Nova scienceNOW
Jul. 27th, 2005 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
litchSo rather than go to bed last night I noticed I'd recorded an episode of scienceNow I decided to watch it. It was pretty nifty, they really skewered the bushco "hydrogen fuel cells will save the country" crap and basically said we'll be lucky it's only going to be 20 years before we have fuel cell vehicles and the infrastructure to produce & distribute the hydrogen it would require to fuel them. It makes it very clear why the rightwing powers which are so allied to the oil intrests throw it out everytime environment issues come up. It's a dodge, a dodge that has worked for a good 5 years, put off preassure to raise CAFE standards and energy conservation based policies. I think we are more like to see consistent commercial fusion power before we see consisten commercial fuel cell vehicles.
But that's all stuff that's been known for a while, just the general scientific community has come to accept that it is going to be a while. The part that was really cool though was the RNAi segment. Cellular biology really is the area I think we have the biggest deficit of knowledge that we can rapidly improve on. The last biology course I took ~1990 really excited me and I seriously considered changing majors to pursue it but I was burnt out on school and needed to get the hell out. I suspect I will always regret that decision. I hated biology in secondary school, it was the default required science class so the material was inane, the teachers were stupid, and my classmates were horrid. Worse, the tiptoing around evolution the early 80's demanded eviscerated the subject beyond even the possibilty that the wretched school system could supply. (And I understand it's only gotten worse).
But that's all stuff that's been known for a while, just the general scientific community has come to accept that it is going to be a while. The part that was really cool though was the RNAi segment. Cellular biology really is the area I think we have the biggest deficit of knowledge that we can rapidly improve on. The last biology course I took ~1990 really excited me and I seriously considered changing majors to pursue it but I was burnt out on school and needed to get the hell out. I suspect I will always regret that decision. I hated biology in secondary school, it was the default required science class so the material was inane, the teachers were stupid, and my classmates were horrid. Worse, the tiptoing around evolution the early 80's demanded eviscerated the subject beyond even the possibilty that the wretched school system could supply. (And I understand it's only gotten worse).
