@8x10: I'm not worthy of any praise.

ADD/ADHD drugs are terrible for people who have ADD/ADHD - They're worse for people who don't. ADD/ADHD brains DO NOT WORK the same way that a normal human brain does. People are under the misconception that people with ADD/ADHD can't focus - that's only partially true. They focus on multiple things at once, and…

@DRaGZ: I'm pretty sure it went like this:

Energy research is dangerous work... and not always because of the study involved. Those who control our current energy economies have a tremendous amount of power over potential research avenues. In the past alternative energy research has been both quashed and sabotaged using a variety of methods. People have…

@Derong Ye: Engineers are a very capable lot, but comp-eng's tend to forget that if it weren't for a computer scientist somewhere dreaming up an algorithm that no existing computer could solve, then they'd have no incentive to create new and exciting hardware! :P

Neuroscience is extremely complex. When you look at the data obtained for a particular subject, you have to think of it more like a photograph - an image taken at a single point in time. Yes, it can identify potential trouble spots - but its not going to tell you what their history was before you took the picture,…

@rick23: I was just expressing my personal bemusement. Most lab work is terrifyingly dull and dreary if my memories of college serve me well. Chemistry was a bit more fun, but still... to get real scientific results you have to double check your experimentation. Granted, though, to innovate, sometimes you just have…

Hardly the pinnacle of scientific research - sounds more like a bunch of experimenters mixing frat-party rules with a bit of slapstick science. Of course, I'm only going on what was said above. :)

@kerry: That's because alcohol loosens tongues and reduces inhibitions. Translation - the scientist spills his top secret research into XYZ that scientist B then gets a brilliant idea to incorporate into his own research on ABC, and tells scientist A about. They spend a few minutes talking to each other before they…

Actually, these lasers could be the key to creating most nano-scale technology, if combined with other methods. I saw corpore-metal's comment about laser traps, and molecular-scale engineering and chemistry - which would be great!

So, in essence, because of the electron entanglement, there are variations within the retina that the birds are sensitive to - so they can, in essence, see an extremely vague pattern that generally represents the electromagnetic fields that surround them? The reason I say 'vague' is that if they could see details…

I don't believe in coincidence. I believe that everything has an explanation; even if we don't have sufficient data to divine it. As for this, the solutions above may be unlikely but they are possible. Without more data, we'll never know.

If they can get a nanotube tether working for this, it isn't too much a stretch to get nano-tube tethers for an orbiting satellite (which could generate massive amounts of electric energy just from passing through the earth's magnetic field.). From there, its not that far of a jump to get a space elevator. I'm sure…

Trek first. I'd watch Cosmos on PBS then the 12:30 am rerun of TOS right after Taxi. Those are my earliest memories.

@phoghat: Insufficient data to form more than a loose hypothesis. As long as there's doubt, people can argue their theories till their blue in the face. Really, some of the stellar genesis models will only be proven after direct observation. To be honest, I'm not convinced that the core and grav-instab. models are…

Well, if a programmer/developer were to successfully design a sentient intelligence (I don't believe in the term artificial intelligence, except where the responses are limited and designed to roughly imitate human intelligence without possessing sentience), then that sentient intelligence would likely have a very…

There's one way to reduce the effect of global warming without any environmental side-effects - eliminate as much as possible the man-made sources of pollution that are causing it.

I don't see the above happening. Most humans would never choose anything remotely like that form, and those that would would be very quickly eliminated by those who were repulsed by the very idea of it. It assumes more of an organic tech base - something that would more likely bite us back if we tried than sticking…

@phoghat: I dare anyone to find real differences between the two parties anymore. This is just a show: scripted and engineered. I wish it weren't, but it is.

Well... in all fairness, altering the nation's strategy on climate change would require massive government regulations to be put in place. Such regulations would require massive oversight and enforcement systems to be put into place. Once that happens, then the affected businesses that still exist in the US will…