Without a serious review system, I can see it becoming a nest of crap that no one will be able to use.
There is a review system--though not a formal moderated one like Slashdot. Each Wikipedia user has a Watchlist. You can add as many Wikipedia pages to it as you want, and whenever any of those pages are changed a notation will appear on your Watchlist page.
I have a few pages on my list that are related to the work I do, or areas where I can comfortably claim I am well-versed. I keep tabs on the couple of daily changes to those articles, and check them for spelling, grammar, and correctness. Many other Wikipedians do the same. Vandalism is consequently noticed quite quickly for all but the least important articles. I imagine that the "Douche" article you mentioned is one such article that is watched fairly closely; one of the siblings to this post notes that vandalism to that article is usually undone in minutes (or--once--hours) and never a week or two.
Wikipedia hasn't ever had the 'serious' review system you think it needs, but it hasn't become a 'nest of crap' yet, either.
Anyway, this is still a clone -- it's a different "instance" of the original animal (even if it's made via a copy constructor.) It won't have "genetic memory" of its new owner, it will be a completely different pet.
Minor nitpick, and to answer another question in this thread.
The moon is about half a degree across. Usually that's denoted by a little superscript circle, just as with temperature. Half a degree is about the size of an aspirin tablet held at arm's length.
Alternately, that half degree can be written as 30' of arc--each degree can be subdivided into sixty minutes of arc (or arcminutes). Each minute of arc is in turn broken into sixty seconds of arc: 60" (arcseconds). The parent seems to have inadvertently shrunk the moon by a factor of 3600...oops.
For reference, Hubble can resolve features down to 0.05"--50 milliarcseconds. Your eye can resolve point objects a little under 10' (ten arcminutes) apart.
Also, to be fair, for locating asteroids, the galactic plane and Andromeda aren't really blind spots...they're a real pain in the neck if you're trying to do cosmology, though.
Upregulation of heat shock proteins may in fact be good for you.
Yes and no.
It's definitely good for individual cells, inasmuch as it allows them to repair damaged protein and avoid programmed cell death (apoptosis).
Whether it's good for the entire organism is an open question, and the answer is probably very much "it depends". There is evidence to suggest that higher levels of heat shock protein expression in cardiac tissue are associated with reduced injury during a heart attack. On the other hand, there is also evidence that a number of the heat shock proteins are upregulated in some cancers (roughly half of human tumours overexpress Hsp70, for instance.) High expression of high shock proteins probably allows malignant cells to survive when they shouldn't.
As a side note, I'd take Dr. Mercola's reports with a grain of salt. He's mostly pushing his diet and cookbooks. He's also not entirely up to date on the current debate on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Although he correctly reports that higher levels of heat shock proteins delay protein aggregation in an animal model (c. elegans) the toxicity of the protein aggregates is still open to question.
Some recent work suggests that the soluble protein monomer or small protein clusters are what actually do the damage, and that the aggregates that form are relatively inert. If that is the case, delaying protein aggregation through chaperone (heat shock protein) overexpression may actually increase disease severity.
Then why dont we see people dying of cancer and other diseases in tropical or subtropical places vs temperate places?
We do see more skin cancer in tropical and subtropical areas, and that's the only part of the body that tends to experience substantial increases in temperature. (Yes, I know it's also the only part of the body that sees sunlight--back to this point later). Your body is very good at maintaining its core temperature. It likes to be at around 37 degrees (Celsius), and exerts a good bit of effort to keep it that way. It will completely dehydrate you through sweating to fight small changes in core temperature. Remember, a temperature of 40 degrees (104 Fahrenheit) is considered a high fever, and prolonged body temperatures of 41 degrees can have a whole host of nasty effects.
Heating individual cells to 41 or 42 degrees causes a demonstrable change in DNA supercoiling, and there is strong evidence that it disrupts DNA repair.
