So the ridiculously flagrant persecution complex the author of that page opens with in the very first paragraph didn't set off any alarm bells for you?

Maybe because it's so trivially easy to find the sources for everything I said they're all in the damn wikipedia page for Cevarix and included in just about every news article published on the thing in the past 5 years.

Well, as long as you make sure not to provide any citations for any of that.

I don't have the slightest clue as to why you're modded at +5, but I do know that you have literally no clue as to what in the hell you're talking about. I assume you're referring to the anti HPV vaccine Cevarix rather than Gardasil because you mention "the Australian taxpayer" and some of the technology used in Cevarix was discovered at Uni. Queensland. You conveniently neglect to mention that the Queensland researchers were collaborating with others at Georgetown, the Uni. of Rochester and the US National Cancer Institute, among others. The technology behind the discoveries made at these places was licensed to GlaxoSmithKline, a British company. The idea that the Australian taxpayer footed the bill for the FDA trials in the US is, frankly, idiotic. The trials were conducted by Glaxo, obviously. Additionally, there is no "US drug company that licenced [sic] it", it's being sold by Glaxo here just as it is everywhere else.

I know it's a crying shame that none of this fits into your wacky worldview where all corporations represent the nexus of evil and steal all their product ideas from "the people", but I guess you'll just have to find some way to get over it. I suggest you take some of your own advice about "paying more attention before writing" before your next post.

Oh, I guess /. doesn't render =/= signs, like the ones that were supposed to appear in between all those terms in my last msg. Megalamesville. C'mon, what is this 1997?

Mmmmmno, they don't. The fish are FLUORescent, not PHOSPHORescent. They're transfected with GFP like these cats. Hence the name GFP: green fluorescent protein.

FLUORESCENCE PHOSPHORescence ELECTROluminescence GALVANOluminescence BIOLUMinescence

All these phenomena are distinct. I'm wondering if anyone has ever heard of any naturally occurring PHOSphorescent molecules.

Oh fer cri, it's 2011 people, we've been doing this kind of thing for DECADES. The cat isn't self luminous, it's NOT BIOLUMINESCENT, IT'S FLUORESCENT.

It does get me to thinking though, are there any phosphorescent proteins known?

Nope, not saying any of that hilariously absurd, contrived, strawman bullshit at all. But I genuinely appreciate that you saw my totally unrelated point sufficient reason to fire up your obviously well oiled Chomskybot, such that you could spout your long, soporific list of dimestore, cryptofascist mewlings. Better luck next time in arguing against a transparently ridiculous point opposite to the one I was obviously making, though. Have a nice day :)

I work on its scaled testbed twin. I think I'm slightly more familiar with its priorities than you. Thermonuclear ignition in a pure fusion fueled microcapsule is now, and has always been the primary endpoint goal for building the device.

"....Patriotism has no place in science."

Patriotism may have no place in science, but science unquestionably has a place in patriotism.
I'm proud that my country built and operates the Tevatron which discovered the top quark, I'm proud we built the world's most powerful laser, the National Ignition Facility which is on the verge of demonstrating controlled thermonuclear fusion in a laboratory, I'm proud we were the first to decipher the 3 billion letter sequence of the human genome, I'm proud we invented the transistor, the laser, the nuclear reactor and the Polio vaccine that is on the verge of wiping that disease from the face of the Earth forever, I'm proud we engineered the microcomputer revolution and invented the internet those machines operate on, I'm proud we were the first to robotically explore every planet in the solar system with the exception of Venus and sent probes into interstellar space, and I'm proud of a thousand other things my country did to push back the darkness of ignorance about the physical world, thereby elevating the human condition to previously unimagined heights. And I hope that someday, instead of being proud of something as stupid as military might, or the number of gold medals we win in the Olympics, that my countrymen can join me in the more nuanced and altruistic flavor of patriotism that I am proudly guilty of indulging in. My style of patriotism is anything but the last refuge of scoundrels, and scientific achievement plays a central role in its maintenance.

Well, I'm from liberal about-to-legalize-gay-marriage (wo0t!) New York and I think it's a ridiculous waste of money too. 2 Billion dollars for a 500 megawatt generating plant? Please. This is some kind of sick joke.

The 500 MW is obviously peak power output, meaning that average power is going to be 200 MW, TOPS. 2 BILLION dollars for a 150 MW generating station. That's beyond pathetic. A natural gas fired station that provided that kind of power output could be built for 5% of that kind of money. The argument for this being a good investment into the technology is even more absurd. It's just a solar thermal plant using hot oil /molten salt. We've been doing this stone-age level crap since the early 70's.

Do I really need to explain what kind of advancements the nuclear fusion community could do with 2 billion dollars? We're right on the edge (like, this year) of demonstrating fusion ignition in the laboratory at the National Ignition Facility, a lab that houses the most powerful laser in the world and the largest, most complicated optical system ever constructed, at a cost barely more than 50% of this useless, make-work, feelgood project. $2 billion could go a long way toward building a gigawatt level power plant demonstration reactor after NIF achieves ignition, instead of wasting it on this nonsense that produces laughably insignificant amounts of energy.

Wow, Lubos Motl posts on /. too?

Yeah, I guess that's why he just co-authored "Unification of gravity, gauge fields, and Higgs bosons" with Perimeter Institute physicist Lee Smolin then, huh.....'cause he's just such a joke.