>Anyone want to develop a sulpher-based life-form? One of my profs (a bio-resource engineer) was studying sulphur-munching bacteria. I don't recall exactly what form of sulphur it ate (or produced) though. She was studying it for wastewater treatment for stuff like mines, so I don't know how applicable it is to gaseous SO2...
If I remember right, most sulfur-eating "bacteria" use hydrogen sulfide as an energy source. (They're delightfully weird critters in any case--more on that below.) Most of the sources of HS2 where sulfur-eating "bacteria" live are underwater "hot vents"--basically small underwater thermal springs and volcanoes--so MAYBE it could be applicable if you put them into smokestacks.;)
Yes, there is a reason I use quotes around "bacteria". Most of the sulfur-eaters aren't true bacteria, but in an entirely different domain of life altogether (aka superkingdom) called Archaea, which actually has more in common with eukaryotes (like us and most stuff with mitochondria) than "true" bacteria. (As a neat aside--it's also thought that at least one branch of Archaea might well have become mitochondria.:)
Most of the Archaea live in what we'd term extreme environments. Many of the environments are thought to be similar to those of Earth when she was younger, and one big source of Archaea are in ecosystems around "hot vents" which--oddly--are also some of the only ecosystems on the planet which are not dependent on the sun in one form or another. Studies of these ecosystems (which also include big animals, like tubeworms and blind-crabs) have actually given scientists some ideas on how extraterrestrial life might survive (especially on places like the moon Europa--it's thought Europa has water under ice, and it's entirely possible that if the core of Europa is hot enough you might have hot-vents and maybe life)...especially since those animals live in areas that have been traditionally thought of as "dead zones" because surely NOTHING terrestrial could live there:)
As a marketing guy it is my JOB to dictate technology. You seem to have a 'developers outlook', fair enough, but trust me we in marketing know what sells and that's the bottom line. (I'm sorry if this conflicts with your left-wing views) My corporation believes that Linux has the potential to become the next "Pokemon". However we have a real serious problem marketing it to the most lucrative segment of the marketplace, namely the upscale domestic consumer.
O_o
Erm...who in the name of Ithaqua let Stef out of User Friendly and onto Slashdot?:)
*makes mental note--remind Iliad that some parts of reality should not be bent without serious thought:) Or tell Miranda to watch the swing with the Louisville Slugger, because she has apparently knocked Stef clean out of the Ufie Universe:)*
Because with a serious handgun like a.454 magnum or such, you do go hunting. Bear (for the rill brave and/or stupid), deer, etc. Relatively large game.
I've seen two people on this thread mention hunting deer with handguns...I'd be really interested in knowing exactly in which states this is legal. (Believe it or not, folks, hunting laws vary--often considerably--from state to state. For example, bear hunting is illegal in Kentucky (because the fact that bears are in Kentucky wasn't even officially recognised by the Department of Fish and Wildlife until a bear made a visit to a rest area on I-75, and they are still considered a threatened species here) whilst Tennessee has a bear season.)
At least in Kentucky, hunting deer with handguns is actually illegal (the only weapons one IS permitted to use are long-rifles (such as 30.06, etc.), muskets (during "black powder" season--yes, we actually have a musket-loader season:), shotguns using solid slug (yes, irony of ironies, buckshot is actually illegal to use in hunting bucks in Kentucky:), longbows, and crossbows). If the DF&W catch you hunting deer with a.44 Magnum, it's safe to assume that you will be paying a large fine at least and will probably be shitlisted from getting a hunting license or deer tags in Kentucky ever again.
Conversely, for small game (basically, everything smaller than deer besides birds--rabbits and squirrels for the most part, but raccoons and possums too) it is actually illegal to use anything BESIDES a small-caliber long rifle (like a.22 rifle), shotputs, musket-loaders (DF&W really promotes primitive weapons here:), blowguns (I think), falconry and...handguns. Yes, if you're hunting bunnies or squirrels, you almost HAVE to do it with a handgun in Kentucky to keep it legal!:)
Tennessee, which is really the only other state with which I'm familiar with their hunting laws, has very similar laws to Kentucky (except there, you can also use semiautomatic weapons like the legal versions of AK-47s for large game--no, I swear I am not making this up) and there is a bear season (which is probably why AK-47s are legal for hunting there;).
Oh, and in case anyone is curious--if memory serves, the only things legal for hunting fowl (like ducks and doves) are crossbows, falcons, and shotguns containing steel shot (this is just about the only use in Kentucky for buckshot)...not sure on Tennessee's laws re duck hunting. Also, shooting fish is now illegal:) and bullfrogs and snapping turtles may either be shot or fished (depends on whether you've a hunting or fishing license).:)
Caveat--my main interest in this is with friends who do hunt. Therefore I keep up with the laws and all that.;) Suffice it to say that I've had wild game before and like it (through squirrel chili truly sucks because squirrel is entirely TOO fatty and gamey...:P) This is not necessarily to condone hunting, though--seriously, please don't unless you're going to use as much of the animal as you can; it's doing right both by the animal and by others who DO hunt (a sizable portion of Kentucky's population still hunts for food, for example). If you must trophy-hunt deer or turkey, get in contact with hunting groups that donate game-meat to the hungry so that the meat won't go to waste (you'd be doing good by the deer or turkey, and also by people who really DO need the meat).
I believe there is a certain security issue with this. I remember in days of old, certain stores acted as a local post office, but robbing such a place could also be considered a federal offence. I am under the impression that post offices today are isolated, partially to prevent it from being a direct target of crime( as would be the case in a grocery store ). I'm sure it's possible to reside in a mall, but I get the feeling that there's a good reason to not.
Kentucky must be simultaneously advanced AND in the past, then.:)
Where I live in Louisville, they actually DO have a post office in a strip mall; I've seen other post offices in strip malls around here, too, though not quite the size of a grocery store around here.
Conversely, until around six months ago there was a grocery store where I used to live in Louisville (specifically Melton's, which was a meat-market/grocery chain which is now sadly defunct except for one store) that had a post office inside (no PO boxes, but they did sell stamps and one could get registered mail services, etc. through them--it was considered a branch office of the main branch office in Okolona). Also, I've seen post offices in "hypermart" type stores, such as Meijer's and Wal-Mart Supercenters, both here in Louisville and (at least for Wal-Mart Supercenters) in Sevierville, TN.
As for why they typically don't go to strip malls--I would guesstimate one reason is (due to parking needs for USPS vehicles, sorting, etc.) because it is actually cheaper in some areas to buy a piece of land and build a building than to attempt to get frontage space in a strip-mall. (Most of the strip-mall post offices I've seen are either where the post office was one of the first tenants, or where a strip-mall is so impoverished that about the only places that WILL rent it out are ethnic food supermarkets, bingo halls, Big Lots (odd-lots "salvage" store), smaller salvage stores, and the USPS.) This is especially true in areas where there are a lot of stores and limited space--most companies will hire out to an established company that is working for profit rather than to the USPS.:P
As a minor aside--I can't speak for other areas of the US, but among three of the major shopping areas in Louisville (along Hurstbourne Lane, along Outer Loop by the Jefferson Mall, and along Shelbyville (?) Road by two large malls, Mall St. Matthews and Oxmoor) there are literally SO many shopping centers along the sides of the roads that in truth the roads can be considered extended strip-malls. In all three of these areas it's literally gotten so bad that movement in traffic is next to impossible starting around a month before Christmas...it is just a bit surreal to see nothing but strip-malls and "real" malls for over a mile or two in most of these areas (and n the case of Hurstbourne, a good five miles--and Hurstbourne Lane is widely regarded as having the worst rush-hour traffic in Louisville, hands down (even though it's a four-lane highway...so many strip malls have built around it that it is impossible to expand the road any further:P).
How many public tv stations do you think will be able to afford to upgrade to digital, when all the big companies switch?
Perversely, a public TV affiliate is, so far, the ONLY station in the Louisville area that even broadcasts in digital TV/HDTV (WKPC-15). As far as I know, it may well be the only TV station in all of Kentucky (excepting possibly TV stations in Cincinatti that reach Covington and the rest of Northern Kentucky, and which may have their broadcast towers in the Covington area) that is HDTV-capable right now. (WKPC is one of two public TV stations in Louisville--Kentucky Educational Television, or KET, has actually broadcast some of the HDTV programs that PBS has done on the digital-TV channel-15 allocation on WKPC, and is really the only group in the area that's even promoting digital TV. They also have a second KET affiliate, where there isn't near as much of a digital push.)
None of the other stations in the area are doing HDTV/DTV yet (I've not even heard of the big powerhouse stations announcing anything as far as DTV broadcast plans for the Super Bowl or the Sydney Olympics), largely for two reasons: 1) Louisville is not in the "top 50" markets and was expected to be one of the last cities to adopt DTV anyways (close to the grace period ending in 2006) and 2) none of the TV stations want to invest until they can get a reasonable guarantee that Insight Louisville will carry the channels (Louisville and Jefferson County have mandated cable monopolies signed with the original company [Storer Cable, which has been bought and sold many a time since including by TCI (die...please) and Intermedia], which run out respectively in 2002 and 2006; something like seventy percent or more of people in Louisville have cable TV, and Insight really doesn't want to even think of trying to put DTV channels on cable until the entire subscribership HAS to buy Insight Digital or do without cable:)...a lot of cable companies aren't wanting to carry DTV at all, because they say it'll use up too much bandwidth they could use to sell people ten different flavours of the Discovery Channel).
I actually worry less about public TV here losing out on digital than a lot of the smaller TV stations. (The Fox and UPN affiliates, which are owned by the same people, should be safe, as should the NBC and ABC affiliates (owned by WAVE and WHAS, the two biggest stations in Louisville). The former WB, now Pax, affiliate isn't likely to get HDTV unless the pastor of the fundy Bible-based cult that runs it can manage to steal even MORE money from the parishoners (they're having to move because they schemed for over ten years (including setting up front businesses to first build a shale-mine operation, then a mini-mall) to get a four-lane access road built through a residential suburb, proceeded in pissing off the entire neighbourhood in the process, and got told "no" for the final time when the Army Corps of Engineers ruled that the area is a wetlands and thus is federally protected...oh, did I mention that they also own a radio station, and happen to not only be probably the largest fundy Bible-based cult center in Kentucky but also practically RUN the Religious Reich and all its PACs?). I can't exactly say I will be weeping for them if they don't get enough loot^H^H^H^H tithes to get a DTV transmitter...the one true indie station in the area, which was set up by an African-American person as a "community" TV station (which also had to fight like hell to get then-TKR/TCI Cable to carry it within the "basic" cable so that people in the poorer areas of town who were cable subscribers could view the channel), I DO worry about whether they'll be able to afford it...it could be the one thing that drives them under, or they could survive it like they have with everything else.)
Why don't they study how to implement the use of the strange proberties of split electrons...or Tachyons (faster than light particles, theoretically). As proven by the space program and Arthur C. Clark, Light just isn't fast enough anymore.
Well, unless and until someone comes up with a Theory of Everything that both meshes up with quantum mechanics and Einstein, and also allows FTL travel...I think we might be stuck with c as the speed limit for the observable universe.:P
If memory serves, it HAS been proven that change in one "linked" particle can simultaneously cause change instantaneously in its "twinned" particle, but if memory serves the scientists who discovered this doubt very much it will ever be useful for communication. (For one, it probably won't work across lightyears, and for two, probably the most complex method of communication you could do with it would be Morse-code type on-off communication.)
As far as tachyons go...as someone noted, firstly, assuming they exist at all nobody has any earthly idea on how to create them. (This is, in part, because nobody really knows how to make matter with negative mass--which, at least according to our understanding right now, would require something with negative mass because once one hits c unless you're massless or have negative mass you have infinite mass--wanna birth a universe, anyone?;) Also, Einstein's formulae for the theory of relativity, at least for mass and time dilation, go REAL funky once the magic barrier of c is passed--I've played about with stuff over the value of c in the equasions for shits and giggles, and you get odd answers like, oh, imaginary time and imaginary mass...maybe you really DO end up spawning a baby universe:).
In fact, if memory serves tachyons (at least the predicted existence of them) are what ended up doing in one of the first superstring theories (which had a solution requiring the universe to hae 26 dimensions); most of the newer superstring theory flavours (including M-theory, which is sort of a "superset of sets of superstring solutions" and factors in an 11-dimensional universe of which there are six solution sets involving 10-dimensional solutions) do not predict tachyons (weird stuff like photinos and quarkinos (supersymmetric "twins" of quarks and photons, only the photinos are the "mass" particles and quarkinos carry force), sure--weird enough stuff is predicted that at least one fellow wrote a novel called "Moonseed" of which the major part of the plot line involves VERY funky subatomic particles predicted in some flavours of superstring theory--but no tachyons) and in fact the fact the 26-dimensional flavour of superstring theory required tachyons is considered to be a fatal flaw in the theory.
Now, if you can find a way to create negative mass, I think we can maybe lick that whole FTL-communication thing. Not to mention find a way to make stable wormholes, invent FTL travel, and find out whether black holes really DO become baby universes if they don't evaporate away due to Hawking radiation:) I'm more than certain you'd win a Nobel Prize at the least, not to mention give science-fiction writers wet dreams for the next millennium:) Till we do, or we find a better theory in which FTL travel works without breaking time or mass, we might be screwed though:P
Actually, you really don't need to give girls Barbie dolls or boys Lego blocks, they tend to have a maddeningly predictable preference.:-)
Well, if that's so, I must be some kinda freak then.:) Or a gay transsexual trapped in a woman's body but I just don't know it.;)
I never played with Barbies except to shave off all their hair and mark them up and attempt to surgically "alter" them...my parents ended up buying me Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars along with Tinkertoys and Lego sets, because I had (and still have) an irresistable urge to take things apart to see how the hell they're put together. "Traditional girl toys" like baby dolls and such bored the absolute HELL out of me--I had much more fun playing with little highway sets I made for my Hot Wheels cars, or playing with GI Joes or Transformers (back in the good old days before they bastardised them to hell and back)...or playing "war" with my neighbourhood friends (who were mostly boys)...or making my own toys out of pipe-cleaners and playing with them (mostly furries, at that...surprise, surprise). I honestly thought at first Lord Kano got his name from Kano in Mortal Kombat rather than the actual martial arts person.:) Most of my favourite Playstation games tend to be Namco fighters, and my husband refuses to play Soul Edge with me anymore because of one too many times when I had Sophitia repeatedly knee Mitsurugi AND his gonads to death:) (ok, so I LIKE Sophitia, damnit!) and came very close to doing the same thing with me and Lilith in Darkstalkers 3, or Sakura in ANY Capcom game in which she appears:) (ok, so I go for the Kawaii Factor:). I have to have my husband remind me that we are not buying a Dreamcast for the sole purpose of playing Soul Calibur and allowing Sophitia to repeatedly knee Rock to death. The three big hobbies I've had are electronics construction, radio, and computer stuffle (ranging from building my own boxen for fun, to proving that PPP CAN work on an old 8086 box, to messing about with fractals, to messing about with Linux, to messing about with computer graphics--and it was the combination of fractals fascinating the hell out of me and having crazy dreams of working for Industrial Light and Magic someday what got me into taking what is known now as Computer Engineering and Computer Science, despite the high school counselor trying to steer me into essentially taking crafts...). I also have an unhealthy interest in special effects, especially on miniaturisation and costuming (I'd love one day to learn how to make my own fursuits, and I read Fangoria as a teen both for stuff on horror flicks and on costuming technique). I think Warhammer 40K is the bee's knees (and have on occasion attempted to pester the hubby, who owns Chaos Gate, to get Rites of War so that certain of us who like Eldar [aka Elves...in...spaaaaace...] can get Equal Time:). I usually don't just play with soldiers, but with Eldar and Orks (!). In my house it's my hubby who's the good cook, and I'm the all-around fix-it bitch:). I spent an unhealthy amount of time as a kid reading "Home Mechanix", and spend an unhealthy amount of time now reading the Physician's Desk Reference for fun as well as watching "New Yankee Workshop" and wishing I had the space and money to afford a workshop like Norm.:) I still think it hilarious that every woman who has EVER been on "Hometime", including Joanne Liebler (the once and future fix-it-lady), has succeeded in making Dean look so incompetent that they have eventually been forced off the show and started their OWN shows.:) I always preferred sci-fi and fantasy, and Harlequin novels bore me to absolute tears. I don't even like to wear dresses all that much because they're too damned drafty.:)
Obviously, I skew the whole works all to hell and back.:) I'm also a woman and straight; last I checked, I didn't have an extra Y chromosome hiding around (then again, I also don't know my own blood type...yeah, real smart, I know). Given a choice between the Lego blocks and the Barbies, I'd take the Legos any day:)
So, am I really that much of a freak?;)
(BTW, I can't say that the Natalie Portman crap really offends me that much. Kinda wish they'd stop posting it in every single thread on Slashdot, and I wish they'd quit posting it in triplicate, but I can't say it offends my sensibilities as a woman. I just wish they'd vary it...like, oh, hell, I dunno, Zelgadis Greywards naked (those of us who watch Slayers already know he's petrified, so no worries on that)...and people think I'm odd because I like Zelgadis. *shrugs*)
I was JUST about to reply to the one person who posted "Show me a RL example of someone who bought CD's from MP3s"...specifically, around a month ago I bought "Nightfall in Middle Earth" after finding one of the two record stores in Louisville that had it at the time, and will be getting the rest of the catalogue as soon as I can get the money up to special-order the albums what haven't been re-released in the US on Century Media yet.
