Dekan

Surely Americans don't want wolves about the place? Wolves are dangerous wild animals. They will eat you if they can. It's a good job they were exterminated from the US. Why some US citizens should want to bring them back, seems a mystery.

Seeking Science's OP is interesting, when we consider that the Solar System seems obviously dead. It contains no life-bearing planets. Except for the Earth, which has life in abundance. But this is only on Earth. Is life replicated anywhere else in the Solar System? We can speculate about life, 10 kilometres below the surface of the frozen satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. These satellites might have oceans of liquid water under the ice. With living cold organisms, like diatoms, paracetiums, shrimps, or giant slow-motion squids. But this is just straw-clutching. Where's the evidence?

Is it true, that psychiatrists get driven nuts by their patients?

If the books don't have to be factual, and can include Science Fiction, my Top 10 is: 1. A Canticle for Leibowitz 2. 1984 3. Level 7 4. Earth Abides 5. Out of the Silent Planet 6. The Genocides 7. Wasp 8. The Death of Grass 9. The Kraken Wakes 10. Escape to Berkshire

Our human brains have certainly invented some strange things - like condoms, contraceptive pills, and nuclear weapons. These do not enhance human reproduction and survival. Quite the opposite. So why would our brains lead us to invent such things? Ox1111 may be right - there's something unnatural about the human brain.

A world government isn't possible at present, because the world's people are split into different races. These races are inherently divisive. They give rise to things like a "Black Police" union, or an "Asian Radio" station. These examples are UK phenomena. No doubt replicated world-wide. Especially in the USA, or "Los Estados Unidas". Soon to be New Mexico. Tough for any white Americans. But you must give up your power, and go brown. That's what's desperately needed for a future USA, forget radical white dreams, like colonising the Solar System. Just get into the mainstream, where we become comfortably brown, and enjoy rap. We need a melting-pot, where all the races will be be merged, under Government control! Then Earth will become a true paradise, and we will all live peacefully. We will not have distractions like Science, or Literature, or Art. We must all wish for it, already!

This is a good question. But such questions should not be raised today, as they lead to political incorrectness. All modern scientists are ruled by political correctness. They can't say what they really think.

I thought all photons were the same. Like electrons are all the same. Are there different kinds of photons?

Could it be translated into lucid Basic English? If not it looks like a load of crap.

Carbon, I think language is the most important invention, that humans made. More important than using fire, or making tools. Tools can be made from flint, or wood or bone. Even without intelligence. Some animals easily make tools. Fire is harder for animals. Mainly because fire burns and spreads so fast. It needs fast mental reactions, which most animals haven't got. But even so, a fire-using animal, might be possible. However a language-using animal seems unlikely. Even Alex the parrot was really only using English words in a kind of stimulus/response way. When Alex said to Irene "You be good. I love you", was it true, what he said?

It must be some kind of cultural thing? I mean, the ancient Romans had the same brains as we have today. But they never invented steam engines or started an Industrial Revolution. Also, and this seems quite startling, in 1902 humans didn't know how to make heavier than air machines. Yet just 38 years later.... look what was going on! Spitfires, Me-109's, B-17's, jet-fighter prototypes under test ... and by 1959, the US B-70 "Valkyrie" intercontinental strategic bomber - flying at 2,000 mph, 70,000 feet high, to drop a 20 MT H-bomb anywhere in the Soviet Union! Can all that amazing progress have been merely genetic? It seems a bit incredible!

Please give thanks for the privilege of thinking and speaking in the English language. Your post #8 can't be translated into French. Just try it!

"Hypervolume" is good, or you could call it "Superspace". Or "Moreroom". How would it be expressed in Mandarin Chinese? Probably as "Roomroom", but is that as expressive, no wonder the Long March rockets haven't yet reached Mars!

You compare the birth of the Universe, to the explosion of a giant nuclear bomb. This is a very interesting comparison. But does it work, for example, why aren't we all suffering from radiation sickness?

Hm, does OP allude to: vortices - Descartes - cats (killed by defenestration as lacking souls)?

No-one can deny, that the Earth is unique in the solar system, in these two respects: 1. It's the only planet with oceans of liquid water, and an array of multicellular living organisms. 2. It's the only planet with a really big moon. (Big compared to the planet) Is there a connection between 1 and 2, as proposed by ibiarge? Perhaps it's just a coincidence - which often breeds false theories. But our big Moon must have something to do with how Earth has developed - and possibly, why it's not lifeless, like Mars and Venus. Both those planets lack the equivalent of our Moon.

