EdEarl

I hope not to hijack this thread, but... Do we know why or are there any hypothesis to explain why matter tends to form a disk around galaxies and dark matter tends to form a sphere? Or, do we know that dark matter sometimes forms disks?

Seems like containing the compression between the cylinder barrel and spark plug plate would be difficult to seal and prone to wear. I'd like to see one of these in an Indy racer and other endurance races to see how well they survive punishment.

IMO art requires innovation that does not exist in eDavid's work; however, eDavid is a work of art. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Society will adapt; hopefully to benefit all men. Perhaps people will begin to see imperfections in manually crafted things as attractive, and machine made perfection less desirable. Although, that may mean businesses will change products to add variations in machine made things. No doubt, art will remain the domain of man for a long time. It seems unlikely machines will master art, even if they master engineering and science.

Moving asteroids to Mars, to increase the size of Mars, add water, and move it a bit towards the Sun, IMO, would be easier than making an entirely new planet. We are already studying how to move asteroids. We would need better robotics to do the work, and we are near to making robots that can build and repair each other; not an intelligent replicator, but manually programmed robots. This process could remove many asteroids that might crash into civilizations on either Earth or Mars, and make the solar system safer. Would make Mars more attractive for development. Would take a long time; IDK how how much the bombardment would affect Mars. It might take millennia for it to cool sufficiently. Unfortunately, all the asteroids amount to about 4% the mass of Earth's Moon, which would increase Mars mass less than 1%. To make Mars larger would require robbing moons from another planet, which requires more energy than moving an asteroid.

Philanthropists and patrons typically do not redistribute income enough to significantly affect society. To be fair, neither did Buddha and neither can both Gates and Buffet giving away all their billions significantly affect wealth redistribution. I agree that the powerful "can't suffocate people and still expect them to be customers." On the other hand, I see no major movement to redistribute wealth so that people can be good customers. In other words, the trend at this time is to move as much money and resources as possible to the wealthy and powerful, and prevent the people from having enough to survive and thrive.

Why I asked for additional examples.

For example? LOL. I don't know the minds of everyone, so how can I give you an example of a work or art that everyone thinks is beautiful. Ugly art: http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/worlds-ugliest-public-art

True, they do have a vested interest in promoting power and wealth redistribution, but history is rife with examples of violent redistribution. The Buddha gave up his wealth and power; do you know of any other voluntary examples of wealth and power redistribution other than Gates and Buffet?

We are certainly in a time of fast change and profound future shock. There are both good and bad things happening. On the bad side, climate change which might cause a mass extinction. On the good side, interpersonal communications among people around the world has improved because of the internet. Robot slaves may free us from boring manual labor, if we survive and society is not stratified into the very rich and very poor. I think there will be many people who die from weather related events due to climate change, which will profoundly change global culture in ways we cannot predict. In the long run, I think we will survive and culture will be more in tune with nature. There will be other unpredictable changes. Judgements of good or bad depend on a person's point of view. Some will think it is better and others will disagree.

IMO corporate influence on politics has made the US de facto Fascist. Corporations are now people under the law; although, they don't have the right to vote, they have the right to donate to political parties large amounts $, which essentially means they can buy votes from the politically naive. That Republicans are mostly climate change deniers is not because voters want it that way, it is because rich people who own oil and coal companies buy them. The people still have the right to vote, and can affect elections and change things, but it will take something to get the attention of voters. Perhaps climate change is starting to affect people enough to get their attention. Some poles indicate republicans may loose the house in the next election. But, I'm concerned that some issues like abortion and gay marriage that republicans claim to oppose will continue to get republicans elected, regardless of the fact that republicans have not significantly changed the abortion laws since Roe v. Wade in 1973. On the other hand: So, why is abortion a more important issue? (rhetorical) Many voters do not keep up with issues as conditions change, and continue to vote as they always have. Others, don't care what the facts are, because they vote according to some moral or other personal reason. If corporate power is to be reduced, there must be some really attention grabbing reason, and I haven't seen evidence the public is paying attention yet.