I had not heard of them before hitting mp3.com, and it was largely by MP3s found on the net (plus "Into The Storm" being played on the Attitude Network on WTFX 100.5--yes, at least for two hours on Saturdays starting at midnight, real metal is still played on the air, at least in Louisville-- webpage is at www.foxrocks.com, and they MAY have started streaming by now). MP3s, including a few on Napster, were what convinced me to scare up not only the particular album but the entire catalogue (unless it's bands I KNOW I like, and half the time even then, I don't like to buy CD's unless there are at least three or four songs I like on it).
For that matter, there's another band called Angra which I similarly discovered via MP3s on various sites, and I'm hunting down THEIR entire catalogue, too...
Further yet, it was by previewing mp3s of songs off the latest Dream Theater album that led me to buy it (I like Dream Theater, but I also wanted to make sure it was worth shelling out $15 US for;).
There are other bands, like Symphony X and Strativarius, that I've been considering buying albums from largely on the basis of MP3s of their music I've downloaded, often off progressive metal sites and often from official band sites. (Other than on the Attitude Network and occasionally on the Real Audio feed of KNAC, it's rather hard to "hear before you buy" with progressive metal [which happens to be one of my very favourite genres of music]. MP3s are, at least for me, a godsend.:)
Let's just say that, at least in my case, the existence of MP3 sites and utils like Napster have actually helped fill the coffers of Century Media, as well as the retirement funds of more than a few prog-metal artists.;)
As for non-prog-metal, I can list another album that I've bought because I heard the MP3s first--Metallica's "S&M" (heard one song, liked it, found the MP3s, liked it enough to buy it).
Also, like others, I've gotten a few rare MP3s that would be considered bootlegs even in the vinyl versions (one set being a rip of a rare Motley Crue bootleg [yeah, yeah, yeah, I KNOW people will be crying blasphemy because I DARED mention Motley Crue and Blind Guardian in the same Slashdot post. You may all perform impossible acts of self-fellation, because one of my other favourite genres is hair metal. So there. Nyeah.;P] from the Starwood show on New Year's Eve 1981--the show that led to the band actually being signed by a major label, and which includes a funny bit where Vince Neil totally fucks up "Shout At The Devil" as well as version 1.5 of "Looks That Kill" (yes, there's another version on the demos for "Shout At The Devil; if memory serves, it's been rereleased on the Motley Records rerelease CD's)...which I could probably not find outside of record-collector's conventions for less than $300 US.)
As an aside, I'm also more likely to buy from an artist if they put MP3s up--not just because I can preview, but because I think it's damned cool they're supporting the format (instead of something like Winblows Media or Real Blah-dio or SoDoMI). Personally, I'm hoping that when Lizzy Borden's new album comes out next month that the official website posts MP3s of it; if not, I hope someone else posts MP3s from it (so I can preview--odds are Lizzy and Metal Blade will get my money anyways, but I like to PREVIEW, damnit:).
Dear God, scientists have discovered chemical-sensitive/temperature sensitive induction of gene expression! Oh NO! For crying out loud, temperature/chemical induction of gene expression has only been going on for twenty years or so.
Actually, if you count the genetic engineering Mum Nature's been doing for the past four billion or so years, a lot longer than that.;)
Specifically, the "himalayan" or "pointed" genes that exist in most mammals (including, on rare occasion, humans) and most notably in Siamese cats are temperature-sensitive genes--specifically, there is a "bug" in the tyrosinase gene that only activates it at low temperatures. (Siamese kitties are born albino white at birth, and grow dark on the cooler parts of their body. If a cool pad is held against a Siamese kitten when they're starting to change colour (around four to six weeks of age), it can leave them with a dark spot where the cool pad was until their next good shed. Conversely, if the kitty is kept warm all the time, the kitty stays white.)
Yes, the gene exists in humans too; temperature-sensitive albinism is known (if memory serves, it's considered a variant of tyrosinase- negative albinism), and the humans tend to be red-headed or darker on their head, have dark hair on their lower arms and legs, and white or very light hair everywhere else (yes, almost exactly like a Siamese cat, because it's the exact same gene that causes "pointing" in Siamese cats).
I'm no geneticist, but I think this would definitely be instrumental in preventing genetic disorders. Seriously. If this 'switch' is patched onto genes of a fetus before development, it could switch off any known genetic errors resulting in birth defects, deformities, etc. This could make genetic disorders rare. (save those disorders caused by UNknown errors.)
I'd hope that they are careful about knowing which genes to turn off and on, then, as well as knowing which disorders this will work for and which it won't.;)
As a minor aside--for the vast majority of genetic diseases, this isn't going to do anything at all--the vast majority tend to be either "bugs" in creating proteins or other essential body factors that cause the rough equivalent of a kernel panic or BSoD, or "stuttering" in genes in which a gene is repeated far too many times (basically becoming stuck in the genetic programming equivalent of an infinite loop).
For example, albinism is caused ultimately either by a gene that contains errors that cause the creation of tyrosine to "kernel panic", or by a gene that has errors that cause a buggy version of tyrosinase (the protein that converts tyrosine to melanin) to be produced that doesn't work. (I think all the computer programmers in the audience can appreciate that not everything that will compile properly in GCC will actually execute. This is what roughly happens with "tyrosinase-positive" albinism--the code for tyrosinase "compiles" properly (unlike in tyrosinase-negative albinism, where the code gives a "stop" because of an error) but it doesn't RUN right.) Both Huntington's chorea and Duchenne's muscular dystrophy are caused by repeats in genes that amplify across generations and add many extra copies of the gene (sometimes many, many extra copies--people with early-onset Huntington's can have as many as 500,000 extra copies of the gene).
Where "on-off" gene therapy may be useful is in disorders involving both "regulator" oncogenes and in some disorders where it's thought environmental factors trigger Something Really Bad happening to a gene.
For example, the oncogene "P-53"--if it's turned off or one is unlucky enough to get two bad copies of it--vastly increases one's chances of getting cancer. Most spontaneous cancers (even in folks who don't have bad copies of P-53--those who do have bad copies tend to show up with cancers very early in life, particularly retinoblastoma) also have P-53--which is thought to regulate cell division--turned off. This could be VERY useful in cancer therapies as a very specific form of gene therapy targeted directly at something that is specifically wonky in cancer cells (and in fact, some therapies for breast cancer are specifically taking that tack) to convert them to semi-normal cells.
This could also be really good for people with genetic tendencies towards autoimmune diseases or genetic diseases involving overproduction of enzymes. For example, one could turn off whatever gene leads to autoimmune reactions in people who develop rheumatoid arthritis or insulin-dependent diabetes (both of which are autoimmune diseases thought to be triggered by viruses; there is now speculation that motor neuron disease ("Lou Gehrig's" or "Stephen Hawking's" disease, depending on your generation) is caused either directly by a virus or is an autoimmune reaction to a picornavirus (if memory serves)). Also, in those cases of type I diabetes ("middle-age onset type I diabetes") in which the islet cells tend to be literally worn out [many, if not most people, with this form of diabetes tend to go into hypoglycemia, then diabetes--often severe enough to require insulin] it'd be REALLY nice to switch off that gene calling for the initial overproduction of insulin...:)
Unfortunately, I don't think it'll do much for Tay-Sachs, or any of the bad mitochondrial genetic diseases, or Prader-Willi, or maple-syrup urine disease, or any of the other really bad genetic diseases (mostly because these are the result of "programming bugs" that cause "fatal compile errors", or that cause "fatal runtime errors" in the proteins they code for, or that cause "infinite loop errors" that repeat a gene too many times, or which contain too many copies of a "library" which conflict with existing copies [chromosomal disorders--it's the repeats what cause most of them to be so bad as to be incompatible with life, and most of them besides Down's syndrome and the sex chromosomal trisomies/tetrasomies to be really bad for a kid in terms of longterm survival--those that survive tend to be mentally retarded and have all manner of health problems; you could also probably lump in disorders known to be affected on whether you inherit two copies of a gene from mom or dad in this [Angelman's Syndrome and Prader-Willi are like this--in one, two copies of the gene come from mom, the other, two copies of the gene come from dad]])...it MIGHT help in the cases where way too much of a protein is coded for, though. Perhaps the ultimate solution is that God really needs a debugger;)
Like Cheetahs for example? A highly evolved species, so evolved in fact that they have one of the lowest known genetic variations. I think that you are assuming that evolution is synonymous with best, which in your mind is synonymous with varied and able to respond to a variety of situations.
Actually, the lack of genetic variability in cheetahs isn't so much because they're "perfectly designed" as because they are on the verge of extinction--populations of cheetahs have been reduced over the past few thousand years from millions in two species to a few thousand members who probably share something like fifty ancestors in common. (Cheetah populations, along with those of most other big cats, have crashed precipitously in the past 150-200 years or so.)
In fact, there is a fair amount of worry whether cheetahs DO have enough genetic variability to keep from going extinct. As noted, it's estimated that the ENTIRE cheetah population, worldwide, may well have less than fifty ancestors in common. (Fifty basal ancestors is considered the base minimum for a mammal species to perpetuate itself--basically, as long as you have that much genetic variability you have "hybrid vigour". This guarantees, roughly, that if something Really Bad happens to the species like a fatal disease epidemic or a bad summer drought, at least a few members will survive to live on and the entire species won't go extinct.) There is real concern that if some disease fatal to cheetahs were to become widespread that there is not enough genetic variability to save the species; for that matter, there is worry of an increased rate of birth defects in the cheetah population (you do get increased rates of both birth defects and genetic disorders when animals get too inbred--that's why there are laws against marrying first cousins in many states, and why areas with a large amount of inbreeding (like isolated Appalachian or island communities, or Ashkenazi Jews who were isolated in ghettos) tend to have rare genetic diseases that are not common in the general population).
If you want to see a really extreme idea of why not having enough genetic variability is a Bad Thing, look at Florida panthers (a subspecies of cougar that lives mostly in the Everglades). The total population has been reduced to around fifty or so individuals; many biologists do not think they have the genetic variability to survive as a subspecies any longer (especially since many of the panthers are also effected by "estrogen mimic" pesticides which have caused low sperm counts and feminisation in panthers). There is already evidence that inbreeding is affecting them negatively; many panthers are born with holes in their hearts and/or being born cryptorchid (one or no testicles descended), both of which are hereditary conditions in felids.
This is, incidentially, why extensive family trees are kept of animals being bred as part of the Species Survival Plan...they don't want them to get TOO inbred, and they want to maintain a good amount of genetic variability (especially for those animal species planned for reintroduction to the wild, like black-footed ferrets and California condors). This is also why typically if the number of animals in a species reaches less than 100 they tend to capture all the animals for breeding...
There IS one case where only around 150 individuals of a species survived and proceeded to repopulate the better part of a continent--that being American bison. (The herd had a great amount of genetic variability, which explains why bison aren't inbred to Hell and back like cheetahs or Florida panthers; the bison were INCREDIBLY lucky as a species to have the last herd have that much "hybrid vigour". The more religious of us might even say God/White Buffalo Calf Woman/Mom Nature/ must've been looking out for the bison;)
Keep this in mind: As an atheist, I wonder why you're bringing it up. What's your infliction that compells you to see ghosts that don't even exist?
In all probability, the person was trolling...I hope they were trolling, anyways (as I've not noticed too much "Christian-bashing"--constructive criticism of the more fundamentalist flavours, sure, but not outright BASHING).
Assuming they weren't trolling, though, there is something that a lot of you should realise about some of the more extreme fundy groups in the US. Specifically, a lot of them tend to use tactics with their flocks which are now recognised to be coercive. Some of them are even "Christianised" versions of the same coercive practices that Scientology uses.
One of the biggies in coercive fundy churches is a mix of a general "us versus them" theology with something called "deliverance ministry". The general gist is that they believe anyone who is not in their church or circle is by definition a literal Satanist (because they aren't a raving fundy--yes, this covers atheists, because they're "trying to deny God's dominion"), and (in the churches that practice deliverance ministry) persons trying to make you doubt in the church are literally posessed by demons, as well as "rebellious youth" (which could be as simple as a kid being gay or expressing doubts about fundamentalism) and others...and even one's own doubts about the church are the direct result of demons trying to posess or "oppress" one and such demons must be "exorcised" (this is VERY similar to the idea of "engrams" in Scientology; the "engrams" crap is regarded as possibly one of the most destructive coercive tactics in Scientology). Sometimes this even extends to the media--it is not uncommon to hear people who criticize the church to be described as "agents of Satan", and it's possible that the person who wrote that literally DOES see Katz as Satanic (a number of folks on Slashdot may think he Does Not Get It, and may think he needs to retire to the state mental home, but I don't think most of Slashdot literally sees Katz as an agent of Beelzebub Publishing Ltd.)...
In short, there is a fairly good chance that he may be in a very coercive "Bible-based cult", and literally has given up his mind to the church in a way. In a real sense he isn't totally under his own control, but could be said to be brainwashed...
A lot of info is at IFAS's Walk Away site, especially on groups that try to use the Bible to coerce their flocks...
(This is not to say that all Christians are coercive. A lot aren't. The more fundamentalist flavours do have a disturbing tendency as of late to resort to coercive tactics, but they don't represent all (or even most) Christians, just (unfortunately) the most vocal segment--as fundamentalists in all communities tend to do.:P)
(I also speak from a bit of experience, having been a walkaway for 14 years now from a "Bible-based" coercive group. In a way it lets me get more into his head, and I've known all too well what he's probably thinking; if anything, I feel pity for the poor guy. Somehow I think Yshua would be more accepting, and sometimes I fear that if he DID come back they'd just kill the poor fella all over again and 2000 years down the road we'd wear little electric chairs or M-16's on our necks.:P)
Several Porple wrote -- "The article left me with one question: First, could they network?" "supporters all over the US set up thousands of relay stations" "Wouldn't it be cool if people started using these bandwidths for small WANs using KISS or some other protocol? " Finally Anonymous Coward wrote -- "This has already been going on for many many years. Get your ham radio licence and get into packet radio." Ham Radio (Amateur Radio) has been going on for over 100 years! We have relay stations across the USA with (Gasp!) "repeater's", Digital Networks "Packet Relay", Satalite E-mail, AM/FM Voice and a slew of other toys. We erect huge antenna arrays allowing us to talk to the world, We bounce signals off the moon, and occasionally chat with the Shuttle Astonauts.
Yes, ham radio is very cool (and with the FCC restructuring, even easier to get into now)...
I think what they're driving at, though, with some of the convos is possibly multiple LPFM stations in a network (getting feed from one source and relaying it) or possibly multiple LPFM stations acting as translator stations (basically simulcasting another station at low power, because it can't be received well at that location).
WANs and such are POSSIBLY doable, but would be far better suited to packet radio or possibly SCA (Sub-Carrier Audio); digital paging services already exist on SCA, and packet radio already has Internet/packet gateways (no, I'm not joking). I'd be rather surprised if the FCC approved digital on LPFM, or SCA on LPFM at all...prolly, it'll be voice-only.
However, I do see translators/networks for voice communication as completely doable. In fact, a "pirate radio" network already exists (Zoom Black Magic, the only unlicensed network in America) so it's been proven it can work in theory. (I'd also think Zoom Black Magic would be in line with what a lot of folks on Slashdot would like to do with LPFM--specifically, "non-corporate" news, views and music. ZBM has also done a lot of work fighting censorship in general, which makes them Good Guys in my book)
Typically, it is not the radio station that is the problem. It is your junk receiver that you probably paid $1 for the local swap meet. I do recommend that you not "get on the air". It is technical idiots like yourself that are the cause of many more problems on the radio spectrum then the 50KW juggernuts.
