I've read that human evolution has stopped, because modern medicine has eliminated most of the diseases that cause death prior to being mature enough to reproduce.
If one of these superviruses was released, could it be viewed as a way of pushing along evolution, since only those strong enough and with the genetics to survive the virus would live to reproduce?
Interesting point. A virus such as this is what biologists would call a "selective pressure". Modern evolutionary theory suggests that adaptation occurs as a reaction to a selective pressure.
One could argue that the removal or addition of a selective pressure allows a population to gradually lose or gain, respectively, fitness. But the question is -- fitness in what regard?
In the context of biological immunity, resistance to a specific virus may not accord us any other advantages in life. Overall immune strength in humans may falter though in the absence of a selective pressure. One question to consider is whether or not 100 years (i.e. at most a scant 4 human generations) of modern medicine is a long enough interval for significant genetic drift to occur. Coupled with explosive population growth, perhaps it is.
Take the modern prevalence of myopia (short-sightedness) for example. One could argue that the widespread availability of corrective eyeglasses (or contact lenses for the vain) only encourages the myopic to lead normal, healthy lives and pass on their defective genes, thus making myopia even more common. Yes, yes, there are numerous other possible causes -- I'm just offering this example as an interesting analogy.
All of these questions suggest that genetic engineering and genomics, far from being an abhorrent evil, might be essential for the survival of the human race. Until about a hundred years ago -- nature brutally culled the weak from the human herd, leaving only the strong to propagate the race. Man has in some ways conquered nature -- thus perhaps it's time also that man took over part of the role that nature played in our breeding?
This is a scary thought, along the lines of the Holocaust, of contemporary movies like Gattaca, etc. But it is a sobering reality we must think about maturely. If we don't take charge of our genetic destiny soon, perhaps nature will do it for us in a way more unforgiving than any Holocaust.
If the biggest tactics change was implementation of this system, then it is also the most probable reason for the drop in crime.
Yes, but crime rates often fluctuate for reasons other than policing tactics, especially demographics such as income distribution, age distribution, ethnic tribalism, etc.
2. Hold citizens of earth hostage for 1 BILLION dollars.
You see, Dr. Evil, this is exactly why I deserted you. Admit it: were it not for my correction, all you would've done was extort the word for a lousy 1 MILLION dollars.
I personally welcome this. Maybe it's because of the bad taste left in my mouth by seeing the local orthodontist brag about how he only worked a couple hours a week, right before he jumped into his multi-million dollar Mitsubishi turbo-prop.
I'd hazard a guess though that offshore medecine will have little effect on any care that requires regular local visits, such as orthodontics. The cost of travel would just be prohibitive.
Finally, given the poor efficiency of fuel-cells, you might be better off just burning the ethanol in a micro-turbine. These will run on anything and have nice numbers.
Actually, the main selling point of fuel-cells is that they are far more efficient than internal combustion generators (whether piston or turbine)!
I agree with the general sentiment that the money should be invested rather than blown on toys, but everyone should take a step back and rethink real-estate as an investment option. There are plenty of warning signs that the real estate market has been in a bubble and that it's due for a crash. I'm not saying don't invest in real estate, I'm just saying do your research first rather than blindly jumping in. I suppose I should post a few links to supporting source, but I'm too lazy and y'all can find em just by googling.
Note for comparison that various experts have estimated Lance Armstrong's sustained power output to be about 450W. Mine (with my fit but still typically geek-like physique) is more on the order of 180W, as measured recently on an ergometer. Elite sprinters, of course, put out far more but for only a brief interval.
Get $10 tyre-liners like Mr Tuffy's. Ever since I started using them a year and a half ago (and only in my rear tyre, to boot!), I've had zero punctures despite commuting five times a week through streets littered with broken beer bottles.
And in the rare event that you do get a flat, use a CO2 inflator to cut out the most frustrating part of on-road flat repair: pumping.
