Susan's Place Transgender Resources

In this thread, feel free to discuss any SCIENCE TOPIC.  Here's a few to consider and perhaps discuss:

1.  Several of us are interested in astronomy, the planets, universe and big bang theory.  Two of us have the theory that there are other universes beyond our universe.  Upon exiting our universe some day, perhaps we'll see stars in the far distance (immesurable in our time) and these stars might be other universes?  The formation of our solar system and planets opens up other avenues of discussion.  Our universe is around 14.7 billion years old but our solar system is only around 4 to 5 billion years old.  Evolution is always a provocative topic.  Natural disasters (like the meteor that struck near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and caused mass death of animals including dinosaurs) can be interesting to discuss.  While we're looking out for a meteor, will a volcano kill us?

2.  Body and brain chemistry (stress, fear, confusion, paranoia).  Why do humans react as they do?  Do Budhist priests have insight that we should consider in learning to control stress?

3.  Alternate forms of energy production.  I'm interested about the prospect of turbines being placed in seas where there are strong currents (The Tacoma Narrows or Golden Gate come to mind).  The turbines have been tested to show that they move slowly enough that fish just swim around them.  Does ethanol actually create global warming (some say more petro energy is used to create ethanol than we get out of it)?  Are there better ways?

4.  Future transportation.  Will the auto industries and our government ever get around to doing a multi-billion dollar research plan to create autos that would free us from having to buy foreign oil from dangerous countries?  Do you think cars will ever break from the bland rounded-bar-of-soap look of today's cars?  Why can't cars have the glamor and excitement of cars produced in the 30's, 40's and 50's?  Will fenders ever come back?  Will solar roofs become common?

5.  Future architecture.  Will there ever be another Frank Lloyd Wright who uses a combination of art and SCIENCE to build? (he popularized cantilevers, radiant heating, cement (he called it a "plastic material), building the way nature builds (looking at trees and rock formations for inspiration), building WITH nature (rather than just on top of it).  In an ecology-minded world, thinking about nature in home construction seems like a no-brainer.  Some tract builders are using energy saving devices (like solar) in homes they build.  Can't they learn to use science, the way Bucky Fuller did (geodesic dome) to create truly new spaces? 

4.  Transsexual research -- Why are we here?  What studies have been or are being done?  Did the hormonal soup in the womb of our mothers contribute to this process?  Some point out that the brain forms at one point and the body forms at another point and, if there is a different makeup of this hormonal soup, the body can end up one way and the brain another way.

These are just a few of the possibilities.  Unlike other threads, feel free to discuss your specific interest, as long as it's something to do with SCIENCE...exploration, technology, research, design...

The choice is yours!

Teri Anne

I've always wondered why the world is so slow to accept some science and so readily swallow it whole when it benefits them directly?

For example... many believe that the world is only 6000 years old although there is ample evidence to prove otherwise.  Yet those same believers will stand in line for heart surgery brought to them by the same science. 

What gives?

Cindi

For some it's just the other way around: they believe in modern cosmology but will happily take homeopatic 'medicine' (aka plain water) because they see it as more natural than what's available from the pharmacy. I guess we all choose our own brand of irrationality.

  Nfr

Nikola Teslas Tower the electromagnetic perpetual motion power generator

http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_todre.html

The Montauk project and the Philadelphia experiment

http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/montauk.html

I was on Long Island two years ago when I was visiting a friend. I got to see both Tesla's lab and the Montauk concrete  bunkers, all cemented shut now to keep people from going to the labs in the lower sections of the complex. Then there is Camp Hero which still stands but windows and doors are securely boarded up and some entrances are cemented over. Weird energy still vibrating there? You wanna bet, like a giant heart beat beneath your feet. 

Cindy

We only have one world, with the resources that we have.

I would like to see much more research into alternative fuels or power sources (solar power, wind, hydroelectric are good examples of past research).

As the oil resources dry up, fuel costs wil escalate as manufacturers make a fast buck. It may not effecr us, here today but the generations to come need to be less dependent on Oil as the main source of fuel energy.

As much as it is revered, I also feel that Genetically Modified food is also the way forward, to be able to grow crops free from disease, in conditions they may not be used to (especially Africa) and to also come up with some viable alternatives to Meat Products (but thats a vegetarian speaking).

It may be that eventually the Human Race (whoever may be left) has a future on planets outside our current knowledge of our Solar system, so that to me is another reason for continuing with the Space Programme.

Jeez can you tell I am a Scientist.

Rebecca

http://www.globalwarmingisnotreal.com/whatyoucando.html

Frank Gehry Architecture

http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Guggenheim_Bilbao.html

Change to fusion when the technology is ready and run cars on hydrogen. Save oil for plastic.

Hi  Rebecca
I am just a retired Social Worker that just happens to know a lot about this stuff. As for alternative fuels our governments or should I say the oil cartels or corporations are the ones behind deciding what is economical for them to to produce or not. Manufacturing alternate fuels is not in their best interest.

Since the early 70's maybe even sooner then that there have been some really great minds that have come up with some potentially wonderful alternate fuel powered vehicles but just appear to have disappeared from the face of the earth overnight. The oil cartels just buy up these ideas that could be detrimental to them economically and as a result these ideas never resurface to see day light again. 

I knew the person, personally, that came out with the first gasohol fueled vehicle idea. He lived in the same home town I did. This vehicle was simply a conventional half ton truck he had converted to run on gasohol. And how about Tesla with his plans to produce a perpetual energy generator that could supply the entire world with free energy? He was diagnosed as a certifiable loonie and they riped him off for any and all patents he had and he died a broken man.

The corporations or shall we call them the Cabal are the puppeteer's of the political puppets and most of this Cabal is formed by corporations, or corporation money. Now all I have written is a disclaimer. I am just a very nosy curious woman that has her nose in a lot of stuff maybe I shouldn't.

