This is a good idea, but the summary and article make it sound like this is a new idea. The article shows that MALDI has been around for a while. Then again .... I'm an idiot .....

My dentist has had TVs in his ceilings for years. He, his hygienists and his patients all love it. I'm not sure why other offices haven't tried the idea. Maybe that's a business waiting to happen? Then again, I'm an idiot....

Hey, med school student here. I commented elsewhere on this board:

Then again, I'm a medical school idiot.....

This was thought to be true years ago when H. Pylori first got on our radar. Further testing has shown that a very large percentage of people have H. Pylori without problems. Research has demonstrated that stress is a very large factor, along with genetics, diet and infection. The original statement that stress from work may have contributed to the ulcer is a medically valid observation, especially since he's publicly commented on how demanding the movies were

Then again, I'm a medical school idiot.....

While stomach ulcers are very curable, they can often progress to perforation with relatively little warning. We don't know if any doctor or the patient himself are to blame for this progression. Hope he recovers quickly. Then again, I'm an idiot....

As far as we know the bacteria do not directly alter DNA. Rather, like in the condition known as Barrett's Esophagus, hyperplasia and dysplastic changes in the cells occur as a result of ulcers, acid etc. These demands on the cells increase the change of a clonal metaplasia including cancer. Then again, I'm a med school idiot .....

You're misreading the difference between constant costs (overhead) and variable costs (production costs). Volume only works if you can get the variable costs (the costs of producing each item) below the profit of selling each item.

Economies of scale (making each item cheaper to produce by producing more) doesn't work for the Volt: the batteries have a constant cost and making more only makes them MORE expensive if anything. This is because the resources to make them are limited and increasing demand causes prices to increase.

Therefore they can't overcome the cost penalty by making it up in volume. This move only makes sense for GM if the practice and market establishment of selling now will later be useful for them when making the cars is profitable. There's another explanation: the owners of GM are pushing this for political reasons. Considering the rhetoric about making them make cleaner cars when the bailout occurred, it would be a conspiracy theory to NOT believe that the government had a hand in this.

Then again.... I'm an idiot.....

Yeah, this is another from gizmodo:

Over-sold cognitive dissonance: the mainstay of journalists writing about science. Then again.... I'm an idiot...

Sadly we scientists are always reinventing the wheel. One lecture in my undergraduate biochemistry class was based entirely on why every assumption in the central dogma was incorrect. Exceptions including RNA changing the expression of DNA, proteins affecting epigenetic changes on DNA, siRNAs and a host of other examples have been long known to science. Scientists keep re-inventing the wheel and journals and editors keep announcing today's latest groundbreaking re-discovery.

Then again.... I'm an idiot.....

Full disclosure: I'm a medical student and researcher and an opponent of a number of forms of IVF stem cell research

I certainly agree that morality is primarily concerned with research driven creation of embryos.

However, myself and a large number of my collages opposed embryonic research. Ignoring valid arguments and charging opponents with being 'hicks' just undercuts your arguments. On the topic of your arguments, certainly some avenues of research would be further if embryonic research was available, but I'm not convinced that we would be better off. For example, the paths of research that produced this discovery in the article are further along precisely because embryonic research has met with ethical concerns.

Then again.... I'm an idiot.......

A good question. The backwards conversion is impossible because the vast majority of blood cells are RBCs (Red Blood Cells or erythrocytes) and these have gotten rid of their nucleus, making them a cellular dead end doomed to destruction in about 120 days.

Also, blood is mostly free water (plasma) and when RBCs are created their progenitor cells divide many times in the production process. Assuming that this process they're using is similar, you're talking about impressive volume multiplication in the conversion from skin to blood.

Then again.... I'm an idiot .....

Great comment. The President's power is supposed to be limited. Even within his own branches he/she has to be a leader and know how to play the game.

The real problem is this: bureaucracies fail to make changes because our current budgetary system allows their budget to only go upward and they know that their jobs are safe despite incompetence. In fact, the building of bureaucratic duplication and inefficiency helps to guarantee their job security. So is the situation hopeless? NO! There are proven methods that have worked in the past.

I was disappointed (as always) that each party didn't consider their best options in presidential primaries. Romney (R) and Richardson (D) had demonstrated that they knew how to shrink state budgets and trim bureaucracy. Yes, such tools exist: hiring freezes, retrograde budgets (go back to 2008 levels etc.), outsourcing to contractors, shifting responsibilities to less bloated departments (shell game), borrowing effective systems straight from other states (helped my state's education system greatly) , and a host of other methods that work. Hopefully we'll be able to trim the really big problems: pensions, entitlements, and bureaucratic inefficiency but this will require a return to the methods that have worked in the past.

then again, I'm an idiot.......

The fire-department in question was a social program, just not administered correctly. They're already spread their coverage area in a response to the backlash. This is an example of what you get from poorly administered socialism, which is the most common type.