Not so much synthetic blood as a synthetic hemoglobin.
The problem is that anything that can bond to oxygen will breakdown to form toxic dimers if it isn't isolated by something like the cell walls of a red blood cell.
There was one which basically had a glue to bond clumps of synthetic hemoglobin together which reached clinical trials, but it caused high mortality rates for unknown reasons, so we're back to regular O blood.
Hmmm...
And the thing is, $30 bucks a week is a negligible cost. A mostly automated test once every 3 months is a negligible cost. An extra vault is a negligible cost.
It is not their malaria resistance which increases their survivability. These mosquitoes also have modifications to make them stronger than the average so that the GM strain would propagate, spreading the malaria resistance among the population.
Because there is no immunization for malaria, and it kills some three million people annually. There is also no risk of a mosquito population boom, as their population is predictor limited. Mosquitoes also have a fixed life cycle length (4 days to 1 year) so there isn't a risk of them living longer and propagating some other epidemic.
I'm personally worried about a different problem. Introducing genetic information through such a rapid process would dramatically decrease the genetic diversity of the mosquito population. There could be some epidemic which would wipe out the mosquito population which would cause an ecological catastrophe. However, I know very little about genetics and ecology so perhaps my fears are unwarranted. Does anyone out there know more?
I believe I see what you're trying to say. A little complicated. Allow me to paraphrase.
IF god made the universe, his fingerprints would be absolutely everywhere. Thus, it is pointless to go looking for such fingerprints as we will not be able to identify them, at least not without some sort of god-less thing as a control to compare against.
This part of his talk actually wasn't that bad. He simply drawing a metaphor regarding the expansion of our universe to something that can be understood by the layman.
Such a system exists. It works on the simple principle that asteroids move while stars do not. I believe they use wide field of view lenses. I know they cost much more than $200.
Existing systems include (Wikipedia)
* The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) team
* The Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) team
* Spacewatch
* The Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) team
* The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS)
* The Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Objects Survey (CINEOS) team
* The Japanese Spaceguard Association
* The Asiago-DLR Asteroid Survey (ADAS)
Naming rights belong to the discovering team, which is actually a bit of a sore point since these systems are SOO much more efficient at finding comets than amateur astronomers. So it's almost impossible to find and name something after yourself. It is simply given a number designation followed by the acronym of the team which found it.
I disagree. If we determine an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth, we can deflect it.
Remember that these are not comets that we are talking about, they are asteroids with elliptical orbits with major and minor radii similar to that of earth. If that orbit has a chance to intersect that of earth, it is because it has always been nearby. The asteroid and earth pass near each other on a regular basis.
FTFA:
Earth got a scare in 2004, when initial readings suggested an 885-foot asteroid called 99942 Apophis seemed to have a chance of hitting Earth in 2029. But more observations showed that wouldn't happen. Scientists say there is a 1-in-45,000 chance that it could hit in 2036.
So this particular asteroid will pass very close to Earth in 2029 and has a chance to hit in 2036. If further observation confirms that it will in fact impact earth in 2036, then we can send up 150 nukes when it passes in 2029 and detonate them one at a time at the right spot. A tiny nudge + 7 years of drift time = a miss!
Now, if we were to discover a comet was on a colliding course with Earth. Then it would be time to stockpile beer and fireworks.
Going to the new world: 1. Couldn't be achieved without man. IE, the research (exploration is the better term here) could not be done without a human crew. This is not so in the case of the moon, nor mars. 2. Settling the new world was done as a means to improve one's standard of living. The risks were outweighed by the promise of free land and escape from {religious} persecution. It was beneficial to the mother countries for new sources of resources for trade. Aside from Helium 3 on the moon, (which can again be harvested by robots) there is no benefit to anyone.
Yes, sending a person to the moon is very exciting. Perhaps that in it self is worthwhile.
Ok. Stupid question, which may have already been answered many times on Slashdot, but I'll ask anyways.
