DrDNA

Almost every technology ever invented has a dark side. Dynamite, radar, sonar, the horse drawn wagon,.....medicines have been used, abused and used to poison.....trained dolphins have been used by the military..... But how about Heroine. Originally marketed by Bayer as a "nonaddictive" alternative to morphine and a cough remedy. Now considered to be of absolutely no use what so ever except abuse. But my favorite is "my problem child" LSD.

Come on now. The fact of the matter is, if 2006 and 2007 had been higher than average, everybody would have been blaming it on global warming. Everybody's freaking out about hurricanes associated with global warming and now that they happen to be lower in frequency, it's still global warming. They go up, it's because of global warming. They go down, it's because we don't have enough data. I'm not saying that global warming isn't real (it probably is), but you can't be scientific about it and pick and chose the data selectively.

Here is a story of my own personal experience with one perverted pit bull. When I was a kid, the people that had a farm down the road had a pit bull. I went over there a few times, but soon stopped in large part because of that dog. He would chase kids down and when he caught them, he would make love long and hard to their leg. Now, I don't think that is unusual behavior by in and of itself for a dog, but what was unusual about it was that every time somebody tried to get away from it or tried to fight him off, he would bite. If you hit him or pushed him, he would get even more aggressive He would clamp his jaws down on a thigh and coninue to increase his grip. The more someone stuggled to get away the harder his grip became. He broke the skin on several kids thighs, including mine, on several occasions. I've had other dogs try to make love to my leg, but that perverted pit bull was the only one that ever bit me when I tried to make it stop or attempted to escape. I think all of my other experiences with pit bulls were also negative, but for many I can't isolate their inate behaviors from negative influences from their owners. It's been my experience that many or most pit bulls owners are messed up. I love most dogs, but in my experience, most pit bulls and their owners seem to worthless.

Why would you want to go to the trouble of preparing it when you can just buy it (eg sigma aldrich)?

Nicely put iNow. I also found this which I thought was interesting: Quote: "What is I.Q.? I.Q. is a largely effective method of ranking people according to their analytic, or "academic," intelligence. I.Q. scores are highly predictive of how well children will do throughout their school career, and how they will score on other academic tests. The scores also correlate moderately well with future social status and income (Jencks, 1979; APA, 1995). What do I.Q. tests measure? I.Q. tests measure a collection of abilities collectively known as "symbolic logic." The most well known test, Stanford-Binet 5, specifically measures Fluid Reasoning, Knowledge, Quantitative Reasoning, Visual-Spatial Processing, and Working Memory. All I.Q. tests are restricted to pencil-and-paper and do not measure creativity, or what some psychologists call "emotional intelligence" or "practical intelligence." .............. ............................. What do I.Q. tests miss? (How much time do you have?) Harvard's Howard Gardner: "The tasks featured in the I.Q. test are decidedly microscopic, are often unrelated to one another, and . . . are remote, in many cases, from everyday life. They rely heavily upon language and upon a person's skill in defining words, in knowing fact about the world, in finding connections (and differences) among verbal concepts . . . . An individual can lose his entire frontal lobes, in the process becoming a radically different person, unable to display any initiative or to solve new problems -- and yet may continue to exhibit an I.Q. close to genius level. Moreover, the intelligence test reveals little about an indivdual's potential for further growth." (Frames of Mind, p. 18). Yale's Robert Sternberg, on the domain of "practical intelligence" not measured by intelligence tests: I.Q. tests "tend to (a) have been formulated by other people, (b) be clearly defined, © come with all the information needed to solve them, (d) have only a single right answer, which can be reached by only a single method, (e) be disembodied from ordinary experience, and (f) have little or no intrinsic interest. Practical problems, in contrast, tend to (a) require problem recognition and formulation, (b) be poorly defined, © require information seeking, (d) have various acceptable solutions, (e) be embedded in and require prior everyday experience, and (f) require motivation and personal involvement." (1995 APA report). Also: - I.Q. scores have a weak correlation with nonacademic intelligence and with performance in everyday tasks in other cultures. (Miller, p. 292). - I.Q. scores do not identify the most successful and creative artists or scientists (Taylor, 1975, pp.1-36). - Brazilian street children who have failed math in school can still be savvy in street trades -- they use methods altogether different from pencil-and-paper math. (Carraher, Carraher, and Schliemann, 1985). (Similar results with California shoppers (Lave, 1988) and harness race wagerers (Ceci and Liker, 1986) - I.Q. does not distinguish the best chess players from others... (Doll & Mayr, 1987) *** In his op-ed, Murray equates "I.Q." with "intelligence," which is strongly misleading. He then asserts: - "Our ability to improve the academic accomplishment of students in the lower half of the distribution of intelligence is severely limited. It is a matter of ceilings." - "We can hope to raise [the grade of a boy with an I.Q. slightly below 100]. But teaching him more vocabulary words or drilling him on the parts of speech will not open up new vistas for him. It is not within his power to follow an exposition written beyond a limited level of complexity...[he is] not smart enough." - "Even the best schools under the best conditions cannot repeal the limits on achievement set by limits on intelligence." Each of these statements is demonstrably false and spreads a dramatically simplified and distorted view of human intelligence. Policy goals aside, it is critical that we present as complete a picture as the current evidence allows." End Quote. http://geniusblog.davidshenk.com/2007/01/what_is_iq.html

