Actually, I'm a postdoctoral biologist. I'm not easily impressed. I think the concept of being able to introduce stem cells into human, and them not turn cancerous, really would be a marvelous achievement. Remember, stem cells are undifferentiated, a lot like tumor cells become. If the stem cells simply incorporate themselves into the tissue without any harm to the patient, I think that would be a huge accomplishment. It would verify the validity of the approach, and serve as a stepping stone for further research.
It's excellent that there are well balanced articles like this out there. Many tend to follow the anti-science trend that is taking over the US in recent years. Recently, the controversy over patient-specific stem cells has been used to rally the bible-beating troops against the use of embryonic stem cells altogether. Any sort of glance under the surface whatsover would immediately reveal that the scientific process worked exactly as it should, as it will in this clinical trial as well. Frankly, the results in animal models are quite promising, and if this treatment even mereley 'does no harm', I will be quite impressed.
What's amazing is that "intelligence" is kind of an emergent property. We don't have a very good idea of how it works, but we can map neurons fairly well. This implies that one day, by simply programming the basic features of neuron synaptic transmission, the system might 'come alive' even though we may not know entirely how.
...and that is the credibility of scientists everywhere. Anytime some crackpot like this comes along, it embarresses us all. Let's NOT give them the benefit of doubt just so we can cover our bases and say, "oh, well, maybe it might work, accidentally or something...um, yeah...i'm so open minded." we need to call this out for what it is, bullshit. this isn't some controversial research that failed peer review for political or ego reasons, this is flat out crap.
That's nice, you're talking about special relativity and general relativity. The point is that all inertial reference frames are equivalent. To step back from the gibberish for a second, that implies that all points of view are equally valid. I really hope we're disagreeing purely on semantics, because otherwise, you really think there is such a thing as slowed aging, and that would be sad. The clock on top of Mt. Everest would only appear faster than the one at sea level. Similarly, the one at the bottom of the Dead Sea would only appear slower than the one at sea level. Measuring the rate of something predictable, like radioactive decay, at each of those reference frames, by a person in each of those reference frames, and then later getting together and comparing the results...they would be identical -- all inertial reference frames are equally valid. You were on the right track until you said "Hence not aging as much as if it had been on earth."That clock sure feels like it's aging just like it's always been, and that's what matters.
P.S. The search for proof of general relativity by measuring phenomena super accurately, just like the clock experiment you describe, is ongoing, and by no means conclusive. But I believe the theory is valid.
"The Theory of Relativity tells us that the faster a person travels the slower time passes for that person relative to someone left on Earth. This means that traveling at high velocities in a spacecraft should reduce one's aging."
Then the article goes on to talk about cosmic radiation causing premature age-jaculation. Talk about apples and oranges... First of all, the obvious... sub-light speed travel does not reduce one's aging -- it would just appear that way (in theory) to a "stationairy" observer (as if there were such a thing). Second, actually using sub-light travel to let the world around you go by faster isn't really plausable, now, is it? Ok, those are the obvious ones. Something actually interesting (because it's real and verifiable) is that radiation does indeed cause telomere shortening. There is a correlation with increased age and shortened telomeres. The experiment should be relatively straightforward with model organisms sent to space, even in earth orbit, but one would have a difficult time proving causality: cosmic rays -> shortened telomeres -> premature aging.
What the article does not tell you, is that the amount of radiation that caused the telomere damage would necessarily also cause other DNA damage. In other words, the premature aging might be the last of your worries if you were actually exposed to cosmic radiation. One would probably die of cancer or radiation poisoning first.
I tend to favor the argument that learning is enhanced when the laptops are left out of the classroom... that more attention is paid with eye contact and focus. The laptop adds both a physical and psychological barrier.
That said, I could be entirely wrong. The point is it doesn't matter what I think. When you go to a class, have a little respect and go along with that particular instructor's teaching style.
It's "The Cato Institute" http://www.cato.org/about/about.html. CATO doesn't spell out anything. It's "Cato", named after "Cato's Letters" -- used as anonymous treatises pro-American Revolution by some founding fathers, named after an ancient Roman "Cato", who wrote against tyranny and oppression in his day and age.
