pavelcherepan

For all we know (in a scientific sense) these are just transfers of electrical impulses between neurons. You can measure those with electroencephalography and you can write results down in whatever system you want, be it binary, decimal or hexadecimal.

Please stop implying, inferring or otherwise assuming I said there'd be no ecological consequences. Just in the previous post I said that bioaccumulation and biomagnification of radiocaesium is very likely. How is that not an ecological consequence?

No problem. As far as Doran & Zimmerman poll is concerned the data looks all right to me, although it strikes me how they decided that opinions of anyone except for climatologists specializing on global warming are very much irrelevant to the discussion. Why ask them in the first place then? I'll elaborate on that: the data shown on the graph shows that 76 out of 79 (which is actually 96.2%, not 97%) climatologists specializing on climate change agree that human influence plays major role in global warming, but "Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 82% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature." And then in conclusion they simply dismiss other opinions stating: Well, that's some scientific integrity. Really, who cares about opinions of ecologists, geologists, paleoclimatologists and all other climatologists not specializing on global warming. Second study by Anderegg and others simply divided respondents into groups of "convinced of anthropogenic climate change" and "unconvinced by evidence" without taking any account of possibility of significantly varying views among the first group. I'm not even sure what to make of the 2.5% of scientists who said they are not convinced. They seem to be completely ignoring the very obvious and abundant scientific evidence. So this poll is something like asking science community whether they believe the Earth is round and singling out a few freaks who believe it's flat. I don't think it's a very conclusive result. Next study by Crook et al. First of all out of 11000+ abstracts of articles about global warming, 66.4% didn't state any view on anthropogenic climate change and yes, out of remaining 33.6% of abstracts 97.1% of authors agreed that 'humans are contributing to global warming'. For some reason graph shows 98.5% and I have no idea why. Maybe to show the nice trend of rising approval 2009 -> 2013, but that's speculation on my part, maybe just an honest mistake. And when those results have been split into categories there was an interesting figure of 1.02% of abstracts that actually endorsed the standard definition which stated: "human activity is very likely causing most of the current warming (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW)". Anyways, I'm not disputing climate change or anthropogenic influence on climate change, it seems pretty obvious with available data, but interpreting this data in a sense that scientific community almost unanimously agrees that humanity is causing most of global warming is not correct for the reasons described above.

overtone, I was just making a point that potassium and caesium are chemically similar and Cs could replace K in majority of chemical reactions. I do agree that in certain reactions organisms might show preference for Rb or K, but that doesn't change the underlying fact of chemical similarity between those and caesium. Examples that you have provided above can be explained by either bioaccumulation or bioconcentration. Caesium has a biological half-life of around 70 days and so with long-term above normal Cs137 concentrations in sea water it can easily be accumulated in vast amounts in a marine organism. Also there are studies that show biomagnification of Cs in fish. This, for example. So, in a nutshell, I didn't argue with you on these points. I'm not quite sure who you're arguing with. I did not say that. I said 'in majority of chemical compounds and crystal structures'. If you feel an urge to paraphrase me, please do so without losing original meaning.

This 'assumption' you're referring to is based on some actual facts. Caesium and potassium share the same configuration of outer electrons 6s1 and 4s1, respectively. They also have pretty similar covalent radii: 2.44*10-10 m and 2.03*10-10 m, respectively (compare that to sodium, for example with 1.66*10-10). If you look at Van der Waals radii of these atoms , those are also quite close 3.43*10-10 and 2.75*10-10 m. This generally means that Caesium is capable of replacing Potassium in majority of chemical compounds and crystal structures. Here's also a quote for you: Also, you might want to check this paper on Physiology of Rubidium and Cesium or this abstract on accumulation of caesium by microorganisms. P.S. I'm not quite sure how I managed to harass you, but if I did, you have my apologies.

Could you please elaborate on consciousness sitting above space-time? I'm not sure how to relate consciousness with space, but it's definitely not independent from time.

