64-bit Flash ~is~ better than 32-bit because it's also the only build that's optimized to use the GPU rather than the CPU as part of the "Square" pre-release. But don't let your ignorance prevent you from commenting. Fucknugget.
Growing a good egg: Metadynamics simulations show that the eggshell protein ovocleidin-17 induces the formation of calcite crystals from amorphous calcium carbonate nanoparticles. Multiple spontaneous crystallization and amorphization events were simulated; these simulations suggest a catalytic cycle that explains the role of ovocleidin-17 in the first stages of eggshell formation (the picture shows one intermediate of this cycle).
And for what it's worth, this article is completely irrelevant to the question at hand, and the egg came well, well before the chicken.
"That'll give my child that much bigger of an advantage in about 15 years when she's applying for jobs."
Not if she's an American child, it won't. Texas is far and away the largest orderer of textbooks in America, so textbook makers cater to their standards. If Texas doesn't want it in the textbooks, it will largely be cut out of textbooks nationwide.
From the Vancouver Sun:
"[Park spokesman Mike Keizer] suspects the beavers have been working on it for some time, in part because it is overgrown with vegetation and progressive satellite images from as far back as the 1970s show it expanding year after year."
These are not the nine most tested lab animals, as they admit on the first page. It's a list of "some of the animals that stand in for humans in medical research", and it excludes mice for god's sake. How could anyone who read this list think that it represents "the most tested lab animals" if it doesn't include mice or rats? There aren't even any fish on the list.
The list is: 1) Fruit flies 2) Moths 3) Frogs 4) Naked mole rats 5) Prairie voles 6) Rabbits 7) Beagles 8) Pigs 9) Monkeys
Yup. Pretty bad. Especially if you read the title or the abstract of the article in Nature Genetics.
A common MYBPC3 (cardiac myosin binding protein C) variant associated with cardiomyopathies in South Asia
Heart failure is a leading cause of mortality in South Asians. However, its genetic etiology remains largely unknown...Here, we describe a deletion of 25 bp in the gene encoding cardiac myosin binding protein C (MYBPC3) that is associated with heritable cardiomyopathies and an increased risk of heart failure in Indian populations...Its prevalence was found to be high (~4%) in populations of Indian subcontinental ancestry. The finding of a common risk factor implicated in South Asian subjects with cardiomyopathy will help in identifying and counseling individuals predisposed to cardiac diseases in this region.
Emphasis is mine.
From the looks of it, non-Indian populations were not even considered.
"So shouldn't evolution heuristically arrive at a rate of mutation that is beneficial to a species?"
Warning: informed but amateur understanding follows
1) Evolution does not work for the good of the species. *Genes* are selected. 2) The optimal mutation rate is precisely *zero* from the viewpoint of the gene. No gene "wants" to change. (In the sense that genes that tend to reduce their own copying fidelity tend to be driven out of the gene pool by the alleles that they become.) 3) Even if a gene controlling mutation rates were to arise that increased the mutation rates of all genes *other than itself*, this gene would basically be an outlaw, promoting itself through the gene pool at the expense of all others. New genes that suppress the mutation-rate gene would be favoured in the gene pool, as they *promote their own copying fidelity*. Thus the mutation rate would tend back toward zero.
Luckily for us, copying fidelity simply ISN'T perfect regardless of how perfect the genes want it to be, or evolution simply couldn't occur.
Well, your explanation depends on entire portions of sentences being omitted.
Original sentence: "a former nuclear power prote has changed her views on nuclear power as a viable solution to the world's energy needs."
Your explanation: "Prote is the middle Latin conjugation of Proteo, meaning "first among". They're trying to say she was one of the earliest of the decriers."
There's nothing in the original to suggest that she was "decrying" anything.
And you'll also note that the editors have already gone ahead and changed the text. It now reads: "a former nuclear power *protester* has changed her views on nuclear power as a viable solution to the world's energy needs."
