The reason I talk about DNA evolving first is because they sort of are the definition of life. Sure, membranes can form, but they're not really alive until they start metabolizing and reproducing. So to have life as we know it, we have to have something moderately complex, i.e. proteins or DNA. Membranes alone are not life.
Sure, that membrane is a start, but does it really protect against radiation and heat that well? Or does it serve just as a container for DNA, keeping it from being all slutty and recombining with any other strand floating out there? How well does a membrane protect DNA from heat? And just how well do these lipids coagulate in extreme conditions?
Well, I'm not particularly attached to the 70* F, water, etc. I could go for undersea thermal vents. I just wonder if life is hardy, and capable of arising any old place, or if original life needs a special set of circumstances. The reason I chose 70* F and water is because of those experiments that showed basic proteins assembling when some scientist zapped electricity into water with amino acids.
I may be wrong, but I believe that naked DNA and the basic amino acids and proteins can survive for a long time in 70* F water.
If we buy the theory that life somehow either was assembled or assembled itself out of simpler parts, my question is, in which environments can we find those simpler parts? We know what the simpler parts are -- DNA, amino acids and proteins. Can we find such parts in thermal vents? How long to they last in 200* F water versus 70* F water? The question is, how much time to they have to assemble themselves into life before they fall apart? Do they have more time in 70* F water than 200* F water? What about liquid water vs. liquid methane, or liquid ammonia?
For example, in what circumstances can naked DNA exist without breaking up? I know that radiation can be destructive for it, even in places where it is protected by the cell structure, such as human skin. Are we likely to find naked DNA in space, where the molecule is exposed to a lot of radiation? Would constant radiation bombardment accelerate the development of life by creating lots of broken DNA pieces? Is there a range of heat and cold than naked DNA can tolerate? How about DNA polymerase? Are there different types of DNA polymerase that are suited for different conditions?
I guess it all goes back to the question of how exactly did life originate. Was it naked DNA that manage to get wrapped up in protecting, replicated proteins? Or did amino acids perform basic replications that eventually developed DNA molecules? Does extremophile life have *extra* machinery to protect the basic replication and metabolism functions, or does it just have different amino acids, suited for their environment?
I'm asking for some discussion on this subject. A lot of people look at extremophile organisms and take that as evidence that life as we know it ( carbon-based DNA/RNA cells ) is hardy, and can arise in many places -- hot places, cold places, frozen places, boiling places, nuclear reaction chambers, outer space, solid rock, etc., etc.
Personally, I lean toward that idea that life can only *originate* in a small window of 'specs' ( such as 70-100* F, in water, with plenty of amino acids floating around ), and then once cellular metabolism is going, then life can evolve to survive in more extreme environments. It seems to me that DNA and other cellular metabolism machinery is too fragile to survive 'naked' in extreme environments, and can only arise in a small window of circumstances. Once life really gets going, then if can evolve defense mechanisms to survive in more extreme environments.
So I don't think we will find life in planets like hellish Venus or dried up Mars -- **unless** they had Earth-like conditions at some point in the past, where life originated.
Can someone more knowledgeable or opinionated chime in?
Part of what makes OCR work is that it assumes that the text was written to communicate meaning. It has regular characters in alignment, forming common words and abbreviations in more or less grammatical sentences with close-to-proper punctuation.
A good captcha has a non-sense string of characters in various cases, all skewed and distorted, with extra geometric elements obscuring the characters. This renders unavailable somewhere around half of the clues that an OCR uses.
"You had to approach actual experts like doctors for any questions you had."
Yes, but a doctor isn't allowed to blab to anybody about your medical problems. If somebody sues you, they aren't allowed to subpoena your medical records.
I said "So no, this does not account for Global warming, or more accurately, global climate change."
The article I linked to said "The variation [between sunspots and the solar radiation given off by the rest of the sun] is very small (of the order of 0.1%)."
So now answer this: Does this 1,000 year peak of sunspots explain global climate change?
Sun spots are *cool* parts of the sun. If the sun is at a 1,000 year peak of sunspot activity, that means that it is at a 1,000 year *low* for temperature, as far as sunspots are concerned.
So if there is global warming, then this argues *against* the sun as an explanation.
Folks this says SUN SPOTS. Again, SUN SPOTS. Not solar radiation, not heat coming from the sun, but sun spots.
Sun spots are COOLER than the surrounding sun material.
From wikipedia: Although they are blindingly bright at temperatures of roughly 4000-4500 K, the contrast with the surrounding material at about 5800 K leaves them clearly visible as dark spots.
