I think the paper money has an psychological aspect in the game- there's nothing like exchanging small bills for those fearsome orange 500s, or playing out a desperate last few turns with a scattering of pinks and whites. Also, the Depression-era prices are part of the game's charm- prime real estate for 400 dollars!
I'm really not that keen on the "updates" that have been made to Monopoly, or even the "localized" editions. I guess that in the U.K., purchasing property named for places in London makes a lot more sense than keeping the Atlantic City, NJ names, but as an American, I've never been to Atlantic City, either, and I've always wondered if Mediterranean Ave. was the dump the game portrays it to be.
It works just as well for blue states- I love the McSweeney's commentary of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky on The Fellowship of the Ring. Some choice bits:
Zinn: And observe the map device here -- how the map is itself completely Gondor-centric. Rohan and Gondor are treated as though they are the literal center of Middle Earth. Obviously this is because they have men living there. What of places such as Anfalas and Forlindon or Near Harad? One never really hears anything about places like that. And this so-called map casually reveals other places -- the Lost Realm, the Northern Waste (lost to whom? wasted how? I ask) -- but tells us nothing about them. It is as though the people who live in these places are despicable, and unworthy of mention. Who is producing this tale? What is their agenda? What are their interests and how are those interests being served by this portrayal? Questions we need to ask repeatedly.
Zinn: You view the conflict as being primarily about pipe-weed, do you not?
Chomsky: Well, what we see here, in Hobbiton, farmers tilling crops. The thing to remember is that the crop they are tilling is, in fact, pipe-weed, an addictive drug transported and sold throughout Middle Earth for great profit.
Zinn: This is absolutely established in the books. Pipe-weed is something all the Hobbits abuse. Gandalf is smoking it constantly. You are correct when you point out that Middle Earth depends on pipe-weed in some crucial sense, but I think you may be overstating its importance. Clearly the war is not based only on the Shire's pipe-weed. Rohan and Gondor's unceasing hunger for war is a larger culprit, I would say.
Chomsky: But without the pipe-weed, Middle Earth would fall apart. Saruman is trying to break up Gandalf's pipe-weed ring. He's trying to divert it.
Zinn: Well, you know, it would be manifestly difficult to believe in magic rings unless everyone was high on pipe-weed. So it is in Gandalf's interest to keep Middle Earth hooked.
Zinn: After Gandalf falls, you get another view of the so-called terrorist Orcs. You know, the regrettable side of the Orcs does occasionally come out. The violence. It doesn't help their cause when these distinct, individual Orcs take it upon themselves to lash out at the inequality of the system. But notice that even these violent Orcs don't seem happy. They're not pleased with themselves. It's a violence borne of necessity.
Chomsky: Sure. They're trapped in a cycle of violence.
Weather is a chaotic system, to be sure, but it isn't random. It may in fact be the case that a very minor perturbation of the atmosphere may be the specific trigger for the eventual formation of a hurricane, but obviously there is some measure of regularity to hurricanes- we speak of a "hurricane season," after all, and hurricanes tend to form off the coast of Florida, not off the coast of Greenland.
If I were asked to predict today's weather where I live in Illinois, I would have predicted "hot and humid with a chance of thunderstorms." Now, today's actual weather is a bit cooler than the average (in part, due to recent thunderstorms), but that's usually going to be an uncannily accurate guess (there's a forecasted 80% chance of T-storms tonight, in fact). If you asked me what the local weather would be on July 19, 2036, I would predict "hot and humid with a chance of thunderstorms." Whether or not the recorded high temperature on that day is 85 or 105 degrees F and whether there actually are thunderstorms is a matter of chaos- but it's far more likely to be hot and humid with a chance of thunderstorms than cold and dry with a chance of snow- even a crude model of the airmasses involved would get this right.
Of course, past performance is not a guarantee of future results, as they say, and July 19 may be smack in the middle of the Great Drought of '36, or a volcano-induced "Year Without Summer." An outstanding meterological computer model might be able to predict the former based on current data, in which case it has perhaps paid for itself- but likely not the latter.
I thought the same thing, initially, but I would assume not, considering that this Wim van Eck did the cricket-Pac-Man thing as a "graduation project," according to the article, making it highly unlikely (though I suppose not impossible) that he was authoring academic papers in 1985.
