The "Topper Site" has radiocarbon dates to about 45,000 B.P. This indicates there were previous migrations. Over the course of 30,000 years, the genetic marker discussed in this study would have integrated itself into the entire population, regardless of when the root migration took place. I'm afraid the conclusions drawn by the researchers are not accurate, and do not reflect the latest archaeological data available.
I agree completely. Here is what we need to do:
Contact your local house and senate reps.
Then contact Minnesota Congressmen Ellison and Oberstar. Why? Because they've just been dealing with major transportation safety issues, including securing $250 mil if funding for the bridge reconstruction. Highway safety is now an issue on the public radar and they want to get it taken care of.
Nason's strategy is to shut down the flow of information so she doesn't look incompetent. Don't let her do it. Insist on open access and transparency. IT WILL SAVE LIVES.
The gene therapy approach has been tested and is successful. CD4 counts have rebounded in test subjects, and viral loads have been reduced to undetectable or nearly undetectable levels (less than 2 per ml). Progress is being made by leaps and bounds.
What is unique about this trial vaccine, is that researchers have isolated portions of the HIV virus that remain constant during recombination. It's one of the last remaining challenges that researchers are trying to address. The second challenge is attacking latent virus in memory cells that could become active 20 or 30 years after exposure. Some experimental treatments have been successful eliminating HIV from the system, with the exception of in dormant memory cells. This vaccine could address this second challenge.
As a follow up to the vaccine, I think it's important to remind everyone that emergency PEP and nPEP (post exposure prophylaxis) is available. Numerous studies have been conducted, and most have demonstrated administration of a drug cocktail shortly after exposure can greatly improve a patient's chances of avoiding infection. The optimal window is 0-2 hours after exposure, with a drug course lasting 28 days. The window remains open for 0-72 hours, however the longer left untreated, the more likely seroconversion will occur. Some studies have indicated patients who were treated at 48 hours had improved outcomes if they completed the full 28 day drug course. Those treated at 48 hours who only did a 10 day course had higher seroconversion (hiv+) rates. This may indicate length of treatment is related to outcome.
IF YOU ARE EXPOSED TO HIV, OR HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE A PARTNER IS POSITIVE, GO TO THE ER AS QUICKLY AFTER EXPOSURE AND ASK FOR PEP. YOUR LOCAL HEALTH DEPARTMENT OR HIV ADVOCACY AGENCY CAN ASSIST WITH MEDICAL COSTS IF YOU ARE UNINSURED. MAKE SURE THE ER NURSE OR DOCTOR IS RELYING UPON THE MOST RECENT PEP & nPEP RECOMMENDATIONS, AS OLDER DRUG REGIMENS CAN CAUSE SEVERE KIDNEY AND LIVER DAMAGE. DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO DISSUADE YOU OR REFUSE TREATMENT. IF NECESSARY, ASK FOR A PATIENT ADVOCATE AND SOCIAL WORKER.
You contradict yourself. Is this not evident to you? Cleaning up the facility itself which was promptly shut down at the end of the cold war in 1987 - and its containment tanks that are exceeding their life expectancy - is underway. The "cool new vitrification process" is only for waste currently in aging tanks. What you don't seem to grasp is that waste has leaked into the ground water and is making its way to the river. Pointing out that the river is already contaminated in an effort to dismiss the coming catastrophe is either a product of misinformation or an intent to misrepresent the truth. The entire region was contaminated during the early years of production, with most human exposure coming from dairy products produced in the surrounding area. Roughly 440 BILLION gallons of waste were discharged into the soil of the nuclear reservation since it began research and production for the Manhattan Project. Much of that waste has reached the aquifer beneath Hanford. As of today, we have no method or technology of isolating, containing or retrieving it. Don't preach at me about FUD.
I believe that you mistakenly portray a situation in which we must choose between the two technologies. This is not the case. The Department of Defense recognizes that wind energy is a viable solution to much of our current crisis.
Texas recently overtook California as the largest producer of energy from wind turbines. Their current output now exceeds 2,370MW. Washington State's only nuclear plant produces 1107MW (about half of Texas' wind capability).
Wind takes less time to scale, costs less and has a higher return on investment. It also lacks the overall long term management and storage costs that are inherent of nuclear power.
I disagree that nuclear power is a necessary risk or evil.
We have alternative energy technologies that in the long run cost less to construct and maintain while offering a higher ROI or return on investment. Putting all of our eggs in one basket probably isn't the best idea, so I feel strongly that diversification of energy technologies is necessary. Does that make me irrational? I don't think this debate needs to involve calling one side rational and the other something less than. What I will say is that nuclear energy is short sighted. Until we are capable of managing and securing the waste present globally and domestically, we should not be producing more. If we take the cost of waste and mismanagement into account, nuclear energy has been incredibly costly, in some respects the ability to measure its economic impact isn't even possible.
