1) You just hacked the only light sensor that comes with the Mindstorms to make the laser module.
2) The Mindstorms kit doesn't come with any sort of "camera" that can generate an actual image, much less be used for a "blob" tracker.
3) If you can put together that sort of camera rig, interface and processing software, you are pretty much at a point where the Lego kit becomes superfluous.
The only reason a farmer would be spraying a field with roundup is because he either a) knows that he has roundup ready crops there or b) he wants to kill every plant in that field. The entire point of roundup ready crops is that it allows a herbicide that is relatively cheap, more environmentally friendly, and highly effective to be used to kill off the non-crop weeds in a field while leaving the Roundup ready crops. Roundup has traditionally been able to be used only in non-selective applications, like clearing the margins of fields, roads and around power poles of any vegetation (which is allegedly where the farmer first identified the patented plants, not in a field) because it is so effective on so many species when directly applied to the foliage..
The selective pressure simply doesn't exist in normal farming practices.
The act of harvesting that seed specifically and planting it specifically to the exclusion to all the other seed he had available to him, knowing full well that it was Roundup ready is what was the infringing act. As I mentioned in another post, it would be like finding a copy of "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band" on the lawn, and then deciding to feign ignorance as to it's nature as a protected work, and then proceed to burn and sell copies of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._ v._Schmeiser
Whether or not you believe his claim that 60% of 4 acres was roundup resistant initially (which I have a VERY hard time believing, as Brassica napus is primarily a self pollinating species with cross pollination being nsect mediated, not wind, and at the time, the nearest farmer known to be growing Roundup ready Canola was 5 miles away), he knowingly collected that seed specifically and then proceeded to plant it over the rest of his 1000 acres of fields.
They didn't "infect his field and then sue him for royalties".
He identified that seed as roundup ready from a very few individuals and then intentionally went and cultivated it specifically because of that fact.
Plants without a substantial advantage (which Roundup ready plants do not UNLESS treated with round up) do not just take over fields without human intervention selecting them intentionally and then planting them. In this case, he picked them specifically because they were Roundup ready seeds and then planted them knowing full well what they were.
So, when you make a very specific, limited changes using modern biotechnology, you are dangerously messing with mother nature.
But gamma-irradiating the heck out of a grapefruit or treating strawberries with the toxic chemical Colchicine to double the chromosome count with no idea how these mutations and changes in gene dosage and regulation will affect the organism, it's okay. People hollering about GMO organisms need to look back at the last 50, 100 and 5000 years of messing about with nature to get some perspective.
You forgot to mention the part where he went and tested the seed to ensure that it was Round-up resistant and planted the collected seed extensively. The trick with roundup ready seed is that it doesn't convey any advantage over regular seed UNLESS under the special condition where you are applying roundup to the field.
So when the farmer ended up with 95% of his plants being roundup ready, it became obvious that the farmer was collecting and specifically planting the round up ready seed intentionally, not some "oh, the pollen just blew in and 95% of my plants ended up infringing on a patent!"
If someone throws a copy of "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" on my lawn, and I feign ignorance that it is a protected work produced by the Beatles (since it is implausible that the farmer had never heard of Roundup Ready crops), go out to burn several thousand copies and attempt to sell them, how am I not in the wrong?
This isn't using tisue culture to produce prime rib in a vat. This is about taking and using meat as a starting point for cloning another full animal.
Sorry, PETA won't like this either, nor will it be safe from prion diseases (since that has more to do with feeding of animals, as opposed to the genetic origin of the critter.
Anyone who reads about the latest ideas in science might also know that not all viruses are created equal when it comes to using them as a transfection vector.
There have been many advances not related to space exploration that will make future exploration easier. Better computers, lots of work in material sciences, biotechnology, etc. all can be applied to making space exploration more feasible, and are continuing to progress without an intensive manned program. Have some advances in those fields been driven by the space program? A bit. But to claim that no progress will take place without an agressive program is silly.
I'm all for expanding to the stars. Going to planetary bodies so we can stick a flag in it and leave some footprtints doesn't help us towards that goal.
One gig. So it is the video equivalent of the MP3 players that let you put a WHOLE CD on there at once! woo!
Like with music, the advantage of the the video iPod will be to have thirty to sixty times that ammount of storage and have whole collections of stuff, in one place.
The method to make the little snippets of mirror DNA has been arround forever. But figuring out which PARTICULAR snippet of mirror DNA detects a given gene is the hard part.
Apart from really poor spelling, minor mistakes such as definately/definitely do not affect someones understanding of the message.
Couple that with the rise of modern spell checkers in most situations where you need to give off a very good impression, there is little incentive for being very careful with your spelling, particularly when being informal. Like posting on a message board.
Well, you can still visit a public university and use their library even if you aren't part of the institution. Many private univerity librarys as well (though the access is usually inferior.)