The monoamine oxidases are responsible for breaking down certain neurotransmitters in the body (monoamines like adrenaline, noradrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin). I assume (read the article, not the paper) what this research is getting at is that this certain form of monoamine oxidase A is more effective in breaking down neurotransmitters- perhaps dopamine in particular, as dopamine is an important factor in the body's "reward" system.
I'd imagine that such "neophiliacs" have a sort of addiction to novelty then- they get a brief high from acquiring or experiencing the new hotness, then crash down into a depression when it becomes the old and busted. The process is likely very similar to what is found in gambling addiction- in most people, it's (nearly) harmless fun, but in a select few, it becomes a ruinous compulsion.
In the case of a severe "gadget addict," I'd bet living in Akihabara would be like a gambling addict living at a casino.
As to what can be done in severe cases, pharmaceutical antidepressants have been used to modulate neurotransmitter levels for decades, and in particular, the class known as monoamine oxidase inhibitors seem tailor-made for this.
"I spoke to her," he muttered, after a long silence. "I told her she might fool me but she couldn't fool God. I took her to the window."--with an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it----" and I said 'God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me, but you can't fool God!'"
Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night.
"God sees everything," repeated Wilson.
"That's an advertisement," Michaelis assured him. Something made him turn away from the window and look back into the room. But Wilson stood there a long time, his face close to the window pane, nodding into the twilight.
I become slightly phobic of magnetic resonance imaging machines. The superpowerful electromagnets used in medical imaging can make metal fly across a room and stick, often for the hours it takes to power down the magnets. A person with an embedded magnet runs the risk of having their implant ripped out of their body.
So, I would imagine, um, that sort of thing, basically.
If the wavelength is in the millimeter range, then this is actually an example of far-infrared spectroscopy- it's on the (arbitrary) border between infrared and microwaves. At this range, as the article notes, the spectrum is generated by absorption and emission of radiation caused by molecular rotations. In contrast, mid-range IR spectra is based on molecular vibration- bends and stretches of the bonds between atoms- and near IR is based on overtones of vibrations.
One issue with far-infrared spec is that rotational transitions are quenched in most solids and liquids, so that it's really only applicable to gaseous samples- though most chemical explosives are of course rather volatile, and generously shed molecules covered with nitro groups (easily recognized on an IR spectrum) wherever you take them. Infrared spectroscopy has some key advantages that would make it attractive for screening items- it's fast, it's nondestructive, and the instrumentation is more suitable for field work (both in terms of robustness and in terms of the training required to operate it)than comparable techniques like gas chromatography or mass spec.
The "pretty nasty gasses" are pretty much what the the bacteria are dining on. In this process, polystyrene is depolymerized back to styrene. Styrene is benzene with a vinyl group attached, and like most benzene derivatives, is generally bad for health, especially under prolonged exposure. The Material Safety Data Sheet for styrene notes in the toxicology section: Toxic. Carcinogen. Mutagen. Corrosive, causes burns to skin and eyes. Lachrymator. Harmful by inhalation, ingestion and through skin absorption. Long term exposure may affect CNS.
Now, styrene isn't especially toxic- the quoted toxicity data applies almost word for word for many organic liquids- gasoline (petrol), for instance. This process of breaking down polystyrene foam isn't exactly something you can safely do at home. Then again, you probably don't recycle polyethylene or aluminum at your residence either. There are safety and economies of scale issues with recycling those as well. However, it may find application on an industrial waste management scale. Done under controlled conditions, this process should certainly be no more hazardous than any other industrial process- and less hazardous than something like petroleum refining.
An excellent point- there certainly have been many potential drugs that work much better in the test tube than in the human body. In particular with this class of compounds, a modified steroid, I would be concerned with the half-life of a drug in the body- what if this drug is rapidly metabolized in the liver to an inactive or toxic form? According to the company press release, tests have shown that the compound is not toxic to human cells at the concentration necessary to kill HIV, which is encouraging, but until animal and clinical trials are conducted, the safety and efficacy of this compound in vivo are not known.
The reasoning for the functioning of a CSA as an antiviral seems fairly sound to me- the molecule structurally resembles peptides called defensins, which have potent activity against bacteria and viruses. The method of action, attacking the viral envelope, may make it more difficult for HIV strains to develop resistance. Current HIV drugs target specific molecules involved in the life cycle of HIV- reverse transcriptase, proteases, and the receptors involved in fusion with cells. Minor changes in these molecules could result in resistance to the drugs that target them. An approach based on the general properties of the viral envelope might be more difficult for HIV to sidestep (but by no means impossible).
