I have just uncovered an insidious plot to undermine the English language... they might kill me, but I feel compelled to warn the world anyway.
Many of you are familiar with recent advances in biotechnology such as the monkey/robot arm, the monkey head transplant, etc... the Romans, ever at the forefront of this exciting new field, have teamed up with the Greek to monopolize the vocabulary associated with Biologia in general (see?! Bio-logia = english: "Study of Life"! The bastards!). Many English speaking Studiers of Life have increasingly found it difficult to obtain employment because of the artificial language barrier created by these linguistic Nazis.
One Studier of Life (who wishes to remain 'anonymus' - or for you non-latin speakers, 'he wishes to remain unnamed') noted that: "I just can't get a job.... the Latin and Greek 'terminology' (words used in a particular field, subject, science or art) makes little sense when 'translated' (from the Latin for 'transfer or move'), and no one has taken the incentive to create english words for the concepts, so I've found it very difficult to break into the field. In Latin, "cell" means "storeroom" or "chamber"... what does that have to do with 'the little thingys that make up or are a living organism'? I've studied the 'the little thingys that make up or are a living organism' for years, and that name worked fine for me & my research team. I mean, sheesh.... 'cell'?! Oh, and what about membrana or 'membrane'? And DeoxyriboNucleic Acidus - DNA if you will - wtf is up with THAT?! That's it, I give up... I refuse to pollute my naitive tounge with that garbage. I've decided I'm just going to be a janitor for the rest of my life."
lmfao... fm6 is right. Jesus... imagine this erroneous piece of info gettin' a 5, unless the moderators did it so that those of us that know what a transformer blowing is like can laugh at poor supruzr;D
Dunno if it's common knowledge or not, but sunspots are linked with solar magnetic activity; the more sunspots, the more magnetic energy (generally). Sunspot activity seems to be cyclic, with a period of somewhere around 11 years. Apparently, we're around the maximum of this cycle now, which nicely correlates with these storms... (and here's the random musing)
Obviously this could (and probably will) have some effects on electrical systems here on earth(my home's power pulsed twice this morning, dunno if it's a result of the magnetic storm). What's interesting, to me at least, is that during the last solar maximum, computers/electrical dependant systems weren't quite as ubiquitous as they are now. Astronomers as far back as Galileo have recorded information on sunspots and the possibility of a cycle. But it's not like this had any noticable effect on their lives (like Poor Richard's Almanac getting delayed because the intranet went down). As the man from Britain pointed out above, our increasing reliance on technology has some risks associated with it. I'm not too overly concerned just yet, though. It's not like my electrochemical nerve impulses are gonna get scrambled; as long as those are working, I figure I'm alright;).
I just think it's kind of interesting that the 'Net and the Information Age (sorry to sound like Katz here) happened to begin in a lull in solar activity. Now that systems that are sensitive to solar phenomena are commonplace, I'm thinking we'll notice more or larger effects of these storms on our lives. (ie- 'Napster's down?! Aaaagh!' or even worse; 'I can't get sync!!';D). I'm curious to see what effect (or how large an effect) this is going to have on these systems. It'd be a shame if all the sudden it turns out that these storms were just too disruptive for our technology as it stands. I mean, how would we know this until such a situation arises? I'd be willing to bet that a large-scale study of solar EM-radiation and its effects on electrical/digital systems isn't feasible without the sun's cooperation;). I shudder to think that there might be severe web-blackouts or any such thing... I'd have to *gasp* watch TV. (yeah, yeah... not to mention the possible failures of navigational systems, GPS, missile defense systems, etc, etc... )
In the sci-fi vein; I'm wondering if we accidentally timed the Information Revolution just right... right now, we're aren't so reliant on technology that a disruption would cause widespread catastrophy. At least we'll get a vague idea of whether or not solar activity should be considered when designing technological component and systems, etc., and who knows, it might save us from ceeertain dooooom later on;D.
