Um... Isaac Newton invented calculus when he was still a student at Trinity College. The school was on break for two years as a result of disease sweeping the area, and having little else to do, he spent his idle time thinking very productively.
There was no government funding involved in his inventing calculus, sorry. He invented it out of curiosity, not because he was paid to do so.
Yes, one advantage of mathematics is that it generally does not have any supplies costs, so if you are one of the greatest geniuses of all time, you might be able to make an important contribution over spring break.
For people who are only ordinarily brilliant, and people involved in fields such as stem cell research, with substantial supplies and equipment costs, progress is highly dependent upon the availability of funds for full-time salaries, supplies and equipment.
In the US, the primary source of biomedical funding is NIH grants. Other funds are extremely limited, and the amount of effort required to gain funding is much greater. A field of research that is not eligible for federal funding is greatly crippled in its ability to attract talented researchers. This severely slows the pace of research in the area.
Wrong. If these people with diseases have any children at all, when they would not have because they would have died of the disease, then the prevelence of the disease in society will increase.
Nope. This is probably one of the most common misunderstandings of evolution. Do the math. Let's say the incidence of a genetic disease is 1 in 100 and (to make it simple) the disease is dominant. That means on the average, half of the children of a sufferer will inherit the disease. Let's say that couples with the illness have 4 children, and couples without the illness also have 3 children. What is the incidence in the next generation?
Well in each 50 couples, there will be on average one with an affected person, who will have 4 kids, of which 2 will be affected and 2 unaffected. There will be 49 unaffected couples, each of which will have 4 kids (total 4 * 49 = 196). Total incidence in the next generation = 2/(196 + 4) = 1 in 100. Unchanged.
Nope - its true that only those who have more children than they otherwise would will pass on their defective genes, but considering how many people are having several now who would have had *NONE* (bvecause they would die in childhood without surgery/insulin/padded helmets), it IS a concern, at least until we are able to correct these things on the DNA level
Wrong. This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution. It is relative reproduction rates that affect the incidence of an allele. So yes, people with genetic diseases are having more children, but so are people without them, so the total incidence of the disease is not affected. Or to put it another way, the number of people with the disease allele only increases at the overall rate of population increase, so the frequency of the allele remains constant.
"Well, Creationism is false because you are basing it on Creationist sources. I'll prove Evolution by basing it on Evolutionist sources."
The assertion was one regarding the scientific literature. It is demonstrably false, based upon citations to the original literature, which are provided in the the linked document.
Since essentially all modern biologists are "evolutionists," saying that you cannot invoke "evolutionist" sources is equivalent to insisting that all modern biological evidence is off limits.
If evolution is true, we are talking about many many generations before actual differentiation of species takes place
Many generations can take place in a short time with short-generation species, such as flies. And there are mechanisms, such as hybridization, that can result in rapid speciation.
If Creationism is true, then evolutionist experiments will continue to show nothing but adaptations (versus evolutions).
This is circular, because Creationists provide no meaningful criterion by which one can distinguish between "adaptational" changes and evolutionary changes (i.e. there is no difference at the DNA level that will distinguish one from the other). In effect, Creationists effectively define all observed change as "adaptations." Therefore, this is not a genuine prediction--i.e. there is no conceivable observation predicted by evolutionary theory that can refute it.
So true. Diseases like diabetes, which were once fatal, are now affecting more and more people just because we can treat it.
Fears of genetic disease increasing because of treatment prolonging survival are largely misplaced. Unless people with the disease have more children than people without it (i.e. if the "disease" is in some sense beneficial in a fitness sense) their reproduction will not contribute to an overall increase in disease frequency. So if the treatment is perfectly effective, then the frequency of the disease will only increase at the rate at which new carriers of the disease allele arise by spontaneous mutation. However, most treatments are not perfectly effective (i.e. people with diabetes are still a lot more likely to die young than people without it) and the mutation rate is low. So increase in genetic disease frequency due to medical treatment is unlikely--at worst, it will decrease more slowly.
And eventually, it will be possible to correct all identified genetic diseases at the DNA level, and the problem will become moot.
First of all, no species has ever been shown to evolve into another species.