2) Something to keep the rain and road dirt from putting a big skunk stripe up our backs when riding in wet climates. There are fenders, but they don't work well.
Maybe you're using the cheapo snap-on plastic types. Get the real thing and they eliminate every drop of spray. They don't look so conspicuous either if you get them in black (unless you have fancy candy-coloured tyres).
3) The ability to fold the frame so that it can fit in the back of a small car or on the bus.
Plenty of options available for you here. Probably the best and most popular are the Brompton and the Bike Friday. And if you're really hardcore (but obviously you're not), check out S&S frame couplings.
5) Tires that don't go flat. So important, I'm saying it twice.
Well, I wouldn't recommend solid tyres but hey, if you really want them, it's a free country.
We don't need auto transmissions, $150 helmets, $1500 frames that weigh next to nothing, and stupid yuppie mommies who want to pass stupid yuppie mommie laws to protect us for our own good.
Agreed on all those points.
In fact, I HATE bicycle helmets. "But," the yuppies tell me, "you NEED a helmet for safety! It should be illegal to ride without one."
Well I'll agree that it should be your choice whether or not to wear a helment, but still it's pretty stupid not to wear one. It's your head -- don't go suing somone for not having told you about the risks when you go crack your skull on the pavement.
The same people who say this think nothing about strapping two skinny long little boards to their feet and flying down an snow-covered mountain at 50 MPH with nothing on their heads but designer sunglasses!
Umm...I guess you haven't been on a ski slope recently, because the biggest trend these days is for everyone to be wearing helments. In fact, it's almost a fashion statement now regardless of which demographic you fit into -- they're all going for the freeride / x-ski look. But hey, as a ski patroller, I'm all for it if it saves lives and minimises injuries.
The fuel is for communicating, not for moving. There's no friction in space. It can travel forever in its current direction. When the fuel runs out in 2020, we won't be able to hear from it.
Well, there are two "fuel" sources. The radiothermal battery is used to power the electronics (and is what is expected to expire in 2020). And your standard chemical propellants are needed for attitude control to point the antenna or instruments in the right direction. When either of these run out...then Voyager becomes useless. And there is friction in space -- it's just negligible in this case.
The process the researchers have come up with probably uses the same effect to produce a current. The waste product? Urine. The same thing you'd produce if you metabolized the glucose yourself.
The primary waste product of cellular respiration is carbon dioxide, not urine. Urine consists of everything else that your body discards (mostly urea from the breakdown of amino acids).
What you're essentially noticing is that, outside of the US, AOL has barely penetrated the ISP market. Initially, AIM users were primarily AOL subscribers; viral effects then ensured that AIM became the dominant IM medium in the US even for non-AOL users.
AOL is unpopular in other countries because a) it has an obvious branding problem, and b) its non-US content is too thin.
Question: Isn't it true that a nuclear fusion reaction, if you can figure out how to make one, takes an absolutely fantastic amount of energy to initiate and maintain? I know nothing about nuclear physics, but what i've read seems to indicate that the point of fusion is that you put a fantastic amount of energy in and you get a fantastic amount of energy back. The problem so far is that no one has figured out how to get out more energy than you put in.
A net energy surplus is certainly attainable via nuclear fusion -- that is what happens with thermonuclear (a.k.a. hydrogen) bombs. What has so far been out of reach is nuclear fusion in a sustained, controllable reaction where the energy can be converted to useful electricity.
Why do you wacky American's call it a "cell" phone? What is "cellular" about it? I (British) call it a "mobile" phone - because sic.
*sigh* Since Britain is the home of obscure cockney references it should be obvious to you that a mobile phone is a ball-and-chain that your spouse / girlfriend / mother attaches to you, which is like being in a prison cell. Hence "cell" phone.
Don't believe a word of the geeks who tell you that cell is short for cellular, which supposedly describes the switching technology behind modern mobile networks!
The difference today is instant communications. And the small number of total casualties allows the media to focus on each death.
