Maybe this is just a general law in nature: a species will use up all resources it can find. The only real solution would be a real clean source of energy. Your alternative would work too, but is way less attractive;-)
Not really, since there are several spices on top of various food chains, and they don't eat a whole lot more than their stomachs can hold. But your point reaches to the root of the problem however: the reason these creatures don't virally consume the world like we do, is that they are unable to transform things they have not evolved to transform (food, sticks for nests etc) into anything useful.
The "law" should read: "A species will deplete any resource it can transform into being usefully for itself to such a degree that it causes population growth"
Our amazing ability to to just that, as was paved way for when we discovered our present totalitarian agriculture, is what is consuming the planet. IMHO, the answers to global warming is to a.) Become aware we are consuming the planet in a viral fashion, b.) Stop population growth, c.) Reduce population numbers, d.) Base our technology on environmentally friendly methods when possible, and it does not impede progress
I sometimes wonder if all the drama and secrecy surrounding such things are worse for the kids than actually seeing the real deal. It makes it tempting, and fosters an unnatural attitude towards if. There are loads of cultures where kids grow up seeing boobies, sex and all kinds of "taboos" without going mental.
It's like when parents get divorced. I, and most of those I know with divorced parents lived happily with parents in separate places, but the _drama_ surrounding the actual divorce hurt some. Those where the parents split up as friends had no problems, since they had a relaxed attitude towards it.
When we treat something natural as sacrilege, we get messed up! Just look at all those priests abusing kids...
On a semi-related note, I also remember seeing a great play called "Blackbird" once, that talk about a sexual abuse case. The question raised by the play is whether the court case, the police interrogation, the parents crying, the need for discretion and forcing the kid to lie to his/her friends did far more damage than the act itself could ever have. Worth having a look at when you feel like screaming "Somebody think of the children!" (thank you, South Park, for this amazing quote).
Note to those who wish to derail the argument: the last example is not to condone abuse of kids, but rather to poke at the way we go about handling such things once they happen.
I think this article is interesting, but probably it plays on gross simplifications.
I can only comment on one of them: That most suicide bombers are muslims due to an absence of sexual prospect. Fact is, that most of the suicide bombers that have attacked Europe have been fairly popular as they grew up, and some have even had non-muslim girlfriends.
I do not know if this is true for the bombers in Iraq and so on, but by large, I think the article simplifies this point, making an easy and lacking explanation. In fact, with people craving to understand, such articles can even be quite dangerous, as they hide the real issues, which as vastly more complex and hard to swallow....
It's not encoureaging underage drinking, it's more of a sympthom of a society soaked in paranoia, unrealistic expectations and simplistic views of the world that clash with a modern age where a person's life and living will be more exposed and available.
So we have two choices now: a.) remove the access to insight into our lives, or restrict it radically, or b.) realise that the people that take care of your children are humans too, with all that entails. There are no saints here. It's not a bad thing.
If "we" help the poor countries out of poverty and into a society like those of the industrialized nations where birth-rates pr. person are negative, would there still be food and raw materials on this planet left to run a society like that?
It's not the drugs that are the problem, it's our never-ending population growth! The more land we turn into farmland, the more kids we have, that again will need to turn new land into farmland, or squeeze even more out of what is allready there to stay alive, and have more kids that needs more farmland... and so on, so forth...
Seriously, we know that we will crack the secrets to long life at one point or another. We know that we want to maintain a high standards of living, and achieve self-realiszation. We want there to be wild nature left. We want there to be more species that rats, cockroaches, dogs and cats living alongside us.
It doesn't take a genious to see that a major pieces in the puzzle that is our long-term survival is population control, and we need to enact it now. Global warming is a small piece in comparison.
To those who wish to endulge, I'd stornly reccomend Daniel Quinn's excellend books 'Ishmael', and 'The Story of B'.
So you would expect the rate of skin cancer among Ghaneans in Trondheim (for example) to be soaring. Then again, Norway has one of the best medical systems in the world, but you'd at least expect to see a correlation.
According to this article, there is. The article is well written, and quotes the reference on this particular point to be:
If anything, it hints that life does not generally evolve towards big intelligence like ours, even when it gets the chance (there was after all 500+ million years of complex life prior to us, none of which could start a fire)-
We may be specialists, evolved to think great thoughts since that was advantageous for our context at the time. Since it appears evolution does not favour philosphers, it might means we're an accident, and pretty alone in the cosmos.
