Evolution is just a theory! I live in Kansas and my teacher was forced to tell me that!
I the amount of evidence required to prove Evolution beyond any reasonable doubt makes that task nearly insurmountable.
No, evolution has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. It is one of the most solid scientific theories (which is different from the common usage of the word theory) known. In other words, it is one of the best established conclusions of science to date.
And in that respect, those who call for requiring to make it clear to students that Evolution is a theory are correct in doing so, even if some may disagree with their motives. It's very important for students to come to an understanding that there is a difference between the incontrovertible fact that 2 + 2 = 4, and the likelihood that birds are one branch of an evolutionary path from a distinct group of dinosaurs.
Almost every result in science (or virtually every field outside of logic and mathematics) has this problem. Evolution has much more evidence than theories about gravity, chemical structure, the earth going around the sun, etc. To imply evolution has less evidence than other scientific theories is deceptive, when in reality it has much more than most. (And I really don't get the point, the bible was already 'wrong' about the earth being the center of the universe. It didn't destroy the religion or change anything. Neither does evolution.)
Where did I say I drive faster than the conditions? My point was when it's clear and fine out, I drive the speed limit in the "fast lane" to remind people that speeding is not ok. If for only a second, it reminds people that they're speeding and gives them the chance to correct it. Most people just pass me speeding along, occasionally they get nabbed by the popo, but sometimes people also slow down and follow me at the speed limit.
Why is it so difficult to understand that just like driving conditions can make the safe speed lower than the posted limit, it could also make the safe speed faster than the posted limit? It is not the maximum safe speed. My point is that your whole safety claim is nonsense. You ignore the rules of the road involving which lane to drive in, they are ignoring the speed limit. As frustrated drivers pass you on the right, you create danger. Some of them are following, hoping you'll take the hint and get in your proper lane. There are sensible speeders who create less danger on the road than you do. Please acquire some common sense. If you claimed you're enforcing fuel efficiency, you might have a point.
Having signs that updated speed limits according to conditions would be better and has been considered, but expensive. Roads are designed assuming drivers will be driving over the speed limit under ideal conditions. This 'I followed the letter of the law (as currently written) instead of the intent, therefore I am safer' attitude is bullshit. It's an attitude that pisses me off regularly in many areas of life as I watch incredibly stupid actions undertaken to technically follow rules that were obviously meant for other purposes. It's scary really.
When it's slushy/icy/snowy [y!] out i drive slower. Last year when a snow storm hit Ottawa I was driving about 20km/hr in an 80 (in the right hand lane cuz principle be damned, I didn't want to get hit by the speeders, and yes there were people trying to do 60-80 in the ice/snow).
So you ignore the principles under conditions where they could actually do some good and get inexperienced drivers to reconsider their speed. There are many kinds of idiots on the road, and you're one of them.
I've heard this argument before. Unfortunately, it's not law. It's unlawful for a civilian to drive faster than the posted speed limit under ALL circumstances [including emergencies], at least in Ontario.
Even if you can "safely" drive 20 over the limit, it's not legal. therefore there is no reason traffic should be going that fast and you can't be obstructing it. That's like arguing that I'm obstructing traffic because I'd be in the way of someone wanting to go the wrong way down the highway. Just like you're not supposed to speed, you're also not allowed driving more than [iirc] 150 meters the wrong way down a road.
And finally, if you rear-end a car just because they're going slower than you [even under the speed limit], than *you* don't know how to drive. What if, suppose, their engine failed, or they're trying to slow down because the brakes failed, or any number of reasons. It's YOUR responsibility to pay attention to the road around you, and yes, that includes the possibility of you not doing the speed you want.
It's people like you why I take so much pleasure in driving PROPERLY.
Tom
I've never rear ended anyone, because I know how to drive. It has much less to do with how fast you are going, than how close you are following for current road conditions. It's the last part that seems to confuse the hell out of people who think everything is fine because they are following the RULES. There is less visibility at night. Snow and ice can make safe speeds much lower than the posted limit and different vehicles can handle them with different ability (and you can see lots of 4 wheel drives in the ditch during a snow storm as the drivers discover everyone has 4-wheel braking.)
The idea that one speed is always the correct or safe one is obviously absurd to anyone with common sense, but feel free to be smug about the lawyers deciding you are a better driver.
