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Comment Re:Something very wrong here. (Score 1) 467

I agree with you that this seems to be a load of BS, for a few reasons:

a) I cannot find a scientific paper on this, or any signs of proper scientific research (as a science undergraduate, I am being trained to need a proper scientific report to believe in a hypothesis)

b) This quote from Dr. Jill Clapperton on the 'official' website: "It works, and its my job to find out how it works. We will be able to tell you exactly what's happening in the soil in 3-5 years." http://www.bioagtive.com/?s=1&p=413&op=153 (suspicious much?)

c) The most important component of fertiliser is Nitrogen in the form of ammonium (NH4+) and Nitrate (NO3-). Diesel does not release usable amounts of nitrogen in a form that can be utilised by the plant or the nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil.

d) Plants also require Potassium, Phosphorous, Calcium, Magnesium and Sulfur. Diesel does not contain all of these elements. CO2 cannot magically turn into all this!

e) I never trust something that believes in carbon emissions trading schemes http://www.bioagtive.com/?s=1&p=143

Comment Re:Something very wrong here. (Score 1) 467

No, it's an attempt to get money from the Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme! http://www.bioagtive.com/?s=1&p=143 [bioagtive.com] I agree with you that this seems to be a load of BS, as: a) I cannot find a scientific paper on this, or any signs of proper scientific research b) This quote from Dr. Jill Clapperton on the 'official' website: "It works, and its my job to find out how it works. We will be able to tell you exactly what's happening in the soil in 3-5 years." http://www.bioagtive.com/?s=1&p=413&op=153 [bioactive.com] (suspicious much?) c) The most important component of fertiliser is Nitrogen in the form of ammonium (NH4+) and Nitrate (NO3-). Diesel does not release usable amounts of nitrogen in a form that can be utilised by the plant or the nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil. d) Plants also require Potassium, Phosphorous, Calcium, Magnesium and Sulfur. Diesel does not contain all of these elements. CO2 cannot magically turn into all this!

Comment Re:Treating Australia like a country of criminals? (Score 2, Interesting) 122

Some people actually paid to come to this country. Australia is full of land, something the U.K. did not have very much of.

Politically - Australia is full of people who do not understand the internet (for example - that internet filtering thing) and will not vote for a government which understands the internet, and respects our civil liberties.

Biotech

Florida Lab Gets Pregnant 149

Synthetic Biology, a relatively new field, is seeking to find out what happened to a bunch of chemicals to make them capable of supporting a metabolism, replicating, and evolution. A Florida lab is showing some of the most promising advancements in this direction with their AEGIS (Artificially Expanded Genetic Information System) experiment. "AEGIS is not self-sustaining, at least not yet, and with 12 DNA building blocks -- as opposed to the usual four -- there's little chance it will be confused with natural life. Still, Benner is encouraged by the results. 'It's evolving. It's doing what we designed it to do,' said Benner, a biochemist with the Gainesville, Fla.-based Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution. In addition to providing an example of how alien life might be cobbled together, synthetic biology has a broad array of uses on the home front."

Comment Re:Competition is a problem (Score 2, Insightful) 98

Most of us are still on ASDL 1. Anything to upgrade the country's internet!

Telstra ...have abused their monopoly on telecommunications infrastructure in an attempt to keep competition at a minimum

I am sick of the deals Telstra offer (poor speed, not much usage, and steep prices) telling us that they are "great deals". I'm not well read about the rest of the world, but I'm on a cap of 5Gb, which gets used up very quickly, and my parents seem to believe that that is "impossible".

While people of the younger generations are quite smart (@ Laser iCE: Have you seen the blacklist in schools now-a-days? We can access wikipedia,the Board of studies, and that's about it, my schools own website is even blocked. 'Tis no wonder we spend all our time finding an unblocked proxy server) it's the older generations that have the money that would support the upgrade, meaning it probably won't happen until my generation can afford it :(

It's funny.  Laugh.

XKCD Invited To New Yorker "Cartoon-Off" 231

UnknowingFool writes "Farley Katz, who draws for New Yorker magazine, ran into xkcd.com's Randall Munroe in a grocery store. He challenged Munroe to a cartoon-off — each cartoonist to produce drawings about the Internet as envisioned by the elderly, String Theory, 1999, and one's favorite animal eating one's favorite food. In the ensuing short interview, Munroe describes XKCD as 'a webcomic about stick figures who do math, play with staple guns, mess around on the Internet, and have lots of sex. It's about three-fourths autobiographical.'"
It's funny.  Laugh.

Geohashing Meets an Angry Rancher With Firearms 800

katicli writes "Geohashing, an obscure xkcd pastime which involves going to random coordinates generated by md5 hashing, the date, and the opening status of the stock market, appears to have just gotten far more interesting. The official wiki reports a warning for other geohashers intending to go to the spot designated for June 14th in the San Francisco area, as several avid fans of xkcd were met by an angry rancher and firearms."

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