The main reason I haven't upgraded yet is that there is, at present, a significant bug in Kotoeri (the Japanese IME) for Leopard. If you type the word "hatake" (which means "field") and scroll through the list of potential kanji, and you get to the "display more" option, the entire IME freezes and is impossible to recover. The same thing happens with "hisashi", and I'm sure a number of other words as well.
There are videos of this floating around YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1pVOJL41x0), and I checked it out myself at the local Apple store. Total IME lock-up, and it uses up 100% of your processor time.
Other than that glaring bug, Leopard is easily the most friendly Japanese OS out there, and it now has a big-name Japanese dictonary & thesaurus, as well as J-E and E-J dictionaries built right in.
Here's hoping Apple gets their shit sorted out for the.1 release.
I suppose I base my perception of Japan upon the fact that I live there and "older people" I talk to (i.e., above age 35) are usually quite opinionated, if you can weasel it out of them or liquor it out of them.
I would say that high voter turnout kinda contradicts your "shou ga nai" claim. If you've got no way of changing anything why would you go out of your way to vote?
1) There is constant political and election coverage of election on the web (try Yahoo, etc. which have whole sites dedicated to election info.) Only political candidates are banned from updating their web pages. There is not suddenly a blanket thrown over the entire Japanese internet media.
2) There is constant political and election coverage in newspapers. How did you forget about those? As I recall, Japan has the highest newspaper readership in the world.
3) There is a lot of political and election coverage on television.
4) Contrary to what you state, the purpose of posters and election vans is surely not to provide insight into a politician's campaign platform. They are merely for publicity--the extremely annoying but more sanitary and time-efficient Japanese equivalent of shaking hands and kissing babies.
5) The LDP has indeed been the dominant power in Japanese politics since WWII, but you must realize that the LDP is a collection of competing factions with different political views that ***run candidates against each other***. In addition to all of these competing factions within the LDP, there are currently five other parties who have members in either the Upper or Lower House of the Diet.
6) Japanese people may not talk about politics with YOU, but you can't necessarily misconstrue this as a lack of interest (especially on the part of older people). Voter turnout in Japan is consistently higher than in America. 67.5% in 2005, 56.4% in 2004.
7) No, of course Abe didn't get elected. At least not by the public. He's a *prime minister*, not a *president*. But don't act like he was just appointed by the LDP out of the blue. He was elected by the Diet (each member of which was elected by the public). You're confusing his role as prime minister with his role as president of the LDP. The two are not the same. This doesn't change the fact that he's a miserable bastard and a terrible leader, but you're absolutely wrong on your charges.
>Maybe they don't have a -whole- lot of choice about their government in Japan, but here in the US we -do- and we end up with just as many (and probably more) bullshit taxes and regulations.
Don't have a whole lot of choice? Compared to the U.S.? Are you fucking kidding me?
Let's compare, shall we?
Major Japanese political parties: Liberal Democratic Party (right wing) - 115 elected members of the upper house, 296 elected members of the lower house Democratic Party (left wing) - 83 elected members of the upper house, 113 elected members of the lower house New Komeito (Buddhist) - 24 elected members of the upper house, 34 elected members of the lower house Japanese Communist Party - 9 elected members of the upper house, 9 elected members of the lower house Social Democratic Party - 5 elected members of the upper house, 7 elected members of the lower house Liberal League (right wing) - 0 elected members of the upper house, 1 elected member of the lower house
Major American parties: Democrats: 233 elected house representatives, 49 elected members of the senate Republicans: 202 elected house representatives, 49 elected members of the senate Independent (should I even include this as a "party"?): 1 elected house representative, 2 elected members of the senate
For the last Japanese lower house election (which had unusually high voter turnout), 67.5% of eligible voters went out. For the 2004 American presidential election (a forty-year-high voter turnout), 60.7% of eligible voters went out. (For comparison's sake of a more normal recent election, the Japanese 2004 Upper House election had 56.4% turnout, and the 2006 American house election had 36.8% voter turnout.)
Not to mention the fact that within the LDP there are factions that compete against each other. Sometimes almost as ferociously as rival political parties.