I hadn't heard before this article about hard evidence that Earth debris could reach other planetary bodies or moons -- it's a really fascinating idea. I would first want to know, however, how many impacts correspond to relatively recent timeframes, and how many were predicted to have occured prior to life evolving on Earth. Also, one would think there would be evidence on our own moon of Earth-based debris (post-formation of the Moon of course, since that is thought to be one large chunk of Earth debris).
As far as life as we know it, there is no evidence that microorganisms could grow at -179C. There is some evidence that hardy spores can survive in extreme conditions (even naked space as is the case for some mold spores that briefly enter the upper atmosphere of Earth and come back down to spread long distance), but I find it difficult to believe that anything could grow and divide at such low temperatures. That seems chemically and thermodynamically impossible with the microorganisms that we know of now. The leaves the possibility of evolution to some type of life we don't know about, but again, evolution requires geological time scales, and the trip from here to Titan, presumably in a dormant state, would not allow sufficient time or for that or the multiple rounds of natural selection. Neat idea none-the-less, but not enough incidents to play the probability game properly.
This is hardly something "hidden" by the pharmaceutical companies. There are many known natural compounds, like antioxidants, that will help prevent a vast number of ailments and diseases associated with aging. It's not like it's some big secret that eating healthy (vegetables, whole grains) and maintaining a reasonable exercise regiment is primarily what you need to age well. There are, of course, many other little novelties, like red wine, etc., but come on? You haven't seen enough of those little blurbs about "Tonight at 11, this miracle food will cure what ails you...find out what it is." They pop up all over the place. Lipitor is used to help people who are ALREADY symptomatic. It is NOT meant to be prescribed rampantly to just anyone as a preventative measure. There is absolutely no proof that red wine can help reverse alleviate elevated cholesterol or arterial plaques once they have formed. As a fellow, scientist, I'm surprised you wouldn't know to make this very important distinction. I have no problem with people using the knowledge that a little bit of red wine is good for the heart, but don't make it sound like it does the same thing as Lipitor.
It's not that simple. If you take my physical briefcase, remove its contents and burn them, shall I not scream bloody murder? Contents on a hard drive could easily be treated the same way. It is not possible to tell from TFA what angle the company is pursuing, but it seems to me they have a case if they are alledging he destroyed company property. A *CASE*, not a verdict. So regardless of whether it was classified as evidence or not (possibly wasn't by the time he had deleted the files), the case might still hold water. And let's not lose sight of the fact that the man did secure delete files for a reason...so the question is WHY? Not a legal matter, of course, since you can't prove anything, but it seems shady to me.
As of 1 min ago, ~2:15 pm pacific time, the Orbiter emerged from behind Mars and its signal was reaquired by the Deep Space Network. Guess things are looking good this time. That will bring the success percentage for orbiters to 60% (3/5).
Anybody see that part in the Academy Awards where the made a little mention/montage about how it's worth seeing movies at the cinema? Anybody else think that was really pathetic? I had decided I had enough last fall. I went with a group of ~15 fellow adults to watch Harry Potter IV. Yes, it's a "children's themed" movie, but it was rated PG-13. Now, is that really the movie you want to take your 3 year-old to? We collectively spent ~$150 at the theater that day and ended up relatively miserable sitting in front of some retard family who just had to take their spoiled retard kids to a fairly dark and violent movie. Honestly, I tend to favor personal responsibility over an excess of rules and regulations, but this just really pissed me off. The fact that many movies suck, along with the obvious downturn in the movie-going experience is clearly at fault for declining revenues. What, do I have to go watch 3 movies with my 1 purchased ticket to feel like I got my money's worth?
I understand your sarcasm, but just because they're out for profits doesn't meant this won't help the competitors. I believe that an average user browsing the Apple website or an Apple store, seeing an accessory that is so clearly priced, might say "gee, that accessory looks like a good idea, maybe i can get a cheap version somewhere else". It seems that any time some company releases an average product at a pricer higher than a competitors, the competitor can always play up the value of their own product.
