rheimbuch

Alright, you actually had me interested. A plausible demonstration of SSB (single strand breakage) or DSB (double strand breakage) after exposure to the type of RF that cell phones emit would be huge. And to his credit, that's exactly what Lai's results indicated (H Lai, NP Singh - Int J Radiat Biol, 1996).

Specifically, Lai found DNA breakage in the brain tissues of rats immediately after a 2hr exposure to a 2450MHz CW (continuous wave) signal, but not immediately after exposure to a 2450MHz PW (pulsed wave) signal. DNA breakage was only found 4hr after exposure to the PW signal ended. Lai didn't provide any temperature information, so we can't know if that was a factor.

Here's my problem: Lai's experiment was reproduced at least once, and found no significant difference in SSBs between the irradiated group and the controls (http://bit.ly/9qr2Hm).

This is on top of numerous other studies that have failed to confirm DNA damage from RF exposure (http://bit.ly/c9H4MR). I'm not saying that RF-induced DNA damage couldn't possibly happen, but the evidence for it seems weak or non-existent at best.

In the presentation (45:00) he walks through the metabolism of 120 calories of glucose (from white bread), alcohol (a shot), and fructose (orange juice). Not pretty.

Doing a quick lookup in the dietary app on my phone says that 8oz of orange juice (from concentrate, with pulp) has 28g of sugar and 0g of fiber. Meanwhile a cup of raw orange (peeled) has 17g of sugar and 4g of fiber.

Based on the presenter's description of the ratio of fiber to fructose in raw fruit, I'm starting to wonder if ANY commercial juice could provide enough fiber to counter-act the fructose. I guess you could add a fiber mix or something to the juice to match the fiber/sugar ratio of the raw fruit. I personally hate the taste/flavor/texture of mixin fiber and would rather just eat the fruit.

PS. Just saw kingkongreveng_'s comment about modern fruit being bred to contain more fructose than in the past (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1008261). In that case the juice is even worse than my comparison makes it look because the sugar content of modern fruit would skew the baseline upwards.

I second KWD's recommendation of BikeFriday bikes. I have a Tikit folding bike. Its far more stable and durable than any other compact folder I've ridden and have taken it over curbs and through pot-holes without a problem. Basically the folding mechanism can't engage as long as there's weight on the peddles.

You will have some flex in the frame, but less in my opinion than other folding bikes I've ridden. All the issues with a lower slung frame still apply.

The killer features for me are: 1) I can fold it in about 5 seconds; 2) I can wheel it around while folded; 3) other than the frame it uses standard bike parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQscBxx7wLE

http://www.memagazine.org/contents/current/features/origami/...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ci6Muhedms

Given that animals and humans who don't produce (or are insensitive to) myostatin appear to be otherwise healthy, I think it's a safe bet that myostatin's main function in mammals is to limit muscle growth. Muscle is metabolically expensive to build and maintain, so inhibiting unnecessary muscle growth would be advantageous when high-calorie/high-protein food is scarce.

You are of course 100% correct. I was using the terms in their literal, non-traditional meanings so your clarification is appreciated. However, too often I've found the baggage of words like "agnostic" obscures the discussion more than it clarifies it.

Literally, "gnostic" and "agnostic" refer to what you claim, or do not claim, to know. Given the general muddle of terms--"agnostic", "agnostic theist", "agnostic atheist", etc--I tend to find it more helpful to separate out the terms into core meanings. I believe doing so more clearly displays the positions, as you can plot the Atheism <-> Theism axis against the Agnostic <-> Gnostic axis. I would argue that this separation of claims-of-knowledge vs claims-of-god(s) is clearer than the simple Atheist <-> Agnostic <-> Theist positioning.

Atheism is simply the nonacceptance of a claim (theism) that lacks any supporting evidence. Not accepting a baseless claim is the anti-thesis of "faith" (ie. faith = accepting a claim without evidence).

Being agnostic is NOT a middle ground between theism and atheism. The break down is like this: 1) A god exists. 2) A god does not exist.

Theists accept #1 and reject #2. Atheists reject #1 and can either accept or reject #2.

Gnosticism (for the purpose of this discussion) deals with what you claim to know. A gnostic claims knowledge about the truth of an assertion. An agnostic (literally "without knowledge") does not claim to have such knowledge.

The term "atheist" is very similar to the legal term "not-guilty". Declaring a person "not-guilty" does not mean they are "innocent". It simply means that there is insufficient evidence to declare them "guilty". Saying that an atheist must "prove" that no gods exist is like saying that you must prove your innocence in a court of law. Rejecting an assertion because it lacks supporting evidence does not require proving the opposite assertion.