DrP

OK - This diagram is crude - but I have done it for you. The lines are parallel and (about) equidistant - look at how they incident onto the curved surface.... Can you see that they are further apart at impact on the curve (pole) and closer together at the middle? The same happens with the light from the sun... think back to your school days.

Even from your diagram you can see that the incident rays that hit the poles are spread over a wider area than those at the equator. If you want to understand it then zoom into your diagram of the earth and draw parallel lines in for the incident rays at 1 cm apart. ... you will see that on the curved part they are more spaced out and hit the areas closer to the poles at more than 1 cm apart. At the equator they will be closer together, like 1cm. This is the same for the energy in the rays - they are more spread out in the incident light that glances the earth rather than those that hit head on. Honestly, as I said, we teach that at junior school - no insult meant, it's just a fact.

What IS your point? Why even mention Islam and a Caliphate? Who did? The Nigerians? What has it got to do with their genetic make up? I do not understand what you are disagreeing with in this thread.

QUOTE - POST#3 ".... orientation with respect to the sun. Do you honestly believe this yourself?" Yes - so do most 10 year olds - it is taught to 10 years olds in the UK at school.... at least it was when I was at school. Test it yourself - get a basket ball or a soccer ball and shine a torch at it. Adjust your distance so that you get a small circle. Then tilt the torch so it shines at the 'poles' of the ball.... you will see that the same amount of incident light spreads out over much larger elliptical shape. The same happens with our incident sunlight upon the planet. At the equator it is equivalent to the small concentrated circle of light... at the poles it is spread over a much larger area. Thus - it is colder at the poles. (nothing to do with magnetism).

Hi William, I think you should share the info here really. From what you told me it probably is just a rock rather than a fossil. But still interesting. These other rocks of yours look igneous too. Look at some of these images of igneous rocks. They some have layers of minerals in them of different colours. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=&tbm=isch&tbs=rimg:CQqVP5F6qrKZIjjUiyw0IyE80A4-wPYYUoZvWh8WH2oOnZKlnf5CT1VasoWWkyG0-rgXScK_15N-Uam-MqrGXPREPHSoSCdSLLDQjITzQEVC2HeAZS3eDKhIJDj7A9hhShm8RnT17vwO53yYqEglaHxYfag6dkhG3JIY0UH9HNyoSCaWd_1kJPVVqyEakgziEotpg6KhIJhZaTIbT6uBcRa3gvQ6ey1UsqEglJwr_1k35RqbxEinxV9uXAfvSoSCYyqsZc9EQ8dEXIQEz6E7II6&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjziKKt0rfTAhXJPhQKHbSTCO4Q9C8IGw&biw=1517&bih=735&dpr=0.9 Do some research on places where fossils are known to be found, or look a geological map of the rocks in the area in your country and you should be able to work out where to go and look for fossils. You might even have to go on holiday for a few days to go and find them. You want Cretaceous, Triassic or Jurassic rocks really for the fun dinosaur finds... or permian for some really interesting pre dinosaur animal finds. Then there are the marine layers. Some layers just don't have animals in because there weren't any around.... or the rock was formed benieth the earth and pushed up - so no animals could have died and fossilised in it.

yea, a polite nod of acknowledgement and keep moving like your on a mission. No need to stop. You can even say your in a hurry and just keep moving if they try to stop you. Blanking them completely is a bit rude though, even if you don't like them.

I went on holiday a while back to search for some and will probably go again. You can find them not too far from where I live also, mainly marine though. I bought most of mine though from shops and internet really. I've found a few interesting things though. I've got a few bits of coprolite too. One is full of fish remains and scales, probably from a big shark. I have a nice lepidotes fish skull and a side flank in some rock. I was trying to get the skull out of the rock with an engraver, but it takes ages. I have other fish remains also. I might photograph them when I get round to it. QUOTE: StringJunky: "I think these are squid fossils" Belemnites maybe? Do it or just show them here? I've got some more I will get around to photographing and I'll stick them up here also.

Anyone collect or interested in fossils? I find them and also buy them. If you have any then lets see them. I have more stuff, but here are some of the fossils from my collection. I might put more up if anyone wants to see them. A few teeth, Some Trilobites.Some random fossils. Ichthyosaur. And some Megalodon teeth, 4 to 5.5 inches or so.

Check out the bones in these rocks I found. The bones are the black bits set into the rocks. The rocks from the area they were found are about 135 MYO from the cretaceous period. There have been many Iguanodon, Raptor, Neovenator and crocodile bone finds around the area. I think they are probably Iguanodon but I am nor certain. And here are my Ichthyosaur bits. They are from the Jurassic coast. The verts are huge. there are also some ribs, flippers and some coprolite. I've got some jaw bits somewhere too. (I didn't find these ones myself) There is also a 260MYO (Permian?) Lizard, apparently Chinese. I think he's a pretty cool little fella. My posts were merged - to clarify, I only found the rocks in the first picture myself.

William - where was the rock found? It is an important question when identifying a suspected fossil as it rules out a lot and can age the rock easily by looking at the surrounding rock. So, where did it come from? Do you know the age of the surrounding rock layer it came from? The brown layer could be something bone - but it looks like a mineral layer at first glance. Again - location can tell you what to look for (bones from the same areas tend to be the same colour due to the types of rock they are mineralised in).

