joigus

What I mean is that some particular behaviours can be traced back to a molecular basis, at least partially. This is especially true of some behavioural disorders. Some of them have a genetic basis, others can be partially explained by imprinting coming from environmental factors that get more or less permanently registered. But I'm talking here with a certain amount of diffidence, as I'm not an expert. I'm not aware of any molecular mechanism having been shown as being at the basis of sexual selection.

References? The OP is basing the premise on a social perception (my emphasis): Unfortunately there aren't, to my knowledge, any salient features results/mechanisms of evolutionary biology that allow one to talk with any degree of confidence on how this or that peculiarity "is regarded" this or that way. I don't think, for example --and correct me if I'm wrong-- that sexual selection has been understood to the point of being related to molecular bases, or even to evolutionary dynamics in the way of population dynamics, etc.

Now that Mistermark has left for a couple of weeks, There's still an echo of bells lingering in the air, sounding, Chamberlain, Chamberlain..., The politics of throwing the dog a bone. It's not like it hasn't been practiced before, It's not like we're clueless about the horrours it brought. Megalomania is easy to diagnose, and we know the profile very well. Putin is a shameless narcisist, and that's plain to see. He plays dominant male primate to a tee.

Masses in the standard model of particle physics come from so-called radiative corrections, which correspond to virtual processes happening all the time and contributing to the inertia of the particle. The nature of those virtual processes depends on the model of elementary particles. If you have a richer theory (more particles), the vacuum gets enriched by these new degrees of freedom, and in high-precission experiments you would be able to tell, because all the masses would be shifted by a predictible amount. It would produce small corrections, thereby the interest of the news. The W bosons are the electrically charged messenger particles of the weak interaction. Analogous to what photons are for electromagnetism.

Thanks. This kind of thinking resonates with what I think myself; that there probably aren't very many ways for life to emerge. It's not just about "oh, I can change this atom for another chemically similar one that plays the same role," etc. It's also about the abundances of those elements in galaxies. One is compelled to think that whatever happened during the Hadean Eon that jump-started abiogenesis, rates of molecular collisions must have played an important role. But it's so hard to be sure about any of these things.

That's pretty much what I meant, and I think you actually subtly implied it with your sequence "and then..., and then..." @Eise seems to have understood that as well: It's an ongoing process, the way I picture it. And I suppose it would be pretty difficult to pin down the very moment when that "cognitive event" ends, if there is such a thing.

Nice account. I suppose after the "Have I seen this before?" come a series of cross-talk events back and forth involving prefrontal cortex / hippocampus, and other parts of the brain? For example, the cortex asks back to the visual cortex "Does it have such and such feature?"?

Just a couple of qualifications: I didn't mean to say panspermia isn't to play a role some day in long-term (mean-planet-life-wise \( \sim 10^{9} \) years) sense. It probably is, and a lot, IMO. For starters, it is an empirical fact that organic matter does make its way to neighbouring planets and moons, at least within the confines of Solar-System parameters. If you lower your standards for how "primitive" an "organism"* must be in order to be considered life --example: chemolithotrophs--, then it may well be that our concept of Goldilocks zone has to be recalculated to include much wider ranges within a solar system, as well as the different varieties of solar system that can harbour life this kind of "less-honourable" life. Panspermic events, in this view, would serve as bridges between communicating vessels of proto-life (planets and moons) to find their way to a more promising platform for multicellular/organelle-centred life. Trying to paint a vivid picture of what I think might be going on: Imagine that already gazillions of these proto-living forms are out there saying: We don't think of our arrangement as non-life; in fact, we're doing quite alright by our standards. We've lived here for 2 billion years within our Goldilocks zone, with our mind-bogglingly sluggish metabolism and reproductive cycle. If a higher-order Goldilocks zone opens up in any of the neighbours, higher-order, more sophisticatedly organised life will be seeded in those moons, don't worry. Enough of our spores are flowing around to guarantee that in, say, a couple billion years more, this higher form of life takes seed. I'm sure part of what I'm saying here, or similar, is being considered by people working on these subjects. * "Primitive" meaning things like: Doesn't have internal membranes/compartimentalisation equivalent to eukaryots Doesn't have to exploit any particularly profitable redox reaction => doesn't need to have a particularly fast metabolism/reproduction cycle Doesn't have more than order 103-104 pair bases in any of its nucleic acids (or the equivalent of DNA)

Agreed.