Well my argument would be you can't pass someone doing the speed limit (hint: you're not supposed to speed to pass someone). In which case, you can't be obstructing legitimate traffic by speed limit.
You don't know how to drive. The safe speed can be faster or slower than the posted limit, depending on conditions. I've know lots of drivers who go the speed limit who are MUCH more dangerous than speeders. There's something to be said for being capable of judging safe speeds and driving habits for yourself (and yes there are speeders who don't have this capability either.)
If you are not passing someone, you are not legitimate traffic in the passing lane (pot meets kettle). Learn what the lanes are for.
(hmmm. I think some frustration is showing through. I blame cops only ticketing speeding, rather than all bad/dangerous driving.)
The problem is that ethanol is not a "good idea" and never will be a good idea. It's just another rationalization for more pork, another example of U.S. foreign aid to corporations that certainly don't need it.
This article was an example of ethanol fuel that is not a net loss. It is a weed, growing in conditions other crops will not grow, without pesticides, fertilizer or irrigation.
So what this article is claiming is that the seedcake left over from oilpressing contains all of the nitrogen and other nutrients needed to restore the soil using just technique (2). That's an extraordinary claim. This plant is not a legume or one of the other nitrogen fixing plants, so by itself, cannot increase the amount of nitrogen in the soil.
Given jatropha is described as a weed, easily grown in soil too poor(eg. low in nitrogen), rocky or dry for crops , I really doubt this is a concern. Certain plants are so easy to grow, they are damn hard to kill. Ask any gardener.
I believe the opposite. Religion causes great evil. You can't give religion credit for the good without giving it credit for the great evil (crusades, suicide bombers, etc.) it causes also.
Sure some religions say to be nice to people, but the truth is people do that anyway. You see it in all cultures, even if the religion says otherwise. The problem with religions though is that blind faith lets people commit acts of atrocity while believing they are righteous. Things like torturing a woman until she confesses her friends were witches or dies were helped by religion, which prevented questioning of its interpretation, rather than hindered by the 'be nice' part.
You are confusing socialism and communism. They are not the same, and one does not automatically lead to the other. Canada is socialist.
If you truly believe in pure capitalism, you cannot believe in artificially interference like patents or copyright. If you don't believe patents can help things, look at the drug industry and compare progress where patents are lucrative (first world diseases) and where they might as well not exist (third world diseases). (I'm saying patents CAN help, not that they will if applied stupidly; computer industry patents are often the equivalent to competing with Glad not by making better garbage bags, but patenting the process of putting garbage in bags, then suing for violation.)
Now I believe capitalism works best, but you have to understand the nature of the beast. Whatever is most lucrative will win, whether that benefits your country and society or not. It's important to set the rules (law and enforcement) such that the most profit is generated in ways that aren't harmful. Many 'capitalists' rail against things like environmental regulation that requires a chemical plant to spend millions of dollars per year treating their waste. But if not treating the waste destroys a sport fishing industry worth hundreds of millions and raises medical costs of the population, removing the environmental regulation is really a very expensive form of subsidy to the chemical plant.
Your arguments for and against Wikileaks are very, very similar to arguments for and against free speech. Although many people think they believe in free speech, in practice many say they believe in free speech except for THAT. In other words, they don't believe in free speech but think they do because they don't understand the concept but have been told it is a good thing.
Also, who exactly will be held accountable when it's used, say, to swing an election, only for us to discover that the information in question was bogus? Wikileaks? Will they hand over the leaker?
Who is called accountable as it is? Say a presidential candidate lied/carefully misinformed using half-truths for his own ends. Now say major news agencies collaborate the lies/misinformation. Who gets held accountable? If dissenting views are presented somewhere, even somewhere less reputable and sometimes full of crackpots, is that worse than not having them at all?
I can't help but feel that Wikileaks may, in fact, do more harm than good. A few bad incidents at Wikileaks, and it's highly likely that the law (and government, business etc.) is going to come down hard to silence legitimate whistle-blowers under the pretext of protecting themselves from slander and libel.
If they do, it's only to attack freedom to express non-controlled views. These kinds of abuses would destroy the credibility of Wikileaks, which makes slander and libel impossible.