So no, this does not account for Global warming, or more accurately, global climate change.
When the hell are memory prices going to come down!? A gig of RAM is still like $80 at the *minimum*. What is going on? Someone please explain this to me. This is like the single most expensive component of the computer. I'm looking to put together a new system for video editing, but either MAC or PC, memory prices are outrageous. If I'm forced to use Vista, I don't want to shell out $300 to upgrade to 4 gigs of ram to get a decent GUI experience.
I remember reading about price-fixing cases a few years back, have those gone anywhere? AFAICT, there is still some collusion going on.
I think the whole Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has little to do with religion and has everything to do with economics and power. Religion is just a cover for deeper issues.
I don't think the fact that China is a communist nation will make a bit of difference in generating the hostility . What will matter is that if China becomes powerful and influential in the Middle East, the average Mohammed will see China exerting its power, while the lives of his fellow countrymen aren't improving. Religion then becomes yet another justification for hostility and aggression directed towards someone else.
I think that religion is used in two ways as a justification for scapegoating and hostility. One, political leaders who are trying to motivate their populations to go to war will use religion as a justification, while the real reason is economic. Two, people who are having problems in their personal/economic life will rely on religion more, and see the world in more religious terms. When they perceive a threat, they will perceive it in religious terms. Of course, the real threats to our lives are military/terrorist and economic.
OK, these satellites aren't really mating. Are they exchange some kind of digital DNA or code? Is one going to become pregnant and reproduce?
I'm all for understanding scientific miracles of progress in mythical or reverential terms at *some* level, but this one doesn't really fly with me. I would describe it more as doctoring or healing.
"We, in the USA, lock up our criminals, not our politically undesireable."
Every society defines its own crime. The "political undesirable" were criminals, in Soviet Russia. What is wrong with American society that we have so many criminals? Are there more criminals, or more *crimes* -- behaviors that in the past did not result in imprisonment, but now do?
Are things really getting worse on the street, or are three-strikes laws and 0-tolerance drug policies for non-violent offenders locking up people who are otherwise productive members of society?
This CS Monitor article says that we now lead the world in incarceration: "More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there, according to a new report by the Justice Department released Sunday. That's 1 in 37 adults living in the United States, the highest incarceration level in the world."
" We don't send entire families to gulags. We don't execute or exile our Jews, gays, and minorities. Were exiles (internal) counted in your prison figures? I bet not."
You know what? You might be right. We might not actually have worse incarceration rates than Soviet Russia. But I'm sick of not being the worst. I believe that America is the greatest country on Earth. I think we should have the lowest incarceration rate in the world, right now, not just lower than Soviet Russia.
This ABC article says that "The United States has incarcerated 726 people per 100,000 of its population, seven to 10 times as many as most other democracies. The rate for England is 142 per 100,000, for France 91 and for Japan 58. "
Why are we getting beaten by Japan, France, and England? Why aren't we on top?
"People who habitually decry our supposed lack of "human rights" or "freedoms" simply are ignorant of the truth. Get out and travel, live in other countries, and learn what we really have in the US."
Myabe we have it so good here *because* we are hyper-vigiliant and extremely suspicious of anything that remotely reeks of less human rights and freedom.
BTW, did you know that we lock up a greater percentage of our population that the Soviet Union did?
The fact that China is pursuing a 100-year plan for greatness underscores the difference between American and Chinese culture, and shows why American culture is superior. Why bother planning for the next 100 years when the rapture is immanent? Instead, they should be teaching the Bible in schools like we do here, so that they might be saved when Jesus returns.
"First Star-Trek isn't real. I'm sorry, but neither is the easter bunny. If anything can be duplicated cheaply people will only do the stuff they enjoy doing, but no work will be done. Society will stagnate, innovation will come to a halt, and the social consequences will be immense. Perhaps no one would go without, but I'd hardly call it utopian."
If we get in an situation where "nobody goes without", what exactly would the "immense social consequences" be? How would society stagnate? Aren't all of our efforts geared towards meeting our wants and needs? If they were met, how exactly would we be stagnated? Don't we go to work in order to eat? Or do you believe in work for work's sake? If our meals were taken care of, really, what is the point of working? We could just chat, take a stroll in the park, maybe watch a movie... I don't know, it sounds nice to me. Having our material needs taken care of sounds like something close to the definition of paradise. There would still be crime, old age and disease, but it seems like we would have a lot of time and energy freed up to deal with those problems if we didn't have to type away at the office for 8 hours a day.
