Dak

having recently had to retreve some data from a floppy that hade its boot-sector and lots of other data coruppted, i can be pretty certain when i tell you A/that there arent any decent programs that recover data, which are legaly available for free, and B/even with the programs, its still @&~#ing annoying attempting to reclaim data. badcopy pro is quite good at reclaiming damaged data from a floppy, i guess it'd probably work as well for a hdd. if you pm a mod and ask them to move this thread out of pseudoscience and into computer science, you may get more replys btw

as are humans shortsightedness has dramatically increased in frequency since the conservative party introduced free glases on the NHS, which was only quite recently (tho i suppose it could just be the level of diagnosed shortsightedness), and of course antibiotics can forse the evolution of diseases that would otherwize not evolve/only evolve very rarely, such as MRSA (that flesh-eating one), pathogenic E.coli, etc. it is not unheard of, in people who are infected with HIV, that the treatments forse the HIV to evolve immunity to the treatments, and this is sometimes accompanied with the evolution of an extremely reduced latencey period. so i think that arguably, whilst improving an individuals condition, modern medicine can make diseases worse overall, hence, for example, why doctors are reluctant to prescribe antibiotics -- or in england at least, in america it might be different as you get what you pay for ie a doctor who will do what you tell him to, as opposed to what is actualy good for you.

stop giving them ideas. if, at some point in the near future, we see a 'remote bioelectric detoxifyer' that 'emits a bio-positive eletromagnetic frequency which draws the toxins out of your body across the quantumn ether and stores them in a fung-shwei alighned isotonic solution of dihydric-oxided for safe disposal (please note; eletrodes may require frequent replacing due to the inherant stresses of interfasing with the ether through which the toxins are transported to the holding-chamber) all for just -- thats right just, i said just, that means that the next number i say must be small otherwize i wouldnt have used the word 'just', and if the number does seem large then its obviously a build-up of toxins affecting the number-recognising region of your cortical medulla (see our product "cortical-medulla realighnment hats") -- for just $4,999 (thats right, significantly less than $5,000)(plus $15.99 p&p)(replacement quantum-ether interface eletrodes cost $40 each, buying regular eletrodes may cause a quantum gravitational-ether inversion that will give your cat dioraehhah and invalidate your warrenty)' then i'll know your to blame!

product that you shouldnt buy: any electrolosis foot spars, like the aqua-detoxifyer (eg) observable effects: upon placing feet in water and turning power on, the water becomes murky and discoloured. pseudoscientifical explanation: the electric current re-enervates the bodys natural eletromagnetic field, and also draws toxins out via the feet and into the water, offering a complete-body detoxification and bioeletromagnetic reequillibration (or something) all for just $200 per shot scientifical explination the eletric current drives the rapid oxidation of the metal eletrodes, leading to the murkification of the water by the addition of ferrouse oxide (rust) created from the eletrodes. due to the fact that the conductivity of water is greater than the conductivity of feet, it is unlightly that any current actually passes throught the feet, and instead flows around them.

good point. still, there are a few good papers that seem to support homeopathy. not actually supporting it myself, merely conseding that, whilst scant, there are a few pieces of evidence that suggests it may have a partial grounding in fact. hmm... i skimmed over this, didnt notice the lack of a control. when the continuity of the skin is broken, the innate immune system responds in a number of ways, for example swelling up the site to close the wound, and attracting macrophages and nutrophils to the site to kill any invading bacteria. the secretion of histamine by the cells of the immune system is an integral part of the regulation of this responce. so, its entirely likely that yes, injecting just water would have the same effect as injecting histamines.

