CaptainPanic

A quick Google search revealed that these batteries are not "water powered", but "water activated". They contain mostly carbon based compounds, and are activated by a little water. http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/09/japanese-inventor-touts-water-powered-battery/ This means that they cannot be recharged by adding water a second time.

It's the volume of 5 times the Wembley Stadium in London, with a surface area of 400 tennis fields. The mass is equivalent to 90000 African elephants, and at the speed it moves it would take 600 million years to go to the moon and back!... right. Note that this is a sarcastic post about the media. And since the media nowadays also read forums and blogs, this forum is in fact also guilty of providing poor information (so therefore I thank Bascule for providing the numbers (with metric units) in the second post).

Could you please clarify what I did not read? I have tried to read everything provided in this thread before answering. If I caused some miscommunication then I apologize... but I am not aware of it. I did read that researchers found that 69-100% of the nuclei in some samples collected by the researchers were of bacterial origin. I still claim that dust is a major factor in the energy balance of the earth. There's lots of it... (I provided several links in post #13). Yet if bacteria cause 69-100% of the nucleation, then I ask: Where are they? They were only found in a number of samples... So far I have provided several world-scale phenomena that are dust-caused. Yet all the proof that nucleation of precipitation is caused by bacteria is small-scale (samples taken at several locations on the surface of the earth). p.s. I realize that my questions are not answered in the articles so far provided in the thread. I actually did read most, if not all. I hope you can understand that I keep defending my claims in order to get more information. Asking the right questions is very important.

The link you provided earlier (http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/02/bacteria_clouds) suggests that the bacteria are of the family of P. Syringae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudomonas_syringae). Wikipedia states nothing about transparency or buoyancy of these bacteria. The bacteria have a flagella (sort of a tail), which increases their drag in a fluid (air) and this might enable them to fly. This means that their density is higher than air, but the air resistance they find is so high that they can still fly. This is a size-dependent phenomenon. I therefore disagree with your first argument, and I still challenge the claim that microbes play a larger role than dust in nucleation of rain. And I also doubt that the bacteria are transparent. Even the lens in our eye is not fully transparent. It does not let IR radiation through. It also absorbs some UV radiation... it happens to be UV that comes from the sun (not absorbed in the atmosphere). Frankly, I don't believe in transparent bacteria that are lighter than air, like a blimp. They would be flying micro-bombs in stealth mode, full of hydrogen or methane (how else would they fly? Bacterial helium separation from the atmosphere is just nonsense).

Meteorologists make models that are used to predict the weather. Once the models are working, they become a weather man. I think the most work is in making/improving those models. The math they use (I think it's mostly data processing and statistics, but I may be wrong) is used to include as many parameters as possible. Air Quality Meteorologists are doing more specific work on the (you must have guessed it already) air quality. This means they make models and try to predict where pollution is going to go... Pollution includes, among other things, fine dust ("particulate matter") and sulphur / nitrogen oxides (SOx, NOx). These are not very healthy, so it is nice to know what's going on in the atmosphere. These guys are the ones that give off smog-alarms. I think the two (meteorologists and air quality meteorologists) work at the same companies... I'd like such a job actually. Must be cool to see some weather front coming and to be able to say: "Told you so... :D" Nuclear Engineers probably work with nuclear material. Designing/operating nuclear facilities. No idea really how much math is in that. It's not my field at all. And I don't know anything about Penn State. I live on the other side of the Atlantic

Temperature of what? The outside air (the weather)? The coffee? Your body (which should be 37 deg C always)? Caffeine goes from a water solution through the walls of the intestines into the blood. It is safe to assume that this happens at 37 deg C. The coffee cools down to 37 deg C quite fast after you drink it. This mass transfer (diffusion) would likely proceed a little faster at higher temperatures, but that's rather irrelevant in a warm-blooded body. The weather undoubtedly has an influence as well... If you sweat and dry out a little, take up of chemicals from watery solutions will change. But I don't want to make any guesses, because it's really not my field of expertise.

you could even do without the newtometer... hang weights on the hair, and see when it breaks. If you know how much weight was hanging on the hair right before it broke, you have an answer. The big trick will be to actually tie more and more things to the hair

I agree with Hermanntrude: First do a set of experiments with identical concentration, but different temperatures. Then a set with identical temperature, but different temperatures. This way you learn about the individual parameters.

How about: Take some metal wire, glue a ribbon onto it, and shape it which way you want. Different color ribbons can be used.