This is nonsense. There's not a drop of science of any kind in ID. ID does not argue that "God set the evolutionary process in motion", or "God guided the evolutionary process". It flat out argues that "some things (i.e., the eye, the bacterial flagellum, the bombardier beetle, the tongue of the green woodpecker) are too complex to have evolved gradually. They are 'irreducibly complex', meaning that if you take away any one part, the whole system fails (which means that they could not have evolved gradually). The existence of such objects is proof of a design and proof of a designer.
This is NOT science, and is the very OPPOSITE of science for at least four reasons: 1) Appeal to the supernatural to explain natural phenomenon. (Yes, ID *does* quite clearly argue for the existence of a God. It's just a rehashed version of the teleological argument, and if you argue that all things in nature must have had some "designer", then in the end, you need a god to break the infinite regression.) 2) Unlike science which crafts theories from evidence, ID tries to find evidence to match a theory that already exists. (Unsuccessfully. Every example of "irreducibly complexity" has been explained by evolution. 3) It is completely unfalsifiable. The theory goes that "if there is any ONE thing that is irreducibly complex, then that is proof that EVERYTHING is the work of a designer." In order to *disprove* ID, you have to *prove* the evolution of every feature of every creature that has ever lived. 4) The whole purpose of science is to tear down barriers and to *learn* things. ID encourages ignorance and says, as a famous comedy bit once said, that a "magic man done it".
As scientists know, ID has absolutely no place in the science classroom or in science itself. It's unfalsifiable pseudoscientific garbage that produces no useful predictions whatsoever. Leaving it open as a possibility within the realm of science makes no more sense and is no more useful than allowing for the possibility of Zeus's invisible hand being responsible for lightning bolts.
If philosophers are convinced by such a bankrupt "theory", they're welcome to it. Despite what you claim, there is not a SHRED of evidence to support it.
Slashdot Mirror
Google "reciprocal altruism" or "Price Equation". Or get a basic education in evolutionary theory before you dismiss it offhand.
64-bit Flash ~is~ better than 32-bit because it's also the only build that's optimized to use the GPU rather than the CPU as part of the "Square" pre-release. But don't let your ignorance prevent you from commenting. Fucknugget.
You're a fucking idiot.
The link to the abstract of the article is here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123506601/abstract
It reads:
And for what it's worth, this article is completely irrelevant to the question at hand, and the egg came well, well before the chicken.
This is the same thing I said yesterday: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1654076&cid=32232668
"That'll give my child that much bigger of an advantage in about 15 years when she's applying for jobs."
Not if she's an American child, it won't. Texas is far and away the largest orderer of textbooks in America, so textbook makers cater to their standards. If Texas doesn't want it in the textbooks, it will largely be cut out of textbooks nationwide.
Oh, thank goodness. They found a method of containing the leak that actually allows them to continue collecting the oil.
I was very worried that all the precious oil might just go to waste.
From the Vancouver Sun: "[Park spokesman Mike Keizer] suspects the beavers have been working on it for some time, in part because it is overgrown with vegetation and progressive satellite images from as far back as the 1970s show it expanding year after year."
"greengrocer's apostrophe" -> "greengrocers' apostrophe" Fixed that for you, moron.
These are not the nine most tested lab animals, as they admit on the first page. It's a list of "some of the animals that stand in for humans in medical research", and it excludes mice for god's sake. How could anyone who read this list think that it represents "the most tested lab animals" if it doesn't include mice or rats? There aren't even any fish on the list.
The list is:
1) Fruit flies
2) Moths
3) Frogs
4) Naked mole rats
5) Prairie voles
6) Rabbits
7) Beagles
8) Pigs
9) Monkeys
For the love of God, Euclid's Elements. Available for free here:
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.html
Yup. Pretty bad. Especially if you read the title or the abstract of the article in Nature Genetics.
Emphasis is mine.
From the looks of it, non-Indian populations were not even considered.
"So shouldn't evolution heuristically arrive at a rate of mutation that is beneficial to a species?"
Warning: informed but amateur understanding follows
1) Evolution does not work for the good of the species. *Genes* are selected.