Uh-oh... we got us a couple'a post-readin' academics;). Nah, I didn't go into that much detail, but that's the gist of what I was saying: even though the genes are the same, the fingerprints wouldn't be, BUT... I know, I know... the odds are infinitesimal, but two people who weren't the same in respect to their genes could have extremely similar (maybe even indistinguishable) fingerprints. So, twins/not twins really makes little difference; it's all in the development. I prob'ly didn't phrase that too clearly.
No two fingerprints the same? Weeeeell... let's not get carried away here.
The (extremely valid) point here is not that fingerprinting isn't useful, but that it is by no means an infallible method. If you have a suspect and their prints could not POSSIBLY match the ones from the crime scene, then you can be pretty sure this isn't your man. However, to say that the main structure of the ridges of the two prints is exactly the same, that some of the secondary characteristics match, and that overall this is without a doubt a match.... that's kind of sketchy.
Developmental biology is far from the nice, linear-type science the public seems to believe it is... Certain attributes of the organism at any stage of it's development can be approximated, but it's not always as simple as "gene X is present, so phenotype (trait) Y will be expressed". The future of the "designer baby" where parents could pick and choose their child's characteristics is far, far in the future (even then it wouldn't be exact). Why? Because... genes are like a set of very general rules... it's chaos theory at it's finest. Here is a system that obviously has some underlying order (to produce an organism with 2 eyes, antennae, whatever), but even barring gross mutation, prediction of the final results of an organism's development is still (at this point) an estimate, at best.
It would be impossible to say exactly how many hairs a mouse would have, their precise location, and what color each would be by only looking at the genes of the creature. There's innumerable chances for deviation. You can stick two similarly colored mice together and say; "these mice are similar", but until you had an exact, infallible catalog of every minute detail of the organism, you would have no empirical (scientific) basis for saying how similar they are, or even "these mice are exactly alike". Even exactly the same genes (identical twins/clones) produce different results if you look closely enough.
BUT... that's a far cry from an objective justification for the impossibility of 'lighting striking the same place twice';P. The same 'proof' was used when "they" once said that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. Whiiiich... after someone did some serious, scientific researcg on the matter, later turned out to be bullshit;). Much in the same vein, "the identical twins had different prints" argument means jack; two people could have different sets of genes in respect to their fingerprints, exist in different environments, and it's still not impossible that they would end up with extremely similar (or even indistinguishable) fingerprints. There's a quite a few people in the world; see "Europeans descended from 10 males" a few days back... even though America's a large place, those ancestors have passed on a little bit to everyone with caucasian ancestry - that's a lot of people with the same daddies/similar genes;). Is it that hard to imagine that, even though the odds are extremely small, that two sets of prints, taken right off the two specimen's fingers, could be similar to the point that they would appear exact?
Now for the coup-de-gras... the fingerprints in crime scenes aren't lifted straight off someone's fingers in a controlled manner. There isn't some fingerprinting technician dipping the criminals fingers in grease and carefully applying them to the doorknob or whatever. As mentioned, smudging, processing, and method of extraction result in very loosely defined fingerprint specimens. Is it crazy to think that you can, 100% of the time, say with 100% certainty that "These fingerprints belong to this individual"? You bet. Should fingerprinting be forgotten, then? No, it's still useful, but... I think the courts have led people to believe that fingerprints are the end-all-be-all of forensic evidence. If America's going to claim that it's judicial system operates by "innocent 'till proven guitly", we might as well make the extra effort to make sure that the methods that we use to prove someone guilty are as sound as possible, or the system quickly becomes a farce.
Well, I'd like to say that it's a damned fine day to be an American, ladies & gentlemen...
Man, I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks the likes of which I haven't experienced since I was five and turned on the ol' tele to see Linda Blair doin' the matress mambo with a religious icon. Seriously, you thought nukes were messed up... wait 'till the powers that be have an army of shit-flinging, banana craving, masturbating robot-monkeys!!!
