Glider

I can see why. Nice ice-breaker at parties though huh? "Hey, nice ring!" "Thank you. It's my wife" "...er..." Anyway, the argument is still weak. We could extract enough iron from a person to make a six inch nail. That doesn't mean we're made of iron.

Viruses don't' date=' because they're not alive. They only need another organism to replicate them (they can't even do that themselves). They can reamain viable outside of their host anywhere from minutes, to years (depending on the virus). Outside of the host organism, they require nothing as they do not grow or replicate or do anything. No you can't. Not exclusively. Being carbon based is not the same as being made of carbon. I was an undertaker in my dim and murky past, and I've never heard of such a thing. Could you provide us with a link? They used RNA which is less stable than DNA, but that has nothing to with whether or not viruses are alive.

There was a program on a couple of nights ago, reviewing the case of a man who has recently been released from prison on the grounds that he is in fact innocent. He was jailed for murder twenty-five years ago! If he had been killed, what would we say? "Ooops"? What would we do? Execute the executioner or the judge? Where is this mans' justice? Miscarriages of justice do happen, and more frequently than we like to think. Under these circumstances, any sentance that is irreversible is unconscionable. In my opinion, if the state kills an innocent (and it has happened), it loses the right to enforce the death penalty. The state is not infallible. This is reason enough to be wary of the death penalty. At the moment, it is acceptable to convict somebody if they are found to be guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'. If you intend to kill them, I would suggest they need to found guilty 'beyond any and all doubt', i.e. absolute certainty. As for enforced organ donation, that's just too far beyond the pale. So, we take a kidney. If they're subsequently found innocent, at least they're still alive? Jeesus! Alive, with a significantly reduced life expectancy, and a strictly controlled diet for the rest of their shortened lives. Not to mention they would have to live with the psychological fallout from being forced to undergo an extremely invasive violation utterly against their will. Where is the justice in that? You would expect them to carry on with their lives as good, stable citizens, with a healthy respect for the state? No, I don't think so.

Whatever happens to be floating around at the time.

If you don't place a greater value on life than those on death row, then what is the difference between you and them?

Yeah, well, nobody likes finding out they are capable of torturing another person simply by being asked to do so, especially after they'd just spent WWII demonising the nazis and the Japanese for being cruel. Although that study wouldn't get ethical clearance today, I think it provides a significant lesson and I'm glad it was done.

Very true. Cats have that quirky sense of humour that means you don't know where they've pooped, until you put your boots on. You'd think they'd make some impact on the mouse plagues that happen over there, wouldn't you?

You're right of course. I could have posted the BPS guidelines as a WordPerfect document (my preferred choice of word processor), but nobody seems to use it anymore. Shame really. It's better than word.

The British Psychological Society publishes ethical guidelines for experiments using human subjects. I have attached a copy to this post for you. Kether, if you have nothing to say, please say it. .

Oh, but they do. They just wait until you're asleep to do it mwuahahahahaha!

I think you could probably build up a very strong layer by spraying water of a freezing metal surface. Ice has immense strength; look at glaciers.

Odd priorities I think; Marriage 1st - to whom 2nd. It doesn't bode well.

Apparently, diamonds will burn at the same temperature as coal, being made of the same substance. So, just throw them on the fire.

As far as I know, free radicals do what they do to whatever cells are exposed to them. I haven't seen any literature on free radicals, so I can;t say for certain, nor can I post any links. Sorry.