Some sort of page charges are actually quite common and have been arround forever.
Most researchers just include publication costs as a line in a grant budget. It is just assumed. The same goes for the huge chunk (often ~50%) of your grant money taken by the university to pay for keeping the lights on and elevators running in the research labs.
It should be noted that the reason generic grocery tomatoes suck is not because of genetic engeneering. Heck it isn't even really that the varieties are sold are untasty.
It is the fact that the darn things are picked green for handling by automation and shipping, only later to be "ripened" by exposure to ethelyne gas.
The only trouble is that while the ethelyne may reproduce the softening portion of ripening that happens on the vine, it doesn't load up any of the tasty compunds into the tomato that normaly come from the vine during natural ripening.
And of course, your point about varieties of vegetables is correct. People don't want to go to the grocery store and purchase an unknown, though likely superior, item. They want predictablity. It's why people will go to a new town and get a burger at McDonalds instead of that mom and pop burger joint. McDonalds might be inferior, but it is always a known quantity.
Golf course grass has been in danger of escaping into the natural world for many many years now! It has been straining at the borders of the course waiting to devour the natual environment. The only thing that has prevented this is the ever vigilant application of Roundup.
It's not a matter of liking or not liking. It is a matter of physically being able to do the job, and do it well.
And frankly, what worked in "the good old days" doesn't cut it anymore. I'm not saying this particular case is the right way to go about it, but saying "tough luck proffesors, use the same tools you have for the last 150 years" when the cheaters have accesss to easier and better ways to cheat, is just silly.
Frankly it makes sense. How many ads anymore about "selling a lifestyle" and associating your product with it, instead of "why this particular product is great!"
Sure they might be hollow and not about a given product, but based on their prevalence, they must work.
If we continue to use fossil fuels at this rate.... we can't replentish our oil supplies fast enough.... meaning oil might not be a renewable resource!!!
Someone call the Department of Energy!!!!!
"I took this case, cut some foam, and put all the stuff from my war driving rig in there."
How on earth does this rate as a slashdot newspost? On a related note, I took my clothes, put them in a suitcase, and now have a convienient, portable container for my stuff, and I bought a pelican case and modified it to custom fit my camera gear. Whoopdity doo!
Slashdot Mirror
1) You just hacked the only light sensor that comes with the Mindstorms to make the laser module. 2) The Mindstorms kit doesn't come with any sort of "camera" that can generate an actual image, much less be used for a "blob" tracker. 3) If you can put together that sort of camera rig, interface and processing software, you are pretty much at a point where the Lego kit becomes superfluous.
The only reason a farmer would be spraying a field with roundup is because he either a) knows that he has roundup ready crops there or b) he wants to kill every plant in that field. The entire point of roundup ready crops is that it allows a herbicide that is relatively cheap, more environmentally friendly, and highly effective to be used to kill off the non-crop weeds in a field while leaving the Roundup ready crops. Roundup has traditionally been able to be used only in non-selective applications, like clearing the margins of fields, roads and around power poles of any vegetation (which is allegedly where the farmer first identified the patented plants, not in a field) because it is so effective on so many species when directly applied to the foliage.. The selective pressure simply doesn't exist in normal farming practices.
The act of harvesting that seed specifically and planting it specifically to the exclusion to all the other seed he had available to him, knowing full well that it was Roundup ready is what was the infringing act. As I mentioned in another post, it would be like finding a copy of "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band" on the lawn, and then deciding to feign ignorance as to it's nature as a protected work, and then proceed to burn and sell copies of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._ v._Schmeiser
Whether or not you believe his claim that 60% of 4 acres was roundup resistant initially (which I have a VERY hard time believing, as Brassica napus is primarily a self pollinating species with cross pollination being nsect mediated, not wind, and at the time, the nearest farmer known to be growing Roundup ready Canola was 5 miles away), he knowingly collected that seed specifically and then proceeded to plant it over the rest of his 1000 acres of fields.
They didn't "infect his field and then sue him for royalties". He identified that seed as roundup ready from a very few individuals and then intentionally went and cultivated it specifically because of that fact. Plants without a substantial advantage (which Roundup ready plants do not UNLESS treated with round up) do not just take over fields without human intervention selecting them intentionally and then planting them. In this case, he picked them specifically because they were Roundup ready seeds and then planted them knowing full well what they were.
So, when you make a very specific, limited changes using modern biotechnology, you are dangerously messing with mother nature. But gamma-irradiating the heck out of a grapefruit or treating strawberries with the toxic chemical Colchicine to double the chromosome count with no idea how these mutations and changes in gene dosage and regulation will affect the organism, it's okay. People hollering about GMO organisms need to look back at the last 50, 100 and 5000 years of messing about with nature to get some perspective.
