StringJunky

I'm no expert either but find it interesting as well. I can't give you the steps leading to terrestrial locomotion or breathing free air but I am aware of some ideas about the evolution of the eye which gives some idea of the kind of transitional evolutionary phases necessary to reach a certain complexity.

Rythmic tidal forces on the oceans between the Sun/Moon and Earth would have caused some early organisms on shorelines to be regularly exposed to the free atmosphere when they were beached on the down tide...they most likely didn't crawl onto land initially; they were exposed by the sea receding. If those tidal forces didn't exist Earth's inhabitants might have stayed purely aquatic because I don't think there would have been sufficient selection pressure to adapt: what would be the need to crawl out of the water? The regular exposure to free atmosphere would have allowed some organisms, which had beneficial mutations that aided locomotion under those circumstances, to have greater reproductive success because there would have been less competition. If you notice, organisms did not move from water to land in one go....they were periodically exposed to the free atmosphere giving plenty of opportunity for organisms to adapt eventually to inhabit dry land. Evolution occurs in very small steps over a very long time.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=12540

I think what you really want is people to publicly brainstorm together and build on each others ideas but this is not really the function of this forum or the scientific method in general. One presents an idea here for it to be intellectually shot at to see if it withstands the rigour of external analysis. It is not the present model of scientific research to have other people do your work for you and you have all the accolades.

If you want to put your mind at rest until something is done you could brush and seal the lead-paint surfaces in your proximity with a PVA sealer at 1: 1 ratio with water like Unibond. Any PVA glue diluted to 1:1 will do really. It should dry to a clear(ish) finish depending on the porosity of the surfaces. This is what I would do for the moment if I were in your shoes. It needs to be dealt with if you are in a confined space with it as you are then in a chronic exposure situation. Lead is a slow cumulative poison ie it will affect you gradually and invisibly over time and you probably won't notice until it's too late. Realistically, only someone knowledgeable in these matters can assess the degree of risk in your personal situation...get an environmental expert in from you area that works for your local authority who can also, if applicable, statutorily compel your your landlord to act.

The elements are defined by the number of protons in the nucleus. Each increase by one proton is another element and once you get into the 90+ proton containing elements they become more and more unstable so the chances of other elements existing naturally becomes ever less likely the higher you go up the proton-number and if they do exist it is only for an ever shorter time before they decay to a more stable proton configuration ie to an element, with less protons in the nucleus. If you look at the element with the highest atomic number Ununoctium (118 protons) only 4 nuclei have been detected altogether in the lab and its decay time to livermorium (116 protons) is 0.89 ms. As you can see, the chances of finding new elements are becoming much slimmer all the time.

I see it as a planned but unannounced performance which was a nice surprise for the people around.

I don't find it difficult to believe that he wouldn't know about whether he had lead paint on his property especially if he comes from a less developed country and also not everybody's a chemist...it's a minor detail that one needs to know on the scale of things. Now that he knows though he should deal with it if it is the law in your country to do so.

Skitt's Law* alert. *Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself.

If you persist in writing in your current style which is just about incoherent and bordering on word salad you will, justifiably, be ignored or disciplined. One should always endeavour to speak or write so that your audience can understand...When in Rome...

Thanks DH, that's what I wanted to know. I have been around on this forum long enough (3 years) to make up my mind whose information will likely be reliable and try to give a reasonably accurate picture of the prevailing state of any scientific subject, or at least point me in the right direction, without colouring them unduly with their own pet opinions unless explicitly stated. I fully accept mainstream scientific research projects and their subsequent conclusions embodies a necessary degree of uncertainty and, on the whole, the established and most experienced contributors here reflect that but it does take quite some time to figure them out.

Nothing's perfect but it's the best system science has available...as you should know. Is there not a mainstream consensus that DM exists? Bear in mind I'm asking these questions as a layman so I can't argue for or against...I wish to only understand where mainstream science is at now. I understand DM was originally hypothesised to make up the numbers regarding the missing mass and this is the model they are following. I'm not interested if you disagree with it personally, only what the mainstream research scientists actively working on it have extracted from their data so far.

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.