Cindy

Cindy J and NFR - Yes, history shows how we humans will readily accept some science as gospel and some as quakery.  I've thought that the ancient theory of a flat earth with a finite end where you would fall off the edge bears striking resemblance to today's scientific presumption that our universe is all there is out there.  And a big black void is beyond that?  Science, we should remember, is made up of a group of theories, any of which can be believed or disproven over time.

Time is beginning to show that Eastern medicine (including herbs, meditation, and accupuncture), once thought to be quakery is now being suggested by traditional M.D.'s.

Cindy bc, the Tesla tower, even though it didn't work, was certainly beautiful.  Is it still standing?  I wonder how he created the globe?  Is that a predecessor to Bucky's domes?

BCL - I agree totally on the need to find alternative energy.  If anyone's interested, the Tacoma Narrows underwater current hydro energy project is cited here (Tacoma is south of Seattle):

http://www.tacomapower.com/Tidal/default.htm

Lori, I thought your recommended website, "http://www.globalwarmingisnotreal.com/whatyoucando.html," was going to argue that, well, global warming wasn't real.  I was happy to see that it, instead, contained a list of suggestions that we can do on our own to ward off global warming (recycling, energy conservation).  Regarding planting trees, I've sometimes wondered why cities, states and the national government don't get more involved with that.  In Los Angeles, for example, there's a HUGE park in the hills called Griffith Park.  While some areas have trees, much of it, aside from scrub brush, is just barren hillside (to my eyes).  A large-scale tree planting program would add beauty, utility (the trees could help diminish some of L.A.'s smog).  I guess the problem is two-fold:  Prioritization of money and the fight with ecology fanatics that might ensue.  Many LIKE the scrub brush the way is is because that's the way the land has always been.  I do wonder if, with trees, the park would become a better habitat for animals (in the same way that coral in the ocean creates a home for fish).

Lisagurl, I like Frank Gehry's architecture (we have our own version of the Bilbao - the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles).  Though incredible computer science is required to create specs for the curved steel that make up his larger buildings, I personally think of Gehry as more of an artist than a science or even architecture-oriented architect.  I think I've read some things where he has admitted to having more interest in art -- not that there's anything wrong with that, lol.

There's an architect in the San Diego area that I feel is using science and technology more like Frank LLoyd Wright would have:  Ken Kellogg.  I truly believe that he's the greatest Organic Architect (the kind of architecture started by FLLW)practicing today.  His website is below:

http://www.kendrickbangskellogg.com

Cindy bc, you and I were discussing visions...  I just saw a show on Animal Planet called "Animal Miracles."  It showed how a dog was able to sense when a senile adult was in danger and would alert others of this fact.  Also, a recent story on CNN was about a cat in a rest home that could predict by its actions when a live-in patient was going to die.  It would sit beside the patient to give them a sense of peace.  Normally, the cat would not sit on their beds.  It seems odd that a patient could derive peace, seeing this cat next to them, but patients apparently became very calm and mellow.  If cat's have this talent of vision or sensing, there's no reason to believe that some humans also have capability of visions.  I'm keeping an open mind on this.

THANKS to everone for the diverse topics.  Interesting!

Teri Anne

Terri the main basis of that site is to discuss how its not man made global warming but blames the sun. It pretty clearly states how CO2 is being blamed and its BS...and so is Al Gore.

Its also about how humans are wasteful and although they do cause pollution and are ruining the planet, they can be more mindful and conservative and start being so wasteful.

Lori, well, as it probably states somewhere on the site, no matter the cause, we can all do our bit to try to ward off global warming.  It may all boil down to million year cycles.  I saw a Discovery documentary recently that claimed that, in a few million years, there may be another ICE AGE that will cover Canada and the upper half of the U.S..  It showed the ice glaciers dwarfing the size of today's skyscrapers in New York City.  Well, you know what they say, "location, location, location."

As to humans being "wasteful" - Since when, lol?

Teri Anne

Hi again,

About the Global Warming thing:  It is once more being debated by the scientific community. They say it is the Sun, or to be more precise, Sun flares, that are creating global heating on Mars and Earth.

Now it is being debated that it was the unusual Sun flairs and global warming on Mars that gave the researchers working for whomever is profiting from this a reason to inform us that it is because of unusual Sun flares that are heating up Mars just like our planet.

I believe that Mars warming by increased sunlight was just a good grab to divert the idea of C0₂ being blamed for global warming on our planet.  Although it would stand to reason that as more of the C0₂ sublimates into the Martian atmosphere it may have something to do with Mars warming as well.

OK, NASA has taken a much closer look at Mars in the past while and they have come up with some pretty interesting discoveries. It appears that the global sand storms have been increasing in the past 4 years causing the darker rocky under-surface to be dusted off by the winds and leaving the darker rocky under-surface bare and exposed to sunlight. These dark areas attract the sunlight that warms the rocky surface which takes considerably longer to cool then its sandy surrounding counterparts.

So it is this process that is causing the C0₂ ice on the south pole to sublimate at a rate of three meters per year. Not the insignificant increase of sunlight, but more the albedo of the planet has increased because of the increased warming caused by the planet wide sand storms.

Martian spring.

Cindy   

Posted on: October 17, 2007, 04:13:59 PM

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Hi Terri
I wish I could remember what the site was where they had the cycles between ice ages separated like the four seasonal cycles of one year. One year = the time between ice ages. When an ice age is coming to an end it is spring, followed by summer where we should be at this point, in early part of summer. Then there is fall, followed by winter, another ice age.

According to this scale we should only be in early summer, but with the global warming this cycle has been increased so that now we find ourselves in the early part of fall.

