Australia could be leading the world in research that will save lives and earn money. Instead we lead the world in gullible obedience to an absurd scheme to change the weather.
Making human body parts from off-the-shelf or customized cells is a vast improvement on waiting for healthy people to die and donate, and a lifetime of immunosuppressants. Any delay in developing these techniques will surely cost lives and prolong disability. Those who do develop and patent these techniques are bound to profit and be able to afford even more research, and will improve national productivity as well as the quality of life. For those on waiting lists, spending $3billion on solar panels to stop storms and hold back the sea is the cruelest waste.
This type of medical work could make waiting lists for organ-donation a thing of the past. The political vanity of supporting useless causes for the sake of symbolism has a ghastly price.
Read about what this poor little girl and her family have had to go through. She is two, and had never been home or tasted food until last month. She has not been able to speak, but might possibly one day. This is marvelous news, which we fervently hope continues to deliver. It is very early days…
Toddler is youngest to ever get lab-made windpipe
Tuesday Apr 30, 2013 | Lindsey Tanner for The Associated Press
South Korean 2-year-old has new windpipe made from her own stem cells; youngest patient ever
CHICAGO (AP) — A 2-year-old girl born without a windpipe now has a new one grown from her own stem cells, the youngest patient in the world to benefit from the experimental treatment.
Hannah Warren has been unable to breathe, eat, drink or swallow on her own since she was born in South Korea in 2010. Until the operation at a central Illinois hospital, she had spent her entire life in a hospital in Seoul. Doctors there told her parents there was no hope and they expected her to die.
The stem cells came from Hannah’s bone marrow, extracted with a special needle inserted into her hip bone. They were seeded in a lab onto a plastic scaffold, where it took less than a week for them to multiply and create a new windpipe.
About the size of a 3-inch tube of penne pasta, it was implanted April 9 in a nine-hour procedure.
Read it all: News Daily
Bionic ear made with 3D printer
Princeton scientists have made a bionic ear that extends human hearing into ranges humans can’t normally hear.
A bionic ear created with 3D printing. It contains an antenna that can pick up radio waves. Credit: Photo by Frank Wojciechowski
May 1, 2013 — Scientists at Princeton University used off-the-shelf printing tools to create a functional ear that can “hear” radio frequencies far beyond the range of normal human capability.
The researchers’ primary purpose was to explore an efficient and versatile means to merge electronics with tissue. The scientists used 3D printing of cells and nanoparticles followed by cell culture to combine a small coil antenna with cartilage, creating what they term a bionic ear.
“In general, there are mechanical and thermal challenges with interfacing electronic materials with biological materials,” said Michael McAlpine, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton and the lead researcher. “Previously, researchers have suggested some strategies to tailor the electronics so that this merger is less awkward. That typically happens between a 2D sheet of electronics and a surface of the tissue. However, our work suggests a new approach — to build and grow the biology up with the electronics synergistically and in a 3D interwoven format.”
…
This project, however, is the team’s first effort to create a fully functional organ: one that not only replicates a human ability, but extends it using embedded electronics.
“The design and implementation of bionic organs and devices that enhance human capabilities, known as cybernetics, has been an area of increasing scientific interest,” the researchers wrote in the article which appears in the scholarly journal Nano Letters. “This field has the potential to generate customized replacement parts for the human body, or even create organs containing capabilities beyond what human biology ordinarily provides.”
Standard tissue engineering involves seeding types of cells, such as those that form ear cartilage, onto a scaffold of a polymer material called a hydrogel. However, the researchers said that this technique has problems replicating complicated three dimensional biological structures. Ear reconstruction “remains one of the most difficult problems in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery,” they wrote.
To solve the problem, the team turned to a manufacturing approach called 3D printing. These printers use computer-assisted design to conceive of objects as arrays of thin slices. The printer then deposits layers of a variety of materials — ranging from plastic to cells — to build up a finished product. Proponents say additive manufacturing promises to revolutionize home industries by allowing small teams or individuals to create work that could previously only be done by factories.
The finished ear consists of a coiled antenna inside a cartilage structure. Two wires lead from the base of the ear and wind around a helical “cochlea” — the part of the ear that senses sound — which can connect to electrodes. Although McAlpine cautions that further work and extensive testing would need to be done before the technology could be used on a patient, he said the ear in principle could be used to restore or enhance human hearing. He said electrical signals produced by the ear could be connected to a patient’s nerve endings, similar to a hearing aid. The current system receives radio waves, but he said the research team plans to incorporate other materials, such as pressure-sensitive electronic sensors, to enable the ear to register acoustic sounds.
Read the rest: Science Daily
H/t to Robert W.
Adding to the direct cost of the Government’s climate change schemes is that all the spin and sheep like media reporting provides imprimatur to the next mob of sheep – the institutional superannuation funds living off the superannuation guarantee scheme. They then go chasing “green” investments like investments in windmills and this is at the expense of investment in early stage technology venture capital, the very sector that provides seed and early stage funding to the biotech and medical engineering sectors.
Australian institutional superannnaution funds would be lucky to invest $100m per annum into early stage technology venture capital. The official figures quoted are often more than this because they often lump venture capital in with private equity, and private equity covers all sectors and is mainly concerned with leveraged buyoyts. Australian VC firms invested AU$122 million in 83 companies in financial year 2012. In comparison USA Venture capitalists invested $26.5 billion in 3,698 deals in 2012. If Australia were keeping up with our much bigger cousin on a pro-rata basis Australian VC firms should ave invested $2.65 billion.