Benveniste's paper is oftern sited as evidence for homeopathy, although more resent studies(like this one) failed to reproduce the effects observed by Benveniste. a 1997 investigation by Lind et al seems to sujjest that the effectiveness of homeopatic remedies can neither be discounted or accepted with the current level of evidence. in 2001, V.Brown and M.Eddis published a paper that was suposed to disprove homeopathy, but accidentally supported it. the experiment was published in the journal of immflamation resurch, who follow the evil practice of making people pay to read their research, but here are sum details of the experiment the exeriment was repeated in 2002 for the bbc horizons program, and the findings were not the same (transcript of program here but many have critisised the programs experiment as having too small a sample size. also, a paper published in 2003 by L.Rey seems to provide evidence that homeopathic dilutions could have different properties to, for example, water. odd, neh? i think its one of those issues where scientific prosess gets thrown out of the window and most people chose to either believe in homeopathy, and find evidence that supports their stance, or chose to not believe in it, and again hunt down evidence to support their claim, which begs the question: what is the official, un-biased scientific answre to the question "does homeopathy have any merit"?

saint, you should have recieved an email asking you to click a link to activate your account - until you do so you will not be able to start your own threads (and also the title under your name will read 'registered user'). check your email account (and spam folder) to activate your account if you wish to start your own threads. if you didnt recieve an activation email, or if your account has been deactivated, then pm an admin (blike or sayonarra) or post a request for an activation email on this thread

according to my calculator, 1/infinity = error which may possibly be the most appropriate answre, as infinity isnt a real number. however, when doing lower-calibre maths, iv never come across an occasion where it was incorrect to pretend that 1/infinity = 0

ping!

your allowed some artistic licence when making puns yup, double puns are quite hard to manufacture. kudos just out of interest, what happened to my long post? oh, and is avatarial a real word, or a non-standard stem of a real word?

i'd have thought that imagining a 4D world would be harder

is a hacker not someone who gains acess to systems dispite the systems attempts to stop them?

Viruses. virus

my kids idea of what they should be might not be the same as my ideah of what they should be... but i would take the option of 'scanning' their genome for any severe genetic disorders and fixing them if that were possible

are dimentions not just metaphores? why do they have to be actuall things? i have width, height and length, but i also have energy, mass and velocity. why are the width, height and length concidered as 'dimentions', whereas energy, mass and velocity not concidered dimentions? to me, it seems strange to assighn 'dimentions' to the directions in which things can exist. my personal thinking is that stuff exists, and stuff has energy. the whole x, y and z thing is convienient for discussing where things exist, but there are no actuall x,y and z 'dimentions' as such, in the same way that time is a useful metaphore for discussing the change and rate of change of matter, but there is no actuall 'dimention' of time. Yes' date=' a 2d universe would imply that.[/quote'] actually, could he drive on a table if he was only 2D? if you imagine him to exist in the x and y directions, then to be on the table he would have to be a certain distance above the surface of the table, ie a certain distance above the table in the z direction, in which he does not exist, so i dont think that hed be able to travel on the table, as such. he might be able to travel in circles through the surface of the table though. well, this is my first forray into quantumn strangeness, so sorry if none of it made sence

best explination iv heard is that all males are desighned to look for both sighns of youth and sighns of age in a potential sexual mate. so, for example, large eyes, full lips, round face etc are all sighns of youth, whereas full breasts, wide hips etc are all sighns of age. by looking for both simultaniously the male is directed toward mating with a female that is old enough to bear child, but also young enough to be robust enough to survive the prosess. for example, a twenty-year-old femal will exhibit both sighns of youth (larger eyes, rounder face etc) AND sighns of age (developed breasts, child-bearing-hips etc) and so will appear attractive1. whilst a 5-year-old girl will have the sighns of youth, the absence of sighns of age will prevent her appearing sexually attractive to most males (and likewize, whilst a 90-year-old will exhibit sighns of age, the absence of sighns of youth will prevent her appearing attractive). however, as with all psycological stuff, it is possible for this instinct to become broke. if a person does not have the 'also look for sighns of age in the individual' bit, then there instinkt basically reads 'look for sighns of youth'... thusly, they are attracted to kids. or more succinctly, the basic instinkt is to look for someone 'not too old, not to young': if you ignoor the 'not to young' part... as to why they think like this: #natural preference ie naturally screwed-up instinkts, akin to homosexuality (in cause -- not meaning to equate homosexuality to paedophillia) #hatred of childeren #mental problems which prevent them from forming sexual relations with adults, thus causing their sex-drive to retarget itself to childeren so that they can have sexual release #clinical psycosis (if i understand its definition correctly -- the lack of ability to emphasise with others?) #power fetish? and how to treat them -- at the end of their sentance, remove their testicles. i know it sounds harsh, but the sex drive is the strongest instinkt humans posess, and its hard to ignoor. its not really surprising that most reoffend (imagine trying to refrain from having sex for your entire life! i like to think that, if i was paedophillically inclined, i would refrain from acting out on my desires, but im sure it would be very difficult). removing the testicles would reduce the sex-drive and help them controle their urges. im not normally given to such extreme solutions, but i think that what they do is so potentially damaging to the child, that it can be justified in cases where adults have sex with young childeren.

