Mr Skeptic

Many of our medicines stem from other species. Big money there. We are at the start of being able to do stuff like genetic engineering, and biodiveristy represents millions of years of evolution. Until we can design our own proteins very well, the ones found in other life will be of much use to us in the near future. However, this is more related to whether we can can keep the knowledge gained from them, not the species themselves. So as we advance technologically, biodiversity may become less important. In the environment, biodiversity helps maintain an equilibrium.

Oh, I forgot that one. Got to keep track with paper and pencil.

Have you made sure that there were not other methods whereby you could have guessed when to turn the head? Perhaps you could detect when he came into the room, or you both figured out how to synchronize your timing? Perhaps you could sense the anticipation of your brother (there was a "mathematically gifted" horse that did this). Perhaps you can repeat it by controlling for various transmission channels. That is, provide thermal insulation, soundproofing, electromagnetism proofing, roll dice to see when you should send the pulse, visual obfuscation (perhaps diffuse light is detected), etc, to see how the communication is done (if it really is). Now I would expect proper telepathy to be EM based, but who knows. What I think is likelier is that somehow you can sense your brother's anticipation, perhaps subconsciously hearing an accelerated heartbeat, or that you somehow synchronized when to turn the head and send the pulse (hence the training time). It would be interesting if you could do some further testing with that.

Well, if we are not talking about insect colonies, I would say that individuals in a group with altruistic individuals do better than individuals in a group without altruistic individuals. Also, the individuals in a group will do better the more altruistic individuals there are. This, of course, applies equally well to the individuals who are not altruistic, who will benefit from the others, but will not risk themselves for the others' benefit; they will benefit even more than the altruistic individuals. So we will have a conflict between group benefit and individual benefit, which seems to me like it could have unexpected consequences. For example, both the altruistic and the greedy individual would do better to surround himself with altruistic individuals, focusing his competition against greedy individuals. Us social mammals have created punishments against others who misbehave (more severe punishments for causing harm, but also some for not helping when expected to), and have developed a "tit for tat" system where we reward those who help us (this justice system also has some altruistic attributes). This forces even the greedy individuals to play nice, which also benefits the group. However, it also allows the greed genes to live on, expressed only when it will not be discovered or punished. Though the group would be better off without these greedy individuals, I don't see any way in which they could be eliminated -- except perhaps when the groups are closely related, playing off greed vs kin, which also seems to be the case for social insects. In the end, it is not clear exactly where the selection is made. The selection is of specific genes, not of individuals, groups, or kin. How genes are distributed would have a large impact on how selection proceeds.

That seems like a good idea to me. Infrastructure is very important, and generally pays off in the long run. Even if that money were diverted to infrastructure in Iraq, that would probably be better than spending it on military in Iraq (IMO). Well, I was hoping someone would do something about our aging information infrastructure. It seems that just because we were the first to have an internet infrastructure, we have been too lazy to upgrade it and so now other countries have better internet access than we do. There's really very little reason why we should have separate infrastructures for phones, TV, recreational radio, internet, digital media (physical CDs and stuff). Sure, there may be a few problems, but it could well be much better to simply have a very fast internet connection to provide all these, possibly redundant with the old infrastructure just in case. Even now, it is possible to get some of all of the above with the current internet (though it might be more difficult, or illegal), but if everyone had a fast internet connection we could do some more impressive things. It's really hard to predict what could be done, but it can only be good.

And more importantly, it has been so for a very long time.

What about the theories of the origins of various cells or cell types (eg mitochrondria, chloroplasts, white blood cells) as a separate species that got assimilated? Would that have been mutualism before they joined into a single species?

It is relatively safe to inhale hydrogen, but not as safe as helium. Avoid smoking, sparks, and fire, as you really don't want to risk lighting it (you could potentially explode). It might not be fatal, but I wouldn't want to find out. Hydrogen can asphyxiate you, so you should make sure that if you fall unconscious, you will start breathing normal air. In other words, do not attach a hydrogen mask like the oxygen ones in medicine, or fill a room with it and go there. Basically, be careful with it and you should be fine.