Would be kind of sad if we made our own extinction then, wouldn't it... K
Interesting that, yes. One could imagine that there must have been dinosaur-equivlants of seals an polar bears that could potentially have coped by migrating a bit. Maybe the foodchain collapsed completely, or maybe dinosaus where quite simply cold-blooded (I think that's been a issue of debate), and could not actually evolve to a point where they could suvive temperateus below a certain point... I dunno.
"And the hampster shall inherit the Earth" - guess the dinos didn't see that one coming.
I still think small warm-blooded mamals is a safe horse in the event of global cataclysm;) Let's make sure NASA get it's cash to we won't have to devolve into rodents to survive when the next blast comes.
As a citizen of a very snowy country, it's also apparent that small creatures manage much better in cold and snowy conditions than large onces. If there was a global "nuclear winter" following an impact, small nimble creatures would do quite well in snowy areas, using snow for isolation, digging tunnels. Also, imagine the massive death of vegetation and animal life that follows. If the cold set, this could make a refrigrated decent lunch box for smaller animals in the time to come.
Doesn't Web 2.0 reach a "critical mass" as some point, where busineese will no longer be able to not cooperate? Of course, it all gets very fragile even then...
There have been many stories here on Slashdot regarding the precieved decline in American science, and this article points to what may be another observable effect.
If the word "evolution" is avoided, is then also the models and theories that relates to the field also not applied, or discuised?
For me as a European, who is very fond of many things American and has relied uppon the US for protection and trade for a long time, it is scary to hear how much power people who rule by dogmas and simplified world views get over there these days.
Though, from the outside its hard to tell if it just sensationalism in the media, but please, Dear Americans, I beg you, don't let dogma win...
In one way, Skype can be seen as a great "kick-off" for VoIP, but for widespread implementation and use that will lead to innovation, progress and integration where it is practical to have it, it should be much more open. Skype's closed protocol will harm VoIP as a communication platform for replacing the phone.
That said, Skype is easy to install, use and works really well. That is the reason I use it, my mom uses it, my girlfriend uses it, and pretty much anyone else.
This sounds very exciting, but it left me wonder that if there is a simple answer to fixing cancer, why hasn't nature evolved a way to apply it on its own, the same way out bodies raise temperature to fight infections, or eject bowl content when poisoned. Cancer, after all, is quite common.
(I can imagine it would be because people with cancer are usually older than fertine age etc., but wouldn't it make sence that people less prone to cancer make a statistical impact on evolution big enough to apply "easy fixes" like this?)
By the way, the Newsweek article on the site is interesting, check it out (:
That some very good points nicklott, but maybe it's possible turn it around and say that the very reason we should aim to a self-sustaining colony rather than a base is just the fact that the moon will probably not be able to send us back any valuable produce. It's not like we'll be growing tobacco there for a profit.
So if you value permanemnt human space settlement in it's own right, the aim should be for it to exist for it's own sake. Best way to do this is to make it "home" for people. For this, you need it to be as self-sustaining as possible. Once the colony got big enough, it may be able to host greater scientifict research, and also work as a launch platform for deeper space exploration.
I have no idea if this is more cost-efficient than putting the money into development of exotic launch technologies here on Earth tho'. It may be, but it may also be that those projects has a lower return on the investment than learning how to "seed" new colonies out there that can aid further exploration of space (and secure humanity).
"Besides helium-3 mining and lunar hotels, do you have any good ideas for a moon base startup"
Up, make it self-sustainable, self-expanding and self-developing through utilising the resources available on the moon, aiming to import as little as possible from the mother nest. I say we should aim for a colony, not a base.
Once, warning og climate change might have been damaging for you career. Now, disputing climate change, something everyone now believes to be a reality, will do the same. This is why bribes like this is no longer effective.
Only thing that works for a big companies now is to think "if you can't beat'em, join'em" and go green, or at least seemingly green.
Let's hope it brings a change for the better. Anyone else who actually feels a bit optimistic that we're learning to take a bit more responsibility for our own future now? (:
It seems to me that faster PCs in the past have brought them more and better functionality, making them replace other, potentially more enviromentally unfriendly technology. Not sure how the math on this works out tho'.
Nope, nordic in general refers to the scandinavian nations + their territories (Greenland, Spitsbergen etc.), so even if the Netherlands is more to the north than Italy, it still doesn't make it Nordic(tm).