I'm not trolling here; I'm genuinely interested in what you have to say. I don't believe that communism as a viable system of organization. But if we had easy and cheap replication, that might be an improvement in our lives on the scale of the industrial revolution. Before that, people worked 80 hours a week as farmers just getting food on the table. They died around age 30.
I don't underestimate man's ability to cheat and exploit one another. The industrial revolution gave us electricity and cars; it also gave us sweatshops and pollution. I think a technology such as this could easily go either way, all depending on how we choose to organize society.
Obviously no system is immune from a flawed driver. Which is why you want good development and distribution systems to 1. prevent flawed drivers from being written and 2. prevent flawed drivers from being used.
Did the user install this driver? If so, then the blame lies with the manufacturer for distributing a bad driver. Did Vista install this bad driver? If so, then the fault lies with MS. MS knows that Vista is going to be installed on a broad array of hardware, so they have to be careful about what drivers they allow to be loaded. Why else would MS introduced signed drivers unless this was an issue?
I'm not saying this would be an easy process, but there's no reason a printer couldn't simply print a complex structure of various parts and materials, provided that the geometry allowed for it. It would be like 4-color printing, where the paper goes through several passes. That's not saying you can print anything, but you also can't assemble anything, either.
You're missing the point. This emerging technology is about 3D printers, not 3D scanners.
Can you imagine designing an engine block using a CAD program? It happens all the time in this day and age. You can design whatever you want, complex parts with internal structures, using a 3D modeling program. Now, take those digital blueprints, and print it out on a 3D printer. Voila! There is no need to involve a scanner at all.
I predict that, instead of scanning and printing, people will just design 3D objects in a CAD-like application, and then print them in a 3D printer. As far as copying existing items, human intelligence will do the difficult parts of 'scanning' and re-creating the design of, say, a Ferarri, as a 3D model.
I don't know, NextEngine's scan of Han looks like he didn't make it out of the carbonite in one piece. This scanning technology could use a little work.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason I talk about DNA evolving first is because they sort of are the definition of life. Sure, membranes can form, but they're not really alive until they start metabolizing and reproducing. So to have life as we know it, we have to have something moderately complex, i.e. proteins or DNA. Membranes alone are not life.
Sure, that membrane is a start, but does it really protect against radiation and heat that well? Or does it serve just as a container for DNA, keeping it from being all slutty and recombining with any other strand floating out there? How well does a membrane protect DNA from heat? And just how well do these lipids coagulate in extreme conditions?
Well, I'm not particularly attached to the 70* F, water, etc. I could go for undersea thermal vents. I just wonder if life is hardy, and capable of arising any old place, or if original life needs a special set of circumstances. The reason I chose 70* F and water is because of those experiments that showed basic proteins assembling when some scientist zapped electricity into water with amino acids. I may be wrong, but I believe that naked DNA and the basic amino acids and proteins can survive for a long time in 70* F water.
If we buy the theory that life somehow either was assembled or assembled itself out of simpler parts, my question is, in which environments can we find those simpler parts? We know what the simpler parts are -- DNA, amino acids and proteins. Can we find such parts in thermal vents? How long to they last in 200* F water versus 70* F water? The question is, how much time to they have to assemble themselves into life before they fall apart? Do they have more time in 70* F water than 200* F water? What about liquid water vs. liquid methane, or liquid ammonia?
For example, in what circumstances can naked DNA exist without breaking up? I know that radiation can be destructive for it, even in places where it is protected by the cell structure, such as human skin. Are we likely to find naked DNA in space, where the molecule is exposed to a lot of radiation? Would constant radiation bombardment accelerate the development of life by creating lots of broken DNA pieces? Is there a range of heat and cold than naked DNA can tolerate? How about DNA polymerase? Are there different types of DNA polymerase that are suited for different conditions?
I guess it all goes back to the question of how exactly did life originate. Was it naked DNA that manage to get wrapped up in protecting, replicated proteins? Or did amino acids perform basic replications that eventually developed DNA molecules? Does extremophile life have *extra* machinery to protect the basic replication and metabolism functions, or does it just have different amino acids, suited for their environment?
I'm asking for some discussion on this subject. A lot of people look at extremophile organisms and take that as evidence that life as we know it ( carbon-based DNA/RNA cells ) is hardy, and can arise in many places -- hot places, cold places, frozen places, boiling places, nuclear reaction chambers, outer space, solid rock, etc., etc.
