j_p

Are you certain about that? I learned in developmental biology: The nerves originate in the developing brain; an excess are produced; those that connect with the appropriate tissue survive and the rest atrophize and are re-absorbed. The evidence was an experiment in which either the sensory nerves or the ennervated tissue from the back and the front of a developing mouse where switched; the resulting mouse scratched its back in response to stimulus on its stomach. Has that been disproven?

Why would the initiating 'want' need be for ownership? For the initiating want be for understanding would be more logical. What is the first thing we want to do when we want to understand how something works? We take it apart, and put it back together ...

Now that you are feeling grounded again [you are, aren't you?] I have to tell you that your first post was one of the funniest things I have ever read. A friend of mine has been forced into a similiar expansion recently, and is recommending "What the [bleep] do we know?" to me; I haven't seen it yet. Maybe you should check it out after exams, if you haven't already. BTW, severely disrupted sleep patterns can lead to temporary "psychosis"; that's why some militaries use it during training, to break down the ego and sense of reality and then redefine them within the framework of the military. So, get more sleep and eat your vegetables. Take care.

If you still need words of comfort ... Your concerns about the actual reality of you don't matter; you still need to get up, take a shower, go to class, and pick up cream on the way home. For daily life, experience is reality. Am I being clear? It sounds to me like you were standing on the brink of an enlightenment and got [quite naturally and sensibly] scared. You were viewing the entire universe across all time; of course that is a bit rough on your ego. Next time this happens, relax and see where it takes you. Here's an analogy: if you fell out of a plane, you would be terrified; if you are sky-diving, the same event is exhilarating. Just remember, you do have a parachute. AHC: EGO: 1. The self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves. 2. In psychoanalysis, the division of the psyche that is conscious, most immediately controls thought and behavior, and is most in touch with external reality. [emphasis mine]

I do not share your confidence in the survival of humans; change could come very rapidly, before the species has time to adjust; even a relatively small drop in population [10 % is in my head, but I have no cite for that] could cause a severe breakdown in social/economic structures; and we are too dependent on complex technological and social and economic structures to flourish in a "natural" environment. I do share your confidence in the survival and flourishing of life after catastrophic change. [i really hate people who do this.] Actually, pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. King James, Proverbs 16, verse 18 [did I cite that correctly?] and "forte" when used in music is pronounced "for-tay", but when used as a noun meaning speciality is pronounced "fort"; both come from the latin, but the noun came into English through the French use, and the adverb through the Italian. and "unique" can not be qualified I annoy myself.

Thank you for the information, and I'm glad to hear you are feeling better. About being afraid of restaurants; I can not remember the last time I cooked at home; I don't clean my stove, I dust it; I have eaten out more than in for years. I have had serious food poisoning TWICE [i have felt flushed, slightly queasy, and had head-aches after eating out; I have been told that could be mild food poisoning by a food chemist]. Just stay away from mayonaise and hard-boiled eggs.

They are all ~ half blue grey, half white; round; above when appears to be residential buildings. The first is different; the "line" between the colors does not run left/right; it does not line up with shadows from the buildings; and it runs parallel with rather than perpendicular to the closest body of water. They are either reflections from the inside of a webber grill cover or lost helium balloons from a child's birthday party.

Do a search on salaries surveys, particularly in the sciences. Find the section that breaks down salaries on gender lines. Then sit back and smugly assume that women are biologically less able to negotiate a salary. What is this obsession with finding difference between men and women? Men and women are different; humans and trees are different; trees and rocks are different. Going out on a limb here, but I bet the bell curves overlap more between the first two than between the others. Pardon me; I have to go help to my husband and son move a couch around a corner without someone opening a door into another dimension.

To make amends, I have googled for you; I read the jingoistic hysterical rantings of hundreds of fools and charlatans to glean the following: This page refers to other articles you could read. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jun2004/tort-j30_prn.shtml Here's a defense of torture http://robert.williamsonline.us/archives/000296.html This one doesn't really make any arguments http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4838 Ah, found it; I haven't really read this, but it is presented as an argument, so it should help: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~fha0/Torture.doc. The google html link is: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:nk2c57h_u1MJ:www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~fha0/Torture.doc+defense+of+torture++%22defense+of+torture%22&hl=en Nothing really new here in my opinion, but you might find something http://zwichenzug.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_zwichenzug_archive.html A little back-ground, politcal discussions http://chronicle.com/colloquy/2005/01/torture/ http://www.themoderntribune.com/gonzalez_bush_u_s_policy_on_torture.htm Maybe you can find a copy of ''Torture: A Collection,'' edited by Sanford Levinson, a professor of government at the University of Texas Here's an example of what you will be arguing against. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3745/is_200307/ai_n9301308 Hope these help. Tell yourself that you can not oppose something unless you understand the arguments in favor of it.

Oh, honey, that is so funny ... [i am assuming you're not really offended; at 17, you must have a strong enough sense of self-worth to handle a little teasing. I will make up for it with ideas on how your arguments will be refuted.] So much is being alleged about what the US military do and terrorists have done that you will have to be very careful with your sources. Furthermore, most of the outrage about the facility is that people are being detained there with little or no evidence they were members of a terrorist group. Also, there are accustations that groups are being designated as terrorist on inadequate evidence. Torture used by the military to extract information has the added evil of developing latent sadism in people who carry large guns and know how to use them. But the argument that sleep-deprivation is not really torture could get past your fellow students. Does it matter? Is immorality quantitative or qualitative? There was lots of serious discussion of the use of torture in the US after the Towers were blown up. I don't remember any of the arguments off-hand. I'll see if I can find some. Are you certain the "measures" are not as bad, or even worse?