The printer is not perfected, but a bit engineering and it can IMO make things with more accuracy. People might start building glass houses in deserts, for almost nothing...the cost of a 3D printer and labor. The printer can make glass bricks, and someone can stack them to make the walls of a house. The bricks could be made to form a dome or half cylinder roof instead of using long beams and flat or sloped roof. Interlocking bricks could eliminate the need for mortar, yet keep air tight joints between bricks. It would be possible to print double or triple pane windows. Glass houses would be best in areas where there are no rocks.

Wikipedia reports the velocity of the Sun as, What does that mean?

Why is a question that cannot always be answered by someone. Why? Perhaps there is no answer, perhaps no one has figured it out, or perhaps there can never be an answer. I don't know a good answer to your question, and I've considered the same question, as almost every one does. Children are born asking why, and they expect someone will be able to answer them. But, often they get the answer, "I don't know, no one knows, quit asking." But, we should not quit asking because, sometimes someone asks and has an insight that answers or partly answers some question. If we stop asking, then we stop learning. And, science is about learning as much as is possible. Someone, someday may ask, "Why?" and have an insight and say, "Oh, I understand." Maybe it will be you.

Basic Biology makes important points. BTW, would they then be called antipolar bears:)

I too am an electrical engineer, and disagree with your assessment. Moreover, I know that power companies hire electrical engineers, and the power company in my city built a solar farm and retired a coal fired power plant because the solar power is less expensive than the coal power. Moreover, companies such as Solar City, a distributed PV power company, in cities with high cost electricity, will install PV on your house and lease the system to you for less than the cost of city power to you. Now Solar City stays in business because Solar PV is less expensive than power from the local power company. In other words, lots of other electrical engineers and business men, disagree with your assessment. Show your calculations. How much power does an average home need. How many PV panels, at what cost, how much does it cost to finance the installation. How long does it take to pay back the investment based on the power gotten from the installation.

You have asked a question that doesn't have a simple complete answer. It can't be fully answered, because scientists are currently working to understand many details of your question. And, it isn't simple, because the brain is quite complex. I'm not an expert, and don't know if there is an expert in that area who frequents sfn. If I understand correctly, memories are stored among around 100 Billion synapse (interneural connections). Start here for some more information. Good luck; papers are being pubished frequently in this research area.

Hi everybody, welcome to sfn. I noticed some of you hadn't been welcomed, and I haven't visited this thread in a while...off doing other things. Time again to do help with things I can on sfn; I'm not one of the gurus. Flame wars aren't permitted here, be kind to everyone. Read the rules that you can find here: announcements ... among the pinned threads is etiquette. Don't take criticism of an idea personally, that's what scientists do. Even a well liked person with a bad idea is not immune; scientists will criticize their bad idea. Be tough, enjoy, feel free to join the discussions.

The report you cite (http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0088278&representation=PDF) is interesting, but not by itself convincing enough for me. Correlations are interesting, but not conclusive, and the study populaton was not large. There is a larger study, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study.

You also are entitled to your opinions, seriously. But, I recommend people read the papers and make up their own minds. Trading opinions is futile.

Living is dangerous, no one survives forever. Seriously, I have no science to add to the discussion on GMOs.

I didn't speak clearly, GMO is not known to be bad for people. In fact, most of it will be OK, but the gene changes may have unintended consequences that are bad for people in a few cases, but we do not know. The unknown entails a risk.

Really? I stated my opinions for the record, because others had remarked about my opinions, when I felt they didn't know what I believed. I'd rather have everyone know how I feel about things, rather than have someone else confuse them on my behalf. Unfortunately, if you don't read about something, you are uninformed, and if you do read about it, you are misinformed--Mark Twain.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that in the 1990's astronomers working with Type 2a supernova noticed the universe was not slowing down, instead it was accellerating away towards infinity in all directions. The expansion is caused by space-time stretching out, faster and faster. The recession of galaxies, indicated by red shift, is added to the stretching of space-time. Thus, some galaxies are receeding faster than the speed of light. The thing causing space-time to stretch is called dark energy. Note: gravity also stretches space-time.