Edtharan

If you had a torch, you could use that to propel yourself (although extremely slowly). As light is not matter you don't use any matter to give yourself a push.

I agree with this but only when described by people who don't fully understand it or arn't good at explainaing it. They tend to use metafores and similies and methods of speach that make it seem that there is "some outside force" acting on the organisms that control the direction of evolution. You even edge towards that with your post. This is not corect. We do not have extensive strength because it is either not advantagious or is disadvantagious for us to have extensive strength, not that we know how to overcome it. These types of statements do not apply to evolution and IDers will grab hold of statemnts like these to attempt to disprove evolution (but all they are doing is disproving something that is not evolution, but a misinterpertation of it). Not only that but your statement implies an outside force, which you have profesed to have a problem with. We developed the ability for tool use because it offered us a survival advanatage. Humans are a "generalist" species, that is we are not specialised. Generalist species will have an advantage if they exist in a changeing environemnt (either because they move or the environemnt changes rapidly). Tool use can allow an organism to adapt their feeding patterns to take advantage of a new food source without haivng to evolve a trait to exploit it. Intelegence will enhance tool use and also allow an organism to be more behaviourably flexable, both give a survival advanatage to generalist species (like ourselves). hominids evolved in Africa at a time where rapid climate change was occureing, a creature that evolved generalist traits before the cange occured (primates) would have an advantage during this period. Any primate that was more able to be behaviourably flexable and use tools to gather food would have an advantge. It is no wonder then that an intelegent tool using generalist evolved. This of course would be the hominids (humans came later).

If you think about it then this grey goo scenario is similar to how life probably started on earth. A lot of complex chemicals were floating around until one, by chance, had the ability to self replicate (either directly or as a catalyst). This is like the rogue nanobots getting out of control.

Actually I ment that it was monkies that were being studdies and that they were a lower primate than chimps (and besides it is Orangutans that tear you to pieces if you call them monkeys - from Terry Pratchett's Discworld) Ahh, ok. Sorry. Although I do think that both can still learn both ways, I just can't remember any evidence for that position.

Well I know someone with 2 different (and distinctly differnt) eyes. One is green and the other blue.

Personally I would have no problem in letting someone dressed like that in. Aparently he wore dresses through out the year to school and no complaint was made. The clothes were wear (eg: dresses or pants) is only based in tradition, not law (there are laws that alow alow people to dress as they like). This seems to be a case of people getting upset because their sense of tradition was being chalenged. I say he should at least get a formal aplogy from the people running that prom and the person who made the decision not to let him in.

There is evidence of learning by lower primates than chimps (Monkeys). They watched one memebr of the troup perform actions (in this case it was washing sweet potatoes to get sand off it) and then performed this same action. So the statement about only humans learning from mimicry is wrong. That is a good point. Scince Adam and Eve knew nothing of good and evil until they ate form the tree, how were they to know that what they were doing was wrong? One might say they knew it was wrong because God told them not to, but how would they have known that to break the rules was wrong if they had no knowledge of right and wrong (good and evil)? So God is punishing Adam and Eve for a mistake He/She/It made. This is another case where God says that XYZ is GOod and ABC is evil and then goes and does ABC.