Okay, okay; I'll admit that this particular manifestation of the technology isn't any reason to be scared... YET. But, just wait; someday someone's gonna think of some really nasty ca-ca to use this for (scratch that, I just had a few million). What I mean is, someone with the means and the desire to misuse this is gonna... and it won't be pretty;D.
Seriously, the guys in the armed forces are probably shitting their pants right now; 'Monkey remotely controls robot arm' is close enough to 'Human controlling robotics', and I'm sure it can't be that much of a leap from monkey to your average GI. (Biologically speakin' guys; no offense to any GI's;D> ). And that reduces war to QuakeTM... you get blown up? Boot up another 'bot and have another go! Yeee-haw! Are we having fun yet?!? Shit, I'd sign up;).
And that's the LEAST of my personal concerns... you think privacy's tough NOW? Shit, if you don't want to give out any info, stay off the net. But they're making 'bots smaller and smaller... one day soon, that 'Mouse' is gonna have an uplink to somebody's data central.
It's prob'ly just me lyin' to myself, trying to get a warm fuzzy about imminent doom, but I'm hoping that either it won't come to that or that I'll get into that stuff myself. Me, I'm thinking it'll be a cold day in hell for #1, #2 has a slightly better chance. But even so, I'm taking yoga right now so when the time comes to kiss our collective asses goodbye, I'll manage quite well.
Morality and science are and should be two separate things.
Bwa-ha-ha-haaaa! C'mon, buddy, gimme a break! Where are you repeating this load of bullshit from?? Researcers use 'moral' issues (ie- end suffering, prolong life, end hunger, blah blah... ) to justify their research ALL the time... ESPECIALLY when their work deals with something that could cause more harm than good. "We'll have a cheap, clean new energy source!!" ("er... bombs? radiation leakage?? Pollution that'll last hundreds of years? Well, heh heh... uuhh... look over there!!"). Or how about, "Fetus research is OK! We'll figure out how to heal the world!"
As far as the "should be"... I'm thinkin' I'll develop some nanotech 'bots and have 'em come dismantle you. Hey, I don't need morality; it's science. Wha? The morality comes in after the science? Like, 'The technology's OK... just don't use it for Bad Things'? What world do you live in, dimwit?
Please go elsewhere to engage in your 'mental masturbation'.
Hah... ah grow'd up near them thar dishes... used ta take pot-shots at 'em wit' mah.22;) Nah, in all seriousness, I did live a few minutes (45min... this is relatively a short time to get anywhere in WV;) away; it was somewhat of a joke... Whenever I'd go to a science camp or out on a "brainy kid's fieldtrip", Somehow Green Bank managed to get in the itinerary, being the only place of scientific interest for miles;D. (well, not counting psychology and/or anthropolgy... if you consider them, the whole state'd be a treasure trove, but we all know that neither's really a science;D).
BUT in all honesty, it is a pretty interesting place; besides the radio dishes, it's the one place in WV where a deer can go without fear of being shot or run over (Gov'mt land), so there's herds of 'em running around, muckin' around underneath a bunch of monster telescopes.... really, HERDS. one word of caution the visitor info. movie's boring... was made for non-nerds.
Crap... sorry an addendum...
on
TigerCloning
·
· Score: 1
Oh, BTW...
I was a bio geek long before I got into computers.... for the folks who wanna know; having X females and X males is kind of a moot point. If you can bring back one, you could bring back a whole slew of 'em. Now, it DOES matter if you're talking about a sustainable breeding population... that depends, BUT..
They could expand the gene pool by manipulating the DNA in vitro... to make a viable organism, you need half a set from one parent, half a set from another. If they got ahold of two live females, they could take an egg (with half the full chrom. # in each) insert the chrom. into the same egg to make a full complement, and a new baby girl wolf with two mothers could be born... cool huh? Father? Not even necessary. But the same goes for two males... they could pull out two sperm (as long as they were XX or XY) and have a pup from them. The key here is how many distinct individuals can they get to adulthood, the more, the better chances for survival.
