Moontanman

So far you have yet to explain why this is desirable, why is it bad to kill and eat something? Why is the life of a year old animal more important than a 300 year old tree? Why is it bad to kill and eat living things, only if they are animal? Why should so much effort be put into artificial meat when real meat on the hoof is so much easier and tastier? I have no problem killing something for food, neither do Lions or my dog or the shrew in my backyard. Everything on the earth lives by the death of something else, even plants need the excrement and rotting bodies of animals to grow no to mention the CO2 animals give off. We all live off something else, why is it so important to eat only plants and not animals? WHY?

Very easily, chemo-synthesis is related to photosynthesis and the two probably evolved together.. I'm not sure if this is relevant but life on earth is extremely flexible, bacteria and Archaea, use everything from hydrogen to uranium for chemical energy, the idea of "so little variety" is puzzling. Life on earth is extremely variable and sulfur utilizing bacteria are very common, purple sulfur bacteria are a good example. some bacteria life off nothing but hydrogen and carbon releasing methane as a waste gas, other bacteria use the methane to produce energy. Life on earth has so much variety I can't see how this guy can say that it has little variety. As much as I would love to see this be confirmed i have some real problems with the pics, they look like crystals, vaguely organic crystals but not life. i have often wondered if crystals and life were related in some way. The cores of comets and small ice moons might be life factories after all but these pics look more like crystals than life.

My problem with this has to do with the chirality of the molecules, if they are 50/50 between left and right then it would appear that no life forms were involved, the fossil pics are somewhat less than overwhelmingly convincing either.

Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites: http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html

Still looking for that blue jean, baby queen Prettiest girl I ever seen See her shake on the movie screen, Jimmy Dean.... James Dean! Rock On! It's quite obvious Marat that you have not been talking to the right people or listening to the right music on the right equipment. Listen to Magic Man by Heart (actually the whole Dream Boat Annie LP) or Desire Walks on LP by Heart or if you want a hit that will send chills up your spine but it almost never played in it's entirety on the radio listen to "Love is like Oxygen" by Sweet or if you like more mainstream Rock then "Don't fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult or "Veteran of a Thousand Psychic Wars" personally I think the reason most people fail to feel the complexity of rock music is both the radio programs that only played 3 minute songs and the joke of Hi Fidelity music being played on a transistor radio. I listen to my music through a Mitsubishi power amp, 150 watts per channel at 8 ohms (they used to call those amps welders specials), An Adcom control amp, Shure V-15 Type IV cartridge and Infinity 1.5 4 ohm speakers. There is distinct difference between album rock being played on a real stereo system and the shortened compressed versions listened to on a cheap turn table or broadcast on the radio. Lots of album rock that will make you feel those goose bumps if it is played with the similar dynamic range that classical music is usually listened to, whole album cuts listened to on equipment that can do them justice is a great ride. "Take a Ride on Heavy Metal, it's the only way you can travel down that road....." (sound tracks are often good too....) Oops, I have repeated myself, but what the hey it's a slow morning

Homosexuality is a very complex issue that most people tend to want to simplify because of temptation or guilt. In some ways the modern idea of homosexuality, it would seem according the the following link, is indeed a modern idea, since we see everything through the goggles of current "understanding" this seems to have more weight than i would have believed at first. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-sexual-freedoms-modern.html

Technically? Yes? Can you elaborate on that? About as difficult as it is for heterosexuals, do you really think homosexuals cannot have sex with the opposite sex? Besides the fact that many people regularly cross the so called lines of sexual behavior if modern medical technology was required for homosexuals to reproduce then they would have been eliminated from the gene pool way before modern medical technology existed. Homosexuality is a sexual behavior, often one of many sexual behaviors practiced by human beings, the idea of a homosexual not being able or even willing to occasionally cross the lines of sexual behaviors is about as false as saying heterosexuals don't cross over either...

So you think homosexuals cannot reproduce with out modern medical assistance?

Isn't this one of those "If it were not for the consciousness of the Universe I would not be conscious of being conscious of the consciousness of the Universe type questions?"

Yes but what about plant rights, why is it ok to kill and eat plants, use their corpses as building materials, confine them to pots, burn them just for heat! Who are you to say killing plants is ok?

