See Spot on Jupiter. See Spot Glow.

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Jupiter's Great Red Spot
New thermal images from powerful ground-based telescopes show swirls of warmer air and cooler regions never seen before within Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Image credit: NASA/JPL/ESO and NASA/ESA/GSFC
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New thermal images from powerful ground-based telescopes show swirls of warmer air and cooler regions never seen before within Jupiter's Great Red Spot, enabling scientists to make the first detailed interior weather map of the giant storm system.

The observations reveal that the reddest color of the Great Red Spot corresponds to a warm core within the otherwise cold storm system, and images show dark lanes at the edge of the storm where gases are descending into the deeper regions of the planet. These types of data, detailed in a paper appearing in the journal Icarus, give scientists a sense of the circulation patterns within the solar system's best-known storm system.

"This is our first detailed look inside the biggest storm of the solar system," said Glenn Orton, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who was one of the authors of the paper. "We once thought the Great Red Spot was a plain old oval without much structure, but these new results show that it is, in fact, extremely complicated."

Sky gazers have been observing the Great Red Spot in one form or another for hundreds of years, with continuous observations of its current shape dating back to the 19th century. The spot, which is a cold region averaging about 110 Kelvin (minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit) is so wide about three Earths could fit inside its boundaries.

The thermal images obtained by giant 8-meter (26-foot) telescopes used for this study -- the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, the Gemini Observatory telescope in Chile and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's Subaru telescope in Hawaii -- have provided an unprecedented level of resolution and extended the coverage provided by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. Together with observations of the deep cloud structure by the 3-meter (10-foot) NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii, the level of thermal detail observed from these giant observatories is comparable to visible-light images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope for the first time.

One of the most intriguing findings shows the most intense orange-red central part of the spot is about 3 to 4 Kelvin (5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the environment around it, said Leigh Fletcher, the lead author of the paper, who completed much of the research as a postdoctoral fellow at JPL and is currently a fellow at the University of Oxford in England. This temperature differential might not seem like a lot, but it is enough to allow the storm circulation, usually counter-clockwise, to shift to a weak clockwise circulation in the very middle of the storm. Not only that, but on other parts of Jupiter, the temperature change is enough to alter wind velocities and affect cloud patterns in the belts and zones.

"This is the first time we can say that there's an intimate link between environmental conditions -- temperature, winds, pressure and composition - and the actual color of the Great Red Spot," Fletcher said. "Although we can speculate, we still don't know for sure which chemicals or processes are causing that deep red color, but we do know now that it is related to changes in the environmental conditions right in the heart of the storm."

Unlocking the secrets of Jupiter's giant storm systems will be one of the targets for infrared spacecraft observations from future missions including NASA's Juno mission.

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WISE Captures a Cosmic Rose

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A new infrared image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows a cosmic rosebud blossoming with new stars.
A new infrared image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows a cosmic rosebud blossoming with new stars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
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A new infrared image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows a cosmic rosebud blossoming with new stars. The stars, called the Berkeley 59 cluster, are the blue dots to the right of the image center. They are ripening out of the dust cloud from which they formed, and at just a few million years old, are young on stellar time scales.

The rosebud-like red glow surrounding the hot, young stars is warm dust heated by the stars. Green "leafy" nebulosity enfolds the cluster, showing the edges of the dense, dusty cloud. This green material is from heated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, molecules that can be found on Earth in barbecue pits, exhaust pipes and other places where combustion has occurred.

Red sources within the green nebula indicate a second generation of stars forming at the surface of the natal cloud, possibly as a consequence of heating and compression from the younger stars. A supernova remnant associated with this region, called NGC 7822, indicates that a massive star has already exploded, blowing the cloud open in a "champagne flow" and leaving behind this floral remnant. Blue dots sprinkled throughout are foreground stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

Berkeley 59 and NGC 7822 are located in the constellation of Cepheus at a distance of about 3,300 light-years from Earth.

Infrared light is color coded in this picture as follows: blue shows 3.4-micron light; cyan, 4.6-micron light; green, 12-micron light; and red, 22-micron light.

JPL manages the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise . Additional images are at http://wise.astro.ucla.edu .

