I am assuming you mean S&T, not DHS overall.
Science & Technology is the primary research and development arm of the Department - we're different from other science-related organizations like NIH, NSF, etc., in that our work must have clear line-of-sight to security applications. Not to say we don't have some focus in the basic sciences, but rather to say that it's only about a 20% focus. We also have a portion of our research budget that goes to high-risk things that will probably fail. Thankfully our leadership hear in S&T understands that in science, you need to have at least some fraction of your research portfolio 'on the edge' - that's where you find the home-runs, and not always in the 'safe' stuff. This is hard to defend though, since Congress doesn't hearing that you're spending research dollars on 'risky' projects expected to fail.
In addition to research, the 'T' in S&T means that we develop technologies for the first responders and other users (i.e., interoperable radios and communication, Chemical and Biological detectors, other miscellaneous cool widgets, etc.)
You may also (correctly) guess that any significant effort to prevent terrorist use of WMD requires top-notch scientific and technical expertise as well, so we do a lot of WMD-related work. Hope that helps.
I work for DHS in the Science & Technology Directorate (S&T), and while DHS has a long way to go, there are very smart people here that have sacrificed lucrative careers to dedicate themselves to service to the nation. With a Ph.D. in computational biology from Stanford (i.e., I consider myself to have technical skills), I decided the morning of 9/11 that I would not seek a job at a Biotech or Pharma company in the Bay Area upon graduation, but would rather try to get involved and help the nation with whatever talent and education I have been given. There are many others like myself in S&T - thankfully S&T has not (yet!) turned into the typical government clock-punching organization. People here are top-tier, driven, bright, and creative. I am proud of where DHS has come (at least in my corner of it), while acknowledging that we have a long long way to go.
Oh, and for the record, DHS employees are not required to be members of the Republican party.
What Reed doesn't talk about is that interference is a receiving problem, not a transmission problem. You also have to remember that radio broadcasting predates the internet by almost 100 years. His main focus seems to be to get needed spectrum for the expansion of the internet into the wireless world. In the early days, the only way to prevent interference was to separate the spectrum into pieces and assign each user a specific piece. Up until the 1970's, there was no frequency sharing between active users. This begin to change in the late 1970's with the introduction of spread spectrum techniques. This is the bandwagon that Reed seems to be jumping onto. However, there are theoretical limits on how many users can share the same piece of spectrum even using spread spectrum techniques - thus you still need a spectrum policeman to decide who gets what.
I'm going to say something that will most likely piss off a lot of people, but I am going to say it anyway. This exchange illustrates yet another way the 50% divorce rate in this country is destroying us. Kids have so much other crap to worry about that the last thing they give a rip about is their schoolwork. It's sad when a little kid has "why don't mom and dad love each other anymore" on her mind more often than "i really like reading and math." I'm not saying people should stay in bad relationships "for the kids." That's not good either. I'm just saying that the divorce rate sucks, and it sucks for kids, and I don't have much in the way of a solution other than to hope that people start to do a better job of picking spouses before the kids show up.
This is pretty ironic - I'm sitting here in my lab at Stanford writing up a computational biology paper as I'm reading this (I'm a graduate student) and I have to admit it's kinda true. I wanted to reference the ways people have converted evolutionary sequence conservation into probability matrices, and so I found a fairly recent paper that also wanted to reference that, and I more or less copied those references. I did examine the papers, but I certainly did not read them thoroughly. But I would say that I indeed have read the most important references dealing with the center of my work. So I would argue that most references in paper introductions are not thorougly read, but anything referenced in 'methods' or 'results' sections are most-likely well-read and understood by the authors. And yes, there is incredible pressure to publish in science - your graduate school career is more or less completely judged by your publication output. If you only have 1 (or 0) papers, people will wonder what you were doing and are less likely to give you the killer Bioinformatics job you're looking for.:)
Um, no. It's against about 75% of the country's beliefs. Ask the country if they think human embryos should be cloned *for any reason* and you get 75% to 80% disagreement. Even half of pro-choice supporters don't like the idea of creating a fertilized embryo just to separate it into stem cells. It (correctly) seems wasteful and irresponsible to most people.
