[QUOTE=xilman;417002]I sincerely hope they are storing genetic samples in widely separated locations. Should be possible to reboot the species within a few decades.[/QUOTE]The San Diego Zoo (which the Safari Park is part of) has been involved in a number of conservation programs. I think that they take samples of all rare animal and also try to obtain germ cells if possible. My contact is not involved in that part of their work (they do public outreach/education), but they know a vast amount about what is going on.

[QUOTE=xilman;417002]I sincerely hope they are storing genetic samples in widely separated locations. Should be possible to reboot the species within a few decades.[/QUOTE]

You expecting humankind to disappear within that timeframe?

That is an actual scientific article, right here --
 

[I]On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit. [/I]
G. Pennycook, et al. [URL="http://journal.sjdm.org/vol10.6.html"]Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 10, No. 6[/URL], Nov. 2015, pp. 549-563 [[URL="http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf"]PDF[/URL]]
[QUOTE][U]Abstract[/U]: Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief).

What might cause someone to erroneously rate pseudo-profound bullshit as profound? In our view, there are two candidate mechanisms that might explain a general “receptivity” to bullshit. The first mechanism relates to the possibility that some people may have a stronger bias toward accepting things as true or meaningful from the outset. <...>

The second mechanism relates to a potential inability to [I]detect[/I] bullshit, which may cause one to confuse vagueness for profundity. In the words of Sperber (2010): “All too often, what readers do is judge profound what they have failed to grasp”.
[U]
Conclusions[/U]: <...> Those more receptive to bullshit are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.
[/QUOTE][SIZE=1](Excerpts will not serve as a substitute to reading the whole article.)[/SIZE]

There is at least a third reason for accepting pseudo profound bullshit : I had the problem with sociology as published by some people from the French "school". I was unsure of my ground : not having enough knowledge of a domain makes one more credulous.

I never had the problem with marketing : I always saw that as "statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning".

Jacob

[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/arts/a-virtual-reality-revolution-coming-to-a-headset-near-you.html?"]A Virtual Reality Revolution, Coming to a Headset Near You[/URL]

[URL="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/20/half-tree-species-amazon-risk-extinction-study"]Half of tree species in the Amazon at risk of extinction, say scientists[/URL]

[URL="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-case-of-the-disappearing-quasars/"]The Case of the Disappearing Quasars[/URL]

[URL="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-surgery-music-idUSKCN0T92HM20151120"]Music not just good for the soul, it's also good for the body[/URL]

[URL="http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/art-architecture/2015/11/08/Data-of-the-art-Carnegie-Museum-computer-program-Elysa-collects-every-detail-on-its-30-098-artworks/stories/201511080038"]Data of the art: Carnegie Museum computer program collects every detail on its 30,098 artworks[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151119095748.htm"]How a raisin can predict a toddler's future academic ability[/URL]

[URL="http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a17822/the-asteroid-hunters/"]The Asteroid Hunters[/URL]

[URL="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/microsleep-brain-fall-asleep-seconds-noticing/story?id=35304495"]Microsleep: How Your Brain Can Fall Asleep for Seconds Without You Noticing[/URL]

[URL="https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages"]English is not Normal[/URL]

[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/science/nasa-adds-to-evidence-of-mysterious-ancient-earthworks.html"]NASA Adds to Evidence of Mysterious Ancient Earthworks[/URL]

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/10/this-11-year-old-is-selling-cryptographically-secure-passwords-for-2-each/"]This 11-year-old is selling cryptographically secure passwords for $2 each[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2015/11/facebook-is-aiming-its-ai-at-go-the-game-no-computer-can-crack"]Facebook Aims Its AI at the Game No Computer Can Crack[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=012000OFHETC#"]Deep Earth Is Likely Filled with Diamonds, Scientists Say[/URL]

[URL="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-schizophrenia-exist-on-an-autism-like-spectrum/"]Does Schizophrenia Exist on an Autism-Like Spectrum?[/URL]

[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/us/harvard-law-library-sacrifices-a-trove-for-the-sake-of-a-free-database.html?_r=2"]Harvard Law Library Readies Trove of Decisions for Digital Age[/URL]

DA approves civilian use of syringe-like device designed to plug war wounds
 

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/sponge-injection-could-save-the-lives-of-domestic-gunshot-victims/"]Sponge injection could save the lives of domestic gunshot victims[/URL]

[QUOTE]As mass shootings continue to make headlines and[URL="http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Gun-shops-reporting-robust-sales-amid-mass-6685193.php?t=3c0122a5b2438d9cbb&cmpid=twitter-premium"] gun sales surge nationwide[/URL], a sponge-injecting device designed to patch life-threatening bullet wounds in war is making a domestic debut.


