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User: the+plant+doctor

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  1. Re:Idiots are against Golden Rice on Interview With Professor Potrykus, Inventor of Golden Rice · · Score: 5, Informative

    The simplest solution seems to be to grow some carrots or other vitamin A rich food alongside rice. But, maybe you're right and they need every inch of their land to grow rice and can't spare any for other vegetables.

    Have you actually set foot in a rice paddy here in Asia? I'm guessing not. Rice is extremely unique in its ability to grow under monsoonal conditions. I'm not aware that carrots are fond of 5cm of standing water throughout the growing season.

    Beyond that, as the grandparent noted, these people use all the land to grow rice. It's not that there aren't good solutions (from a Western developed country standpoint), it's that this one FITS the problem at hand.

  2. Re:In the absence of glyphosate on GM Rice Passes Unexpected Benefits To Weeds · · Score: 2

    Might be wrong, but bacillus thuringiensis is primarily used because of it's effectiveness as a -pesticide-. Glyphosate, as discussed here, is primarily used as a -herbicide-.

    Both are pesticides...

    Bt is used as an insecticide, both in GMO and conventional forms.

    Glyphosate is a herbicide.

  3. Re:nature and consumers on GMO Oranges? Altering a Fruit's DNA To Save It · · Score: 1

    I've ready plenty about this woman, yes, she has a PhD, but she's a physicist. I don't publish articles in her field of work because I'm not qualified too.

    Citing her work is about as convincing as citing the Séralini paper, IMO.

  4. Re:nature and consumers on GMO Oranges? Altering a Fruit's DNA To Save It · · Score: 1

    It already happened*.

    *citation needed

  5. There's opportunities on Ask Slashdot: Scientific Research Positions For Programmers? · · Score: 1

    My PhD work required that I learn programming, I learned R. Now I'm starting to learn Python in addition to R.

    There's plenty of opportunities for someone who is a programmer that is interested in science, where I'm sitting. I just hired an MS level employee who had experience modeling but not with programming. I'm looking to hire one programmer to do some R package work for me shortly and another to do some "big data" sort of work. However, it's not always easy to find someone to fill these positions who has enough science background or interest.

    Depending on your interests and skills, there are jobs that would definitely suit you. A general programming skill with a general interest in science can net you some interesting positions.

  6. Re:Be careful what you wish for CA on California Bill Would Mandate Open Access To Publicly Funded Research · · Score: 1

    I was just thinking the same thing. Open access is great! Who's paying for it? The costs of my last publication were nearly $3000 because I chose open access. I'm lucky to have the funds to do it at the moment.

    I hope that this action is backed up with sufficient support to actually publish as open access. Somehow I suspect maybe not.

  7. Re:So much for that! on Supreme Court Rules For Monsanto In Patent Case · · Score: 1

    Soybean seeds, as in this article, are not hybrids, they're inbred varieties. Same thing with wheat. Still mostly the same with rice, though there is hybrid rice, but it's not nearly as common as inbred rice.

    Corn is a hybrid because hybrid vigor offers so much better performance and it's easy to detassle so you have female-only plants to be pollenated by neighboring plants.

    I won't address other plants, but as far as I'm aware, corn is the only major crop that is a hybrid.

    Plants that reproduce the same year after year are likely to be inbreds that is not equal to heirloom. I can think of plenty of rice varieties that are modern mega-varieties that have displaced older landraces, neither one is a hybrid.

    In the US it's not common to save seeds year after year because the quality offered by seed companies is better. To effectively save and clean seed can be done, but the time and equipment required usually means it's more efficient to buy new seed every year. This differs from crop to crop and by country/region. But in this case, I disagree with the assumption that farmers "regularly" propagate, sow, harvest and save seeds (in the US).

  8. Re:Allow me to provide a correct summary on Sony To Make Its Last MiniDisc System Next Month · · Score: 1

    Sadly, I'm not sure if this was satire or meant to be a real post.

  9. Re:Missing Benefits and the Bigger Picture on Does US Owe the World an Education At Its Expense? · · Score: 1

    At the graduate level...most of these international students get a full ride. At least that's how I've seen it done. Nothing wrong with that...let's just make sure we keep them here to make the USA stronger rather than give them the boot.

    "A full ride", please define.

    While I earned my PhD most of my fellow students in the department were foreign and they struggled as much or more than I did to pay tuition, rent, buy food, etc. on the stipend that we were given.

    Most of them wished to stay in the US once they finished their work. I, as a US citizen chose to leave.

  10. Re:Google Police on Google Nexus 4 Prototype Lost In a Bar · · Score: 1

    Three Questions.

    How can you loose a phone while showing it off to all your friends in a bar?

    Its already been knocked off in China so whats the big deal?

    Can I have one?

    One question.

    How do you loose a phone in a bar? It's an inanimate object, or so I'd suppose.

    C'mon, this is /. We're supposed to be an educated crowd here.

  11. Re:yes it can on Can Nokia Save Itself? · · Score: 1

    Are you sure you're using a Nokia phone?

    That's one of the best features about my N9, off-line maps.

    Hell, even my N97 Mini has this feature. There is no need to be connected at all, assuming you downloaded the maps prior to use.

