Ophiolite

No. Not much else to say.

Exactly so.

As a Brit I've always been amused by the defence of the publication of pornography under the umbrella of free speech. Surely what's being defended here is free grunting.

Whoa! If it is small it has less surface area from which to radiate. You are thinking in terms of rabbits losing temperature faster than elephants because of body size. That's a conduction/heat generation thing, not a radiation thing.

Apparently you can have an amount of science professors! Fortunately for the integrity of the English language you cannot have an amount of English professors. Amount refers to a continous quantity, such as volume, or mass, or length. Discrete numbers are exactly that - numbers. So you can have, as the op correctly stated in his post, though not his title, a number of professors. You can never have an amount of professors. (Equally there may be fewer professors in Maryland than California, never less professors in Maryland.) Numbers are digitial; amounts are analog.

I am not sure that there would be any value in estimating the probability. The effort required for that might be better expended on revisiting the data and on designing future experiments that properly tested for the presence of life. Two of the three experiments carried on the Viking craft produced results that it had been agreed prior to the landings would be evidence for life. Since the experiments did not produce all the results expected to be associated with life and since the mass spectrometer did not detect organic molecules, the conclusion was that simple chemistry was responsible for the results, not life. I have always been troubled by that rather arbritrary and cavalier approach to the experimental data.

I think this is fundamentally wrong. Science has more questions to answer today that it ever had in the past. As we increase our knowledge in depth and breadth we come up against more unknown issues and more questions. One hundred years ago we thought the Milky Way galaxy was the entire universe. Twenty years ago we knew nothing about dark energy. (In twenty years time we may have decided there is nothing to know about it!) We don't know how the universe arose. We don't know why the fundamental constants are what they are. We don't know how life arose. We don't understand what was responsible for the Cambrian explosion. We don't know all the rules governing the formation of planetary systems. The list of what we don't know would fill several volumes the size of Encyclopedia Brittanica.

My apologies for misunderstanding you. I should have a) read what you wrote more carefully, b) not jumped to a concussion.

The reason is implicit in the language.Horza2002 does not explain the reason for Emsley's wording, but I am pleased you found his reply useful. I'll take the last remark as a side swipe at my own contribution. I'll seek not to inconvenience you on future threads.

There remains a small, but finite possibility that the Viking landers detected life on Mars. Post facto discounting of positive results from the onborard experiments as being due to peroxides in the Martian soil are not wholly convincing.

You would want to wash them down occassionally, when they got grubby.

Because that's where the remaining big oil plays are thought to be.

The difference is between a technically precise term - Lanthanides and Actinides, and an informal, 'popular' term - rare earths. Like John I am puzzled as to why there would be any confusion.

I have learned one thing from this thread. It may be prudent to discourage my granddaughter from seeking entry into a philosophy course at Oxford University. I have been impressed by the patience, restraint and tact exercised by successive posters when responding to Klaplunk's posts. Ignorance is one thing - I think SwansonT pointed out we are all ignorant of many things. However, self indulgent, patronising, deliberately sustained ignorance is an abomination. Klaplunk's simple minded yet arrogant approach is every bit as bad as the dementia of a young Earth creationist. I am appalled that someone capable of gaining entry to a major university, with a global reputation, should be capable of such defective thinking and lack of intellect. Truly depressing.

I prefer the same distinction carried with a frisson of wit in this observation: "The climate in Scotland is excellent. It's the weather that is bloody awful!"

The well was being drilled with a floating semisubmersible rig, so no structure was required to support it. Production from these water depths is carried out using a TLP (Tension Leg Platforms) which are floating facilities held in place by multiple mooring lines. Here is an example whereby Shell set a record for the deepest water production facility.

I am not sure why the links posted so far have all been to popular accounts of the research. The original paper in Science is available here. Normally a subscription is required to access more than the abstract, but the editors have made this one available, presumably because of the anticipated interest extending beyond experts in the field.