Wikileaks allow starting points for more credible investigations that would not be explored if no one thought anything was wrong.
News could be censored so only the truth is aired. This would be more accurate as long as the censor only edited out false and misleading information. Just like a benign dictator can do more good for the people of his country with his greater power than the leader of a democracy. But dictatorships have a nasty habit of not retaining benign leader and censors have a nasty habit of blocking information they shouldn't even when they are full of good intentions.
Despite all the crap that comes out of free speech, very important ideas that would have been suppressed emerged too. Some societies have decided that suppressing these important ideas causes more damage than allowing bad ideas be expressed.
I think the judge said this ruling only applied to this particular instance and had no precedence.
Part of the problem was that his supporters were trying to portray him as a straight-A, all American boy, but then it was revealed that he participated in a sex tape party where he had sex with one girl and got a blow job from a 15 year old, and probably said or did other things on the tape that didn't put him in a too favorable light. Again, I think he got a bad deal, but it is possible that there was something on the tape that really bothered the jury.
Yeah, black kid having sex with a white girl.
From interviews with the jury, the problem was only that technically, he was very obviously committed the 'crime' as it is worded. That's it. The jury did not understand that lawyers are lying; they could have used their common sense and found the kid not guilty given it was a manditory 10 years. This is the reason juries are made up of common people, not judges and lawyers, who would be better at judging law.
Don't defend bad laws. Some day you may offend someone with the power to abuse them.
Would you vote for a politican who admitted that he was delightfully baffled by questions of how to fix the economy? Would you hire a manager who eagerly told people that he had no idea how to rally sales or improve worker morale?
Definitely.
I'd take someone who knows when to look for the correct answer over someone who confidently does the wrong thing any day. I don't want a manager who confidently imposes stupid rules and destroys moral and then assumes they could not possibly have made an error. They make bad managers, but are good at selling themselves as good managers to people who don't work for them. When people claim they never make mistakes, I can confidently assume they are lying or too incompetent to notice their own mistakes. I'll take an employee who stops and looks for advice when the machinery starts acting funny over one who confidently carries on and breaks it.
I think these kinds of people are actually more effective in most fields and I don't know why more people don't think that way. Then again, I am a scientist.
Do you think this would help with the US's lackluster performance in these fields?
You can't bribe someone to be a nerd.
Either you are interested in learning about the world or they aren't.
American kids aren't avoiding math and science for lack of funds.
American society cares more about athletic ability than anything else.
We act like sports is life-and-death.
Play in a company softball game and see how people act.
All anybody ever wants to talk about is sports.
People look at you funny if you want to talk about the space program or something crazy like that.
But if you want to talk about how Johnny Random hit a ball with a bat, that's fuckin fascinating..
Maybe its just where I work or something?
Maybe if the most able/interested, instead of stupid rich kids, were the ones getting degrees this would be less of a problem in the US. Kinda like other countries.
OK Some of those I'll give you but Little Red Riding Hood?! I don't recall hearing "My grandma, what a huge wang you have!" That didn't make my cut! I mean pretty much anything with a Prince Charming or some chick kissing a frog, sure, but I think you're really reaching on this one.
I never read it myself, but a friend of mine who had read more 'original' versions of the fairy tales said there was actually a strong implication of this in Little Red Riding Hood.
Well put. I don't know why more people can't see this and are so obsessed with voting for the 'winning team' instead of getting the most influence out of their vote. Think long term people!
Nature has been much, much more successful than any rational design to create antibiotic resistance. All that stuff about abuse of antibiotics, like taking them for viruses, stopping part way through or stupid uses like for cattle feed to promote growth, creates antibiotic resistance incredibly rapidly. And bacteria share these genes across species very frequently, making it especially dangerous.
As for the artificial life, it turns out that nature has already very finely tuned bacteria for their jobs. Artificial genes interfere, in fact keeping the genes we want around tends to be the real difficulty because they are so detrimental evolutionarily.
Until we know how the DNA got there and where the original DNA went, the technique will remain a laboratory curiosity and not something, for example, that can be used in any sort of medical fashion. Still, the paper is fascinating and raises some interesting philosophical questions about what constitutes the information belonging to a species.