Mistakes haven't just occured in the technology's early years. From a purely economic perspective, I don't see this tech as a sound or green investment. The risks are far too great and history has shown us that it is not profitable. In addition the question remains: who is going to profit from the coming wave of non-nuclear sustainable energy infrastructure. The US has not lost its opportunity to reignite its industrial base providing these services and equipment globally, but Europe will soon outpace us.
If we want to ween ourselves from fossil fuels, we can do it with sources that are proving themselves in Europe today.
The planet does have compensatory mechanisms through negative feedback to deal with rises in CO2, we - the atmospheric polluters - also have technologies to aid in storing it. The safest way to sequester is to plant trees (and of course, reduce our emissions).
I don't think anyone is denying CO2 is a problem, but unlike Lovelock, I don't believe the evidence has demonstrated nuclear energy is safe, scalable or realistic in the long term.
The goal is not to replace one pollutant with another, it's to come up with cleaner solutions that don't threaten human life.
I couldn't agree more with your statement that oversight must be by people who are interested in exposing problems, not concealing them. Unfortunately, the idea that energy business doesn't have 300 layers of secrecy is not the case. They are responsible for their bottom line, and in the case of Entergy, concealing missing fuel rods happens to be profitable.
You're partially correct. Hanford was a research and production facility, it also had several reactors. WPPSS 2 reactor is within the Hanford complex. http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/wash2.html
Re-read my post, I'm discussing the impact of the push for modern nuclear power, vs the waste generated in comparison to current hydro dams.
Are you aware that spent fuel rods have gone missing and this hasn't made front page headlines?
It's not about losing one pebble, it's about an entire reactor (or in the vision of our administration; a work site reactor) being stolen or sabotaged.
The United states has thousands of fault lines. I live directly on top of one. San Andreas just happens to be very active.
>Nuclear power doesn't produce much waste, for the amount of energy you get out of it.
I think if we take into account how long that waste is around and that it cannot be safely sequestered at this point, we find that in proportion, nuclear power results in much more waste than other available technologies.
From a military perspective, having centralized electrical utilities makes absolutely no sense. Reactors have a big bullseye painted on them.
The future is modular, easily deployed generation that can power a single home or a neighborhood. These support a manufacturing base (that translates directly to more jobs) and cap consumer expenditures. When the device has been paid for, they continue to benefit at little or no cost.
Your response is short sighted. The oil industry recognizes that with the rise of China and India, it must diversify. Our administration does favor the development of new nuclear facilities. My region of the country does not burn oil to generate electricity. Your understanding of the supply chain is...rhetoric.
Coming from a state that gets a huge portion of its electricity from hydro dams that have threatened so many species, I have to take issue with your assessment that these are worse than nuclear plants. Again, look at hanford. The Columbia river's tributaries are dammed. When the radiation from Hanford reaches the Columbia in a few hundred years, the damage those dams have done will look like minor incidents in comparison.
Anything nuclear will create waste, you are mistake. Pebble Bed reactors are designed to prevent catastrophic reactions, but these are still possible. A containment leak would allow the atmosphere within the reactor to reach temperatures high enough to melt the graphite moderating cuticle. Pebble bed reactors are not realistic in an age of terrorism, they produce more waste and the mechanised fuel handling is more likely to result in disaster (see Hamm-Uentrop, West Germany). Never mind the logistics of TRACKING each and every pebble from its birth to final resting place in yucca mountain (which is near a fault line).
The problem of nuclear energy and its waste has not been solved. As long as waste remains on the planet, it is a threat. I have absolutely NO IDEA how anyone could claim that the problem of nuclear waste is no longer a problem. I think the only explanation is the radiation from too much time spent within the leaky storage facilities at hanford or eating potatoes growing near Chernobyl has gotten to you.
Look no further than the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington (US). Our Federal government has done a good job of keeping this disaster under wraps for the most part. This is because the administration would like you to believe nuclear energy is safe, so that they can gain public support for the reintroduction of the technology to our energy production matrix.
I do conversion services on projects of 5,000,000+ pages for government, medical and financial industries. What you are describing is not "large scale" conversion. Working two hours to scan 100 pages for an instructor is not too bad with a flat bed, but if you have the budget to purchase a new scanner I think the one you cited will work fine. We use Fujitsu and Bell & Howell, but those are for production environments with 40,000+ pages a day.
An idiot above suggested you pay to have them professionally scanned. That is a bad idea, the cost would probably exceed that of a new scanner.
A lot of people don't like to download adobe's software so you should provide the documents in two formats. Stick with PDF and also do GIF.
Slashdot Mirror
The "Topper Site" has radiocarbon dates to about 45,000 B.P. This indicates there were previous migrations. Over the course of 30,000 years, the genetic marker discussed in this study would have integrated itself into the entire population, regardless of when the root migration took place. I'm afraid the conclusions drawn by the researchers are not accurate, and do not reflect the latest archaeological data available.
