svara

36 ms·

511.
by svara 6y ago
For the record, it's Translational Psychiatry .
512.
by svara 6y ago
You're complaining about the world's Neanderthal genome experts [0] continuing to work on the Neanderthal genome ... There is no claim here of a novel finding of immediate biomedical significance; rather this builds on top of othe
513.
by svara 6y ago
The last author Svante Pääbo's group has been working on Neanderthal genome sequencing for roughly two decades now. It's basic research into the evolutionary history of our species. They certainly didn't secretly want to work
514.
by svara 6y ago
The company that CNN article is referring to is called BioNTech, not Pfizer, and they have been working on RNA based therapeutics (mostly as cancer treatments) for a long time. They started working on the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in January 2020.
515.
by svara 6y ago
Whether viruses are alive or not is purely a matter of definition. Alive in this context means that it can infect host cells and replicate. Contrary to what the sibling posts say, that doesn't just require intact viral RNA, which by it
516.
by svara 6y ago
He's making an interesting point that's largely true, but not the whole truth. It's the typical physicist arrogance towards biology. ;) For example, evolution through natural selection would not have been understood if Darwin
517.
by svara 6y ago
Not the "initial mRNA research", just the mRNA research. Pfizer contributed their experience in running clinical trials and manufacturing. The history of mRNA based pharmaceuticals is a fascinating one, Statnews have a great artic
518.
by svara 6y ago
I don't know, I think it's pretty great. Can't live without it. The client's UI is a bit odd, but at the end of the day it's really good at what it's supposed to do: Syncing files. Performance is also great: I&
519.
by svara 6y ago
It's a highly formalized clinical trial, it would be nonsensical to misrepresent or exaggerate the results. The preliminary analysis is based on 94 cases; not a huge number, but totally reasonable to draw conclusions from.
520.
by svara 6y ago
The sentiment of mutual understanding accross polticial lines expressed in many comments here is beautiful. However, let's not forget that on election night the current US president clearly proved his staunchest critics right. What mig
521.
by svara 6y ago
Yeah, but maybe if in the end you get a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) over time curve for solar that falls off like a cliff [0] it was kind of worth it? [0] https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-now-cheaper-than-grid-elec...
522.
by svara 6y ago
No, that's a misreading of the Popper quote. Intolerance refers specifically to those people who fight for their views with means outside of civil discourse, i.e. violence and intimidation (1), thus destroying the possibility of civil
523.
by svara 6y ago
"Flesh" wouldn't work either, though. Just having a word for that implies familiarity with creatures similar to animals on earth, and it's not believable that a super advanced space-faring species would have missed the f
524.
by svara 6y ago
> Clearly the thrust of the story was that the beings don't interact with flesh and blood creatures and I treat instead with more ethereal things. For sure - it's just that the word "meat" ruins it for me for the reas
525.
by svara 6y ago
I never liked this story. Meat, according to Wikipedia, is "animal flesh that is eaten as food". So they're familiar with biological creatures very similar to those on earth, and they eat them? But at the same time, they have
526.
by svara 6y ago
Yeah, that's a really fundamental and important insight. The way I like to think about it is that whenever you face uncertainty, your actions might seemingly be proven wrong in retrospect, but may still have been correct based on your
527.
by svara 6y ago
> Your examples are only ideas, he is talking about actual systems. Yes, exactly, that's the distinction between engineering and foundational research. Academia is for the latter. The examples that I quoted have arguably had more im
528.
by svara 6y ago
> Eisenhower didn't pay 100 labs $5M each to come with possible ballistic missile design Uh, ok, if that's what you want to do I guess academia isn't the right place. Pretty odd example though. You might as well have chose
529.
by svara 6y ago
As the article you cited points out, this has been changed in 1998. Low pressure areas get male names in odd years and female names in even years; vice versa for high pressure areas.
530.
by svara 6y ago
> That claim is incorrect - it is obviously possible to release tritium water without causing damage. Seems like you somehow misunderstood what I was saying then? You are basically restating my point. The specifics of what's going o
531.
by svara 6y ago
> What many people don't know: There's more radiation set free by coal power plants than nuclear power plants because they burn that stuff and blow it into the air. That's misleading the way you state it. The total amount
532.
by svara 6y ago
Thanks for this, I wasn't aware of these quotes that definitely provide important context for my comment. I think my broader point stands, though: despite engineering efforts towards decentralization, market forces push Bitcoin towards
533.
by svara 6y ago
With the benefit of hindsight, the biggest thing Satoshi didn't know (or didn't foresee) was that the idea of "one CPU, one vote" was flawed, a victim of its own success, because of mining ASICS. A consequence of that is
534.
by svara 6y ago
> And new Starlink have visits limiting their reflectivity even during dusk and dawn. I hope this really does work; as far as I could tell no such satellite has yet reached its final orbit. It boggles the mind that this seems to be an af
535.
by svara 6y ago
There's actually a good primary source for this cited in the article [0], stating: "However, at low elevations near twilight at intermediate latitudes (45°–55°, e.g., much of Europe) hundreds of satellites may be visible at once t
536.
by svara 6y ago
How do you know what the final orbits are? Why would they not be visible on the final orbits? Sure, only a fraction of the satellites will be above you and illuminated by the sun, but at 30000 that's still bound to be a huge number. Se
537.
by svara 6y ago
Living in a city, I didn't understand how big a deal this was until I got a view of the clear night sky in a less populated area recently. The satellites are already visible by eye everywhere, and there are only 655 Starlink satellites
538.
by svara 6y ago
Most commenters here didn't read the article properly and completely misunderstood what this is about. To be fair, it's not explained super clearly. So to clarify: This was not done to study the spread of the virus, but rather to
539.
by svara 6y ago
It's one thing to call for a system of fair regulations that provide a level playing field; it's another thing altogether to essentially expropriate a company through executive action because it was doing too well. Your comment ma
540.
by svara 6y ago
... because any wallet downstream of the tainted wallet in the transaction graph could be considered tainted as well. This would be a highly effective attack on Bitcoin as an illegal payment method - the onus would be on every Bitcoin user

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