Lemme rant a little here: I really love when slashdot has "News For Nerds" and not "News for a subset of nerds concerned with Linux and Open Source; who probably would prefer going to freshmeat where they can get there news AND the newest software in one package";). BUT I guess if there's not enough pan-nerddom news, you've gotta fill it with something; why not linux, huh? >sigh
What? Morality? Oh, right... there's an ethical reason why we should or shouldn't do something... that's a good one; forget logic, forget science... bringing back an extremely unique (well, can something not exist and be unique?;) species which *we killed off in the first place* (how's that for you ethics; the least we could do is bring them back) would be absolutely horrible. Why? It's unETHICAL! Riiight;). Wake up; even if it *is* (how, don't ask me), people do unethical things all the time... this, in my opinion would be a more desirable "unethical" thing than adultery or genocide or getting on Napster;).
"Ooh!! Oooh!! Jurassic Park! Nooo.... baaad!" What, are we going to be overtaken by marsupial wolves? (I'd like to point that out: they were more closely related to canines than felines, in a sense). Oh, gosh darn, no! NOT MARSUPIAL WOLVES! C'mon, folks... get real; we seem to be alright with the wolves running around now...
The darwin arguments are cute... really. Philosophy's a good time-killer, but save the science for the scientists guys;). Darwinism is a (albeitly very good) *THEORY*, for one. For two, it's usually applied to species who survivability depends on *adapting to their environment* ie- ANIMALS. People *adapt the environment to themselves*...
It may seem like splitting hairs, but Darwin's main point in his work stated something along the lines of, "Better adaptations are survived in the offspring, and gradually the species as a whole benifits by this change." Not exactly the same as, "One species kills off another with projectiles and by introducing competitive species".
so saying, "They were less unfit for their environment, they deserved to die, we must not bring them back... it's the law of selection. We're the better species" seems pretty ridiculous. We adapted that environment by wiping them out. It wasn't really a darwinistic struggle; people wouldn't die from a lack of sheep;). Granted, eating sheep and making clothes out of them might have been *convenient*, but I think the human race as a whole would have continued onward without the little cloven critters.
Here's the big one... ladies and gentlemen; if you think this is great, the future's gonna be a wonderfully interesting place for you. If you think it's horrible, life's gonna seem pretty shitty to you... because stuff like this (and probably even more bizarre) is going to be happening ALL THE TIME. No, sorry, you can't fight it. You can complain and do a lot of hand-wringing, but the biosciences are gonna keep marching forward for "better" or for "worse". Right now the U.S. is letting experiments be conducted on human egg cells (which we were, "Never, NEVER going to do"... huh, must've been an election year;).
Hmm... could I take a vote? All of you hand-wringers out there; how many of you realize that we're studying biology so that we can understand organic processes, control them, and use to our benifit the knowledge gained? Those with your hands down; well, it's true. Those with your hands up; then why're your panties all in a bunch? This is the purpose, people... not this specifically, but to use the technology for learning MORE.
One thing I'm curious about: How many people think that it's ok to advance computer science when it could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction(nukes) or special biological/chemical warfare agents or to spread misinformation? Well, 3 out of 3 have already happened, not to mention probably worse things to come. This is NOWHERE on par with any of those; it doesn't threaten us, and I'm sure it'd enrich the lives of more than a few. So realize that the propensity for good and bad is no different from any other technology.
Slashdot Mirror
I have just uncovered an insidious plot to undermine the English language... they might kill me, but I feel compelled to warn the world anyway.
Many of you are familiar with recent advances in biotechnology such as the monkey/robot arm, the monkey head transplant, etc... the Romans, ever at the forefront of this exciting new field, have teamed up with the Greek to monopolize the vocabulary associated with Biologia in general (see?! Bio-logia = english: "Study of Life"! The bastards!). Many English speaking Studiers of Life have increasingly found it difficult to obtain employment because of the artificial language barrier created by these linguistic Nazis.