Cindy     

There is little argument that the earth is going into a warming cycle. Why?is another matter. No one is sure of the causes. Most of the marketing is around theories. A fix reducing CO2 to any level to make a difference would cost more than anybody can pay. It would be better spend some money on curing disease and providing clean water. Population control is needed to balance the worlds renewal resources with the worlds needs.

QuoteThe oil cartels just buy up these ideas that could be detrimental to them economically and as a result these ideas never resurface to see day light again.

Wishful thinking but no true. The oil companies have Bush in their back pocket to make all the money they can use.

Even if the world did not use a drop of oil for fuel there is enough demand for plastic and other things that come from oil to keep them in big profits.

Posted on: October 17, 2007, 04:43:28 PM

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QuoteI truly believe that he's the greatest Organic Architect

It would be nice for everyone to live an agrarian life in an organic nature, but with 6.6 billion people on the planet that is impossible. Scaling back the population is going to be tuff. Transition building is going to be needed. There is no reason that people cannot live in art also. I am afraid there are too many conflicting interests today to hatch a super Architect.

If it's not oil, why are the US troops still in Iraq getting shot at, blown up and beat up for nothing. There isn't anything left there still standing that is worth anything not a brick left standing in that country to make it worth while having the troops there, "except for the oil."

Cindy

There is a way to handle our energy needs for at least the next couple of centuries.  See:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NuclearFastReactorsSA1205.pdf

Much safer and it burns waste we can't seem to store anywhere.

Cindi

Wow a Neutron reactor burning nuclear waste sounds like a good plan. Burning 99% of nuclear wast leaving only 1% Ok.

Cindy

QuoteIf it's not oil, why are the US troops still in Iraq getting shot at, blown up and beat up for nothing.

One can speculate there are many options. Religion? balance of power? the nuke factor? Father's revenge? Bully? Iran? Hire defense contractors? Syria, etc? Remember the Bush family has long time ties to the Royal family in Arabia.

Quote from: Cindi Jones on October 17, 2007, 05:44:09 PM
There is a way to handle our energy needs for at least the next couple of centuries.  See:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NuclearFastReactorsSA1205.pdf

Much safer and it burns waste we can't seem to store anywhere.

Cindi

I totally agree with Nuclear Energy as a viable alternative to oil or coal fired gas power stations.

My only concern is that each country should treat its own spent Nuclear waste, rather than shipping it half way round the world, to become someone elses waste.

As a global solution it does need the countries of the World to come together to agree that Nuclear technology will only be used for peaceful purposes, something I think may never happen.

There may be another way to dispose new clear waste, Why not dispose of it in a live volcano?

Cindy

The Discovery channel documentary on ice ages on earth discussed a number of causes...  It mentioned that the last ice age ENDED because of something that happened in Panama.  Apparently, a LONG time ago, water flowed freely from the Atlantic to the Pacific through what we now call Panama.  VOLCANOES in Panama sealed that flow and, when water couldn't flow freely, the water in the Caribbean and Atlantic warmed up and ENDED that ice age.  Amazing, huh?

The documentary described another fascinating thing that will happen in the future:  The continents, like South America and Africa, are going to drift TOGETHER millions or billions of years from now, again creating a super-continent.  Eventually, earth will lose its oceans, like Mars did, and will become an arrid planet.

As to a "super-architect" never again happening, I say "never say never."  Just as there was a Mozart, Beethoven, Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, Hawking, van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Louis Sullivan, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Mies van der Rohe, every so often, genius happens.  I admit it's rare but I do think it's possible, no matter the odds.  Someone here posed the opinion that it might not happen because there are "too many conflicting interests today to hatch a super Architect."  In the above list of great ones, most if not all bucked convention.  Galileo risked excommunication from the church to stand up for what he thought.  A smart AND brave guy!

Regarding Wright, there's a story I love regarding FLLW's most famous house, Fallingwater:  When client Kaufmann called Mr. Wright to see if drawings were ready, Wright said to "come on down" to Wright's studio to see them.  As he hung up the phone, Wright's apprentices were in shock.  They knew that not one drawing had been started.  Wright simply sat down and drew the famous perspective (house over a waterfall) and the elevations WITHOUT USING THE ERASOR -- Wright had it completely thought out in his head before putting anything to paper.  Historians have noted that it takes true genius to do that.  Mozart also apparently had the ability to write a score to paper without any corrections.

Regarding nuclear waste:  A few years ago, I saw a horrific documentary on "60 Minutes" regarding the Hanford Nuclear Reservation (aka nuclear dump) in Oregon -- it's right above the beginning part of the Columbia River.  There was great concern that the huge containers holding radioactive waste are leaking and may end up KILLING the Columbia River.  This is a website on this problem:

http://www.hanfordwatch.org/

That website states:  "The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is the largest nuclear waste dump in the Western Hemisphere and a major Northwest environmental issue. It is a serious long-term threat to the Columbia River, which Oregon depends on for power generation, farm irrigation, fishing, transport and recreation.  Some 53 million gallons of high-level waste stored in 177 underground storage tanks. Sixty-seven of those 177 tanks are suspected to have leaked that waste into the soil."

Anyone who has seen the Columbia River can appreciate how wide and beautiful it is.

Now.


Teri Anne

Quote from: BCL on October 17, 2007, 09:14:32 PM

Quote from: Cindi Jones on October 17, 2007, 05:44:09 PM
There is a way to handle our energy needs for at least the next couple of centuries.  See:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NuclearFastReactorsSA1205.pdf

Much safer and it burns waste we can't seem to store anywhere.

Cindi

I totally agree with Nuclear Energy as a viable alternative to oil or coal fired gas power stations.

My only concern is that each country should treat its own spent Nuclear waste, rather than shipping it half way round the world, to become someone elses waste.

