The fact that articles that have negative outcomes are not published nearly as much as articles with positive ones (and by positive and negative, I mean in terms of rejecting or confirming a hypothesis) is relatively common.
It's called "the file drawer effect" (no wikipedia article yet, sorry) and is well known throughout the scientific community. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were hundreds of articles which find either no evidence of warming in a certain area or no damage found in an area, and they were not published.
Global warming is of course one of the many examples for the reason why these NEED to be published... when the mass media comes along and says: "5000 articles on the negative effects of global warming have been published, and only 1000 that have found no evidence", people will draw conclusions based on the faulty assumption that there is no evidence to the contrary.
That said, I believe that global warming is happening (personally, I think it is a combination of a natural warming and man's effect, which is why it is so rapid), yet this is one of my pet peeves, so I thought I'd share.
You're concerned about organisms that contain MORE water? The specific heat capacity of water is greater than that of most materials, seems to me that more water would be a good thing.
I don't think I have EVER used a sleep or hibernate function on a PC, though I use them all the time for my lappy, moving between classes and so forth.
I got a pre-order for my Wii. I was in Toronto for a concert and I got up at 5 AM, took the earliest bus home, went straight to EB, and got the 11th of 12 preorders 2 minutes before it would have been gone. There were 2 PS3 preorders available for half an hour after that, and there was only 5 available. If I was smart, I would have bought and sold it.
A few minutes after I arrived, two kids came in homemade t-shirts and were told they were too late. They very nearly broke down into tears.
The reaction of the people too late for a PS3 was: "Oh, damn." and then they just left.
I'm in college, and while I don't think of myself as incredibly savvy (though I am reading/. using firefox, that counts for something around here), there are a LOT of people who are worse off than myself.
In first year, a friend decided the big metal side of her Dell computer case was a great place to put her magnetized white board. It stopped working in a little under a day.
The problem is that most people never learn concepts, they learn how to do one specific task. For example, someone showed them that you can find the MTV website by typing MTV into Google, but they don't know why, or how it works. So when they need something a little more complex, and type in a paragraph of questions, they don't understand why it works.
You can't expect people who only used the internet for recreation to be able to suddenly transfer it to a more strict academic context.
Gamegear was a hell of a lot of fun. I had one. The problem was the 6 batteries... one for each hour of life you got out of the thing. I had the adapters, but most people didn't.
My mother is a migrane sufferer, and once got a promising new drug which was to be injected at the first signs of a migrane. When she tried it, she had the worst one shes ever had.
I just preordered my Wii today (2nd last one!). There were a pile of nerds outside the store when I got there, many of whom were there since midnight. There were 16 of us for 14 Wii, not counting the many people who were turned away after they started taking money. They also had 5 PS3 preorders, but they didn't sell the 5th one until I was leaving.
One thing that I found rather annoying was that, while Nintendo claims the Wii is supposed to be about participation and community, they only give you one controller with the system. Makes me wonder how much the controllers are costing them to make?
...because I am a college student who can't afford a PDA and a laptop. This is where the "it's better than that time I was so bored I did the crossword on the back of the World Weekly News since I couldn't sleep because I had a center seat and was sandwiched between two creeps on a trans-Atlantic flight" principle kicks in.
Taking copyrighted materials without paying IS civil disobediance... but only if you don't enjoy them. That's why I have reels of Blink 182, Britney Spears, and various emo mixes gathering dust on the shelf.
It never ceases to amaze me the predictablility of Slashdot replies to any article about Vista.
Much of the comments are either people complaining about slips, complaining about having to read Microsoft articles, or making generalizations about the bugginess of MS.
You don't have to read these, you choose to read it, so don't complain. It's news because it is going to be the dominant OS in the world when it's released, like it or not. Yes, it's slipped a lot and will in all likelihood slip again. So what? Nobody I've heard or read that talked about the slips did it because they were disappointed and wanted to get on the Vista train, it's always point out that it somehow makes Microsoft stupid. I for one would rather they take their time and come out with a polished end product. And yes, as it has been pointed out umpteen-million times, Linux is more stable/more secure/humanities hope for the future, but point that out to people who mostly all agree with you is pointless.
I sometimes think that if MS disbanded and donated all their money and technology to open source developers, the comments to the slashdot report would read like a bad eBay seller. "OMG TOOK FOREVER F--!"
Not to mention 2x256MB instead of one 512. It's all well and good to say that you can upgrade, but it's a lot easier to do when you have a slot free already. What are you going to do with a used 256 single? They're not worth the effort to buy, sell or ship.
I'm not a Mac user, but that really burns me about all computer companies. Scrap it and make 512 the new minimum.
Depending on how much you know, skip ahead:
There are two kinds of cells. Prokaryotes (bacteria) and Eukaryotes ("higher" organisms... plants, animals, fungi, etc). Viruses are officially not considered to be alive, because as part of the cell theory, cells must be capable of replication, which they are not, they need other cells (hosts), just like prions (proteins that act in a viruslike fashion).
