The SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY News Thread

[AnimeFan188]

Internet lines up behind The Declaration of Internet Freedom:

"It's no secret that various parts of the internet have been under attack for some
time. Traditional media companies respond with terror at the thought of losing even
more business to piracy (though it's questionable just how much they're actually
hurting). Cable internet providers want the right to control what speeds you're
allowed to access what sites at. And the U.S. government, meanwhile, wants to
help these companies out by making streaming copyrighted content punishable by
up to five years in prison.

Some major names on the internet have had enough of playing defense. That's why
they're launching a new initiative called the Declaration of Internet Freedom. It's a
short five-point document — a Bill of Rights of sorts — that lists out the basics of
what humanity should expect and deserve from the internet."

See:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technolo...3Rpb25z;_ylv=3

[Zakoo]

Originally Posted by konart

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...bies-born.html

The world's first geneticallymodified humans have been created, it was revealed last night.

That's for the worst, if we begin to consider that it's good to decide the gene of our children, how much time before humanity fall into eugenic ... I would like to see this as a good news but ... meeh no.

It already happened, and we never learn seems like.

[LoweGear]

Now for something less... controversial than GM babies:

Mail Online: 'Grow' your own STEAKS! Lab breakthrough could see cuts of meat created using 3D printing technology - and they taste just like the real thing

Originally Posted by DailyMail

Artificial, lab-grown steaks that taste and feel just like the real thing could be round the corner thanks to a 3D printing breakthrough.

The technique could also be used to create working artificial organs for transplant.
Bioengineers can already make 2D structures out of tissue - but attempts to make organs or larger piece of meat usually lead to sludge.

University of Pennsylvania researchers have found that 3D printing 'templates' of sugar and growing meat over them can create living artificial 'organs' with blood vessels.

(more on link)

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

Because people will not just use it for modifying their own bodies. In some cases it will be used for entirely unnecessary modifications on children before they are born to fit the whims of the parents. It can be used as a weapon for mass sterilization at a far more effective level than current techniques. It can be used as a weapon. It will lead to people treating people as merchandise... and much more. Technology such as this has many types of applications, not just what we are discussing here.

Technology has ALWAYS has had "good" and "bad" uses, the same knife you use everyday to prepare your food can be a mass murder weapon. People have to make choices and people that do not invest some time in learning how new stuff work will make bad choices, that is the way the world goes round.

If people have no idea how to think critically and are easily manipulated, whats to stop them for making really wrong decisions in regards to technology they know nothing about?

I insist, everyday people buy food bad for them, buy the wrong insurance, file the wrong amount in their tax forms, etc.

The problem here is that your idea of the word education differs from mine. To me education is not just acquiring standard knowledge. The educational system in this world is very outdated. Just because you know math, chemistry, physics and programming does not make you an educated person. You have only collected scientific data but still lack the other half which relates to the study of the self. This other half of your education generally comes from social interactions with your family, friends, video games, books and any other environmental factors.

So this is about "social science" is more important than "natural sciences"?

In reality very few of us know how to think critically. We don't know how to take responsibility for our own actions. We don't know how to be tolerant of others. We don't know how to bridge differences between differences between people. We don't know how to manage stress. We lack self discipline and we don't know what we want. All of these issues can be addressed by our educational system.

Yep, eduaction system in the USA and Mexico are mostly crap, but we are now very far from the original article, which can be summarized as "Gene therapy is at our doorstep"

There has been groundbreaking developments in child psychology, behavioral patterns, language, emotional control, effective thinking and much more, and guess what? They are already being put to use by corporations, marketing research, the military, politics and other areas, but little to no attention has been put into implementing this knowledge in education.

All that be overruled once we really learn how are genes and our brains work, no sociological hocus pocus :-p

If people were truly educated they would have a good understanding of the world around them and of themselves. Then they would have a level of awareness high enough to use technology wisely, but as history shows, we lack basic understanding so we keep shooting ourselves in the foot with our own creations.

Problem rarely is about comprehension and is more about greed, since humans have such a short lifespan they want it now and who cares about long term consequences.

I don't think you understand how genes operate. Genes a triggers. They require the right stimuli in order to become active. The environment will always be more important. Eugenics was just a misguided effort rooted in the belief that genetics are the center of our nature.

