Google "aquaducts". They were not made in steel. Google at the Colliseum, not made in steel. Please do Your own homework, thanx. Noone mentioned a suspension bridge, except for You. Ants only build those in movies, no citation needed, You can just buy an antfarm and check for yourself.

That You dont seem to want to look at alternatives, seems to suggest that You are the one without any grasp on science... Science is about innovation, discovery, and expanding knowledge, not about sticking with what You know. If You also bothered to read the article, You might have grasped that the purpose of the research it to study how ants build stuff that lasts for years. My point is they build using simple scientific principles, and dont put undue stress on their work.

As it is science today is, in many fields, looking at using such principle to interact WITH nature, instead of against it. Cars are built with aerodynamics in mind. Buildings are built with respect to wind and sun, modern parachutes are no longer just a large umbrella etc. My point here is that we can easily build simple tunnels, like the ants, if we find methods of traversing them, that does not cause enough stress to collapse them. So in short, if we could build a train that would not cause stress on a tunnel, we wouldn't need to use hundreds of tons of cement, millions of tons of sand, and a lot of steel to boot. Same as the ants dont.

The reason I call it psudoscience is not because tunnels are crap, it's because we already know how to build tunnels using natural arches, kids learn this in the 1. grade, and the reason such constructions lasts longer for ants than for children in a playground, is because of how we use them differently, not because the ants use neither steel nor magic.

I'm just wondering... Romans knew how to build arches like a 1000 years ago. As did the vikings, and presumably also a lot of other cultures too. It's not really NEW information that you can angle rocks to hold up under pressure. Humans have been doing it for millennia too.

However, one thing that was also learned by the romans, was that these types of structures dont hold up very well under uniform stress levels. Like 1000 soldiers marching in cadence easily breaks a bridge. Or in modern times, cars and trains stressing the exact same place over and over again. This means we have had to use stronger and stronger supports and materials to conform to our use of the buildings...
  If we are to actually learn anything from the ants, wouldn't it then be to build, or design our use of structures to prevent stress damage ? Like when soldiers are asked to march out of cadence when crossing a bridge ? (Or like ants doing it naturally)

While I'm not into the details of US and California law, the general term "buyer beware", always apply. Even if you have an iron clad contract, there will ALWAYS be someone, somewhere, sometime trying to stiff You, and You have to take that into account in all that You say and do.

In this case, regardless if she had the promise in writing, even in the signed agreement, that probably wouldn't stop Disney from trying to cheat her out of this payment. Simply because it's more important for them to attract subscribers, than to make Scarlett Johansen happy. The arbitration, and potential ruling at a later date, will show if it is also profitable to try to cheat her out of her payment.

Regardless, the public debate sparked by this, will have serious impact on future negotiations with all producers who work for/with specific distribution partners who have a digital sales platform. SJ might become the "posterboy" for all actors who needs to negotiate with the likes of Disney, HBO, netflix, etc.

I know it's in style to play your old C64 and stuff like that. However, a smartwatch discontinued 5 years ago, for playing a kids game in a dulled down version ? I don't see a really huge financial loss for Nintendo here.

One of Toyotas main claims is the lack of electrical infrastructure, aswell as the lack of ability to produce "green" electricity.
At least the second argument should be well known.

However, as for the infrastructure, You have to consider that not the entire world has the ability to supply 200KW charging everywhere. Thus, hydrogen (or really any FCV technology), offers the same benefit as gasoine does - You only have to have sufficient infrastructure during the manufacturing process. Then decentralized distribution (similar to gas stations) can do the rest. So the consumer doesn't need to have his own 63A powercable to the home, he just drives to the local refuling station and fills up.

Maybe this is not a huge issue in the states. But for instance in southern Europe we have many regions where electricity is still experiencing brownouts, and maximum consumption is barely enough to recharge a single car in a small town, let alone all of the cars in the town. So electrical infrastructure needs to be built, where it isn't sufficient. This means that the western world (not to speak of the developing countries) is not wholely ready for a full "electrical world". Sure, major cities might be, but large parts of the population are still living in rural areas.

Could we then fix this problem by adding 200KW charging stations every 20 miles around the world ? Probably. But it will be a long while before the world gets there - Electricity is still (usually) distributed with a lot of cables, which are not currently sufficently available. And this is why Toyota sees it as frivolous to consider electrical a viable solution in itself.

If Toyota are correct in this assumption, I cannot say. I am not familiar with the cost and ability to create the decentralized charging structure, and if this is feasible or not. But at least that is their argument.

Noone seems, in this scenario, to have considered the fact that the report could be WRONG. While certain factors surely can be predicted, certainly not all can. And while averages might be enough to steer things one way or another, the ability to steer things at all, still calls for unification of governmental society. I do NOT see that happning in my lifetime.

So, the reports most bleak results basically describes natural market mechanisms. However, still many factors are not included, or is heavily underestimated. One being innovation. While we can predict that predatory use of resources means resources gets used up, then we cant predict what innovations are driven forth, due to the lack of those resources. If fish go extinct in the seas, fishermen dont die, they find something else to do. When the ozone layer got depleted, the world came together to ban CFC gasses, things like this CAN happen again, if the alternative is bleak enough. Humans do not go to a corner to die silently.

