Tags for this video have been changed from 'nuclear, fusion, tokamak, plasma, magnet' to 'nuclear, fusion, tokamak, plasma, magnet, scientific american' - edited by my15minutes

I took a few criminal justice courses in college. 30% of all black men in the country are either in prison, going to prison, or have been in prison. In Washington, DC, 50% of all black men have or will have a criminal background. The likelihood of a black man stealing a white woman's purse in an elevator is far, far higher than if it were a white man. I'm surprised so many comments state that there is little to no racial bias going on in such situations, considering the gigantic gap in criminality between whites and blacks.

Simply put, if whites and blacks had identical, or even remotely similar criminality rates, then, and only then, would I possibly believe that white women had identical "purse defending" behavior around both groups of men.
Until that day, I'm not buying it. (This Scientific American article on Buried Prejudice is pretty good: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=buried-prejudice-the-bigot-in-your-brain&print=true)

I also thought it was clear that the video is an angry, and yes, racist response to racism the creator feels exists. That's kinda the point. What goes around comes around.

According to this recent Scientific American article (Page 4), finger-tips grow back naturally. They're one of the few body parts that do.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=regrowing-human-limbs&ec=su_limbs

This is from an episode of Scientific American Frontiers. You can watch the full episode here. This clip is from segment 3 - Tough Choices.

>> ^dag:
it's kind of condescending to be giving "assignments" to people with an opposing view...

So, Dag Doo, while I don't totally disagree with you. I see what rembar was trying to communicate. And to some extent, with all due respect, I see what he is frustrated with. Namely, qruel as likable as he is, has repeatedly fallen into the same intellectual misstep: dependence on unreliable sources and regurgitating others ideas.

Even though, out of the context of previous discussions, rembar's comment could be and may be disrespectful. Having myself discussed things with qruel, I sense rembar's frustration and empathize with his impatience.

Qruel, if you are are going to continue making electric comments, then from this point forward you should critically research them in bonafide peer reviewed journals. To do otherwise, ultimately hurts your argument and is not a useful employment of our time. And present thoughtful analysis of your own instead of ctrl+C/ctrl+V.

To reiterate, although the comment was, in my opinion, a touch derisive, it should be tempered with the knowledge of previous debates. But I agree with you, that we should be conscious of this, and avoid making personal attacks and diatribes from this point forward.

>> ^winkler1:
... Should I use the flouridated mouthwash I just bought? Come on Mythbusters!

Yes! The purpose of flouride is to react with the surface of your teeth, which are made of Hydroxyapatite. Mouthwash is the best way to do this (toothpaste is second best). Ingesting flouride accomplishes nothing, except for causing the detrimental effects of flouridosis. As I assume qruel was getting at, you don't need conspiracy theories to argue against putting flouride in the water supply.

Irrespective of the flouride debate- it's kind of condescending to be giving "assignments" to people with an opposing view.

I'm not giving the assignment to Qruel because I oppose his viewpoint on water fluoridation. I'm challenging Qruel to step up, because up until now having a "debate" with him has only resulted in him dropping a deluge of copy-pasted articles, and everything else getting lost in the fold. In the sifts that I have viewed, he has brought down the level of conversation and increased the noise-to-signal ratio significantly. I am challenging Qruel because I want him, for once, to break that habit and rise above. And I know for a fact that I am not alone in that desire.

Also, if these are selected extracts from SciAm to prove a point, I don't think it's plagiarism. It's not like he pasted the whole article.

It is plagiarism. I wasn't accusing him of plagiarising Scientific American, I was accusing him of plagiarising the article summary from this page. If you view the page, you will see that Qruel did just copy and paste everything over. It is, in fact, like he pasted the whole article.

In the years of my education, and in the lines of work I have been in, plagiarism is one of the most serious intellectual crimes that can ever be perpetrated. Plagiarists in top universities have been EXPELLED and in research have had their careers ENDED on their first offense for doing in essence what Qruel just did. I say this so that you will understand that I am not leveling this accusation lightly, nor am I doing it condescendingly. I am very, very much in earnest.

I had expected Qruel to post about the SciAm article, since it has been pretty actively discussed in the public health community since it was published, insofar as any non-peer-reviewed-publication article is, so I began writing a response when I saw he posted about it. I was surprised and angered when I googled a sentence from Qruel's post in order to look for a source for one of his statements, only to discover that he had not actually written those statements, and that I was basically taking a debate up against another person entirely, and that Qruel had yet again not put any thought into a post that I was about to spend much effort arguing against in order to discuss the intricate details hidden in the SciAm article and the studies that lie behind it.

Since you brought it to my attention, I will attempt to not be condescending, as you put it, and I will try to keep a civil tongue as long as I can, but I am not going to sit idly by and let this fly. My challenge, unless you so happen to decide it is against the rules of this site (and I do not believe it is), still stands.

Haha, I'll be up for it, but give me a month so I can shake off the headache I know this thread is going to give me.

I'll see what I can come up with in terms of amounts of fluoride distributed nationally and internationally when I can find the time and patience.

In reply to this comment by choggie:
If he does not answer yer call to scholarship, can I give it a go????

You over exaggerate by claiming that this post (summary) bordered on plagiarism as at the top of the post lists the author of the article.

In fact, if I hadn't already issued the challenge, I would be tempted to end our discussion right here. You clearly have not even read the article whose summary you have copied and pasted, because you don't even know that the name listed above is the author of the original Scientific American article, not the author of the article summary of the SciAm piece. I'm astounded. For shame.