All the Commonwealth Government would have to do is legislate that Australian institutional super investors place 2% of the total funds collected from 2013 into early stage venture capital. This would see a staggering $1.72b in early stage investing into software, biotech, bio-medical, web, and technology in the energy, mining, agriculture, foresty and transport sectors. Sure early stage tech investing is risky but with a critical mass of funds, the risk is mitigated by the fact that there is enough money around to help investees go global. It would also cause a significant increase in employment, research and development, innovation, and it would cause a decrease in financial engineered investments like wind power generation which are being made on the back of an official guilt-trip.
130
Thats all a wind-pipe dream.
I would contend the way things are is better:
If you funnel money into an arena theres less pressure to perform. Eg the collossal, mind bogglingly vast inefficiency and waste in the area of military R&D. NASA hasnt come out with any new technology since the Sixties.They just keep recycling things under new project names, none of which projects ever come to fruition.
If you require innovators to find their own investors they are forced to perform pirouettes of promotion, part of which entails actually delivering a credible product.
50
Maverick,
You are asking government coercion (the gun of government) to be used to fund innovation. Innovation is dependent upon the minds of the innovators to be free to follow the evidence and changing circumstance. Since the research funding is coming from or dictated by the government, the government will NOT permit this. It will in fact dictate the outcomes and also the processes to be used to achieve them. Multiculturalism anyone?
Research is required specifically because the path to the desired outcome is NOT KNOWN but must be discovered by the mind of man working freely with what he has. Not only can the unknown not be dictated as to what it must be, the mind cannot discover the unknown if it is required to deliver to the requirements of wannabe dictators of reality at the literal point of gun.
The bottom line what your policy will achieve will be a repeat of the so called “climate science: debacle. Only the names of the programs and the guilty will be changed so they can pretend they are doing a good thing while destroying wealth, freedom, and lives.
In other words, your policy will achieve exactly the opposite of your stated goals. Are you sure you still want to proceed?
40
Lionell,
I think you misinterpret what Maverick wrote. All he said was, “All the Commonwealth Government would have to do is legislate that Australian institutional super investors place 2% of the total funds collected from 2013 into early stage venture capital.” True, that is interference with the portfolio management of the institutional investors. But as stated, there is no implication that the Government would have the means to direct the outcomes of the funded ventures.
Most innovators face two financial problems: One is pitching a proposal for funding to financial organisations in terms that facilitate their understand the technology and its potential benefits, and the second is in identifying all the potential funders in the first place. Maverick’s suggestion would at least go some way to addressing this second problem.
40
But do you really think that the Government (and the Public Service) would stand to one side while very large sums of money were dispersed WITHOUT any control, interference etc. by them.
At the very least we would get lumbered with a levy to finance “disadvantaged inventors with socially desirable ideas”.
O/T but view this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ijuzQWU9Ko
I think I could raise money for my new invention; a padded container to deliver undesirable animals to other countries
e.g. NO not NZ, they got possums, they won’t want swans.
10
The Aus government already interferes with the Superannuation portfolio all over the place. All they have to do is NOT legislate any particular investments and allow people to make their own choices (i.e. stop their interference). This would entail the concept that some investors will do better and some will do worse.
Once they get their heads around non-interference, people will choose to invest in all sorts of things, and on the whole will do a much better job of it than government regulators ever have done.
00
This is excellent news for all those climate changers and wind farmers. They can order a printed brain to install in the space where one has never existed.
130
How true, but how to get our pollies focused on the real priorities?
110
A revolution in the main-stream media is required. As long as the media reports based on the 24 hour cycle of spin and Armageddon the politicians will keep setting their priorities around this media driven Zeitgeist.
80
You need to find an alternative as we have in the UK. The groundswell of ‘none-of-the-above’ voters will force a change of attitude in Oz too.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100214789/alinsky-you-are-so-over-viva-la-revolucion/
40
I agree also ColdOldMan, Cohenite
But how? I have a 20 year old son who buys online, does Facebook as a contact source, does some TWITTER, watches YouTube constantly, watches Movies (probably hacked as his room looks like a NASA Space Station), doesn’t read newspapers, doesn’t read magazines, doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t listen to the radio, all music is downloaded on his iPhone, texts or Facebook his friends etc. This is the new way of communicating, not this Blog, not Yahoo etc – but 24 hour instant information.
We have to make Jonova’s TWITTER account the biggest yet, join up on TWITTER, join up Jonova Facebook, and TWEET, DIGG IT, Blog it, etc etc. This gives me the creeps, but if it works, I’ll do it. The government, Greens etc all have full time staff just reviewing TWEETS and Facebook stuff.
But what the FUGK, if they can do it, I can do it better. Re-tweet every bloody article of this site, re-tweet all of JB’s, MATTYB’s and the other sick trolls comments, who populate this site and get their stupid inane answers out there.
I have plenty of time during a quiet ale to do this. I’m signing up to get with the NEW 24 hours “Stuff up the CAGW” group. And the beauty is it’s free, but these parasite polluting mongrels are robbing everyday people of hard earned money for a scenario that is not going to occur through man made CO2 emissions.