Genes are you (minus whatever you have managed to store in your brain). The enviroment simply dicates what traits receive more development, but that does not change the fact that you can increase the minimum value of some traits, look i.e. The gorilla's daily excersice is mostly walking and they spend most of the time eating (reminds me of a couch potato) but they are more buff than the average human bodybuilder. I dunno where do you get genes are NOT the center of living beings nature, your emotions, your inate reactions, everything is a bunch of chemical reactions that were created by your genes, your learned behaivor modifies some of it, but this also is governed by our genes since we rationalize our most basical insticts.

[Sugetsu]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

Technology has ALWAYS has had "good" and "bad" uses, the same knife you use everyday to prepare your food can be a mass murder weapon. People have to make choices and people that do not invest some time in learning how new stuff work will make bad choices, that is the way the world goes round.



I insist, everyday people buy food bad for them, buy the wrong insurance, file the wrong amount in their tax forms, etc.

People make the wrong choices either because they lack knowledge or wisdom or both, I fail to see where we disagree here.

So this is about "social science" is more important than "natural sciences"?

Both are equally important. Natural sciences gives us comfort and power, social sciences allow us to control ourselves and live in harmony.

All that be overruled once we really learn how are genes and our brains work, no sociological hocus pocus :-p

You are wrong to believe that genes are the center of our species. I already explained why.

Problem rarely is about comprehension and is more about greed, since humans have such a short lifespan they want it now and who cares about long term consequences.

The problem is education, but if money were taken out of the equation then people wouldn't fall pray to greed, which could be controlled if people were educated in the first place.

Genes are you (minus whatever you have managed to store in your brain). The enviroment simply dicates what traits receive more development, but that does not change the fact that you can increase the minimum value of some traits, look i.e. The gorilla's daily excersice is mostly walking and they spend most of the time eating (reminds me of a couch potato) but they are more buff than the average human bodybuilder. I dunno where do you get genes are NOT the center of living beings nature, your emotions, your inate reactions, everything is a bunch of chemical reactions that were created by your genes, your learned behaivor modifies some of it, but this also is governed by our genes since we rationalize our most basical insticts.

The problem here is that you believe human nature is a real thing. This is what people in the eugenics department believed as well. I am sorry but you are dead wrong. Human development is dependent upon internal and external factors. DNA is a blue print for our basic structure but it also contains modifiers that are receptive to environment feedback. This allows the human beings to adapt according to the environment they live in. The changes generally take generations but some of can be acquired in a single lifespan.

As for the gorilla example; body mass, including muscular mass, is about 80% nutrition 10% physical activity and 10% rest. Yes, gorillas and all other primates are much more physically strong than humans and this is rooted in their DNA, which has been molded for surviving in the wild. It was the same with human beings back when we were caveman, our physique was much more naturally muscular than it is now.

There has been numerous laboratory experiments in which pregnant lab rats are subjected to different kind of environments in hopes to determine whether living conditions have any effect on the developing fetus. Guess what? It does. Lab rats who were put in a comfortable environment
gave birth to healthier offspring that tent to live longer. The rats placed in an stressful environment gave birth to offspring with increased muscular mass and agility.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

Why exactly are you assuming that I want to do anything along the those lines? Prohibition is suppression, and suppression is delusion. When people prohibit something they don't make the problem go away, it simply resurfaces in other form and with higher strength. I really don't know where you get those ideas.

Well, since I'm not alone, maybe there's a problem in the way you express yourself.

What needs to happen is that we need to educate people better so that they learn how to use technology wisely.

That was true when the most advanced technology was a pointy stick. It'll be true centuries from now, provided people are still around.

Then when technological advances with far reaching consequences, such a genetics, become available to the general public people will have an ethical standard to follow.

That's why we have laws, regulations, all sorts of things, really. Do you have a point?

That way we won't push the red button just because we had a tantrum or start a new eugenics program.

Who's we, and what button are you talking about?

If you know anything about genes then you understand that many of them rely on external stimuli in order to become active. For example, you might have great potential for music but as long as you are not stimulated in a musical environment you will never develop your talents. The most critical part of a child's developmental stage are his first 3 years of life in which the brain starts losing connections it deems unnecessary.

