Before even debating which agency should be involved, why is the "Goddard Institute for Space Studies" a climate research facility? With a name like that, shouldn't it be studying, well, space?
It's "space studies" because the studies are done (in many cases) from space.
We don't study "space" at NASA - we study stars, planets, galaxies, the universe as a whole, the Sun, and, yes, the Earth - all from space.
That's why the Hubble Space Telescope is a "space" telescope. Not because it looks at "space" but because the telescope itself is in space.
Aside from the whole organic-3D-printing-of-entire-humans angle, this isn't a new idea. Arthur C. Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth features an extraterrestrial colony of humans descended from machine-grown progenitors.
There's also Greg Egan's fascinating short story Glory. A tiny anti-matter powered package traveling at near light speed is sent to an exo-planetary system. That's used as a seed to generate humans + technology using data sent electromagnetically. http://outofthiseos.typepad.co... (And it's in the 25th Year's Best Science Fiction)
Remember when the existence of black holes was still hotly debated, back in the '70's? Observations on an very small object with a mass of more than 1.4 solar masses (the theoretical upper limit for neutron stars) resulted in a general acceptance that it was a black hole,
1.4 Msun is the maximum mass of a white dwarf not a neutron star. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... It's therefore basically the _minimum_ mass of a neutron star.
To show that something is a black hole you have to show that it's more than the theoretical maximum mass of a neutron star which is higher. That's not very well determined but is something like 3 Msun. http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/d...
I am not sure if accumulating $1M over a lifetime counts as "rich". I started working 35 years ago. I immediately started regularly and automatically putting a little from each paycheck into my IRA, invested in an index fund. The monthly payroll contribution was less than my car payment. Yet, today my IRA has over $700K. Unless there is a market crash, it should be over $1M by the time I retire.
The usual estimate of how much you can withdraw from your savings per year without having too much chance of drawing down your capital is 4%. So, $1M gives you an annual income of $40,000, not exactly a high salary, even adding in ~$30k in social security income won't make you especially well off.
You want right and wrong? Talk to a priest/rabbi/pastachef. The law, and the courts, are all about rules, and the interpretation of them, and they should be. Otherwise, we'd be making decisions like "yeah, he was illegally wiretapped, but he was a bad man, so we're going to convict him anyway."
The US justice system is unique in the world in completely throwing out a case if there is a procedural error: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07... While I'm sure many will defend the way things are done in the US, it seems that this is something that at least merits some discussion of the pluses and minuses of each way of doing things.
The other fire involved tripping over a 50 pound metal spike at 70mph, causing it to upend violently and drive itself through the underside of the car with the force of a cannon.
This one's easy to spin: "Tesla hits piece of metal on the road, catches fire." Problem was it hit a piece of metal on the road while going incredibly fast--[...]
I don't believe 70 mph really counts as "incredibly fast". If you're driving at 70 mph on may roads around here (Washington DC area), you'll be passed by many other vehicles.
A Bachelors of Arts in anything scientific generally implies that you're not going to get enough exposure to anything you'll actually be doing,...
Or else that you went to Oxford University (for example) which doesn't award a Bachelor of Science degree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... (And Oxford still managed to produce 5 physics and 11 chemistry Nobel prize winners.)
As somebody who became single in his mid-50s I strongly second the recommendation for meetup groups. They aren't exclusively for single people, but singles are very "over-represented". Obviously you want to choose the groups with a large number of people of your favorite gender group. For me (looking for a woman) the hiking and the arts related groups were good. Even if you don't find dates, you'll likely have a good time and meet new friends. Meetup groups give you a low-stress way (because they're not primarily dating in general) to interact with many people face-to-face.
Also, in response to a different comment. I think that lots of women in their 50s are actually rather computer literate. (At least the educated women around the major city I live close to.)
(My personal experience is that I met someone via a meetup group, but I wasn't ready for something as serious as she was looking for at that time. Shortly after that I met someone on OKC and we're still together 2 years later.)
2000 genes were used in this study. What percentage of the human genome is this?
"A 2012 analysis of the human genome based on in vitro gene expression in multiple cell lines identified 20,687 protein-coding genes." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome
The demand for a malaria vaccine in rich countries is pretty low.
Except at very least the rich countries would want to have their military personnel vaccinated, which would be a fair number of people. e.g. over 2 million active and reserve in the US alone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces
My attempts at googling the answer to this have not been successful, so I ask here... (crazy, I know). Anyway, if there was a ~100% effective vaccine taken by almost everyone, would that eradicate malaria itself, or could the malaria parasite continue to exist? i.e. are humans a vital part of the life cycle of the malaria-causing parasites?