That's why what Irv Weissman is doing here at Stanford is so neat - he's looking at a way to swap genetic material in and out of existing cell lines in order to be able to create new stem cell lines without the need to actually fertilize and create human embryos in the process. Overall, a good ethical solution for everyone. The stem cells get made, and no human embryos are needlessly created.
I'm a biochemist here at Stanford and Irv Weissman (the dude in charge of the project) is not talking about cloning at all. He's talking about taking existing stem cell lines, and swapping in new genetic material. It's a modification of existing cell lines that involves no new egg cells (or sperm cells), no fertilization, and no organismic development. Even the US Catholic League is okay with this. Besides, if it fell under the definition of human cloning, Stanford would lose federal funding, which it is certainly not willing to risk. I am very much against actual human cloning for a variety of ethical reasons, but this honestly isn't even close. Swapping interesting genes in and out of an existing cell line in order to study them is really not a big deal.
How does it violate the constitution for a private company (airline) to verify an identity of a customer? If I open a restaurant on my land, I can legally and constitutionally check Ids of whomever I want before I let them in.
While I realize that the line here is blurred since airports are mostly taxpayer funded and not private, it is still true that ultimately the travel takes place on private airlines owned by private companies who can ask IDs of whomever they please for letting people on their planes.
Gilmore waxes in generalities about "travel in America" but this instance at airports is not the same as if the government stopped you in your car at every town and made you identify yourself. In that case, the car is owned by you, and so is the road, since you're a taxpayer. Therefore hands off, and rightfully so. But airplanes are expensive devices owned by private companies. They have a right to allow whoever they want in their expensive devices.
Why can't the privately owned airlines check ID to protect their expensive vehicles? Yes, the government is helping the process, but ultimately no American is being force to identify themselves if they choose to travel using their own means of transportation.
My bad - I did some research and in terms of CO2 and other greenhouse gases you're right - we're the worst offenders.
But in terms of other pollutants (water, etc) here is a short list from the world resource institute (here):
Over half the population (nearly 700 million people) lacks access to clean water, and consumes drinking water contaminated with animal and human waste that exceeds the applicable maximum permissible levels. Overall only 5 percent of household waste and about 17 percent of industrial waste receive any treatment before entering local irrigation ditches, ponds, lakes, and streams.
All of China's bodies of water are polluted to various degrees. Serious pollution has been documented in the country's seven major watersheds: Huai, Hai, Liao, Songhua, Chang (Yangtze), Zhu (Pearl) and Huang (Yellow).
China faces severe deforestation problems, which contributed to the devastating floods during the summer of 1998.
Air pollution in some Chinese cities is among the highest ever recorded, averaging more than ten times the standard proposed by the World Health Organization.
Air pollution threatens public health and welfare on a large scale. China's six largest cities - Beijing, Shenyang, Chongqing, Shanghai, Xian, and Guangzhou - rank among the most polluted in the world.
In Beijing, 40 percent of autos surveyed -- and 70 percent of taxis -- failed to meet the most basic emission standards.
So although they beat us in terms of Greenhouse gases, the yare still much more of a polluting nation than the U.S.
And in terms of the media comment you made, anyone in this country can start their own news web site if they want and the government won't interfere at all. How is it that's not freedom of the press? It's totally the opposite for China
Ohmigosh! Where to start?!?! Most of China consists of rice farmers in abject poverty! Only people in or near the larger cities "suffer" from overnutrition as you say. The country is *not* in good shape *at all* in terms of infrastructure as you claim.
China is also the worst polluter in the world (much *much* worse than the U.S.). Everyone yells at America for not signing Kyoto, but it's China that burns enough coal to choke out the Sun, and the government doesn't give a rip.
Not to mention the complete control of news and media by the state (Xinhua, anyone?). Yeah, I hear that makes for a highly informed and enlightened population able to make informed and educated decisions about things.
And lord help you if you believe in some sort of God that is superior to the State! Or if you're a non-violent Tibetan monk! Look out!
Um, no. Stem Cell research is (hate to say it) alive and well in the U.S. As a Biochemist at Stanford, let me assure you that American ingenuity in Biotech is doing just fine despite certain *small* limits on sources of stem cell research (not the cells themselves). For instance, an entire interdisciplinary Biology building (the Clark center) at Stanford is nearing completion that will have a large stem cell research focus.
