Area54

On 7/25/2021 at 11:52 PM, beecee said:

While there has at times been certain "over the top" rivalry, one incident being the water polo stoush between the USA and USSR at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic games...

A small correction: I think you are recalling the Hungary vs. USSR match. The "blood in the water" being a reaction to the brutal suppression by the Soviets of the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

On the main thrust of the topic, sport can definitly be a unifying force, but only amongst those inclinded to favour unification.

14 minutes ago, Country Boy said:

Alpha Centauri, the brightest "star" in the constellation Centaur, turns out to be a lot more complicated that was thought!

What was called "Alpha Centauri" turned out to be a number of stars orbiting together.  What was called "Proxima Centauri" because it is (currently) closest to earth turned out to be, itself, a double star.  The two stars making up "Proxima Centauri" are called "Proxima A" and "Proxima B".

Well, no. That is incorrect. I share  @beecee 's hesitancy to say too much, since that would be providing an answer in the Homework section. beeceee gave a nice clue - that also references why your post is incorrect - when he noted the lower case 'b' and 'c'. They are used to indicate something rather specific and it isn't that Proxima Centauri is a double star.

On 7/21/2021 at 12:44 AM, iNow said:

Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I am overcompensating for my own biases and trying to right various wrongs, but you know what? I’d rather overcompensate toward the side of inclusion and acceptance of those already marginalized and violently targeted on a daily basis instead of adding to the already rampant problems of needless exclusion and discrimination these marginalized groups are facing.

Excellent. May I count on your support for the small, oft excluded and, frankly, never even recognised group of Balding Britons with Bad Breath, Big Bellies and Boring Biographies?

On 5/17/2021 at 4:03 AM, iNow said:

Pretty sure nobody here is blinkered enough to suggest Fauci ought to be dismissed based on misguided words from Rand Paul so that last post likely wasn’t necessary. 

Keep in mind that lurkers read these threads also. They may well outnumber the participants, and even the non-participating members. The post was an opportunity to educate some of them.

The search for evidence of life by Perseverance falls into two categories:

• From sedimentological studies identify environments that could have been habitable.
• For these instances:
  • Use the onboard analytical equipment to search for biosignatures.
  • Look for possible fossils - I have not yet tracked down the specs on the Perseverance camera system, but supecte detection would be imited to macrofossils.
  • Cache promising samples for eventual return to Earth for comprehensive laboratory analysis

Edit: Full camera specs in this paper. The relevant camera for this discussion is the Cachecam: "The Cachecam, a new camera type, will acquire images of Martian material inside the sampletubes during caching operations at a spatial scale of 12.5 microns/pixel."

On 5/28/2021 at 5:47 PM, zapatos said:

I hate to see someone else blamed for my neg rep.

No problem at all. I'll transfer the blame to you.

On 5/28/2021 at 5:47 PM, zapatos said:

Typically I find it is best to call someone out for trolling AFTER they've trolled, rather than assume they are a troll in disguise.

I wasn't aware I had called anyone out as a troll. Would you elaborate?

On 5/28/2021 at 5:47 PM, zapatos said:

Not everyone has yet come to the firm conclusion that the vaccine for everyone is a no-brainer like most people on this site have. It might be best to let them finish their journey of education rather than insult them because they haven't already arrived.

Nor have I. I reached a provisional conclusion that the OP had a selfish attitude. I offered them two options, one hyperbole riddled instance where they proudly refused the vaccine and another where they did the socially responsible thing and took it. They (and you) appeared to miss that second option. I've reread my post several times and am comfortable that the option was clear unless one chose to be deflected by the hyperbole. Or, to put it another way, there was no insult.

21 hours ago, Dankfinger said:

So, What is the evolutionary impact of evil? 
I know that one would argue it is not evolutionary but just an occurence of choice over instinct, but I think that is pretty wrong...
Like atleast what are the evolutionary benefits and negative advantages?
I imagine it is something to the extent of a evolutionary blocker of 'too much good' like with inbreeding... 
Or it is just like a cancer hanging onto humanity from there having been huge survival advantages at times in being 'evil' or cheating and stealing from others ect...
 

How do you define evil? Without knowing that, disection of your thesis is difficult.

As @Bufofrogpoints out, evil is a human construct. Are you exploring the role of evil in human evolution only, or in all evolution? If all evolution, are you imagining organisms other than humans can practice evil?