You must have been reading Creationist propaganda. Beware. Those guys lie a lot (it's OK--it's all in the service of the Lord). In reality, there are lots of examples of speciation being observed. For that matter, some of the products of artificial selection, such as Great Danes and Chihuahuas, would unquestionably be classified as different species if discovered in the wild. This isn't evolution (because the selection is artificial rather than natural), but it does demonstrate the ability of selection to produce massive change over a geologically miniscule interval of time.
Re:Betamax gets the last laugh
on
The VHS is Dead
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The number of scratched DVDs that I get from my video store, I think perhaps VHS was actually better. These DVD movies are just crap with their pausing and skipping.
I used to think the same thing, then I got a decent player. Haven't seen a DVD skip since then.
They goddamn well better have the head jerking toward the direction the shot came from, then. From what I gather, Oliver Stone's movie makes a big deal out of this in an effort to prove Oswald wasn't the only shooter (disclaimer: I haven't seen the movie), but it's just good physics.
If they had this, it would be very impressive, because it depends upon the hydrodynamics of brain ejecta through the exit wound driving the head forward something like a rocket. That would be an extraordinarily high level of simulation, indeed.
Some years ago, Penn and Teller did a nice demonstration of this principle using a melon wrapped with strapping tape, showing how the melon leaps toward the direction of the shot when hit.
But it is. From that description it sound like nothing more than 1st semester Mechanics (ie, everything a vacuum). In reality the projectiles from high power rifles are greatly affected by the atmosphere, so the aerodynamic effects are not trivial or miniscule. No mention of that.
There is some mention of it on the web site, but remember that the distances are rather short. Seems like it wouldn't require more than a simple drag term.
Flesh and bone is stated here like the human body is some homogenous goo with a skeleton. This isn't so. These are gross approximations at best, or they aren't going out of their way to market things any better.
Real-life ballistic studies frequently model tissue using a homogeneous gel. Apparently, it is a good enough approximation for forensic work.
It's not hard ot take two shots and miss and hit with a third one, even at a moving target if you are an experienced marksman. That doesn't mean you can recreate the happenings perfectly. It will happen one way one time, another the next.
Which is why they can offer a prize to the person who most accurately replicates the details of the historical record. With a true simulation, even a near-exact replication is highly unlikely, quite apart from the question of whether it is plausible for Oswald to have carried out the assassination.
Also, no game can accurately model the physics of what will happen. Realtime physics engines in games are pretty primitive. They can deal with the basics like ragdoll simulation on bodies, falling objects, and simple destructable objects, but any real simulation is FAR beyond what we have.
And they do indeed seem to have gone far beyond standard videogame simulation techniques, attempting to accurately model bullet trajectory, loss of energy through various materials, angle of deflection from bone, etc.
The ballistics in JFK Reloaded are significantly more advanced than those present in traditional "shooter" video games. This is in keeping with JFK Reloaded's status as a true simulation of the events in Dealey Plaza in 1963. For example:
The bullets travel through the air at the correct speed - they don't instantly reach their target. Therefore you have to shoot in front of moving targets ("aim off") in order to hit them.
As the bullets travel they are subject to gravity, and thus travel in a curved path - the further away the target is, the higher you have to aim. For example, if you shoot at the bridge, you will see the point of bullet impact quite far below the cross-hair point; shoot at the (closer) Stemmons Freeway sign, and you'll see the impact point has dropped less.
When bullets hit objects, they react according to the material they hit. For instance, they will pass through glass and upholstery unhindered; pass through flesh with some deflection; and either glance off or pass through bone, depending on the angle of impact.
Angles of ricochet and internal body deflection are highly accurate simulations, based on the laws of physics. The bullets have a certain amount of energy. As they penetrate and/or ricochet, they lose this energy as appropriate. So for instance a bullet that has already gone through a human head has very little energy left, and will tend to lodge in the next thing it hits.
Bullets can travel complicated paths, bouncing around from object to object (within the limitations of their energy, see above). It is even possible to take 'bank shots', by intentionally ricocheting bullets off buildings.
From the web site, it is clear that this is not some kind of cheap, quickie game to reap publicity from controversy. They have invested a lot of time and effort into serious simulation--effect of gravity on bullet trajectory, bullet deflection by bone, loss of energy of bullets passing through various materials, etc. This is a lot more work than required to simply produce an entertaining video game. At the price, I question whether the project will even repay the development effort.
