Royston

Fair do's...guess I should of searched harder...though 15 minutes is more than a waste of time...in fact I'm wasting even more time by writing this, and what I just wrote then, glad you did ban him, all he's done is waste my time.

How though ? This is what I don't understand, they're not sure what causes schizophrenia so how can they confirm that using psychoactive substances promotes schizophrenia, I'm a little confused how they arrived at this assumption.

Not sure if this has already been covered (couldn't find anything) but how come Bio Hazard was banned...I've only just noticed, was it recent ?

This is what I don't understand about the Guth inflation period (so stepping away from classical mechanics) it seems more logical that energy creation happens in the collapsing period, before space-time begins to inflate again. I wasn't sure a black hole could be considered a truly isolated system ?

There's no conclusive evidence what causes schizophrenia - though I believe they are invesitgating the cause through genetic research. Lack of dopamine / glutamate / serotonin et.c (through using certain substances) can cause psychosis (depending on the individual) but doesn't necessarily mean you'll become schizophrenic unless you have the potential to become schizophrenic....though if someone can actually find some evidence for this, cause I don't buy it, I think it's just a case of being misdiagnosed. If someone is using a substance and they develop paranoia et.c then they're a bit of an idiot to carry on using it...but 9 times out of 10 the substance is blamed, not the person. I'll have to have a browse, but I heard an excess of the chemical DMT (which is released when you die) could be a player in the condition, which would account for schizophrenics hearing voices, and having a distorted version of reality, but again this is not conclusive, and certainly doesn't account for a lack of any other chemical bringing an onset to the condition. If someone has anything conclusive about this I'd be interested as well...and no bias anti-drug sites please.

I've been thinking a lot recently about the creation of energy through gravitational collapse. Is it possible for energy to be created if momentum increases in a non-isolated system where the conservation law (1st law of thermal dynamics) is not applicable. A simple scenario would be someone rolling down a hill...no energy is actually being used (so is conserved) but distance is covered (due to gravity taking hold). If the system doesn't follow the first law (non-isolated) is it possible for energy to be created ? I've vaguely covered this idea when considering dark energy in another thread, but I was wondering if there was anything substantial that could back this up...a simple no will suffice, then I can move on and reject the premise.

Matter is created all the time in particle accelerators, however as [Tycho?] has pointed out matter is produced in matter (electrons in this case) and anti-matter (positrons) pairs and so quickly annihilate each other and turn back to energy. So to create atoms and molecules et.c is impossible...so far. This is one of the big problems about how matter managed to propogate succesfully to form our universe, and as yet there is no solid answer. You should maybe read up on Paul Dirac for more info on the above or visit the CERN website. Something else you maybe interested in is the Higgs Boson / field which is (although undetected) one of the theories that could explain how particles acquire mass. Hope this helps.

I've searched but I couldn't find this link already posted (apologies if it has) the next time you listen to the unintelligble mumblings of a stoner, listen carefully they may know more than you give them credit for... http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8155 I didn't put this in the news forum as the article is over a month old now.

Hi Martin, sorry for the late reply (have been very busy recently) and I'll be sure to have a look at the links you've kindly provided. I managed to read some of the CDT article you provided in an earlier post, and I must admit I had never really appreciated curvature on small scales...I've always applied curvature in a more cosmological sense, and it's really opened my eyes to the complexity of correlating the small with the large...albeit this just goes back to GR (again) but still worth considering the constraints of quantifying small scale space-time and how it differs to the constraints of equating large scale space-time...obvious, but worth appreciating. Unfortunately I've been so busy I havn't even been able to give much thought, or have had time to read and digest the article and others recently...but I have a few spare evenings ahead of me where I'll give them some proper attention. So this is more of a thankyou note than anything else.

