First off, there seems to be a confusion with a lot of people that "contribution to changing the world" has to be a direct aid to an individual or group of individuals. Einstein contributed to changing the world in a drastic way, but the neither of the theories of relativity directly helped any group of people in real need.
And it's not a matter of whether certain groups of individuals are better than others. I work with people from all over the globe, every hemisphere, all but one continent (the cold one). There is no difference in intelligence between one group or another. However, different cultures value different things, I say this from personal observation and conversation with people from a variety of cultures. Beacuse of capitalism, Western culture values accomplishments that directly affect the bottom line. This has the result that they lead in practical accomplishment, because it is a goal. Not because they are "better", but because that is where the effort is focused. Other cultures do not always share this goal. It is not inferior or superior on the whole, only different. It is not that an Asian cannot contribute in that same practical manner, just that he or she has been rasied in an environment where that is not recoginized as a high goal.
The assertation is not that any group is better than another, just that different environments promote different things.
Re:but is it undercutting its own "superiority"?
on
Human Accomplishment
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· Score: 1
"Practical" these days all too often means "Profit!"
These days? During what days did "practical" not mean "profit" in some manner or another? Remember that wealth was measured in different ways throgh history.
Where did the parent mention that the West was more moral? I think all he said was that it is better at making practical applications. In fact, his mathematics example alluded to the fact that Arabs didn't advance mathematics the same way the West did because of their religious (moral) code, which was not present in the West.
That's not to say the West is immoral, just that the morality code is different or more varied.
It's not really. What he is looking for is what conditions promote these accomplishments, not what culture produces the smartest or most capable people. Europe was stable and relatively wealthy through a large part the time period examined. Stability and money make for leisure time which gives rise to these kinds of accomplishments.
It is very much like the shark bite statistic: If you want to avoid shark bites, stay out of that 100m region of the the water, that's where they happen. Of course, he's gone a step further than the shark analogy and done this on a per capita basis. To go back to the analogy, it may be that more people are bit within 100m of the shoreline, but this number of attacks represents a very small percentage of the people that were in that region of water (like places where the Latka rate is lower). If you go further out, a smaller number, but a greater percentage, are bit (Latka rate is higher). The data is much more useful now. Going back to the book, on a per capita basis, if you want to engage in these types of accomplishments (i.e., falling on the Latka curve beyond a certain point), your odds are better in the West. This is NOT because westerners are inherently better or smarter. It may be a factor of western culture that promotes these things (Stability, wealth).
I do however have a problem with another portion of his measurements. Using a Latka curve, he will give a high score to people who have been around longer. There have been more books written since Aristotle was alive than there have been since Einstein was alive. Therefore, Aristotle would be more heavily represented in the literature, even though his rate/unit time may be lower due to his huge head start (think the tortise & the hare).
The plan is to sell it, after all--not add it to the municipal water supply.
I think that's the point. Making this a mass-market diet coke additive is metaphorically "adding it to the water supply". And he's right, there are a lot more women that are trying not to get pregnant that those that are having trouble getting pregnant. Look at how many women are on birth control rather than fertility drugs. I fully understand the problems people have when trying to have a child when they can't. But those people, when compared to the general populace, are rare. Even if there are tens of millions of them, compared to 6 billion they are still rare.
Taste and scent receptors are more lenient. They are not the typical "one receptor, one ligand" forms that you see everywhere else. They are designed to react to a wide array of similar molecules as opposed to having a high affinity for one molecule, and virtually none for anything else. "Sweet" receptors can react to any sugar, even disaccharides. For example, two enantiomers of glucose are much more similar chemically and biochemically than are glucose and fructose. Both fructose and glucose have the same apparent effect (they both taste similarly sweet).
