Edtharan

There was an article in NewScientist (9 September 2006 page 30) about using microwaves in a sealed cavity to create a force that could provide levitation. Could something like that actually work and how might it work?

I agree here. One does not need DNA to have inheritance of traits. It can easily be reproduced with computer code, or even in the lengths of a straw. The person doing the experiment provides the replication (cutting another straw to the correct size) and variation (cutting the new straw at a slightly different lengths from the base). As for Genes, the straw has no "genes" (nor DNA) and so it shows that you can have inheritance without "genes too. Note: If you are wondering about what I mean by the "Straw", I posted a thought experiemnt (but you could do it in real life - and I have done so myself) that used cut straws to demonstrate how selection works. You can find it in this forum with a search (or If you want I can repost it here).

Earth is nearly a "tein" planet. The size of the moon is very large in comparison to the size of the Earth, compared to the ratios between other planets and their moons (Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, etc). So although Earth and the Moon are not exactly a Twin planert, they are close.

One way of determineing if a planet is habitable is to use a large interferometer. The best places for this (for Earth) would be in one of the L points. This gets it far enough away from earth to redeuce any interfereance from here and the L piints are fairly stable. Using a base line of a few tousand kilometres you could get a decent resolution that would be able to detect planets. The larger the base line the better, and if it is large enough, you should be even able to map the surface in good detail. However the further away the plaent is the less detail you will see, so this would only be useful for nearby planets (so no long distance jumps) and resources would be needed to build these telescopes (but they would be fairly cheap compared to sending a probe or going there with a crewed mission). It would be posible for us to build such a system now if we could pull the resources (not just money, but time and population, experience, etc) together. We could do this today (well 5 to 10 years or so).

Here is another problem with the melting of the ice on Antarctica. The ices has a lot of weight, and this weight is pushing the continent of Antarctica downwards. When the Ice melts this will allow Antarctica to rise, along with the seabed around it (continental shelf). This riseing of the seabed will also displace water and contribute to a further rise in sea levels.

You could even simulate environments similar to waht Earth its self is though to have been like during earlier periods in it history. Or completely alient environemnts (could life get started in 0 gravity? - or otehr questions could be answered). I think the push for cheap space flights for tourism could have great benifites for science as the market forces due to the competition between areospace companies will bring down the costs of getting materials into low earth orbit (but it does create other problems like space junk, polution and such). But if we can get an organisms to thrive in hydrocarbons, like what would be found on Titan, we might be able to get them to mop up the poluting hydrocarbons (from oil) here on Earth.

Yes the fact that they were participating in a studdy would skew the results of it (because they knew that someone would be calling them) and the fact that there were 4 people that could be ringing them also reduces the reliability of the statistics. I haerd of a studdy done on ESP where the subjects had to identify a particular image on a card (you know the ones with the wavy lines and other symbols). The ones who got it correct were promoted to the next round and the ones who failed were droped form the study (they wew only interested in the subject that demonstrated esp like abilities). Finally after many rounds (not sure but it was quite a few), the people who were left in the studdy showed an uncanny ability for predicting the cards. However, upon further tests after the studdy, these people showed no ability better than pure guesswork, their ESP like abilities seemd to have vanished. The answer was in the way the subjects were selected for the next round. It was only the people who got the cards correct were promoted. These results were kept as a history. So all you had were lucky guesses upon lucky guesses and because the study ignored any failures and selectivle reported successes, it appeared that the amazing results were something that they weren't.

A bit more to it than that, but close. Yes this kind of technology is not far off. I actually look forward to such a world. Yes there are mant dangers and problems, but I think that if we do excersise proper constraint we will be ok. It will not solve all the problems and it will create its own, so I don't hink a Utopia is posible, but a nano factory would effectively eliminate the material market (but there will still be an energy market and a knowledge market). Yes it is a bit melodramatic . However I cna think of several times in the history of technology where the world has experienced a "sudden and dramatic turning point". 1) The invention of agriculture: This allowed humans to change from a hunter gather lifestyle to one of settelment. This was a major and dramatic change. Sure it didn't occure all over the world at the same time, but whereever it was taken up this dramatic change occured. It has prety much expanded to encompase every person on the planet (and compared to the history of humans it did so in a relatively short time). 2) Writing: This was an extrmely massive change in the world. It allowed knowledge to be passed down with little error over many generations. Also one could copy the document accurately and so improve the spread of the knowledge. Writing also changed the way people interacted with each other as now a permanent record of a transaction could be kept and rules did not rely on someone being able to remember them in their head. Again, the spread of writing was fast and occured in a comparitively short time frame. 3) Penicillin: The spread of this invention was rapid and change the nature of illness and injury. Now more people could survive from these and so change the population spread of the world. Antibiotics have had a major impact in nearly every human on the planet (not just humans but also in many animals too). 4) Immunisation: This has created a massive impact, similar to antibiotics. The use of antibiotics spread ver fast if compared to the history of medicine. 5) The industrial revolution: Virtually everything that exists in our lives today (including the computer you are using to read this) was made posible with the industrial revolution. Sure, as like all these "turning points" its spread was not instantainious, but it was very rapid and the results were dramatic. These are all just off the top of my head and not realy in any particular order. But as you can see dramatic and rapic changes do occure, have occures and will occure.