What looks like 'just a few degrees' of heating can have dramatic effects on sensitive tissue. I'm not asserting that there is a relationship between localized RF heating and cancer--I am willing to suggest that even modest heating may have a potentiating effect on other stressors. (To go back to my first remark, it's obvious that UV is the direct cause of double-strand DNA breaks in skin exposed to the sun. It is possible--though by no means proven--that simultaneous exposure to heating may enhance the damage done, by inhibiting DNA repair.)
All I want to do here is remind Slashdotters that you can accumulate DNA damage in (at least) two ways: by directly damaging it with ionizing radiation, or by inhibiting its repair.
It's interesting that they don't offer up an explanation for the cellular damage. Last time I checked, microwaves were non-ionizing. The worst you should experience from a cell phone might be a little heat. I'm skeptical, as usual.
Skepticism is certainly warranted, but I haven't had time to look at the published paper. (Lay articles are always skimpy on details and often get them wrong anyway....)
Even though heat won't directly cause DNA breaks, it might muck up DNA repair machinery so that breaks formed by other processes aren't repaired. Thermal radiosensitization, for instance, is a phenomenon we've known about for at least thirty years. Mild, otherwise non-fatal heating can dramatically increase the sensitivity of cells to other, ionizing radiation. This is sometimes a useful effect (see below) but might increase cancer risk in otherwise healthy individuals.
Moderate heating (to four or five degrees above normal body temperature) will dramatically but reversibly alter the supercoiling of DNA as well as alter the phosphorylation of some of the core histones. It will also trigger a temporary upregulation of the heat shock proteins, which directly interfere with apoptosis. Hyperthermia actually has a whole pile of effects that are not well understood. This is not to say that I'm going to start carrying my mobile phone in a lead pouch, but I think it will be interesting to see where this research leads.
Interestingly, there are a number of clinical trials in Europe right now that take advantage of thermal radiosensitization by combining local heating with radiotherapy for cancer treatment. (See for example the Phase III Dutch Deep Hyperthermia Trial, link. )
Its this new technology called an 'insulating mug'. It costs about $5 at Walmart and is dishwasher safe.
Bah--that's nothing. I have this newfangled gadget called a Thermos. If I fill it with hot water when I start to make the coffee, then put coffee in the preheated Thermos, I get so-hot-it-will-scald-your-tongue coffee for hours. None of this embarrassingly-tepid-wait-six-minutes-for-63-Celsi us-reheated-sludge coffee nonsense.
Oh, and the Thermos is reusable. They're one of those new companies that's big on environmental friendliness, I guess.
I sure hope they start selling it in stores soon....the rumour is that they're waiting until they have a version that will keep cool beverages cold, too. Isn't that neat? How does the Thermos know? They say it won't require batteries. Maybe it's a fuel cell or something....
...two sets of packaging... the display box that contains the EULA printed and shrinkwrapped documentation and an internal package with just the CD/DVD set which is also shrinkwrapped or sealed...
Doesn't anybody else remember when software companies did do this?
You'd open the box, and inside would be a manual (those days are gone too, I guess), a floppy disk in a sealed envelope, and a pamphlet with the EULA. Printed on the envelope--or on a sticker across the envelope's flap--would be instructions to read and agree to the EULA before opening the envelope.
So the real question isn't, 'Why don't manufacturers put the media into a sealed inner package?' Rather, we should be asking, 'Why did they stop doing so?'
Have the licenses gotten so unconscionable that they're afraid to even commit the damn things to paper any more?
... here, you're just committing robbery from your neighbor.
If you're going to use terms in boldface, then you really ought to know what they mean. Robbery properly involves taking things from someone else through the use (or threat) of violence. If I beat up my neighbour and took his bike, or held him at knifepoint until he gave me his wheels--that would be robbery.
Feel free to continue to use the word 'theft', however. There is at least a sensible potential legal argument there.
I always wished I could have had another woman to look up and admire for their technical achievements.
There's always Marie Curie. Granted, she wasn't a chip designer, but she was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, and one of only three people to ever win two Nobel Prizes in the sciences. The first was in Physics (1903) for her investigations into radioactivity; it was shared with Henri Becquerel and her husband Pierre Curie. The second was in Chemistry (1911) for the twin discoveries of polonium and radium; this was a solo Prize.
