Interesting Links for 02-12-2015

[andrewducker]

• There's a pill that prevents people from being infected with HIV. The NHS should be prescribing it.
  • charge
  • drugs hiv NHS libdem
• The Role of an Enterprise Architect in a Lean Enterprise
  • agile design architecture programming

Comments

[gonzo21]

The only good news about a 6 degree temperature rise is that global agricultural will have failed before the oceans stop producing oxygen, so in a sense those of us still alive will probably find suffocating to death a pleasant break from the daily grind of cannibalism and brutality.

[kalimac]

I expect you're right here. Agriculture is the failure point in our system.

[gonzo21]

Aye, sadly. In an odd sort of way it's how GM foods might just be the salvation of us.

Well, for a generation maybe.

I suspect an average rise of just 2-3 degrees is probably enough to crash the global food chain though.

[kalimac]

From what little I know of either topic, I suspect what we're facing here is way beyond the scope of GM.

No, our only hope is the Singularity. Self-replicating AI, which doesn't need oxygen, may be our only heirs. Unfortunately I don't believe in the Singularity either. For there to be self-replicating AI, humans first have to build machines capable of getting to that point. I see no evidence that we can, and neither do the experts I believe.

[andrewducker]

That's a very good point.

[kalimac]

The comparison of the Middle Eastern war with Star Wars is quite brilliant. But I do not get the reference to "Rupert".

"Similarly while 66 per cent of older women thought people of both genders could be a plumber, only 40 per cent of younger women agreed with them."

Hah. I've never had a female plumber, but I once watched a rangy young female petrol station attendant change my car's tire, something I could never have done myself (and I was not even yet quite middle-aged at the time). SOME women couldn't do it, but some men couldn't either, and most definitely some women can.

[danieldwilliam]

Rupert is, I think, Rupert Murdock.

[danieldwilliam]

Re the plankton; do you know if the cause of the disruption is that current species of plankton don't like warmer oceans or that the chemical processes involved in photosynthesis stop working well above a certain tempreture.

The former implies some evolutionary process or perhaps genetic modification might help. The latter that we're all doomed.

[pennski]

I would be much happier with the dinosaur article if they didn't still talk about Brontosaurus.
After all, aren't they the ones that hung around writing dysfunctional romantic fiction?

[sigmonster]

Brontosaurus ceased to be a junior synonym earlier this year - it's a valid genus again.

For now, anyway.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/that-brontosaurus-thing/

[pennski]

OMG!

I did not know that.