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Comment Re:Oh, just great (Score 5, Informative) 841

Here is one of the authors' home page. Here is the actual paper.

From the discussion section at the end (emphasis mine):

For most traits, the effects of individual genes are too small to stand out against the combined influence of all other genes and environmental factors. Thus, our p-value of 0.02 on a sample of 2,000 individuals should be treated cautiously. The expectation in genetics is that only repeated efforts to replicate associations on independent samples by several research teams will verify initial findings like these. Thus, perhaps the most valuable contribution of this study is not to declare that ‘‘a gene was found’’ for anything, but rather, to provide the first evidence for a possible gene-environment interaction for political ideology.

Contrast this with TFA:

The study's authors say this is the first research to identify a specific gene that predisposes people to certain political views.

I hate it when this happens, makes people dumb.

Comment Re:Legalize it? (Score 1, Informative) 572

I live in Amsterdam. I feel extremely safe. Most people here shrug when one criminal shoots another, as long as no innocent people are involved.

Most criminal activity is probably drug-related, but that's because hard drugs like cocaine are still illegal, and handling large quantities of marijuana, necessary if you want to make a business selling it semi-legally, is as well. International treaties and pressure prevent legalization and thereby decriminalization.

Oh, and another thing: crime rates are higher in big city, is that surprising?

Comment Original research? (Score -1, Flamebait) 510

What is this doing on the front page?

The summary links to a report on an experimental setup. The poster draws his unverifiable conclusions. On Wikipedia we would say "no original research, please".

The costs are obviously high, as these are still in developmental stage. Most of the turbines performed below the expected yield, but for example the "Skystream", which was one of the cheaper models, output 2109 kWh, where 1360 kWh were expected. The test can easily be claimed to show this was a success.

Privacy

Watching the IPRED Watchers In Sweden 88

digithed writes "In response to Sweden's recent introduction of new laws (discussed here recently) implementing the European IPRED directive, a new Swedish Web site has been launched allowing users to check if their IP address is currently under investigation. The site also allows users to subscribe for email updates alerting them if their IP address comes under investigation in the future, or to report IP addresses known to be under investigation. This interesting use of people power 'watching the watchers' is possible because the new Swedish laws implementing the IPRED directive require a public request to the courts in order to get ISPs to forcibly disclose potentially sensitive private information. Since all court records are public in Sweden, it will be easy to compile a list of addresses currently being investigated."
The Media

The Guardian Shifts To Twitter After 188 Years of Ink 211

teflon_king writes with news that renowned British newspaper The Guardian will be abandoning its paper-and-ink distribution scheme and publishing all articles and news as Tweets. Quoting: "A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include '1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!;' 'OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more;' and 'JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?' Sceptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet. For example, Martin Luther King's legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian's Twitterised archive as 'I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by,' eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original."

Comment Re:*Believing* isn't the correct verb (Score 1) 951

English is indeed not my native language, but still I think scientists working in evolutionary biology would not refer to themselves as "believing in evolution".

I'm curious, if you think "believe" means "to think without evidence", what would you put in "Scientists __________ in evolution"? Or do you not have a word that encapsulates the concept of "see it confirmed over and over again, so accept it as a very good theory."?

Actually, I would say yes to this, because "believing" can imply so many other things (these days?).

Comment Re:*Believing* isn't the correct verb (Score 5, Insightful) 951

Actually, GP was spot on.

Scientists don't believe in evolution, they see it confirmed over and over again, so accept it as a very good theory. Therefore religion is not an alternative for evolution, it's a whole different game.

Nobody will oppose that "there are particles", but what a particle actually is, no one can really say.

I work in quantum physics, and to me, an electron is just a bunch of so-called quantum numbers, such as mass, electric charge etc.

The Courts

RIAA Lied To Congress About New Filesharing Suits 204

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "On December 23, 2008, the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol sent a letter to the Judiciary and Commerce Committees of both the House and Senate, falsely representing to them that the RIAA 'discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August.' A copy of the letter is online (PDF). In fact, as many of you already know, the RIAA brought hundreds of new lawsuits since August. See, e.g., these 40 or so cases which just represent some of the cases brought in December." Maybe they're just taking a broad view of the world "initiate."
Power

Submission + - Cold fusion realised

Steven Herweijer writes: "Cold fusion, the ability to generate nuclear power at room temperatures, has proven to be a highly elusive feat. In fact, it is considered by many experts to be a mere pipe dream — a potentially unlimited source of clean energy that remains tantalizing, but so far unattainable.

However, a recently published academic paper from the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (Spawar) in San Diego throws cold water on skeptics of cold fusion. Appearing in the respected journal Naturwissenschaften, which counts Albert Einstein among its distinguished authors, the article claims that Spawar scientists Stanislaw Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss have achieved a low energy nuclear reaction (LERN) that can be replicated and verified by the scientific community.

More at http://www.dailytech.com/Navy+Heats+Up+Cold+Fusion +Hopes/article7168.htm"

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