Starship Asterisk*

mjimih wrote:
It seems there is plenty of Ph for life to use now, but if all life was extinguished, it would be next to impossible for a new simple life form emerging to "find" any usable Ph to utilize? It begs the question; The next round of life forms here will be completely different (which is probably no surprise).

I took a little chemistry and was always intrigued by where on the periodic table life "similar" to us, or life "most easily" created, would most likely spring from. I thought Silicon-based life was a good candidate bc it is directly next to carbon, holding some of the same general characteristics perhaps. I'm over simplifying it. Maybe just stare at the table and imagine what other worldly life forms are using compared to Earths'.

• 1) Carbon dioxide is an important greenhouse gas.
  2) Silicon dioxide is an important greenhouse solid.

Too imagine life based upon anything but hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon seems counterintuitive to me. Excluding helium, these are the most abundant elements in the universe.

Nuclear power, still safer than coal. Interesting information regarding the mortality and cancer risks for those most affected by the Fukushima disaster.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/japans ... 2nomz.html

geckzilla wrote:Nuclear power, still safer than coal. Interesting information regarding the mortality and cancer risks for those most affected by the Fukushima disaster.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/japans ... 2nomz.html

Alas, the media knows they can charge more for ad time when they report disasters than when they report good news. And think of how difficult it would be to report such nuanced news as this in the paltrey few seconds each non-headline story gets these days. But thanks for posting this link here. I've shared the story on FaceBook. It's all I can do.

Rob

geckzilla wrote:Nuclear power, still safer than coal. Interesting information regarding the mortality and cancer risks for those most affected by the Fukushima disaster.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/japans ... 2nomz.html

That's true, but the problem is that when something goes wrong with a nuclear plant, the consequences can be devastating, and can wipe out all the potential economic advantages.

The problem is that current nuclear power plants are engineering nightmares. Nothing is intrinsically safe, and they depend for their safety on multiple redundant systems. That's not really good design. And you can be sure that bad accidents will continue to happen, caused by the combination of that bad engineering with an economic system that will result in an increasing reduction in oversight as safety in assumed (which is what happened in Japan).

There are nuclear plant designs that are intrinsically safe. That means their safety is ensured by physics, not by engineering. They can't melt down because under those conditions the nuclear reaction itself is quenched. No realistic mechanical failure can result in a release of radiation. But short term economics seems to continue to drive things, with the result that reactors still use 50-year-old technology. Minor improvements in controls and monitoring, but otherwise, pretty much the same old thing. Not good.

I am glad that the people of Japan haven't gotten sick, that another 9.0 quake is unlikely?, that Japan feels it's safe to restart 6 of it's reactors... but
I wouldn't relax quite yet. We might be one large earthquake (in Japan) away from a huge Microwave oven experiment. Last year a real disasterous scenario was outlined which hasn't gotten much news coverage. (I wonder why?!) And I can't find a story about any efforts to do what reactor 4 (and 3) will need to be safe IF another big one hits. As outlined in the following;

May 19, 2012
http://www.ctvnews.ca/fukushima-reactor ... k-1.829254
Fukushima Reactor 4 poses massive global risk

This year they are having some issues; the word urge in the UN
statement implies haste. Probably for a reason.

Apr 22, 2013
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-atomic-age ... afety.html
UN atomic agency urges Fukushima safety improvements

The article did seem pretty biased. Luckily, you guys are here to help balance it out. Further impending doom aside, I'm glad the "walking dead" who knowingly put themselves in harm's way are alright after all.

Fantastic new video of an oarfish, rarely seen alive and well. Usually when they are spotted they dying at the surface or already washed up dead. It hangs vertically in the depths and uses its immense dorsal fin to swim up and down.

geckzilla wrote:
Fantastic new video of an oarfish, rarely seen alive and well. Usually when they are spotted they dying at the surface or already washed up dead. It hangs vertically in the depths and uses its immense dorsal fin to swim up and down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchstone_%28As_You_Like_It%29 wrote:
<<Touchstone is a fictional character in Shakespeare's play As You Like It. Touchstone is the court jester of duke Frederick, the usurper's court. Throughout the play he comments on the other characters and thus contributes to a better understanding of the play. Touchstone falls in love with a dull-witted goat girl named Audrey. William, an oafish country boy, makes clumsy attempts to woo her as well, but is driven off by Touchstone, who threatens to kill him "a hundred and fifty ways.">>

Should I start a thread wherein a random subject is posted about and you relate something in that post to Shakespeare and then the next person takes a turn writing about a new random subject for you to relate to Shakespeare? It could assist you in your post count endeavor.

