mooeypoo

Can this new discovery be used on other viruses? that is -- is this an old property that was recently found specifically for the flu, or is this an entirely new technique we can also use on different viruses as well?

max, he wouldn't even realise his hands move slowly because his entire being is existing slower. His brain is slower. His eyes are slower. His everything is slower. Relative to him, his time goes on as usual. Relative to the stationary people, time goes on as usual. Relative to each other, time is different.

Read my post again: The moving twin will experience dilated time, which means he is "slow motion" to *EVERYTHING ELSE that is stationary. In short, you can say that he's aging slower but he's also doing *everything else* slower. So he is *missing out* on the time moving to the stationary twin. He cannot "experience it" the same, because he is moving much faster.

I believe the effect is exponential (which means that your calculation is wrong) but I'm not sure. Even if that calculation is right, though, would those 19:59 minutes be worth the non-stop driving at 500mph ? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged As was pointed out multiple times in this thread already, anything traveling at the speed of light is only possible if you're energy. Which would make this argument moot. On top of that, even if, theoretically, someone travels really-really-fast, the time relative to stationary object moves faster, but the moving-person experiences slower time, which means his CONSCIOUSNESS, TOO, is slowed down. Do you know of the "twin" paradox, max? If one of the twins stays on earth and the other takes a trip at close to the speed of light, then for the traveling twin time slows down - he experiences an hour of time while the stationary twin experiences two years (i didn't calculate, I'm just throwing numbers to make a point). The traveling twin experiences dilated time: he doesn't get younger, his entire reality is slowed, including his consciousness and thought process. He is, essentially, *missing out* on that time that passes to his stationary twin.

You know, that would mean that technically, train drivers (and pilots for the military [fast planes] and commercial companies) age slower than the regular population that stays in one location most of their lives. The effect, however, is minuscule.

Which one of the assertions?

In order for the "recieving partner" to recieve anything, the "giving partner" needs to be infected. Are you seriously suggesting men should not worry about HIV? Addition: BTW, it seems like your statistics might only be true in theory. Take a look here: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/indwm/tab1a.htm (United Nations statistical data): Take a look at the ratio - anything that is over 100 is getting close to a 1:1 ratio (because they're counting the ratio as number of women per 100 men). That's quite a lot of deviation from your statistics in reality, isn't it. There's no doubt women are infected more "easily" (because the sexual contact is inside the body rather than outside, which increases the infection risk factor) but that is NOT to say that "you men have nothing to worry about". Seriously...

(source: http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/02/23/team_finds_secret_that_could_stem_flu_viruses/) I read this in BadAstronomy (here's the post http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/03/29/is-a-one-time-flu-shot-on-the-horizon/) which links to a Boston Globe report. I'm not very well versed in immunology, but it was my understanding that the major problem of vaccination (and specifically the flu vaccine) is that the virus adapts and therefore a new vaccine is needed each season. In fact, I always understood that the flu is one of those viruses that adapts *so quickly*, that it's hard to really produce a good vaccine; it's as "good as we can" thing each season. So.. seeing this news report - how viable is this, really? Can a one-time vaccine really be made for such a quickly evolving virus??

Galaxies don't just appear in a spiral shape, there are more than one type of galaxies. Check out this site: http://www.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/galaxies/types.htm about types of classification of galaxies. Among others: Elliptical Galaxy: Spiral Galaxy: Irregular Galaxy: (source: http://www.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/galaxies/types.htm) Also, this is a nice snippet from the university of Oregon site (source at the bottom): (source: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Galaxies/types.html)

I'm sorry, but I have nothing to do with the game itself other than playing it. You'll have to go to the website above and contact the developer.

So you're showing evidence of the universe containing plasma. Then you leap to a conclusion that since plasma coils are similar to galaxies in shape, then galaxies' shapes are affected by electric/magnetic fields. That's quite a leap. Beyond that, not all galaxies are spiral, so not all of them look like the plasma coils. On top of that, electric/magnetic fields are not the only thing affecting plasma. So.. again. That's quite a leap. ~moo

3D printers carve shapes out of a single matter, so they're not really cloning, they're just .. carving. The idea, however, of a transporter sending info up through electromagnetic waves and then "reassembling it", is used in Star Trek already. The *BIGGEST* problem (and hardly the only one) is the amount of information - both translating the molecular structure into such a huuuge stream of information and then receiving it and analyzing it and then using it to rebuild the information.

Oh, agreed, but that goes to another point -- science fiction is science fiction, not "documentary". If a scifi is presented as documentary, it's no different than fraud. I hate those. And yes, I agree on the part of the "small mistakes" too.. I have to say it's not that easy to avoid all of the tiny mistakes but these days it seems shows are more aware of the potential to "fall" into these traps, so they hire actual scientists as advisors. That's why "BSG" was so good, relatively. As much as was possible while keeping the old storyline alive, they did a great job preserving good science. The episode where someone (I won't ruin it to anyone who didn't watch) is thrown out to space from a malfunctioning airlock was brilliant, and the effect afterwards (equating this to rapid loss of pressure like with divers) was great. Good change from the usual premise that bodies "explode" when they are exposed to space. Same goes with the shows "Numb3rs" and "House". Both have actual scientists as advisors, and it shows.

Don't forget that these show live on the drama.. if StarTrek ships could just get out of hazardous situations with no problems, no one would watch the show: P That said, there were a bunch of times that the fleets accepted new technology and they "tweaked" the drama effect by giving the enemy something worse (or finding worse enemies). It's a delicate mix between plausibility and maintaining the drama.

