goingtothedo

Yes, I love science poetry and particularly what you term "astro-poetry", but it is kinda hard to find the good ones. I prefer the hard science approach to such things, but am not averse to taking a very emotional and intuitve approach either. I've added below another one I did a few years ago when I went to watch a full lunar eclipse on Pendle Hill. Doubtless you don't know Pendle Hill, but it is famous in this country as the site of witch trials in the 17th century. There was even a book written "Mist over Pendle". Very spooky being there at night. Even in the day, its so high and desolate, but very open. You can see the sea thirty miles away on a clear day. Pendle Hill has serious "Spirit of Place". So I include the below as part of the "astro-poetry" thing, but I wouldn't like anyone to read into it that I believe in witches or demons..... Eclipse over Pendle The Dark lays still o’er Pendle Hill, Full moon shining, frost lays starkly Vapour rises, Magics’ guises, The soul of the mountain whispers darkly. Shimmer moon shine down, Night’s the beauty, yours the glory, Glimmer moon shine down, Retell once more the ancient story. The silence speaks of demon sleep And long dead warlock, mage or druid Waking tonight. Sorcerous unlight, And ancient glamours now unguarded Shimmer moon. Shine down The circle marred, Shadow encroaching Glimmer moon. Shine down, Ware the spell, darkness approaching Luna’s disc gleams through the mist, Her maiden’s face the sky caresses Her age old eyes have seen the signs Of Albion, Wicca and Lyonesse Blaze stars and shine Umbric darkness in the gaining Brazen stars and I Watch lunatic shadow in the making The Dark lays still on Pendle Hill It’s perfection bids my silence The darkness reigns, as foreordained Wordless sentience gathers presence Cold, Dark. And I, Benumbed await occult conclusion Old stars and I, tranced Await moonstruck possession Returned to day, the Spirit lays, The presence drops once more to slumber, The hills and plains, Pendle’s demesne, In sunshine. Night now ill-remembered Shine sun, shine down, O’er hill and valley, field and deeping Shine sun shine down, On Colossus, only sleeping

Am female. The icon is of me about two years ago.

Was "nous" intentional? Think I prefer "nous" to "noun", but it works either way.... A poetic goat......... Mmmmmmmm.....

It has been my understanding that whilst it was once accepted from the fossil record that the dinosaurs had a long slow demise, based on reducing numbers of fossils approaching the KT boundary, that this is no longer accepted. I have read, in several places, that this is now taken to be a statistical artifact, based on the fact that if looking for a specific species, the odds are very high that you will never find "the last one". This produces a tail-off in the fossil record that looks like a gradual dying out of species but is actually what would be statistically expected to be seen for an actual sudden/catastrophic killing off of species

Is that right? I've got Darwin's Dangerous Idea on my bookshelf in the "not yet read section". must get around to it.

Beautifully put.

Yes I'm taking the bird/dinosaur thing as read. The problem with this sort of thing is that scientific language and poetic language do not necessarily overlap. So for example, I've tried a couple of times to do a pice on evolution; but you just try to find a graceful rhyme for "prokaryotic"....

Thankyou. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm currently working on a "Dies Irae" The death of the dinosaurs, but it's uphill work to pull it all together......

There's no point bombarding me with examples. You have it wrong. Get your head around the fact that natural selection is NOT random. READ what has been posted, otherwise I am wasting my time on this thread.

You are missing the point. There are two parts to the process. 1) Variation is random 2) The selection process is highly non-random. Natural selection is NOT random

Great. Thanks

And take part in forums like this one. Whatever your level of knowledge or ignorance, there is always someone around who can discuss things of interest at your level, or preferably, just a bit above your level. If you stretch yourself a bit and go around topics which interest you, you will soak up knowledge like a sponge.

Thanks folks. I rather thought these would be the kind of responses it would bring. Can anyone tell me a bit more about the potassium-argon dating method? Is it a radoactive dating technique?