Sure, some people might be willing to go "minimalist", but the general hoarding of wealth, shows that these people are not enough to drive a movement towards this goal, that is sufficient to "save the world". So the hoarders are our best bet to make relevant changes, they will have to find new products to sell, products that conforms to the requirements of society. They have to be innovative enough to drive further growth. Either by substituting products, adding new products, or finding additional resources to exploit to meet growing demands.
Why would three of the richest men in the world be building their own space agencies ? For the betterment of mankind ? For the love of pure science ? Or because the end case might be good for their net profits ?

With personal security, someone to call if you have problems, an employer who pays vacation and sick days. Who takes care of your taxes, and handles maintenance on your ride. Who pays you a base wage, regardless if you had many customers or few....

That's the reality in exactly 0 of the many rideshare, fooddelivery services, and other "customer to customer" services that have popped up in the last 10 years.
We all want to save a few bucks, but noone likes to care about the people doing the work. In reality these portals help to keep the low income people in the low income bracket. It's bad for society, but cheap for the users.

The case is for the content provider to pay the broadband provider for providing broadband to it's the broadband companys customers.

Isn't that kind of the Broadbands sole reason for having a company ? To provide that service to its customers ? Why on earth would that ever become the content providers issue ?

I get that a potential cost increase might come, if the content provider suddenly "gives free access to HQ streaming" or something like this. But isn't usage or quotas something the content provider should discuss with its customers ? Absolutely, if the content provider strikes a deal with the Broadband company, and then suddenly goes and makes it more expensive for the Broadband company, you can argue that the terms of the deal are no longer valid. But I did not read that as the case here.

And yet, even with all the crime being reported, that adds a certain degree of comfort that it will be SOLVED....
But if experience is any teacher, it doesn't prevent crimes of passion, crimes of opportunity, or pre-planned crimes. So basically, it only stops people who are afraid to get caught. Those people generally dont commit crimes anyway, so I believe the effect is very limited.

That said, even a limited or even a perceived effect, can be enough that some people want it. London being a prime example. At least this company is very open about the costs, the cameras are very mobile, and this way, You can "try out" the surveillance, without having to commit to installing cameras everywhere.

I was about to say nearly the same thing....

The study indicates nothing about the ability to extend life, it only conveys that natural life has a limit in all species, and better living conditions doesn't extend that limit, it just lets more people reach it.

If we want to extend this limit "unnaturally", we can. But it would have to be using means that are not at natures disposal. Cellular regeneration technology, genetic manipulation and stem cell treatments are being researched which might eventually show some success with this.

That said, I would not want to live forever, if my body would continue to decline. Any technology that only allows us to live longer, not better, would likely not make people WANT to live forever (recent studies show that the older people are, the less likely they are to want to live forever - So maybe there is a psychological or physiological component aswell)

I never saw this paper before. However, given the time of the trial, and it's relative size, I can say that it would seem unreasonable to actually get a significant number showing.

The trial started 2 weeks prior to the summer peak number of infected in july, and then the virus was nearly gone, until the flu season started up again in december, when the project ended.
As a mathematician, even without doing the math for them, I can tell you that this means that the infection rate was so low that the number in a population of just 1010 participants, is not statistically significant. Neither group got exposed to enough opportunity to get infected, and therefore it's highly likely that the results are invalid.

Noone will ofcourse (ok they did it in England, but that's because they are bonkers) purposely infect people to see how well they are protected. So you have to make due with the tools at your disposal. This is also reflected in the report, that specifically states that the confidence in these results are horrible, because as little as 2% of their groups got infected over a 6 months period.:
95%CI: 76.8; 54.8

Plus one for the laugh.... You are ofcourse correct. It still saddens me that we've gone from "reporting the news" to "creating the news". I miss the time when a newspaper had news I wanted to read and get interested in.

And yet, totally in line with what you would expect from a normal vaccine. Anything about 50% is considered good, 70% outstanding.

Most "western vaccines", if you prefer that term, also cruise at around 70%, for ONE shot. Only by giving a second, do you build it up. This is also a well known strategy, used by other vaccines for diseases like hepatitis or encephalitis, where you are supposed to get a "booster shot", after 6 months.

This is acceptable because the main reason for vaccinating, is not to prevent the occurrence of disease, but to ensure that any illness derived from it is minor or inconsequential, due to your body having built the correct antibodies.

Precisely....

Here in Europe we can easily vaccinate the same amount or even more (in my country we tested it out by vaccinating... I think we ended up at 2.1% of the population in a single day - It's possible. We just dont get enough juice to do it for the full month it would then take to get everyone vaccinated)

I'm getting fed up with people who dont understand scale.... "oh, they have it so bad in India. 300.000 people have died now".... Yes, that puts them squarely among the top 20% of countries managing the crisis best with about 240 deaths per million inhabitants. About 80% of countries wish they had it this good.

Has NO "journalist" (journalism means being able to critically asses a story, so I'm having a hard time calling them that without quotationmarks) ever mastered 6th grade math ? At least here, they put it into SOME scale, saying that china uses half the vaccines given worldwide per day. Which given that they have about 1/5 of the population would not seem too disproportional.

I think that in most cases, damages are not actually paid to this amount, anyway. At least I never heard about a pirating case, where the poor slob had to fork over a couple of billion dollars.

But I agree, it's a ridiculous argument. Decreasing returns is a basic function in economics. And yet it's only ever "retail" price that the owner seems to lose, even 10's or 20's of years since the stuff got obsoleted, or is available at the local library.