That being said, I'm curious to know how specificity for HIV will be possible with this line of attack. One of the issues with defensins is that in addition to their direct attack on antigens, they stimulate the immune response in a more general fashion. Which sounds good, except that this stimulation includes inducing mast cells to release histamine, and encouraging the production of cytokines. Too much of those, and you can get anaphylaxis and septic shock, respectively. While this seems like a ludicrous notion for immunosuppressed AIDS patients, it's worth noting that one of the functions of the helper T cells that HIV destroys is to help put the brakes on the immune response once the threat of infection has passed. I'm not saying all CSA drugs would necessarily cause shock in all, or any patients, but I am tossing it out as an example of the sorts of hurdles this and every other promising compound in vitro can face on the way to becoming a drug approved for use in humans- a lot of complicated things are possible in vivo.
I think there are some instances in sports officiating that could be handled by automation- as the submitter noted, electronic sensors could handle in/out line calls better than human eyes. Simple yes/no type answers are the forte of computers, after all. However, many snap decisions made by human referees are too complex for computers for the forseeable future. With a computer and video camera/lasers/radar calling balls and strikes, for instance, the automated system has the huge advantage of consistency, with the same perfect strike zone called game to game, batter to batter, pitch to pitch. If all an ump had to do back behind the catcher is determine whether a given pitch passed through an imaginary rectangle while in flight over home plate, then umpires could easily be replaced. You'd never have managers running out to argue balls and strikes again. However, there's a lot of analog information that an umpire must process back there in addition to the binary strike call- check swings (and attempted check swings), balks, whether a player hit by a pitch actually made a legitimate attempt to avoid the ball.
Similarly, in football (American-style), an couple of sensors can determine whether the football was advanced ten yards or whether it broke the plane of the goal line, but you'd need an army of them to determine whether a runner was down by contact before fumbling, when a play ended exactly based on halting a runner's forward progress, whether a penalty like roughing the passer or holding or pass interference occurred. Computers aren't well suited to judging human behavior, so it may be difficult for them to determine whether to determine whether a foul was "flagrant," a player deserves a red card vs. a yellow card. If human beings are still necessary on the field of play in order to make judgement calls, then why bother bringing in technology in the first place?
Now, there are some avenues in which technological innovations could improve officiating. I generally like the use of instant replay in sports, and think systems like the NFL and NBA have in place (that in essence leave the mundane calls to refs on the field, but make video review available for important plays or last-second shots) work well, but they can only reduce, not eliminate bad calls. I think embedded sensors in a few places on the playing field could offer a trove of useful information for making calls- for example, if there were a sensor embedded in the dirt in front of home plate that checks for the ball making contact with the ground on strike three, that Pierzynski play in Game 2 of the ALCS may have been called differently. Or maybe not. The more electronic technology you put on the playing field, the more likely it becomes that a call gets screwed up due to something like low sampling rate in a sensor, transient electromagnetic interference, or an error in a computer program. Besides, as other posters have already pointed out, the occasional disputed call is a part of sports themselves- and we get far more to talk/argue about from blown calls than for perfect ones.
IBM did not discover superconductivity in 1987 either- superconductivity was discovered in 1913(?) by Heike Kammerlingh Onnes. What was discovered by Bednorz and Muller (working for IBM) in the 1980s was the first instance of "high-temperature" superconductivity. Whereas the original type of superconductivity was found mostly in metals and metallic alloys, and is only present at temperatures below about 30 Kelvin, the new superconductors discovered by IBM and others were ceramics that were still superconducting at temperatures above 30K, and eventually above 77K where liquid nitrogen, rather than liquid helium could cool them. So IBM scientists made an important discovery, but did not "discover superconductivity"- in fact, quite a bit was known about superconductivity at that time.
It's analogous to the parent's contention about fractals- Benoit Mandelbrot's paper about the length of England's coastline was certainly very important to the study of fractals (and I didn't know he worked for IBM until looking it up just now), but it doesn't constitute a discovery or invention.
Are you sure about that? The laureates for the Chemistry prize for this year are listed here; each is noted as receiving 1/3 of the prize. I think you may be confused by the fact that a single prize can be split to honor two (and no more) different achievements in the same year.
