coquina

You have the right attitude to become a valuable member.

I saw a documentary on the Australian aboriginies some time ago - apparently they can navigate huge expanses of desert without benefit of a compass. (I realize if the sky is clear anyone can detect "north" but you can still wander a good bit off track.) Anyway - my hypothesis is that the earth's magnetic field in the locality of the earthquake which preceded the tsunami, was disturbed enough for the animals, and perhaps the aboriginies to detect it. If the aboriginies didn't detect it first hand, as the previous poster said, they notice what goes on around them, and when other species detect danger, and start to run, they don't wait around to see what's going to happen.

I haven't been to St. Pete - but I have been to Ft. Meyers, Sannibel & Captiva, via motorhome. We spent the millenium New Year there. It's a beautiful place. I live near Williamsburg, VA, home to the College of William and Mary. It's marine biology branch is VIMS - Virginia Institute of Marine Biology. I've been a boater all my life - the Cheasapeake Bay is in my backyard. Checking out for tonight... welcome to the forum. Did you post in the "Introduce Yourself" thread? It's not mandatory - but it's kinda nice to know a little about the person who's posting.

Another interesting post - You mentioned the African grasslands. I had read about a giant kangaroo in Australia, but I since I didn't know that much about kangaroos - I thought I would test your theory. The following link goes through Australian fauna from the cretaceous to the present: http://www.lostkingdoms.com/facts/index.cfm#pleistocene Pleistocene Prey: The Giant Short Faced Kangaroo: http://www.lostkingdoms.com/facts/factsheet51.htm Diprotodon: http://www.lostkingdoms.com/facts/factsheet48.htm Pleistocene Predator - Marsupial Lion: http://www.lostkingdoms.com/facts/factsheet54.htm So - I'd say your theory holds true for Australia as well as Africa.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge on the subject with the rest of us. What do you think about "trained dolphins". I was on Hawks Key some years ago and saw some dolphins that had been trained to entertain humans - there was some research done with them and autistic children I believe. But - do you think they "enjoy" the interaction, or do they feel imprisoned? With all of our computer simulations, can we not make recordings of their language, interpret it, and build a computer that can "speak" to them in their own tongue? It would seem a much simpler prospect in the end than trying to make them communicate with us in our language. A really great computer program ought to be able to "learn" the nuances of their language and incorporate them so it can communicate more effectively. Speaking anthropomorphically, if the cetacea are as smart as they seem to be, you'd think they'd appreciate it. Did you ever read a novel called "Soundings" by Hank Searle?

Do you wear contacts? If so, do you use the same solution to clean them? Maybe it's contaminated.

I expect that the word that should have been used is regression. I do not think regression would occur unless there was a global catastrophic event, which destroyed all repositories of knowledge. As a matter of fact, one great repository of knowledge, the Great Library at Alexandria, Egypt, was destroyed, and a great amount of knowledge was lost. Here's a Wikipedia article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria If you read the article, you will see that several possible dates are given for the destruction of the library - however, I found this quote especially informative: The final destruction of the library seems to have occurred only about 100 years prior to the advent of the dark ages. If the dark ages was caused by a comet, or perhaps a huge volcanic eruption it must have happened in a remote area of the world, or there would have been some direct reference to it. At any rate, had the library not been destroyed, it would have been a lot easier for knowledge to have been relearned. I wonder if the worlds modern governments have great libraries encased in hardened concrete buried in a mountain somewhere - It would seem like a smart thing to do. Of course, enough people would have to know where it was so that it could be found again. Regardless - people may become more specialized, but they still have their brains. If they have to learn things all over again, they'll figure it out, even if it takes a while.

I added the link to the original message about Krakatoa to my original message - here it is again: http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/history/535ad.htm

I expect that he would work to the utmost degree on someone else if he didn't know their wishes. One thing to be considered is his age. If he was resussitated and then had to have open heart surgery, he would have far less chance for a successful recovery than a younger person.

Numb - the absense of feeling. When something really horrible happens suddenly after the initial shock wears off you feel numb. Then grief - the greatest degree of sorrow sets in.

I don't think that is true either - not for the short run, anyway. The big companies here who are having their products made in China don't want them to be conceptualized in China. What I have done in the past is to take a company's idea and turn it into a prototype. Once that prototype is proved to work, finish drawings are sent overseas. In many cases, the Chinese companies may not know what they are building. Company A builds part A, Company B builds part B and company C assembles them. That way, no one company can easily hijack someone else's patent. Of course, "easily" has different connotations depending on how cheap time is valued.

What kind of squash are they?

One of the few terms I remember from chemistry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhydride Out of curiosity - if the HCL boils off too - how do you remove the water to form the anhydride?

NO, that can't happen. In addition to a labor force, production requires electrical power, raw materials, machinery, and TAXES. All of that costs money. The only way the factory can get the funds to pay for the cost of operation is to sell all the products that they manufacture in a timely manner and at a high enough price to cover all their expenses and have some profit left over. If people are not buying the cars, it does no good to make more and sell them for less than it costs to build them.

Here's an article about it: http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e2005/e200501/b7.htm I read something in our local newspaper last week about residences having to do without electricity so the factories can run. China's coal mines are the most dangerous in the world, and many of them are largely depleted: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-11/13/content_391242.htm I would guess that as China has to import more and more coal, the prices of the things she produces will have to rise.

Are you referring to "The Raven" ? Please elaborate???

Until she had one. She and dad were at our club, having dinner. Mom had a heart attack and passed out cold. Fortunately there were several doctors there that night. They gave her CPR until the paramedics got there and took her to the hospital. Mom described everything that happened, she said she was floating above her body. When one doctor tried to help she remembers thinking that she didn't want him to work on her, because he had been drinking - a lot. She described some of the other people there getting the drunk guy away from the scene. I guess some things she could have heard and imagined what was visually happening, but her description was extraordinarily close to what happened.

Hi Synaptik - I like geology too. I became interested because of the Chesapeake Bay Impact crater, which is buried a few hundred feet beneath me. Check it out. http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/crater/

It appears to smoke as it evaporates - how about using that?

For those who are newcomers - please tell us a little about yourselves here.

Tsunamis can be caused by great undersea landslides as well as by earthquakes. Perhaps, if there was a major disruption of the seafloor, the deep ocean currents might be affected. http://starbulletin.com/2004/09/02/news/story4.html http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/Parks/hawaii/landslide.html I can't find precisely what I'm looking for - I have read that there is a very large shear zone in Hawaii where underground dikes are forming from magma that is being forced into a fault. There is the potential for a very large part of one of the islands to drop into the sea. This would result in a mega-tsunami. I doubt this would affect the earth's climate long-term, unless, as I said in my first statement, the seafloor was modified a great deal - even then, I would guess it would be the climate of Hawaii that would change.