"The Core" is a recent, hour-long documentary that provides some illustrative background (and CG) for the iron crystal theory, and explains some of the major difficulties in drilling below the crust. It's an episode of Horizon, a long-running science documentary series. You can watch the entire episode in 720p on YouTube.
Since it is such a potentially high profile experiment...
As you alluded, the import of this study is not the demonstration that food affects gene expression. That premise is the basis of the science of nutrigenomics, a discipline that is revolutionary and tremendously exciting, but which precedes this experiment. Similarly, it has been known for several years that dietary microRNA affects gene expression.
Obviously, Discover Magazine is a popular magazine, not a scientific journal. TFA introduces the reader to dietary microRNA as a regulator of gene expression, but falls short of contextualizing the research within nutrigenomics.
Look at the supernova; now at the white dwarf; back to the pulsar; magnetic fields; back to the white dwarf. Is it condensing? What's the period of the pulsar? Look again. The star is now diamonds.
Piracy evidences the unstoppable propagation of art and ideas within and across cultures. To characterize it as a "market failure" only acknowledges the failure of the economically powerful to co-opt and monetize this particular mode of circulation. Even if media prices plummeted to lows that media companies would consider unthinkable, piracy would continue because the impetus to subvert would remain, and the demand for alternative distribution methods, file formats, and content would survive.
It's not a garbage island. It's tiny flecks of plastic which sometimes are maybe dense enough to form sludge. The whole garbage-land myth is a great let down.
Yeah, it's a major let down. I mean, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the size of Texas, but people can't even walk on it, and the denser debris doesn't even float. Bummer! And the smaller North Atlantic Garbage Patch is more than 3,000 miles long, but doesn't even have the decency to constitute a land bridge?! After those let downs, the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch hardly even seems worth mentioning, especially when so much trash washes onto islands anyway. Why bother looking for "garbage islands" when the garbage just comes to us?
This question delights my nerd gland, since I endeavoured to watch all 695 episodes of the classic Who. I started in 2008. The pace and writing of the new series are very different from "classic" Doctor Who.
Because there are so few landmarks of linearity from one Doctor to the next, I think it's safe to start with whichever Doctor you like best. Since I have good memories of watching Tom Baker episodes when I was a boy, I started with Robot, the first Baker serial. I didn't want to have to wait ages and ages to get to the Baker stuff, and I also didn't want to end on the sour notes of McCoy and McGann. Starting with Baker and then looping back to Hartnell also meant that I would conclude with the transition from Pertwee to Baker, which was perfect.
I'm now halfway through the Troughton years (Doctor #2). It's pretty arduous slogging through the lost episodes, but you get used to it. I took a break from Who for a while and finished Blake's 7.
My personal ranking: 1. Tom Baker (a Doctor who's fun, has presence, conveys brilliance, and shines despite the show's meager budget) 2. Hartnell (the most dignified and patient doctor; the gentleman scientist) 3. Pertwee (grey pompadour ftw. He might climb this list someday.) 4. Davison (hypertensive fun. Cricketing whites 24/7.) 5. Troughton (too bad many of his episodes are boring) 6. Colin Baker (a bit angry and dysfunctional) 7. McGann (what a wimp!) 8. McCoy (utter retardation)
Patti Hauseman stuck with her five-year-old Apple computer until it started making odd whirring noises and occasionally malfunctioning before she bought a new computer for Christmas — actually, a refurbished one.
How many people here could have easily fixed Patti Hauseman's old Mac? How many people here even need to consider the symptoms for more than two seconds in order to think of all the probable causes? Now think of all that waste. Now think of all those extremely grateful people you could help by volunteering your services. What if the computer breaks down, and mom and can't even afford to buy a used one? These are common problems with easy solutions.
Whirring noise and occasional malfunctioning. When the machine still worked, the hard drive might have been failing. A fan might have become clogged, and eventually seized. Many of us even like fixing these things (as long as we're not overwhelmed by relatives' requests). Of course, there's also teaching, installing OSS, donating hardware, and so on.
So, how to start? A few ideas:
Idealist.org is an international posting board for volunteer and job opportunities.
Freecycle is an international clearinghouse for people requesting and/or offering gratis goods and services.