I must say the oarfish is kinda cool. But watching it go up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, is kinda boring, like Shakespeare. So the two of them go together pretty well, (y-a-w-n), me thinks.

geckzilla wrote:
Should I start a thread wherein a random subject is posted about and you relate something in that post to Shakespeare and then the next person takes a turn writing about a new random subject for you to relate to Shakespeare? It could assist you in your post count endeavor.

I thought that's what you were doing.

Beyond wrote:
I must say the oarfish is kinda cool. But watching it go up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, is kinda boring, like Shakespeare.

[list]A Midsummer Night's Dream
. Act 3, Scene 2[/list]
PUCK: Up and down, up and down,
[list] I will lead them up and down:
I am fear'd in field and town:
Goblin, lead them up and down.[/list][/color][/i]

neufer wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
Should I start a thread wherein a random subject is posted about and you relate something in that post to Shakespeare and then the next person takes a turn writing about a new random subject for you to relate to Shakespeare? It could assist you in your post count endeavor.

I thought that's what you were doing.

geckzilla is suggesting a thread that is solely for the purpose of your Shakespeare play, which seems to me a good idea.

During Cicada Boom, Birds Mysteriously Vanish

Unsolved mystery of the avian kind.

geckzilla wrote:
During Cicada Boom, Birds Mysteriously Vanish

Unsolved mystery of the avian kind.

• Cicadas are the Twinkie junk food of the avian world.

http://www.nature.nps.gov/sound/effects.cfm wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<That old expression, "The early bird gets the worm," turns out to be truer than ever in urban settings today. In fact, recent studies are finding that some birds in noisy environments have taken to singing at night in order to be heard over the din of the city (Fuller et al., 2007).

Sound, just like the availability of nesting materials or food sources, plays an important role in the ecosystem. Activities such as finding desirable habitat and mates, avoiding predators, protecting young, and establishing territories are all dependent on the acoustical environment. In order to continue with these activities, animals are being forced to adapt to increasing noise levels. In general, a growing number of studies indicate that wildlife, like humans, is stressed by a noisy environment. When these effects are combined with other stressors such as winter weather, disease, and food shortages, sound impacts can have important implications for the health and vitality of wildlife populations within a park.>>

Maybe. But the birds began disappearing 6 months before the cicadas emerged. Weird, huh?

neufer wrote:Cicadas are the Twinkie junk food of the avian world.

Except for owls They seem to prefer the furry four-footed Twinkies.

geckzilla wrote:
Maybe. But the birds began disappearing 6 months before the cicadas emerged. Weird, huh?

Perhaps, (with their super hearing) they heard the cicada nymphs constructing their exit tunnels and skedaddled outta there early.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]Eos/Aurora pursues the reluctant Tithonos, ca. 470 BC–460 BCE (Louvre)[/color][/b]

---

<<In Greek mythology, Tithonus or Tithonos (Ancient Greek: Τιθωνός) was the lover of Eos, Titan of the dawn, who was known in Roman mythology as Aurora. Tithonus was a Trojan by birth, the son of King Laomedon of Troy by a water nymph named Strymo (Στρυμώ). The mythology reflected by the fifth-century vase-painters of Athens envisaged Tithonus as a rhapsode, as the lyre in his hand.

Eos kidnapped Ganymede and Tithonus, both from the royal house of Troy, to be her lovers. [But] when Eos asked Zeus to make Tithonus immortal, she forgot to ask for eternal youth (218-38). Tithonus indeed lived forever:

"but when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart the best counsel: she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs." - (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite)

Tithonus eventually turned into a cicada, eternally living, but begging for death to overcome him.>>

SHEEEEEEEESH

perhaps birds just don't like that cicada noise.
Bothers their widdle eardrums

me neither, the noise they create is obnoxious.
Hey maybe I could round them up and eat them? Mmmmm.
To eat or not to eat, that is the question?
http://shakespearesmonkeys.com/article- ... da-recipie

Nematodes terrify me. I really didn't need to know that there is a giant kind named Placentonema gigantissima that grows 7-9 meters long (every article I read increased the length by 1 meter!) and infects the placenta of sperm whales. Is this the largest animal parasite? It does make sense that a large animal such as a whale could sustain giant parasites.

While searching for a picture of the monster I ended up reading an interesting article about a nematode which infects ants. At the end of the ordeal the ant's abdomen bursts and the nematode goes about the rest of its reproductive cycle.
http://myrmecos.net/2013/01/28/a-belly-full-of-worm/

*shudder*

If the Turing test were to have a robot create a painting that fools humans into thinking another human created it, e-David passes with flying colors.

And he even signs his name writing backwards.