This is partly due to the shared history and culture of the nations labled "nordic", and the term can equally well refer to the peoples of the nordic nations. Anyone who have been both in the South of Europe and Scandinavia will tell you that culturally, the difference is quite big... (:
As far as I understand it, completing the proteome would also greatly complement the genome. As a computer person, I'm left wondering how far we could simulate the growth of a human when we have the "software" (DNA) and all the pieces that interact with it, or at least use it for medical testing purposes.
It's a big puzzle this, so we should be happy for every piece we get in place (:
I remember a French professor named Alain Finkielkraut who held a seminar here in Norway once who stated in the newspaper that "the internet is garbage" (exact quote) because it consistes of accurate and inaccurate information (or outright lies) next to each other.
While we should not underestimate the value of Wikipedia as a tool for sparking interest, and public information, it is not an scietifict/academic source of information. The shear plasticity of the articles should make it obvious that it is not a good place to cite, contrary to reputed printed on online journals or works with a strict editorial regime and peer review system. (this relates a bit to a previous slashdot article about people not being able to see the difference between credible and doubtfull source of information online).
That said, Wikis in general can be wonderfull for science, especially if the people contributing are limited, but only for documentation and growing knowledge.
I wonder if the added years of mental clarity significantly affects the estimates for long people will work. After all, we are working in less physically stressfull ways, and multilingualism is definetly on the rise in Europe (due to immigration, and more population movement - I am Norwegian, my working language is English, my girlfriend is Portuguese, and I will soon study in Hungary).
This will be guesswork on my behalf (not yet a doctor), but if I was to make an uneducated guess as to what causes this, i would suggest it is the constant increased level of activity in the brain of a multilingual person. It makes sence, that you have to engage larger patterns of knowledge when navigating between languages. If you learn a thing in one language, you also learn it in a second. If you know 10.000 words in two languages, I'm quite sure this accounts for quite a bit of added activity in the learning process, and is contsantly being stimulated by life around you. It should suggest that the more languages you know, the better the effect.
People claim that memorising a few things every day, such as learning a poem, keeps your mind kicking beyond the average age. I'm not sure this is a the actual case, but it is interesting.
(What the article fails to address is wether these people where speaking the language activly, or if they just knew it. I would take it there is a bit of a difference)
The patterns of a programming language is probably not being stimulated very much in your head as you move through the world, and I think it's scope is quite narrow. I'd doubt simply knowing one will have an effect, but maybe if you programme allot, the challenge of constructing systems and flows should be an interesting challenge for the mind, hopefully keeping it young (:
Slashdot Mirror
Not really, since there are several spices on top of various food chains, and they don't eat a whole lot more than their stomachs can hold. But your point reaches to the root of the problem however: the reason these creatures don't virally consume the world like we do, is that they are unable to transform things they have not evolved to transform (food, sticks for nests etc) into anything useful.
The "law" should read: "A species will deplete any resource it can transform into being usefully for itself to such a degree that it causes population growth"
Our amazing ability to to just that, as was paved way for when we discovered our present totalitarian agriculture, is what is consuming the planet. IMHO, the answers to global warming is to a.) Become aware we are consuming the planet in a viral fashion, b.) Stop population growth, c.) Reduce population numbers, d.) Base our technology on environmentally friendly methods when possible, and it does not impede progress
It's like when parents get divorced. I, and most of those I know with divorced parents lived happily with parents in separate places, but the _drama_ surrounding the actual divorce hurt some. Those where the parents split up as friends had no problems, since they had a relaxed attitude towards it.
When we treat something natural as sacrilege, we get messed up! Just look at all those priests abusing kids...
On a semi-related note, I also remember seeing a great play called "Blackbird" once, that talk about a sexual abuse case. The question raised by the play is whether the court case, the police interrogation, the parents crying, the need for discretion and forcing the kid to lie to his/her friends did far more damage than the act itself could ever have. Worth having a look at when you feel like screaming "Somebody think of the children!" (thank you, South Park, for this amazing quote).
Note to those who wish to derail the argument: the last example is not to condone abuse of kids, but rather to poke at the way we go about handling such things once they happen.
I think this article is interesting, but probably it plays on gross simplifications.
I can only comment on one of them: That most suicide bombers are muslims due to an absence of sexual prospect. Fact is, that most of the suicide bombers that have attacked Europe have been fairly popular as they grew up, and some have even had non-muslim girlfriends.
I do not know if this is true for the bombers in Iraq and so on, but by large, I think the article simplifies this point, making an easy and lacking explanation. In fact, with people craving to understand, such articles can even be quite dangerous, as they hide the real issues, which as vastly more complex and hard to swallow....