As a global solution it does need the countries of the World to come together to agree that Nuclear technology will only be used for peaceful purposes, something I think may never happen.

BCL, check out the article at the URL I posted.  The concept is to burn the waste we have stockpiled.... not create more of it.

Cindi

Posted on: October 19, 2007, 12:11:09 AM

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Quote from: cindybc on October 17, 2007, 09:46:48 PM
There may be another way to dispose new clear waste, Why not dispose of it in a live volcano?

Cindy

That may only spread it out over a wider area.  It surely would melt the radioactive metals and mix it in the magma.  But it would not break down the atoms that have lethal radioactive half lives.  They would just spread out where the magma goes and spread their poison.

Cindi

Posted on: October 19, 2007, 12:12:52 AM

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Quote from: Teri Anne on October 17, 2007, 09:59:26 PM
Galileo risked excommunication from the church to stand up for what he thought.  A smart AND brave guy!

Galileo risked excommunication from the church to stand up for what Copernicus thought!  ;)  His ideas were not new. Copernicus, a monk, published his work from his deathbead.  He had written it years earlier but was afraid of the kick back from religious authorities. But Galileo got the credit  cause he told the pope where to stick it. Oh... he also got deserving credit for being the first to see the Jovian moves circle the giant planet.

Hey... I told an authority of the Mormon church where to stick it once for what I believed (ya know the TS thang). And I did get excommunicated!  It was very public and messy. Does that make me smart and brave?  I think that it only proves that I'm stubborn.  But I got my life back.

Cindi

Ok Teri, I will ask you the same thing I asked Cindi....  >:D

Quote from: Tink on October 20, 2007, 05:13:25 PM
What is the deal with Mars and Satan as implied on this website and many others?

http://www.mt.net/~watcher/mars.html

Is it true that the souls of sinners are kept in Mars and that Satan rules there?  Incidentally, I am serious and I'm not joking.  What do astronomers think about this?  Do you help the US government to cover "things" up?  :icon_twisted:

tink :icon_chick:

;) ;D


tink :icon_chick:

According to Roman mythology, Mars was the God of war and since the planet was red like blood they named the planet or so associated it in his name. No Satan was associated or mentioned in the mythical Roman legends. 

Satan was mentioned in the Gospels as tempting Jesus by taking home up on a high mountain and showing him all of the nations of the world and told Jesus if you do me homage I will give you all of the nations of the Earth. The Romain's may have known about the concept of a Satan and Satan may have been refereed to as a God by the Romans.

Cindy 

I'm not religious and so would not interject God or Satan into a discussion of any planet.  I think there is a good chance that there is a "higher being" out there but that's as far as I go. 

As Cindy points out, man has often used mythology to explain things beyond our scope.  I would imagine that any serious scientist or astronomer doesn't talk of mythology because it doesn't fit the strict requirements of true calculative science.  Anyone can claim that the "souls of sinners are kept on Mars" but, like the existence of God, nothing can be proven scientifically.  Are there clouds in heaven?  I don't know.

I feel there are plenty of worries here on earth that we should, instead, worry about like poverty, hunger, ruining our planet and hatred/murder.  Presuming there is some form of "higher being," I think he/she would direct us to be kind to all.

In the Bible, of course, it's called "love thy neighbor as thyself" -- A simple directive but people and countries have a tough time doing that simple thing.

Teri Anne

Just a theory

I believe that as the planet Mars becomes more thoroughly explored with yet more sophisticated rovers on the ground and probes from orbit we just may discover that Mars may have at one time been a water world. There are already numerous indications of this. When? according to science they say 30,000,000 years ago . What ended it?  Very likely a barrages of meteorite showers that both depleted the atmosphere and may have nudged the planet into the elliptical orbit we see Mars in today. This may have in turn thrown the entire planet into an ice age.

WE ARE ONE WITHIN THE ONENESS

the sense of being which in calm hours arises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source.... Here is the fountain of action and of thought.... We lie in the lap of immense intelligence.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Although each of us obviously inhabits a separate physical body, the laboratory data from a hundred years of parapsychology research strongly indicate that there is no separation in consciousness.
- Russell Targ

Cindy
 

Yup Cindy,

It is pretty well accepted that Mars had water.  We now have photos of what we believe to be water being released from underground reserves.  So there may still be lots of water there in the ground.

Mars doesn't have a huge magnetic field like we do.  It may be that it couldn't protect it's atmosphere from gamma radiation which contributed to its loss.

Real astronomers collect more data than they consume Tink.  They are somewhat slow to announce discoveries until they can be explained.  If there is no data to help define a theory, the theory is only called a postulation or guess.  When it comes to topics like Satan, souls, and other similar topics, there is no official position.  There are no theories or even guesses.  They are topics viewed as religious, rumor, or fictional in nature.

Cindi

Most all of science is based on theory. Very little is actually based on fact. The evidence in itself is quit moot unless all elements can be directly observed with given signs of action and reaction in any given phenomenon affecting another by inference is not 100% provable as fact.  80% of scientific theories are by inference. where some energetic activities  can not be studied  by a direct means of observation but rather by what observable affect a given energetic element has on another, cause and effect.

Cindy

Quote from: cindybc on October 21, 2007, 11:29:49 PM

Most all of science is based on theory. Very little is actually based on fact. The evidence in itself is quit moot unless all elements can be directly observed with given signs of action and reaction in any given phenomenon affecting another by inference is not 100% provable as fact.  80% of scientific theories are by inference. where some energetic activities  can not be studied  by a direct means of observation but rather by what observable affect a given energetic element has on another, cause and effect.

Cindy

Science is the collection of data and then fitting an explanation to that data.  We then call this explanation a theory.  If there is no data, there can be no theory.  It is a guess and therefore not science. 