Tweet to your favourite TWIT NOW. Got to go… just got Combet’s Twitter address, and am starting now. Get out of MY FACE tomorrow.
50
Cohenite
If Topher’s new video he is planning works out to be half as good as I think it will then it will go a long way to help focusing the politicians on the money being wasted on AGW.
( I assume Jo will give a plug for the fund raising that is going on for the video. As well as being a good cause I see Jo & David are part of the planned star line up.)
90
Topher’s video:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/50-to-1-project-the-true-cost-of-action-on-climate-change
40
Are you kidding………130000 bucks for seven minutes, thats what hes asking.
Were you born yesterday?
010
I watched the video sent to me by email before reading this thread. The bloke’s good. I’ve decided to make a substantial donation even though I wasn’t born yesterday. It’s time to throw some good money at an excellent concept and convince politicians to stop throwing good money after bad.
120
It wont convince anybody of anything. They aint for turning. Aint you learned that after all these years.
Ask yourself this…will John Brookes change his mind because of a seven minute You Tube presentation (even one “costing” 130,000 dollars)?
02
No one is ever convinced if people just give up and don’t try. John Brookes won’t be convinced, but JB isn’t the only person out there. Do nothing, AGW wins.
60
Do ANYTHING AGW wins.
22
Just you keep on thinking that, Ace. Just you keep remembering that you have already won his little debate thing.
You are one of the heros Ace, and have earned a place for your name on the wall.
Your fan salutes you.
40
…but youve no feckin clue what Ive done in the real world.
01
Ace
If you look at what they intend to do with the video you will see that they are going focus on the economics of the issue. They are going to sideline the so called science by saying ” Lets assume the IPCC is correct , now lets look at the economics using that assumption as a starting point”
Politicians listen to economic arguments which show a massive waste of money. If individual politicians don’t you can bet their voters will.
As to the cost of the video – the people it is aimed at are not going to look at an amateur, done on a shoe string effort. It has to be professional and I’m happy to put a few dollars their way to help them have a go.
30
The JBs of this world wouldn`t be convinced even if the current interglacial ended and temperatures started crashing down by half a degree per year , Topher`s vid isn`t meant to get Them thinking ( They`d rather watch people freeze to death while complaining about the dreadful heat than do that ),
It`s aimed at both normal people and politicians and to get them to start to think about just how much money it`s going to cost to appease the AGW hystericals vs just dealing with it being a little bit warmer
20
Nobody here seems to understand the culture we live in.
The popular mind-set is coloured by the media, celebrities, etc and reason, arguments, or rationality play virtually no part in anything.
All major political parties are fully in bed with CAGW, so theres no competition over the issue and voters have nowhere to turn other than CAGW accepting parties apart from crank outfits like UKIP.
So, as I say, nothing like this has or will ever make a blind bit of difference to anything. There have been major, broadcast climate scepticism documentaries in the past and it hasnt made a blind bit of difference.
Culture can only be countered by culture. You cant counter mumbo jumbo IN THE LAND THAT IS GOVERNED BY mumbo jumbo except by using a superior mumbo jumbo…this guys blip aint it. The argument itself is as old as CAGW scepticism is. I was stating it out loud twenty years ago.
03
It is very difficult to make someone understand something then their livelihood depends on not understanding.
However, there are an increasing number of people whose livelihood is being systematically taken away from them, so those are probably a good place to start. Also, the weather seems to be on our side for the time being at least. Just keep reminding people whenever there’s a bit of extra snow… it’s not rational, but it seems to be standard political tactics, and it’s cheap and easy to do.
Keep copies of all the crazy “100 meters of sea level rise” type predictions.
20
No, that’s not what he is asking at all. Please take the time to actually look at the thing.
20
On the contrary, thats EXACTLY what he is asking for. 130,000 dollars to fund a seven minute movie:
01
01
Link wont load, heres the URL:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/50-to-1-project-the-true-cost-of-action-on-climate-change
01
If you care to look, listen and read, you will find the money is for more than just the seven minute movie.
30
Im sure it is. Im sure itll go on a lot of things.
02
You need to read more Ace. 3.5hrs plus
” Whilst excerpts of the interviews will be used in the 7 minute video, the real value is that we will be spending 30 minutes to 1 hour with each of them (so 3.5+ hours combined run time!) and the full interview with each of these internationally respected experts will be available on the 50-to-1 website as they share their thoughts and perspectives on climate change”
00
When will you molecular biologists stop fooling around with tracheas and ears and get working on the really important stuff?
When are you going to stop my hair from turning grey and falling out? 🙂
I figure these biological 3D printers are going to be priced like inkjet printers. The printer will be $99 at Officeworks but the cartridge refills will be $5000… per amino acid…
90
You know they must be working on more important things. Look how much money is made on Viagra and all.
Follow the money.
21
On April 1st, somebody in the New Zealand Parliament released an official looking document that discussed the use of this technology to “fabricate ecstasy tabs, or other drugs”.
A few politicians came very close to saying some regrettable things before their minders could get them back under control.
20
Was that by David Lynch?
All this stuff weve been promised time and again for decades.
