I think that you're forgetting that Texas produces about 8x as much crude as Alaska. If they had setup a similar fund we would be talking about at least $400 per year. Not too shabby.

Now, if either state had followed Norway's lead and kept most of the oil profits for themselves, we would be talking about substantially larger amounts of dividends or savings. Norway's fund is now approaching a trillion dollars in value -- for a country with a population one fifth that of Texas's, and approximately the same level of crude production.

Given the annaul return from investments in the S&P 500, he would have done much, much better if he simply invested his fortune in 1982, the first year we have a good public number from:

"[Donald Trump's] self-described net worth jumped from $200 million in 1982, to the $8.7 billion he estimated his net worth to be today. ... if Trump had merely invested that $200 million in the S&P 500 (500 of the largest companies in the US), he would have averaged an 11.86% annual return and ended up with $20 billion."

Hello over there, Americans! While you bicker about whether the ACA increased premiums or brought healthcare costs down (or both or neither), the rest of the developed world enjoys per capita overall spending that is a fraction of yours, and with much better overall health outcomes. Maybe you could simply agree that a truly "socialized" system of medicine would be a great improvement on either the pre- or post-ACA American healthcare system and drop the partisan crap?

There's nothing desirable about reduced IQs and massive health costs (unless you make money on healthcare or benefit from a dumb populace, that is).

The proposed ban was largely the result of research showing that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have incredible costs to human health. We're not talking some vague feel-good argument about the birds and the bees -- we are talking about lost IQ points and health costs that run into the hundreds of billions:

As Ars points out, if even a fraction of the economic loss attributed to these chemicals could be reduced, the net result could easily be far more valuable than even the most wildly optimisitic projections for the value of the TTIP agreement.

What makes you think that the same trend applied to hunter-gatherers? The lifestyle of those born in 1850 likely has no resemblance to the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers.

Next question -- ever consider that maybe the roughly 50% of people who died around or before age 20 may be a population that's much more vulnerable to "chronic diseases of civilization"? Maybe the reason there weren't many type-2 diabetics or sufferers of congestive heart failure in their 50s is because the people most prone to such diseases were long since in their graves.

I'm somewhat stunned that you don't think the medical community would notice that. Fat is famously less dense than water, so if obesity was caused by water retention rather than excess lipids (within adipocytes and elsewhere) then there would be a noticeable difference in density.

To evaluate it, all you need to do is have people of various sizes jump in a pool and try to float. My guess is that more fat, the more buoyant. You seem to be implying the opposite.

Spriometry is used by respirologists to basically measure how much air you can suck in and then blow out (among other parameters like lung inflation, exhale velocity, etc.). It was essentially invented around 1846 by John Hutchinson who believed its best use would be by the insurance industry as this volume was strongly correlated to premature death -- the less air you can blow out, the less time you have left! Hence the name for this quantity that we still use in medicine today: vital capacity.

"1846 The water spirometer measuring vital capacity was developed by a surgeon named John Hutchinson. He invented a calibrated bell, inverted in water, which was used to capture the volume of air exhaled by a person. John published his paper about his water spirometer and the measurements he had taken from over 4,000 subjects,[2] describing the direct relationship between vital capacity and height and inverse relationship between vital capacity with age. He also showed that vital capacity does not relate to weight at any given height. He also used his machine for the prediction of premature mortality. He coined the term vital capacity, which was claimed as a powerful prognosis for heart disease by Framingham study. He believed that his machine should be used as an acturial predictions for companies selling life insurances"

I, for one, proudly agree with the wise governor that some vaccines shouldn't mandatory for children. Like the shingles vaccine -- expensive and marginally effective, and practically useless if you're under the age of 60. I don't know why'd I'd ask my parents to decide on this vaccine call for me when I hit the age of 60 but his point is valid.

But god, I hope he's not referring to Mumps, Measels, Rubella, and the like!

It's not pretty. Essentially, the C-H bonds in methane are vulnerable to radical reactions. This allows for a variety of removal processes, many leading to the formation of water vapour and/or CO2 itself.

While that may not sound so bad, don't forget that water vapour is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases when it's found in the atmosphere, which is why, for example, the effective carbon emissions of intercontinental flights are so significant. So the end result is methane, an awful greenhouse gas, lives a relatively short life but ends up as either a worse or slightly less awful different greenhouse gas. In other words, methane stinks!

As free, open-source learning software (that I've loved for years), it seems right up Slashdot's alley. Except for the fact that this Anki didn't pay for slashvertising.

Ever notice how much efforts police will make to safely sedate and transport a cow that's loose on the highway? Even one that was heading (and will continue to head) to a slaughterhouse?

The reality is that the vast majority of people are not comfortable with killing animals and simply can't handle the idea -- let alone the sight! -- of it. Just the information given on this clam in TFA is enough to rouse people's sympathy and make its death seem tragic. But, as is true for war, the idea of millions of something dying is incomprehensible and therefore inconsequential. Especially if the dying is out of sight and out of mind.

It's for this reason that I can understand and respect the perspectives of hunters and vegetarians alike. But it's quite sad when people can't face the reality of their own actions.

As a fellow chemist -- one that has done research and teaching in physical and organic realms -- I assure you this is not necessarily true. A good organic course will yield a maximum grade of maybe 70% for students who are impeccable memorizers but not problem solvers. (I'd say it'd be about 50% for a good phys chem course, because plug-and-chug formulas can certainly be crammed.)

For example, syntheses are a lot like chess. They require memorizing a variety of transformations, but the potential applications of those finite transformations are nearly limitless. There's just no way to memorize them. You need to understand the rules of the game, then be both logical and creative to succeed.

I used to share your perspective, beginning my academic carerr as a phys-chem believer. In the end, I realized that if courses in organic can be aced by memorization, that simply means that whoever delivered the course fucked up. There is a heckofa lot more too it than that.

Organic chemsitry is not a fascinating subject in its ownright. And even though it falls in the purview of physics -- like, uh, everything -- it is best understood apart from physics, as a unique lense. Just as biology is not best understood as complicated chemistry, but rather as a completely different perspective.

It demonstrates the raw power of abstraction. For example, ask an experienced organic chemist to propose a synthesis of any arbitrary molecule. A good one will normally be able to come up with something plausible in minutes, and refine it to something practical in hours. A physical chemist, let alone a physicist, even with the incredible computing resources for the complex quantum mechanical calculations required wouldn't be able to tell you how to make it if you gave her months! Guarenteed.

That is the power of organic chemistry. It teaches you how a handful of simplifications, fuzzy rules, and fictional symbols can give you incredibly unique and practical skills. This is not unlike treating the human body as a group of organs, cells, cellular machines, etc., rather than subatomic particles. Of course it's all physics, but viewing systems through appropriate paradigms can yield incredible results.

If people see "orgo" as just a test of rote memorization, their professors should be ashamed -- they've missed it point.