MPP is a byproduct of sloppy meperidine synthesis, NOT heroin. Meperidine is "Demerol."

This appears to be the original article: http://iopscience.iop.org/0960-1317/15/9/S06?fromSearchPage=true

Here's the abstract:
"The first urine-activated laminated paper batteries have been demonstrated and reported in this paper. A simple and cheap fabrication process for the paper batteries has been developed which is compatible with the existing plastic laminating technologies or plastic molding technologies. In this battery, a magnesium (Mg) layer and copper chloride (CuCl) in the filter paper are used as the anode and the cathode, respectively. A stack consisting of a Mg layer, CuCl-doped filter paper and a copper (Cu) layer sandwiched between two plastic layers is laminated into the paper batteries by passing through the heating roller at 120 C. The paper battery is tested and it can deliver a power greater than 1.5 mW. In addition, these urine-activated laminated paper batteries could be integrated with bioMEMS devices such as home-based health test kits providing a power source for the electronic circuit."

Looks to me like it's nothing more than the old trick of making a battery out of a lemon or other piece of acidic fruit.

Animal trainers have demonstrated repeatedly that positive reinforcement is more effective at eliciting behavior than negative. In other words, the carrot works better than the stick.

To me, this seems contradictory.

Most clinics, hospitals, insurance companies and dental offices are extensively computerized and networked. Based on your experience, how often are these systems compromised?

This is particularly interesting because alzheimer's is now thought, by many researchers, to be a form of "brain diabetes."

There are clinical data which demonstrate that alzheimer's can be reversed to some extent with medium chain triglycerides, which are absorbed by cells directly and provide energy which isn't dependent on glucose uptake.

See: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/alzheimers-diabetes-brain and http://w.numedica.net/literature/Reger%202004.pdf for more info.

The problem is that email is managed from a central location.

If email clients opereated as fully encrypted standalone, "peer to peer" entities, the central mail server would be eliminated, and snoops would only be able to grab the encrypted content, and perhaps the locations of sender and receiver.

You don't know that for a fact. Russian intelligence is every bit as invasive as ours, and is subject to far fewer restrictions. Putin himself recently said that the US is only doing what the Russians have been doing all along. And, don't forget, Putin is the former head of the KGB.

Attacker has to have access from the LAN side, and must install USB memory first.

""If more science graduates are desired, the findings suggest the importance of policies at younger ages that lead students to enter college better prepared (PDF) to study science.""

Secondary and college students are subjected to only the most minimal of discouragement compared with what they will experience in the real world of academic and industrial science. Research progress is based on multiple failures, punctuated by brief, intense flashes of insight. There is a lot of chance involved, because there is a great deal of educated guesswork leading to theories and experiments.

High school, and college barely begin to prepare you for grad school and life in the real world.

As a former headhunter, here is my best advice:

1. Avoid headhunters. All they'll do is attach a commission handicap toward hiring you.

2. Find out where there are places nearby where you'd like to work and are qualified.

3. Prepare a killer resume that describes your accomplishments in the terms of the job you could do for those employers.

4. Find out who the hiring managers are, and what positions, if any, are open.

5. Have three copies of your resume available. Walk in the front door cold, and tell the person at the front desk your name and who you are there to see about the job.

6. If the front desk person asks for a resume, give it to them.

Generally, this will get you in front of the hiring authority. While you're talking with that person, aside from telling them all about the great things you can do, ASK FOR THE JOB! "This sounds great! I can start on Monday, would that be too soon?" etc.

Good luck.

Ok, point taken.

However, now consider that virtually every desktop computer could be the equivalent of one neuron, but with vastly more memory storage and data processing capabilities, and that every computer is connected to every other computer via this internet thing.

Now suppose someone were to write a little program that would make these computers the actual equivalents of a conscious neural network, all connected together into one, gigantic sentient being, a super intelligent botnet.

Nerve impulses travel along nerve fibers as pulses of membrane depolarization. Within our brains and bodies, this is adequate speed for thinking and control. However, relative to the speed of light, our nerve impulses are laughably slow.

The maximum speed of a nerve impulse is about 200 miles per hour.

The speed of light is over 3 million times that fast.

Now consider what will happen when we create a sentient, electronic being that has as many neurons as we do, but its nerve impulses travel at the speed of light.

In terms of intelligence, that creation will be to us as we are to worms.

Totally agree. Not only has that time not come, it will not come until multiple disasters wreak devastation to the extent that the world is forced to allocate the funds that would be required to mitigate the problems. The recent tornadoes are a taste of things to come. Unfortunately, given the way humans are, we will probably not come to that pass until it is too late.

Like the canary in the coal mine. When the bird drops dead, no one would claim that the dead bird caused the gas that killed it, and no fool would stay in there long enough to succumb.

Similarly, climate change deniers have a problem understanding that the messenger is not the problem, or the cause of it.

..generally carry much stiffer penalties to compensate for the difficulty of enforcement, and to more effectively discourage breaking them.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work well as it creates a new group of criminals who are then likely to commit other crimes. They also engender contempt of the legal system and the police, leading to increased cheating in other areas.

You could call these laws "gateways to crime."