The reality tends to be like the Deep Brain Stimulation story. Cockahoop reporters “brain pace maker cures so and so ” (its been tried with several things). Then you get near the bottom and all is revealed: a 27% improvement in 73% of cases in one study of twenty people. How does 73% the same constitute a “cure”? It only really works well in Parkinsonism.
The fact we still use the 197? expression “bionic(man)” should indicate how oldy-worldy all this dreaming is. Yes theres progress in these things…at a snails pace.Well all be dead and dust long before we are ever offered a bionic ear.
What would interest me is a means of uploading consciousness to a network. But that probably aint ever going to be possible.
Anyway, dont listen to me. Im old fashioned. Wed still be flying Saturn Applications vehicles to bases on the Moon and preparingto colonise the solar system if things had continued the way they were in my youth. Now were being offered a funky wad of pink plastic by some character with a condom on his hand. wowee, arent I out of date!
21
You are kidding right? Bionic ears are a REALITY.
10
When are they going to offer same sex ears for alternative lifestyles?
00
Dude has 75% of skull replaced by 3D printed implant
00
Impressive! Those 3D printers are far more useful than I would have ever thought possible.
00
I know a girl with one of you “bionic ears”…shes as deaf as a post.
The ear “works” by lip reading.
02
Man… are you not getting some or what?
[Keep it together, and quit with the ad homs] Fly
20
Whats that supposed to mean, [Snip].
01
…oh I geddit.
You said it wasnt 130000 dollars hes asking for and I showed it was.
You waxed dewy over your bionic ears and I told you that as a matter of fact I know a girl who has (a cochlear implant) and it doesnt enable her to hear speech so she still has to lip-read…a fact.
So you resort to talking about my sex life, bright boy.
Well as for not getting it… Id bet you aint ever had it with the likes of what I most recently have.
So stick that in your cod-piece.
01
I am sure that very soon they will have the implant that you require.
You said he is asking 130K just for the video. I said no, there is more to it than the video. Go and look, you will see that I am perfectly correct.
Just the website will set them back how much?
10
Where did I talk about your sex life? You sure I wasn’t talking about money?
20
“Just the web-site will set them back how much?”
Kind of proves my point that you are a gullible fool:
1. You have no idea hence your question.
2. Theres no web site ever made that cost 130,000.
00
Who is the fool? Who said that 130K was going into a website? Nobody.
I would expect around 30K for a good website with the amount of content they will be putting up there.
00
Back slider youve just admitted the web site would be 30,000 tops, thatleaves 100,000 on a seven minute video. One minute yousay one thing then next minute the opposite.
Youve pretty much argued the case for me.
00
No, I have just pointed out only one thing (which you do not disagree with) that shows that what you are spruiking is bulldust.
Lets see, how much do you think it will cost to fly a production crew around the World for all the interviews? …. need I continue?
00
“Where did I talk about your sex life? You sure I wasn’t talking about money?
YOU SAID:
“Man are you not getting some or what?”
…and it appears the moderator understood what you meant as well (hence the observation that it was “ad hominen”…not that I give a mmonkeys what you ad).
If it didnt mean that (I think it did, just your sort of comment) then why not try actually writing what you mean instead of lame one-liners?
As for the money….yeah I aint getting some.
My business has vanished because my market population no longer has money to spend and here I see people cockahoop about GIVING some guy 130,000 just for his asking it! Thats not only profligacy in the face of my losses but profligacy in the face of circumstances felt by a vast chunk of population (my broke customers) who are completely skint.
These “sceptics” begin to resemble the “Warmists”
How “sceptical” is it to rush to giving 130,000 to some complete stranger for seven minutes of video and apoxy web-site. “Sceptic” could rapidly become synonym for “gullible half-wit with vastly more money than sense”.
I think I might switch camps for a break.
00
Ummm… we were talking about money. If you and the mod wish to take things out of context, that’s both your problems.
00
It must be real. The first spam promising an enlarged penis is circulating.
I hadn’t the heart to tell them we already have several nearly 2metres tall in Canberra.
40
And some of them are women!
Tony.
30
Can they make working brains for any scientists that might need them?
30
Is this “Negative Friday”? I find these 3D printers and stem cells growing replacement body parts (no matter how small or infrequent), etc. to be very exciting. I remember watching science fiction with replicators, touch screen tablets, video conferencing, etc and now we are looking at these things as part of everyday life. My 80+ year old mother in law had a Skype chat with my husband a while back. She would never have imagined this possible. Yes, all of these things can be a huge distraction and dumb down people if we let them. And as with any advance there comes a learning curve on where things fit in with society and how to use them.
This is a fascinating time in science and I refuse to let a few people who use politics and bad science to advance their agendas spoil that. Thank you, Jo, for the fascinating post.
80
No Sheri it’s “Skeptical Saturday” just kidding,
But you’re right it is exciting to see technological advancements being used in a good way and not a consumer distraction.
Talking to a young bloke at work he was amused at my zero lack of interest in social media, so I told him about my time growing up and the rapid advancement of computer technology over a decade.
Well he could not believe only a short time ago people had to send letters by mail, call using a landline no mobiles, had carburetors on most cars few were fuel injected, go to the cinema to see a movie or wait for it to be repeated on TV no instant access, and the more I explained the bloody older I felt!
About 30 years ago I had that very same conversation with an old bloke who told me about him growing up with no TV, phones, etc, LOL it must be a repeated scenario through the ages I suppose but even as a kid I learnt that listening to older folk was a valuable thing to do.