Personally, I lean toward that idea that life can only *originate* in a small window of 'specs' ( such as 70-100* F, in water, with plenty of amino acids floating around ), and then once cellular metabolism is going, then life can evolve to survive in more extreme environments. It seems to me that DNA and other cellular metabolism machinery is too fragile to survive 'naked' in extreme environments, and can only arise in a small window of circumstances. Once life really gets going, then if can evolve defense mechanisms to survive in more extreme environments.
So I don't think we will find life in planets like hellish Venus or dried up Mars -- **unless** they had Earth-like conditions at some point in the past, where life originated.
Can someone more knowledgeable or opinionated chime in?
You know what searches you have made, but you do not know what information about those searches are made available to others.
In other words, you don't know what others know about you.
I doubt it.
Part of what makes OCR work is that it assumes that the text was written to communicate meaning. It has regular characters in alignment, forming common words and abbreviations in more or less grammatical sentences with close-to-proper punctuation.
A good captcha has a non-sense string of characters in various cases, all skewed and distorted, with extra geometric elements obscuring the characters. This renders unavailable somewhere around half of the clues that an OCR uses.
"You had to approach actual experts like doctors for any questions you had."
Yes, but a doctor isn't allowed to blab to anybody about your medical problems. If somebody sues you, they aren't allowed to subpoena your medical records.
I said "So no, this does not account for Global warming, or more accurately, global climate change."
The article I linked to said "The variation [between sunspots and the solar radiation given off by the rest of the sun] is very small (of the order of 0.1%)."
So now answer this: Does this 1,000 year peak of sunspots explain global climate change?
Sun spots are *cool* parts of the sun. If the sun is at a 1,000 year peak of sunspot activity, that means that it is at a 1,000 year *low* for temperature, as far as sunspots are concerned.
So if there is global warming, then this argues *against* the sun as an explanation.
Folks this says SUN SPOTS. Again, SUN SPOTS. Not solar radiation, not heat coming from the sun, but sun spots.
Sun spots are COOLER than the surrounding sun material.
From wikipedia: Although they are blindingly bright at temperatures of roughly 4000-4500 K, the contrast with the surrounding material at about 5800 K leaves them clearly visible as dark spots.
So no, this does not account for Global warming, or more accurately, global climate change.
All I'm asking is why RAM prices haven't fallen like they have for MHz in processors or gigs in hard drives.
OK, I'll bite; how much?
Mod me offtopic, but I need answers!
When the hell are memory prices going to come down!? A gig of RAM is still like $80 at the *minimum*. What is going on? Someone please explain this to me. This is like the single most expensive component of the computer. I'm looking to put together a new system for video editing, but either MAC or PC, memory prices are outrageous. If I'm forced to use Vista, I don't want to shell out $300 to upgrade to 4 gigs of ram to get a decent GUI experience.
I remember reading about price-fixing cases a few years back, have those gone anywhere? AFAICT, there is still some collusion going on.
I stand corrected and better-informed.
I think the whole Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has little to do with religion and has everything to do with economics and power. Religion is just a cover for deeper issues.
I don't think the fact that China is a communist nation will make a bit of difference in generating the hostility . What will matter is that if China becomes powerful and influential in the Middle East, the average Mohammed will see China exerting its power, while the lives of his fellow countrymen aren't improving. Religion then becomes yet another justification for hostility and aggression directed towards someone else.
I think that religion is used in two ways as a justification for scapegoating and hostility. One, political leaders who are trying to motivate their populations to go to war will use religion as a justification, while the real reason is economic. Two, people who are having problems in their personal/economic life will rely on religion more, and see the world in more religious terms. When they perceive a threat, they will perceive it in religious terms. Of course, the real threats to our lives are military/terrorist and economic.
OK, these satellites aren't really mating. Are they exchange some kind of digital DNA or code? Is one going to become pregnant and reproduce?
I'm all for understanding scientific miracles of progress in mythical or reverential terms at *some* level, but this one doesn't really fly with me. I would describe it more as doctoring or healing.
"We, in the USA, lock up our criminals, not our politically undesireable."
Every society defines its own crime. The "political undesirable" were criminals, in Soviet Russia. What is wrong with American society that we have so many criminals? Are there more criminals, or more *crimes* -- behaviors that in the past did not result in imprisonment, but now do?
Are things really getting worse on the street, or are three-strikes laws and 0-tolerance drug policies for non-violent offenders locking up people who are otherwise productive members of society?
