Glider

I don't mean this unkindly, but your girlfriends' failure is evidence to the contrary. In what way? Not really. We don't 'record' information like a computer or a video. We store cues. Recall is a reconstructive process (hence the unreliability of eyewitness testimony). For all intents and purposes, our memory capacity is limitless. As I said, we store cues rather than actual trains of events like a video. In that, I suppose you could say memory is 'compressed'. We only consciously use a fraction of our brains. However, the entire brain is in use. We never use the part to which we have access to its full potential though. To a degree, yes. There are two main processes to memory; encoding and recall. In order to remember something, we first need to have it in memory. i.e. we need to 'capture' the salient information and encode it in long term memory. This means we need to recognise its salience, register the information consciously, and understand it (we cannot remember that which has no meaning for us). Recall is a different process and the one that most often fails. It has been argued that (pathology or trauma aside) we never lose encoded information from long-term memory, we lose only the trace for it. The way to remember any given piece of information is to ensure we have as many traces linked with it as possible (e.g. it must link to other stored information, the more links, the greater chance of recall). There are methods and techniques for improving recall. Mnemonics for example. In essence, these revolve around you training yourself to a) pay attention to the information, b) form as many immediate links to it as you can. For example, if you wanted to remember the reference "Shachter and Singer (1962)" who proposed the cognitive labelling theory of emotion, you could picture a Singer sowing machine in a shack. This gives you an immediate link to the information using imagary. This technique is often used (with some success) to learn languages, or at least to help build vocabulary. I have none. Hypnotic regression comes mainly from the counselling/therapy (the pink and fluffy) end of the Psychology spectrum, so I know very little about it.

Heehehe

I read in a news paper (that was bitching about the new minister for health, John Reid) that with a PhD, you could only use the title 'doctor' if were active in your subject area. In 'polite society' the holder of a PhD, who is not active in his/her particular area, but is doing something else (particularly where the term 'doctor' may be misleading, e.g. where working with medical doctors), relinquishes the title. However, I'm not sure whether that's true or not, but in any event, you might want to find out before wasting so much time and effort possibly for nothing.

Yes, some slugs eat carrion (dead things. They're not really equipped to be predators). It's common around here to see slugs (and ants) feeding on dead worms.

It is if you're a whale (unless you're a toothed whale).

I think the use of single periods, whilst perhaps not indicating sarcasm, suggests despair quite effectively. Quite understandable under the circumstances. Oh. My. God.

Very true. All jobs have a downside. However, boredom isn't a function of where you work, it's a function of what you do. If you are doing what you really want to do, it won't matter too much where you do it.

They're trying. New tests are being developed all the time, each a little better than the last.

There is a problem here. You can't really do a t-test without tables. These tables can be found in most statistics books appendices. As you are asking for the formula to do the test manually, I have to assume you don't have these books (as the formulae for most inferencial tests are presented in such books; Coolican or Howell for example). Without these tables, you could calculate the value for 't' (the t-statistic), but that wouldn't tell you whether there was a significant difference between your samples. The value for t is only an indication of the magnitude of the difference between the samples (the further from zero, irrespective of sign, the greater the difference). If you wanted to know whether the difference was statistically significant, you would need to compare the t value against the tables under alpha = 0.05 (by convention). Your best bet would be to get straight into SPSS. That will calculate t, perform a test for equality of variance (Levine's test) which is a basic assumption for parametric data, and tell you whether the t value is statistically significant or not and also provide the exact value for p (probability under the normal distribution). Finally, for your sample data, I need variable headers. I don't know what three of the columns represent, so I can't even help with data entry.

How many regions do you have? Are you using computer software or doing it by hand? If you are using a spreadsheet (I use SPSS, one of most widely used statistical packages), the way to perform an independent t-test is to enter the data in two columns, where column 1 is the grouping variable (e.g. where 1 = north, and 2 = south). Column 2 would contain the raw data, i.e. the sales per each individual customer (if you have those data). Then you simply ask whatever spreadsheet you are using to compare the sales for group 1 against the sales for group 2. If you only have the averages per customer, you can still do the test. If you only have the averages per region, you will need to do it by hand. It would help to see an example of the data you collected. As I say, if you have more than two regions, you will need to use ANOVA. You could use multiple t-tests, but it's time consuming (if you had 4 regions, you would have to test 1 by 2, 1 by 3, 1 by 4, 2 by 3, 2 by 4 and so-on) and doesn't account for the whole model (differing degrees of freedom per pair), so it would not accurately show which region had the best sales compared to all other regions. If you need help with ANOVA, I could attach a teaching booklet I wrote that was published by the Open University (I have a copy in *.pdf format on this system), but it's aimed mainly at psychologists who tend to use SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).