Those are different from the blob thing.

If school were easy' date=' you wouldn't be learning anything. OK, there must be some stipulated "measures" you have to defend, right? Otherwise the other side can use any irresponsible undocumented stories they can dig up on the web. First, you have to try the "greater good" [which will promptly be shot down with the argument that acceeded to abusive acts by a government is bad for the people']. Second, you have to argue that the "measures" are not so bad because detainees are not being killed and crippled. At least, not deliberately. All that often. I am not being much help here, am I? What is the best way to undercut an argument? Agree with it, and then diminish its importance [i can not believe I am giving an impressionable child this advice]. So, what measure are being taken? People are being detained in circumstances which could not be better designed to elicit the latent sadism in any one. Well, that's a stumper. Sigh. [Just how did you piss off God in your last life?]

Please go to the hospital immediately if you haven't already; the last time I had food poisoning I was fine in less than 24 hours, just a bit tired. And please, tell someone [maybe the state board of health] about this. Chicken McNuggets go into Happy Meals.

Environmental damage does not cause the decrease of all species at the same rate. First minor damage destroys microenvironments in which niche species thrive; species which feed off or otherwise benefit from the niche species decrease in number; competitors or prey of the niche species boom; the whole little web-let gets thrown off kilter. The concern about the environmental changes humans are effecting is that they are occuring too rapidly for complex organisms, such as humans, to adapt. And you will never convince me there are humans out there who can photosynthesize.

The US refuses to honor the Kyoto Protocol for minimizing and reversing environmental damage commonly suspected to lead to global warming, and other nasty things.

What control would you use? How would you chose your test subject? Why do you think a single high-school senior would be representative of roughly 50% of the human population? I will predict how a 17-year-old girl would react to being bullied by an adult male; she will get scared, and get angry because she is scared, and cry because she is angry. But all that has nothing to do with how she would compete. Your experiment would only measure how a single female of unknown representativeness responds to verbal abuse, and not how females in general compete in open gender situations, stressful [or abusive] or otherwise.

Could you do a statistical analysis of marathon times over time? Track how women's and men's best, mean, and median times have improved over the last three decades. And track how race horses times have changes over the last three centuries. But if you really want to measure sexual differences in response to stress, leave individuals alone with a cholicy baby for two hours [make sure they know they are being watched, so the baby doesn't get hurt]; that has got to be the most stressful situation I can imagine.

I am so glad you understood. Nitric acid? HNO3, right? Nitrate is a fertilizer, and I think it encourages vegatative growth [rather than flower/fruit production]. I was thinking about this on the drive home, and came up with a bunch of questions for you to consider: Is the acidity, the anion, or a synergistic [or even agonistic] interaction between the two, causing the effect? Is the test solution acting on the environment [e.g. freeing up more trace metals] OR on the plant itself? What is the solution doing to the environment? Freeing trace minerals? Encouraging or inhibiting the growth of micro-organisms? What is the solution doing to each part of the plant? The roots, the stem, the leaves? [The really low pH solution is probably killing the roots; that's different from the effect you're measuring in the rest of the plants.] Are you asking about the cellular mechanism, or do you want to know what is happening to the plant as a whole? And does this count as help with homework? Because I'm pretty sure I know what's happening to your plants.

BTW, is this for a class? If it is, put monitoring the root system in the section on how to expand the experiment. And using different reagents to adjust the pH of the water; if you are using only hydrochoric acid to adjust the pH, you could just be measuring the effect of choride, not pH. Monitor the pH of the tap water, too; it can vary. Record when you rotate the plants. The leaf color is interesting; the controls are probably producing more or different photosynthetic pigments [i'm betting more, not different; you could test that with paper chromatography]. I think the dead spots are a secondary effect and not primary; the high pH is killing the plant, so the leaves are dying; that could be wrong. If the control leaves are darker, that could mean the low pH plants are producing fewer leaves because they need less photosynthetic pigment and, therefore, fewer leaves. In that case, the mechanism by which fewer leaves are produced may not directly involve pH; or the greener leaves could be a red herring, and the pH could be directly effecting the development of the plants. I'm not being very clear, am I?

What is the control? Is there any change in the whorl pattern of the leaves? Does the size, shape, or color of the leaves change with pH? Does the diameter of the stock? Is there any difference in branching? Are you able to monitor the root system? And are you certain the environment, particularly access to light, is the same for all groups, on the average? [You didn't line up the plants by group under the lights, with the pH 3 plants in the middle, for example?]

I think that is why I go on and off the medication; I worry about long term side effects. I don't drink when I take it, but then drinking is not good for depressives. As for the walking, don't think about how far you should walk, keeping the pace and your posture right, finding the right shoes; shuffle around the block in your bed-slippers with a cup of coffee if that's what gets you out. Good luck.

Defend that statement. I would recommend researching the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, lions, and the military forces of your country before you attempt to do so. Or just approach a nearby Canadian Goose.