As far as separation goes, try this:
Take a small peptide analogous to the binding sequence of a glucose transporter, high affinity metabolic enzyme, etc. There are quite a few you can chose from. Select for enantiomer specificity. Synthesize
a large quantity. Mass production of a small peptide isn't terribly expensive, e.g. aspartame. Bind it to your matrix of choice and pack a column. Run your mix through it and now, the biologically active form is gone, leaving you with the inactive forms coming out of the column. When it gets "full", wash it all out and reuse.
and btw IAABOC (i am a bioorganic chemist)
Me too. In fact, the reason I came up with this is because I'm collecting fractions of an enzyme by an affinity column right now.
Smoking in a chemistry lab? Cancer is the least of your worries. I think "large fireball with ignition source at the center" is a little higher on the threat list.
Re:Hydrogen fuel cells have a weak link: hydrogen
on
The End of the Oil Age
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· Score: 1
I was looking around at this in my spare time, and found a few things on Google. It seems that there are cars with decent range. One concept has a range of 380 miles (just a plan as far as I can tell...not a real car yet), and BMW's recent concept car has a range of 220 miles. Honda makes a similar claim. They store the hydrogen as a liquid. Kinda tough to hold it for long, but it can be done. And the manufacturers downplay the risk (of course). They say that the risks are different, but on the whole no greater than with gasoline.
My car has a 12.5 gallon tank and gets about 28 mpg highway, so it has a range of 350 miles. Granted, they aren't there yet. As fo rthe batteries, I just meant that as they get lighter, they will be more expensive. As in a 52kg battery will cost more than a 10kg battery that holds the same charge.
That's the point: there will be resistance at first that will taper off over a long period of time. As hybrids and electrics get more common, there will be cheaper ones, fueling stations, and used ones. The idea is that existing habots knowledge and tools will change very slowly for John Q. Green cars are John Q's part to play in the whole scheme, and it will take him a very long time to adjust. So you introduce them early on, and use them a a bridge between old power generation and new.
That's also why I put the phase in date around 2023.
I'm not an engineer, but based on what I know it's a problem of weight. Right now, the batteries that would be used in electric cars are far too heavy, as far as energy/mass goes. And, as batteries get lighter they get really expensive. Electric motors are great at output/weight ratio, but batteries are too heavy. So, instead, we use fuel cells. They are electric cars, but using a lighter and cheaper "battery". AT least one form is. Is there another that actually burns H2 for something akin to internal combustion?
OK, let's say that over the next 15-20 years we phase into hydrogen powered cars. I'm not predicting, I'm just pulling the number from my sphincter. Anyway, let's just say that 80-85% of the cars on the road in 2023 are hydrogen powered. No doubt: the hydrogen to power these cars will come from processes driven by hydrocarbon based fuel, provided there is any left. It's the cheapest, and readily available.
However, that is still a good thing. It may or may not improve current environmental condidtions (efficiency of scale, concentration of pollutants, etc), but it is still overall a good thing. In this scenario, cars are then ready for greener fuels.
Let's say that in 2050 we perfect cheap solar/wind/fusion/total conversion/cosmic ray harvesting/whatever as a "green" energy source. If cars are already set up to use hydrogen as a fuel, the general populace is all set to take full advantage of that new green source. Large companies will have incentive to shift to the new tech because it's cheaper and gives good PR. The general populace won't care, because it doesn't affect their daily activities. If cars are all set on gasoline, people will resist the shift. Get the resistance to the new tech out of the way now, because we can.
This is due to malpractice. I have many MD friends (who talked me out of med school for precisely this reason, BTW) that complain about this all the time. Most of take home substantially less now than they did 10 years ago. Some are as far down as half, even though their salaries have increased quite significantly. The difference is in malpractive insurance (BTW, a large percentage of the salary increases are to compensate for the malpractice insurance increases, so the hospital gets screwed 2x). A significant portion of that $32.50 aspirin went towards making sure that the nurse that delivered it, the doctor that prescribed it, and the hospital in which it was taken won't go bankrupt when one kid's father decides to sue everybody because the aspirin gave their kid acid indigestion.
Pediatrics is the second worst (OB is the worst) for this of thing. People decide to cash in because, hey, it's the insurance company! They have tons of money and are faceless, right? And they've been screwing me over for years, so now I'm gonna get mine.
