stevo247

What is the representation of the Earth's orbit from the perspective of the Earth? Not that it's better, it just seems like a reasonable place to start.

So, if the sun is dynamic (it is moving right?), then is the idea that the earth has a closed elliptical orbit around the sun, not an accurate representation of reality?

Implements of Math Destruction. At New York's Kennedy airport today an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a square, a slide rule, and a calculator. The Attorney General believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction. "Al-gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed", the Attorney General said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent in a search of absolute value. They consist of quite shadowy figures, with names like "x" and "y", and, although they are frequently referred to as "unknowns", we know they really belong to a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. "As the great Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are three sides to every triangle." When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes." ********************************************** One day a teacher had a taste test with her students. She picked a little boy to do the first test. She blindfolded him, put a Hershey's Kiss in his mouth and asked, "Do you know what it is?" "No, I don't," said the little boy. "Okay, I'll give you a clue. It's the thing your daddy wants from your Mom before he goes to work." That's when a little girl at the back of the room yelled, " Spit it out !! It's a piece of ass !!

Years ago, I worked for a very short time for an agency that used a similar approach with problem adolescents. They used a token system with points, etc. Behaviorism. I think it was a system that was used successfully with the developmentally disabled, and they were trying to use it with problem teenagers. I hated it. It's the only job I ever just quit and walked off. It just wasn't my style. I also observed the increase in the levels of frustration. I didn't think it was effective in the long run, or safe. I prefer a more client-centered approach where change is initiated by developing a level of trust and mutual respect. . How's this for “Directive Therapy”? GET OUT OF THAT EFFIN PLACE!!!

Are viruses and trolls considered homologous?

We’ve got 4 cats. Einstein, Leo, Lila, and Pippen. Our friends think that we're getting close to being considered weird cat people. Einstein is like the quarterback of the football team. The girls all love Einstein. He’s like the big brother of the group. He makes sure everybody stays clean. Lila was an athletic, agile cheerleader type, but, well, she got fat. She still has a pretty face though. Talks a lot. Leo was a strong independent type. He had numerous girlfriends out in the neighborhood. He's more like a dog than a cat. Unfortunately, he contracted FIV in a physical altercation out in the field. More than likely, it was a jealous husband. He’s now fighting for his life against various infections. Sweet guy. Pippen is the funny looking little sister. But she thinks she’s beautiful, and like little miss sunshine, she is just adorable.

What were the experiences?

That's a good question. I was also wondering if the immune system and the nervous system are the only systems that have "memory". If the immune system predates the brain, is the brain a part of the immune system? Maybe the immune system is the defense against microbes, and the brain is the defense against "lions and tigers and bears".

How old is your son? Am I correct to assume that he receives corporal punishment at home? At what age does it cease? Do you advocate corporal punishment for females?

You know, people have been sent home for lesser offenses, Mr. Wisenheimer.

Can you imagine a world full of broken spirits? Just look out the window. Best way to get respect is to give it.

"Many of us grew up marveling at the amoeba's abundance in pond water; if you look at amoebas under a high-power lens, you can see them wandering around on the slide, but you will also see that they are feeding on micro-organisms, just like a culture of macrophages. It seems as if the amoeba is the earliest form of macrophage, and perhaps gave rise, by an unknown evolutionary pathway, to the modern macrophage. Innate immunity in eukaryotes can be thought of as arising from the need of a unicellular microorganism such as an amoeba to discriminate between food and other amoebas. If you think about it, any amoeba that could not make this distinction would be bound to consume itself and vanish from the face of the Earth. Therefore, we can infer a specific surface receptor on amoebas that acts to discriminate between food, which can eagerly be engulfed, from what is another amoeba, or even another part of the same amoeba. The nature of this presumed receptor is not yet known, but it must be highly specific and must discriminate self from nonself, which is one of the most basic functions of the immune system." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=imm.section.2367 Macrophage means "big eater". Macrophages are white blood cells that crawl around in the extracellular fluids of your body and gobble up microbes and other foreign material. They ingest these microbes by phagocytosis ("cell eating"). Parts of the cell surround the particle to be eaten, then the macrophage's membrane flows together and the particle ends up inside. http://www5.pbrc.hawaii.edu/microangela/macroph.htm

In regards to something like an amoeba, I would think that a good way to fight an enemy would be to eat it. Is there a relationship between the immune system and “eating”?

“The waxy cuticle of many leaves, the exoskeleton of insects, the shells and membranes of externally deposited eggs, and skin are examples of the mechanical barriers that are the first line of defense against infection.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_system Doesn't a cell membrane serve the exact same function? “Even simple unicellular organisms such as bacteria possess enzyme systems that protect against viral infections.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_system From the biology on-line dictionary. Immune system: “A system that provides a defense mechanism to organism, providing defensive measures against antigens which would prove harmful to the organism.” So is it safe to say that all living organisms have some form of an immune system?

What is the definition of an immune system? What is it's basic function?

Do all living organisms have some form of an immune system? I was thinking that the cell membrane itself, may represent the most primitive form of an immune system. Comments?

