Ophiolite

My one reservation is their tendency to pursue an overtly political agenda, but I'll buy an occasional copy to read on the 'plane. I prefer Scientific American, but the two are really different in character and intent: New Scientist does focus on news.

You don't find it a little ironic that someone with your nom de plume should be talking of pipedreams?At the risk of repetition, what is it in this assessment you find unrealistic. http://www.spaceelevator.com/docs/iac-2004/iac-04-iaa.3.8.3.01.edwards.pdf Your reservations are about a decade out of date. As Arthur C. Clarke said “thirty years after everyone stops laughing it will be built”. They have stopped laughing: http://www.spaceelevator.com/docs/iac-2004/iac-04-iaa.3.8.2.01.edwards.pdf [Please note that in condensed form the two links above appear to be the same, however, they are different documents.]

You push lots of it into the ears of those around you so it doesn't disturb them.(Your whistling that is.)

Not impossible, just unlikely. If science has taught us one thing it should have taught us to expect the unexpected. We know less about the origin of life and evolution than we like to think we do. The only evidence of life we currrently have is on this planet. Everything else is inference. Careful inference and well founded speculation, remain just that. No matter how thorough, they do not transmute into evidence.

This is quite a good site. Basic data and a little more. http://www.solarviews.com/eng/titan.htm

Driving home from work I heard a BBC news item to the effect that Professor Jacob (See post 81 above) has impounded some of the recovered specimens. Reportedly, he has stated that he will undertake an 'independent' study of the remains; that other researchers will not have access to the material; that the primary specimen is that of a homo sapiens with a genetic defect responsible for the small cranial capacity; that the specimen is no more than 2000 years old.

I don't have a firm view either way, though I have followed the developing ideas over the last decade or two with interest. I proposed the debate because I knew it would provide some focus for me to look more closely at the issues. Let's revisit this in the new year, when my schedule will be a little clearer to me (which will also give me some time to do some provisional 'swatting'). And let me add to the others' comments - good posts.

Mokele, if I am reading you correctly (and I have only quickly scanned the recent posts) you are of the view no dinosaurs were warm blooded. If this is correct are you up for a debate in the New Year?

It's thirty years since I looked at Nostradamus. I can recall nothing of his work, only my own conclusion: nonsense - avoid in future. I doubt a revisit would alter my opinion. [And before someone leaps in and accuses me of being closed minded, wrong. There is a lot of pseudo science I looked at back then I retain an open mind on. However, the preditions of Nostradamus are further from reality than the Wizard of Oz.]

The best piece of advice in the thread. It is easy to dismiss the boring stuf, that has to be learnt parrot fashion. Everybody wants to get on to the interesting parts of the subject, but you must master the fundamentals, no matter how mundane they seem. Clearly, this applies to every topic, not just math. ****Cliche warning**** Don't run before you can walk.

I have two suggestions Learn a foreign language fluently, preferably one from a different family than your own. [Learning Spanish wont do much for an Italian.] Not only does it provide a different way of thinking about things, but it establishes a different pattern of connections within the brain. Think crazy thoughts. Make ridiculous associations between things and events. Pun at every opportunity. By introducing chaos to your thought process you increase its vitality and extend its grasp of the novel. One of the marks of intelligence is the ability to think outside the box - that comes so much easier if you are often thinking that way. {Related to this is developing the ability to hold two mutually exclusive ideas in your mind at the same time while believing both of them. I've mastered that, as even a cursory examination of my posts will demonstrate, and am now working on three simultaneous mutually exclusive concepts}

I am uncertain about that. The moment I take a clear position on it I just can't tell where it's going to take me. My friend says he knows exactly where he's headed with it, but frankly I can't tell where he's coming from.

Let me ask you, Daymire17, what conventional lie did I clutch like a straw? Let's do a quick recap: Sayonara points out a change in emphasis in BBC reports on the Fallujah assault. [uS attacks; US is attacked; Iraqui face of the attack] Ophiolite rules out government pressure and favours sloppy journalism as the explanation. YT more or less agrees. Pangloss provides a quote from someone nobody in Europe has heard of. Douglas thinks its both. Then you produce the memorable "I find it fascinating that almost everyone here clutches onto the conventional lies like straws. The human mind is conservative indeed. Let's remember that the only crime the inhabitants of Fallujah committed, was to disobey the American occupation authority." Surely the most memborable non sequitor of the month, if not the year. This thread is discussing the character of a newsreport - not the contents. Did you even bother to read the thread? If your answer is 'Yes', then you need to brush up on your reading comprehension. We were not discussing the rights and wrongs of the US action in Iraq. I estimate that at least half of the posters to this thread are actually opposed to the US actions. So I ask again what conventional lie did I clutch like a straw? Condemn me, even unto damnation, for opinions I hold and actions I take. Do not do so falsely.

And the Deccan trap flood basalts were within 1m.y.+/- of the KT boundary, which is why some authorities (especially those geologists who resent astronomers messing with their speciality with nasty bolides) believe it was them and not the impact that did it.As noted above it is likely that a combination of circumstances was at work.

