Unfortunately, it's been known for a number of years now that the histological characteristics of alzheimers were the accumulation of beta-amyloid and the presence of tau protein, so this test is only that, a test, not any significant discovery on the disease itself...

I, on the other hand, are a super-light sleeper. It is ridiculous the kind of stuff I have to through to be able to get a full night's sleep. If someone in the house so much as gets up from bed (to say, go the bathroom), I WILL wake up (it doesn't take me too long to fall back asleep, but still... my room is pretty isolated from EVERYTHING {2 closed doors to the nearest bathroom away}, and it's not like we have wooden floors for this to be justified; we have a carpet). Even though I live on a 7th floor and my windows are soundproof (well, actually thermally isolating but it's about the same, 2 sheets of glass), some fridays and saturdays I need to put on earplugs to be able to sleep from the noise in the streets from the parties and whatnot (sleeping with the windows open is, of course, impossible... or I'll have to put earplugs to do so). To sleep I need absolute silence, and absolute darkness. In my place, I am almost invariably the last one to go to bed and the first one to wake up, just because it is almost impossible for me to sleep through people going about their business. For this, even earplugs are not enough. I can "feel" their footsteps around the place (I doubt that I actually FEEL them, but the sound of footsteps is so low-frequency that earplugs can't stop it). And lastly, trying to spend a night with someone is an ordeal that ends up with me sleeping 4 or 5 hours at the most (out of sheer exhaustion), and me waking up several times to be on the computer, reading, etc... or just to move the girl to stop her from breathing a particularly noisy way, reclaim space, etc... So I worry what my future holds for me if I ever wish to live with a woman... I'm REALLY counting on the human brain's capacity to adapt to most situations, or otherwise I'm screwed...

So now you see, the grass seems to always be greener on the other side :P

As a scientist (physician) heavily trained on the subject of the scientific method (to be more concrete, evidence-based medicine), I'd like to know a little bit more about this problem with inductive reasoning you cite. The current standard for deciding upon certain medical action is the clinical trial, which has a lot of work put into it (mathematically and statistically) to be reasonably sure of the conclusions of the trial, and also of the causal links established. With the amount of stratified analysis, validation tests, correction of confusion factors, etc., that goes into them, I (and many others) never consider to think that the conclusions might be wrong (as long as the numbers and indicators make sense), except for the (known, and controlled) risk of the results being due to randomness.
Could you please enlighten me a bit?

Would you mind enlightening the rest of us mortals? Because nevermind the lack of studies, AFAIK no-one (excepting maybe breatharians) claims any other benefits of sun exposure other than Vitamin D (well, it can temporarily reduce the severity of a couple of skin conditions like psoriasis and acne, but those are fully understood and local effects).
Please don't start making 'analogies' to vegetables that don't make any sense.
Your last sentence there gave me a little insight into your belief system. It seems you are of the kind with an irrational fear of seemingly obscure diseases and for which certain people try to come up with all sorts of theories to explain why for some of them the incidence has been rising. And many of those people are the ones trying to live "as naturally as possible", which mind you, I have no problem with, as long as they don't try to spread their misconceptions amongst the general population. And for some reason these conspiracy theories DO seem to catch on much much quicker than anything sane science demonstrates. Anyways, just try to remember that "back in the good ol' days" when we were hunters-gatherers, a 40 year old was a venerable elderly.
But suffice to say that trying to prevent photoaging doesn't necessarily have anything to do with vanity. As I said in my other post, photoaging and chronic sun exposure go hand in hand with the cumulative damage done to skin cells' DNA, and work their way up towards skin cancer. Just to put your sun loving ideas into perspective, roughly 20% of americans will get some sort of skin cancer. And virtually 100% (as of this moment; hopefully this number will go down since sunscreen was invented in the 70's and has been widely used since the late 80's) of those who get to live to a certain age in some countries like Australia (where there is A LOT of sun and the population is not native) will get actinic keratosis, which are precancerous lesions.
So you go ahead and ignore everything doctors have been telling you for years in favour of insubstantial and ethereal benefits; nature knows what's best for you, right? The rest of us will actually use the advancement of science and physiology understanding to our benefit.

Please show me a study linking (causally) any of such agents to higher cancer incidencies...
Otherwise just keep your conspiracy theories to yourself (or keep writing the FDA) and make a thicker tinfoil hat.
As for me, I'd very much rather stick with your unproven carcinogens (and that even if they were ever to prove themselves as such, they would have a VERY hard time catching up to the sun in that regard) than with a PROVEN one. It's simply what logic and reason dictate.
Oh and I AM white and pasty. I also had to grow a beard recently because I look so young I had trouble being taken seriously at work. Apparently people don't like being told what to do by a (n apparent) teenager.

