coquina

I got sick over the weekend and also have a sinus infection - but not from a bad tooth. I think it's been there and sort of dormant for a long time - I've been having unexplained hoarseness for almost a year - had various tests but nothing showed up. Anyway - yesterday morning I was one sick puppy. My doc prescribed a "Z Pak" - Zithromax. There are only 6 pills. You take 2 the first day and one a day for the next 4 days. It is potent stuff. I am feeling better but daren't stray more than a few feet away from the bathroom.

Look at what happened during Prohibition in the US - "moonshine" and "bathtub gin" were homemade and sold on the black market to consumers. As bad for your health as tobacco is, there are very stringent requirements on the cleanliness and the materials that are used in the plant. (I know 1st hand - I used to do a lot of machine work for Philip Morris, they paid Net 10 and "this is tobacco money" was written right across the check. During prohibition, many people died or went blind from improperly made alcohol. There would be illegally manufactured, filterless cigarettes with God-knows-what mixed in. There would also be smuggling across borders if the whole world didn't ban cigarettes.

Check here: http://www.stmarys.ca/conted/webcourses/GEO/GEO99/pubweather/soil.html Leached minerals are those that have been dissolved from the upper layer of soil into the lower layer by the percolation of rain water. They are primarily iron oxide and calcite.

So how ya feelin' now? The drugs should be doing their magic. Do you have to get the tooth pulled or a root canal? I see more fun in your future. I didn't see your post earlier or I'd have suggested it might be sinus - I had the same thing happen with one of my nasal sinuses - my nose looked like that of Bozo the clown and hurt like somebody had punched me out.

Somehow (maybe my current case of the flu) I didn't notice that this thread went to 3 pages - I was still back on page 1. Sorry if the above post is irrelavent to the current discussion.

Somehow (maybe my current case of the flu) I didn't notice that this thread went to 3 pages - I was still back on page 1. Sorry if the above post is irrelavent to the current discussion.

About the impact craters - here's a link to the home page of the Earth Impact Database from the Planetary and Space Science Centre - University of New Brunswick: http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images.html You can click on the name to see graphic information - including pictures, and gravity and magnetic anomaly maps. Here's Chicxulub, which is thought to be the one that caused mass dinocide: http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images/chicxulub.htm It is buried, as are many of the older craters, but the seismic, gravity, and magnetics define it clearly.

About the impact craters - here's a link to the home page of the Earth Impact Database from the Planetary and Space Science Centre - University of New Brunswick: http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images.html You can click on the name to see graphic information - including pictures, and gravity and magnetic anomaly maps. Here's Chicxulub, which is thought to be the one that caused mass dinocide: http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images/chicxulub.htm It is buried, as are many of the older craters, but the seismic, gravity, and magnetics define it clearly.

These objects enter the atmosphere at incredibly high rates of speed - from 20 to 70 km per second. Here's a program you can play with to simulate the effects of an impact. http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/ In the example I put in, the explanation said the object started to "break up" upon entering the atmosphere, rather than "exploding" - I think the explosion/vaporization comes later - right before impact. But if you're talking about an entry speed of 70 km per second "later" is rather insignificant.

These objects enter the atmosphere at incredibly high rates of speed - from 20 to 70 km per second. Here's a program you can play with to simulate the effects of an impact. http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/ In the example I put in, the explanation said the object started to "break up" upon entering the atmosphere, rather than "exploding" - I think the explosion/vaporization comes later - right before impact. But if you're talking about an entry speed of 70 km per second "later" is rather insignificant.

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=146 Pieces of the impactor are not generally found. Instead, the tell tale debris from a large impactor are pieces of glassy material that were melted by the impact and thrown through the atmosphere. They are called "tektites". Here's a site from the Georgia Mineral Society where you can read about them: http://www.gamineral.org/Tektites.htm

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=146 Pieces of the impactor are not generally found. Instead, the tell tale debris from a large impactor are pieces of glassy material that were melted by the impact and thrown through the atmosphere. They are called "tektites". Here's a site from the Georgia Mineral Society where you can read about them: http://www.gamineral.org/Tektites.htm

Here's a link to Sandia Nat'l labs. They used a super computer to simulate an impact in the ocean off NYC. http://www.sandia.gov/media/comethit.htm

Here's a link to Sandia Nat'l labs. They used a super computer to simulate an impact in the ocean off NYC. http://www.sandia.gov/media/comethit.htm

Hypothyroidism is an under active gland. Hyperthyroidism is over active. Here is a site that discusses hypothyroidism: http://www.endocrineweb.com/hypo1.html

Hypothyroidism is an under active gland. Hyperthyroidism is over active. Here is a site that discusses hypothyroidism: http://www.endocrineweb.com/hypo1.html

Read this article about what an impact did to the the area that is now the Chesapeake Bay 35 million years ago. http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/epubs/bolide/ Here's the USGS website about research on the crater. http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/crater/

Here's a link to a site about depression: http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/depression/toc.asp There is a lot of good information there. Yes - stress can trigger depression. But it doesn't in everyone. Depression tends to run in families, so there seems to be a genetic component. Emotional trauma, such as the death of a loved one or the loss of a job can trigger it, and it can be the result of a chemical imbalance. It is probably a most often a combination of the three. Cortisol is one of the chemicals mentioned. Hypothyroidism can also mimic depression. My husband's endocrinologist found that I suffered from that. When diagnosed, my thyroid-stimulating-hormone count was it 35. It is supposed to be between .5 and 5. After I started taking medication I felt like a new person (and I lost 115#). If you feel "blue" and "down" frequently, I strongly suggest you see a physician about it.