Actually this is useful as a biotechnology technique without knowing what's going on. Biochemists don't actually know how things like heat shock gets genes into cell either, although they have some theories. "It just works" is perfectly fine for a genetic engineer. Mix and screen for the ones that took up the genes it the method used currently anyway.
Knowing how thoroughly, to screen though and how often only parts of genomes are transfered will be important though. Maybe you would add multiple, different antibiotic genes in different parts of the genome to be transplanted and screen for bacteria that are resistant to all antibiotics simultaneously to try to ensure not only parts were transfered.
A 'hit' is a hit that causes damage. So more armor makes it difficult to cause a damaging hit, or you need to aim for an unarmored part. In third edition this was sort of fixed the way you would think. What you are describing is called a 'touch attack', armor doesn't stop it and actually can make you easier to hit by lowering your dexterity bonus.
The other scary part of the equation is, if this is killing off 99.9% of bacteria, what about that last.1%? Aren't we really creating super bacteria this way?
That is exactly how antibiotic resistance develops
Of course being exposed to some bacteria over your life is a good thing anyhow - it builds the immune system. That's why parents should let their kids go out side and play/eat the dirt, they'll be better for it in the long run.
There's absolutely no evidence that a lack of exposure to bacteria reduces the efficacy of the immune system.
In fact, it seems that the reverse is true. As we've become more hygenic, the immune system, strong as ever, goes looking for soft targets to beat up. It becomes hypersensitive, creating conditions like allergies and athsma.
If by 'efficacy' of immune system you mean it's ability to keep you healthy, your statements imply bacterial exposure enhances it's ability to function.
Immune antibodies require exposure to form, this is how many vaccines work, so I can see lack of minor exposure preventing your immune system from having antibodies ready for when a serious infection comes along.
DON'T buy antibiotic soap. It contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance bacteria and is completely unnecessary. You use antibiotics in places where you can't just wash something properly (like the interior of the body), otherwise you can just wash bacteria away. You wash bacterial ridden rotten food off your dishes, you don't just try to sterilize it and eat it. Unless you have serious immune problems, it takes a 'large' exposure to get you sick. Washing hands is associated with greatly lower sickness rates in children.
This last part comes from a lecture I saw recently by a major antibiotic researcher. Apparently part of the reason pharmaceutical companies aren't exploring many new antibiotics is that stupid lusers use them improperly meaning antibiotic resistance develops within several years. That's a very short period of time to try to recoup a billion dollar investment.
Generally people mean things like cystic fibrosis as a genetic disease, being something that's caused by specific genes. So if one twin has cystic fibrosis, the identical twin will definitely have it. So MS is not a genetic disease
What you're describing are genetic risk factors, which do seem quite common for some diseases too.
These music producers better be careful. Digital trading is supposed to be different from tape trading because things can be copied without loss of quality (and therefore more dangerous). Now if people only trade poor quality copies on the internet...
Ok... what exactly is wrong with consentingadults??? How can you get any more puritan than that? Is he really that much out of touch with reality that he can even begin to think that there's anything wrong with that and furthermore, that HE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT???
Well in a free society, no of course he shouldn't. Just wouldn't make any sense would it?;)
Every time I criticize middle-eastern theocracies, some idiot (ok, MANY idiots) jump in screaming about how "that's their culture", and "we have no right to criticize". I'm surprised that there's nobody here defending Christian fundamentalism as "US culture" and telling all these damn foreigners that they have no right to criticize Bush:)
First of all, I think a lot of americans actually do mean that when they say things like defending the american way of life.
More importantly, wasn't the US culture BASED on concepts like separation of church and state and freedom of religion?
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I the amount of evidence required to prove Evolution beyond any reasonable doubt makes that task nearly insurmountable.
No, evolution has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. It is one of the most solid scientific theories (which is different from the common usage of the word theory) known. In other words, it is one of the best established conclusions of science to date.
And in that respect, those who call for requiring to make it clear to students that Evolution is a theory are correct in doing so, even if some may disagree with their motives. It's very important for students to come to an understanding that there is a difference between the incontrovertible fact that 2 + 2 = 4, and the likelihood that birds are one branch of an evolutionary path from a distinct group of dinosaurs.Almost every result in science (or virtually every field outside of logic and mathematics) has this problem. Evolution has much more evidence than theories about gravity, chemical structure, the earth going around the sun, etc. To imply evolution has less evidence than other scientific theories is deceptive, when in reality it has much more than most. (And I really don't get the point, the bible was already 'wrong' about the earth being the center of the universe. It didn't destroy the religion or change anything. Neither does evolution.)