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The Wizard Nebula

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The Wizard Nebula
This image of the open star cluster NGC 7380, also known as the Wizard Nebula, is a mosaic of images from the WISE mission spanning an area on the sky of about 5 times the size of the full moon. NGC 7380 is located in the constellation Cepheus about 7,000 light-years from Earth within the Milky Way Galaxy. The star cluster is embedded in a nebula, which spans some 110 light-years. The stars of NGC 7380 have emerged from this star-forming region in the last 5 million years or so, making it a relatively young cluster.

WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, scans the entire sky in infrared light, picking up the glow of hundreds of millions of objects and producing millions of images. The mission is designed to uncover objects never seen before, including the coolest stars, the universe's most luminous galaxies and some of the darkest near-Earth asteroids and comets. Its vast catalogs will help answer fundamental questions about the origins of planets, stars and galaxies.

WISE joins two other infrared missions in space -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency mission. WISE is different from these missions in that it will survey the entire sky. It is designed to cast a wide net to catch all sorts of unseen cosmic treasures, including rare oddities. All four infrared detectors aboard WISE were used to make this image.

NGC 7380 was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. Her brother, William Herschel, discovered infrared light in 1800.

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IMAX Premieres ‘Hubble 3D’ on Friday, March 19

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Narrated by award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio, a film documenting the STS-125 shuttle mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope will arrive in theaters on Friday, March 19. The film is a joint venture between NASA, the IMAX Corporation and Warner Bros. Pictures.

The IMAX 3-D cameras launched aboard space shuttle Atlantis on May 11, 2009, during the STS-125 mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronauts use dthe cameras to document the mission's five spacewalks to repair and upgrade Hubble. The IMAX footage will be combined with breathtaking detailed images of distant galaxies from Hubble.

The IMAX team trained Atlantis' crew at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to operate the cameras. One was mounted outside the crew cabin in the shuttle's cargo bay to capture IMAX 3-D images of the historic final servicing mission. The commander and pilot will double as filmmakers as two teams of spacewalking astronauts -- working in tandem with the shuttle's robotic arm -- perform some of the most challenging work ever undertaken in space as they replace and refurbish many of the telescope's precision instruments.

Through the world's most immersive cinematic experience, "Hubble 3D" will give audiences a front row seat as the story unfolds. It will reveal the cosmos as never before, allowing viewers of all ages to explore the grandeur of the nebulae and galaxies, the birth and death of stars, and some of the greatest mysteries of our celestial surroundings, all in IMAX 3-D.

IMAX's longstanding partnership with NASA has enabled millions of people to travel into space through a series of award-winning IMAX films. The IMAX 3-D camera made its first voyage into space in 2001 for the production of "Space Station 3D." The "Hubble 3D" film mark Warner Bros. Pictures' first venture into space.

For more information and additional Webisodes, visit http://www.imax.com/hubble/.

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NASA Ames ‘Tops Out’ First Building in Thirty Years

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The final beam was placed as the building, called Sustainability Base, reached its height and completed its skeletal structure"Beam me up!" was the message signed on the final beam hoisted into place on the iron skeleton of NASA’s new building, called Sustainability Base, Friday, March 12, 2010.

Although not yet completed, Sustainability Base has begun ushering in a new era of innovation, good will and renewed American tradition. Under construction at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., the building advances the standard for what it means to be “green.” Sustainability Base is expected to achieve a platinum rating under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for environmentally sustainable. The building, however, goes beyond LEED to serve as a showcase of NASA and partner ingenuity, incorporating technologies designed for space exploration and applied to improve life here on our home planet. Sustainability Base will be a window to the future on Earth.

"It will be one of the greenest and highest performance building in the federal government," said Steve Zornetzer, associate administrator of NASA Ames. "Today is a good day to celebrate. It's a good day to stop, reflect and show appreciation for work that was well done."

It will be one of the greenest and highest performance buildings in the federal government, said Steve Zornetzer, associate administrator of NASA AmesTogether, NASA and Swinerton Builders workers and management signed the final beam as part of a celebration, called the "Topping Out." No one really knows how or when it originated, but the tradition places an evergreen tree, a flag or both on the last beam as it is lifted into place, it signifies the structure has reached its height and the skeleton is completed.

"As a company, we are proud to be part of a green effort that is so successful," said Dan Beyer, vice president of Swinerton Builders., San Francisco, Calif. "The tree signifies new growth as the building construction comes to fruition and is used over time; the flag represents who we are as Americans."

