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Submission + - Creating bacterial 'fight clubs' to discover new drugs (vanderbilt.edu)

Science_afficionado writes: Vanderbilt chemists have shown that creating bacterial "fight clubs" is an effective way to discover natural biomolecules with the properties required for new drugs. They have demonstrated the method by using it to discover a new class of antibiotic with anti-cancer properties.

Comment You keep using that word... (Score 1) 194

How Television Is Fighting Off the Internet

You keep saying "fighting off", but this...

Television shows can be sold again and again, with streaming now a third leg to broadcast and cable, offering a vast new market for licensing and syndication. Television is colonizing the Internet [...]

...this sounds more like "embracing" to me. Maybe we should clear up what we're talking about here.

TV, the medium, is dying a slow death. It has been slow to adapt to the changing reality and hasn't reacted at all to changes in the market. But the content distributed on the TV medium? The shows themselves? They have a bright future. That said, it's just a matter of time before we stop referring to them as "TV shows" and start referring to them by some other name such as "serials" or simply "shows". My guess is that within 20 years the kids will look at us funny if we say "TV show", yet that content will still exist in some other form online. And already, we're seeing some changes in the format, such as with Netflix's shows, which can vary considerably in length from one episode to the next.

For an analogue, think about the news industry. The news isn't going away anytime soon. We have an insatiable appetite for it. But newspapers? They've already lost the fight against the Internet, in much the same way that TV is losing it now. We'd scoff at anyone suggesting that newspapers are fighting off the Internet by posting their news content online. The same is true here.

We'd do well to not conflate content with the medium on which it is distributed. Old media is dying, but its content remains relevant in our society.

Comment Re: Demographics (Score 3, Insightful) 256

... yada-yada-yada .... Why do they [gangs -mi] form? That's pretty simple. When you're pushed out of the economy [...]

So, you've gotten past denying the higher likelihood of Blacks belonging to a gang, and are now listing excuses for it? Nice.

So, is it still "stereotype", if it is true? Is it "racist" to point out, that African Americans have darker skin?

All blacks are violent criminals in the minds of police.

You keep saying these things, but remain unable to explain, why these very same racist police do not treat Asians just as badly as they (supposedly) do Blacks. Anecdotes about Korean kids studying Math don't count. Koreans are but a fraction of Asians in America — there are vastly more Chinese, for example. There are great many Vietnamese. Then there are Indians and Pakistani, who — being brown and with funny accents — would've made a perfect target for racism.

And maybe they are a target — I do not know. But I do know, they don't burn pharmacies for some reason...

Police have a long history of treating people of different races and national origins differently.

Citations? Single anecdotes don't count — statistics, please... Cite me a study or two.

You'll find that we'll see a dramatic change in black and latino stereotypes

I asked this question up above already, but you — "cowards on race" — have all dodged it. Why is it, that even the most vile stereotypes of Jews — who were certainly mistreated in Europe for centuries — do not contain anything even remotely like smashing police cars or robbing storekeepers?

Comment Re: Demographics (Score 1, Informative) 256

It's a very common assumption in America today that blacks and hispanics are stupid and prone to joining gangs, and that Asians are smart and successful.

And where would this assumption you claim exists — without any citations, BTW — have come from?

Is it the television programs, which constantly portray Hispanics and Blacks as stupid? Which ones? Books pushing the same view? Which ones? Public schools teaching our kids that? Advertising materials? Where? What?

The woeful underperformance of AAs is because of historical inertia and ongoing racism

Until you can explain, why the same "historical inertia and ongoing racism" — whether they actually even exist or not — do not cause Asians (neither the "narrow-eyed" nor the "curry-smelling" brown-skined ones) to similarly underperform, you argument shall remain null and void.

African immigrants don't have the same historical problems that AAs have; they leapfrog over those problems.

Please, explain, how a "racist cop" manage to distinguish between Black immigrant and Black native born.

Your response rehashes the same arguments I already addressed — and calls me "stupid". Well, I'm willing to repeat the same rebuttals once — for I am not especially biased against the slow. But I will not repeat them again. Until you can offer coherent answers to the above questions, I will not continue this conversation with you.