My great grandmother who passed in the early 80’s would happily talk about her early childhood in Glenrowan Vic and later on the farm in the Dandenongs Vic, In Glenrowan she remembered her mother rushing her inside the house when horses came thundering through the bush and hiding, later she was told of the troubles with the police and a certain family in the area who were considered outlaws.
Great Gran died at age 107.
I wonder if we live long enough we’ll astound young people with stories of how we never used space travel and people believed Co2 was a pollutant, yep it’s going to be embarrassing.
40
BUT…these cycles are not a linear progression, they are qualitatively different.
TV etc when it arrived was entertainment. On the other hand, “Social media” now it has its feet under the table is one of the most invasive forms of socia; control never envisaged, unplanned and with as yet unforeseen human costs.
10
What’s the problem? Social media is, like, organic, right?
10
😀 Ya! It’s, like, totally natural!
– – – – –
Back in reality, the co-inventor of Facebook called the initial users “dumb f**s” for ever trusting him, attended the Bilderberg conference in 2011, silently switched on facial recognition of photos by default, and received his first external venture capital for FB from Peter Thiel who less than 6 months later also founded Palantir Technologies “whose software helps government agencies track down terrorists, fraudsters, and other criminals, by detecting subtle patterns in torrents of information”. The second round of venture capital came from Accel Partners whose manager and board included ex board members of In-Q-Tel, and not much more needs to be said about them.
FB is effectively training kids to spy on each other, to report on each other, and to accept constant surveillance. So they will grow up thinking there’s nothing wrong with this and not knowing what it can lead into. And nobody watches the watchers.
I could say more, but I won’t.
Basically, Ace is pretty much right on the money with this one.
00
“And nobody watches the watchers.” I’m doing what I can for that! 😉
(click on my name if you’re confused at this point!)
00
Social media destroys the lives of many people who use it or are swept into its data.
Like the American members of a gay choir whose leader posted their names on his Facebook thing and whose parents then discovered as a result that they were gay and severed all family ties with them.
00
Yonnie, I wonder if your great-great-grandmother knew mine? I recently found out that my ancestor (on mum’s side) lived on the farm next to the Kellys and had some horses stolen by them. She confronted them and demanded, and got, the horses back. The Kellys realised they needed to keep peace with their neighbours, probably as a buffer.
30
Ian Hill, Wow six degrees of separation hey.
I’ll have to check Great grans maiden name was, but her married name was French, this is on Mums side of the family and there’s been a few surprises come up after some digging into the past.
I’d say they more than likely did know or know of each other but she moved from there as a girl to Sassafras, Victoria in the Dandenong ranges, the stories of her life were riveting and I wish I’d recorded them for future references.
One of my favorite books is “Wild Colonial Boys” by Frank Clune mainly because the information was gathered quite often from people who were still alive and actually there, this book should be compulsory reading for high school on Australian history.
The books dedication is to “The freedom of speech and the Downfall of dictators who suppress it”.
20
I found out my ancestors were a colourful lot, but there is no convict connection at all.
I listened to Ray Sawyer (of Dr Hook) singing The “Wild Colonial Boy” a couple of weeks ago when playing an old cassette tape in my car. Seemed funny for an American to be doing that!
10
This is just another instance of how many useful things there are out there to research.
The hundreds of billions wasted on so called climate research could have funded so many of these.
In our bizarre world, keeping greenies and liberals feeling smug is all too often considered much more important than doing something useful. Such is ‘climate research’ and the study of the non problem of climate change/global warming.
40
Sorry , completely off topic but there appear to be some very interesting election results coming through in the UK council elections. The UKIP is hammering the Conservatives (ie most of the UKIP gains coming from the Conservatives). All to do with energy policy/ security or lack of it.
30
Ross, what web site are you monitoring?
00
RW
Not really monitoring, just picking up pieces from various sites while looking at other things.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10036463/Local-elections-2013-Nigel-Farages-Ukip-surges-to-best-ever-showing-winning-150-seats.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22396690
http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-party-climate-green-energy-sceptics-rock-political-landscape/
00
Cameron’s ‘Fruitcakes & Loonies’ jibe, about the UK IP party is coming back to haunt him.
British people don’t like their rulers abusing their positions, picking on little guys or taking their power for granted.
20
Thanks for the story Jo. I love it when technology forges ahead.
I remember reading about the earliest computers and how a “byte” (single keypress) of memory was contained in a unit about 2 bricks in size face to face, with 8 transistor valves sticking out. The Apollo program used “rope memory” consisting of wires and ferrite cores to encode software into hardware for the guidance computer. That’s just plain scary but it worked.
If it’s possible, Man will find a way. What used to seem unthinkable in the past is now all around us. Just imagine walking down the street talking into a little box held up to your ear in the ’80’s. You’d be committed.
A little OT, but there’s another good use for 3d printers. Making high-capacity magazines/weapons which the Obama administration wants to ban for so-called public good. There’s always a way around rubbish legislation. They should concentrate their efforts on criminals rather than those that just want to protect their home or shoot for sport. Knives and baseball bats kill more people than guns, not to mention automobiles that top the list. They know they can’t ban those, so they’re trying to look like they’re doing something, even though the vast public doesn’t want it. /rant.