In an interesting twist, one of the other double Nobelists was John Bardeen, receiving prizes for the discovery of transistors and for a theory of superconductivity--both subjects near and dear to the hearts of many a Slashdotter. If Marie was the sort to be smug (she wasn't) and if she had been alive (she died in 1934), she could have gloated--Bardeen had to share both of his prizes.:D
Its possible to have a majority share in a company which is below 50%...
I do not think that word means what you think it means....
Although you're quite right in the sense that holding a large block of shares--in this case, 20% of the voting stock--gives the owner's opinion quite a bit of weight, it does not give carte blanche to name directors or force votes at the AGM. The largest shareholder is not automatically a majority shareholder. They're still in a minority ownership position, albeit a substantial one. EA still needs 37.5% of the remaining shareholders to agree with any policy they put forth; more for any changes requiring a supermajority.
"Dinosaurs are extinct because they didn't have a space program."
That tired old quote?
Everybody knows that the real reason was their several pack a day smoking habit. (Thanks, Gary Larson!)
Re:Lego-4 3 GHz, here we come!
on
Lego Logic Gates
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Hmmm...3 GHz...
Since the push/pull distance for the gate outputs described is about one LEGO stud length, or 8 millimeters.
At 3 GHz we have a cycle every 3e-10 seconds (~300 picoseconds), and so a mean speed of 8 mm / 300 ps, or nearly 25 million meters per second. That's nearly 10% of the speed of light, so you're going to have to watch out for relativistic effects.:D
I don't know the mass of the LEGO axles used in the figure, but if they're 5 grams apiece, then each would have a kinetic energy of about 1.5 terajoules. That's about the same as the kinetic energy possessed by a Nimitz class aircraft carrier travelling at 300 knots.
Last time I was on a plane the guy behind me was on the cell phone talking from take off to mid flight.. despite the cell phone ban.
Whether interference is a serious issue or not--and it's probably not on aircraft constructed in the last fifteen years or so, perhaps more so before that--there's another good reason not to be on the phone during takeoff.
If there's a problem on takeoff, that unsecured cellular phone becomes a projectile loose in the cabin. There's a reason why the overhead bins are closed, and extra carry-on baggage is supposed to be secured beneath the seat. It cuts down on the amount of crap that can fly around the cabin if something goes wrong.
On the other hand, you were able to clearly and precisely describe why you disagree with their evaluations.
Based entirely on your comments, I would suggest that is the true strength of Consumer Reports' reviews--you have not just a ranking, but also a detailed explanation of how that ranking was arrived at.
The people who buy based only on a final arbitrary score or ranking are just as screwed as the people who choose a CPU based solely on its clock speed, or an audio amplifier based solely on its output power. Sure, such people exist, but there's useful content in CR for those who are willing to look.
One hopes that people willing to plunk down the cash for a copy of CR are also willing to spend a small amount of time reading the whole article before they buy a twenty thousand dollar vehicle....
but really, what i'm amused by here is that i said i think it's inappropriate for slashdot to use the phrase "bow,nigger" in a style that is treated differently from other standard text.
...except that it happens to be the title of a written work. It is very much consistent with Slashdot style to link to a written piece using the title of that piece. The phrase
"A seminal work referenced when discussing Coleridge's poetry is
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a sharply written and gripping piece about an...ancient mariner."
would attract no comment. It is fully compliant with Slashdot style, down to the sloppy writing and misused comma. It's not the phrase "bow, nigger" that is deliberately accentuated. It is the title of a story that is hyperlinked. The appearance is perhaps the same, but the intent and mechanism are decidedly different.
If the editors are going to run a story with the phrase anyway--if I understand your position, you don't object to that...?--then it should be appropriate for them to hyperlink as they always do.
While antibiotics are somewhat targeted toward a specific type of bacteria, furanones disrupt basic microbial communication. I'm not saying this wont work, just that without live testing this is way too early to be news.
