DrDNA

Yes sir. It seems that most (all?) cases of human spontaneous combustion involve people with (uhm.....make that dead people that used to have) careless smoking habits. http://www.csicop.org/si/9611/shc.html Recipe for homemade human candle = lit cigarette, flammable polyester pajamas or glass of strong liquor, and passed out drunk person (as stationary source of fuel/fat). On second thought, maybe all that tar in their lungs caught fire like oily rags in a bucket.

Your description reminded me of a Stirling engine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

Gotcha. And I understand. To be honest, my own minimalist points would include viruses, which I actually do not consider to be life. Maybe I should have said compartmentalizes, stores and perpetuates information....excluding anything that must rely completely on something else's metabolism in order to do so.......

You know it! Endless amounts of energy. And money will be obsolete, everyone will spend their time working towards the betterment of all of mankind, and the science officer will have pointy ears and green blood...... .....and we will go to work each day on our own flying pigs (which we won't eat no matter how good they taste and how much we are tempted). It will be wonderful.

The energy part: "Life at its simplest remove is essentially the storage of energy."

Manage to do what? Store info and perpetuate it (managed by converting energy into building blocks...which you of course know....) or have a goal (which I suspect "life" does not have in its most rudementary forms.....goal = a word that perhaps was used too loosely by me)?

In the future, our food will be assimilated directly from atoms in replicators. So farms, slaughterhouses, and animal suffering at the hand of man will be unpleasant, but distant memories from our barbaric, uncivilized past. We are ready Mr Scott. Energize.

With due respect, I disagree. I believe that life, in its simplest form, compartmentalizes and stores information with a goal of perpetuation of that information. I view energy simply as a tool that is used by life to achieve that goal. I also believe that this delineates "life" from, for example, fire (in respectful reference to Pioneer's theory about fire being life). Of course I admit that I could be prejudiced at least in part because the information of life as we know it happens to be nucleic acids. Interestingly, I normally would expect your statement to come from a physicist, not a computer science guy.

Hi Rote. Welcome!

I don't know why, and I apologize that it is somewhat off topic, but every time I look at this thread I immediately get a vision of PETA members "liberating" monkeys and other warm climate animals so that they can slowy feeze to death in the winter. I guess scavangers and maggots have gotta eat too......

I think this is the Homework Help forum. Does this relate to mychells' topic?

How about the recent buzz about the burning of salt water using microwaves supposedly discovered by a homeopathic cancer researcher? In other words, does misinterpretation of electrolysis qualify? If indeed this was not misinterpretation of electrolysis, and this in fact the genuine article, in other words a novel discovery.......then never mind. Buzz! Sorry, but that is incorrect sir. You were very close. Unfortunately, there were actually ten points. Nine as quoted from the judge in Europe (identified in your link to another thread and my link to the article in The Guardian) plus one additional point about Al Gore being a pompus Equus asinus. We do have a number of fine parting gifts for you; including an all expense paid trip via a private jet and ground transport in our Chevy Suburban fleet to Al Gore's excessively expansive mansion in beautiful Music City USA, Nashville Tennesse. Entertainment at the mansion will be provided by Al's dialogue from the award winning documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth and Al's electric meter; which, during the entire course of your stay, you will simultaneously listen to and watch spin at thousands of rpm. Thanks for playing and see you next time.

"Bad" because: "The film claimed that low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls "are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming" - but there was no evidence of any evacuation occurring · It spoke of global warming "shutting down the ocean conveyor" - the process by which the gulf stream is carried over the north Atlantic to western Europe. The judge said that, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it was "very unlikely" that the conveyor would shut down in the future, though it might slow down · Mr Gore had also claimed - by ridiculing the opposite view - that two graphs, one plotting a rise in C02 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed "an exact fit". The judge said although scientists agreed there was a connection, "the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts" · Mr Gore said the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to human-induced climate change. The judge said the consensus was that that could not be established · The drying up of Lake Chad was used as an example of global warming. The judge said: "It is apparently considered to be more likely to result from ... population increase, over-grazing and regional climate variability" · Mr Gore ascribed Hurricane Katrina to global warming, but there was "insufficient evidence to show that" · Mr Gore also referred to a study showing that polar bears were being found that had drowned "swimming long distances to find the ice". The judge said: "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm" · The film said that coral reefs all over the world were bleaching because of global warming and other factors. The judge said separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as over-fishing, and pollution, was difficult · The film said a sea-level rise of up to 20ft would be caused by melting of either west Antarctica or Greenland in the near future; the judge ruled that this was "distinctly alarmist" " And because Al Gore is a pompus Equus asinus. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/11/climatechange?gusrc=rss&feed=8

No need to apologize, we accept you as you are Fred.