Local computer volunteer centers, such as InterConnection in Seattle, Washington
Post a bulletin at your local grocery market. Many supermarkets and most community markets have notice boards for such things.
I started thinking about this a year ago when I was in a charity shop in Los Angeles. A man was buying his grandson a used computer, and the boy was so excited. The grandfather didn't know anything about computers, and the boy was just beginning to learn. This shop has an employee just for the computer section, but that's rare. The grandfather asked the shop assistant lots of questions while the enthusiastic grandson tried the demo PCs. The assistant helped them to find something they could afford, although many of the displays for sale had major defects, and some of the PCs were unnecessarily noisy. I still wonder what kind of computing experience that boy and his family have now.
In other words, it doesn't clean the air. (Of course it doesn't!) You have to hand it to doublespeak. Marketing copywriters are managing to convince some people that automobile exhaust is more breathable than air. Astonishing.
Having read the article, I see a significant discrepancy between the headline and the text.
Jonsdottir is doing more than "commenting as an... activist". She presumes to speak in behalf of the WikiLeaks network, although her assertions are not corroborated on wikileaks.org.
Wikileaks.org is the mouthpiece of the organization. In the WikiLeaks spirit of full disclosure of primary documents, see the WikiLeaks blog post dated 21 August, 2010 (which, at this writing, remains the most recent).
Also, Jonsdottir cites no empirical "reason to think" the accusation is plausible. When evaluating statements in the media, we must all think critically rather than prejudicially. Look beyond the claims to the evidence.
There is a big difference between missing nonverbal signals, and being incapable of apprehending nonverbal communication. It's a grossly untrue stereotype that people of great cognitive ability lack emotional intelligence and street smarts (social intelligence). Such a discrepancy, savantism, is rare. That many autistic people are savants is another untrue stereotype. Asperger syndrome, one of the autism spectrum disorders, is more common. Like all ASDs, Asperger syndrome is a developmental disorder, not a proclivity.
We live in an age in which incidence of pervasive developmental disorders such as autism (including Asperger syndrome) is on a troubling rise. To help put it into perspective, the autistic population is greater than the population of people with IQs higher than 140. It's much easier to accept Asperger symptoms as "normal" when they occur in so many people.
So why are autism spectrum disorders more prevalent now? The prevailing theory is that autistic people have one of various genetic weaknesses that make them more susceptible to environmental toxins (such as mercury) that impair brain development. Industrialization exposes people to much higher levels of these toxins than in pre-industrial society. Bigger picture: this is sociobiological evolution in action. Social evolution precedes biological evolution. This is just one way in which the industrial lifestyle is affecting our species.
...an action that releases tons of iron a year and stimulates the growth of phytoplankton which absorb and trap carbon dioxide. If only we humans could say the same for our poop, which really doesn't do much more than just sit there."
Of course human "poop" has a similar role; the waste of every single organism does. In fact, there is no such thing as "waste" per se, only input and output. Your poop is for some species food, for others a home, and for others a womb.
This is a crucial part of the cycle of life. Once organisms adapt into symbiosis, they eat and grow together without harming each other. The beneficial bacteria in your gut secrete enzymes that digest your food, as well as organic chemicals that allow your immune system to function healthily. Such a relationship can take a long time to form. Symbiosis is a primary goal of biological evolution. There is nothing bad or shameful or evil or naughty or worthless about what you urinate or defecate. In fact, it is exactly the opposite.
"Monsanto has never developed or commercialized a sterile seed product. Sharing many of the concerns of small landholder farmers, Monsanto made a commitment in 1999 not to commercialize sterile seed technology in food crops. We stand firmly by this commitment. We have no plans or research that would violate this commitment in any way."
In spite of this reassurance, one can't rule out the possibility that Monsanto will decide later that it's in their own best interest to market a sterile seed technology.
Monsanto has persecuted many farmers for allegedly saving the seeds of their GM plants (corn, soybeans, and cotton) for planting. See http://www.monsanto.com/seedpatentprotection/monsantos_position.asp for one of the several Monsanto resources that discusses this practice. There's very little a farmer can do to protect his business when Monsanto makes such an accusation. The legal battles can last years, and are devastating.
Slashdot Mirror
"The Core" is a recent, hour-long documentary that provides some illustrative background (and CG) for the iron crystal theory, and explains some of the major difficulties in drilling below the crust. It's an episode of Horizon , a long-running science documentary series. You can watch the entire episode in 720p on YouTube.