We will sometimes make a guess to explain the things that we see.  We then will collect data to prove or disprove the guess.  If we can support it with real data, then it might become a theory.  Theories can change as we improve the data.  Theories can be disproven as well.

Think of the "theory of gravity".  It is "just a theory".  It is not a fact.  But anyone can test it.  I can explain the theory and then you can test it by dropping a rock to the ground.  If the tests and data can not be duplicated by someone else, then the theory is not accepted.

Cindi

"DITO" Try to explain that to anyone else out there, they look at you kind of strange. "Fairies are real"  ;D That was good cerebral gymnastics, thanks.

Cindy

No kidding.  Science isn't necessarily anything complicated or magic.  It is within the realm for everyone to understand.  Here are the things we have observed.  Here are our tests to replicate our observations.  And this is the simplest definition we have to explain them.  It is nothing more than that.

Cindi

I agree with you totally. Someday we may see where all the sciences, religions, spirituality, metaphysics, and quantum physics, witchcraft you name it will all merge as one science, one knowing where the conscious mind will expand to be all as one within Oneness in the realm of all realities.

Cindy

Quote from: cindybc on October 23, 2007, 02:15:13 AM
I agree with you totally. Someday we may see where all the sciences, religions, spirituality, metaphysics, and quantum physics, witchcraft you name it will all merge as one science, one knowing where the conscious mind will expand to be all as one within Oneness in the realm of all realities.

Cindy

Hmmmm.... That was either Alchemy or Devil Worship

Rebecca

Hi Rebecca

A little of both except that our minds will be sufficiently developed by then that the consciousness of all will know the reality of all. The only devil there will be will be the ones that are conjured out of these individuals minds. If this is so then it could be the last confrontation of souls in this reality. Where my people are united, nothing will be beyond them.

Cindy
   

Qualia is still being debated and does not stand up to the proof by reason and facts. This is not true science but rather beliefs which is a sort of religion.

QuoteScience Discussions

It does not fit the definition.

Quote from: BCL on October 17, 2007, 09:14:32 PM
My only concern is that each country should treat its own spent Nuclear waste, rather than shipping it half way round the world, to become someone elses waste.

As a global solution it does need the countries of the World to come together to agree that Nuclear technology will only be used for peaceful purposes, something I think may never happen.

The sad thing is it's not just shipped half way around the world to become waste.  The U.S. government buys it and uses it to make weapons.  Weapons that are being used on the battlefield today.
http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm

Quote from: cindybc on October 17, 2007, 09:46:48 PM
There may be another way to dispose new clear waste, Why not dispose of it in a live volcano?

Cindy

No, volcanoes erupt and then the waste runs down the side of the volcano.  Or worse, gets blown into the air.

Quote from: Cindi Jones on October 23, 2007, 01:54:05 AM
No kidding.  Science isn't necessarily anything complicated or magic.  It is within the realm for everyone to understand.  Here are the things we have observed.  Here are our tests to replicate our observations.  And this is the simplest definition we have to explain them.  It is nothing more than that.

Cindi

Absolutely.

The problem we run into is when data suggests that a cherished belief is no longer the best explaination.  That's when we have book burnings, inquisitions and holocausts.

Chaunte

Has anyone checked out what was in the link Tink posted?

http://www.mt.net/~watcher/mars.html

Sumerian evidence of unknown planet, best known as planet X.

Much of what has been discovered about the Sumerians was thought to be mythical. It has only been in recent years that the Sumerians have been proven as part of history from 6000years in the past. 

Cindy

If we are to control global warming, all things that cause it must be considered.  Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" recently showed a farmer who was saving all kinds of things that he converted into energy.  I think, if memory serves, that he even was able to use the methane from his cows (methane is supposed to be a big global warming thing). 

It was recently revealed in the news that a billion U.S. dollars is apparently lost that was outsourced to some company that was supposed to help train Iraq police.  Like the "lost" military guns that was reported a few months ago, we're probably arming our enemies.  Just imagine what a billion dollars would have done towards finding energy independence.

I say, give a few million or billion to that farmer and people like him.  Make him Secretary of Energy and see what might happen.

Teri Anne

Hi Chaunte

I composed this post hours ago but the dang service provider was playing dead.

Quite agree. A theory is a theory, open to change and modification until all data becomes apparent and knowable, until all parts of the multifaceted phenomena becomes known and provable fact.

Then it is also said that for every question that is answered or mystery solved there are ten more to follow. In the finite, only things within finite are measurable, documented, and can be known, but as the human consciousness grows and evolves, more of what's beyond the thin gray veil of reality beyond the finite becomes evident to the ever expanding consciousness.

Cindy

Quote from: cindybc on October 25, 2007, 03:37:15 AM
Hi Chaunte

A theory is a theory, open to change and modification until all data becomes apparent and knowable, until all parts of the multifaceted phenomena becomes known and provable fact.

.... and even then, it is still just a theory.  A theory never becomes a fact.  The theory is only refined as you have so eloquently explained.

This was such a difficult concept for me when I was introduced to geometry in high school.  We had to prove all those theories.  Now you'd think that after 200 million high school kids prove that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, that it would sooner or later become a fact. But no, it's still just a theory.

Cindi

Here are a couple of dictionary versions of the subtle diference between theory and theorem.

Theorem; a proposition that has been or is to be proved on the bassis of explicit asumptions.

Theorem; a theoretical proposition statemnet or formula embodying something to be proved from other propostitions or formulas also a rule or law especially one expressed by and equation or formula

Theory; A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

Theory:The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice:  fine musician who had never studied theory.

Just an illustration.  My teeny light bulb in the attic came on. ;D.