The eternal battle: Critical thinking vs. Belief I like to think critically about the world, it has helped me a lot... and I think everyone should do the same... But there are times when I want things to go my way, when I want the people to trust me... to believe me. And I am sure everyone does this every now and then (even when it's about simple day to day things... every time you fail to give logical arguments and someone still acts to your comments, critical thinking failed). I am trying to motivate people to be critical... and I am also guilty of preventing people from doing that.

Filled it in... Good luck! p.s. First time I really think about GMO food. It's not very common here I think (except the tomatoes which really look like aliens).

You wrote that you don't think that we're going to destroy the world with our inventions. then you "prove" that point by giving useful inventions, and by showing that some new things benefit mankind. That's no proof. Proving your point would need some guarantee that nobody is gonna press the Big Red Button. You can invent medicines and explore space as much as you like. When someone presses the Big Red Button, and someone on the other side of the Atlantic does the same, then it's all over... and as far as I know there is no 100% guarantee that it will not happen tomorrow. And the ads on the website where you have your essay are ridiculously irritating.

There's something that is / was confusing me... We have a lot of dust in the air (man made with known origins, such as smog and other dust clouds). We know that this blocks a significant amount of sunlight... the best tests were done in the days after 9-11 when the daytime temperature was 1 degree hotter, and the night about 1 degree colder. (http://www.stanfordreview.org/Archive/Volume_XXXVI/Issue_8/Opinions/opinions1.shtml - read the 8th paragraph) Fine dust (which is man made) is classified in several categories: PM1, PM2.5, PM10... where PM stands for Particulate matter, and the number is the max. size in micrometers. PM10 is the biggest as far as I know. PM0.1 is the smallest. This is generally referred to as UFP (ultra fine particles). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM10 Bacteria are all prokaryotes, and according to wikipedia, that means their size is about 0.1 - 10 micrometer... The same as man made dust. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria There are now two possibilities. 1. The airborne bacteria are smaller, and wikipedia's page on bacteria does not include these airborne bacteria. In that case they may block less sunlight, but can still provide more nuclei for water to condensate. 2. The airborne bacteria are the same size as other bacteria we know. In that case I still cannot see why they have no effect on blocking the sunlight, even without any condensation of water. Dust can definitely block sunlight without any condensation of water (smog in big cities, and the dust cloud that occasionally crosses the pacific from China to California are some examples http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast17may_1.htm). If it is true that there are more bacteria in the sky than dust particles, then they should have a significant effect on the planet's energy balance (blocking the sunlight and IR radiation, as well as cloud formation). 3. (When there's two possibilities, there is always a third) - Maybe these bacteria find a way to stay closer to the ground? Most rain clouds are not stratosphere giants, but stay within the first kilometer of the atmosphere. We should get a handful of these bacteria, and fluidize them in a bed, while checking their structure with some spectroscopy. I would like to know if their structure changes with changing pressure. Perhaps they are more sophisticated pilots than a (dead) dust particle, and perhaps they have an altimeter.

Thanks for the links. The longer I think about it, the more sense it makes... life is everywhere, so why not also in the upper parts of the atmosphere? How much sunlight would all the microbes/bacteria absorb while they float around up there? (And how much IR radiation from the surface?)

SkepticLance provided a link to an article that contains data with units (metric). It also contains numbers on the relative decrease of the surface of the ice (percentage, not metric, imperial or SI... but dimensionless ). I personally believe that the changing climate will not be a nice constant rise in temperature, equal all over the world. It seems to become more turbulent, so more ups and downs... with an average that seems to suggest that the trend is going towards warmer (plenty of links about that already on this forum, no need to add more).

The point I made is not applicable on the entire climate, but more on the individual components in our life (meat, car etc.). Climate studies should all include the same major parameters. Studies on CO2 emissions for meat production will however give a very wide range of numbers, because of different assumptions. We know (roughly) how many kilometers are made by cars yearly. We don't know for what purpose they are made. We know how much coal is burned, but it is less well known what is heated with it (etc etc). Therefore I propose that it might even be easier to make a global climate model than a life cycle assessment of a steak on your plate. (Ok, I am making it easy for you guys to flame me now - I never made a global climate model, and it is most likely very complicated - at least it contains everything, where a life cycle assessment of a steak does certainly not include everything, and the selection of parameters is what makes it so difficult)...