Then, Xerxes dun said:
It's a Drake SW8. A little more than $1. I am an Extra class ham, and a former Special Forces Communications Sergeant.
Erm, Mr. Anonymous Coward, I fear Xerxes may have you just a bit trumped.
First off, Drake SW8s are NOT "$1 radios". They are widely regarded by most as one of the best damn communications receivers available outside the military market, period. They are also by NO means cheap--try starting price of around a thousand dollars or so new, around five hundred dollars and up used. (It would not be exaggeration to term the Drake SW8 the Ferrari of radios, both in terms of price AND performance. It is also one of the few radios I can truthfully say I'd give my eyeteeth for;)
Also, I'm assuming he's one of the "old Extras" (the FCC recently reclassified ham radio licenses to three classes, and some hams are being grandfathered as a result into higher classes). Extra Class ham radio requirements, at least the old ones, aren't to sneeze at: you have to take a test of radio knowledge and theory that is approximately equal to that required of FCC-licensed technicians for "big" radio stations (yes, you have to know a HELL of a lot of theory and operation knowledge:), plus [till April 1, anyways] one has to pass a Morse code test of reading CW (Morse) at 20 WPM (which also is nothing to sneeze at--I'm doing good to learn at Farnsworth 5/12 WPM (the letters sent at 12 WPM so you get the sounds, the WORDS sent at 5 WPM) which is the new standard which General class licenses will be tested at:).
Extra Class licensees are rarer nowadays in ham radio, precisely because the requirements ARE so tough. I dare say that if one passes an Extra class license one could build a radio, with little "overbleed", blindfolded.:)
Needless to say, I think he probably knows what he's talking about when he's talking of the FM station bleeding all over the place (Drake SW8s are known for selectivity, and one of the things you learn on the way to becoming an Extra Class licensee is what overmodulation and bleedover are and how to correct them).;)
As I recall, it depends on whether your station is commercial or non-commercial, and whether you are for-profit or non-profit. If you're for-profit, you have to pay ASCAP fees, but if you're non-profit, and commercial-free, you can blithely ignore them.:-)
Unfortunately, this may not be entirely true (depending on which licensing agency you're dealing with). ASCAP and BMI both have a reputation of major bastardy regarding "public performances", which HAS on occasion targeted non-profit groups.
Possibly the most infamous example of this is when ASCAP and BMI attempted to hit up the Girl Scouts of America for licensing fees--for every time ASCAP or BMI-published songs were sang around campfires (according to them, campfire singalongs constituted public performances). Eventually they backed off after a LOT of public criticism, but this proves they'll even go after nonprofits (the GSA is a non-profit organisation in most states).
what do you think would happen if they found out people were broadcasting "illegal" mp3's And what makes you think they'll be illegal? I can perfectly well rip my CDs and broadcast them (provided I get no commercial gain), cannot I?
Unfortunately, the record companies will still have you by the balls. Playing music (even MP3s) counts as a "public performance" of music, and generally when you do public performances of music you get to pay the nice happy protection^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H licensing fee to the two main music publishers, ASCAP and BMI.
Yes, even folks who operate jukeboxes in pizza places have to pay the licensing fees, and ASCAP and BMI are just as high on the bastardy scale as the RIAA is--they literally tried to sue the Girl Scouts for the Scouts singing campfire songs in Girl Scout books--which just happened to have the rights owned by ASCAP and BMI:P (If memory serves, they were also responsible for having a lyrics archive taken down.)
Radio stations and music-video outlets have to pay licensing fees to ASCAP and BMI, because they too get caught in the bind...so do many professional DJ's, who have to have the licenses from BMI and ASCAP.
If memory serves, they've even attempted to hit Shoutcast/Icecast/RealAudio streamers for licensing fees, too...sometimes on top of fees already paid (for example, radio stations which ALREADY have to pay the BMI/ASCAP tax which have been hit up AGAIN because they happen to do RealAudio streams).
About the only way you could get out of the licensing fees is to play artists which have NOT published via ASCAP or BMI--which is even harder than finding an artist who has not had to whore themselves to the RIAA cartel (ASCAP and BMI are the Big Two music publishers--literally almost anyone who publishes music through an agency goes through one of those two agencies eventually--the only ones who don't are EXTREMELY indy artists, garage bands, and the like--probably most of mp3.com's material, even, would be affected by this).
(Yes, I've investigated it, and was saddened to find out that info--I'd actually hoped to take advantage of the LPFM authorisation, till I found out how much licensing fees would be:P I still hope the local college station [right now broadcasting via common-carrier on AM on U of L's campus to avoid FCC regulation--the school will not fund them to become a broadcast station because they already pay for one of the three public radio outlets in Louisville] can make some use of it, though...)
Here in the Ohio valley, weather is unpredictable enough, but winter weather is especially bizarre. It would be nice if the local forcasters had higher quality data and had to rely on their "gut feeling" less. It really sucks to wake up to a 1/2 inch of sleet frozen to the road when the forecaster assured the city we would only see light flurries!
That's because Ohio Valley weather is more chaotic than chaos itself.:) We don't even need the damn butterfly--all we need is Tom Wills[*] to blow his nose, and within the span of a week we will get F6 tornados, blizzards that dump two feet of snow and six inches of ice, AND a flood to boot--and nobody will see it coming till it brews up on top of them.;)
Yes, I'm exaggerating. Not by much, though--to give an example of wonderful Ohio Valley winter weather--a few days before Christmas we get five inches of snow where maybe a "light dusting" was predicted. January 3rd, we get tornadoes because the weather is unusually springlike. Yesterday, snow was predicted but we got freezing rain and sleet instead. We are supposed to get freezing rain and snow tonight, but I will not be one bit surprised to wake up tomorrow to see a foot of snow on the ground and the city of Louisville entirely shut down because people do not know how to manage more than four inches of snow at a time.:)
As a minor aside--I remember reading that, largely because standard models cannot predict Ohio Valley winter weather worth a damn, the Louisville NWSFO is working on a new weather model specifically meant to predict Ohio Valley snowstorms...I wish them good luck, especially knowing our weird and wonderful weather (don't like it, wait fifteen minutes...it'll change...it might put the fear of God into you in the process, but it'll change, trust me:)
The article mentions a 14-day theoretical limit for forecasts. What drives this limit? I know that small-scale weather forcasting is way too complex, and they are talking about county-level forecasts.
Short Answer: because weather is chaotic.
Long Answer That Probably Tells You More Than You Wanted To Know:) :
Weather systems were, oddly enough, the first systems proven to have sensitive dependence on initial conditions (the defining characteristic of a nonlinear system). A person by the name of Lorenz discovered this in early attempts to model weather systems in the late 50's/early 60's, and more and more complicated weather simulation systems have proven it even more. (As a minor aside: Both the strange attractor associated with Lorenz's discovery and the effect of it in RL are known as the "Butterfly Effect"; the attractor looks much like a butterfly, and sensitive dependence on initial conditions may be summed up roughly as "A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil may cause enough perturbation in the atmosphere to cause a tornado in Texas a few days down the line". That's also why the one fella in this thread keeps mentioning butterflies, btw.:)
As it turns out, a large number of the variables in weather forecasting are nonlinear. Not only that, in many areas you have multiple weather influences that can brew up storms in a jiffy and make them dissipate almost as quickly (the Ohio Valley--which lies on an eastern extension of Tornado Alley--is infamous for this: cold air rushes towards us from Canada, warm air from the Gulf which is nice and moist, the jet stream frequently puts enough twist in the air, and we usually catch stuff from the "big" Tornado Alley out west...all this together means storms can brew up with amazing speed and fury out here ["popcorn" tornadic thunderstorms aren't unknown here--we had some pop up January 3-4th, which proceeded to spawn an F3 tornado which hoovered a fair portion of the city of Owensboro, and the 1995 tornado that hit the Mt. Washington area [south of Louisville] brewed up about that quick--not the tornado, the supercell that spawned it...); also, fun statistic: Kentucky is not in the top ten for tornados per state, but IS in the top ten for killer tornados per state and killer tornados per square mile--in other words, we don't get them as often as Oklahoma, but when we get them they tend to be F2-F3 and up)...to the point we joke that Ohio Valley weather is more chaotic than chaos itself:)
To be honest, I'd say fourteen days is DAMNED optimistic. I have never seen a forecast in my area that was more than three or four days old that was anything close to being accurate (of course, I live in the Ohio Valley, which has weather systems that make chaosologists cream, meterologists scream, and put the fear of God into storm chasers to the point they state they think the Ohio Valley is entirely too dangerous to chase tornados in:)...usually in Knoxville, TN I've found the forecasts more accurate because they don't have to deal with as much crap variable-wise). Even in relatively calm areas five or six days is REALLY stretching it...I honestly don't think meterology is going to be able to improve much on that. You might get more detail (a better idea of where snow will fall and maybe how much), but you aren't going to get any closer to longterm forecasts, and in the spring in the Ohio Valley you'll be lucky sometimes to get one or two days in during storm season. (Hell, I'll be impressed if they can actually determine accurate amounts of snowfall. I have NEVER, EVER in my 26 years seen an accurate snowfall amount forecast; hell, 50% of the time they can't even tell if it's going to be snow, freezing rain, or sleet...and this is with folks in the NWSFO who have been there longer than I've been alive, and with the most experienced TV meterologist having done weather here for some thirty years (to the point he helps out the NWSFO at times) and who also teaches the advanced meterology classes at U of L...and all of them completely and utterly unable to tell how much snow one will get. All of them missed the 1994 super-snowstorm (24 inches in one snowstorm in Louisville, which is a record--the city, for which four or five inches starts to be a "big snow", was literally paralysed for a month and the only way one could get anywhere was by 4WD...the city and county governments were literally commissioning folks with high-clearance 4WD vehicles to transport folks to the hospitals and suchlike)... like I said, I'll be IMPRESSED if they can get to the level of predicting how much snow will fall, much less long-term forecasting.:)
And as for experience with weather modeling...most of mine is in using them for my own attempts at forecasting (I'm just a wee bit of a weather nut, to the point I'm seriously considering taking Skywarn classes and maybe even meterology courses in future, though I'm NOT up to chasing tornados just yet:). If you've been in an area for some time you learn which models work best (there are actually several different models, such as the NGM, the AVN, the ETA, etc.) for the way the weather actually behaves in your area...the most important computer in any forecast is the big meaty two-pound one between yer ears:)
Re:To see what meteorologists really think...
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New Weather Computer
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Rlk dun said:
check out iwin.nws.noaa.gov. I use the text interface; look under State Data, and then under most of the states you'll find Forecast Discussion. Depending upon who's on duty and how interesting the weather is, you'll get anything from "Will continue current forecast" to a long discussion of factors influencing the weather and local effects. Walt Drag of the Boston (actually Taunton), MA office is legendary for his discussions, which recently have sometimes filled two full screens. He's clearly a big-time snow buff.
Another meterologist who consistently puts out educational (and damned funny!) forecast discussions is "I-Sixtyfive" down at the Birmingham, AL WFO. (His specialty is severe weather as well as taking a decided sense of humour--among other things, his forecast discussions have at times imitated hit parades, at one point actually spoofed Star Wars...it's obvious he has quite a bit of fun at his job:)
Seriously, though...reading forecast discussions is a good way to at least start to learn about meterology...you learn what forecast models are used, how they get the data, what makes a good or bad forecast, etc. (And just to note--a lot of forecasting ain't computer models so much as someone who's been in the area for years and knows how the weather patterns work. I've seen this many a time with the SDF (Louisville) NWSFO--Ohio Valley weather is living proof that weather is chaotic;) and many times what makes or breaks a forecast is being familiar with how weather tends to "behave" (or, rather, misbehave) in the area.)
What's a "trip to the woodshed"? I've never come across the phrase before (doesn't often happen that way round with we Britons, I must say).
Well...in America (at least in America of the past, and probably still today in rural parts of the West and Southeast US) corporal punishment, at least in the form of being spanked with a paddle, belt, or switch from a tree, was very common. If someone on the farm had been naughty enough to deserve such a spanking, they'd be taken out to the woodshed in back of the property, where it was generally understood they were going to get a "whuppin" and sitting down was going to be uncomfortable for some time.
Needless to say, most Americans don't have woodsheds anymore, but the term's stayed around in the American language to denote someone is about to be taken to get a clue-by-fouring (usually implying to the behind).
Considering that Toronto's basketball team's mascot is a T-Rex, this would make a great courtside attraction. Maybe add some animatronics and soundeffects. I can really imagine this thing leading the cheer of "weeee willll weeee willll rock you!".
Well...I was under the impression Toronto's mascot was a dromaeosaur rather than a tyrannosaur:) (If you notice, the mascot DOES have a sickle claw, and "'raptor" is a slang name for dromaeosaurs.)
Though getting a little tyrannosaur like, oh, Nanotyrannus (which just got proved to be a separate species, btw--more on this below) and somehow genetically engineering its skin to be purple would be probably more acceptable to the sponsors, since we now know dromaeosaurs have feathers.:)
Seriously, though, to get back onto the thread...oddly, the very fossils that proved that dromaeosaurs are feathered and Nanotyrannus isn't actually a baby tyrannosaur are examples of why it is probably a Bad Thing [if you happen to be a paleontologist] to see stuff like T. rex skeletons sold on Ebay. (Even more ironically, the fossil that proved Nanotyrannus wasn't a T. rex is in fact a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex found along with Nanotyrannus teeth, among other things...more info is here.) It's possible that if, say, the "kid rex" skeleton or the skeleton of Sinosauropteryx [the first feathered non-avian dinosaur skeleton] or Sinornithosaurus [the first feathered dromaeosaur find--terribly important] were sold to a collector-market and sold on Ebay instead of studied by paleontologists we wouldn't know of them (and the Chinese fossils DID almost suffer that fate--they were discovered by paleontologists when a Chinese peasant tried to sell them part of the fossils as curios!)...
I saw a TV program the other day where they showed a "pickled" Tasmanian tiger cub that was collected before they went extinct (unless, in fact, they're not!). I'm assuming there must be some pretty good DNA there... Not as impressive as cloning a Mammoth, perhaps, but they were pretty neat looking animals, and bringing *anything* back from the dead would be pretty amazing really!
Easier, for many reasons, too...first, Tasmanian tigers (or more properly, thylacines) only went extinct around the 30's (and possibly might not be extinct; there've been reports since the 60's or so of scattered sightings). Secondly, plenty of material where DNA can be gathered from exists (such as thylacine cubs preserved in alcohol, etc.). Thirdly, thylacines are marsupials--there is a limited time where they are in the placenta, and at an early fetal stage they move to the pouch. (This makes it far easier to raise marsupials from DNA, among other things--a foster womb for starters, but after that humans can provide a pouch and milk.)
Yes, there's a reason why I use the term thylacine, btw. "Tasmanian tigers" are no more related to tigers than Tasmanian devils are to wolverines or badgers (thylacines are basically "big predator" marsupials with the same ecological niche as a big cat or solitary canid; Tasmanian devils could well be argued to be "marsupial wolverines" and wombats as "marsupial groundhogs" as they are in roughly the same ecological niches). Less confusion that way.:)
The extinct animal closest to being brought back, btw, are quaggas (a subspecies of zebra that look rather like a cross between a large donkey and a zebra); this is being done largely by crossing together zebra cousins of the quagga that are very quagga-like. This is also, from what I've read, one of the possible tacks that may be taken to breed mammoths (artificially inseminating an Asian elephant with mammoth sperm, giving birth to mammoth-elephant babies, and breeding from there to get animals closer to mammoths). Just FWIW...
Might there be *any* dinosaur DNA that managed to stay intact over 65e6 years? Frozen in ice? Sealed in amber (well, at least a piece of dino flesh or egg)? The problem, unlike incubating the Wolly Mammoth clone inside an elephant, is that what similar lifeform is there to implant the cloned dino into?
Barring some miracle (finding some huge tick in amber that was drinking away on a tyrannosaur or deinonych), it's rather unlikely we'll ever find dinosaur DNA from fossils. (Pity too--then it could probably be proven for certain just how close Archaeopteryx and Deinonychus were, and more importantly, how closely related both are to modern birds.)