You read the right books, my friend. And a brilliant book it is (though I'm not sure I'd call it scifi ).

Mokele, I agree but there are, in my view, exceptions. You're probably going to hate me forever for this, but I *LOVED* Jourassic Park. The book itself was better, but the movie wasn't too far behind. Now, I know it's mostly implausible, and it's full of crap, *but* I went to see it as a little girl with my dad and when we left the movies we had a very long talk about what genetics mean and what might be plausible and might not be. Mind you, I was about 10 years old, and this type of conversation wouldn't have just naturally "popped up" in our household, specially since my parents like science but neither of them is scientifically trained at all. I really think that when a movie opens up the door to curiousity, then whatever mistakes it's making in the actual science is negligible. Who cares if Jourassic Park could ACTUALLY happen or not, when the bottom line was that many people started getting curious about genetics, about what it means in both the scientific part and the ethical part. That's also my view about most science fiction books and movies -- even those that treat physics (which is my field), and most of them really are crap-science, but they get people (mainly kids) interested and curious, if they are done right, even if the science itself is a bit too stretchy. Most of Michael Crichton's books are like that for me. "Sphere", for instance, is one of my favourite books (the movie sucked majorly and missed the entire point, so don't even get me started on that one). The science is sketchy to say the least and there are a lot of problems with his 'time travel' / 'entity' issues he's raising in the book - but the philosophical aspect is absolutely brilliant, and it raises questions that are interesting and tough to answer. It made me look at things from a different angle (more specifically, I started thinking about life in other planets and what would happen if those 'life forms' exist in a form we can't quite recognize - would we have to change the meaning of the definition of "life", and would we even recognize such an entity if we see it as life? etc etc). Those are great questions that got me interested in the ideas and thoughts behind exobiology, and although I doubt I'll make it my field, I did go around reading about it more and thinking about the ideas. So, yeah, a lot of sci-fi novels and movies are full of crap, but I think the bigger question is what they're leading you to. If a movie has crapscience but it's raising important questions that might lead people to relate to science better or to think about important scientific (and philosophical) questions, then I can forgive the stretchiness of the science. Besides- the entire point of scifi is to stretch the limits of what currently exists. You can't really write about futuristic stuff without doing some guesswork and stretching the limits of what we currently know; if you could, it would exist today ~moo

yeah yeah and theres a wholelot of them But I have to say -- half the fun is to analyze those things, and I used to learn a lot just from trying to figure out what the technobabble MEANS (nothing,usually ) so again, seeing as StarTrek is a *fictional* show that has a lot of messages that dont just touch tech stuff (for example, one of the first lesbian kiss on TV was on StarTrek, as was the first time an Asian character kissed a caucasian counterpart, and more), I really don't think the technobabble issue is such a bad one. I love Star Trek. I know the tech is *mostly* bunk, but there's some in there that opens your mind and some that gets you thinking. I used to even play around (when I was younger) with Role Playing Star Trek universe and I can tell you -- the research you do into what's "plausible" (even within that 'technobabble' world) and what to say in terms of technobabble yourself when you're "in character" in that universe, gets you to learn quite a lot about true science, too. All in all, I really think this entire notion about techno-babble being wrong = the show sux is annoying. The bottom line is that those are fictional shows. I much prefer disliking the ones who promote ESP and ghost-hunting and those whacky pseudoscience twists for "Quantum Physics" crap. *THOSE* actually turn people on the other direction from science. Star Trek's mistakes are at least in the RIGHT direction.

Depends how bad it is in the specific episode. In general, though, I know more people who got interested in space (and went to do their own mini 'research') out of watching Star Trek than people who blindly believe the technobabble. Besides, I like the idea that they're *TRYING* to make the technobabble "smart" (there are bazillion books analyzing the Star Trek universe), so I think overall they're getting more "good" out of it than bad. So I forgive.

There are usually two "Types" of science fiction - soft science fiction, where the phenomena are more "realistic" and the science has a bit more basis in reality (For example, "NEXT" by Michael Crichton can fit that definition) and "Hard" science fiction, where the science is not really realistic. I like both, to be honest, I just try to differentiate the two consciously. When I read "Next", I enjoyed the plot very much but the idea of the nanotechnology was so intriguing by itself that it got me interested in actually reading up on what is logical and what isn't in that story. Not all of it is completely realistic, of course, but the *basics* are sound (the 'fear' part is a bit of a stretch, but still). So I think that it'sa matter of preference. I like both of those styles, and picking which one I want to read at a given time mostly depends on my mood. Books don't have to be realistic, they can also convey messages through pure fantasy even if they *are* called "science fiction".

I've never seen such a coward in my life, iNow. The amount of cowardice one needs to cover his ears and stomp his feet on the ground just so that his beliefs won't be challenged is unbelievable. I've been involved in scientific debates for a very long time, and seen my share of coward debaters, but this, well, this is a new record of cowardice, indeed.

I pity you.

He's a regular.

I can also take your words out of context and prove whatever I want to, that will only add to your pathetic state, and do nothing you (nonexisting) credibility.

No one is that stupid, he's doing it on purpose.

Deja vu. Why do you bother, Klaynos? He'll just ignore your answer as if that makes it wrong then claim you don't have any answers. It all happened before and it will happen again. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Stop abusing members' names. Swansont *disagreed* with you, as any person with their right minds would, specifically one who actually *knows* his physics. This is really pathetic, Duration.