Studies rarely take the entire life cycle into account... That is not necessarily subjective data processing or a conspiracy by big companies. It is actually very very difficult to take all parameters of the earth into one model. Even someting basic as "meat eating vs. driving a car" becomes tricky... there's -the production of the plant feed for animals (fertilizer, plowing, harvest, storage, irrigation etc...) -additional nutrition for animals from industrial sources -medicine and other fine chemicals for animals -transportation and refrigeration of meat -storage of meat (up to two years in a storage is common, yes, you eat meat of 2006 today) -packaging -cooking of meat -your own digestive system -your muscles that you use for walking (some walk more efficient than others) (And what part of this list is powered by fossil fuels, which by sustainable energy like biomass)? Compare that to the oil well - tanker - oil refinery - gas station - combustion engine - type of car and even type of road (dirt/uphill etc.)... which also contains loads of parameters... and realize that it's damn difficult to compare the two. A study can say anything they like (and get a nice headline, good for newspaper, good for researcher).

^^ That's a compliment, right? I remember the Mythbusters episode: metal / hardrock was the best for plants. (It happens to be also the most noisy... which agrees with my theory of music increasing CO2 / O2 mass transfer). The mythbusters could tackle the problem once and for all by taking at least 2 greenhouses with identical music but at a different volume. I would expect the louder music to generate better growth results.

Soon trash is money. It contains loads of carbon, which can be burned. If it's just floating around, it is just waiting to be harvested. Stuff that's floating in water is actually really easy to pick up... So I see this oceanic garbage belt as a minor problem. One problem that might actually be solved by our capitalist system. We should be glad that there are a few of these accumulation points in the ocean. (If there were none, we'd have trash all over the place). And damn Google for putting detailed pictures of streets on internet (looking into people's houses) but not a single picture of the ocean. p.s. "Discovery Channel units", are those considered metric? Volume expressed in football stadiums, weight in elephants and distance in Earth-Moon trips?

I can believe there are organisms that hitch a ride on a self-made droplet. But I doubt that the majority of droplets is formed this way. Observations from my own window and in my own backyard say that dust particles (aerosols) definitely are good at creating lots of droplets. The best example is New Year. The Dutch are big fans of fireworks, and if there's no wind, this creates a massive amount of mist. It's definitely not just the smoke from the fireworks... it's genuine mist that appeared several times (at least 2005, 2008) only a few minutes after everybody started to light fireworks (so: 1 January, 00:30 hrs - 04:00 hrs). Of course we all know that there are plenty of airborne microorganisms... those should act as aerosols too. But I think there's a lot of dust in the sky as well (airplanes, industry, forest fires, volcanoes). My guess (just a guess) is that the dust outnumbers the microorganisms.

The only thing you know about the rate is the oxygen production: 93.0 mL / 60 s The reaction that gives the oxygen is: 2 H2O2 --> 2 H2O + O2 So, you need to calculate the amount of moles of oxygen produced. Then you know the amount of moles of peroxide that are reacting away... which is the answer you need.

That's cheating! Why take a hard boiled egg if you could also make a tennisball launcher?

The trick with an egg launcher is not to get the distance. The real trick is how not to break the egg while launching it... and sometimes also how not to break it when landing. The egg is strong along one axis (top-bottom), and rather weak along all others. Anyway... nobody seems to be prepared to answer the initial question... what should it cost? Whatever design you have, you'll need (for example) some cloth, some rubber elastics or old inner tubes of a bike, perhaps some pieces of wooden planks and a few nails or tape to put it all together. How about 10 euro for the whole thing? (It's a wild guess, but the lack of info really doesn't allow me to do anything more accurate... I am however not scared to estimate numbers... it's because I'm an engineer, not a scientist ). Oh, wait. Forgot about the nucular reactor to power the machine. Costs just went up to 500 billion euro. Sorry.

Yes, I think you can say that if you go to a place with double the gravity you will train your muscles a lot more. Actually, athletes do this too: Of course they cannot go to another planet. So in stead they wear extra heavy shoes and put a weight around their middle or something. So they become heavier. Then when the day of the match comes, they feel very light Whether training alone will be enough to really fly, I don't think so. Our bodies are not made to fly... and our strongest muscles are not in our arms. But then again... there was a guy who made an airplane which was powered by a person, like a bike. It worked.

I won't even have a discussion about those chips. Our world really is not such a mess that we need those things. Whether they cause cancer or not, they are not necessary. I can walk in the streets safely, 24 hrs/day. Criminality has reached an all-time low. Terrorism is extremely overestimated. There's just no reason for these things.