For starters, most of the fossils like the frozen mammoths and Neandertal skeletons from which DNA has been extracted are actually still bone--they've not been replaced by minerals yet, which isn't the case with dino bones or really ANY remains older than the Ice Age for that matter. (If memory serves, the Australopithecus remains are right at that line where stuff starts turning to rock...pity, because it'd be really nice to get some australopithecine DNA to see how chimplike it was [possibly even enough to prove humans are basically nekkid chimps with big heads who can't walk properly:)]...or to see just what it was genetically that made Australopithecus different enough from other apes to go on the evolutionary path it did)
About the only real chance to find dino DNA is in amber from ticks, and even then it is probably so degraded as to be useless...dinos in ice, one can forget, unless one is talking about very recent remains that we tend to call birds:)
And speaking of birds, dinosaurs, and the tricks to raise them...I'll touch on that below.;)
The oldest, most primitive, and least evolved lizards of any size that are still about are some crocodiles.
I have some nitpicks, but some can be excused as crappy American education;) Anyhoo...
Nitpick the First: Crocs aren't lizards. Crocodilians, along with thecodonts [the ancestral archosaurs, now extinct], pterosaurs, and dinosaurs [including birds--most paleontologist agree birds are a subclass of theropod dinosaurs--this is going to be important in a few, so remember that little fact] are in a class called Archosauria and in fact are only slightly more related to lizards than mammals and their ancestors, thecodonts, are. (The line that led to "mammal-like reptiles" and theraspids [including mammals] split from diapsids [the line that led separately to lizards and archosaurs] shortly after reptiles in general evolved from amphibians; turtles then probably split first, then lizards, and archosaurs went their merry way shortly after). This one, I'l lgive you, because (thanks to certain fundamentalist groups in the US who shan't be mentioned who tend to throw massive hissy fits whenever evolution is mentioned in the schools) this isn't typically taught outside of paleontology books.:)
Nitpick the Second: Crocs aren't primitive. Protocrocs split off from the main line of archosaur evolution close to the same time as dinosaurs and pterosaurs did, and crocodilians are amazingly adapted to being water predators. (Early crocs were far more gracile, stood more erect, and could even have had roughly the metabolism of monotreme mammals; yes, cold-bloodedness in crocs is thought now to be a secondary trait. The crocodilian cardiovascular system is now recognised as being possibly one of the most advanced, period; it allows crocs to go into suspended animation, among other things, and is again adapted to the crocodilian role as a water predator. These are pretty much the crocs that have survived; many early ones were ground-runners, and are now extinct.) I may give this to you if you don't have the Discovery Channel or somesuch; there was a very good show on crocs that explains just how completely they are adapted as water predators and how much they've changed from early crocs.
Nitpick the Third: Crocs aren't even the most closely related animals to dinosaurs, most likely. (Remember, crocs are very derived, among other things.) The closest group to many dinosaurs is Aves, that is, birds...in fact, feathered dinosaurs have been found, and most paleontologist agree that dinosaurs never went extinct completely at all but that a group of small, toothless theropods adapted for flight survived that we today call birds and that Aves should probably be sunk into either a group in the Dinosauria or even as a subgroup of theropods.
The fact that Dinosauria is a pretty big clade in and of itself (probably as big as mammals at its peak), and further considering that there were possibly groups that gave live birth (this has been theorised for the big sauropods) as well as laid eggs makes things just a bit difficult. The fact that--in essence--what happened to dinosaurs would be equivalent to all species of mammals other than insectivorous bats becoming extinct and evolving into a plethora of bat species over 65 million years also makes things difficult, if you don't want to raise theropods.
In a way, the fact that most dinos DID lay eggs makes things a bit easier; embryo transfer has been done with both bird eggs and crocodilian eggs, and people have successfully clutched croc-eggs (you don't so much need a mom as an incubator) and foster-mom birds have clutched and reared birds in past. Also (surprisingly) even with big Mesozoic dinos, eggs haven't been found that are larger than ostrich eggs (not even for big theropods--it's thought dinosaur babies grew VERY fast, like birds now).
Probably the easiest dinosaurs to raise (were we able to (miracle of miracles) find enough DNA to sequence and end up with something that wouldn't be some gelatinous lump with wings growing out of its deformed head) would be theropods. First off, a subgroup of theropods survives (birds); secondly, recent fossil evidence shows at least advanced Cretaceous-era theropods had hard-shelled eggs like birds and clutched eggs in similar fashion to large birds (an oviraptorid nest has been found with momma-oviraptor brooding her eggs); thirdly, (modern) theropods have been reared without any theropodian mom at all (condors have been reared with hand-puppets and incubated to hatch eggs; the main thing you have to watch for in birds and similar species is imprinting, where they think the first object they see is Mom, which is important if you want to eventually raise baby dinosaurs).
Knowing whether theropod eggs are closer to bird-eggs or croc-eggs is important--croc eggs have to be kept moist and CANNOT be turned, while most bird-eggs mostly have to be kept warm and MUST be turned every so often. It'd also be good to know the optimum temperature range, which would probably require guesswork; croc sexing is dependent on temperature, as is sexing in many kinds of birds including turkeys. (Yes, this is true even though birds have sex-determining chromosomes [which actually work exactly the reverse of ours--ZZ is male, ZW is female]. But then again, there are cases in humans of folks with one set of chromosomes saying they're male but their body developed entirely as female [and vice versa]...so it's not perfect.) A deep genetic search would also be good to make sure whether dinos DID have ZZ/ZW sex differentiation (we'd then know just when chromosomal sex determination evolved with archosaurs; we THINK it evolved sometime after the ancestor of marsupials and placental mammals evolved from monotremes with mammals/therapsids).
(As an aside--they don't even know if they can get enough mammoth DNA to clone. Mammoths are somewhat easy to clone, for extinct mammals anyways; mammoths only went completely extinct around 8000 or so years ago and Asian elephants are fairly closely related. Cloning, say, smilodonts if one found a frozen saber-toothed kitty would be considerably harder; smilodonts are fairly distantly related to all modern cats (they split off around the time cat evolution was good and started), and there's no real guarantee that, say, a lion or tiger could carry a smilodont cub to term. One'd have similar probs if musk oxen were to go extinct completely. Fortunately, with some exceptions, most of your major groups of Ice Age animals were closely related to animals which are still around which makes cloning MUCH easier.;) Cloning animals that don't require lengthy incubation periods in a uterus is MUCH easier by comparison, because one doesn't have to search so much for foster moms and can worry more about incubation and feeding.:)
It seems to me that epidemic disease has pretty much been a non-event in the western world, despite all of the supposedly drug-resistant microorganisims that modern health care has produced. If what you say is true, then why haven't we seen it yet? Or, why haven't we seen a "reverse plague" -- drug-resistant bacilli from the western world invading the third world countires, who have no modern meds, poor sanitation, malnutrition, etc?
Well...actually...we HAVE seen some epidemics of drug-resistant microorganisms both here and in the third world. Specifically, there have been many cases of strep resistant to several of the commonly used drugs to treat it, and there have been several cases in hospitals of strep and staph that are resistant to even the last-line (not in clinical trials) drug, vancomycin...there is a new drug that was recently approved specifically to deal with this, and the FDA now has antibiotics specifically on the "fast track" to deal with antibiotic resistance.
This isn't restricted to staph and strep, btw; multidrug-resistant TB is becoming a major problem in larger cities, with some TB strains literally resistant to every approved drug to treat TB; they've had to go to the idea of setting up "sanitarium wards" in hospitals and sending public health workers directly to homes to make sure people take their TB medicine (which often runs over a year in treatment). From what I have read, it is also a fairly major problem in Russia and the third world...to the point that multidrug-resistant TB, strep and staph are considered emerging infectious diseases.
The problem isn't restricted to antibiotics, btw; antiviral resistance has been documented (there are strains of HIV that are resistant to zidovudine [AZT] and cases of multidrug-resistant HIV have been found--this is why HIV patients are typically given a cocktail of upwards of three or four different antivirals, each with different mechanisms of action...there are also some cases of acyclovir-resistant herpes infections, which is why there are so many herpes drugs), as well as antifungal (strains of Candida (yeast infections) are known that are resistant to literally every drug short of amphotericin B and drugs still in experimental trials such as nikkomycin Z; amphotericin B is literally so toxic that one must typically be hospitalised for treatment, and until nikkomycin Z is approved it is possible that Candida strains may arise that are resistant to ALL known antifungals, azoles and amphotericin B alike), and especially antimalarial drugs (chloroquine resistance is common throughout Africa, Asia and South America, many of the malaria strains (including falciparum malaria, which is really the worst kind of malaria you can get) in Southeast Asia are resistant to mefloquine, most of these are becoming resistant or are already resistant to quinine, and some strains from Thailand and Vietnam are literally resistant to every antimalarial drug not in clinical trials for safety including doxycycline). (Multidrug-resistant malaria is an especially serious problem, as malaria is still one of the largest killers (around two million a year), there is no real vaccine for it, and pretty much the only way to keep from getting malaria other than killing every mosquito on the planet [good luck!] is to take antimalarial drugs...most of which are also used to treat malaria, alas:P).
As a minor aside...some epidemics that are indirectly antibiotic-related are the epidemics of food poisoning that regularly occur in the US now. What with the rise of antibiotics in feed, often as much to fatten animals up as to be able to crowd more animals into factory-farming arrangements (which are ripe for breeding disease; animals tend not to be quite so hygenic, especially livestock), both farms and meat processign plants have been increasingly lax in enforcing standards meant to keep food from being contaminated. (This is especially bad in chickens, who are often put in buildings five and six cages high and bred for the maximum number of chickens in a room; they are often altered (beaks blunted, large amounts of antibiotics fed both for increased weight gain and to keep the chickens from dying of infections from the obviously unhygenic conditions). I think we all know of the risks of salmonella as a result [one must be EXTREMELY careful to make sure the chicken is completely done, anything using raw eggs is a no-no, and many doctors recommend to folks with HIV not to eat eggs at all because of the risk of salmonella]. For that matter, same deal with ground beef and E. coli infections.)
Beef *does* kill. People that eat red meat often, usually are found to suffer bowel and colon cancer much more than vegetarians. And no, I'm not reading this from a Health Food Store catalog, every western doctor from GP's to hospital surgeons have also said this to me in reply to my 14 years being vegetarian.
From what I've read, most of the possible increased colon cancer risk isn't so much from the meat itself as from ways of preparation (specifically, grillng meat till it's charred and/or frying it can form nitrosamines, which are potent carcinogens). Most of the other risks of meat-eating come largely from human bungling (there is probably some risk of cancer from the hormones moos and other animals are pumped full of, there is the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection from people pumping animals fulla antibiotics to fatten them up [one of the side effects of some antibiotics happens to be animals put weight on faster] and if one lives in the EC there is the risk of new-variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease [which recently was proved to be caused by the same prion that causes mad cow disease] from eating beef because humans made the positively stupid decision to feed cows rendered sheep remains which just happened to have died from scrapie).
There are some cases where people live on a diet almost entirely consisting of meat and don't regularly die of cancer; the Inuit, for one, live almost entirely on meat but don't die of cancer (largely because a lot of their food is eaten raw or boiled) the way we do in the West.
As a minor aside--a lot of colon cancer in the US is actually due to genetic factors that increase the tendency. Most of the genetic errors that have been found in familial colon cancer have directly to do with cell repair farging up (one cancer syndrome points to the P53 oncogene, which when damaged increases the chances of cancer radically; there have been several others found).
Incidentially--I wouldn't count vegetarianism out entirely for risks of cancer, either. Japan and other Asian countries have a drastically higher rate of stomach cancer, which is thought to be possibly related to the fact they eat polished rice as a large part of their diet; it is also suspected by some doctors that the rise in rates of breast and prostate cancer in the US are related to herbicides used on the majority of plants (many of the herbicides used are "estrogen-mimics"; this has had especially bad effects in Florida, where the land is so polluted from agricultural runoff that feminised male alligators and Florida panthers have been found in the Everglades) and some also suspect herbicides to be responsible for the drop in sperm counts in most Western countries.
I will grant, though, that most vegetarians do tend to take care of themselves better than most other folks; probably responsible for your rapid healing. Then again, I consider that part of being smart about one's health anyways (myself, I have to be careful about checkups because of strong family histories of colon cancer and diabetes--so I don't overload on fatty stuff (which is where most nitrosamines are stored as well as cancer-causing pesticides that are still in the food chain), I try to go organic-beef when possible (so the cows aren't pumped full of chemicals--better for you AND the moo), and I eat stuff with antioxidants like broccoli (which can help out a fair amount with beating genetic problems with cell repair such as those that cause familial colon cancer).
Going to EITHER extreme (total carnivore or total herbivore) prolly isn't real healthy, though; humans are obligate omnivores (there are some vitamins we do require from animal foods, and vegans have to be VERY careful to balance B vitamins for example; we are also obligate fruit-eaters, since we can't synthesize vitamin C like other non-primate animals) and pretty much have been since the ancestors of all apes (including humans and our closest relatives chimps and bonobos) evolved from monkeys. (Chimps and bonobos both share around 98 percent of our DNA and are omnivorous; so was, likely, Australopithecus. Gorillas are really the only apes adapted for a largely herbivorous lifestyle and have a much larger gut than other apes to digest plant matter; maybe in a few million years if a society of humans walls off and goe entirely vegan we'll have gorilla-bellied Homo who can live entirely off plants.:)
Of all the mammals on Earth, we are the only ones that not only continue to drink milk after being weened of it at a young age, but we drink the milk of another species! A practice that also harms our own young when we force it onto them. We consider ourselves to be pretty smart. Our arrogance far out weighs our knowledge, showing just how unintelligent we can be.
Oddly, milk-drinking (and, more to the point, the ability to properly digest milk) is actually a wonderful example of evolution (since the thread is largely on concerns of rhinoviruses and picornaviruses (the targets of Pleconaril) becoming resistant to Pleconaril eventually)...
Most milk-drinking started among people who raised moos in Europe, parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia (specifically India). These populations generally have a high percentage of people who can digest lactose (milk-sugar) after infancy, because they've been drinking milk for so long as a population that there's been enough time and "mutation pressure" that there aren't a lot of lactose-intolerant folks left.
In cultures that generally have not raised moos for milk or have not raised moos at all (largely Native Americans, Australian Aboriginals, much of Asia, parts of Africa where they never raised moos for milk, and people who are descended from those groups) there is a much higher rate of lactose intolerance (enough that in the US, they actually sell lactose-free milk and lactase pills), and folks who don't have the ability to produce lactase after infancy tend to get all bloaty and farty and have diarrhea if they attempt to drink milk or eat non-fermented dairy products (cheese and yogurt are easier for them to eat). They never had the gene selected for, so it's not all that common. (For that matter, a lot of African-Americans and especially Native Americans also lack genes selecting for breakdown of ethyl alcohol and for rapid breakdown of sucrose--because until fairly recently those genes weren't selected for. So Native Americans have a much higher incidence of type II diabetes (sometimes shockingly so--something like ninety percent of the Pima people who are adults have type II diabetes) and problems in drinking alcohol.)
As a minor aside--most animals don't produce lactase after infancy, either. This includes--of all animals--cats, who we feed cream to on occasion. (Cream actually has less lactose in it than milk does.) You really shouldn't feed too much milk to kitties, because if one does kitty WILL get the runs and fart (and trust me, kitty farts are NOT the most pleasant thing in the world). There are kitties on occasion that CAN produce lactase and can handle milk ok (and maybe in a few thousand years most kitties will be able to handle it--it's only the last few hundred years that kitties have been seen more as pets than as gods/demons/the little furry things what eat the mousies), but one does have to be careful about it.
This is not to say I don't agree that we've not been arrogant at times (like with mad cow disease or filling animals fulla chemicals)...I think in a way it's probably been mean how we breed dairy cows, for example (they get so full they can barely walk, the poor things...and then they moo pathetically, as if saying "MILK ME BEFORE I BLOW UUUUP!" as they go from show-ring at the fair to the milking station [they usually show moos with full udders, btw--at cow shows they wanna see the "capacity" of the moo] dripping milk or even streaming sometimes...and the poor moos look SOOOO relieved when the milking starts and they get fifty pounds of milk off of a poor Holstein who looks as if ALL of her feed went straight to her udders). I'm the first to agree that we should live more in balance with our fellow creatures and the planet, and Western civilisation probably eats more meat and milk than it should.
All the same, though...we have been determined enough (or stupid enough, your call) to breed animals to the point that we aren't going to just be able to release them into the wild. With dairy cows, for instance, they now intimately depend on humans to milk them precisely because humans have bred for big-uddered moos that give fifty pounds of milk in a setting (yes, I've actually seen this with a champion Brown Swiss at the Kentucky State Fair--it STILL amazes me that the poor moo can have THAT much milk in her)...if they DON'T get milked, the milk turns infectious and they get mastitis (humans sometimes get it too and it's called "milk fever"--nasty stuff; pus gets in the milk and it turns yellow) and they can well die from it if it's not treated (because it can go into septicemia or gangrene) and at the very least it makes moos VERY ill. Yes, it's the humans' fault for making them basically milk machines, but since we have we've got the responsibility to make sure they don't get sick from it (and maybe in time to breed them to something a little more sensible--there are no wild moos anymore, the closest there are to wild moos are the half-feral pointed cows of Ireland, and I seriously doubt moos would be able to survive in the wild--it's been bred out of them).