In any case, a leap of one technology always leads to another. I wouldn’t want my consciousness loaded onto an Earth-bound network. Why do that when you could take that to explore the Universe forever. I could write the code, but the uplink interface and hardware is the problem – for now.
40
Many of the bits for firearms that are proposed for 3D-printing used to be made of wood.
They were only made of metal for a while because is was cheaper (and much easier in a factory) to make them out of metal (especially sheet metal) and because there was a shortage of trees. Durable key parts such as the breech and barrel cannot be 3D-printed by any known technique.
The necessary strength and rigidity cannot be replicated even with pseudo-sintered metal. The breech-end of a firearm; where the ammunition “shell” is held and where the original force of the explosion is contained is often forged metal (forged as in “hammered” into shape) so that its strength is “aligned” with the need to contain the explosion when the weapon is fired. De-rating the ammunition to reduce the force of the explosion for the much weaker material is possible… but it’s most likely that throwing the weapon is more lethal than firing it.
00
I think that depends on how many shots you intend to take. A small single-shot weapon should be a lot easier.
The curious thing is that in the USA (and maybe Australia ??) the receiver module is the bit with the serial number, and this is the bit that defines a “gun” as a legal entity. In some (but not all) designs the barrel can be removed from the receiver and you can purchase a replacement barrel with no ID, and no checks, because legally a barrel is a spare part, not a gun. I expect this law will be changed pretty quick as technology moves on. Serial numbers on barrels will likely become compulsory.
00
The most shots I have read anyone has managed was 6, before the gun split in two. (http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/3-d-printed-gun-fires-6-shots-then-falls-apart-1C7404226)
The printers run over $2000, except for one at Staples that is $1300. So over $200 (if you use the cheap printer) per shot for the first 6 shots. Then you have to round up more material, print another gun, buy ammunition, and maybe get six shots without the gun splitting or exploding.
Tel is right about the serial number on the receiver. I’m not sure serial marking the barrel would help much, though that does not mean it won’t happen (rational behaviour is not common in this). It’s more likely they will require permits to buy the ammunition since that’s the part you cannot print.
Currently, this is basically the toy of techies. Guys who just want to prove it can be done. For the cost of the printer and material, you can buy guns that really work. If you work outside the law, you buy from a guy in the back alley and throw the gun away after filing off the serial number (which is Highly illegal, of course). It’s a thousand time simpler.
00
If You were really determined to make Your own gun , At six shots You`d be better off building a saturday night special , anyone with a reasonably well equipped home workshop and basic mechanical comprehension could build one although the rifling would be a bit of a problem unless You were REALLY patient and wanted to cut it in by hand like they used to .
10
Rifling isn’t difficult at all to cut by machine if one is prepared to build a jig and tool-holder for the task. One can either straight cut and then twist the (heated) barrel or cut the twisted rifling.
The difficulty is mostly with controlling the heat treatment so that the barrel stays true; even after being heated by rapid firing of ammunition.
If one is trying to make firearms cheaply using materials and manufacturing of uncertain quality, then one offsets by using more material; resulting in a heavier weapon.
P.S. I’ve heard that Obama will also be seeking to ban the 3D printing of spoons and forks to combat obesity. 😉
00
And still it refuses to warm, but by golly gosh it was hot in Perth
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/05/uah-global-temperature-update-for-april-2013-0-10-deg-c/
Sorry OT
10
OT. . .
New Scientist is at it again!
Cover story for the 4 May 2013 issue:
High and Dry. When Climate Change causes sea levels to fall!
Ive uploaded just the four page story as a pdf for your reading.
http://www.warcroft.com.au/NewScientist4May2013.pdf
Again, warmists arguing it both ways. Hot, climate change. Cold, climate change. Wet, climate change. Dry, climate change. Sea levels rise, climate change. Sea levels fall, climate change.
00
Climate change also causes potholes in roads
00
I think that’s just weather , Dennis. Potholes being caused by thermal expansion & contraction, but requiring a council task-force to be set up to send a couple of men round with a shovel and a bucket of pitch to fill them in.
The only pothole that might be attributed to Climate Change, is the commentator with the tedious presentation that pores over Lord Monckton’s performances, extracting every nuance of nit-picking irrelevance.
for further questioning. Know the one I mean ?
10
Now climate change IS weather–well, actually, climate change makes weather more extreme, so more thermal expansion and contraction, and thus, more and larger potholes. You have keep up with these things!!! 🙂
00
You are joking aren’t you ? We all know Extreme weather is just more Alarmist b/s.
We used to have much worse weather, but never made such a song and dance about it.
I suppose ‘forgetting what snow is’ makes every little flurry seem so much more extreme though.
00
Am I kidding? Sort of–the climate change people do keep saying the weather is more extreme. I’m reporting what the current mantra is. It’s not like I believe that mantra, no.
00
O/T So that you don’t miss it, and to avoid duplication
Germany’s renewables belief crashes: in another thread.
20
Off topic: Andrew Bolt at Daily Telegraph – mini ice age low temperature by 2040 according to a Russian scientist
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/still_waiting_for_warming/
10
Actually, the Russians seem much more objective about science than other places. They were championing abiotic oil for decades. With the recent oil find everywhere and the peak oil theory circling the drain, the abiotic oil idea looks much more likely (personally, I always thought abiotic made more sense). There are other sources looking at long term trends and saying it will get colder. It would make a lot more sense to stop spending millions trying to figure out the future and just deal with keeping warm/cool and learning to grow food in extreme climates.
