StringJunky

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.

The sense of Self is an emergent property of the constituents of the brain ie it does not exist separately from it which, in contrast, the concept of Soul implies...I don't agree with the idea of a soul...it's equivalent to religion.

I often think this and see threads fall apart or at least get very prickly because the basic definitions haven't been agreed before commencing.

The distribution of sexual orientation is likely on a continuum, just more heavily weighted towards heterosexuality.

I can't find any definitive answer but one reason might be it doesn't have a turbulent or precipitating atmosphere (rain) coupled with low gravity, so the opportunities for surface erosion are much less than say on Earth

So, will it always be called "Dark"? This was the essence of my question: whether it was called that as a placeholder name, until more details were known, or for a reason like you just mentioned...it's invisibility using the visible electromagnetic spectrum or indeed all of it.

I was standing in the shoes of the ignorant when I posted that. This is something along the lines Severian is to make.

Eusociality is a very successful strategy it would appear. Examples The most familiar examples of eusocial insects are ants, bees, and wasps (order Hymenoptera), as well as termites (order Isoptera) – all with reproductive queens and more or less sterile workers and/or soldiers. Austroplatypus incompertus, a species of weevil native to Australia, is the first beetle (order Coleoptera) to be recognized as eusocial.[2][3] Mammalian examples include the naked mole rat and the Damaraland mole rat;[4] however, this classification is controversial owing to disputed definitions of 'eusociality' as well as the existence of other mammals that satisfy the original definition of Wilson (1971).[5] Eusociality with biologically sterile individuals represents the most extreme form of kin selection. The analysis of eusociality played a key role in the development of theories in sociobiology. The phenomenon of reproductive specialization is found in various organisms. It generally involves the production of sterile members of the species, which carry out specialized tasks, effectively caring for the reproductive members. It can manifest in the appearance of individuals within a group whose behavior (and sometimes anatomy) is modified for group defense, including self-sacrificing ("altruism"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality The idea that more-reproductive-units-is-better is clearly not universal in nature.

Yes it is an act of faith which side you choose when one is not trained in the appropriate discipline. I am doing this all the time on these forums until come such a time I can ascertain the reality for myself. Hopefully I'm listening to the right people. To the scientifically illiterate they can both appear equally valid...creationists don't look like eight year old's that's the problem. How do you ascertain which one (scientist v creationist) knows what they are talking about? The point is it's not easy differentiating from a position of ignorance.

Exactly... homosexuality is assisting that perpetuation. If homosexuality wasn't useful the percentage of homosexuals would be a lot less than it is. Nature doesn't care how genes are perpetuated as long as they are. Homosexuality exists because it has found a niche that is beneficial to the species in some way.

From your own link: British opinion British public and government opinion became increasingly less favorable to the commitment that had been made to Zionist policy. In February 1922, Winston Churchill telegraphed Herbert Samuel asking for cuts in expenditure and noting:[28] In both Houses of Parliament there is growing movement of hostility, against Zionist policy in Palestine, which will be stimulated by recent Northcliffe articles. I do not attach undue importance to this movement, but it is increasingly difficult to meet the argument that it is unfair to ask the British taxpayer, already overwhelmed with taxation, to bear the cost of imposing on Palestine an unpopular policy.[/i] Would Israel have actually been formed in the absence of the Holocaust that generated so much sympathy?

The rest of his family can carry those genes but they don't necessarily have to be expressed in those particular individuals that carry it.

Homosexuality can potentially increase the ratio of care-givers to offspring in a group, particularly families, and hence improve the survivability of the offspring...it makes evolutionary sense. If the target of the homosexual's care is the offspring of his siblings then his 'gay' genes will be perpetuated to preserve that evolutionary advantage. It makes evolutionary sense for 'gay' genes to exist.

What ajb meant was: learn and absorb the reasons why one was rejected and then forget about it...don't get overly dejected. This sort of thing is probably a learning curve, involving some initial failures, before one gets there.

One thing I can't get my head around is: if the universe is isotropic, homogeneous and infinite, its mass must be infinite also...but apparently not. What gives?

Can all quantum physics phenomena where it applied be described now without it?

Some things that come to mind that I remember from a programme about this sort of thing: 1. Assuming burial in previously undisturbed ground: the strata components of the ground will be mixed up compared to the surrounding area...evidence of lower strata components will be on the surface. 2. If overgrown: the vegetation will be more vigorous in the grave zone compared to that in the surrounding area due to the excavated material being used to refill it being looser ie more aerated and better drained. 3. The average level of the grave surface area will be lower than the surrounding area, if left long enough, due to dehydration and decomposition of the bodies. i'm sure there's more.

Dictionaries are not authorities...they are merely accumulated records that mirror past and present usage. The people that use the language are actually the authorities. In't the English language great? For what it's worth, I consider OED to be the reference tome for English too.

Juan How do you explain Quantum Tunnelling with a purely particle concept (I know you don't mean it in the classical sense)? As a consequence of the wave–particle duality of matter, tunnelling is often explained using the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Purely quantum mechanical concepts are central to the phenomenon, so quantum tunnelling is one of the defining features of quantum mechanics and the particle–wave duality of matter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling Why is it, wherever I read about W/P Duality, it's never presented in the sense of being an archaic concept which you purport it to be?

If you believe someone is doggedly responding with an answer contrary to the convention then they deserve to be neg repped...it is important in the science part of these forums for the benefit of layman like myself. I confess to being somewhat confused now to the true status of W/P Duality in the physics community today.