The debate about the "life" of viruses rages on. This giant uber virus shows a lot of sofistication, perhaps suggesting that viruses had some other role to play. The original article suggests that viruses like the giant one in question could be the reason for the nucleus.
The current belief is that certain organelles, specialized structures in the eukaryotic cell, arose from a more primitive cell injesting another cell, but instead of digesting it, forming a relationship with it. This is where chloroplasts and mitochondria come from (both of which are used to "power" cells). The first article suggests that the nucleus arose in a similar way, only what was enveloped was a virus.
Additionally, that article says viruses have evolved the opposite way the rest of live has, by shedding excess DNA instead of adding to it.
This other article says that the nucleus developed as a way to protect the DNA from "introns" that floated off of these newly aquired mitochrondria.
Most of DNA, especially higher DNA, codes nothing. It is just there to "pad" the good stuff. When a protein is going to be coded for, the DNA unwinds, and the section is copied. The copy is made of RNA, a single strand (not a double helix), which is then translated into the protein. Before the translation though, the extra stuff has to be cut out, and it is. The extra stuff has markers to tell the cell where to cut it and where to stop and how to patch it all together. The stuff that is cut out is called INTRONS. The good stuff is called exons. The exons tell the protein what to be.
Think of it as trimming the fat. Just like you can tell the difference between the good and the bad, and trim accordingly, so can the cell.
From what I understand, the introns from the mitochondria had the ability to insert themselves in the DNA. This causes what is known as a phase shift. Basically, you have all these lines of code, and inserting a bunch of extra code somewhere in the middle screws up the ability to either find the gene, or if it actually gets translated anyway, the protein is non functional.
The nucleus is a defence, it keeps the introns out by barriering itself in. Transcription of DNA (copying to RNA) occurs in the nucleus, and translation (RNA -> protein) occurs in the cytoplasm outside the nucleus.
The two conflict with one another, but could in theory be integrated, but it's not too likely. I personally doubt the nucleus is a virus, the nuclear membrane isn't really the right material. The question is whether these scientists have actually FOUND these introns floating around attacking DNA or not. I can't access the full article.
What are the odd that by Friday, someone on Slashdot has figured out a way to run linux on these things, or at least complaining if they use windows?
Even money.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that articles that have negative outcomes are not published nearly as much as articles with positive ones (and by positive and negative, I mean in terms of rejecting or confirming a hypothesis) is relatively common.
It's called "the file drawer effect" (no wikipedia article yet, sorry) and is well known throughout the scientific community. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were hundreds of articles which find either no evidence of warming in a certain area or no damage found in an area, and they were not published.
Global warming is of course one of the many examples for the reason why these NEED to be published... when the mass media comes along and says: "5000 articles on the negative effects of global warming have been published, and only 1000 that have found no evidence", people will draw conclusions based on the faulty assumption that there is no evidence to the contrary.
That said, I believe that global warming is happening (personally, I think it is a combination of a natural warming and man's effect, which is why it is so rapid), yet this is one of my pet peeves, so I thought I'd share.
You're concerned about organisms that contain MORE water? The specific heat capacity of water is greater than that of most materials, seems to me that more water would be a good thing.
I don't think I have EVER used a sleep or hibernate function on a PC, though I use them all the time for my lappy, moving between classes and so forth.
I got a pre-order for my Wii. I was in Toronto for a concert and I got up at 5 AM, took the earliest bus home, went straight to EB, and got the 11th of 12 preorders 2 minutes before it would have been gone. There were 2 PS3 preorders available for half an hour after that, and there was only 5 available. If I was smart, I would have bought and sold it.
A few minutes after I arrived, two kids came in homemade t-shirts and were told they were too late. They very nearly broke down into tears.
The reaction of the people too late for a PS3 was: "Oh, damn." and then they just left.
At least fifty percent of people are idiots.
/. using firefox, that counts for something around here), there are a LOT of people who are worse off than myself.
I'm in college, and while I don't think of myself as incredibly savvy (though I am reading
In first year, a friend decided the big metal side of her Dell computer case was a great place to put her magnetized white board. It stopped working in a little under a day.
The problem is that most people never learn concepts, they learn how to do one specific task. For example, someone showed them that you can find the MTV website by typing MTV into Google, but they don't know why, or how it works. So when they need something a little more complex, and type in a paragraph of questions, they don't understand why it works.
You can't expect people who only used the internet for recreation to be able to suddenly transfer it to a more strict academic context.
Gamegear was a hell of a lot of fun. I had one. The problem was the 6 batteries... one for each hour of life you got out of the thing. I had the adapters, but most people didn't.
My mother is a migrane sufferer, and once got a promising new drug which was to be injected at the first signs of a migrane. When she tried it, she had the worst one shes ever had.
