300K depends where you're driving. In San Francisco or New York (I've lived in both), that's impressive, if 200K of that are backroads in Nevada, it isn't. Said by a human driver who has > 300K since his last and only accident (not my fault, some idiot turned directly in front of me), driving in numerous countries on both sides of the road.
By the way, a computerized car isn't magic, I'll bet it also couldn't have stopped in time though I will admit it might have minimized the damage by braking sooner at least.
Having said all that, I would welcome automatic cars.
In the US, there are about 30,000 people killed each year in motor vehicle accidents (10% of those motorcycles). This has been steadily decreasing, implying that cars are already getting safer every year, in spite of the fact that people are driving more and more (about 3 trillion miles last year in the US).
About 11,000 people are killed each year by firearms. This has been increasing since 1999.
While I agree that self-limiting guns are currently fantasy and do not address the root cause of the problem, assuming trends continue (a big assumption, I know), gun related homicides will overtake car accidents soon anyway, even without automated cars (yes, I am ignoring motorcycle accidents in this analysis). If your automated cars (which will cost trillions) do come and *only* reduce "accidents" (I agree, many preventable) by three-fold, guns will then kill more people than cars.
So for me, it is justified to ask, where do I invest money now to increase safety? As has been pointed out already, basic gun technology has changed little in the last 50 years, at least in regard to reducing homicides. I don't know what the solution is, but I suspect that for a smaller investment than for automated cars that you could design something into guns to reduce homicide rates. Since one gun is often used to commit multiple homicides, maybe just a remote deactivation mechanism or a tracking system might help.
I understand how I might legally be the driver but if I'm not actually holding the wheel and constantly adjusting the foot pressure on the brake or accelerator, it is impossible to react in time in case something goes horribly wrong with the automated driver (or with the car, for example, a blowout). Are the judges just bending to pressure from the car companies and tech companies who don't want to be responsible for their software glitches?
A new potato cultivar had to be withdrawn from the market because of its acute toxicity to humans-a consequence of higher levels of two natural toxins, solanine and chaconine.
Also cassava root, a major food crop in Africa and South America, is quite resistant to pests and disease; however,it contains cyanide at such high levels that only a laborious process of washing, grinding, fermenting, and heating can make it edible.
The patented fish are diploid and fertile. Female triploid salmon are sterile and cannot cross-breed with wildtype stocks. They are produced by heat shock and other methods (they have to be produced, as they are sterile). The female triploids are produced from the diploids for production purposes, so that if they escape, they cannot reproduce. Triploids even occur naturally but rarely (0.6%) in natural salmon populations.
However, several questions come to my mind: 1.What if someone, sometime, accidentally releases the diploid GMO fish? These fish grow faster than the normal salmon and therefore might have introduce a selective advantage to the introduced genes, even if the original GMO fish are reportedly less fecund. 2. Is the triploid production method 100% effective or might you have 0.1% diploids in there, capable of reproduction? 3. Male triploid salmon do have gonads and are are potentially (even if at a very low rate) slightly fertile. How long until a male escapes? I know that the males appear obviously different than the females (I used to fish for salmon in Canada as a youth) nevertheless, I cite Murphy's Law...
Dead wrong. There were be almost no patented medicines then since patents are usually filed before Phase II or III clinical trials take place, which often take years to run. This is why there is a "patent term extension" may be granted to recover some of the lost sales during clinical trials.
And why would someone smart enough to read street signs be low on fuel in a remote region?
Well, to state the obvious, because you were looking for the 70km misplaced town with the only gas station for miles around.
Again, it's more about the possible number of people impacted.
No, it's about the danger. Lost with no fuel and water in a desert, potentially all occupants dead. Inconvenienced by a one way road when you see the sign, a spat with the spouse. Although depending on the intensity of the argument, maybe one death...
While this is annoying as hell, it is not really dangerous for those of us who actually remember how to read street signs.
However, if I were running low on fuel in a near-desert region like the one you've referenced (I've never been there but I imagine with few street signs), I imagine I would consider misplacing a town 70 km is probably significantly more dangerous.
depend on your environment sometimes. For example, heterozygous mutations in the gene that lead to cystic fibrosis probably increase resistance to cholera (by lowering electrolyte loss in the gut). Eliminate cholera in the modern world and the advantage apparently disappears. Similar for sickle cell anemia and malaria (depending of course, where you live or travel, this may still be highly relevant for you). And "fit enough" has always been good enough throughout evolution.
This is probably why primates need vitamin C, since we all lived in an environment with plenty of it and there was no selection against loss of the gene which occurred in one of our ancestors.