2) The optimal mutation rate is precisely *zero* from the viewpoint of the gene. No gene "wants" to change. (In the sense that genes that tend to reduce their own copying fidelity tend to be driven out of the gene pool by the alleles that they become.)
3) Even if a gene controlling mutation rates were to arise that increased the mutation rates of all genes *other than itself*, this gene would basically be an outlaw, promoting itself through the gene pool at the expense of all others. New genes that suppress the mutation-rate gene would be favoured in the gene pool, as they *promote their own copying fidelity*. Thus the mutation rate would tend back toward zero.
Luckily for us, copying fidelity simply ISN'T perfect regardless of how perfect the genes want it to be, or evolution simply couldn't occur.
Well, your explanation depends on entire portions of sentences being omitted.
Original sentence:
"a former nuclear power prote has changed her views on nuclear power as a viable solution to the world's energy needs."
Your explanation:
"Prote is the middle Latin conjugation of Proteo, meaning "first among". They're trying to say she was one of the earliest of the decriers."
There's nothing in the original to suggest that she was "decrying" anything.
And you'll also note that the editors have already gone ahead and changed the text. It now reads: "a former nuclear power *protester* has changed her views on nuclear power as a viable solution to the world's energy needs."
I would have guessed it was a typo, short for "protester".
I'm not sure. As I recall, when I tried it out at the local electronics shop, the version they had said "sono ta no kouho".
Perhaps the YouTube user had something funny going on with their language settings.
The main reason I haven't upgraded yet is that there is, at present, a significant bug in Kotoeri (the Japanese IME) for Leopard. If you type the word "hatake" (which means "field") and scroll through the list of potential kanji, and you get to the "display more" option, the entire IME freezes and is impossible to recover. The same thing happens with "hisashi", and I'm sure a number of other words as well.
.1 release.
There are videos of this floating around YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1pVOJL41x0), and I checked it out myself at the local Apple store. Total IME lock-up, and it uses up 100% of your processor time.
Other than that glaring bug, Leopard is easily the most friendly Japanese OS out there, and it now has a big-name Japanese dictonary & thesaurus, as well as J-E and E-J dictionaries built right in.
Here's hoping Apple gets their shit sorted out for the
The supplied article only discusses edits by the Agriculture Ministry. Japanese reports, of course have more details.
Someone at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare was busted for editing the Japanese Wiki entry for Nanatsuiro Drops, a pornographic video game.
I will also note that the Japanese media reported this over a month ago.
Yes, there are. There are also mitochondria in sperm, but they are (usually) destroyed upon fertilization.
"We're sorry. The fingers you are using to dial are too fat. To order a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm, now."
I suppose I base my perception of Japan upon the fact that I live there and "older people" I talk to (i.e., above age 35) are usually quite opinionated, if you can weasel it out of them or liquor it out of them.
I would say that high voter turnout kinda contradicts your "shou ga nai" claim. If you've got no way of changing anything why would you go out of your way to vote?
1) There is constant political and election coverage of election on the web (try Yahoo, etc. which have whole sites dedicated to election info.) Only political candidates are banned from updating their web pages. There is not suddenly a blanket thrown over the entire Japanese internet media.
2) There is constant political and election coverage in newspapers. How did you forget about those? As I recall, Japan has the highest newspaper readership in the world.
3) There is a lot of political and election coverage on television.
4) Contrary to what you state, the purpose of posters and election vans is surely not to provide insight into a politician's campaign platform. They are merely for publicity--the extremely annoying but more sanitary and time-efficient Japanese equivalent of shaking hands and kissing babies.
5) The LDP has indeed been the dominant power in Japanese politics since WWII, but you must realize that the LDP is a collection of competing factions with different political views that ***run candidates against each other***. In addition to all of these competing factions within the LDP, there are currently five other parties who have members in either the Upper or Lower House of the Diet.
6) Japanese people may not talk about politics with YOU, but you can't necessarily misconstrue this as a lack of interest (especially on the part of older people). Voter turnout in Japan is consistently higher than in America. 67.5% in 2005, 56.4% in 2004.