In other words, the environment is still a stronger agent in human development, you might design a kid that has potential for faster learning and higher physical strength, but if the child is given to a poverty stricken family where he will be malnourished and not given any education all those genetic modifications will be useless.

So? I know genes aren't everything. I also know they aren't nothing either, and so do you, or you wouldn't be throwing a hissy about people wanting to tamper with them.

Prettier? Did you really go there?

Damn right I did. Why not?

Now that I do find appalling.

That's a purely emotional response. Your problem.

The only time a child's physical appearance should be modified is when it threatens his ability to function in society, such a deformations or missing limbs. Anything that goes into the realm of the cosmetics is purely subjective. What people generally perceive as physical beauty is merely the result of environmentally induced conditioning. For example, Summon wrestlers are considered attractive in Japan and repulsive in the western world. The western idea that beautiful people are Caucasian blue-eyed with blond hair is purely the result of mass media controlled by white people, nothing more.

So? I just said prettier. I never said "nazi's wet dream". Parents will have to work with what they have (because I doubt genotypes are going to be built from the ground up) and their own tastes, influenced by the society they plan their kid to grow up in.

As I said, people want what's best for their kids. And physical attractiveness is a proven major advantage. You're more likely to get help when you need it, more likely to get a job, you'll find it easier to integrate into a new environment. Unless your dream is for your kid to grow up to be a bodybuilder, it's more important than how much he can benchpress.

Including subjective options such as "beauty" as part of a baby's creation package would lead to serious tolerance and self esteem issues in society, and that would only be the tip of the iceberg.

I don't see what you're getting at. Afraid the poor will on average be uglier? Not only is that already the case - healthy diet and exercise take time and money, so do brand clothes, cosmetics, professional grooming... - but as I said, the solution would be to democratize genetic modification.

In my opinion, humanity is spiritually underdeveloped. We are not ready to take full advantage of our present technology, and I fear we are closer to self destruction than ever before. Hey wait! we are the monkeys playing in a nuclear silo after all.

And in my opinion, you have far too high an opinion of yourself, if you think you can play parent to humanity as a whole, putting a new toy on a high shelf and telling it it can play with it once it's grown up a bit.

PS. If people haven't realized it yet, my position on science and spirituality leads to the belief that human beings will only be able to travel to the stars when both of those forces are balanced. Therefore, if we are being visited right now rest assured that they mean us no harm.

You make a lot of baseless assumptions. I don't see what's so reassuring about that.

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

Because people will not just use it for modifying their own bodies.

Yeah, so? How is that different from getting immunization shots?

In some cases it will be used for entirely unnecessary modifications on children before they are born to fit the whims of the parents.

Unnecessary, maybe, but the real question is, will they be better off or not? After all, one could easily make the case that literacy is unnecessary. But only sociopaths want to keep their kids from learning to read.

So, who are you to judge how parents want to raise their kids, based on nothing more than a vague fear of yours?

It can be used as a weapon for mass sterilization at a far more effective level than current techniques. It can be used as a weapon.

I assure you, there are far easier ways to sterilize people than having a highly trained operator use tools too small to see without microscope to tinker with their gametes. It also begs the question of "why?", because making people sterile should be the opposite of the goal of a guy who wants to sell them designer babies.

It will lead to people treating people as merchandise... and much more.

How so? It will, at least, force parents to confront what they really hope for their kids. Though I suppose most will settle on some kind of standard package. Healthier, stronger, smarter... Prettier's gonna be harder to standardize.

Technology such as this has many types of applications, not just what we are discussing here.

If people have no idea how to think critically and are easily manipulated, whats to stop them for making really wrong decisions in regards to technology they know nothing about?

People make bad decisions about automotive technology and chemistry all the time. Do you have an actual point? Do you even have an idea of what a "bad decision" might be?

The problem here is that your idea of the word education differs from mine. To me education is not just acquiring standard knowledge. The educational system in this world is very outdated. Just because you know math, chemistry, physics and programming does not make you an educated person.

I'm pretty sure it does, though.

You have only collected scientific data but still lack the other half which relates to the study of the self.