A bit of speculation of my own. If anyone can contribute with evidence or relevant information I'd love to hear it. Many now accept that the great extinction at the KT boundary was probably caused by an asteroid hit. One of the puzzles regarding that extinction is the selection of animal species, specifically dinosaur species surviving the catastrophe. We still have the birds with us, but in different forms to the archaic birds, and the non-avian dinosaurs are gone. Has anyone suggested the following? Or, can you suggest a book or other reading? Birds now largely have one of two mechanisms for attracting a mate; either gaudy plumage which they may display in some kind of dance, or singing. Not many use both. Off-hand I can only think of lyre birds. By extension, it seems reasonable to think that the dinosaurs may have had similar behaviours and we know now that feathers were common among the dinosaurs. We also know that the feathers came in degrees; from a few plumaceous wisps to a full body covering. The lucky survivors of the KT strike also needed to be lucky reproducers for their line make it through to the present. Could these lucky few have been the ones with a combination of (a) A full set of feathers (b) The habit of attracting a mate by singing? A full set of feathers would be an aid to survival simply in the sense of being “body armour”. And even feathers badly damaged in the strike and its immediate aftermath (heat, blast, atmospheric fallout, sulphuric acid rain etc) will regrow at the next moult if their owner has not been too badly damaged. Feathers as insulators would also be hugely useful is the medium term as an aid to survival against the cold darkness of the “nuclear winter” following the strike. However, in the darkness, which was deep enough to kill most of the plant life, a bird who tried to attract his mate with a plumage display would have severe problems. His prospective partners would not be able to see (and presumably admire) his plumage. A bird who sang on the other hand, would be able to find his mate even in the darkness. So, could the deciding factor in who survived the extinction lottery of the KT strike be (1) A full set of feathers that would aid immediate survival And (2) Singing as the mate attracting mechanism This has probably been suggested elsewhere, but I would like to read more developed explanations if anyone can tell me where to look.

A point that I forgot to include in my last post. One of the common dirving mechanisms in evolution is what has been described as the "arms race". e.g. the antelope develops longer legs and so becomes faster, therefore the lion that hunts it must become faster, therefore the gazelle must become faster, therefore the lion........ Such developments are widespread and hard/impossible to escape for the organisms and lineages involved in them. The consequences are varied. Such arms races produce anything from the breathtaking speed of the cheetah to the teeth of the sabre tooth cat. I mention predators particularly because the effect is very obvious and easy to explain in these cases. However, it means that the individuals concerned are trapped in a one way race to specialisation. For the example of the sabre tooth cat; there have been a number of species of them, all extinct. In each case this specialisation arose, became more and more extreme and finally drove their possessors into extinction. The relevance of this to the thread is that this kind of event occurs through a mechanism that any engineer (myslef for example) would recognize as positive feedback. Nothing mysterious and quantum mechanical about it. Positive feedback is, almost without exception in engineering, a bad thing. And I only say "almost" because I'm sure that somewhere out there, there's got to be a good example of it, but I'm blowed if I can think what it is. The point is that positive feedback drives a reaction out of control, and whether in engineering, physics, economics or biology, it can result in tears before bedtime. Sexual selection is the other biological arena where it makes itself felt. If the only way for a male to have a female is have the biggest horns, the greatest prowess in battle, the gaudiest colours, the most gorgeously elaborate song, then the successful males with pass on these characterists and become more and more extreme in their behaviour/physique. We end up with the peacock's tail (weighing down its owner), the fighting bull seal (killing their own pups in their zeal to attack their opponents), the antlers of the elk (fatally locking in battle with the opponent and dooming both). So.... no need for quantum mechanics. Think simple.

I heard on the news a couple of weeks ago, for the first time, that the economists are now starting to calculate inflation for food in a separate index to general inflation (I live in the UK, other countries probably use a slightly different set of indices). I think this may be the start of global warming/climate change starting to "bite" the wealthy countries where they can't ignore it. The causes of food inflation running higher than the general trend were; the Australian drought, conversion of areas where food is normally grown to productions of crops for green fuel e.g. ecodiesel etc and farmers in sundry other areas beginnning to find that conditions don't quite suit their traditional crops. Anyone heard anything else relating to this? Or got any opinions?

