Interesting Science Stuff Thread

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

White tailed sea eagles being reintroduced in Scotland.

Interesting that the breeding stock came from Norway. This is the largest bird in Scotland, and was wiped out earlier in the 20th C.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Woolly mammoth calf discovered in Russia's Arctic

Fuzzy Elephants

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ double post.

New adventures in DNA?? Wonder if they could clone one. Its cells might still be totipotent.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Oopsies! Two in a row sounds like a bug in the programming somewhere.

[Jamesrules90 133]

Thats not very bright, now theres half a space ship somewhere in the world. What a waste of fuel since so much environment would have been have been damaged making and getting it into space.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

And the dig goes on.

Boy, the creationists would have fun with this one or why does the devil keep planting these things?

[Jamesrules90 133]

Darn why does the devil do this.

As a Christian I believe in evolution as well. Awesome discovery although theres not much to say.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I too subscribe to the Christian ethic. However, bad arithmetic and inaccurate geneological tables do not give the origin of the world. That fool, Bishop Usher, was worse than St. Augustine who decreed celibacy for the priesthood. The old bounder was married with nine kids.

[astronelson 339]

That fool, Bishop Usher, was worse than St. Augustine who decreed celibacy for the priesthood.

Bishop Ussher was using the best data known to him, and indeed all of Europe - not only the Bible, but records of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. He worked around inconsistencies between different versions of the Bible by going back to the Hebrew version, which is as close to an original as we can get. Calling him a fool simply because this data was completely wrong (a fact he could not possibly have known) is uncalled for. Ussher's date for the creation of Earth (4004 BC) is 4 years different from the age Isaac Newton gave (4000 BC), and 12 years different from the age Johannes Kepler came up with (3992 BC). If Ussher was a fool for his date, then so were Newton and Kepler. The real blame lies with those who have taken the date as (gospel) truth and ignored what Bishop Ussher was actually trying to do - analyse what the best data was and draw a conclusion from that.

Bishop Ussher was buried in Westminster Abbey at the insistence of Oliver Cromwell. This speaks volumes about the regard he was held in, considering he was a Royalist.

I feel rather odd now. I'm an ex-Catholic atheist defending a Protestant Bishop.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ well, I am a Christian ex-Catholic who is rather agnostic. Atheism is just too much like work. I prefer fence sitting.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Two topics today:

World Health

The medical crowd just doesn't know when enough people are enough.

Theoretical Physics meets practical experiment.

A much cherished theory goes to the wall. The theory guys get to do all their sums again.

[Jamesrules90 133]

About the world health one first. When I read about this kind of thing I don't know what to think since the planet is overpopulated (in my opinion) although I am glad to know that people won't die. Funding should go into encouraging people to reproduce less since you have all the problems with famines and lack of water in these countries 1 child per family works.

The second one has been increasingly evident as every so often a article would be released saying that super symmetry still hadn't been found.

[astronelson 339]

Well, it's either that or let children die needlessly, and the second is a rather unconscionable course of action. When your job is to save lives, letting people die is rarely an option to even be considered.

A rise in general health (and education) is invariably coupled with a decline in birth rates. There will be a temporary increase in population growth, but it should stable out before too long.

[Terring 6,473]

This is an interesting article about the science fiction movie 2012 and how fake it is.

The Shifty Science Behind the Movie 2012

  Edited August 27, 2011 by terring  

[astronelson 339]

The science is about as accurate as in Independence Day or The Day After Tomorrow. Given his track record here, I don't think scientific accuracy has ever been Roland Emmerich's primary goal.

[Terring 6,473]

That's true, but sadly many people believe that those stuff in the movies are possible. The result is a lot of folks who believe that the Sun rays could destroy Los Angeles or rise 8,000 meters tidal waves

[Jamesrules90 133]

Better than people believing that the world will spontaneously end because an ancient civilisation said so. Interesting but a little late to post it. Independence day could happen...if aliens were to run macs from the 80's and not use antivirus or firewalls although if they are mac users I understand why. Stupid mac users and their lack of security.