Wikipedia is like a book where the readers can write, add to, and rewrite the story. Its information is as reliable as you might expect given those circumstances. That said, I believe it to be entertaining and a good source for casual information. I would never try to use it academically, professionally or for anything very serious.

Holy smokes folks!

Of course not. And I don't think it makes sense for my government to continuously bail out everyone that doesn't have insurance, or that has insufficient insurance, but decides to build/live in flood prone zones anyway. You take that risk. You pay for it.

Sorry. What I meant by all that was. As you now know, a lot of the stuff you buy is probably shite.

To be clear, IQ is based on a culturally biased test. It is NOT the same thing as intelligence, though many people confuse the two terms and/or use them interchangably. I was hoping and praying that Dr Watson used the term IQ, so when I first heard about this, I checked. Unfortunately, from what I read, he apparently used the term "intelligence".

Lab water is a funny thing. Biologists always worry about BOD and some hardly think about resistivity. Chemists and EEs often worry about resistivity and may not give BOD a second thought. I know for a fact that many semiconductor mfg lines have great resistivity readings but there are critters growing in some of their lines due to dead legs in the loops. I've seen the water glow from the flourescent bacteria growing in it. Being a biologist/chemist hybrid of sorts, I always worry about both BOD and resistivity. And I only trust water that comes out *my own* Millipore MilliQ system. I let it run until >18 Mohm and I know that it could be contaminated with waste products from little critters in the exit line, even though it has a 0.22 micron end filter, because that is outside the UV light/ion exchange/charcoal recirculation loop.

But is there peace in those regions where the UN forces have fallen? You have pointed out the lack of US support (monetary and cannon fodder) for the UN, which I believe may be a bad thing or a good thing, depending on one's perpective. Brave blue helmeted troops from assorted countries are dieing "keeping peace" as your links show. Towards what end? The UN is spending billions of US dollars, Euors, Japanese Yen and money from other countries. But what have they accomplished? I'm not denying that they spent it, but on just what exactly? "Oil for food"-like programs that benefit a la billions of dollars to Al Queda, corrupt dictators, the Seretary General's son? My exwife can spend money like crazy too. I suspect that they have similar spending habits......but are 20 different brands of shampoo for one bathroom a necessary expenditure? BYW: I actually believe that the UN is a great IDEA. But it just doesn't seem to be accomplishing much in a positive sense. That is unfortunate because the world could get a lot done working together. Along similar lines, "one world order" is a great IDEA too. Too bad we don't live in a perfect world yet (will we ever?) where those great ideas would work. Kum Ba Ya

Besides Kum Ba Ya style ineffectiveness I can't believe I negelected to point out the UN's legacy of corruption. Remember a tiny little scandal called oil for food? Great program. Helped a lot of people (NOT). Sisyphus, Were you refering to Kofi's, Kojo's, Al Queda's, and/or Sadam's "prosperity". I started a new thread called "Discussion about the United Nations".

