I would not be surprised if his tumor was detected using a somewhat-newly developed technology known as a PET (positron emission tomography) scan.
The one thing that all cancerous cells have in common is a heavily anaerobic metabolism that works very quickly in order to support the continual state of mitosis that cancerous cells are in. An amount of radio-tagged sugars are introduced into the body and an image can then be created where areas that metabolize the most show up the darkest. Some areas are obviously normal tissues that simply use more sugar (muscle tissue, liver, etc.) but an area that stands out could be a candidate for further testing.
...a basic tenet of gaming: games are meant to be fun to play.
all of the high-end graphics and convoluted plots in the world will not carry a game. nor will the pretty animation cuts.
games must be fun to play in an addictive fashion, period. remember tetris, pong, bust-a-move? occasionally a FPS like Quake or Counter-strike will also have addictive qualities (but with a substantially greater learning curve) but graphics alone will never carry a game.
this, in my view, would also be a great injustice. i did not actually take the time to research whether medals of honor had been taken away; so for this piece of information, i thank you.
but this still does not change the injustice. if you came home after strangling 20 enemies with you bare hands, saved the whole platoon and a couple of civilians to boot, would you not be upset to have your "medal" taken away years later for something that had no bearing on your original action (like pissing off the wrong General maybe)?
if a PhD is something that can be revoked, then it calls into question the very concept of granting a PhD.
whatever happens "after the fact" had no bearing upon the decision by the commitee to grant the PhD in the first place. it would be like taking away the Medal of Honor from a veteran, whom a commitee determined had accomplished a certain feat, for refusing to participate in a future conflict. it does not change what happened previously.
A PhD is NOT a certificate of credibility. if it were then all of these UFO advocates would have their PhDs taken away. the place for questioning credibility is in the journals and the gossip in the men's room.
scientists of nowadays are very fearful people. they are mostly afraid of being wrong.
if someone is writing papers of little importance, or that do not contain any really shocking info, then you are probably safe (assuming you reference everyone who ever breathed the subject so that no one gets a feather up their ass and tries slandering you). so thats what most grad students do, because they dont want to spend 10 years getting their PhD.
but this process doesnt end once someone has gotten their PhD...in fact this constant fear of being found "uncredible" has caused scientific research to become marred by political bs. fellows like this guy from the article are meant to be examples for everyone else, and to solidify this notion through fear.
...are the politics in O'keefe's speech? I didn't see any, save the following:
"Finally, NASA's space astronomy activities are integral to the President's vision of extending humanity's exploration and discovery horizons. As we pursue this vision, we will continue to build space-based telescopes to expand our capabilities."
when did i say anything about replication, or even infer it? why are you putting words in my mouth? theres really no need for credentials around here either, since you are not the only trained protein biochemist present in this discussion.
my point is this: while normally in nature one observes things to degrade, there are instances (where high symmetry is present) where things will self-assemble since the energy state after assembly is lower.
i was not talking about the nuclei acids replicating at all, quite the contrary, since (to repeat myself) the nuclei acids are usually not even needed.
nor is this the only example of self-assembly. there have been inorganic and organic chem rxns where self-assembly of archimedian solids take place.
"nanotechnology" and "molecular assembly" are not the same thing. this is important, because the field of "nanotechnology" has already made some very interesting and practical discoveries, particularly in material science.
the subset of "nanotechnology" known as "molecular assembly", on the other hand, has made very little progress. i suspect that this is what you were referring to.
there are some remarkable examples of self-assembly in nature, besides the often given example of mitosis.
the key appears to be symmetry - identical units coming together in a way that is actually thermodynamically favorable.
consider the envelopes of viruses. very often these proteins envelopes take the form of platonic and archimedian solids, yet they are made from identical protein subunits (i.e. legos). within this protein, the dna or rna of the virus is housed.
but the neat thing is that you can add chemicals which will break the protein envelope apart into its subunits. if you then takes these pieces and leave them alone in solution for a while, the pieces will actually self-assemble into the original structure again (regardless of whether or not the nucleic acid of the virus is even present anymore, in most cases).
in this remarkable instance, the default position of nature is to self-assemble! and it is done in a way that does not involve a cell.
