Mokele

Thanks muchly, but since I'm in the US, the shipping would probably be exorbitantly high, likely more than the price of the unit itself. Plus, well, these particular plants would grow out of a small unit very quickly; One of mine has already trippled in size in only 4 months, and will likely need a full greenhouse within a year. Thanks for the offer, though! Mokele

I'll have to depart from personal quotes for this one: There is one, and only one, Doomsday prophecy which I actually believe is true. As prophecied by the great humor-fantasy author Terry Pratchett, the end of the world will be immediately preceded by the setence "I wonder what happens if I do this..."

Nepenthes. Some of species can have pitchers that hold 4 L of fluid and are 20" tall. I've considered other weird plants, but I seem to have a blood-red thumb: I can only raise carnivores. Everything else dies, even pothos. Nope, I'll keep it on, and in fact I'm planning of keeping lots of stuff in it that'll essentially 'soak up the cold' and raise the thermal inertia. Maybe use it to store the rats for my snakes and lizard. Or maybe just a lot of jugs of water. Basically anything that'll keep the temperature stable. I've actually tried before, though not on this scale; cobra plants are a carnivore from oregon who live by cold mountain streams, thus need cold water over the roots. Sadly, the system didn't work well enough, and that combined with not insulating it well enough during last winter killed it. I'm probably going to play with peltiers again, but not until I have a house, so I can shield the cobras from the worst of the afternoon sun. That's actually an alternate plan, yes. I'm just more inclined towards a freezer or fridge because they can generate lower temperatures; it'd be a large tank to cool, and some of the species I want are 'ultra-highlands', which need nighttime temps in the low 50's. But basically, now I know that fridges and freezers are a possibility, that gives me more options, whatever I finally decide to use. Mokele

See, I'm all for academic freedom to voice your pet theory, but I think there also needs to be some sort of competency standard. If I voice my theory, departing from the norm, that the adaptive radiation of colubroid snakes was more due to the evolutionary plasticity of their muscular systems, and have evidence, that's fine, and I should keep my position no matter how much it pisses off those who thing venom such a big deal. Alternatively, if I just decide one day that DNA isn't the genetic material, all of genetics is a lie, and it's all a big conspiracy, I'd expect to be thrown out, for good reason. (Honestly, I'd like to be committed if that ever happened, and failing that, euthanized.) The problem is that, as my flippant quote above mentions, in some fields it's not as easy to weed out the bullshit from the good theories as it is in science. After all, how do you test a hypothesis about history? The tenure system exists to protect those who've found evidence that would piss everyone off, like that everyone's favorite theory for the past 50 years is totally wrong. It's not meant to protect people just voicing peculiar opinions. The problem is fields like history, where such opinions might or might not be valid. Mokele

IIRC, these actually were the last words of someone immediately before a battle: "There's no way they could hit anything at this dist-"

I know they do elsewhere, but is that the case in antarctica? I was under the impression (possibly mistaken) that apart from a few places, the whole continent was pretty much flat, like Australia. Is there still a lot of glacial movement? Mokele

The humanities: because when every theory is untestable, all theories are equally valid.

I would rather see *no* questionable research funded. Nothing where there isn't an a-priori hypothesis-driven reason to expect something. This is science, not an episode of Mr. Wizard. If other people don't have their hypotheses sorted out, give me the money, I've got loads of testable hypotheses with a-priori expectations to back them up. Those, however, are at the *systems* level, not the cellular level. Lack of force to work against results in muscular atrophy, and possibly also atrophy of associate nerves. It's obvious why there's vestibular problems too. All of these could have been (and likely were) predicted prior to long-term stays in space simply from our knowledge of biology and physics. So, why do we assume that physics works the same on Mars? We've never been there, so we can't be sure. How do we even know gravity works there, as opposed to some strange and mysterious other force? We don't. But we have no a priori reason to expect there to be a difference. We assume things alll the time, in all the sciences. You assume that bacteria in a culture won't be terribly different from those in a patient's gut, I assume that because the force measurement plate is flush with the ground and immovable, it won't affect the animal's walking significantly. The important thing is that without these assumptions we'd waste 99% of our time chasing dead-end, unlikely possibilities. The key is not in the assumptions, but knowing the reasoning behind them and what situations are likely to violate them. If there's no a-priori reason to expect the assumption to be violated, why bother? Is it foolish of me to just assume that the gravitation force on an item is the same in my animal care room as the experimental room next door? There's no a priori reason to expect a difference, but you seem to endorse a position which would leave me testing the gravitational acceleration in both rooms for no good reason. Then why not irradiate them here, on earth, and save some $ for other grants to other scientists? There's an a priori reason to expect radiation to have an effect, but no reason to expect an effect of gravity. Mokele

