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The reason to collect CO2 in trees (not sure a tree is considered a fossil fuel) is that it is cheap and easy, and the technology is already in place (trees). Is there some reason you object to the idea of using trees?

Yes, CYA certainly. But it serves other purposes as well, such as keeping people aware that the problem has not gone away. If I don't ever hear about people coming down with measles, maybe I don't really worry about getting my kid vaccinated. And if I go a long time without hearing about the bad guys planning to do me harm, maybe I don't take any action when I see that unattended bag on the bus.

I agree the risk is minimal to any one individual and that the warning is therefore not going to do much to increase my safety. But it is the government's job to look out for its citizens and let them know if there is a potential issue. I know they can't warn me of everything, but I'd rather have too much information and count on myself to weigh my options for what is best for me. I also wouldn't be surprised to find that many of the people who are unhappy with the government releasing the warning (because the people don't feel they need the information) are also sometimes unhappy when the government does not release information (because the people felt they would need the information). Puts the government in a tough spot. No matter what they do, someone is going to be unhappy with them. I warn my kids about all kinds of unlikely dangers. I don't expect them to take steps to avoid all of them all the time or they couldn't get out of bed in the morning. But I think they are better off for hearing them, and they may do a better job of spotting danger on that rare occassion when it does come up. So... I guess to me this was just a friendly warning, to be aware of something that may come up but probably won't, and not to take it too seriously. I didn't find anything nefarious in the government's actions. I filed it with all the other warnings I get in a day (Do not use the toaster near water! Placing the plastic bag over your head is dangerous! Deer crossing! etc.). I just don't see what the big deal is.

"To mitigate global climate change, a portfolio of strategies will be needed to keep the atmospheric CO2 concentration below a dangerous level. Here a carbon sequestration strategy is proposed in which certain dead or live trees are harvested via collection or selective cutting, then buried in trenches or stowed away in above-ground shelters. The largely anaerobic condition under a sufficiently thick layer of soil will prevent the decomposition of the buried wood. Because a large flux of CO2 is constantly being assimilated into the world's forests via photosynthesis, cutting off its return pathway to the atmosphere forms an effective carbon sink. It is estimated that a sustainable long-term carbon sequestration potential for wood burial is 10 ± 5 GtC y-1, and currently about 65 GtC is on the world's forest floors in the form of coarse woody debris suitable for burial. The potential is largest in tropical forests (4.2 GtC y-1), followed by temperate (3.7 GtC y-1) and boreal forests (2.1 GtC y-1). Burying wood has other benefits including minimizing CO2 source from deforestation, extending the lifetime of reforestation carbon sink, and reducing fire danger. There are possible environmental impacts such as nutrient lock-up which nevertheless appears manageable, but other concerns and factors will likely set a limit so that only part of the full potential can be realized. Based on data from North American logging industry, the cost for wood burial is estimated to be $14/tCO2($50/tC), lower than the typical cost for power plant CO2 capture with geological storage. The cost for carbon sequestration with wood burial is low because CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by the natural process of photosynthesis at little cost. The technique is low tech, distributed, easy to monitor, safe, and reversible, thus an attractive option for large-scale implementation in a world-wide carbon market." http://www.cbmjournal.com/content/3/1/1

Wow. That is one powerful warning. I guess it is also possible they want us to be careful because they have heard of a possible plot against tourists. And according to your link: "US citizens were not told to avoid travelling in Europe, and the advisory is less serious than a travel warning."

I'm not sure that is quite accurate, at least in the short term (geologically speaking). Plate tectonics is in part responsible for salt being removed from the ocean, and is responsible for recycling material back to the surface so that the cycle can continue. But if no ocean floor made its way to the surface, I would expect that the level of salt in rivers would remain roughly constant as long as there is rock to erode. So, I'd say plate tectonics has an influence on the salinity of the ocean, but it only influences the salinity in rivers in the sense that it keeps the process going.

