... and sixty years later we were walking on the moon. Sixty years after the first fusion reactor, where are we?

So are you saying we should shut down most medical research? Modern medicine has been around for at least sixty years and we still don't have a cure for cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's or internet stupidity.

As well...my analogy was incorrect. The analogy should be the time from the first research into powered flight until the first successful powered flight.

Guess what....that was a heck of a lot longer than 60 years.

How come no one mentions that the world's most powerful fusion reactor consumes more energy than it produces?

The first airplane only flew 120 feet. Clearly air travel should never have been researched after such an abysmal failure in one of the first attempts.

That's it's only a suspicion, rather than "drawing conclusions based on life experiences and circumstantial evidence".

Damnit, I need more coffee. I keep words in my sentences. That should read:

That's why it's only a suspicion, rather than "drawing conclusions based on life experiences and circumstantial evidence".

No, just circumstantial evidence.

That's it's only a suspicion, rather than "drawing conclusions based on life experiences and circumstantial evidence".

If everyone waited to be spoon-fed facts about the world around them, rather than drawing conclusions based on life experiences and circumstantial evidence, we'd still be trying to figure out that whole "fire" thing.

Funny, I'm suspect the NSA terrorist identification manual has a very similar idea in it.

Once we start relying on gut instinct and circumstantial evidence to determine who the bad guys are, we've gone a long way down the path of becoming the bad guys ourselves.

can cause so much havoc and panic that everything comes to a stop.

A plane landed in Phoenix instead of San Diego.

It doesn't appear that this involved "so much havoc or panic", or that "everything" depended on John Smedley reaching San Diego on time.

If it did, my Emergency Broadcast System must be broken. They should test that thing some time!

Yea, that's almost as crazy at the NSA hacking and tracking pretty much everything and everyone. Oh wait...

I'll take "Things we actually have evidence of" for $100, Alex.

Just because a major hacking incident by a corporate/government power occurred, doesn't mean that they all occurred.

If the US DoD were spending enormous amounts of money developing those comic books with the express purpose of making war look as glamorous and consequence-free as possible, then yes, I would still let my kids read them, because I disagree with intellectual censorship in any form, at any age. But you can bet I'd talk with them about what they were reading, who wrote it, and why they might have written it.

And what does this have to do with the article? As far as I can tell, the US DoD has nothing to do with the development of Call of Duty.

There are experiments and research paths we do not follow because the intellectual benefit does not outweigh the very real possibilities for misuse.

And do you have evidence that the possibility of misuse in this case outweigh the benefits?

This research is specifically designed to gain an understanding of how viruses mutate in the wild. This is something we must know if we intend to continue on as a species. Mother nature (in her infinite wisdom), doesn't give a flying fig whether the viruses she is continually developing and improving are dangerously lethal to the human species. If we don't outrace her at this game, our time on this planet is limited.

TL;DR: This type of research is already going on all the time in nature. Unless we can understand how and why these changes occur, eventually one of them is going to kill a heck of a lot of us anyways.

String theory is math. Math is not science. This should not be in the "science" section of /.

General Relativity is math. Math is not science. General relativity should not be in the "science" section of /.

Quantum Mechanics is math. Math is not science. Quantum Mechanics should not be in the "science" section of /.

Thermodynamics is math. Math is not science. Thermodynamics should not be in the "science" section of /.

See the problem?

Particles can't really be two places at once. But since we're knocking things around with our light beam, we can't say for sure where it is now -- so we instead talk in terms of probabilities of where the electron is, rather than saying matter-of-factly where it is. This is what quantum mechanics does, it calculates probabilities that the electron is in a certain place, probability it was going a certain speed, etc.

As others have mentioned, you are missing a couple of fundamental points of the double-slit experiement.

1) The pattern observed has nothing to do with the photons being hard to measure (classically photons are sent through the slits),
The pattern produced is exactly the interference pattern expected if light were actually a wave. The peaks and troughs of the two waves cancel each other out which results in the dark bands. Dual peaks or dual troughs reinforce each other, resulting in bright bands.

2) If this was a result of electric field build up and the "detector knocking particles around a bit", then it should also happen for a single slit (it doesn't). It also should not occur for photons (electrically neutral), but it does.

3) "when single particles are allowed thru, we see only single points on the detector"

This is incorrect, and the weirdest thing about the experiment. If two slits are opened, and particles are sent through one at a time, there is still the same interference pattern created. Individual particles behave as if they do not have a fixed location, but only a probability of existing at a specific location.

Heisenberg's principle is a result of quantum mechanics and wave-particle duality, not the cause.

Looks like a big swing and a miss for Verizon.

They should have advocated on behalf of children instead

"Net neutrality is bad for children! Won't somebody think of the children?!?"

I'm confused. I have one of your early prototypes, and when I aim it at your post it blinks like crazy!

That means your post is a scam. But if your post is a scam, my device shouldn't be blinking. But my device is blinking...so your post must be a scam.....but...

You're saying its a scam, what's your argument?

They claim in their technical brief that the energy harvestable from a typical home wi-fi is 10dBm.

This is off by at least 3 orders of magnitude (i.e. they claim at least 1000 times more than is actually available).

But, to say what they're claiming to be able to do is impossible? That's clearly wrong
...
Can they fit in something the size of a dog tag? I dunno, I'm not a miniaturization expert.

Your sentences need to have a little conversation with each other....

That's exactly one of the points. You can't fit a device that does what they claim in something the size of a dog tag. There's not enough space for the antenna. There's no way you fit an accelerometer, BT chip, speaker, magic energy harvester, magic battery and antenna in there. So yes, they are claiming to do the impossible.

There is not enough energy available to harvest to do what they are claiming.

There is no way they could fit all the different antennas they would require to harvest phone, television, wifi, radio, etc EM energy.

There is no way a BT antenna that size would operate at any orientation over the distances they claim.

There is no way this device could also have a speaker in it loud enough to hear from within the same room, never-mind throughout your house.