>sweaty and frustraited >cool your mousing hand down..
riiiiight...thats something that one dude shouldn't say to another dude
Re:Does NASA have too much money?
on
Our Man In Black
·
· Score: 3, Informative
a friend of mine once worked at a place that does sterilization for hospitals. catheters, needles, that sort of thing.
their treatments were extreme: ethylene oxide (nasty compound), cobalt 60 radiation, ultraviolet, antiobiotic sprays, you name it. they would place swabs of bacterial samples through out the items to see if indeed they were getting sterilized.
the fact is, they were never able to kill everything; this is a well known fact within that little niche industry. there are simply bacteria that cannot be killed, end of story.
so no, it is not simply a matter of "bathing probes in radiation" since it all depends upon how you define "sterility".
i dont believe that this argument is valid since what we are talking about is _quantum key management_, not quantum crypto. the crypto algorithms are still the same, it is just that keys can be transferred in a way that is guaranteed secure by our current understanding of the laws of physics. if you read the fine print, that is exactly what he is saying. the question is: so what? most of his argument is about one-up-manship. its like saying "hey theres no point locking your car, because someone can always use a slimjim to open it"...yeah yeah, we know, but we all try to lock our cars anyway.
hey i like Schneier too, but he sometimes throws the baby out with the bathwater. just "because Bruce says so" doesnt really cut it anymore.
...than just having cheap goods. while everyone likes things to be cheap (myself included) it is merely a shorterm benefit, while the long term perspective may be somewhat more grim.
consider this same topic as debated between thomas jefferson and alexander hamilton. hamilton was all about building our own industry and manufacturing; jefferson thought the current export of agriculture and import of everything else was just fine since, hey, everything is cheaper.
its a good thing for the USA however, that jefferson changed his tune. the british at the time had a great scam going: they would import raw materials from all of their colonies (and some non-colonies who were stupid enough to go along), and use those raw materials to produce goods, which went out for export at 100 times their cost.
it is thanks to hamilton arguing strongly against "outsourcing" that we have a manufacturing industry, transportation systems, technologies and universities...otherwise we would all still be dumb farmers.
just remember: for every pair of pants and shoes you buy at walmart for cheap (made in china), the proceeds go toward building another nuke that is being pointed at us. same goes for filling your car with gasoline.
trailer-occupying folks must be upset at the penalties being levelled at their favorite food.
Re:scientists probably don't have a problem
on
A New Ice Age?
·
· Score: 1
is that what this is really all about: hating George Bush?
can you tell me when exactly George Bush said that?
Re:Wait... so you're telling me...
on
A New Ice Age?
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
gee i dont know, maybe because our needs our greater? what are you trying to say?
the last time i checked we paid good money for our oil, oil which makes up 40 % of our energy consumption.
are you trying to say that it is because of the evil USA that the 3rd world doesnt have infrastructure that requires power? if you were to travel a little you would quickly realize that outside of this pleasant place that we call the USA, is a dark place that is governed by corruption so massive that it is unbelieveable. it is because of this corruption (take latin america, for example) that the ppl are bentover and given a stiff ass-pounding. and it has been that way for several hundred years, long before the USA was involved so the catch-all "evil USA" argument just doesnt hold water.
i once read that if our universe were a finite, yet closed space (such as a torus or klein-bottle) that it maybe that what we see as distant galaxies are nothing more than images of our own galaxy at various points in the past.
if the topology is such that the space curves back onto itself, then the light will keep cycling around. whatever makes up the fundamental set of that space (in this case, our own galaxy) will see infinitely many images of itself.
perhaps one could construct an object, say a sphere, that would split into two halves (hemispheres) that are now traveling in opposite directions (different directions along the same geodesic). one of these hemispheres now splits again perpendicularly.
if the velocities of all three objects (which will be making a bigger and bigger triangle as they travel away from each other) were the same, then in theory the angles between them could be measured and hence the curvature of space be determined.
this may be true of algorithms, but you may still want to keep the implementation secret.
most practical attacks utilize flaws in the implementation, not the algorithms.
to use the atm analogy, most atms use hardware that is protected by anti-reverse engineering schemes such as X-ray detectors, temperature detectors (to prevent someone from freezing the memory cells - which can sometimes keep data around for up to several weeks!), and a +-ground mesh that has been potted in polymer resin. a short in any of the things will erase the keying material in SRAM.
in other words...alot of work and money has gone into keeping the hardware secure, not the kind of thing that is "open source"! altho the crypto algorithms themselves, as you have pointed out, are better served by having peer review and full disclosure.
well hey, benzene is nothing more than a carbon ring, and yet it's ability to slip between double-stranded DNA makes it an active carcinogen. but it's just carbon, right?
it would not be all that surprising if the buckyball allotrope had other structural properties upon eukaryotic cells (denaturization of enzymes, binding to ribosomes, etc - all of the stuff that we consider "toxic")
Slashdot Mirror
I would not be surprised if his tumor was detected using a somewhat-newly developed technology known as a PET (positron emission tomography) scan.
