Since you are "one of the engineers that run the DNS at Comcast", can you answer a question is not answered by the FAQ that you have pointed everyone to:

Will your DNS servers running DNSSEC be implementing NSEC3 to regain some of the "security through obscurity" lost in the DNSSEC protocol?

Yes, keeping the fire ants in "more of a natural check" is the most that could be accomplished by the insects that are being introduced this time.

According to TFA, this is the 4th phorid species introduced to Texas. The 1st was released in 1999.

The article notes there are 23 known phorid species. Even those, with native pathogens, only keep South American fire ant populations "controlled".

When you've seen pictures of the 5 to 6 foot tall fire ant nests that can occasionally spring up in South America (where these have managed to cross paths with expanding cattle farms, there are cases of cows being killed by attacks from the ants when the cow in question brushes up against the nest), you'll probably be inclined to indulge the introduction of another "control" every now and then...

The whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag is obviously from someone who has neither RTFA nor knows how bad fire ant populations can get.

Er, why would you want to stop a good thing from happening?

With the current SciFi channel changing their name to Syfy, there's a chance that someone who wants to make a real science fiction channel could finally come along and use the name 'SciFi'. You know, a channel that wouldn't air pro-wrestling, "reality" shows, and an unending stream of movies featuring giant snakes...

The question of whether these cells can be re-differentiated without using a virus to reprogram the cells is an important question yet to be answered from this research.

There is another important question to be addressed with this technique, however.

The article mentions cancer as a side effect for virus-engineered stem cells and immune rejection for stem cells from other people.

Would this technique manage to create stem cell-derived new cells without their own set of side effects?

Cancer is assumed as a side effect of the virus-engineered stem cells only. Since any tissue being made from converted stem cells is put through accelerated growth, what safeguards are there against tumor growth (cancerous or non-cancerous) with this new technique?

I ask this since I read another article noted tumor growth at stem-cell graft sites is common. That article didn't note whether these cases were from virus-engineered stem cells or not.

If you read the original manga and got the pages to fill in the abridged portions from the English version, then you wouldn't wonder about it. The Major was originally female.

It's one of many themes about what defines our humanity amidst the cybernetic changes that the manga successfully explores (albeit circuitously in many cases) where all of the animated versions failed miserably (as in the original manga is not "hyper-complicated trash").

The specific sequence for this is one in which the Major is enjoying some virtual vacation time with two female friends. Batou jumps into the Major's head to inform her about developments of an op-in-progress.

The abridged version has the Major and her two friends enjoying time on a boat on the water. When Batou jumps in, the Major berates him for the serious interruption and back in the real world he looks appropriately beaten-down.

In the un-abridged version, the Major and her two friends have moved into full-on girl-on-girl action. Batou jumps into the Major's head in the middle of this and almost loses his real-world lunch since the sensations are ones that a guy shouldn't be feeling and are rejected by his brain.

And, oh yeah, the Major chews out Batou because he was told not to jump into her head during downtime. Back in the real world, Batou looks appropriately beaten down.

Assuming they are cognitively capable of expressing an opinion as an outside observer, what horrible thing could they say about us that hasn't already been said about us by us (and is for a certain percentage of the population, depending upon what is said, absolutely true)?

So, yes, I would be interested in knowing how an outside observer views us. It may also prove of some use in girding us for reactions from an intelligent alien species, should we ever come across any.

I would also have to say that a living example of the genome would confirm information about its capabilities, where we could only ever be "almost certain" about a dead one. Besides, the technology on reading a genome and determining capabilities in that manner is much further away than that of creating a living example and seeing what it really is capable of doing.

Of course, all of this is coming from someone who will have no responsibilities as to the care of the life that is created by this experiment. The opinion of those who will have to change the kid's diapers carries alot more weight than mine does.

Well, since nothing of their possible respective opinions on the matter is recorded, the only way we'll ever know the answer is to ask them.

Considering that we have no reliable method for communicating with the dead, the only way we can ask whether or not to they would want to be is to clone them.

Nice Catch-22 for when cloning individual human beings is a reliable, proven technology. Also something for consideration since the technology isn't too far off, people should consider putting cloning clauses in their wills, assuming there's reason to believe that someone would actually want to clone you.

I wonder if that could be incorporated as an update to Mike Tyson's Punch-Out?

I wouldn't call it stupid, just incorrect when all possibilities are tried.

Aside from genetically-identical twins, there are a rare few known cases where people do have matching fingerprints (it's been awhile since I read the article but I seem to recall a resolution of around a thousand comparison points in one such case). However, with the incredibly low occurrence rate for this duplication, fingerprints still reign as the current top method for human identity verification (DNA matching takes alot more time and still isn't 100% accurate).

The article and summary are misleading, as well. This study was only performed on mice, not humans. There is additional doubt introduced from the lack of description of the experimental procedure. If the mice weren't separated long enough after the diet change, then a sufficient amount of the recognized scent may have remained for the other mice to make correct identifications.

The comment about dogs in the summary may be incorrect as well, but I don't really know. I have never read about any studies that tried to have a dog track a person from a previous scent marker after they've undergone a radical diet change and sufficient time for the body to remove the chemical traces of the old diet. They usually give dogs an item that someone has used recently in order to track them by scent.

I do know two things from my personal experiences as a person with a strong sense of smell:

1. In favor of the results that the articles puts forward as 'fact' - without perfumes, colognes, other scented body products or even any noticeable sweat; a woman definitely smells different than a man.

2. Disagreeing with the postulate from the results of the study - How best to put this delicately? The scent of certain subsets of people that stereotypically consume specific diets does indeed match scents from those diets when their scent becomes strong enough.

Of course, I'm not a canine, so regardless of my personal experience, there may indeed be elements of a person's scent that are as unique as their DNA. Actually, if a dog's sense of smell is advanced enough, their olfactory processing could be doing on-the-fly DNA matching. Though, I've never seen someone even postulate a study that could confirm that little bit of information.

I do agree with a couple of the other comments so far. This news has enough merit to be under a section other than Idle.