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Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#221

Post by meric »

rtb wrote: post #112
unusximmortalis wrote: post #82

Researchers at Audi are making synthetic diesel fuel using only water and air. Miracle? No. Science. http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/28/technology/audi-diesel-air-w...

Using water, air and large amounts of heat. (Where does that heat come from? Many possibilities, but currently from fossil fuels.)

Not for e-diesel:

First, the researchers heat up steam to very high temperatures to break it down into hydrogen and oxygen. This process requires temperatures of over 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 Fahrenheit) and is powered by green energy such as solar or wind power.

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#222

Post by beat »

dimino wrote: post #220
beat wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. No. 2. That doesn't follow. 3. I'm not proposing that we ban GMO. I think it's important research.

Ah okay good, I'm mostly just responding to the folks who think GMOs are bad because of how Monsanto abuses intellectual property rights surrounding them.

I don't think GMOs are bad. I do think they don't solve actual problems the world faces, and introduce new problems (including but not limited to Monsanto's intellectual property abuses).

What I want to see is more focus on eating local, more decentralization of the food supply, and for people to care more about what they eat - as an aesthetic and moral experience. It's about health, and quality of life, and freedom, none of which are enhanced by loading another round into Monsanto's chamber.

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#223

Post by dimino »

beat wrote: post #222
dimino wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah okay good, I'm mostly just responding to the folks who think GMOs are bad because of how Monsanto abuses intellectual property rights surrounding them.

I don't think GMOs are bad. I do think they don't solve actual problems the world faces, and introduce new problems (including but not limited to Monsanto's intellectual property abuses). What I want to see is more focus on eating local, more decentralization of the food supply, and for people to care more about what they eat - as an aesthetic and moral experience. It's about health, and quality of life, and freedom,…

"Actual problems" is a weasel phrase, I don't really know what to do with it. How are you defining "actual problems"?

And can we please separate Monsanto from GMOs? They're two entirely separate things.

It reminds me a bit of creationists who claim they don't accept evolution, when in reality what they don't accept is abiogenesis. Natural selection, genetic drift, gene flow, are not really on their minds.

It may be easier to say "GMOs don't solve actual problems", but it's just not true (bananas are supposed to have seeds, for example -- are you saying bananas aren't useful?), and bleeds your argument dry of rationality, over the course of the conversation, because it pulls focus away from the actual issue, and that's the fucked up way Monsanto is using GMOs to bully people out of their livelihood (and in some cases, their lives).

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#224

Post by prewett »

beat wrote: post #185
prewett wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give some links? I'd love to read about this but can't find anything on Google that talks about anything earlier than 2000.

I got this back in the 1990s from reading actual books. Don't know about links offhand... I was actually thinking about this myself.

If you find some links, post to the front page! Do you remember what the books were?

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#225

Post by erkkie »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #79
AC__ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went a massive life extension technology reading binge a few months back, IMHO it is, right now, possible to extend human life indefinitely.

Ageing has several causes, including the accumulation of clutter (basically poison) inside and outside of our cells. I'm not sure becoming a vampire is enough to overcome that. Given the uncertainties, I'd still want to keep cryonics as a back up. (Though it looks unavailable here in Western Europe.)

The wear and tear theory of aging is just one of many currently popular, the body is not a mechanical machine necessarily bound to wear and tear, it can in some cases successfully heal itself, some species basically don't age (some can actually revert in lifecycles).

A competing theory is programmed aging (in which "clutter" would be an effect of, not a cause): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1369273/

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#226

Post by mcv »

vinceguidry wrote: post #121
beat wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with GMO is that it's basically a vendor lock-in scheme for agribusiness giants. It's not a good engineering solution to the real food problems we face. Of course, the DONT EAT THE SCIENCE OR IT WILL GIVE YOU THE CANCER political nonsense is wrong. That doesn't let GMO off the hook, though. The problem it attempts to solve, on the surface, is increasing the productivity of monocropping. But productivity i…

> But productivity isn't the problem of our food chain. We can grow plenty of food, and cheaply. We can. The rest of the developing world has a lot of trouble keeping people fed. There's only so much aid can do, but if we can find ways for small-time farmers to produce more, and also to transport those goods, then the rest of the world could feed itself, something small-time agriculture has historically had a lot of…

> We can. The rest of the developing world has a lot of trouble keeping people fed.

True, but that's more an economic and political problem than one of food production. Making farmers more dependent on large corporations is not going to fix their economic problems.

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#227

Post by mcv »

Protostome wrote: post #23
baldfat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means curing: Color Blindness, Liver Disease, Hopefully Cancers, Genetic Defects, MAYBE one day Aging?

I would first want to see people accept GMO crops. Then I'll be willing to think of people going to the doctor to change their eye color.

Those are totally different issues. Fixing genetic defects in humans does not have the potential to disrupt complex ecosystems.

The core of the problem of GMO crops on open, non-isolated fields, is that it's impossible to control the impact of new, artificial genes on complex ecosystems. Fixing defect genes in humans is a completely different issue. With its own ethical and practical concerns, sure, but totally different and unrelated concerns.

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#228

Post by mcv »

beat wrote: post #159
vinceguidry wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But productivity isn't the problem of our food chain. We can grow plenty of food, and cheaply. We can. The rest of the developing world has a lot of trouble keeping people fed. There's only so much aid can do, but if we can find ways for small-time farmers to produce more, and also to transport those goods, then the rest of the world could feed itself, something small-time agriculture has historically had a lot of…

GMO crops aren't invented for developing world conditions. They're invented for the developed world that can afford them. They're an extension of Green Revolution agriculture ideas. The core of Green Revolution is a focus on cash crops rather than subsistence farming - high intensity monocropping to create raw feedstock for junk food factories in the global market, rather than immediately edible food for local consum…

> GMO crops aren't invented for developing world conditions. They're invented for the developed world that can afford them.

This is not true for all GMO crops. Golden Rice is a prime example of a GMO crop developed specifically to fight malnutrition in the developing world.

But your argument is probably true for the stuff peddled by Monsanto and their competitors.

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#229

Post by mcv »

ekianjo wrote: post #200
Nadya wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We produce more than enough food to feed the entire world. The issue is distribution.

It's not just distribution, it's regulation, tariffs, customs agreements that prevent or heavily restrict food imports and allow prices to remain high or low in certain areas.

Absolutely true. A big problem to African farmers is that we dump our surpluses below cost on their market, driving them into bankruptcy, but we don't allow them to compete on our market.

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#230

Post by mcv »

Protostome wrote: post #77
beat wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with GMO is that it's basically a vendor lock-in scheme for agribusiness giants. It's not a good engineering solution to the real food problems we face. Of course, the DONT EAT THE SCIENCE OR IT WILL GIVE YOU THE CANCER political nonsense is wrong. That doesn't let GMO off the hook, though. The problem it attempts to solve, on the surface, is increasing the productivity of monocropping. But productivity i…

We're GMOing crops long before the DNA revolution. Plants were selectively bred for certain qualities since the dawn of agriculture. None of fruits or vegetables we eat in the present (even without GMO) could be found naturally few hundred years ago. We were genetically modifying them without really knowing the mechanism. There some ecological as well as regulatory challenges. That doesn't mean GMO isn't a solid appr…

There's a massive difference between selective breeding and introducing completely new genes into an ecosystem, though.

There are absolutely forms of GMO crops that could be entirely safe, but that doesn't seem to be the area of interest of Monsanto.

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