Moontanman

C-14 dating would be the most obvious choice, a tiny sample is all that is needed.

Wood i would have to say yes, metal is more iffy, I'm not sure about the metal.

Auto Engineer, this is not a forum to convert people, proselytizing is not allowed... I would say shattered but yes you are correct...

There are, to my knowledge, very few ways to control the growth of algae, restrict nutrients or energy input, or raise temps above which algae can grow or lower temps until algae cannot grow. Exactly what type of algae are you having problems with? Some species can be controlled with poisons, copper sulfate will control some species. I'd have to have some details on the environment your algae is growing in before I or anyone here could even start to suggest real world solutions...

Hmmm a steaming hot line cup of cocaine in the morning, a oz of cream and a oz of agave nectar, brew a whole pot er a joint, I mean what ever you shoot, snort, smoke, drink, or rub into your belly.... want some papers with that shit? yeah, better give me a roll or two... GCRIP....

As you point out we still have birds so all the dinosaurs didn't die out. Actually large bodies are easier to keep warm, in most keeping cool is more of a problem. Quite clear to who? There is considerable debate about this, the "blood radiators" could have been used to shed heat not pick it up and they could have been sexual displays as well. Which dinosaurs spent the day in a lake? Not to put too fine a point on this, but that is Bullshit Please show some support for this assertion and then explain why a popular magazine means anything in the realm of science to start with? I guess the death of plants had nothing to do with it? This only makes sense if you assume that all large dinosaurs were cold blooded, this is almost certainly not true. Again, this is not a widely accepted idea, please show some support for this. This of course ignores all the nocturnal dinosaurs as well as modern nocturnal reptiles... Similar to a turkey in what way? Horse feathers, this "bird like dinosaur did not live in anymore danger of mammalian predators than any other dinosaur did at the time, which by the way was something like 100 million years before mammals were a threat to anything but insects... Possibly, then again it could have just been a dinosaur with feathers, since quite a few non avian dinosaurs had feathers.

It's really weird the way people get nuts over a fire, even one that is completely in control, almost like some people and knives...

Smells a lot like reality to me rigney...

While I am aware of the problems in dog breeding and the reasons for it, I'm not sure that eugenics coupled with modern genetic engineering couldn't over come the problems encountered by selective breeding. Dogs are an extreme example, dogs are bred with no real idea of what they want other than a certain look, inbreeding is both common and not just allowed but actively done intentionally, and damn anything that gets in the way as long as the dog has the certain look and people buy them who cares if they get sick and die later? I would like to think that humans would care more about the person than they do about dogs.... naw, that's obviously not true, if humans were bred for specific traits we all know there would be money to be made and that money would rule the breeding of humans just like it does dogs. Think puppy mills but with humans instead of dogs... I concede the point... While I think dogs are a bad example i still have to agree, knowing humans as well as i do, i would not want to be the product of genetic engineering.... I might be three feet tall with long droopy ears, a huge nose, and a penis that drags the ground... Well one out of three isn't bad... My main interest in this would be the genetic engineering of humans to live in an environment that normal humans couldn't live in, like an alien planet. More likely it would be used to breed workers who would be specialized enough to dig ditches like crazy not intellect.... But would you say genetic counseling is a form of voluntary eugenics?

What is it about hill billies burning bonfires? I grew up a hill billy and I am still obsessed with burning large fires, i had the law come over while I was enjoying one a few months ago, they didn't seem to like it much though...

Yes that does make sense, thank you for clarifying it. I understand completely the idea of how unfit for a natural environment our domesticated animals are. But isn't that true of most humans already? Aren't we pretty much domesticated already? Is it realistic to say that we must preserve genetic diversity for an environment that no longer exists? Is it possible that actively selecting for traits that allow us to better exist in what is now our natural environment makes more sense than allowing traits to be selected willy nilly? Of course there is always the problem of who decides which traits to breed for....

While I agree that eugenics is probably a bad idea, mostly to me because of who decides on what traits to breed for, I question that it couldn't work with humans. We have applied what is basically eugenics to other animals with considerable success, I keep basset hounds, hard to believe they were once, if you go back far enough, wolves. Dog's, cattle, horses, sheep, goats, chickens, the list of animal's we have changed drastically via selective breeding is long. In fact, to me, religion smells very strongly of a selective breeding program by aliens... Be that as it may, no i am not trying to go OT, why would you say that eugenics wouldn't work for humans? Are we genetically unique in some manner that would prevent us from being selectively bred?

