It used to be taught that environmental factors during an organism's lifetime (malnutrition, etc.) did not have an effect on the genetic heritage of offspring (you get a "clean slate" of DNA, so to speak). [...] But here we are with a study that says environmental factors can leave a genetic mark.
The study was about somatic cells, eg "body cells" that make up the specialized tissues of your body. Your offspring are formed from germ cells, found in your gonads, and consequently your offspring can only inherit DNA from your germ cells, but never your somatic cells (except in the case of cloning or other artificial techniques).
Telomeres are the "endcaps" of chromosomal DNA. Every time a chromosome is copied, a small portion at the ends of the chromosome get "left off" of the copy, which limits the number of time a cell can divide before the telomeres are consumed and functional DNA segments begin to be deleted. This (usually) prevents cells from reproducing in an uncontrolled fashion, and it's one of your body's main defenses against cancer. That's how it works in somatic cells.
Germ cells, on the other hand, can express a ribozyme called "telomerase," which can bind to the ends of a chromosome and extend the telomeres. This is why animals can reproduce indefinitely even though 99% of their cells are "mortal." (As others have pointed out, when a somatic cell begins to express telomerase it's usually cancer.)
The upshot of all of this is that shortened telomeres in your somatic cells will have no direct effect on your offspring. This particular study in no way supports the idea that environmental factors are responsible for genetic changes in offspring. Your post is therefore ill-informed even if your thesis is correct ("almost everything they teach in American public school is either wrong or simplified to the point of uselessness?").
To rectify your error, your homework assignment for tonight is to study the enzymes called "telomerase" and "reverse transcriptase," followed by learning the "central dogma of biology."
Dismissed.
NASA is for now, funded by my tax dollars, and this is how they want to use my money? Shame on them.
You don't even know how much the certification cost, or else you would have included it in your post. You're also probably not an expert on construction, commercial development, or NASA's building needs. And yet, from a position supported by no factual basis, you feel comfortable taking stabs at NASA. Shame on you and your ignorance.
Of course, it could be worse. The amount spent on US elections this season has eclipsed the total spending on ALL science, research and development by the US government.
At most a few hundred million dollars have been spent this campaign seasons. This is an absurd amount of money, but it's not even a fraction of NASA's $18.5 billion 2011 budget. NASA spending represents only a fraction of US science investment.
Mr. Henry, who is leaving government to take a cybersecurity job with an undisclosed firm in Washington, said companies need to make major changes in the way they use computer networks to avoid further damage to national security and the economy. Too many companies, from major multinationals to small start-ups, fail to recognize the financial and legal risks they are taking—or the costs they may have already suffered unknowingly—by operating vulnerable networks, he said.
They don't carry flags saying "Baptist" or "Methodist", they simply converse.
No, but they work for organizations with names like "Lutheran World Relief" or "Baptist Global Response," and their logos invariably feature crosses or other religious insignia. And not only that, but they network together, so that all the Lutheran and Methodist and Baptist relief efforts are communicating and working together, but they don't extend nearly the same effort when interacting with secular groups, which leads to a lot of obviously Christian evangelical groups spending most of their time together. They don't make comparable efforts when working with secular groups, and will often work completely autonomously from them, sometimes with disastrous results.
The Emperor knows this firsthand, as an atheist who has helped coordinate fundraising and other efforts for Lutheran World Relief.
And from what I've seen, athiests (and especially antitheists) continually shout "there is no god!" from the rooftops.
Of course, the only atheists you "know" are the vocal ones - that's because you'd never, ever recognize a "stealth" atheist. Get off the Internet, try to meet some real atheists (you will probably fail, due to the nature of atheism), and stop spreading derogatory lies about entire groups of people. The vast majority of atheists and agnostics will not openly bring up their beliefs, perhaps not even if pressed on the subject, because non-believers are the most persecuted and unpopular group in America, largely because of the intentional ignorance spread by people like yourself and your pastor. THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE IN HIGHLY RELIGIOUS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, WHERE ATHEISM IS EVEN LESS TOLERATED THAN IT IS HERE. Openly identifying as an atheist is not only extremely improbable behavior for an atheist in any situation, but in a country that does not have a strong tradition of liberalism, it is actually dangerous.
(We have not decided to correct you because you have offended our fellow atheists; The Emperor defends the truth and integrity of all cultural groups, including religious groups whose faith we do not share. But we will not abide libels.)
He's no idiot, not by a long shot.
That is slimly possible, but "idiot" was the polite term for someone who spreads ignorance and libel about an entire group of people. "Bigot," "monster," and "evil" may have been more appropriate, although just "ignorant" probably suffices.
And BTW, Mr Dawkinsfollower, last Sunday MY preacher spoke of the work our church is doing in Kenya. "I saw a lot of Catholics, and Methodists, and Baptists, and even Muslims, but I didn't see s single athiest, agnostic, or secular humanist."
You'll find plenty of atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists doing aid work in Doctors Without Borders, the Peace Corps, Amnesty International and the like. Your preacher got confused because secular charity organizations don't operate in the "name of atheism," and also apparently because he is an idiot.
Another reason that compiled code may be safer than interpreted code is the size and complexity issue. Big software programs, such as shell and Perl interpreters, are likely to contain bugs. Some of these bugs may be security holes. They're there, but we just don't know about them.
Major Perl vulnerabilities still crop up on a regular basis - on average, one or two a year. When was the last time you heard of a major vulnerability in the C programming language? And what "experienced developer" can't be bothered to guard against buffer overflow exploits?
The simpler the runtime environment, the more easily it can be controlled and problems can be avoided. Simple C has one of the simplest runtime environments of any programming language, making it perfect for use in high-reliability situations.
fortune: No such file or directory