  Yes, and your case could be further bolstered by citing "centipedes" and "millipedes". Centipedes don't necessarily have exactly 100 legs. And I'm pretty sure millipedes haven't got 1,000 of them, despite what the name implies. The name just colloquially suggests a huge array of waving little legs, which can't easily be counted at a glance. The "milli-" prefix is imaginatively hyperbolic. Not scientifically precise. That's all obvious. But locusts aren't like millipedes. Locusts have just 6 legs, an easy number to count. So why ascribe only 4 legs to them? I mean,suppose Leviticus had said "You shall not eat creepy-crawlies, with this exception: locusts". That would be clear. I can't understand why Leviticus attributes 4 legs to the locusts. It seems a pointless piece of freakishness.

Crimson, I take your point about the Hebrews having a broad "ouph" categorisation. It's like we can say in English "fliers". The term covers all kinds of flying organisms. Such a term is not too bad, though it lacks precision. But Leviticus says locusts have 4 legs. That's just plain wrong. I mean, elementary observation disproves it, you don't need advanced taxonomy or a microscope! The error seems hard to explain.

Couldn't your son look up all the answers by himself, on the Internet? Why does he need you to do it for him?

&nbs That seems the most likely explanation - UFOs are secret aircraft, built by the US government.

That's a good point: when translating, error lurks at every turn. If the NEB translators had used the term "flying creatures", instead of "birds", that would have removed the "bat" anomaly. Though it would raise further problems: ie insects, such as locusts, which are also flying creatures. Locusts are dealt with in verses 20-24 of Leviticus, as follows (NEB): "All teeming winged creatures that go on four legs shall be vermin to you, except those which have four legs jointed above their feet for leaping on the ground. Of these you may eat every kind of great locust, every kind of long-headed locust, every kind of green locust, and every kind of desert locust. Every other teemed winged creature that has four legs you shall regard as vermin; you would make yourselves unclean with them: whoever touches their dead bodies shall be unclean till evening. Whoever picks up their dead bodies shall wash his clothes but remain unclean until evening." You can see the problem - why are hexapod locusts described as having "four legs"?

God knew all the species He had created, you may be sure. This is proved by the great detail He went into regarding birds: "These are the birds you shall regard as vermin, and for this reason they shall not be eaten: the griffon-vulture, the black vulture, and the bearded vulture, the kite and every kind of falcon; every kind of crow, the desert-owl, the short-eared owl, the long-eared owl, and every kind of hawk; the fisher-owl, and the screech-owl; the little owl, the horned owl, the osprey, the stork, every kind of cormorant, the hoopoe, and the bat." (Leviticus 11, v. 13-19, NEB trans.) Obviously, He slipped up with the bat, as that's a mammal. Perhaps He nodded off after all the owl-listing. As for species created on other continents, He wisely refrained from citing them - if He'd prohibited eating llamas or aardvarks, it would only have confused His Middle Eastern proteges.

The difference between a "0" and a "1", on a computer HD disc, is a difference in magnetism. So a "1" may have strong magnetism, and a "0" have weak magnetism, or no magnetism at all. Suppose the "1" does have stronger magnetism. And the HD disc is filled mostly with "1"s. Then the disc will have stronger magnetism than if it were filled with weak "0"s. This stronger magnetism might cause physical damage to the head - by inducing magnetism in it. Making it unable to accurately read data. Wasn't there a similar kind of problem with the old audio-cassette tape players - their heads could get magnetised by constant contact with the magnetic tapes, and have to be degaussed. Mightn't that also occur with computer HD magnetic discs?

A flame might have some claim to be a living thing. I mean, suppose you light a candle, then watch what happens. You see the following: 1. The flame starts quite small - it's "born". Then it gets bigger - ie it "grows". 2. As it grows, it increasingly absorbs the melting candle-wax, which could be regarded as the flame's "food". So the flame is "feeding". 3. The flame also absorbs oxygen from the air - a kind of "breathing". 4. When the flame attains its maximum size - its "adult" stage - it reacts to its environment. For example, it responds to stray draughts of air, by flickering or dancing about. 5. The flame can ignite other candles. If another candle wick is inserted into the flame, that wick is lit, and produces another flame. This could be regarded as "reproduction". 6. Finally, when the original flame has used up all the wax in its candle, it goes out, and "dies". Thus the flame seems to exhibit many characteristics of a living being - birth, growth, feeding, breathing, reproduction, and death. Is this too facile, or could flame really qualify as a form of life?

Thanks, could you explain a bit further please. The word "spin" seems to be pretty much a synonym for "rotate". At least when applied to big objects like planets. For example, we say that the planet Earth "spins", or "rotates" on its axis in a period of about 23h 56m. And all the other planets in the Solar System also spin, or rotate. They do it at individual rates - Jupiter faster, Venus slower, than the Earth. What I was wondering, is whether this also applies to atoms. Do atoms rotate? And do they have individual rates of rotation. For example, does an atom of Hydrogen rotate faster or slower than an atom of Iron?