Moontanman

I live in an area often hit by hurricanes, i haven't noticed the lack of any flying species after a hurricane.

I wondered how long that would take....

If you had ever seen a baby being born you'd know what a meaningless question this is.

Yes but the little blue pill is much easier to swallow than a water melon!

Trying to stop nuclear energy by touting problems with the reactors now online is a whole lot like trying to stop air travel based on the study of 1920's aircraft. Modern reactor designs are as far removed from what should be running as modern jet liners are from bi planes. Having said that I have to say "yes we should be wary of nuclear power" misused it can indeed be dangerous but we tend to over look coal fired power plants that release huge amounts of non radioactive heavy metals they also release huge amounts of radioactive material, One coal fired power plant releases far more radio isotopes than a comparable Nuclear power plant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant As most ores in the Earth's crust, coal also contains low levels of uranium, thorium, and other naturally-occurring radioactive isotopes whose release into the environment leads to radioactive contamination. While these substances are present as very small trace impurities, enough coal is burned that significant amounts of these substances are released. A 1,000 MW coal-burning power plant could release as much as 5.2 tons/year of uranium (containing 74 pounds (34 kg) of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons/year of thorium. The radioactive emission from this coal power plant is 100 times greater than a comparable nuclear power plant with the same electrical output; including processing output, the coal power plant's radiation output is over 3 times greater.[17] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.

Um, see "StarTide Rising" by David Brin

Being the Dad of a gay man and having watched his struggles to come to grips with the bigotry and constant belittling of himself and others like him, it is difficult for me to see the point of anyone who would use any reason to deny my son the same rights as any one else. It's easy to maintain your stance if you are ignorant of what it's like to be homosexual in our society. From the simple exclusion from mainstream life to actual violence and hatred a gay persons, male or female, life is not the same as straight people and if not for laws to make sure they are not constrained to the fringes of society it would still be defensible to beat up or even kill a gay person by saying "he came on to me". It is sad we need laws to insure gay people are not denied basic human rights. I can honestly see no reason what so ever why gay people should not marry, should not enjoy all the rights of marriage and I most definitely see no reason it should not be called marriage. I have four good friends who married recently, two of the most beautiful ceremonies I had ever attended, Both couples were same sex, both couples were obviously very much in love. Sadly neither wedding was legal in any way shape or form. All the expense and trouble of planning and executing these weddings was for no reason other than love. No legal perks went along with the weddings, no reason for them what so ever other than love. How many heterosexual weddings have you gone to that the individuals didn't care about any of the legal aspects and just wanted to say the words in the ceremony? Opposing gay marriage is indefensible, period....

More than one reason to be sure, if it had been left by an animal it would have been unlikely in the extreme to be in one piece. Predators and scavengers have to dis-articulate a crab to eat it. A rotting crab under normal conditions falls apart quite quickly. The area the crab was found is very far from the ocean, the crab is not an amphibious species, this crab Persephona mediterranea is not found any where even close to Littlestown Pa. It often thrown up by storms On the beaches of the south east coast of the USA where i live. There is no way for this crab to have been found where it was by natural causes. Human intervention is necessary for it to be where it was found.

I am quite familiar with crabs, i live by the ocean and catch and eat them regularly. If that crab was hollow it would have come apart quite quickly unless it had been dried out to be preserved. Then the is the whole Australia problem, PA is a little too far away for the crab to have walked..... I still say human intervention of some kind resulted in that crab being where it was.

Since I am a "Native Indian" as you put it. I want you to know it's mighty damn white of you to think that way. I can and will challenge you on this issue, your posts here and elsewhere are full of hate vitriol for anyone who doesn't share your religious world view. You have been shut down on this issue elsewhere and I expect you will be here as well since you only back up your views with your own special bullshit. Get over your self Jackson, your not that damn influential.

That is a marine crab, where ever it came from had to be salt water. If it was hollow it's good bet it was a hoax someone was trying to perpetrate. Not to mention that the pebble crab in the link is from Australia.

You have asked a question that opens up a can of worms or to be more exact a can of crazies. I looked rather hard and most of the stuff I found was from one extreme end or the other of the spectrum. Very little realistic research seems to have been done about this. I smoked pot around my kids when they were young, both turned out to be highly intelligent young men with college degrees and if anything they are over achievers. But one point does not a graph make. I've read and heard so much hype about second hand cigarette smoke, bad/no effect, but I tend toward the idea that any smoke is not good for you. Cannabis smokers seldom if ever smoke as much as tobacco smokers but if I had it to do over again I would err on the side of caution and smoke outside like I make all smokers do now at my house. Here is reasonable study I found. http://www.articlesbase.com/quit-smoking-articles/the-health-hazards-associated-with-passive-smoking-1029317.html

More studies of the effects of drugs on the fetus. http://www.addictionireland.ie/faq/article.asp?FID=82&T=F http://www.marijuanapassion.com/The_Debate_on_the_Effects_of_Marijuana_Use_During_Pregnancy.html http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancyhealth/illegaldrugs.html http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/wom06.htm http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/ I think it's important to note that most studies of the effect of marijuana on the fetus are either inconclusive or so small they are difficult to show but alcohol, a legal and commonly abused drug during pregnancy has been shown to cause specific and definite problems with the fetus. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000911.htm And tobacco http://www.enotalone.com/article/11305.html

Has anyone done a study of stars to see if any match the metal "print" of our sun? Possibly these are the stars we should be looking for to find intelligent life? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedBTW, even though the OP did indeed get his wires crossed this should not be in Pseudoscience, I think it's a reasonable line of inquiry.

