News Stories

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Harufox

Speaking of, I can't see what the big problem is. Not one person I know has been laid off as a result of this "recession". Were still shopping, and people are still getting paid.

There's two sides to the coin here. For example, the Euro is now practically even with the British Pound these days, and I tend to think it's more to with the British Pound rather than the Euro, considering how inflated prices are here in the UK. But that's always been the case. On another note, I see what ou mean about unemployment being questionable. On Reed, a popular jobsite in the UK, you can see that there are 88 thousand jobs available, and more still on other sites and there's also the local areas. You could say that this recession's been built up more than the Swine Flu in its own way.

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

This is why I don't bother watching American news channels on cable anymore. Sometimes I'd rather watch BBC or Al-Jazeera.

Be careful with BBC. It likes to quote Wikipedia

[Haruka_Kitten]

Originally Posted by Yoko Takeo

There's two sides to the coin here. For example, the Euro is now practically even with the British Pound these days, and I tend to think it's more to with the British Pound rather than the Euro, considering how inflated prices are here in the UK. But that's always been the case. On another note, I see what ou mean about unemployment being questionable. On Reed, a popular jobsite in the UK, you can see that there are 88 thousand jobs available, and more still on other sites and there's also the local areas. You could say that this recession's been built up more than the Swine Flu in its own way.

I always thought there was no such thing as a recession because Kevin Rudd managed to pull 1.3billion out of his ass. (and i'm going to get a bag of letters for that one)

[MeoTwister5]

Originally Posted by Yoko Takeo

Be careful with BBC. It likes to quote Wikipedia

Al-Jazeera it is.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Harufox

I always thought there was no such thing as a recession because Kevin Rudd managed to pull 1.3billion out of his ass. (and i'm going to get a bag of letters for that one)

There is that.....

[Haruka_Kitten]

Originally Posted by Yoko Takeo

There is that.....

actually I take that back because that was a stupid thing for me to say. I meant, well I know about it (it hasn't flown entirely over my head), it just hasn't affected me in any way (that may be because I'm a teen and I really couldn't care about it too much, or really because we aren't jumping up and down so much about it).

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Harufox

actually I take that back because that was a stupid thing for me to say. I meant, well I know about it (it hasn't flown entirely over my head), it just hasn't affected me in any way (that may be because I'm a teen and I really couldn't care about it too much, or really because we aren't jumping up and down so much about it).

You might also want to correct me on this, but Australia hasn't been hit by this supposed recession as badly as other countries were. However, I also like how James Chanos made a fortune out of nothing just because he predicted something bad was going to happen to Enron. I wonder where that money came from

[Haruka_Kitten]

Originally Posted by Yoko Takeo

You might also want to correct me on this, but Australia hasn't been hit by this supposed recession as badly as other countries were. However, I also like how James Chanos made a fortune out of nothing just because he predicted something bad was going to happen to Enron. I wonder where that money came from

you are right. Like I said, our Prime Minister managed to find all this money from the Liberal Government and put it to good use by giving it to everyone as a sort of Centrelink payment and just said "spend it". Hence why the recession isn't something that affects us in a way that we resort to not leaving the house and selling up the 2nd car.

Which brings me onto yet another point (god i'm good at carrying on). Everyone's saying buy a Prius. It's a load of rubbish. The amount of energy used to make the batteries causes more pollution than a normal car and in the end I can't see that extra fuel saved ever paying off a Prius. It's slow, ugly and just....ugh. Screw the hybrid, go buy a Peugeot 308 diesel instead (you get better mileage out of one than a Prius, and that's a fact).

[BASS in SPACE]

Originally Posted by Harufox

you are right. Like I said, our Prime Minister managed to find all this money from the Liberal Government and put it to good use by giving it to everyone as a sort of Centrelink payment and just said "spend it". Hence why the recession isn't something that affects us in a way that we resort to not leaving the house and selling up the 2nd car.

The quick response of the government in that regard did help to alleviate the symptoms of the recession, but Australia's ability to escape it with minimal damage compared to others is due to Australia's banks not being nearly as exposed to bad loans as other banks.

[Haruka_Kitten]

Originally Posted by BASS in SPACE

The quick response of the government in that regard did help to alleviate the symptoms of the recession, but Australia's ability to escape it with minimal damage compared to others is because due to Australia's banks not being nearly as exposed to bad loans as other banks.