I agree completely. Here is what we need to do: Contact your local house and senate reps. Then contact Minnesota Congressmen Ellison and Oberstar. Why? Because they've just been dealing with major transportation safety issues, including securing $250 mil if funding for the bridge reconstruction. Highway safety is now an issue on the public radar and they want to get it taken care of. Nason's strategy is to shut down the flow of information so she doesn't look incompetent. Don't let her do it. Insist on open access and transparency. IT WILL SAVE LIVES.
The gene therapy approach has been tested and is successful. CD4 counts have rebounded in test subjects, and viral loads have been reduced to undetectable or nearly undetectable levels (less than 2 per ml). Progress is being made by leaps and bounds.
What is unique about this trial vaccine, is that researchers have isolated portions of the HIV virus that remain constant during recombination. It's one of the last remaining challenges that researchers are trying to address. The second challenge is attacking latent virus in memory cells that could become active 20 or 30 years after exposure. Some experimental treatments have been successful eliminating HIV from the system, with the exception of in dormant memory cells. This vaccine could address this second challenge.
As a follow up to the vaccine, I think it's important to remind everyone that emergency PEP and nPEP (post exposure prophylaxis) is available. Numerous studies have been conducted, and most have demonstrated administration of a drug cocktail shortly after exposure can greatly improve a patient's chances of avoiding infection. The optimal window is 0-2 hours after exposure, with a drug course lasting 28 days. The window remains open for 0-72 hours, however the longer left untreated, the more likely seroconversion will occur. Some studies have indicated patients who were treated at 48 hours had improved outcomes if they completed the full 28 day drug course. Those treated at 48 hours who only did a 10 day course had higher seroconversion (hiv+) rates. This may indicate length of treatment is related to outcome.
IF YOU ARE EXPOSED TO HIV, OR HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE A PARTNER IS POSITIVE, GO TO THE ER AS QUICKLY AFTER EXPOSURE AND ASK FOR PEP. YOUR LOCAL HEALTH DEPARTMENT OR HIV ADVOCACY AGENCY CAN ASSIST WITH MEDICAL COSTS IF YOU ARE UNINSURED. MAKE SURE THE ER NURSE OR DOCTOR IS RELYING UPON THE MOST RECENT PEP & nPEP RECOMMENDATIONS, AS OLDER DRUG REGIMENS CAN CAUSE SEVERE KIDNEY AND LIVER DAMAGE. DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO DISSUADE YOU OR REFUSE TREATMENT. IF NECESSARY, ASK FOR A PATIENT ADVOCATE AND SOCIAL WORKER.
You're incorrect. Hanford still holds Washington's only operating nuclear reactor. It's producing electricity as we speak.
You contradict yourself. Is this not evident to you? Cleaning up the facility itself which was promptly shut down at the end of the cold war in 1987 - and its containment tanks that are exceeding their life expectancy - is underway. The "cool new vitrification process" is only for waste currently in aging tanks. What you don't seem to grasp is that waste has leaked into the ground water and is making its way to the river. Pointing out that the river is already contaminated in an effort to dismiss the coming catastrophe is either a product of misinformation or an intent to misrepresent the truth. The entire region was contaminated during the early years of production, with most human exposure coming from dairy products produced in the surrounding area. Roughly 440 BILLION gallons of waste were discharged into the soil of the nuclear reservation since it began research and production for the Manhattan Project. Much of that waste has reached the aquifer beneath Hanford. As of today, we have no method or technology of isolating, containing or retrieving it. Don't preach at me about FUD.
I believe that you mistakenly portray a situation in which we must choose between the two technologies. This is not the case. The Department of Defense recognizes that wind energy is a viable solution to much of our current crisis. Texas recently overtook California as the largest producer of energy from wind turbines. Their current output now exceeds 2,370MW. Washington State's only nuclear plant produces 1107MW (about half of Texas' wind capability). Wind takes less time to scale, costs less and has a higher return on investment. It also lacks the overall long term management and storage costs that are inherent of nuclear power.
I disagree that nuclear power is a necessary risk or evil.
o nable+in+Britain/2100-11392_3-6124730.html
We have alternative energy technologies that in the long run cost less to construct and maintain while offering a higher ROI or return on investment. Putting all of our eggs in one basket probably isn't the best idea, so I feel strongly that diversification of energy technologies is necessary. Does that make me irrational? I don't think this debate needs to involve calling one side rational and the other something less than. What I will say is that nuclear energy is short sighted. Until we are capable of managing and securing the waste present globally and domestically, we should not be producing more. If we take the cost of waste and mismanagement into account, nuclear energy has been incredibly costly, in some respects the ability to measure its economic impact isn't even possible.
