navynuke

Is there a good site on-line for the families who have someone suffering from an inoperable tumor? Our 6 year old granddaughter was diagnosed last week with one that is causing fluid pressure build up, so they immediately made a new hole to replace the one that was blocked by the tumor. She is out of immediate danger, but faces chemo and/or radiation treatment for the rest of her life. They give her 10-20 years depending on controlling the tumor. It appears to be a low grade, slow growing one, pending final lab results, so we are grateful for that. I don't have the actual name of the tumor yet, will get it when I can from our son.

As I understand this, most dogs could detect cancer, but have to be trained to indicate such to the dog's handlers. Just as when they are trained to detect drugs, they have to be taught what smells are of interest to us humans. First I heard of this was a long time ago, when a dog kept sniffing a spot on a woman's leg and just wouldn't leave it alone. So she said something to her doctor, and they determined that it was a cancer. Fast forward to today, and we actually have dogs being trained to sniff out cancer. There are also new tests being developed based on the chemicals that a given type of cancer produces in the body. A profile of unusual chemicals in our blood can be an indicator that is far more reliable than current tests. I believe that prostate cancer is one of the first being considered for this kind of test. So it appears that dogs can sniff out those chemicals as well.

But a lot of areas have poor ridership, and taxpayer subsidies are the only thing that makes them work. In the Phoenix area, the buses are often full, but only in the downtown area. Go out to the fringe communities and the ridership is low. Still, we need them, and they help mostly the poor who can't afford cars, and the elderly who shouldn't be driving. Phoenix is getting a light rail system, and hopefully it will help with our pollution problems, but our growth is outpacing all attempts at keeping up. The smog lately has been worse than ever, and lots of people are getting respiratroy illnesses. We haven't had a good cleansing rain in almost 4 months. And almost all of our pollution is from cars. Gas is $2.40 a gallon and still people will not carpool. Yes, we need a new Manhattan project, and the first effort should be to change some attitudes and habits. Street racers should have their cars impounded and licenses revoked, their should be a gas guzzler tax on non-commercial vehicles getting less than 20 MPG (hiway), and an environmental impact tax could be levied on sales of gasoline during high smog conditions. Until we start feeling it personally, Americans will continue to waste energy without thinking about it.

Good point, but with some corrections. We don't use carburetors anymore, but computer controlled fuel injection. Ethanol in carbs was a disaster, but in fuel injection it is a lot more feasible. Public transportation only works in high density population areas, such as large cities and major metropolitan areas. But I agree that reducing consumption should be given just as much effort and funding as finding new sources of energy.

Rain Forests, or plants in general, take in CO2 and emit O2, while they are alive. Something I read recently that hadn't occurred to me before. When a tree dies, it releases its CO2, and I think that it doesn't matter if it dies a natural death, falling down, and rotting in the forest, or it gets burned, the same amount of CO2 gets released. Leaves that die and fall off release their CO2 as well. So it would make sense to burn it to produce energy rather than just let it rot away, especially if it could be burned under controlled conditions, with exhaust stack scrubbers to reduce particulates. Does that make sense or am I missing something here?

Last chemistry I took was in 1966, so that is why I am asking how it is made, or why it does that.

Memory foam pillows will freeze stiff as a board if exposed to the right cold temperature. You don't want to get whacked with one in a pillow fight, even warm, as they weigh quite a bit. I just made a trip to northern Utah and had one in a box in the back of my truck, and it got STIFF. So there must be some captive water molecules involved. Anybody know how they are made?

Top tier universities are probably very expensive everywhere, so lets exclude those. What would be the comparison for public colleges, universities, and community (2 year) colleges?

It is one of yours telling me that the USA is cheaper, the young friends never said expense was the issue, so I was asking you guys.....It was about 15 years ago.

A few years back we had some young people from England visiting us while they were vacationing in the southwest USA. They were all planning on moving here because opportunities were limited back home. One was told to go on the dole after public school, but he wasn't interested in that. One of the girls was told to just get married, but she wanted a career of her own. Is the UK really all that bad for opportiunities to attend college? (post high school, or over 18) How does your system work for advanced education and jobs for the younger set?

Take him for a walk along a street where he is hated, let him see that he is hated, then invite him to talk or get put back out on that street without an armed escort. Make sure the Arab TV networks are on hand to see what happens to him.

Your link doesn't work for me. I have spent more than a few years in a metrology lab, so I know where high accuracy is required. I suppose navigating in space would need extreme accuracy, tho.

Let me speak from experience. I was severly depressed in 1969, and did NOT have the faintest clue as to why, so pinpointing is out of the question. I did have one clue, but it didn't register at the time, not until many years later when it happened again, around 1983. The commonality was long periods of overcast weather. Once that was figured out, and once I got to the right doctor, medication did the trick until I moved to a sunnier climate. The problem with many, if not most, kinds of depression is that it creeps up on you so slowly that you don't know it is happening. Mine took over a year each time to get to the point that a few others noticed it. Most of us tend to keep our negative feelings to ourselves. Brain and body chemistry are sciences in their infancy. We know just enough about our chemistry to appreciate that we know very little about it.

What is your expertise, age, education, experience, sources, etc. that supports your views? Are you suffesting that mental disorders are not real?

Solder, made up of lead and tin, has a lower melting point than either lead or tin.

Better, yes, but usually a waste of time. Once you get past 0.1%, it is usually overkill. As one of my technology professors put it, build it using 0.1%, then fine tune it if needed. He was the one who scared some in the class the first day by putting up a big formula for designing transistor amplifier cirucuits, then showed us that REAL engineers disregard all the factors of the formula that are not major contributors to the outcome. They use the simplified formula to design and build, and then go back and fine tune if it seems necessary. Your lecturers are like a lot of engineers I have worked with, they get caught up in absolute perfection and maximum efficiency and overlook practicality. But, if they are getting paid by the hour......

Actually, the government, and especially the military, is likely to have the latest and greatest technology. Most of our engineers and scientists who are in the forefront of developing new technology are employed by big companies who often are under contract to Uncle Sam. Like you said, the technology we know about, even the supposedly newest technology, is probably old stuff to them. There may someday be almost perfectly clean energy, but never free, and never entirely safe, and certainly not easy. I took a class at college entitled "Alternate Energy Technology", where we compared the benefits and problems of all the sources of energy then available, and in the works for future use. If you look at the life cycle of fuels in use, there are dangers and pollution opportunities from mining, processing, delivery, use, disposal of wastes, etc. that have to be considered when comparing them to each other. Anybody who thinks it is easy to come up with new energy sources that are clean and cheap probably knows very little about physics, chemistry, and/or the technologies of producing power.

We can put spent fuel well below the water table, easily. I believe some countries have dumped some in the very deep ocean. Fission plants are very safe, as long as they are built inside a very thick concrete containment like we do here in the USA. The Russians learned the hard way that a tin shed is not containment enough. Fusion will not happen in your lifetime, perhap your grandchildren's, and then it will not be a commercially viable alternative to existing sources of energy. It will be 30 or 40 years before a prototype will be built. And there are safety issues that no one is talking about. Here is a FAQ link about fusion. http://www.jet.efda.org/pages/faqs/faq5.html