The biggest issue I'd have with this is the fact that if we start using sharks as spies, all sharks will become suspected spies. So, other countries will do what they can to keep sharks away, not knowing which ones are "wired," including killing any they see. Sharks have enough problems with keeping up their natural populations without being summarily shot/netted/etc. by people who suspect them of spying!
As a high school science teacher, I see students all the time (and sometimes other teachers) who just accept what they find on some dingbat's site (or forwarded email) as good science/history/whatever. Teaching your child to question information from all sources would be one of the best tools you can give them in a time when information is available everywhere, but is not necessarily any better than it was before. Things like identifying bias in news reports, bogus claims in advertising, etc. would be good places to learn these skills, and all parents need to do is verbalize their thought processes of evaluating information.
The internet itself is probably not be the best place to start this learning, but being able to evaluate information sources of all types will help them a lot when they do try to find useful information online. In retrospect, my parents prepared me well for the internet by teaching me to think about what I hear/read/see before the internet was important to normal people.
REM sleep is absolutely vital to your mind and body's condition and you will die without it; the other stages of sleep do little more than provide time for the body to rest and grow and heal.
HELLO?! Allowing your body time to rest and grow and heal seems to be good enough reason to me to keep a normal sleep schedule. This polyphasic sleep might be OK if you are relatively inactive, but not if you are getting reasonable amounts of exercise.
As someone who has done distance running since high school, I shudder to think what would happen if my body didn't have time to recover from my workouts. I certainly wouldn't have survived in one piece long enough to be able to run the marathon I did last fall. Another poster mentioned solo circumnavigating sailors using polyphasic sleep schedules while on the water, but I seriously doubt they would use it under more normal circumstances.
The key thing to me as a High School Chemistry teacher is not to make every one of my students into little chemists. My goal is to teach every student how to use scientific reasoning and basic science facts to be more informed citizens. How do you evaluate things like antibacterial vs. "normal" soap, or those air "purifiers" that generate ozone (a pollutant) in your bedroom? You don't need to go into a career in science for these things to be important to you. Part of the idea of a Democracy is that you need an educated citizenry who can make (at least semi)informed decisions.
Most predictions I have read say that the currents now operating in the Northern Atlantic keep the climate warm and moist. So, colder and drier seem to be the more likely changes. (Not hotter and drier, as the article states.)
No doubt this type of change could also be accounted for with genetic engineering, but I was under the impression that the British and most Europeans in general were pretty dead set against about "frankenfoods" that had been genetically modified. Does this project really stand a chance of getting off the ground if it depends on this sort of technology?
As for the slelective breeding option, I'm not convinced that would work, either. Selective cultivation depends on having some sort of genetic variablility in the current population. The more desirable traits are slected for. Current stocks of seed are not terribly genetically diverse, and if they don't mutate fast enough, you may not be left with enough genetic variants to choose from. Also, this type of selection requires a lot of time--something which may or may not be available as the climate changes.
THz waves are also part of the infrared spectrum, so they would certainly be less damaging to living things. Unfortunately, they also do not penetrate objects as well as X-rays, etc. and so are more difficult to use for imaging technology.
According to wikkipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laser_types) there are not currently many lasers that operate even close to this frequency range, (approximately 10-100 micrometers) so this could be a very useful thing. This is getting closer to the microwave and radio wave portion of the spectrum, so it could have some really neat communications uses, perhaps. (More secure communications using a coherent beam, etc?)
"Designers are considering a new re-entry vehicle with a metal skin," Schneider said. "This would eliminate the tile system used on the space shuttle, which is expensive to maintain."
When the space shuttle re-enters, it generates so much heat partly because it is intentionally flown belly-first to slow the thing down. Improving the aerodynamics of the craft and high speeds would cut down on heat generated, but also increase the stopping distance of such a craft to something rediculous, wouldn't it? Conservation of energy: the kinetic energy of the moving re-entry vehicle must be converted to some other kind of energy in order to stop, and there are not many options. Heat, crushing and melting of metal...
Besides that, the kind of sensitivity on the shape of the craft that the laminar flow would require would put the craft even more at the mercy of Murphy's law. The tiniest imperfection in the surface of such a craft could cause enough heating to melt a wing off, once the heat shielding is removed as "unnecessary."
So how come nobody's up in arms about this experimental procedure being used on children in Texas? Presumably the Indian subjects were in need of treatment too.
