foodchain

The war has protracted the common Iraqi into a horrible mess. Think about it, if some nation using some mantra from an event invaded America and was capable of neutralizing our standing forces. What’s left is basically the populous with whatever forces were still alive or released spread into it. Now if you say were just a person looking to protect your loved ones, you might now be so quick to jump into combat. On this note though in Iraq, we cant protect the locals from the "enemy" whatever that happens to be. Another aspect is the war is carried out in urban zones. This can involve the dropping of munitions such as thousand pound bombs, armored vehicle combat and so on. SO basically what’s left for the common Iraqi people caught up is this struggle, does anyone even take into account such? Doubtful really in my opinion. As for a politicians take on the war. Well, we were attacked by a terrorist group that is all over the world and primarily based in say Afghanistan. They attacked and we invaded a nation that to this date does not have anything truly credible to back up the why to it all. Now we have to stay for a plethora of reasons some give, or leave for just about as many. The reality to me though is the stalemate of Iraq is not being broken, the people and the nation happen to be going that route though, to utter destruction slowly. So in say ten years, about what it took for Vietnam to run its course, and about Vietnam, remember if we lost that war the communists would of course conquer the world right:doh: The point is how many Iraqis will die and what will be left of Iraq. IF we took half the money and resources that went into Iraq and initially applied them to Afghanistan, the Taliban and AQ would probably be extinct. If we put the other half of the money into alternative energy resources we would not have to buy oil. I am sorry to say but if the mideast could not sell oil, they would really have no money at all, plus it could combat global warming. Such technology such as hydrogen would sell planet wide, oil would have no value and thus no power and thus no reason to protract monkeys into killing each other over resources and territory. Iraq is not becoming free, its becoming destroyed, that’s all its doing. The U.S won the cold war via economics and diplomacy primarily, I think it could easily be that way with the WOT. Every time bush gets challenged he brings up his support the troops BS. The man tries to make it as if he is the nation, he did not even allow for the recount to run its course, that’s his care of the for the voice of democracy. His cabinet is nothing but big business and big oil, and the amount of corruption leaking from it is notorious anymore, I don’t see how anyone could support anything he does or says, I mean being the decider I guess he simply decided that global warming is false along with all his actions to silence government scientists on environmental issues. I mean to bring up the list of what I could call nothing more then lies or corruptions is so long, actually contrary evident to the things he says is a website, it has the bushco cronies there too, and each character has over ten pages of contradictory statements, from the start of the war until now. Of course the super patriot that got out of Vietnam which our nation direly needed to win for survival of course is the perfect person to drape himself with the American flag and lie to everyone.

Predation does not always lead to that, or else I would say a majority of life that survives by being a predator first of all would be dead, point being lions for instance. Sometimes predators also simply starve to death, or don’t get enough to eat. This can happen to snakes, wolves, insects, heck even plants. Maybe reptiles or some species of such were ectotherms because adaptation had not lead to a regular source of food yet or it simply might be simply what they evolved from(I think that’s it actually if memory serves), but the reality is one that many predators occupy the savannah in Africa for instance feeding on populations of herbivores for instance, and in sense a balance in struck via such. Its not a perfect balance, but it does not drive many species into extinction from predation. However due to increased land lose, the cheetah for instance which is specialized in many ways is suffering greatly and is getting close to extinction. This is from human activity more then anything else though. Populations of elephants with naturally occurring shorter tusks are also becoming more and more common, from interaction with humans, I have not put much anytime into verifying this though. As far as math goes, well last night one of my cats jumped up on the bed, and started to get affectionate, a little to much, so I put him on the floor, then he jumped back up and sleep down by my feet. I don’t know everything that would go into making that into a math equation, let alone when variation in behavior comes, and then trying to put that down on even a molecular scale perfectly such as cell signaling, its not that I don’t trust math, its just well, math is not a natural science is all.

