You're absolutely right. This slashdot article is a bad summary of a bad summary. The 8% number is in the abstract of the paper, and they cite human genome paper (from 2001) as one of the sources for that. What they're talking about is probably the overall % retroelement content, and not just the particular class of virus that this group is talking about. This is misleading because they also say the virus they're working with infects neuronal cells, which are more or less terminally differentiated, and so sequence from that shouldn't really end up in the germline cells. Of course, I haven't read beyond the first few sentences of the abstract, which is about the same that I think the PR person who wrote the article, and the submitter of the story did as well.
different media should have some cost associated with it otherwise why bother making new technology?
Why bother making new technology??? Are you serious???
Let's just say I happen to be a large corporate entity with holdings in both the production of 'media platforms' and a large back catalog of 'media content' --- let's call me Sony. Now what would be the benefit to me to produce an new format that would require consumers to purchase new technology and new media to go with it? What's the economic incentive for me, Sony, to do that?
Let me spell it out for you: If I come up with a new media format, I can re-sell you the same shit you already bought. Better on me if I can somehow *prevent* you from carrying over the shit you've already got so that it plays on your new and improved technology platform. That way I, Sony, don't even have to make the new format that much better, because you've got to rebuy the shit anyway if you want to use it. Oh, and I forgot to mention that pretty soon I, Sony, won't be releasing any new media I might happen to produce on that old busted format I invented. Sure, you can keep the old players around, but for how long?
As pointed out in the book 'The Life of Pi', atheism and religion are very similar -- both believe in something that can't be proved 100%.
Except in everyday life we aren't usually expected to prove the non-existence of something.
And things which actually exist don't usually require that you believe in them for them to continue doing so. People usually understand this by around 4 months of age.
I wonder how Zeus is doing these days --- now there's a god who *actually* exists.
According to the following article, Chip Morningstar wrote the first SCUMM compiler and came up with the name. But he gives credit to only Ron Gilbert for designing the scripting engine.
You're mixing together two biological concepts that may lead to confusion and panic in people reading your post; those being the interspecies diversity which is the diversity of species within an ecosystem, and intraspecies diversity which is genetic diversity within individuals of the same species.
The benefits of varying levels of interspecies diversity for ecosystems is a complicated issue, and I think if you go to the literature you'll find papers that show a correlation between decreasing interspecies diversity and increased primary productivity, which is one measure of ecosystem 'fitness'; and you might find the opposite as well. It's complicated, and it's ecology, so it's not quite science anyway.
In the case of a random global catastrophe such as an asteroid impact, some species are going to live and some species are going to die. If humans were to nominate ourselves as Earth shepherds and try to keep some arbitrary level of interspecies diversity on Earth, we probably would fail miserably. However, the good news is that mammals have survived asteroid impacts in the past, and humans have proven ourselves particularly adaptable; so, perhaps we'd stand a better chance of making it through.
Now, when you talk about diversity as a determinant of whether a species can survive a catastrophic event, you must be talking about intraspecies diversity. The rate of accumulation of intraspecies diversity should be correlated with the mutation rate, which is relatively constant over generations within a species. The mutation rate is where the cosmic rays come in, but variations in solar radiation, radiation from the earth itself, diet, environment and genetic factors will all play a role.
Examples of where intraspecies diversity has saved humans in the past are in malaria-affected populations in Africa with individuals having sickle-cell haemoglobin, and in some European populations (and I believe a small group of people somewhere in Asia) who needed to survive off of milk products having lactase being expressed in adults. These are just some well known clear examples.
If the point of the parent was that we should be scared about our own asses becoming extinct, I don't think we need to worry too much. One thing that guarantees intraspecies diversity is having a large sexually reproducing population spread over diverse geographical regions. But, if you want to be proactive about it, spend more time with your gonads exposed to the sun --- better yet, put your gonads in an X-ray machine.
An excerpt from the Wikipedia article mentioned above:
"DNA is a molecule. Molecules are put together out of atoms, that have different charges; some positive some negative. The atoms it is made up of are A, T, G, C and sometimes U. All of the information from life is contained in the atoms of DNA. It is called the genetic code. The genetic code was invented by Watson and Crick. All information from life is passed down through generations by the process of meisosi. This is where the atoms line up and they mix together and form the new oligomers. Darwin called this 'Decent by Modification'."
