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Comment Re:Compelling, but a mix still better... (Score 1) 399

Another reason to favor the female of a species for an extended space mission involving possible settlement(s) is the total waste of resources to ship a living male for reproductive purposes.

Literally millions of diverse fathers can be shipped in much smaller containers requiring minimal upkeep.

You can do the same with eggs. Your breeding capacity is going to be limited by the resources available, then the wombs (real or artificial) available, then the care takers available, and lastly the sperm/eggs available. You're arguing for shipping more women than men in order to support breeding, but you've got to deal with the massive amounts of supplies to send for X people + breeding before you deal with the gender ration of X.

Comment Re:Compelling, but a mix still better... (Score 3, Funny) 399

Send amputees missing their legs. Legs are dead weight in space. You can maneuver in zero G with just your arms.

StarFox pilots have their legs cut off so they can fit into the cockpits of the Arwings and to prevent blackouts in high-acceleration maneuvers.
Go look at the original box art and manuals if you don't believe me. They've all got mechanical prosthetics.

Comment Re:Overly broad? (Score 1) 422

Further, there is actually quite a bit of evidence that HFCS is NOT the same as other sugars. Industry critics dispute those studies, but they exist.

I understand that this is one of those topics that the Pop Skeptic community has taken under its wing, but not because of evidence one way or the other.

Bocarsly, M. E. "High-fructose Corn Syrup Causes Characteristics of Obesity in Rats: Increased Body Weight, Body Fat and Triglyceride Levels." NIH.gov. National Institutes of Health, Nov. 2010. Web. 16 June 2013

https://www.princeton.edu/main...

Havel PJ (2005). "Dietary Fructose: Implications for Dysregulation of Energy Homeostasis and Lipid/Carbohydrate Metabolism". Nutrition Reviews 63 (5):133–157.

Dufault R, LeBlanc B, Schnoll R, Cornett C, Schweitzer L, Wallinga D, Hightower J, Patrick L, Lukiw WJ (2009). "Mercury from chlor-alkali plants: Measured concentrations in food product sugar". Environmental Health 8: 2. doi:10.1186/1476-069X-8-2. PMC 2637263

  LeBlanc BW, Eggleston G, Sammataro D, Cornett C, Dufault R, Deeby T, St Cyr E (26 August 2009). "Formation of Hydroxymethylfurfural in Domestic High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)". Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 57 (16): 7369–7376. doi:10.1021/jf9014526. PMID 19645504.

Comment Re:Overly broad? (Score 1) 422

The GP is arguing that there is no body of credible evidence

No, he said he "hasn't seen" any evidence.

The GP is claiming said link doesn't exist because of a lack of evidence

That is not what he said. You're putting words in his mouth. If he'd said that I wouldn't have responded to him.

Here is the entirety of his comment:

I have never seen any study suggesting that, except the single widely ridiculed Yale study. Not surprising given how nearly identical sucrose and HFCS are in the gut.

Comment Re:May I suggest (Score 1) 334

Say your ERT is engaged in a dynamic entry to deal with a hostage situation. It might be critical to take out a lookout quietly.

Absolutely, positively not. If police departments are doing "dynamic entry" into a hostage situation with the plan to execute lookouts then we have a big problem.

Or say you are trying to get into a drug manufacturing compound that has armed guards with a night raid before they can blow the warehouse (or any similar sort of entry where you need surprise). Silencers can add to your odds of being able to execute.

Police are not supposed to "execute". You've been playing too much Rainbow Six.

The purpose of silencers is to kill undetected. There is no appropriate police activity which requires undetected killing.

Comment Re:Eh (Score 1) 200

At this point, I'd be tempted to make any would-be astronaut pass the 'n months in standby and hard vacuum before the signal from mission control wakes you up' test, because Our Robot Overlords have gotten considerably better; but it'd be no worse, and possibly better, than the John Glenn launch a few years back.

Comment Re:That's absurd, aim your hate cannon elsewhere. (Score 3, Interesting) 313

People love to hate Apple. It's a thing. Also, is there any evidence this data is not anonymised by Apple?

'Anonymised' is mostly a weasel word. It isn't always impossible; but the more interesting the dataset is, the more likely it is that there's a clever re-identification attack with good odds of success. If you are serious about preventing those, you tend to have to nuke the data so hard that they aren't of much interest anymore.

Unless robustly demonstrated to the contrary, it's an essentially worthless claim.

Comment My stubby telomeres (Score 2) 422

participants who drank pop daily had shorter telomeres

I didn't know I had telomeres until about five minutes ago.

And wait a minute, when they say, "pop", are they talking about any carbonated beverage? Is the problem the carbonation or the crap they put in pop to make it sweet and neon-colored and buzz-causing and impervious to going bad for 500 years?

I need to know, because I've become enamored of my Sodastream machine, which turns water into fizzy water. I can't drink pop because I play the chromatic harmonica and any kind of drink with sugar or caramel color will foul up the reeds and valves. But fizzy water is perfect because it's refreshing, and it wets my whistle (which is important for playing the chromatic harmonica) and allows me to belch "When the Saints Go Marching In". Seriously, I love those carbonated belches. I keep them on the down-low when I'm around others, but I've scared the hell out of the cat a few times with a belch that registers 6.4 on the richter scale. It doesn't startle the dog, but she does wag her tail as if to say, "nice rip, bro".

So, does this research mean that the fizzy water I drink (no added flavor, except occasionally I'll add a little spearmint or hibiscus tea) is going to give me stubby little telomeres? And does the length of my telomeres matter as long as they have sufficient girth? I need to know right away.

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