All the Bush administration has said is that the cells must be harvested from existing cell lines, not from fetuses or embryos. Given the 60+ cell lines around the world, that's more than sufficient for stem cell research.
Mix that in with the arrest and murder of innocent civilians, the suppression of individual rights and liberty, the shooting down of an American plane in international waters, the not-so-subtle theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos, etc, etc - boy they sure are great!
I think China is (or should be) our primary adversary in the world - they are against (and are afraid of) everything America stands for.
Everyone seems to be going on about how the "under God" part is a 1954 invention and that by getting rid of it, we're "going back to the Constitution."
Doesn't the document that America is founded on, the Declaration of Independence, say that are liberty, our inalienable rights, are only ours because they are endowed by "our Creator?" God (whomever of whatever you take that to mean) is part of the founding document of our nation, and therefore should be reflected in the pledge of allegiance.
Bad decision, 9th circuit court - looks like the Supreme Court will have to strike this one down like they have many other decisions coming out of this court...
...that in a Democracy, we will only get a government as good as its people.
So quit griping about "America did this" and "America did that" as if "America" is this nebulous group of black hats running around causing global mayhem. The American people elect every person involved in federal lawmaking, as well as the comnmander-in-chief of the military. Anything in America's past that you don't like lies squarely at the feet of its people.
Of course they'd publicize it. And we would've too - the fact that we beat them. Unless you think the US would have somehow missed a huge rocket taking off from the USSR heading for the moon.
Don't get me started on your Mendelism quote (I'm a molecular biologist)...
I am a computational biochemist at Stanford and I shake my head at public responses to these things. "Oh no! Irradiated Meat! It must be dangerous!" Never mind that it's the safest and best way to ensure pathogen/parasite-free meat. Same thing here. They're "mutants" so they must be an environmental disaster waiting to happen. This is a proven technique that will work since they are introducing the exact same species. It doesn't work when you stick in predators or something (the rabbit fiasco in Australia for instance) but sterilized individuals of the same species will work great. And as Darwin would say, "who cares how mutated they are if they can't breed to pass any of that crap on?"
Anyway, there's my two-cents.
Slashdot Mirror
I am assuming you mean S&T, not DHS overall. Science & Technology is the primary research and development arm of the Department - we're different from other science-related organizations like NIH, NSF, etc., in that our work must have clear line-of-sight to security applications. Not to say we don't have some focus in the basic sciences, but rather to say that it's only about a 20% focus. We also have a portion of our research budget that goes to high-risk things that will probably fail. Thankfully our leadership hear in S&T understands that in science, you need to have at least some fraction of your research portfolio 'on the edge' - that's where you find the home-runs, and not always in the 'safe' stuff. This is hard to defend though, since Congress doesn't hearing that you're spending research dollars on 'risky' projects expected to fail. In addition to research, the 'T' in S&T means that we develop technologies for the first responders and other users (i.e., interoperable radios and communication, Chemical and Biological detectors, other miscellaneous cool widgets, etc.) You may also (correctly) guess that any significant effort to prevent terrorist use of WMD requires top-notch scientific and technical expertise as well, so we do a lot of WMD-related work. Hope that helps.
I work for DHS in the Science & Technology Directorate (S&T), and while DHS has a long way to go, there are very smart people here that have sacrificed lucrative careers to dedicate themselves to service to the nation. With a Ph.D. in computational biology from Stanford (i.e., I consider myself to have technical skills), I decided the morning of 9/11 that I would not seek a job at a Biotech or Pharma company in the Bay Area upon graduation, but would rather try to get involved and help the nation with whatever talent and education I have been given. There are many others like myself in S&T - thankfully S&T has not (yet!) turned into the typical government clock-punching organization. People here are top-tier, driven, bright, and creative. I am proud of where DHS has come (at least in my corner of it), while acknowledging that we have a long long way to go. Oh, and for the record, DHS employees are not required to be members of the Republican party.
What Reed doesn't talk about is that interference is a receiving
problem, not a transmission problem. You also have to remember that
radio broadcasting predates the internet by almost 100 years. His main
focus seems to be to get needed spectrum for the expansion of the
internet into the wireless world. In the early days, the only way to
prevent interference was to separate the spectrum into pieces and assign
each user a specific piece. Up until the 1970's, there was no frequency
sharing between active users. This begin to change in the late 1970's
with the introduction of spread spectrum techniques. This is the
bandwagon that Reed seems to be jumping onto. However, there are
theoretical limits on how many users can share the same piece of
spectrum even using spread spectrum techniques - thus you still need a
spectrum policeman to decide who gets what.