Regardless of the exact numbers, I would like to see that changed. That as in, vote an entire ballot republican or democrat by performing one simple action. Unlike the electoral college system, it is not in the constitution. The way it is now, we ask a significant percentage of the population to NOT think about voting every election and they do so superbly (not think). It also is a major hinderence to 3rd party candidates (as Lockheed has noted), which is probably why it won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

But the level of iron (and other salts and minerals) is steadily going up all over the ocean as more and more salts/minerals are leached out of terra firma, the water evaporates, and the distilled water falls back on terra firma to leach out more salts and minerals (even without human activities). So the concentration of ALL solutes are going up ocean-wide over time. Am I missing something here?

I meant Mike Rutherford.

1. With the dramatic increases in soil errosion because of human activities that have occured over the last century or so, haven't we actually been fertilizing the ocean for some time now? 2. If so, the obvious question is, have algael populations already increased, decreased, or remained stable? 3. Also, something that I used to hear about but don't seem to anymore: if CO2 levels are going up, what about the density of organisms that consume CO2? Aren't algae and other plant populations supposed to increase? Where is the rebound effect? 4. The arogance of the human species never ceases to amaze me. This (dumping massive quantities of anything into the ocean) wreaks of something with potentially numerous unintended consequences.

True. Pigs are omnivores and, unlike a 3 year old child, they are not fussy eaters. They will eat just about anything you put in front of them. In that sense, and perhaps others, pigs make better children than real children. How much better behaved would children be it they knew if they didn't clean their plates (for instance) that they would be fed to a hog which would then take their place in the family? It would certainly make the pigs happy which is a good thing.

Oh no. I see the error after going back and re-reading my own posts. My fingers and my mind have become independant entities. I was convinced that *YOU* were mixing up "carbon credits" with "carbon tax credits", when in fact *I* inappropriately used the term "carbon tax credits" in some cases where I intended to type "carbon credits". That was a big error on my (darn fingers') part and I am very sorry for the confusion that I have caused.

I was in fact refering to "any such carbon credit scheme". "Any such" as in private enterprizes that don't work and have no hope of cutting emissions. Efforts to cut emissions, including carbon credits, which are administered or backed by governments may or may not be viable, but I was not refering to them so I do not consider them "any such"; like Al's carbon credits at all. I would in fact be surprized to find that anyone might consider them in the same catagory. Do you? As soon as Al Gore and/or his company becomes a legitimate government, then what they are doing may be likened to, and they will be included with government-backed carbon credit incentives or penalty programs. Then, in my opinion, "any such" may include Al and his scheme. But until then, I can't help but consider "any such carbon credit schemes" that exist, like his, as self serving commercial entities, and without teeth as worthless; until someone can show otherwise, and they have not done so yet. Until then, I will remain convinced that these schemes benefit no one but themselves and perhaps their customers (a la: we polluted but we planted a tree to offset our emissions, don't we feel good now, let's do it again...).

I believe that you are correct in saying that Al Gore's focus is profit (his own). Thanks! I apprecpiate your effort, but you have not convinced me that paying Al Gore or Al Gore's company does anything for the planet. I would hope so, but that is a completely different thing. I was not refering to government incentives or actions to reduce carbon emissions. I was refering solely to Al Gore's company.

If those are my only 2 choices, I probably will be just another American that doesn't vote.

Perhaps just for humans and just perhaps. It says nothing about death regarding other creatures and plants. they died. Also, it says nothing about the possibility of human evolution before and after Adam. Man was the last created according to biblical text. How many species evolved into existence after man? There is certainly no conflict here. In fact, according to Genesis 9, God tells Adam to "replinish" the earth. Sounds like the earth was full of something before Adam. What does the sun, stars or creation of the earth (directly) have to do with biological evolution? What does this have to do with evolution? What does this have to do with evolution? Does not conflict with evolution. Does not conflict with evolution Does not conflict Christianity. 1. Occam's Razor is not a law. 2. Belief in evolution does not eleminate the existence of God nor does belief in God eleminate the existence of evolution. Where did you get this idea? Sorry, but not one thing you listed requires eleminating one or the other.

The shining light for me in the 80s music-wise was Robert Cray. If you don't know him, he is the guy that Dan Akroyd and John Belushi followed around before they filmed the Blues Brothers. The claim is that it was very loosely based on how he lives (or lived at the time). Not sure I buy it but he is absolutely a blues god. How about, The Clash Human League Flock of Seagulls Hall and Oates Billy Idol Little River Band Johnny Cougar aka John Cougar Melancamp aka John Melancamp Tom Petty Re: Genesis, What did you think about Collins' solo career? Cheers or Jeers? I really enjoyed Mike Murphy's external work, a la Mike And The Mechanics.