Tory voters found to have larger 'primitive' lobe in brain An MRI scan of the brain. The right amygdala - an ancient part of the brain - was larger in those people who described themselves as conservative. It's located where the yellow area meets the red in the centre of the picture Our political allegiances could be hard-wired into our brains, neuroscientists believe. Researchers have found evidence that the brains of conservatives are a different shape to those of Left-wingers. Scans of 90 students’ brains at University College London uncovered a ‘strong correlation’ between the thickness of two particular areas of grey matter and an individual’s political views. Self-proclaimed right-wingers had a more pronounced amygdala - a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion. It is an almond-shape set of neurons located deep in the brain's medial temporal lobe. However, those aligned to the left had thicker anterior cingulates - which is an area associated with anticipation and decision-making. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1342239/Brain-study-reveals-right-wing-conservatives-larger-primitive-amygdala.html#ixzz1FghXi9wS

I think genetic engineering holds more promise for growing plants on Mars than building greenhouses. I'm not completely sure but i think here are some lichens that could grow in some areas of Mars, the Martian rift valley is supposed to be deep enough for the air pressure to allow liquid water, lichens fix their own nitrogen and can live in areas of extreme cold and dryness. There are also colonies of cyanobacteria that live just under the surface of rocks on the Earth in extreme environments, lots of possibilities and of course there is always the possibility of native Martian life forms... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars

The main problem with warming up Titan is that you would only have a gaint ball of water, no land surface, the water would be many miles deeper than on the earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Titan_cutaway.svg/517px-

I don't think it can be denied that in our day and society child/adult sexual contact is virtually certain to have bad consequences to the child. A pedophile might think he loves children but what he really loves is his own pleasure. A pedophile doesn't see the consequences of his actions from the stand point of the child. No long term relationship is possible between a child and pedophile simply because the child grows up and ceases to be a child. The pedophile would then loose interest in the child so the relationship is doomed no matter what happens. Then you have to consider the effects of society on the child, much like the anorexic child responding to the norms of society by starving themselves to death. Can an adult have a brief childish sexual contact with a child and not do the child any damage, yes but few if any pedophiles are willing to stop at a childish sexual encounter and coerce the child into ever increasingly adult sexual contact. Some children might respond positively to this but society will not allow it and the end result of getting caught is always bad. I think the oddest part of sexual consent laws is the arbitrary age of 18 as the age they can decide to have sex when in fact just past puberty is the most sexually active age humans go through. I think that can be debated and there is still room for this debate to talk about that aspect i think but prepubescent sex between an adult and a child in our society is almost certainly going to end badly.

I'm going to have to say being unlucky is big part of it, I don't really think religion plays into this at all, these guys are pirates they prey on the vulnerable. It's going to take some sort of military presence to solve this i am sure.

ooops, my bad, sorry...

Well since the child doesn't have pedophilia and by definition the adult has to have pedophilia if he or she makes sexual contact with the child I'm not sure what you are trying to say but I did indeed do my best to initiate sexual contact with adults when i was a kid. This is very thin ice for a discussion but it really depends on exactly what type of sexual contact is being initiated, a childish level sexual game or is the adult going to physically rape the child? I'm really not sure what you are saying here, circumcision is sexual abuse or results in a sexually aware child? This is true for sure. No, this is not true in my personal experience. I have to agree, most adults who seek out sex with children do not see the child as anything but a sex toy, no adult can have a real adult sexual relationship with a child, most children do avoid adults in their sex games, more because of fear of punishment but to a great extent we felt like the adult men who sought us out were just creapy... Society defines any sexual contact between an adult and a child as rape, but rape is generally also considered a violent crime, some times children are indeed curious and as long as the sexual contact is limited to what the child wants and not what the adult wants I'm not sure if is is really rape but I know this is a rare event and most child adult sexual relationships are doomed to harm the child, pedophilia is not a sexual orientation, what bothers me the most about it is the adult lack of concern for the child, who is the pedophile to decide the child's sexual orientation, does the pedophile care if the little boy he is trying to seduce is gay or not, he doesn't care about the likely life time of problems encountered by the child due to this confusion. The pedophile cares not for the child, no matter what the OP says, the pedophile only cares about his own immediate sexual needs. The child is just a toy used to satisfy those needs, it is an unhealthy relationship from the stand point of the child who's ideas of sex are still childish at best. Can a child consent, to a childish sexual contact yes but that is not what pedophiles are looking for and what they are looking for is about as likely to be found as a unicorn. My point is that a child can be and often are sexually aware on their own with no adults orchestrating them not that pedophilia is ok.