Ok, as some of you know already, I grow carnivorous plants. One particular group I'm very keen on are the tropical pitcher plants, and I've had some success recently with lowland species, who are used to constantly warm temperatures. However, many of the most spectacular (and gigantic, by which I mean "can eat rodents and possibly small monkeys") species are from tropical mountains, where the temperature drops into the 60's and even 50's at night, accompanied by 100% humidity. Of course, because I lack anything resembling a sense of when to stop, I want these, and thus I need a terrarium for them. I can't cool my apartment at night (partly because of my reptiles, partly because I hate the cold), so I need to cool their tank specifically. My plan has been to pump cold water or cold air from a refrigerator or freezer (though obviously not water in that case) into the tank, which will be insulated on many sides. However, fridges and freezers are expensive ($80+), and I don't want to mess one up only to find it doesn't work. So what I want to ask is basically this: is there anything of importance in the door of a fridge or freezer, or is it just a big air-filled space for insulation? If so, would it be possible to remove the door and replace it with a home-made one which fits, seals, and insulates, but with a pre-cut hole? Obviously, there will be heat loss if I drill a hole in the fridge/freezer, but if the hole is connected to an air-filled tube, and the air isn't being pumped during daylight hours, will this be a significant source of heat loss? Mokele

Must...not...quote...Austin Powers....

It's not that I think all such experiments are worthless. It's that I don't see an a priori reason to expect them to yield results. It's like me testing the locomotor differences between a corn snake and a black rat snake. They're from the same genus, probably very closely related within that genus, appear very similar, half similar morphology and a similar niche. There's no reason to expect their locomotion to differ in any way beyond the effects of size. Even if there is some difference, it's likely to be so tiny that I'd need thousands of experiments to detect it. What I'm saying is that if you don't have a reason to expect significant results, you're very likely just wasting your time. Sure, you might find something, but 99.99% of the time you won't. That's why hypotheses are so important: you need a good reason to do it (alternatively, you need to give your granting agency a good reason to give you money to do it) and a reason why anyone should even care and treat it as more than trivia. You can if gravity is a negligible force on the system. That's like saying that all electronics experiments have been conducted in a nitrogen atmosphere, so we don't know what'll happen if we replace that with argon: there's no good reason to expect it to make a difference. Same thing here: in fluid system, the smaller you get, the less important gravity is and the more important fluid forces are. Look at a vial of blood. There's white blood cells, reb blood cells, platelets, and plasma in there, and each of those has a different weight and density. But if you leave blood out (and prevent clotting), it won't separate. The only way to separate the components is to centrifuge them, which effectively massively increases the gravitational force so that it can overpower the fluid forces. Note: gravity only has a major effect on cells in a fluid when it's artificially increased to far beyond the normal level. Now, signaling molecules are a *lot* smaller, yet you see to expect this basic physics to not hold true for them. Why? Did they control for radiation? There's an *assload* of radiation out there, and that could also produce effects. I'm not just trying to be difficult. The relative importance for fluid vs gravitational forces on organisms as their size changes is important, well-known, and well-tested biomechanics. I need to see some very good reasoning on why this principle does not apply in relationship to cellular signaling and other molecular processes. I just did. The very first paper I found on the topic was about frog embryos, all of which were nearly normal and only showed transient abnormalities (which may be due to the radiation in space). Read. My. Post. I am not *assuming* anything. I am stating that, based on *KNOWN* and *WELL-STUDIED* biomechanical and physical principles, there is a strong a priori reason to suspect that no difference would be evident in most molecular systems. Try reading posts and actually comprehending them. It helps. Mokele

Nobody has litterally no other choice. The other choices are just less desirable, especially with the signing bonuses and college tuition that the military offers. Still, if they *really* didn't want to go, even that would make no difference. A choice made for poor reasons is still a choice. I do agree that it's a lamentable situation, but there is still a world of difference between a choice, however limited the alternatives, and no choice. And how exactly will this war prevent that? It certainly didn't prvent the bombings in Madrid and London. Show me a course of action that actually will be *effective*, then I'll endorse it. So far, I'm not convinced the current course of military action has made a real difference in domestic terrorism vulnerability. But you assume large-scale military intervention, requiring a draft, would be the action needed. I disagree; I think directing that effort towards the NSA, CIA, and FBI to make them more effective (without infringing upon civil liberties) would have a much greater impact. Wise action to forestall danger does not necessarily mean outright war. Way to miss the point. The point is not what I, personally, feel or do not feel. The point is that if the threat is real and dire, a draft will be unnecessary. If the country's citizens are so apathetic or mistreated that the only way to face a threat is to force them to fight, then the country is already so far in the crapper than winning will only prolong the time until it disintigrates. Mokele