One Studier of Life (who wishes to remain 'anonymus' - or for you non-latin speakers, 'he wishes to remain unnamed') noted that: "I just can't get a job.... the Latin and Greek 'terminology' (words used in a particular field, subject, science or art) makes little sense when 'translated' (from the Latin for 'transfer or move'), and no one has taken the incentive to create english words for the concepts, so I've found it very difficult to break into the field. In Latin, "cell" means "storeroom" or "chamber"... what does that have to do with 'the little thingys that make up or are a living organism'? I've studied the 'the little thingys that make up or are a living organism' for years, and that name worked fine for me & my research team. I mean, sheesh.... 'cell'?! Oh, and what about membrana or 'membrane'? And DeoxyriboNucleic Acidus - DNA if you will - wtf is up with THAT?! That's it, I give up... I refuse to pollute my naitive tounge with that garbage. I've decided I'm just going to be a janitor for the rest of my life."
Surely, it is a dark time, fellow Angles.
*end sarcasm*
All I have to say is: Hey-soos Christ!
> "I agree with you that we should deal with problems before they have a major, negative, wide-spread impact...
;D )
i don't agree... ANARCHY, MUTHAFUKAS!!!!
(just kidding
Signed,
The Comittee for Stating the Blatantly Obvious;)
lmfao... fm6 is right. Jesus... imagine this erroneous piece of info gettin' a 5, unless the moderators did it so that those of us that know what a transformer blowing is like can laugh at poor supruzr ;D
Cheezus has it right; I've witnessed two transformers blowing directly, and seen the flash and the resulting brownout from a third.
Dunno if it's common knowledge or not, but sunspots are linked with solar magnetic activity; the more sunspots, the more magnetic energy (generally). Sunspot activity seems to be cyclic, with a period of somewhere around 11 years.
;D). I'm curious to see what effect (or how large an effect) this is going to have on these systems. It'd be a shame if all the sudden it turns out that these storms were just too disruptive for our technology as it stands. I mean, how would we know this until such a situation arises? I'd be willing to bet that a large-scale study of solar EM-radiation and its effects on electrical/digital systems isn't feasible without the sun's cooperation;). I shudder to think that there might be severe web-blackouts or any such thing... I'd have to *gasp* watch TV. (yeah, yeah... not to mention the possible failures of navigational systems, GPS, missile defense systems, etc, etc... )
Apparently, we're around the maximum of this cycle now, which nicely correlates with these storms... (and here's the random musing)
Obviously this could (and probably will) have some effects on electrical systems here on earth(my home's power pulsed twice this morning, dunno if it's a result of the magnetic storm). What's interesting, to me at least, is that during the last solar maximum, computers/electrical dependant systems weren't quite as ubiquitous as they are now. Astronomers as far back as Galileo have recorded information on sunspots and the possibility of a cycle. But it's not like this had any noticable effect on their lives (like Poor Richard's Almanac getting delayed because the intranet went down). As the man from Britain pointed out above, our increasing reliance on technology has some risks associated with it. I'm not too overly concerned just yet, though. It's not like my electrochemical nerve impulses are gonna get scrambled; as long as those are working, I figure I'm alright;).
I just think it's kind of interesting that the 'Net and the Information Age (sorry to sound like Katz here) happened to begin in a lull in solar activity. Now that systems that are sensitive to solar phenomena are commonplace, I'm thinking we'll notice more or larger effects of these storms on our lives. (ie- 'Napster's down?! Aaaagh!' or even worse; 'I can't get sync!!'
In the sci-fi vein; I'm wondering if we accidentally timed the Information Revolution just right... right now, we're aren't so reliant on technology that a disruption would cause widespread catastrophy. At least we'll get a vague idea of whether or not solar activity should be considered when designing technological component and systems, etc., and who knows, it might save us from ceeertain dooooom later on;D.
Ah, well. End Random Musing.