This CS Monitor article says that we now lead the world in incarceration: "More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there, according to a new report by the Justice Department released Sunday. That's 1 in 37 adults living in the United States, the highest incarceration level in the world."
" We don't send entire families to gulags. We don't execute or exile our Jews, gays, and minorities. Were exiles (internal) counted in your prison figures? I bet not."
You know what? You might be right. We might not actually have worse incarceration rates than Soviet Russia. But I'm sick of not being the worst. I believe that America is the greatest country on Earth. I think we should have the lowest incarceration rate in the world, right now, not just lower than Soviet Russia.
This ABC article says that "The United States has incarcerated 726 people per 100,000 of its population, seven to 10 times as many as most other democracies. The rate for England is 142 per 100,000, for France 91 and for Japan 58. " Why are we getting beaten by Japan, France, and England? Why aren't we on top?
"People who habitually decry our supposed lack of "human rights" or "freedoms" simply are ignorant of the truth. Get out and travel, live in other countries, and learn what we really have in the US."
Myabe we have it so good here *because* we are hyper-vigiliant and extremely suspicious of anything that remotely reeks of less human rights and freedom.
BTW, did you know that we lock up a greater percentage of our population that the Soviet Union did?
The fact that China is pursuing a 100-year plan for greatness underscores the difference between American and Chinese culture, and shows why American culture is superior. Why bother planning for the next 100 years when the rapture is immanent? Instead, they should be teaching the Bible in schools like we do here, so that they might be saved when Jesus returns.
"First Star-Trek isn't real. I'm sorry, but neither is the easter bunny. If anything can be duplicated cheaply people will only do the stuff they enjoy doing, but no work will be done. Society will stagnate, innovation will come to a halt, and the social consequences will be immense. Perhaps no one would go without, but I'd hardly call it utopian."
If we get in an situation where "nobody goes without", what exactly would the "immense social consequences" be? How would society stagnate? Aren't all of our efforts geared towards meeting our wants and needs? If they were met, how exactly would we be stagnated? Don't we go to work in order to eat? Or do you believe in work for work's sake? If our meals were taken care of, really, what is the point of working? We could just chat, take a stroll in the park, maybe watch a movie... I don't know, it sounds nice to me. Having our material needs taken care of sounds like something close to the definition of paradise. There would still be crime, old age and disease, but it seems like we would have a lot of time and energy freed up to deal with those problems if we didn't have to type away at the office for 8 hours a day.
I'm not trolling here; I'm genuinely interested in what you have to say. I don't believe that communism as a viable system of organization. But if we had easy and cheap replication, that might be an improvement in our lives on the scale of the industrial revolution. Before that, people worked 80 hours a week as farmers just getting food on the table. They died around age 30.
I don't underestimate man's ability to cheat and exploit one another. The industrial revolution gave us electricity and cars; it also gave us sweatshops and pollution. I think a technology such as this could easily go either way, all depending on how we choose to organize society.
I never claimed you can print everything. But theoretically, you can print in assembly certain things.
Obviously no system is immune from a flawed driver. Which is why you want good development and distribution systems to 1. prevent flawed drivers from being written and 2. prevent flawed drivers from being used.
Did the user install this driver? If so, then the blame lies with the manufacturer for distributing a bad driver. Did Vista install this bad driver? If so, then the fault lies with MS. MS knows that Vista is going to be installed on a broad array of hardware, so they have to be careful about what drivers they allow to be loaded. Why else would MS introduced signed drivers unless this was an issue?
Why couldn't you print them in assemblage?
I'm not saying this would be an easy process, but there's no reason a printer couldn't simply print a complex structure of various parts and materials, provided that the geometry allowed for it. It would be like 4-color printing, where the paper goes through several passes. That's not saying you can print anything, but you also can't assemble anything, either.
You're missing the point. This emerging technology is about 3D printers, not 3D scanners.
Can you imagine designing an engine block using a CAD program? It happens all the time in this day and age. You can design whatever you want, complex parts with internal structures, using a 3D modeling program. Now, take those digital blueprints, and print it out on a 3D printer. Voila! There is no need to involve a scanner at all.
I humbly disagree.
I predict that, instead of scanning and printing, people will just design 3D objects in a CAD-like application, and then print them in a 3D printer. As far as copying existing items, human intelligence will do the difficult parts of 'scanning' and re-creating the design of, say, a Ferarri, as a 3D model.
I don't know, NextEngine's scan of Han looks like he didn't make it out of the carbonite in one piece. This scanning technology could use a little work.