9 hours ago, Photon Guy said:

So are you saying Howard Wolowitz isn't a scientist?

M.I.T. say he's not a scientist. Sheldon Cooper says he's not a scientist.  That's good enough for me. It ought to be good enough for you.

5 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I think this poster is wasting everyone's time, possibly deliberately.

That was my impression. And not as amusing as some of the time wasters.

14 hours ago, fredreload said:

If I beam a laser at a series circuit, does the laser share the voltage of the circuit?

If I aim a reply at a silly post, does the reply share the inconsequence of the post?

15 hours ago, zapatos said:

I can assure you that the vast majority of my money (or even the money supply of the entire United States) can neither be seen nor handled. 

All of my money is tied up in loose change!

10 minutes ago, studiot said:

As regards to 'damage', that may not be the best word but deformation does not tell the whole story either.
Crustal (and other) rocks can and do continually degrade by various natural processes as well as specific event such as plate boundary activity.

While this is true I doubt that the natural processes of weathering will be significantly affected by the tensional forces discussed in the paper. I gave some though to mentioning metasomatic and metamorphic changes, but could based on the abstract the authors do not appear to directly suggest those. I should expect enhanced metasomatism via increased micropores in a tensional environment. Enhanced metamorphism seems unlikely - perhaps @beeceecould say if the paper offers examples of such in the Turkish locations referenced.

7 minutes ago, studiot said:

What known science did the first neolithic engineer to build a clapper bridge 'apply'  ?

Surely the key word in @MigL's post is "typically"? He suggests, and I agreee, that typically an engineer applies known science. Applies is a key word in my sentence. Engineers are (typically) engaged in the application of principles. Scientists are (typically)engaged in the derivation of principles.

3 hours ago, Photon Guy said:

An engineer is a specific type of scientist. The term "scientist" is very broad, an engineer is just a specific type of scientist, there are many different types of scientists.

Not all scientists are engineers but engineers are all scientists, of a type.

You are mistaken. Scientists seek to gather knowledge. Engineers seek "build" things. I have worked with scientists and with engineers. I have worked as a scientist and as an engineer. The two minds sets are different. The methodologies are different. The aims are different. I repeat, you are mistaken.

A handful of disparate thoughts on the topic:

I wonder @beecee if the words "tremendous damage occurs to areas of Earth's crust" are yours, or from the paper. I would not characterise deformation, whether folding, or faulting, as damage. Damage is something that happens to objects with a purpose that interferes with that purpose. Deformation is something that routinely happens to rock. In the context of this forum the casual "tremendous damage" is fine, but if those are the words of the authors I am rather surprised.

I agree with @studiot that the slab pull- break off is not new. Without seeing the paper in full I',m left thinking, are they arguing this mechanism, involving a micro continent, as the only, or the commonest cause for break off? Presumably not, as I can't see what evidence they could bring to supprt such a view.

The notion of stress within the oceanic plates does not seem new to me. The concept of rigid plates as a fundamental part of plate tectonics has long been understood to be a generalisation/approximation. I take the fundamental message of this paper to be that a portion of the structural deformation of obducted terranes occurs before they collide with the 'target' continent. That is new and very interesting. Thanks.

3 hours ago, DeepSeaBase said:

 Can private industry compete against China? China has basically hit the tarmac with full afterburners and they already have achieved more than SpaceX or Axios combined. US private companies like SpaceX have had some significant accomplishments such as their finally successful re-landing of Starship, but I think time has ran out.

What do  you mean when you talk about "competing with China"? If I plan to run 2,000 miles this year and my neighbour is targetting selection for the GB athletics team over 800m, are we competing. We're both involved with running, but our goals are quite different. China has first and foremost political goals in space. Second they are targeting political goals. And, of course, political goals are also important to them. In contrast SpaceX's aim is to make humanity a multi-planet species. Where do you see the competition? Chinese plans to take over Mars? Could be, but what is your take?

20 hours ago, Der_Neugierige said:

Why so little neurobiological research ?

 

I dont understand that?

A very crude measure of the amount of research on a topic is how many hits are generated by a google scholar enquiry. That returns, for "neurobiology", about 1,070,00.

How much larger do you think it should be?

10 hours ago, RichardReMark said:

Hey i need some help, i need some feedback on my research. 