It could be argued that these signalling inhibitors might be less disruptive than the classic antibiotics. When doctors administer broad-spectrum antibiotics (fluoroquinolones like Cipro, for example) it just firebombs the entire GI tract, and kills off a lot of the beneficial intestinal flora. A signalling inhibitor might kill sigificantly fewer 'friendly' bacteria--and their function might be more quickly restored after the end of drug treatment, since they wouldn't have to recolonize.
As the parent says, live testing will be required to establish the relative efficacy and toxicity of these novel drugs.
Instead of addressing the issue, I quoted back the worst sentence and asked her to rephrase it in standard English so that I could understand what she was saying.
Her reply was succinct: three simple words. "You're fired, smartass."
Be professional--you'll go farther, and not make so many enemies along the way. Even a bad boss is still your boss. Address the issues in the email as best you can, then express concern over whether you interpreted it correctly. Feel free to cc: her supervisor if you're concerned about the lack of professionalism your supervisor has shown. Bonus points if you talk to your boss' boss in person about the larger issue of the company being poorly reflected in sloppy email communications.
The purpose of any education system is to provide the opportunity to learn to those who _want_ to learn. I'd rather have an education system that puts out a few brilliant people a year than the one that's good "on average" but doesn't put out any geniuses.
That's true of education at higher levels.
On the other hand, one can--and should--argue that skills like reading, writing, and basic mathematics are not optional for a person to function at more than the most basic level in today's society.
Basic science and math literacy are useful to everyone. Want to know how much you're getting ripped of when you carry a balance on your credit card? Need to figure out how to kill the weeds in your lawn?
Remember, we're looking at fifteen-year-olds here. In many jurisdictions, it will be another year before they're legally permitted to drop out. There probably is a fundamental skill set that should be taught at that point; it seems that a lot of students in the U.S. just aren't getting it--to the detriment of us all.
always wonder, when I hear that East Slobovia has better math scores than the US, whether they are really testing all their schoolkids, or only reporting the average of the top 5%. The US is pretty egalitarian in our education system, compared to your typical poor country.
Did you look at the results? It's other industrialized nations with mandatory universal public schooling that are beating the States, not isolated private academies in third world countries.
Note to other posters: Cry me a river about the impact of those damn illegal Mexican immigrants. They represent less than three percent of the total population; even if they all scored zero on the testing, dropping them from the scores wouldn't nudge the U.S. up more than a couple places in the rankings. I note that Mexico's students on average scored about 80% as well as their U.S. counterparts, too.
Meanwhile Canada admits far more immigrants per capita than the United States, and they're sitting twenty-one places ahead of the U.S. in these rankings.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a review system--though not a formal moderated one like Slashdot. Each Wikipedia user has a Watchlist. You can add as many Wikipedia pages to it as you want, and whenever any of those pages are changed a notation will appear on your Watchlist page.
I have a few pages on my list that are related to the work I do, or areas where I can comfortably claim I am well-versed. I keep tabs on the couple of daily changes to those articles, and check them for spelling, grammar, and correctness. Many other Wikipedians do the same. Vandalism is consequently noticed quite quickly for all but the least important articles. I imagine that the "Douche" article you mentioned is one such article that is watched fairly closely; one of the siblings to this post notes that vandalism to that article is usually undone in minutes (or--once--hours) and never a week or two.
Wikipedia hasn't ever had the 'serious' review system you think it needs, but it hasn't become a 'nest of crap' yet, either.
I have noticed a rampant bias against Jean-Baptiste Lamarck here on Slashdot.
My only consolation is in knowing that few here will breed, thus preventing this prejudice from carrying on. :D
Minor nitpick, and to answer another question in this thread.
The moon is about half a degree across. Usually that's denoted by a little superscript circle, just as with temperature. Half a degree is about the size of an aspirin tablet held at arm's length.