Has it? As a percentage of households, yes. However, you need to account for population growth over the same time period. If you do you'll see the number (not percentage) of households with firearms has stayed fairly steady over the decades.
Without taking a position on the issue of guns vs. crime itself, comparing rates is exactly what should be done statistically. i.e. the "rate" (fraction) of gun ownership (number of guns per household) should be compared with the crime rate (e.g. murders per 10,000 people per year.)
However, it may be debatable whether the appropriate number for guns is guns/household or percentage of people who own guns. (The mean and median number of people per household is probably changing.)
While the z0mg!panic! was stupid, there is an issue here. Meltwater ponds reflect less sunlight than bare ice, so warm the ice underneath much quicker (until it cracks and the pond drains out.) [...]
Refereed article on this can be found here:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1963.html The surface albedo of the Arctic sea-ice zone is a crucial component in the energy budget of the Arctic region1, 2. The treatment of sea-ice albedo has been identified as an important source of variability in the future sea-ice mass loss forecasts in coupled climate models3. There is a clear need to establish data sets of Arctic sea-ice albedo to study the changes based on observational data and to aid future modelling efforts. Here we present an analysis of observed changes in the mean albedo of the Arctic sea-ice zone using a data set consisting of 28 years of homogenized satellite data4. Along with the albedo reduction resulting from the well-known loss of late-summer sea-ice cover5, 6, we show that the mean albedo of the remaining Arctic sea-ice zone is decreasing. The change per decade in the mean August sea-ice zone albedo is 0.029±0.011. All albedo trends, except for the sea-ice zone in May, are significant with a 99% confidence interval. Variations in mean sea-ice albedo can be explained using sea-ice concentration, surface air temperature and elapsed time from onset of melt as drivers.
It's easy to get these guys, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, mixed up with with these guys, The American Association for the Advancement of Science. They're not the same. The latter are the ones that publish Science, the prestigious scientific journal. The former, I'm not sure who those guys are.
Aren't they the people who award the Oscars or something...?
Except that the US population is not spread out evenly over the entire country. Instead there are very high concentrations of people (of course!) in urban area. However, even the densely populated areas such as, Los Angeles, mid-Atlantic Washington/Baltimore/Philadelphia/New York/Boston have connection speeds that are mediocre by international standards. It's really a red herring to talk about the national population density as we're not really worried about connection speeds in, for example, rural Iowa.
An Israeli style system will NEVER be implemented in the US because it runs totally contrary to the politically-correct postmodernist identity politics narrative that drives our current political monologue (no, not dialogue).
Except that the "TSA Pre" system is approaching this in some ways. People who have been pre-screened and/or selected by other criteria (e.g. extremely frequent fliers) have a somewhat reduced (and currently much faster) security screening procedure. It's not exactly the same, but it does have some commonality.
I agree that we in the US have long ago since stopped being the land of the free,.
Just wondering when the US was supposed to be the "land of the free"? Even after the era of forcefully removing the previous population from their land coming to an end, and slavery ending, there has still been apartheid (including anti-miscegenation laws) and anti-communist drives until rather recently. Despite the multitude of current problems, it may well be that the US is the most free it has ever been.
My girlfriend has Sprint which enabled these alerts previously. Several months ago we were woken at 5am by a loud alert at about 5am. This was an Amber alert. While it's a great shame, we certainly didn't want to woken for this, and there was nothing we could do. Although the alert can be turned off, the default was for it to be on, which I believe is not the proper way this should have been enabled.
So you're really telling me that we've put up a sometimes ridiciolously strict security system that you simply can skip (at least in parts) by SIGNING UP TO A WEBSITE??
Global entry membership requires background check and brief interview. (And membership fee.) However, TSA Pre is also accessible to e.g. very frequent fliers. It appears to follow the rationale advocated by some people around here that it's the person who should be considered by security, not the items that they are carrying.
With "TSA-Pre" (which you can get e.g. by signing up for global entry) you can avoid many of these inconveniences. e.g. you can keep shoes on, keep computer inside bag, keep liquids in bag. Global entry has other major advantages for international travelers (avoid immigration lines). http://www.globalentry.gov/
Slashdot Mirror
Before even debating which agency should be involved, why is the "Goddard Institute for Space Studies" a climate research facility? With a name like that, shouldn't it be studying, well, space?
It's "space studies" because the studies are done (in many cases) from space.
We don't study "space" at NASA - we study stars, planets, galaxies, the universe as a whole, the Sun, and, yes, the Earth - all from space.
