Back in the 80's, one of the things we learned from the opening stages of the AIDS epidemic is the possibility that a new disease agent will enter the human population, sight unseen. If such a new virus were to appear, it could spread silently for years before being identified (just has HIV did).

It is this risk which had led to the exclusion of the gay population. The elevated risk for HIV infection in that population serves as a marker -- it demonstrates that they have the epidemiological risk characteristics to become the initial host for such a new disease, should it ever appear. By excluding higher-risk groups, the idea is to slow down the opening stages of the next epidemic.

Fine, then. "Incoming rabid flying kitten swarm est. 20min".

I've always wondered why you couldn't mount cameras on the outside, and instead of using markers, it would track the room itself, like an optical mouse. Processing would add a fair bit of latency, but you're mostly using the information to correct for drift and error in the gyros, right?

From the Washington Post's Blog section: Eugene Volokh, On google's employee demographics

OH GOD We're all gonna die!

Can't they just use Ringer's Lactate or Hartmann's solution instead? That should buffer the acidity a little bit better.

No, no. It's a Powerglove, you only do its because it's so Bad!

FYI, while GPS specifically refers to the American implementation, the generic term for a GPS-type system is a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). As a nationality-neutral term, it applies equally to GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, and anything else satellite-based that might come along.

At the beginning, yes. Eventually it might be much faster -- but your point still stands, processing speed is irrelevant because the AI could easily be designed such that it could emulate any slower speed it wished, like toggling the Turbo button on an old 286.

Quick reminder that polio outbreaks occurred periodically in the U.S. up through the 1950's, prior to the development of effective vaccines.

Even being born to a wealthy and high-status family in the U.S. was no guarantee of safety from polio infection, as was experienced by Franklin Roosevelt, at the age of 39.

There is a specific term in astrophysics for such a theoretical object:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki...

Well, he probably also ended up jamming a lot of people people using their phones as navigation units. I keep a few frequently used areas cached in Google Maps, but the rest requires me to have an active data connection.

FYI: ATK Launch Systems (formerly known as Thiokol) was the prime contractor for the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster, and as far as I know they mostly do solid-type rocket boosters -- which is what they are proposing for the (maybe) upcoming Space Launch System.

A brief primer -- this is a modern twist on the Sterile Insect Technique that has been used since the 1950's to control the Screw-worm fly, and other insect pests.

While the screw-worm's life-cycle was almost tailor-made to work with this technique (females only mate once in a lifetime; large numbers of insects can easily bred in the laboratory; sterilizing doses of radiation do not significantly cripple the males' ability to compete for mates; the males can self-distribute over a wide range), this technique proved to be harder to apply to mosquitoes (else we would have been doing it in the 1950's) -- while a few mosquito species could be controlled with this technique, irradiated Anopheles males suffered from too large a fitness drop to be effective.

Genetic engineering allows us to side-step male fitness problems that occur with radiation sterilization of mosquitoes, and improves the reliability of sterilizing large batches of reliably and efficiently.

Aural Sex will give you Hearing AIDS.