The device, called [URL="http://www.revmedx.com/#%21xstat-dressing/c2500"]XSTAT 30[/URL], acts like a syringe that squirts out 92 tiny, compressed cellulose sponges coated with a blood-sopping absorbent. Together, the sponges can take in about a pint of blood and swell enough to completely fill-in a wound, creating a physical barrier for blood flow. That plugging-power may be enough to prevent life-threatening blood loss as a patient is rushed to an emergency medical facility, according to the Food and Drug Administration.


On Tuesday, the agency [URL="http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm475810.htm"]approved the use of XSTAT[/URL] in civilian adults and adolescents.
[/QUOTE]

[url=www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/world/mona-lisa-hidden-portrait/index.html]'Mona Lisa': Hidden portraits 'found underneath'[/url] | CNN

[Talk about [url=http://grammarist.com/usage/lead-lede/]burying the lede[/url] - the actual title article is way down at the bottom of the page, under a lengthy gallery of 'famous art heists'.]

Ooh! Ooh! I think I know this one - lemme guess, it was really a paint-by-number kit?

[URL="http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/the-atir-rosenzweig-dunning-effect-when-experts-claim-to-know-the-unknowable"]The Atir-Rosenzweig-Dunning Effect: When Experts Claim to Know the Unknowable[/URL]
[QUOTE]Dunning has now conducted a new study with colleagues Stav Atir and Emily Rosenzweig, finding that expertise has its own pitfalls. In a series of experiments conducted at Cornell University, the researchers found that people with greater knowledge in a particular domain were more likely to claim knowledge that they could not possibly know.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]But before you begin to gloat in the benefits of ignorance, you should be aware that it seems most of us are actually vulnerable to this phenomenon. A stunning 92 percent of people claimed to be familiar with the nonexistent biological subjects of "meta-toxins," "bio-sexual," and "retroplex." This research doesn’t necessarily challenge the original Dunning-Kruger Effect, but it does add the caveat that when it comes to knowing what we don't know, in some specific circumstances expertise can be even more blinding than ignorance itself.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=rogue;418353]
[URL="https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages"]English is not Normal[/URL]
[/QUOTE]

I recommend this article! :cool:

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/scientists-may-have-found-formula-for-a-painless-existence/"][SIZE=3]Scientists may have found formula for a painless existence[/SIZE][/URL]

As the article states, there are people who do not experience pain. For them, unnoticed injury is a hazard. On the bright side, the research indicates that it may be possible to greatly reduce opioid dosage to achieve the same effect in people who are experiencing pain.

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/12/hackers-actively-exploit-critical-vulnerability-in-sites-running-joomla/"]Hackers actively exploit critical vulnerability in sites running Joomla[/URL]

[QUOTE]Attackers are actively exploiting a critical remote command-execution vulnerability that has plagued the Joomla content management system for almost eight years, security researchers said.


A patch for the vulnerability, which affects versions 1.5 through 3.4.5, was [URL="https://developer.joomla.org/security-centre/630-20151214-core-remote-code-execution-vulnerability.html"]released Monday morning[/URL]. It was too late: the bug was already being exploited in the wild, researchers from security firm Sucuri warned in a [URL="https://blog.sucuri.net/2015/12/remote-command-execution-vulnerability-in-joomla.html"]blog post[/URL]. The attacks started on Saturday from a handful of IP addresses and by Sunday included hundreds of exploit attempts to sites monitored by Sucuri.


"Today (Dec 14th), the wave of attacks is even bigger, with basically every site and honeypot we have being attacked," the blog post reported. "That means that probably every other Joomla site out there is being targeted as well."
[/QUOTE]