The existance of evolution can acutally be infered from what we know about DNA today. 1) It is known that DNA is the main method of determining the phenotype of an organism. 2) It is known that DNA can mutate when copied or "shuffled" during reproduction. 3) The phenotype of an organism will give it an advantage or disdavantage for survival in particular environments. 4) Only creatures that survive can pass on their DNA to the next generation. From these 4 points we can infer Evolution. If a creature survives, it will pass on its traits through its DNA. If that DNA gives it an advantage over other organisms, then it will reproduce more successfully and its offspring will also live to reproduce. Any change to the DNA that confer survival advantage will therefore be passed on to more offspring and eventualy come to dominate the genepool of that organism. This is evolution. So from known facts and observerable premises, we can infer evolution. this can become a theory if we use it to make predictions (it needs more details to do so, but even this moddle can be used to make some predictions). If these predictions are tested and found to be correct, then we can say the the theory is correct. But regardless of the theory used to make these predictions, thay must all explain and account for these aboservable and observed phenomena (ie the 4 points I mentioned and the results of them interacting - what we call evolution). So as far as needing proof of evolution you can infer it from what can be observed in a biology lab today. This infered behaviour is logical and rational and in no step is anything objectional happening (and it can be observed). It is only the long term effects of it that people object to because they can not immediatly observe it, but that can be done over many generations (and if any wish to contest this with me, provide funding for a multigenerational experiment to prove or disprove this point - JK ). Evolution can be proven, it is only the results when applied over genreations that people can't seem to bring them selves to accept. For me it is not a case of beliefe in evolution as beliefe requiers a leap of faith and that is not needed for evolution. Evolution is a logical consiquence of the evidence that can be demonstrated in a biology lab. Or to put it another way if "B" = C" and "A" = "B" then "A" must = "C", but because people object to "C" they refuse to admit that "A" = "C" even though they will admit to "A"="B" and "B"="C".

Also it is usually the heavier oceanic crust that sinks. The lighter continental crust will usually ride on top of the oceanic crust. If oceanic crust meets continental crust, then the oceanic crust is usualy the one that is pushed under. Fosils (etc) on the continental crust will therfore be preserved.

What is realy interesting is that they have found a lot of Methane on Mars. We curently know of only 2 ways that such a large amount of Methane can be produced: 1) Volcanism 2) Biological matter decaying These can be seperated by comparing the ratios of carbon isotopes, but we will have to go ther and get a sample before we can do that. Methane would take around 300 years to breakdown in Mars' atmosphere so what ever has cause this is either still around or was recently.

From what I know Ozone is toxic, and also ground level ozone is one cause of smog. Ozone is a highly reactive oxygen molecule (it is made up of 3 oxygen atoms). Ionized oxygen is different from ozone. An ion is an atom that has had 1 or more electrons stripped from it. Ozone is damageing to the body because it will react strongly with and disrupt many of the chamical pathways that our bodiy need to survive. It can react with DNA causeing mutations, which usually result in either the cell repairing them or the cell realising it is damaged beyond repair and destroying its self. If neither if these occure then it is posable that the cell may become cancerous. A rapidly dividing cell that is useing a lot of oxygen (cancerous), might be damaged enough to trigger self destruction by injections of ozone, but it is likely to do more damage to lots of other cells which might cause other cancers that might not show up for several years. These new cancers would be wide spread and most likey inopperabel because of that. In this case the cure might be worse than the desease. This would depend on their detector. There are air particulate detectors that can not detect ozone at all. So if they used one of these Ozone would definitely be harder to detect. Vehical exhaust is a massive cocktail of chemicals, ozone is but a small part. I am not even sure that all the chemicals that are present in vehical exhausts have even been clatlogued (let alone studdied for their effects). The "Black Smoke" is not what causes smog. The Black Smoke is most like unburnt (or partially burnt) fuel. This stuff is fairly heavy and will settle out quickly (it'll leave sooty films near roads). Other particulates can be far worse than the black smoke. There are ultra fine particulates that can not be seen by human eyes and are also quite difficult to detect. Some of these can even penertrate the cells of the body and collect in places like lymph nodes, the brain, etc. Here they can react with other chemicals present in the body and disrupt the whay the cells functions (causeing all sorts of problems of which cancer is just one). Most of the real dangerous chmicals that exist in vehical exhause can not be seen by human eyes at all. Ozone is colourless, but when it reacts with Nitrogen (N2) in the presence of Ultrviolet light the result can become visable. This is what we call smog. So smog is not just ozone, but is in fact a Nitrogen/Ozone/UV reaction product.

