John Cuthber

THE OS probably decided to refresh the outputs in the "wrong" order.

The simple answer is that he would get fat. If he were doing enough exercise that he burned off the "junk food" calories then they wouldn't be "junk"- he would be in trouble without that extra fat etc. Being overweight is known to be associated with poor health.

OK, outbreak of serious pedantry warning. They didn't say "per second" they said "every second", and they are probably right. It was true the second they wrote it, it was true during the second when you read it and it will be true at the second when you read this reply. It's redundant, and potentially confusing, but it's not wrong (at least until the flow changes). It's like saying "2+2= 4 every day". Now, would you like to get into a discussion of the muddling of speed and velocity? (At least they say it's "the equivalent") How about a clear definition of what "In a process that almost defies adjectives and analogies," actually means in a context where the next thing they do is add some analogies?

To be fair, though I'm solidly convinced of AGW, I remember that back in the 70s there were really articles and even adverts about the "coming ice age" in things like Scientific American. (I know that's not much more peer reviewed than Newsweek) So what? That was then, this is now. This proves that science is not dogma; nothing else. They made a prediction based on the data available at the time ( the records of ice ages) and the prediction was that, since there had been ice ages in the past, there would be others in the future. That's not an unreasonable prediction. The press probably blew it out of proportion because that's what sells papers. What else would they have done? Since then those studying the climate have done another 40 years of work on the issue and have found another major factor- the greenhouse effect. They now include that effect in their models. The improved models now show, at least in the relatively short term, a different behaviour. There may well be another ice age on the way, but before that there will be warming which won't make things better for our species and that warming is essentially down to us. What I don't understand is why those who don't accept AGW keep banging on about something which is very old news. Is it the best they can come up with? It reminds me of the story of the old schoolteacher musing on the fact that a lot of his students had failed exams because they didn't remember something which turned out not to be true anyway.

I'd still like Dr Rocket to tell me what my hidden agenda is.

"I am just wondering how do you think about the beauty competitions." I don't. In particular, I don't see them as genetic testing. On the other hand, they may have rather too much in common with this thread's subject. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/57992-cattle-market-puzzle/page__pid__613546#entry613546

Just a thought. Mankind has, for years, tried to make things that are intelligent (artificial intelligence systems etc.) and so far we have things that are roughly as bright as an insect. Also, while our children are generally intelligent, we can't really claim responsibility for that. It's perfectly possible that a woman gets pregnant and then falls into a coma. In the meantime the father dies, and yet 9 months on the baby is born and has perfectly normal intelligence with no deliberate contribution from the parents. I therefore conclude that the original premise of this thread, that "Intelligence creates intelligence" is factually incorrect and so there's no need to answer it. On the other hand that does lead to the question "Where does intelligence come from?" to which the answer seems to be "We don't know- but it need not be something intelligent".

Sorry, but if I have understood that properly, I can easily show that it's incomplete at best. It says that the thickness of armour I can get through increases as the strength of the shell falls. T is proportional to 1/ root Sy That doesn't make much sense. It means that if I had two shells, one made from steel and the other made from powdered lead, held together with glue so they had the same density but one was much stronger than the other, the weak one would penetrate better. Water has practically no strength (i.e Sy = zero) so rain should penetrate an indefinitely thick layer of armour.

Carbon forms a lot of compounds with other elements and so it's relatively easy to compare the mass of those elements to that of carbon.

Any gene like that would have been bred out generations ago (unless it happened to also confer some massive evolutionary advantage).

"would there be a way to make them so that if you shake it in a bottle the layers would go back to being layers and not mix together?" No, not with stuff you can drink. You could get a layer of water and a layer of oil, but anything else you add will will mix with the oil or the water. You need to start looking at rather more obscure things to get more than 2 layers. A cocktail of mercury, perfluorokerosene, salt water, acetonitrile and dodecane will settle out into 5 layers after shaking, but you really wouldn't want to drink it

OK, that's a lot of stuff. The coal mine fires, to whatever extent they are important, are anthropogenic because mines are anthropogenic. Forest fires are effectively carbon neutral since the trees recently got their C from CO2 in the first place. Sea level rise is not the current topic, temperature is. Whatever the details of the heat transfers (and I agree they are horribly complicated) more heat being trapped by CO2 will cause the mean temperature to rise. (This may mean that my bit of the world cools- but that's not the issue). The mass balance of the Earth is pretty easy- it's fixed. The heat balance is complex in detail, but there's no way round the fact that if you trap more heat the temperature goes up. The effect of a change in temperature is strongly dependent on how fast it changes. A farmer can plant crops that are suited to the local climate, but only if he knows what that climate is. If that is changing rapidly it becomes more difficult. AGW will increase the rate of change even if there is some underlying upward trend due to some external factor. I'd also like to know what my "hidden agenda" is supposed to be.

Yes, it's called lager and it comes from Germany. Incidentally, In Germany all nouns get capital letters, but in English only proper nouns (and some words derived from them like English get a capital).

Captain, In my personal experience, a drunk bloke needing a pee isn't seriously impeded by a fence. If his claim that he mistook the reservoir for a sewerage treatment works is honest then he seems to have acted more responsibly than anyone else in this story.

It's a standing joke in the UK that the tap water in London is the cleanest in the world because it has been filtered through 6 sets of human kidneys before it's taken (back) out of the River Thames and treated for use as drinking water. Do Americans generally not understand that sort of thing, or is it only the ones who work for the water supply authorities who don't get it?

As I understand it, people who are conspicuously tall already suffer from increased risks from back problems etc. So there's already some pressure on people not to get taller. After millions of years, perhaps we have already reached the "right" height for our evolutionary niche.

If this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_cloud isn't part of the explanation then I would be rather surprised.

"What exactly is it based upon ?" The fact that you can fool some of the people all of the time.

Just out of idle curiosity, ( and so that this thread actually offers some information to someone seeking it) what language is Biks's post in?

No. We made the right decision in the circumstances; we just lied about the reason. The first nuclear reactors were built to produce plutonium for making bombs. That's difficult or impossible wit a Th reactor. Whether or not the decision to make atom bombs was a good idea is another matter. Having made the first reactors that way, we just got into a bit of a rut.

It is a charge transfer transition. The electron can hop from the oxygen to the metal. The same thing is responsible for the colours of AgI and AgBr. Ag+ is nearly a strong enough oxidant to turn I- into I. With a bit of help from a photon it can make that jump.

I think prolific posting might be a reasonable indicator of talent in chemistry.

If you place the edges of 2 flat mirrors together so the mirrors faces are at 90 degrees and look into the "corner" you will see a reflection of the reflection of your face so it will be the right way round. You can then compare it with an ordinary mirror image.

We know there's more CO2. We know that it's down to us- partly because we can, in effect, carbon date it; but largely because we know how much carbon we burn because we know how much tax we paid on it. We know that CO2 absorbs IR We know that the earth is not as hot as the sun. Because of those, we know that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas. We know that the measurements show that the earth is warming. What's left to be sceptical about? The only possible debate seems to be that something else might also be affecting the climate. So what if it is? It's not a valid reason to keep making things worse. Denial of AGW is like saying "I know we put another blanket on the bed, and I know it's warmer now; but I don't think the two are causally related."

Marat, may I bring to your attention a reasonably wealthy family who have been inbreeding for years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Royal_Family Rose, More seriously- the fact is that the whole of Europe's royalty were marrying eachother for generations. (with a bit of help from servants over the years). It wasn't a wise move, but they got away with it fairly well. Inbreeding isn't that bad. I agree with SMF's idea that you find a properly qualified councillor about this.