We actually have hundresd of seses, but only 5 external senses. The motion of your limbs are called proriception (spelling?). None of these senses are mystical or supernatural. I have heard claims of animals becomeing agitated before earthquakes, but this has always been after the fact that an earthquake has occured. People memories are not perfect and we do regularly alter our memories. So people might remember their pets acting strangely, but it was most likely at the time of the earth quake, not before. I have not heard of any studdies that actually show this effect to really occure.

However the effects of gravity on the organisms could be important. It is hard to simulate lower gravity here on earth than it is in orbit. A centrifuge would be needed to simulate the different gravityies of the other planets and moons.

Or push it faster backwards (which without any extra energy it is imposible). If you put the fan at 90 degrees to the direction of travel and the sail at 45 degrees to the fan, then you might get a net push forwards (at 45 degrees to the direction of travel) and then use the rudder to correct the course as needed (not 100% this would work, but it looked ok on a quick paper sketch - no maths). This would moslt likely work better with a flat sail (like a plank of wood). However you would get much better efficiency if you put the fan facing backwards . This is not so much a fan as a windmill. A fan uses energy to push the air where as the "rotary sail" uses the air to turn a propeller underwater. It is not useing a "Fan" to push the boat forwards, but useing the wind to drive a propeller.

Sorry, I probably didn't explain my self properly. I was meaning experiements done in orbit of earth, not on other planets. It is posable to send a desk sized lab into orbt (or even include one in the ISS - if they don't have one already).

I think it would be posible in a limited area (not sure how large this area would be, but I think it would be large enough to cover the target area). I think the cost analisys would come down to how often you would be thinking of useing the warheads in a time period. If you don't intend to use them often, then the one shot deal would be more cost effective, but if you are contemplating a frequent use, then the current systems are better. It is why carriers are better than developing super long range aircraft. A carrier with shorter range aircraft is better because the aircraft are reuseable and will fly frequent missions. Where as the ICBMs were orriginally designed to deploy nucelear warheads, which have only ever been deployed twice (hiroshima and nagasaki) the use of a single shot deployment was more cost effective (and I do knowe that they did use air craft to deploy those 2 weapons). However with the need for fast deployment in different areas of the globe, an ICBM has a definite tactical advantage. From just one location it could be launched to almost anywhere in the world at a momants notice. This need to rapid deployment could be the tipping factor in the economics of this concept.

6 years ago I dislocated my shoulder and I frequently (a couple of times a day) experience a partial dislocation (called a subluxation) which causes intense pain (similar to that of the dislocation its self). I have had 6 opperations (1 of which was just as exploratory surgery and 1 other started as exploratory but then they realise that repair work was needed). As the injury is in the shoulder of my dominant arm, this causes a lot of difficulty in virtually everything I do.

years ago I used to sail boats and even raced them (as a deck hand not the skipper). I do know that modern sails do not jsut simply catch the wind to push the boat a long. This only occures when you are "runnning with the wind" (the wind is behind you). It is posible to actually move across the wind (reaching) and even move at an angle towards the wind (you need to constantly tack accross it though and can't head directly into it). So the scenario with the fan at the back of the boat and it blowing the air towards the front is only one way it could be set up. Another could be like reaching. You position the fan on one side of the boat and the sail then directs the air towards the back. This would give the boat a vector more forwards (but still to one side a bit due to the reaction of the fan and the air. Anothyer aspect of modern sails is that they act more like a wing than a parachute. It is the way the air moves past them that gives the thrust to the boat. As the air moves past them it makes the sail pull (due to the bernouli principle) to one direction. It is the centreboard using the resistance of the water and the angle of the rudder that then redirects that vector into a forward motion (rather than dragin the boat sideways).

My avatar, in a way, reflects my personality. I used to do a lot of computer programming (before my accident) and still do small amounts. Ever scince I was around 6 years old I have been progrmaing and using computers (btw: I am 30 now) so my avatar does reflect this aspect of me.