Mistakes haven't just occured in the technology's early years. From a purely economic perspective, I don't see this tech as a sound or green investment. The risks are far too great and history has shown us that it is not profitable. In addition the question remains: who is going to profit from the coming wave of non-nuclear sustainable energy infrastructure. The US has not lost its opportunity to reignite its industrial base providing these services and equipment globally, but Europe will soon outpace us.
If we want to ween ourselves from fossil fuels, we can do it with sources that are proving themselves in Europe today.
http://news.com.com/Home+wind+turbines+turn+fashi
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3719868.stm
http://www.nrel.gov/
The planet does have compensatory mechanisms through negative feedback to deal with rises in CO2, we - the atmospheric polluters - also have technologies to aid in storing it. The safest way to sequester is to plant trees (and of course, reduce our emissions). I don't think anyone is denying CO2 is a problem, but unlike Lovelock, I don't believe the evidence has demonstrated nuclear energy is safe, scalable or realistic in the long term. The goal is not to replace one pollutant with another, it's to come up with cleaner solutions that don't threaten human life.
It already is happening, just not in America. People are also making money from it.
I couldn't agree more with your statement that oversight must be by people who are interested in exposing problems, not concealing them. Unfortunately, the idea that energy business doesn't have 300 layers of secrecy is not the case. They are responsible for their bottom line, and in the case of Entergy, concealing missing fuel rods happens to be profitable.
You're partially correct. Hanford was a research and production facility, it also had several reactors. WPPSS 2 reactor is within the Hanford complex. http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/wash2.html
Re-read my post, I'm discussing the impact of the push for modern nuclear power, vs the waste generated in comparison to current hydro dams.
It's the cooling pools that are leaking at facilities around the world.
Are you aware that spent fuel rods have gone missing and this hasn't made front page headlines? It's not about losing one pebble, it's about an entire reactor (or in the vision of our administration; a work site reactor) being stolen or sabotaged. The United states has thousands of fault lines. I live directly on top of one. San Andreas just happens to be very active.
What nuclear security would that be? That of unmaintained "storage" facilities bordering separatist states?
>Nuclear power doesn't produce much waste, for the amount of energy you get out of it. I think if we take into account how long that waste is around and that it cannot be safely sequestered at this point, we find that in proportion, nuclear power results in much more waste than other available technologies.
From a military perspective, having centralized electrical utilities makes absolutely no sense. Reactors have a big bullseye painted on them. The future is modular, easily deployed generation that can power a single home or a neighborhood. These support a manufacturing base (that translates directly to more jobs) and cap consumer expenditures. When the device has been paid for, they continue to benefit at little or no cost.
Your response is short sighted. The oil industry recognizes that with the rise of China and India, it must diversify. Our administration does favor the development of new nuclear facilities. My region of the country does not burn oil to generate electricity. Your understanding of the supply chain is...rhetoric.
Coming from a state that gets a huge portion of its electricity from hydro dams that have threatened so many species, I have to take issue with your assessment that these are worse than nuclear plants. Again, look at hanford. The Columbia river's tributaries are dammed. When the radiation from Hanford reaches the Columbia in a few hundred years, the damage those dams have done will look like minor incidents in comparison.
Anything nuclear will create waste, you are mistake. Pebble Bed reactors are designed to prevent catastrophic reactions, but these are still possible. A containment leak would allow the atmosphere within the reactor to reach temperatures high enough to melt the graphite moderating cuticle. Pebble bed reactors are not realistic in an age of terrorism, they produce more waste and the mechanised fuel handling is more likely to result in disaster (see Hamm-Uentrop, West Germany). Never mind the logistics of TRACKING each and every pebble from its birth to final resting place in yucca mountain (which is near a fault line). The problem of nuclear energy and its waste has not been solved. As long as waste remains on the planet, it is a threat. I have absolutely NO IDEA how anyone could claim that the problem of nuclear waste is no longer a problem. I think the only explanation is the radiation from too much time spent within the leaky storage facilities at hanford or eating potatoes growing near Chernobyl has gotten to you. Look no further than the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington (US). Our Federal government has done a good job of keeping this disaster under wraps for the most part. This is because the administration would like you to believe nuclear energy is safe, so that they can gain public support for the reintroduction of the technology to our energy production matrix.
I do conversion services on projects of 5,000,000+ pages for government, medical and financial industries. What you are describing is not "large scale" conversion. Working two hours to scan 100 pages for an instructor is not too bad with a flat bed, but if you have the budget to purchase a new scanner I think the one you cited will work fine. We use Fujitsu and Bell & Howell, but those are for production environments with 40,000+ pages a day.
An idiot above suggested you pay to have them professionally scanned. That is a bad idea, the cost would probably exceed that of a new scanner.
A lot of people don't like to download adobe's software so you should provide the documents in two formats. Stick with PDF and also do GIF.