The problem is not solely in the HMO's lap. The problem is not solely in the doctor's lap. It's not just the lawyers, the hospital administration, or the helath care system in general. We (the public at large) share the blame as well, not only because we're the ones suing, but because we allow this kind of crap to go on.
I'm all for compensating people who are hurt through another's negligence. But this has gotten out of hand. We need tort reform.
A major Japaneese corporation donates a high tech, ultraclean nuclear reactor to remote Alaskan village. The plant goes online, and everyone is happy until....
One day, all contact with the village is lost. A crack team of physicist/commandos are sent in, headed by Jean-Claude Van Damme or Vin Dielel (the Governator's too busy). What they find will SHOCK and HORRIFY the world, horribly disfigured villagers, mutant killer walruses (they came inland, they're mutants!) and a conspiracy going further than they could have imagined.
Gotta disagree with you there. Killing is not always wrong. It's always bad, but not always wrong. It is not wrong to kill in order to protect, if it is absolutely necessary***. People had to be killed in WWII to stop Hitler, in Yugoslavia to stop the ethnic cleansing there, and in several other cases. Self defense or the defense of loved ones is not morally wrong (once again, bad as in undesireable, but not wrong morally).
Granted, these are all times when we killing is needed to stop more killing, but I would not say that the actions of the individuals who killed in those actions and others like them were wrong in the moral sense. Just the opposite, in fact.
I'm only against the statement that killing is always wrong; you should avoid it whenever possible, but there are times when you have to, and that is not immoral.
***Commonly overlooked phrase. Please note the "absolutely necessary" in the sentence.
I started to think the same thing through, but then I realized that the total change since 1975 is 1.12 mm. That made me wonder how in the hell they got measurements that accurate, and why our accuracy has not increased since 1975.
IANAO, but I'd guess that the measurement error on something as big and dynamic as the ocean would be greater than a few millimeters.
OTOH, if they are simply calculating the contribution of the loss of mass of the glaciers, they are assuming that that water has wound up in the ocean, and not somewhere else (dam construction making artificial lakes, atmospheric water due to increased temperature, erosion, etc.)
maintains references, cross-references, and verifiable information
And there goes your anonymity. It's a great idea, but using P2P could allow one guy to say something and make it appear as though 250 people saw the same thing, because everyone is anonymous. (Now some guru will smack me with a clue stick and show me how wrong I am, I'm certain)
As far as invading their personal lives, they are public figures. They knew going in that their personal lives would be opened up for scrutiny. If they didn't, they shouldn't be in a position of power.
But if you say something incorrect (or without any evidence) and damaging, that is slander, and it's not protected. You can say anything about them you want as far as your opinion is concerned (e.g., the current administration wiped their collective ass with the Constitution after crapping out the Patriot Act). But you can't say that you saw Colin Powell picking up a hooker on 5th street last night, when you really didn't. (If you've got photos, that's a different story)
One is Constitutionally protected expression of one's opinion, the other is willfull defamation of character. Your rights end when their expression infringes on the rights of another.
Just to point out a logical flaw, greater focus would, by necessity, stifle creativity. If you must remained focused on one task or method, you are restricted to that task or method and cannot easily switch focus to something new and thereby come up with new ideas.
ADD/ADHD is a real condition with real problems, but it is one of the most overdiagnosed syndromes today; it's even worse than the overdiagnosis of dyslexia in the 1970s. ADD/ADHD is the result of a chemical or signaling imbalance. There are, however, nonphysical syndromes and that can cause the same symptoms. There are even personalities that have the same symptoms. The nonphysical sydromes require personal attention and discipline; both self discipline and from adults. This is much harder than just handing the kid an Rx. The result is that you get armies of kids that are told they have a learning disability and are then put on personality altering drugs to compensate for an imbalance that may not even be there.
A lot of these kids are just bored. They are smarter than their parents and teachers give them credit for (sound familiar?) and they bore with school quickly. Add to that that many schools now teach at an incredibly slow pace to compensate for the lowest common denominator in the class, and you get a LOT of bored kids.