It is sometimes difficult to see the advantage of a particular mutation (resistance to dioxins because cytochromes don't metabolize them) or other mutations which are only beneficial in combination with others. Mutations in FoxP2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOXP2 plus others probably led to human speech. There are rare individuals with mutations in a gene which regulates LDL (the "bad" cholesterol) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_hypercholesterolemia#PCSK9 that have very low LDL levels and are apparently perfectly healthy. They lack a gene most of us have and can eat a "modern" diet with a dramatically reduced cardiovascular risk. This is one of the ways in which speciation occurs.
We autoclaved one in the lab once and then used the drying cycle to brown it. Wasn't bad, but basting was impossible without some serious danger of burns...
No risk of samonella !
What about the existing employees who already smoke? I can't imagine that the state can now impose such rules on somebody who has been working for them for 30 years and fire them a year before retirement. And before you say that maybe they want to save money on pensions, smokers have a shorter life expectancy. In fact, it has been suggested
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv20n3/reg20n3e.pdf
that overall, when considering tobacco taxes, shorter collection of pensions and the fact that smokers and nonsmokers both die mostly of heart disease (the smokers are simply younger when they do), that smokers may be cheaper overall for the economy.
I mean, I really hate smoking but this goes too far...
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In Germany, starting in 2015, almost all wood stoves will have to have a particulate filter installed.
http://www.kamin-russfilter.de/gesetzliche-grenzwerte-fuer-feinstaub-durch-kamine-kaminoefen-kacheloefen.php
You may hate your mom when you reach 70 or so, chickenpox is a lifelong latent infection that can reactivate in older individuals, causing shingles and postherpetic neuralgia, or PHN.
Essentially what my uncle did. Job security until the robot repairmen appear. But then it may be too late for us organics anyway...
And of course, his...
I dunno, if a saber-toothed tiger was chasing you, you probably cared a great deal about your arrival time at the nearest climbable tree or such.
The presence of a Y chromosome is highly correlated with a tendency to violence. According to:
Why Are Men So Violent? Men perpetrate about 90 percent of the world's homicides
While it is a proven biomarker, it is totally useless, as I predict all other biomarkers that they might find would be.
300K depends where you're driving. In San Francisco or New York (I've lived in both), that's impressive, if 200K of that are backroads in Nevada, it isn't. Said by a human driver who has > 300K since his last and only accident (not my fault, some idiot turned directly in front of me), driving in numerous countries on both sides of the road.
By the way, a computerized car isn't magic, I'll bet it also couldn't have stopped in time though I will admit it might have minimized the damage by braking sooner at least.
Having said all that, I would welcome automatic cars.
I always called them Charbucks - I guess we have the same opinion about their coffee roasting skills.
In the US, there are about 30,000 people killed each year in motor vehicle accidents (10% of those motorcycles). This has been steadily decreasing, implying that cars are already getting safer every year, in spite of the fact that people are driving more and more (about 3 trillion miles last year in the US).
About 11,000 people are killed each year by firearms. This has been increasing since 1999.
While I agree that self-limiting guns are currently fantasy and do not address the root cause of the problem, assuming trends continue (a big assumption, I know), gun related homicides will overtake car accidents soon anyway, even without automated cars (yes, I am ignoring motorcycle accidents in this analysis). If your automated cars (which will cost trillions) do come and *only* reduce "accidents" (I agree, many preventable) by three-fold, guns will then kill more people than cars.
So for me, it is justified to ask, where do I invest money now to increase safety? As has been pointed out already, basic gun technology has changed little in the last 50 years, at least in regard to reducing homicides. I don't know what the solution is, but I suspect that for a smaller investment than for automated cars that you could design something into guns to reduce homicide rates. Since one gun is often used to commit multiple homicides, maybe just a remote deactivation mechanism or a tracking system might help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
http://trafficsafety.org/safety/sharing/motorcycle/motor-facts/motor-injuries-fatalities http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbse&sid=31
Thanks, I can't sleep now, thinking about those meteorites.
This paper suggests between 0.2 and 3% for a well established rocket (i.e., the end of the learning curve).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470714461.app11/pdf
You need a safety vest AND a first-aid kit (and every driver here is required to take a first aid course).
I understand how I might legally be the driver but if I'm not actually holding the wheel and constantly adjusting the foot pressure on the brake or accelerator, it is impossible to react in time in case something goes horribly wrong with the automated driver (or with the car, for example, a blowout). Are the judges just bending to pressure from the car companies and tech companies who don't want to be responsible for their software glitches?