While I appreciate that this must be painful for some of the family--as, most likely, are the periodic rehashing of the event in the news and documentary media--I see this as another part of the loss of privacy that is part of the price of leadership. The assassination of President Kennedy is one of the pivotal events of modern history. It is also uniquely controversial. What really happened is still being hotly debated decades later. Nobody seriously questions, for example, whether it was possible for a beginning pilot to fly a plane into the WTC, yet there are many people who believe passionately that Oswald could not have made the shots as described.
This project appears to be a serious attempt at interactive history, allowing people to investigate for themselves the plausibility of the "official" version of events. This is a unique way to breathe life into history; I hope we see more serious simulations of this nature
"In fact, the study said Linux potentially violates 283 software patents, not 'over 228' as Ballmer said in his speech."
Last time I checked 283 was over 228...
It's about a misquote, not a math error. the author isn't saying that 283 is not "over 228," he is saying that his study does not state the number of potentially infringing patents in this form.
Yes, but those are still arguments that have been backed up using a small portion of data.
No, these are highly reproducible results that have been confirmed in multiple laboratories.
Remember the phrase "Correlation is not causation".
The animal studies are controlled studies in which it is indeed possible to infer causation.
So again one can not argue that the changes are permanent.
What is clear from animal studies is that the changes are extremely long-lasting. Whether they are permanent in humans remains to be determined.
Another thing about studies on illicit drugs. A lot of those studies that pertain to various types of damage may be right, but for another reason. A person using illicit substances has had a likely chance of using a laced substance.
What is clear from the animal studies is that certain drugs in pure form can cause damage. It is likely that risk is greater with street drugs that may be laced with other potentially hazardous substances. For example, stimulants such as Ecstacy and amphetamines may be cut with ephedrine, which can produce strokes.
That applies to animals who are closely related already in genetic terms... how about spider/goats where genetic material from a spider is inserted into the goat and now the goat has receptor sites for spider viruses which are then able to mutate more effectively to fit their new environment and suddenly the goat species has a whole new problem that it is ill adapted for.
any thoughts?
Something like a spider/goat chimera is not going to have spider cells (spiders and mammals are too far apart for cellular chimeras). At most, it would have a spider protein or two. The likelihood that one or two proteins would confer vulnerability to arachnid viruses is essentially zero.
We already know the results when humans spend too much time too close to pigs and chickens. It's called influenza. Now, maybe some poor mutant creature, bringing pigs/birds closer to humans than ever before, can birth a bug that'll kill off a sizable portion of the human race.
The pigs for transplants are raised in sterile conditions, so the only viruses to worry about are those transmitted longitudally--i.e. the ones that copy themselves into DNA and are inherited from the parents. But people have been living in close proximity to pigs for a long time, so chances are that if any endogenous pig viruses were capable of infecting humans, it already happened a long, long time ago.
What is normal? One must realize our brain changes every second to then understand why some will argue damage to the brain, whatever the reason. You injest any substance that has an effect on the brain in some way and it will change it. The question then is, what is damage.
When people (or animals, to make it less personal) will pursue a drug in preference to activities required to stay alive, such as eating, it is reasonable to say that some sort of harm has occurred. When people who have previously suffered from damage to family and livelihood due to inability to control their drug use finally get clean and are highly motivated to remain that way, yet relapse months later, when the drug is long out of the body, simply as a result of seeing drug paraphenalia, it is reasonable to conclude that a long-lasting and detrimental change has occurred in the brain. And in animals, there is clear evidence that the drugs of abuse produce long-lasting, perhaps permanent changes in brain activity that are not seen with substances that are not associated with compulsive use.
Damage is less clear, but loss of nerve terminals and massive depletion of neurotransmitter levels in specific regions of the brain, such as is seen in animals exposed to methamphetamine or Ecstasy, are unlikely to be benign.
Pornography changes your brain also. It is highly addictive and frequent viewing can actually somewhat destroy your brain. I am not sure on all of the science but the pornographers want your money. It is as simple as that.
That's because there is no science. Yes, pornographers want your money. As do car dealers and restaurants. It's called capitalism. It is as simple as that.
Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.
In addition to all of the other reasons why this is stupid, the brain doesn't return to normal once the drug is out of the system. Cocaine makes long-lasting, possibly permanent changes in the brain.