Yes, I'm sure technology has contributed immensely to the reduction of friendly fire incidents. But I'd point out also that WWII and Vietnam were protracted conflicts on a much larger scale, both lasting for several years.
Gulf War I, II and Afghanistan were, in the grand scheme of things, a joke. Sort of like Mike Tyson pulverising a poodle for nipping at his ankle. I guarantee you that if the US went up against an adversary even half its own strength, casualties (whether due to friendly fire or not) would be comparable to Vietnam.
A friend once told me that the word "gullible" had been removed from all major dictionaries by some language committee. It wasn't until 30 minutes later that I caught on to the joke. How embarrassing.
Don't get your hopes too high for this invention. The process overall is very, very cool, but the fact that they don't understand how the hippocampus works, they just worked out a neural net model of imputs and outputs in rats, leads one to believe there will be a lot of bumps down this road. In that way the model they worked out isn't nearly as interesting as how they interface the chip with living tissue, and how they mapped the pathways of the hippocampus in the first place (or, for that matter, if there is variability within hippocampuses or if it is predetermined by genes).
I don't agree. There are many treatments in modern medicine, especially neurology, that are used despite their mechanisms not being fully understood. Don't ask me to name them right now, my hippocampus recently had a run-in with a sharp object;-)
Anyway, that is the nature of experimental medicine: there are always desperate cases out where the potential benefits outweigh the risks. So long as it is statistically shown in trials to work, does it matter if we don't know why it works?
Come on, that is a foolish argument. If you are calling people and asking them "are you willing and able to take the time to take a survey right now?" You are already removing any randomness from your data. First you are only getting those people who OWN phones. You are also only going to get those people who have nothing better to do than talk to you at the instant that you call. As such you will talk to many more jobless people than those who work long hours, many more single people than those watching active small children, etc.
You point out some valid, basic flaws, but any pollster worth his salt is aware of and compensates for them using regression analyis. When the analyzed against known characteristics for the population, the results usually turn out to be very consistent.
Sorry, but if you want truly random data, you'll have to work a lot harder than picking up the nearest phone book to get it.
Yes, the accuracy of surveys can always be improved by casting an ever wider net, but pretty soon you run into the law of diminishing returns. Researchers always have to weigh the level of desired accuracy against the costs of surveying a large population sample. Is an extra significant figure on your stats worth and extra three zero's on your budget?
As for whether the public needs more statistics, I don't think so. According to my calculations, I have actually listened to and understood 0.7% of statistics that are spewed at me daily from the television. Of those 0.01% have proven useful to me in my life.
You're absolutely right on this point. In today's instant news culture we are awash in data but supplied very little actual information. The more we are told the less we know. It doesn't help that all the mainstream "news" sources are really just infotainment advertising tools, subservient to the whims of massive, monolithic media conglomerates.
The way the camera is situated on the back of the phone makes it very easy to surreptitiously take photos. You would merely appear to be dialing a number on your phone.
I'll bet this phone will become the next journalist's, spy's, and uber-geek's must-have toy. I can also envision many socially compromising situations when these covertly taken photos are eventually discovered, especially since the amalgamation of technologies encourages for these photos to be spread on the net.
"What??? I didn't know you were taking my picture! I thought you were just calling someone! Did I give you permission to take my picture and publish it? Get out of my bed, NOW!!"
Slashdot Mirror
Oh.
For a moment I thought you'd have advice on where I can find computer-literate parents as a replacement for mine.
I've read that human evolution has stopped, because modern medicine has eliminated most of the diseases that cause death prior to being mature enough to reproduce.
If one of these superviruses was released, could it be viewed as a way of pushing along evolution, since only those strong enough and with the genetics to survive the virus would live to reproduce?
Interesting point. A virus such as this is what biologists would call a "selective pressure". Modern evolutionary theory suggests that adaptation occurs as a reaction to a selective pressure.
One could argue that the removal or addition of a selective pressure allows a population to gradually lose or gain, respectively, fitness. But the question is -- fitness in what regard?
