StringJunky

The "burning questions" don't get worked out by plucking thoughts out of thin air and airing them on the internet after an hour or two of "deep thought"...they are answered by dedicated and diligent individuals who spend years studying. The best most of us here can do is learn from those people and disseminate their efforts amongst those that want to know...we do not aspire to delusions. I'd rather be a "drone" listening to people with a sound and consistent methodology than listen to an instant-scientist-with-a-Galilean Complex.

Science works on confidence intervals and if it is 95% or better then an idea can be considered "knowledge" ie the evidence for it is robust enough to be classed as a theory*. *"In modern science, the term "theory" refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that any scientist in the field is in a position to understand and either provide empirical support ("verify") or empirically contradict ("falsify") it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory (My bold)

WHR Tar is right, you are making quite some elementary mistakes about the state of current knowledge of the universe...he's not being disrespectful, he's just telling you how it is. If you don't want to be picked up for elementary mistakes, make sure you read up on the basics first.

Einstein never suggested that...he was actually a proponent of the Static Universe which he later admitted was a mistake. Edwin Hubble conceived the idea of expansion I think. Besides, the objects subject to universal expansion are not going anywhere, much less break the light-speed barrier...space is created between objects and the further you are away from a galaxy or cluster the faster it appears to be receding ie more red -shifted.

The fat molecules are too big and aggregated to pass through skin or membrane. In order to be absorbed by the body via digestion the fat first needs to be emulsified by bile, which breaks it down into smaller units, then a fat-acting enzyme breaks it down into even smaller units called fatty acids...this is what the body uses.

I'm no expert either but find it interesting as well. I can't give you the steps leading to terrestrial locomotion or breathing free air but I am aware of some ideas about the evolution of the eye which gives some idea of the kind of transitional evolutionary phases necessary to reach a certain complexity.

Rythmic tidal forces on the oceans between the Sun/Moon and Earth would have caused some early organisms on shorelines to be regularly exposed to the free atmosphere when they were beached on the down tide...they most likely didn't crawl onto land initially; they were exposed by the sea receding. If those tidal forces didn't exist Earth's inhabitants might have stayed purely aquatic because I don't think there would have been sufficient selection pressure to adapt: what would be the need to crawl out of the water? The regular exposure to free atmosphere would have allowed some organisms, which had beneficial mutations that aided locomotion under those circumstances, to have greater reproductive success because there would have been less competition. If you notice, organisms did not move from water to land in one go....they were periodically exposed to the free atmosphere giving plenty of opportunity for organisms to adapt eventually to inhabit dry land. Evolution occurs in very small steps over a very long time.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=12540

I think what you really want is people to publicly brainstorm together and build on each others ideas but this is not really the function of this forum or the scientific method in general. One presents an idea here for it to be intellectually shot at to see if it withstands the rigour of external analysis. It is not the present model of scientific research to have other people do your work for you and you have all the accolades.

If you want to put your mind at rest until something is done you could brush and seal the lead-paint surfaces in your proximity with a PVA sealer at 1: 1 ratio with water like Unibond. Any PVA glue diluted to 1:1 will do really. It should dry to a clear(ish) finish depending on the porosity of the surfaces. This is what I would do for the moment if I were in your shoes. It needs to be dealt with if you are in a confined space with it as you are then in a chronic exposure situation. Lead is a slow cumulative poison ie it will affect you gradually and invisibly over time and you probably won't notice until it's too late. Realistically, only someone knowledgeable in these matters can assess the degree of risk in your personal situation...get an environmental expert in from you area that works for your local authority who can also, if applicable, statutorily compel your your landlord to act.

The elements are defined by the number of protons in the nucleus. Each increase by one proton is another element and once you get into the 90+ proton containing elements they become more and more unstable so the chances of other elements existing naturally becomes ever less likely the higher you go up the proton-number and if they do exist it is only for an ever shorter time before they decay to a more stable proton configuration ie to an element, with less protons in the nucleus. If you look at the element with the highest atomic number Ununoctium (118 protons) only 4 nuclei have been detected altogether in the lab and its decay time to livermorium (116 protons) is 0.89 ms. As you can see, the chances of finding new elements are becoming much slimmer all the time.

I see it as a planned but unannounced performance which was a nice surprise for the people around.

I don't find it difficult to believe that he wouldn't know about whether he had lead paint on his property especially if he comes from a less developed country and also not everybody's a chemist...it's a minor detail that one needs to know on the scale of things. Now that he knows though he should deal with it if it is the law in your country to do so.

Skitt's Law* alert. *Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself.

If you persist in writing in your current style which is just about incoherent and bordering on word salad you will, justifiably, be ignored or disciplined. One should always endeavour to speak or write so that your audience can understand...When in Rome...

Thanks DH, that's what I wanted to know. I have been around on this forum long enough (3 years) to make up my mind whose information will likely be reliable and try to give a reasonably accurate picture of the prevailing state of any scientific subject, or at least point me in the right direction, without colouring them unduly with their own pet opinions unless explicitly stated. I fully accept mainstream scientific research projects and their subsequent conclusions embodies a necessary degree of uncertainty and, on the whole, the established and most experienced contributors here reflect that but it does take quite some time to figure them out.

Nothing's perfect but it's the best system science has available...as you should know. Is there not a mainstream consensus that DM exists? Bear in mind I'm asking these questions as a layman so I can't argue for or against...I wish to only understand where mainstream science is at now. I understand DM was originally hypothesised to make up the numbers regarding the missing mass and this is the model they are following. I'm not interested if you disagree with it personally, only what the mainstream research scientists actively working on it have extracted from their data so far.

No, that's why I'm asking. It was in Nature journal so I presume it's peer reviewed. The essence of my question is: how much more confidence does this give towards the actual existence of DM?

Image source ... Here we report the detection of a dark-matter filament connecting the two main components of the Abell 222/223 supercluster system from its weak gravitational lensing signal, both in a non-parametric mass reconstruction and in parametric model fits. This filament is coincident with an overdensity of galaxies10, 13 and diffuse, soft-X-ray emission4, and contributes a mass comparable to that of an additional galaxy cluster to the total mass of the supercluster. By combining this result with X-ray observations4, we can place an upper limit of 0.09 on the hot gas fraction (the mass of X-ray-emitting gas divided by the total mass) in the filament. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7406/full/nature11224.html

http://wordlesstech.com/2012/07/11/evidence-of-dark-matter-confirmed/

DH IIRC I think you are conversant in flight navigation systems....is it AI to you?

When I think of the role of chance in Abiogenesis, I think of it with respect to the necessary reactants coming together under favourable conditions: once that happens the rest is deterministic according to the properties of the chemicals involved.

OK, cheers.

Would the Earth system restore the pressure eventually to previous levels?

Glad to see you using taking on the right word, hypothesis, and the plural of it is hypotheses (ending is pronounced -seez). Half the battle is speaking/writing in a language that your target readership understands. Science has quite a few conventions, like for example the difference between the two words I pointed out. Watch out for patterns in the way and words the scientists use here...they mean specific things that other scientists understand. Learn these as you go along and you will find they understand you better if you use them in the same way.