Guess what one of the ingredients was?
I just preordered my Wii today (2nd last one!). There were a pile of nerds outside the store when I got there, many of whom were there since midnight. There were 16 of us for 14 Wii, not counting the many people who were turned away after they started taking money. They also had 5 PS3 preorders, but they didn't sell the 5th one until I was leaving. One thing that I found rather annoying was that, while Nintendo claims the Wii is supposed to be about participation and community, they only give you one controller with the system. Makes me wonder how much the controllers are costing them to make?
...because I am a college student who can't afford a PDA and a laptop. This is where the "it's better than that time I was so bored I did the crossword on the back of the World Weekly News since I couldn't sleep because I had a center seat and was sandwiched between two creeps on a trans-Atlantic flight" principle kicks in.
Taking copyrighted materials without paying IS civil disobediance... but only if you don't enjoy them. That's why I have reels of Blink 182, Britney Spears, and various emo mixes gathering dust on the shelf.
Take THAT, establishment!
It never ceases to amaze me the predictablility of Slashdot replies to any article about Vista. Much of the comments are either people complaining about slips, complaining about having to read Microsoft articles, or making generalizations about the bugginess of MS. You don't have to read these, you choose to read it, so don't complain. It's news because it is going to be the dominant OS in the world when it's released, like it or not. Yes, it's slipped a lot and will in all likelihood slip again. So what? Nobody I've heard or read that talked about the slips did it because they were disappointed and wanted to get on the Vista train, it's always point out that it somehow makes Microsoft stupid. I for one would rather they take their time and come out with a polished end product. And yes, as it has been pointed out umpteen-million times, Linux is more stable/more secure/humanities hope for the future, but point that out to people who mostly all agree with you is pointless. I sometimes think that if MS disbanded and donated all their money and technology to open source developers, the comments to the slashdot report would read like a bad eBay seller. "OMG TOOK FOREVER F--!"
Not to mention 2x256MB instead of one 512. It's all well and good to say that you can upgrade, but it's a lot easier to do when you have a slot free already. What are you going to do with a used 256 single? They're not worth the effort to buy, sell or ship.
I'm not a Mac user, but that really burns me about all computer companies. Scrap it and make 512 the new minimum.
If your hand is as big as your face, you have cancer.
Depending on how much you know, skip ahead: There are two kinds of cells. Prokaryotes (bacteria) and Eukaryotes ("higher" organisms... plants, animals, fungi, etc). Viruses are officially not considered to be alive, because as part of the cell theory, cells must be capable of replication, which they are not, they need other cells (hosts), just like prions (proteins that act in a viruslike fashion). The debate about the "life" of viruses rages on. This giant uber virus shows a lot of sofistication, perhaps suggesting that viruses had some other role to play. The original article suggests that viruses like the giant one in question could be the reason for the nucleus. The current belief is that certain organelles, specialized structures in the eukaryotic cell, arose from a more primitive cell injesting another cell, but instead of digesting it, forming a relationship with it. This is where chloroplasts and mitochondria come from (both of which are used to "power" cells). The first article suggests that the nucleus arose in a similar way, only what was enveloped was a virus. Additionally, that article says viruses have evolved the opposite way the rest of live has, by shedding excess DNA instead of adding to it. This other article says that the nucleus developed as a way to protect the DNA from "introns" that floated off of these newly aquired mitochrondria. Most of DNA, especially higher DNA, codes nothing. It is just there to "pad" the good stuff. When a protein is going to be coded for, the DNA unwinds, and the section is copied. The copy is made of RNA, a single strand (not a double helix), which is then translated into the protein. Before the translation though, the extra stuff has to be cut out, and it is. The extra stuff has markers to tell the cell where to cut it and where to stop and how to patch it all together. The stuff that is cut out is called INTRONS. The good stuff is called exons. The exons tell the protein what to be. Think of it as trimming the fat. Just like you can tell the difference between the good and the bad, and trim accordingly, so can the cell. From what I understand, the introns from the mitochondria had the ability to insert themselves in the DNA. This causes what is known as a phase shift. Basically, you have all these lines of code, and inserting a bunch of extra code somewhere in the middle screws up the ability to either find the gene, or if it actually gets translated anyway, the protein is non functional. The nucleus is a defence, it keeps the introns out by barriering itself in. Transcription of DNA (copying to RNA) occurs in the nucleus, and translation (RNA -> protein) occurs in the cytoplasm outside the nucleus. The two conflict with one another, but could in theory be integrated, but it's not too likely. I personally doubt the nucleus is a virus, the nuclear membrane isn't really the right material. The question is whether these scientists have actually FOUND these introns floating around attacking DNA or not. I can't access the full article.
What are the odd that by Friday, someone on Slashdot has figured out a way to run linux on these things, or at least complaining if they use windows? Even money.
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