In the context of biological immunity, resistance to a specific virus may not accord us any other advantages in life. Overall immune strength in humans may falter though in the absence of a selective pressure. One question to consider is whether or not 100 years (i.e. at most a scant 4 human generations) of modern medicine is a long enough interval for significant genetic drift to occur. Coupled with explosive population growth, perhaps it is.
Take the modern prevalence of myopia (short-sightedness) for example. One could argue that the widespread availability of corrective eyeglasses (or contact lenses for the vain) only encourages the myopic to lead normal, healthy lives and pass on their defective genes, thus making myopia even more common. Yes, yes, there are numerous other possible causes -- I'm just offering this example as an interesting analogy.
All of these questions suggest that genetic engineering and genomics, far from being an abhorrent evil, might be essential for the survival of the human race. Until about a hundred years ago -- nature brutally culled the weak from the human herd, leaving only the strong to propagate the race. Man has in some ways conquered nature -- thus perhaps it's time also that man took over part of the role that nature played in our breeding?
This is a scary thought, along the lines of the Holocaust, of contemporary movies like Gattaca, etc. But it is a sobering reality we must think about maturely. If we don't take charge of our genetic destiny soon, perhaps nature will do it for us in a way more unforgiving than any Holocaust.
If the biggest tactics change was implementation of this system, then it is also the most probable reason for the drop in crime.
Yes, but crime rates often fluctuate for reasons other than policing tactics, especially demographics such as income distribution, age distribution, ethnic tribalism, etc.
2. Hold citizens of earth hostage for 1 BILLION dollars.
You see, Dr. Evil, this is exactly why I deserted you. Admit it: were it not for my correction, all you would've done was extort the word for a lousy 1 MILLION dollars.
Number Two.
I personally welcome this. Maybe it's because of the bad taste left in my mouth by seeing the local orthodontist brag about how he only worked a couple hours a week, right before he jumped into his multi-million dollar Mitsubishi turbo-prop.
I'd hazard a guess though that offshore medecine will have little effect on any care that requires regular local visits, such as orthodontics. The cost of travel would just be prohibitive.
Finally, given the poor efficiency of fuel-cells, you might be better off just burning the ethanol in a micro-turbine. These will run on anything and have nice numbers.
Actually, the main selling point of fuel-cells is that they are far more efficient than internal combustion generators (whether piston or turbine)!
I agree with the general sentiment that the money should be invested rather than blown on toys, but everyone should take a step back and rethink real-estate as an investment option. There are plenty of warning signs that the real estate market has been in a bubble and that it's due for a crash. I'm not saying don't invest in real estate, I'm just saying do your research first rather than blindly jumping in. I suppose I should post a few links to supporting source, but I'm too lazy and y'all can find em just by googling.
Cancer will often cure the common cold. =D
Rather tasteless comment, actually, for anyone connected to the cancer community.
Works through WiFi so it limits to mostly laptops for now.
Though laptops usually come with WiFi and desktops usually without, WiFi is certainly available as PCI expansion cards.
Note for comparison that various experts have estimated Lance Armstrong's sustained power output to be about 450W. Mine (with my fit but still typically geek-like physique) is more on the order of 180W, as measured recently on an ergometer. Elite sprinters, of course, put out far more but for only a brief interval.
What we bike riders really need is:
1) Tires that don't go flat!
Get $10 tyre-liners like Mr Tuffy's. Ever since I started using them a year and a half ago (and only in my rear tyre, to boot!), I've had zero punctures despite commuting five times a week through streets littered with broken beer bottles.
And in the rare event that you do get a flat, use a CO2 inflator to cut out the most frustrating part of on-road flat repair: pumping.
2) Something to keep the rain and road dirt from putting a big skunk stripe up our backs when riding in wet climates. There are fenders, but they don't work well.