What exactly is the scientific merit of sending man to the moon/mars? Is there any useful research that can't be done at one hundredth of the cost by robots at either of these locations? Other than proving that it is possible, what is the point of sending man into space?
Evolution represents increases in complexity and general improvements in abilities and survivability over a timescale of tens of thousands of years. Small changes in a species due to external stimuli isn't really evolution. Change does not imply evolution.
If I have a culture of viruses, and I expose them to a toxin, after several generations the viruses that I have may be resistant to this toxin. We have observed the process of (artificial) selection, not evolution.
The difference here is the time scale. Implying evolution can be observed in the lab is like looking at the temperature fluctuations throughout a week and claiming to be observing global warming.
So science will always give diminishing returns. This is simply due to the fact that we'll figure out the easy stuff first, so research becomes harder and harder to do. So yes, it costs a lot, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be funded by taxes.
There is a lot of very useful science that can't be funded by private organizations because they aren't profitable YET. Carbon nanotubes, quantum computers, fusion powerplants. Would you like their research to stop?
There is a lot of useless research out there too, you're right. I'm sitting next to the ornathompter lab. They built a full scale plane that flew by flapping its wings. I don't think that research should be cut, useless as it may be. It's nice to live in a society with room for these 'excessive' things.
I think it is safe to say that specialty bulbs will be exempt. For instance, you're not going to use a CFLs bulb in the spot light at the theater. So rest assured that your nice happy photo bulbs will be safe.
I do agree with you though. Fluorescent lighting bothers me as well, and with too much of it I get a headach. I have an incandescent bulb in my reading lamp, and that's enough to make me happy.
I don't think LEDs are your solution though. They produce even more narrow bandwidths, which is what bothers me (I think). Halogens don't save power. They are just regular tungsten filaments, but there is a chemical reaction which re-deposits the tungsten back onto the filament rather than onto the glass. Thus, the filaments have a longer lifetime and can be run hotter for a nice full bright white spectrum. Which is why they need UV filers.
True. An omnipotent being could do anything it wanted to by definition.
But would an omnipotent being guide its people with a book? Wouldn't it make more sense to always have a profit with divine inspiration who we can ask questions? Or perhaps every human could have a direct link to god. This would all depend on God's motives of course.
The point is that NASA wants to be able to diagnose depression and... people going crazy well before it becomes a problem, so that they can prevent it from becoming a problem.
So you'd get a friendly radio message. "Chris... Your biometric are coming up with elevated levels of *blank*. Why don't you postpone experiment #782 and take some time to relax?"
Has anyone stopped to think why Sony isn't backing the porn industry? (serious question. I haven't been following the format war much)
Seriously. This format war could mean the difference between going in the red or the black for the next five years. And one of HD-DVD's strongest footholds is the porn industry. It would be so easy for Sony to 'embrace' the porn industry and seriously deflate their opponent.
I believe the fact that they have not confirms that corporations have morals and values. Or if you will, some people within Sony believe that porn should not be mass produced, and this is a value they're willing to give up large amounts revenue over. (Are you allowed to call it a 'value' if you're not willing to give up something for it?) Now, not everyone in Slashdot agrees with Sony's morals. But it sure is heartwarming to know they have them.
Way to go Sony! p.s. No, this doesn't mean I'm buying anything you produce.
http://focus.aps.org/story/v9/st16 in 2002, they discovered that Osmium which is rather soft compared to diamond was the stiffer material. That is to say it has the higher bulk modulus.
Slashdot Mirror
Not so much synthetic blood as a synthetic hemoglobin.
The problem is that anything that can bond to oxygen will breakdown to form toxic dimers if it isn't isolated by something like the cell walls of a red blood cell.
There was one which basically had a glue to bond clumps of synthetic hemoglobin together which reached clinical trials, but it caused high mortality rates for unknown reasons, so we're back to regular O blood.
The thinkgeek website indicates that people should stop e-mailing them about making this tie a real product and that they promise to do so.