It all sounds good but in all of it you have to then state that intelligent life, equal to or greater then at least of humans is an ultimate product of evolution. I would simply like to state barring the massive event that ended the existence of the dinosaurs evolution seemingly did not produce highly intelligent creatures to rule the planet. I just think its a serious fallacy to state that evolution will occur in a giving situation, or life for that matter, I think its also a major fallacy to think life needs a certain chemistry, and I also think its a major fallacy above all to say evolution is some perfect function, simply being going from natural history in any regard that’s simply not the case, its contradictory to natural selection first of all. What can survive will, its nothing more then that. If life occurs on some planet using a different chemistry then life on earth and the pinnacle of such after billions of years in context of the environment is conical slime molds using acid to make certain ions from minerals for energy or food with motility provided via explosions that propels there type of “dna“ to other areas in a cave, well who is to disagree, all we have is life on earth currently to compare to. To add to this sea vent communities were a type of life considred impossible by the field of biology in general prior to the discovery of such. There is just so many assumptions in all of this its not even funny.

Ok, let me try to refine then for the sake of argument. Many species of organisms seem to contract themselves into ecological cycles which is in my opinion may be a product of what leads to ecological homeostasis, or a balance of nature. Not that we are not tied into the ecology, such as what the U.S would have to pay for in terms of money if all the bees happened to disappear for instance. The point I am trying to get after is maybe our evolution for instance is what has lead to our ability to cause so much destruction in terms of the environment. Many migratory species easily become an invasive specie, simply put the local ecosystem or the environment around an organism then changes from the introduction of such. Our specie seems not to be "hardwired" via natural selection to be solely dependent on any one particular environment. Even our ancestors did not seem to be so needing of say a particular ecosystem in order to sustain. On that note though, if we were not specialized overall for one particular ecosystem, say a desert for instance, why not, and how did we reach such a evolutionary position? My question to add to this is maybe because we are not specialized per say for a certain ecosystem combined with other traits our biology can express, say tool building, is what allows easily for the environmental destruction our species can bring. I fully realize that other species migrate. Its just that you don’t find panda bears all over the world. In this situation, well before the human race even formed cultures such as ancient Greece or ancient Egypt, humans had spread to a very diverse amount of ecosystems and managed to survive in ways that I don’t know if many other species could do really.

From what we can create of a primordial earth in relation to the nature behind biopoiesis most everything needed for life can be created in laboratory conditions. Here is my list of why I don’t think we have cracked it yet. One, I don’t think you can fully recreate what might be necessary in a laboratory, that’s the big one to me. The other one is the idea that what did lead to life might be a process that takes an incredibly long time. Protobionts have my bet for the best place to start. During geological differentiation the primordial soup was to be something not so small also in terms of physical size. Tracing possible avenues of early life though does not suggest it being present everywhere though, at least not all at once. So the reality as I see it or the trick really is how you would call it autocatalysis behavior, but one that basically is an attempt to maintain equilibrium. For instance in photochemistry, not to make any connection to photosynthesis or early bacteria. In the chemistry itself, or in a compound that conducts a reaction via light, its not the entire compound itself that is reactive, or if memory serves not always. Its parts of it, and then its variables such as the light itself or intensity. Then you have isomers of course, which can exhibit activity, such as optical isomers. The point I am trying to get at is the relationship of chemicals, or reactions of and energy or enthalpy I guess, don’t know if its proper use here. In geologic terms, or primordial soup terms, I don’t know if we can account fully for the make up of such a system, or the earth at that point, let alone what I feel is key which is the amount of free energy available. As I see it, the reason people like oparin hit a brick wall may not be they had it wrong, it could simply be they did not understand simply the scope of the reaction mechanism or the very possible reality that such might have to be enormous and require an impractical amount of time to do. Following evolution currently, its from prokaryotes that eukaryotes came from, if at all possible the only real logical connection is to think that its the same natural process to the origin of life itself. To simply give out on a question because its difficult, well, that very well may damn most of science. As for odds, well what’s the odds of anything really.

Looking at the various forms of homeostasis, such as not directly internally but more on an ecological point of view I would like to propose an idea or question really about human evolution. IN many ecosystems or most that I learn about you find a general balance of nature overall. In this it seems that niches of course come to be occupied over time by organism and populations of such adapted to such via natural selection. Now not to speak in an homologous tone in regards to migration over life in general here, just that in the course of human evolution did our species/genus ever spend a great deal of time in any particular ecosystem? It seems to me that our species and ancestors of such were gradually becoming more and more migratory. Now not to get into reasons directly for this, or even if this is exactly true. Its more or less of a question as to the environmental destruction our species has on the planet at large. Now it may be nothing more then a product of survival coupled with the biology of our species, but its the question of how much of an impact did being a heavily migratory specie have on the course of our evolution and subsequent biology. TO what impact would you attribute being migratory to the evolution of modern humans? Also do you feel this has any impact overall as to our impact environmentally speaking?