The Conservatives are well down the road to batshit crazy, they cannot deal with loosing power to the liberals. They cannot see they pretty much screwed the pooch themselves by all the nutty bullshit they tried to pull when Bush was pres. Socialism is only bad when it helps the poor, it's wonderful when it helps the rich. The Conservative movement thought they were speaking for everyone in the country they forgot that not everyone is a Conservative Christian fundamentalist. Now they are so desperate to show their displeasure they are stepping and fetching like their asses are on fire and their heads are catching.... BTW Has anyone else noticed that the spell checker always suggests capitalizing Conservative but not Liberal?

The Sun moves around the core of the galaxy in it's own orbit, the local neighbor stars are not the same stars that were neighbor stars when the Sun was formed. The Sun moves around and up and down through the galactic disc and there is no way to know for sure where the sun formed or if any other stars formed at the same time or where they might be.

The term "leaks" could simply be a poor choice of words, excrete might be better. The algae is symbiotic with the corals. The way nutrients are transported to the coral is mutually beneficial and works both ways. The algae lives through out the flesh of the Coral, mostly at the surface of the polyps to maximize the absorption of sunlight. The bright colors of the corals is due primarily to the symbiotic algae and the reason for the pigments is to allow the algae to use sunlight outside the blue and red parts of the spectrum generally used by plants. Many of the pigments allow the use of UV light by the algae.

dr.syntax, the fish in your link are not sculpins, they are mud skippers. Yes, sculpins do indeed live in New York State but sculpins are not by any measure amphibious. Mud skippers are amphibious but they only live in the tropics.

I've been growing and propagating live coral for many years, almost 35 years. From what I've read about the process in my attempts to understand how and why coral grow the main idea is the Zooxanthellae leak their excess nutrients through their cell walls. No digestion of the Zooxanthellae actually occurs. I did a quick search to find some links to confirm this but I couldn't find any. It's been so long since I read this I can't remember the book or books i got it from.

Yes, when you exceed the speed of light there is a "photonic" boom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

I for one can't wait for the aliens to get here and take over. It's about damn time!

The republicans have lost their grip on reality just as surely as they have lost their grip on power. The Conservative right actually thought they had gained a permanent hold on power through the grace of god or at least by manipulating the religious right. Right now they are doing the political equivalent of going insane. Their well executed plans have come to naught, they simply cannot understand how this could have happened and like an animal caught in a trap they are in the process of chewing their own legs off. They are probably beyond noticing the stars.

I understand how something can be compressed, even compressed into a solid but does that make it ice? Water deep in the ocean super heated by touching molten lava is the same density as steam as it is as a liquid but it's still not liquid water. I'm not trying to be obtuse , just trying to understand.

Just because a civilization has managed to colonize the space around most suitable stars doesn't make them a super civilization. super civilization implies technology far beyond our own , using the energy of entire stars or galaxies. A civilization not much more technologically advanced than our own could, given enough time, IE 250,000,000 years colonize the entire galaxy. No FTL, no impossible physics no fantastic energy use. Just technology similar to us and determination.

I am quite sure that cannabis use has some long term effects on the mind as do most mood altering substances people put into their bodies. To me the question is not if cannabis has long term effects but how severe are these effects compared to other substances we use to "relax" Are we talking about a .0001% difference or a 25% difference? Are the effects statistically significant or are they within the variance of normal brain chemistry? Are the effects the same in all individuals or are some individuals more prone to the effects than others? Do some people who already have brain chemistry problems use because the substance helps them deal with their problems? Or does the problem attract certain people to the substances in question? Alcohol has long term effects, as does nicotine, magic mushrooms, cocaine, caffeine, the list goes on and on. Even substances we do not take to intentionally change our mindset such as plastic residues from drink bottles can have lasting effects. The only sure way is not to ingest any substance into the body that is not needed by the body.... Good luck.... It seems that nearly all these studies are so polarized because they set out to prove positive or negative effect with out looking at the big picture. The idea that all levels of use or exposure to any of these substances is some how harmful to everyone in the same way is also flawed. Some people are more prone to alcoholism or even cocaine abuse and others can use the substance and take it or leave it. The OP says he wants unbiased research or opinions but the very idea of such research is virtually always biased. No one starts out to show neutral effects and any effects are bound to be harmful in some way. I say bound to be harmful because any tinkering with brain chemistry is bound to have some effects that are less than good. Even medical attempts to correct brain chemistry problems always has both positive and negative effects. I think the idea of an unbiased look at the effects of any substance that alters brain chemistry is flawed from the very start because we are part of the study and so no actual neutral study can be done.