However, inflation is still an everyday thing. Petrol prices are on the up again and so are interest rates. However, I did note that when this whole thing started all of it was thrown out the window. For the days when I started hearing about this (so after the failure and liquidation of a large American financial firm in late 2008. Lehman Brothers. I can't be bothered looking because it's like late at night) not one news report mentioned petrol, inflation and foreclosure.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Harufox

However, inflation is still an everyday thing. Petrol prices are on the up again and so are interest rates. However, I did note that when this whole thing started all of it was thrown out the window. For the days when I started hearing about this (so after the failure and liquidation of a large American financial firm in late 2008. Lehman Brothers. I can't be bothered looking because it's like late at night) not one news report mentioned petrol, inflation and foreclosure.

This is due to Australia's multi-faceted and mixed economy. US invested largely in bonds because it provides a steady yet large income of returns + instalments, so when it crashes, most of the economy crashed with it.

Conventional wisdom of investment and economics dictate the "divide and conquer" strategy of not putting all your money in just the baracat game, bet some on poker or the slot machines too so you won't lose everything in just one game.

This is just Economics and Finance actually. Quite simple in the basic idea to understand and apply IMO. If you want something more general and agreed, you can always agree with the typical American ignorance comment, but that isn't really applicable considered how majority of the human race aren't interested in the business of others.

[Haruka_Kitten]

I do have to say, I think karma will strike us in the form of another yearly heatwave. The economy will be fine. No matter how many businesses go up, or how many people lose their job security, eventually it'll all work out, and the Australian Dollar will be back to, like, 75c American.

[Xellos-_^]

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...954192,00.html

Call it pork in a petri dish — a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock, help alleviate world hunger, and save some pigs their bacon.

Bio-Meat Nectar anyone?

[Solace]

^ My first thought too. But this part made me raise an eyebrow:

"As long as it's cheap enough and has been proven to be scientifically valid, I can't see any reason people wouldn't eat it," said Stig Omholt, a genetics expert at the University of Life Sciences in Norway. "If you look at the sausages and other things people are willing to eat these days, this should not be a big problem."

People are already leery of processed food. There's been enough scares that people are questioning if all of those hormones and such are affecting our food supply in unhealthy ways. Plus there's always contamination fears like mad cows or e.coli getting into the market. I think it would be a very tough sell despite the good intentions behind it.

Personally I think the Star Trek food replicator would be a better technology to aspire to anyway.

[Anh_Minh]

Wouldn't food growing in a controlled environment (rather than all the randomness found in the natural world) be less likely to carry strange viruses?

And really, if people are hungry enough, they'll eat anything. And if they're British, they'll cook some really disgusting stuff for no discernable reason.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Wouldn't food growing in a controlled environment (rather than all the randomness found in the natural world) be less likely to carry strange viruses?

And really, if people are hungry enough, they'll eat anything. And if they're British, they'll cook some really disgusting stuff for no discernable reason.

Technically yes. It's what happens after it leaves the controlled environment and arrives in your store that's the problem. It's impossible to guarantee the entire supply line will be free of problems and more importantly when you create a single source of food you are more vulnerable to the entire supply having problems, natural and man made. A huge amount of the worlds food supply comes from the US for instance, a single year of heavy drought can have devastating consequences for world economies and stability in regions where food is more difficult to come by. Yay globalization?

And yes, after seeing some international cuisines I'd have to agree with your last statement.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Solace

Technically yes. It's what happens after it leaves the controlled environment and arrives in your store that's the problem. It's impossible to guarantee the entire supply line will be free of problems and more importantly when you create a single source of food you are more vulnerable to the entire supply having problems, natural and man made.

But that's true of any kind of food. How it's grown is irrelevant.

A huge amount of the worlds food supply comes from the US for instance, a single year of heavy drought can have devastating consequences for world economies and stability in regions where food is more difficult to come by. Yay globalization?

Again, we're talking about food grown in vats, in controlled environments. While it's of course always possible for accidents or sabotage to happen, weather won't be much of a problem.

[SaintessHeart]

From my analysis, I don't think it would really work out as a whole.

The reasons why people buy organic food, or even naturally grown/bred meat is because of the texture and taste. What you feed the creatures will turn out in the quality of their flesh, similar to how human muscles grow and adapt due to physical training. If meat growing is going to take place as a form of mass production, it would relegate natural meat as a "gourmet flesh" and thus, creating another form of branding.

The implications of this is great as it drives the prices of natural meat up, and when special occasions call, natural meat becomes overvalued due to the reduced demand on normal days as compared to lab-meat.