Uh-oh... we got us a couple'a post-readin' academics;). Nah, I didn't go into that much detail, but that's the gist of what I was saying: even though the genes are the same, the fingerprints wouldn't be, BUT... I know, I know... the odds are infinitesimal, but two people who weren't the same in respect to their genes could have extremely similar (maybe even indistinguishable) fingerprints. So, twins/not twins really makes little difference; it's all in the development. I prob'ly didn't phrase that too clearly.
Noted and assimilated... glad I made an ass of myself on slashdot now as opposed to somewhere important later:). Jeez, what a fo paw, ness pa? ;D
No two fingerprints the same? Weeeeell... let's not get carried away here.
The (extremely valid) point here is not that fingerprinting isn't useful, but that it is by no means an infallible method. If you have a suspect and their prints could not POSSIBLY match the ones from the crime scene, then you can be pretty sure this isn't your man. However, to say that the main structure of the ridges of the two prints is exactly the same, that some of the secondary characteristics match, and that overall this is without a doubt a match.... that's kind of sketchy.
Developmental biology is far from the nice, linear-type science the public seems to believe it is... Certain attributes of the organism at any stage of it's development can be approximated, but it's not always as simple as "gene X is present, so phenotype (trait) Y will be expressed". The future of the "designer baby" where parents could pick and choose their child's characteristics is far, far in the future (even then it wouldn't be exact). Why? Because... genes are like a set of very general rules... it's chaos theory at it's finest. Here is a system that obviously has some underlying order (to produce an organism with 2 eyes, antennae, whatever), but even barring gross mutation, prediction of the final results of an organism's development is still (at this point) an estimate, at best.
It would be impossible to say exactly how many hairs a mouse would have, their precise location, and what color each would be by only looking at the genes of the creature. There's innumerable chances for deviation. You can stick two similarly colored mice together and say; "these mice are similar", but until you had an exact, infallible catalog of every minute detail of the organism, you would have no empirical (scientific) basis for saying how similar they are, or even "these mice are exactly alike". Even exactly the same genes (identical twins/clones) produce different results if you look closely enough.
BUT... that's a far cry from an objective justification for the impossibility of 'lighting striking the same place twice';P. The same 'proof' was used when "they" once said that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. Whiiiich... after someone did some serious, scientific researcg on the matter, later turned out to be bullshit;). Much in the same vein, "the identical twins had different prints" argument means jack; two people could have different sets of genes in respect to their fingerprints, exist in different environments, and it's still not impossible that they would end up with extremely similar (or even indistinguishable) fingerprints. There's a quite a few people in the world; see "Europeans descended from 10 males" a few days back... even though America's a large place, those ancestors have passed on a little bit to everyone with caucasian ancestry - that's a lot of people with the same daddies/similar genes;). Is it that hard to imagine that, even though the odds are extremely small, that two sets of prints, taken right off the two specimen's fingers, could be similar to the point that they would appear exact?
Now for the coup-de-gras... the fingerprints in crime scenes aren't lifted straight off someone's fingers in a controlled manner. There isn't some fingerprinting technician dipping the criminals fingers in grease and carefully applying them to the doorknob or whatever. As mentioned, smudging, processing, and method of extraction result in very loosely defined fingerprint specimens. Is it crazy to think that you can, 100% of the time, say with 100% certainty that "These fingerprints belong to this individual"? You bet. Should fingerprinting be forgotten, then? No, it's still useful, but... I think the courts have led people to believe that fingerprints are the end-all-be-all of forensic evidence. If America's going to claim that it's judicial system operates by "innocent 'till proven guitly", we might as well make the extra effort to make sure that the methods that we use to prove someone guilty are as sound as possible, or the system quickly becomes a farce.
Well, I'd like to say that it's a damned fine day to be an American, ladies & gentlemen...
;D.
;D> ). And that reduces war to QuakeTM... you get blown up? Boot up another 'bot and have another go! Yeee-haw! Are we having fun yet?!? Shit, I'd sign up;).