Now, as you can see, neither line fits the data points too well on the far right of the graph, which means (in my opinion), that they picked a horrible regression technique. The regression lines fit well in the middle of the graph, but not on the right. And that's where they are making their claims at, on the right part of the graph. They are trying to extrapolate data off of a bad regression line and using that as proof of a problem.
While I'm somewhat skeptical of how strong a conclusion can be made from this kind of data, the light line fits pretty well, with only a couple of possible outliers on the right, while the darker line clearly doesn't fit at all. A simple visual test of fit quality is to look at how the points distribute around the line. For random scatter, successive points should have equal probability of being above or below the regression line. A run of 10 successive points is therefore about as likely as throwing 10 heads in a row--i.e. about 1 in 1000. Long runs of points on the same side of the line are a strong argument that the model is incorrect. There are no long runs for the the light line, while there are at least 2 runs of over 10 points for the dark line.
If the republicans "rigged" the election, as you propose, why in the hell would they give a third party candidate so many votes?
If I were rigging an election, that's probably what I would do. A third party candidate would be a good place to dump inconvenient votes for my candidate's opponent while keeping the vote total correct, and without implausibly inflating my own candidate's votes more than necessary.
Sounds like the game industry is making great progress. Very impressive. Innovative sequels. Consistent gameplay experience. Mountains of cash followed by the inevitable layoff of the entire team. Outstanding. A real achievement.
The original Metroid Prime was indeed innovative. It managed to reincarnate the spirit of a classic 2D platform exploration game in a first person 3D game. There were many innovative aspects, such as the use of the multiple visors. So it hardly seems to be abusing the franchise to provide a sequel that continues to exploit the MP design for those players who enjoyed MP, and would like to continue on with a similar experience. I gather that the new version adds an alternate "Dark World" twist. This is a concept that I first saw in one of Nintendo's 2D Zelda games, and that was later used to good advantage in Eidos's Soul Reaver. I'm interested to see what Nintendo will do with the idea in the MP series (so far, I'm barely into the game, and have had only a glimpse of the Dark World).
Wow, so it wasn't enough that they ruined one of my favourite game series by turning it into a crappy FPS, but they did nothing to rectify their transgressions in the sequel?
I thought Metroid Prime did a wonderful job of translating everything I loved about the original game into 3D. Even my initial reservations about the first-person format were dispelled. I'm no fan of FPS games, but then MP isn't really a FPS. Indeed, I basically bought the GC for Metroid Prime, and found it well worth the cost. And for 2D purists, Nintendo is still turning out Metroid titles for GameBoy.
Slashdot Mirror
Um... Isaac Newton invented calculus when he was still a student at Trinity College. The school was on break for two years as a result of disease sweeping the area, and having little else to do, he spent his idle time thinking very productively.
There was no government funding involved in his inventing calculus, sorry. He invented it out of curiosity, not because he was paid to do so.
Yes, one advantage of mathematics is that it generally does not have any supplies costs, so if you are one of the greatest geniuses of all time, you might be able to make an important contribution over spring break.
For people who are only ordinarily brilliant, and people involved in fields such as stem cell research, with substantial supplies and equipment costs, progress is highly dependent upon the availability of funds for full-time salaries, supplies and equipment.
In the US, the primary source of biomedical funding is NIH grants. Other funds are extremely limited, and the amount of effort required to gain funding is much greater. A field of research that is not eligible for federal funding is greatly crippled in its ability to attract talented researchers. This severely slows the pace of research in the area.
Wrong. If these people with diseases have any children at all, when they would not have because they would have died of the disease, then the prevelence of the disease in society will increase.
Nope. This is probably one of the most common misunderstandings of evolution. Do the math. Let's say the incidence of a genetic disease is 1 in 100 and (to make it simple) the disease is dominant. That means on the average, half of the children of a sufferer will inherit the disease. Let's say that couples with the illness have 4 children, and couples without the illness also have 3 children. What is the incidence in the next generation?
Well in each 50 couples, there will be on average one with an affected person, who will have 4 kids, of which 2 will be affected and 2 unaffected. There will be 49 unaffected couples, each of which will have 4 kids (total 4 * 49 = 196). Total incidence in the next generation = 2/(196 + 4) = 1 in 100. Unchanged.