Although I can joke about this now, I had a teacher would, although would not resort to physically punishing me for using my left hand, would use things like detention, and making me write out anyhting that I had written with my left hand (and if I used my left hand to rewrite I had to do it angain), lowering marrk on any thing I didn't do right handed, etc. And this was only around 20 years ago. Luckily this was only for 1 year, and the year after the teracher was fired for this knid of practices.

LOL. I am left handed and have an IQ in the high 120s to low 130s. So if I was right handed then, by that article, I might be a super geinius (Yay for me!!! ). Actually I sow signs of being slightly ambidexterous (and also posably dyslexic - you can tell by my spelling ). I use certain things right ahndedly, but most things left handedly. Also I can not "crossover" between left and right (so If I learn something with one hand I have to learn it from scratch with the other hand). Hmm, it is sounding like I might have some damage up there... I have heard that left handers have a lower life expectancy than right handers. I think this is because a lot of sharp impliments are designed for right handers and in the hand of a "lefty" ( ) they become quite unweildy. The Sinisters of the world are being discriminated aginst! Rise up, and over throw the oppressors! (JK)

I am on odd case in Left/Right/Ambidexterity. I started off writing right handed, but changed to left handed in the middle of a word (you can acutually see it on the page) and I have been strongly left handed since. However I still retain the skill I had in writing with my right hand at the same skill as I had when I switched. This puts me as ambidextrous, but I am still strongly left handed. I am also much stronger with my right hand and leg, but I am more generally dexterous with my left hand. However I do use a computer right handed (I developed this on my own and was not taught to use a computer right handed), and eat right handedly. But these are isolated cases. Another odd thing is that people who are strongly left right dominant also usually (but not alwase) have a dominant eye. Infact most people have a noticable dominance in one eye or the other, but I don't. In many tests on eye dominance I alwayse come out with equal dominance in my eyes, and yet show a fairly clear dominance in one side or the other for other tests (dexterity and strength). I haven't been tested for brain dominance, but I would find that interesting to see.

If you are considdering human origin (and this isn't just a joke post) then you will need to look at fossils. Human fossis and Hominid fossis have amle and female all the way back. If you follow the evolution then those earilyer forms had male and female, and so on. This goes back to when all life was single celled organisms. Back then these single celled organisms just used asexual methods of reproduction. Neither Male or Female existed. Once these organisms evolved to use sexual reproduction (they are not exactly sure how this occured but they doo have some theories) both Male and Female had to exists. You could not have a Male without a Female or a Female without a Male (how could they reproduce). In the case of the Whip Tailed Lizards, although the curent population came from females, can they be considdered females at all now as they are using Asexual reproduction, not Sexual reproduction? There is no Male/Female in asexual reproduction. One theory on how Sexual reproduction evolved is that some organisms would share their genes with each other. This would be done equally in both directions. However if one organism managed to unequally share their genes with the other (ie A would give their genes to B, but B would not give their genes to A), this would create a situation where one A was male and the other was female. This allowed a successful A to distribute its genes to many offspring and so would become dominant. This would, however only occure if the B's would accept that material (too much of A's gene in the gene pool and it would have no one to reproduce with). So a balance would establish its self. This genetic stability would have allowed an explosion of different species for occure and also allow more complexity in thoes organisms. Als the organisms became more complex and multicellular then they would have had to evolve ways to transporting the genetic material from one to another. This would have been sperm, and would have originated from the organisms that donated genetic material as they could cover more females this way. The recipent cell could now be called the egg and would be in the female. This cell would have had an advantage in being less mobile as it would need to store the energy for growth in it and so need to be large. This is only one way that evolution could have produced males and females, there are others, so it is not a matter of that we don't know any processes of evolution that could cause male and femalt to evolve, it is that we don't know which of the many posable way it took on Earth (or it might have even been several ways and at several different times and places too).

