I was in Reno for the small swarm mentioned in the article; only a couple were even perceptible. I've also lived through a couple large earthquakes. I'd prefer little tremors all year round over the more damaging one-offs.

Of course, I'm also the type of person who would rather be in (another) earthquake than a tornado or hurricane (neither of which I've experienced). The devil you know, I suppose.

Perhaps intentionally, the blurb above completely ignores that Prof. Biznel's entire point is that we should be going after the asteroids that already pass close by. He wants us to play with these things, he just thinks it's a waste of money to send a probe far away to grab one when we could much more cheaply grab one that's already passing through. In order to have a decent chance of planning such a mission, we need to have a more complete survey of the asteroids that do pass close by which, he mentions, is already mandated by law (and we're not going to reach that goal at current spending levels).

As outlined here, it is the retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) cells and/or photo-receptors that are being grown and transplanted here. The RPE cells are the supply source for the photo-receptors and comprise the far rear layer of the retina (the neurons of the retina are supplied by blood vessels at the front which you're looking through right now). The photo-receptors, while technically sensory neurons, don't project very far, so replacing them could conceivably restore sensitivity without disrupting the neural connections of the retina. Growing them with the proper alignment to the optics of the eye might be a challenge, though.

Replacing the whole retina is not yet feasible. The ganglion cells project through the optic nerve all the way to the middle of the brain - you can't just swap these out. The other neurons (amacrine, bipolar, horizontal, etc.) of the retina form very specific types of connections during development, and simply replacing these with new cells won't restore such connections. The RPE cells and photo-receptors are about the only thing that might be replaced to restore some lost sensitivity, and are also the easiest to reach surgically, being near the back.

The failures of this hospital in dealing with a novel and gravely serious situation are in no way indicative of remarkably incompetent individuals or sub-standard hospital policies.

Even the most complete training cannot provide experience. Day to day work in a hospital is boring and routine, and when faced with the unknown people are going to fall back on that routine, not what they were trained to do briefly and long ago. Nurses who haven't dealt much with explosive diarrhea or projectile vomiting won't have practice being meticulous about preventing splatter on every part of their skin or porous clothing. Simply telling someone to be careful and then sending them off unsupervised and unaided isn't terribly effective.

Hospitals cannot afford to maintain a full wardrobe of gear to deal with even one Ebola patient throughout the course of treatment, nor are they set up to dispose of that gear at the rate it piles up after use. Adequate supplies will need to be provided on a reactive (not proactive) basis. Protocols, however, simply assume that the gear is there and ready to be used by people well versed in their use. It doesn't do any good to have well thought out procedures in place if it isn't possible or practical to implement them.

People who blame the nurses, or the hospital, or the patient are holding them up to an unreasonable standard. These people are not special. They're not clowns and they're not villains. They're just normal folk reacting the way normal folk will, and neither the CDC nor anyone else has some magic wand to wave to prevent this exact same scenario from playing out the next time. It's unfortunate, but it is manageable and we should focus on making sure the right lessons are learned from it.

Some interesting viewing, somewhat related: http://www.ted.com/talks/atul_... http://thedailyshow.cc.com/vid...

Of course, a brief, public overview is going to lean towards zero tolerance. There are plenty of legal grey areas, and most folk aren't fully versed in copyright law nor would they knowingly violate such laws even if they might casually do so unknowingly. People in law enforcement know full well that absolute purity in the eyes of the law is very rare, and also strange. If they have a large enough applicant pool that they can take the rare ones who are both exceptionally qualified and squeaky clean, that's great, but otherwise I'm sure they'll bend a bit.

In terms of contributions to science I was thinking more of the near future. Certainly if both worlds were the same distance away, and the same size, Mars would be the clear choice. Mars is, indeed, a much better candidate for terraforming, although the effort needed to do so makes initial human habitation seem trivial. Also see quantaman's post below.

You know, the Moon's right there (*looking around briefly*), somewhere. The same template could be applied to establishing an observatory on either of the poles in one of those nice, permanently shady craters. It would be a lot cheaper, a lot safer and arguably add a great deal more to science. Is the Moon no longer sexy enough to capture people's imagination?

I've got an engineering background and have taught computer aided design and programming in the past. I've taught statistics to classes largely composed of psychology students a few times as well.

Know what they are expected to know: the prerequisites for the course I've taught are very minimal so I can fully expect some students to struggle with basic algebra. While the majority do seem to be able to 'plug and chug' reasonably well, their ability to actually understand what the equations they're using mean conceptually is severely lacking.

Focus on what the math is saying: the first couple times I was able to cram a lot of different statistical analyses into a semester, and the students were largely able to keep up with the math and work out the solutions correctly. Unfortunately some of the really basic concepts still sounded foreign to them because they had spent all their time doing math problems.

Think small: If you start with probability and normal distributions it's a stretch to even progress through Z and t tests into the analysis of variance (if that's the sort of route you're taking) in a single semester. I think it's better that students more fully understand a couple, extremely basic types of statistical analysis instead of quickly being 'exposed to' several in the course of a semester. If one fully understands the logic and mathematical relationships behind a simple Z test on a sample mean they should be able to fairly quickly understand the more complex analyses.

If it is germane to the course, focusing on the non-math concepts like experimental design is also important, and generally more useful for students heading toward graduate school.