Nope - its true that only those who have more children than they otherwise would will pass on their defective genes, but considering how many people are having several now who would have had *NONE* (bvecause they would die in childhood without surgery/insulin/padded helmets), it IS a concern, at least until we are able to correct these things on the DNA level
Wrong. This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution. It is relative reproduction rates that affect the incidence of an allele. So yes, people with genetic diseases are having more children, but so are people without them, so the total incidence of the disease is not affected. Or to put it another way, the number of people with the disease allele only increases at the overall rate of population increase, so the frequency of the allele remains constant.
"Well, Creationism is false because you are basing it on Creationist sources. I'll prove Evolution by basing it on Evolutionist sources."
The assertion was one regarding the scientific literature. It is demonstrably false, based upon citations to the original literature, which are provided in the the linked document.
Since essentially all modern biologists are "evolutionists," saying that you cannot invoke "evolutionist" sources is equivalent to insisting that all modern biological evidence is off limits.
If evolution is true, we are talking about many many generations before actual differentiation of species takes place
Many generations can take place in a short time with short-generation species, such as flies. And there are mechanisms, such as hybridization, that can result in rapid speciation.
If Creationism is true, then evolutionist experiments will continue to show nothing but adaptations (versus evolutions).
This is circular, because Creationists provide no meaningful criterion by which one can distinguish between "adaptational" changes and evolutionary changes (i.e. there is no difference at the DNA level that will distinguish one from the other). In effect, Creationists effectively define all observed change as "adaptations." Therefore, this is not a genuine prediction--i.e. there is no conceivable observation predicted by evolutionary theory that can refute it.
So true. Diseases like diabetes, which were once fatal, are now affecting more and more people just because we can treat it.
Fears of genetic disease increasing because of treatment prolonging survival are largely misplaced. Unless people with the disease have more children than people without it (i.e. if the "disease" is in some sense beneficial in a fitness sense) their reproduction will not contribute to an overall increase in disease frequency. So if the treatment is perfectly effective, then the frequency of the disease will only increase at the rate at which new carriers of the disease allele arise by spontaneous mutation. However, most treatments are not perfectly effective (i.e. people with diabetes are still a lot more likely to die young than people without it) and the mutation rate is low. So increase in genetic disease frequency due to medical treatment is unlikely--at worst, it will decrease more slowly.
And eventually, it will be possible to correct all identified genetic diseases at the DNA level, and the problem will become moot.
First of all, no species has ever been shown to evolve into another species.
You must have been reading Creationist propaganda. Beware. Those guys lie a lot (it's OK--it's all in the service of the Lord). In reality, there are lots of examples of speciation being observed. For that matter, some of the products of artificial selection, such as Great Danes and Chihuahuas, would unquestionably be classified as different species if discovered in the wild. This isn't evolution (because the selection is artificial rather than natural), but it does demonstrate the ability of selection to produce massive change over a geologically miniscule interval of time.
The number of scratched DVDs that I get from my video store, I think perhaps VHS was actually better. These DVD movies are just crap with their pausing and skipping.
I used to think the same thing, then I got a decent player. Haven't seen a DVD skip since then.
They goddamn well better have the head jerking toward the direction the shot came from, then. From what I gather, Oliver Stone's movie makes a big deal out of this in an effort to prove Oswald wasn't the only shooter (disclaimer: I haven't seen the movie), but it's just good physics.
If they had this, it would be very impressive, because it depends upon the hydrodynamics of brain ejecta through the exit wound driving the head forward something like a rocket. That would be an extraordinarily high level of simulation, indeed.
Some years ago, Penn and Teller did a nice demonstration of this principle using a melon wrapped with strapping tape, showing how the melon leaps toward the direction of the shot when hit.
But it is. From that description it sound like nothing more than 1st semester Mechanics (ie, everything a vacuum). In reality the projectiles from high power rifles are greatly affected by the atmosphere, so the aerodynamic effects are not trivial or miniscule. No mention of that.
There is some mention of it on the web site, but remember that the distances are rather short. Seems like it wouldn't require more than a simple drag term.
Flesh and bone is stated here like the human body is some homogenous goo with a skeleton. This isn't so. These are gross approximations at best, or they aren't going out of their way to market things any better.