The difference lies in the fact that the primary purpose of the drug testing in India (and more often now on college students in the US) is that the drugs are not being given to treat any condition in the test subject, but to study the safety and metabolism of the drug itself.
The trials involving the Texas children are an actual attempt to treat a condition they have, rather than giving an otherwise healthy person blood pressure medication, for example.
Slashdot Mirror
The biggest issue I'd have with this is the fact that if we start using sharks as spies, all sharks will become suspected spies. So, other countries will do what they can to keep sharks away, not knowing which ones are "wired," including killing any they see. Sharks have enough problems with keeping up their natural populations without being summarily shot/netted/etc. by people who suspect them of spying!
I was just curious; are any of the systems in the vicinity of Betleguese?
The internet itself is probably not be the best place to start this learning, but being able to evaluate information sources of all types will help them a lot when they do try to find useful information online. In retrospect, my parents prepared me well for the internet by teaching me to think about what I hear/read/see before the internet was important to normal people.
You can find it if you look, like at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005JG6X/103-45 08192-4394218?v=glance&n=130
Well, according to this from the article, the scientist may not expect to find nerves in his brain after all...
"And then I implanted an electrode in the MT portion of my brain... Hey, what's so funny?"
REM sleep is absolutely vital to your mind and body's condition and you will die without it; the other stages of sleep do little more than provide time for the body to rest and grow and heal.
HELLO?! Allowing your body time to rest and grow and heal seems to be good enough reason to me to keep a normal sleep schedule. This polyphasic sleep might be OK if you are relatively inactive, but not if you are getting reasonable amounts of exercise.
As someone who has done distance running since high school, I shudder to think what would happen if my body didn't have time to recover from my workouts. I certainly wouldn't have survived in one piece long enough to be able to run the marathon I did last fall. Another poster mentioned solo circumnavigating sailors using polyphasic sleep schedules while on the water, but I seriously doubt they would use it under more normal circumstances.
The key thing to me as a High School Chemistry teacher is not to make every one of my students into little chemists. My goal is to teach every student how to use scientific reasoning and basic science facts to be more informed citizens. How do you evaluate things like antibacterial vs. "normal" soap, or those air "purifiers" that generate ozone (a pollutant) in your bedroom? You don't need to go into a career in science for these things to be important to you. Part of the idea of a Democracy is that you need an educated citizenry who can make (at least semi)informed decisions.
No doubt this type of change could also be accounted for with genetic engineering, but I was under the impression that the British and most Europeans in general were pretty dead set against about "frankenfoods" that had been genetically modified. Does this project really stand a chance of getting off the ground if it depends on this sort of technology?
As for the slelective breeding option, I'm not convinced that would work, either. Selective cultivation depends on having some sort of genetic variablility in the current population. The more desirable traits are slected for. Current stocks of seed are not terribly genetically diverse, and if they don't mutate fast enough, you may not be left with enough genetic variants to choose from. Also, this type of selection requires a lot of time--something which may or may not be available as the climate changes.
According to wikkipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laser_types) there are not currently many lasers that operate even close to this frequency range, (approximately 10-100 micrometers) so this could be a very useful thing. This is getting closer to the microwave and radio wave portion of the spectrum, so it could have some really neat communications uses, perhaps. (More secure communications using a coherent beam, etc?)
When the space shuttle re-enters, it generates so much heat partly because it is intentionally flown belly-first to slow the thing down. Improving the aerodynamics of the craft and high speeds would cut down on heat generated, but also increase the stopping distance of such a craft to something rediculous, wouldn't it? Conservation of energy: the kinetic energy of the moving re-entry vehicle must be converted to some other kind of energy in order to stop, and there are not many options. Heat, crushing and melting of metal...
Besides that, the kind of sensitivity on the shape of the craft that the laminar flow would require would put the craft even more at the mercy of Murphy's law. The tiniest imperfection in the surface of such a craft could cause enough heating to melt a wing off, once the heat shielding is removed as "unnecessary."
The difference lies in the fact that the primary purpose of the drug testing in India (and more often now on college students in the US) is that the drugs are not being given to treat any condition in the test subject, but to study the safety and metabolism of the drug itself. The trials involving the Texas children are an actual attempt to treat a condition they have, rather than giving an otherwise healthy person blood pressure medication, for example.