Firstly, I'd like to point out how stupid the notion that "everything in nature MUST have a purpose" is. That is not what Darwin's theory is about at all, and yet people seem to have twisted evolution into some sort of sentient overmind orchestring everything towards some greater good (I'm not only referring to your post, this whole story is full of "well if mammals don't have the enzyme surely there's a reason!". But it's really a phenomenon that happens on almost every /. {and Digg's for that matter} story).
Having said that, allow me to tell you why our (caucasians') skin has such a capacity: Because once upon a time, many thousands of years ago, caucasians actually LIVED on the Caucasus (and north-western Europe and Russia too, for that matter) where in winter, the sun is a VERY scarce resource, so much so that the efficiency of their skins to synthesize vit-D was just barely enough to get by; and therefore, people who couldn't synthesize enough Vit-D to remain healthy wouldn't reproduce and would eventually die off.
End of story.

You can sit and ponder whether the recommended dosages are actually enough, but in all honesty, with all the years we've been using the scientific method as the backbone of medicine, we would have noticed by now if people who consumed larger amounts were living significantly longer (or developed superpowers, or whatever else you can think of)

Or, you know, you could take a freakin' pill if you're THAT worried about having low vitamin D serum levels...
The rest of us over here in sanetown and commonsenseville reckon that as long as our diets are not based on hot pockets and we go out once in a while we'll be Just Fine ®
And yes, chances are you will NOT get skin cancer if you forget the sunblock now and then, but there are other things one could worry about. Photoaging, for one. EVERY LITTLE BIT counts on that one. So while I'm not as sun-paranoid as my previous comment would suggest, I also don't think that PURPOSEFULLY forgoing protection is a good philosophy.

Oh no. Not this armchair doctor thing again.
* Vitamin D is NOT "the anti-cancer vitamin" It's a molecule that serves as a hormone to regulate calcium metabolism. It also happens to seem to help prevent some types of cancer, due to semi-related processes. But AFAIK, it has only DEMONSTRATED to reduce the incidence of colon cancer. For skin cancer, it has only been suggested.
* In developed nations, most of us get way more vitamin D from enriched foods and such than we need. So there is no need to go jumping through hoops to get it. Specially hoops that involve you being exposed to a PROVEN carcinogenic (the sun). And even if you somehow DON'T want to believe we get enough vitamin D as-is, remember that to get your daily dose of vitamin D, you only need to expose your forearms (or the equivalent amount of skin) to th sun for 10 minutes. So trust me, even if you wear tons of sunblock, and spend your day under an umbrella, you WILL be getting more than enough vitamin D that way. Heck, you'll get it in the driving up to the beach before you even see the sea.
* Melanoma (the most deadly form of skin cancer, and definitely right up there amongst the deadliest forms of cancer) is associated with repeated ACUTE sunburns (specially in childhood and early adulthood). Basaliomas and epitheliomas are amongst the most common forms of ANY cancer, and are not very deadly. In fact, when found, they often only need to be removed to treat them. These kinds of cancer are (proven, and causally at that) associated with CHRONIC sun exposure. Every little bit of sun counts for this one, as it has a cumulative effect.
* Because of all of this, I think it is pretty stupid to recommend NOT to use sunblock (which would effectively be turning an acute sunburn into a minor exposure), specially when the reason is so that "you can synthetize more of the anti-cancer vitamin". It is also stupid to suggest that everything can be fixed by "taking a vitamin C dose after a sunburn". Where on earth did you get that from? What studies is this claim based on?

This is not to say, things wouldn't be better if people actually used sunblock correctly, or if instead of going to the beach you simply stayed in your mom's basement. But alas, IRL sometimes you need to go the beach to have a little social life. And when you do, you should wear sunblock. Even if you do so incorrectly, some is better than nothing, and even SUGGESTING you should forgo it completely in favor of taking some random pills hoping to cancel out cell damage is stupid, naive, and just irresponsible. I do agree that wearing hats, and long sleeves > sunscreen, but they are not mutually exclusive, you know... and then again, as I said, sometimes you go to the beach to have a good (semi-naked) fun time, not to go hide under a rock.

So please just keep your pseudoscience and personal choices to yourself. Or at least don't recommend people do the same. It's just stupid.

Yeah, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but as a couple of people already pointed out, we actually do get our colonic flora from our mothers' (most of the time) poo (or perineal region, which is essentially the same thing). Of course all throughout our lives it gets modified by our own immune system makeup, eating habits, antibiotic use, etc... But the bacteria that protect us on those first few days/weeks/months come DIRECTLY out of our moms' butts.