But alas, I'm being distracted already again. 1 day and 16 hours.

Qruel, this is completely copy-pasted. Regardless of the interesting SciAm article and its conclusions, your copying-and-pasting is not only boring and cluttering up the sift talk, it also runs contrary to the very concept of skeptical reasoning, in which one thinks for oneself, and to the idea of using primary research on which to base judgements. Altogether this borders on plagiarism and intellectual dishonesty. No, I am not talking about the SciAm paper or the issue of water fluoridation, I am talking about YOU. I have repeatedly asked you to offer original commentary and analysis yourself on original papers, something you have repeatedly failed to do. This rampant copy-pasting, this inability to offer original insight, is something you, alone on Videosift and especially in my Science channel, are guilty of. Now you have an opportunity in which to change. I happen to have read the article in Scientific American you're copying-and-pasting about (heck, I have it right here on my desk), and I expect you to have done so as well, since you felt confident enough in it to post it to the Science Sift Talk. So I'll tell you what I'll do.

I am going to give you 2 days in which to source 2 studies quoted from the original article (you did read it, right, you didn't just copy-and-paste from FluorideAlert.org from this page without reading the original article, did you?) and offer citations, quotes, and analysis of study methodology AND conclusions thereof from both in THEIR ORIGINAL PAPERS WHEN PUBLISHED TO PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS, in other words not with quotes from the Scientific American article but from the papers the SciAm article is quoting, in support of your argument. I think this is only reasonable since I sourced 2 studies from original papers and analyzed in a few hours, and you still failed to respond to them. So, I repeat, I want from you: Citations, quotes, and analysis of study methodology and conclusions from 2 original papers cited by the SciAm article, due in 2 days. I will be fact-checking and making sure that you are not merely taking blurbs from the internet or from the Scientific American article. After you have posted your response, I will respond in kind and give analysis to the best of my ability on the papers you have chosen. This is known, in the layman sense, as peer review.

Seeing as you how you have seen fit to repeatedly call my thinking and character into question, I am returning the favor right now. I am calling you out, and I expect you to step up to the challenge. Failing to do so, you will have labeled yourself as intellectually dishonest and unscientific at your very core, and I will not hesitate to treat and ridicule you as such. This means, for starters, that I will kick this post out of Science, and your little dog, too. And my *ahem* cruel reign will only continue from there. Good day.

The link shown above was a cover of Scientific American a few months back. I thought it was a actual person! As a wood sculptor, I think this work is excellent.

Not harmless, but not all that dangerous. For most people. There are exceptions who should probably avoid it and if you haven't tried there's really no reason to run out and do it, nothing much to worry about with moderate or light use either. Less than with drinking, though abuse is a problem with anything.

DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young ruled on a marijuana petition in 1988. The ruling was non-binding so the DEA ignored it but after nearly a year he ruled against the DEA. Among his conclusions were these.

In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.

In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death.

Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care.

You can read the full case notes at the following, conclusions are in part 4. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/YOUNG/young.html

Just in case anyone is concerned about the old cancer scare, look up the name on the papers which made the initial claims. Many were done by or based on the work of Dr Tashkin. He never did prove it but always wanted to so not long ago did his most in depth study yet and disproved his own theory. No cancer link he could show, and a possible negative correlation.

Scientific American reported on it at the following. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0002491F-755F-1473-B55F83414B7F0000

All that said, no it's NOT harmless. Many dangers are overstated but there are real good reasons to not be high all the time and certain people who may be more prone to problems than others. A decent place for the short story, not just medical, on many drugs and angles of the drug war is the following, if you want to read the full medical reports they are listed so you can research it for yourself. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/index2.htm

Sorry for the long note. Seemed a lot to say, and I'd like to have said more actually edited to correct a typo.

May issue of Scientific American has a relevant bit on US farming -- farming now uses less land, produces more food and degrades the soil less than 50 years ago. The arable land used for farming dropped 25% in the last 56 years, the total farm production increased by 166%, and the rate of soil erosion small enough that at 1982 erosion rates, after 100 years, the yields on the same land would drop only 2-4%

A monoculture has a risk of becoming easy prey to parasites (as Ford learned in his ill-fated attempt to start rubber tree plantation in Brazil), but the risk of parasites is not a worry for consumers since it's the farmer that takes the risk.

If current practices are undesirable, we should blame not the corporations, but the consumers. It's the consumer ravenous demand for lower prices that favors the streamlining that mom-and-pop farms can't provide.

An interesting study from last year (posted below in Scientific American) showed statistically significant evidence that an increased rate of twins in the US vs. the EU (which has also grown, but not at the rate of the US, and does not allow the use of Monsanto's hormone) is very likely linked to the consumption of meat and/or milk with Monsanto's hormone by women in the US. The scientists looking at vegans vs. non-vegans in the US for controls and found that vegan women in the US are 5 times less likely to have fraternal twins than non-vegans.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa011&articleID=00094DF5-2CC5-1471-ACC583414B7F0000

90 days on 30 rats is a ridiculously small study.

Awesome! I'm especially pleased that this means there's another great podcast I can subscribe to.

I'd suggest taking nuclear, fusion and tokamak out of the tags (because a search will already find these words in the title) and add in "scientific american". It's one of those identifiers, like "TED talk" or "David Attenborough", that can get people's attention because they associate those names with quality.

Congratulations on getting your first published post -- NOW!