Date: 10/24/2004 08:50 PM
From: Alfred Dimitri (adimitri@mail.com)
Subject: Is That a Pilot in Your Pocket?
Halfway through reading the article, I noticed that my greatest fear is slowly becoming a reality ("Is That a Pilot in Your Pocket?," Oct. 23, 2004). We are implementing animal brains in extremely powerful machines. What's next? Naturally we will want to incorporate faster-learning neurons (read: smarter brains) in more complex and powerful machines. I am an engineering student and all for advances, but erasing the line between biology and technology will have us arrive at a point where the machines we create will not only be more powerful than us, but also smarter. Such crises have been dramatized time and time again in novels and movies, yet we are still working toward making it a reality.
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Date: 10/24/2004 03:46 PM
From: jean novak (jeannvk@yahoo.com)
Subject: Indian Mounds Mystify Excavators
It's a well-documented event in South America, and it has been put forward by leading anthropologists as the reason the decline of the American Indian prior to formal colonization of the North American continent: Waves of influenza decimated the population, which had never before suffered exposure ("Indian Mounds Mystify Excavators," Oct. 22, 2004).
It happened in Europe with the plague and the Black Death. The decline of Cahokia happened before Columbus certainly. However, the vikings landed in the correct time frame.
There have been attempts by Europeans to determine if the Black Death and the plague were one and the same by retrieving DNA from inside teeth of the deceased. It would be interesting if American archaeologists attempted the same from Indians at Cahokia (if allowed).
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Date: 10/23/2004 01:18 PM
From bill (bill3864@yahoo.com)
Subject: It Takes a Con to Know a Con
I want to express my feelings on the glamorizing of a felon ("It Takes a Con to Know a Con," Oct. 21, 2004). Martha Stewart was found guilty of fraud and the media makes her look like a saint. If I were to embezzle or deal in this inside trading stuff, being a hard-working lower-class citizen I would have gotten the full wrath of our court system. It happens all the time, and it's terrible to know in this country that the rich and famous will continue to get away with all that was instilled in our minds as wrong when we were children: stealing, cheating, lying, killing, etc. We were told those things are wrong and to not allow ourselves to do them. I feel more and more each day that if you're rich or famous in this country rules and regulations don't necessarily apply any more. That's just my opinion.
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Date: 10/22/2004 04:59 PM
From: nightfan (nightfan@intergate.com)
Subject: American Passports to Get Chipped
Saying that "people who know about printing are not going to learn about RFIDs ("American Passports to Get Chipped," Oct. 21, 2004)" is like saying that people who know about VCRs are not going to learn about DVD players.
If we are chipped, we are compromised -- in terms of privacy and also in terms of health. This is both because of the metal and other materials that make up the chip and because of the materials and processes used to access the material. Those materials could cause certain substances to leach into the bloodstream, and end up in the brain and spinal cord and could bind to pre-existing prions ingested through meat. Prions bound with these metals would then begin to manifest the symptoms of conditions such as Alzheimer's, so-called Mad Cow disease, etc.
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