Yeah, I'll gaze at my navel when I have some time.

This other half of your education generally comes from social interactions with your family, friends, video games, books and any other environmental factors.

Great. No need to update the educational system, then.

In reality very few of us know how to think critically.

What, because very few of us agree with you?

We don't know how to take responsibility for our own actions. We don't know how to be tolerant of others. We don't know how to bridge differences between differences between people. We don't know how to manage stress. We lack self discipline and we don't know what we want. All of these issues can be addressed by our educational system.

Possibly. What does any of that have to do with genetic modification? Or it it just general, unrelated soap boxing?

There has been groundbreaking developments in child psychology, behavioral patterns, language, emotional control, effective thinking and much more, and guess what? They are already being put to use by corporations, marketing research, the military, politics and other areas, but little to no attention has been put into implementing this knowledge in education.

Well, there have been groundbreaking developments in genetic modification, and by the looks of it, someone wants to use it for sake of the children.

If people were truly educated they would have a good understanding of the world around them and of themselves.

And what is that supposed to mean?

Then they would have a level of awareness high enough to use technology wisely, but as history shows, we lack basic understanding so we keep shooting ourselves in the foot with our own creations.

It's a fine thing to be afraid to tamper with forces you don't understand, but your understanding isn't going to get better if you don't do a bit of tampering.

[Sugetsu]

^ Aside from the personal attacks, your post seemed more like an emotional response with no substance. But there are a few things that I should outline:

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Well, since I'm not alone, maybe there's a problem in the way you express yourself.

Probably so, or maybe you don't really bother paying attention to what I say.

That was true when the most advanced technology was a pointy stick. It'll be true centuries from now, provided people are still around.

And we can agree that the reason there is doubt we will last much longer is because we keep destroying ourselves due to lack of wisdom.

That's why we have laws, regulations, all sorts of things, really. Do you have a point?

Possibly. What does any of that have to do with genetic modification? Or it it just general, unrelated soap boxing?

Who's we, and what button are you talking about?

I have explained in detail what I mean. Laws and regulations are merely band aids to suppress deep issues, which arise from lack of understanding. You wouldn't need laws if we people were more aware of themselves and their surroundings. If you don't understand what I mean that too bad, I can't do much more.

So? I just said prettier. I never said "nazi's wet dream". Parents will have to work with what they have (because I doubt genotypes are going to be built from the ground up) and their own tastes, influenced by the society they plan their kid to grow up in.

As I said, people want what's best for their kids. And physical attractiveness is a proven major advantage. You're more likely to get help when you need it, more likely to get a job, you'll find it easier to integrate into a new environment. Unless your dream is for your kid to grow up to be a bodybuilder, it's more important than how much he can benchpress.


I don't see what you're getting at. Afraid the poor will on average be uglier? Not only is that already the case - healthy diet and exercise take time and money, so do brand clothes, cosmetics, professional grooming... - but as I said, the solution would be to democratize genetic modification.

You make a lot of baseless assumptions. I don't see what's so reassuring about that.


How so? It will, at least, force parents to confront what they really hope for their kids. Though I suppose most will settle on some kind of standard package. Healthier, stronger, smarter... Prettier's gonna be harder to standardize.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. "Pretty" people are more successful because they are more easily accepted. "Good looking people" are close to fitting the ideal mold of what a person's physical features should be. This "mold" is nothing more than a collective set of subjective ideas given to you by the media or the culture.

I guarantee you that if I could have the power to chose the type of people I wanted shown in magazines, movies, video games and advertisements I would redefine the idea of beauty for generations to come. I could literally make black people and fat people the standard of beauty. This new "mold" would cause little girls to work hard at getting darker skin, dark hair, gain weight and become uncomfortable if they are "too thin".

When you want parents going around thinking that they can make their child "pretty" is akin to conditioning people to think that white people are good and black people are bad. Nature doesn't have any standards of beauty it presents you life forms with all shapes and sizes and human beings are just a reflection of that. Conditioning people with standards of beauty creates aberrant behavior, such as anorexia or bulimia. It creates emotional scars on those who don't fit the "mold" and makes people racist and materialistic. Giving people the option to add cosmetic modifications would make the problem worse.

