Mr Skeptic

Can a giant squid eat a person?

Is it possible to have a suspension that can be resolved by reading a certain thread (ie the scientific terminology thread), or even better by passing a quiz?

Rule X: There's no fun in making a pun.

Evolution_of_the_eye#Evolutionary_baggage There ya go. I think this also answers my question: our eyes make up for it by having the retina in closer proximity to the blood vessels, so better nourished. Although we get a blind spot where the nerves get together and cross the eye, we don't really notice it anyways.

Yes, about them squid eyes. Are their eyes really "better designed" than ours because the nerves are on the back of the retina? Our eyes (and modern digital cameras too it seems) have the nerves in front of the retina.

So has he managed to get a giant squid to try to mate with a camera? Maybe he'll qualify for the Ig Nobel Prize.

pioneer, the way burden of proof works is this: he who makes a claim must prove it. Someone claims animals are atheists? Great! Prove it! Someone claims animals are religious? Great! Prove it! No one is exempt, save those who make no claim.

Yeah. I read about the possibility of Earth escaping, but apparently tidal interactions between the sun and Earth will cause it to fall back in anyways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_giant#The_Sun_as_a_red_giant Still, we can avoid this fate by using the slingshot effect to accelerate Earth. All we got to do is nudge asteroids so that they come close to Earth and transfer energy to it (just be sure not to miss!).

Related to that, the Flake Equation:

We'd do just fine without the other stars, for now anyways.

The catalyst actually always "reacts" with the reactants. It forms an intermediate state (a local minima of energy). However during the later steps of the reaction, the intermediate state reacts with another reactant to give you your product and you get your catalyst back. So the catalyst is not consumed in the overall reaction.

Yes. For example, hydrogen and oxygen at room temperature will not combine into water, even though that reaction is energetically favored (a lot! -- see rocket exhaust for example). In the presence of a catalyst, hydrogen and oxygen can combine at room temperature to form water. Or, water can be split apart into hydrogen and oxygen. However, one of these reactions is by far the more energetically favored. There will still be some equilibrium with a minuscule amount of hydrogen and oxygen, but the vast majority of it will be as water at equilibrium. See equilibrium constants. A fuel cell is actually a nice example, because it is a setup that allows the reaction in one way to produce electricity, and can be done in reverse by inputting electricity. If you play your cards right, you can drive a reaction in a direction that is not energetically favorable by inputting energy. In fact your body does that all the time when it creates ATP.

Pretty much. A volatile substance will vaporize and then it can burn in the gas phase. Compare to embers that are burning in the solid phase (rather at the solid/gas boundary, ie the surface)

Yes, all reactions are reversible but the reversal can be unlikely due to a high activation energy, ending up at a higher energy level, or requiring an unlikely collision. Burning is a fairly good example of a mostly irreversible reaction, especially if what you are burning is a complex chemical.

A second is about the length it is, because it is about the time of one heart-beat. This was very convenient before clocks. 60 is a favorite number because it has so many factors it can be divided into (30, 20, 15, 10, 12, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2). Likewise, 12 has several factors (6, 4, 3, 2). 12 is particularly nice for small families as things can be divided equally among families of size 2, 3, 4, 6, 12. Compare a number like 10: it can be divided into 2 and 5 only, half as many. There were also number systems with base 60 or others. Why is 10 a convenient number? For counting on the fingers with?

I'd design a circulatory system with alternative routing of blood and shut-off capability for major arteries, so that blood can be rerouted around a major injury (not so much for small injuries as some bleeding helps maintain sterility). I'd completely redesign nerves so that the signal can be completely intracellular and electric, rather than the messy electrochemical and hormonal system we have now. This should vastly decrease reaction time, increase intelligence, and allow lower energy expenditure for the nervous system. I'd replace collagen with a network of nanotubes (and give us the enzymes needed to make nanotubes). I'd design enzyme pathways to produce the vitamins we need, rather than having to eat them. I'd design the body such that immoral behavior is painful and good behavior pleasant. I'd design us with a continuous supply of teeth rather than the two sets we have now, and limb and tissue regeneration. I'd design enzymes for the digestive tract to digest cellulose, rather than have herbivores rely on bacteria for that. I'd build in cancer resistance (so that cells die should they lose the cancer preventing genes). I'd design a way to excrete excess nutrients and minerals into a sterile package with a long shelf-life, for times of famine.

Do you have any evidence of that? Which animals have. Yet animals do have language. I'd agree that the lack of complex abstract language means animals can't have organized religion, and can't tell us about it, but there is no reason they cannot believe in supernatural beings.

How about "speculative, unsupported, poorly supported, or outright false ideas". I think the big problem is not so much the nature of the ideas but the nature of the arguments in favor of them. This description gives them the choice of considering their idea poorly supported or unlikely to be true, and hopefully they choose to support it better.

Oops, the link that says "belief religion" should say "belief revision". I guess that one is a bit formal, using set theory and all that.

It is the most reasonable solution. The free market cannot handle the presence of externalities. Properly, this tax should only apply to the uninsured (with all the money going to uninsured skin cancer patients) and the insurance companies should raise the rates of people who visit the tanning saloons, but I doubt anyone would appreciate the intrusion on privacy that this would generate. Basically, this is a perfect example of government doing as it should: fix a flaw in the free market, and yet not restrict anyone's liberties while doing so.

A feeling of mental superiority with which true believers can bash the heathen unbelievers over the head with! (but their thick skulls protect their beliefs from any change via this method). I think it offers resistance to wide-scale manipulation by religious leaders. It saves money on tithes. It discourages complacency based on unsubstantiated stories of an afterlife and of an all-powerful god directing things anyways, where the occasional theist will sit around praying instead of getting off their ass and doing something positive. It encourages trying to understand why things happen rather than explaining them away as the workings of a powerful being. I think that to clarify your question, you want to say rather than simple atheism, someone who has thought about religion thoroughly and settled upon atheism. Atheism on its own could just mean that someone lived completely under a rock and never considered or was told about supernatural beings.

Yellowstone is a massive supervolcano. It could erupt, and it would wipe out about half of North America with ash. There really doesn't seem like there is anything we could do about it either, other than hope it doesn't.

No, technically Armageddon is part of Christian ideology, and is a gigantic final battle at the end of the world. While it does seem likely that we are going to have a very impressive world war sometime, it won't end the world. Might end most of civilization, but not a proper end. Earth will eventually die; like everything else it will eventually fall victim to the laws of thermodynamics. The sun as it burns its fuel will eventually turn into a red giant that will reach all the way to earth's current orbit (though I hear Earth will move barely out of reach of actually being inside the sun). If you think global warming is bad, try living really close to a red giant. Next, after torching everything on earth, the sun also will die, and then it will be very cold on earth. And not just the sun: all sources of energy are going to eventually run out. There will be no energy to do stuff with and we all die, even if we managed to run away from the red giant sun, evacuate to a new solar system as the sun dies, etc. Eventually there will be no place to go. And then there are things that could happen before that. A good sized meteor might do us in. Global war might destroy most civilization. We probably are going to destroy the majority of earth's ecosystem via expansion, exploitation, and pollution. I'm sure there's other things that could go wrong.

I think the company in charge of your remains will suck your money dry and then dump you. And by the time we have the tech to revive you, the world will be so overpopulated that no one will want you around anyways and most of your knowledge will be obsolete. But in theory, a good idea. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged This on the other hand is a very reasonable thing to do, and also much cheaper and more likely to be of use.

No change. The an hour of bragging saving energy is nothing compared to even a little change throughout the rest of the year. But, if you can help raise awareness, please do.