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Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#71

Post by gucci-on-fleek »

adastra22 wrote: post #68
accidentallfact wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason to believe that a lack of nitrogen was a problem in particular. It seems that most effort was spent on getting fertilizers with phosphorus and other minerals, nitrogen was secondary, as many plants can obtain it from the air. If anything, it allows our modern, heavily cereal skewed diet. Poor nutrition rarely meant an absolute lack of food, most of the time it only meant insufficuent quality, and t…

Plants cannot obtain nitrogen from the air. You are deeply misinformed on this subject.

> Plants cannot obtain nitrogen from the air

That is literally true, but for anyone who hasn't studied plant biology, I think that "some plants have evolved specific structures to host obligate symbiotic bacteria that obtain nitrogen from the air and convert it into a form usable by the plant" is close enough to "many plants can obtain [nitrogen] from the air".

(A link for anyone not familiar with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_nodule)

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#72

Post by goku12 »

belorn wrote: post #66
ccppurcell wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be a war crime...

Given the period of 2010-2012, the president at the time was Barack Obama. It does not seem realistic that people would accept opening a criminal case.

Why does it matter if it was Obama or Bush in power? Sure, their politics influence the nation's foreign policies. But domestic partisan politics is largely irrelevant to the international partners. To the foreign nationals affected by it, you're just USA either way.

I mentioned just the other day, the problem with anti-intellectualism in the US and how it's fed by these sorts of egregious meddling by the administration. There are much less educated and affluent countries that are nowhere near as anti-science as the US. Yet unfortunately, the US exports it abroad too. I explicitly referred the same Pakistani case as an example of that. I'm all for Osama's elimination, but they jeopardized the entire humanity's future by misusing the vaccination program for it.

Despite a century of this nonsense (remember the radium girls?), neither political party cares enough to not pervert science in the interests of humanity. Smallpox and Polio were horrible diseases that caused untold miseries. Even the remote tribes of Pakistan knew their dangers well enough to participate in their elimination, until the US pulled off this dirty stunt. This is a deeply ingrained toxic culture that was reinforced by both parties over the decade. This should be a war crime irrespective of party allegiances.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#73

Post by gucci-on-fleek »

andrewflnr wrote: post #25

That's got to be one of the greatest legacies in all human history. No politician or other empire-builder comes close.

I completely agree, but to be fair, there are some people who are politicians and helped to eradicate a disease [0] [1].

[0]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/guinea-worm-disease-nearly-erad...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_dracunculiasis

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#74

Post by tjpnz »

epistasis wrote: post #42
jfengel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it comes at a time when a disease we were working on eliminating, measles, has come back and the US is about to lose its measles-free status. It sounds as if his legacy is to be unique, a feat never to be accomplished again.

Perhaps I'm overly an optimist, but I have a feeling we will develop the informational and psychological technology to combat the destructive misinformation campaigns that brainwash people into harming their children with anti-vaccine beliefs. We are not there yet, because the destructive media forces are too new and we haven't developed defenses against information diseases like RFK Jr. But we will get there. Two st…

As a non-American I don't care what you do, if you want to behave like irresponsible idiots without any regard for the lives of others you have that right. Just don't subject vulnerable individuals in other countries to your own bad choices (you can get the MMR vaccine as an adult if your parents were neglectful). Maybe visitors from the United States should have to present vaccine certificates at airports or be quarantined at their own expense.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#76

Post by Y-bar »

adastra22 wrote: post #67
andrewflnr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has quite a bit of chemical warfare weighing down his record.

He killed millions. He fed billions.

Epstein was friendly with, and made more people smile, than he raped.

Phil Spector produced music which meant a lot to a lot of people. Still a murderer.

Harold Shipman Saved the lives of thousands, yet should always be labelled a mass murderer because he knowingly positioned hundreds.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#77

Post by [deleted] »

adastra22 wrote: post #68
accidentallfact wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason to believe that a lack of nitrogen was a problem in particular. It seems that most effort was spent on getting fertilizers with phosphorus and other minerals, nitrogen was secondary, as many plants can obtain it from the air. If anything, it allows our modern, heavily cereal skewed diet. Poor nutrition rarely meant an absolute lack of food, most of the time it only meant insufficuent quality, and t…

Plants cannot obtain nitrogen from the air. You are deeply misinformed on this subject.

[deleted]

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#78

Post by lmz »

lukan wrote: post #65
WalterBright wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So creating cheap, reusable giant rockets is standing in the way of human progress? Being able to use neural links to restore sight to the blind is standing in the way?

There was another group of people famous for building innovative rockets, but are otherwise not associated with human progress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb So it is about the big picture. (And about small pictures like that of Elon making a salut like the other group). So yes, currently his rockets do not transport explosives. But that can change anytime and I expect it will very soon.

I thought American space flight etc was directly indebted to the people behind the V bombs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#79

Post by lmz »

deadbabe wrote: post #27
andrewflnr wrote: post #25

That's got to be one of the greatest legacies in all human history. No politician or other empire-builder comes close.

Genghis Khan??

Genghis Khan also not too bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Mongolica

Whose peace are we now living under and what atrocities did they commit to establish it?

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#80

Post by flawn »

wtcactus wrote: post #57
wesleywt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians and empire-builders (Elon) is currently standing in the way of human progress and history.

[flagged]

It's not what his businesses are doing, it is what he says and what he spreads to a tech bro disciple that spreads this shit far away, working with technologies like AI at the forefront, ending up setting us back in our progress & history.

Same applies to Thiel, Zuckerberg and whoever not. Read up on Thiel & Trump, then come back.

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