Interesting side story is that Gadjusek did a year in prison for child molestation (which he think is a natural/good thing).
There is a documentary on him on BBC called the Genius and the boys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OxppDxzSww
When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
211–215 of 215 posts
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
You cannot copy "all" of the information stored in the human body. Briefly, this happens because the physical limitations of information storage require cooling (Landauer's principle) which requires kT×log(2) energy per bit, or about 2.5 zJ at room temperature. The brain's memory capacity is about 2.5 * 10^15 bytes ( https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memor... ), but the amount of information whic…
It is good to note that Lauder's principal is a statistical argument for degrees of freedom in a system. The Landauer principal on a statistical averaging of this effect, meaning you will sometimes be able to store a little more information. I think you have your calculations off for the amount of energy required to store a human brain. Assume 8.6 x 10^10 neurons (more accurate number as its simple density measuremen…
>each holding 64 bits
There is no way in hell you're going to store the entire physical state of a neuron in anything near 64 bits. The question is not "information stored in the brain". The question is "information required to recreate the brain". In fact a single neuron has many more than 64 synapses, each of which itself has a highly intricate structure. All of the information describing this structure must be retained intact in order for the image brain to be equivalent to the substrate.
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I recall, they are seen as normal proteins by the immune system, thus not targeted. A simple illustration on prions was to imagine it like a busted cable end that would break the socket it plugs into, then the socket would break other cable ends plugged into it. This would occur until all sockets and cable ends were broken in the same way.
Decades ago, we had a PCMCIA card that did exactly that. A bent pin distorted the plastic in the socket and that led to more bent pins. Of course you had to try to force them in to propagate the problem and we never tested to see how many generations it could last. Once discovered we threw out all defective hardware which was just a few cards by then.
I have heard this one before!
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a different kind of waste. It's indisputable that meat production is a waste of land, crops, and resources, if your main metric is producing as much food as possible. If you're talking about money waste instead, it works pretty well. But while corn may be over-subsidized, I'd rather eat it than starve.
That metric only applies under the assumption that all land can be used equally to feed livestock or for crops. However, humans don't eat grass, and some land cannot be used to grow vegetables on. There, grazing livestock is one of the few methods available to generate food for humans. Grazing is also better for biodiversity than planting crops.
Please cite how grazing is better for biodiversity than agriculture! Also, hardly any of the meet produced in the US now is grazed. The cows are fed corn in a cage.
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes - and given that's the situation with meat consumption, it's no wonder some of us decide on throwing out the whole premise and going vegetarian :)
Have you carefully examined how the dairy industry works? I'm not convinced that a vegetarian diet that includes factory farmed dairy involves much less cruelty than an omnivorous diet. Maybe more, if the omnivore were to avoid factory farmed meat and dairy. That said, I'm not a vegetarian myself, because I don't believe it's in my rational self-interest.
This is exactly why (well, just one reason) I'm vegan