00
And quickly developing a plan to construct some new coal or gas fired power stations to provide affordable and reliable electricity supply for when the really cold weather arrives. However extreme Greens should be allocated living space within the depths of national parks where they can practise what they preach
10
Everywhere? That’s big talk. Got any evidence for this?
I’m aware of the abiotic theory predicting you can find natural gas everywhere no matter where you drill as long you drill deep enough, but oil so far looks to be a different matter.
Peak Oil is inevitable because it is an economic limit of diminishing returns on investment, it’s only tangentially and distantly related to the total quantity in ground. No matter how good the technology, the Earth always has oil that is deeper, more viscous, more contaminated, and more difficult to get than whatever has been successfully extracted before. The Earth will not give up and present no further challenges, so you can’t win on that front. New deposit discoveries and new drilling inventions have pushed back the date of Peak, but there will still be billions of barrels in the ground when oil is no longer affordable.
As for catastrophe, well it is not clear that we can migrate industry away from its dependence on oil in less time than it will take for oil to become unaffordable. Consider how many cars are in the world and how many goods are made from plastic. Consider that when past prices are adjusted to US$2011, oil is now beyond the high prices seen in the 1970s oil crisis and beyond even the high prices at the very beginning of the oil industry in the 1860s.
I know Peak Oil will happen, I just can’t do anything to plan for it without knowing when it will happen to the nearest 3 years. As long as you admit that your rosy view of the future is not based on fact, there is not much more that can be argued because none of us really know the real future anyway.
00
You can research abiotic oil yourself. I’m tired of being every lazy person’s encyclopedia. The Russians have had this theory for a very long time–google it. As for “peak oil” you can research that too. My future is based on fact–the fact that some people actually do and create things and ways of dealing with energy needs instead of posting gloom and doom on internet blogs. However, I am no longer wasting time providing a research service. I found tons of information with 10 minutes on search engines. You can too. Or don’t. I really don’t care.
00
Ah the classic retreat by someone who has no evidence.
You’re probably just starting out on this mental journey. Let me bring you up to date. Two years ago I used to believe oil might be abiotic UNTIL I did the research. The facts show it isn’t.
Oil-like hydrocarbons are being made abiotically somewhere in the earth, the lab experiments show that, but this process accounts for virtually none of the oil or coal that has ever been extracted. i.e. it can never be of any economic consequence. It is a rare scientific curiosity, nothing more.
Start here:
Sephton M., Hazen R. “On the Origins of Deep Hydrocarbons”.
Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry 2013 v. 75 no.1 p. 449-465
doi: 10.2138/rmg.2013.75.14
PDF can be downloaded from http://rimg.geoscienceworld.org/content/75/1/449.short
Happy reading. Or not.
00
What made the “primordial soup” that was supposedly the origin of life?
Not made by living organisms, because they hadn’t been invented yet.
00
The “primordial soup” is such a huge stretch its not funny.
00
The correct answer is: you don’t know.
00
Classic assumption on someone who is disagreed with. Your assumption that I have not researched leaves you free to believe that I don’t agree because I did not research, rather than the argument for abiotic oil is actually stronger than you believe. I will read the article, though, because I am interested in all sides of issues. Just because I read it does not mean I will have an epiphany and suddenly throw the idea out, considering I’ve researched it for over two years.
(Tel–good question)
00
Duggan tells some truths, but goes downhill after the excerpts below. i found this piece almost monty pythonish:
3 May: Guardian: Jennifer Duggan: Is China really a climate change leader?
A new report portrays China as a leader in tackling climate change but its emissions are still rising dramatically
China’s environmental woes have attracted a lot of attention internationally since the start of the new year. Air pollution was first up in January as levels in a number of cities, including the capital Beijing, hit lung clogging off the record levels. Dubbed the ‘air-pocalypse’, hazardous smog left air pollution left cities enveloped in a thick layer of smog.
And just last month water pollution took an unusual form in Shanghai after thousands of dead pigs were found floating in the city’s main river which provides drinking water for up to 20 per cent of the city’s 23 million residents. Concerns have also been raised about dangerous levels of soil pollution after heavy metals were found in soil samples.
China’s environment has suffered to help fuel its record-breaking economic growth. Its coal-powered factories and power stations pump out thick clouds of soot making it the world’s number one emittor of greenhouse gases.
With its posionous air, water and soil, it is hard to see China as anything other than an environmental villian but a new report portrays it in a different light, as a leader on tackling climate change. The report ‘The Critical Decade: Global Action Building on Climate Change’ was carried out by the Australian Climate Commission…
The Climate Commission report portrays China in a very complimentary light but it does state that China is reducing its “emissions growth” – meaning China is still increasing its emissions, just not as quickly as previously.
To put these increases into context, another study published earlier this year by consultancy firm Ecofys for Greenpeace estimates that
“China’s five northwestern provinces plan to increase coal production by 620 million tonnes by 2015, generating an additional 1,400 million tonnes of CO2 a year, almost equal to Russia’s emissions in 2010”.