It's not encoureaging underage drinking, it's more of a sympthom of a society soaked in paranoia, unrealistic expectations and simplistic views of the world that clash with a modern age where a person's life and living will be more exposed and available.
So we have two choices now: a.) remove the access to insight into our lives, or restrict it radically, or b.) realise that the people that take care of your children are humans too, with all that entails. There are no saints here. It's not a bad thing.
If "we" help the poor countries out of poverty and into a society like those of the industrialized nations where birth-rates pr. person are negative, would there still be food and raw materials on this planet left to run a society like that?
It's not the drugs that are the problem, it's our never-ending population growth! The more land we turn into farmland, the more kids we have, that again will need to turn new land into farmland, or squeeze even more out of what is allready there to stay alive, and have more kids that needs more farmland... and so on, so forth...
Seriously, we know that we will crack the secrets to long life at one point or another. We know that we want to maintain a high standards of living, and achieve self-realiszation. We want there to be wild nature left. We want there to be more species that rats, cockroaches, dogs and cats living alongside us.
It doesn't take a genious to see that a major pieces in the puzzle that is our long-term survival is population control, and we need to enact it now. Global warming is a small piece in comparison.
To those who wish to endulge, I'd stornly reccomend Daniel Quinn's excellend books 'Ishmael', and 'The Story of B'.
According to this article, there is. The article is well written, and quotes the reference on this particular point to be:
Angwafo FF. Migration and prostate cancer: an international perspective. J Natl Med Assoc 1998 Nov; 90 (11 suppl):S720-3.
If anything, it hints that life does not generally evolve towards big intelligence like ours, even when it gets the chance (there was after all 500+ million years of complex life prior to us, none of which could start a fire)-
.. K
We may be specialists, evolved to think great thoughts since that was advantageous for our context at the time. Since it appears evolution does not favour philosphers, it might means we're an accident, and pretty alone in the cosmos.
Would be kind of sad if we made our own extinction then, wouldn't it.
Interesting that, yes. One could imagine that there must have been dinosaur-equivlants of seals an polar bears that could potentially have coped by migrating a bit. Maybe the foodchain collapsed completely, or maybe dinosaus where quite simply cold-blooded (I think that's been a issue of debate), and could not actually evolve to a point where they could suvive temperateus below a certain point... I dunno.
;) Let's make sure NASA get it's cash to we won't have to devolve into rodents to survive when the next blast comes.
"And the hampster shall inherit the Earth" - guess the dinos didn't see that one coming.
I still think small warm-blooded mamals is a safe horse in the event of global cataclysm
As a citizen of a very snowy country, it's also apparent that small creatures manage much better in cold and snowy conditions than large onces. If there was a global "nuclear winter" following an impact, small nimble creatures would do quite well in snowy areas, using snow for isolation, digging tunnels. Also, imagine the massive death of vegetation and animal life that follows. If the cold set, this could make a refrigrated decent lunch box for smaller animals in the time to come.
Doesn't Web 2.0 reach a "critical mass" as some point, where busineese will no longer be able to not cooperate? Of course, it all gets very fragile even then...
There have been many stories here on Slashdot regarding the precieved decline in American science, and this article points to what may be another observable effect.
If the word "evolution" is avoided, is then also the models and theories that relates to the field also not applied, or discuised?
For me as a European, who is very fond of many things American and has relied uppon the US for protection and trade for a long time, it is scary to hear how much power people who rule by dogmas and simplified world views get over there these days.
Though, from the outside its hard to tell if it just sensationalism in the media, but please, Dear Americans, I beg you, don't let dogma win...
To me water seems highly unpredictable though. Is is really possible to get any kind of computational accuracy from a device built like this?
In one way, Skype can be seen as a great "kick-off" for VoIP, but for widespread implementation and use that will lead to innovation, progress and integration where it is practical to have it, it should be much more open. Skype's closed protocol will harm VoIP as a communication platform for replacing the phone.
That said, Skype is easy to install, use and works really well. That is the reason I use it, my mom uses it, my girlfriend uses it, and pretty much anyone else.
This sounds very exciting, but it left me wonder that if there is a simple answer to fixing cancer, why hasn't nature evolved a way to apply it on its own, the same way out bodies raise temperature to fight infections, or eject bowl content when poisoned. Cancer, after all, is quite common.
(I can imagine it would be because people with cancer are usually older than fertine age etc., but wouldn't it make sence that people less prone to cancer make a statistical impact on evolution big enough to apply "easy fixes" like this?)
