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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #25 on: August 26, 2013, 05:14:09 PM »


We had a very *interesting* debate on this last night in the IRC.
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snowguy716
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« Reply #26 on: August 26, 2013, 08:57:56 PM »

I'm pretty sure the debate amounted to me saying "each side of your brain is fairly separate and performs different functions and also performs the same functions as the other side, but slightly differently"

There is plenty of scientific literature to back that up.

Your response was "all that left brain right brain stuff is bullsh**t" and then you told me you were sensitive about the subject.

This article says nothing against what I said.
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Frodo
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« Reply #27 on: August 31, 2013, 04:29:52 PM »

Thanks to radar, we now know that Greenland contains a canyon bigger than that of the better-known Grand Canyon in Arizona.



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DemPGH
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« Reply #28 on: October 11, 2013, 03:09:45 PM »

Yeah, let's bump this. It drifted out to page six. Tongue

This is an outstanding discovery: a free-floating planet has been discovered, a gas planet. It's not all that far from Earth, at least in celestial distances, at 80 light years. I believe it's around 12 million years old.

You know, the whole thing about E.T. life is complicated, I think, by the discovery of new planets, particularly gas planets. Considering that planets form from nebular and stellar debris, it's not  unreasonable to assume that a LOT of planets are gas planets, which means life as we know it would not evolve - not little green men, anyway. So if you have a lot of gas planets as well as a good share of rocky planets not in habitable zones, life as we know it could be very rare. Just a side note.
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« Reply #29 on: October 11, 2013, 03:14:20 PM »

As most of you are probably aware, the discoverers of the Higgs boson have rightfully been awarded the Nobel prize in physics.
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muon2
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« Reply #30 on: October 13, 2013, 10:49:42 PM »


Actually the prize went to the theoreticians who predicted the particle almost 50 years ago. The discovery last year confirmed what many felt must exist based on all the known properties of subatomic particles to date.
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DINGO Joe
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« Reply #31 on: October 16, 2013, 12:10:50 AM »

A new type of botulism toxin has been discovered that is so deadly and currently without an antidote that it's DNA code is being suppressed from public databases--a first.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24398-new-botox-supertoxin-has-its-details-censored.html#.Ulv3rRAiy3U?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=twitter&cmpid=SOC|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL-twitter
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Frodo
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« Reply #32 on: November 17, 2013, 02:33:22 AM »
« Edited: November 17, 2013, 02:34:53 AM by Frodo »

By 'early-Cretaceous', the author probably meant this particular asteroid hit in the late Eocene -the Cretaceous ended 65 million years ago:

Seawater discovered near the Chesapeake Bay is up to 150 million years old

By Darryl Fears, Published: November 16

Not only is the Chesapeake Bay so enormous it can be seen from space, it essentially came from outer space.



An asteroid or huge chunk of ice slammed into Earth about 35 million years ago, splashing into the Early Cretaceous North Atlantic, sending tsunamis as far as the Blue Ridge Mountains and leaving a 56-mile-wide hole at the mouth of what is now the bay.

But a newly published research paper written by U.S. Geological Survey scientists shows that wasn’t the end of it. While drilling holes in southern Virginia to study the impact crater, the scientists discovered “the oldest large body of ancient seawater in the world,” a survivor of that long-gone sea, resting about a half-mile underground near the bay, according to the USGS.

“What we essentially discovered was trapped water that’s twice the salinity of [modern] seawater,” said Ward Sanford, a USGS hydrologist. “In our attempt to find out the origin, we found it was Early Cretaceous seawater. It’s really water that’s from the North Atlantic.”

The findings showing that the water is probably between 100 million and 150 million years old were published Thursday in the journal Nature.
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Frodo
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« Reply #33 on: November 17, 2013, 02:38:31 AM »

Also, the domesticated dog likely had a European ancestor that is now extinct.
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muon2
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« Reply #34 on: November 18, 2013, 09:10:15 AM »

By 'early-Cretaceous', the author probably meant this particular asteroid hit in the late Eocene -the Cretaceous ended 65 million years ago:

Seawater discovered near the Chesapeake Bay is up to 150 million years old

By Darryl Fears, Published: November 16

Not only is the Chesapeake Bay so enormous it can be seen from space, it essentially came from outer space.