Over the years, the Topping Out custom remains important to ironworkers in the steel construction industry. For some, the evergreen symbolizes the successful completion of construction without loss of life, for others, it’s a good luck charm for the occupants. Similarly, the flag also has multiple meanings: the construction of a federal building, patriotism, or the American dream. Whatever the interpretation, it welcomes the future while providing a link with the past.

"We need buildings like this to bring back America," said John W. Elwood, vice president of Swinerton, Builders, Santa Clara, Calif. "The flag represents our full support for our country and our American troops. The evergreen tree is our good luck charm."

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UV exposure has increased over the last 30 years, but stabilized since the mid-1990s

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Ultraviolet radiation can damage DNA by distorting its structureNASA scientists analyzing 30 years of satellite data have found that the amount of ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaching Earth's surface has increased markedly over the last three decades. Most of the increase has occurred in the mid-and-high latitudes, and there's been little or no increase in tropical regions.

The new analysis shows, for example, that at one line of latitude — 32.5 degrees — a line that runs through central Texas in the northern hemisphere and the country of Uruguay in the southern hemisphere, 305 nanometer UV levels have gone up by some 6 percent on average since 1979.

The primary culprit: decreasing levels of stratospheric ozone, a colorless gas that acts as Earth’s natural sunscreen by shielding the surface from damaging UV radiation.

The finding reinforces previous observations that show UV levels are stabilizing after countries began signing an international treaty that limited the emissions of ozone-depleting gases in 1987. The study also shows that increased cloudiness in the southern hemisphere over the 30-year period has impacted UV.

Jay Herman, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., stitched together data from several earth observing satellites — including NASA's Aura satellite, NOAA weather satellites, and commercial satellites — to draw his conclusions. The results were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in February.

"Overall, we're still not where we'd like to be with ozone, but we're on the rightThe high latitudes of the southern hemisphere have seen ultraviolet exposure increase by as much as a quarter track," said Jay Herman. "We do still see an increase in UV on a 30-year timescale, but it's moderate, it could have been worse, and it appears to have leveled off."

In the tropics, the increase has been minimal, but in the mid-latitudes it has been more obvious. During the summer, for example, UV has increased by more than 20 percent in Patagonia and the southern portions of South America. It has risen by nearly 10 percent in Buenos Aires, a city that's about the same distance from the equator as Little Rock, Ark. At Washington, D.C.'s latitude — about 35 degrees north — UV has increased by about 9 percent since 1979.

The southern hemisphere tends to have more UV exposure because of the ozone hole, a seasonal depletion of the ozone layer centered on the South Pole. There are also fewer particles of air pollution — which help block UV — due to the comparatively small numbers of people who live in the southern hemisphere.

Despite the overall increases, there are clear signs that ultraviolet radiation levels are on the verge of falling. Herman's analysis, which is in agreement with a World Meteorological Report published in recent years, shows that decreases in ozone and corresponding increases in UV irradiance leveled off in the mid-nineties.

The Many Sides of Radiation
The largest increases in UV (shown in white, red, orange, and yellow) have occurred in the southern hemisphere during summers
Shorter ultraviolet wavelengths of light contain more energy than the infrared or visible portions of sunlight that reach Earth’s surface. Because of this, UV photons can break atmospheric chemical bonds and cause complex health effects.

Longer wavelengths (from 320 to 400 nanometers) — called UV-A — cause sunburn and cataracts. Yet, UV-A can also improve health by spurring the production of Vitamin D, a substance that's critical for calcium absorption in bones and that helps stave off a variety of chronic diseases.

UV-B, which has slightly shorter wavelengths (from 320 to 290 nanometers), damages DNA by tangling and distorting its ladder-like structure, causing a range of health problems such as skin cancer and diseases affecting the immune system.

As part of his study, Herman developed a mathematical technique to quantify the biological impacts of UV exposure. He examined and calculated how changing levels of ozone and ultraviolet irradiance affect life. For Greenbelt, Md., for example, he calculated that a 7 percent increase in UV yielded a 4.4 percent increase in the damage to skin, a 4.8 percent increase in damage to DNA, a 5 percent increase in Vitamin D production, and less than a percent of increase in plant growth.