I thought that I had clarified the particular “manner of movement” of living organisms in a previous post: Maybe I'm not being clear. I think that living organisms function in a pulsatory manner. That pulsation is inherent in all living processes, and that expansion and contraction are fundamental characteristics of pulsation. As far as I can tell, all living things seem to be rooted in a common functioning principle of pulsation. Clearly, the heart pulsates. Respiration is pulsatory (expansion and contraction of the lungs). Digestion (peristalsis) is pulsatory. Ejaculation is pulsatory. The bladder expands and contracts, pulsatory. The amoeba moves in a pulsatory manner. The “beating” of a birds wings are pulsatory. A snake moves in a pulsatory manner. Pancreas cells secrete in a pulsatory manner. Inchworms move in a pulsatory manner (expand/contract). Fish swim in a pulsatory manner. Personally, I would nominate the jelly fish as the poster-child of pulsation in nature. Etc. etc. etc. Whenever I investigate something of a biological nature, I see pulsation as a chief feature of it's functioning. From the multicellular to the unicellular. “As above, so below”. But when I look at a rock, I wouldn't characterize it as functioning in a pulsatory manner. The same with my desk, or my shoe. “Inanimate” objects. No pulsation function. Not living. You were wise to point me in the direction of algae. They are a diverse group and many have a cell wall which is more or less rigid. Many dinoflagellates are characterized as “armored”. “Many are covered by cellulose plates. The cell is surrounding by a series of membranes called the amphiesma. In "armored" species cellulose deposited between the membranes forms rigid plates called thecae. "Naked" cells lack thecae.” http://www.assurecontrols.com/info-dinoflagellates.htm To me, this is comparable to a turtle shell. The shell does not demonstrate the pulsation function, but the turtle in the shell does. Pokes his arms, legs, and head out (expand). Pulls them back in (contract). Not to mention all the pulsatory metabolic processes going on in the turtle itself. I would say that the dinoflagellate demonstrates the pulsation function in all realms of it's functioning, except for the armored, rigid, membranous, shell. Here is an algae that clearly demonstrates the pulsation function: "The euglenoids can glide and swim using their flagella, or can ooze along a substrate with an undulating, shape-changing, contraction motion called metaboly." http://silicasecchidisk.conncoll.edu/LucidKeys/Carolina_Key/html/Euglena_Main.html

Or the power of belief.

In the book, the authors state “The bottom line in understanding the phenomenology of subjective religious experience is to understand that every religious experience involves a sense of the unity of reality at least somewhat greater than the baseline perception of unity in day-to-day life”. The “stimulus” could simply be the profound realization of the unity of all things. The experience of life, or nature, or the universe, as “one”. From the book: “Religions are not primarily composed of mystics or people who have attained advanced spiritual states. They are composed by and large of ordinary people who must face ordinary problems in life. For them the control of the environment represents a necessity of day-to-day living. They may occasionally experience altered states at the lower end of the unitary continuum. These experiences may lend credibility to the powerful witness of mystics. But for the ordinary person such experiences, and the testimony of mystics, function to support the power of the gods or personalized power sources. It is thus that mystical religion tends to reinforce the first manifestation of religion, namely, the control of the environment.”

What are these experiences of deity that are remarkably similar? Wouldn't they be considered the “body of evidence” for the existence of deity? Couldn't these experiences be approached and evaluated scientifically? It's already being done, e.g. “The Mystical Mind” d'aquili / Newberg.

Is vacuum energy mass-free?

This is from a paper titled "Insulin signalling through ultradian oscillations": "Periodic oscillations appear to be a characteristic of insulin secretion at various different levels. Very rapid pulsations are seen in the isolated b-cell and islet, while rapid (10- to 15-min) pulsations are seen both in the intact organism and in the isolated pancreas." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WG5-4G23KWF-4&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d7f83ab25463c4e1ed9000ae3f1ae252 This is from a paper titled "Osteocytes as multifunctional cells": Osteocytes can move "Evidence is accumulating that osteocytes are more active than previously known. Dallas and colleagues will show at this meeting that osteocyte cell body movement occurs within lacunae and that extension and retraction of dendrites can occur within canaliculi. These observations were made possible by the recent generation of transgenic mice with green fluorescent protein (GFP) expression targeted to osteocytes19 and with time-lapse dynamic imaging. Calvaria from these mice were used to image living osteocytes within their lacunae20. These studies have revealed that, far from being a static cell, the osteocyte is highly dynamic." http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1796957 It would appear that the “fact” of the immobility of the pancreas cell and the osteocyte is not etched in stone, and may in fact be altogether wrong. As a layman, with almost no formal scientific education, it’s almost comical that I would even consider disputing these issues with someone of your educational backround and profession. I respect your opinions. If I have misunderstood these references or taken them out of context, please clarify them for me. I just think that pulsation is fundamental to living organisms.

I found a little info towards a clearer picture of the process: We refer to the classical work of Davenport [14] (nowadays an auxological standard), which suggests that the human growth rate exhibits three maxima: one intrauterine, a second one around the 6-th year and a third one other around the 16-th year. In addition to the above main accelerations, many authors have observed short-term oscillations in longitudinal data. In the paper of Butler and McKie [16], 135 children were monitored at six monthly intervals from 2 to 18 years of age. Longitudinal studies reveal a cyclic, rhythmic pattern, as a sequence of spurts and lags occurring up to adolescence. http://www.tbiomed.com/content/5/1/5

Is the process of human physical growth a steady, regular pattern thru all stages of development; or is it more acurately described as a process of starts and stops? I remember reading somewhere about growth spurts of like a couple of inches practically overnight. Is that typical for the growth process per se? Do plants grow in spurts? How about the growth process of biological organisms overall? Slow and steady, or bursts?