This is simply based on what I experienced with my sons and their friends. They generally had a growth spurt begin sometime between the ages of 12 and 15. The growth spurt lasted different lengths of time for different kids, but once it significantly slowed, that kid added very little additional height. I also found that the growth charts supplied by their pediatrician wasn't much use in predicting their final height. My older son had an early growth spurt and the doctor predicted he would grow to about 6'1". He quit growing at 5'9" at about 14 years old. My younger son had a late growth spurt. The doctor predicted he would grow to 5'8", and he quit growing at about 5'11" at about 17 years old. I'm 5'8" and my wife is 5'5". So, my suggestion is that you look at how fast you've been growing lately and use that as an indication as to whether or not you'll continue to get much taller.

You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. What is it?

Gracias!!

"Neal and a team of 15 other planetary geologists have reexamined data from seismometers placed by Apollo astronauts at lunar landing sites from 1969 to 1972. They found that instruments from Apollo missions 12, 14, 15 and 16 consistently radioed back seismic data to Earth until they were turned off in 1977 in a NASA cost-cutting measure." "Neal points out that vibrations from most earthquakes cease in less than a minute. The biggest earthquakes stop shaking in less than two minutes. The shallow quakes on the moon produced movement that continued for more than 10 minutes." http://www.physorg.com/news63645811.html Thus one of the reasons for the comparison to a bell and the idea that the moon is hollow.

I placed a cup in my sink below the faucet and turned the water on. For a while the volume of water contained in the cup rose, but then at some point the amount of water in the cup stopped increasing. Even though I kept adding water to the cup, the amount of water in the cup was stable. Must the process of adding water be linked by some mechanism to the process of water moving out of the cup to keep it in equilibrium? "Many salt components are absorbed into the bodies of living organisms. For instance, coral polyps, mollusks, and crustaceans harvest calcium, a salt component, for their shells and skeletons. Microscopic algas called diatoms extract silica. Bacteria and other organisms consume dissolved organic matter. When these organisms die or are eaten, the salts and minerals in their bodies eventually settle to the seafloor as dead matter or feces. Many salts not removed by biochemical processes are disposed of in other ways. For example, clay and other terrestrial materials that find their way into the oceans by means of rivers, land runoff, and volcanic fallout may bind certain salts and carry them down to the seafloor. Some salts also bind to rock. Thus, through a number of processes, much of the salt ends up being added to the seafloor. Many researchers believe that geophysical processes complete the cycle, albeit over aeons of time. The earth’s crust is made up of gigantic plates. Some of these meet at subduction zones, where one plate plunges beneath its neighbor and sinks into the hot mantle. Usually, the denser oceanic plate sinks beneath its lighter continental neighbor, at the same time carrying its cargo of salty sediments with it like a great conveyor belt. In this way much of the earth’s crust slowly gets recycled. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and rift zones are three manifestations of this process." http://scienceray.com/earth-sciences/why-is-the-sea-salty/ Doesn't seem all that mysterious to me.

"Earthquakes can also occur far from the edges of plates, along faults. Faults are cracks in the earth where sections of a plate (or two plates) are moving in different directions. Faults are caused by all that bumping and sliding the plates do. They are more common near the edges of the plates." http://www.geo.mtu.e...Seis/where.html Some of the bigger earthquakes in the US were near the center of the country far from the edges of plates. " ...after December 16, 1811, there could be no doubt about the area's potential to generate severe earthquakes. On that date, shortly after 2 AM, the first tremor of the most violent series of earthquakes in the United States history struck southeast Missouri. In the small town of New Madrid, about 290 kilometers south of St. Louis, residents were aroused from their sleep by the rocking of their cabins, the cracking of timbers, the clatter of breaking dishes and tumbling furniture, the rattling of falling chimneys, and the crashing of falling trees. A terrifying roaring noise was created as the earthquake waves swept across the ground. Large fissures suddenly opened and swallowed large quantities of river and marsh water. As the fissures closed again, great volumes of mud and sand were ejected along with the water. The earthquake generated great waves on the Mississippi River that overwhelmed many boats and washed others high upon the shore. The waves broke off thousands of trees and carried them into the river. High river banks caved in, sand bars gave way, and entire islands disappeared. The violence of the earthquake was manifested by great topographic changes that affected an area of 78,000 to 130,000 square kilometers. On January 23, 1812, a second major shock, seemingly more violent than the first, occurred. A third great earthquake, perhaps the most severe of the series, struck on February 7, 1812." http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/missouri/history.php

I believe you can also get earthquakes from volcanos, and volcanos are sometimes not at the edge of plates. (although I don't think the UK has many active volcanos!)

