Uranium's not a limiting factor. Most reactors, with some modifications, can just as easily burn Plutonium (which is a byproduct from most if not all Uranium reactors) or Thorium (which currently thrown away as waste from rare earth mines). Nuclear fuel is not an issue here.
For that matter, neither should "accidents" like Fukushima. That was an example of poor disaster handling. The end result was because of human error, not any inherent danger in the technology.
The tree in the Carl Sagan video is a Dragon Tree: [en.wikipedia.org]
Probably, but not the way you're thinking. He has Hep C and was on some sort of medication. He's literally not in his right mind.
Seriously. Don't scare me with words like "Supervolcano" and "any time." Death valley is a pop gun next to an H-bomb compared to Yellowstone.
Fourkiller? Fourkiller?!? The only way I can *possibly* think that someone would get that name, is if they killed four men. So which one of Mr. Fourkiller's esteemed ancestors was the multi-murderer? Anyone care to do the genealogical research here?
You may be thinking of The Mote in God's Eye. It takes place near a large, dark nebula.
You forgot "be a god." Well, technically a Titan, but still. [en.wikipedia.org]
Yep. Google it, or look up the article on Wikipedia. There are sporadic breakouts.
Yeah, I happened to be on local TV last night and saw this. I'd forgotten how terrible local news reporting is :P
And if you can change American culture to the point that they value someone else's time over their own, more power to you. Personally I'd rather have robots do it all, and improve our education system to the point that we don't need such low skilled work. But I imagine we'll both have about the same amount of luck with our respective goals ;).
I don't particularly care where it's made, so long as the workers aren't treated like slaves. Companies in China can produce products plenty cheap without abusing their employees.
You can certainly argue that low pay is a form of abuse, but it doesn't compare at all to using carcinogenic chemicals, destroying the workers' joints/hands/etc., working them routinely for 12-20 hours straight, etc.
There's a huge difference between laborers who are not paid well, and laborers who are not treated well. I have no problem with products being made in China, by workers working for market(ish) rates. Even if that means they make a tenth or less of what they might make in the US, that's probably still 10 times more than what they'd be able to generate in rural China.
The issue here is not pay, or where things are made, it is abuse. It's not even abuse for the sake of cost cutting, it's abuse because the employers are lazy or complacent. It is allowed to continue because almost nobody speaks up, and those who do are fired, or jailed, or worse.
You're thinking of Kuru. That's basically mad cow disease; it literally puts large holes in your brain.
I mentioned Koro. It's a psychosomatic disorder where people, usually men, and usually in Asia, believe that their penis is or has disappeared. It's been known to sweep across populations in mass events.
There's a difference between conversion disorder and faking it. You may be right that they do not have the neurological factors which cause tourettes, but that does not mean that they are consciously doing this to get attention.
There are plenty of examples of stress exhibiting itself physically, whether through shaking, headaches, heart attacks, or tics. There are also examples of psychosomatic illnesses spreading through populations; koro is one such example.
I very much doubt that these girls are simply acting out for attention.
But that's not the only solution. Many of the working conditions are as terrible as they are because the supervisors are lazy, not because they are the cheapest possible conditions. There are workers whose hands become literally unusable because they've done the same movement, every day, for 12, 16, 20 hours straight for 5 years. All it would take is training the workers to do 2 or 3 jobs instead of one, and switching them out every few months. This would allow the workers to be productive for decades rather than years. This is a much more cost effective methodology, and it doesn't destroy the workers' hands.
There are plenty of examples like this. We in America have decided to use robots to do a lot of the repetitive work that used to be done by hand. It's eventually cheaper, faster, and produces a higher quality of product. Granted, we lose a lot of low skilled jobs, but that's a different issue.
Destroying tens of thousands of lives in what often amounts to slavery is not the "only solution." It's not even the cheapest solution. It's the lazy one.
Stop? No, but it should force them to go get a warrant first. It takes us a step back from the "shoot first, ask questions later" approach, and that's what's important here.
Technically he would have to be a cyborg due to the fact that he was at one point turned into a human. That machine only worked on DNA and Kryten said that he did have some organic components. But yes, he was called a mechanoid on the show.
Well, no. But proof of concepts are never useful. It's the incremental improvements that make any technology usable. The key is making the conceptual leap from toy to tool. If that had happened with Hero's turbine, things might be very different.
I remember seeing this on some History or Nat Geo show a few years back. If anyone had thought to hook up the turbine to wheels, we might have kicked off the industrial revolution 2000 years early. This little contraption isn't hugely different from what ran steam powered trains.
Ahh, what might have been.
Yep, looks like it's basically the same stuff. Although, if it cures in 5 minutes, it's a different mixture.
