mistermack

There's no advantage in making one mirror, when you can cover the same area with thousands of smaller ones, making maintenance easier. And water gives no advantage at all, and huge disadvantages. You don't need a lens if you have a curved reflector. And still water would probably go green in the sun, making things worse. Your ideas seem a bit fantastical. I would have a look at what IS being done successfully with Solar, and read up on the problems that have to be got past in real life.

When you say sex for procreation, you are quoting is the illusion of purpose. What actually has the purpose of procreation? Not the animal that's having sex. Nor the genes in it's cells. It's simply having sex because it was made that way by a purposeless process called evolution. It's because of the past, not for the future. But it gives a very strong illusion of being for a purpose in the future. Animals don't have sex to have babies. They have sex because their parents did, and their parents did, and their parents did, and so on. It's like a first year Pika building up a food store. He has no idea of the coming winter. His genes have no idea of a coming winter. But he does it by instinct, purely because the genes that make him do it survived winters better in the past. It's the past that makes him do it, not the future.

We are the only organism that engages in sex for procreation. The rest don't even know that sex causes reproduction. They just instinctively want to do it. It could just be that. I would have been pretty revolted if I saw my parents at it at that age. I'd have thought it yukky if I even saw them kissing.

I'd say that homophobia is fairly normal in humans. I remember as a kid, having no idea whatsoever that there were men out there who were attracted to other men. When I was first told, (gleefully by my elder brother), I was so disgusted by the notion, that I put my fingers in my ears and did la la la la, so that I couldn't hear what he persisted in telling me. I thought he was making it up, and he was just talking about men kissing other men, not the hard sex details, which I had no real notion of at the time anyway. That's not my reaction now, but it was back then, as someone who knew absolutely nothing about it. Saying that homophobia is a normal reaction doesn't make it right or desirable or fair. It's just instinctive. Or it was to me anyway. I don't think it was through conditioning or stereotyping as a kid. It was just a natural first reaction. I've read accounts by gay men who said that they grew up with similar feelings to mine, and were shocked to begin experiencing attraction to other men. All I can say is I'm glad it didn't happen to me, but if it did, I'd have no option other than to make the best of it.

Just to add that the reason that the original star collapses is that it runs low on hydrogen for fusion, and it was fusion energy that was preventing collapse. When the star explodes, the 75% that escapes takes most if not all of the remaining hydrogen, so the 25% that is left can't keep fusion going, so the star can't just keep burning at a smaller size. Without the release of fusion energy, the remnant collapses down to a super dense ball of neutrons, called a neutron star, if it's mass is less than about three times that of the Sun. If the remnant is bigger than that, it can't maintain it's structure, and it collapses further as a black hole.

Since there's no prospect of a large population moving to the Sahara any time soon, the only way you could make solar energy pay on a gigantic scale would be to lay an enormous cable across the Mediterranean and up through France to central Europe. The cost would be phenomenal, and it would only make sense, if there were stable reliable governments in North Africa. None of that is likely to happen. One other way would be to use solar energy in North African countries to produce synthetic fuels, and ship that around the world. I don't think the economics is there for that either, or they would be trialling it in places like Australia. There are various experiments going on, using bacteria and algae that have been genetically engineered to produce fuels like propane, but they are in their early stages. I think it's stuff like that that is the most promising in the long run. Edit: Some links : https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/157026/scientists-create-renewable-fossil-fuel-alternative/ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130313112211.htm https://energyfactor.exxonmobil.eu/news/algae-timeline/

Going from memory, the question is about production of gametes for sexual reproduction, so the answer would be 10 pairs, as an egg or sperm ready for fertilisation. Unless it's a trick question.

The energy is there in abundance. But it's in the wrong place. There's little demand in the Sahara. And the cost of moving it to a thriving market is enormous. If it was economically viable, they could do it now in Spain and Portugal, but it's only done small scale at the moment. I would say that if you could have giant reflectors in space, places in the North like Canada and Russia could use it best, in the middle of winter when days are just a couple of hours long.

Aren't they a little late with this?