(1) The relative contributions of prior research by publically funded institutions vs. product development by industry are high subjective and open to debate. I feel the intellection contribution made by decades of research by academic labs outweighs the 5-10 years and gazillions of dollars spent by industry to build on the backs of that public research.
(2) Licensing DOES happen now, and is basically the only way for academics to get something out of a promising bit of research. Ultimately, however, the for-profit organization can still maul the consumer in the end. I did not suggest that the original researchers do all the follow up, but rather that additional support teams (publically funded, or non-profit) specialize in taking over specifically to do product development.
(3) Streamlining any current system will never be sufficient incentive for businesses. Even "guaranteeing" the stability of rarely-used products. Anything that proposes a merely "break-even" approach is unacceptable to Big Pharma, as it would be for any profit company. The other solution is to ask government to basically give money, above cost, to the company to ensure that a drug might be available when needed. We do not ask private companies to own maintain the nation's infrastructure, and we should not rely entirely on them for our healthcare either.
On the one hand, as a consumer, I am immediately happy that this will stick it to the greedy telcos. On the other hand, I tend to favor less government control and more market forces. I suggest that if consumers keep wanting everything they get now (internet-wise), and keep demanding reasonable pricing, then competition will eventually fill the niche. For example, a parallel internet run mostly by google that bypasses large chunks of the telcos. Though that wouldn't be ideal, even the idea of it might be enough of a threat to force more reasonable pricing. The only problem is that right now communication systems are extremely anti-competitive. Generally, there is only one company that can supply the phone line and one that can supply the cable line. There is not enough competition between DSL and cable to fill the viod.
We have the expertise! We just need the equipment and salaries. I am, of course, an academic researcher in biology. I don't personally have interest in anti-microbial research, but there are plenty of us Ph.Ds who do. The problem is, the only choices we have are to stay in academia, where product devlopment is nil, or go to industry, where the bottom line takes precedence over all else. I propose more funding to academic labs (and even national labs) specifically to develop antibiotics (and eventually many other pharmaceuticals). Currently, the big Pharmas take research that began at academic labs based on public funds and privatize it by taking some small step forward. I think this is a big scam for the public, who then has to pay up the wazoo to get any of the tangible benefits. If there were a program specifically to help academics take products to market via non-profits, I think real progress in healthcare could be made, even for these difficult-to-make-profitable antibiotics. But, it is difficult to overcome the Pharma lobby.
This is quite true. There used to be a law in the US ~10 or so years ago against direct marketing, but it was relaxed. Consequently, the price of the average prescription tripled almost immediately.
I honestly did think the ICANN's position was a little inflexible, until I saw this. I have to say, with ICANN in the hands of an international body, all it would do is draw even more countries into arguments with each other. Atleast this way, it's every country vs. ICANN, so to speak. Imagine if there were an international body, that China could lobby heavily on, to interfere with the internet interests of Taiwan? Does anyone think that couldn't possibly happen. I think ICANN as a US subsidiary actually would protect the interests of weaker and less developed nations. That is not really the debate here, I think, however. It seems when dealing with the Chinese government's stance on the internet, there is little ICANN or anyone else could have done to satisfy the communist (read: totalitarian) government. This should not surprise anyone, and the "blame" should not be placed on ICANN or the US. This is simply another way of controlling the population, limiting their access to the outside world, and at worst, a trick to infringe on the trademarks and copyrights of western businesses (try typing microsoft.com from a browser in china when this is all said and done with).
Strange that they should sue Dan Brown... If not for the Da Vinci code, I'm not sure who would even have heard of Holy Blood Holy Grail. Also strange that both books, while "alluring" or "exciting" are based entirely on an elaborate hoax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_Sion
I liked the parts in the Da Vinci Code about the artwork that was historically accurate. The rest, well, it's just a fun story to read.
There is a big difference. Yours is a debate over legitimate uses of public money for the greater public good. The Canadian tax is about giving money to a private industry, which I don't believe government should be involved in. The next time you drive through a pothole and get pissed off about, see someone in city hall about paying for it yourself. Otherwise stop complaining about taxes. Taxes have been the basis of civilized society for since civilization itself. Without it, see how many people would voluntarily pay for the services they currently take for granted. By the way, all that money you have with which you can buy your own food, education for your kids, and all those other "causes, programs, or institutions" you despise so much -- it was all built on the backs of those programs. You can't pick and choose.