Exports account for roughly a third of [Canada's] GDP. Canada enjoys a substantial trade surplus with its principal trading partner, the US, which absorbs about 85% of Canadian exports. Canada is the US' largest foreign supplier of energy, including oil, gas, uranium, and electric power.
This article opened my eyes. The MPAA should really study the case of the "Borat" movie when re-tooling their business models. It exceeded the industry expectations for box-office earnings, but look what terrible odds it had against it:
Episodes of the BBC and HBO Ali G shows have been actively traded on filesharing sites for *years*.
Its target demographic, Ali G fans, are in the range of 18-35; what the media would call "computer-savvy", and no doubt well-experienced with internet file sharing.
Why then didn't we all stay home and download 0-day cam versions, why did shell out the ~$10 and go to see it in the theater? Because it was a genuinely funny movie that we wanted to see --- it was a product we would buy. (In fact, maybe we did download the cam version, and maybe we *still* went to see it in the theater --- maybe we even went twice.)
Hollywood: if you want to stop "losing" money, stop making shitty movies. It's that easy.
Except you're oversimplifying the situation here...
Making the statement that all genetic defects are just a type of genetic diversity is incorrect. We can objectively say that some types of genetic defects are indeed quite bad, although there is a gradient between absolute 100% lethality and some impairment of 'wild type' biological function. The sickle cell anemia/malaria example is a good one, but the fact of the matter is that homozygous sickle cell carriers are royally screwed. (The heterozygotes don't have it that good either.)
Mutations arise in all of us at a relatively constant rate (and would even do so in clones), so no matter how hard we tried we could not eliminate diversity, short of reducing the population.
Given the current human population on earth, there's no real argument for maintaining a trait (if this is some hereditary condition) through medical intervention that would otherwise cause random infant death. (Other than the subjective feeling that babies are cute, and that if you're a carrier you don't want your own baby to die.) TNG references aside, the scenario you've presented under which a gene that kills you in your sleep could improve fitness is bad science fiction at best.
And as a bonus, has no real ethics baggage associated with it!
Really?
Does the newborn consent to its stem cells being used for medical research?
I'd be damn pissed off if I found out some of my tissues had been harvested and resold for profit, without my consent, the very same day I was born. Won't somebody please think of the children?
As for adult stem cells, are you offering up yours? I'll take a dozen --- from the marrow please, those are the pluripotentist!
I could equally explain away these results by saying maybe that those children who play games on school nights are not being challenged enough by their schoolwork, and are thus disinterested and seeking other means of entertainment.
The 'motivated' self-reporting high performing students are enthralled with the meaningless busywork that is being forced upon them, and aren't smart enough to be bored with it.
I'm not going to read the paper because I've got games to play, but I'm betting that they didn't break down the kinds of games that the kids were playing. Previous studies, from what I recall, have found that playing certain kinds of games can improve academic performance (let's say something with logic puzzles) --- here, I found an URL for you: http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2827/in formation_show.htm?doc_id=69830. What if the game playing was chess? What would we be saying?
Remember, social sciences solely rely on statistical magic. Depending on your data model, you can prove anything. This isn't hard science --- hell, it isn't science at all --- and I wouldn't put too much stock in it because a contradictory study using the same data was probably published yesterday.
Slashdot Mirror
You're absolutely right. This slashdot article is a bad summary of a bad summary. The 8% number is in the abstract of the paper, and they cite human genome paper (from 2001) as one of the sources for that. What they're talking about is probably the overall % retroelement content, and not just the particular class of virus that this group is talking about. This is misleading because they also say the virus they're working with infects neuronal cells, which are more or less terminally differentiated, and so sequence from that shouldn't really end up in the germline cells. Of course, I haven't read beyond the first few sentences of the abstract, which is about the same that I think the PR person who wrote the article, and the submitter of the story did as well.
Damn. Guess I better change all my passwords from my good-old standby, '*******'.
Everyone knows the reason women don't go into IT is because math is tough!.
Why bother making new technology??? Are you serious???