That's why the Hubble Space Telescope is a "space" telescope. Not because it looks at "space" but because the telescope itself is in space.
Aside from the whole organic-3D-printing-of-entire-humans angle, this isn't a new idea. Arthur C. Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth features an extraterrestrial colony of humans descended from machine-grown progenitors.
There's also Greg Egan's fascinating short story Glory.
A tiny anti-matter powered package traveling at near light speed is sent to an exo-planetary system.
That's used as a seed to generate humans + technology using data sent electromagnetically.
http://outofthiseos.typepad.co...
(And it's in the 25th Year's Best Science Fiction)
Remember when the existence of black holes was still hotly debated, back in the '70's? Observations on an very small object with a mass of more than 1.4 solar masses (the theoretical upper limit for neutron stars) resulted in a general acceptance that it was a black hole,
1.4 Msun is the maximum mass of a white dwarf not a neutron star.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
It's therefore basically the _minimum_ mass of a neutron star.
To show that something is a black hole you have to show that it's more than
the theoretical maximum mass of a neutron star which is higher. That's not very well determined but is something like 3 Msun.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/d...
I am not sure if accumulating $1M over a lifetime counts as "rich". I started working 35 years ago. I immediately started regularly and automatically putting a little from each paycheck into my IRA, invested in an index fund. The monthly payroll contribution was less than my car payment. Yet, today my IRA has over $700K. Unless there is a market crash, it should be over $1M by the time I retire.
The usual estimate of how much you can withdraw from your savings per year without having too much chance
of drawing down your capital is 4%.
So, $1M gives you an annual income of $40,000, not exactly a high salary, even adding in ~$30k in social
security income won't make you especially well off.
You want right and wrong? Talk to a priest/rabbi/pastachef. The law, and the courts, are all about rules, and the interpretation of them, and they should be. Otherwise, we'd be making decisions like "yeah, he was illegally wiretapped, but he was a bad man, so we're going to convict him anyway."
The US justice system is unique in the world in completely throwing out a case if there is a procedural error:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07...
While I'm sure many will defend the way things are done in the US, it seems that this is something
that at least merits some discussion of the pluses and minuses of each way of doing things.
The other fire involved tripping over a 50 pound metal spike at 70mph, causing it to upend violently and drive itself through the underside of the car with the force of a cannon.
This one's easy to spin: "Tesla hits piece of metal on the road, catches fire." Problem was it hit a piece of metal on the road while going incredibly fast--[...]
I don't believe 70 mph really counts as "incredibly fast".
If you're driving at 70 mph on may roads around here (Washington DC area), you'll be passed by many other vehicles.
A Bachelors of Arts in anything scientific generally implies that you're not going to get enough exposure to anything you'll actually be doing,...
Or else that you went to Oxford University (for example) which doesn't award a Bachelor of Science degree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
(And Oxford still managed to produce 5 physics and 11 chemistry Nobel prize winners.)
I think that;s probably more of a national conspiracy (in the US) than a global conspiracy...
Who thinks that "Jade Rabbit" sounds like it should be the name of a sex toy?
As somebody who became single in his mid-50s I strongly second the recommendation for meetup groups.
They aren't exclusively for single people, but singles are very "over-represented".
Obviously you want to choose the groups with a large number of people of your favorite gender group.
For me (looking for a woman) the hiking and the arts related groups were good.
Even if you don't find dates, you'll likely have a good time and meet new friends.
Meetup groups give you a low-stress way (because they're not primarily dating in general) to interact with many people
face-to-face.
Also, in response to a different comment. I think that lots of women in their 50s are actually rather
computer literate. (At least the educated women around the major city I live close to.)
(My personal experience is that I met someone via a meetup group, but I wasn't ready for something
as serious as she was looking for at that time. Shortly after that I met someone on OKC and we're still
together 2 years later.)
2000 genes were used in this study. What percentage of the human genome is this?
"A 2012 analysis of the human genome based on in vitro gene expression in multiple cell lines identified 20,687 protein-coding genes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome
The demand for a malaria vaccine in rich countries is pretty low.
Except at very least the rich countries would want to have their military personnel vaccinated, which would be
a fair number of people.
e.g. over 2 million active and reserve in the US alone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces
My attempts at googling the answer to this have not been successful, so I ask here... (crazy, I know).
Anyway, if there was a ~100% effective vaccine taken by almost everyone, would that eradicate malaria itself, or
could the malaria parasite continue to exist?
i.e. are humans a vital part of the life cycle of the malaria-causing parasites?