In a way these experiments are already being done. Experiments done in orbit are simulating low (or zero) gravity environments and collecting infomation about how organisms react to this situation. They haven't yet (to my knowledge) simulated the chemical and teperature conditions of other planets and moons (Europa and Titan) but it would be posible to do so. It is posible to piggyback a small satalite in a larger mission and so somehting like this could be done fairly cheaply. Also the sub orbital flights that will be starting in a few years might also offer a way to studdy organisms in environment that simulate other planets. All these will be able to bring the costs of such experiemnts down.

Yes, there are other roles for the ships, but there are ships designed primarily as weapon deployment platforms. It was these ships I was talking about and I even stated that some ships would still be nessesary. True, plus with the kinetic energy from a fall from orbit they could even do damage without explosives.

I have always seen the triangle as Science, Politics and Philosophy. For some, religion forms part of their philosophy. I think that all 3 are nessesary as they cover most of what it means to be human. We are social creatures and so we need politics, we are also tool using and so science has its place. Finally philosophy allows us to examine what the others mean and what it means to be human. Ethics, morqals and such are also included. The three provide synergy between them and debate involving all should be encouraged.

LOL, could be... I thikn it is because they have been told that evolution means one thing, without bothering to check if that is what it really means. So the "meme" of it has passed down and they have got a completely misrepresented explaination of evolution.

These motives are sporadic and would therefore slow expansion down. If each colony needed to exhaust their resources before moving on then it could take millions of years to go from one system to another. Also if you need adventure or religious motivations then these would also slow down the expansion. If a species is to expand throughout the galaxy they will need a constant motivation to expand. Population pressure is one. Any breeding that results is steady population growth will eventually out strip the ability of a colony and so expansion would then take place. Even this leaves a small window of opertunity for expansion as an increasing population will need more resources to survive and so the limit on the rate of resource aquisition will eventuall outstrip this, making expansion too costly. This short window of opertunity will also slow down the rate of colonization. In the Novels (the original and the sequal) they discuss what would happen if the Moties got out or were able to use the FTL drives. Thye talk about the fact that the population growth would exceed the rate of expansion from the core systems and so war would break out. This war would then also spread to the outer colonies, and would reduce the rate of expansion. There may be many reasons for expansion, but there are also a lot of things that would slow down the rate of expansion, may be even to the point of 0 expansion or even contration.

Ahh, ok, I undestand now. Thanks. Although I do remember reading an articla in new scientist (about a year ago I think) about changes in protiens and other non DNA changes being passed on to the ofspring (in the aricl I it even said that some foods might have chemicals that can cause these changes). I can't remember exactly when, and I don't have the magazine anymore, but it does seem that some non-DNA changes might be passed to the ofspring.

From what I remember (no pun intended) about memory and deja vu, is when we remember something we have a "circuit" in the brain that triggers a feeling of familiarity. In cases of deja vu, this circuit glitches and we get a sens of familiarity, even though there is no actual memory to go with it. So what occures is we experience a feeling of familiarity with the situation when the circuit in the brain glitches, even though there is no familiarity. Another aspect to this is our memories are ver malleable. When we remember something we actually recreate the memory and store that. When this occures the memory can be changed. Your memory of the Gym might have been similar to the Gym that you visited, and when the deja vu glitch occured you searched you memory of Gyms and came up with the one you dreamed about. By remembering this dreamed Gym you then opened up the posability that the memory of it could be changed and the new Gym was inserted into that memory.

I regularly have lucid dreams, they can be a lot of fun (especially if you realise that you are dreaming). I seem to alwayse to be able to tell when I am lucid dreaming (I have never been confused as to weather or not I am dreaming). Once you realise that you are dreaming and that you completly control the dream, you can litterally do anything you can imagine.

I think it would be more efficient use of an ICBM than just loading it up with a large warhead (conventional or not). The US millitary is going for more "inteligent" weapons, weapons designed for surgical strikes. Weapons with large warheads are the opposite of this approach. If you could pack 10 smaller and smarter warheads in an ICBM it would be more effctive than 1 large "dumb" warhead that was more than 10 times as powerful than the smaller ones. Also having these smaller smarter warheads in an ICBM would lower the risk factors for the troops on the side using them as they would not have to move close to the target (relativly speaking). Also it would be cheaper to use a massproduced ICBM than to build, maintain and deploy a vehical capable of delivering the same payload (say an ship capable of launching cruise missiles). Once you factor the costs of the ship into it, the ICBMs would be cheaper (you might still have ships, but you would need less of them).