Let's just say I happen to be a large corporate entity with holdings in both the production of 'media platforms' and a large back catalog of 'media content' --- let's call me Sony. Now what would be the benefit to me to produce an new format that would require consumers to purchase new technology and new media to go with it? What's the economic incentive for me, Sony, to do that?
Let me spell it out for you: If I come up with a new media format, I can re-sell you the same shit you already bought. Better on me if I can somehow *prevent* you from carrying over the shit you've already got so that it plays on your new and improved technology platform. That way I, Sony, don't even have to make the new format that much better, because you've got to rebuy the shit anyway if you want to use it. Oh, and I forgot to mention that pretty soon I, Sony, won't be releasing any new media I might happen to produce on that old busted format I invented. Sure, you can keep the old players around, but for how long?
Except in everyday life we aren't usually expected to prove the non-existence of something.
And things which actually exist don't usually require that you believe in them for them to continue doing so. People usually understand this by around 4 months of age.
I wonder how Zeus is doing these days --- now there's a god who *actually* exists.
According to the following article, Chip Morningstar wrote the first SCUMM compiler and came up with the name. But he gives credit to only Ron Gilbert for designing the scripting engine.
http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?stor y=11232
You're mixing together two biological concepts that may lead to confusion and panic in people reading your post; those being the interspecies diversity which is the diversity of species within an ecosystem, and intraspecies diversity which is genetic diversity within individuals of the same species.
The benefits of varying levels of interspecies diversity for ecosystems is a complicated issue, and I think if you go to the literature you'll find papers that show a correlation between decreasing interspecies diversity and increased primary productivity, which is one measure of ecosystem 'fitness'; and you might find the opposite as well. It's complicated, and it's ecology, so it's not quite science anyway.
In the case of a random global catastrophe such as an asteroid impact, some species are going to live and some species are going to die. If humans were to nominate ourselves as Earth shepherds and try to keep some arbitrary level of interspecies diversity on Earth, we probably would fail miserably. However, the good news is that mammals have survived asteroid impacts in the past, and humans have proven ourselves particularly adaptable; so, perhaps we'd stand a better chance of making it through.
Now, when you talk about diversity as a determinant of whether a species can survive a catastrophic event, you must be talking about intraspecies diversity. The rate of accumulation of intraspecies diversity should be correlated with the mutation rate, which is relatively constant over generations within a species. The mutation rate is where the cosmic rays come in, but variations in solar radiation, radiation from the earth itself, diet, environment and genetic factors will all play a role.
Examples of where intraspecies diversity has saved humans in the past are in malaria-affected populations in Africa with individuals having sickle-cell haemoglobin, and in some European populations (and I believe a small group of people somewhere in Asia) who needed to survive off of milk products having lactase being expressed in adults. These are just some well known clear examples.
If the point of the parent was that we should be scared about our own asses becoming extinct, I don't think we need to worry too much. One thing that guarantees intraspecies diversity is having a large sexually reproducing population spread over diverse geographical regions. But, if you want to be proactive about it, spend more time with your gonads exposed to the sun --- better yet, put your gonads in an X-ray machine.
An excerpt from the Wikipedia article mentioned above:
"DNA is a molecule. Molecules are put together out of atoms, that have different charges; some positive some negative. The atoms it is made up of are A, T, G, C and sometimes U. All of the information from life is contained in the atoms of DNA. It is called the genetic code. The genetic code was invented by Watson and Crick. All information from life is passed down through generations by the process of meisosi. This is where the atoms line up and they mix together and form the new oligomers. Darwin called this 'Decent by Modification'."
[Grade: B-]
Rottentomatoes.com has Air Force One at 77% fresh, vs. Casino Royale at 94% fresh.
Casino Royale is a 17% better movie, which directly explains the roughly 17% faster selling rate.
What it doesn't explain is why Slashdot has been running so many stories direct from the Sony marketing department lately...
I wonder if they're going to ask themselves for a refund later?
Correction: Microsoft sells XBOX Live subscriptions.
We're not *descended* from apes, we *are* apes; and *great* ones at that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
There's no "views", only reality.