That’s a good point. Thinking on the question the amount of time it has taken for light from various "points" in the universe to reach earth is an indication of anything, signals from intelligent life, if not somehow derailed from a course to the earth by anything would have to compound with the evolution of solar systems, galaxies, planets, and then the evolution of life which would have to then take the course leading to a species or some form of a living thing at any rate that uses the technology we do or something similar. So in reality it might be another million years before a message gets to us in my opinion, to go on that us and them might be extinct if not something completely different at that point. This Fermi guy makes it sound as if life only exists in certain parameters and has a guaranteed direction or modus to evolution, I don’t think you can really say that past speculation and assumption of course at this point.

Tourist trap.

One thing universities have that a typically person might not have is equipment, such as a lab for instance. Many physics programs and chemistry programs at state universities can even have more top end stuff for research. Another aspect with say a biology program at a university is they can be affiliated with many local state and federal agencies that manage wildlife for instance. Its not that self motivation is an issue, obviously Einstein did not figure out relativity solely from attending college, but none the less if you are interested in chemistry per say its nice to work with the equipment in the labs.

The soil chemistry of mars is reactive to organic chemistry, basically it breaks down organic molecules. So any aspect of microbes on mars would have to be engineered to handle this or at least exist in areas not affected by such I guess. "We do know that the Martian soil contains "superoxides." In the presence of ultraviolet radiation, superoxides break down organic molecules. While superoxides' effect on astronauts is probably not serious, their impact and that of any other unique chemical aspects of the Martian soil must be assessed before human exploration of Mars can begin." http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/science/human/

You have to be careful with creationist arguments. They are typically skewed and self serving of emotional positions. Not that anything is wrong with that in a free world, just that its probably not the best place to go to understand science or why science may claim something. Personally I don’t understand relativity all to well, this does not however equate into me thinking its false. I mean using thermodynamics, or in creationist camps, entropy, life simply cant exist, even right now it would seem life cant exist. Yet it does, and to boot it can live and die still via such, and if you look at life in more extreme ranges of say temperature, either in highs or lows you can find adaptation that has allowed life to persist and survive even there. If you want more detail on the origin of life question, well, the reality of that is that such a question is not something any one particular field is going to be able to solve. I mean, just go and look up how to get fluorine, and that’s just one element. I mean simply looking at survival functions for cells, you have structures of chemicals, why would they take the shape they did? Personally, I think it was natural selection battering success into matter and energy, though some will whip out that bs reductionist fallacy argument, even while what they promote is a product of reduction. Simply put if life violated fundamental laws it would not occur, its why we only have certain areas on the earth that have hurricane activity for instance. The origin of life is complex from our position of ignorance. I mean at one point the steam engine was the pinnacle of technology at a point in human history. Reaction mechanisms go outside of simply electrons also, in that maybe some part of what lead to life took place in porous rock under certain conditions, and another step was in a place that exposed such to UV light for instance, and to go along with the example maybe the whole deal took over a thousand years to complete, anyone waiting to set up a thousand year reaction mechanism? Some known reactions can take hours upon hours over days to complete, and to add with this some formations of matter on an atomic/molecular scale you might encounter in geology take incredibly long to occur. Listen, the best person to make a choice on this matter is you of course, but try not to just listen to anything or anyone. You should get rather educated on the matter actually and then listen to what’s empirical, simply put past that all you can ever have ultimately is something subjective. Its what drives me away from majoring in physics, I get scared of being trapped around people that want to solve the universe from some room on a blackboard with calculus.

To me its just the energy requirement for humans to change say Venus as a planet. With mars self contained environments are a possibility, and I don’t see such with Venus. Plus how do you really start an operation there?

That’s basically taxonomy. It gets finer in detail over time from the study of life in retrospect to biology and all its aggregate fields, such as entymology or molecular biology. Its not just biologists that study evolution of life either, I mean that’s basically paleontology too for example. As for I guess a computer model that runs the simulation of such if thats what you are getting at, well I dont know if anyone has ever done such for all of life in retrospect to every aspect of evolution.