  12. Long and winding road on Ask Slashdot: What Distros Have You Used, In What Order? · · Score: 1

    Red Hat 7.3
    Yoper
    Mandrake
    OpenSuSE
    Slackware
    Ubuntu
    CrunchBang
    Mint
    Arch
    Ubuntu

    I flirted with other more obscure distros along the way, had one on a netbook and something else on my main workstation, etc. Lately I've taken to just using Ubuntu these days on my workstation. I can compile the stuff I really care about for optimization (R), everything else is easily available and it just works on my Dell workstation. At home I've gone over to Mac for my photography and just the whole ecosystem.

  13. Re:Jumping to conclusions... on Has Plant Life Reached Its Limits? · · Score: 1

    The whole point of the Green Revolution was to make our crop plants more efficient at making food for us. Total biological output from the crops has not increased.

    I'm puzzled by this comment. Isn't increased efficiency leading to higher biological output from plants?

    Plant one hectare of inbred corn, and one hectare of hybrid corn. Fertilize and control pests in exactly the same way and you're telling me the biological output of hybrid corn isn't greater?

  14. Re:Didn't WebOS try this already on Mozilla OS Looking Grown Up On Its Own Developer Phone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, Facebook did just retreat from HTML 5. However, the difference there is that they were attempting to support how many different hardwares, screen resolutions, browsers, etc.

    Mozilla here can work with it because they are vertically integrated. They can optimize the apps for their phone alone, not worrying about other phones' screen sizes, resolutions, processors, etc. That's not to say it's not still risky. HTML5 is scarcely grown up, IMO.

  15. Re:New meaning for "defile" on Nokia Claims a Memory Card Slot Would Have "Defiled" New Phone · · Score: 3

    Silly me, I bought a 64GB Nokia N9 because I wanted one device not two.

  16. Re:there's always a bottom 5% on 19 Million Americans Cannot Get Broadband Access · · Score: 2

    On the other hand: people that choose to live there, do they nééd fixed-line access?

    Except we didn't have this attitude toward electricity and telephone. We made sure that everyone was brought up to par with everyone else in rural areas.

    I'm sorry to see that we have this attitude toward Internet connections now. What has happened since the Rural Electrification Act that we find it acceptable to say "they chose to live there, therefore should go without"?

  17. Re:Frequency bands on Ask Slashdot: A Cheap US Cellphone Plan With an Unlocked Phone? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for that information, I misunderstood the bands that T-Mobile used.

    To add to your list of international devices that work with AT&T, the Nokia N9 will as well (from personal experience last month).

  18. Re:Frequency bands on Ask Slashdot: A Cheap US Cellphone Plan With an Unlocked Phone? · · Score: 1

    Pentaband would be the best. I'm not sure if the Nexus phones are equipped as such or not. I know Nokia makes some that are.

    If it doesn't get 3G on AT&T it should on T-Mobile, should it not?

  19. Re:Try straighttalk on Ask Slashdot: A Cheap US Cellphone Plan With an Unlocked Phone? · · Score: 2

    I just bought one of their SIM cards with their $45 unli everything plan and popped it into my Nokia N9 when I was back in the States for a few weeks recently.

    Process was straightforward enough to set it up. I had decent coverage (AT&T, YMMV), unlimited everything was nice to have. Unsure what experience the previous poster had with their 3G speeds. I found it to be quite speedy. Able to watch YouTube, etc. as fast or faster than my connection at home in the Philippines.

    Overall, if I were living in the States, I'd surely go with this company as I like my phones unlocked and without the bloatware of the mobile companies.

    Even at that, I'll still use them when I return the US so that I have a mobile number where friends and family can reach me, while I'm there.

  20. Re:huh? on West Nile Virus Outbreak Puts Dallas In State of Emergency · · Score: 2

    Is is that you didn't look or just aren't willing to?

    CBS News

  21. As a scientist I have to wonder on Independent Labs To Verify High-Profile Research Papers · · Score: 1

    I like the idea, but, how do you fund this effort? I don't see the article making any mention of this.

    We all spend our time writing grants now to support our own research and have little enough time to do it. Now we're expected to do someone else's research? I suppose it's a bit like reviewing articles, if you want to publish, you should review. However, this takes much more time, effort and money to do.

  22. Re:Cameras on Touch Interfaces In Cars Difficult To Use · · Score: 1

    Hear, hear!

    Wish I had mod points right now, you're absolutely correct on this.

  23. Re:It makes the same "no First World" mistake as N on MeeGo Startup Jolla Signs Phone Deal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you're a startup I don't see how it's a mistake. From TFA: "China was selected because it is the largest, most rapidly expanding smartphone market in the world, according to Jolla Chairman Antti Saarnio." This seems like a logical first step to me. Get established there first, then move on to more expensive markets once you are established.

  24. Re:maize on EU Blocks France's Ban of Monsanto's GM Maize · · Score: 1

    Most scientists I know refer to it as maize when publishing papers, since this is a website that's billed as "News for Nerds", I'd say the use of maize is quite appropriate.

  25. Re: Oooh, smart. on Operators: Nokia Would Sell Better With Android · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, Nokia has released 20 devices that have penta-band 3G connectivity. Unfortunately they're all running Symbian or Windows Phone (the Lumia 710).

    Not all of them. The N9 which is much talked about here in this discussion also is pentaband.