7) No, of course Abe didn't get elected. At least not by the public. He's a *prime minister*, not a *president*. But don't act like he was just appointed by the LDP out of the blue. He was elected by the Diet (each member of which was elected by the public). You're confusing his role as prime minister with his role as president of the LDP. The two are not the same. This doesn't change the fact that he's a miserable bastard and a terrible leader, but you're absolutely wrong on your charges.
>Maybe they don't have a -whole- lot of choice about their government in Japan, but here in the US we -do- and we end up with just as many (and probably more) bullshit taxes and regulations.
Don't have a whole lot of choice? Compared to the U.S.? Are you fucking kidding me?
Let's compare, shall we?
Major Japanese political parties:
Liberal Democratic Party (right wing) - 115 elected members of the upper house, 296 elected members of the lower house
Democratic Party (left wing) - 83 elected members of the upper house, 113 elected members of the lower house
New Komeito (Buddhist) - 24 elected members of the upper house, 34 elected members of the lower house
Japanese Communist Party - 9 elected members of the upper house, 9 elected members of the lower house
Social Democratic Party - 5 elected members of the upper house, 7 elected members of the lower house
Liberal League (right wing) - 0 elected members of the upper house, 1 elected member of the lower house
Major American parties:
Democrats: 233 elected house representatives, 49 elected members of the senate
Republicans: 202 elected house representatives, 49 elected members of the senate
Independent (should I even include this as a "party"?): 1 elected house representative, 2 elected members of the senate
For the last Japanese lower house election (which had unusually high voter turnout), 67.5% of eligible voters went out. For the 2004 American presidential election (a forty-year-high voter turnout), 60.7% of eligible voters went out. (For comparison's sake of a more normal recent election, the Japanese 2004 Upper House election had 56.4% turnout, and the 2006 American house election had 36.8% voter turnout.)
Not to mention the fact that within the LDP there are factions that compete against each other. Sometimes almost as ferociously as rival political parties.
Yup, no political choice in Japan. None at all.
There are rumours of a major speed boost (up to 200 kbps) in the EDGE network today.r s-seeing-sudden-boost-in-edge-speeds/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/28/atandt-custome
No idea if this is true, but there are similar rumours coming from elsewhere as well.
This is nonsense. There's not a drop of science of any kind in ID. ID does not argue that "God set the evolutionary process in motion", or "God guided the evolutionary process". It flat out argues that "some things (i.e., the eye, the bacterial flagellum, the bombardier beetle, the tongue of the green woodpecker) are too complex to have evolved gradually. They are 'irreducibly complex', meaning that if you take away any one part, the whole system fails (which means that they could not have evolved gradually). The existence of such objects is proof of a design and proof of a designer.
This is NOT science, and is the very OPPOSITE of science for at least four reasons:
1) Appeal to the supernatural to explain natural phenomenon. (Yes, ID *does* quite clearly argue for the existence of a God. It's just a rehashed version of the teleological argument, and if you argue that all things in nature must have had some "designer", then in the end, you need a god to break the infinite regression.)
2) Unlike science which crafts theories from evidence, ID tries to find evidence to match a theory that already exists. (Unsuccessfully. Every example of "irreducibly complexity" has been explained by evolution.
3) It is completely unfalsifiable. The theory goes that "if there is any ONE thing that is irreducibly complex, then that is proof that EVERYTHING is the work of a designer." In order to *disprove* ID, you have to *prove* the evolution of every feature of every creature that has ever lived.
4) The whole purpose of science is to tear down barriers and to *learn* things. ID encourages ignorance and says, as a famous comedy bit once said, that a "magic man done it".
As scientists know, ID has absolutely no place in the science classroom or in science itself. It's unfalsifiable pseudoscientific garbage that produces no useful predictions whatsoever. Leaving it open as a possibility within the realm of science makes no more sense and is no more useful than allowing for the possibility of Zeus's invisible hand being responsible for lightning bolts.
If philosophers are convinced by such a bankrupt "theory", they're welcome to it. Despite what you claim, there is not a SHRED of evidence to support it.