Well, intelligence and knowledge have a positive correlation. Having some knowledge can help you solve certain problems, and having more intelligence can help you acquire more knowledge. However, they are somewhat separate, with intelligence being closer to raw calculating power (like a cpu), and knowledge closer to raw data (like a hard drive). Then you also have working memory (which is like ram), which is also related to intelligence.

If you drink enormous amounts of water, you should also take some salts so as to not disturb your ion balance. Gatorade, or that kind of drink, will have those ions.

However, it could also be that in general, it is better to lose half your country's men, than to lose half your country's women. The women can "borrow" a man, and in one generation restore the fighting force. But if they lost half their women, it would take much longer to repopulate. So there may be some behaviors that are universally or near-universally learned. I'm quite sure that men make better fighters, especially before when strength was more of an issue, but what about the Amazon ladies?

Don't they tend to have some problems with insects and molds, and god help you if it gets wet

But is this "forwards" or "backwards" or neutral evolution? Are we better because of it? Would, say, a bacteria exposed to unsustanable amounts of mutagens be considered to be evolving, or dying out (ie, so many mutations that they will eventually die out)? Regardless, I don't think it matters. We humans are impatient, and would never wait thousands or millions of years for evolution to do its thing. We now have the ability to Intelligently Redesign (genetic engineering, new protein design, etc) ourselves, and we will use it. Perhaps we will make ourselves a different species within a few hundred years.

Good point. It is highly addictive, and the withdrawl symptoms are fatal.

That seems like a clever idea. Would that also mean that inverse square laws get slightly modified at these distances (as well as any force that could act at those distances)? That could prove to be a bit awkward, as things like type Ia supernovae would be a different brightness than expected.

The problem is that accelerators are designed to, well, accelerate particles, rather than, say, to be energy efficient. They accelerate very few particles to ridiculous speeds, but the energy that they consume is tremendous. Why would you think that we would be better off doing fusion in an accelerator than in a devise specifically designed for fusion for energy?

You may consider asking people to take an online test to determine their intelligence. This would at least reduce the rate of innocent overestimation (self-serving bias) that would tend to run rampant otherwise. However, I am not convinced of the reliability of online IQ tests, and a few of them seem more like a scam.

Thanks Martin. I suppose that has been discussed sufficiently already, so I will go look at what is already done. More than anything, I'm just trying to make sure to look at all the alternatives rather than just following the herd.

They can also be fitted with remote controls, so that they go where you tell them to.

Some plants have a daily cycle of transpiring at night (a cycle that absorbs CO2) when they will lose less water, then using all that stored CO2 in the day. Tropical plants with lots of water will transpire during the day to cool themselves. Some plants with much sunlight and little water will shape themselves so as to reduce the amount of sunlight they get, as they cannot afford to transpire to cool themselves. In as much as transpiring loses water and water is scarce, it is a necessary evil. It seems the membranes have to be wet to allow gas to diffuse, so transpiration in dryer air will result in the loss of water. Oh, and BTW, nostrils are not pores, and you have a large number of pores and a large amount of lung surface area exposed to air.

Most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent, so they tend to think they are above average instead. Just another example of how ignorance is bliss Also why what you are looking for is not likely to show up very well in a self-reported poll.

If the galaxy is not actually moving, where does the Doppler shift come from?

Yes, you'd have to change at least one of the permitivity and permeability of space to retain compliance with the [math]c = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mu\epsilon}}[/math] part of Maxwell's equations, and most likely have to change both so is not to mess up the relative strengths of electricity and magnetism. So now there's at least 3 constants to change. Interestingly, all 3 of these are defined constants. What's the cosmology theory that is similar to mine?

Big things can be a particle (like a grain of sand, etc), or a wave (like sound or water waves). Small enough things are all wavicles, which look either like a wave or a particle depending on what attribute you are looking at.

Using a toy magic wand to cure a child of hiccups?