Rings like a bell?

Can you expand on this a bit? I'm wondering where you think the salt in the oceans came from. Are you suggesting that water from comets or asteroids was salty? Or that as water formed on the earth that it was formed salty? And if rivers were always fresh and oceans were always salty, did the source of the water for rivers and oceans come from different places?

Water runs over rocks and dissolves the sodium chloride in it, which is eventually carried into the oceans. Water evaporates from the oceans (without the high concentration of salt), and falls as rain. The water that fell as rain on land runs over rocks and dissolves the sodium chloride in it... Repeat millions of times. "Throughout the world, rivers carry an estimated 4 billion tons of dissolved salts to the ocean annually. About the same tonnage of salt from the ocean water probably is deposited as sediment on the ocean bottom, and thus, yearly gains may offset yearly losses. In other words, the oceans today probably have a balanced salt input and outgo." http://www.palomar.edu/oceanography/salty_ocean.htm

Right. The average ocean salinity is 35 parts per thousand. Freshwater salinity is usually less than 0.5 parts per thousand.

Water runs over rocks and dissolves the sodium chloride in it, which is eventually carried into the oceans. There is so much salt in the oceans because this process has been going on for millions of years.

This thread started with the proposition of humans making contact with an advanced alien race. Unless this race originated in some other universe with different physical properties, then they have been exposed to the same properties of the universe that we have. These properties are the only ones we have to work with to develop communications, a means of travel, a means to do any of the things our technology allows us to do. All I am saying is that if we have the same raw materials to work with (EM, gravity, hydrogen, space, planets, etc.), then we may very well recognize when someone else has manipulated those raw materials for some purpose (such as using EM for communications). I recognize that we might not utilize all of the same properties of the universe, but I would think there would be some overlap. For example, if the aliens traveled here, they may very well have created some type of ship to travel in which doesn't look like an asteroid or travel the same path as an asteroid (for example, it may make a soft landing on a planet). I never said they would use EM radiation for communication, but there is a reason they could use EM radiation for communication. It works. Do you believe that an advanced alien race is unlikely to be aware of the EM that is bombarding them constantly from all directions? And I admit I don't understand how you are using the concept of ALIEN. You seem to be implying that if they are ALIEN, then everything about them MUST be different than everything about us. Why would that be? Why couldn't many of our technologies share the same underlying properties of the universe? I admit that it is possible that we would not recognize other life, but you seem to imply that it is nearly a certainty.

Earthquakes can also occur far from the edges of plates, along faults. Faults are cracks in the earth where sections of a plate (or two plates) are moving in different directions. Faults are caused by all that bumping and sliding the plates do. They are more common near the edges of the plates. http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/where.html

From the first link (my bold)... "The magisterium of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation, and measure, and provided that all are prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically sacred Scripture and of defending the dogmas of faith" (HG 36). This is one of the reasons the church loses credibility with me.

Well, as I tried to explain in an earlier post, I think we would use similar technology because both the aliens and us would have grown up in the same universe. We both are exposed to the same properties of the universe, and while we may not understand all of the universe in the same way or utilize its properties in the same way, I would be surprised if we had no overlap at all. And while I might not recognize an alien as life, if it was altering its surroundings for some purpose, I'd probably give it a closer look.

Fuzzwood: So it would stay that same small size? The gravity of the entire black hole is not necessary to keep it that small? And if it had that mass in a very small space, it could not get close enough to, say, a molecule of hydrogen to pull in that molecule? I think this answers my question. I was wondering if once matter is compressed to the density of a black hole, does that matter retain the properties of a black hole if the massive gravity is removed. That is, can the mass of 1kg stay in that compressed state without the entire gravity of a black hole to keep it that way.

What would happen if a 1kg piece of black hole was suddenly transported to the surface of the earth? Would it retain the properties of a black hole and begin devouring mass that it came close to, sinking into the surface of the earth? Would it expand to something much less dense since it did not have the gravity of the entire black hole to keep it in that dense state? If so, what type of matter would it be? Something else?

So are you saying that you believe that some portion of UFO sightings are indeed aliens? If so, I'd like to hear why you think that. (I promise I won't inflict any bruising! )