Also Terring I would go back and edit the majority of the text out of that article as its the kind of thing which gets you in trouble from copyright laws due to the fact that it is copyrighted text.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Bah! These movies are only interested in box office, licensing and rentals. Things like that really activate my sense of disbelief. They are just pap to hoax the yokels.

[Jamesrules90 133]

That's true, but sadly many people believe that those stuff in the movies are possible. The result is a lot of folks who believe that the Sun rays could destroy Los Angeles or rise 8,000 meters tidal waves

Bah! These movies are only interested in box office, licensing and rentals. Things like that really activate my sense of disbelief. They are just pap to hoax the yokels.

Remember its only television, You should turn on your willing suspension of disbelief.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ Actually, they were all motion pictures. I enjoyed them thoroughly, but who could be taken in by that garbage?

[Jamesrules90 133]

But soon they will be on television, well they are on television now.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Back to business: Bon voyage Happy Feet.

The Kiwis have a heart of gold.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Back to business: Bon voyage Happy Feet.

The Kiwis have a heart of gold.

good for him...

Chevy Super Nova

In my favorite galaxy

the Pinwheel Galaxy

  Edited August 31, 2011 by Easy Bakes  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

21 million years ago. And far enough away to be interesting. A good light show is always interesting and I am relatively happy that it was seen a Palomar. I remember when they built that observatory, and it was a big fuss in the press at the time. It was the biggest mirror ever ground at the time.

[Jamesrules90 133]

Nice apparantly when Betelgeuse supernovas (which it will soon) it will be visible during the day and be bright at night,

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Nice apparently when Betelgeuse supernovas (which it will soon) it will be visible during the day and be bright at night,

A red super giant of some variability, it is only 640 light years away, or so. It will be very bright as a super nove, and I hope we don't get a gamma burst from it. It is so big that it is eligible to become a nice big black hole. What happens when the brightest star in Orion becomes a black hole? We probably will never observe it as that, but if it is going to go nova, it already has and the black hole is probably operating. 640 years is rather a long time no matter how bent.

[astronelson 339]

640 years is rather a long time no matter how bent.

Not really. 640 years is no time at all for a star. Even for the largest stars it is less than one-tenth of one percent of its lifetime. Betelgeuse could have gone already, or it could go in ten thousand years. It's already been around for about 10 million.

Naturally astrophysicists would like it to go sometime soon so we can observe one "up close", as it were. We'll leave it to the astronomers to figure out what to do with Orion.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

640 years is rather a long time no matter how bent.

Not really. 640 years is no time at all for a star. Even for the largest stars it is less than one-tenth of one percent of its lifetime. Betelgeuse could have gone already, or it could go in ten thousand years. It's already been around for about 10 million.

Naturally astrophysicists would like it to go sometime soon so we can observe one "up close", as it were. We'll leave it to the astronomers to figure out what to do with Orion.

I wasn't very excited about the time comparisons, more the distance. I think that the distance is probably OK for us to now worry about radiation effects considering the square of distance dissipation. Super novas are scary, and I am glad there are no possibilities nearby.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

And nearer to home ... My link

Time to get the garbage truck up there. Fifty years of space adventures and look at what we have in LEO. Shame on us. Man just strews his junk everywhere. If an ET civilization were watching us, they would be very unlikely to have anything to do with such dirty people.

[Jamesrules90 133]

Heh I was looking at that earlier.

Its old news, the BBC does an article on those about once a month,I would be slightly more interested if they had of said that the Chinese have created a device which pulls it all down (NASA isn't doing to well and the ESA is a joke) but we never will, our only hope is that we create a space elevater (cant spell Americanisms) but thats never going to happen unless we get rid of regional space agencies and switch to one global UN one (like on Thunderbirds and the Mars doctor who) but again it won't happen because our governments are so petty. If only we could cast aside our differences.

But is really good if we go to space, Earth is a pretty amazing planet on its own and is it worth the light years of journey to go to another system that chances are doesn't even have suitable planets. Unless scientists find a way around current physics (which probably wont happen) we are stuck here.