Something like 35 states have passed similar laws, these people don't want to save marriage they want to disenfranchise anyone who is not of the same mind set as they are. It's simply not true that all Christians don't want Gays to marry nor do they want non religious people to be denied civil unions. But this subset of religious people want their own beliefs and values forced on every one else. it's just part of the fundie agenda to eliminate all schools of thought but their own. They want to teach religion in schools as science and they want to eliminate contraception not just abortion and they do this by claiming it is the will of god. These people, in the US anyway, have tremendous power, they want nothing less than a theocracy, a fundamentalist theocracy that requires that everyone follow biblical law. Several preachers, pastors, priests, or juju men in my state have actually come forward to assert that homosexuals should be rounded up into concentration camps and if not actively killed then allowed to die. (they can't reproduce) As despicable as these people are the so called moderates are just as bad f not worse for not speaking out against the promotion of such atrocities but because they are all in the same club they cannot bring them selves to criticize their compatriots.... personally I think this is just as despicable as the fundies who assert these things should be done. I wish this was aberrant behavior but sadly in the USA it is becoming mainstream religious thought... Fundies have taken control of the Republican party... At least we don't have to worry about sea level rise.... http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/?WT_mc_id=SA_WR_20120606

Antarctica would be orders of magnitude easier to colonize than Mars yet we don't see any big shove to colonize Antarctica, Mars is difficult to colonize and if anyone thinks that terra forming Mars is going to create a tropical paradise i suggest living in Antarctica for a couple years....

Not to my knowledge and I have never heard anyone else assert this either.

At one time i was in contact with a scientist who was doing some research into the possibility of silicon/silicone life, we talked extensively about it. Silicone based DNA is close to being an oxymoron. According to him, and yes i understand this is hearsay and I apologize i cannot site the paper he wrote, i did read the paper but it was several years ago and it has slipped my memory, silicone cannot replace carbon on an atom for atom basis in most if any, even semi, complex organic compounds. he also came to the conclusion that silicone life would be energy deficient at many crucial points and would require some unique chemical processes we are not aware of to work. You have to also take into account that there are two possibilities for silicon polymers. SiO2 or silicone would be the most common basis for pseudo organic compounds and they would have to be at very high temperatures. Silicon can form compounds like SiH4 and a few other simple silicon carbon analogs but they would only exist at very low temperatures (think Saturn's moon titan) and they react explosively to water and or oxygen.

Where I live the religious part of the population passed a constitutional amendment to make sure that couldn't happen.

Justin didn't just fall off a turnip truck, he knew what he was saying. He started out by making a a disingenuous claim that many dishonest theists use, the idea that somehow all religious people agree on the same things. All scientists are atheists or evolutionists cannot be Christians or that both sides be taught, This idea of religious people just wanting to protect marriage is bogus from the start, they want to disenfranchise homosexuals and in my state atheists as well...

Why shouldn't a religion or church that allows marriage between same sex couples be allowed to do so? Why should your definition of religion be the defining one? In my state recently the Religious fundamentalists passed a constitutional amendment that prohibits same sex marriage, The protection of marriage act, that same amendment also prohibits civil unions between same sex couples. This far reaching amendment also inter fears with civil unions between male female couples. The reality of the situation has nothing to do with protecting marriage, and it has everything to do with religious fundamentalists taking away the rights of one segment of the population for no reason what so ever other than forcing their definition of religion on everyone else, in fact a specific subset of the Christian religion has done this. Same sex marriage was already illegal, but the trend of some Churches marrying same sex couples anyway infuriated the the fundies and for no reason what so ever other than to take away legal rights of gay people and to show they had the power to do so they amended the constitution to take rights away from one section of the population, basically the people who didn't believe the same way the fundies did.

What do you produce methane from? You need a source of hydrogen, very scarce on Mars...

I'm not sure where you live Zapatos but here in the Southern USA religion is very important to people when they decide to get someone to do work for them. a great many businesses have signs proclaiming them to be a christian business and that due to their belief in Jesus they can be trusted. Claiming to be a christian gets you trust and respect and more importantly if the business does mess up then they get forgiveness. many businesses have in their ads a line that says they are a Christian business. if a Christian business tells you that you nee an additive they are believed by those who think being a christian means you are honest and if you do mess up the customers car or house or what ever then you get a pass for making an honest mistake.

Great links dude, i was gonna go slow and see how many people were really interested but you have blown me away! Lots more information on Abiogenesis than most people think. Every time some one claims that science has no clue as to how life got started i get my dander up. This idea that god did it is the only explanation of how life started is such a dead rotten strawman...

have you heard of potholer54?

Some current work http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides/ This great video is made by this guy (bold name) who commented on the above research in Nature... There is some creationist stuff they deal with in the beginning but this video is well worth watching. More info http://exploringorigins.org/