...hammering away at enough typewriters for long enough, we'd have all the works of Shakespeare. Therefore, on the timescale of eons, lower skill applied for a longer period of time can equal greater skill applied for a short period of time.
I guess I agree with you in general... if we are talking about the average public. I've noticed that when I go to make a purchase, no matter how big or small, I do value options, and I do tend to thrive on making those decisions (perhaps a mild OCD or something...I dunno, I like it).
That said, I'd be interested to know if the full system is included with every Vista unit sold, and then selectively crippled, or whether different versions indeed lack/include the different options. Not sure I'd care that much... maybe save on some hard disk space.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I'm a postdoctoral biologist. I'm not easily impressed. I think the concept of being able to introduce stem cells into human, and them not turn cancerous, really would be a marvelous achievement. Remember, stem cells are undifferentiated, a lot like tumor cells become. If the stem cells simply incorporate themselves into the tissue without any harm to the patient, I think that would be a huge accomplishment. It would verify the validity of the approach, and serve as a stepping stone for further research.
It's excellent that there are well balanced articles like this out there. Many tend to follow the anti-science trend that is taking over the US in recent years. Recently, the controversy over patient-specific stem cells has been used to rally the bible-beating troops against the use of embryonic stem cells altogether. Any sort of glance under the surface whatsover would immediately reveal that the scientific process worked exactly as it should, as it will in this clinical trial as well. Frankly, the results in animal models are quite promising, and if this treatment even mereley 'does no harm', I will be quite impressed.
What's amazing is that "intelligence" is kind of an emergent property. We don't have a very good idea of how it works, but we can map neurons fairly well. This implies that one day, by simply programming the basic features of neuron synaptic transmission, the system might 'come alive' even though we may not know entirely how.
...and that is the credibility of scientists everywhere. Anytime some crackpot like this comes along, it embarresses us all. Let's NOT give them the benefit of doubt just so we can cover our bases and say, "oh, well, maybe it might work, accidentally or something...um, yeah...i'm so open minded." we need to call this out for what it is, bullshit. this isn't some controversial research that failed peer review for political or ego reasons, this is flat out crap.
P.S. The search for proof of general relativity by measuring phenomena super accurately, just like the clock experiment you describe, is ongoing, and by no means conclusive. But I believe the theory is valid.
Then the article goes on to talk about cosmic radiation causing premature age-jaculation. Talk about apples and oranges... First of all, the obvious... sub-light speed travel does not reduce one's aging -- it would just appear that way (in theory) to a "stationairy" observer (as if there were such a thing). Second, actually using sub-light travel to let the world around you go by faster isn't really plausable, now, is it? Ok, those are the obvious ones. Something actually interesting (because it's real and verifiable) is that radiation does indeed cause telomere shortening. There is a correlation with increased age and shortened telomeres. The experiment should be relatively straightforward with model organisms sent to space, even in earth orbit, but one would have a difficult time proving causality: cosmic rays -> shortened telomeres -> premature aging.
What the article does not tell you, is that the amount of radiation that caused the telomere damage would necessarily also cause other DNA damage. In other words, the premature aging might be the last of your worries if you were actually exposed to cosmic radiation. One would probably die of cancer or radiation poisoning first.
That said, I could be entirely wrong. The point is it doesn't matter what I think. When you go to a class, have a little respect and go along with that particular instructor's teaching style.
It's "The Cato Institute" http://www.cato.org/about/about.html. CATO doesn't spell out anything. It's "Cato", named after "Cato's Letters" -- used as anonymous treatises pro-American Revolution by some founding fathers, named after an ancient Roman "Cato", who wrote against tyranny and oppression in his day and age.