An example of that is here. Notice that one guy got half the prize, while two others split the remaining half. It was like half a prize was awarded for the soft-ionization MS work, which one person received, and half a prize for the NMR work, which was split between two people. No more than three persons total may split a prize though- you can't have a prize split 4x25% or 1x50%+3x16.7%. As science has become more of a team effort and an international enterprise, virtually every science Nobel given out recently has honored the maximum of three. The Nobel Foundation statute for shared prizes may be found here.
"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not."
(Emphasis mine) Now, according to Nobel's will, it would appear that his original intention was for prizes to be given for discoveries made, works published, or actions taken in the previous year, more of an "MVP" award than a "Hall of Fame." Looking at the first few laureates in each category, however, it is clear that the prize foundation more or less ignored this idea and gave prizes for work that was relatively recent, but not necessarily from the previous year. Several of the earliest physics prizes, awarded at the turn of last century, for example, were awarded for discoveries made in the late 1890s. However, it's difficult to argue that Roentgen, the Curies, etc., were not deserving recipients. And delaying the prize for a few years is basically necessary if you want to award it for theoretical research of any sort- Albert Einstein won a Physics Nobel in 1921 for work he did in 1905- the committee wouldn't want to give it to him in 1906 and then find out in 1907 that his paper explaining the photoelectric effect was deeply flawed.
For some of the other prizes, the award has been used to honor both recent and lifetime achievement. The literature prize, for example, has been given both for an outstanding career of work and largely on the strength of a single work. The peace prize is probably the one most often given within a couple years of the action worthy of honor (something that occasionally turns sour for the committee, as when a celebrated peace accord crumbles a few years later), but the peace prize has often also been given to the founders of various philanthropic and peace-promoting agencies, whose benefit to the world may only become apparent after years or decades of service.
The parent is absolutely correct in that the work leading to a Nobel is not always representative of a laureate's entire career- an extreme example of this is the share of the 1994 Economics Nobel for John Nash, who of course was 1. not a career economist and 2. sidelined by mental illness for several decades. Sometimes a single paper is all it takes to win a Nobel, rather than some comprehensive program of research lasting years.
There's an excellent article here that touches on many of the same points; called The Computerized Academy, it is about the changes information technology is having on academia. Examples include the impact of search engines on research (with phrases like, "armed to display an erudition that you know is superficial"), the way computer programming has become the major activity of many science students, and the ways that computer interaction such as email and the Web have altered the student/professor relationship.
As to my own thoughts on the issue of intelligence in the Internet Age, I think it's natural to expect that our conception of intellect, brightness, mental aptitude, whatever will change to one that champions those that can more effectively use the tools available to them. As someone great at fast recall of facts from my brain, it's unfortunate, but I understand that I can't be better than a machine at the task it was designed for- so I should try to be better at using that machine. And indeed, Google isn't a mindreader- knowing how to use it to get relevant answers is just as much a skill as memorizing and recalling those answers yourself. It's going from "how do I do x?" to "how does the thing that does x for me work?"
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign does just such a thing- the Undergraduate Library containing approximately 200,000 volumes is situated next to the Main Library (and is connected via underground tunnel). Curiously enough, the Undergraduate Library at UIUC is most famous for being almost completely underground, so as not to cast shadow on the adjacent research cornfield. The Main Library is occasionally referred to, especially by undergraduate students, as the "Grad Library;" this is not really accurate, however, as much of the Main Library is actually used to house some of the 30 or so departmental libraries- many with bookstacks of their own- which undergrads have full access to.
The Main Library does contain the majority of bookstacks at the university, and these stacks- what people are referring to when they say "the stacks"- have restricted access for undergraduates- undergraduates can of course request any volume from the stacks at the circulation desk, but permission is needed in order to enter the stacks and browse. This policy is spelled out here. As you can see, UIUC provides preferential treatment to faculty from other universities over its own tuition-paying undergraduates, which is something I'm not in agreement with. It's not difficult for undergraduates to obtain access to the stacks, but it is still permission that must be granted.
While this policy does not limit undergraduate access to materials, I think browsing endless shelves of books offers a chance at serendipitous discovery that a computerized catalog (or a Web search engine, for that matter) does not.