An asteroid or huge chunk of ice slammed into Earth about 35 million years ago, splashing into the Early Cretaceous North Atlantic, sending tsunamis as far as the Blue Ridge Mountains and leaving a 56-mile-wide hole at the mouth of what is now the bay.

But a newly published research paper written by U.S. Geological Survey scientists shows that wasn’t the end of it. While drilling holes in southern Virginia to study the impact crater, the scientists discovered “the oldest large body of ancient seawater in the world,” a survivor of that long-gone sea, resting about a half-mile underground near the bay, according to the USGS.

“What we essentially discovered was trapped water that’s twice the salinity of [modern] seawater,” said Ward Sanford, a USGS hydrologist. “In our attempt to find out the origin, we found it was Early Cretaceous seawater. It’s really water that’s from the North Atlantic.”

The findings showing that the water is probably between 100 million and 150 million years old were published Thursday in the journal Nature.

The confusion is understandable since the trapped groundwater is from the early Cretaceous, but the impact that trapped it is from 100 million years later. The scientists probably didn't talk much about the time of the impact since that was established science from 1999, but did talk about the era of the groundwater. For a non-geologist it's easy to place those two events together. The scientists interviewed probably needed to go out of their way to stress that the groundwater was not from the time of the impact.
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DemPGH
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« Reply #35 on: November 18, 2013, 10:50:26 AM »

Evidence of three and a half billion year old microbes found in western Australia's Dresser Formation. Fantastic find.
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Frodo
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« Reply #36 on: November 21, 2013, 01:02:19 AM »

DNA indicates Eurasian roots for Native Americans, new study says

By Meeri Kim, Published: November 20

The genetic analysis of a 24,000-year-old arm bone from an ancient Siberian boy suggests that Native Americans have a more complicated ancestry than scientists realized, with some of their distant kin looking more Eurasian than East Asian.

The new study, published online Wednesday in the journal Nature, represents the oldest genome of a modern human ever fully sequenced.

Modern-day Native Americans share from 14 to 38 percent of their DNA with the Siberian hunter-gatherers — who are not closely related to East Asians — with the remainder coming from East Asian ancestors. Most scientists have thought that the first Americans came only from the East Asian populations.

“If you read about the origins of Native Americans, it will say East Asians somehow crossed the Bering Sea,” said study author and evolutionary biologist Eske Willerslev at Copenhagen University. “This is definitely not the case — it’s more complex than that.”
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snowguy716
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« Reply #37 on: November 21, 2013, 01:16:30 AM »

Evidence of three and a half billion year old microbes found in western Australia's Dresser Formation. Fantastic find.
It would seem life was just itching to start once the earth cooled enough.  That's why space exploration is so important.  It is a distinct possibility that life could exist on other worlds in our solar system.
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Frodo
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« Reply #38 on: November 30, 2013, 09:26:51 PM »

Lakes discovered beneath Greenland Ice Sheet

Published 28 Nov 2013

The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, discovered two subglacial lakes 800 metres below the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The two lakes are each roughly 8-10 km2, and at one point may have been up to three times larger than their current size.

Subglacial lakes are likely to influence the flow of the ice sheet which, in turn, impacts global sea-level change. The discovery of the lakes in Greenland will also help researchers to understand how the ice will respond to changing environmental conditions.

The study, conducted at the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge, used airborne radar measurements to reveal the lakes underneath the ice sheet.
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Frodo
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« Reply #39 on: November 30, 2013, 09:29:05 PM »

Also, an Indian probe has begun its journey to Mars.
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Just Passion Through
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« Reply #40 on: December 18, 2013, 12:53:11 PM »

Doctors save hand by attaching it to man's calf
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DemPGH
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« Reply #41 on: January 12, 2014, 04:36:12 PM »

Be nice if we could stickie this thread somewhere.

I was just now cleaning out some old emails and found this: Dolphins likely have the longest and most expansive memory of any non-human species. They are like us in so many ways, yet they live in the water and communicate by clicks and tones. Which are thus far indecipherable. Like humans, their brains are very large and very complex when considering the size of their bodies. Freedom Species!

Here's a fascinating snippet:

Quote
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I'd like to know more about that. Did they understand that they were "tidying up" or would that concept be alien to them?

Evidence of three and a half billion year old microbes found in western Australia's Dresser Formation. Fantastic find.
It would seem life was just itching to start once the earth cooled enough.  That's why space exploration is so important.  It is a distinct possibility that life could exist on other worlds in our solar system.