I'm going to say something that will most likely piss off a lot of people, but I am going to say it anyway. This exchange illustrates yet another way the 50% divorce rate in this country is destroying us. Kids have so much other crap to worry about that the last thing they give a rip about is their schoolwork. It's sad when a little kid has "why don't mom and dad love each other anymore" on her mind more often than "i really like reading and math." I'm not saying people should stay in bad relationships "for the kids." That's not good either. I'm just saying that the divorce rate sucks, and it sucks for kids, and I don't have much in the way of a solution other than to hope that people start to do a better job of picking spouses before the kids show up.
This is pretty ironic - I'm sitting here in my lab at Stanford writing up a computational biology paper as I'm reading this (I'm a graduate student) and I have to admit it's kinda true. I wanted to reference the ways people have converted evolutionary sequence conservation into probability matrices, and so I found a fairly recent paper that also wanted to reference that, and I more or less copied those references. I did examine the papers, but I certainly did not read them thoroughly. But I would say that I indeed have read the most important references dealing with the center of my work. So I would argue that most references in paper introductions are not thorougly read, but anything referenced in 'methods' or 'results' sections are most-likely well-read and understood by the authors. And yes, there is incredible pressure to publish in science - your graduate school career is more or less completely judged by your publication output. If you only have 1 (or 0) papers, people will wonder what you were doing and are less likely to give you the killer Bioinformatics job you're looking for. :)
Um, no. It's against about 75% of the country's beliefs. Ask the country if they think human embryos should be cloned *for any reason* and you get 75% to 80% disagreement. Even half of pro-choice supporters don't like the idea of creating a fertilized embryo just to separate it into stem cells. It (correctly) seems wasteful and irresponsible to most people. That's why what Irv Weissman is doing here at Stanford is so neat - he's looking at a way to swap genetic material in and out of existing cell lines in order to be able to create new stem cell lines without the need to actually fertilize and create human embryos in the process. Overall, a good ethical solution for everyone. The stem cells get made, and no human embryos are needlessly created.
I'm a biochemist here at Stanford and Irv Weissman (the dude in charge of the project) is not talking about cloning at all. He's talking about taking existing stem cell lines, and swapping in new genetic material. It's a modification of existing cell lines that involves no new egg cells (or sperm cells), no fertilization, and no organismic development. Even the US Catholic League is okay with this. Besides, if it fell under the definition of human cloning, Stanford would lose federal funding, which it is certainly not willing to risk. I am very much against actual human cloning for a variety of ethical reasons, but this honestly isn't even close. Swapping interesting genes in and out of an existing cell line in order to study them is really not a big deal.
Yup - agreed. Good ol' Gibbons v. Ogden
How does it violate the constitution for a private company (airline) to verify an identity of a customer? If I open a restaurant on my land, I can legally and constitutionally check Ids of whomever I want before I let them in.
While I realize that the line here is blurred since airports are mostly taxpayer funded and not private, it is still true that ultimately the travel takes place on private airlines owned by private companies who can ask IDs of whomever they please for letting people on their planes.
Gilmore waxes in generalities about "travel in America" but this instance at airports is not the same as if the government stopped you in your car at every town and made you identify yourself. In that case, the car is owned by you, and so is the road, since you're a taxpayer. Therefore hands off, and rightfully so. But airplanes are expensive devices owned by private companies. They have a right to allow whoever they want in their expensive devices.
Why can't the privately owned airlines check ID to protect their expensive vehicles? Yes, the government is helping the process, but ultimately no American is being force to identify themselves if they choose to travel using their own means of transportation.
My bad - I did some research and in terms of CO2 and other greenhouse gases you're right - we're the worst offenders. But in terms of other pollutants (water, etc) here is a short list from the world resource institute (here):
Over half the population (nearly 700 million people) lacks access to clean water, and consumes drinking water contaminated with animal and human waste that exceeds the applicable maximum permissible levels. Overall only 5 percent of household waste and about 17 percent of industrial waste receive any treatment before entering local irrigation ditches, ponds, lakes, and streams.
