Pain is transmitted by a specific kind of neuron called a nociceptor. If they aren't transmitting pain signals, then, if conscious, the brain would not experience pain. That doesn't mean it could relive the final moments over and over in sensory deprivation and experience mental anguish. Not pleasant however you slice it (no pun intended), but that doesn't seem to be the case here. The investigator stated that there was a flat EEG, and we don't have any reason to believe a brain is "thinking" without EEG activity.

(I realize this anthropomorphizes pigs quite a bit, but the ethical concerns largely focus on translation to humans.)

If you've got 20 minutes, check out this video from Moscow in 1940 showing attempts to keep severed dog heads alive. Even J B S Haldane makes an appearance.

Paying insurance premiums does not mean that your ambulance ride will be covered. A family member used an ambulance and it was not an "in network service provider" so the cost was not covered. Same for the ER doc that saw my family member.

As if you call 911 and ask "I have [insurance provider]. Is that ambulance in network? No? Please send an ambulance that is in network. I'll wait" and then get to the ER and ask, "I have [insurance provider]. Are you in network? No? Then I'll wait until an ER doctor who is in network is available."

And they won't negotiate rates, and will happily send your bills to debt collection and ruin your credit rating.

Frankly, the cost of ambulance rides and ER doctors should be legally regulated, with mandatory coverage by insurance providers, to prevent this. Maybe there's a copay, and it might vary based on your coverage, but it shouldn't be a surprise.

Embryos don't have immune systems. They use the mother's immune system. You'd have to wait post partum to see if there are markers of increased immune activity, particularly at the chimeric organs, as well as general markers of immune hyperactivity. One approach for such animals would be to remove MHC genes so that the animal doesn't recognize the chimeric organs as "non-self". (It's more complicated, but I'd be interested in seeing how this might play out.)

While not trying to be dismissive, it's unclear that this would ever be a viable approach. It's really just a shotgun approach: put human cells in an early stage sheep blastocyst, and human cells are scattered throughout the tissues of the embryo. There's no selective approach to trying to only grow a heart from human cells, for instance. This means that the organ will still contain sheep cells, and therefore have the possibility of being rejected by the transplant recipient's body. Their work with mouse-rat chimeras was far more targeted, but that's because the techniques exist to do so in those species.

Absent developing the techniques available in rat and mouse model systems, I'd rather see them try to entirely replace one of the germ layers with human cells; the endoderm for instance. You'd basically get a sheep with a human digestive tract. You'd also avoid the problem of getting human cells in the sheep's central nervous system (e.g., brain), which probably happens with their current approach, and which they said would cause them to stop if it was significant.

By whom?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

The cost of shipping is negligible vs. the increased cost of "local" US maintenance and QA jobs compared to Chinese maintenance and QA jobs. (Using your assumption that low skilled labor wages aren't a factor because those workers were cut when the robots came in.)

It costs $516 to ship a 20' FCL from Shanghai to Los Angeles. The internal dimensions are about 19' 4" long x 7' 8" wide x 7' 9" (approximate conversion from metric). An iPhone box is about what size? 8 x 4 x 2 inches? Thus, you can fit approximately 88,000 (110 x 20 x 40) iPhones in a shipping container. At $1000 retail each, that's $88M of revenue shipped for $516.

Even assuming import duties of 10% ($8.8M), are you certain that manufacturing locally is cheaper?

If we're talking on the scale of 10,000 jobs in the US, you have to stay below an $880 increase in cost per worker per container's worth of iPhones in a year to break even.

They already cut the workforce from 110,000 to 50,000.

Somehow, when it is cheaper to replace Chinese workers with robots, those manufacturing jobs will come back to the US...

Not trolling, but if $60/month ($50 for Adobe and $10 for Office365)* is "killing" your business, perhaps you need to rethink your business? You should recover that cost in less than an hour of billable work. Sure, it's important to keep all overhead costs down, but for most businesses these would be small time costs.

*Cost is based on 1 user, which is a reasonable assumption given that you are a "a self employed contractor".

Why is the conclusion: "It's a move that's clearly designed to push businesses that are holding off on Office 365 into subscriptions"? They can upgrade to Windows 10 and get Office 2019. (Or do nothing, or migrate to some other platform/software, etc.) Microsoft has clearly done everything they can to push users to Windows 10 (automatic updates, anyone?), so why is that not considered? They seem hellbent on making Windows 10 "the most popular Windows ever".

Alternatively, he never planned on winning, but intended it to be a publicity exercise to strengthen his brand, just like other times he threw his name out there and said he was thinking of running.

Now whether the long term financial gains associated with the presidency (e.g., millions of dollars in book deals and speaking fees) will offset what it cost him is another question. I am willing to bet "yes, he will be richer for having been president". For one thing, he no longer pays for his frequent travel to Mar-a-Lago via private jet. For another, he hasn't divested any business interests or income as a result of winning the presidency.

Of course, if Mueller finds something that could cause him to have assets seized, then that is another matter.

President Trump will make sure that we have the hottest years on record during his presidency. ("We'll have the hottest weather; the best weather.") Imagine, every US citizen will be able to enjoy Mar-a-Lago-like weather. Let's democratize Floridian sunshine for all!

There are viruses that use RNA for their genome, but all human cells use DNA as the genome and RNA for the transcription template, transporting amino acids to the ribosome, and for the ribosome itself. DNA does not do anything that RNA does in human cells.

Perhaps, but would ET RNA or DNA use the same bases? There's little reason to believe that is the case.

But I agree with your post. We know bacteria live in the upper troposphere, if not higher up. I recall reading that Earth might actually be leaving a trail of bacteria as it travels through space. (Wish I could find a reference for that.)