Finally, I leave you the following present:

Edit: And another one for good measure.

Asians wanting to be white:

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Still, I wonder what the problem is with making our kids stronger and smarter... I'm sure there are ethical problems with genetic engineering, but that can't be it.

Ethics are part of it. I think a larger fear is of what will happen to society. If someone is altered to be physically and mentally superior, and it's known that they are, then won't they be seen as preferable to those people who aren't engineered that way? That opens the door to major discrimination. As society currently is, there is still a chance that anyone can prove themselves to be worthwhile; that if you work hard (and perhaps by chance have a "gift"), it won't matter what your background is. Sure, the wealthy have a starting resource advantage against the poor, but the dream is that even the poorest person can "make it" in society by working hard.

With genetic engineering, you will be pre-labeled as superior. No matter how hard a "regular" person works, they will always be inferior (or so goes the fear). Then there's another fear: this certainly won't be a cheap technology at first, so who will gain access to it? The very people who already have a starting advantage in society: the wealthy.

Otherwise, as a biologist it seems a bit silly to me. There is no one gene for strength or intelligence, nor is there a perfect body. People who are guarded against one disease because of their biochemical makeup may find themselves overly susceptible to another disease.

If we're talking about genetic engineering, I think we'd be better off starting by trying to eliminate genes that are clearly linked to certain diseases. Natural selection would have handled that function, anyway, but modern medicine impairs it. This isn't a nod to any "genetic cleansing" movements, but rather as an effort to eliminate certain diseases at the core level. Some of my classmates were against this idea, stating "but then, you or I might not have been born." My counter to such a thought is that yes, that might have happened, but I would not have been alive to know or care; and if I were born, then I would live knowing that I didn't have to worry about the disease. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

But the counter to that is to say that disease and such makes us who we are. That's a rather conservative stance. I can't disagree with it, but instead of trying to preserve who we (as a species) are, I tend to think of what we'd like to be.

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

I don't think you understand how genes operate. Genes a triggers. They require the right stimuli in order to become active. The environment will always be more important. Eugenics was just a misguided effort rooted in the belief that genetics are the center of our nature.

You're correct that genes are triggers, but I'd hesitate to say that the environment will always be more important. There are certainly cases (and types of diseases) where the environment is the catalyst, but there are genes that make it so that the environment needs to contribute only very little in order for a disease to take place. On the other hand, there are genes that essentially make the body unresponsive to the environment with regard to developing certain diseases or conditions.

Now, you're right that a person's nature is not necessarily determined purely by genes. Suppose we want to make a person smarter: we can alter their genes to make the brain neuronal plasticity greater, to adjust the neurons in the brain to form more connections, and to decrease the rate of neuronal "pruning" (neuroscientists would have grounds to argue with me that those modifications could be detrimental to brain operation, but you get the idea). All of these changes might make it easier for a person to retain information and to think, but it won't put the knowledge in their head. It won't make them know what to do with the knowledge they learn. For that, they need their own motivation to want to learn, and they need good instructors who can give them the information in a motivational manner that makes sense.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

The problem is education, but if money were taken out of the equation then people wouldn't fall pray to greed, which could be controlled if people were educated in the first place.

Greed is part of any living organism, money has nothing to do, remove money and you will still yearn for food, material goods and power over other human beings & organizations.

The problem here is that you believe human nature is a real thing. This is what people in the eugenics department believed as well. I am sorry but you are dead wrong. Human development is dependent upon internal and external factors. DNA is a blue print for our basic structure but it also contains modifiers that are receptive to environment feedback. This allows the human beings to adapt according to the environment they live in. The changes generally take generations but some of can be acquired in a single lifespan.

Of course human beings cannot grow in a vacuum, but the environment cannot make a jiraffe out of a human being or viceversa, love it or hate it you are a hairless monkey because your genes say so.

As for the gorilla example; body mass, including muscular mass, is about 80% nutrition 10% physical activity and 10% rest. Yes, gorillas and all other primates are much more physically strong than humans and this is rooted in their DNA, which has been molded for surviving in the wild. It was the same with human beings back when we were caveman, our physique was much more naturally muscular than it is now.