;D.
Man, I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks the likes of which I haven't experienced since I was five and turned on the ol' tele to see Linda Blair doin' the matress mambo with a religious icon. Seriously, you thought nukes were messed up... wait 'till the powers that be have an army of shit-flinging, banana craving, masturbating robot-monkeys!!!
Okay, okay; I'll admit that this particular manifestation of the technology isn't any reason to be scared... YET. But, just wait; someday someone's gonna think of some really nasty ca-ca to use this for (scratch that, I just had a few million). What I mean is, someone with the means and the desire to misuse this is gonna... and it won't be pretty
Seriously, the guys in the armed forces are probably shitting their pants right now; 'Monkey remotely controls robot arm' is close enough to 'Human controlling robotics', and I'm sure it can't be that much of a leap from monkey to your average GI. (Biologically speakin' guys; no offense to any GI's
And that's the LEAST of my personal concerns... you think privacy's tough NOW? Shit, if you don't want to give out any info, stay off the net. But they're making 'bots smaller and smaller... one day soon, that 'Mouse' is gonna have an uplink to somebody's data central.
It's prob'ly just me lyin' to myself, trying to get a warm fuzzy about imminent doom, but I'm hoping that either it won't come to that or that I'll get into that stuff myself. Me, I'm thinking it'll be a cold day in hell for #1, #2 has a slightly better chance. But even so, I'm taking yoga right now so when the time comes to kiss our collective asses goodbye, I'll manage quite well.
Or maybe I just need some sleep
Morality and science are and should be two separate things.
Bwa-ha-ha-haaaa! C'mon, buddy, gimme a break! Where are you repeating this load of bullshit from?? Researcers use 'moral' issues (ie- end suffering, prolong life, end hunger, blah blah... ) to justify their research ALL the time... ESPECIALLY when their work deals with something that could cause more harm than good. "We'll have a cheap, clean new energy source!!" ("er... bombs? radiation leakage?? Pollution that'll last hundreds of years? Well, heh heh... uuhh... look over there!!"). Or how about, "Fetus research is OK! We'll figure out how to heal the world!"
As far as the "should be"... I'm thinkin' I'll develop some nanotech 'bots and have 'em come dismantle you. Hey, I don't need morality; it's science. Wha? The morality comes in after the science? Like, 'The technology's OK... just don't use it for Bad Things'? What world do you live in, dimwit?
Please go elsewhere to engage in your 'mental masturbation'.
hmm... I guess htere's nohting wrong wiht smokin' dope, is htere? :P
Why? Y'know I didn't hold back on yer momma! (HA! Ha! ha... h.. a.... ;).
;D
I'll tell ya what: if you're gonna talk smack, at least make it funny... how about:'
What do you call a W. Virginian with a pig under one arm, and a sheep under the other? Bisexual
Hah... ah grow'd up near them thar dishes... used ta take pot-shots at 'em wit' mah .22;) Nah, in all seriousness, I did live a few minutes (45min... this is relatively a short time to get anywhere in WV;) away; it was somewhat of a joke... Whenever I'd go to a science camp or out on a "brainy kid's fieldtrip", Somehow Green Bank managed to get in the itinerary, being the only place of scientific interest for miles;D. (well, not counting psychology and/or anthropolgy... if you consider them, the whole state'd be a treasure trove, but we all know that neither's really a science;D).
BUT in all honesty, it is a pretty interesting place; besides the radio dishes, it's the one place in WV where a deer can go without fear of being shot or run over (Gov'mt land), so there's herds of 'em running around, muckin' around underneath a bunch of monster telescopes.... really, HERDS. one word of caution the visitor info. movie's boring... was made for non-nerds.
Oh, BTW...
I was a bio geek long before I got into computers.... for the folks who wanna know; having X females and X males is kind of a moot point. If you can bring back one, you could bring back a whole slew of 'em. Now, it DOES matter if you're talking about a sustainable breeding population... that depends, BUT..