You forgot to mention the part where he went and tested the seed to ensure that it was Round-up resistant and planted the collected seed extensively. The trick with roundup ready seed is that it doesn't convey any advantage over regular seed UNLESS under the special condition where you are applying roundup to the field. So when the farmer ended up with 95% of his plants being roundup ready, it became obvious that the farmer was collecting and specifically planting the round up ready seed intentionally, not some "oh, the pollen just blew in and 95% of my plants ended up infringing on a patent!" If someone throws a copy of "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" on my lawn, and I feign ignorance that it is a protected work produced by the Beatles (since it is implausible that the farmer had never heard of Roundup Ready crops), go out to burn several thousand copies and attempt to sell them, how am I not in the wrong?
This isn't using tisue culture to produce prime rib in a vat. This is about taking and using meat as a starting point for cloning another full animal. Sorry, PETA won't like this either, nor will it be safe from prion diseases (since that has more to do with feeding of animals, as opposed to the genetic origin of the critter.
So, I have to ask, what is your opinion on fluoride in the water, and how are your precious bodily fluids doing there?
Anyone who reads about the latest ideas in science might also know that not all viruses are created equal when it comes to using them as a transfection vector.
There have been many advances not related to space exploration that will make future exploration easier. Better computers, lots of work in material sciences, biotechnology, etc. all can be applied to making space exploration more feasible, and are continuing to progress without an intensive manned program. Have some advances in those fields been driven by the space program? A bit. But to claim that no progress will take place without an agressive program is silly. I'm all for expanding to the stars. Going to planetary bodies so we can stick a flag in it and leave some footprtints doesn't help us towards that goal.
One gig. So it is the video equivalent of the MP3 players that let you put a WHOLE CD on there at once! woo! Like with music, the advantage of the the video iPod will be to have thirty to sixty times that ammount of storage and have whole collections of stuff, in one place.
The method to make the little snippets of mirror DNA has been arround forever. But figuring out which PARTICULAR snippet of mirror DNA detects a given gene is the hard part.
Apart from really poor spelling, minor mistakes such as definately/definitely do not affect someones understanding of the message. Couple that with the rise of modern spell checkers in most situations where you need to give off a very good impression, there is little incentive for being very careful with your spelling, particularly when being informal. Like posting on a message board.
Well, you can still visit a public university and use their library even if you aren't part of the institution. Many private univerity librarys as well (though the access is usually inferior.)
Some sort of page charges are actually quite common and have been arround forever.
Most researchers just include publication costs as a line in a grant budget. It is just assumed. The same goes for the huge chunk (often ~50%) of your grant money taken by the university to pay for keeping the lights on and elevators running in the research labs.
The more commonly used term nowdays is "Spontaneous Generation" for what you are describing.
Abiogenesis is the frequently used term for the idea that life may have started on it's own sans an outside creator.
It should be noted that the reason generic grocery tomatoes suck is not because of genetic engeneering. Heck it isn't even really that the varieties are sold are untasty.
It is the fact that the darn things are picked green for handling by automation and shipping, only later to be "ripened" by exposure to ethelyne gas.
The only trouble is that while the ethelyne may reproduce the softening portion of ripening that happens on the vine, it doesn't load up any of the tasty compunds into the tomato that normaly come from the vine during natural ripening.
And of course, your point about varieties of vegetables is correct. People don't want to go to the grocery store and purchase an unknown, though likely superior, item. They want predictablity. It's why people will go to a new town and get a burger at McDonalds instead of that mom and pop burger joint. McDonalds might be inferior, but it is always a known quantity.
Oh no!
Golf course grass has been in danger of escaping into the natural world for many many years now! It has been straining at the borders of the course waiting to devour the natual environment. The only thing that has prevented this is the ever vigilant application of Roundup.
Oh wait. This isn't the case at all.
It's not a matter of liking or not liking. It is a matter of physically being able to do the job, and do it well.
And frankly, what worked in "the good old days" doesn't cut it anymore. I'm not saying this particular case is the right way to go about it, but saying "tough luck proffesors, use the same tools you have for the last 150 years" when the cheaters have accesss to easier and better ways to cheat, is just silly.
Frankly it makes sense. How many ads anymore about "selling a lifestyle" and associating your product with it, instead of "why this particular product is great!" Sure they might be hollow and not about a given product, but based on their prevalence, they must work.
If we continue to use fossil fuels at this rate.... we can't replentish our oil supplies fast enough.... meaning oil might not be a renewable resource!!! Someone call the Department of Energy!!!!!
Except then no one would use it/buy it.
Kind of the point of using trillian.....
And thus, through stubborn obstinance, open standards will gain acceptance!!! Everyone will be able to talk with everyone else!
"I took this case, cut some foam, and put all the stuff from my war driving rig in there." How on earth does this rate as a slashdot newspost? On a related note, I took my clothes, put them in a suitcase, and now have a convienient, portable container for my stuff, and I bought a pelican case and modified it to custom fit my camera gear. Whoopdity doo!