Of greater concern is the creation of the Oak Street Library Facility, which will pack away several million volumes of the university's collection in a warehouse, where all will have to make the sorts of requests for materials that undergrads have to make for stacks materials now. It's like inter-library loan- from your own library! On the one hand, I definitely understand the rationale- UIUC's library system has 10 million volumes, many of which have never been requested by patrons, ever, and in the controlled conditions of an archival facility, it will be much easier to prevent the deterioration of materials than on bookshelves. Indeed, in an age of inter-library loan and online resources, the utility of having physical access to a billion pieces of paper is diminished. On the other hand, this basically eliminates browsing- sure, you can easily find any book in the library with a computer search, but you can no longer go find that book, skim through it, find it to be not what you wanted, and then spy another volume that you didn't even know existed on the next shelf and realize that one is the book that needs to be in your hands. It will be a sad day when we are able to search for anything, and find only what we were looking for.
-UIUC '04
Rupert, of course! Or, assuming no other astronomical object already bears the name, Proserpine (Roman)/Persephone (Greek) fits the mythology quite nicely.
For the most part, no. As the article mentions, the events right after fertilization strip off most methylation of genes and then add them back on- basically, assuming the methylation machinery works right, you start with an epigenetic blank slate- which is nice, because otherwise you'd start life with the methylation patterns of an x-year old- however old your parents and their germ cells were at your conception.
It's important to note that one of the critical functions of DNA methylation is to control expression of genes involved in replication and tumor supression. It is thought that one of the reasons cancer becomes more likely as we age is that these methylation patterns are altered- a methyl group falls off of a promoter for a gene that spurs cell division, for instance, and now that gene is causing cells to divide out of control. That of course feeds into what this article mentions, that your enviroment can modify these methylation patterns.
An example of this is the hormone Insulin-Like Growth Factor-II. The gene that codes for IGF-II is "imprinted." The copy you get from your father is unmethylated, and is therefore expressed at the normal rate. The copy from your mother, however, normally has a methylated promoter sequence, and is therefore silenced. However, should something happen to that methylation, be it exposure to mutagens or simply your body screwing up as it copies this silenced gene, then the copy from your mother is turned on. You get a double dose of the growth promoter IGF-II, which makes it more likely cells will enter a phase of uncontrolled growth- cancer.
Heh, the exact same thing happened to me when I owned NBA Jam for the Genesis- I once had a perfect record going through the entire lineup of games- until I played the Lakers (as the Bulls) and lost a game that had been tight throughout on a buzzer-beater 90-footer lobbed underhand. Ugh.
In situations like that, it's hard to say exactly what the algorithms in place are doing- in original NBA Jam in particular, you have to remember that almost every decent shooter in the game shot like 70 percent from behind the arc anyway. It could be a case of the game code not allotting sufficient extra difficulty to shots as distance increases, so that the grenade toss from the opposite free throw line isn't that much harder than a 3 from just behind the line. If good shooters can drain the miracle trey 50% of the time, for instance, it's unlikely, but not statistically unreasonable to see three made in three chances. Of course, there could actually be some sort of "last-second shot" bonus, which connects with what TFA is wondering. In that case, maybe knocking down a gamewinner may be far more likely than an identical shot when the game isn't on the line. The question would be then, do you get this bonus as well? If so, then it sucks to die by the sword, but theoretically you'll win some games with circus shots as well. If not, then the computer has an unfair advantage.
Of course, in the real sports world, there's always been debate over whether certain psychological attributes have a real effect on play- do some players/teams really perform better in clutch time? (Statistics tell us no. The ring collection of Robert Horry tells us maybe.) Is there really such a thing as home-court advantage? Being "in the zone?" Do teams play better or worse when they're down? When they're trying to protect a lead? Does getting blown out in one game measurably affect a team in the next? Are some teams luckier than others?
The designers of sports video games are confronted with decisions about how/whether to implement these sorts of intangibles. Returning to the venerable NBA Jam, obviously the designers felt there was quite literally something to "hot streaks," and so they added being "on fire," making it even easier to hit shots if you've already made 3 in a row (I remember driving in for dunks to get "on fire," and then shooting exclusively threes from the corners).
The first game to come out from the three-title deal is L.A. Rush, which will feature promotional MTV branding as well as appearances, in some form, of MTV celebs. The soundtrack will include 75 songs from 20 artists.
Ok, "branding," celebrity appearances, soundtrack... is it a bad sign that the article contains absolutely no description of the actual plot, gameplay, or even genre of this game? I know I shouldn't judge based on such limited information, but I can't help but think Midway is putting promotion way ahead of producing a fun game here.
