VenusPrincess

From Wikipedia: My question is regarding the origin of the target sequences for Covid-19 PCR tests. Can anyone point me towards a primary source?

How could this happen though? Women evolved under the constraint of having to successfully gestate children. It doesn't matter how smart you are, and it doesn't matter how strong you are, if you are a woman and you do not successfully gestate children you cannot pass on your genes. Combine that with men's ability to produce many offspring and you have two distinct selection processes for men and women; one which filters out women who have traits that jeopardize their likelihood of successfully gestating children and another that favors high variance strategies that allow men to impregnate many women. Keep in mind that the development of certain brain structures could be expensive calorically. It doesn't make sense for a woman to develop a brain that consumes 1500 calories a day since that would just drain her fat storage without much benefit, but it might make sense for a man who is a traveling merchant to do so since his work requires intense cognitive function (arithmetical ability, social and verbal wit, high working memory).

I noticed that Rand Paul looks very similar to the singer from the song Love Shack by the B-52's Are they related, and what impact could this have on the election?

It is common knowledge that as people age they experience a degradation in their cognitive abilities, hence why top chess players tend to be in the 20-40 age bracket. Yet I think most people agree that 50 year olds tend to be much smarter than their 20 year old selves. This suggests there is something that IQ test cannot measure that is nonetheless a vital component of intelligence. What is it, and how can we measure it if IQ tests can't?

Climate scientists are concerned with deviations in the average global temperature, but what does an average temperature mean from a thermodynamic perspective? Temperature is inherently a local measurement of molecular kinetic energy, and therefore an average temperature across a large region seems to have little meaning in a thermodynamic context. At best we could try to demonstrate that global average temperature is a predictive metric for some other variable of interest, but the burden of proof would be on us. I could calculate a weighted average by volume temperature of my car by measuring the dimensions of various devices and parts in the vehicle along with their temperature and then taking their sum weighted by their proportion of the car's total volume. For example perhaps the air in the cabin is measured to be 25 °C, the air underneath the hood measured to be 50 °C, the temperature of the oil is 200 °C, etc. After taking all of the appropriate temperature and volume measurements I might calculate that the average temperature of the car is 100 °C. But what does that tell us? Is that a useful metric? Now assume that I told you that the average temperature of the car increased to 101 °C. Should you be concerned? Well your first question might be where did the temperature increase, and when/why did it increase. If I told you the air in the cabin increased in temperature to 40 °C you would be correct to be alarmed, since that temperature would be uncomfortable or perhaps outright dangerous to the occupants. However if I told you that the temperature of the oil increased to 250 °C you may then ask when did the temperature of the oil increase? If I told you it increased when you put your foot down of the throttle for a period of time then you would not be alarmed at all since it makes complete sense for the temperature of the oil to increase when the engine is throttled. We can see here that the average temperature of the car contains little useful information. From this metaphor we can see that an increase in average temperature weighted by area/volume is not necessarily useful, and that we need more information to understand what is really going on. Has there been any research in this area?

Yesterday I ordered some pasta and it came with a salad and garlic bread. I finished the pasta and salad, but I was too full to eat the garlic bread so I just set it down on the floor next to my couch. It was later at night and I had the lights off so that I could watch my TV show so it was too dark to see anything besides the TV, but while watching my TV show I began to hear a crinkling sound to my right. At first I ignored it, but after a couple minutes the crinkling was undeniable and I was curious about what it could possibly be. I got up and turned on the lights and I saw hundreds of ants on top of the paper bag that held the garlic bread. I put on latex gloves and got a garbage bag, and then quickly picked up the paper bag and dropped it inside the garbage bag. I then got a can of raid and sprayed the whole area around where the paper bag was to kill the remaining ants that were running around. I disposed of the garbage bag immediately outside of my apartment. I was surprised that the ants could make enough noise that I could hear them. How loud are ants in terms of decibels, and how many have to be walking around to make their movement perceptible?

According to the Copenhagen interpretation a quantum system remains in superposition until it is observed. If God was omnipotent he would be all knowing, implying that he observes all. However since the cat's state remains in superposition we can infer that it has not been observed, and therefore God is has no knowledge of the cat's state. That contradicts the initial assumption that God is omnipotent, but if God is not Omnipotent then he is not God at all, and therefore God does not exist.