Alternately, that half degree can be written as 30' of arc--each degree can be subdivided into sixty minutes of arc (or arcminutes). Each minute of arc is in turn broken into sixty seconds of arc: 60" (arcseconds). The parent seems to have inadvertently shrunk the moon by a factor of 3600...oops.
For reference, Hubble can resolve features down to 0.05"--50 milliarcseconds. Your eye can resolve point objects a little under 10' (ten arcminutes) apart.
Also, to be fair, for locating asteroids, the galactic plane and Andromeda aren't really blind spots...they're a real pain in the neck if you're trying to do cosmology, though.
Actually, what you need to worry about is the SANTA RAID. Please remember to back up your data to a non-edible format.
Yes and no.
It's definitely good for individual cells, inasmuch as it allows them to repair damaged protein and avoid programmed cell death (apoptosis).
Whether it's good for the entire organism is an open question, and the answer is probably very much "it depends". There is evidence to suggest that higher levels of heat shock protein expression in cardiac tissue are associated with reduced injury during a heart attack. On the other hand, there is also evidence that a number of the heat shock proteins are upregulated in some cancers (roughly half of human tumours overexpress Hsp70, for instance.) High expression of high shock proteins probably allows malignant cells to survive when they shouldn't.
As a side note, I'd take Dr. Mercola's reports with a grain of salt. He's mostly pushing his diet and cookbooks. He's also not entirely up to date on the current debate on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Although he correctly reports that higher levels of heat shock proteins delay protein aggregation in an animal model (c. elegans) the toxicity of the protein aggregates is still open to question.
Some recent work suggests that the soluble protein monomer or small protein clusters are what actually do the damage, and that the aggregates that form are relatively inert. If that is the case, delaying protein aggregation through chaperone (heat shock protein) overexpression may actually increase disease severity.
We do see more skin cancer in tropical and subtropical areas, and that's the only part of the body that tends to experience substantial increases in temperature. (Yes, I know it's also the only part of the body that sees sunlight--back to this point later). Your body is very good at maintaining its core temperature. It likes to be at around 37 degrees (Celsius), and exerts a good bit of effort to keep it that way. It will completely dehydrate you through sweating to fight small changes in core temperature. Remember, a temperature of 40 degrees (104 Fahrenheit) is considered a high fever, and prolonged body temperatures of 41 degrees can have a whole host of nasty effects.
Heating individual cells to 41 or 42 degrees causes a demonstrable change in DNA supercoiling, and there is strong evidence that it disrupts DNA repair.
What looks like 'just a few degrees' of heating can have dramatic effects on sensitive tissue. I'm not asserting that there is a relationship between localized RF heating and cancer--I am willing to suggest that even modest heating may have a potentiating effect on other stressors. (To go back to my first remark, it's obvious that UV is the direct cause of double-strand DNA breaks in skin exposed to the sun. It is possible--though by no means proven--that simultaneous exposure to heating may enhance the damage done, by inhibiting DNA repair.)
All I want to do here is remind Slashdotters that you can accumulate DNA damage in (at least) two ways: by directly damaging it with ionizing radiation, or by inhibiting its repair.
Yeah, but solar time is only relevant for people who go outside.... :D
Skepticism is certainly warranted, but I haven't had time to look at the published paper. (Lay articles are always skimpy on details and often get them wrong anyway....)
Even though heat won't directly cause DNA breaks, it might muck up DNA repair machinery so that breaks formed by other processes aren't repaired. Thermal radiosensitization, for instance, is a phenomenon we've known about for at least thirty years. Mild, otherwise non-fatal heating can dramatically increase the sensitivity of cells to other, ionizing radiation. This is sometimes a useful effect (see below) but might increase cancer risk in otherwise healthy individuals.
Moderate heating (to four or five degrees above normal body temperature) will dramatically but reversibly alter the supercoiling of DNA as well as alter the phosphorylation of some of the core histones. It will also trigger a temporary upregulation of the heat shock proteins, which directly interfere with apoptosis. Hyperthermia actually has a whole pile of effects that are not well understood. This is not to say that I'm going to start carrying my mobile phone in a lead pouch, but I think it will be interesting to see where this research leads.