Of course, I also think that one has a responsibility to be kind to the cow as one can (making sure it's comfy and treated kindly, and not pumped fulla chemical crap) and to use all of the cow if one must kill it...and to be thankful to the cow and remember that you ARE taking a life or getting a gift from the cow (in the case of milk). (Then again, I have weird morals on that. I think eating meat is ok if one uses all the animal one can and is thankful and one does right by the animal that gave the gift of life so you might survive. I do NOT approve of trophy hunting, and to be honest I don't like the extremes to which some dairy cows have been bred because it looks bloody uncomfortable for the moo in question--but if one is thankful to the moo, I don't see a problem with, say, milking a Jersey and using the milk.)
Now, as for harming the young...the only things I can think of are lactose intolerance and milk allergy. The first is genetically determined, and no, I don't think lactose intolerant folks should have to drink milk. As for milk allergy, that's largely caused by introducing milk too early to kids; realistically, though, ANYTHING can cause a food allergy if fed too early to a kid. (In a lot of non-Western cultures, kids are regularly breast-fed all the way to the age of two or even later, and parents MIGHT start introducing solid food at age one or when the kid starts showing interest. In Western cultures, kids are often bottle-fed and solid food introduced as early as three or four months of age...sometimes I wonder if this is the cause of increases in food allergies, as most maternal antibodies start going away at three or four months if kids aren't breast-fed and this is when kids' immune systems start really kicking in; this is why baby shots also typically start around 3-4 months).
Then again, an issue could well be made over parents bottle-feeding kids period.:) (I understand there are some cases where one has to--like if a baby has a rare metabolic disorder like PKU or maple-syrup urine disease, or if a mother CAN'T give milk [me and my sis were bottle-fed for this reason--my mother had polycystic breast disease, where there are hardly any milk glands to GIVE milk in the first place]. But if one can, breast-feeding really IS best; babies handle it much better, it gives stuff like antibodies and other substances like colostrum that babies need. A lot of the ire at pharmaceutical companies in fact involves them donating formula to third-world countries (humans tend to dry up if their babies don't regularly nurse, and this gets them "hooked" on formula; also, most water supplies in third-world countries would put one at risk of Moctezuma's Revenge at best, and it's thought that dirty water used in making formula contributes to thousands, if not millions, of babies dying from diarrhea and dehydration from the runs in third-world countries; it's also been proven that breast-feeding as traditionally practiced in these cultures (up to the age of two-three, very slow introduction of solid food) actually has a protective effect against severe infant diarrhea)...that's probably for another thread, though.
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Some anonymous coward dun said:
If I remember right, most sulfur-eating "bacteria" use hydrogen sulfide as an energy source. (They're delightfully weird critters in any case--more on that below.) Most of the sources of HS2 where sulfur-eating "bacteria" live are underwater "hot vents"--basically small underwater thermal springs and volcanoes--so MAYBE it could be applicable if you put them into smokestacks. ;)
Yes, there is a reason I use quotes around "bacteria". Most of the sulfur-eaters aren't true bacteria, but in an entirely different domain of life altogether (aka superkingdom) called Archaea, which actually has more in common with eukaryotes (like us and most stuff with mitochondria) than "true" bacteria. (As a neat aside--it's also thought that at least one branch of Archaea might well have become mitochondria. :)
Most of the Archaea live in what we'd term extreme environments. Many of the environments are thought to be similar to those of Earth when she was younger, and one big source of Archaea are in ecosystems around "hot vents" which--oddly--are also some of the only ecosystems on the planet which are not dependent on the sun in one form or another. Studies of these ecosystems (which also include big animals, like tubeworms and blind-crabs) have actually given scientists some ideas on how extraterrestrial life might survive (especially on places like the moon Europa--it's thought Europa has water under ice, and it's entirely possible that if the core of Europa is hot enough you might have hot-vents and maybe life)...especially since those animals live in areas that have been traditionally thought of as "dead zones" because surely NOTHING terrestrial could live there :)
Some anonymous coward dun said:
O_o
Erm...who in the name of Ithaqua let Stef out of User Friendly and onto Slashdot? :)
*makes mental note--remind Iliad that some parts of reality should not be bent without serious thought :) Or tell Miranda to watch the swing with the Louisville Slugger, because she has apparently knocked Stef clean out of the Ufie Universe :)*
Itachi dun said:
I've seen two people on this thread mention hunting deer with handguns...I'd be really interested in knowing exactly in which states this is legal. (Believe it or not, folks, hunting laws vary--often considerably--from state to state. For example, bear hunting is illegal in Kentucky (because the fact that bears are in Kentucky wasn't even officially recognised by the Department of Fish and Wildlife until a bear made a visit to a rest area on I-75, and they are still considered a threatened species here) whilst Tennessee has a bear season.)
At least in Kentucky, hunting deer with handguns is actually illegal (the only weapons one IS permitted to use are long-rifles (such as 30.06, etc.), muskets (during "black powder" season--yes, we actually have a musket-loader season :), shotguns using solid slug (yes, irony of ironies, buckshot is actually illegal to use in hunting bucks in Kentucky :), longbows, and crossbows). If the DF&W catch you hunting deer with a .44 Magnum, it's safe to assume that you will be paying a large fine at least and will probably be shitlisted from getting a hunting license or deer tags in Kentucky ever again.
Conversely, for small game (basically, everything smaller than deer besides birds--rabbits and squirrels for the most part, but raccoons and possums too) it is actually illegal to use anything BESIDES a small-caliber long rifle (like a .22 rifle), shotputs, musket-loaders (DF&W really promotes primitive weapons here :), blowguns (I think), falconry and...handguns. Yes, if you're hunting bunnies or squirrels, you almost HAVE to do it with a handgun in Kentucky to keep it legal! :)
Tennessee, which is really the only other state with which I'm familiar with their hunting laws, has very similar laws to Kentucky (except there, you can also use semiautomatic weapons like the legal versions of AK-47s for large game--no, I swear I am not making this up) and there is a bear season (which is probably why AK-47s are legal for hunting there ;).
Oh, and in case anyone is curious--if memory serves, the only things legal for hunting fowl (like ducks and doves) are crossbows, falcons, and shotguns containing steel shot (this is just about the only use in Kentucky for buckshot)...not sure on Tennessee's laws re duck hunting. Also, shooting fish is now illegal :) and bullfrogs and snapping turtles may either be shot or fished (depends on whether you've a hunting or fishing license). :)
Caveat--my main interest in this is with friends who do hunt. Therefore I keep up with the laws and all that. ;) Suffice it to say that I've had wild game before and like it (through squirrel chili truly sucks because squirrel is entirely TOO fatty and gamey... :P) This is not necessarily to condone hunting, though--seriously, please don't unless you're going to use as much of the animal as you can; it's doing right both by the animal and by others who DO hunt (a sizable portion of Kentucky's population still hunts for food, for example). If you must trophy-hunt deer or turkey, get in contact with hunting groups that donate game-meat to the hungry so that the meat won't go to waste (you'd be doing good by the deer or turkey, and also by people who really DO need the meat).
Maraist dun said:
Kentucky must be simultaneously advanced AND in the past, then. :)
Where I live in Louisville, they actually DO have a post office in a strip mall; I've seen other post offices in strip malls around here, too, though not quite the size of a grocery store around here.
Conversely, until around six months ago there was a grocery store where I used to live in Louisville (specifically Melton's, which was a meat-market/grocery chain which is now sadly defunct except for one store) that had a post office inside (no PO boxes, but they did sell stamps and one could get registered mail services, etc. through them--it was considered a branch office of the main branch office in Okolona). Also, I've seen post offices in "hypermart" type stores, such as Meijer's and Wal-Mart Supercenters, both here in Louisville and (at least for Wal-Mart Supercenters) in Sevierville, TN.
As for why they typically don't go to strip malls--I would guesstimate one reason is (due to parking needs for USPS vehicles, sorting, etc.) because it is actually cheaper in some areas to buy a piece of land and build a building than to attempt to get frontage space in a strip-mall. (Most of the strip-mall post offices I've seen are either where the post office was one of the first tenants, or where a strip-mall is so impoverished that about the only places that WILL rent it out are ethnic food supermarkets, bingo halls, Big Lots (odd-lots "salvage" store), smaller salvage stores, and the USPS.) This is especially true in areas where there are a lot of stores and limited space--most companies will hire out to an established company that is working for profit rather than to the USPS. :P
As a minor aside--I can't speak for other areas of the US, but among three of the major shopping areas in Louisville (along Hurstbourne Lane, along Outer Loop by the Jefferson Mall, and along Shelbyville (?) Road by two large malls, Mall St. Matthews and Oxmoor) there are literally SO many shopping centers along the sides of the roads that in truth the roads can be considered extended strip-malls. In all three of these areas it's literally gotten so bad that movement in traffic is next to impossible starting around a month before Christmas...it is just a bit surreal to see nothing but strip-malls and "real" malls for over a mile or two in most of these areas (and n the case of Hurstbourne, a good five miles--and Hurstbourne Lane is widely regarded as having the worst rush-hour traffic in Louisville, hands down (even though it's a four-lane highway...so many strip malls have built around it that it is impossible to expand the road any further :P).
And people wonder why I hate suburban sprawl :P
Arcum dun said:
Perversely, a public TV affiliate is, so far, the ONLY station in the Louisville area that even broadcasts in digital TV/HDTV (WKPC-15). As far as I know, it may well be the only TV station in all of Kentucky (excepting possibly TV stations in Cincinatti that reach Covington and the rest of Northern Kentucky, and which may have their broadcast towers in the Covington area) that is HDTV-capable right now. (WKPC is one of two public TV stations in Louisville--Kentucky Educational Television, or KET, has actually broadcast some of the HDTV programs that PBS has done on the digital-TV channel-15 allocation on WKPC, and is really the only group in the area that's even promoting digital TV. They also have a second KET affiliate, where there isn't near as much of a digital push.)
None of the other stations in the area are doing HDTV/DTV yet (I've not even heard of the big powerhouse stations announcing anything as far as DTV broadcast plans for the Super Bowl or the Sydney Olympics), largely for two reasons: 1) Louisville is not in the "top 50" markets and was expected to be one of the last cities to adopt DTV anyways (close to the grace period ending in 2006) and 2) none of the TV stations want to invest until they can get a reasonable guarantee that Insight Louisville will carry the channels (Louisville and Jefferson County have mandated cable monopolies signed with the original company [Storer Cable, which has been bought and sold many a time since including by TCI (die...please) and Intermedia], which run out respectively in 2002 and 2006; something like seventy percent or more of people in Louisville have cable TV, and Insight really doesn't want to even think of trying to put DTV channels on cable until the entire subscribership HAS to buy Insight Digital or do without cable :)...a lot of cable companies aren't wanting to carry DTV at all, because they say it'll use up too much bandwidth they could use to sell people ten different flavours of the Discovery Channel).
I actually worry less about public TV here losing out on digital than a lot of the smaller TV stations. (The Fox and UPN affiliates, which are owned by the same people, should be safe, as should the NBC and ABC affiliates (owned by WAVE and WHAS, the two biggest stations in Louisville). The former WB, now Pax, affiliate isn't likely to get HDTV unless the pastor of the fundy Bible-based cult that runs it can manage to steal even MORE money from the parishoners (they're having to move because they schemed for over ten years (including setting up front businesses to first build a shale-mine operation, then a mini-mall) to get a four-lane access road built through a residential suburb, proceeded in pissing off the entire neighbourhood in the process, and got told "no" for the final time when the Army Corps of Engineers ruled that the area is a wetlands and thus is federally protected...oh, did I mention that they also own a radio station, and happen to not only be probably the largest fundy Bible-based cult center in Kentucky but also practically RUN the Religious Reich and all its PACs?). I can't exactly say I will be weeping for them if they don't get enough loot^H^H^H^H tithes to get a DTV transmitter...the one true indie station in the area, which was set up by an African-American person as a "community" TV station (which also had to fight like hell to get then-TKR/TCI Cable to carry it within the "basic" cable so that people in the poorer areas of town who were cable subscribers could view the channel), I DO worry about whether they'll be able to afford it...it could be the one thing that drives them under, or they could survive it like they have with everything else.)
Dragon218 dun said:
Well, unless and until someone comes up with a Theory of Everything that both meshes up with quantum mechanics and Einstein, and also allows FTL travel...I think we might be stuck with c as the speed limit for the observable universe. :P
If memory serves, it HAS been proven that change in one "linked" particle can simultaneously cause change instantaneously in its "twinned" particle, but if memory serves the scientists who discovered this doubt very much it will ever be useful for communication. (For one, it probably won't work across lightyears, and for two, probably the most complex method of communication you could do with it would be Morse-code type on-off communication.)
As far as tachyons go...as someone noted, firstly, assuming they exist at all nobody has any earthly idea on how to create them. (This is, in part, because nobody really knows how to make matter with negative mass--which, at least according to our understanding right now, would require something with negative mass because once one hits c unless you're massless or have negative mass you have infinite mass--wanna birth a universe, anyone? ;) Also, Einstein's formulae for the theory of relativity, at least for mass and time dilation, go REAL funky once the magic barrier of c is passed--I've played about with stuff over the value of c in the equasions for shits and giggles, and you get odd answers like, oh, imaginary time and imaginary mass...maybe you really DO end up spawning a baby universe :).
In fact, if memory serves tachyons (at least the predicted existence of them) are what ended up doing in one of the first superstring theories (which had a solution requiring the universe to hae 26 dimensions); most of the newer superstring theory flavours (including M-theory, which is sort of a "superset of sets of superstring solutions" and factors in an 11-dimensional universe of which there are six solution sets involving 10-dimensional solutions) do not predict tachyons (weird stuff like photinos and quarkinos (supersymmetric "twins" of quarks and photons, only the photinos are the "mass" particles and quarkinos carry force), sure--weird enough stuff is predicted that at least one fellow wrote a novel called "Moonseed" of which the major part of the plot line involves VERY funky subatomic particles predicted in some flavours of superstring theory--but no tachyons) and in fact the fact the 26-dimensional flavour of superstring theory required tachyons is considered to be a fatal flaw in the theory.
