StringJunky

No, that's why I'm asking. It was in Nature journal so I presume it's peer reviewed. The essence of my question is: how much more confidence does this give towards the actual existence of DM?

Image source ... Here we report the detection of a dark-matter filament connecting the two main components of the Abell 222/223 supercluster system from its weak gravitational lensing signal, both in a non-parametric mass reconstruction and in parametric model fits. This filament is coincident with an overdensity of galaxies10, 13 and diffuse, soft-X-ray emission4, and contributes a mass comparable to that of an additional galaxy cluster to the total mass of the supercluster. By combining this result with X-ray observations4, we can place an upper limit of 0.09 on the hot gas fraction (the mass of X-ray-emitting gas divided by the total mass) in the filament. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7406/full/nature11224.html

http://wordlesstech.com/2012/07/11/evidence-of-dark-matter-confirmed/

DH IIRC I think you are conversant in flight navigation systems....is it AI to you?

When I think of the role of chance in Abiogenesis, I think of it with respect to the necessary reactants coming together under favourable conditions: once that happens the rest is deterministic according to the properties of the chemicals involved.

OK, cheers.

Would the Earth system restore the pressure eventually to previous levels?

Glad to see you using taking on the right word, hypothesis, and the plural of it is hypotheses (ending is pronounced -seez). Half the battle is speaking/writing in a language that your target readership understands. Science has quite a few conventions, like for example the difference between the two words I pointed out. Watch out for patterns in the way and words the scientists use here...they mean specific things that other scientists understand. Learn these as you go along and you will find they understand you better if you use them in the same way.

It's a fact of scientific life that the people who consider others ideas are going to automatically attempt to highlight the flaws in their ideas...its called Peer Review . It's not custom to support an idea until every angle has been questioned and satisfactorily explained. If you can't stand the heat of critical questioning it's best not to post your hypotheses*...it's perfectly normal and you should expect a debate. *Hypothesis is an idea that has yet to be generally accepted...like yours. Theory is an idea that is generally accepted and has evidence to support it.

You'll get quite legitimate and professional feedback here: there's enough degree-level people here more than capable of assessing your ideas. Most importantly, once told something by someone, you need to check it yourself and if right you will gain confidence in that person...eventually, you will see those you have confidence in as your mentors.

The researchers probably calculated the odds for a limited set of molecules to combine to the desired configurations. What they fail to take into account is that there are an exponential number of molecules performing exponential random combinations over billions of years...some of which will combine to the desired configuration. Combine those together and the odds shorten to the extent that it obviously becomes a certainty judging by the fact that DNA, enzymes et al are extant.

Just downloaded it to have a look at 2.8...nice to see that it has an option to integrate the user interface as a single window...the separate ones put me off before. If anyone wants a Windows-like interface/functionality then Zorin might suit...it is Ubuntu under the bonnet.

T=0 is Time Zero ie the moment precisely before the the BB and T<0 are the moments leading up to the BB ie before Time Zero.

In science, "theory" is the highest measure of confidence.

The other reason is that there is no need for the existence of a deity to explain it.

I have no personal need for it...I'd rather find my answers based on what we know exists and work from there.... There are a few reasons for the immense uptake of religious ideas and one of those compellingly attractive reasons is the promise that life extends beyond the physical. It is an idiosyncrasy of the human mind that it can construct what it wants to see...this is a pitfall of our nature that we have to be vigilant about if we want to discover nature as it really is. I'd rather die knowing that I don't know the answers, but I tried, than kid myself that I do just to assuage some anxiety about the transience of my existence.

The popularity of an idea does not increase the likelihood of it being true.

The distribution of matter only appears random up to a certain scale then it starts to take on order and structure...it's probably like this for DM as well: The End of Greatness is an observational scale discovered at roughly 100 Mpc (roughly 300 million lightyears) where the lumpiness seen in the large-scale structure of the universe is homogenized and isotropized as per the Cosmological Principle. The superclusters and filaments seen in smaller surveys are randomized to the extent that the smooth distribution of the universe is visually apparent. It was not until the redshift surveys of the 1990s were completed that this scale could accurately be observed.[36] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-scale_structure_of_the_cosmos#Large-scale_structure

This tickled me...could have come out of "Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy".

I speculated on that in Post 23 and it was eliminated because using metal containers removed the problem IIRC:

Is it totally unfeasible for satellites to be pre-fitted with a rocket pack that could push them out of Earth's gravity to drift out into open space when it is time for them to be decommissioned...would the additional fuel payload they would need to carry for their service life be too much?

It is puzzling that you are telling people off for giving the same advice that you are recommending yourself: "Please the first thing you should do is go to a hospital and get an MRI or catscan to see if you have any tumors, systs, or anything else going on in your head to distort your thoughts." We don't know the reason, only that he seems to have a problem and going to a medical practioner is the only sensible and wise advice we can give.

Try and convince them it's "family planning" and not genocide?

Are we talking about really touchy-feely-huggy vegans here?

Sterilise and castrate them...then wait for them to die. Probably looking at 20 odd years to solve the problem though this way.