Secondly, the meat is grown from stem cells, which are hard to harvest as it is highly perishable. Combined with the instigated morphology the scientists have done to make it grow into meat, the research costs will surely go up as growing meat is the same as having a child, environmental conditions have to be maintained. Furthermore, coupled with the profit motives of marketing and selling such a meat, as well as to allay the fears of such meat being bad quality and such, how much is it going to cost? And even if they are going to buy over natural pastures to turn into laboratories, how much is the cost of the meat going to skyrocket to?

On a small note, Muslims and Jews don't eat pork. The success rate of such experiments could be better if they tried using chicken stem cells, but since genetic engineering is most advanced in the field of humans and pigs are the closest as poultry mammals, it is not surprised that it swung of in that way.

Originally Posted by Solace

And yes, after seeing some international cuisines I'd have to agree with your last statement.

Next time you come holidaying, come down to Asia. If you can't afford the Imperial Feast in China which has monkey brain soup, you can go Southeast and have the following :

1. Pig organs soup, namely soups of pig brains with ginger, or pig heart with gingko nuts, or pig intestines with dates and ginger.
2. Turtle soup, in which the turtle is boiled with double-boiled herbs.
3. Frog soup with the frog legs tangled with watercress
4. Tubifex worm porridge. High in protein.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

From my analysis, I don't think it would really work out as a whole.

The reasons why people buy organic food, or even naturally grown/bred meat is because of the texture and taste. What you feed the creatures will turn out in the quality of their flesh, similar to how human muscles grow and adapt due to physical training. If meat growing is going to take place as a form of mass production, it would relegate natural meat as a "gourmet flesh" and thus, creating another form of branding.

The implications of this is great as it drives the prices of natural meat up, and when special occasions call, natural meat becomes overvalued due to the reduced demand on normal days as compared to lab-meat.

Yeah, so? That's no reason it couldn't work. Basically, what you've said is that if it works so well it displaces real meat, it'll... displaces real meat. What kind of argument is that?

Besides, what you've cited is merely a possibility, depending on a number of factors, such as "how close to real meat can they make it" and "how cheap can they make it". Also note, for now, their ambition is sausage and maybe minced meat. That's a far cry from replacing everything.

Secondly, the meat is grown from stem cells, which are hard to harvest as it is highly perishable.

Maybe, but they didn't say how much they could hope to produce from just one good harvest. US$ 1,000 may seem like a lot for 100g of sausage. But what abot a ton? 10 tons?

Combined with the instigated morphology the scientists have done to make it grow into meat, the research costs will surely go up as growing meat is the same as having a child, environmental conditions have to be maintained.

The whole point is to grow meat in vats, in an industrial way. Like we make glue or whatever. If it's as complicated as growing an actual pig, they won't bother, but they're hopeful it won't be. (Well, cultivating cells is easy enough.)

Furthermore, coupled with the profit motives of marketing and selling such a meat, as well as to allay the fears of such meat being bad quality and such, how much is it going to cost?

Maybe a lot at first. And then, nothing. Besides, there's niche of "starving people" they can fill with cheap food. Not to mention, as the success of junk foods show, the niche of "people who'll eat anything with enough sweeteners and salt in it".

And even if they are going to buy over natural pastures to turn into laboratories, how much is the cost of the meat going to skyrocket to?

Again, the whole point is to grow food in vats. Not to clone pigs and raise them like normal pigs. They won't need pastures.

[killer3000ad]

UN orders doctors to leave Haiti quake victims

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Critically injured earthquake victims watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after United Nations officials ordered a medical team to evacuate the area out of security concerns.

Saturday morning the U.N. allowed the medical personnel to return, said Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent.

Gupta was the only doctor left on Friday night with the 25 earthquake victims -- some of them critically ill. He said he assessed their needs, but with no supplies, he said there was little he could do to treat them.

Gupta monitored patients' vital signs, administered painkillers and continued intravenous drips. He stabilized three new patients in critical condition.

"I've never been in a situation like this. This is quite ridiculous," Gupta said Friday night.

With a dearth of medical facilities in Haiti's capital, ambulances had no where else to take patients, some who had suffered severe trauma -- amputations and head injuries -- under the rubble. Others had suffered a great deal of blood loss, but there were no blood supplies left at the clinic.

Gupta feared that some would not survive the night.

He and his television crew stayed with the injured all night, long after the medical team had left, long after the generators gave out and the tents turned pitch black.

At 3:45 a.m., he posted a message on Twitter: "pulling all nighter at haiti field hosp. lots of work, but all patients stable. turned my crew into a crack med team tonight."

There have been scattered reports of violence throughout the capital.

Gupta said the Belgian doctors did not want to leave their patients behind but were ordered out by the United Nations, which sent buses to transport them.