A theoretical time machine is that of a Wormhole (even these are theoretical). If you make a wormhole with the two ends (call them A and B) near each other and then take end B and accelerate it so it is moving at close to light speed and then move it away from you (say to Alpha Centauri) and back, you will end up with the end B at an earlier time (accoring to the "Twins" paradox of relativity) than A. This means that if you enter B you will come out at an earlier time A end, with the reverse being true too, if you enter A you will end up at a later B end. We now have our time machine. This is important as any discussion on what might be the posable results of time travel are closely linked with the actual "machine". For instance, this machine can not send someone back to before theis machine was made.

This is a very had question to answer because the evolution of this insect is not directed. It would depend on chance (mutation), the environemnt it had to adapt to, its initial genotype and even what happens in the orriginal enviroment and ecosystem. All in all it is imposable to even guess. But a good question none the less.

In some thoretical concepts of time machines, the limit on going back in time is limited to the existance of the machine its self. So you can't go back to before the machine was made. Scince we have yet to invent one, no one can come back to now. Disclamer: This is all theoretical...

I don't specificaly belive that Time travel is posable, but neither do I believe that it is imposable. It is simple that there is no evidence one way or the other and that there are theories (and variations of theories) that confirm both conclusions. For me the jury is out (untill it can be shown to be one way or the other). If you think of the universe as a single quantum object (sum all the quantum states of all the matter in the universe) then it can be described by a single (all be it complex) wave function. This wave function would be subject to interference as any wave function would. The universe would be able to interfere with potential "copies" of its self in certain circumstances (time travel). Any destrcutive interference between these "copies" would prevent them from existing. An annalogy would be a laser with a beam splitter. If you tale the beam splitter and allow it to split the laser beam into two paths. At the end of one path you place a mirror that reflect the beam back on its self and a photon detector at the end of the other path. If you adjust the position of the mirror so that it will send the beam back, but so that it will cancle out any photons that would take the mirror path, then no photons will be able to take that path. If it doesn't cancel it out then photons can take that path.

AFAIK the toxicity of Eucalyptus increased along with the proliferation of Koalas, probaly in response to another herbivore, which if it was a generalist would just move to another food source, and the Koala as it is a specialist would have to adapt to the increased toxicity. The increased amount of food available to Koalas, due to the switching of other herbivores from the Eucalypts to another food source, allowed their population to expand and also to become more specialised (plentiful food source, low competition for it).

Specialists will usually be able to out compeat generalists for a specific food source. However a specialist will be at a disadvantage if that food source becomes scarce. With the spread of Eucalyptus trees as Australia dried out, this gave the Koala a big advantage to specialise. However When these trees become more scarce they are at a disadvantage as they can not make use of other food sources. The other advantage a specialist has over a generalist is that they become more efficiant at extracting neutient out of their specific food. This means that they can usually survive with food sources that would not be even edible to other species. This is also the case with the Koala. The Eucalyptus leaves have a lot of toxins in them, but because the Koala is a specialist, it has evolved to be able to handle these toxins that would kill other animals. So a specialist can outcompeate generalists for a specific food source and can get more nutiment and access foods that would not be available to a generalist. This is why an organism will evolve to be a specialist. The down side is that if the food source that they rely on becomes scare or extinct then they will have no other food source to move to and they will die out. Generalists are able to move to another food source in this situation.

Height is not the only thing needed to get a satalite into orbit. You also need velocity. If you are not orbiting fast enough then the stalite will just fall back down (it won't be an orbit). From what I understand, this is a big cost of the orbital craft compared to suborbital craft.