By the way, the Newsweek article on the site is interesting, check it out (:
That some very good points nicklott, but maybe it's possible turn it around and say that the very reason we should aim to a self-sustaining colony rather than a base is just the fact that the moon will probably not be able to send us back any valuable produce. It's not like we'll be growing tobacco there for a profit.
So if you value permanemnt human space settlement in it's own right, the aim should be for it to exist for it's own sake. Best way to do this is to make it "home" for people. For this, you need it to be as self-sustaining as possible. Once the colony got big enough, it may be able to host greater scientifict research, and also work as a launch platform for deeper space exploration.
I have no idea if this is more cost-efficient than putting the money into development of exotic launch technologies here on Earth tho'. It may be, but it may also be that those projects has a lower return on the investment than learning how to "seed" new colonies out there that can aid further exploration of space (and secure humanity).
Up, make it self-sustainable, self-expanding and self-developing through utilising the resources available on the moon, aiming to import as little as possible from the mother nest. I say we should aim for a colony, not a base.
Once, warning og climate change might have been damaging for you career. Now, disputing climate change, something everyone now believes to be a reality, will do the same. This is why bribes like this is no longer effective.
Only thing that works for a big companies now is to think "if you can't beat'em, join'em" and go green, or at least seemingly green.
Let's hope it brings a change for the better. Anyone else who actually feels a bit optimistic that we're learning to take a bit more responsibility for our own future now? (:
It seems to me that faster PCs in the past have brought them more and better functionality, making them replace other, potentially more enviromentally unfriendly technology. Not sure how the math on this works out tho'.
Nope, nordic in general refers to the scandinavian nations + their territories (Greenland, Spitsbergen etc.), so even if the Netherlands is more to the north than Italy, it still doesn't make it Nordic(tm).
This is partly due to the shared history and culture of the nations labled "nordic", and the term can equally well refer to the peoples of the nordic nations. Anyone who have been both in the South of Europe and Scandinavia will tell you that culturally, the difference is quite big... (:
As far as I understand it, completing the proteome would also greatly complement the genome. As a computer person, I'm left wondering how far we could simulate the growth of a human when we have the "software" (DNA) and all the pieces that interact with it, or at least use it for medical testing purposes.
It's a big puzzle this, so we should be happy for every piece we get in place (:
I remember a French professor named Alain Finkielkraut who held a seminar here in Norway once who stated in the newspaper that "the internet is garbage" (exact quote) because it consistes of accurate and inaccurate information (or outright lies) next to each other.
While we should not underestimate the value of Wikipedia as a tool for sparking interest, and public information, it is not an scietifict/academic source of information. The shear plasticity of the articles should make it obvious that it is not a good place to cite, contrary to reputed printed on online journals or works with a strict editorial regime and peer review system. (this relates a bit to a previous slashdot article about people not being able to see the difference between credible and doubtfull source of information online).
That said, Wikis in general can be wonderfull for science, especially if the people contributing are limited, but only for documentation and growing knowledge.
I wonder if the added years of mental clarity significantly affects the estimates for long people will work. After all, we are working in less physically stressfull ways, and multilingualism is definetly on the rise in Europe (due to immigration, and more population movement - I am Norwegian, my working language is English, my girlfriend is Portuguese, and I will soon study in Hungary).
This will be guesswork on my behalf (not yet a doctor), but if I was to make an uneducated guess as to what causes this, i would suggest it is the constant increased level of activity in the brain of a multilingual person. It makes sence, that you have to engage larger patterns of knowledge when navigating between languages. If you learn a thing in one language, you also learn it in a second. If you know 10.000 words in two languages, I'm quite sure this accounts for quite a bit of added activity in the learning process, and is contsantly being stimulated by life around you. It should suggest that the more languages you know, the better the effect.
People claim that memorising a few things every day, such as learning a poem, keeps your mind kicking beyond the average age. I'm not sure this is a the actual case, but it is interesting.
(What the article fails to address is wether these people where speaking the language activly, or if they just knew it. I would take it there is a bit of a difference)
The patterns of a programming language is probably not being stimulated very much in your head as you move through the world, and I think it's scope is quite narrow. I'd doubt simply knowing one will have an effect, but maybe if you programme allot, the challenge of constructing systems and flows should be an interesting challenge for the mind, hopefully keeping it young (:
....I'd buy it to dump nuclear waste. I doubt it has the strictest waste regulations in the world.