Radical Edward

it was a dimension of chaos and pure evil wasn't it?

don't have any to hand, but one word that might help in your search is pleiotropy.

moderator note: I changed the name of the thread to make it a bit more useful Radical Edward

this is probably a combination of things, and I am not familiar with tasmanian fauna, so I will give you a couple of answers, both maintaining natural selection at their core, which is an important focus in issues like this. Larger animals have a smaller surface area to mass ratio. this means that smaller animals lose heat more quickly than larger ones, and hence smaller animals need to burn more energy than larger ones in order to maintain their body temperature. (Imagine this kind of like a cake. If you heat a cake up to 200 degrees, and then chop it into pieces, it will cool much more rapidly than a cake which is left whole). When food supplies are short, those animals that can stay the warmest most easily are more likely to survive and pass their genes for larger size onto the next generation, creating an evolutionary pressure for larger sizes. Another issue might be that of body fat, which is an insulator. This has the same effect as above but with the added insulation properties of fat meaning that animals which store fat more readily will be more likely to survive and pass on their genes. no, as above, they would lose their heat extremely quickly and would probably not be able to maintain their internal body temperature without eating so often that they would probably just be an obligate parasite. About the only possibility would be if the mammal actually lived on or inside another organism. There are other issues involved though, such as the size of the organs. mammals have a much more complex internal structure than insects, with lungs kidneys, a spleen, liver heart and so on, and it is not likely that these could be shrunk to that size and still function adequately. There would also be issues with giving birth, again the placental structure is very complex, and the foetus would have to be absolutely microscopic. I doubt that there could be any youth stage since the foetus probably could not grow any larger than a blastocyst before it has to be born! if maintaining it's basic characteristics, probably not, no. Others have already made points such as the lack of lungs and so on meaning that they could not breathe properly, and again, because they have no method for maintaining their internal body temperature, it would take alot of heat to keep them warm. the largest insect that I know of is Meganeura of the order Protodonata (related to dragonfly) from the Permian period with a wingspan of 70-75cm. http://www.palaeos.com/Invertebrates/Arthropods/Insecta/Protodonata.html

why EBC and not BEC?

no. pi is irrational. 22/7 is only a very rough approximation. (2dp) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=22%2F7+-+pi

comedy don't live in birmingham option?

a little bit, yeap. the calculation does however have a ridiculously tiny number divided by a ridiculously large one.

This site has some of the worst science I have ever seen http://www.yecheadquarters.com it also has some of the most annoying flash I have ever seen. There is a forum too, feel free to inflict pwnage. can anyone find any worse sites? please avoid really crazy wacky stuff like timecube.

actually I had a really good idea for one. It involves high calibre comedians and a bus. I think it would be really good actually.

not really. There are issues with "monoculture" in that if there is a high population density of some species with some weakness that can be exploited, as soon as something evolves to exploit that resource, then it is a field day for that organism. AIDS does not have a purpose, it has merely found a niche in which it can replicate the best. be careful not to apply forethought to evolution, since evolution does not have forethought. If a mutation in an organism means that it can exploit something, it will exploit it, and that is basically all.

looks like this forum is infested with creepy androids.... out, out I tell you!

would it be worth BPHGravity contacting a nearby university to see if they are interested in having a look? Since this is the result of a wallop round the head with a bat, they might be able to see something on MRI.

I wonder if the OP is confused about one of Einstein's thought experiments? It sounds just like the classic light clock to me.

einstein died years ago dude.

that sounds like coolWWW. here is a tool to get rid of it http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html

I like this idea. so much so that I am going to sticky it

wespe, when dealing with something that is inherently mathematical, such as Relativity, you should really try to get your head round the maths first. That was you can phrase your argument in a mathematical form that can demonstrate whether you are right or wrong, in a neat logical manner that is much less open to confusion. It also makes it alot easier for people to deal with it, criticise it, and if it comes to it, agree or disagree with you.

this is just for convenience because we know the properties of the lens, and generally the lens is symmetrical about the plane of the center of the lens. It is just an approximation. What you should do really is work out the bend at each surface, but that gets complicated, and there is no need really.

what I want you to do wespe, is find the lorentz transforms, and work it out properly. you see you have missed all the actual relativistic stuff, like time dilation, length contraction and so on.

no, the same does not apply to photons. They have zero rest mass and hence always travel at c.

phone them up, tell them you are about to shoot yourself, then bang a heavy book against the table and throw a blancmange against the wall. should work. no is there a reason for this being in psychology or am I going to put it in general discussions?