Now, if you can find a way to create negative mass, I think we can maybe lick that whole FTL-communication thing. Not to mention find a way to make stable wormholes, invent FTL travel, and find out whether black holes really DO become baby universes if they don't evaporate away due to Hawking radiation :) I'm more than certain you'd win a Nobel Prize at the least, not to mention give science-fiction writers wet dreams for the next millennium :) Till we do, or we find a better theory in which FTL travel works without breaking time or mass, we might be screwed though :P
Some anonymous coward dun said:
Well, if that's so, I must be some kinda freak then. :) Or a gay transsexual trapped in a woman's body but I just don't know it. ;)
I never played with Barbies except to shave off all their hair and mark them up and attempt to surgically "alter" them...my parents ended up buying me Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars along with Tinkertoys and Lego sets, because I had (and still have) an irresistable urge to take things apart to see how the hell they're put together. "Traditional girl toys" like baby dolls and such bored the absolute HELL out of me--I had much more fun playing with little highway sets I made for my Hot Wheels cars, or playing with GI Joes or Transformers (back in the good old days before they bastardised them to hell and back)...or playing "war" with my neighbourhood friends (who were mostly boys)...or making my own toys out of pipe-cleaners and playing with them (mostly furries, at that...surprise, surprise). I honestly thought at first Lord Kano got his name from Kano in Mortal Kombat rather than the actual martial arts person. :) Most of my favourite Playstation games tend to be Namco fighters, and my husband refuses to play Soul Edge with me anymore because of one too many times when I had Sophitia repeatedly knee Mitsurugi AND his gonads to death :) (ok, so I LIKE Sophitia, damnit!) and came very close to doing the same thing with me and Lilith in Darkstalkers 3, or Sakura in ANY Capcom game in which she appears :) (ok, so I go for the Kawaii Factor :). I have to have my husband remind me that we are not buying a Dreamcast for the sole purpose of playing Soul Calibur and allowing Sophitia to repeatedly knee Rock to death. The three big hobbies I've had are electronics construction, radio, and computer stuffle (ranging from building my own boxen for fun, to proving that PPP CAN work on an old 8086 box, to messing about with fractals, to messing about with Linux, to messing about with computer graphics--and it was the combination of fractals fascinating the hell out of me and having crazy dreams of working for Industrial Light and Magic someday what got me into taking what is known now as Computer Engineering and Computer Science, despite the high school counselor trying to steer me into essentially taking crafts...). I also have an unhealthy interest in special effects, especially on miniaturisation and costuming (I'd love one day to learn how to make my own fursuits, and I read Fangoria as a teen both for stuff on horror flicks and on costuming technique). I think Warhammer 40K is the bee's knees (and have on occasion attempted to pester the hubby, who owns Chaos Gate, to get Rites of War so that certain of us who like Eldar [aka Elves...in...spaaaaace...] can get Equal Time :). I usually don't just play with soldiers, but with Eldar and Orks (!). In my house it's my hubby who's the good cook, and I'm the all-around fix-it bitch :). I spent an unhealthy amount of time as a kid reading "Home Mechanix", and spend an unhealthy amount of time now reading the Physician's Desk Reference for fun as well as watching "New Yankee Workshop" and wishing I had the space and money to afford a workshop like Norm. :) I still think it hilarious that every woman who has EVER been on "Hometime", including Joanne Liebler (the once and future fix-it-lady), has succeeded in making Dean look so incompetent that they have eventually been forced off the show and started their OWN shows. :) I always preferred sci-fi and fantasy, and Harlequin novels bore me to absolute tears. I don't even like to wear dresses all that much because they're too damned drafty. :)
Obviously, I skew the whole works all to hell and back. :) I'm also a woman and straight; last I checked, I didn't have an extra Y chromosome hiding around (then again, I also don't know my own blood type...yeah, real smart, I know). Given a choice between the Lego blocks and the Barbies, I'd take the Legos any day :)
So, am I really that much of a freak? ;)
(BTW, I can't say that the Natalie Portman crap really offends me that much. Kinda wish they'd stop posting it in every single thread on Slashdot, and I wish they'd quit posting it in triplicate, but I can't say it offends my sensibilities as a woman. I just wish they'd vary it...like, oh, hell, I dunno, Zelgadis Greywards naked (those of us who watch Slayers already know he's petrified, so no worries on that)...and people think I'm odd because I like Zelgadis. *shrugs*)
...via MP3s, raise yer hand. *raises hand*
I was JUST about to reply to the one person who posted "Show me a RL example of someone who bought CD's from MP3s"...specifically, around a month ago I bought "Nightfall in Middle Earth" after finding one of the two record stores in Louisville that had it at the time, and will be getting the rest of the catalogue as soon as I can get the money up to special-order the albums what haven't been re-released in the US on Century Media yet.
I had not heard of them before hitting mp3.com, and it was largely by MP3s found on the net (plus "Into The Storm" being played on the Attitude Network on WTFX 100.5--yes, at least for two hours on Saturdays starting at midnight, real metal is still played on the air, at least in Louisville-- webpage is at www.foxrocks.com, and they MAY have started streaming by now). MP3s, including a few on Napster, were what convinced me to scare up not only the particular album but the entire catalogue (unless it's bands I KNOW I like, and half the time even then, I don't like to buy CD's unless there are at least three or four songs I like on it).
For that matter, there's another band called Angra which I similarly discovered via MP3s on various sites, and I'm hunting down THEIR entire catalogue, too...
Further yet, it was by previewing mp3s of songs off the latest Dream Theater album that led me to buy it (I like Dream Theater, but I also wanted to make sure it was worth shelling out $15 US for ;).
There are other bands, like Symphony X and Strativarius, that I've been considering buying albums from largely on the basis of MP3s of their music I've downloaded, often off progressive metal sites and often from official band sites. (Other than on the Attitude Network and occasionally on the Real Audio feed of KNAC, it's rather hard to "hear before you buy" with progressive metal [which happens to be one of my very favourite genres of music]. MP3s are, at least for me, a godsend. :)
Let's just say that, at least in my case, the existence of MP3 sites and utils like Napster have actually helped fill the coffers of Century Media, as well as the retirement funds of more than a few prog-metal artists. ;)
As for non-prog-metal, I can list another album that I've bought because I heard the MP3s first--Metallica's "S&M" (heard one song, liked it, found the MP3s, liked it enough to buy it).
Also, like others, I've gotten a few rare MP3s that would be considered bootlegs even in the vinyl versions (one set being a rip of a rare Motley Crue bootleg [yeah, yeah, yeah, I KNOW people will be crying blasphemy because I DARED mention Motley Crue and Blind Guardian in the same Slashdot post. You may all perform impossible acts of self-fellation, because one of my other favourite genres is hair metal. So there. Nyeah. ;P] from the Starwood show on New Year's Eve 1981--the show that led to the band actually being signed by a major label, and which includes a funny bit where Vince Neil totally fucks up "Shout At The Devil" as well as version 1.5 of "Looks That Kill" (yes, there's another version on the demos for "Shout At The Devil; if memory serves, it's been rereleased on the Motley Records rerelease CD's)...which I could probably not find outside of record-collector's conventions for less than $300 US.)
As an aside, I'm also more likely to buy from an artist if they put MP3s up--not just because I can preview, but because I think it's damned cool they're supporting the format (instead of something like Winblows Media or Real Blah-dio or SoDoMI). Personally, I'm hoping that when Lizzy Borden's new album comes out next month that the official website posts MP3s of it; if not, I hope someone else posts MP3s from it (so I can preview--odds are Lizzy and Metal Blade will get my money anyways, but I like to PREVIEW, damnit :).
Rhombic dun said:
Actually, if you count the genetic engineering Mum Nature's been doing for the past four billion or so years, a lot longer than that. ;)
Specifically, the "himalayan" or "pointed" genes that exist in most mammals (including, on rare occasion, humans) and most notably in Siamese cats are temperature-sensitive genes--specifically, there is a "bug" in the tyrosinase gene that only activates it at low temperatures. (Siamese kitties are born albino white at birth, and grow dark on the cooler parts of their body. If a cool pad is held against a Siamese kitten when they're starting to change colour (around four to six weeks of age), it can leave them with a dark spot where the cool pad was until their next good shed. Conversely, if the kitty is kept warm all the time, the kitty stays white.)
Yes, the gene exists in humans too; temperature-sensitive albinism is known (if memory serves, it's considered a variant of tyrosinase- negative albinism), and the humans tend to be red-headed or darker on their head, have dark hair on their lower arms and legs, and white or very light hair everywhere else (yes, almost exactly like a Siamese cat, because it's the exact same gene that causes "pointing" in Siamese cats).
Accipiter dun said:
I'd hope that they are careful about knowing which genes to turn off and on, then, as well as knowing which disorders this will work for and which it won't. ;)
As a minor aside--for the vast majority of genetic diseases, this isn't going to do anything at all--the vast majority tend to be either "bugs" in creating proteins or other essential body factors that cause the rough equivalent of a kernel panic or BSoD, or "stuttering" in genes in which a gene is repeated far too many times (basically becoming stuck in the genetic programming equivalent of an infinite loop).
For example, albinism is caused ultimately either by a gene that contains errors that cause the creation of tyrosine to "kernel panic", or by a gene that has errors that cause a buggy version of tyrosinase (the protein that converts tyrosine to melanin) to be produced that doesn't work. (I think all the computer programmers in the audience can appreciate that not everything that will compile properly in GCC will actually execute. This is what roughly happens with "tyrosinase-positive" albinism--the code for tyrosinase "compiles" properly (unlike in tyrosinase-negative albinism, where the code gives a "stop" because of an error) but it doesn't RUN right.) Both Huntington's chorea and Duchenne's muscular dystrophy are caused by repeats in genes that amplify across generations and add many extra copies of the gene (sometimes many, many extra copies--people with early-onset Huntington's can have as many as 500,000 extra copies of the gene).
Where "on-off" gene therapy may be useful is in disorders involving both "regulator" oncogenes and in some disorders where it's thought environmental factors trigger Something Really Bad happening to a gene.
For example, the oncogene "P-53"--if it's turned off or one is unlucky enough to get two bad copies of it--vastly increases one's chances of getting cancer. Most spontaneous cancers (even in folks who don't have bad copies of P-53--those who do have bad copies tend to show up with cancers very early in life, particularly retinoblastoma) also have P-53--which is thought to regulate cell division--turned off. This could be VERY useful in cancer therapies as a very specific form of gene therapy targeted directly at something that is specifically wonky in cancer cells (and in fact, some therapies for breast cancer are specifically taking that tack) to convert them to semi-normal cells.
This could also be really good for people with genetic tendencies towards autoimmune diseases or genetic diseases involving overproduction of enzymes. For example, one could turn off whatever gene leads to autoimmune reactions in people who develop rheumatoid arthritis or insulin-dependent diabetes (both of which are autoimmune diseases thought to be triggered by viruses; there is now speculation that motor neuron disease ("Lou Gehrig's" or "Stephen Hawking's" disease, depending on your generation) is caused either directly by a virus or is an autoimmune reaction to a picornavirus (if memory serves)). Also, in those cases of type I diabetes ("middle-age onset type I diabetes") in which the islet cells tend to be literally worn out [many, if not most people, with this form of diabetes tend to go into hypoglycemia, then diabetes--often severe enough to require insulin] it'd be REALLY nice to switch off that gene calling for the initial overproduction of insulin... :)
Unfortunately, I don't think it'll do much for Tay-Sachs, or any of the bad mitochondrial genetic diseases, or Prader-Willi, or maple-syrup urine disease, or any of the other really bad genetic diseases (mostly because these are the result of "programming bugs" that cause "fatal compile errors", or that cause "fatal runtime errors" in the proteins they code for, or that cause "infinite loop errors" that repeat a gene too many times, or which contain too many copies of a "library" which conflict with existing copies [chromosomal disorders--it's the repeats what cause most of them to be so bad as to be incompatible with life, and most of them besides Down's syndrome and the sex chromosomal trisomies/tetrasomies to be really bad for a kid in terms of longterm survival--those that survive tend to be mentally retarded and have all manner of health problems; you could also probably lump in disorders known to be affected on whether you inherit two copies of a gene from mom or dad in this [Angelman's Syndrome and Prader-Willi are like this--in one, two copies of the gene come from mom, the other, two copies of the gene come from dad]])...it MIGHT help in the cases where way too much of a protein is coded for, though. Perhaps the ultimate solution is that God really needs a debugger ;)
Crush dun said:
Actually, the lack of genetic variability in cheetahs isn't so much because they're "perfectly designed" as because they are on the verge of extinction--populations of cheetahs have been reduced over the past few thousand years from millions in two species to a few thousand members who probably share something like fifty ancestors in common. (Cheetah populations, along with those of most other big cats, have crashed precipitously in the past 150-200 years or so.)
In fact, there is a fair amount of worry whether cheetahs DO have enough genetic variability to keep from going extinct. As noted, it's estimated that the ENTIRE cheetah population, worldwide, may well have less than fifty ancestors in common. (Fifty basal ancestors is considered the base minimum for a mammal species to perpetuate itself--basically, as long as you have that much genetic variability you have "hybrid vigour". This guarantees, roughly, that if something Really Bad happens to the species like a fatal disease epidemic or a bad summer drought, at least a few members will survive to live on and the entire species won't go extinct.) There is real concern that if some disease fatal to cheetahs were to become widespread that there is not enough genetic variability to save the species; for that matter, there is worry of an increased rate of birth defects in the cheetah population (you do get increased rates of both birth defects and genetic disorders when animals get too inbred--that's why there are laws against marrying first cousins in many states, and why areas with a large amount of inbreeding (like isolated Appalachian or island communities, or Ashkenazi Jews who were isolated in ghettos) tend to have rare genetic diseases that are not common in the general population).
If you want to see a really extreme idea of why not having enough genetic variability is a Bad Thing, look at Florida panthers (a subspecies of cougar that lives mostly in the Everglades). The total population has been reduced to around fifty or so individuals; many biologists do not think they have the genetic variability to survive as a subspecies any longer (especially since many of the panthers are also effected by "estrogen mimic" pesticides which have caused low sperm counts and feminisation in panthers). There is already evidence that inbreeding is affecting them negatively; many panthers are born with holes in their hearts and/or being born cryptorchid (one or no testicles descended), both of which are hereditary conditions in felids.
This is, incidentially, why extensive family trees are kept of animals being bred as part of the Species Survival Plan...they don't want them to get TOO inbred, and they want to maintain a good amount of genetic variability (especially for those animal species planned for reintroduction to the wild, like black-footed ferrets and California condors). This is also why typically if the number of animals in a species reaches less than 100 they tend to capture all the animals for breeding...
There IS one case where only around 150 individuals of a species survived and proceeded to repopulate the better part of a continent--that being American bison. (The herd had a great amount of genetic variability, which explains why bison aren't inbred to Hell and back like cheetahs or Florida panthers; the bison were INCREDIBLY lucky as a species to have the last herd have that much "hybrid vigour". The more religious of us might even say God/White Buffalo Calf Woman/Mom Nature/ must've been looking out for the bison ;)
Some anonymous coward dun said:
In all probability, the person was trolling...I hope they were trolling, anyways (as I've not noticed too much "Christian-bashing"--constructive criticism of the more fundamentalist flavours, sure, but not outright BASHING).
Assuming they weren't trolling, though, there is something that a lot of you should realise about some of the more extreme fundy groups in the US. Specifically, a lot of them tend to use tactics with their flocks which are now recognised to be coercive. Some of them are even "Christianised" versions of the same coercive practices that Scientology uses.
One of the biggies in coercive fundy churches is a mix of a general "us versus them" theology with something called "deliverance ministry". The general gist is that they believe anyone who is not in their church or circle is by definition a literal Satanist (because they aren't a raving fundy--yes, this covers atheists, because they're "trying to deny God's dominion"), and (in the churches that practice deliverance ministry) persons trying to make you doubt in the church are literally posessed by demons, as well as "rebellious youth" (which could be as simple as a kid being gay or expressing doubts about fundamentalism) and others...and even one's own doubts about the church are the direct result of demons trying to posess or "oppress" one and such demons must be "exorcised" (this is VERY similar to the idea of "engrams" in Scientology; the "engrams" crap is regarded as possibly one of the most destructive coercive tactics in Scientology). Sometimes this even extends to the media--it is not uncommon to hear people who criticize the church to be described as "agents of Satan", and it's possible that the person who wrote that literally DOES see Katz as Satanic (a number of folks on Slashdot may think he Does Not Get It, and may think he needs to retire to the state mental home, but I don't think most of Slashdot literally sees Katz as an agent of Beelzebub Publishing Ltd.)...
In short, there is a fairly good chance that he may be in a very coercive "Bible-based cult", and literally has given up his mind to the church in a way. In a real sense he isn't totally under his own control, but could be said to be brainwashed...
A lot of info is at IFAS's Walk Away site, especially on groups that try to use the Bible to coerce their flocks...
(This is not to say that all Christians are coercive. A lot aren't. The more fundamentalist flavours do have a disturbing tendency as of late to resort to coercive tactics, but they don't represent all (or even most) Christians, just (unfortunately) the most vocal segment--as fundamentalists in all communities tend to do. :P)
(I also speak from a bit of experience, having been a walkaway for 14 years now from a "Bible-based" coercive group. In a way it lets me get more into his head, and I've known all too well what he's probably thinking; if anything, I feel pity for the poor guy. Somehow I think Yshua would be more accepting, and sometimes I fear that if he DID come back they'd just kill the poor fella all over again and 2000 years down the road we'd wear little electric chairs or M-16's on our necks. :P)
BhodiLi dun said:
Yes, ham radio is very cool (and with the FCC restructuring, even easier to get into now)...
I think what they're driving at, though, with some of the convos is possibly multiple LPFM stations in a network (getting feed from one source and relaying it) or possibly multiple LPFM stations acting as translator stations (basically simulcasting another station at low power, because it can't be received well at that location).
WANs and such are POSSIBLY doable, but would be far better suited to packet radio or possibly SCA (Sub-Carrier Audio); digital paging services already exist on SCA, and packet radio already has Internet/packet gateways (no, I'm not joking). I'd be rather surprised if the FCC approved digital on LPFM, or SCA on LPFM at all...prolly, it'll be voice-only.
However, I do see translators/networks for voice communication as completely doable. In fact, a "pirate radio" network already exists (Zoom Black Magic, the only unlicensed network in America) so it's been proven it can work in theory. (I'd also think Zoom Black Magic would be in line with what a lot of folks on Slashdot would like to do with LPFM--specifically, "non-corporate" news, views and music. ZBM has also done a lot of work fighting censorship in general, which makes them Good Guys in my book)
Some anonymous coward dun said:
Then, Xerxes dun said:
Erm, Mr. Anonymous Coward, I fear Xerxes may have you just a bit trumped.