As you alluded, the import of this study is not the demonstration that food affects gene expression. That premise is the basis of the science of nutrigenomics, a discipline that is revolutionary and tremendously exciting, but which precedes this experiment. Similarly, it has been known for several years that dietary microRNA affects gene expression.
Obviously, Discover Magazine is a popular magazine, not a scientific journal. TFA introduces the reader to dietary microRNA as a regulator of gene expression, but falls short of contextualizing the research within nutrigenomics.
Look at the supernova; now at the white dwarf; back to the pulsar; magnetic fields; back to the white dwarf. Is it condensing? What's the period of the pulsar? Look again. The star is now diamonds.
How many slashdotters clicked the link not just to see a high selling price, but because the book actually sounds damned interesting?
Piracy evidences the unstoppable propagation of art and ideas within and across cultures. To characterize it as a "market failure" only acknowledges the failure of the economically powerful to co-opt and monetize this particular mode of circulation. Even if media prices plummeted to lows that media companies would consider unthinkable, piracy would continue because the impetus to subvert would remain, and the demand for alternative distribution methods, file formats, and content would survive.
[While watching Jersey Shore and Big Brother]
"That's my third monocle this week; I simply must stop being so horrified."
It's not a garbage island. It's tiny flecks of plastic which sometimes are maybe dense enough to form sludge. The whole garbage-land myth is a great let down.
Yeah, it's a major let down. I mean, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the size of Texas, but people can't even walk on it, and the denser debris doesn't even float. Bummer! And the smaller North Atlantic Garbage Patch is more than 3,000 miles long, but doesn't even have the decency to constitute a land bridge?! After those let downs, the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch hardly even seems worth mentioning, especially when so much trash washes onto islands anyway. Why bother looking for "garbage islands" when the garbage just comes to us?
So, as we exhaust cheap energy, it becomes more cost-effective to turn to production that consumes even more energy?
Northern Mesopotamia, 5,000 B.P.
This question delights my nerd gland, since I endeavoured to watch all 695 episodes of the classic Who. I started in 2008. The pace and writing of the new series are very different from "classic" Doctor Who.
Because there are so few landmarks of linearity from one Doctor to the next, I think it's safe to start with whichever Doctor you like best. Since I have good memories of watching Tom Baker episodes when I was a boy, I started with Robot, the first Baker serial. I didn't want to have to wait ages and ages to get to the Baker stuff, and I also didn't want to end on the sour notes of McCoy and McGann. Starting with Baker and then looping back to Hartnell also meant that I would conclude with the transition from Pertwee to Baker, which was perfect.
I'm now halfway through the Troughton years (Doctor #2). It's pretty arduous slogging through the lost episodes, but you get used to it. I took a break from Who for a while and finished Blake's 7.
My personal ranking:
1. Tom Baker (a Doctor who's fun, has presence, conveys brilliance, and shines despite the show's meager budget)
2. Hartnell (the most dignified and patient doctor; the gentleman scientist)
3. Pertwee (grey pompadour ftw. He might climb this list someday.)
4. Davison (hypertensive fun. Cricketing whites 24/7.)
5. Troughton (too bad many of his episodes are boring)
6. Colin Baker (a bit angry and dysfunctional)
7. McGann (what a wimp!)
8. McCoy (utter retardation)
The correct form is, of course, Bing done overtook Yahoo.
How many people here could have easily fixed Patti Hauseman's old Mac? How many people here even need to consider the symptoms for more than two seconds in order to think of all the probable causes? Now think of all that waste. Now think of all those extremely grateful people you could help by volunteering your services. What if the computer breaks down, and mom and can't even afford to buy a used one? These are common problems with easy solutions.
Whirring noise and occasional malfunctioning. When the machine still worked, the hard drive might have been failing. A fan might have become clogged, and eventually seized. Many of us even like fixing these things (as long as we're not overwhelmed by relatives' requests). Of course, there's also teaching, installing OSS, donating hardware, and so on.