But trust me, all of us with a smartphone (that also use skype) did know what Fring was. And apparently that became a problem for Skype.
Don't get me wrong, I hate the closedness of Skype, but as it usually happens with other services (MSN messenger, Facebook) I need to use them (as opposed to the open alternatives) because that's what my friends use. Fring allowed us mobile users (pretty much every smartphone is supported) to use Skype; but not only that, it was also a SIP client, for instance. So it was a good way to have both things.
Google has been able to sway the balance a bit in the IM front, and a lot of people (yeah, even non-geeks) are moving to gtalk these days. Hopefully they'll do the same with Gizmo5 and bring SIP to the masses, so that this once cool little hip company, that grew too big for it's own good (and now is leaving it's users without a way to use their service) will be reminded of what is really important: It's customers

We pretty much agree, then :)

...Except by not actually introducing any new species, it is nothing like Autralia's toad problem. When the oxygen stops being pumped, the bacteria return to normal population levels.
Having said that, I somehow very much doubt that even if you shoveled tons of bateria down there and made oxygen readily available, they'd be able to metabolize the millions and millions of gallons of oil that are being released each day. A nice way to speed up ecological recovery once the well has been plugged? Sure. A real solution that will take care of the spill at the required speed when there are monstruous amounts of crude escaping that place every single second? No way. Not by a long shot.

I had being toying with the idea of oxygen bubbles, incidentally (hadn't thought about how to power the air pumps, thanks for that). But in a much more different scenario. Surround the leak with air pumps that inject enormous amounts of oxygen (as much as needed) to create a sort of oil/air/water emulsion, and set the damn thing on fire. After all, that's the way they deal with excess oil/gas in drilling sites on land, right? By just burning it?
I have NO idea how feasible this would be, but what is clear is that that hole needs to be plugged NOW. Why haven't we heard on the news of any new genious plans to make this happen? Do BP and the goverment plan to do NOTHING? Will they start to take the russian approach more seriously at some point (you'd think they have another plan if they are so quick to disregard the only people who have had to deal with with problem multiple times before)?
I'm sorry, but bringing a F$%"ing blimp is a JOKE. What are they doing to SOLVE THE PROBLEM?

Yeah, I agree for the most part. You seemed to ignore where I said "in those last few years", where, I'm sure you'll also agree it would be counterproductive to have an overvigilant, overbearing mother wathing over you from, say 15-18. Not that your case (and that of your matriarchs) was what we were discussing exactly. If you have the means to permit the woman not to work, that's perfect and all the better for the kids. But we were discussing the case of the majority of the population where the woman DOES need to work, and what would be the best period (from a cost/benefit PoV for society) would be to give women as paid leave. So don't make points where there are none. Altho, judging from the pieces of my posts you decide to reply to, I see (and therefore understand) that you don't have many counterpoints to make.

No, I'm not saying a job description should be neither static nor inflexible. But if "being nice" is so paramount to her job as you make it out to be, you'd think it'd be included there, right? I just think you're trying to justify to yourself (legally, ethically, and perhaps even morally) your wanting to fire her, when, in reality, as you yourself admitted, she is doing her job adequately. Maybe not the way you'd like her to (specially since the new hot one has been introduced to you), but she IS doing it, which is the point. There is no reason to fire a person who gets the job done. Hence my "fixation" with job descriptions (which you've yet again hyperboled into absurdity).

Allow me a little divagation before carrying on. Being the (mostly) good person that I am, I'm going to help you out to discern between what is ethical and what is not because (as you'll see) I have experience in the matter. In the hospital where I worked for a while, we had an ethics commitee (I know, right? Who knew doctors don't actually make really important decisions according to what comes out of our asses?), and I got to participate in it a couple of times. When deciding if some solution to a problem is ethic or not, we have a few key points to reflect on to use as criteria (you can look this up). One of those points is "public scrutiny" which means you have to imagine trying to explain your proposed solution to everyone and anyone (including your family) and see how that makes you feel. If you feel unconfortable with that idea, it generally means that that particular solution is a poor ethical choice. Maybe you'd like to do the same and imagine yourself trying to explain all of this to your stay-at-home wife? (I'm not joking or making fun of you, this is really how decisions {more important ones, granted} are made. Sorry beforehand if you feel I crossed some line there).

Now let's continue.

Those are some harsh (and very missinformed) assumptions. I'll have you know, I dislike unions probably every bit as much as you do. They have been deformed into corrupt institutions that mostly serve to make their higher-ranks rich, and sometimes even to applaud lazyness as you have said. But I do recognize a) why they NEED to exist, b) that they do SOME good and c) that they level the field in the classic battle of worker vs big company. But yours is a common mistake. But that's ok, you're not nearly the only person who disregards history completely and is more than eager to repeat the mistakes of the past. But suffice to say it is a very just right to have, so much so that it is written in your (and most other countries') constitution. Unless you're trying to tell me that the people who wrote your constitution (amongst which is Thomas Jefferson), not to mention all the great thinkers who did the same for other countries just had it wrong because you say so.