I was invited onto this thread and having read my way through, here are my thoughts. Forgive me if I seem to be telling my grandmother to suck eggs, but I'm unsure of the background of the participants, so I'll labour some, perhaps obvious points. I should first say that I am utterly unqualified to comment on QM. My knowledge in that area is close to nil. However, I have a fairly solid understanding in the area of natural and sexual selection and evolution. If I understand the gist of the thread, and I'm not sure that I get all of it; there are two aspects to selection which, it seems to me are being confused. 1) The mechanism of natural selection is that in a population of individuals, there exists variety. It is this variety that makes individuals more or less fit to survive and reproduce in their given circumstances. This variety is essentially random. The more fit indivuals will tend to survive and reproduce. The less fit are less likely to survive and/or reproduce. This is natural selection and it is ruthlessly non-random Sexual selection was mentioned. In this case the capacity for a male to reproduce depends on his ability to win the females; either through appealing to their sense of aethetics (e.g peacocks, bowerbirds) or his ability to do battle with his other male rivals and come out victorious (e.g stags, elephant seals). In this case the winner takes all. It has been estimated that in these species, something ike 10% of the males get 90% of the matings. Again, highly non-random. In neither of these cases is any of the "design" of the individual in any way a result of that individual's choice, or that of its parents. Inidividuals simply work with what nature provided them and sink or swim as a result. 2) The variety mentioned above bears the caveat that it ust be variety capable of being transmitted to the next generation. Losing a leg in early life does not imply that, should the individual succeed in producing offspring, those offspring would be missing a leg. However, it is taken as read that offspring will resemble parent and this is the information carried genetically in the cell nucleus in the DNA of the individuals. Now, for number two, the information carried by the DNA, I daresay that QM have something to say. I'm no biochemist, but I'm sure that when trying to describe say, the folding of a protein such that it will react only with a given chemical entity, QM is probably a useful descriptive tool. I don't know; as I say, I'm unqualified to comment on this area but things are happening here at a scale where QM may well apply. The variety expressed in the body and behaviour of an invidual (its phenotype) arises from variety in the details of the DNA of that individual from that of another. However, this tells you nothing about the action of natural/sexual selection. It is merely describing the mechanisms at molecular level whereby variety is maintained and transmitted. What is important is that the individual should be stronger/faster/more aggressive/more attractive to females/smarter etc than its rivals. Look at it this way. If my car breaks down, I'm not looking for an explanation in terms of particle physics and the action of electrons in the wiring or of a calculation of the speeds of individual molecules of organic and inorganic chemicals in the exhaust pipe or of quantum fluctuations in the energy flows in and out of the battery. All this may be true but that doesn't make it a useful level of explanation. I gain more understanding of my car's problems by knowing where to find the spark plugs. So if discussing the shape of a fish for example, it may be true at one level that such and such a set of interactions at quantum level affect the action of hox genes in such a way as to produce an animal with a long streamlined shape, but that isn't actually telling you what you want to know. The action of a related set of hox genes has also produced the streamlined shape of dolphins or of plesiosaurs. The same could be said of the flying mechanism of birds, bats and pterosaurs. More understanding is gained for this purpose by considering how individuals living in similar environments and dealing with similar problems can be sculpted by natural selection in similar ways. e.g a long streamlined shape is advantageous in the open sea to catch prey or escape predators. Therefore holders of such a shape are more likely to survive and reproduce. The detail of exactly how at a molecular/DNA level these similarities are acheived is all of course important and interesting stuff and we are learning more about this at a considerable rates of knots (I recommend "Many Forms Most Beautiful" as reading on this subject, but a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of natural selection and sexual selection will gain you more for the purpose of understanding how individuals successfully interact with their environment. It is also worth noting that Darwin made a thoroughgoing case for natural and sexual selection a hundred year before we knew anything at all about the science of genetics.