All of China's bodies of water are polluted to various degrees. Serious pollution has been documented in the country's seven major watersheds: Huai, Hai, Liao, Songhua, Chang (Yangtze), Zhu (Pearl) and Huang (Yellow).
China faces severe deforestation problems, which contributed to the devastating floods during the summer of 1998.
Air pollution in some Chinese cities is among the highest ever recorded, averaging more than ten times the standard proposed by the World Health Organization.
Air pollution threatens public health and welfare on a large scale. China's six largest cities - Beijing, Shenyang, Chongqing, Shanghai, Xian, and Guangzhou - rank among the most polluted in the world.
In Beijing, 40 percent of autos surveyed -- and 70 percent of taxis -- failed to meet the most basic emission standards.
So although they beat us in terms of Greenhouse gases, the yare still much more of a polluting nation than the U.S. And in terms of the media comment you made, anyone in this country can start their own news web site if they want and the government won't interfere at all. How is it that's not freedom of the press? It's totally the opposite for China
Ohmigosh! Where to start?!?! Most of China consists of rice farmers in abject poverty! Only people in or near the larger cities "suffer" from overnutrition as you say. The country is *not* in good shape *at all* in terms of infrastructure as you claim. China is also the worst polluter in the world (much *much* worse than the U.S.). Everyone yells at America for not signing Kyoto, but it's China that burns enough coal to choke out the Sun, and the government doesn't give a rip. Not to mention the complete control of news and media by the state (Xinhua, anyone?). Yeah, I hear that makes for a highly informed and enlightened population able to make informed and educated decisions about things. And lord help you if you believe in some sort of God that is superior to the State! Or if you're a non-violent Tibetan monk! Look out!
Um, no. Stem Cell research is (hate to say it) alive and well in the U.S. As a Biochemist at Stanford, let me assure you that American ingenuity in Biotech is doing just fine despite certain *small* limits on sources of stem cell research (not the cells themselves). For instance, an entire interdisciplinary Biology building (the Clark center) at Stanford is nearing completion that will have a large stem cell research focus. All the Bush administration has said is that the cells must be harvested from existing cell lines, not from fetuses or embryos. Given the 60+ cell lines around the world, that's more than sufficient for stem cell research.
Mix that in with the arrest and murder of innocent civilians, the suppression of individual rights and liberty, the shooting down of an American plane in international waters, the not-so-subtle theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos, etc, etc - boy they sure are great! I think China is (or should be) our primary adversary in the world - they are against (and are afraid of) everything America stands for.
Everyone seems to be going on about how the "under God" part is a 1954 invention and that by getting rid of it, we're "going back to the Constitution." Doesn't the document that America is founded on, the Declaration of Independence, say that are liberty, our inalienable rights, are only ours because they are endowed by "our Creator?" God (whomever of whatever you take that to mean) is part of the founding document of our nation, and therefore should be reflected in the pledge of allegiance. Bad decision, 9th circuit court - looks like the Supreme Court will have to strike this one down like they have many other decisions coming out of this court...
...that in a Democracy, we will only get a government as good as its people. So quit griping about "America did this" and "America did that" as if "America" is this nebulous group of black hats running around causing global mayhem. The American people elect every person involved in federal lawmaking, as well as the comnmander-in-chief of the military. Anything in America's past that you don't like lies squarely at the feet of its people.
Of course they'd publicize it. And we would've too - the fact that we beat them. Unless you think the US would have somehow missed a huge rocket taking off from the USSR heading for the moon. Don't get me started on your Mendelism quote (I'm a molecular biologist)...
I am a computational biochemist at Stanford and I shake my head at public responses to these things. "Oh no! Irradiated Meat! It must be dangerous!" Never mind that it's the safest and best way to ensure pathogen/parasite-free meat. Same thing here. They're "mutants" so they must be an environmental disaster waiting to happen. This is a proven technique that will work since they are introducing the exact same species. It doesn't work when you stick in predators or something (the rabbit fiasco in Australia for instance) but sterilized individuals of the same species will work great. And as Darwin would say, "who cares how mutated they are if they can't breed to pass any of that crap on?" Anyway, there's my two-cents.