesis · · Score: 1

    That's awesome! I had written you off based on the combination of LED and gro in the domain, but I might go poke around a bit. I walked into the local hydroponics shop and asked what bulbs would be best for growing lettuce in my closet and they looked at me like I had a second head when I insisted that no, I really meant lettuce.

  8. Re:No on Should Composting Be Mandatory In US Cities? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not a relevant comparison - if you are hiring a licensed waste disposal company, they will either require you to sort the waste and charge you a penalty for failing to do so, or the cost of their doing the sorting will be included in their upfront fee. Final disposal will be carried out as required by local ordinance. You won't notice the difference. If you take the waste to the landfill yourself, you'll be required to sort it out per local regulations and you'll just _wish_ you had sorted it out properly at home.

    And no, it's not your right to dispose of your waste as you like; this is a classic tragedy of the commons, arguably precisely the sort of problem humanity developed the concept of government to cope with.

  9. Re:Do this in Chess... on The Sports Footage You Won't See Today On TV · · Score: 1

    Catholic schools don't count, they get to recruit.

  10. Re:Consider earlier times on Is the Maker Movement Making It Cool For Kids To Be Nerds? · · Score: 1

    Moderately irrelevent, but what vehicle are you driving that takes 8 quarts of oil?

    Also, the quick change places likely use some sort of suction device to remove the oil from the drain which would not be cost effective to purchase for home use.

  11. Re:Doughnuts? on Droughts Linked To Global Warming · · Score: 1

    Bison ate grass, which they and their microbiome were adapted to handle. Feedlot cows eat grain, which they are _not_ adapted to consume in high amounts, and release more methane as a result. Grass-fed beef releases less methane, and possibly less than a bison given that they are smaller animals, but I have not seen any studies comparing the volume of cow and bison farts.There's surely one out there, though.

  12. Re:Simple on Making a Learning Thermostat · · Score: 1

    Three problems there, though it may well work for others: connotations of poverty, his health, and electric heat. He grew up in a household so poor that they regularly found snow on the blankets in the morning. He went to college and got a chem eng degree so he would never have to worry about being poor again. That hasn't worked out so well since he was laid off and mom keeps finding new charges on credit cards she thought they'd paid off... but that's another article. Second, he has pretty bad asthma, allergies, and arthritis; smoke and mold (on the poorly cured wood available locally) in the house are not a great idea, and he really doesn't need to be staggering around in the cold carrying piles of wood he would stubbornly insist are not too big for him to handle. There's also the emptying the woodstove problem. Mom would not be amused when he devolved this responsibility to her, then yelled at her for doing it wrong. Third, the power is cheaper than the gasoline for the van, and the scrubbers on the power plant, substandard though they be, are better than what he's got on his crappy '92 Aerostar van. Additionally Kentucky is also having a significant problem with the emerald ash borer and while Dad is shockingly profligate in some ways he's intensively conservation minded in others, so he would not be amenable to to idea of transporting firewood across county lines.

    It's quite possible that there are stoves out there that have resolved most of these issues - I rent and so have no reasons to look into it, but surely tech has improve in that field as well - but the psychological one is going to be hard to overcome.

  13. Re:Simple on Making a Learning Thermostat · · Score: 1

    You've not met my Dad, then. Constantly bitching about the power bill but refuses to accept any indoor temperature outside of the 68-70F range summer, and 73-75 winter. There is also no spring or autumn in his world.

  14. Re:And how many people don't pay or share? on Making a Learning Thermostat · · Score: 1

    GP's situation appears to be such that they need not just a thermostat but some sort of motor driven actuator to turn the knob on the radiator system. If the resistance in the knob is anywhere near what it was in the radiators in one of my old apartments, it will have to be a fairly hefty motor as well. I kept a wrench near that radiator, and at the beginning and end of the season a hollow broom handle to slip over the wrench came in handy.

    I agree about the conservation/money angle. Money now is simply a symbol, a few bits in a database somewhere; who cares about that beyond the bare necessities needed to function in the common delusion? But the world we live in is all too real and caring for it only makes sense.

  15. Re:Women on Making a Learning Thermostat · · Score: 1

    I'm a woman and don't do this. Starting in October the thermostat goes to 68 and stays there; in late April goes to 76 and stays there. If I want it off on an outlier temperature day, I turn the whole system off. I don't know why so many other people (including a heck of a lot of men *stink eye@ /. in general*) have problems with this concept.

  16. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia on $529M DOE Loan Spawns $97K Made-in-Finland Cars · · Score: 1

    I'm under $20/hr for a fairly well-skilled R&D tech position :-(

  17. Re:Women have it hard in the future on Company Unveils Personalized Anime Robot Girl · · Score: 2

    You don't see how this ends well for females? How about, we don't need you. We're already at the point where we can perform random chromosomal assortment on eggs and generate synthetic sperm in mice; the process is there, it just needs refinement.

    And Darwinian sexual selection is still in play, you know - someone who's "putting out" on the third date is almost invariably going to be on birth control and will likely ditch you when your dickish behaviour is no longer compensated for by your dick, so your non-committal genes aren't getting passed on.

  18. Re:What is the goal? on Ask Slashdot: How Do You View the Wall Street Protests? · · Score: 2

    The goal seems to be to get enough people riled up to join the protests and finally to annoy the wealthy enough so that they call in the government guns on a large scale - inciting a revolution ala Egypt. I do not know how I feel about this.

  19. Re:First step (or post) on Ask Slashdot: How to Exploit Post-Cataract Ultraviolet Vision? · · Score: 1

    Most sunscreens work by absorbing UV light in the process of breaking chemical bonds in the sunscreen, not reflecting it. TiO2, which does work by reflection, is just going to look extra-white to him. The breakdown of the sunscreen chemicals is the reason why, other than sweat and water, you have to reapply the lotions.

  20. Re:Windows, duh! on Walmart Goes Solar In California · · Score: 1

    Most of the big-boxes I've been in have some skylights, or at least translucent roofing panels. Given that they all run the air conditioners _constantly,_ these could surely be spaced more closely together and reduce the lighting need.

    For that matter, how about backing off the AC? Why do they want me wearing a parka in July?

  21. Re:Truly Remarkable on What You Eat Affects Your Genes · · Score: 1

    My mistake, Cell Research not Cell, which is at least an imprint of Nature but not on the level of real-Cell.

  22. Re:Truly Remarkable on What You Eat Affects Your Genes · · Score: 1

    I would consider Cell a pretty high profile journal.

  23. Re:if you're a guy, be self-effacing on Why Nobody Wants You On OKCupid · · Score: 1

    Thank you for getting it.

  24. Re:So long... on Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot · · Score: 1

    Since I refuse to believe anything I read on Fox, does this mean I'm having a bad dream and when I wake up all will be ok?

  25. Re:Let me get this right on The Least Amount of Exercise Needed To Extend Life · · Score: 1

    Then you're doing the wrong thing. Try another activity.