Dna is dna. It's (nearly) all identical, so you can't take different types of sample. I would imagine that they are offering different kinds of tests, on the same samples. It's usual to take swipe samples of loose cells from the cheeks. (epithelial cells I think).

That really is like asking how long is a piece of string. It's different in every case. I vaguely remember reading that water from boreholes in Australia being a hundred thousand years old. But then, it's a big country.

It doesn't matter if there are no "practical" uses. If by practical you mean directly productive. Knowledge is valuable for it's own sake. And it can become directly productive in the future in ways that we can't imagine now. Knowing where the HIV virus comes from, and why it was able to jump from one species to another, comes with an understanding of how we are related to other primates. That's just an example of how prior knowledge can help understand practical problems. But of course, science is about knowledge, not productive gain. Fathoming out the origin of the Universe isn't likely to help build cars. But I still want to know.

Homosexuality is natural. Because reproduction is natural, and some people are born homosexual. Children turn out homosexual, in spite of all the different treatment of boys and girls as they grow up. People are gay IN SPITE of conditioning, so it's obvious that they are born gay. If you're born gay, then it's obviously natural. It's natural that more people are born straight than gay. Otherwise the species would suffer. But it's not unnatural for SOME people to be born gay. Otherwise, it wouldn't happen. It occurs naturally. There's no mystery. You could debate WHY it happens naturally, but if you can't see that it DOES happen naturally, then you have a problem with the obvious.

Surely this is a conspiracy theory not science, and doesn't belong on the site, ever ! ??

Males are substantially bigger than females. The range would be from the smallest females to the biggest males. Also, the size of cats varies quite a bit by area, with available food supplies. Leopards go from 28 to 90 kg. I think the smallest leopards are in the Arabian Peninsula where presumably game is scarcer.

To be honest, if the technical ability was there, it would be incredibly wasteful to use it on a whip. I would recommend turning the arm into a vagina. Unless vaginas are not your thing. As well as the obvious benefits, it could help humanity, by massively reducing STDs and cutting overpopulation. No need to worry about the ladies, they already have their appliances of science.

Walking is plenty energetic enough for an overweight or obese person. I wouldn't recommend running. All you need to do, is do something that gets you breathing faster for a significant time. If you find walking too easy, you can speed up. Fast walking takes a lot of energy, and doesn't stress your joints like jogging or running. Even walking on the spot, indoors, or shadow boxing, or bends, dips, semi squats etc can all get your breathing speeded up. Try to do at least an hour a day of exercises that make you breathe faster, and build up to a bit more. One of the most important things about losing weight is maintaining motivation. It's easy to start, but keeping going takes willpower. What I do to keep motivation high is to weigh myself every day, enter it in an excel file. The number that I concentrate on is the seven day average, which I keep in a second column. Your weight will fluctuate day to day, but the average of the last seven days gives you a true picture, and I'm usually trying to keep that steady, or gradually reduce it, if I need to. It only takes seconds to weigh yourself in the morning, and enter the number in a file, but it's really satisfying to see that 7 day number gradually drop. (and it's a real incentive to try harder, if it starts to rise)

"is our response to be happy at something hardwired in DNA? Up to what level we can change it?" In a lot of instances, it is hardwired. Children make us happy. We of course are hardwired for that, otherwise none of us would exist now. Our ancestors would just have abandoned their kids. And it's exactly the same hardwiring that makes us keep dogs. Dogs make people happy in exactly the same way as kids. Cats too. they even SOUND like babies when they want feeding. And sex does make you happy. Not just the physical sensation of the act of sex, but the whole sex experience of having a partner of the opposite sex. In your teens and twenties, there is a lot of status involved, you feel great if some beautiful creature that all your mates fancy is interested in YOU. I can remember actually feeling I was walking on air once, going home after spending the night with a beautiful girl that I had been a bit obsessed with for quite some time. We didn't stay together, but it was true happiness while it lasted. It's not just sex, it's a whole combination of things. If you have wanted something for a long time, you feel happy for a while when you finally get it. Most people spend their lives wishing they were really rich. For the few who win the lottery, they often report feeling happy for a brief period, and then they come back down, as they get used to the new circumstances. In evolutionary terms, you need that reward, to make you try again. But it can't be permanent, or you would stop trying.