It's not the pure knowledge aspect (everything I do is pure knowledge), but rather that we can't be sure what we're seeing has value. For instance, if I was seeing how snakes attempt to move in zero-g, I would be unable to distinguish whether their reactions were due to confusion when faced with a system they've never dealt with, or due to genuine mechanical properties of the snake's muscular system. It all depends on the point of the specific experiment. Some experiments are such that you can place the system in highly artificial situations and still have useful knowledge, while in other cases, the behavior of a system in highly artifical or unusual conditions might reveal little or nothing about how the system works. It's all dependent upon the system and the question you're trying to answer. Personally, I tend to be critical of 'gee-whiz science', where the experiment is basically to see what happens under X weird conditions, with no real larger purpose. Not that serendipitous discoveries cannot be made that way, but rather that the chances of meaningful discoveries are much lower. Mokele

How is it in any way contradictory? If the citizens are either too dissatisfied or just plain lazy to be motivated to preserve the country, why should the country be preserved? It's clearly failed as an institution, so why prop it up? Why not give another country (who can evidently muster enough support to invade) a chance to rule? What I'm saying is that the willingness of the citizens to defend their country is, in my eyes, a metric of that country's performance. In that context, a draft is the equivalent of cheating on the test. A country whose survival is *genuinely* threatened, and which has governed effectively enough that the citizens *genuinely* care shouldn't *need* a draft. Strawman: I did not say that. I expressed skepticism towards your proclamation that "we need to take immediate action to safeguard blah blah blah", indicating that I believe our safety as a country is *not* seriously threatened, hence why so many are unwilling to enlist for our current war. Read my damn post, and cut the strawman arguements. Mokele

Nobody, as it should be. If the citizens aren't willing to fight for the country, then maybe that country shouldn't be at all. And that requires a draft how, exactly? The fact that I can even ask that question seriously is the problem: if it's a war over survival, with another country attacking us, a draft would likely be unnecessary. But to expect people to accept being drafted for a war whose initial justification was tenuous at the very best is ridiculous. There's a difference between sacrifice to save one's country, and sacrifice to save the oil companies' bottom line. Mokele

Not if it's bipartisan enough. I mean, think about it, 67%-50% is only 17%, only 1/6th of the members of each house would have to change their votes, and that's if the bill just squeaked by. From what I found online, the vote in the senate was 63-37, meaning with only 4 more votes for it, it'd be veto-proof. It was 238 - 192 in the House, so they only need 290 votes, an increase of 54. That'd probably be harder. However, from what I'm seeing online, a slight majority favor full federal funding, and the more likely someone is to follow this issue, the more likely they are to be favorable. Given that the HR is up for election soon, that could create some political pressure. Mokele