Thanks!
but so has gun ownership.
Has it? As a percentage of households, yes. However, you need to account for population growth over the same time period. If you do you'll see the number (not percentage) of households with firearms has stayed fairly steady over the decades.
Without taking a position on the issue of guns vs. crime itself, comparing rates is exactly what should be done statistically.
i.e. the "rate" (fraction) of gun ownership (number of guns per household) should be compared with the crime rate (e.g. murders per 10,000 people per year.)
However, it may be debatable whether the appropriate number for guns is guns/household or percentage of people who own guns.
(The mean and median number of people per household is probably changing.)
While the z0mg!panic! was stupid, there is an issue here. Meltwater ponds reflect less sunlight than bare ice, so warm the ice underneath much quicker (until it cracks and the pond drains out.) [...]
Refereed article on this can be found here:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1963.html
The surface albedo of the Arctic sea-ice zone is a crucial component in the energy budget of the Arctic region1, 2. The treatment of sea-ice albedo has been identified as an important source of variability in the future sea-ice mass loss forecasts in coupled climate models3. There is a clear need to establish data sets of Arctic sea-ice albedo to study the changes based on observational data and to aid future modelling efforts. Here we present an analysis of observed changes in the mean albedo of the Arctic sea-ice zone using a data set consisting of 28 years of homogenized satellite data4. Along with the albedo reduction resulting from the well-known loss of late-summer sea-ice cover5, 6, we show that the mean albedo of the remaining Arctic sea-ice zone is decreasing. The change per decade in the mean August sea-ice zone albedo is 0.029±0.011. All albedo trends, except for the sea-ice zone in May, are significant with a 99% confidence interval. Variations in mean sea-ice albedo can be explained using sea-ice concentration, surface air temperature and elapsed time from onset of melt as drivers.
The US Constitution only protects US citizens.
In general, the US constitution protects all people within the US, not just citizens. Although there are some differences.
Detailed academic discussion here:
http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=facpub
It's easy to get these guys, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, mixed up with with these guys, The American Association for the Advancement of Science. They're not the same. The latter are the ones that publish Science, the prestigious scientific journal. The former, I'm not sure who those guys are.
Aren't they the people who award the Oscars or something...?
I wonder how many of them have embellished their accomplishments, too? Seems pretty common in academia these days.
Citation needed...
Except that the US population is not spread out evenly over the entire country. Instead there are very high concentrations of people (of course!) in urban area. However, even the densely populated areas such as, Los Angeles, mid-Atlantic Washington/Baltimore/Philadelphia/New York/Boston have connection speeds that are mediocre by international standards. It's really a red herring to talk about the national population density as we're not really worried about connection speeds in, for example, rural Iowa.
An Israeli style system will NEVER be implemented in the US because it runs totally contrary to the politically-correct postmodernist identity politics narrative that drives our current political monologue (no, not dialogue).
Except that the "TSA Pre" system is approaching this in some ways. People who have been pre-screened and/or selected by other criteria (e.g. extremely
frequent fliers) have a somewhat reduced (and currently much faster) security screening procedure.
It's not exactly the same, but it does have some commonality.
I agree that we in the US have long ago since stopped being the land of the free,.
Just wondering when the US was supposed to be the "land of the free"?
Even after the era of forcefully removing the previous population from their land coming to an end, and slavery ending, there has still been apartheid
(including anti-miscegenation laws) and anti-communist drives until rather recently.
Despite the multitude of current problems, it may well be that the US is the most free it has ever been.
The "nothing we could do" refers to our inability to help the unfortunate child the amber alert went out for.
My girlfriend has Sprint which enabled these alerts previously.
Several months ago we were woken at 5am by a loud alert
at about 5am.
This was an Amber alert. While it's a great shame, we certainly didn't want to woken for this,
and there was nothing we could do.
Although the alert can be turned off, the default was for it to be on, which I believe is not the proper way this
should have been enabled.
So you're really telling me that we've put up a sometimes ridiciolously strict security system that you simply can skip (at least in parts) by SIGNING UP TO A WEBSITE??
Global entry membership requires background check and brief interview. (And membership fee.)
However, TSA Pre is also accessible to e.g. very frequent fliers.
It appears to follow the rationale advocated by some people around here that it's the person who should be considered by security, not the
items that they are carrying.
With "TSA-Pre" (which you can get e.g. by signing up for global entry) you can avoid many of
these inconveniences. e.g. you can keep shoes on, keep computer inside bag, keep liquids in bag.
Global entry has other major advantages for international travelers (avoid immigration lines).
http://www.globalentry.gov/