Lol, no, neither have I (except for that one time pre-exam with the chest pains and dizzyness ) There is an increase in oxygen demand during metal tasks (concommitant with the increase in metabolism of glucose), but it is not large. Overall neurological activity in the brain is fairly constant throughout the day, as is the overall demand for oxygen(~25%). The demand for oxygen increases only slightly during focussed cognitive tasks as more general, non-related brain activity is suppressed. A resting PET scan shows general activity across the cortex, but a PET scan during a task shows high levels of activity in areas associated with the particular task, but lower levels of activity in non related areas, so the net demand remains more or less stable (it does increase under stressful tasks, but not hugely). You can see examples of this in real life when doing more than one thing at once. For example, if you're listening to music whilst reading and the music suddenly grabs your attention (e.g. a bit you really like), you stop registering what's on the page. Conversely, if a section you are reading grabs your interest and absorbs your attention, you will stop hearing the music. Same thing if you're talking on the phone whilst watching TV, you can focus on one or the other. Not both.

Yes. The brain is a very greedy organ to begin with, using about 25% of our total oxygen intake, but if you look at PET scans of neural activity 'at rest' and during a challanging task, you'll see that the latter shows the brain lit up like a Christmas tree (task specific areas anyway). PET uses radio labelled glucose which concentrates at areas of high activity (metabolism). Areas of high metabolism light up in PET.

The chemical reactions are thoughts/feelings. Thoughts and feeling originate in the brain, and to say that they create chemical activity in the brain implies a kind of mind/brain duality. Skye is right, chemical activity leads to thoughts. Although they are the same thing in essence, the chemical activity is very basic and thoughts and emotions are more a function of neural circuitry than activity in any paricular areas. It takes time for the activity in different areas of the brain to be brought together in association and to register as conscious and volitional thought. Therefore, chemical activity precedes conscious thoughts. There is a lot of evidence to show that emotion precedes cognition too, but emotions occur in response to stimuli. So it is exposure to emotionally valenced stimuli that causes chemical reactions, from the most basic; activity in the reticular activating system, to higher limbic areas e.g. the left amygdala, the medial thalamus the anterior cingulate gyrus and so-on and activity in these areas results in emotion, which in turn influences higher, more volitional cognitive processes. All this happens very quickly. Exposure to emotionally valenced information has been shown to alter people's emotional-motivational state within 250 milliseconds. It has also been shown to happen outside people's conscious awareness as the response occurs even though the stimulus exposure time (40 milliseconds) is less than a person can consciously register (see for example Chen, M., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). Consequences of automatic evaluation: Immediate behavioral predispositions to approach or avoid the stimulus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25 (2), 215-224.).

As a student, you are playing somebody else's game in order to gain the qualification they offer. All students will find certain elements of whatever they are studying extremely tedious, but to achieve the qualification you want, you will have to jump through certain hoops. That's how it is. How to do it? Application. As I have said in another post, concentration, or the ability to concentrate for longer periods is a skill. It cannot be taught, it is developed through practice. Taking drugs to assist won't help you develop the ability to concentrate. In fact it's more likely to inhibit it, especially if you don't have ADHD in the first place. If you find you can sit to a task that interests you for long periods, then you don't need drugs to help you with the boring ones. You just need a bit of strategy. Here's your answer: Nobody has to get used to it. You're the only one that will have to live with it. You'll have to get used to spending time alone in empty threads then. Have fun

Surface tension. The meniscus layer (where the water and air meet) has a property called surface tension. This is what allows insects such as pond skaters to 'walk on water' without getting their feet wet. If you add a little soap to the water, the pond skaters sink. Soap reduces surface tension. If the holes in your container are small enough, the surface tension at the holes will be enough to support the weight of the water in the container. If you add a little soap, the water will drain out through the holes.

Knighthoods aren't hereditory. The wife of a knight becomes a 'lady' automatically, but as far as I know any children they may have do not get titles automatically. The title 'Lord' used to be hereditory; you used to be able to receive a peerage that would pass to your offspring, but I think that has been repealed on the grounds that simply being born is not evidence of particular merit. There probably have been such surveys, but I have never looked for them.

'Man made' usually refers to artificial or constructed substances/objects. Humans are neither.

The influence of environmental factors on development both physical and psychological.

And because it's our fault its at risk of extinction anyway, and it's about time we started taking some responsibility for the destruction we cause. Does that make it three now?