From the CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /ca.html:
Exports account for roughly a third of [Canada's] GDP. Canada enjoys a substantial trade surplus with its principal trading partner, the US, which absorbs about 85% of Canadian exports. Canada is the US' largest foreign supplier of energy, including oil, gas, uranium, and electric power.
Exports: $405 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Exports - partners: US 84.2% [~$341 billion]
And Americans would be wise to equally remember the following,https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/fac tbook/geos/us.html:
Exports: $1.024 trillion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Exports - partners: Canada 23.4% [~$240 billion]
From what I understand, when you run Windows on a quantum computer it won't crash unless you look at it.
Also, the last time I used a machine with qubits, I had a hard time keeping them from jumping off the friggin' pyramid.
You've been great... I'm here all week... remember to tip your waiter.
This article opened my eyes. The MPAA should really study the case of the "Borat" movie when re-tooling their business models. It exceeded the industry expectations for box-office earnings, but look what terrible odds it had against it:
Episodes of the BBC and HBO Ali G shows have been actively traded on filesharing sites for *years*.
Its target demographic, Ali G fans, are in the range of 18-35; what the media would call "computer-savvy", and no doubt well-experienced with internet file sharing.
Why then didn't we all stay home and download 0-day cam versions, why did shell out the ~$10 and go to see it in the theater? Because it was a genuinely funny movie that we wanted to see --- it was a product we would buy. (In fact, maybe we did download the cam version, and maybe we *still* went to see it in the theater --- maybe we even went twice.)
Hollywood: if you want to stop "losing" money, stop making shitty movies. It's that easy.
Yeah, you wouldn't want those IT types with their poor command of the English language making you look stupid.
...that knowing is half the battle!
It's not magic, but it could be genetic drift
Except you're oversimplifying the situation here...
Making the statement that all genetic defects are just a type of genetic diversity is incorrect. We can objectively say that some types of genetic defects are indeed quite bad, although there is a gradient between absolute 100% lethality and some impairment of 'wild type' biological function. The sickle cell anemia/malaria example is a good one, but the fact of the matter is that homozygous sickle cell carriers are royally screwed. (The heterozygotes don't have it that good either.)
Mutations arise in all of us at a relatively constant rate (and would even do so in clones), so no matter how hard we tried we could not eliminate diversity, short of reducing the population.
Given the current human population on earth, there's no real argument for maintaining a trait (if this is some hereditary condition) through medical intervention that would otherwise cause random infant death. (Other than the subjective feeling that babies are cute, and that if you're a carrier you don't want your own baby to die.) TNG references aside, the scenario you've presented under which a gene that kills you in your sleep could improve fitness is bad science fiction at best.
Biggest recent incident of domestic terrorism? This is nothing!
Check out this link here for domestic religious fundamentalist terrorist incidents: Violence at US Abortion Clinics
or these ones here for domestic ecoterrorists and general antiscience terrorism:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/292/ 5522/1622
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/ 5793/1541
I'm Scott McNealy, and I approve this message... D'oh!
Users Dumb, Exploit.
You forgot the blasphemy charge --- by far the most serious.
Really?
Does the newborn consent to its stem cells being used for medical research?
I'd be damn pissed off if I found out some of my tissues had been harvested and resold for profit, without my consent, the very same day I was born. Won't somebody please think of the children?
As for adult stem cells, are you offering up yours? I'll take a dozen --- from the marrow please, those are the pluripotentist!
I could equally explain away these results by saying maybe that those children who play games on school nights are not being challenged enough by their schoolwork, and are thus disinterested and seeking other means of entertainment.
The 'motivated' self-reporting high performing students are enthralled with the meaningless busywork that is being forced upon them, and aren't smart enough to be bored with it.
I'm not going to read the paper because I've got games to play, but I'm betting that they didn't break down the kinds of games that the kids were playing. Previous studies, from what I recall, have found that playing certain kinds of games can improve academic performance (let's say something with logic puzzles) --- here, I found an URL for you: http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2827/in formation_show.htm?doc_id=69830. What if the game playing was chess? What would we be saying?
Remember, social sciences solely rely on statistical magic. Depending on your data model, you can prove anything. This isn't hard science --- hell, it isn't science at all --- and I wouldn't put too much stock in it because a contradictory study using the same data was probably published yesterday.