People who die of Alzheimer's are often described as dying a little every day by their loved ones who are living with them. I think they tell us a lot about death. In their case it's an extremely slow process, little by little, day by day. We still say they died on such-and-such a date, but in reality, that was when the last bit of them died. The consciousness you have today isn't the same one as yesterday. Or the day before. It's usually so very similar, that it gives the illusion of being the same, but it's not. You often hear it said of people that they were "never the same person" after some traumatic experience or other. What's happened to that original person? They no longer exist, and have been replaced with a new one. in most cases very nearly identical, day by day, but now and then, after a huge trauma, substantially different. That's why it's so ludicrous to pretend that there's some sort of separate consciousness. It relies entirely on brain activity, and changes as the brain changes. Damage the brain, either emotionally or physically, and you can change the person drastically. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain.

I've had the sleep paralysis experience, but in my case, it was because I dreamt that I woke, when in fact I didn't. So I thought that I was awake and unable to move, but I was just dreaming it. The most dramatic dream experience by far that I ever experienced was more than 35 years ago. I dreamt that I had killed someone, and hid the body in a hedge. I woke up for real, but somehow, I was still believing the dream. It took till the middle of the day to work it out. I was in a deadly depression, thinking of the rest of my life being spent in prison. I started to try to think of ways of getting away with it, and thought I should move the body to somewhere safer. But I just couldn't remember exactly which hedge I had left it in. That really confused me, and I sat down and thought, "surely you would remember where you left a body" ? And then I realised that I didn't even know who I'd killed. And it slowly began to dawn on me that it must have been a dream. This had been all so real, that you can imagine the incredible relief that flooded through me, that I hadn't killed anyone, and I wasn't going to prison for life. (no drugs of any sort were involved by the way)

I don't think there will ever be a colony on Mars in the self-sustaining sense. It might be a great place to site retirement homes though. One third gravity might be great for the elderly, and they don't go out much. I still think that if you want a colony, a space station is the way to go. I can't imagine anyone ever bringing up children in one third gravity. Or even going through a pregnancy in low gravity. Who's going to take risks with their unborn child? Even if they have done it with apes. (which is also dubious morally). But you could have a huge space station orbiting Mars, with 1g of artificial gravity, and people could operate machinery on Mars from the Space station in real time. You could exploit the resources of Mars without having to live on it. You would have to solve the problems of landing and launching stuff on and off Mars in an economical way though.

It might be worth researching some murder cases that were solved using dna, and finding out how the samples were stored and how long they kept for. But you have to bear in mind that police laboratories might have the funds to do a far more intense test than what you can buy yourself. I'm beginning to wonder why futuregenetics wants to know about samples kept at room temperature. If you wanted to keep samples for later, it's obvious that freezing is the way to go. But if you have samples from years ago that have been kept at room temperature, and are wondering if they can still be tested, then I guess there's only one sure way to find out. But old police cases might give you a clue. Nowadays, samples are carefully kept in the best known conditions. Years ago, they were not. But old cases HAVE been re-opened and solved using poorly stored dna. So they might provide the answer.

And then there are liars. Plenty of that going on. How do they "select" the people for the so-called study? Southampton Uni should be embarrassed to be connected to this rubbish. All he's doing is playing with words, and calling it a study. "Cardiac Arrest" as stated above, is not death. "no detectable brain activity" is not death. Death is when life can no longer continue in any form. When the brain is so degraded that it can never function again under any circumstances. People remembering stuff from operations can be lies, imagination, dreaming when passing out or coming to, or self delusion. Plus probably lots of other stuff I haven't thought of. It's not dead people having consciousness, because they aren't dead. Never were dead. No bucket was kicked. They were still on this mortal coil. Non-deceased. Have not ceased to be. They were not ex parrotts !

Anyone can spot bollocks. It doesn't take any training at all. Actually it's believing it that takes years of very intense training.

When you get to my age, sexual arousal WILL make you happy. Anything else is a bonus.