No. Nice thought.

Absolutely, but if you recall JohnB was bothered by the reported energy for the Tunguska event, so I picked something that would deliver a comparable energy. I believe current thinking has Tunguska down as a comet, and I assumed an iron meteorite, so the Tunguska bolide, with lower density, would have been somewhat larger.

Remember that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence, but it is a different shade of green, and tastes funny. I would recommend you consider Europe because it would be so different from what you are accustomed to. That would give you a whole different perspective on so many things. Beyond that there are doubtless pros and cons for each of the places you have listed. Out of your list I have only lived in London and Dallas. Nice as Dallas is, in my book London wins hands down for its diversity, cosmopolitan character, restaurants, museums, night clubs, sense of history, virtually everything. [if you do think further about the UK let me put in a small plug for Glasgow. Fourth oldest University in the UK, known at one time as the 'Second City of Empire', great architecture, and a populace who are so friendly they will even ask after you health when they are mugging you.]

And after I had calmed down I noticed there were lines of latitude and longditude, which therfeore implicitly gave the scale. The original (Canadian) site is also interesting. What I can't find is anything giving a reasoned review of the change in thinking i.e. a decade ago reversals were thought to be a disaster waiting to happen, now they will just be an inconvenience unless you are a pigeon or a whale.

Iridium is comparatively rare on earth and comparatively common in meteorites. In the thin layer of rock that marks the KT boundary there is a high concentration of Iridium. This is what first gave the Agaziz (father and son) the idea of a major impact at the end of the Cretaceous. Researchers began to look for possible sites and two geologists, working for Pemex the Mexican national oil company spotted the Chicxulub site with 3-D seismic. Edited to correct my abominable spelling of Chicxulub. (Popocatapetl is easier to climb than pronounce!)

J'Dona you have offended one of the few sensibilities I have. I apologise in advance for shouting and ask that you not take my following outburst in anway personally. Especially as I generally enjoy your posts and find them informative. OK. Ready. IF A *****NG MAP DOES NOT HAVE A ****NG SCALE IT IS NOT A MAP IT IS A PIECE OF WORTHLESS GARBAGE. Thanks you for your attention, normal service will now be resumed. Edit: And I know that there isn't a scale on the site you lifted it from. I've already sent an e-mail to the site editor. If you had your fingers rapped for missing scales of maps, you would feel passionate about it too.

A lot of misinterpretation is going on here. Let me try to clarify some points: 1. The current ice age (we are in an ice age as a quick look at Greenland and Antarctica will tell you) is not the norm for our planet. There have been ice ages in the past, but they are less common than no ice age. In most geological epochs the global temperatures have been significantly higher than today. Changes in the position of the continents and the consequent effect upon patterns of oceanic and atmospheric circulation are most likely responsible. Therefore whatever catastrophe occured at the end of the Cretaceous it did not cause a massive rise in sea level because of melting ice caps. There were no ice caps to melt. 2. The rocks on either side of the KT boundary have been studied globally probably more than those representing any other comparable period of time. In these rocks there is no evidence of 'drowned dinosaurs' on a global basis. There is sufficient evidence to say with confidence that the dinosaurs were not wipred out by a global flood. 3. The Mexico impact did not remove oxygen from the atmosphere. The resultant fire storm (partly caused by incandescent fragments from the impact falling back to earth) may or may not have been global in extent (this is the subject of current debate). Burning a substantial part of the biosphere would have reduced the oxygen content by an amount, but more sigificant would be the temporary reduction of photosyhthesis by the 'nuclear winter'. Neither mechanism, however, would eliminate the bulk of oxygen from the atmosphere. 4. Evolution did not tart all over again, it continued as always, working with the gene pool it had (which was now missing dinosaurs and so elevated some little furry fellows in importance) and within the environments that existed.

Half correct. There wer no KT icecaps to melt. Hoever, ocean water levels rise if the ice is on land, as most of the Antarctic ice is today, and most of the N.Hemisphere ice was 12000 years ago.

We have some, disputed, evidence of flooding in the vicinity of the Mexico impact. There is no evidence of global flooding. Most dinosaurs were restricted in their range, just as modern mammals are, apart from man and his pets. There may be a handful of types that had global range, but the majority did not. Equally, the vast majority of dinosaurs remains that have been discovered were deposited earlier than the KT boundary. There is nothing to suggest in the types, distribution or enviroment of dinosaur finds that those at or near the KT boundary were deposited by a flood.

The plot thickens. Here is a report of three sub-species, none of which appear to be either the Borneo variety or the new desert variety. The Indian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) is a one of three subspecies or races of the Asian elephant ''Elephas maximus". The other two subspecies of the Asian elephant are E. m. sumatranus on Sumatra and E. m. maximus on Sri Lanka. The Indian elephant for example, is larger, has longer front legs and a thinner body than the Asian elephant found in Thailand. This is from http://www.honoluluzoo.org/indian_elephant.htm You would think something the size of an elephant would be difficult to overlook.