First off, Drake SW8s are NOT "$1 radios". They are widely regarded by most as one of the best damn communications receivers available outside the military market, period. They are also by NO means cheap--try starting price of around a thousand dollars or so new, around five hundred dollars and up used. (It would not be exaggeration to term the Drake SW8 the Ferrari of radios, both in terms of price AND performance. It is also one of the few radios I can truthfully say I'd give my eyeteeth for ;)
Also, I'm assuming he's one of the "old Extras" (the FCC recently reclassified ham radio licenses to three classes, and some hams are being grandfathered as a result into higher classes). Extra Class ham radio requirements, at least the old ones, aren't to sneeze at: you have to take a test of radio knowledge and theory that is approximately equal to that required of FCC-licensed technicians for "big" radio stations (yes, you have to know a HELL of a lot of theory and operation knowledge :), plus [till April 1, anyways] one has to pass a Morse code test of reading CW (Morse) at 20 WPM (which also is nothing to sneeze at--I'm doing good to learn at Farnsworth 5/12 WPM (the letters sent at 12 WPM so you get the sounds, the WORDS sent at 5 WPM) which is the new standard which General class licenses will be tested at :).
Extra Class licensees are rarer nowadays in ham radio, precisely because the requirements ARE so tough. I dare say that if one passes an Extra class license one could build a radio, with little "overbleed", blindfolded. :)
Needless to say, I think he probably knows what he's talking about when he's talking of the FM station bleeding all over the place (Drake SW8s are known for selectivity, and one of the things you learn on the way to becoming an Extra Class licensee is what overmodulation and bleedover are and how to correct them). ;)
Jedi@radio dun said:
Unfortunately, this may not be entirely true (depending on which licensing agency you're dealing with). ASCAP and BMI both have a reputation of major bastardy regarding "public performances", which HAS on occasion targeted non-profit groups.
Possibly the most infamous example of this is when ASCAP and BMI attempted to hit up the Girl Scouts of America for licensing fees--for every time ASCAP or BMI-published songs were sang around campfires (according to them, campfire singalongs constituted public performances). Eventually they backed off after a LOT of public criticism, but this proves they'll even go after nonprofits (the GSA is a non-profit organisation in most states).
Kaa dun said:
Unfortunately, the record companies will still have you by the balls. Playing music (even MP3s) counts as a "public performance" of music, and generally when you do public performances of music you get to pay the nice happy protection^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H licensing fee to the two main music publishers, ASCAP and BMI.
Yes, even folks who operate jukeboxes in pizza places have to pay the licensing fees, and ASCAP and BMI are just as high on the bastardy scale as the RIAA is--they literally tried to sue the Girl Scouts for the Scouts singing campfire songs in Girl Scout books--which just happened to have the rights owned by ASCAP and BMI :P (If memory serves, they were also responsible for having a lyrics archive taken down.)
Radio stations and music-video outlets have to pay licensing fees to ASCAP and BMI, because they too get caught in the bind...so do many professional DJ's, who have to have the licenses from BMI and ASCAP.
If memory serves, they've even attempted to hit Shoutcast/Icecast/RealAudio streamers for licensing fees, too...sometimes on top of fees already paid (for example, radio stations which ALREADY have to pay the BMI/ASCAP tax which have been hit up AGAIN because they happen to do RealAudio streams).
About the only way you could get out of the licensing fees is to play artists which have NOT published via ASCAP or BMI--which is even harder than finding an artist who has not had to whore themselves to the RIAA cartel (ASCAP and BMI are the Big Two music publishers--literally almost anyone who publishes music through an agency goes through one of those two agencies eventually--the only ones who don't are EXTREMELY indy artists, garage bands, and the like--probably most of mp3.com's material, even, would be affected by this).
(Yes, I've investigated it, and was saddened to find out that info--I'd actually hoped to take advantage of the LPFM authorisation, till I found out how much licensing fees would be :P I still hope the local college station [right now broadcasting via common-carrier on AM on U of L's campus to avoid FCC regulation--the school will not fund them to become a broadcast station because they already pay for one of the three public radio outlets in Louisville] can make some use of it, though...)
Pyramid dun said:
That's because Ohio Valley weather is more chaotic than chaos itself. :) We don't even need the damn butterfly--all we need is Tom Wills[*] to blow his nose, and within the span of a week we will get F6 tornados, blizzards that dump two feet of snow and six inches of ice, AND a flood to boot--and nobody will see it coming till it brews up on top of them. ;)
Yes, I'm exaggerating. Not by much, though--to give an example of wonderful Ohio Valley winter weather--a few days before Christmas we get five inches of snow where maybe a "light dusting" was predicted. January 3rd, we get tornadoes because the weather is unusually springlike. Yesterday, snow was predicted but we got freezing rain and sleet instead. We are supposed to get freezing rain and snow tonight, but I will not be one bit surprised to wake up tomorrow to see a foot of snow on the ground and the city of Louisville entirely shut down because people do not know how to manage more than four inches of snow at a time. :)
As a minor aside--I remember reading that, largely because standard models cannot predict Ohio Valley winter weather worth a damn, the Louisville NWSFO is working on a new weather model specifically meant to predict Ohio Valley snowstorms...I wish them good luck, especially knowing our weird and wonderful weather (don't like it, wait fifteen minutes...it'll change...it might put the fear of God into you in the process, but it'll change, trust me :)
Acfoo dun said:
Short Answer: because weather is chaotic.
Long Answer That Probably Tells You More Than You Wanted To Know :) :
Weather systems were, oddly enough, the first systems proven to have sensitive dependence on initial conditions (the defining characteristic of a nonlinear system). A person by the name of Lorenz discovered this in early attempts to model weather systems in the late 50's/early 60's, and more and more complicated weather simulation systems have proven it even more. (As a minor aside: Both the strange attractor associated with Lorenz's discovery and the effect of it in RL are known as the "Butterfly Effect"; the attractor looks much like a butterfly, and sensitive dependence on initial conditions may be summed up roughly as "A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil may cause enough perturbation in the atmosphere to cause a tornado in Texas a few days down the line". That's also why the one fella in this thread keeps mentioning butterflies, btw. :)
As it turns out, a large number of the variables in weather forecasting are nonlinear. Not only that, in many areas you have multiple weather influences that can brew up storms in a jiffy and make them dissipate almost as quickly (the Ohio Valley--which lies on an eastern extension of Tornado Alley--is infamous for this: cold air rushes towards us from Canada, warm air from the Gulf which is nice and moist, the jet stream frequently puts enough twist in the air, and we usually catch stuff from the "big" Tornado Alley out west...all this together means storms can brew up with amazing speed and fury out here ["popcorn" tornadic thunderstorms aren't unknown here--we had some pop up January 3-4th, which proceeded to spawn an F3 tornado which hoovered a fair portion of the city of Owensboro, and the 1995 tornado that hit the Mt. Washington area [south of Louisville] brewed up about that quick--not the tornado, the supercell that spawned it...); also, fun statistic: Kentucky is not in the top ten for tornados per state, but IS in the top ten for killer tornados per state and killer tornados per square mile--in other words, we don't get them as often as Oklahoma, but when we get them they tend to be F2-F3 and up)...to the point we joke that Ohio Valley weather is more chaotic than chaos itself :)
To be honest, I'd say fourteen days is DAMNED optimistic. I have never seen a forecast in my area that was more than three or four days old that was anything close to being accurate (of course, I live in the Ohio Valley, which has weather systems that make chaosologists cream, meterologists scream, and put the fear of God into storm chasers to the point they state they think the Ohio Valley is entirely too dangerous to chase tornados in :)...usually in Knoxville, TN I've found the forecasts more accurate because they don't have to deal with as much crap variable-wise). Even in relatively calm areas five or six days is REALLY stretching it...I honestly don't think meterology is going to be able to improve much on that. You might get more detail (a better idea of where snow will fall and maybe how much), but you aren't going to get any closer to longterm forecasts, and in the spring in the Ohio Valley you'll be lucky sometimes to get one or two days in during storm season. (Hell, I'll be impressed if they can actually determine accurate amounts of snowfall. I have NEVER, EVER in my 26 years seen an accurate snowfall amount forecast; hell, 50% of the time they can't even tell if it's going to be snow, freezing rain, or sleet...and this is with folks in the NWSFO who have been there longer than I've been alive, and with the most experienced TV meterologist having done weather here for some thirty years (to the point he helps out the NWSFO at times) and who also teaches the advanced meterology classes at U of L...and all of them completely and utterly unable to tell how much snow one will get. All of them missed the 1994 super-snowstorm (24 inches in one snowstorm in Louisville, which is a record--the city, for which four or five inches starts to be a "big snow", was literally paralysed for a month and the only way one could get anywhere was by 4WD...the city and county governments were literally commissioning folks with high-clearance 4WD vehicles to transport folks to the hospitals and suchlike)... like I said, I'll be IMPRESSED if they can get to the level of predicting how much snow will fall, much less long-term forecasting. :)
And as for experience with weather modeling...most of mine is in using them for my own attempts at forecasting (I'm just a wee bit of a weather nut, to the point I'm seriously considering taking Skywarn classes and maybe even meterology courses in future, though I'm NOT up to chasing tornados just yet :). If you've been in an area for some time you learn which models work best (there are actually several different models, such as the NGM, the AVN, the ETA, etc.) for the way the weather actually behaves in your area...the most important computer in any forecast is the big meaty two-pound one between yer ears :)
Rlk dun said:
Another meterologist who consistently puts out educational (and damned funny!) forecast discussions is "I-Sixtyfive" down at the Birmingham, AL WFO. (His specialty is severe weather as well as taking a decided sense of humour--among other things, his forecast discussions have at times imitated hit parades, at one point actually spoofed Star Wars...it's obvious he has quite a bit of fun at his job :)
Seriously, though...reading forecast discussions is a good way to at least start to learn about meterology...you learn what forecast models are used, how they get the data, what makes a good or bad forecast, etc. (And just to note--a lot of forecasting ain't computer models so much as someone who's been in the area for years and knows how the weather patterns work. I've seen this many a time with the SDF (Louisville) NWSFO--Ohio Valley weather is living proof that weather is chaotic ;) and many times what makes or breaks a forecast is being familiar with how weather tends to "behave" (or, rather, misbehave) in the area.)
Some anonymous coward dun said:
Well...in America (at least in America of the past, and probably still today in rural parts of the West and Southeast US) corporal punishment, at least in the form of being spanked with a paddle, belt, or switch from a tree, was very common. If someone on the farm had been naughty enough to deserve such a spanking, they'd be taken out to the woodshed in back of the property, where it was generally understood they were going to get a "whuppin" and sitting down was going to be uncomfortable for some time.
Needless to say, most Americans don't have woodsheds anymore, but the term's stayed around in the American language to denote someone is about to be taken to get a clue-by-fouring (usually implying to the behind).
Some anonymous coward dun said:
Well...I was under the impression Toronto's mascot was a dromaeosaur rather than a tyrannosaur :) (If you notice, the mascot DOES have a sickle claw, and "'raptor" is a slang name for dromaeosaurs.)
Though getting a little tyrannosaur like, oh, Nanotyrannus (which just got proved to be a separate species, btw--more on this below) and somehow genetically engineering its skin to be purple would be probably more acceptable to the sponsors, since we now know dromaeosaurs have feathers. :)
Seriously, though, to get back onto the thread...oddly, the very fossils that proved that dromaeosaurs are feathered and Nanotyrannus isn't actually a baby tyrannosaur are examples of why it is probably a Bad Thing [if you happen to be a paleontologist] to see stuff like T. rex skeletons sold on Ebay. (Even more ironically, the fossil that proved Nanotyrannus wasn't a T. rex is in fact a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex found along with Nanotyrannus teeth, among other things...more info is here.) It's possible that if, say, the "kid rex" skeleton or the skeleton of Sinosauropteryx [the first feathered non-avian dinosaur skeleton] or Sinornithosaurus [the first feathered dromaeosaur find--terribly important] were sold to a collector-market and sold on Ebay instead of studied by paleontologists we wouldn't know of them (and the Chinese fossils DID almost suffer that fate--they were discovered by paleontologists when a Chinese peasant tried to sell them part of the fossils as curios!)...
SpinyNorman dun said:
Easier, for many reasons, too...first, Tasmanian tigers (or more properly, thylacines) only went extinct around the 30's (and possibly might not be extinct; there've been reports since the 60's or so of scattered sightings). Secondly, plenty of material where DNA can be gathered from exists (such as thylacine cubs preserved in alcohol, etc.). Thirdly, thylacines are marsupials--there is a limited time where they are in the placenta, and at an early fetal stage they move to the pouch. (This makes it far easier to raise marsupials from DNA, among other things--a foster womb for starters, but after that humans can provide a pouch and milk.)
Yes, there's a reason why I use the term thylacine, btw. "Tasmanian tigers" are no more related to tigers than Tasmanian devils are to wolverines or badgers (thylacines are basically "big predator" marsupials with the same ecological niche as a big cat or solitary canid; Tasmanian devils could well be argued to be "marsupial wolverines" and wombats as "marsupial groundhogs" as they are in roughly the same ecological niches). Less confusion that way. :)
The extinct animal closest to being brought back, btw, are quaggas (a subspecies of zebra that look rather like a cross between a large donkey and a zebra); this is being done largely by crossing together zebra cousins of the quagga that are very quagga-like. This is also, from what I've read, one of the possible tacks that may be taken to breed mammoths (artificially inseminating an Asian elephant with mammoth sperm, giving birth to mammoth-elephant babies, and breeding from there to get animals closer to mammoths). Just FWIW...
Some anonymous coward dun said:
Barring some miracle (finding some huge tick in amber that was drinking away on a tyrannosaur or deinonych), it's rather unlikely we'll ever find dinosaur DNA from fossils. (Pity too--then it could probably be proven for certain just how close Archaeopteryx and Deinonychus were, and more importantly, how closely related both are to modern birds.)
For starters, most of the fossils like the frozen mammoths and Neandertal skeletons from which DNA has been extracted are actually still bone--they've not been replaced by minerals yet, which isn't the case with dino bones or really ANY remains older than the Ice Age for that matter. (If memory serves, the Australopithecus remains are right at that line where stuff starts turning to rock...pity, because it'd be really nice to get some australopithecine DNA to see how chimplike it was [possibly even enough to prove humans are basically nekkid chimps with big heads who can't walk properly :)]...or to see just what it was genetically that made Australopithecus different enough from other apes to go on the evolutionary path it did)
About the only real chance to find dino DNA is in amber from ticks, and even then it is probably so degraded as to be useless...dinos in ice, one can forget, unless one is talking about very recent remains that we tend to call birds :)
And speaking of birds, dinosaurs, and the tricks to raise them...I'll touch on that below. ;)
I have some nitpicks, but some can be excused as crappy American education ;) Anyhoo...
Nitpick the First: Crocs aren't lizards. Crocodilians, along with thecodonts [the ancestral archosaurs, now extinct], pterosaurs, and dinosaurs [including birds--most paleontologist agree birds are a subclass of theropod dinosaurs--this is going to be important in a few, so remember that little fact] are in a class called Archosauria and in fact are only slightly more related to lizards than mammals and their ancestors, thecodonts, are. (The line that led to "mammal-like reptiles" and theraspids [including mammals] split from diapsids [the line that led separately to lizards and archosaurs] shortly after reptiles in general evolved from amphibians; turtles then probably split first, then lizards, and archosaurs went their merry way shortly after). This one, I'l lgive you, because (thanks to certain fundamentalist groups in the US who shan't be mentioned who tend to throw massive hissy fits whenever evolution is mentioned in the schools) this isn't typically taught outside of paleontology books. :)
Nitpick the Second: Crocs aren't primitive. Protocrocs split off from the main line of archosaur evolution close to the same time as dinosaurs and pterosaurs did, and crocodilians are amazingly adapted to being water predators. (Early crocs were far more gracile, stood more erect, and could even have had roughly the metabolism of monotreme mammals; yes, cold-bloodedness in crocs is thought now to be a secondary trait. The crocodilian cardiovascular system is now recognised as being possibly one of the most advanced, period; it allows crocs to go into suspended animation, among other things, and is again adapted to the crocodilian role as a water predator. These are pretty much the crocs that have survived; many early ones were ground-runners, and are now extinct.) I may give this to you if you don't have the Discovery Channel or somesuch; there was a very good show on crocs that explains just how completely they are adapted as water predators and how much they've changed from early crocs.