Maybe you're using the cheapo snap-on plastic types. Get the real thing and they eliminate every drop of spray. They don't look so conspicuous either if you get them in black (unless you have fancy candy-coloured tyres).
3) The ability to fold the frame so that it can fit in the back of a small car or on the bus.
Plenty of options available for you here. Probably the best and most popular are the Brompton and the Bike Friday. And if you're really hardcore (but obviously you're not), check out S&S frame couplings.
4) Brakes that work in the rain.
Pssst. I'll let you in on a secret. Use the front brake, it's really not that dangerous.
5) Tires that don't go flat. So important, I'm saying it twice.
Well, I wouldn't recommend solid tyres but hey, if you really want them, it's a free country.
We don't need auto transmissions, $150 helmets, $1500 frames that weigh next to nothing, and stupid yuppie mommies who want to pass stupid yuppie mommie laws to protect us for our own good.
Agreed on all those points.
In fact, I HATE bicycle helmets. "But," the yuppies tell me, "you NEED a helmet for safety! It should be illegal to ride without one."
Well I'll agree that it should be your choice whether or not to wear a helment, but still it's pretty stupid not to wear one. It's your head -- don't go suing somone for not having told you about the risks when you go crack your skull on the pavement.
The same people who say this think nothing about strapping two skinny long little boards to their feet and flying down an snow-covered mountain at 50 MPH with nothing on their heads but designer sunglasses!
Umm...I guess you haven't been on a ski slope recently, because the biggest trend these days is for everyone to be wearing helments. In fact, it's almost a fashion statement now regardless of which demographic you fit into -- they're all going for the freeride / x-ski look. But hey, as a ski patroller, I'm all for it if it saves lives and minimises injuries.
The fuel is for communicating, not for moving. There's no friction in space. It can travel forever in its current direction. When the fuel runs out in 2020, we won't be able to hear from it.
Well, there are two "fuel" sources. The radiothermal battery is used to power the electronics (and is what is expected to expire in 2020). And your standard chemical propellants are needed for attitude control to point the antenna or instruments in the right direction. When either of these run out...then Voyager becomes useless. And there is friction in space -- it's just negligible in this case.
But what is in my poopy?
Everything that your gut wasn't able to digest(especially cellulose a.k.a. fibre).
The process the researchers have come up with probably uses the same effect to produce a current. The waste product? Urine. The same thing you'd produce if you metabolized the glucose yourself.
The primary waste product of cellular respiration is carbon dioxide, not urine. Urine consists of everything else that your body discards (mostly urea from the breakdown of amino acids).
What you're essentially noticing is that, outside of the US, AOL has barely penetrated the ISP market. Initially, AIM users were primarily AOL subscribers; viral effects then ensured that AIM became the dominant IM medium in the US even for non-AOL users.
AOL is unpopular in other countries because a) it has an obvious branding problem, and b) its non-US content is too thin.
Question: Isn't it true that a nuclear fusion reaction, if you can figure out how to make one, takes an absolutely fantastic amount of energy to initiate and maintain? I know nothing about nuclear physics, but what i've read seems to indicate that the point of fusion is that you put a fantastic amount of energy in and you get a fantastic amount of energy back. The problem so far is that no one has figured out how to get out more energy than you put in.
A net energy surplus is certainly attainable via nuclear fusion -- that is what happens with thermonuclear (a.k.a. hydrogen) bombs. What has so far been out of reach is nuclear fusion in a sustained, controllable reaction where the energy can be converted to useful electricity.
Also, pressing that phone up to your greasy ass cheek gets smudges on it.
I suggest you forego oil-based lubricants for your back-door activities in order to eliminate the problem you describe here.
Why do you wacky American's call it a "cell" phone? What is "cellular" about it? I (British) call it a "mobile" phone - because sic.
*sigh* Since Britain is the home of obscure cockney references it should be obvious to you that a mobile phone is a ball-and-chain that your spouse / girlfriend / mother attaches to you, which is like being in a prison cell. Hence "cell" phone.