So your wish will come true!!!
There was a review a while back saying the latency on the menus is worst in Vista than in Xp (which is supposedly worst than that on Mac OS)
Considering I use the start menu a few hundred times per day, the fact that it lags by a quarter or an eighth of a second gets really annoying.
I'll switch to Vista the instant that XP can't run something that I need to use.
Hmmm... And the thing is, $30 bucks a week is a negligible cost. A mostly automated test once every 3 months is a negligible cost. An extra vault is a negligible cost.
It is not their malaria resistance which increases their survivability. These mosquitoes also have modifications to make them stronger than the average so that the GM strain would propagate, spreading the malaria resistance among the population.
Because there is no immunization for malaria, and it kills some three million people annually.
There is also no risk of a mosquito population boom, as their population is predictor limited. Mosquitoes also have a fixed life cycle length (4 days to 1 year) so there isn't a risk of them living longer and propagating some other epidemic.
I'm personally worried about a different problem. Introducing genetic information through such a rapid process would dramatically decrease the genetic diversity of the mosquito population. There could be some epidemic which would wipe out the mosquito population which would cause an ecological catastrophe.
However, I know very little about genetics and ecology so perhaps my fears are unwarranted. Does anyone out there know more?
I believe I see what you're trying to say. A little complicated. Allow me to paraphrase.
IF god made the universe, his fingerprints would be absolutely everywhere. Thus, it is pointless to go looking for such fingerprints as we will not be able to identify them, at least not without some sort of god-less thing as a control to compare against.
This part of his talk actually wasn't that bad.
He simply drawing a metaphor regarding the expansion of our universe to something that can be understood by the layman.
He wasn't trying to make a direct comparison.
The article indicates that if we find the asteroid, then we in fact know several decades before impact that it will happen.
Such a system exists. It works on the simple principle that asteroids move while stars do not. I believe they use wide field of view lenses. I know they cost much more than $200.
Existing systems include (Wikipedia)
* The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) team
* The Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) team
* Spacewatch
* The Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) team
* The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS)
* The Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Objects Survey (CINEOS) team
* The Japanese Spaceguard Association
* The Asiago-DLR Asteroid Survey (ADAS)
Such a registry exists
ftp://ftp.lowell.edu/pub/elgb/astorb.html
Naming rights belong to the discovering team, which is actually a bit of a sore point since these systems are SOO much more efficient at finding comets than amateur astronomers. So it's almost impossible to find and name something after yourself. It is simply given a number designation followed by the acronym of the team which found it.
Mining rights? Err... Yeah... Right.
Remember that these are not comets that we are talking about, they are asteroids with elliptical orbits with major and minor radii similar to that of earth. If that orbit has a chance to intersect that of earth, it is because it has always been nearby. The asteroid and earth pass near each other on a regular basis.
FTFA:
So this particular asteroid will pass very close to Earth in 2029 and has a chance to hit in 2036. If further observation confirms that it will in fact impact earth in 2036, then we can send up 150 nukes when it passes in 2029 and detonate them one at a time at the right spot.
A tiny nudge + 7 years of drift time = a miss!
Now, if we were to discover a comet was on a colliding course with Earth. Then it would be time to stockpile beer and fireworks.
Nasa does keep a thorough survey of NEOs
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
They (try to) keep track of any asteroids 100m in diameter or greater that can come within 0.05 AU of earth.
Going to the new world:
1. Couldn't be achieved without man. IE, the research (exploration is the better term here) could not be done without a human crew.
This is not so in the case of the moon, nor mars.
2. Settling the new world was done as a means to improve one's standard of living. The risks were outweighed by the promise of free land and escape from {religious} persecution. It was beneficial to the mother countries for new sources of resources for trade. Aside from Helium 3 on the moon, (which can again be harvested by robots) there is no benefit to anyone.
Yes, sending a person to the moon is very exciting. Perhaps that in it self is worthwhile.
