If you relate to the person who wrote the letter, take a lesson from Rob, work hard and _write_ rather than trying to find an easy way. Further, take a lesson from me: don't just slide with what pop culture seems to be doing and pretend like "just because everybody seems to be doing it, it's okay." Take a stand and be…

So, who do you want to be wrong? Take your pick: Rob, for not honestly living up to the title of the blog post, or the lazy, wannabe writer for not knowing what the words he's using mean?

I'll accept that.

I have pretty unique viewpoints on some pretty big nerd-issues... but I have a deep distaste for doing things that are meaningless or purely academic.

I've personally grown very tired of the environment. I know exactly why this system was instated, but it's so frustrating to deal with that I'm basically cutting my time on IO9 down now by a lot. It's just not worth the trouble anymore to say something when I know it will probably end up swept under the rug.

I really gotta spend less time on this site. Dealing with the out-of-control censorship here is a total drag that I'm tired of being frustrated by. The MRAs at Jezabel are winning; they've made this environment intolerably oppressive. Ever wonder how surveillance states are born? Exactly like this, by the best…

1.) Oh, people have done plenty of calculations. Basic calculations for this sort of project frequently show up on orals tests for graduate student physicists. They need dream materials to make it work: carbon fiber and diamond chains. Last I heard, carbon fiber was probably not strong enough.

As a physicist, I must say that physicists are awesome people and often very very smart. As a biochemist —face-palm.

I agree;-) (I wonder if this out-grays it?)

So then, speaking from a grayed out comment. Does it strike anyone as particularly ironic that an article that is fundamentally against censorship of literature is preceding a comments section that is as heavily censored as this one is?

<sarcasm>Gotta love comment approval around here. Show the comments that aren't even on topic, hide the comments that are actually about the subject matter. Beautiful example of how the internet actually works.</sarcasm> Forgive me. I'm sick of gray.

As an aside, the temperature of these liquid crystalline phase transitions can be tweaked to an extent by the DNA concentration. I suppose it's possible that the phage genome size is tuned with respect to the volume of the viral capsid to permit more fluid phases at lower temperatures.

So, I think it's a very interesting result. One thing that I'm a little concerned about is that, by-in-large, most bacteriophage infections in the world are happening at something below that temperature. You posted an article just a few days ago that the oceans have some stratospheric number of bacteriophage…

'Let's make children's lives better.' We don't think it's making children's lives better. In fact, we certainly think it's making their education worse."

As long as kids are shooting and stabbing their classmates, their parents need to be more involved with understanding formative forces on their kids. Like it or not, responsible parents should be vetting literature, TV choices, movie choices, games and friends for their kids. That isn't censorship, that's just…

That allows you to add a character who falls into a tank of electric eels and turning into an electricity man.

It's a good perspective to have. I've enjoyed the discussion. I think that one thing that can change the world is people honestly listening to each other and sharing ideas.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Still, Dengue is mosquito borne; that will move a little differently than Ebola.

I don't disagree with that, but I think it's still somewhat provisional. It's a fair assessment that hygiene and health promoting practices are a decent metric for judging good and bad cultural norms. I think that where perspective enters is that it's not possible for one person to drag the whole world out of violence…

I think rather than good or bad, I would just say "different." Some social habits in western countries are extremely bad for health. And, I would not look down on a poor African who wants to do something respectful for a dead loved one... even though the ignorance of the act might help kill a second person. I totally…