Real-life ballistic studies frequently model tissue using a homogeneous gel. Apparently, it is a good enough approximation for forensic work.
It's not hard ot take two shots and miss and hit with a third one, even at a moving target if you are an experienced marksman. That doesn't mean you can recreate the happenings perfectly. It will happen one way one time, another the next.
Which is why they can offer a prize to the person who most accurately replicates the details of the historical record. With a true simulation, even a near-exact replication is highly unlikely, quite apart from the question of whether it is plausible for Oswald to have carried out the assassination.
Also, no game can accurately model the physics of what will happen. Realtime physics engines in games are pretty primitive. They can deal with the basics like ragdoll simulation on bodies, falling objects, and simple destructable objects, but any real simulation is FAR beyond what we have.
And they do indeed seem to have gone far beyond standard videogame simulation techniques, attempting to accurately model bullet trajectory, loss of energy through various materials, angle of deflection from bone, etc.
From the web site, it is clear that this is not some kind of cheap, quickie game to reap publicity from controversy. They have invested a lot of time and effort into serious simulation--effect of gravity on bullet trajectory, bullet deflection by bone, loss of energy of bullets passing through various materials, etc. This is a lot more work than required to simply produce an entertaining video game. At the price, I question whether the project will even repay the development effort.
While I appreciate that this must be painful for some of the family--as, most likely, are the periodic rehashing of the event in the news and documentary media--I see this as another part of the loss of privacy that is part of the price of leadership. The assassination of President Kennedy is one of the pivotal events of modern history. It is also uniquely controversial. What really happened is still being hotly debated decades later. Nobody seriously questions, for example, whether it was possible for a beginning pilot to fly a plane into the WTC, yet there are many people who believe passionately that Oswald could not have made the shots as described.
This project appears to be a serious attempt at interactive history, allowing people to investigate for themselves the plausibility of the "official" version of events. This is a unique way to breathe life into history; I hope we see more serious simulations of this nature
"In fact, the study said Linux potentially violates 283 software patents, not
...
'over 228' as Ballmer said in his speech."
Last time I checked 283 was over 228
It's about a misquote, not a math error. the author isn't saying that 283 is not "over 228," he is saying that his study does not state the number of potentially infringing patents in this form.
Yes, but those are still arguments that have been backed up using a small portion of data.
No, these are highly reproducible results that have been confirmed in multiple laboratories.
Remember the phrase "Correlation is not causation".
The animal studies are controlled studies in which it is indeed possible to infer causation.
So again one can not argue that the changes are permanent.
What is clear from animal studies is that the changes are extremely long-lasting. Whether they are permanent in humans remains to be determined.
Another thing about studies on illicit drugs. A lot of those studies that pertain to various types of damage may be right, but for another reason. A person using illicit substances has had a likely chance of using a laced substance.
What is clear from the animal studies is that certain drugs in pure form can cause damage. It is likely that risk is greater with street drugs that may be laced with other potentially hazardous substances. For example, stimulants such as Ecstacy and amphetamines may be cut with ephedrine, which can produce strokes.
That applies to animals who are closely related already in genetic terms... how about spider/goats where genetic material from a spider is inserted into the goat and now the goat has receptor sites for spider viruses which are then able to mutate more effectively to fit their new environment and suddenly the goat species has a whole new problem that it is ill adapted for.
any thoughts?
Something like a spider/goat chimera is not going to have spider cells (spiders and mammals are too far apart for cellular chimeras). At most, it would have a spider protein or two. The likelihood that one or two proteins would confer vulnerability to arachnid viruses is essentially zero.
We already know the results when humans spend too much time too close to pigs and chickens. It's called influenza. Now, maybe some poor mutant creature, bringing pigs/birds closer to humans than ever before, can birth a bug that'll kill off a sizable portion of the human race.
The pigs for transplants are raised in sterile conditions, so the only viruses to worry about are those transmitted longitudally--i.e. the ones that copy themselves into DNA and are inherited from the parents. But people have been living in close proximity to pigs for a long time, so chances are that if any endogenous pig viruses were capable of infecting humans, it already happened a long, long time ago.
I wonder how humalike a mouse with a 100% human brain would be. I guess I'm asking: to what extent does size matter?
Neuron count surely matters. A mouse skull won't hold nearly as many neurons as a human one.