Here is a place for all good Science Forums readers to discuss what you love or hate about the UN. If you have an opinion about the UN or just want to make a comment, please post it here. For example: Do you feel that the organization is effective or not. What have they done right? What have they done wrong? What might you change about the UN if you could do so? Should the UN even exist? What should the UN's mandate be? Should they have control over US military forces? Share your conspiracy theories. Anything else? I'll get the ball rolling. To start with, I feel that the UN is a self serving, largely ineffective, corrupt organization which sits on its hands until the US must or volunteers to do its dirty work. As an example of corruption, I would like to cite the "oil for food" scandal in which the Secretary General's own son, Kojo, was directly involved and Sadam Hussein was a major beneficiary. 2 of Kofi Anan's own memos even implicated him in the scandal. Sadam Hussein and his cohorts made billions and huge sums of money were funneled into Al Queda. As an example of ineffectiveness which led to the death of millions, I would like to cite the genocide which took place in Rwanda, where the UN security forces were "keeping the peace". Thanks!

The smaller ones are much cheaper I think.

That's right, just ask those poor souls that didn't get hacked to death under the blue hats' noses in Rwanda. "Prosperity"? Whose wealth are they redistributing? Don't get me wrong, I think the UN is a great IDEA. But it is largely ineffective. Throwing cotton balls at anything has very little effect.

What? You've never heard of online psychic medical diagnosis? The latest trend in efficiency.

I think he is trying to drum up business for his book. Not very good at it though.

I'm not talking about Iran. I'm talking about Iraq. Like I said, a male of any species doesn't make a very good wet nurse. Kum Ba Yah

I actually agree with you there. One of the big problems I have with this whole mess is we are doing things and accepting responsability for things that the UN doesn't have the courage and/or lacks the will to do. Mandates and coalition forces my butt. The UN is as worthless as a mammary gland on a boar hog. Get them off US soil. Send them to France.

Expections were set at the begining. Despite statements of "mission accomplished" and landing on aircraft carrier to great fanfare, other than deposing Sadam Hussein, those expectations have not been met. On a scale of 1-10, rank of meeting expections in the course = approximately 3 (or less). Grade for course = F. Likelyhood that repeating course will lead to improvement = slim. Conduct = F. Student does not work well with others. Agressive, combative. Seems to believe violence is a solution to everything. Won't mind own business. Breaks other students' toys. Suggest counseling.

Of course if anyone expected "perfection" in the situation, that would be unreasonable. However, I think we don't have to worry about that. We are miles and miles away from danger of that. It has been handled, in my opinion and I'm sure the opinion of many others, much like a group of neighborhood kids playing army with their plastic toy soldiers. I just wish their mommies would call them home to take a bath. Your points about not being there in the first place and giving up soverreignty I agree with.

The problem may be that perhaps Bush has created his own worst enemy (himself). I hate what ifs, but I also have to wonder what attitudes would be like if he and his administration had handled Iraq differently......... It is human nature to be shy after being bit.

The only gas is oxygen (O2). It says: 2 sodium hypochlorite (bleach)--> 2 sodium chloride (salt) + oxygen (gas) Please don't put any acid in it because you will generate toxic chlorine gas.

Do you perhaps mean that IgG levels go up 35% it you have unprotected sexual activity with Paris Hilton twice a week? That I would believe. How can people that don't have any sexual activity have an increase of 7%? Compared to what? Where's the baseline? Maybe I just don't understand where the 7% number came from. Got a reference or link?