Most hominids (excluding the gorilla) are weaker (and smaller) than an average human being Don't know where you get your percentages, you need activity, food/water and rest for the well being of any living being, but no matter how much you train, you will need excellent genetics, steroids and years of training to achieve the level of muscularity of an average adult female gorilla. It is worthless to answer you do not want to be that buff, the point is that you cannot because human genes designed you to be puny to easily survive food scarcity.

There has been numerous laboratory experiments in which pregnant lab rats are subjected to different kind of environments in hopes to determine whether living conditions have any effect on the developing fetus. Guess what? It does. Lab rats who were put in a comfortable environment gave birth to healthier offspring that tent to live longer. The rats placed in an stressful environment gave birth to offspring with increased muscular mass and agility.

Yet no matter how much environmental tinkering you do, you cannot produce in one generation the results granted by ONE teensy, weenzy gene modification.

[AnimeFan188]

"Graphene. It can be stronger than steel and thinner than paper. It can generate
electricity when struck by light. It can be used in thin, flexible supercapacitors that
are up to 20 times more powerful than the ones we use right now and can be made
in a DVD burner. It’s already got an impressive track record, but does it have any
more tricks up its sleeve? Apparently, yes. According to researchers at MIT,
graphene could also increase the efficicency of desalination by two or three orders
of magnitude. Seriously, what can’t this stuff do?"

See:

http://www.geekosystem.com/graphene-desalination/

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Ethics are part of it. I think a larger fear is of what will happen to society. If someone is altered to be physically and mentally superior, and it's known that they are, then won't they be seen as preferable to those people who aren't engineered that way? That opens the door to major discrimination. As society currently is, there is still a chance that anyone can prove themselves to be worthwhile; that if you work hard (and perhaps by chance have a "gift"), it won't matter what your background is. Sure, the wealthy have a starting resource advantage against the poor, but the dream is that even the poorest person can "make it" in society by working hard.

With genetic engineering, you will be pre-labeled as superior. No matter how hard a "regular" person works, they will always be inferior (or so goes the fear). Then there's another fear: this certainly won't be a cheap technology at first, so who will gain access to it? The very people who already have a starting advantage in society: the wealthy.

That's actually a valid concern. Still, the more it's used, the cheaper it'll be. And I think we owe it to our descendants to try and solve those problems. To get them a future free of a host of genetic diseases, if we can.

Otherwise, as a biologist it seems a bit silly to me. There is no one gene for strength or intelligence, nor is there a perfect body. People who are guarded against one disease because of their biochemical makeup may find themselves overly susceptible to another disease.

I was watching this

the other day. Apparently, every single medalist in the Olympics has a variant of a particular genotype. Every guy who climbed the Everest without oxygen and came back down to talk about it has a particular gene.

I suspect you're right, and it won't be that simple. But that's not the same as impossible.

If we're talking about genetic engineering, I think we'd be better off starting by trying to eliminate genes that are clearly linked to certain diseases. Natural selection would have handled that function, anyway, but modern medicine impairs it. This isn't a nod to any "genetic cleansing" movements, but rather as an effort to eliminate certain diseases at the core level. Some of my classmates were against this idea, stating "but then, you or I might not have been born." My counter to such a thought is that yes, that might have happened, but I would not have been alive to know or care; and if I were born, then I would live knowing that I didn't have to worry about the disease. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

That's certainly going to be a lot less controversial. And yes, a better first step.

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

^ Aside from the personal attacks, your post seemed more like an emotional response with no substance. But there are a few things that I should outline:



Probably so, or maybe you don't really bother paying attention to what I say.

And maybe you don't bother making yourself clear. Or maybe you going off on a tangent makes it difficult to place your posts in the proper context.

And we can agree that the reason there is doubt we will last much longer is because we keep destroying ourselves due to lack of wisdom.

Or because a big rock may fall and kill us all. Or a super-virus may arise and kill us all. Yes, we lack wisdom. That fact alone tells us nothing. It doesn't tell us what we should educate ourselves on, it doesn't tell us we should hold off on genetic engineering, it doesn't tell us we should listen to you.