Why is it so difficult to understand that just like driving conditions can make the safe speed lower than the posted limit, it could also make the safe speed faster than the posted limit? It is not the maximum safe speed. My point is that your whole safety claim is nonsense. You ignore the rules of the road involving which lane to drive in, they are ignoring the speed limit. As frustrated drivers pass you on the right, you create danger. Some of them are following, hoping you'll take the hint and get in your proper lane. There are sensible speeders who create less danger on the road than you do. Please acquire some common sense. If you claimed you're enforcing fuel efficiency, you might have a point.
Having signs that updated speed limits according to conditions would be better and has been considered, but expensive. Roads are designed assuming drivers will be driving over the speed limit under ideal conditions. This 'I followed the letter of the law (as currently written) instead of the intent, therefore I am safer' attitude is bullshit. It's an attitude that pisses me off regularly in many areas of life as I watch incredibly stupid actions undertaken to technically follow rules that were obviously meant for other purposes. It's scary really.
When it's slushy/icy/snowy [y!] out i drive slower. Last year when a snow storm hit Ottawa I was driving about 20km/hr in an 80 (in the right hand lane cuz principle be damned, I didn't want to get hit by the speeders, and yes there were people trying to do 60-80 in the ice/snow).
So you ignore the principles under conditions where they could actually do some good and get inexperienced drivers to reconsider their speed. There are many kinds of idiots on the road, and you're one of them.
Even if you can "safely" drive 20 over the limit, it's not legal. therefore there is no reason traffic should be going that fast and you can't be obstructing it. That's like arguing that I'm obstructing traffic because I'd be in the way of someone wanting to go the wrong way down the highway. Just like you're not supposed to speed, you're also not allowed driving more than [iirc] 150 meters the wrong way down a road.
And finally, if you rear-end a car just because they're going slower than you [even under the speed limit], than *you* don't know how to drive. What if, suppose, their engine failed, or they're trying to slow down because the brakes failed, or any number of reasons. It's YOUR responsibility to pay attention to the road around you, and yes, that includes the possibility of you not doing the speed you want.
It's people like you why I take so much pleasure in driving PROPERLY.
Tom
I've never rear ended anyone, because I know how to drive. It has much less to do with how fast you are going, than how close you are following for current road conditions. It's the last part that seems to confuse the hell out of people who think everything is fine because they are following the RULES. There is less visibility at night. Snow and ice can make safe speeds much lower than the posted limit and different vehicles can handle them with different ability (and you can see lots of 4 wheel drives in the ditch during a snow storm as the drivers discover everyone has 4-wheel braking.)
The idea that one speed is always the correct or safe one is obviously absurd to anyone with common sense, but feel free to be smug about the lawyers deciding you are a better driver.
You don't know how to drive. The safe speed can be faster or slower than the posted limit, depending on conditions. I've know lots of drivers who go the speed limit who are MUCH more dangerous than speeders. There's something to be said for being capable of judging safe speeds and driving habits for yourself (and yes there are speeders who don't have this capability either.)
If you are not passing someone, you are not legitimate traffic in the passing lane (pot meets kettle). Learn what the lanes are for.
(hmmm. I think some frustration is showing through. I blame cops only ticketing speeding, rather than all bad/dangerous driving.)
This article was an example of ethanol fuel that is not a net loss. It is a weed, growing in conditions other crops will not grow, without pesticides, fertilizer or irrigation.
You are thinking about corn syrup ethanol.
Given jatropha is described as a weed, easily grown in soil too poor(eg. low in nitrogen), rocky or dry for crops , I really doubt this is a concern. Certain plants are so easy to grow, they are damn hard to kill. Ask any gardener.
Which behavior is abnormal.
Sure some religions say to be nice to people, but the truth is people do that anyway. You see it in all cultures, even if the religion says otherwise. The problem with religions though is that blind faith lets people commit acts of atrocity while believing they are righteous. Things like torturing a woman until she confesses her friends were witches or dies were helped by religion, which prevented questioning of its interpretation, rather than hindered by the 'be nice' part.