Don't believe a word of the geeks who tell you that cell is short for cellular, which supposedly describes the switching technology behind modern mobile networks!
WW II: 21,000 (16%)
Vietnam war: 8,000 (14%)
Gulf War: 35 (23%)
Afghanistan (2002): 4 (13%)
The difference today is instant communications. And the small number of total casualties allows the media to focus on each death.
Yes, I'm sure technology has contributed immensely to the reduction of friendly fire incidents. But I'd point out also that WWII and Vietnam were protracted conflicts on a much larger scale, both lasting for several years.
Gulf War I, II and Afghanistan were, in the grand scheme of things, a joke. Sort of like Mike Tyson pulverising a poodle for nipping at his ankle. I guarantee you that if the US went up against an adversary even half its own strength, casualties (whether due to friendly fire or not) would be comparable to Vietnam.
A friend once told me that the word "gullible" had been removed from all major dictionaries by some language committee. It wasn't until 30 minutes later that I caught on to the joke. How embarrassing.
Don't get your hopes too high for this invention. The process overall is very, very cool, but the fact that they don't understand how the hippocampus works, they just worked out a neural net model of imputs and outputs in rats, leads one to believe there will be a lot of bumps down this road. In that way the model they worked out isn't nearly as interesting as how they interface the chip with living tissue, and how they mapped the pathways of the hippocampus in the first place (or, for that matter, if there is variability within hippocampuses or if it is predetermined by genes).
;-)
I don't agree. There are many treatments in modern medicine, especially neurology, that are used despite their mechanisms not being fully understood. Don't ask me to name them right now, my hippocampus recently had a run-in with a sharp object
Anyway, that is the nature of experimental medicine: there are always desperate cases out where the potential benefits outweigh the risks. So long as it is statistically shown in trials to work, does it matter if we don't know why it works?
Come on, that is a foolish argument. If you are calling people and asking them "are you willing and able to take the time to take a survey right now?" You are already removing any randomness from your data. First you are only getting those people who OWN phones. You are also only going to get those people who have nothing better to do than talk to you at the instant that you call. As such you will talk to many more jobless people than those who work long hours, many more single people than those watching active small children, etc.
You point out some valid, basic flaws, but any pollster worth his salt is aware of and compensates for them using regression analyis. When the analyzed against known characteristics for the population, the results usually turn out to be very consistent.
Sorry, but if you want truly random data, you'll have to work a lot harder than picking up the nearest phone book to get it.
Yes, the accuracy of surveys can always be improved by casting an ever wider net, but pretty soon you run into the law of diminishing returns. Researchers always have to weigh the level of desired accuracy against the costs of surveying a large population sample. Is an extra significant figure on your stats worth and extra three zero's on your budget?
As for whether the public needs more statistics, I don't think so. According to my calculations, I have actually listened to and understood 0.7% of statistics that are spewed at me daily from the television. Of those 0.01% have proven useful to me in my life.
You're absolutely right on this point. In today's instant news culture we are awash in data but supplied very little actual information. The more we are told the less we know. It doesn't help that all the mainstream "news" sources are really just infotainment advertising tools, subservient to the whims of massive, monolithic media conglomerates.
Hmmm...
The way the camera is situated on the back of the phone makes it very easy to surreptitiously take photos. You would merely appear to be dialing a number on your phone.
I'll bet this phone will become the next journalist's, spy's, and uber-geek's must-have toy. I can also envision many socially compromising situations when these covertly taken photos are eventually discovered, especially since the amalgamation of technologies encourages for these photos to be spread on the net.
"What??? I didn't know you were taking my picture! I thought you were just calling someone! Did I give you permission to take my picture and publish it? Get out of my bed, NOW!!"
it's okay i read your post as "i should probably get some sheep" the first time...
Catch forty winks and you might run into some electric ones.
Now you can have your cat and eat it too! Ha!
Well, I'm not really into eating pussies.