To Lucaspa: Taxonomy may be a human made tool, but its goal is to reflect natural kinds and the relationship they hold. Its a product of evolution basically. Of course modern molecular techniques will have a sway and there are species of taxonomists really, such as being a cladist for instance. This of course does not denote the importance to taxonomy or the use of the tool. Its pretty much comparable to say a periodic table. For instance if I was to be giving an assignment to find per say species X that is related to species Y, and all I am giving is species Y, do you think looking into taxa or systematics of Y would help at all?

You might want to look into Tinnnitus.

1) There is progress being made in this area. Its a rather profound question, but in all reality the science of the common compact disc has massive amounts of more attention giving to it. One thing about chemistry is reaction mechanism also, such as in geology is quite amazing the natural processes that lead to various chemical compounds. As for all the water on earth, well comparing the mass of the earth to the universe, is it really that much, plus it seems the solar system, or formation of such has lead to some "stratification" if I can speak metaphorically in my opinion. 2) Such may not be a large issue to beings that want instant gratification or simply perceive reality differently on either a nature or nurture level overall. 3) For one, the universe is massive, another is intelligent life I doubt is some guarantee of life, nor what is exactly the definition of intelligent.

See, this is where I get lost. As a matter of perception, why put labels on it. Going from conservation laws, we cant destroy or create energy, or at least have found no way to do such as I understand, but if the big bang as some would have it did? Then you get into ideas of big bang/big crunch cycles, but what about the acceleration, though in space who knows ultimately the permeability of forces. Its like this though, if you had one end of the know universe compare to the other, or two points as far away as possible, could two atoms or particles find each other, but on that note due to acceleration would not the space eventually equal that for galaxies? After about ten minutes of thought on this personally I feel like I am just asking questions from my own ignorance to an existing ignorance in general, and that’s the allure of physics to me, simply put the massive who knows that still exist.

So basically if I am just traveling in space for example and I come upon a asteroid traveling in space the only thing I can understanding at that point is purely relational to my position and other variables such as maybe whatever speed I am traveling at? To me it sounds like such goes along on some degree basically with the uncertainty principal, am I generalizing to much?

If you can understand with objective clarity while aves made it, go ahead first of all. Of course the entire class did not make it, not every specie that lead to modern humans made it, but we don’t have our own entire specification taxonomically speaking, and I would strongly suggest there exists a fine reason for why taxonomy exists. You can look at bacteria and say overall that some specie of bacteria all on its own might survive or be able to persist, but I don’t know if birds would be able to persist for instance if birds were to only specie, which was simply to back up my point that you might have to look at why birds survived in a broader sense then just an individual specie all by itself in some void. That point was to go on about my point in general about looking at natural history as a whole rather then as individual unconnected pieces to attempt to learn why birds were able to persist through such a massive extinction event. I mean what are the survival values to what lived, more so with birds, did they build less accessible nests for one example of a question? I am not trying to speak specifically because I don’t posses the understanding of Aves in general to do such, if you do feel free to go on about it. My point in general about a case to case basis is important in a few respects. Attempting to stay healthy and fit for say one particular specie may not be conducted the same way as for another specie. To say birds made it because of a bird trait is fine, but that probably does not attack the issue at enough detail.

Not to disagree with you but I think states of matter go outside of some phenomenological experience. I mean on earth I dint think encountering solid hydrogen is a norm, but in any of the states its still just hydrogen, but they do take on an objective difference in regards to physical properties. Example, as a human being using my bear hands on a typical mid afternoon day on earth most likely could never hold say liquid steel, but I could hold the solid, as long as it did not weigh to much. I don’t know how these states are exactly defined on the level of say one atom alone, but the physical reality to me would have it as some objective process, similar to what allows for say three atoms to bond together, or two atoms to bond together, simply put if nothing actually happened, why would any observable change come about?

