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Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

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Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#91

Post by vlovich123 »

ajani wrote: post #34
vlovich123 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That feels like fatally flawed reasoning. Nature took billions of years to sequester carbon. It’s taken a few hundred to release an amount that’s permanently altered the climate of the Earth. There’s lots of problems humans can create that “nature” couldn’t precisely because we drastically compress time scales that make adaptation exceedingly difficult.

But it took no time for the universe to come into existence. In a bang and flash.

Since time stretches out to infinity as you approach a singularity, if we assume all matter started out compressed at the Big Bang, then actually it took forever amount of time for the universe to come into existence. I’m not a physicist though so I may have gotten the relativity aspect wrong.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#92

Post by mr_woozy »

drekk wrote: post #87
scottLobster wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't theoretically stop someone from discovering the genetic signature for a certain natural skin pigmentation, or slanted/smaller eyes. Sure it won't be perfect, but people who would create and use such a weapon probably wouldn't care about collateral damage. I can certainly see it being China's final solution to the Uyghur question. They have a long history of callously and needlessly killing large swaths of their…

There is more genetic variance within "races" than between them. Your imagination is neither necessary nor sufficient for it to be possible, let alone feasible. I also honestly do not understand why China is the bogeyman here given that Long Island, NY was the eugenics capital of the world within living memory. Utah, the state in which I live, didn't shutter its own eugenics program until the 1960s. I'm trying to rec…

[dead]

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#93

Post by nunobrito »

lm28469 wrote: post #79
ianburrell wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little Ice Age is on graph and is labeled. Medieval warm period is mentioned but too regional to show up in global temps. But Little Ice Age lasted centuries and was only .5C. I hadn’t realized it was still happening until global warming erased it in 150 years. Then we added another 1C in less than 50 years. We are on track to warm another 3C by 2100, the amount of warming from real ice age in century instead of mill…

> Little Ice Age is on graph and is labeled. Yes, then look 3 cm down and see a massive fucking swing with 20 times more amplitude than both of the mentioned events... I stand by what I said, without the labels you wouldn't see these two events, meanwhile even without the label you can see the current trend is absolutely nowhere close to any other past changes

Come on. You can both dig deeper than a single biased source. The world isn't turning into hell within a century, as certain as the sky won't fall on top of our heads.

If you are old enough, at least learn from the past two decades. Every single time that our goodwill was placed to believe the news drama, the end-result are overwhelming taxes on the west while forgetting about the major culprits of pollution in India and China.

Where are the XKCD man-child cartoons teaching about that?

Our society today doesn't behave that differently from medieval scientologism. In that sense humans are just like the climate, changing only ever so slightly.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#94

Post by thyrsus »

achow wrote: post #35

It turns itself into glass. When desiccation begins and TDP is activated, it engages a process known as vitrification. Boothby said, “The glass is coating the molecules inside of the tardigrade cells, keeping them intact.”

Glass as I encounter it is a form of silicon dioxide, and not particularly soluble. What new meaning of the word "glass" is being used here?

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#95

Post by noduerme »

barrysteve wrote: post #59
noduerme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a sad exemplar of where we've gone as a technological society. Thirty years ago, you could have suggested releasing a virus that destroyed cancer, and people would have cheered.

We did globally coordinate and deploy a vaccine campaign with little spare time.

which was the most technologically positive and futuristic thing that's happened in a long time. Thank you for stating it.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#96

Post by bboygravity »

animal531 wrote: post #50
noduerme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a sad exemplar of where we've gone as a technological society. Thirty years ago, you could have suggested releasing a virus that destroyed cancer, and people would have cheered.

I think people have just had to become a bit more realistic after having their eyes opened. Right now my imagination says that this virus might destroy cancer, but who knows what else it's going to do?

Clinical trials know what else it's going to do.

This reasoning is like the fear of a some random TESTED C++ code destroying the internet, because "it might do things that you don't expect in the long run". Well yeah... it might... but...

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#97

Post by bboygravity »

amelius wrote: post #51
noduerme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a sad exemplar of where we've gone as a technological society. Thirty years ago, you could have suggested releasing a virus that destroyed cancer, and people would have cheered.

There is even a worse example: imagine a protein that locks onto pieces of DNA that are only present in people of a certain race, etc. The worst part is, we can stop building the foundations of this type of technology, but our geopolitical opponents will not.

This is actually super trivial with today's technology.

It's a little too late to "stop building the foundations". That's like wanting to "stop building the foundations" for the tech that allows governments to spy on civilians. We're about 20 to 30 years passed that.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#98

Post by scottLobster »

drekk wrote: post #87
scottLobster wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't theoretically stop someone from discovering the genetic signature for a certain natural skin pigmentation, or slanted/smaller eyes. Sure it won't be perfect, but people who would create and use such a weapon probably wouldn't care about collateral damage. I can certainly see it being China's final solution to the Uyghur question. They have a long history of callously and needlessly killing large swaths of their…

There is more genetic variance within "races" than between them. Your imagination is neither necessary nor sufficient for it to be possible, let alone feasible. I also honestly do not understand why China is the bogeyman here given that Long Island, NY was the eugenics capital of the world within living memory. Utah, the state in which I live, didn't shutter its own eugenics program until the 1960s. I'm trying to rec…

China is the bogeyman here because they are the only major economic power currently running a large-scale state-sponsored genocide, unless you count Russian attempts in Ukraine. They're also one of the few nations with the scientific expertise and resources to potentially create such a virus.

And just because we haven't figure it out doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If you take a baby born to two sub-Saharan African parents and a baby born to two Northern European parents, and keep them in boxes with identical stimuli from birth, they will have drastically different skin tones. If that's not genetic, then what is it?

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#99

Post by scottLobster »

xenophonf wrote: post #88
scottLobster wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't theoretically stop someone from discovering the genetic signature for a certain natural skin pigmentation, or slanted/smaller eyes. Sure it won't be perfect, but people who would create and use such a weapon probably wouldn't care about collateral damage. I can certainly see it being China's final solution to the Uyghur question. They have a long history of callously and needlessly killing large swaths of their…

> the genetic signature for a certain natural skin pigmentation Such a thing does not exist: > Our understanding of the genetics of melanin formation and distribution within cutaneous and follicular tissues has recently greatly expanded through the power of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) using large databases such as those of the UK Biobank (22) and 23 and Me (51). This research has provided new insights int…

It must. If you take a baby born to two sub-Saharan African parents and a baby born to two Northern European parents, and keep them in boxes with identical stimuli from birth, they will have drastically different skin tones. If that's not genetic, then what is it?

I'm not saying it wouldn't be an unbelievably complex signature, but it would be a signature nonetheless.

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