Only NASA Could Take A Simple Idea And Make it This Complex

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NASA Lost its Way, Paul Spudis, Air & Space

"Although the purpose of the VSE was clear to the White House and the Congress, it became increasingly clear over time that NASA was having difficulty understanding the mission. They eventually embarked on a multi-year study to define exactly why they had been tasked to go to the Moon and to understand what they might do once they got there. The mission to understand their mission involved lots of meetings, workshops and conferences, whereby all the "stakeholders" had an opportunity to give their input. All this "input" was distilled into a series of documents containing six themes and 181 different specific objectives. No one at NASA could state the mission of the VSE in a single sentence."

Aral Sea 'Shocking Disaster'

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NUKUS, Uzbekistan – The drying up of the Aral Sea is one of the planet's most shocking environmental disasters, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday as he urged Central Asian leaders to step up efforts to solve the problem.

Once the world's fourth-largest lake, the sea has shrun

Car Radiator

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We have 800 cc car, and live in karachi Pakistan, here is traffic problem, means traffic jam often time, so my cars temperature nidle shows high...and the engine also hot...how we can improve my car cooling system..any body have a new idea,

I use water in radiator,

Munawer Hussain

“Medical Products” like 23andMe must not become the new “Financial Products”

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Abstract, complex medical reports are the new new financial derivatives.

See the New York Times today: How Washington Abetted the Bank Job

…Complexity was what made it possible [for banks] to hide debt, avoid capital requirements and evade taxes. Thus the [regulatory agency] statement said that banks should document their reasons for concluding that each complex instrument developed and sold would be used for a legitimate purpose and not to evade the law. It also said that financial institutions should ensure that the buyers of complex instruments understood how they worked and what risks they entailed.

The financial industry would have none of that. It bombarded the agencies with comments denouncing the proposal. Banks did not want the responsibility of explaining to customers the risks inherent in these instruments. And, while banks couldn’t say it directly, how they could document that products that were valuable specifically because they could get around laws were not being bought for that purpose?

Replace a few words…

…Complexity was what made it possible [for labs] to hide risk, avoid public health regulations, and evade duty. Thus the [regulatory agency] statement said that labs should document their reasons for concluding that each complex instrument developed and sold would be used for a legitimate purpose and not to evade the law. It also said that genomic institutions should ensure that the buyers of complex instruments understood how they worked and what risks they entailed.

The genomic industry would have none of that. It bombarded the agencies with comments denouncing the proposal. Labs did not want the responsibility of explaining to customers the risks inherent in these instruments. And, while labs couldn’t say it directly, how they could document that products that were valuable specifically because they could get around laws were not being bought for that purpose?

Now consider the 23andMe Terms of Service:

3. Description of What the Services Are and Are Not: 23andMe Service Is For Research and Educational Use Only. We Do Not Provide Medical Advice, And The Services Cannot Be Used For Health Ascertainment or Disease Purposes

Still waiting from an opinion from “top genomics lawyer” Dan Vorhaus. I guess every aspiring Enron needs an aspiring Arthur Andersen? It’s a shame, too. The stakes are so low. I mean, if you’re going to be dishonest, why not go all the way? Arbitrage the California power grid. Now that took some balls. I can appreciate that. Spit parties and Oprah? That’s just depressing.

A few AmericasGene Expression

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The Best Jobs Report In a Long Time:

Less than a high school diploma: 14.5%
High school with no college: 10.8%
Some college or associates degree: 8.2%
Bachelor’s or higher: 4.9% (this is near full employment from an economic perspective).

If you read the media sometimes it seems like the past recession was total hell in the white-collar sector, but really it wasn’t (comparatively). For what it’s worth, 84% of readers of my weblogs have university degrees or higher….

(Yes, I know the issues in regards to underemployment, part-time employment and those who have dropped out of the labor force, but all the issues seem more relevant to those with less education from what I’ve seen. Correction with data welcome)

Angle Push-ups

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Hi my name is Robert i rencently had a shoulder injury and was trying to find out how to calculate body weight %

200lb man hight 5'10" doing push-ups 3ft off floor what is the weight being lifted.

this will help me get a good starting point for my bench press.

ScienceOnline 2010 revisited – Videos of the Rebooting Journalism session | Not Exactly Rocket Science

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Well this is a blast from the past. Almos three months after ScienceOnline 2010 finished, the videos from my session with John Timmer, David Dobbs and Carl Zimmer are finally online. They’re all embedded below. The audio’s a bit fuzzy in places, and there’s the rhythmic sound of tapping on top of everything, like the film Atonement, but with less Keira Knightley and more duck sex.