Don't wanna be too picky here, but one of the definitions of an instinctive behaviour is that it doesn't require learning (another is that it is universal within the species). The withdrawal reflex isn't an instinctive behaviour, it's a ...well...reflex. It works via a reflex arc (interneurons) between the dorsal (afferent) and ventral (efferent) roots in the spinal cord, independantly of higher neural systems. The spawning salmon thing is a good example of an instinctive behaviour. I suppose instinctit could be described as an innate (hard wired) propensity to perform particular patterns of behaviour in response to particular stimuli. e.g. if you cut out a cardboard silhouette that is ambiguous but roughly shaped like a goose, it looks pretty like a hawk if you move it in reverse (the long neck becomes the tail of a hawk, and the short tail of the goose becomes the head of a hawk). If you move the cut-out long-neck first over baby birds, they will ignore it. If you move the same cut-out but reversed (so the neck becomes the tail) over the baby birds, they will fall to the bottom of the nest and freeze. This is a hard wired (unlearned) response to a particular stimulus (a moving silhouette, resembling the basic form of an airborn predator).

Yes it can. If you want to compare just two regions (i.e. test for a difference between two samples of data) you can use an independent t-test. If you have three or more levels of your factor (i.e. region; e.g. north, south, east and west) you need to use a One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

Spot on (but SD = 15).

That's the thing. The force required to launch the 10lb sack upwards would be considerably more than 10lb (which is the upward force required simply to stop it moving down).

The implication was clear in your comment "Seems the AMA agrees with me now, at least for research. They're coming around", which did not discount explicitly reproductive cloning. The AMA have never opposed theraputic cloning and neither have I. Our previous debate concerned reproductive cloning, which the AMA still oppose (as do I), so, what is your point? I can't help noticing that you lock the threads as soon as you've had your say. If you don't want to discuss the topic, you only have to say so. You can have the last word, and I won't respond to it if you dont want me to. <merged and reopened the thread since there is no point in two threads referring like that RadEd>

Green is the result of mixing the subtractive primary colours blue and yellow. However, green in an additive primary colour in its own right and not the result of mixing. Here's how it goes: The additive primaries (light) are Red, Green and Blue. Red + Green = Yellow Green + Blue = Cyan Red + Blue = Magenta Red + Green + Blue = White. Yellow, Cyan and Magenta are the subtractive primaries (pigment). Yellow + Cyan = Green Yellow + Magenta = Red Cyan + Magenta = Blue Yellow + Cyan + Magenta = (Compound) Black

Read it properly: "CHICAGO - The American Medical Association endorsed cloning for research purposes Tuesday, putting the nation's largest organization of doctors officially at odds with the Bush administration. The policy, adopted without debate at the AMA's annual meeting, says cloning for research purposes is ethical. But the policy allows doctors who oppose the practice to refuse to perform it. The measure does not support reproductive cloning [italics added] and is strong in its call for proper oversight." As far as I recall, this is line with my posts on the topic of cloning: Yes for theraputic purposes, no for reproductive puroses.

I think they must have. Blue is a component of green, red isn't. Green = yellow + blue. As far as the retina goes, we have 3 types of cone cells, basically red, yellow and green (except women. PM studies have shown some females have 5 types of cone cells).

Yep...most people seem to....can't think why though..

My point exactly

So, I'm guessing that's a 'no' then.

That's true, but I was talking behaviourally rather than genetically. Whilst it's relatively easy to make quantitative comparisons between genetic makeup (i.e. number of shared genes), it's less easy to make qualitative comparisons in terms of cognitive-behavioural similarities (i.e. the ultimate influence of genetic makeup).

Yes, other animals do display that behaviour. Also, humans aren't as different from other animals as most would like to think we are.

ECT is still widely practiced, so it shouldn't be difficult to find information to present concerning its history, efficacy and biological mechanisms of function. I'm not sure about the others, but I'm fairly sure none were particularly effective at 'curing the insane'. ECT is used in the treatment of depression. Very effective it is too.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? But if you think of the logistics involved, not to mention travelling all that way whilst heavily pregnant (flying isn't a good idea when you're that pregnant either), they must have a pretty good reason.