...and now it REALLY sucks dogballs: http://www.techdirt.com./
As far as life as we know it, there is no evidence that microorganisms could grow at -179C. There is some evidence that hardy spores can survive in extreme conditions (even naked space as is the case for some mold spores that briefly enter the upper atmosphere of Earth and come back down to spread long distance), but I find it difficult to believe that anything could grow and divide at such low temperatures. That seems chemically and thermodynamically impossible with the microorganisms that we know of now. The leaves the possibility of evolution to some type of life we don't know about, but again, evolution requires geological time scales, and the trip from here to Titan, presumably in a dormant state, would not allow sufficient time or for that or the multiple rounds of natural selection. Neat idea none-the-less, but not enough incidents to play the probability game properly.
This is hardly something "hidden" by the pharmaceutical companies. There are many known natural compounds, like antioxidants, that will help prevent a vast number of ailments and diseases associated with aging. It's not like it's some big secret that eating healthy (vegetables, whole grains) and maintaining a reasonable exercise regiment is primarily what you need to age well. There are, of course, many other little novelties, like red wine, etc., but come on? You haven't seen enough of those little blurbs about "Tonight at 11, this miracle food will cure what ails you...find out what it is." They pop up all over the place. Lipitor is used to help people who are ALREADY symptomatic. It is NOT meant to be prescribed rampantly to just anyone as a preventative measure. There is absolutely no proof that red wine can help reverse alleviate elevated cholesterol or arterial plaques once they have formed. As a fellow, scientist, I'm surprised you wouldn't know to make this very important distinction. I have no problem with people using the knowledge that a little bit of red wine is good for the heart, but don't make it sound like it does the same thing as Lipitor.
It's not that simple. If you take my physical briefcase, remove its contents and burn them, shall I not scream bloody murder? Contents on a hard drive could easily be treated the same way. It is not possible to tell from TFA what angle the company is pursuing, but it seems to me they have a case if they are alledging he destroyed company property. A *CASE*, not a verdict. So regardless of whether it was classified as evidence or not (possibly wasn't by the time he had deleted the files), the case might still hold water. And let's not lose sight of the fact that the man did secure delete files for a reason...so the question is WHY? Not a legal matter, of course, since you can't prove anything, but it seems shady to me.
As of 1 min ago, ~2:15 pm pacific time, the Orbiter emerged from behind Mars and its signal was reaquired by the Deep Space Network. Guess things are looking good this time. That will bring the success percentage for orbiters to 60% (3/5).
Anybody see that part in the Academy Awards where the made a little mention/montage about how it's worth seeing movies at the cinema? Anybody else think that was really pathetic? I had decided I had enough last fall. I went with a group of ~15 fellow adults to watch Harry Potter IV. Yes, it's a "children's themed" movie, but it was rated PG-13. Now, is that really the movie you want to take your 3 year-old to? We collectively spent ~$150 at the theater that day and ended up relatively miserable sitting in front of some retard family who just had to take their spoiled retard kids to a fairly dark and violent movie. Honestly, I tend to favor personal responsibility over an excess of rules and regulations, but this just really pissed me off. The fact that many movies suck, along with the obvious downturn in the movie-going experience is clearly at fault for declining revenues. What, do I have to go watch 3 movies with my 1 purchased ticket to feel like I got my money's worth?
I understand your sarcasm, but just because they're out for profits doesn't meant this won't help the competitors. I believe that an average user browsing the Apple website or an Apple store, seeing an accessory that is so clearly priced, might say "gee, that accessory looks like a good idea, maybe i can get a cheap version somewhere else". It seems that any time some company releases an average product at a pricer higher than a competitors, the competitor can always play up the value of their own product.
...is more likely if you get electrocuted from a DC source than an AC source. Hyperbole aside, DC really is more dangerous than AC.
(1) The relative contributions of prior research by publically funded institutions vs. product development by industry are high subjective and open to debate. I feel the intellection contribution made by decades of research by academic labs outweighs the 5-10 years and gazillions of dollars spent by industry to build on the backs of that public research.
(2) Licensing DOES happen now, and is basically the only way for academics to get something out of a promising bit of research. Ultimately, however, the for-profit organization can still maul the consumer in the end. I did not suggest that the original researchers do all the follow up, but rather that additional support teams (publically funded, or non-profit) specialize in taking over specifically to do product development.
