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Comment Why don't we start with terrestrial life? (Score 5, Interesting) 64

What about trying to decode the messages whales, dolphins exchange? what about chemical messages, like the ones ants use? what about color patterns some cephalopods use?

There are many 'intelligent' conversations on earth that have not been deciphered. How do we assume we could do that with extraterrestrial life?

Comment May the contrary be? (Score 5, Interesting) 179

I've been working remotely for more than 5 years straight. In my experience working physically close to persons in your team makes sharing information much easier and faster. In fact, it is usual that companies offering remote work to ask new joiners to show for a short amount of time to the main HQ. Also, it helps a lot when the team joins from time to time in the same physical location. In addition to sharing ideas it fosters team building, and the remote communication afterwards is much fluent.

Said that, the most effective way of communication for sharing knowledge is videoconference. As a mentor, you can see the face of the other person and know if they understand or need a bit more time/different explanation. That's something difficult to achieve just via phone call, chat or plain documentation. It is not a substitute of them, but a good improvement.

As of this day, many persons prefer voice calls over videoconference, which looses many of the benefits forementioned. Many of this persons tend to be in the 'old' range. The new generations seem to be more used to this. So I wonder if this is going to be just another barrier.

Comment The problem are exceptions (Score 1) 179

Under normal driving conditions probably self-driving cars are much less likely to be involved in an accident. But in the road not everything is perfect. There are so many diverse situations that I think an AI can't cope with. What about:

- Police directing traffic. Would they be able to follow orders?
- Debris or big objects on the road
- Puddles
- Potholes
- Fallen trees
- Accident has happened (not to you), pull over to try to help
- Drunk/mobile talking driver (risk incoming)
- Overtaking on two lane roads
- Roundabouts (where I live drivers take them in creative ways)

And many more I'm sure you can think of.

Comment Editorial on the article (Score 5, Informative) 167

The article seems to be behind a paywall. There's an editorial on the article describing the main points at: http://atm.amegroups.com/artic...

From that editorial: "Shimamura et al. demonstrated that a microbubble-enhanced ultrasound method successfully delivered therapeutic genes into the CNS with no evidence of brain damage". So it is not only ultrasounds that are required for this procedure to work, but some microbubble injection needed. I could not find any reference on the gas used for this microbubbles, nor their size nor how they generate them. Still sounds like a very promising treatment.

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