Mr Skeptic

!ymehpsalB

One way to do needle-free injection involves a thin stream of liquid at extremely high pressures. Essentially, the liquid hits you so hard it goes right through your skin. Its quite painless as the size of the "water needle" is far thiner than a real needle, but I think it requires a rather large machine. I don't know if this is what you are talking about though.

I like the idea of taxes and subsidies much better than direct regulation. Regulations can end up requiring stupid or inefficient or even counterproductive things, are far less flexible, and more prone to abuse and loopholes. Whereas a carbon tax on all fossil fuel production, and a carbon credit on all sequestration of carbon, would allow anyone and everyone really wide latitude in dealing with problems. Also, the enforcement should be much easier and less in-your-face. You can run a hummer, run the heater with the windows open, etc, but the carbon tax will ensure that you pay for it... and the money could be used to subsidize carbon sequestration. Meanwhile, most people will be trying to minimize their carbon emissions by any means necessary, not just following the regulations. Thus, all the enforcement only needs to be done with whoever produces fossil fuels, and all the rest of us will find some way or another to comply without the government sticking their nose in our lives. Only thing is, the carbon taxes and subsidies should be the right amount to achieve the desired effect; too much or too little would produce too much or too little effect. However, that is the free market solution -- people pay for the whole price of the energy they use, not just for the price of digging it up.

Does your grandfather play golf?

Yes, variety is vial to adaptability. However, artificial selection is what reduces variability -- it intentionally reduces the gene pool. Genetic engineering is not incompatible with with sexual selection, even if it is usually used on specially bred crops with a small gene pool. However, I think that the lack of variability is due to the specialized strains, not with GM. The Irish potato problem was caused by monoculture, well before the time of GM (unless you count artificial selection as GM, in which case all crops are GM crops).

OK, so that is where we differ. I don't see it as making a sacrifice, just using an extra word ... kind of like some people would think nothing of "Gosh darn it all to heck" but would be offended if you said the actual meaning of that phrase. Oh, and the public definitely needs to be aware of the renaming well before it happens. Otherwise they'll think we're being sneaky.

I think that most people like to think of humans as more different and special than other animals because we are different and special compared to them. Not genetically, though. You're right, I was thinking phenotypes, not genetics. And I wasn't thinking of a permanent change in the rules, just a temporary exception. While it is scientifically admirable to do the scientific thing regardless of the consequences, it may not be a clever thing to do. Most of the public is not aware of this debate, nor will know the reason for the change. If there is even a shred of doubt, or legitimate biologists who disagree, that will be the focus of the media. And we're not at a particularly good time for atheists and Christians to get along.

Here's a simple experiment you can do. On a very hot, sunny, scorching day, wear a thick wool winter hat for several minutes. Then wear a sombrero. Compare the effects. Repeat on a bitterly cold, windy day for comparison.

I personally think that that will be met with incredible resistance and/or hostility from the religious, the average joe, some of the biologists, and the folks from the legal system. Basically, it would piss off almost everyone, and for little reason. And for whatever reason, the tiny biological difference between Homo and Pan has resulted in tremendous differences in actuality -- high technology and communications -- not seen in any other species. Not to mention bipedalism and furlessness. So it wouldn't be completely accurate to place ourselves with the apes, despite the biological similarities. It may be better to just teach students that we're very similar, rather than rename us.

So, you figure that if you can pretend that you know all the simple stuff, she'll skip ahead to the more advanced stuff? What you should know is what she taught in class, or assigned as homework or reading.

Sort of. Lots of our grain gets used for corn syrup or ethanol, in which case, the starch content is what is relevant. Or it might be fed to cattle, which is one of the major uses. If I'm going to eat it directly, I'd be more picky about the nutritional content. I guess what I'm getting at is that is that there will be some use for it even if it loses some nutritional content. Of course, GM could be used to add additional nutrients to food like with the golden rice.

I'm Mr Skeptic... fairly obvious why I chose that name. When I was in high school, I didn't believe what they told me about a sphere of charge (or mass) being the same as if it were all concentrated at a point in the center. I mean, what were the odds that the closer points would exactly cancel the farther points? So, I found my dad's old calculus textbook, and a few months later I had my answer. Yup, the odds were better than they seemed. I still occasionally try to poke at a well accepted theory, until I understand why its true. I find it rather fun and educational.

I'm guessing that not only has this been done, but videoed and put on the internet. People have all sorts of fetishes. That is unlikely to result in a "humanzee" because we have different number of chromosomes, among other reasons.

Perhaps it would be more intuitive if you considered that 1 atmosphere of pressure is the same as the (extra) pressure of being about 30 feet under water.

To dichotomy What about humans who have become dependent on some of the properties of GM crops? For example, the resistance to glyphosphate. If weeds become resistant to glyphosphate, these people may need a new GM crop that is resistant to another herbicide, and people might then starve if similar crops were not available. I'd say that the various attributes affecting productivity can be more important than just nutritional value. Of course, nutritional value is of great importance if it can be supplied too.

I'll start my timer now, and stop it when it stops being now. Then I'll report how long it took... Still waiting...

Maybe if you take the derivative of both sides?

In addition to what Insane Alien replied, this is also questionable. Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle applies to time/energy, as well as space/momentum, showing a relation between the them. Wave equations also relate time, space, and energy.

Too bad they didn't reconstruct the virus to see if it really was a virus. Oh, wait. They did:

Sooo, what do you plan to do after you die?

You're assuming that iNow does not believe in life after death.

Sounds are able to modify our brainwave patterns to some extent (I think that's related to the interconnectedness of the brain, so that inducing neuron activity in the brain portions dedicated to hearing induces some similar waves in the rest of the brain). There's a reason that music can be relaxing or agitating or otherwise change your mood. This also sounds like the safest thing anyone has suggested thus far.

Good points there. I didn't mean that eyesight was equivalent to intelligence, but rather that since good senses like eyesight requires significant calculating power, some of this calculating power could spill out to other areas. More easily than if the brain portions dedicated to senses weren't there, anyhow. That sounds like just what I was looking for. I'll see if my libraries have a copy.

Keep in mind that unlike some vitamins, Vitamin A can accumulate in the body to toxic levels. The golden rice does show an impressive aspect of GM -- we may be able to make plants which have all the required vitamins, which would be a boon to those suffering from malnutrition in poor countries.

You mean this kind of darwinian evolution? http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-14.html