What is normal? One must realize our brain changes every second to then understand why some will argue damage to the brain, whatever the reason. You injest any substance that has an effect on the brain in some way and it will change it. The question then is, what is damage.
When people (or animals, to make it less personal) will pursue a drug in preference to activities required to stay alive, such as eating, it is reasonable to say that some sort of harm has occurred. When people who have previously suffered from damage to family and livelihood due to inability to control their drug use finally get clean and are highly motivated to remain that way, yet relapse months later, when the drug is long out of the body, simply as a result of seeing drug paraphenalia, it is reasonable to conclude that a long-lasting and detrimental change has occurred in the brain. And in animals, there is clear evidence that the drugs of abuse produce long-lasting, perhaps permanent changes in brain activity that are not seen with substances that are not associated with compulsive use.
Damage is less clear, but loss of nerve terminals and massive depletion of neurotransmitter levels in specific regions of the brain, such as is seen in animals exposed to methamphetamine or Ecstasy, are unlikely to be benign.
Pornography changes your brain also. It is highly addictive and frequent viewing can actually somewhat destroy your brain. I am not sure on all of the science but the pornographers want your money. It is as simple as that.
That's because there is no science. Yes, pornographers want your money. As do car dealers and restaurants. It's called capitalism. It is as simple as that.
The Dems are just as bad, HINT - Tipper Gore, Al Gore and a whole list of others from the Dem side of the isle that try to control things.
About the worst we ever get from the Dems is some rhetoric. It's the Republicans who run around trying to throw people into jail.
Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.
In addition to all of the other reasons why this is stupid, the brain doesn't return to normal once the drug is out of the system. Cocaine makes long-lasting, possibly permanent changes in the brain.
Now, as you can see, neither line fits the data points too well on the far right of the graph, which means (in my opinion), that they picked a horrible regression technique. The regression lines fit well in the middle of the graph, but not on the right. And that's where they are making their claims at, on the right part of the graph. They are trying to extrapolate data off of a bad regression line and using that as proof of a problem.
While I'm somewhat skeptical of how strong a conclusion can be made from this kind of data, the light line fits pretty well, with only a couple of possible outliers on the right, while the darker line clearly doesn't fit at all. A simple visual test of fit quality is to look at how the points distribute around the line. For random scatter, successive points should have equal probability of being above or below the regression line. A run of 10 successive points is therefore about as likely as throwing 10 heads in a row--i.e. about 1 in 1000. Long runs of points on the same side of the line are a strong argument that the model is incorrect. There are no long runs for the the light line, while there are at least 2 runs of over 10 points for the dark line.
If the republicans "rigged" the election, as you propose, why in the hell would they give a third party candidate so many votes?
If I were rigging an election, that's probably what I would do. A third party candidate would be a good place to dump inconvenient votes for my candidate's opponent while keeping the vote total correct, and without implausibly inflating my own candidate's votes more than necessary.
Sounds like the game industry is making great progress. Very impressive. Innovative sequels. Consistent gameplay experience. Mountains of cash followed by the inevitable layoff of the entire team. Outstanding. A real achievement.
The original Metroid Prime was indeed innovative. It managed to reincarnate the spirit of a classic 2D platform exploration game in a first person 3D game. There were many innovative aspects, such as the use of the multiple visors. So it hardly seems to be abusing the franchise to provide a sequel that continues to exploit the MP design for those players who enjoyed MP, and would like to continue on with a similar experience. I gather that the new version adds an alternate "Dark World" twist. This is a concept that I first saw in one of Nintendo's 2D Zelda games, and that was later used to good advantage in Eidos's Soul Reaver. I'm interested to see what Nintendo will do with the idea in the MP series (so far, I'm barely into the game, and have had only a glimpse of the Dark World).
Wow, so it wasn't enough that they ruined one of my favourite game series by turning it into a crappy FPS, but they did nothing to rectify their transgressions in the sequel?
I thought Metroid Prime did a wonderful job of translating everything I loved about the original game into 3D. Even my initial reservations about the first-person format were dispelled. I'm no fan of FPS games, but then MP isn't really a FPS. Indeed, I basically bought the GC for Metroid Prime, and found it well worth the cost. And for 2D purists, Nintendo is still turning out Metroid titles for GameBoy.