If you truly believe in pure capitalism, you cannot believe in artificially interference like patents or copyright. If you don't believe patents can help things, look at the drug industry and compare progress where patents are lucrative (first world diseases) and where they might as well not exist (third world diseases). (I'm saying patents CAN help, not that they will if applied stupidly; computer industry patents are often the equivalent to competing with Glad not by making better garbage bags, but patenting the process of putting garbage in bags, then suing for violation.)
Now I believe capitalism works best, but you have to understand the nature of the beast. Whatever is most lucrative will win, whether that benefits your country and society or not. It's important to set the rules (law and enforcement) such that the most profit is generated in ways that aren't harmful. Many 'capitalists' rail against things like environmental regulation that requires a chemical plant to spend millions of dollars per year treating their waste. But if not treating the waste destroys a sport fishing industry worth hundreds of millions and raises medical costs of the population, removing the environmental regulation is really a very expensive form of subsidy to the chemical plant.
Also, who exactly will be held accountable when it's used, say, to swing an election, only for us to discover that the information in question was bogus? Wikileaks? Will they hand over the leaker?
Who is called accountable as it is? Say a presidential candidate lied/carefully misinformed using half-truths for his own ends. Now say major news agencies collaborate the lies/misinformation. Who gets held accountable? If dissenting views are presented somewhere, even somewhere less reputable and sometimes full of crackpots, is that worse than not having them at all?
I can't help but feel that Wikileaks may, in fact, do more harm than good. A few bad incidents at Wikileaks, and it's highly likely that the law (and government, business etc.) is going to come down hard to silence legitimate whistle-blowers under the pretext of protecting themselves from slander and libel.
If they do, it's only to attack freedom to express non-controlled views. These kinds of abuses would destroy the credibility of Wikileaks, which makes slander and libel impossible.
Wikileaks allow starting points for more credible investigations that would not be explored if no one thought anything was wrong.
News could be censored so only the truth is aired. This would be more accurate as long as the censor only edited out false and misleading information. Just like a benign dictator can do more good for the people of his country with his greater power than the leader of a democracy. But dictatorships have a nasty habit of not retaining benign leader and censors have a nasty habit of blocking information they shouldn't even when they are full of good intentions.
Despite all the crap that comes out of free speech, very important ideas that would have been suppressed emerged too. Some societies have decided that suppressing these important ideas causes more damage than allowing bad ideas be expressed.
Part of the problem was that his supporters were trying to portray him as a straight-A, all American boy, but then it was revealed that he participated in a sex tape party where he had sex with one girl and got a blow job from a 15 year old, and probably said or did other things on the tape that didn't put him in a too favorable light. Again, I think he got a bad deal, but it is possible that there was something on the tape that really bothered the jury.
Yeah, black kid having sex with a white girl.
From interviews with the jury, the problem was only that technically, he was very obviously committed the 'crime' as it is worded. That's it. The jury did not understand that lawyers are lying; they could have used their common sense and found the kid not guilty given it was a manditory 10 years. This is the reason juries are made up of common people, not judges and lawyers, who would be better at judging law.
Don't defend bad laws. Some day you may offend someone with the power to abuse them.
Definitely.
I'd take someone who knows when to look for the correct answer over someone who confidently does the wrong thing any day. I don't want a manager who confidently imposes stupid rules and destroys moral and then assumes they could not possibly have made an error. They make bad managers, but are good at selling themselves as good managers to people who don't work for them. When people claim they never make mistakes, I can confidently assume they are lying or too incompetent to notice their own mistakes. I'll take an employee who stops and looks for advice when the machinery starts acting funny over one who confidently carries on and breaks it.
I think these kinds of people are actually more effective in most fields and I don't know why more people don't think that way. Then again, I am a scientist.
You can't bribe someone to be a nerd.
Either you are interested in learning about the world or they aren't.
American kids aren't avoiding math and science for lack of funds.
American society cares more about athletic ability than anything else.
We act like sports is life-and-death.
Play in a company softball game and see how people act.
All anybody ever wants to talk about is sports.
