AzurePhoenix

Naw, two strong legs wouldn't have to be essential. The monopods from Narnia did just fine with one, and who can argue with Fairy-Tale Fantasy Fiction?

Hahaha, note the expression on the face of the fake turtle

Maybe they're descendents of Homo sapiens form the far off future, from a time when we have finally unraveled the secrets of Time Travel.

That's a suggestion I can raise my glass to!

I hate it when media and politicians get worked up over things that don't really concern them... the only way I see that'd it work is if there was all sorts of good press for the event, like a bunch of scientists coming on camera saying how "we're so happy that Pluto and its ilk are finally being given a proper classification, while maintaining planetary status of a brand new type." All it needs is media attention with a good spin. EDIT: Maybe the public would get more into the idea if the astronomy people held a nation/world-wide vote to choose one of the new names for an Iceball from a list of proposals. I don't see why we shouldn't. We should start naming planets after gods from all sorts of mythologies - Egyptian, Mesoamerican, Babylonian, etc etc. Anyway, I think the name should fit the world, so something like "Hercules" would be way out of place for any of the little iceballs. Didn't Norse mythology have a pantheon of Ice Giants? Or we could start naming all "Iceball Planets" after underworld and death gods from a number of civilizations.

Asteroids are small, rocky and largely misshapen. What sets these ice worlds apart is their immense size (relatively) and spherical shape, which some claim is a necessary trait to be designated as a planet. And I get what you're saying about the public, but as times goes on, we're going to discover more and more new things out there. We're going to have to name them classify them, group them up, and won't simply be able to lump them into the same old categories just because it will be easier for the public to comprehend. No matter what the public thinks, it still needs to be properly classified among the experts.

yes, but planetoids include asteroids, and don't necessarily share planet-like characteristics (which Pluto, and supposedly those two other giant iceballs do). Their only real criteria is that they be larger than meteoroids, meaning they be more than ten meters or so across. I feel it would be best to create an intermediary.

Can't they come up with a new designation for these ice-ball worlds? Something along the lines of Subplanet (less than / nearly / inferior) or Paraplanet (beyond / closely resembling)? Wouldn't that be a tolerable medium? "Yeah, they're sorta-like planets, but they're not real planets... just really big snowballs that share a few planetary features..." Would it be too hard to for kids to learn that "our star system is composed of eight planets and three Para/Subplanets" ???

Well, to quote the All-Knowing Wikipedia In other words, by posting this, I have wasted both my time and your's, mostly due to the fact that despite my good intentions, I utterly failed to answer any pertinent questions regarding what scientists do know, as well as the most popular modern theories, or even wild speculations. ... Wait a gosh darn second!! I think I remember a documentary where they used DNA taken from Neanderthal "waste products" to determine whether or not their larynxes had dropped in a similar fashion as humans, thereby determining whether or not they possessed similar vocal abilities. Considering that I forgot the results of their testing and their final conclusion, this second reference was a total waste of everyone's time as well. Cheers.

Damn, I was thinking Baltimore...

Sorry, I did read your post, but misinterpreted your first sentences. i've been doing that more lately, can't focus... sorry again, sincerely

Meh, as I see it, tiny, ignorable aesthetic changes are going to build up until eventually until we look far different from current humans (whether or not any so-called "practical" changes occur).

I comprehend where you're coming from, but I can't help but feel your method of protection would cause more harm than good. If a child loses self-esteem over something as pathetic as losing a soccer game, then there's obviously a bigger problem, one separate from a harmless, healthy game. If you aren't prepared to lose, don't play the game. A kid has to learn that you don't always come in first, or even never make the top ten. Failure on such a minor scale is necessary to harden us for the times when we must face up to our true failures in life, which are inevitable.

Keep the homepage... but I think many of us would be thrilled if you could somehow combine it with food. And maybe an edible dancing Smurf.

Unlike an aborted fetus, and baby born with fetal alcohol syndrome is likely to suffer for the entirety of his/her life.

God is nowhere. I had to reread it and break it apart six times to see the "god is now here" (and that's only because I gave up and peeked)

If those birds weren't so rare, I'd love the concept.

The dearly departed Ruby the Elephant loved makig paintings, which in my opinion, were far prettier than that dreary portrait called the Mona Lisa. Gorilla's also make paintings that often prove to be quite nice (as well as creative).

Well, the way I see it, there is at least a smidgeon of humanity in abortion, however misguided many or most cases may be, whereas beer-babies are often condemned to a lifetime of FAS (a potential for nervous system problems, deformity, growth problems, as well as intellectual and social problems, etc etc). I see it as negligence and abuse.

Meh' date=' I was just putting down the most common ones I used to hear in my hometown, before the Californians invaded and screwed everything up. But you're probably right, my entire family ([i']going a good three generations back[/i]) is as bad as I am in that sense. But, to elaborate, "we" referred to ourselves as Mountain Folk. Those who lived out of town, out in the woods in solitary cabins were woodlanders, and those people from smaller, more isolated "colonies" further out in the desert scrub were backlanders.

American Southest, primarily picked up from a small mountain town... ... Woodlander ... Hillbilly ... Mountain Folk ... Red Neck ... Backlander ... Roughneck ... Drunken Amish with a Gun (That might be a term coined by my family alone, I'm not sure) there are others, but I can't quite grasp them right now...

I think it was actually supposed to be a timeline, you know, like the History of Mankind's Quest for the Atom

**Ghostly wailing** The key you seek lies with the slimy one! Seek he who leaps! And a fish might work too.... Exhausted and delirious ranting aside, does anyone happen to know if studies into using natural "anti-freezes" created and used by cold-weather animals are turning out any promising results?