OK. I'll have a look at it.

Some like my style, others don't. I've had it said that rhyming is "old-fashioned" and others say otherwise. I do what works for me, and, although it's much more difficult to construct to a rhyme and metre, I like having a structure to work with. It makes you carefully consider what you are trying to say. But mainly I simply enjoy doing this. It's a bonus if others like it too.

Thanks for that. And don't worry about my thinking anything "negative". There's nothing clever about expressing oneselves badly. It's the job of the questioner to pose the question in a clear and coherent fashion.

Ted Prize 2007. E O Wilson's "wish" for "The Encyclopedia of Life" There's a wonderful little film in the middle of his speech. It's really got the "Wow!" factor

THankyou for that Yes, you've got the point of what I was trying to ask. I think I must have expressed myself badly if the previous reader thought that my question was "dodgy" Yes, as you say, most mamals do not have colour vision. It is my assumption that this was an adaption during the time when our early mammalian ancestors were nocturnal shrewlike creatures. i.e. WE do no have colour vision in the dark. Below a certain light level we see in monchrome. That being the case, we (the primates) must have re-evolved our colour vision. Now I don't know if this was from a standing start, so that our method of colour vision is unique. Or did we perhaps "flick a (genetic) switch" back to "on" and rediscover the colour vision our reptile ancestors may have had. If that is the case, presumably we share much of the mechanism with the birds.

THE TRUTH The dreaming in the mind’s eye shapes our world and thoughts, As we seek the truth and pattern in the wonders nature-wrought. We seek the structure in the chaos, the ripple in the flow, To find the truth that really is the universe we know. Some say all truths are equal truths, one truth is truth belied. Others “My truth, the only truth, and proof is faith denied”. Thus minds are held in poverty. Thus souls held in thrall. We are the first, only perhaps, could seek the truth at all. Once the world was flat for us, the sky a dome of blue, ‘Twas obvious to all, therefore, obviously, it must be true. The world sat on a turtle though I ne’er heard what, The turtle thought about all this, or on what it might be sat When asked this question, after thought, a lady once was heard to say, Young man, no more of that nonsense. It’s turtles all the way! They said a golden chariot of flame would bathe the world in light, A silver ship would glimmer down, would shimmer down by night. And gloried poetry seduced once more, with tales, the mind of man Our world was set amid the spheres of stars and moon and sun. The wandering stars on each were set, each planet to its sphere, From each there came celestial song, divine for human ear. This was, they said, the Mind of God, made plain for man to see, The singing crystal spheres entwined, The Creator’s Harmony. In splendour all Creation would ring in crystal song, Behold the Music of the Spheres! Seductive, beautiful and wrong. When a comet passed across the sky, it pierced for all to see, Each glassy sphere. How was this so? The spheres could not be. And now our Voyagers sail the night, in modern oddessey To where, perhaps, our words and music others then might see. Perhaps beyond the winds of Sol until, amid the winds anew, They turned to gaze, behind, within. They saw our world of blue. Our world in lost in vastness. Marvels beyond compare. No human mind ever conceived the glories truly there. Miracle enough to live at all, no need, for constructs of the mind. To see the pale blue dot proclaims the Truth for all of humankind.

Martin, It pleases me enormously that you seem to have enjoyed reading that so much; mainly because you seem to have got out of it exactly what I intended; correct information and my sense of the poetry of what lies around us. Although I havea huge interest in all things science, and a technical education (my background is in engineering and I've done a few units with the Open University) that fact is that I'm not involved in anything like that now in my day to day work. I'll never be able to contribute to "real" science, so I do this kind of thing instead. Thus encouraged, I think I'll post another one. It's called "The Truth" and I'm just deciding whether it belongs in Astronomy and Cosmology" or in General Science.

Thanks for the replies folks. i love science poetry, but so much of it is limited to limericks etc. I try to catch the "Wow" factor and that is what I look for in other pieces. Any links are wlecome:-)