I totally agree, and there is the possibility that that intelligent life will be like whales and never build a radio to talk back to us!
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snowguy716
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« Reply #42 on: January 13, 2014, 12:59:03 AM »

Be nice if we could stickie this thread somewhere.

I was just now cleaning out some old emails and found this: Dolphins likely have the longest and most expansive memory of any non-human species. They are like us in so many ways, yet they live in the water and communicate by clicks and tones. Which are thus far indecipherable. Like humans, their brains are very large and very complex when considering the size of their bodies. Freedom Species!

Here's a fascinating snippet:

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'd like to know more about that. Did they understand that they were "tidying up" or would that concept be alien to them?

Evidence of three and a half billion year old microbes found in western Australia's Dresser Formation. Fantastic find.
It would seem life was just itching to start once the earth cooled enough.  That's why space exploration is so important.  It is a distinct possibility that life could exist on other worlds in our solar system.

I totally agree, and there is the possibility that that intelligent life will be like whales and never build a radio to talk back to us!
If we can figure out how to go into water and not get wet and go into space and not get whatever complex process that is... an intelligent marine species could easily evolve a way to communicate outside of water!
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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #43 on: January 18, 2014, 02:34:43 AM »

Be nice if we could stickie this thread somewhere.

I was just now cleaning out some old emails and found this: Dolphins likely have the longest and most expansive memory of any non-human species. They are like us in so many ways, yet they live in the water and communicate by clicks and tones. Which are thus far indecipherable. Like humans, their brains are very large and very complex when considering the size of their bodies. Freedom Species!

Here's a fascinating snippet:

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'd like to know more about that. Did they understand that they were "tidying up" or would that concept be alien to them?

Evidence of three and a half billion year old microbes found in western Australia's Dresser Formation. Fantastic find.
It would seem life was just itching to start once the earth cooled enough.  That's why space exploration is so important.  It is a distinct possibility that life could exist on other worlds in our solar system.

I totally agree, and there is the possibility that that intelligent life will be like whales and never build a radio to talk back to us!
If we can figure out how to go into water and not get wet and go into space and not get whatever complex process that is... an intelligent marine species could easily evolve a way to communicate outside of water!

     By complex process, could you perchance be referring to suffocation? Tongue
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DemPGH
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« Reply #44 on: January 21, 2014, 01:11:49 PM »

Dolphins surfing with humans.

They love to surf and of course have been known to do this on a fairly regular basis, and they give people a good scare at first. I think the lady in the video saw them.
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DINGO Joe
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« Reply #45 on: January 22, 2014, 01:20:33 AM »

Don't get too excited about this, but dolphins are huge backers of legalized pot or at least legalized puffer fish.

Freakin hippies.
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NewYorkExpress
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« Reply #46 on: January 22, 2014, 12:00:11 PM »

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-living/ci_24965959/no-thats-not-jelly-doughnut-mars

The rover Opportunity found a rock on Mars that resembled like a jelly doughnut, that wasn't there in prior imaging

Said rock is high in sulfur and magnesium and scientists are trying to figure to out why?





Rock doesn't look like a jelly doughnut to me....
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NewYorkExpress
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« Reply #47 on: January 22, 2014, 12:14:48 PM »

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/01/09/smart-curtains/

A group of California Scientists created material that could lead to "smart curtains" that are activated by light.
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Mr. Morden
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« Reply #48 on: January 23, 2014, 02:07:08 AM »

Supernova goes off in the galaxy M82:

http://www.universetoday.com/108386/bright-new-supernova-blows-up-in-nearby-m82-the-cigar-galaxy/

At 12 million light years away, it's the closest supernova to us since 1993.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #49 on: January 23, 2014, 04:51:07 PM »

The spectrum of ball lightning has been discovered. It consists of neutral atomic silicon, calcium, iron, nitrogen and oxygen—in contrast with mainly ionized nitrogen emission lines in the spectrum of the parent lightning.

I've got my idea -- that they are space-chilled pieces of debris from supernova explosions that strike the earth's atmosphere at great speed and are heated to great temperatures through frictional drag.  Silicon, calcium, and iron are among the later and heaviest elements formed in a star as it approaches the supernova stage (and its catastrophic, fatal demise). If they are unoxidized, silicon, iron, and especially calcium react violently with the oxygen in the Earth's  atmosphere.
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