They could expand the gene pool by manipulating the DNA in vitro... to make a viable organism, you need half a set from one parent, half a set from another. If they got ahold of two live females, they could take an egg (with half the full chrom. # in each) insert the chrom. into the same egg to make a full complement, and a new baby girl wolf with two mothers could be born... cool huh? Father? Not even necessary. But the same goes for two males... they could pull out two sperm (as long as they were XX or XY) and have a pup from them. The key here is how many distinct individuals can they get to adulthood, the more, the better chances for survival.
Lemme rant a little here: I really love when slashdot has "News For Nerds" and not "News for a subset of nerds concerned with Linux and Open Source; who probably would prefer going to freshmeat where they can get there news AND the newest software in one package";). BUT I guess if there's not enough pan-nerddom news, you've gotta fill it with something; why not linux, huh? >sigh
What? Morality? Oh, right... there's an ethical reason why we should or shouldn't do something... that's a good one; forget logic, forget science... bringing back an extremely unique (well, can something not exist and be unique?;) species which *we killed off in the first place* (how's that for you ethics; the least we could do is bring them back) would be absolutely horrible. Why? It's unETHICAL! Riiight;). Wake up; even if it *is* (how, don't ask me), people do unethical things all the time... this, in my opinion would be a more desirable "unethical" thing than adultery or genocide or getting on Napster;).
"Ooh!! Oooh!! Jurassic Park! Nooo.... baaad!" What, are we going to be overtaken by marsupial wolves? (I'd like to point that out: they were more closely related to canines than felines, in a sense). Oh, gosh darn, no! NOT MARSUPIAL WOLVES! C'mon, folks... get real; we seem to be alright with the wolves running around now...
The darwin arguments are cute... really. Philosophy's a good time-killer, but save the science for the scientists guys;). Darwinism is a (albeitly very good) *THEORY*, for one. For two, it's usually applied to species who survivability depends on *adapting to their environment* ie- ANIMALS. People *adapt the environment to themselves*...
It may seem like splitting hairs, but Darwin's main point in his work stated something along the lines of, "Better adaptations are survived in the offspring, and gradually the species as a whole benifits by this change." Not exactly the same as, "One species kills off another with projectiles and by introducing competitive species". so saying, "They were less unfit for their environment, they deserved to die, we must not bring them back... it's the law of selection. We're the better species" seems pretty ridiculous. We adapted that environment by wiping them out. It wasn't really a darwinistic struggle; people wouldn't die from a lack of sheep;). Granted, eating sheep and making clothes out of them might have been *convenient*, but I think the human race as a whole would have continued onward without the little cloven critters.
Here's the big one... ladies and gentlemen; if you think this is great, the future's gonna be a wonderfully interesting place for you. If you think it's horrible, life's gonna seem pretty shitty to you... because stuff like this (and probably even more bizarre) is going to be happening ALL THE TIME. No, sorry, you can't fight it. You can complain and do a lot of hand-wringing, but the biosciences are gonna keep marching forward for "better" or for "worse". Right now the U.S. is letting experiments be conducted on human egg cells (which we were, "Never, NEVER going to do"... huh, must've been an election year;).
Hmm... could I take a vote? All of you hand-wringers out there; how many of you realize that we're studying biology so that we can understand organic processes, control them, and use to our benifit the knowledge gained? Those with your hands down; well, it's true. Those with your hands up; then why're your panties all in a bunch? This is the purpose, people... not this specifically, but to use the technology for learning MORE.
One thing I'm curious about: How many people think that it's ok to advance computer science when it could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction(nukes) or special biological/chemical warfare agents or to spread misinformation? Well, 3 out of 3 have already happened, not to mention probably worse things to come. This is NOWHERE on par with any of those; it doesn't threaten us, and I'm sure it'd enrich the lives of more than a few. So realize that the propensity for good and bad is no different from any other technology.
Remember folks; cloned marsupial wolves don't kill people, people kill people.