"There is concern about riots not far from here -- and this is part of the problem," Gupta said.

"What is striking to me as a physician is that patients who just had surgery, patients who are critically ill are essentially being left here, nobody to care for them," Gupta said.

Sandra Pierre, a Haitian who has been helping at the makeshift hospital, said the medical staff took most of the supplies with them.

"All the doctors, all the nurses are gone," she said. "They are expected to be back tomorrow. They had no plan on leaving tonight. It was an order that came suddenly."

She told Gupta, "It's just you."

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake flattened Haiti's capital city Tuesday afternoon, affecting as many as 3 million people. Tens of thousands of people are feared dead.

Gupta sent out another tweet before dawn:

"5a update. we lost all generator power. sun will come up in about 30 minutes. now confident we will get all these patients through the night"

Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, lacked adequate medical resources even before the disaster and has been struggling this week to tend to huge numbers of injured. The U.N. clinic, set up under several tents, was a godsend to the few who were lucky to have been brought there.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said the evacuation of the clinic's medical staff was unforgivable.

"We can't be leaning so much toward security that we allow people to die," he said Saturday.

"Search and rescue must trump security," Honoré said Friday night. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life. They need to man up and get back in there."

Honoré drew parallels between the tragedy in New Orleans and in Port-au-Prince. But even in the chaos of Katrina, he said, he had never seen medical staff walk away.

"I find this astonishing these doctors left," he said. "People are scared of the poor."

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Yeah, so? That's no reason it couldn't work. Basically, what you've said is that if it works so well it displaces real meat, it'll... displaces real meat. What kind of argument is that?

Besides, what you've cited is merely a possibility, depending on a number of factors, such as "how close to real meat can they make it" and "how cheap can they make it". Also note, for now, their ambition is sausage and maybe minced meat. That's a far cry from replacing everything.

I am quite lost in your query for my argument part, so I'll just ignore it.

Minced meat and sausages comes from cutting the size of large chunks of meat into smaller sizes, so if they can make small chunks of meat equivalent to minced ones, why not larger chunks in properly controlled environments? This is what will replace natural meat.

Then again, it might not be possible. My next explanation will answer that.

Maybe, but they didn't say how much they could hope to produce from just one good harvest. US$ 1,000 may seem like a lot for 100g of sausage. But what abot a ton? 10 tons?

Erm I think you have been misinformed. I remember this biology experiment I had which we have to breed amoeba. We have strict regulations on the equipment we use, and the optimum yield across all of the students are pretty standard. Organisms at microscopic level are very susceptible to heat and pressure, even a single degree or pascal can determine their morphology.

In an incubator, stem cells are to be bred in small and limited numbers. So, I SERIOUSLY doubt that they can produce much with little money.

The whole point is to grow meat in vats, in an industrial way. Like we make glue or whatever. If it's as complicated as growing an actual pig, they won't bother, but they're hopeful it won't be. (Well, cultivating cells is easy enough.)

Cultivating from stem cells are not as easy. There are two main kinds embryonic and adult stem cells. From what I have read, they must have used the adult stem cells which are lineage restricted and are limited in cell division, i.e can only subdivide a couple or three times before differentiating itself. There are lots more limitations, but been too many years and I am rather out of touch with biology. No offense, but RTFW (Read The Fine Wikipedia) .

Maybe a lot at first. And then, nothing. Besides, there's niche of "starving people" they can fill with cheap food. Not to mention, as the success of junk foods show, the niche of "people who'll eat anything with enough sweeteners and salt in it".

If you read what the genetics expert said, obviously he is an idiot when it comes to market and economic psychology. Please don't reiterate his words because that niche hardly exists in abundance other than in third worlds, war zones and military camps, and also, some soldiers would rather go hungry than to eat the rations.

I have no bloody idea why do they think like this despite in the middle of nowhere when the alternative source of food is the nearest tree bark boiled in the water from the bottle.

Again, the whole point is to grow food in vats. Not to clone pigs and raise them like normal pigs. They won't need pastures.

There are size limitations per vat due to miniscule stuff like electrical conductivity, storage space, shape (surface area), which can affect the internal pressure and temperature INSIDE the vat. The growth of each cell is to be taken seriously, making it tougher and less cause effective. Why? Cancer.

I don't think it is feasible to build a large vat due to scientific and harvesting problems, and building many small vats is neither as cost or space effective. We have housing problems, eviction notices, security, staffing, monitoring, etc etc. Why don't these scientists use their talents to breed a catgirl instead?