I still find myself getting most of my in-depth information from the printed page, but in the form of printed out pdf's of papers I download. I can walk out my lab door and be in one of the most comprehensive medical libraries in the nation in a less than 2 minute walk, with most of it spent waiting for an elevator to get downstairs, but I still find myself looking for online info. It is certainly where I do the searches. I can't remember the last time I used the card catalogs at the library for anything other than a place to set my notebook.
It gets addictive. There are times when I've found myself spending 15 or 20 minutes searching for a source of a pdf of a rare or old paper online, when I could have gotten the paper from the library 3 times over.
They can, but they don't. At least not in academia. We used to make our on Taq from a plasmid we had in the lab, a HUGE no-no, as far as patent law goes. The vendors just looked the other way. They know that if they let us save money there, we will spend it somewhere else. By letting us get more work done cheaply, we get more grant money, and we buy more other stuff from them. Stuff that is difficult/prohibitive to make on our own.
I've always seen it used to purify PCR products from the leftover reagents and the template, or for purifying plasmids/plasmid fragments from bug preps and restriction digests. I don't think that silica beads are all that great in purifying larger (genomic) pieces of DNA, but I could be wrong. I just use the old phenol/chloroform/IAA method for big stuff, and freeze 'n squeeze on the small stuff from gels.
Back in the day? Hell, we used to do PCR with Klenow and three water baths! And we purifed our own dNTPs! From ourselves!
Actually, I was the source of our hemoglobin standard for a while....
As for the technique, we've used a setup for gel purification from a Science technical QC for years. Freeze 'n Squeeze. Take a.5 mL tube and poke a hole in the bottom with a 18ga needle. Put some sterilized poly fiber in it (pillow stuffing from WalMart stuck in a strong uv source for ~10'. UV crosslinker works great) and pack it down. Cut out your gel slice and stick it in the -20 on a bit of foil for 30'. Put the slice on top of the fiber, put the whole thing in a 1.5 mL catch tube and spin. The elute is pretty pure, better than Qiagen, normally.
Slashdot Mirror
And it's not a matter of whether certain groups of individuals are better than others. I work with people from all over the globe, every hemisphere, all but one continent (the cold one). There is no difference in intelligence between one group or another. However, different cultures value different things, I say this from personal observation and conversation with people from a variety of cultures. Beacuse of capitalism, Western culture values accomplishments that directly affect the bottom line. This has the result that they lead in practical accomplishment, because it is a goal. Not because they are "better", but because that is where the effort is focused. Other cultures do not always share this goal. It is not inferior or superior on the whole, only different. It is not that an Asian cannot contribute in that same practical manner, just that he or she has been rasied in an environment where that is not recoginized as a high goal.
The assertation is not that any group is better than another, just that different environments promote different things.
These days? During what days did "practical" not mean "profit" in some manner or another? Remember that wealth was measured in different ways throgh history.
That's not to say the West is immoral, just that the morality code is different or more varied.
It is very much like the shark bite statistic: If you want to avoid shark bites, stay out of that 100m region of the the water, that's where they happen. Of course, he's gone a step further than the shark analogy and done this on a per capita basis. To go back to the analogy, it may be that more people are bit within 100m of the shoreline, but this number of attacks represents a very small percentage of the people that were in that region of water (like places where the Latka rate is lower). If you go further out, a smaller number, but a greater percentage, are bit (Latka rate is higher). The data is much more useful now. Going back to the book, on a per capita basis, if you want to engage in these types of accomplishments (i.e., falling on the Latka curve beyond a certain point), your odds are better in the West. This is NOT because westerners are inherently better or smarter. It may be a factor of western culture that promotes these things (Stability, wealth).
I do however have a problem with another portion of his measurements. Using a Latka curve, he will give a high score to people who have been around longer. There have been more books written since Aristotle was alive than there have been since Einstein was alive. Therefore, Aristotle would be more heavily represented in the literature, even though his rate/unit time may be lower due to his huge head start (think the tortise & the hare).
