Sayonara

Now it sounds like you are saying that describing a law in a non-scientific way robs it of its effects. I understand where you are coming from though; I think the problem here is that you are listening to something that Hawking said, instead of doing something more interesting.

As much as I share your position on this, I have to ask you not to refer to Japanese people as "the jabs".

Are you assuming straight lines that can pass through the intervening shops etc?

Isn't the idea that it is not okay to set up and mock disabled people, but fine if you do it to anyone else, inherently discriminatory?

What you have to understand is that a response to pain is NOT indicative of the state of suffering, which is the key issue here. Sufferance in animals has already been extensively discussed in this thread (amongst others) which is why I recommend reading it through.

That's one of the big problems of going to a forum for answers. Forum discussion is asynchronous - not everyone is on at the same time, and not everyone knows about everything. So it is not always possible for you to predict how long you need to wait before a good answer comes along. If you need quality answers in a short time span, it's useful to ensure you are careful how you phrase your question. That way the thread doesn't go wandering off in a direction of its own, and when you check back you should have more relevant answers. I am sure if you hang around for a bit you will figure out how to quickly get the sort of information you need.

I have moved your original thread into the ecology forum, and merged the "biosphere" thread into it.

Clarify what you mean by "super human". Does being handed a gun and shown how to use it properly qualify as "super human", or will stealth and the ability to fight unassisted be more important on your mission? I mean, obviously you can pick any one of the Royal Commandos and they are going to be pretty dangerous with an assault rifle. But stick them in a forest full of ninjas, or put them in the octagon facing Chuck Liddell, and it's another story.

Not had time for a good play around yet, but it looks good. Images and font rendering seem slightly fuzzy, but CSS handling is exactly what it should be for a modern browser, which counts for a lot. Does actually seem quite nippy too! My blog and SFN render really well, so I'm happy

Was just installing it when I saw your thread I couldn't care less how fast it is, but I have been waiting for a Windows-platform Safari testbed for ages.

Are you sure it is the salt? Have you compared the effects of touching the foam with sweaty/salty fingers, against the effects of touching the foam with fingers that only have water on them (or nothing at all)?

Is Bombus Gallileo?

What a lovely person.

What is "Wenks"?

Isn't the only way a client machine can shut down the network by sending out a NETSTOP command via DOS terminal?

He said sentient, not scientist. What makes you think animals "like" anything? Had you read this thread, you would understand that "wrong" is a highly subjective term. Any more knee-jerk emotional outbursts are likely to just be deleted, because we've all been there and done that when this thread began over three years ago.

Shouldn't your school or examination board provide these?

I have a Dawes Tamarak, which thankfully I am going to be able to use more now that I am not slogging away at courses! How handy that it is just starting to get really sunny too

The entire point of this thread is to rationally discuss the issue without the unhelpful overheads of anthropomorphism and arbitrary emotive reactions.

Nominating for BEST COMEDIC EFFECT AWARD

Yes, it probably would be valuable. Do you have any specific examples in mind, to start us off? For instance, is there a particular example that prompted you to start this thread.

Ah, I was thinking you had to simply present two correct/feasible methods, rather than actually *do* them.

Assuming you had one, and a lab tech to operate it (lab techs still come as standard with the rest of the lab equipment, right? ), yeah it would be quite straightforward. The handy part is that the main use of these machines is to represent the relative masses of different components in a sample by showing its "mass spectrum". Since you know the structure of the compounds in the mixture, you know the relative proportions of the ions that form them, so you should be able to work out from the mass spectrum how much of each compound is in the mixture. The results from mass-spec are not really quantitative on their own so you still need to apply some chemistry-oriented thought to them, but with such a simple mixture it is quite straightforward. Wikipedia has a good primer on the entire topic, but it does get a bit more technical than is really necessary at this level: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_spectrometry

I particularly enjoyed their choice of photograph; the "Hitlerian salute" always goes down well.

Does this lab come with a mass spectrometer?