Comment Re:Don't rule out sabotage (Score 1, Interesting) 316

Saying that this launch failure has certainly

Not saying it is a certainty — but rather a possibility, which should not be ruled out.

Russia today is proudly claiming legacy of the country and organization, which once sent agents to kill John Wayne — for trying to drive Communists out of Hollywood. Compared to that, crippling an enemy's space program is a perfectly normal and even noble thing to do.

Comment Don't rule out sabotage (Score 0, Troll) 316

The only alternatives to SpaceX are NASA's AtlasV and the Russian offerings. That's well known.

What's less known is that a major component — the RD-180 engine — of AtlasV is supplied by Russia as well. Russia is threatening to stop delivering it, but the US ought to stop buying it in the first place — and cut off billions of dollars for Putin.

If the SpaceX fails, the US may be forced to appease Russia — such as by forgiving the armed invasion and recognizing the annexation of Crimea.

A Russian agent, who'd successfully sabotage SpaceX, would certainly be richly rewarded back at home.

Comment Re: Demographics (Score 5, Informative) 256

They might go to a shitty underfunded public school.

The very concept of "public school" is fairly recent. Not only did Aristotle grow up without one, neither Benjamin Franklin nor Thomas Jefferson attended one either. Thomas Edison was homeschooled.

They might get harassed by the police on a regular basis, charged with a felony in a situation where a white kid would get a slap on the wrist, and have their lives effectively ruined by a criminal record.

Even if true, how is this different from what Jews suffered in Europe for centuries?

Why are the supposedly "racist cops" (many of them Black, BTW) today only targeting African Americans? If they really were White Supremacists, wouldn't the statistics for Asian Americans be just as gloomy? Immigrant Blacks are doing much better than the native-born ones too.

A theory contradicting observable facts is wrong. Your explanation is thus without merit. Whether or not there really is "institutional racism" or whatever in America, it simply does not explain the woeful underperformance of African Americans.

It's definitely not as bad for black people as it was 50 years ago, or even 25 years ago

Actually, you are wrong again — it is worse than 50 years ago. Despite — or, more likely, because of — decades of various policies advocated by your kind, the Blacks' satisfaction is lower today, than it was in 1964. Although, yeah, it may be better than 20 years ago...

(Note, that I'm not putting forth my own theories here. I'm just obliterating yours.)

Comment Re:Demographics (Score 1) 256

But if the ongoing program of destroying their lives is successful

What ongoing program? Please, cite evidence such as:

  • Laws aimed at destroying Black lives
  • Organizations — governmental and private — dedicated to the purpose (with proof, of course)

You make a vile accusation — prove it.

Comment Re: Start by getting the GOVERNMENT out of it (Score 1) 27

the constitution is not sacred

It is not "sacred" because it was not handed down to us by a Deity. It is sacred in that every four years the incoming President repeats the same solemn oath to defend it.

Whatever "sacred" means to you, it is the law of the land. But it can be amended. For example, when we still believed in limited government, one that could not just order people around willy-nilly for The Greater Good, the prohibition of alcohol was done as a constitutional amendment (the 18th — less than 100 years ago!).

However, only a few decades later the same same government banned marijuana with a simple law — without obtaining the national consent by ratification of an amendment. The 10th Amendment was thus nullified.

a brilliant collection of people, but they weren't prophets

Well, they were. For example, the prediction of the growth of Statism was scary:

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild, and government to gain ground.

Thomas Jefferson

and the point about it concentrating in large cities — especially accurate:

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

Thomas Jefferson

you do know where the Internet came from, don't you?

Yes, it came out of a military research project. I also know, where electricity, telegraph, telephone, radio, TV and rail-roads came from. We didn't need the benevolent guidance of government's omniscient bureaucrats for any of those, we didn't need it for the Internet.

Comment Re:Do not react AT ALL (Score 1) 371

the First Amendment refers to government regulation of speech [...] This is not a legal issue, it's a moral issue.

Yes, which is why I haven't accused anybody of violating the Amendment, you moron. I only said, it is offensive to those, who value it.

It's morally wrong to empower a social media lynch mob without performing

My point, it is wrong to so empower the "lynch mob" even after a "reasonable inquiry into the facts" — even if the said inquiry fully confirms the allegations.

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