[1] http://www.extremetech.com/computing/163071-graphene-superca...

Couldn't this be used in trousers? The friction generated between the legs could wirelessly charge whatever is in your pocket?

  I must admit I didn't see that one coming

[1] http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v3/n7/full/nnano.2008.11... (CNTs are rolled up graphene and are formed in many graphene production methods as a byproduct)

[2] Nature has a whole series on this: http://www.nature.com/nnano/focus/nanotoxicology/index.html

"Paracelsus was a pioneer in chemistry and chemotherapy. He introduced mercury, lead, sulfur, iron, zinc, copper, arsenic, iodine, and potassium as internal remedies. But he gave due warning in his writings that all chemicals are potentially poisons, and concentration and dose are what make them poisonous or nonpoisonous. His collected papers on chemotherapy of various ailments, including cancers, were published by his followers in 1567 in a book,4De Grandibus. In it, there is the first description of industrial cancer, cancer of the lung in miners of metal ores and in the workers who smelted the ore."

from here - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.25825/full

C60 for example not only shows no indication of toxicity but also appears to have health benefits. My general understanding is while relatively little is known about graphene, what is known suggests it is much safer than CNTs [1]. As well, CNTs are most dangerous when inhaled. CNTs can do damage once inside a cell but breaching membrane is a special enough cirscumstance to make it relatively easily solvable compared to how to mass produce the fullerenes in the first place. The asbestos like quality also seems to be length dependent [2] and most risky to workers - which is a more controllable environment. While it is important to know how harmful these substances may be to us and our environment and I am a tad wary of CNTs, one must keep in mind that the setting of these experiments tend to be exceptional. The fear mongering on this seems like it will end up like GMO, vaccines and fission; yet another inappropriately maligned technology of great potential.

[1] The results show that GO [digraphene oxide] has a moderate toxicity to organisms since it can induce minor (about 20%) cell growth inhibition and slight hatching delay of zebrafish embryos at a dosage of 50 mg/L, but did not result in significant increase of apoptosis in embryo, while MWNTs exhibit acute toxicity leading to a strong inhibition of cell proliferation and serious morphological defects in developing embryos even at relatively low concentration of 25 mg/L

[2] The apparent similarity between multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and asbestos fibers has generated serious concerns about their safety profile. The asbestos-like pathogenicity observed for long, pristine nanotubes (NTlong, see scheme) can be completely alleviated if their effective length is decreased as a result of chemical functionalization, such as with tri(ethylene glycol) (TEG).

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11426-012-4620-z

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201207664/ab...

http://www.landforce.co.uk/layout-images/home-wood-chipper.j...

http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2012032619114...

The magnetic field used was stronger than the confinement field in ITER - so stronger magnets than you need for nuclear fusion.

We can already levitate much larger things, such as trains.

I guess levitating a live frog seems more interesting to me however. To be able to use magnetics to simulate gravity for humans safely, is IMO, a huge barrier (of many) to space travel/living one day.

That's being powered by deliberate misinformation campaigns and cultural leftovers, not the specific properties of condoms (though improving them is always a good idea).

As an aside: don't forget the largest major anti-condom propagandists is not African at all (ie, the Catholic church).

That would be the curch that also goes on about abstinence before marriage and monogamy afterwards? Never understood why the church gets beaten up for that (not a fan of the stance on condom use but this implies people "religously" follow one of their rules while blatantly ignoring others).

A better idea would be to encourage people to use condoms. This does not circumvent human nature and has a much better chance of working.

Don't defend ill thought out policy with bad logic.

That's mostly how it works. People follow the rules they like and ignore the ones they don't.

Is that so implausible?

Of course, the worst countries are probably the ones with lots of unregulated prostitution, so in those cases it's probably the men to blame.

However, the reason that I said "men" is that most of the time women aren't the problem. There are three main scenarios where condoms are helpful to society:

1) As a form of birth control. In this case the woman may not have access to other forms, and she has to rely on the man wearing a condom. If the man doesn't like it she is often left without options (particularly in jurisdictions where - unfortunately - consent laws are different for women who are married). Even if a women doesn't like sex with a condom she usually prefers it to yet-another-baby.

2) As a protection against sexually transmitted disease. A subset of that is sexually promiscuous women who dislike condoms (and in that case you are 100% correct - a condom which feels good to women will help). However, the other case - women who are paid to have sex - is unfortunately more common, and in that case the woman often has few options if the man doesn't want to wear a condom.

3) Gay Sex. Obviously this is really a subset of (2) above, but I'm putting it separately because it's quite a large vector for sexually transmitted diseases, and increased condom use would cut it dramatically.

It is not 1988 anymore, and it's called AIDS not GRID anymore. What else? 4) Bi sex 5) Threesome sex 6) Lesbian with strapon sex?

If it's two bisexual men

> 5) Threesome sex

If it's three men.

> 6) Lesbian with strapon sex?

No, because that wouldn't involve any penises.

The parent was arguing that it's more common for men to be making decisions about condom usage than women. Why would lesbians use a condom?

It makes toy clean-up easier.

Lesbian with strapon sex? - not sure there is a huge incident of sexually transmitted disease associated with that?

Men sex, or just mex. And if you do it with a guy from Texas, it's called texmex.

MSM - men who have sex with men.

> It is 2013 after all.

And even today people are executed or imprisoned for life because they are gay.

But the sector they operate most flagrantly and disastrously is still Africa.

Certainly worth a read:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/why_birth_c...

What does Bill Gates want for the world?

He's in India helping Polio efforts [1] and helping distribute mosquito nets in Africa. [2]

What does his philanthropic soul want, in the end and in the larger scheme of things?

Has he ever expressed this or laid out?

There wasn't much in his AMA on Reddit a while ago. [3]

[1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230330950...

[2] http://www.kplu.org/post/bill-gates-vs-mosquitoes-whos-winni...

[3] http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_c...

"We take a double-pronged approach: (1) Narrow the gap so that advances for the rich world reach the poor world faster, and (2) turn more of the world’s IQ toward devising solutions to problems that only people in the poor world face."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/11/02/the-sec...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Corporation_of_New_Yor... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._and_Catherine_T._MacArt... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_and_Flora_Hewlett_Found... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Lucile_Packard_Founda...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid

Teflon and PFOA are not the same thing!

Teflon is made from PFOA true, but the properties of the two are quite different.

Teflon is completely inert, PFOA isn't.

More info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24942903

The condom is something in bad need of a radical overhaul and it would have a huge effect. At least, if this could deal with the sensation component of the problem, then it would get more people to use them.

Still problems would be distribution (religious blocking and availability for the poor are issues here), education (family planning so people know the full financial effects of having lots of kids) and "killing the moment" when you stop to put the thing on.

At 100K per competing group, it seems like the foundation could be getting lots of "bang" for its buck here.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/21/graphen...

[1]http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5432569

http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW118285.html

"UOW researchers have used graphene to develop a new composite material which can produce the toughest fibres to date- even tougher than spider silk and Kevlar!"

Is that Google's answer to Microsoft's condoms? ;-)