Hello aj47, this is the recommendation you get on caresheets to stop the eggs from hatching...I should imagine (albeit they are snails), that freezing them after they have hatched is probably quite a lengthy death (please don't tell your friend this) relative to crushing / burning them and some of the other more macabre suggestions that have been posted. Also I think my house mates would be a little miffed about a load of dead snails parked next to their chicken kievs, despite being in a sealed container. I've been so busy recently that I havn't found the time to carry out the ether option that YT2095 suggested, though if this is not resolved by the weekend I have beers in the fridge, so I'll just get them drunk and seal the container...probably worst ways to go if you're a snail. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.

Wasn't algae the first plant on earth, and isn't algae sexless, so no eggs (seeds) and not very appetising for a Sunday roast.

We're only talking about one part of the brain here...prosthetics / transplants are all accepted, but it's a far cry from creating a modern day Frankensteins monster, just as this is a far cry from an entire brain made of computer chips. So this technology isn't so advanced that it seems inplausible. I guess you've heard of the IBM 'blue brain' project, also 'in development' but if there's anything that's uniting computer technology with neuroscience that's the space to watch. I'm with Bascule, that the rate of technological advancement is accelerating at an alarming rate and I should imagine there will be some crossing of certain fields of technology to look forward to in the next few years.

Full BBC article here....let's just hope it works ! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4415722.stm#graphic A few key excerpts... Prof Karsten Danzmann, Hanover University "It will be a big event for two reasons: it will be yet another confirmation that Einstein's Theory of General Relativity is correct, but it will also open up a new kind of astronomy that will allow us to look inside the most violent events in the Universe." A new kind of astronomy requires a new type of "telescope", and that's just what Hough and UK-German colleagues have been developing on farmland a short drive from Hanover. It is called GEO 600. This is precision engineering at the extreme. To have any hope of detecting gravitational waves, it has to be. It's equivalent to measuring a change of one hydrogen atom diameter in the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

There's more on this and related articles here... http://www.kurzweilai.net/mindx/frame.html I'm sure you're more than familiar with Ray Kurzweil, there's some very interesting articles on this site, not all related to the technological singularity, and well worth a look.

I'd be interested to hear your argument supporting this statement.

Or maybe the asteroid is symbolic of Intelligent Design, take care of it before it becomes a threat and collides with secular education.

Yikes...'first time I've heard of humans emitting photons from their fingernails' I didn't realise I hadn't finished the sentence. I was going to carry on with 'it would make an alternative to those light up key fobs'. I've just found the rest of my post stuck in word. I thought the concentration would be round the head, I really wanted to know why these particular parts of the body are being researched. If this is to be used for diagnosis why are they concentrating on these specific parts of the body. errr I guess I thought there was something 'special' about these 'parts'. Just going through some of the replies, I thought it would be obvious that I understood where there's heat there's photons ??? My OP was badly worded so sorry about that, but still.

Please see the Discovery article below... http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050905/handlight_print.html "Not only the hands, but also the forehead and bottoms of our feet emit photons," Hiramatsu said, and added that in terms of hands "the presence of photons means that our hands are producing light all of the time." The light is invisible to the naked eye, so Hiramatsu and his team used a powerful photon counter to "see"it. The detector found that fingernails release 60 photons, fingers release 40 and the palms are the dimmest of all, with 20 photons measured. The findings are published in the current Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology. Can anyone explain this phenomenom ? I'll try and find the published article, but for the time being if anyone can explain how this occurs and more puzzling why these particular parts of the body...first time I've heard of humans emitting photons.

Deep Impact is on TV at the moment...then I noticed this thread had appeared in the news forums

Well I inquired but they only buy them fully grown, so death is the only option.

Well my house mate has a black widow (handheld catapult) got seventy go's at getting the neighbours cat...or a wandering seagull. I like the wd-40 and a lighter suggestion...burn snail, buuuuuuurrrrrn. Though I'm going to Halfords (UK garage chain) on Monday, to give the ether idea a go. Failing that I'll smash 'em with a guitar to Pantera or something, how does that sound ?