Interestingly, there are a number of clinical trials in Europe right now that take advantage of thermal radiosensitization by combining local heating with radiotherapy for cancer treatment. (See for example the Phase III Dutch Deep Hyperthermia Trial, link. )
Bah--that's nothing. I have this newfangled gadget called a Thermos. If I fill it with hot water when I start to make the coffee, then put coffee in the preheated Thermos, I get so-hot-it-will-scald-your-tongue coffee for hours. None of this embarrassingly-tepid-wait-six-minutes-for-63-Celsi us-reheated-sludge coffee nonsense.
Oh, and the Thermos is reusable. They're one of those new companies that's big on environmental friendliness, I guess.
I sure hope they start selling it in stores soon....the rumour is that they're waiting until they have a version that will keep cool beverages cold, too. Isn't that neat? How does the Thermos know? They say it won't require batteries. Maybe it's a fuel cell or something....
Doesn't anybody else remember when software companies did do this?
You'd open the box, and inside would be a manual (those days are gone too, I guess), a floppy disk in a sealed envelope, and a pamphlet with the EULA. Printed on the envelope--or on a sticker across the envelope's flap--would be instructions to read and agree to the EULA before opening the envelope.
So the real question isn't, 'Why don't manufacturers put the media into a sealed inner package?' Rather, we should be asking, 'Why did they stop doing so?'
Have the licenses gotten so unconscionable that they're afraid to even commit the damn things to paper any more?
If you're going to use terms in boldface, then you really ought to know what they mean. Robbery properly involves taking things from someone else through the use (or threat) of violence. If I beat up my neighbour and took his bike, or held him at knifepoint until he gave me his wheels--that would be robbery.
Feel free to continue to use the word 'theft', however. There is at least a sensible potential legal argument there.
There's always Marie Curie. Granted, she wasn't a chip designer, but she was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, and one of only three people to ever win two Nobel Prizes in the sciences. The first was in Physics (1903) for her investigations into radioactivity; it was shared with Henri Becquerel and her husband Pierre Curie. The second was in Chemistry (1911) for the twin discoveries of polonium and radium; this was a solo Prize.
In an interesting twist, one of the other double Nobelists was John Bardeen, receiving prizes for the discovery of transistors and for a theory of superconductivity--both subjects near and dear to the hearts of many a Slashdotter. If Marie was the sort to be smug (she wasn't) and if she had been alive (she died in 1934), she could have gloated--Bardeen had to share both of his prizes. :D
I do not think that word means what you think it means....
Although you're quite right in the sense that holding a large block of shares--in this case, 20% of the voting stock--gives the owner's opinion quite a bit of weight, it does not give carte blanche to name directors or force votes at the AGM. The largest shareholder is not automatically a majority shareholder. They're still in a minority ownership position, albeit a substantial one. EA still needs 37.5% of the remaining shareholders to agree with any policy they put forth; more for any changes requiring a supermajority.
Time flies like an arrow...fruit flies like a banana...
Damned if I know what to do about a doughnut fly, though. Do they come in chocolate glazed?
That tired old quote?
Everybody knows that the real reason was their several pack a day smoking habit. (Thanks, Gary Larson!)
Since the push/pull distance for the gate outputs described is about one LEGO stud length, or 8 millimeters.
At 3 GHz we have a cycle every 3e-10 seconds (~300 picoseconds), and so a mean speed of 8 mm / 300 ps, or nearly 25 million meters per second. That's nearly 10% of the speed of light, so you're going to have to watch out for relativistic effects. :D
I don't know the mass of the LEGO axles used in the figure, but if they're 5 grams apiece, then each would have a kinetic energy of about 1.5 terajoules. That's about the same as the kinetic energy possessed by a Nimitz class aircraft carrier travelling at 300 knots.
If you think P4s have heat dissipation issues....
Whether interference is a serious issue or not--and it's probably not on aircraft constructed in the last fifteen years or so, perhaps more so before that--there's another good reason not to be on the phone during takeoff.