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I'm really not that keen on the "updates" that have been made to Monopoly, or even the "localized" editions. I guess that in the U.K., purchasing property named for places in London makes a lot more sense than keeping the Atlantic City, NJ names, but as an American, I've never been to Atlantic City, either, and I've always wondered if Mediterranean Ave. was the dump the game portrays it to be.
If I were asked to predict today's weather where I live in Illinois, I would have predicted "hot and humid with a chance of thunderstorms." Now, today's actual weather is a bit cooler than the average (in part, due to recent thunderstorms), but that's usually going to be an uncannily accurate guess (there's a forecasted 80% chance of T-storms tonight, in fact). If you asked me what the local weather would be on July 19, 2036, I would predict "hot and humid with a chance of thunderstorms." Whether or not the recorded high temperature on that day is 85 or 105 degrees F and whether there actually are thunderstorms is a matter of chaos- but it's far more likely to be hot and humid with a chance of thunderstorms than cold and dry with a chance of snow- even a crude model of the airmasses involved would get this right.
Of course, past performance is not a guarantee of future results, as they say, and July 19 may be smack in the middle of the Great Drought of '36, or a volcano-induced "Year Without Summer." An outstanding meterological computer model might be able to predict the former based on current data, in which case it has perhaps paid for itself- but likely not the latter.
I thought the same thing, initially, but I would assume not, considering that this Wim van Eck did the cricket-Pac-Man thing as a "graduation project," according to the article, making it highly unlikely (though I suppose not impossible) that he was authoring academic papers in 1985.
I'd imagine that such "neophiliacs" have a sort of addiction to novelty then- they get a brief high from acquiring or experiencing the new hotness, then crash down into a depression when it becomes the old and busted. The process is likely very similar to what is found in gambling addiction- in most people, it's (nearly) harmless fun, but in a select few, it becomes a ruinous compulsion. In the case of a severe "gadget addict," I'd bet living in Akihabara would be like a gambling addict living at a casino.
As to what can be done in severe cases, pharmaceutical antidepressants have been used to modulate neurotransmitter levels for decades, and in particular, the class known as monoamine oxidase inhibitors seem tailor-made for this.
Even better is the end of the tale, where the rotten prow of the Argo falls on its owner and kills him.
I become slightly phobic of magnetic resonance imaging machines. The superpowerful electromagnets used in medical imaging can make metal fly across a room and stick, often for the hours it takes to power down the magnets. A person with an embedded magnet runs the risk of having their implant ripped out of their body.
So, I would imagine, um, that sort of thing, basically.
One issue with far-infrared spec is that rotational transitions are quenched in most solids and liquids, so that it's really only applicable to gaseous samples- though most chemical explosives are of course rather volatile, and generously shed molecules covered with nitro groups (easily recognized on an IR spectrum) wherever you take them. Infrared spectroscopy has some key advantages that would make it attractive for screening items- it's fast, it's nondestructive, and the instrumentation is more suitable for field work (both in terms of robustness and in terms of the training required to operate it)than comparable techniques like gas chromatography or mass spec.
Now, styrene isn't especially toxic- the quoted toxicity data applies almost word for word for many organic liquids- gasoline (petrol), for instance. This process of breaking down polystyrene foam isn't exactly something you can safely do at home. Then again, you probably don't recycle polyethylene or aluminum at your residence either. There are safety and economies of scale issues with recycling those as well. However, it may find application on an industrial waste management scale. Done under controlled conditions, this process should certainly be no more hazardous than any other industrial process- and less hazardous than something like petroleum refining.
The reasoning for the functioning of a CSA as an antiviral seems fairly sound to me- the molecule structurally resembles peptides called defensins, which have potent activity against bacteria and viruses. The method of action, attacking the viral envelope, may make it more difficult for HIV strains to develop resistance. Current HIV drugs target specific molecules involved in the life cycle of HIV- reverse transcriptase, proteases, and the receptors involved in fusion with cells. Minor changes in these molecules could result in resistance to the drugs that target them. An approach based on the general properties of the viral envelope might be more difficult for HIV to sidestep (but by no means impossible).