i find that if, every 10-20 mins, i scrunch my eyes up tight for a couple of seconds, stare at a wall over the other side of the room, and roll my eyes around for a coupl of seconds, it stops me from getting a headache. quickssilver, what you discribe sounds like dyslexia, which can get dramatically worse when your tired or stressed, so it might be that normally you are extremely mildly dislexic but it is becoming more noticable lately du to stress/tiredness. also, when im tired i get the missreading and eyes-jumping-about-the-place thing, and also the screen pulses random colours and words change colour when im not directly looking at them, so if u also experience these symptoms -- its time to stop using the computer for a while.

i heard a thery that its psycologically easyer to kill someone with a gun. to do it with your fists, you actually have to kill them, and you get their blood on you. with a knife, it slightly removes you from the act -- its the knife killing them, not you -- but with a gun, you are almost completely detached from the act. all you have to do is point and squeeze the trigger, you dont even have to touch them. this might partially account for the fact that there arent a number of stabbings in british schools comparable to the number of shootings in american schools. after all, british kids can get knifes, but i dont think that there are that many instances of people 'going postal' in schools with a knife in the uk. guns make it easyer, both physically and psycologicaly, to kill someone.

these myths can usually be trased back to nin-po and shoulin. the ninja were like the special forses of their time, and a lot of their modus operandi involved deception and desiet. for example, the original purpouse of shiruken (throwing stars) was not actually as a progectile combat-weapon (they had throwing knifes for that), but as a tool to make people fear ninja. they would hide in a bush after completing a mision, and throw a shiruken so that it hit someone in the back at a glansing angle before richocheying off and landing far away, which would leave a wound which resembled a sword strike. of course when the samuri turned around, he would see no-one, and assume hed been assaulted by an invisible swords-man. as long as the ninja allowed himself to be seen by someone else in the general area, it would be assumed that ninja could become invisible. alot of the ninja techniques centered around propogating the myth that they were posessed of magical powers, so that some samuri would run away rather than fight. to this end, the ninja spread a myth that they could break any bone in the human body by poking at them with two fingers, and the whole 'if i poke you here, your heart will explode' type rumors. shoulin monks embarked on a similar rumor spreading campein for the same reason (to make people fear, and thus refrain from fighting, shoulin), claiming that the master shoulin could poke certain parts of the body and cause death instantaniously / 10 years later / 13 steps later etc. whilst there are points on the body that have interesting effects when poked, most of them are no use in a fight, due to peoples disinclination to stand still and let you poke them whilst theyre trying to bottle you, so to be of any use a pressure point has to be easaly exessable and not too small. points such as the solar plexus (in the upside down V made by the point where your rib cage meets your sternum) is effective if struck hard, or even poked relatively gently if the pokee is not expecting it. the eyes are quite reseptive to even the gentlest of kung-fu-pokes. the entire side of the kneck is mighty humorouse if struck/poked hard (try it to yourself -- its impossible to keep your head from listing to one side), and iv even had a few of the more exotic pressure points demonstrated on me when i was attempting to stop them being done (the most annoying being rapping the funny bone with your knuckles - makes your entire fore-arm go numb for a while); but as for the 'if i poke you here you will be paralised/dead' -- thats what is known within the martial art community as 'bullshit' the most sciensy-sounding explanation for the 'heart exploding poke' that iv heard is that if the aorta is poked fast enough, it send a shockwave through the aorta that reaches the heart, and causes a 'backing up' of the blood, preventing the heart from beating and screwing with the timekeeping of the beats and thus causing the heart to stop, however this still sounds a llittle dubiouse to me, to say the least. it is theoryoretically possible, as this is how hydrashock bullets work (by sending a shockwave through the blood) but it is doubtfull that a swift poke could convey enough forse to create a hydrashock powerful enough to stop the heart, let allone make it explode. on the subject of the behind-the-ear pressure point, it is commonly believed that this point can knockout a person with relative ease, as the skull is thin here and the shockwave travells easaly to the brain. whilst im not sure of the exact mechanism by which it works, this point should be treated like the softish part of the skull at the back of the head, where the spine meets the skull -- ie, yes its easy to knock someone out with a blow there, but its also easy to accidently kill someone by hitting them there, so dont do it! so in summary, yes, there are a couple of points on the body where it is claimed a swift poke will cause the heart to explode, but as to whether the claims are actually true -- highly doubtful

