doG

For the benefit of others please request last years vaccine when you get your flu shot this year. Sieze the opportunity to prove to the world that you believe the flu does not evolve each year....

From the article: It appears to be happening in many more species than just Drosophila. If it has caused new functions in animals has it caused functions that would not have evolved in those host species with the donation of Wolbachia's DNA? We don't know but it seemed like good food for thought.

South

A team of researchers has discovered that a bacterial parasite (called Wolbachia) can insert almost its entire genome into the genomes of members of one host species (a fly called Drosophila ananassae), and can insert parts of its genome into the genomes of members of several other host species. "We've found at least one species where the parasite's entire or nearly entire genome has been absorbed and integrated into the host's," says Jack Werren of the University of Rochester, principle investigator of the study and a world-leading authority on the Wolbachia parasite. "The host's genes actually hold the coding information for a completely separate species." This research, which has important implications for evolution, is reported in the August 30 issue of Science. It was funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research program, which supports large, integrative projects addressing major questions in biology. More at the National Science Foundation... I wonder how many other species do this and to what extent this effects evolution. How much mutation is effectivelt steered instead of random? P.S. You need a news forum here for stuff like this...

Acknowledging that the ignorant are ignorant on a particular topic is not belittling them. It is not necessarily a derogatory term. Everyone is ignorant of something...

I think she missed her calling. She'd make a good spokesperson for that "Brains On Drugs" campaign....

No, I am not contending that other, unjust wiretaps have not taken place, In searching SCOTUS, the District Courts and PACER I have not been able to locate any cases where those cases were jeopardized by warrantless wiretaps. Only cases where known Islamic terrorists have used their attorneys to turn our own system against us. I suspect it is cases like this that convinced the Democrats to give Bush the power to continue them for now. The ones we do hear about in the media are the ones where a call from a known terrorist abroad came into the country or someone in this country called a number in another country of a known terrorist operative. How would anyone know in advance when someone in this country is going to be in contact with any of these people to get a warrant? The call would be long over to get one after the fact. I also remember reading about an instance where a call from Afghanistan to Indonesia went through a U.S. satellite and the attorney argued that the case should be dismissed for lack of a warrant. I might also add that I'm beginning to have other Constitutional concerns. There was a recent case where a Liberian immigrant had his case dismissed for lack of a speedy trial because the court soent 3 years trying to find an interpreter that spoke his native language. While he got his Constitutional protection the 7 year old girl that his was accused of sexually assaulting repeatedly was denied her day in court. I think the founding fathers would be ashamed to see our Constitution used like this. The recently deported Elvira Arellano claims she was denied her "due process". The truth is that Arellano was given due process in the past and was ordered by the courts to get the hell out. Why was she entitled to anymore due process than a hearing to determine her citizenship status? Why are illegal immigrants like her entitled to the courts, due process, speedy trials, 5th amendment Miranda rights, etc.. IMO, it's about time we re-examine the portions of the Constitution that address the rights of "the people" as opposed to "the citizens".

To protect our people, not the foreigners that come here long enough to become a citizen so they can use it against us. Why should an enemy, one that we have declared war against, deserve Constitutional protections in their efforts to kill Americans? BTW, the 4th Amendment states: What is unreasonable about wiretapping those that are consorting with the enemy? The 4th Amendment does not protect from all search and seizure, only unreasonable search and seizure. What part of "promoting the general Welfare, and securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" do the rest of us get from our Constitution when it is reasonably used to intercept enemy communications? It's one thing when a warrantless wiretap is used to intercept communications between 2 individual citizens located in the U.S. but those are not the cases that keep surfacing. Time and again it is phone calls to or from known ememy agents abroad. I cannot understand any concern from anyone but the enemy that these communications are intercepted. FWIW, I tried finding warrantless wiretap victims and/or cases where the communications were between 2 citizens physically located within our borders and couldn't find any except for cases brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T and the ACLU case against the NSA over the general principles. Is anyone aware of any such cases?

