Radical Edward

the fork acts as a wave plate and changes the phase of the different components of the light going through it. this is quite difficult to explain here, but I shall have a stab at it, and might draw a diagram in paint. vertically polarised light can also be treated as light polarised in the +/- 45 degree axis, with the two components of the electrical field totally in phase with one another. we will call these 2 components (a) and (b) by sticking the fork in the way and bending it, you are creating a birefringence (that means a different refractice index for different polarisations of light) and this will alter the relative phases. If we change the phase by pi, then the light will come out horizontally. if we change it by pi/2 it will be circular and so on. there are a number of interesting little experiments you can do with a couple of polarising filters and bits of plastic, and you can actually calculate what sort of polarisation of light you are producing as it passes through the material. does anyone want me to type them up?

(3) the system is quite well sealed, and I strongly doubt there would be any life on it. besides, all the space station is suitable for now is as a nice firework display, since it seems to be the next thing in line for abandonment after Hubble and Science.

I think it is a real shame if this probe breaks down. Personally I'd like to see all missions succeed, think of the amazing amount of science that would get done. That is where all the fun stuff is. It'd be nice to know what happened to Beagle 2 though.

shorter, surely.

I think he was being intentionally contradictory:

yes, again because of this slight lag the earth is being slowed down, and the moon is slowly receeding into a higher orbit. eventually it will enter a geostationary position (apparently, I forget if this is right or not now) where it will stay until the sun melts us all, or aliens (perhaps even us) move it.

Thanks, I thought it was something like that. Are there a few different mechanisms though? my favourite looking viruses are probably the Phages... the ones that look like a syringe on legs.

electrons only travel faster than light in certain media, like in water (Cherenkov radiation). Normal stuff does not travel faster than light.

mod note. abiogenesis and life stuff was split off from this thread. it can now be found here

they use chemistry and physics (moderators note. I just split this thread off the old one and shuffled it into biology as it is turning into a decent discussion)

well schools tend to be a bit simple. Viruses are a grey area. they are sort of a lifeform, but sort of not. Best not to worry really, it doesn't actually matter whether they are alive or not, just that they do their job. As Sayo said, Homeostasis is just maintaining a static internal environment away from what would be the "natural equilibrium" (i.e. dead). Warm blooded animals just maintain one thing more constant than other organisms, which cannot control their temperature, however all living organisms expend energy maintaining their internal environment, either adjusting the amounts of chemicals, water etc where possible.

viruses tend to use a mechanical or chemical method of injecting their DNA. they don't just float around and get sucked inside a cell. Some Viruses are very clever about how they do this.

then God Did It becomes a valid answer from everything, and you can abandon education and run naked through the fields like a newborn new zealand lamb.

I think special discression was used from the director. It was 400 orbits or something. and I suspect they turned the camera on and off.

I know. they basically said what I did. spot the link in the word "Lambda"

is the system really that equal though? Is it really as possible to get into higher education if you are in a delinquent school and get stuck in "the wrong crowd" of friends as it is if you are in a nice quiet suburban school full of middle class families. There are a lot of problems in inner city schools in the UK, and certain cities where the education standard as a whole is very poor, and these problems are not (always) race related. There seems to be a much stronger correlation with location. It seems rather naiive to me to say that everyone has the same potential, and completely ignore facts of local culture and environment.

ooh, Lambda.

problem is, the sorts of lives that the tested people live in. black people tend to live in crap places, and it isn't their fault. they live in the crap bits of US cities, lots of their countries are run by crap governments with crap education systems and so on. To be honest it is very difficult to compare the differing intellects of differing races because of the wide disparity in living environments.

nice thoughs, but there are some problems: The reason the moon is not immediately above the tide, is because there is a lag. the high tide lags a bit behind the pull of the moon (it takes some time for all that water to slosh about) next is the dinosaurs themselves. iirc they became extinct about 65 million years ago (well there were a number of mass extinctions, but lets not worry about those) and this is marked by the KT boundary (Cretacious Tertiary) which contains high levels of iridium, which only comes in large amounts from asteroids and so on.

anyone who tries to disprove evolution with the laws of thermodynamics should be shot in the head. viruses are a grey area, since they do not have all the equipment needed to replicate themselves - they can only reproduce by hijacking a cell and using the cells machinery to make new viruses. viruses do not respoire, they do not make any attempt at homeostasis (regulation of their internal environment) so they are not structly alive. I see dan has run away after being thoroughly owned.

http://sunflower.bio.indiana.edu/~rhangart/courses/b373/lecturenotes/photomorph/light.html (quotes need references plz, rather than passing stuff off as your own)

I think it would cause a rupture in the space time continuum and cause havoc with the laws of physics. This may involve armadilloes.

v = H0 D because the expansion > local velocities. At what distance does gravity stop affecting the expansion of the universe? never. inverse square law though.

you have to give us a photo now!

without looking at the OP, I saw blike's answer. then I thought the answer they would be looking for would be carrot. I was right.