"If you go to the beach these days, you're at slightly higher risk of getting skin cancer (without protection)," Herman said, though he noted the risk would have been even greater in the absence of regulations on ozone-depleting substances.
Electromagnetic radiation exists in a range of wavelengths, which are delineated into major divisions for our convenience
Last year, one of Herman's Goddard colleagues, Paul Newman, published a study showing that the ozone hole likely would have become a year-round fixture and UV radiation would increase 650 percent by 2065 in mid-latitude cities if not for the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty signed in 1987 that limited the amount of ozone-depleting gases countries could emit.

Clouds and Hemispheric Dimming

In addition to analyzing ozone and ultraviolet trends, Herman also used satellite data to study whether changes in cloudiness have affected UV trends. To his surprise, he found that increased cloudiness in the southern hemisphere produced a dimming effect that increased the shielding from UV compared to previous years.

In the higher latitudes especially, he detected a slight reduction — typically of 2 to 4 percent -- in the amount of UV passing through the atmosphere and reaching the surface due to clouds. "It’s not a large amount, but it’s intriguing," Herman said. "We aren’t sure what’s behind it yet."

Vitali Fioletov, a Canadian scientist and member of the World Meteorological Organization's advisory group on ultraviolet radiation, agreed that Herman’s findings about cloudiness warrant additional investigation. "I found the cloud effects on the global scale to be the most interesting aspect of the study,” he said. "This isn't something you could see without satellites."

Herman synthesized measurements from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) aboard Nimbus 7 and Earth Probe, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite, NASA’s Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-view sensor (SeaWiFS) on the commercial SeaStar satellite, and the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Instrument (SBUV) on several polar orbiting NOAA weather satellites.

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Solder Throw in DC Armature

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Hi All

We have got for repair one small DC Motor Westing House make 7.5 HP RPM 1750/ 3000 Volt 240 amps 27.8 amps duty 24 hrs shunt motor TEF ,Frame 256-A, Application for rubber solution mixing.We have received this motor for overhauling and we have noticed solder comming out

Double Block and Bleed Valves Arrangment

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What is meant by Double Block and Bleed Valve arrangment?

Does it mean........ A ball valve (upstream), a bleed branch connection, 2nd ball valve(upstream), 2nd bleed connection, control valve, bleed connection, ball valve(down stream), bleed connection and ball valve(down stream)

Identity Theft

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How did we ever as American citizens let the credit card people, the banks and all of the other financial institutions that we deal with make this credit fraud our problem? I mean we did not do it someone did it to us so should not the person that accept the information is stolen card be held accou

FCC announces National Broadband Plan – VentureBeat

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Kansas City Star
FCC announces National Broadband Plan
VentureBeat
They include: Having affordable access to broadband in 100 million homes, with download speeds of 100 megabits per second, and upload speeds of 50 megabits ...
What You Need To Know About The National Broadband Plan A good first step ...Dslreports
FCC Provides Free Broadband Speed TestLatest Gadgets (blog)

all 1,828 news articles »

How bad can health reporting get?

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A couple of years ago, a number of us raised concerns about an “investigative reporter” at a Detroit television station.  At the time I noted that investigative reporters serve an important role in a democracy, but that they can also do great harm, as when Channel 7’s Steve Wilson parroted the talking points of the anti-vaccine movement.  Wilson has since been canned but apparently, not much has changed.  While performing my evening ablutions, I stumbled upon the latest abomination.

The story is about a surgeon turned faith healer.  I can think of about a half-dozen different ways to make an interesting story out of this.  But Channel 7, rather than doing the harder but more interesting story about the chicanery of faith healers, presented an infomercial.

Dr. Issam Nemeh claims to be a surgeon and anesthesiologist.  I don’t know how much he charges for that sort of work, but he charges twenty dollars a ticket for his faith healing services.  The deceptions used by faith healers have been well-documented elsewhere but one of their methods, like all altmed folks, is to claim to have cured a self-limited condition.  One of the conditions whose improvement the reporter credited to Nemeh was optic neuritis.  The report incorrectly calls optic neuritis a form of multiple sclerosis.  Optic neuritis is a common manifestation of MS, but it is also common in isolation.  In either case, it often improves spontaneously or with medication.  Like many alternative medicine gurus, Nemeh can take advantage of the natural history of a disease by taking credit for its natural remission.