If all you look at is Coelacanth fossils then all you will see is Coelacanth fossils. If you look at closely related fossils of the Coelacanth, then you will see the graduall change of other species inot others (like the Coelacanth). The is a transitional form between fish and anphibians (although the Coelacanth seens to be on a branch of this not in a direct line) called the Lobed Fin fish. The next most recognisable form is the Lung fish and then primative anphibians. The fact that a species of Coelacanth are still surviving today does not even aproch refuting my point, it has absolutly nothing to do with it. The fact that a species can survive relativly unchanged due to living within an environemnt that does not present much evolutiononary pressure, does not refurt that this represents an intermediary form. Infact there are changes in the living Coelacanth to the fossil Coelacanth. There are even 2 distinct populations of Coelacanth that have been identified and they have noticeable differences due to their different environemnts. So your argument is invalid in this case. And besides, just because a contemory organism looks like a fossil ancestor does not mean that evolution did not take place. A lot of evolution is not down to physical shape, but to the DNA, and we just don't have a lot of fossil DNA to compare with the modern DNA. In the time that humans have been able to collect and sample DNA we have started to find evidence that the DNA of a population of organisms does change over time and this change can eventually lead to speciation. I will explain: Say you breed fruit flies with different shaped genitalia then a control group (this can, and does happen in wild populations for various reasons). This will eventually lead to a population of fruit flies that can no longer breed with the inital (controll) group. Once this occures the genetic material can no longer pass between these two populations (depending on your definition of "spieces" this new population could already be considdered a seperate species), and they will be in competition with each other. Now you can create a situation where the physical forms of these two populations will favour one over the other. This selective pressure will force each population into different physical forms. Say you select an ability to fly, one group will have flying favoured and the other will have a situation where flying is a disadvantage (in the wild this could be due to lots of spider webs in the trees and an abundace of fruit on the ground). This will create one group that can still fly and another that will loose the ability to fly (would they now be called walks ). The walkers will most likely have developed secondary characteristics that aid their new environment. Longer and more robust legs, maybe a harder exoskeleton to suport them (which might also aid in stoping predators too), if the food source is different or they need to collect it in a differnet way then they migh have differnet mouth parts. So here you have two populations that can't interbreed and are physically dissimilar, but have a recent, common ansestor. These two populations would most likely be sonsiddered differnet spiecies by now by any dictionary definition of the word. This expereiment would take far longer than 200 generations may be near the 200,000 or more to perform. Funding for this would be hard to come by. But the expereiment could be done and there would be a distinct proof/disproof of speciation here. The main argument against evolution that is put foreward is that of speciation. Because speciation is so hard to observe (it takes a long time and is very gradual, and that the entire concept of a species is purely a human construaction and nature is rarely that simple), most creationist arguments centre around this point. Not only is speciation hard to observe, the definition of a species differs between people. Most biologists do agree on a definition (some don't though), but between biologists and non scientists there can be a significant enough difference that it creats a perceived crack (although it doesn't realy exists), that they try to exploit. As an analogy try using your computer to slowly change one colour into another (you can do this with most graphics packages) over a few minutes (say red to blue). If this occures slowly enough you will have trouble stating exaclty when the colour changes from a reddy-blue colour to a bluey-red colour (acutally we call these shade purple - which you could think of as an intermediary colour much like an intermediary form in an onganism). What is also true is that if you stated that at one point the red coulur changes to the blue colour, someone else will think it is at another point. Speciation is not like a light switch in that you cant point to the mother and say "This is species A" and then point to it's offspring and say "This is species B". You might be able to point to one ancestor 100,000 generations ago and say that, but at no point along the way, just by looking at the mother and child will you be able to make that statement.

If all the particles that make up a time traveler can be decribed as a wave function, this wave function can be made to interfere either destructivly or constructivly (or even the entire universe). If this wave function could be made to interfere with its self (going back in time), then the paradox would cause the wave function to interfere destructivly, stoping the timetravel. If ther is no paradox then this owuld be constructive interfereance and time travel might be able to occure (that is depending on other factors, like a working time machine, etc). This allows backwards in time travel, but only if it does not cause a paradox.

What about the energy level between the plates in the casimir effect? The nature of the plates means that there is less energy between the plates than ther is outside of them. And if out side of the plates is considdered to have 0 energy, then this would constitue negative energy (although it would be so small that the mass of the plates and aperatus would swamp it)?