Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:removing the right to fight for your life (Score 1) 205

Wrong. There are plenty of published and peer reviewed studies that do show injury, such as adjuvant induced autoimmune diseases. There are also issues of ineffectiveness, bad batches, etc. and things like serotype replacement where bugs mutate into something even worse. We know of several events in history where vaccines HAVE directly caused harm, such as the polio outbreak in Nigeria that was directly caused by the oral polio vaccine and the swine flu vaccine that caused GBS. It's also a widely accepted fact that for a very small portion of population, there will be significant adverse reaction. It's not universal that all vaccines are good, safe and infallible; you can't lump them all together in one basket.

Now, I'm definitely not arguing that all vaccines are ineffective either and agree the anti-vax crew do have a lot of crazy theories that are unproven or anecdotal (including some comments made by the OP). But on both sides of the vaccine debate there is a lot of misinformation. And the problem IMO is that there should be NO area of science where we're not constantly evaluating, but for some reason, this is one of the only areas where questions do not seem to be allowed. Instead of people showing why you're wrong, they yell at you for even asking questions. I've experienced this firsthand on many occasions.

Comment Re:removing the right to fight for your life (Score 1) 205

You knew by posting this here you were going to get slammed, right? When it comes to vaccines, the scientific minded community does not allow any room for criticism, doubt or deviation from their position that all vaccines are a godsend and beyond reproach. Doubts and skepticism are at the core of the scientific movement-- except when it comes to this issue. Instead you're just called a conspiracy theorist and a nut.

Science

Submission + - D&D Monster Study Proves Eyes Have It (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: The dungeon is pitch black—until the dungeon master blazes a torch, confirming your worst fears. A Beholder monster lurches at you, its eyeballs wriggling on tentacular stems. As you prepare to wield your Vorpal sword, where do you focus your gaze: at the monster's head or at its tentacle eyes? Such a quandary from the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons may seem like a meaningless trifle, but it holds within it the answer to a tricky scientific question: Do people focus their gaze on another person's eyes or on the center of the head? In fact, a father-son team has used D&D monsters to show that most people will look to another creature's eyes, even if they’re not attached to a head.
EU

Submission + - Mozilla misses out on 6-9 million downloads due MS browser choice glitch (wordpress.com)

Dupple writes: Most recently the EC sent a statement of objections to Microsoft for failing to include the browser-choice screen as promised. Our data suggests that the absence of the browser choice screen had the following impact:

Daily Firefox downloads decreased by 63% to a low of 20,000 just prior to the fix;
After the fix, Firefox downloads increased 150% to approximately 50,000 per day; and
Cumulatively 6 to 9 million Firefox browser downloads were lost during this period.

More here

http://www.zdnet.com/firefox-lost-6-9-million-downloads-in-eu-browser-choice-glitch-7000006670/

Comment Re:Not just redheads (Score 1) 265

I also had red hair when young, red/brown now. Something similar happened to me as well, woke up early from my tonsillectomy surgery when I was in HS and the nurse ran in and was saying I wasn't meant to be awake yet, gave me some morphine quickly. Not fun.

And I've had the same issue with dental work. Whenever possible, e.g, small fillings,I now go without anesthetic. Because if it's going to hurt anyway, why bother with the numbing in the first place. I can handle intense pain for a short duration, and it saves all the time having to wait for it to wear off. The dentist I have now has hesitantly complied, says it unnerves him to know I am feeling everything. I can tell a difference in how he works when I am numbed versus not.

Do you also have issues with some pain relievers not working, or wearing off almost instantly? I can find some relief from ibuprofen, but acetaminophen is useless.

News

Submission + - LulzSec teams with Anonymous, in Operation AntiSec (abc.net.au)

c0lo writes: After a brief spat where the notorious Anonymous hacking collective sniped at Lulzsec, the 'upstart' hacking collective, for crowing about low-rent Denial of Service attacks on the CIA and 4chan websites, the two groups have apparently teamed up in operation Anti-Sec.

The operation's: "Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments. If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire anointed with lizard blood."

We can only predict that the following will be unpredictable: store canned food and flash batteries, change your eBanking password daily.

Comment Re:Greenhouse gas problem. (Score 1) 760

I understand your point, but I think you're underestimating the impact of grain fed to animals. I'm more likely to trust info with a credible source, like the reports put out by the UN

I really think the 90% number is inaccurate. That is true in part, but it's certainly not a universal truth, definitely not for all animal types. Here in the midwest US 99% of hogs are kept in confinements and fed grain.Cattle, many of those used for beef are grazed, but not all, and dairy cows are fed indoors, mostly hay or silage plus grain. Poultry animals, again mostly if not all, grain. Come see the volume of corn that is grown that is not designed for human consumption-- millions of acres grown across several states, elevators full of it.

Space

Submission + - French Use Space Tech To Find Parking Spots (itworld.com)

itwbennett writes: Using technology developed by French space agency CNES (Centre Nationale d'Etudes Spatiales) to explore the planet Venus, drivers in the city of Toulouse are discovering something much more down-to-earth: vacant parking spots. The system is based on 3,000 sensors buried just under the pavement that detect changes in the electromagnetic environment around them and communicate the results via coaxial cable to a server, which makes the information available in real time to drivers' smartphones.
Science

Submission + - Patient Cured of HIV with Stem Cell Transplant (aidsmap.com)

ChazeFroy writes: "Doctors who carried out a stem cell transplant on an HIV-infected man with leukaemia in 2007 say they now believe the man to have been cured of HIV infection as a result of the treatment, which introduced stem cells that happened to be resistant to HIV infection. The man received bone marrow from a donor who had natural resistance to HIV infection; this was due to a genetic profile which led to the CCR5 co-receptor being absent from his cells. The most common variety of HIV uses CCR5 as its ‘docking station’, attaching to it in order to enter and infect CD4 cells, and people with this mutation are almost completely protected against infection."

Submission + - The Top 50 Gawker Media Passwords (wsj.com) 1

wiredmikey writes: Readers of Gizmodo, Lifehacker and other Gawker Media sites may be among the savviest on the Web, but the most common password for logging into those sites is embarrassingly easy to guess: “123456.” So is the runner-up: “password.”

On Sunday night, hackers posted online a trove of data from Gawker Media’s servers, including the usernames, email addresses and passwords of more than one million registered users. The passwords were originally encrypted, but 188,279 of them were decoded and made public as part of the hack. Using that dataset, we found the 50 most-popular Gawker Media passwords:

Submission + - EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Bees (fastcompany.com)

hether writes: The mystery of the disappearing bees has been baffling scientists for years and now we get another big piece in the puzzle. From Fast Company — "A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists."

Environmentalists and bee keepers are calling for an immediate ban of pesticide clothianidin, sold by Bayer Crop Science under the brand name Poncho.

Comment I don't understand (Score 1) 161

I'll admit I don't know anything about Righthaven, had to look them up, but I'm wondering why they would ask for (or have any hope of getting) control of the web site? The statutory damages and removal of infringing content I can understand, but why would they possibly get control over something due to copyright infringement, especially for content they don't own? Are they filing at the request of the News Media Group?

Slashdot Top Deals

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." - Voltaire

Working...