Happy to help. It's wrong. For example:

5 hours ago, RichardReMark said:

The video is about a disk in the shape of a eastern gong that is made out of the stone slate.

An eastern gong is disc shaped, so saying that the disk is shaped like an estern gong, is not really telling us anything new. It's a disc.

Slates vary considerably in mineral composition, micro and macro texture, and the properties such as density, compressive and tensile strengths, etc, that are dependent on them. You need something much more specific than just identifying it as a slate.

20 hours ago, Photon Guy said:

An engineer is a scientist.

Not really. There is overlap between the disciplines, but they are distinct in both their methods and their objectives. A scientist can adapt to engineering work given time and appropriate training, and vice versa, but that does not make an engineer a scientist.

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Has everybody (MarkE in particular) given up on this one  ?

My following comments are not intended as cynicism, trolling, fatuousness, or any other negative descriptor, I ask a basic question to which I would be interested in learning some of the possible answers.

Does it matter? Not, whether or not everyone's given up on this thread, but does it matter whether virtual particles are real or not? Virtual particles 'perform' at scales of time and space, and in a medium, that is utterly beyond the experience and mental acuity of a bunch of hyped-up African Apes to understand without the application of a pile of complex metaphors (disguised as mathematics). In my first year of science at secondary school one of the teachers misquoted someone (and I misremembered the misquote) as defining an atom as  "a hole, in a hole, round a hole, on a hole". I have been more than comfortable with that definition ever since. I accept the decriptions of atoms and particles and fields and forces as being convenient labels to help us take a stab at describing "what's going on". But the map is not the territory and an art critic's review of a Picasso is most certainly not the Picasso. Do I have it wrong?

49 minutes ago, Alfred001 said:

 

I'm genuinely curious as to what the cause is for the hostility? I've asked for information in the interest of educating myself, am I not allowed to hear all the evidence before making a decision?

The self righteous attitude you seemed to have adopted focused entirely on the risk to you and completely ignored the benefit to the community at large that was not something I found attractive. My post placed the option you seemed to be leaning to wards in stark terms in an effort to make clear to you, what you seemed to be finding obscure in the hope you would see your error.  The second part of my post suggested what action I thought you should take. It was the one I was 95% certain you would take once oyu had refelcted.  If the structure of my post was not clear I'll try harder next time, however, I won't apologise for using strong wording to get your attention. You seemed to need it.

I'm not in a position to say if the neg rep you seemingly gave me was warranted. I'm sure the one to @MigL was not, so I've cancelled that out with a Like. Neg rep this post if it makes you feel better.

@Alfred001If I may express what is implicit in the foregoing responses in a much more vigorous form: go ahead. Don't take the vaccine. Let people know you have not taken the vaccine. Wear a badge clearly stating you have not taken the vaccine. This will allow the rest of us to identify you as ignorant and anti-social. We can then respond accordingly.

Alternatively, take the vaccine, thereby improving your chances of avoiding problems, showing your grasp of reality and making an important contribution to community welfare.

35 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Anyway, it's nice to know one can always annoy them by asking if it is true that the Flat Earth Society has members all around the globe.

Nice one. (I can't believe I've never heard it before!) I imagine the remark will send the more volatile Flat Earther into orbit, leaving them with even more intense cognitive dissonance.

1 hour ago, chrismackey1972 said:

Because I'm writing a story, and I had the lead character develop anti-venoms, and I wanted to get the actual title correct. I listed him as a toxicologist

I wasn't sure venomologist was even a valid word. (Apparently it is.*) I think toxicologist is more reader-friendly. You can have his backstory one in which, having trained a a toxicologist, he narrows his field to focus on the production of anti-venoms.

*I was curious as to how common the word was and found a mere 111 hits for venomologist on google.scholar. One of more of them might be of use to you.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

The psychology of these people is what intrigues me. I suppose it may just be contrariness: a determination to be agin everyone else, just for the hell of it. But it is very strange. Makes QAnon look normal - almost. But I digress.......

My recollection is that back in the 50s and 60s Flat Earthers were tweed wearing, pipe smoking, avuncular and eccentric Englishmen. There was a sense that their claims were tongue in cheek and motivated by a desire to make retirement more interesting. It was all rather charming. But perhaps that is a flawed recollection. Anyone else have similar memories?