It's not an assumption. Both Caesium and Potassium reside in group 1 of periodic table and all elements of the same group of periodic table have very similar chemistry due to similar configuration of outer electrons. No. Sievert is the unit of measuring effects of ionising radiation on a human body. You can't use it to measure effects on ecosystems.

I'm a geologist and so I believe I have a pretty good grip on geological time scales I do realize that it's a long shot to suggest that humanity will last for millions or billions of years, I was just stating that in some 2.5 billion years the life on Earth will end. Completely wiped from the face of the Universe as if it had never existed in the first place. On the other hand if humanity manages to settle some colonies on other planets or in other star systems and given the fact that as was correctly pointed out that every one of us is a mini Noah's ark carrying several kilograms of symbiotic/parasitic organisms, then life as we know it would be able to continue somewhere else. And you don't need billions or millions of years for that, probably some thousands of years may well be enough.

Do these charts show just the scientists who believe that man-made climate change is not a thing at all or also the ones who believe that it's one of several factors? Most of geologists I know, including some in senior positions in USGS tend to hold to the latter point of view, i.e. that there are multiple factors affecting climate change and man-made influence may or may not be the leading one of those.

Laughing gas is a sedative. Not the strongest one but quite effective. If you inhale it using a mask you can lose consciousness and then if no one wakes you up it's game over.

There are also peer reviewed studies to the contrary as well, although not as numerous and not as well supported. There is also a concern that studies on man made climate change are being supported by developed countries for political reasons. For example one of such ideas says that modern post-industrial economy has pretty much run its course and we're expecting a major paradigm shift in global economy. Those who are quick to react will reap greater benefits. Developed countries on the other hand have too much money invested in old type of economy and changing will be slow for them and so by imposing strict regulations on energy generation they are trying to buy themselves some time to be ahead of the game when the time comes. I'm not supporting this view but indeed there's a lot of politics involved in global warming discussions.

Good point but here's a question: if magnetic field is stronger closer to the magnet creating it, and becomes weaker further away then I would expect that repulsion between metal particles in adjacent lines to be the highest closer to the magnet and to weaken gradually as you move away. So in my mind distances between lines would be big close to the magnet and small farther away but it's not the case as we can see in the original post. Why is that so?

It's true that SR is based on the premise that speed of light in vacuum is constant in all inertial reference frames and is the highest speed information can travel in Universe. On the other hand, while this has indeed been postulated, there has been a large number of experiments that confirmed that our current understanding of the speed of light is correct. Obviously, it's very much possible that our understanding of physics is very wrong and FTL speeds are possible, but currently there are no reliable theories and no observed phenomena of such kind.

OK. I did misunderstand the question. That depends. If the world where we place mammals and dinosaurs has zones of temperate and arctic climate, then those will be dominated by mammals. Also, even now around 70% of all mammals are in fact nocturnal, so not much will change for them. Also, some of the most successful mammalian predators are nocturnal, including lions, gray wolves, tigers and hyenas. It will be highly uncomfortable for dinosaurs to sleep at night I wouldn't so readily dismiss elephants. They are smart, work well in group, with a top speed of some 40 km/h they are faster than most large predatory dinosaurs (at least what models I've seen) and also can be very agressive claiming over 500 human lives each year. Obviously, some dinosaurs can get lucky, but it's not like elephants won't stand a chance.

Yes, but with intelligence we are now on the same time frame with them. We can develop means of fighting them as fast as they can evolve means to counter whatever we have invented. And same or all external factors. We can invent mens of surviving in some very unhealthy conditions faster than we could possible, or anyone for that matter, could evolve. Agreed. That is speculative. We assume that given correct conditions on the planet life will appear, we assume that givn enough time life will develop intelligence, we assume that other civilisations will choose to advance technology. That's a lot of assumptions and all of those are based on observation of exactly one phenomenon - life on Earth. Maybe life is extremely rare, maybe even we're alone... who knows.

Not if that inference is based on abundant facts and purely scientific modelling. Modern animals are adapted to the current environmental conditions and dinosaurs aren't. I think it's a no-brainer.