So, how to start? A few ideas:
I started thinking about this a year ago when I was in a charity shop in Los Angeles. A man was buying his grandson a used computer, and the boy was so excited. The grandfather didn't know anything about computers, and the boy was just beginning to learn. This shop has an employee just for the computer section, but that's rare. The grandfather asked the shop assistant lots of questions while the enthusiastic grandson tried the demo PCs. The assistant helped them to find something they could afford, although many of the displays for sale had major defects, and some of the PCs were unnecessarily noisy. I still wonder what kind of computing experience that boy and his family have now.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/15/headlines/friend_of_suspected_wikileaks_source_alleges_torture
... a free sample of K-Y Jelly.
Well, I'm off to the airport.
Where are these price points exactly?
In other words, it doesn't clean the air. (Of course it doesn't!) You have to hand it to doublespeak. Marketing copywriters are managing to convince some people that automobile exhaust is more breathable than air. Astonishing.
Having read the article, I see a significant discrepancy between the headline and the text.
Jonsdottir is doing more than "commenting as an... activist". She presumes to speak in behalf of the WikiLeaks network, although her assertions are not corroborated on wikileaks.org.
Wikileaks.org is the mouthpiece of the organization. In the WikiLeaks spirit of full disclosure of primary documents, see the WikiLeaks blog post dated 21 August, 2010 (which, at this writing, remains the most recent).
Also, Jonsdottir cites no empirical "reason to think" the accusation is plausible. When evaluating statements in the media, we must all think critically rather than prejudicially. Look beyond the claims to the evidence.
There is a big difference between missing nonverbal signals, and being incapable of apprehending nonverbal communication. It's a grossly untrue stereotype that people of great cognitive ability lack emotional intelligence and street smarts (social intelligence). Such a discrepancy, savantism, is rare. That many autistic people are savants is another untrue stereotype. Asperger syndrome, one of the autism spectrum disorders, is more common. Like all ASDs, Asperger syndrome is a developmental disorder, not a proclivity.
We live in an age in which incidence of pervasive developmental disorders such as autism (including Asperger syndrome) is on a troubling rise. To help put it into perspective, the autistic population is greater than the population of people with IQs higher than 140. It's much easier to accept Asperger symptoms as "normal" when they occur in so many people.
So why are autism spectrum disorders more prevalent now? The prevailing theory is that autistic people have one of various genetic weaknesses that make them more susceptible to environmental toxins (such as mercury) that impair brain development. Industrialization exposes people to much higher levels of these toxins than in pre-industrial society. Bigger picture: this is sociobiological evolution in action. Social evolution precedes biological evolution. This is just one way in which the industrial lifestyle is affecting our species.
"Microsoft Accepted by Old/Curmudgeonly"
Those twits just love to tweet about Thuat. But seriously, Thuat ftn.
I, for one, welcome our new murine overlords.
Of course human "poop" has a similar role; the waste of every single organism does. In fact, there is no such thing as "waste" per se, only input and output. Your poop is for some species food, for others a home, and for others a womb.
This is a crucial part of the cycle of life. Once organisms adapt into symbiosis, they eat and grow together without harming each other. The beneficial bacteria in your gut secrete enzymes that digest your food, as well as organic chemicals that allow your immune system to function healthily. Such a relationship can take a long time to form. Symbiosis is a primary goal of biological evolution. There is nothing bad or shameful or evil or naughty or worthless about what you urinate or defecate. In fact, it is exactly the opposite.
This article on monsanto.com makes it very plain:
"Monsanto has never developed or commercialized a sterile seed product. Sharing many of the concerns of small landholder farmers, Monsanto made a commitment in 1999 not to commercialize sterile seed technology in food crops. We stand firmly by this commitment. We have no plans or research that would violate this commitment in any way."
In spite of this reassurance, one can't rule out the possibility that Monsanto will decide later that it's in their own best interest to market a sterile seed technology.
Monsanto has persecuted many farmers for allegedly saving the seeds of their GM plants (corn, soybeans, and cotton) for planting. See http://www.monsanto.com/seedpatentprotection/monsantos_position.asp for one of the several Monsanto resources that discusses this practice. There's very little a farmer can do to protect his business when Monsanto makes such an accusation. The legal battles can last years, and are devastating.
Nope, you're good.
http://www.useragentstring.com/pages/Googlebot/
...science fiction anticipates scientific discovery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBmgZv6YAxE&fmt=18
(From Red Dwarf series 4, episode 4, "White Hole".)