One sees a phenomenon that would not be possible to observe if it weren't for the fact that there be many different types of as yet unseen vibrant energies coming together to spontaneously light-up an area that was, prior to this illumination, just total empty darkness. Then one can begin the analysis of this detectable energetic activity. These energies can be detected by active spectrum analysis. The different energies can then can be analyzed and classified, but how many other types of elements or energies that were present but still remain undetectable or unobservable? 

Cindy 


Posted on: October 25, 2007, 07:53:03 PM

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Hi Cindi
I just found out that you were trained into the physical sciences as a government contractor, Does that mean the Spooks are going to come looking for me, I hope they put me on as test pilot for the most recent confiscated UFO. "Hee, hee, hee."

Well thank you so very much for the cerebral gymnastic

Cindy

Posted on: October 25, 2007, 08:14:30 PM

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I made a search and came up with some info on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

And here is a reconstruction of what may have happened Tunguska.

http://www.psi.edu/projects/siberia/siberia.html

Cindy

Quote from: cindybc on October 25, 2007, 08:33:36 PM

Cindy

Posted on: October 25, 2007, 08:14:30 PM

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I made a search and came up with some info on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

And here is a reconstruction of what may have happened Tunguska.

http://www.psi.edu/projects/siberia/siberia.html

Cindy

It took decades to figure out what happened out there in Siberia.  They looked for years for the impact crater and never found one.  But the simplest answer turned out to be the most plausible.  The blast in the atmosphere.... go figure ;)

Yes, I did do some research and engineering on systems for military applications.  I don't talk about it more than that.  I eventually became fed up and left to pursue other interests.  That was long ago and I'm sure that so many things have changed since then, except for the reasons that I left ;)

Cindi

Hi Cindi
I didn't really mean to dig up any old bones, I was just intrigued in knowing there is another intellect around here. I believe it's kind of invigorating to air out the cobwebs once in a while in the cerebral cortex. I may be just a Social Worker but I am quite interested anything that pertains to the many different fields of science.

How about nanotechnology?

Cindy.

Nanotechnology..  It's mostly pipe dreams right now.  There is some work that I know of but most if it is fiction.

I think that the most practical approach is to take a virus and modify it to do something interesting.... like kill cancer cells.

But I just don't see any of it happening.  It's more probable than traveling to other star systems.  But not by much.

Cindi

Hi Cindi, speaking of nanotechnology, this is not exactly nanotechnology, but is certainly a close second in a revolutionary concept.

Superfast Laser Turns Virus Into Rubble
By Alexis Madrigal Email 11.01.07 | 12:00 AM
Researchers are using this ultrashort-pulse laser to destroy the protein shell of viruses. They say the laser frequency will not harm human cells.

A physicist and his biologist son destroyed a common virus using a superfast pulsing laser, without harming healthy cells. The discovery could lead to new treatments for viruses like HIV that have no cure.

"We have demonstrated a technique of using a laser to excite vibrations on the shield of a virus and damage it, so that it's no longer functional," said Kong-Thon Tsen, a professor of physics at Arizona State University. "We're testing it on HIV and hepatitis right now."

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/11/laser_virus

Cindy

That is very cool Cindy.

Cindi

Hi, I thought this  might be interesting, I first heard about this experiment with light about five years ago.

Harvard Physicist Plays Magician With the Speed of Light
By Erin Biba Email 10.23.07 | 12:00 AM

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Lene Vestergaard Hau can stop a pulse of light in midflight, start it up again at 0.13 miles per hour, and then make it appear in a completely different location. "It's like a little magic trick," says Hau, a Harvard physicist. "Of course, in all magic tricks there's a secret." And her secret is a 0.1-mm lump of atoms called a Bose-Einstein condensate, cooled nearly to absolute zero (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit) in a steel container with tiny windows. Normally — well, in a vacuum — light goes 186,282 miles per second. But things are different inside a BEC, a strange place where millions of atoms move — barely — in quantum lockstep.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-11/st_alphageek/

Cindy

Posted on: November 23, 2007, 02:54:45 AM

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A huge void in the universe.

Last August, astronomers working on the analysis of data being acquired by NASA's WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) satellite announced that they found a huge void in the universe. A void is a region of space that has much less material (stars, nebulae, dust and other material) than the average. Since our universe is relatively heterogeneous, empty spaces are not rare, but in this case the enormous magnitude of the hole is way outside the expected range. The hole found in the constellation of Eridanus is about a billion light years across, which is roughly 10,000 times as large as our galaxy or 400 times the distance to Andromeda, the closest "large" galaxy.

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Evidence for a parallel universeThe dimension of the hole is so big that at first glance, it results impossible to explain under the current cosmological theories, although scientists put forward some explanations based on certain theoretical models that might predict the existence of "giant knots" in space known as topological defects.

However, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill physics Professor Laura Mersini-Houghton made a staggering claim. She says, "Standard cosmology cannot explain such a giant cosmic hole" and goes further with the ground-breaking hypothesis that the huge void is "... the unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own".

The idea of alternative, or parallel universes has been around for quite a while and has provided considerable inspiration for Sci-Fi literature and sparked endless philosophical debate, but although begin seriously considered within the scientific realm it never crossed the limits of speculative of purely theoretical grounds. Perhaps until now. If Mersini-Houghton is right, Eridanus' giant hole would be the first experimental evidence for the existence of another universe. The implications of this possibility are obviously of huge importance for everybody, but it also has further relevance for the astrophysics community as it would bring support for the hotly debated string theory and other central debates.

But Mersini-Houghton and colleagues' theory of entangled universes make testable predictions, providing the opportunity to confirm or refute the claim as more data arrive to the astronomers' computers. Her model predicts the existence of two voids rather than one, one in each hemisphere of our universe. The one that has been found by WMAP's data lies in the Northern hemisphere. They expect new data will show a second similar void in the Southern side. This and other cutting-edge experimental projects testing Mersini-Houghton's ideas will tell us whether a new era in cosmological thinking has indeed arrived.