He used words like 'probably'... he made no concrete claims of anything being impossible or not seeing as it is impossible to know with our current knowledge. We don't understand how it happened... but SOMETHING happened or we wouldn't be here. Probably it was some kind of evolution, as that is what everything else developed from. The clay thing can be selective of molecular type as well as being able chiralise things. I don't think there is enough to draw any firm conclusion... but I can't think of any other ways it could have happened. The micelluar formation leading to early cells seemed convincing to me... and with the recent discovery that clays and meterorites can catalyse certain chain growths I would think we will develop in our learning over the next few decades. It hasn't been explained yet - doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Do you remember talking to me about creation... probably over a decade ago? I was a creationist then. Bombardment with enough actual facts should get through eventually... depends on the level of brainwashing and the individuals ability to reason with facts and reality.... it is a bit like hypnotism in my view. It is difficult when there are grey areas, such as the formation of the first proteans, even if we explain that then there will be something else that hasn't been explained yet that they will latch onto. Even if we do eventually explain everything then they will latch onto the first few pico seconds before the BB and claim that as it can't be explained it was god. I think these people are becoming fewer though. The gaps are closing for the god of the gaps.

There is no point sticking his head in the sand though - there are explanations out there that seriously alter the values put on those probabilities he was waving about.

re molecular weights: GPC and light scattering techniques are used often. I think each method is based on comparisons to known standards though rather than direct calculation, so 'reliable' is debatable depending on how accurate your reading needs to be. You can use calibration standards similar to your sample, so, use polystyrene standards for styrene like polymers and so on. If you can get polyester standards then calibrate with those before running your polyesters. You can calculate theoretical MWs from your reaction data.... this will be based on the yield, the MW of the monomer, the concentration and efficiency of the initiator and the like. But this doesn't take into account the many and sometimes unknown, side reactions that can take place during polymerization. (I think statistical terminations of chains can also effect the MW and certainly the polydispersites of reactions) re hydroxyl value: I do not know how they measure that. Could it be done by comparing peak heights on an NMR spectra? I'll leave that to someone else.

whoknows - where did you get those statistical probabilities you quote in post 47, like 1 x 10^100? Did you take into account catalyzation from the earths clays? Or forced arrangements from some other force or source unknown? I don't think you can seriously brandish about those probabilities as straight facts - even if they were so, 4 .5 billion years is a long time. No one was there, but we have been creeping closer to finding out. Look up the part that simple clays play in the formation of early proteans. I don't have a reference here as I saw it in a documentary, but the inclusion of ground clays into the test tube when trying to simulate the early conditions seriously altered the experimental results.

QUOTE: "Was the radio on..." No Dim, it wasn't - I was away at a conference and was in halls accommodation. I had thought that I might have heard it the day before somewhere on maybe on the radio whilst sleeping, but I have looked it up and the lyrics 'seem' original to me. I have written other songs, so I don't think it was impossible that I just had a creative moment in my sleep. I wrote it down because I was going through a song writing phase and was looking for lyrics for new songs. I've never found the lyrics on the net, or the title of the songs (although the music is pretty bog standard).

No - this song was a real song with lyrics. I'll find them when I get home. The guitar chords carry the tune I heard in the dream. (which being fair are a pretty simple Am to D changes with a break to G and C in the chorus, then back to the chilled out Am to D changes for the main verses). It was called 'Fool Love'.... and as far as I remember it sounds like it did in my dream (apart from I remember there being female backing vocals in the dream).

ooh - poor you.. I have woken up once, sat up and ripped my back just getting out of bed - it is very depressing. lol

The 'pull' is a slight over stretch. I always thought there could be micro tears in this case, which probably heal a lot quicker than big tears.

I can play the piano quite well in my dreams... whenever there is a piano in my dreams I can sit down and play away with some cool jazz - it all seems very natural to me until I awake and find a real piano. I once wrote a song in my sleep. I dream't I heard the song coming out of a music shop.. my Dad, who was also in the dream, said 'they are playing your song'.... when I woke up I wrote down the words to it and put the guitar chords to it in the sorta key/feel it had in the dream. Only happened once though, but I still have the song in my songbook as a song I wrote.... I am feeling a little guilty now because I am not sure if I wrote it in my sleep or heard it and remembered it or something... I have never heard the song from anyone else though. (PS - I'm talking about quite lucid dreams here - not the random weird ones)

I get bad backs... sometimes, if I twist my shoulder or neck it can be excruciating. Some pain only I-buprofen seems to help... some times, a deep muscle twist/spasm/whatever (caused by an over stretch) can be hard to deal with psychologically and the only thing I can do is just go to bed, to sleep... and when I awake, all is well again! Going to sleep is a good way to heal pulled muscles. I think it is because the body relaxes and it allows faster healing than if you were up and about still using it.

That's a new one to me - I've never heard of genital mutilation as a sexual activity. It is VERY different to watching porn. Why shouldn't a lonely man (or woman) who is not very good at getting sexual partners (for whatever reason, social awkwardness, disfigured or ugly face etc) sit on his own for decades without feasting his (or her) eyes on a hot young body in the throws of orgasmic pleasure? Some people get a lot of joy from watching it (on their own or with a partner). Why try to make them feel ashamed by spouting that it is wrong? I am sure they would prefer the real thing.... but it just ain't happening for some people and they take what they can get their eyes on. ;-)

That's opinion Externet - every generation is filled with old people moaning about how the young are abusing language and doing things wrong... Language evolves, the world changes and we just have to put up with it.

...."The universe was adjusted very precisely, almost as if it were meant for our habitation" Isn't it the same as the puddle of water saying "this hole in the ground is the perfect shape for me! It must have been made precisely for me to fit into it" ? Maybe he meant it that way, maybe the inclusion of the word 'almost' was deliberate too. The world is an amazing place and can inspire numinous in many.

exactly - when I said a sausage I was thinking more along the lines of an extruded wire. I do not even know if it is possible under the right conditions with mercury or not. I would 'guess' that it would be possible under the right temps and pressures to extrude it into a longer wire. You can do it with most other metals, so why not mercury,