If there's a problem on takeoff, that unsecured cellular phone becomes a projectile loose in the cabin. There's a reason why the overhead bins are closed, and extra carry-on baggage is supposed to be secured beneath the seat. It cuts down on the amount of crap that can fly around the cabin if something goes wrong.
Based entirely on your comments, I would suggest that is the true strength of Consumer Reports' reviews--you have not just a ranking, but also a detailed explanation of how that ranking was arrived at.
The people who buy based only on a final arbitrary score or ranking are just as screwed as the people who choose a CPU based solely on its clock speed, or an audio amplifier based solely on its output power. Sure, such people exist, but there's useful content in CR for those who are willing to look.
One hopes that people willing to plunk down the cash for a copy of CR are also willing to spend a small amount of time reading the whole article before they buy a twenty thousand dollar vehicle....
...except that it happens to be the title of a written work. It is very much consistent with Slashdot style to link to a written piece using the title of that piece. The phrase
would attract no comment. It is fully compliant with Slashdot style, down to the sloppy writing and misused comma. It's not the phrase "bow, nigger" that is deliberately accentuated. It is the title of a story that is hyperlinked. The appearance is perhaps the same, but the intent and mechanism are decidedly different.If the editors are going to run a story with the phrase anyway--if I understand your position, you don't object to that...?--then it should be appropriate for them to hyperlink as they always do.
It could be argued that these signalling inhibitors might be less disruptive than the classic antibiotics. When doctors administer broad-spectrum antibiotics (fluoroquinolones like Cipro, for example) it just firebombs the entire GI tract, and kills off a lot of the beneficial intestinal flora. A signalling inhibitor might kill sigificantly fewer 'friendly' bacteria--and their function might be more quickly restored after the end of drug treatment, since they wouldn't have to recolonize.
As the parent says, live testing will be required to establish the relative efficacy and toxicity of these novel drugs.
I'm pretty sure it means "something that blocks one's windpipe and can't be removed through the application of abdominal thrusts."
Alternately, a good English translation might be "creepy", "disquieting", or "disconcerting". Obviously there is a certain dependence on context.
Her reply was succinct: three simple words. "You're fired, smartass."
Be professional--you'll go farther, and not make so many enemies along the way. Even a bad boss is still your boss. Address the issues in the email as best you can, then express concern over whether you interpreted it correctly. Feel free to cc: her supervisor if you're concerned about the lack of professionalism your supervisor has shown. Bonus points if you talk to your boss' boss in person about the larger issue of the company being poorly reflected in sloppy email communications.
That's a sentence fragment. Rewrite it so you don't embarrass yourself on Slashdot.
Please bring home milk and eggs.
That's true of education at higher levels.
On the other hand, one can--and should--argue that skills like reading, writing, and basic mathematics are not optional for a person to function at more than the most basic level in today's society.
Basic science and math literacy are useful to everyone. Want to know how much you're getting ripped of when you carry a balance on your credit card? Need to figure out how to kill the weeds in your lawn?
Remember, we're looking at fifteen-year-olds here. In many jurisdictions, it will be another year before they're legally permitted to drop out. There probably is a fundamental skill set that should be taught at that point; it seems that a lot of students in the U.S. just aren't getting it--to the detriment of us all.
On the other hand, that excuse doesn't wash when you compare with, say, North Slobovia, or South Slobovia.
Did you look at the results? It's other industrialized nations with mandatory universal public schooling that are beating the States, not isolated private academies in third world countries.
Note to other posters: Cry me a river about the impact of those damn illegal Mexican immigrants. They represent less than three percent of the total population; even if they all scored zero on the testing, dropping them from the scores wouldn't nudge the U.S. up more than a couple places in the rankings. I note that Mexico's students on average scored about 80% as well as their U.S. counterparts, too.
Meanwhile Canada admits far more immigrants per capita than the United States, and they're sitting twenty-one places ahead of the U.S. in these rankings.