Oil droplets mimic early life Lack of genetic material no hindrance to life-like behaviour. By Jo Marchant Oil droplets that creep purposefully through their watery environment, metabolize fuel, sense their surroundings and perhaps even replicate--could these be precursors to life? That's the claim of a chemist with a controversial approach to modeling how Earth's first organisms scraped themselves together. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=oil-droplets-mimic-early-life&WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20110224

First I would like to say that your idea that a child cannot be sexual without coaching is simply not true, Kinsey, in his study of human sexuality, found that infants respond to sexual stimulation with erect penis's and lubricating vagina's. My mom says she couldn't keep my hands out of diaper when I was a baby, I have always (as far as i can remember) been aware of how "good" sexual touch felt. No sexual imagery or media in 1955 WV mountains, we barely had electricity no TV for sure. At first all that I knew was touching my self but by the time I was 4 or 5 (maybe even earlier) i had discovered how much better it felt to have someone else touch me. My first really clear memory of a sexual encounter other than just feeling around was at 5, the little girl next door wanted to play house, she showed me how great fellatio felt, I was hooked for sure. The major encounters I remember clearly were mostly of little girls my age or close, several teenagers, and two adult women. Most of this occurred when we had moved into town and lived in the company housing of FMC. The children there who were sexually active knew who the adults were to avoid, we knew the behaviors they displayed as they tried to get us alone and we usually avoided them, there were a few kids who liked the adult guys, mostly little boys, few of the little girls would go with the adult men but a few did, no one ever reported being harmed but for the most part the kids stuck with each other and ignored the adults. The play ground was a hot bed of sexual negotiations, we even had special places we would go to have sex so we could be outside the eyes of prying adults. To be honest this did cause me some stress after I became an adult, i had read and heard all the hype that said is you had sex as a child then you would become a child molester, i had therapy but the doctor said such sexual play among children was natural and since I no longer had sexual desire for children (even then the holy grail of sex for me was adults not other children) he thought I was in no danger of being a molester and he was correct. I raised my own kids and about half the neighborhood and had no desires of that nature pop out. I'm not sure what all my experiences mean but I had em, can't go back and change it for sure. I think the most important thing was the very limited adult contact we all had, the adults had a completely different attitude about sex, looking back the adults, the males at least, it's easy to see how they only viewed us kids as toys to be used, no way can that be healthy or fun for a child.

This may be of interest to the OP http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/02/14/no-theres-no-proof-of-a-giant-planet-in-the-outer-solar-system/

Ret. Col. Says UFOs Are Real, but Denies Government Cover-Up Whether you believe or disbelieve the notion that UFOs are visitors from another planet, a former highly decorated military officer now comes forward with information that may infuriate those on both sides in the ongoing ET debate. http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/23/retired-army-colonel-says-ufos-are-real-but-denies-government-c/?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-n%7Cdl3%7Csec3_lnk2%7C203095

I realize it's anecdotal but I was sexual as a child, i sought it out and enjoyed it, i have to admit no adult males were ever involved and I only liked sex with girls but i was sexual, not sure about the mature part, but children can be sexual with no adults involved.

Could you be a bit more explicit? What type of sexual intercourse doesn't involve penetration?

I once read it described in this manner, the big bang was like a bubble in a pint of beer, it appears from out of no where from the point of view of looking in the glass, then it expands as it rises to join the other bubbles in the head at the surface. It's a phase change, from a gas dissolved in the liquid to a gas immersed in the liquid. He seemed to think the universe could be seen in a pint of Guinness... maybe you can, then again maybe you have to drink a lot of it before you see it???

As long as they are charred on the outside and gooey liquid on the inside I can eat as many as you can bring me!