Nice info bites. And a majestic beauty. Thanks.

I'm always confused with panspermia. I've always seen it as taking the problem somewhere else. The formulation of plausible molecular mechanisms for life in a variety of plausible scenarios is what's key for me. Whether it happened in a young Earth or in a young Mars or Venus, is kinda lateral to me, as all young Solar-System planets that are candidates are similarly extreme and alien to us from the limited confines of eukaryot, multicellular life. I just love your last thought, and brings me memories of Carl Sagan. I have that feeling very often.

Well...?

If there are such things as personality disorders, and personality disorders there are, there must perforce be something we can call a personality, that can ultimately be attached to patterns of behaviour. I would suppose we speak of personality disorders when the patterns of behaviour of a person make them dangerous to themselves and/or others, or unfit to lead a normal reproductive life, socially harmonious life, etc. And I would suppose we speak of somebody's personality as such when patterns of behaviour --either considered healthy or pathological-- have enough differences among them that attaching a personality to a particular individual makes some empirical sense. Different aspects of personality are being addressed with several degrees of success by neuroscience, with considerable rate of ongoing success, I would say. But personality is extremely complicated. Genetics-hardwired responses, environment-development, environment-induced behaviour imprinting ulterior constraints on molecular mechanisms, etc. It's hugely complicated. What you won't find is a clear-cut definition of personality, IMO. Personality has emergence written all over it.

Ah, OK. Got it! So to me what's going on, schematically is, 2SO2 + O2 <> 2SO3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ First equilibrium: 0.3 0.2 1.5 Added SO2 (out of equilibrium): 0.3+0.1x 0.2 1.5 Second equilibrium: 0.3+0.1x-0.1 0.2-0.05 1.5+0.1 So I think the calculation should be, \[ 125=\frac{1.6^{2}}{\left(0.2+0.1x\right)^{2}\left(0.2-0.05\right)} \] Which is, I think, what @Dhamnekar Win,odd meant when they wrote, That is, 0.3-0.1+0.1x instead of 0.3-0.1 +x Am I right?

Silly me. You're right. So the total mass is constant? I didn't see that in the initial statement. By, "How many moles of sulfur dioxide must be forced into the reaction vessel", I understood new moles of sulfur dioxide are added to the equilibrium. From what you say, the new SO3 must come from the pre-existing equilibrium, right? I had difficulties implying that from the statement. Sorry if I sound obtuse.

Oh, I see; all of them are necessarily gases. The bit I don't understand is, what assumption from the exercise's statement is at the basis of O2 going down from 0.2 mol/L to 0.2-0.05 = 0.15 mol/L when the extra SO2 is put there? I seem to be missing something here...

Flawless application of Le Chatelier's principle. I've no objection to there being good practical reasons to remove oxygen, and I totally trust @exchemist with this. But, why do you assume oxygen reducing its concentration --as per the exercise's statement? Are you re-calculating concentrations due to total volumes changing? Can you specify the whole chemical reaction equation with the phases? I'm just curious.

I suppose you mean 0*infinity= a finite quantity; "infinity" representing rate of change, and 0 representing elapsed time. 2*infinity=0 certainly doesn't make sense. If your question is the first one, it does make mathematical sense with the proper auxiliary qualifications (having to do with limits), but it's too idealised to correspond to a real situation.

I've seen more badgers than badges around here. Generally they don't last long.

Another piece of technicolor nature: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cano-cristales From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caño_Cristales

For the sake of documentation,

The photons wouldn't resist compression; they would suddenly fall down into the same degenerate state. They'd form a Bose condensate. It's a "do the opposite" story. Fermions hate degeneracy; photons just love it.

A joke is a joke; if it's not funny, so much the worse for the joke, and the joker. But I don't think for a minute Chris Rock's life was in danger. Com'on.

I think energy itself is not enough to "overcome" Pauli's exclusion principle, and entropy must be playing a strong role. If all those neutrons tried to jump to the same gravity-excited level, they would still be subject to the PEP. It's (probably) because black holes have enormous entropies that this is possible, I think. By "overcome Pauli's exclusion principle" I mean to create enough entropy that quantum degeneracy is broken. Sorry, you're right. Quantum degeneracy is never broken. To be more precise: that there are so many close-by states available that, entropy being so high, quantum degeneracy doesn't have a fighting chance. A similar argument is sketched here: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/93988/does-black-hole-formation-contradict-the-pauli-exclusion-principle Tell me what you think.