On the evolution bit, I don’t know if you can say exactly that it was planned by life per say to "terraform" the earth. Example being an oxygen rich atmosphere for instance, as life in sea vents seems to differ a bit from what a majority of other life survives like. Not to say that life does not require certain parameters, or a certain chemistry, its just that I don’t know if you can say that evolution as its occurred with life on earth via natural selection was the only objective reality to life, I guess we would find out though if we could land and sustain life on Venus. For instance the importance of carbon to life, it seems drastically important, but in all reality we only have the biodiversity of the earth and its history to look at, and another aspect is that life adapts via evolution, not that the environment does. Other life is in the environment, but I doubt bacteria of plant life was aware of what releasing oxygen would lead to. I mean looking at evolution you have from bacteria to a t-rex sized animal, I just don’t know exactly what the limit to life is or how it can function is all. I mean what was the first life that decided to eat other life to sustain? Of course at first the composition and structure of any life we did manage to get to persist on Venus, if such was possible may only be able to do so much at first, but in time bacteria could come about that’s nothing like what we put there, or even did anything we put the original stuff there for in the first place. On nuclear power, well, in another hundred years of research and application the technology could be drastically improved, let along another thousand years. I think combined with nanotechnology and genetics that the future in regards to getting off the earth may become more feasible in many ways. More so if we can get something going on the moon for example.

Sounds good, but even then the proximity of Venus to the sun is simply going to lend problems. On mars you may have to warm up, but on Venus you will have to cool down, and I don’t know how much cooling you would have to do even if Venus had an atmosphere similar to earth. Another aspect about using bacteria or microbes to farm the planet is simply an evolutionary one. After X amount of generations any bacteria that could survive in such an environment might start to find ways to become better at that rather then turning the environment into something more hospitable. I mean bacteria in sea vents is nice, but they adapted to survive there, not the other way around. The bacteria would most likely have to have something “programmed” into it killing it in so many generations while we constantly replaced the populations and monitored various mutations or what not. Here is a small and brief link on sea vent communities. http://wonderclub.com/WorldWonders/VentsHistory.html Nuclear technology is a key in all of this in my opinion. As its a good source of energy, and what it uses for such seems to be rather prevalent anywhere you go, and of course this energy can be converted into various forms for use. It posses its own danger, but in all reality the idea of carrying large quantities of various substances for chemical energy just seems a bit odd, more so if you plan to use planets, as I would use them if in control because asteroid belts just sound way to dangerous.

Yes, My writing skills sometimes don’t catch up with what I am trying to say. I know the dodo died from human activity and related, my point was simply looking at what we can of natural history to derive why some species make it and others don’t. The point about using different species is that they obtain homeostasis and reproduce via different methods. The end goal may be typically the same but they do not conduct life the same way, though with biodiversity you can find a diversity of what survives and what does not. Taking into account that most seriously likely some massive event occur in the earths past that motivated all of these extinctions the amount of variables to take into account that would equate into stress is rather quite large. For instance, what if a species of bird did not have any particular mutations or biology in general that was advantageous, they simply just used environments on the earth that were not hard pressed overall by any changes brought on? I mean going from today, and to minus human activity, we don’t simply have mass extinctions coming from nowhere. Typically the extinction is a product of something in a species environment also, be it disease, predators, or just climate change, species just don’t seem to up and extinct wholly on there own. The best bet in my opinion for finding out why the class made it overall would simply to be having to obtain understanding of natural history that goes outside of just the birds, such as what other life made it, plants, animals, etc... Also using ancestors of birds, and just overall the compilation of such would most likely in my opinion be the only way to find out the why, for it takes into account more or less everything that needs to, rather then just sections of a whole. I think you have to use life more or less in a connection because in my opinion to take all of life away from the planet save for one species might be the end of life unless that specie could do something in time on some level to save being selected against. I mean life radiates out over the planet, it accumulates change in the form of mutation for instance, but it’s the natural selection part, which is overall the environment or the totality of such surrounding an organism or species that selects for or against. So if you have a sudden shift in the environment, what would you expect to have happen?

Article aside the atmosphere of Venus is nothing but CO2, the greenhouse effect from that makes Venus a planet much warmer then even mercury. Its not just the heat you have to deal with, but the atmosphere in general is poisonous, to add to this the pressure on the surface of Venus is crushing overall, as it would be going some depth into the ocean for instance. I wont say its impossible but for the sake of simply investing energy I think mars has a better shot at supporting life. Another thing about mars. "Evidence That the Reactivity of the Martian Soil Is Due to Superoxide Ions" http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/5486/1909 I think once people figure out what it will take for a certain size populous of people to obtain homeostasis and mental stability, then of course you can add on to the technology to match the environment. I really doubt such an endeavor wont stress our technological and scientific abilities to the max though.