The magnetic poles reverse on a semi-regular basis (recent research suggests a very long time scale pattern likely related to events within the core). The time interval between reversals approximates a few hundred thousand years, but can vary considerably. The last reversal was around 700,000 years ago. There is some evidence to suggest that we may be in the early stages of a reversal at present: field strength is declining; the magnetic pole is wandering more rapidly than has been the case in historical times; a secondary pole, the South Atlantic Anomaly, has developed. Computer modelling suggests a reversal will take a thousand years or more. During this period the field will become increasingly irregular and weaker, before settling into the new arrangement. This will leave the Earth somewhat more exposed to charged particles from the solar wind and cosmic rays. Contrary to the doom merchant's crys this is unlikely to have a marked influence on the biosphere. Attempts to find a correlation between previous reversals and extinction events have failed. Migratory birds that rely on the magnetic field to navigate may have problems, but most of these have back up systems. Aircraft may have to fly at lower altitudes to avoid exposing crews to excessive cumulative radiation. This is already the case over the South Atlantic Anomaly. Compasses will, of course, point in the opposite direction. Magnetic sensors used in drilling directional wells will require a suite of corrections to be applied. I can't think of any major items of equipment that would be affected in any significant way.

I will respect your wish and post no more negative criticisms of your speculation. However, be aware that this is not how science is done. If you cannot handle the objections that I and others raise, demonstrating why we are mistaken by using evidence and logic, then you will never be able to convert your speculation into a viable theory. You should be the harshest critic of your own ideas. You should be able to see why the flaws in your speculation. If you choose not to and fail to address those flaws then you will not progress very far with this idea specifically, or in science in general. Again, I wish you well, but urge you to consider an alternative approach.

Nick Clegg?

Please provide evidence that there has been an increase in seismic activity. Earthquakes are commonplace, though only those causing major property damage or loss of life are likely to make the news. I asser that there has been no significant increase in seismic activity coincident with the increase in solar activity. It is up to you to demonstrate otherwise.(I also note in passing that a volcanic eruption is hardly seismic activity.) Excuse the pun, but that is hardly earth shattering news. The concentration of earthquakes in certain discrete areas of the planet was one of the major pieces of evidence that led to plate tectonic theory. In short, I am not clear why you mentioned this. I think you will have a hard time demonstrating such a relationship. This is incorrect. The Earth's magnetic field is created by convection currents in the molten outer core. Your suggestion that the energy goes outside the container 'because it has nowhere esle to go' is quaint, but is not physics. This is incorrect. The core's energy, by which you appear to mean its temperature, is well accounted for by a combination of residual heat from gravitational collapse during the accretion period of the planet, decay of radioactive elements and phase changes. Since your premises are flawed I see no point in dissecting the rest of your thesis. I wish you luck in trying to convince others of its value, but I suggest you make a more extended effort to understand what you are investigating.

That comment is valid if, and only if, the net effect of the immigrants upon the economy, welfare and culture of the country is negative. That has not been demonstrated. The thrust of this thread that is marginally more convincing is the alleged lie told by the labour government. However, even there I see no proof that the motivation was as described. Moreover, I am automatically skeptical about ascribing single motives to complex political actions. Such simplification is rarely accurate or meaningful.

I think you have to consider where you have seen the number 'usually rounded to 23.5 degrees'. I suggest that in most cases it was not written by a scientist, and perhaps not even by a science writer. Anywhere a scientist is using the number as the basis of calculations, or as an accurate record, then I think you will find it is presented accurately. Even some (most) popular accounts will provide reasonable accuracy. Wikipedia, for example, gives 23.439281°. It is also worth remembering that the angle varies over time.

There you have it: Safety Consideration for others For the record I occasionally run within my office building, but only where there are wide corridors and no risk of colliding with someone emerging from an office, or around a wall and when there is a good reason to get somewhere quickly. I am sixty one.

The difficulty of assessing the probability of life arising is that we are currently working with a sample of one. It's difficult to do statistics on something like that. The early appearance of life on Earth could be explained by a) The rapidity with which life will tend to emerge because its 'easy'. b) Chance occurrence of a highly unlikely event. (Weak Anthropic Principle) c) Panspermia There seems no compelling reason at present to favour one of these over the others.