Nitpick the Third: Crocs aren't even the most closely related animals to dinosaurs, most likely. (Remember, crocs are very derived, among other things.) The closest group to many dinosaurs is Aves, that is, birds...in fact, feathered dinosaurs have been found, and most paleontologist agree that dinosaurs never went extinct completely at all but that a group of small, toothless theropods adapted for flight survived that we today call birds and that Aves should probably be sunk into either a group in the Dinosauria or even as a subgroup of theropods.
The fact that Dinosauria is a pretty big clade in and of itself (probably as big as mammals at its peak), and further considering that there were possibly groups that gave live birth (this has been theorised for the big sauropods) as well as laid eggs makes things just a bit difficult. The fact that--in essence--what happened to dinosaurs would be equivalent to all species of mammals other than insectivorous bats becoming extinct and evolving into a plethora of bat species over 65 million years also makes things difficult, if you don't want to raise theropods.
In a way, the fact that most dinos DID lay eggs makes things a bit easier; embryo transfer has been done with both bird eggs and crocodilian eggs, and people have successfully clutched croc-eggs (you don't so much need a mom as an incubator) and foster-mom birds have clutched and reared birds in past. Also (surprisingly) even with big Mesozoic dinos, eggs haven't been found that are larger than ostrich eggs (not even for big theropods--it's thought dinosaur babies grew VERY fast, like birds now).
Probably the easiest dinosaurs to raise (were we able to (miracle of miracles) find enough DNA to sequence and end up with something that wouldn't be some gelatinous lump with wings growing out of its deformed head) would be theropods. First off, a subgroup of theropods survives (birds); secondly, recent fossil evidence shows at least advanced Cretaceous-era theropods had hard-shelled eggs like birds and clutched eggs in similar fashion to large birds (an oviraptorid nest has been found with momma-oviraptor brooding her eggs); thirdly, (modern) theropods have been reared without any theropodian mom at all (condors have been reared with hand-puppets and incubated to hatch eggs; the main thing you have to watch for in birds and similar species is imprinting, where they think the first object they see is Mom, which is important if you want to eventually raise baby dinosaurs).
Knowing whether theropod eggs are closer to bird-eggs or croc-eggs is important--croc eggs have to be kept moist and CANNOT be turned, while most bird-eggs mostly have to be kept warm and MUST be turned every so often. It'd also be good to know the optimum temperature range, which would probably require guesswork; croc sexing is dependent on temperature, as is sexing in many kinds of birds including turkeys. (Yes, this is true even though birds have sex-determining chromosomes [which actually work exactly the reverse of ours--ZZ is male, ZW is female]. But then again, there are cases in humans of folks with one set of chromosomes saying they're male but their body developed entirely as female [and vice versa]...so it's not perfect.) A deep genetic search would also be good to make sure whether dinos DID have ZZ/ZW sex differentiation (we'd then know just when chromosomal sex determination evolved with archosaurs; we THINK it evolved sometime after the ancestor of marsupials and placental mammals evolved from monotremes with mammals/therapsids).
(As an aside--they don't even know if they can get enough mammoth DNA to clone. Mammoths are somewhat easy to clone, for extinct mammals anyways; mammoths only went completely extinct around 8000 or so years ago and Asian elephants are fairly closely related. Cloning, say, smilodonts if one found a frozen saber-toothed kitty would be considerably harder; smilodonts are fairly distantly related to all modern cats (they split off around the time cat evolution was good and started), and there's no real guarantee that, say, a lion or tiger could carry a smilodont cub to term. One'd have similar probs if musk oxen were to go extinct completely. Fortunately, with some exceptions, most of your major groups of Ice Age animals were closely related to animals which are still around which makes cloning MUCH easier. ;) Cloning animals that don't require lengthy incubation periods in a uterus is MUCH easier by comparison, because one doesn't have to search so much for foster moms and can worry more about incubation and feeding. :)
JohnL dun said:
Well...actually...we HAVE seen some epidemics of drug-resistant microorganisms both here and in the third world. Specifically, there have been many cases of strep resistant to several of the commonly used drugs to treat it, and there have been several cases in hospitals of strep and staph that are resistant to even the last-line (not in clinical trials) drug, vancomycin...there is a new drug that was recently approved specifically to deal with this, and the FDA now has antibiotics specifically on the "fast track" to deal with antibiotic resistance.
This isn't restricted to staph and strep, btw; multidrug-resistant TB is becoming a major problem in larger cities, with some TB strains literally resistant to every approved drug to treat TB; they've had to go to the idea of setting up "sanitarium wards" in hospitals and sending public health workers directly to homes to make sure people take their TB medicine (which often runs over a year in treatment). From what I have read, it is also a fairly major problem in Russia and the third world...to the point that multidrug-resistant TB, strep and staph are considered emerging infectious diseases.
The problem isn't restricted to antibiotics, btw; antiviral resistance has been documented (there are strains of HIV that are resistant to zidovudine [AZT] and cases of multidrug-resistant HIV have been found--this is why HIV patients are typically given a cocktail of upwards of three or four different antivirals, each with different mechanisms of action...there are also some cases of acyclovir-resistant herpes infections, which is why there are so many herpes drugs), as well as antifungal (strains of Candida (yeast infections) are known that are resistant to literally every drug short of amphotericin B and drugs still in experimental trials such as nikkomycin Z; amphotericin B is literally so toxic that one must typically be hospitalised for treatment, and until nikkomycin Z is approved it is possible that Candida strains may arise that are resistant to ALL known antifungals, azoles and amphotericin B alike), and especially antimalarial drugs (chloroquine resistance is common throughout Africa, Asia and South America, many of the malaria strains (including falciparum malaria, which is really the worst kind of malaria you can get) in Southeast Asia are resistant to mefloquine, most of these are becoming resistant or are already resistant to quinine, and some strains from Thailand and Vietnam are literally resistant to every antimalarial drug not in clinical trials for safety including doxycycline). (Multidrug-resistant malaria is an especially serious problem, as malaria is still one of the largest killers (around two million a year), there is no real vaccine for it, and pretty much the only way to keep from getting malaria other than killing every mosquito on the planet [good luck!] is to take antimalarial drugs...most of which are also used to treat malaria, alas :P).
As a minor aside...some epidemics that are indirectly antibiotic-related are the epidemics of food poisoning that regularly occur in the US now. What with the rise of antibiotics in feed, often as much to fatten animals up as to be able to crowd more animals into factory-farming arrangements (which are ripe for breeding disease; animals tend not to be quite so hygenic, especially livestock), both farms and meat processign plants have been increasingly lax in enforcing standards meant to keep food from being contaminated. (This is especially bad in chickens, who are often put in buildings five and six cages high and bred for the maximum number of chickens in a room; they are often altered (beaks blunted, large amounts of antibiotics fed both for increased weight gain and to keep the chickens from dying of infections from the obviously unhygenic conditions). I think we all know of the risks of salmonella as a result [one must be EXTREMELY careful to make sure the chicken is completely done, anything using raw eggs is a no-no, and many doctors recommend to folks with HIV not to eat eggs at all because of the risk of salmonella]. For that matter, same deal with ground beef and E. coli infections.)
Shanep dun said:
From what I've read, most of the possible increased colon cancer risk isn't so much from the meat itself as from ways of preparation (specifically, grillng meat till it's charred and/or frying it can form nitrosamines, which are potent carcinogens). Most of the other risks of meat-eating come largely from human bungling (there is probably some risk of cancer from the hormones moos and other animals are pumped full of, there is the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection from people pumping animals fulla antibiotics to fatten them up [one of the side effects of some antibiotics happens to be animals put weight on faster] and if one lives in the EC there is the risk of new-variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease [which recently was proved to be caused by the same prion that causes mad cow disease] from eating beef because humans made the positively stupid decision to feed cows rendered sheep remains which just happened to have died from scrapie).
There are some cases where people live on a diet almost entirely consisting of meat and don't regularly die of cancer; the Inuit, for one, live almost entirely on meat but don't die of cancer (largely because a lot of their food is eaten raw or boiled) the way we do in the West.
As a minor aside--a lot of colon cancer in the US is actually due to genetic factors that increase the tendency. Most of the genetic errors that have been found in familial colon cancer have directly to do with cell repair farging up (one cancer syndrome points to the P53 oncogene, which when damaged increases the chances of cancer radically; there have been several others found).
Incidentially--I wouldn't count vegetarianism out entirely for risks of cancer, either. Japan and other Asian countries have a drastically higher rate of stomach cancer, which is thought to be possibly related to the fact they eat polished rice as a large part of their diet; it is also suspected by some doctors that the rise in rates of breast and prostate cancer in the US are related to herbicides used on the majority of plants (many of the herbicides used are "estrogen-mimics"; this has had especially bad effects in Florida, where the land is so polluted from agricultural runoff that feminised male alligators and Florida panthers have been found in the Everglades) and some also suspect herbicides to be responsible for the drop in sperm counts in most Western countries.
I will grant, though, that most vegetarians do tend to take care of themselves better than most other folks; probably responsible for your rapid healing. Then again, I consider that part of being smart about one's health anyways (myself, I have to be careful about checkups because of strong family histories of colon cancer and diabetes--so I don't overload on fatty stuff (which is where most nitrosamines are stored as well as cancer-causing pesticides that are still in the food chain), I try to go organic-beef when possible (so the cows aren't pumped full of chemicals--better for you AND the moo), and I eat stuff with antioxidants like broccoli (which can help out a fair amount with beating genetic problems with cell repair such as those that cause familial colon cancer).
Going to EITHER extreme (total carnivore or total herbivore) prolly isn't real healthy, though; humans are obligate omnivores (there are some vitamins we do require from animal foods, and vegans have to be VERY careful to balance B vitamins for example; we are also obligate fruit-eaters, since we can't synthesize vitamin C like other non-primate animals) and pretty much have been since the ancestors of all apes (including humans and our closest relatives chimps and bonobos) evolved from monkeys. (Chimps and bonobos both share around 98 percent of our DNA and are omnivorous; so was, likely, Australopithecus. Gorillas are really the only apes adapted for a largely herbivorous lifestyle and have a much larger gut than other apes to digest plant matter; maybe in a few million years if a society of humans walls off and goe entirely vegan we'll have gorilla-bellied Homo who can live entirely off plants. :)
Oddly, milk-drinking (and, more to the point, the ability to properly digest milk) is actually a wonderful example of evolution (since the thread is largely on concerns of rhinoviruses and picornaviruses (the targets of Pleconaril) becoming resistant to Pleconaril eventually)...
Most milk-drinking started among people who raised moos in Europe, parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia (specifically India). These populations generally have a high percentage of people who can digest lactose (milk-sugar) after infancy, because they've been drinking milk for so long as a population that there's been enough time and "mutation pressure" that there aren't a lot of lactose-intolerant folks left.
In cultures that generally have not raised moos for milk or have not raised moos at all (largely Native Americans, Australian Aboriginals, much of Asia, parts of Africa where they never raised moos for milk, and people who are descended from those groups) there is a much higher rate of lactose intolerance (enough that in the US, they actually sell lactose-free milk and lactase pills), and folks who don't have the ability to produce lactase after infancy tend to get all bloaty and farty and have diarrhea if they attempt to drink milk or eat non-fermented dairy products (cheese and yogurt are easier for them to eat). They never had the gene selected for, so it's not all that common. (For that matter, a lot of African-Americans and especially Native Americans also lack genes selecting for breakdown of ethyl alcohol and for rapid breakdown of sucrose--because until fairly recently those genes weren't selected for. So Native Americans have a much higher incidence of type II diabetes (sometimes shockingly so--something like ninety percent of the Pima people who are adults have type II diabetes) and problems in drinking alcohol.)
As a minor aside--most animals don't produce lactase after infancy, either. This includes--of all animals--cats, who we feed cream to on occasion. (Cream actually has less lactose in it than milk does.) You really shouldn't feed too much milk to kitties, because if one does kitty WILL get the runs and fart (and trust me, kitty farts are NOT the most pleasant thing in the world). There are kitties on occasion that CAN produce lactase and can handle milk ok (and maybe in a few thousand years most kitties will be able to handle it--it's only the last few hundred years that kitties have been seen more as pets than as gods/demons/the little furry things what eat the mousies), but one does have to be careful about it.
This is not to say I don't agree that we've not been arrogant at times (like with mad cow disease or filling animals fulla chemicals)...I think in a way it's probably been mean how we breed dairy cows, for example (they get so full they can barely walk, the poor things...and then they moo pathetically, as if saying "MILK ME BEFORE I BLOW UUUUP!" as they go from show-ring at the fair to the milking station [they usually show moos with full udders, btw--at cow shows they wanna see the "capacity" of the moo] dripping milk or even streaming sometimes...and the poor moos look SOOOO relieved when the milking starts and they get fifty pounds of milk off of a poor Holstein who looks as if ALL of her feed went straight to her udders). I'm the first to agree that we should live more in balance with our fellow creatures and the planet, and Western civilisation probably eats more meat and milk than it should.
All the same, though...we have been determined enough (or stupid enough, your call) to breed animals to the point that we aren't going to just be able to release them into the wild. With dairy cows, for instance, they now intimately depend on humans to milk them precisely because humans have bred for big-uddered moos that give fifty pounds of milk in a setting (yes, I've actually seen this with a champion Brown Swiss at the Kentucky State Fair--it STILL amazes me that the poor moo can have THAT much milk in her)...if they DON'T get milked, the milk turns infectious and they get mastitis (humans sometimes get it too and it's called "milk fever"--nasty stuff; pus gets in the milk and it turns yellow) and they can well die from it if it's not treated (because it can go into septicemia or gangrene) and at the very least it makes moos VERY ill. Yes, it's the humans' fault for making them basically milk machines, but since we have we've got the responsibility to make sure they don't get sick from it (and maybe in time to breed them to something a little more sensible--there are no wild moos anymore, the closest there are to wild moos are the half-feral pointed cows of Ireland, and I seriously doubt moos would be able to survive in the wild--it's been bred out of them).
Of course, I also think that one has a responsibility to be kind to the cow as one can (making sure it's comfy and treated kindly, and not pumped fulla chemical crap) and to use all of the cow if one must kill it...and to be thankful to the cow and remember that you ARE taking a life or getting a gift from the cow (in the case of milk). (Then again, I have weird morals on that. I think eating meat is ok if one uses all the animal one can and is thankful and one does right by the animal that gave the gift of life so you might survive. I do NOT approve of trophy hunting, and to be honest I don't like the extremes to which some dairy cows have been bred because it looks bloody uncomfortable for the moo in question--but if one is thankful to the moo, I don't see a problem with, say, milking a Jersey and using the milk.)
Now, as for harming the young...the only things I can think of are lactose intolerance and milk allergy. The first is genetically determined, and no, I don't think lactose intolerant folks should have to drink milk. As for milk allergy, that's largely caused by introducing milk too early to kids; realistically, though, ANYTHING can cause a food allergy if fed too early to a kid. (In a lot of non-Western cultures, kids are regularly breast-fed all the way to the age of two or even later, and parents MIGHT start introducing solid food at age one or when the kid starts showing interest. In Western cultures, kids are often bottle-fed and solid food introduced as early as three or four months of age...sometimes I wonder if this is the cause of increases in food allergies, as most maternal antibodies start going away at three or four months if kids aren't breast-fed and this is when kids' immune systems start really kicking in; this is why baby shots also typically start around 3-4 months).
Then again, an issue could well be made over parents bottle-feeding kids period. :) (I understand there are some cases where one has to--like if a baby has a rare metabolic disorder like PKU or maple-syrup urine disease, or if a mother CAN'T give milk [me and my sis were bottle-fed for this reason--my mother had polycystic breast disease, where there are hardly any milk glands to GIVE milk in the first place]. But if one can, breast-feeding really IS best; babies handle it much better, it gives stuff like antibodies and other substances like colostrum that babies need. A lot of the ire at pharmaceutical companies in fact involves them donating formula to third-world countries (humans tend to dry up if their babies don't regularly nurse, and this gets them "hooked" on formula; also, most water supplies in third-world countries would put one at risk of Moctezuma's Revenge at best, and it's thought that dirty water used in making formula contributes to thousands, if not millions, of babies dying from diarrhea and dehydration from the runs in third-world countries; it's also been proven that breast-feeding as traditionally practiced in these cultures (up to the age of two-three, very slow introduction of solid food) actually has a protective effect against severe infant diarrhea)...that's probably for another thread, though.