I have explained in detail what I mean. Laws and regulations are merely band aids to suppress deep issues, which arise from lack of understanding. You wouldn't need laws if we people were more aware of themselves and their surroundings. If you don't understand what I mean that too bad, I can't do much more.

So we wouldn't need laws if everyone was nice and agreed on everything. Sure.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. "Pretty" people are more successful because they are more easily accepted. "Good looking people" are close to fitting the ideal mold of what a person's physical features should be. This "mold" is nothing more than a collective set of subjective ideas given to you by the media or the culture.

I guarantee you that if I could have the power to chose the type of people I wanted shown in magazines, movies, video games and advertisements I would redefine the idea of beauty for generations to come. I could literally make black people and fat people the standard of beauty. This new "mold" would cause little girls to work hard at getting darker skin, dark hair, gain weight and become uncomfortable if they are "too thin".

When you want parents going around thinking that they can make their child "pretty" is akin to conditioning people to think that white people are good and black people are bad. Nature doesn't have any standards of beauty it presents you life forms with all shapes and sizes and human beings are just a reflection of that. Conditioning people with standards of beauty creates aberrant behavior, such as anorexia or bulimia. It creates emotional scars on those who don't fit the "mold" and makes people racist and materialistic. Giving people the option to add cosmetic modifications would make the problem worse.

Finally, I leave you the following present:

Edit: And another one for good measure.

Asians wanting to be white:

So? Beauty still exists. It's subjective, it may be influenced, but it still exists, and it's still an advantage. To deny it would be as absurd as denying that there is music that sells records and music that doesn't.

[MrTerrorist]

LHC claims new particle discovery

[Ascaloth]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

LHC claims new particle discovery

Clearly, there must have been a mistake of some sort. The Earth has not become a black hole yet. [/tongue-in-cheek]

[C.A.]

I wonder what kind of technological revolution the Higgs Boson is going to bring about.

Electrons brought the second industrial revolution, weak and strong forces brought the nuclear era.

What would happen if mass could be manipulated?

[JMvS]

Manipulation of gravitation?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Ascaloth

Clearly, there must have been a mistake of some sort. The Earth has not become a black hole yet. [/tongue-in-cheek]

Neither do we have giant robots which requires a human sacrifice and fusion.

[C.A.]

It would need an entirely different discovery to find out what actually causes gravity.

Scientists are going to have to find the Higgs Field itself first, what they've only found now is the particle.

Then they'll have to find out how the particle and field induces mass and how they are related to gravity.

If gravity can really be manipulated, its probably going to bring about a new age of space travel.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by C.A.

If gravity can really be manipulated, its probably going to bring about a new age of space travel.

It will be quite nice to substitute planes with flying boats that have 0% chance of crashing on earths surface, like the ones seen on Aria

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

"Graphene. It can be stronger than steel and thinner than paper. It can generate
electricity when struck by light. It can be used in thin, flexible supercapacitors that
are up to 20 times more powerful than the ones we use right now and can be made
in a DVD burner. It’s already got an impressive track record, but does it have any
more tricks up its sleeve? Apparently, yes. According to researchers at MIT,
graphene could also increase the efficicency of desalination by two or three orders
of magnitude. Seriously, what can’t this stuff do?"

See:

http://www.geekosystem.com/graphene-desalination/

Hope to see used in cities purifications plans soon, maybe we can reverse the status quo and produce more drinking water than what we consume.

[Paranoid Android]

I hope they go all hardcore on the Standard Model now in my upcoming quantum mech course. I don't wanna miss out on the juicy details. But I fear this 'fresh' discovery won't be updated in a matter of months in the syllabus . I think it's still treated as a theory of the many existing theories worthy of discussion and speculation.

Higgs was the final missing particle in the standard model but was it the only missing component? In other words, is its proof of existence enough to qualify the model as a theorem and not a theory?

The only revolution that proving standard model is going to happen is for theorists as they can cut down on the 'assuming this is true' and have a more concrete footing to dive further into theoretical physics. Modern physicists have been working under the assumption that the model applies for quite some time already. So I am afraid there won't be any practical changes.

[Ascaloth]

I wonder if someone at CERN is puzzling over how his bananas became gel-bananas at the moment.

El. Psy. Congroo.