Mr Skeptic

Yes, in this case quite a bit of dust could be trapped in porous objects, especially cloth, rugs, etc. If you happen to be hypersensitive to the drug, you may want all such objects washed professionally. If you are thinking of licking the floor to get high, forget it.

Wouldn't Obama be best off picking an older white female who isn't Clinton as his VP? But I don't really know who that might be.

There's no reason why evolution is incompatible with intelligent design. Keep in mind that us intelligent people sometimes use evolutionary algorithms to design stuff (mostly when we don't know what we're doing, cause it works anyways). In that sense, using evolutionary algorithms to design life would be a good design strategy if life is intended to continuously adapt/evolve. Or we could still be "unfinished", with our universe being the design parameters for the evolutionary algorithm. In any case, the major problem with intelligent design is that it is not incompatible with anything.

If they are dry, they will hardly react at all IIRC. One drop of water on the sodium and it reacts rapidly.

It's definitely possible, especially if you are intelligent and interested. If you want to self-learn, you will need some good web-searching skills. A site I liked for physics was hyperphysics. Dunno about math, but you could try mathworld or sosmath

It would be possible, though I must say I've never heard of crumbly medication and it would be a bad idea. I've heard of someone who died from peanut allergies due to kissing someone who had recently eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But I've never heard of crumbly medicine, and if you mean pills, they are usually coated with something to make them go down easily, which should keep it from releasing powder.

To decrease cooking times, via increasing the boiling point of water and hence the temperature that the food is cooked. Note that at high altitudes, this can be used to counter the effects of the lower pressure that can result in insane cooking time.

What about the systems that use the earth's magnetic field to propel themselves? Would that also require too much power?

A bad idea, mostly due to being a falling hazard, as well as illegal. And you would have to stay away from the wires, or you may find that they take a shortcut through you to the metal and down to the ground. This looks more like a dumb idea than an experiment. If you aren't completely sure that it is safe, you shouldn't do it. If you are completely sure it is safe, it is not an experiment. There's lots of cool experiments that don't have the risk of falling to your death, such as turning a lemon into a battery.

Does that mean that baby diapers make good compost?

I'd agree with this, that evolution is effectively unchallengeable. The mechanism is simple yet powerful, and precludes very few things. Finding a copy of the Bible in our genes or something else that is (truely) irreducibly complex would be one of the few things that might disprove it. As for furry fish, be aware that mammals with snake genes have been found (apparently due to a retrovirus).

The biggest advantage of Linux is that it is Open Source. A lot comes from that, since anyone who wants can improve it. No one, not even Linus Torvalds, can force an unpopular "feature", or drop support for the older version. It can be customized to an extent limited only by the skills and amount of time one is willing to spend on it. If someone finds a bug, anyone can fix it. Etc etc. All this makes Linux the ultimate coder's computer. Of course, Linux has lately become an operating system for anyone, and user friendly distros like Ubuntu will make this more so. Currently, the major limit on Linux is that many programs, notably games, won't run on it. Attention has been focused on this, and some games that were designed for Windows can actually be made to run better on Linux. However, doing this is more complicated than a simple install, and possibly illegal/violation of the end user license agreement. In any case, I predict that the open source model will eventually win out against closed source models, though that might simply mean that Microsoft makes their software open sourced. Also, another thing about Linux and Open Source in general is trust. I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft has the ability to spy on users (too good an opportunity to pass up), whereas with Open Source such a problem would inevitably be found.

Well, when I found that article I decided to google up a more detailed explanation. Anyhow, I found it was discussed by Michael Behe. Behe claimed that it wasn't that big a deal -- E coli that can use citrate have been found elsewhere, and in any case E coli have the ability to metabolize citrate, but needed the ability to bring it into the cell. One of the proteins E coli have transports citrate, and it was overexpressed in one of the E coli that could eat citrate. In any case, Behe said it took a surprisingly long time to acquire the mutations needed in that experiment. But then, you should know that Behe is strongly biased against evolution. It does seem what you were asking for, though be aware that he is one of the more reasonable ones. More info below: http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/behes-multiple-mutations-needed-for-e-coli/

On the other hand, there are a few species that are "keystone species," whose loss would drastically affect the ecosystem. For example, bears catching trout or salmon, provide some nutrients from the ocean for the forest, or beavers that build dams. I don't know whether any amphibians are keystone species though. If not, then the effect of removing them could be guestimated from looking at where they are in the food web.

Sorry young Padawan, but to receive much more energy from electromagnetic waves you will need your receptor to cover much more surface area. Putting more power into an antenna, you can transmit farther away, or amplify weaker signals. Though you can receive some power from transmissions, like in batteryless radios, it is a small amount and unlikely to pay for the costs of making the antenna.

It would be quite possible. You'd need to make it large enough that you could pass rocks through the center of it without having to break them apart. It would have to bury itself as it goes, though, and would need a very efficient "drill". In any case, it would eventually have to stop, due to failure when reaching magma, rock, solid iron core, or the center of the earth (no more gravity). Additionally, I doubt enough energy could be extracted compared to that required to produce it, nor that a drill of sufficient efficiency could be made. Clever idea though.

That's interesting. Yet until recently, and still in poorer countries, people loose lots of their teeth, so the extra teeth would still be useful. True enough. But many people use the bible as a guide to morality, so for many millions of people it has some value. Well, it might surprise you then that people who go to church tend to disagree with that.

Sorry, Sayonora3. You may soon need a new avatar

I disagree with this one. With our modern diet they may well be worthless, but before they were useful for tough foods and such, and as a replacement for lost teeth (which there were a lot of). Now, having replaceable teeth, that would be good design. For that matter, being able to regenerate all body parts would be useful, especially if we were designed to live forever. Not really; they'd be a minor embarrassment at most. Since God cursed all of creation after Adam sinned, that's an excuse for pretty much anything. As to the morality of doing so, especially since he forbade punishing children for their father's crimes, that's much more questionable.

I think we would notice if we were heading towards a black hole the size of our solar system. It would have to be massive!

It should be detectable, but it would be hard to separate the two particles completely, as that would require as much energy as to create an electron and a positron. As for the induced dipole, I could calculate the equations if I knew the equation for the attraction between an electron and a positron at extremely close range. Anyhow, the idea is not too different from that of virtual particles.

According to NewScientist, other primates also like cooked foods, so it seems that it was not an acquired taste. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13999-nothing-beats-a-homecooked-meal--even-for-apes.html

I agree with this. The problem is not that representatives are not influential enough, it is that people are not influential enough on the representatives. If each representative is doing the will of the people, how much influence each of them individually has is of little concern.

So, what is the advantage associated with cooking? Breaking down cell walls? Denaturing proteins? I can't imagine too many nutrients that could be broken down by heating without destroying them, except perhaps starch. Maybe denaturing structural proteins? What is it that makes cooking make food more digestible?

The rest of them would be their electric fields and magnetic moments ... which would be canceled. But if there were an external electric field, it would pull them slightly apart, forming a dipole. Then it would have some energy, and some mass (potential energy due to the slight separation of charges). So I'd say it would be detectable.