So which is it? Is China a leader on tackling climate change or one of the biggest contributors? The truth is both…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/chinas-choice/2013/may/02/china-climate-change-leader
can’t comment re tv coverage of Combet/Coal, but what’s online is not substantial; this story is definitely being underplayed by MSM, yet the Combet/Coal saga is deliciously ironic:
3 May: Australian: Leo Shanahan: Greg Combet said he was ‘entitled to trust’ ex-union boss John Maitland over NSW mine
The licence allegedly delivered Mr Maitland and other investors, such as Newcastle businessman Craig Ransley, a $48 million profit when the licence was subsequently sold to NuCoal in 2010. No training mine was ever built.
It is alleged Mr Maitland personally turned a $165,000 investment into $14 million.
Mr Combet, a former ACTU secretary, said he trusted Mr Maitland as someone he had dealt with in the union movement for many years and was supportive of the training mine to address the skills shortage in the region…
Mr Combet was asked by counsel assisting the commission Peter Braham SC whether he would have supported the mine if he knew “it would only train 25 new miners a year” and would be extracting “90 million tones coal” as a commercial mine in three years.
“No … (my) support was for a training mine,” Mr Combet said…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/combet-trusted-unionist-john-maitland-over-a-training-mine/story-e6frg6nf-1226634559262
10
Completely off-top comment solely for the presumed benefit of KinkyKeith and fellow rockhounds:
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6186/6098963730_821a0c22f1_o.jpg
Can you tell what type of rock that is, and more importantly where it came from? 🙂
10
I`m no rockhound but I do have a vague sort of interest in shiny stuff from space , looks like a pallasite to Me , olivine suspended in nickel iron , the theory goes that it`s material from the core/mantle boundary of asteroids/planetoids that have been shattered and it forms that odd looking suspension arrangement because it`s flung out in a molten state and cools in zero-g so the only thing acting on it is the surface tension of the molten nickel
10
Superb answer Byron, especially since I didn’t know the answer myself, I had to look it up. 🙂
You are correct.
00
Cool rock Andy. Where did it land ?
00
The date of the fall is unknown, but it was found in 1807 at precisely this position in the Bragin region of Belarus which was back then part of the Russian empire.
00
Back to the topic, if that’s OK.
Our natural tendency as human beings is to care for each other, unite in cause and purpose for the betterment of all. (As in genuine medical research.) The global control freaks know the only control they can have over our natural tendency for harmony and cooperation is fear, so they invest in a massive propaganda machine designed to keeps us in fear. (Like CAGW and Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction etc., etc.) These are cold, calculated people who run purely on self-gratification and having control over the lives of others. The money will always be directed to their causes.
They’re insane in our minds; we’re dumb sheep in theirs.
30
O/T
BREAKING NEWS
Someone needs to alert Lewandowsky that a leftist magazine, Rolling Stone is conceding Conspiracy Theorists were RIGHT!
A Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone: Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever: The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There’s no price the big banks can’t fix – the markets are completely rigged by the big boys. SURPRISE!
10
No shit, Sherlock
00
My sense of the ridiculous just couldn’t resist posting that. The timing and the wording were just too delicious given looney Lewandowsky’s award by the Royal Society.
It is amazing the left hasn’t figured that out before this though. Oh well better a bit late than never.
00
OT. Lib Dem climate Change Secretary worried for his job.
Apparently , Ed Davey, the energy secretary, has written to Michael Gove, the education secretary, urging him to rethink his plans to downgrade climate change in the new national curriculum.
Amid protests from environmentalists and some students, Gove has removed debate about climate change from the draft geography curriculum.
10
3D printing is interesting technology that was invented by a man in the printing business who founded 3D Systems here in Valencia, California. They called it Stereo Lithography. He got the idea from seeing how certain resin based inks came out not just on the surface or soaked into the paper but as a thin layer on top. Instant light bulb moment!
I did some work for them in 1995 and ’96 testing the software that runs their machines (SLA for Stereo Lithography Apparatus) as it was developed. It’s quite amazing to watch a laser trace out a perfect, completely closed hollow sphere, layer by layer. It would be full of liquid resin you had to let out by drilling a hole. There is no other technology I know of that can do anything like that. They could take the output files from any popular CAD system and convert them into the instructions for the SLA to create in reality whatever the designer had created virtually.
The lasers were UV and quite dangerous. They couldn’t be shut down and restarted without a warm up delay. So when the machine was idle the beam was parked on a back corner of the frame of the machine — a piece of black angle iron. After a little while that spot had all the black surface erased. One day when I had nothing better to do than play, I put a piece of paper on that spot to see what would happen. The laser set it on fire after just a few seconds. UV is bad stuff.
The resin was a potential problem too. If you had any on your skin and went outside, the sun would set it in short order. Then you have a real problem to get it off without tearing off some skin.
3D Systems was selling machines to do rapid prototyping. But why not build molds for usable parts directly? They have come a long way in the 16 years since I left.
10
Roy I attended a metal working factory opening in the mid 90s where CAD design and laser cutting were part of the equipment, at one work station an operator demonstrated how an item was placed onto a glass surface and drawn in detail on paper, and then the paper was placed on another computer reader and then the laser cutter removed the components from a sheet of metal, in this example aluminium. The factory later won contracts from Boeing US for aircraft wing components. Similar technology I believe.
10