seriously, they must have payed secretaries and stuff, does the bnp actually employ black people? if not, is that not breaking the law? dus anyone no how they get around this problem?

as long as people bare in mind that its a forum for discussing religion and philosophy, and not for preaching religion and philosophy, it should be ok... the main problems iv seen in there are from people who come in and only post in the religiouse forum, maybe if the forum was only open to people who had, say, made at least 30 posts in the main scientific forums, we'd have less wankers coming in and posting about how were all satanists for believing in evolution.

general sexual reproduction can be considered as thus: [math]\text{diploid individual} \ce{->[\text{meiosis}]} \text{4 X haploid individuals}[/math] [math]\text{2 X haploid individuals} \ce{->[\text{syngamy}]} \text{1 X diploid individual} [/math] the main differenses are usually attributable to the amount of time a species spends in each stage. for example, humans spend very little time in the haploid stage, spending almost all of our lifes as diploid humans, and only existing briefly as haploid sperm. many protists spend most of their time in the haploid stage, briefly fusing together at the end of their lifes to make a diploid organism which instantly undergoes meiosis to create 4 haploid organisms. many plants spend an equal amount of time in both stages, having a diploid generation which asexually produses a haploid generation (via meiosis) -- after a time, members of this haploid generation will will sexually (via syngamy, the fusing togethe of 2 gametes) create new diploid plants. fungi reproduction is similar, i believe, with the fungi creating new offspring both asexually (meiosis) and sexually (syngamy). not always. asexual reproduction via meiosis will create haploid organisms from diploid ones, creating a whole lot of ways in which the ofspring can be genetically different from the parent (compare a human male to his sperm, which are his asexual offspring). self-fertilisation also results in genetically different organisms, for example in parthenogenisis (where a female egg fertalises another female egg), the distribution of alleles can be different in the offspring to the parent (if the parent is genotype AB, then the offspring can be AA, AB or BB), and also recombination occours before self-firtilisation, allowing for the possibility of duplicate genes and such-wot. the only way to create a clone is by triggering a cell to mitotically divide, and then develope into an organism.

lol, 'scelooton'. shouldnt post when im tired! cheers for the link coquina.

i thought that the hips broke, leaving scars called 'scarsof partition', and i thought that was how archaeologists told if a scelooton was female, from if it had these scars on the hip?

5614: yeah, what u said made sence, however inserting dna into bacteria is a whole lot different to inserting dna into humans, for a start no one really cares if a few bacteria get killed in the prosess. second, unlike bacteria, humans may moan a bit if you attempt to submerse them in foreighn dna and eletrocute them so that their cell membranes become 'leaky' and the dna can pass through. bacteria share genetic information using plasmids, little loops of dna that contain 1 / a few genes, and these get passed from one bacteria to another and then inserted into their genome, so bacteria already have a mechanism for accepting foreighn genes, whereas humans dont, which results in the foreighn genes being inserted in the middle of another gene quite regulaly. human genes are generally also regulated a lot more complexly (promotors, initiators, supressers, splice sites, introns/exons etc), and also theeres the problem of getting the genes into all of the cells in the first plase... so thats y its alot harder to plonk a gene in a eukaryote than it is to plonk one into a bacteria.