People look at you funny if you want to talk about the space program or something crazy like that.
But if you want to talk about how Johnny Random hit a ball with a bat, that's fuckin fascinating..
Maybe its just where I work or something?
Maybe if the most able/interested, instead of stupid rich kids, were the ones getting degrees this would be less of a problem in the US. Kinda like other countries.
I've know physics professors who had that opinion about string theory.
I never read it myself, but a friend of mine who had read more 'original' versions of the fairy tales said there was actually a strong implication of this in Little Red Riding Hood.
Well put. I don't know why more people can't see this and are so obsessed with voting for the 'winning team' instead of getting the most influence out of their vote. Think long term people!
Nature has been much, much more successful than any rational design to create antibiotic resistance. All that stuff about abuse of antibiotics, like taking them for viruses, stopping part way through or stupid uses like for cattle feed to promote growth, creates antibiotic resistance incredibly rapidly. And bacteria share these genes across species very frequently, making it especially dangerous. As for the artificial life, it turns out that nature has already very finely tuned bacteria for their jobs. Artificial genes interfere, in fact keeping the genes we want around tends to be the real difficulty because they are so detrimental evolutionarily.
Actually this is useful as a biotechnology technique without knowing what's going on. Biochemists don't actually know how things like heat shock gets genes into cell either, although they have some theories. "It just works" is perfectly fine for a genetic engineer. Mix and screen for the ones that took up the genes it the method used currently anyway.
Knowing how thoroughly, to screen though and how often only parts of genomes are transfered will be important though. Maybe you would add multiple, different antibiotic genes in different parts of the genome to be transplanted and screen for bacteria that are resistant to all antibiotics simultaneously to try to ensure not only parts were transfered.
A 'hit' is a hit that causes damage. So more armor makes it difficult to cause a damaging hit, or you need to aim for an unarmored part. In third edition this was sort of fixed the way you would think. What you are describing is called a 'touch attack', armor doesn't stop it and actually can make you easier to hit by lowering your dexterity bonus.
The other scary part of the equation is, if this is killing off 99.9% of bacteria, what about that last .1%? Aren't we really creating super bacteria this way?
That is exactly how antibiotic resistance develops
There's absolutely no evidence that a lack of exposure to bacteria reduces the efficacy of the immune system.
In fact, it seems that the reverse is true. As we've become more hygenic, the immune system, strong as ever, goes looking for soft targets to beat up. It becomes hypersensitive, creating conditions like allergies and athsma.
If by 'efficacy' of immune system you mean it's ability to keep you healthy, your statements imply bacterial exposure enhances it's ability to function.
Immune antibodies require exposure to form, this is how many vaccines work, so I can see lack of minor exposure preventing your immune system from having antibodies ready for when a serious infection comes along.
DON'T buy antibiotic soap. It contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance bacteria and is completely unnecessary. You use antibiotics in places where you can't just wash something properly (like the interior of the body), otherwise you can just wash bacteria away. You wash bacterial ridden rotten food off your dishes, you don't just try to sterilize it and eat it. Unless you have serious immune problems, it takes a 'large' exposure to get you sick. Washing hands is associated with greatly lower sickness rates in children.
This last part comes from a lecture I saw recently by a major antibiotic researcher. Apparently part of the reason pharmaceutical companies aren't exploring many new antibiotics is that stupid lusers use them improperly meaning antibiotic resistance develops within several years. That's a very short period of time to try to recoup a billion dollar investment.
What you're describing are genetic risk factors, which do seem quite common for some diseases too.
These music producers better be careful. Digital trading is supposed to be different from tape trading because things can be copied without loss of quality (and therefore more dangerous). Now if people only trade poor quality copies on the internet ...
Well in a free society, no of course he shouldn't. Just wouldn't make any sense would it?
Every time I criticize middle-eastern theocracies, some idiot (ok, MANY idiots) jump in screaming about how "that's their culture", and "we have no right to criticize". I'm surprised that there's nobody here defending Christian fundamentalism as "US culture" and telling all these damn foreigners that they have no right to criticize Bush
First of all, I think a lot of americans actually do mean that when they say things like defending the american way of life.
More importantly, wasn't the US culture BASED on concepts like separation of church and state and freedom of religion?