(3) Streamlining any current system will never be sufficient incentive for businesses. Even "guaranteeing" the stability of rarely-used products. Anything that proposes a merely "break-even" approach is unacceptable to Big Pharma, as it would be for any profit company. The other solution is to ask government to basically give money, above cost, to the company to ensure that a drug might be available when needed. We do not ask private companies to own maintain the nation's infrastructure, and we should not rely entirely on them for our healthcare either.
On the one hand, as a consumer, I am immediately happy that this will stick it to the greedy telcos. On the other hand, I tend to favor less government control and more market forces. I suggest that if consumers keep wanting everything they get now (internet-wise), and keep demanding reasonable pricing, then competition will eventually fill the niche. For example, a parallel internet run mostly by google that bypasses large chunks of the telcos. Though that wouldn't be ideal, even the idea of it might be enough of a threat to force more reasonable pricing. The only problem is that right now communication systems are extremely anti-competitive. Generally, there is only one company that can supply the phone line and one that can supply the cable line. There is not enough competition between DSL and cable to fill the viod.
We have the expertise! We just need the equipment and salaries. I am, of course, an academic researcher in biology. I don't personally have interest in anti-microbial research, but there are plenty of us Ph.Ds who do. The problem is, the only choices we have are to stay in academia, where product devlopment is nil, or go to industry, where the bottom line takes precedence over all else. I propose more funding to academic labs (and even national labs) specifically to develop antibiotics (and eventually many other pharmaceuticals). Currently, the big Pharmas take research that began at academic labs based on public funds and privatize it by taking some small step forward. I think this is a big scam for the public, who then has to pay up the wazoo to get any of the tangible benefits. If there were a program specifically to help academics take products to market via non-profits, I think real progress in healthcare could be made, even for these difficult-to-make-profitable antibiotics. But, it is difficult to overcome the Pharma lobby.
This is quite true. There used to be a law in the US ~10 or so years ago against direct marketing, but it was relaxed. Consequently, the price of the average prescription tripled almost immediately.
I honestly did think the ICANN's position was a little inflexible, until I saw this. I have to say, with ICANN in the hands of an international body, all it would do is draw even more countries into arguments with each other. Atleast this way, it's every country vs. ICANN, so to speak. Imagine if there were an international body, that China could lobby heavily on, to interfere with the internet interests of Taiwan? Does anyone think that couldn't possibly happen. I think ICANN as a US subsidiary actually would protect the interests of weaker and less developed nations. That is not really the debate here, I think, however. It seems when dealing with the Chinese government's stance on the internet, there is little ICANN or anyone else could have done to satisfy the communist (read: totalitarian) government. This should not surprise anyone, and the "blame" should not be placed on ICANN or the US. This is simply another way of controlling the population, limiting their access to the outside world, and at worst, a trick to infringe on the trademarks and copyrights of western businesses (try typing microsoft.com from a browser in china when this is all said and done with).
I liked the parts in the Da Vinci Code about the artwork that was historically accurate. The rest, well, it's just a fun story to read.
There is a big difference. Yours is a debate over legitimate uses of public money for the greater public good. The Canadian tax is about giving money to a private industry, which I don't believe government should be involved in. The next time you drive through a pothole and get pissed off about, see someone in city hall about paying for it yourself. Otherwise stop complaining about taxes. Taxes have been the basis of civilized society for since civilization itself. Without it, see how many people would voluntarily pay for the services they currently take for granted. By the way, all that money you have with which you can buy your own food, education for your kids, and all those other "causes, programs, or institutions" you despise so much -- it was all built on the backs of those programs. You can't pick and choose.
...hammering away at enough typewriters for long enough, we'd have all the works of Shakespeare. Therefore, on the timescale of eons, lower skill applied for a longer period of time can equal greater skill applied for a short period of time.
That said, I'd be interested to know if the full system is included with every Vista unit sold, and then selectively crippled, or whether different versions indeed lack/include the different options. Not sure I'd care that much... maybe save on some hard disk space.