The one thing that all cancerous cells have in common is a heavily anaerobic metabolism that works very quickly in order to support the continual state of mitosis that cancerous cells are in. An amount of radio-tagged sugars are introduced into the body and an image can then be created where areas that metabolize the most show up the darkest. Some areas are obviously normal tissues that simply use more sugar (muscle tissue, liver, etc.) but an area that stands out could be a candidate for further testing.
...a basic tenet of gaming: games are meant to be fun to play.
:)
all of the high-end graphics and convoluted plots in the world will not carry a game. nor will the pretty animation cuts.
games must be fun to play in an addictive fashion, period. remember tetris, pong, bust-a-move? occasionally a FPS like Quake or Counter-strike will also have addictive qualities (but with a substantially greater learning curve) but graphics alone will never carry a game.
Having said that, I can't wait for Doom 3
any one of those titles would have been better than "revenge of the sith".
sounds like the name of a porn movie or something "revenge of the slippyfist"
this, in my view, would also be a great injustice. i did not actually take the time to research whether medals of honor had been taken away; so for this piece of information, i thank you.
but this still does not change the injustice. if you came home after strangling 20 enemies with you bare hands, saved the whole platoon and a couple of civilians to boot, would you not be upset to have your "medal" taken away years later for something that had no bearing on your original action (like pissing off the wrong General maybe)?
if a PhD is something that can be revoked, then it calls into question the very concept of granting a PhD.
whatever happens "after the fact" had no bearing upon the decision by the commitee to grant the PhD in the first place. it would be like taking away the Medal of Honor from a veteran, whom a commitee determined had accomplished a certain feat, for refusing to participate in a future conflict. it does not change what happened previously.
A PhD is NOT a certificate of credibility. if it were then all of these UFO advocates would have their PhDs taken away. the place for questioning credibility is in the journals and the gossip in the men's room.
scientists of nowadays are very fearful people. they are mostly afraid of being wrong.
if someone is writing papers of little importance, or that do not contain any really shocking info, then you are probably safe (assuming you reference everyone who ever breathed the subject so that no one gets a feather up their ass and tries slandering you). so thats what most grad students do, because they dont want to spend 10 years getting their PhD.
but this process doesnt end once someone has gotten their PhD...in fact this constant fear of being found "uncredible" has caused scientific research to become marred by political bs. fellows like this guy from the article are meant to be examples for everyone else, and to solidify this notion through fear.
remember that guy named galileo?
if thought control is your cup of tea, then by all means bring the power back to the priests.
...are the politics in O'keefe's speech? I didn't see any, save the following:
"Finally, NASA's space astronomy activities are integral to the President's vision of extending humanity's exploration and discovery horizons. As we pursue this vision, we will continue to build space-based telescopes to expand our capabilities."
does that make it political?
when did i say anything about replication, or even infer it? why are you putting words in my mouth? theres really no need for credentials around here either, since you are not the only trained protein biochemist present in this discussion.
my point is this: while normally in nature one observes things to degrade, there are instances (where high symmetry is present) where things will self-assemble since the energy state after assembly is lower.
i was not talking about the nuclei acids replicating at all, quite the contrary, since (to repeat myself) the nuclei acids are usually not even needed.
nor is this the only example of self-assembly. there have been inorganic and organic chem rxns where self-assembly of archimedian solids take place.
maybe we are not talking about the same thing.
"nanotechnology" and "molecular assembly" are not the same thing. this is important, because the field of "nanotechnology" has already made some very interesting and practical discoveries, particularly in material science.
the subset of "nanotechnology" known as "molecular assembly", on the other hand, has made very little progress. i suspect that this is what you were referring to.
the distinction is important.
there are some remarkable examples of self-assembly in nature, besides the often given example of mitosis.
the key appears to be symmetry - identical units coming together in a way that is actually thermodynamically favorable.
consider the envelopes of viruses. very often these proteins envelopes take the form of platonic and archimedian solids, yet they are made from identical protein subunits (i.e. legos). within this protein, the dna or rna of the virus is housed.
but the neat thing is that you can add chemicals which will break the protein envelope apart into its subunits. if you then takes these pieces and leave them alone in solution for a while, the pieces will actually self-assemble into the original structure again (regardless of whether or not the nucleic acid of the virus is even present anymore, in most cases).
in this remarkable instance, the default position of nature is to self-assemble! and it is done in a way that does not involve a cell.