That being said, I'm curious to know how specificity for HIV will be possible with this line of attack. One of the issues with defensins is that in addition to their direct attack on antigens, they stimulate the immune response in a more general fashion. Which sounds good, except that this stimulation includes inducing mast cells to release histamine, and encouraging the production of cytokines. Too much of those, and you can get anaphylaxis and septic shock, respectively. While this seems like a ludicrous notion for immunosuppressed AIDS patients, it's worth noting that one of the functions of the helper T cells that HIV destroys is to help put the brakes on the immune response once the threat of infection has passed. I'm not saying all CSA drugs would necessarily cause shock in all, or any patients, but I am tossing it out as an example of the sorts of hurdles this and every other promising compound in vitro can face on the way to becoming a drug approved for use in humans- a lot of complicated things are possible in vivo.
All that golden splendor, but killed for want of a shrubbery. Tragic, really.
I can see why no one had ever been able to do that before! ;)
J. Michael Stracynzski is also notable for having once possessed tea and no tea at the same time.
Perhaps CmdrTaco's next nickname should be Major Major Major Major.
Similarly, in football (American-style), an couple of sensors can determine whether the football was advanced ten yards or whether it broke the plane of the goal line, but you'd need an army of them to determine whether a runner was down by contact before fumbling, when a play ended exactly based on halting a runner's forward progress, whether a penalty like roughing the passer or holding or pass interference occurred. Computers aren't well suited to judging human behavior, so it may be difficult for them to determine whether to determine whether a foul was "flagrant," a player deserves a red card vs. a yellow card. If human beings are still necessary on the field of play in order to make judgement calls, then why bother bringing in technology in the first place?
Now, there are some avenues in which technological innovations could improve officiating. I generally like the use of instant replay in sports, and think systems like the NFL and NBA have in place (that in essence leave the mundane calls to refs on the field, but make video review available for important plays or last-second shots) work well, but they can only reduce, not eliminate bad calls. I think embedded sensors in a few places on the playing field could offer a trove of useful information for making calls- for example, if there were a sensor embedded in the dirt in front of home plate that checks for the ball making contact with the ground on strike three, that Pierzynski play in Game 2 of the ALCS may have been called differently. Or maybe not. The more electronic technology you put on the playing field, the more likely it becomes that a call gets screwed up due to something like low sampling rate in a sensor, transient electromagnetic interference, or an error in a computer program. Besides, as other posters have already pointed out, the occasional disputed call is a part of sports themselves- and we get far more to talk/argue about from blown calls than for perfect ones.
It's analogous to the parent's contention about fractals- Benoit Mandelbrot's paper about the length of England's coastline was certainly very important to the study of fractals (and I didn't know he worked for IBM until looking it up just now), but it doesn't constitute a discovery or invention.
An example of that is here. Notice that one guy got half the prize, while two others split the remaining half. It was like half a prize was awarded for the soft-ionization MS work, which one person received, and half a prize for the NMR work, which was split between two people. No more than three persons total may split a prize though- you can't have a prize split 4x25% or 1x50%+3x16.7%. As science has become more of a team effort and an international enterprise, virtually every science Nobel given out recently has honored the maximum of three. The Nobel Foundation statute for shared prizes may be found here.
For some of the other prizes, the award has been used to honor both recent and lifetime achievement. The literature prize, for example, has been given both for an outstanding career of work and largely on the strength of a single work. The peace prize is probably the one most often given within a couple years of the action worthy of honor (something that occasionally turns sour for the committee, as when a celebrated peace accord crumbles a few years later), but the peace prize has often also been given to the founders of various philanthropic and peace-promoting agencies, whose benefit to the world may only become apparent after years or decades of service.
The parent is absolutely correct in that the work leading to a Nobel is not always representative of a laureate's entire career- an extreme example of this is the share of the 1994 Economics Nobel for John Nash, who of course was 1. not a career economist and 2. sidelined by mental illness for several decades. Sometimes a single paper is all it takes to win a Nobel, rather than some comprehensive program of research lasting years.
As to my own thoughts on the issue of intelligence in the Internet Age, I think it's natural to expect that our conception of intellect, brightness, mental aptitude, whatever will change to one that champions those that can more effectively use the tools available to them. As someone great at fast recall of facts from my brain, it's unfortunate, but I understand that I can't be better than a machine at the task it was designed for- so I should try to be better at using that machine. And indeed, Google isn't a mindreader- knowing how to use it to get relevant answers is just as much a skill as memorizing and recalling those answers yourself. It's going from "how do I do x?" to "how does the thing that does x for me work?"
Um, err, "Hydrocodone Break," in this case, I guess.
