Sisyphus

My God! All you need to eliminate gravity is a magical anti-gravity machine that creates out of nothing a new fundamental force in large quantities?! Why didn't I think of that?

Sure, but it would be far less effective or practical than rudder/flaps.

Wahhabism and Salafism are the same thing. Bin Laden has never claimed any particular sect of Islam, but he was raised in a Wahhabi family and quotes Wahhabi scholars.

Democrats are bizarrely fixated on making Bush wrong, it's true. And it is even more bizarre considering he's a second term president. But perhaps there is some reason for it. For example, the Republican Party in recent years has become all about unquestioning loyalty to the President, in both their words and the President's. Dissension is betrayal to both party and country, in that order. Hence, John McCain is widely disliked by Republicans. Primary reason: "He doesn't support the President enough." So in a very real way, making Bush wrong is making them all wrong, and it's working. That, in my opinion, is why we're starting to see rebellion among the Republican party, even in stuff that doesn't really make any sense, like this Dubai thing. I think it would be very, very easy for the Democrats to take advantage of this. Of course, it also should have been very, very easy to defeat Bush in 2004, so I have much faith in the Democratic leadership to fail at easy political tasks.

Driftwood that's been floating around in fresh water tends to be dark brownish-green and mostly underwater as it becomes waterlogged, often with only rounded-off limbs protruding from the water. Ha, says who? And if that were true, wouldn't there have to be a large portion of the animal underwater, too, and hence an even huger dark spot?

Yes, and there's a lot more of both in the center of the sun than in some spot between galaxies, wouldn't you say?

Wouldn't it make sense that the same gene does different things in different organisms? Genes in large part are responsible for the production of particular chemicals, i.e., proteins. Surely it makes perfect evolutionary sense that different organisms would sometimes use the same proteins in different ways?

It actually kind of looks like a log, so I don't know why you think the possibility of it being a log and some kind of bizarre sea monster are equal. I'd say the log is a few million times more likely! Also keep in mind that it doesn't have to be a doctored photo in order to be a fake. The most famous picture of Nessie was just a model that somebody made and put in the water.

Right, but I meant what's the average temperature of the mass in the universe? Or is that not something that's known?

What if we go by mass?

Yeah.

And that evidence is?

Unless it's a relatively rare event, in which case 1997 might have been the first time it's happened since we've been listening, and it wouldn't be catalouged. By "only once" I mean there was the series of noises in 1997, and nothing before or since. Unless I'm wrong about that? Anyway, nobody has said what about the sound makes it seem like an animal. All I see is that it had to be something at least 100 meters long, which to me makes it seem like most definitely not an animal.

And how come it's only been heard once? Guys, I really don't think it's an animal...

Haha, why is there confusion about whether insects are animals? They're in the animal kingdom, yes? Kingdom animalia, phylum arthropodia, subphylum hexapoda, class insecta? What other definition of "animal" could possibly be meant? Anyway, as per the question... it is horrible. The answers are too vague. A) Perhaps true, although the number of identified species of animal is certainly not in the millions, so... false? Are we supposed to estimate? Based on what? Does it only include currently living species? B) False, certainly. Bacteria are the most abundant. C) Most of you put false, but keep in mind it doesn't say "the first," it says "some of the first." This is just vague and subjective enough that I'm going to go ahead and say true. D) This is also a subjective judgement, and therefore you can't definitively say it is or isn't true. Therefore it's not not true, therefore it's not the answer. E) This is quite obviously false, since I can conceive of all sorts of environments in which there is no life. But once again, this is subjective (what's conceivable depends on imagination!) and extremely poorly worded. I suspect what they mean is, animals exist in lots of very different environments, which is true. That said, it seems like the answer they're looking for is B. It's really the only quantifiable one, and it's definitely false. Further, all the others seem to be making a point about what animals are: very diverse, ancient, and widespread. But it's still a very stupid question.

Well, it could work a lot like antibacterial soap - only those who are resistant enough to survive reproduce, and thus the whole population becomes resistant. If there is a genetic immunity to HIV, then if you gave everyone in the world the virus, then within 2 generations the entire human race would be immune. Of course, there is the minor drawback of having to kill 99.99% of the world's population...

Hehe. If there was any legitimate scientific evidence for any of those things, they wouldn't be parapsychology, now would they? So, by definition, no, there's no evidence. That doesn't mean, however, that there isn't a thriving industry of kooks (both those who believe they have "psychic" powers and those who claim authority on the matter, like the "parapsychologists" in the story) and hoaxters (both those who carry out the hoaxes and those who shamelessly and irresponsibly lend credence to the nonsense by pretending there is a "controversy," like the Discovery Channel in recent years). File all this stuff right along with alien abduction stories and faith healing. Recommended reading: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/sr=8-1/qid=1141640308/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-8997837-1686452?%5Fencoding=UTF8

President Bush recently visited both India and Pakistan to discuss a number of issues, including each nation's nuclear armaments. While in the past the U.S. position has been staunch opposition to either nuclear program, now Bush has declared the Indian program legitimate, and even made the two countries strategic partners in developing civilian nuclear programs. Pakistan, however, received no such commendation, being told essentially that they are not responsible enough to have a nuclear program. Personally, I think he has a point. I trust India far more than Pakistan, based on their respective histories. But does that make this kind of thing a good idea? After all, both countries are ostensibly our "allies." Why are we allied with Pakistan if they can't be trusted and refuse to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty? Are not rogue states with WMDs the kind of places we like to bomb? And if we are allied with Pakistan, why are we alienating them by condemning their program while helping their longtime rival, who are in fact the reason Pakistan thinks it needs nuclear weapons in the first place? Aren't we just destabilizing the region unnecessarily (not to mention China)? And what about Israel, which also has not signed the treaty, and also has nuclear weapons, and who we also call our ally? Your thoughts?

I realize this is fairly irrelevant, but that statement represents a fairly annoying and persistent fallacy, in my opinion. It's an appeal to emotion that can be applied to practically anything, and is not particularly useful, since changing practically any event in the past would result in "you" not being here. For example, I saw a t-shirt the other day that read, "Thanks for not aborting me, Mom!" Ok, fine, we all cling to existence. But by that logic, he should be equally emphatic in thanking his parents for having sex on that particular day, at that particular time, in that particular position, such that the particular sperm cell carrying half his genetic information was the one that made it to the ovum first. Anyway, I guess my point is that once you take away the strict sense of "I," as you must in any hypothetical of this nature, then you could just as easily say "Boy, I wish they'd perfected eugenics by now, because if they had I'd be genetically perfect!" ...incidentally, I'm not in favor of eugenics, I just had this rant knocking around in side me trying to get out for a while.

Copernicus demonstrated elliptical orbits by precisely measuring positions of the planets in the sky, not by mathematically deriving them from forces and velocities. He was indifferent towards whatever forces might be guiding them. Kepler demonstrated that if there is a centripital force towards a point, it will trace out equal areas in equal times, and that under such a rule a centripital force which varies inversely with the square of the distance will generate an elliptical orbit, with the center of forces at one of the foci. This, too, is not particularly helpful, I realize...

That's funny. I thought it just reminded us that he was an absolute dictator, above the law, and not hesitant to have people killed. Of course, everybody already knew that. I didn't read anything about hypothetical WMDs or the relative merits of brutal dictatorship vs. anarchy and religious terrorism.

I think the real question is why do people sweat when they are nervous. Part of the fight or flight response, clearly, but why? Is it because the increased heartrate raises body temperature, and perspiration acts to cool you off?