Wait a minute. Does this mean that all those times I've thought people were being nasty they were either being ignorant or incompetent?
That would mean everyone is dumber than I thought. In some ways that's easier to believe.
There is actually one quite well known reason why we would have a limit to our lifespan and that comes from the fact that on a cellular level we cannot live forever. The ends of each of our chromosomes have regions called telomeres which basically act to protect the chomosomes from deterioration and end to end fusion. They are made up of repetitive sequences of DNA. With each round of cell division, the telomeres become shorter until they reach a length called the Hayflick limit where the cell will no longer be able to divide. No more new cells can be created and hence the organism can't go on.
Of course there are circumstances where the telomeres are lengthened, for example in sperm and egg cells and to a certain extent with stem cells. This also happens in cancer cells, if they weren't able to lengthen their telomeres, the cancers would effectively die of old age, which is why finding ways to block the lengthening of telomeres is a pretty active area of research in cancer biology.
Nuclear accidents can look very scary. A lot of people, (public and journalists among them) don't know how to interpret what the scientists and engineers are telling them anyway. The media like a nice scary story, its their job to write catchy headlines and get people to read stuff so it makes life easier for them when they can twist/misinterpret what they're being fed by the scientists and engineers into something that looks like a disaster scenario, especially with the backdrop of two real disasters. So they show some horrific images of a natural disaster and point out how appalling numbers of people have been killed and others who have had their lives ruined so that the readers/viewers are already shocked and then as if thats not enough they throw in the word 'nuclear' and what do you get? A whole load of fear and lots of attention to the media. Meanwhile the Japanese authorities are busy dealing with a disaster of epic proportions and aren't in a position to do a proper PR job.
As for New Scientist, its not a scientific journal, its more like a newspaper where the main reason to exist is to make money. They're just as guilty of making something look more scary than it actually is as any other newspaper, but because of the niche that they inhabit they have to disguise it a little more than the tabloids. Don't get me wrong I also enjoy reading New Scientist, its often a very entertaining read but please, don't expect impartial, scientific coverage because you're not going to find it there. They need to earn a living after all.
Since a camcorder in the cinema is possibly the worst way to copy a movie, doesn't that just mean that the film industry will be acting as quality control for the pirates?
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It most likely means that you, yourself came across as a rude asshole.
Ahh. If only we could mod +1 ironic.
Wait a minute. Does this mean that all those times I've thought people were being nasty they were either being ignorant or incompetent? That would mean everyone is dumber than I thought. In some ways that's easier to believe.
There is actually one quite well known reason why we would have a limit to our lifespan and that comes from the fact that on a cellular level we cannot live forever. The ends of each of our chromosomes have regions called telomeres which basically act to protect the chomosomes from deterioration and end to end fusion. They are made up of repetitive sequences of DNA. With each round of cell division, the telomeres become shorter until they reach a length called the Hayflick limit where the cell will no longer be able to divide. No more new cells can be created and hence the organism can't go on. Of course there are circumstances where the telomeres are lengthened, for example in sperm and egg cells and to a certain extent with stem cells. This also happens in cancer cells, if they weren't able to lengthen their telomeres, the cancers would effectively die of old age, which is why finding ways to block the lengthening of telomeres is a pretty active area of research in cancer biology.
Nuclear accidents can look very scary. A lot of people, (public and journalists among them) don't know how to interpret what the scientists and engineers are telling them anyway. The media like a nice scary story, its their job to write catchy headlines and get people to read stuff so it makes life easier for them when they can twist/misinterpret what they're being fed by the scientists and engineers into something that looks like a disaster scenario, especially with the backdrop of two real disasters. So they show some horrific images of a natural disaster and point out how appalling numbers of people have been killed and others who have had their lives ruined so that the readers/viewers are already shocked and then as if thats not enough they throw in the word 'nuclear' and what do you get? A whole load of fear and lots of attention to the media. Meanwhile the Japanese authorities are busy dealing with a disaster of epic proportions and aren't in a position to do a proper PR job. As for New Scientist, its not a scientific journal, its more like a newspaper where the main reason to exist is to make money. They're just as guilty of making something look more scary than it actually is as any other newspaper, but because of the niche that they inhabit they have to disguise it a little more than the tabloids. Don't get me wrong I also enjoy reading New Scientist, its often a very entertaining read but please, don't expect impartial, scientific coverage because you're not going to find it there. They need to earn a living after all.
I'm waiting for the budget 'sea bass' version to come out. I think £30,000 is a bit steep for me.
Yawn. Seen it all before. There are some conspiracy nutters who think theres something like that here on earth too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore.
Since a camcorder in the cinema is possibly the worst way to copy a movie, doesn't that just mean that the film industry will be acting as quality control for the pirates?