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Comment: Re:Because the Article Breaks Down the Claim Fully (Score 2, Insightful) 830

by dpryan (#33281436) Attached to: Ray Kurzweil Does Not Understand the Brain
That's nice, unfortunately the rate limiting step isn't processing time or RAM or the cost of sequencing. The rate limiting step is our understanding of neurobiology and developmental biology. Even PZ misses some of the complexity. One of the really difficult problems is figuring out all of the electrophysiology of the brain (spike timing dependent plasticity...of every area, all of the electrotonic structures and how they're modulated and how that and post-secondary modifications muck with everything, etc.). It'll be 10 years before the Blue Brain Project is really show something super cool in this regard, and that's a single cortical column of a mouse brain...
Kurzweil doesn't even know enough to understand what would actually be required to do what he's saying.

Comment: Re:Are vaccines safe - video (Score 1) 590

by dpryan (#31015618) Attached to: The Lancet Recants Study Linking Autism To Vaccine

I do not want to join a fight about all this.

Then maybe you shouldn't have posted.

I am convinced, that the drug industry is doing a lot of evil things, and that most bodies like the FDA are actually ment to protect the interest of drug companies (e.g. drugs with same ingredients cannot be sold if they are from India, Canada, etc..) and not the end users'.

So you're a conspiracy theorist. Do you also believe that the government is covering up the evidence for alien abductions and the the UN is secretly plotting to take over the US? What about water fluoridation, is that a secret plot by the communists to implement mind control or steal our "precious bodily fluids?" All of those conspiracy theorist beliefs are equally absurd.

So I recommend making a search on your favourite torrent site or even youtube for "Are Vaccines safe"

Right, because when I want accurate and timely medical information the first thing that comes to my mind is "Hey, I'll see what a bunch of random non-experts on Youtube have to say." If you want to actually learn something useful, try searching on pubmed. You can also read the Cochrane Reviews on the subject if you want the predigested non-definitive summary (being a scientist and not a clinician, I prefer the original literature to the reviews, but of course I'm not busy seeing patients).

By the way they want to make H1N1 shots obligatory in Costa Rica - where I live - and there will be a huge resistance to it as everyone is scared of the shots' side effects, and the fact that it had very little - if any - testing.

Sheesh, the H1N1 vaccine is no different from every seasonal flu vaccine ever made, with the exception of this one likely being more accurately targeted (and thus having higher efficacy). We've been using these things for decades, and you can search pubmed to see studies looking at their safety and efficacy.

You can also make a search for flu shots and alcheimers, shots and tumors and find a scary amount of hype and facts....

You can also search for timecube to learn the true theory of everything. Try searching the actual literature and see what science finds. You do remember science right? Its the thing that gave us the internet, drastically increased our lifespans and largely eradicated previous scourges like polio and measles. Funny how useful that science thing has turned out to be...

Comment: Re:Nice of Lancet to come around (Score 1) 590

by dpryan (#31015160) Attached to: The Lancet Recants Study Linking Autism To Vaccine

About the only question of interest here, is "what took the Lancet so long?"

I can partly answer that. Papers are only ever retracted when there is near absolute proof of fraud (and there are usually lots of lawsuits surrounding them at the time). Essentially, everyone waits as long as possible to try and cover their butts legally. The GMC ruling gave the Lancet cover to fully retract the paper without getting slapped with a lawsuit (the absurdity of British laws surrounding libel and slander is evidenced by the whole Simon Singh kerfuffle). I agree that this is a wholly unsurprising occurrence. 10 or so of the coauthors already retracted the findings, which was the only way they could salvage their careers. I know Wakefield will never retract, but of course when you're a paid shill that's unsurprising.

Comment: Re:Law of thermodynamics violation? (Score 1) 820

by dpryan (#30280024) Attached to: Scientists Create Artificial Meat
The "meat broth" they speak of is DMEM or something like it. Most of that you could purify from plants or bacteria or any other such source. The tough thing is that, currently, you usually supplement the DMEM with some source of serum (horse or bovine) and perhaps chicken egg extract. So, depending on what's needed, you might be able to produce meat using fewer resources and, therefore, more cheaply.

Comment: Re:There's already a human-animal hybrid (Score 1) 422

by dpryan (#27617997) Attached to: Louisiana Rep. Preps State Bill Banning Human-Animal Hybrids

To give more examples, a lot of the transgenic mice used in disease research have human genes inserted into them. There are also many stable hybrid cell lines that are used daily in research (usually mouse/human hybrids). Bills like this are created by people who obviously have no clue what they're talking about.

If we won't stand together, we don't stand a chance.

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