The Main Library does contain the majority of bookstacks at the university, and these stacks- what people are referring to when they say "the stacks"- have restricted access for undergraduates- undergraduates can of course request any volume from the stacks at the circulation desk, but permission is needed in order to enter the stacks and browse. This policy is spelled out here. As you can see, UIUC provides preferential treatment to faculty from other universities over its own tuition-paying undergraduates, which is something I'm not in agreement with. It's not difficult for undergraduates to obtain access to the stacks, but it is still permission that must be granted.
While this policy does not limit undergraduate access to materials, I think browsing endless shelves of books offers a chance at serendipitous discovery that a computerized catalog (or a Web search engine, for that matter) does not.
Of greater concern is the creation of the Oak Street Library Facility, which will pack away several million volumes of the university's collection in a warehouse, where all will have to make the sorts of requests for materials that undergrads have to make for stacks materials now. It's like inter-library loan- from your own library! On the one hand, I definitely understand the rationale- UIUC's library system has 10 million volumes, many of which have never been requested by patrons, ever, and in the controlled conditions of an archival facility, it will be much easier to prevent the deterioration of materials than on bookshelves. Indeed, in an age of inter-library loan and online resources, the utility of having physical access to a billion pieces of paper is diminished. On the other hand, this basically eliminates browsing- sure, you can easily find any book in the library with a computer search, but you can no longer go find that book, skim through it, find it to be not what you wanted, and then spy another volume that you didn't even know existed on the next shelf and realize that one is the book that needs to be in your hands. It will be a sad day when we are able to search for anything, and find only what we were looking for. -UIUC '04
Rupert, of course! Or, assuming no other astronomical object already bears the name, Proserpine (Roman)/Persephone (Greek) fits the mythology quite nicely.
It's important to note that one of the critical functions of DNA methylation is to control expression of genes involved in replication and tumor supression. It is thought that one of the reasons cancer becomes more likely as we age is that these methylation patterns are altered- a methyl group falls off of a promoter for a gene that spurs cell division, for instance, and now that gene is causing cells to divide out of control. That of course feeds into what this article mentions, that your enviroment can modify these methylation patterns.
An example of this is the hormone Insulin-Like Growth Factor-II. The gene that codes for IGF-II is "imprinted." The copy you get from your father is unmethylated, and is therefore expressed at the normal rate. The copy from your mother, however, normally has a methylated promoter sequence, and is therefore silenced. However, should something happen to that methylation, be it exposure to mutagens or simply your body screwing up as it copies this silenced gene, then the copy from your mother is turned on. You get a double dose of the growth promoter IGF-II, which makes it more likely cells will enter a phase of uncontrolled growth- cancer.
In situations like that, it's hard to say exactly what the algorithms in place are doing- in original NBA Jam in particular, you have to remember that almost every decent shooter in the game shot like 70 percent from behind the arc anyway. It could be a case of the game code not allotting sufficient extra difficulty to shots as distance increases, so that the grenade toss from the opposite free throw line isn't that much harder than a 3 from just behind the line. If good shooters can drain the miracle trey 50% of the time, for instance, it's unlikely, but not statistically unreasonable to see three made in three chances. Of course, there could actually be some sort of "last-second shot" bonus, which connects with what TFA is wondering. In that case, maybe knocking down a gamewinner may be far more likely than an identical shot when the game isn't on the line. The question would be then, do you get this bonus as well? If so, then it sucks to die by the sword, but theoretically you'll win some games with circus shots as well. If not, then the computer has an unfair advantage.
Of course, in the real sports world, there's always been debate over whether certain psychological attributes have a real effect on play- do some players/teams really perform better in clutch time? (Statistics tell us no. The ring collection of Robert Horry tells us maybe.) Is there really such a thing as home-court advantage? Being "in the zone?" Do teams play better or worse when they're down? When they're trying to protect a lead? Does getting blown out in one game measurably affect a team in the next? Are some teams luckier than others?
The designers of sports video games are confronted with decisions about how/whether to implement these sorts of intangibles. Returning to the venerable NBA Jam, obviously the designers felt there was quite literally something to "hot streaks," and so they added being "on fire," making it even easier to hit shots if you've already made 3 in a row (I remember driving in for dunks to get "on fire," and then shooting exclusively threes from the corners).
Ok, "branding," celebrity appearances, soundtrack... is it a bad sign that the article contains absolutely no description of the actual plot, gameplay, or even genre of this game? I know I shouldn't judge based on such limited information, but I can't help but think Midway is putting promotion way ahead of producing a fun game here.