And he is an altmed guru, not some conventional doc with a religious streak.  In addition to his faith-healing business, Issam runs a medical practice.  The news report calls him a “certified” surgeon, anesthesiologist, and acupuncturist.  I’m not sure what that means.  He is licensed to practice medicine by the state of Ohio.  He is not, however, certified by any board listed by the American Board of Medical Specialties.  But a medical license lets you treat  just about anything, and according to the first hit on google, that’s just what he does, offering treatment to “all patients with any type of physical, mental or emotional disorder.”  This includes children.  Dr. Nemeh offers two types of treatments: “meridian regulatory acupuncture” (tranlation:  ”some impossible, lucrative needle thing that suckers will pay out of pocket for”) and faith healing (translation: “some impossible, lucrative talky thing that suckers will pay out of pocket for”).  He may be licensed to practice medicine, and Ohio may recognize acupuncture as something “medical”, but in the educated opinion of this internist, what he does has nothing to do with the practice of medicine.

Nemeh is a shaman.  He uses the smoke and mirrors of some sort of acupuncture machine on any condition in any patient.  This is a hallmark of quackery—claiming that one modality can treat anything, when really, it’s most efficient effect is to remove money from the pockets of its victims.  But Nemeh is pretty damned cleaver.   Some folks like modern-sounding shamanism, with its needles hooked up to bells, whistles, and pretty lights.  But others prefer that old time religion, and Nemeh’s got that covered with his faith heeling business.

I have rarely seen such an efficient combination of modern and ancient healthcare thievery (in, of course, my humble opinion).   And despite the execrable nature of TV health reporting, I have never seen such a credulous infomercial presented as news.

Shame on you Dr. Nemeh, and shame on you Channel 7.


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High-Altitude Adjustments for Appliances

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I have found that some appliance companies send a very specific book on high atitude adjustments to their equipment, but the gas range/oven companies don't seem to care. they say to derate it over 2,000 feet, but it still puts out allot of carbon monoxide even by their book. What can be done to redu

Indonesia Proposes Tougher Island Ownership Laws

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r4-070418-019The Jakarta Post is reporting that Indonesia’s central government is being encouraged to  provide tighter controls on islands exclusively owned by private companies for fear of having slowed down investment activity and misappropriating land use in Riau Islands province.

The article notes that the central government must take over the islands to restore public access, noting that having no public access would make islands vulnerable to crime and make it easy to change ownership. Apparently public access is the priamry concern of critics of island ownership.

Although I am huge proponent of public access to private islands, corporate ownership brings, development, tourism and jobs to an island region and should be considered when these often outrageous foreign ownship laws are passed. Indonesia already has some of the tightest island ownership regulations in the world and further restrictions would only stagnate Indonesia Tourism.

To read the full article visit the Jakarta Post

If I Run A Medical Practice, How Do I Use A 23andMe?

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I run a primary care medical practice.

Assume: the 23andMe test is an excellent clinical tool. I want to include it as common medical practice.

Problem: all “consumers” of  the “23andMe Service” are bound by the following contract:

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

Question: How do I legally and ethically use a 23andMe test in my medical practice when I’m contractually bound not to?

Answer:

Oh. Right. I’m supposed to “ignore” that part of the contract.

Law for us but not for you, right?

Patients helped by 23andMe: zero —and by design! You never wanted to help patients! You always wanted to be popular!

…Well, I do see that you’ve invented a great medical test. And, I do see that you’ve designed a great medical report. And that’s worth some considerations. But I do have one question. When you go to your next little company, you will be selling software to medical doctors as medicine, and I image you’re going to take off that handsome looking 23andMe brand of yours— and nobody will know how bad you tried to fuck doctors. Now that… I can’t abide.

Faking Reasonable: The Null Hypothesis

Meanwhile, Navigenics still pushes their useless tests on doctors:

The contents of our Site …are for informational purposes only and are not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

You should not ignore professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of Your Report or any other Content. Furthermore, you should not interpret Your Report or any other Content as recommending any specific treatment plan, product or course of action.

In other words: there is no difference between a treatment and the control. Well, it doesn’t take a Ronald Fisher to publish Navigenics latest invention: The Magic 5% Gene License. Oh boy! Gene licences! Gotta catch ‘em all!

But nobody trusted Navigenics to change the world. At least Navigenics didn’t betray me.