Sources and further information:

Cindy

Posted on: November 26, 2007, 03:58:10 PM

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Signs of Lightning on Venus

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By Richard A. Kerr
ScienceNOW Daily News
28 November 2007
Given that lightning on Earth isn't shy about attracting attention, it might come as a surprise that the phenomenon has been hard to detect on Venus, especially because spacecraft have visited our sister planet more than 30 times. So scientists seemed almost relieved today to report that the orbiting Venus Express spacecraft has returned "the first definitive evidence of abundant lightning on Venus," according to a team member. Chances for lightning seem dimmer on Saturn's moon Titan, however, where new observations by the Cassini spacecraft have failed to detect the phenomenon.

Lightning can change the chemistry of an atmosphere and give researchers clues to the storm activity of a planet. It's common enough in planets with thick atmospheres. Bolts 100 times more powerful than terrestrial ones crackle on Jupiter, and it has been detected on Saturn, on Uranus, and probably on Neptune. After its 1979 arrival at Venus, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter recorded electrical impulses leaking out of the atmosphere that some researchers took to be a signature of lightning. Later, Galileo swept by and detected noise bursts at much higher frequencies, encouraging more faith in venusian lightning (Science, 27 September 1991, p. 1492). But expectations dimmed with Cassini's failure to detect lightning's distinctive radio static during its two flybys.

With the European Space Agency's Venus Express in the neighborhood, space physicist Christopher Russell of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues were looking for the magnetic signals that should accompany the electrical signals observed by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter. In the 29 November issue of Nature, they report that Venus Express detected bursts of 100-hertz magnetic radiation lasting 0.25 to 0.5 seconds and occurring at least half as often as lightning on Earth. "They were pretty much as we'd predicted," says Russell. "Lightning is occurring beneath the spacecraft about 25% of the time."

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/1128/2

Posted on: November 29, 2007, 03:41:36 PM

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Venus Cloud Wave Structure

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   30-Nov-2007 04:29:11 UT
Venus Cloud Wave Structure

Date: 13 Nov 2006
Satellite: Venus Express
Depicts: VIRTIS image of south polar region in infrared
Copyright: ESA/VIRTIS/INAF-IASF/Obs. de Paris-LESIA

This night-side image of the southern hemisphere of Venus was taken by the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on board Venus Express on 29 July 2006, from a distance of about 64 000 kilometres over the surface. At the time, Venus Express was around the orbit apocentre.

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=40370

Hi Cindy,

Thanx for the cosmos stuff -- interesting!  I've enjoyed various PBS and Discovery shows about the planets recently.  I still find the formation stuff and facts of each of the planets fascinating.

Why were we so lucky to be intelligent and alive on the lone planet in our system that supports obvious life?...scientists say that it's just a statistical thing...that, given a few billion years of evolution that it was bound to happen.  And man has religion to explain the unexplainable.  Neither explanation is truly satisfying to me.

I've had strange dreams from time to time.  As a kid, I remember dreaming that I was leveling out the earth's surface, making things better by making the mountains into plains.  It all seems bizarre to me today and that's probably why I remember it.  Why would anyone WANT to level out mountains?  I look at the glorious mountains rising up steeply from the Inside Passage north of me in Alaska and am stunned at the beauty.

One of my silly dreams that I occassionaly have these days is doing something like sending one of our solar systems moons a care package of all the DNA that makes up our planet.  Re-creating our world.  I think Jupiter has a moon that scientists feel has water.  But Jupiter is far away from the sun and thus, cold.  Though environmentalists would be aghast at my dream - Introducing life to another planet - I still daydream about it from time to time.

Might be nice if the wackos of the world mess up earth enough to make it unlivable that we, as people, would have a place to immigrate to -- if the Martians will let us, lol. 

Teri Anne

Hi, Teri Ann,

I believe there is something very odd happening with Mars, like it was supposed to have made its closest approach three years ago to our planet since prehistory of the Earth.

But again, Mars made another approach to us a few weeks ago and again, it was claimed as having made its closest approach since prehistory. I saw it from here with the unaided eye.  It appeared like an orange orb about the size and brightness as Venus appears to us from here on Earth.

Now it is reported that in the past five years much of the C02 solidly frozen under the surface of Mars is sublimating into the thin Martian air. If that is so, will not this add to the density of the atmosphere?

You see, I have been observing this little orange orb along with its little idiosyncrasies. Every little change that has occurred since I was about 9 or years old I remember quite well and I have noticed and being paying special attention to these subtle changes that were happening. There have been many changes since then, as NASA built better and stronger observation platforms or probes.

NASA sent many probes to Mars in the past twenty years and found some peculiar things that I believe are artifacts and detected and recorded lots of useful information.  At first the differences climactic changes.  No matter how subtle these changes were, they were detected, classified, and recorded for later study. But it was the orbiting Martian probe named HIRISE, the technical marvel, that allowed them to visually record any object on the surface objects as small as a golf cart.  They have been receiving some pretty awesome data, too!  This was when NASA discovered anomalies that were taking place on the planet that were worth closer inspection. These observed phenomena were getting bigger and occuring more rapidly then any other time in the known history of Mars, at least since the earliest probes sent by NASA

Things have been shifting and changing, like channels on the banks of dunes and on the edge of impact crater cliffs that were not there the previous year. Some scientists have gone so far as  predicting a possible end to a billion-years-old-ice age.

"Wow!" Can you imagine that, to actually be an eye witnesses of the reawakening of a planet that has been dormant for millions of years?  If you like these kinds of optimistic insights on a very awesome little planet I am sure that I can accommodate you.
 