I think that's the point. Making this a mass-market diet coke additive is metaphorically "adding it to the water supply". And he's right, there are a lot more women that are trying not to get pregnant that those that are having trouble getting pregnant. Look at how many women are on birth control rather than fertility drugs. I fully understand the problems people have when trying to have a child when they can't. But those people, when compared to the general populace, are rare. Even if there are tens of millions of them, compared to 6 billion they are still rare.
As far as separation goes, try this:
Take a small peptide analogous to the binding sequence of a glucose transporter, high affinity metabolic enzyme, etc. There are quite a few you can chose from. Select for enantiomer specificity. Synthesize a large quantity. Mass production of a small peptide isn't terribly expensive, e.g. aspartame. Bind it to your matrix of choice and pack a column. Run your mix through it and now, the biologically active form is gone, leaving you with the inactive forms coming out of the column. When it gets "full", wash it all out and reuse.
and btw IAABOC (i am a bioorganic chemist)
Me too. In fact, the reason I came up with this is because I'm collecting fractions of an enzyme by an affinity column right now.
Smoking in a chemistry lab? Cancer is the least of your worries. I think "large fireball with ignition source at the center" is a little higher on the threat list.
My car has a 12.5 gallon tank and gets about 28 mpg highway, so it has a range of 350 miles. Granted, they aren't there yet. As fo rthe batteries, I just meant that as they get lighter, they will be more expensive. As in a 52kg battery will cost more than a 10kg battery that holds the same charge.
That's also why I put the phase in date around 2023.
I'm not an engineer, but based on what I know it's a problem of weight. Right now, the batteries that would be used in electric cars are far too heavy, as far as energy/mass goes. And, as batteries get lighter they get really expensive. Electric motors are great at output/weight ratio, but batteries are too heavy. So, instead, we use fuel cells. They are electric cars, but using a lighter and cheaper "battery". AT least one form is. Is there another that actually burns H2 for something akin to internal combustion?
However, that is still a good thing. It may or may not improve current environmental condidtions (efficiency of scale, concentration of pollutants, etc), but it is still overall a good thing. In this scenario, cars are then ready for greener fuels.
Let's say that in 2050 we perfect cheap solar/wind/fusion/total conversion/cosmic ray harvesting/whatever as a "green" energy source. If cars are already set up to use hydrogen as a fuel, the general populace is all set to take full advantage of that new green source. Large companies will have incentive to shift to the new tech because it's cheaper and gives good PR. The general populace won't care, because it doesn't affect their daily activities. If cars are all set on gasoline, people will resist the shift. Get the resistance to the new tech out of the way now, because we can.
Pediatrics is the second worst (OB is the worst) for this of thing. People decide to cash in because, hey, it's the insurance company! They have tons of money and are faceless, right? And they've been screwing me over for years, so now I'm gonna get mine.
The problem is not solely in the HMO's lap. The problem is not solely in the doctor's lap. It's not just the lawyers, the hospital administration, or the helath care system in general. We (the public at large) share the blame as well, not only because we're the ones suing, but because we allow this kind of crap to go on.
I'm all for compensating people who are hurt through another's negligence. But this has gotten out of hand. We need tort reform.
OK, now I'm not. It finished in the ammount of time it took me to write this.
A major Japaneese corporation donates a high tech, ultraclean nuclear reactor to remote Alaskan village. The plant goes online, and everyone is happy until....
One day, all contact with the village is lost. A crack team of physicist/commandos are sent in, headed by Jean-Claude Van Damme or Vin Dielel (the Governator's too busy). What they find will SHOCK and HORRIFY the world, horribly disfigured villagers, mutant killer walruses (they came inland, they're mutants!) and a conspiracy going further than they could have imagined.
Gotta disagree with you there. Killing is not always wrong. It's always bad, but not always wrong. It is not wrong to kill in order to protect, if it is absolutely necessary***. People had to be killed in WWII to stop Hitler, in Yugoslavia to stop the ethnic cleansing there, and in several other cases. Self defense or the defense of loved ones is not morally wrong (once again, bad as in undesireable, but not wrong morally).
