I find myself rolling my eyes at these partisan political posts. The modern democratic party is slyly vacuous. To prove that every administration is equally capable of rewarding its own economic beneficiaries in short order, watch as Slick barack and julius genouchie sell out the public with smiles on their faces by refusing to regulate the internet by pulling what slim foundation that still exists out from under themselves and blaming someone other than themselves (the courts or republicans, whatever, it doesn't matter) for the resulting disaster.

People need to realize that politics in this country is all about money vs money where competitive interests are at work. When it comes to money vs the people, there is no competition, the people don't have any money.

Probably because the FCC doesn't want to have to regulate the internet under the net neutrality rules it adopts. The FCC has to at least appear to make an effort to regulate the net in fullfillment of it's responsibility to protect consumers. However, the latest (and probably last) proposal the chairman has drawn up is weaker than what was promised by both the chairman and the president. Among other glaring problems, the latest proposal rests ambiguously on the same basis that the court has already ruled against and ignores the court's advice on how to go about creating rules that the FCC can legally enforce: ammori.org/2010/12/01/fcc-chairman-proposes-garbage-calls-it-net-neutrality.

The point is it has the potential to become a person, and should be considered as a person, and not a means to profit.

You don't have to look far, a google search would have provided multiple hits. From the wiki, read the section on adult stem cells: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell

Agreed. I also suspect that the AC is not in fact a doctor, or they would know about the lax requirements in other countries for obtaining a medical degree and certificate, and particularly, the unscrupulous work that some 'clinics' do WRT stem cell treatment. There is a reason it's labeled "stem cell tourism". In fact IIRC, CBS recently did a documentary on the problem of snake oil stem cell clinics operating in South/Central America that lure desperate unknowning individuals to their clinics without any intention of providing them a cure, but sell their treatment as such anyway. The article certainly didn't seem like FUD to me.

I can't believe you would say something like this and imply that the poster you replied to was irrational. Sperm and egg individually will never become a person, but an embryo will be (and should be considered as) a person.

The fact is that you can derive pluripotent stem cells from sources other than embryo's (like the lining of an umbillical cord). The poster you replied to was correct, support for research using human embryos would drive an industry for their harvesting, just as there is a market for sperm and eggs. It should be noted that abortion is bad both physically and emotionally for a woman, which is why manyt physicians refuse to perform the procedure. We already are finding it difficult to keep those who worship money from killing babies that are partially born, and you don't think there is reason for concern?

I would think that quantum dots might be ideal for use in a grid array of something like the dye-sensitized collectors that have recently been developed. I don't think that current saturation would be an issue, as the leads will be distributed evenly at each quantum dot. The problem I see is that increasing the area used for contact wiring will mean increased non-radiative losses. The article states that the wire contacts will be made of semi-conductor material as well, and semi-conductors typically have lower conductivity/higher loss than conductors. Supposedly they are trying to overcome those losses by using a partially generative material as an intermediate between the conducting leads and PbSe cells?

When I was in college, my buddies and I would frequently bet our money on the dog races. They published detailed stats for every race and you could compile a statistical profile of each performer. In fact, I wrote a program that attempted to predict the position of each dog in the race as the race progressed. However, what was not provided and could not be predicted is what dog would lose it's footing and go tumbling to the far rail and which part of the pack he would take with him.

According to the SCOTUS Brand X descision, the FCC does indeed have the authority to make this classification. So, yeah, the FCC should tell those pol's to stuff it were the sun don't shine. I can't believe those pol's would be so stupid as to actually put their names to these letters.

Quoting from the republican letter:
"And tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars have been invested in broadband networks in reliance on the classification of broadband services as information services [as opposed to a telecommunications service]"

I couldn't figure out if these congresscritters were trying to say they gave industry all this money in return for promising they could work in a regulatory environment favorable to the industry, or wether the industry gave the pol's all this money in return for the same assurance!!!

The letter was signed with a bunch of scribbled signatures with no associated typed names.

Is this letter just a bad joke?

Optical media are still much cheaper than flash. This new tech would do two things:
1. Reduce the cost of the media and,
2. assuming the laser can switched to scale, increase bandwidth likewise.

Dailytech ran an article a few days ago that said some researchers used a scanning electron microscope to precisely place dots in a latice at about 4nm a side to create what looked like optically switched transistors. It sounds like these people are using the same tech to create a higher density re-writable disk.

A 1x DVD drive transfers data at about 10Mb/s, A 1x Blueray drive currently tranfers data at about 36Mb/sec. If they can increase the density 1000x over Blueray, then assuming the transfer rate can be scaled similarly, then theoretically the transfer rate of such a drive would be ~25920Mb/sec or 3200MB/s!

Of course, the overall storage market will drive when and if this tech becomes available.

Or, someone might decide to wipe out all human life AND sea life (picture some oil executive).

If life is just an evolved entity composed of randomly assembled machines, as some biologists claim, then it begs the question of wether or not there might be 'life' out there that is not water based, but based on say, sand -- or silicon.

While this might help in the short term, I think that history has shown that companies tend to form monopolies and arrangements with each other with the purpose of controling prices to their advantage. IMO the need for regulation and consumer protections especially in markets as important as this will always exist.

Agreed, I subscribe to the Free Presses mailing list and though they do seem to have liberal political interests that I don't always agree with, according to what they say in their mailings they are interested in policy that will make it hard for private conglomerates to control too much of the spectrum and in ensuring that local interests have access to spectrum as well.