Butch had hypertension and diabetes, but he took meds for both and we thought they were under control. I don't know exactly what happened, I had the option of having an autopsy done and chose not to. The point I was trying to make is that you don't know what the future holds for you, so there is no way you can know that failing an exam will ruin it. Every day the choices we make, as well as happenstance alter our future. I have a friend whose grandfather thought his future was ruined when he missed the ship that would carry him to a new life in America. The ship was the Titanic. He eventually was able to book passage on another boat, came here, got a great job as a shipbuilder, and lived to be 99. Had he caught the Titanic, he would have been in Steerage class, and almost certainly would have drowned.

about a lot of stuff that I thought would "ruin my life". My husband used to do the same thing. We would nag each other and argue over things. One morning I woke up and he was DEAD. It changed my perspective about what to worry about and what not to worry about entirely. I wish I could have known how unimportant some of the things I stressed over really were.

I am definitely a morning person. I love to get up and walk 3 or 4 miles before work. I am delighted now that we are off daylight savings time because I can be on the road around 6 am. I have a black lab named Sadie. She and I walk 2 miles to my boat, where I fix a hot cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal, and enjoy the morning with the sea birds squawking and the bay waking up around us - then we walk back home, I shower, get dressed, and am at my desk by 8am.

Life started with very simple organisms. It continued because they were able to reproduce. On the cellular level, there are things called "chromosomes" and within them there are "genes". Over a period of time, when the cell reproduces or replicates, the offspring are not exact copies due to chance changes in the genes which are called "mutations". Mutations can be beneficial - they make it easier for the organism to survive in its environment; detrimental - they cause the organism to die before it has the chance to reproduce, or neutral - they are different, but don't make a difference at the time (but they might be beneficial or detrimental at sometime in the future.) Let's take the over used example of the giraffe and it's long neck. Giraffes did not acquire long necks because their parents' necks became longer from stretching to get to food on top branches. There were chance mutations in the "neck gene" - some giraffes were born with short necks - there was not enough food within their reach, so their "detrimental gene" caused them to die before they were able to reproduce. Some giraffes were born with necks of the same length as their parents - they did fine for awhile. Some giraffes were born with necks that were longer than usual. That allowed them to reach an area of the canopy where they didn't have to compete with any other animal for food (they occupied a new "niche") so more of them survived to reproduce. Over time, the giraffes with the long necks had more offspring than the giraffes with the shorter necks. As those offspring mated with one another, the ones that survived and reproduced most often were the ones with the longest necks. How did we, the dinosaurs, and all the other creatures that have lived on earth come to be? We, the dinosaurs, and all the other creatures that have lived on earth, were able to occupy a niche. A niche consists of everypart of an animal's habitat. What is eats, what eats it, the temperature in which it can survive, whether it lives on land, in fresh water or salt water, and a host of other environmental factors. Through evolution, organisms adapt to fit niches. People study this stuff for years, and it is fascinating. I sure can't explain it all to you (and I don't know it all by a long shot) in a couple of paragraphs. I hope I have intrigued you enough that you want to find out more.

I think NASA is spread too thin and is trying to do too much with too little. Here's the web site for NASA's Langley Research Center. http://www.larc.nasa.gov/ It has 4 components, aeronautics, earth science, space technology, and structures and materials. Here's the page that shows all the NASA Facilities: http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/OrganizationIndex.html They are into all kinds of things that have nothing to do with space. I think there is too much under the same umbrella. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. This is probably true for a lot of other government entities. Take Earth Science, for instance. We already have the USGS, NOAA, and God only knows how many other government facilities with their finger in this pie. Sure, a lot has been learned about earth science by using satellites, and if the government wants NASA to launch them, so be it. However, NASA shouldn't have to be involved with the actual research and development of how the satellite works. Also - structures and materials - a lot of them were initially developed for space and were spun off into the private sector. However, the Military also develops materials - why not have one agency whose task it is to develop new materials, whether they be for space, the military, or other uses. Then - create the National Organization for Space Exploration and limit its agenda to human space exploration. ( acronym, NOSEX.)

It depends on what's chasing me! Seriously, I have never been able to run, even when I was a kid. I walk fast though - usually walk 3 miles a day for exercise.

I don't believe anyone has mentioned that anything that evolved on land and moved to the oceans would have to evolve an adaptation to maintain osmotic balance in an environment where the fluid on the outside is more salty than the fluids on the inside. As I recall, marine fish have salt glands (that look like nostrils). They drink lots of water and excrete the excess salt. Sea turtles have salt glands too - if you have seen documentaries of the female coming on the beach to lay her eggs, you may have noticed that she appears to be crying - not - that is excess salt being excreted. I think the whales and dolphins have evolved super-efficient kidneys. Sharks and rays put urea in their bloodstreams. I don't know what the mollusks do. At any rate, a "new" marine creature would have to cope with this problem somehow.