Ok. Stupid question, which may have already been answered many times on Slashdot, but I'll ask anyways.
What exactly is the scientific merit of sending man to the moon/mars? Is there any useful research that can't be done at one hundredth of the cost by robots at either of these locations? Other than proving that it is possible, what is the point of sending man into space?
...these studies.
Evolution represents increases in complexity and general improvements in abilities and survivability over a timescale of tens of thousands of years. Small changes in a species due to external stimuli isn't really evolution. Change does not imply evolution.
If I have a culture of viruses, and I expose them to a toxin, after several generations the viruses that I have may be resistant to this toxin. We have observed the process of (artificial) selection, not evolution.
The difference here is the time scale. Implying evolution can be observed in the lab is like looking at the temperature fluctuations throughout a week and claiming to be observing global warming.
So science will always give diminishing returns. This is simply due to the fact that we'll figure out the easy stuff first, so research becomes harder and harder to do. So yes, it costs a lot, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be funded by taxes.
There is a lot of very useful science that can't be funded by private organizations because they aren't profitable YET. Carbon nanotubes, quantum computers, fusion powerplants. Would you like their research to stop?
There is a lot of useless research out there too, you're right. I'm sitting next to the ornathompter lab. They built a full scale plane that flew by flapping its wings. I don't think that research should be cut, useless as it may be. It's nice to live in a society with room for these 'excessive' things.
I think it is safe to say that specialty bulbs will be exempt. For instance, you're not going to use a CFLs bulb in the spot light at the theater. So rest assured that your nice happy photo bulbs will be safe.
I do agree with you though. Fluorescent lighting bothers me as well, and with too much of it I get a headach. I have an incandescent bulb in my reading lamp, and that's enough to make me happy.
I don't think LEDs are your solution though. They produce even more narrow bandwidths, which is what bothers me (I think). Halogens don't save power. They are just regular tungsten filaments, but there is a chemical reaction which re-deposits the tungsten back onto the filament rather than onto the glass. Thus, the filaments have a longer lifetime and can be run hotter for a nice full bright white spectrum. Which is why they need UV filers.
True. An omnipotent being could do anything it wanted to by definition.
But would an omnipotent being guide its people with a book? Wouldn't it make more sense to always have a profit with divine inspiration who we can ask questions? Or perhaps every human could have a direct link to god.
This would all depend on God's motives of course.
I hope one day, someone will be talking about global warming in the exact same way.
I don't believe such enormous programs would be used to save the ecosystem. They would be used to save us.
The point is that NASA wants to be able to diagnose depression and... people going crazy well before it becomes a problem, so that they can prevent it from becoming a problem.
So you'd get a friendly radio message. "Chris... Your biometric are coming up with elevated levels of *blank*. Why don't you postpone experiment #782 and take some time to relax?"
No one is going to be thrown out of an airlock.
Has anyone stopped to think why Sony isn't backing the porn industry? (serious question. I haven't been following the format war much)
Seriously. This format war could mean the difference between going in the red or the black for the next five years. And one of HD-DVD's strongest footholds is the porn industry. It would be so easy for Sony to 'embrace' the porn industry and seriously deflate their opponent.
I believe the fact that they have not confirms that corporations have morals and values. Or if you will, some people within Sony believe that porn should not be mass produced, and this is a value they're willing to give up large amounts revenue over. (Are you allowed to call it a 'value' if you're not willing to give up something for it?) Now, not everyone in Slashdot agrees with Sony's morals. But it sure is heartwarming to know they have them.
Way to go Sony!
p.s. No, this doesn't mean I'm buying anything you produce.
Indeed.
http://focus.aps.org/story/v9/st16 in 2002, they discovered that Osmium which is rather soft compared to diamond was the stiffer material. That is to say it has the higher bulk modulus.
How does a newscientisttech.com get slashdotted after 22 comments?
The article indicates that they are trying to ban incandescent light bulbs. They are not legislating any particular replacement.