That is on the scale of one planet and short time frame. Bacteria can survive in conditions that no complex organism can tolerate, but in some 2.5 billion years from now the Earth would no longer be able to sustain life as we know it and all these bacteria will die off. On the other hand, intelligent life, while being more vulnerable to external factors on a small scale can propagate farther, can build spaceships, colonise other planets and star systems and so is extremely important as a means of preserving life in the Universe. And back to our discussion, there's been a lot of very smart people giving their ideas on why we haven't yet encountered intelligent life other than ourselves, yet still most of those are largely based on carbon chauvinism, and until we actually do encounter extraterrestial life forms all such predictions will be no better than any science fiction. EDIT: I think of intelligence as a separate kind of evolution, only the one that works much faster than normal biological evolution. It takes countless generations of bacteria to develop antibiotic resistance, yet it may take less than one generation for intelligent life to develop a more advanced one.

I thought it was just the unusually high velocities of stars in globular clusters in the Halo that was one of the main evidences for Dark Matter.

It's been a while since I've sudied abiogenesis, but is it really necessary for DNA to evolve from RNA? Somehow that doesn't ring a bell...

You do realize that no personal experiences are stored in the DNA and even if such type of time travel were possible it would only be possible to travel in discrete intervals? But anyway, what does DNA have to do with time travel in the first place? You can use it to sort of 'travel back in time' and find out the time when two related species got separated but that's just about it.

I actually think that it won't make that much of a difference. The current atmospheric O2 levels have been established some 2.5 bya and have been quite stable ever since, even during great extinctions.

Actually, if you check any map with phytoplankton distribution and primary productivity you'll see that the highest productivity is observed in polar regions and Gulf has very low productivity. I'm not 100% sure of the reasons but it could be due to better solubility of carbon dioxide in water at lower temperatures. So you would expect some very small drop in oxygen generation.

Yes. Lower mantle is in direct contact with the outer core. No. None of the material produced by volcanic eruptions originates from Outer Core or Lower Mantle. And, for that matter, no organic material is or is ever likely to come in contact with the outer core. Again, no. The only mechanism for eruptions is the positive buoyancy of magma surrounded by solid rock. Gas has nothing to do with it. At the pressures of the upper mantle all gas is dissolved in magma. Why do you insist there should always be carbon? Oxygen, magnesium, silicon, iron, calcium, aluminium, sodium and potassium constitute 99.7% of mantle by weight. There is really no carbon to speak of. Just to re-iterate, you seem to have an idea that volcanic material originates from zone of contact between lower mantle and outer core. It doesn't. There is no evidence from seismic studies that anything of sorts takes place. The entirety of mantle (except for bits in the upper part) is rock-solid with viscosities of around 1021 Pa*s. There is no magma there. Nor there is any carbon. EDIT: Check out this article which has elemental composition of mantle for all major elements down to as little as 0.009 ppm. Still no carbon.

The change from hunter-gatherer lifestyle of early humans to developing agriculture so that food now was more widely available all year round happened only very recently, some 20,000 years ago and it's not enough time for any protective/feedback mechanisms to evolve. And as was pointed out by dimreepr not only we eat more, but the food we eat is higher is energy value, with more sugars and fat, so if you lead a non-active lifestyle, it's definitely too much for the body to utilize.

As others have pointed out in previous posts, you can calculate your delta-v from the rocket equation but not all of your available delta-v translates into the velocity of the rocket. Say, you start from the ground and want to get to the Low Earth Orbit. While the velocity you of the craft on LEO is about 7800 m/s, the actual delta-v required to get there is somewhere between 9500 and 11000 m/s depending on several factors, for example whether you're heading East or West after the initial vertical part of trajectory. That extra delta-v required is lost to atmospheric drag and gravitational losses. If, on the other hand you start from geostationary orbit, where both the drag and the gravity losses are negligible, pretty much all of the delta-v you have available will translate directly into your velocity.