And where do those armed forces get their guns? How are they transported to battle? How are they taught the skills they need to operate artillery pieces and suchlike? Where does their food come from? Where do they get nifty toys like stealth bombers and instant wound-sealers? Whose taxes support them? Think of a country like an organism: the organism needs an immune system, or it'll be invaded and killed. But that's not *all* it needs. Without a digestive system, where will the immune cells get nutrients? Without a sensory and motor system, how will it avoid injury? Without nervous and endocrine systems, how will it regulate it's internal state, allowing the immune system to fight? Without a circulatory system, how will oxygen get to the immune system? A country is an integrated whole, with each part interacting with the others. The military is the immune system, and such a system *does* play a vital role. But that doesn't mean the other systems are inferior; indeed, without the other system, the immune system and body as a whole fail. Furthermore, I find it rather ironic that you declare science not equal to military service in this regard, when, in fact, our military power rests *primarily*, if not soley, on our status as the most technologically advanced fighting force in the world. Where do you think this technology comes from? And? First, if putting one's life in danger is a qualifier, you've just removed a huge portion of the military from consideration. *Some* soliders fight. Many others coordinate movements, build bridges to enable troop movements, coordinate communications, gather inteligence, maintain the technology our forces depend upon, supply fuel, transport equipment, or even handle paperwork. Second, as far as personal advancement vs service to others, look at the military. Yes, *some* join to serve their country, etc. But how many join because they need a way to afford college, or to learn job skills, or any other 'selfish' reason? Plus, since when has service to others been exclusive to personal advancement? You think aerospace engineers join Lockheed-Martin for the service aspect, or for the $100k starting salary? Does that salary mean the F-22 is of any less service to the country? As far as instilling patriotism, why do you think that the military is the only way to do that? I can offer more empirical proof of my patriotism than most Americans: I had to actually *work* to become a US citizen, and it's something I put effort into, rather than just dropping out of some woman's vagina in the right location. Just because I'm not out there getting shot at doesn't mean I'm less patriotic. And, for that matter, what of those who cannot serve for religious, mental or physical reasons? Or those whose skills are such that they can do more for the country in a civilian position? I'm by no means trashing the military. I'm saying you seem to percieve a false dichotomy between those in active military service, and everyone else. Since when do fashion choices indicate patriotism? I don't wear a US flag, in part because I find any manner of 'wearing one's heart upon one's sleeve' to be, bluntly, tacky and classless. The strength of your beliefs in anything, god, country, whatever, is not correlated with the degree to which you trumpet those beliefs to the world. Yes, it's an excuse, but not for what you think. As Azure pointed out, some people are just plain not good at dealing with crises. Some can only maintain mental stability in the face of such alarming circumstances by clinging even more strongly to the ordinary and familiar. In fact, I'd lay money that your lab mates put in a lot of extra hours that week, specifically *because* the familair environment and tasks were soothing. Where do you think the atomic bomb came from? Or the stealth fighter? Sorry, but that's just a cop-out, and it annoys me every time I see it. And that's a bad thing? Sorry, I prefer to avoid PTSD and mental breakdowns for the rest of my life due to being scarred for life by the horrors that humans can inflict upon one another. Mokele

Personally, I strongly suspect this experiment, and any others at the cellular level, which show precisely nothing. A fundamental rule of biological scaling in fluid systems is that for small things, viscous forces predominate, while for big things, inertial forces predominate. A spiderling can fly by just letting out a strand of silk, which increases it's surface area enough that viscous forces predominate and it moves like dust in the wind, while birds must rely on active exertion against the fluid to keep from falling. The mechanism behind the sort of cellular-level effects in development is usually the diffusion of signaling molecules, which are *tiny*. Essentially, anything where the moving parts are microscopic will show no effect, for precisely the same reason that plankton float: at that scale, the effect of gavity is miniscule compared to the effect of fluid forces like internal currents. There are potential experiments in my field (organismal biomechanics) where reduced gravity or microgravity could be useful, but such experiments would also be limited by the animal's behavior (not to mention the feasability of getting them into orbit and caring for them). Plus, there's the issue of how useful such an artificial state is in determining what happens naturally. Mokele

Do you know if there's enough support in Congress for this bill for them to override the veto? Mokele

Well, technically all cells do. They'll all basically sacks of saltwater. Also, as you know, neurons don't conduct electricity the same way a wire does, but instead it would be more accurate to say that a wave of depolarization propagates down the axon. Other than nerves, AFAIK muscle cells are the only animal cell that is electrically excitable. There may be other types in plants; IIRC, flytraps show a voltage change when closing to capture an insect. Mokele

Somehow 'pwned day' doesn't instill me with a sense of thrilling victory...

Actually, I was here in Cinci when that happened. It was so damn cool! There were just *billions* of them, everywhere. You could find dozens on a single small tree branch. After a while, you just got used to the noise, too. My lizard loved them, but sadly I didn't have any carnivorous plants at the time. Oh, speaking of scary numbers of bugs, check this out: Mayfly hatch caught on weather radar Yes, it's a swarm of bugs so big it shows up on weather radar. Mokele

Because someone has to post this quote: "...on planet Earth, man had always assumed he was more intelligent than dolphins because he achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars, and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons." -- Douglas Adams

Ahh, my bad, I meant that the snakes which have evolved resistance to this toxin seem to have lower nerve performance, and lower locomotor speed.

I think that's a rather narrow definition of 'service'. Why only military? I'd consider the people maintaining the roads and communication systems serving the country too. And teachers. And scientists. And farmers. Not to mention I'm a strong proponent of a fully mechanized/robotic military, with no human exposure to any hazards. If we wanted to compell service, I'd suggest sending people to teach in the public schools before the military. The need is more dire, and plus if we raise a new generation of well-educated, scientifically literate students, we'll just be able to install orbital death-rays and wage wars exclusively that way. Mokele