Cindy

Posted on: December 01, 2007, 03:45:24 PM

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My Mars. ;D

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Cindy

Posted on: December 01, 2007, 03:57:41 PM

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Faster than T rex - the dinosaur 'mummy' that had to run for its life


    * James Randerson, science correspondent
    * The Guardian
    * Monday December 3 2007


· Skin and tissue preserved in rare fossil discovery
· Size of herbivore's rump 'shows it could do 28mph

Scientists claim to have discovered a dinosaur that could outrun a Tyranosaurus. Its story is told in Dino Autopsy on the National Geographic channel on Sunday (Photo: Sinead Taylor/BSkyB)

If you were unfortunate enough to share the planet with Tyrannosaurus rex there were two ways not to be eaten - either outrun the predator or hide from it. An exquisitely preserved fossil of one of T rex's plant-eating contemporaries shows that it did both.

Dakota, as the find has been nicknamed, was 10 miles an hour faster than its enemy and had a stripey pattern on its skin, possibly to break up its outline and make it less visible. The scientists who have analysed the specimen say its body was subjected to a natural but extremely unusual mummification process after it died, preserving not just bones but skin and soft tissues.

"When you get up close and look at the skin envelope it's beautiful. This is not a skin impression, it's fossilized skin. That's very, very different," said Dr Phil Manning, the palaeontologist at Manchester University who has led the investigation.

The exquisite detail allows researchers to find out how the animal moved - and preliminary investigations have suggested that the way museums put dinosaur fossils together for display is incorrect.

The "dinosaur mummy" is a 3,600 kilogram hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur, that died 65 to 67m years ago - shortly before all the other dinosaurs went extinct, probably because of a massive meteorite impact.

What makes this fossil unique though was what happened next. Skin and soft tissues are not usually present in fossils because they rot down quickly before fossilization takes place. But in this case, one of just a handful of such specimens ever found, something unusual about the chemistry of the mud the beast ended up in meant that didn't happen.

"You've got a chemical reaction going on where minerals are forming more rapidly than the microbes are decaying the soft tissues - so you are left with soft tissue structures preserved," said Manning.

Dakota was found in 1999 by a 16-year-old fossil hunter called Tyler Lyson. At the time he did not realise its significance so he merely mapped its location, recorded it in his field notebook and forgot about it. In 2004 he returned to the site with a team of excavators but when he saw fossilized skin he realised he needed professional help. That's when he brought in Manning. The story is told in Dino Autopsy, a programme on the National Geographic channel next Sunday.

The animal - which lived on a coastal floodplain and is probably an Edmontosaurus annectens - has already thrown up surprises. One is that the animal's rump was 25% larger than palaeontologists had previously assumed. That means more muscle power and greater acceleration.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/dec/03/dinosaurs.fossils

Cindy

Posted on: December 03, 2007, 02:29:36 PM

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CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) (13 pictures)

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Peter Glassel, technical coordinator of the ALICE Time Projection Chamber, sits in the completed chamber (June 2006)
Photograph: Maximilien Brice; Claudia Marcelloni/CERN

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/gallery/0007/nov/20/cern?picture=330340644

Cindy

Mars Rising



Posted on: December 03, 2007, 02:41:30 PM

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Shot in HD in over 90 locations, the documentary series "Mars Rising" explores how the challenges being grappled with today will lead to a manned mission to Mars in the next 20 years. Film crews captured interviews, training sessions and experiments in the United States, Russia, Chile, China, Europe and across Canada, including the Canadian Arctic. Over 300 scientists from diverse backgrounds and nationalities were consulted for the series and more than 60 space experts, including former and current astronauts, appear on camera. Among the critical subjects explored through the series include spaceship design, possible trajectories, rocket fuel, finding new life forms, new thoughts on astronaut selection and training, space suit engineering, medical training for deep space, blasting through the Mars atmosphere, life support systems and robotics.

Among the distinguished experts appearing in the series, three experts with very different backgrounds stand out: James Garvin, lead scientist for Mars and Lunar Exploration at NASA; Paul Delaney, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Toronto's York University; and Academy-Award winning filmmaker James Cameron ('Titanic') who is a member of NASA's special advisory committee. The astronauts interviewed on "Mars Rising" include Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian mission specialist and the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm in orbit; Canadian Dave Williams currently on board the Atlantis and expected to make three space walks on the Shuttle Endeavour in August 2007; retired NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, who spent 132 days aboard the ISS Mir in 1997; and Jeffrey Hoffman who was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame earlier this year.

William Shatner narrates "Mars Rising" - and it's not the first time that the multiple-award-winning actor has worked with Discovery Channel Canada! Commissioned by Discovery Channel, the hit 2005 special 'How William Shatner Changed the World' was hosted and narrated by the Star Trek icon, and based on his book, I'm Working On That. The cheeky and irreverent doc showcased the brightest minds of Silicon Valley and their Trek-inspired inventions that have changed the world.

"Earth to Mars: The Great Space Debate"
Sun., Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT on Discovery Channel
This one-hour special wraps up "Race to Mars" and "Mars Rising" and puts plans for a manned mission to Mars under the microscope with the ultimate litmus test. An esteemed panel of scientists and space experts dissect the risks, challenges and dangers of a mission that could last as long as three years. Moderated by "Daily Planet" co-host Jay Ingram, the "Earth To Mars: The Great Space Debate" panel features NASA Chief Scientist James Garvin; co-founder of The Mars Society Robert Zubrin; and Psychiatrist and former NASA flight surgeon Doctor Pat Santy. Featuring illustrative scenes from "Race to Mars" and "Mars Rising," the experts will tackle everything from the astronomical expense involved in mounting a human mission to the Red Planet, to crew selection and cabin fever, to the probability of life on Mars. In addition to the panel debate, this special will feature exclusive expert testimonials along with exclusive behind the scenes footage from the production of "Race to Mars."

Cindy