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Comment Re:How much blood can "a patch of skin" provide? (Score 1) 229

thanks CWDog,
now I am way more inclined to believe this, 'McMaster' university sounds a bit fishy.

For those looking for a summary:

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To make blood progenitor cells they infected skin fibroblasts with a virus inserting the OCT4 gene, then grew them in a soup of immune-stimulating cytokines.
OCT4 is one of a handful of Yamanaka factors used to transform fibroblasts into iPS cells, but Bhatia's team found no evidence that the blood progenitor cells that they had made went through an embryonic state. The cells' gene-expression patterns never resembled those of embryonic stem cells. The blood progenitor cells didn't cause mice to develop tumours.
The progenitors produce all three classes of blood cells — white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets."
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Mighty impressive!

Comment Re:Aarghhhh (Score 1) 267

It's not such a big deal to filter all user input inorder to prevent SQL injection. It's simply a habit you need to learn and stick to.

It is more difficult to make a site that allows some people to provide content including html and script, and still prevent evil content to enter your database / pages.

And it is difficult to enforce a strict password regime because many a client have asked to remove the safety measures for convenience sake. I guess we all know examples of dumb passwords. Like 'coconuts' for the admin section of a coconut group.
 

Comment would selection be another explanation? (Score 1) 356

"Researchers scanned two completely sequenced modern human genomes for a type of mobile element called Alu sequences, then compared the nucleotides in these old regions with the overall diversity in the two genomes to estimate differences in effective population size, "

Is there anybody here in the know about ALUs?
I can live with 18.500 individuals, it makes some large strides in the evolution of the brain more likely.
But I can also imagine that we do not know about extinct ALUs. Sat there were more people genetically more prone to jump of cliffs, and this was linked to some different ALU which was missed in this survey due to rareness or extinction, then there could have been a larger worldwide population than this calculation suggests,

Comment Re:Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain. (Score 1) 746

You might also consider that I know what I am talking about. If you look at the average posting on realclimate it is polite, clearly worded, based on facts.
If on the contrary you look at the climate skeptics' sites, they mostly consist of slander, fake facts, and the like.

About the plot you assume: you are currently basing your opinion on material coming from anonymous hackers with a climate-skepticism agenda. Way to go, Rockoon.
Check http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/cru-hack-time-to-hit-back-hard/ for a response, I don't even want to bother with slander.

We have a future to save.

On your statistics claim: statistics are a part of science, it's a fact, face it. If you think realclimate does not understand it, make your case.

You are standing in the way of a better future.

Comment Re:re Increase or decline? (Score 4, Interesting) 746

Allow me to extensively quote John Cook (http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-do-the-hacked-CRU-emails-tell-us.html), as he is closer to the topic than I am.

What do the suggestive "tricks" and "hiding the decline" mean? Is this evidence of a nefarious climate conspiracy? "Mike's Nature trick" refers to the paper Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries (Mann 1998 http://www.elmhurst.edu/~richs/EC/FYS/Mannetal.OriginalPaper.pdf), published in Nature by lead author Michael Mann. The "trick" is the technique of plotting recent instrumental data along with the reconstructed data. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales.

The "decline" refers to the "divergence problem". This is where tree ring proxies diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960. The divergence problem is discussed as early as 1998, suggesting a change in the sensitivity of tree growth to temperature in recent decades (Briffa 1998 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692171/pdf/43XA8LK6PCMVMH9H_353_65.pdf). It is also examined more recently in Wilmking 2008 ( http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/741/2008/cpd-4-741-2008.pdf ) which explores techniques in eliminating the divergence problem. So when you look at Phil Jone's email in the context of the science discussed, it is not the schemings of a climate conspiracy but technical discussions of data handling techniques available in the peer reviewed literature.

In the skeptic blogosphere, there is a disproportionate preoccupation with one small aspect of climate science - proxy record reconstructions of past climate (or even worse, ad hominem attacks on the scientists who perform these proxy reconstructions). This serves to distract from the physical realities currently being observed. Humans are raising CO2 levels ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm ). We're observing an enhanced greenhouse effect ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm ). The planet is still accumulating heat ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling.htm ). What are the consequences of our climate's energy imbalance? Sea levels rise is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise.htm ). Greenland ice loss is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/greenland-cooling-gaining-ice.htm ). Arctic ice loss is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/Arctic-sea-ice-melt-natural-or-man-made.htm ). Globally, glacier ice loss is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/himalayan-glaciers-growing.htm ). Antarctic ice loss is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm ).

When you read through the many global warming skeptic arguments ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php ), a pattern emerges. Each skeptic argument misleads by focusing on one small piece of the puzzle while ignoring the broader picture. To focus on a few suggestive emails while ignoring the wealth of empirical evidence for manmade global warming is yet another repeat of this tactic.

===
With this quote, how do you look at 'trick' and 'decline' now?

Comment Re:Register story (Score 1) 746

"There're a lot of people who stand to lose a lot of money if climate change is proved to have non-anthropogenic origins."

The money is in the other camp, silly.

And I agree that many people shout 'see! [no] Climate Change' at every snowflake in summer or heatwave in spring. That's why we have statistics and long term monitoring.

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