Science!

Ah, the keyboard. How quaint.

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Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space.

	Erunanton wrote:
	Ah, the keyboard. How quaint.

Man, it turns out what Scotty gave that guy wasn't that great after all, since it required a super powerful laser that wasn't even invented yet.

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"I know we're in a lot of trouble and probably about to die. But that: was worth it."

site :: wish list :: twitter

Death Star is shooting at us.

I love this website, it feeds my morbid fascination with astronomy.

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Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space.

Don't dismiss this. It has very serious ramifications on the concept of free will.

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Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space.

	Erunanton wrote:
	Don't dismiss this. It has very serious ramifications on the concept of free will.

I always joked that I would be the first guy to build a giant Faraday cage on the inside of my house like Gene Hackman's character in Enemy of the State because of the growth of surveillance technology, but this is something else entirely. Hopefully it's expensive and difficult to do, or at least has an easy counter.

Genetically engineered mosquitoes spread vaccine instead of disease.

	Daikun wrote:
	Genetically engineered mosquitoes spread vaccine instead of disease.

This brings up some really interesting ethical questions. Obviously you need to get consent from someone when giving vaccines (except perhaps during a doomsday scenario when disease threatens to wipe out mankind), but in this case, is it unethical to release these vaccine-carrying vectors? My gut response is no, because the alternative is malaria, which is way more lethal than the very rare cases in which vaccines harm people. But from a philosophical perspective you are still, in a sense, forcing someone to receive the vaccine, only now there's a random element in play (whether or not you'll get bitten). Ultimately I guess you are still taking away someone's choice on whether or not they want to receive the vaccine, so I guess we're left with the decision of it being unethical.

But consider this: suppose the vaccine works, does not mutate into something malicious, and successfully vaccinates millions of people, practically eradicating malaria. Isn't this the right course of action? Millions of lives are saved while individuals' rights to refuse a vaccine is overruled. I feel societies do this all the time; we give up some individual rights to improve the quality of life for all.

But I guess nothing is 100% certain when it comes to science, especially biology.

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"The only good race pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die."

--Steve Prefontaine

It is interesting that using mosquitoes would speed the vaccine to those most at risk of contracting malaria.

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Fil

	Erunanton wrote:
	Don't dismiss this. It has very serious ramifications on the concept of free will.

That is frightening.

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"We are the challengers of the unknown."

	Daikun wrote:
	Genetically engineered mosquitoes spread vaccine instead of disease.

What happens when they start using them to transmit other diseases?

Swordfishes wrote:

	Daikun wrote:
	Genetically engineered mosquitoes spread vaccine instead of disease.

What happens when they start using them to transmit other diseases?

It would require an ability to spread disease through the saliva that the mosquito injects when it bites you as well as it being a disease that effects both mosquitoes and humans alike which is rare enough that over the millions of years of evolution hasn't expanded past malaria, yellow fever, encephalitis, etc.

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Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below.

Quote:

Scientists have for the first time created laser light using living biological material: a single human cell and some jellyfish protein.

"Lasers started from physics and are viewed as engineering devices," says Seok-Hyun Yun, an optical physicist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who created the 'living laser' with his colleague Malte Gather. "This is the first time that we have used biological materials to build a laser and generate light from something that is living."

Full story.

Now grandma never has to worry about a DoS attack on her heart monitor!

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Illic est haud deus , quod nos es suus vates

Qua men can't ago , Filiolus fare haud melior

Res ero melior ut everyone's absentis.

Allergy-free milk.

Planet with four suns discovered.