>sweaty and frustraited
>cool your mousing hand down..
riiiiight...thats something that one dude shouldn't say to another dude
a friend of mine once worked at a place that does sterilization for hospitals. catheters, needles, that sort of thing.
their treatments were extreme: ethylene oxide (nasty compound), cobalt 60 radiation, ultraviolet, antiobiotic sprays, you name it. they would place swabs of bacterial samples through out the items to see if indeed they were getting sterilized.
the fact is, they were never able to kill everything; this is a well known fact within that little niche industry. there are simply bacteria that cannot be killed, end of story.
so no, it is not simply a matter of "bathing probes in radiation" since it all depends upon how you define "sterility".
i dont believe that this argument is valid since what we are talking about is _quantum key management_, not quantum crypto. the crypto algorithms are still the same, it is just that keys can be transferred in a way that is guaranteed secure by our current understanding of the laws of physics. if you read the fine print, that is exactly what he is saying. the question is: so what? most of his argument is about one-up-manship. its like saying "hey theres no point locking your car, because someone can always use a slimjim to open it"...yeah yeah, we know, but we all try to lock our cars anyway.
hey i like Schneier too, but he sometimes throws the baby out with the bathwater. just "because Bruce says so" doesnt really cut it anymore.
...than just having cheap goods. while everyone likes things to be cheap (myself included) it is merely a shorterm benefit, while the long term perspective may be somewhat more grim.
consider this same topic as debated between thomas jefferson and alexander hamilton. hamilton was all about building our own industry and manufacturing; jefferson thought the current export of agriculture and import of everything else was just fine since, hey, everything is cheaper.
its a good thing for the USA however, that jefferson changed his tune. the british at the time had a great scam going: they would import raw materials from all of their colonies (and some non-colonies who were stupid enough to go along), and use those raw materials to produce goods, which went out for export at 100 times their cost.
it is thanks to hamilton arguing strongly against "outsourcing" that we have a manufacturing industry, transportation systems, technologies and universities...otherwise we would all still be dumb farmers.
just remember: for every pair of pants and shoes you buy at walmart for cheap (made in china), the proceeds go toward building another nuke that is being pointed at us. same goes for filling your car with gasoline.
trailer-occupying folks must be upset at the penalties being levelled at their favorite food.
is that what this is really all about: hating George Bush?
can you tell me when exactly George Bush said that?
gee i dont know, maybe because our needs our greater? what are you trying to say?
the last time i checked we paid good money for our oil, oil which makes up 40 % of our energy consumption.
are you trying to say that it is because of the evil USA that the 3rd world doesnt have infrastructure that requires power? if you were to travel a little you would quickly realize that outside of this pleasant place that we call the USA, is a dark place that is governed by corruption so massive that it is unbelieveable. it is because of this corruption (take latin america, for example) that the ppl are bentover and given a stiff ass-pounding. and it has been that way for several hundred years, long before the USA was involved so the catch-all "evil USA" argument just doesnt hold water.
for(i = 0 ; i 49 ; i++) {
n += drink_beer();
}
if (n == TIPSY)
find_park_bench();
else if (n == WILDY_UNINHIBITED)
find_fat_girl();
else if (n == COMPLETELY_FUCKING_SMASHED)
find_jail_cell();
i once read that if our universe were a finite, yet closed space (such as a torus or klein-bottle) that it maybe that what we see as distant galaxies are nothing more than images of our own galaxy at various points in the past.
if the topology is such that the space curves back onto itself, then the light will keep cycling around. whatever makes up the fundamental set of that space (in this case, our own galaxy) will see infinitely many images of itself.
objects travel in geodesics.
perhaps one could construct an object, say a sphere, that would split into two halves (hemispheres) that are now traveling in opposite directions (different directions along the same geodesic). one of these hemispheres now splits again perpendicularly.
if the velocities of all three objects (which will be making a bigger and bigger triangle as they travel away from each other) were the same, then in theory the angles between them could be measured and hence the curvature of space be determined.
shes really nothing special either
thank you for the article.
still, the article points out that the mechanism behind benzene's carcinogenicity is unknown.
in anycase, IMHO, it would not be completely unreasonable to think that buckyballs may in fact have some harmful properties.
this may be true of algorithms, but you may still want to keep the implementation secret.
most practical attacks utilize flaws in the implementation, not the algorithms.
to use the atm analogy, most atms use hardware that is protected by anti-reverse engineering schemes such as X-ray detectors, temperature detectors (to prevent someone from freezing the memory cells - which can sometimes keep data around for up to several weeks!), and a +-ground mesh that has been potted in polymer resin. a short in any of the things will erase the keying material in SRAM.
in other words...alot of work and money has gone into keeping the hardware secure, not the kind of thing that is "open source"! altho the crypto algorithms themselves, as you have pointed out, are better served by having peer review and full disclosure.
well hey, benzene is nothing more than a carbon ring, and yet it's ability to slip between double-stranded DNA makes it an active carcinogen. but it's just carbon, right?
it would not be all that surprising if the buckyball allotrope had other structural properties upon eukaryotic cells (denaturization of enzymes, binding to ribosomes, etc - all of the stuff that we consider "toxic")