Sorry, it's late here, I meant "you can easily select WITHOUT genetic engineering"
Actually, natural plants often have higher levels of toxins than cultivated ones but you can easily select for nasty genes with genetic engineering. Nature's chemicals and synthetic chemicals: Comparative toxicology*
Two examples from the paper:
A new potato cultivar had to be withdrawn from the market because of its acute toxicity to humans-a consequence of higher levels of two natural toxins, solanine and chaconine.
Also cassava root, a major food crop in Africa and South America, is quite resistant to pests and disease; however,it contains cyanide at such high levels that only a laborious process of washing, grinding, fermenting, and heating can make it edible.
The patented fish are diploid and fertile. Female triploid salmon are sterile and cannot cross-breed with wildtype stocks. They are produced by heat shock and other methods (they have to be produced, as they are sterile). The female triploids are produced from the diploids for production purposes, so that if they escape, they cannot reproduce. Triploids even occur naturally but rarely (0.6%) in natural salmon populations.
...
However, several questions come to my mind:
1.What if someone, sometime, accidentally releases the diploid GMO fish? These fish grow faster than the normal salmon and therefore might have introduce a selective advantage to the introduced genes, even if the original GMO fish are reportedly less fecund.
2. Is the triploid production method 100% effective or might you have 0.1% diploids in there, capable of reproduction?
3. Male triploid salmon do have gonads and are are potentially (even if at a very low rate) slightly fertile. How long until a male escapes? I know that the males appear obviously different than the females (I used to fish for salmon in Canada as a youth) nevertheless, I cite Murphy's Law
A bit of reading for the interested:
A simple, clear presentation:
http://www.salmotrip.stir.ac.uk/downloads/SSPOpresentation.pdf
More hardcore molecular biology:
http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v104/n2/full/hdy2009108a.html
Dead wrong. There were be almost no patented medicines then since patents are usually filed before Phase II or III clinical trials take place, which often take years to run. This is why there is a "patent term extension" may be granted to recover some of the lost sales during clinical trials.
And why would someone smart enough to read street signs be low on fuel in a remote region?
Well, to state the obvious, because you were looking for the 70km misplaced town with the only gas station for miles around.
Again, it's more about the possible number of people impacted.
No, it's about the danger. Lost with no fuel and water in a desert, potentially all occupants dead. Inconvenienced by a one way road when you see the sign, a spat with the spouse. Although depending on the intensity of the argument, maybe one death...
While this is annoying as hell, it is not really dangerous for those of us who actually remember how to read street signs.
However, if I were running low on fuel in a near-desert region like the one you've referenced (I've never been there but I imagine with few street signs), I imagine I would consider misplacing a town 70 km is probably significantly more dangerous.
Alternatively, since they are so far apart, this may result in
"Blue Balls"
Just don't try to buy a house in Australia.
Australia's broken housing system
Maybe this is silly but my uncle (used to, he's now retired) fix robots and made a nice living doing it.
I guess this is stating the obvious but someone has to design the robots and someone to maintain them.
And once the robots start designing and building robot factories and more robots, I have a name for the first facility: SkyNet.
depend on your environment sometimes. For example, heterozygous mutations in the gene that lead to cystic fibrosis probably increase resistance to cholera (by lowering electrolyte loss in the gut). Eliminate cholera in the modern world and the advantage apparently disappears. Similar for sickle cell anemia and malaria (depending of course, where you live or travel, this may still be highly relevant for you). And "fit enough" has always been good enough throughout evolution.
This is probably why primates need vitamin C, since we all lived in an environment with plenty of it and there was no selection against loss of the gene which occurred in one of our ancestors.
It is sometimes difficult to see the advantage of a particular mutation (resistance to dioxins because cytochromes don't metabolize them) or other mutations which are only beneficial in combination with others. Mutations in FoxP2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOXP2 plus others probably led to human speech. There are rare individuals with mutations in a gene which regulates LDL (the "bad" cholesterol) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_hypercholesterolemia#PCSK9 that have very low LDL levels and are apparently perfectly healthy. They lack a gene most of us have and can eat a "modern" diet with a dramatically reduced cardiovascular risk. This is one of the ways in which speciation occurs.
We autoclaved one in the lab once and then used the drying cycle to brown it. Wasn't bad, but basting was impossible without some serious danger of burns... No risk of samonella !
What about the existing employees who already smoke? I can't imagine that the state can now impose such rules on somebody who has been working for them for 30 years and fire them a year before retirement. And before you say that maybe they want to save money on pensions, smokers have a shorter life expectancy. In fact, it has been suggested http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv20n3/reg20n3e.pdf that overall, when considering tobacco taxes, shorter collection of pensions and the fact that smokers and nonsmokers both die mostly of heart disease (the smokers are simply younger when they do), that smokers may be cheaper overall for the economy. I mean, I really hate smoking but this goes too far...