It's funny you say that, because over this side of the pond, where "my attitude" (excepting those parts thatyou just assumed, of course) is much more commomplace that over there in the US, everyone (well, except for Greece and Ireland, but those have completely unrelated reasons) is doing JUST FINE. Not just that, but actually much better than how you're doing over there (and yes, I DO mean economically, the other sort of "just fine" {ýou know, the one you critize me for, people actually being happier and having a richer family life} is just a given). So, I don't know, maybe you ought to rethink your ideas (not likely, I know, just a suggestion).
BTW, which are these "other places where they don't have to put up with this nonsense"? China? Cuba? Most of Africa? Yeah, I'd like to live in a country where things were done the way THOSE guys do them /sarcasm
(hopefully this will make you reflect upon that comment you made, barring the possibility that you tell me all about this marvellous country with a booming economy and happy people where they don't have worker rights).

I'll leave it at this. I'll just ask a favour of you; do not make me waste more time. I've been a pretty cool guy by replying to your hyperbolic, polarised, selected (just responding to what you want/can), and generally ignorant and wrong comments. I do enjoy intelligent discussions (for what I gain and learn from them), but thus far I've got no such thing from this discussion. So please either think your answers through (and research them), or don't bother.

It's a simple matter of cost/benefit. It wouldn't be reasonable (nor healthy) to have a woman doing absolutely nothing but "looking after" her children for 18+ years. Specially in those last few years, it would be counterproductive. Now, before I go on, I want you to know I didn't answer because I mistook your question as being serious. I did just so you can visualise the level of absurdity that you are reaching with what you no doubt consider your "brilliant wits and unstoppable rethoric". Hyperboling into absurdity is not clever insight, it's what kids use to ridicule each other in the playground.

Again with the fairness. I thought I had already tackled that so I won't repeat the same argument here, but don't worry, I'll touch on it on my next point.

Agreed, there is a problem there. And if her job description included "being nice and all that", then she could be effortlessly canned for breach of contract without any legal (or ethical, for that matter) repercussions. But I'm guessing her job description didn't include any of that. So I repeat, the HR guy (who wrote up the contract)should be canned instead. It's not that I feel a job is owed to me or that once I got it it should be mine forever; but I do expect that if a company has been using my "services" for a certain amount of time (time which could be potentially spent on another company doing greater and better things), they sure as hell will need to justify their actions whenever they feel like firing me. And it's not just my crazy ideas, it's the law (yes, even in the most capitalist country in the world). That is ALL i'm saying, not that they should keep this woman forever until she dies of old age. The "entitlement" you speak of, is nothing more than what an indefinite services contract makes me (or you, or whomever) entitled to. If you say you'd just accept being fired because you weren't liked there (regardless of whether or not you'd like working in such an enviroment, please realise this is not the point before answering), then you're just being dumb. And not just "noble dumb" but dumb in the sense that thanks to people like you companies allow themselves to treat people like shit.
As for the situation with this woman and the temp, please just stop deluding yourself. You do want the new, perky, flirty chick. If the woman currently employed does the job she was hired to do, then there's no reason to fire her. She might be doing a crappy job, but alas. As I said, you should be angry at the HR guy, not at her.
See, what gets me is precisely this contradiction: you say a job is nothing more than a job, that job hours belong to the company, that companies should be allowed to fire people at will and all that... And yet you complain because this woman doesn't say "please" and "thankyou"? What makes you think the company owes you a perfectly idylic work enviroment (or in a more humanistic approach, why is your confort at the job more important than this woman's livelyhood?)?
Should I assume then, that you are very much for a happy work enviroment (despite the obvious inconsistencies that I just pointed out)? So how would that work out? You are all great friends at the office, until one of the gals decided to get pregnant... Then it all goes sour because they are all forced to pick up her slack. Is that it? Because that has a name, you see... It's called hypocrisy.
Don't worry, tho, this is not what happens in the real world. In the real world most people get along just fine at their jobs, and when someone has to take a maternity leave they are all happy for her. No one even feels any extra slack, because in the real world (contrary to your suggestions/suppositions), most companies don't exploit their employees at 100% productive capacity. When a company feels it needs a new employee they can (usually) take their time to find the best candidate because if you're not working at 100% productivity, there is no rush whenever someone dies/gets fired/goes on maternity leave. Everything turns out mostly fine.

Oh. Great, then :)