Granted, these are all times when we killing is needed to stop more killing, but I would not say that the actions of the individuals who killed in those actions and others like them were wrong in the moral sense. Just the opposite, in fact.
I'm only against the statement that killing is always wrong; you should avoid it whenever possible, but there are times when you have to, and that is not immoral.
***Commonly overlooked phrase. Please note the "absolutely necessary" in the sentence.
IANAO, but I'd guess that the measurement error on something as big and dynamic as the ocean would be greater than a few millimeters.
OTOH, if they are simply calculating the contribution of the loss of mass of the glaciers, they are assuming that that water has wound up in the ocean, and not somewhere else (dam construction making artificial lakes, atmospheric water due to increased temperature, erosion, etc.)
Man, I wish there had been something like this when I was a kid. I gotta sign up as a mentor for his thing. Anybody know how, off hand?
Thank you! I knew there was another word for the act in written word, but I've been brainfarting all day...
And there goes your anonymity. It's a great idea, but using P2P could allow one guy to say something and make it appear as though 250 people saw the same thing, because everyone is anonymous. (Now some guru will smack me with a clue stick and show me how wrong I am, I'm certain)
As far as invading their personal lives, they are public figures. They knew going in that their personal lives would be opened up for scrutiny. If they didn't, they shouldn't be in a position of power.
One is Constitutionally protected expression of one's opinion, the other is willfull defamation of character. Your rights end when their expression infringes on the rights of another.
Just to point out a logical flaw, greater focus would, by necessity, stifle creativity. If you must remained focused on one task or method, you are restricted to that task or method and cannot easily switch focus to something new and thereby come up with new ideas.
ADD/ADHD is a real condition with real problems, but it is one of the most overdiagnosed syndromes today; it's even worse than the overdiagnosis of dyslexia in the 1970s. ADD/ADHD is the result of a chemical or signaling imbalance. There are, however, nonphysical syndromes and that can cause the same symptoms. There are even personalities that have the same symptoms. The nonphysical sydromes require personal attention and discipline; both self discipline and from adults. This is much harder than just handing the kid an Rx. The result is that you get armies of kids that are told they have a learning disability and are then put on personality altering drugs to compensate for an imbalance that may not even be there.
A lot of these kids are just bored. They are smarter than their parents and teachers give them credit for (sound familiar?) and they bore with school quickly. Add to that that many schools now teach at an incredibly slow pace to compensate for the lowest common denominator in the class, and you get a LOT of bored kids.
It gets addictive. There are times when I've found myself spending 15 or 20 minutes searching for a source of a pdf of a rare or old paper online, when I could have gotten the paper from the library 3 times over.
They can, but they don't. At least not in academia. We used to make our on Taq from a plasmid we had in the lab, a HUGE no-no, as far as patent law goes. The vendors just looked the other way. They know that if they let us save money there, we will spend it somewhere else. By letting us get more work done cheaply, we get more grant money, and we buy more other stuff from them. Stuff that is difficult/prohibitive to make on our own.
I've always seen it used to purify PCR products from the leftover reagents and the template, or for purifying plasmids/plasmid fragments from bug preps and restriction digests. I don't think that silica beads are all that great in purifying larger (genomic) pieces of DNA, but I could be wrong. I just use the old phenol/chloroform/IAA method for big stuff, and freeze 'n squeeze on the small stuff from gels.
Actually, I was the source of our hemoglobin standard for a while....
As for the technique, we've used a setup for gel purification from a Science technical QC for years. Freeze 'n Squeeze. Take a .5 mL tube and poke a hole in the bottom with a 18ga needle. Put some sterilized poly fiber in it (pillow stuffing from WalMart stuck in a strong uv source for ~10'. UV crosslinker works great) and pack it down. Cut out your gel slice and stick it in the -20 on a bit of foil for 30'. Put the slice on top of the fiber, put the whole thing in a 1.5 mL catch tube and spin. The elute is pretty pure, better than Qiagen, normally.