Here are samples of the U.S. citizens that want their privacy protected while they work on their brand of Patriotism: 1. The U.S. branch of Al-Haramain Foundation filed a lawsuit on February 28, 2006.[12] The suit asserted that the Bush administration had circumvented the US Constitution by authorizing warrantless wiretaps. They asserted that the President lacked the authority to authorize wiretaps that circumvented the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Three individuals whose conversations were intercepted, Suliman al-Buthe, Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, learned of the eavesdropping when U.S. officials accidentally delivered logs of phone calls to them.[12] Al-Buthe, who had been the Foundations U.S. director, moved back to Saudi Arabia. Belew and Ghafoor were two of the Foundation's U.S. lawyers. 2. An Ohio truck driver and al Qaeda operative who pleaded guilty in 2003 to participating in a plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge wants to rescind that plea if the National Security Agency ever eavesdropped on him without a warrant. Iyman Faris was sentenced to 20 years in prison in October 2003. 3. Yassin M. Aref is a resident of Albany New York, who was captured by Federal authorities on August 6, 2004, as part of a counter-terrorism sting operation.[1] An undercover agent approached an associate of Aref's, Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, seeking help in trying to obtain rocket-propelled grenades. The government alleges that Hossain agreed to help the undercover agent. Wanting a third party involved in the deal, as is customary for Muslims, Hossain then brought Aref into the arrangement. 4. Petitioner Hamdi, an American citizen whom the Government has classified as an “enemy combatant” for allegedly taking up arms with the Taliban during the conflict, was captured in Afghanistan and presently is detained at a naval brig in Charleston, S. C....because it was undisputed that Hamdi was captured in an active combat zone. These citizens, with no allegiance to this country, are the ones you want to defend by using our own Constitution against us. How can this be seen as anything but support for their missions? All these people want to do is kill Americans and you want to argue that they should also be able to use our Constitution as a weapon against us. Is that what you call allegiance to our flag? Is this the freedom you care about? The freedom to kill and maim Americans while hiding nehind our Constitution?

How ignorant! There's maybe a hundred people in this country affected by this allegedly despicable act and all they're interested in is making plans with the enemy to kill thousands of Americans. It sounds like you'd rather see thousands dead than one guy on the phone with Bin Laden having his rights violated. If there's anyone in this country on the phone with Bin Laden, I want that conversation monitored and I don't want the monitors waiting 24 to 48 hours for a warrant to enable them to do so, the call will long be over by then. This whole drawn out investigation by the democrats is an outright attempt to aid and abet terrorists because of their searing hatred of Bush. Bush is a moron but that doesn't make it OK to aid those that want to kill us. Screw those hundred people on the phone with Al-Qaeda. They don't deserve any rights to make their terrorist plans in private. If you're concerned about their rights then you do so in violation of everyone elses right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

FWIW I can't stand her. I was only pointing out the anti-surge crowd that one of their own was making the claim that the surge is working...

Or perhaps many of them are simply coming out of the closet. It seems in my real, physical life here in the Southern Baptist Bible Belt that I encounter few atheists. I suspect there are more than I meet but they remain in the closet because of the way they are treated here. The bible thumpers here are a vast majority and quite the condescending crowd. I suspect there are quite a numbers of atheists that would just as soon avoid the confrontation with them. OTOH, I enjoy a good argument and readily challenge their beliefs At least they recognize a good mental disorder when they see one...

It seems that Clinton thinks the surge is working....

Divide the volume out by dividing the quantity of cubic feet by the total area to find how many feet per minute one cubic foot travels. Convert this to miles per hour. Say you have a box fan 4 foot square that puts out 21120 CFM. 21120/4 means that in each square foot there are 5280 CFM or that each individual cubic foot travels 5280 feet per minute. 5280 * 60 is 316,800 feet per hour which is 60 MPH... HTH

When will the democrats figure out, and the republicans for that matter, that they need to send all of their representatives home and elect new ones? When are the people as a whole going to wake up and see that the government "for the people" is only working to satisfy the people that are in government instead of the people they were elected to represent?

Gimp will not reveal what you are looking for. Again, find the utility named jpgx and use the "Extract Message" function on the "File" menu...

We should keep our eyes on the road ahead, staring at the rear view mirror will change nothing. Why rehash history when you can't change it?

Recent probes inside comets show it is overwhelmingly likely that life began in space, according to a new research paper by Cardiff scientists. Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe and colleagues at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology have long argued the case for panspermia – the theory that life began inside comets and then spread to habitable planets across the galaxy. A recent BBC Horizon documentary traced the development of the theory. Now the team claims that findings from space probes sent to investigate passing comets reveal how the first organisms could have started. More at Cardiff University....

Are you really trying to convince us that we're still at war with Iraq? If not, who are we at war with?

For the record the war is over. Iraq was returned it's sovereignty on Jun 28, 2004. At that point the interim Iraqi government asked that we remain as a security force. There is no longer any war with Iraq or it's people. People here need to quit arguing about whether or not we want to win the war. They also need to ask themselves if they want another Afghanistan, a weak country with a weak government waiting for Al-Qaeda to move in and take control. That's the only reason we're still there trying to help the Iraqi people.

But I'm sure I could find support for your opinion too if I wanted to use old articles from months ago like you did....

Just what size of human population can our planet really support?

Wouldn't that depend on whom you allow into the discussion? Access to P & R forums could be restricted to a subset of the overall membership which agrees to a rule set specifically assembled for those forums.

You should have changed his user title from Lepton to something more appropriate, "Lazy" perhaps....

You'll know if you can find the steganography utility called jpgx. The embedded message is not encrypted so you won't have to hack any passwords to find it....