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art roxxors man! that is cool anywho, i am a 24 year old guy, got a bachelors in biochemistry from UC Davis, and am getting a doctorate in Inorganic chemistry from UC San Diego. Despite all that i still don't know anything about chemistry, but i guess that is what i am in school for Cool, it is interesting to hear where everyone is comming from, SWEET!

lol, this is stolen from family guy[/i] but i liked it anyway BEER if you drink beer, hot women will have sex in your backyard.

sup NSX! i think the problem lies in whether you are a Chemist or a Physicist. The reason being as follows... If you are a Chemist, then you take a "system-centric" point of view. That is, if the system looses energy, then you treat it as a negative sign. Thus, in chemical reactions that release heat, we say that they have a negative delta "H". On the other hand, if you were to have to input energy into the system, then you would say that the process has a positive sign for the energy, as the system gains energy. Our physicists friends are not quite so nice. If you are a physicist, then you take a "observer-centric" point of view. Thus, energy that is extracted from a sytem can be gained by an external object and they say that energy is positive. Thus, if you can extract energy (for instance, leltting two oposite charges come together) then you would label that as a positive energy. Becuase we can extract this eneregy from the system. However, to move the particles away from eachother energy is required. It is assumed that "we" will be supplying the energy to do this and so we will be loosing energy to the system. Thus, we call this a negative energy change. WEll, i hope that helps, it is all really just do to a sign convention and the fact that chemists and physicists cannot agree on it. Cheers

Not quite. If you really want to split hairs. I do not know that the chair did not create itself. Rather, i strongly suspect that the chair did not make itself. In fact, unless i either watched the chair being made by a person or whatched it just "pop" into existance, i know nothing about its origin. However, my experiences have taught me that it is quite unlikely that a chair will just pop into existance out of nowhere. Thus, i assume that the chair did not appear out of nowehere. So strongly do i belive this, that i do it uncounsciencely, just out of habit, despite the fact i have not seen the creation of the chair. Where am i going with this? As far as the creation of the universe is concerned, we know nothing about what happened to cause it. What is more, we never can. THere is no possible way to observe or measure something that existed before the universe as we know it did (asa the cause of the universe must have). As such, it is open to any conjecture that we wish --and more, they are all equally valid. Or at least they are all equally unprovable. I can say that the universe created itself via quantum fluctuations. I could say that the cristian God created the universe. Or i could even claim that is was little green three headed men/donkeys from the planet proto-pluto that created the universe as an acidence when the blew up their mother''s vacum. And all three of these theories can be investigated to the same amount, that is, none. Why then does science put for the big bang? For the same reason that i assume the chair did not create itself -- a trained resonse. Sciece nessesarily must reject all supernatural forces, becuase if such forces existed then the universe would not be consistant. If the universe is not consitant then meaningful study of it is impossible. As such, science is forced to work within the confines of a ubiquitous, consistant set of rules wich govern how hte universe works (it is the aim of science to figure out and describe these rules). This need to reject the supernatural causes creation by a being to be rejected. So, sceince must turn to the best possible explination that does not use such a being. As of right now, this theory is the big bang. I hope that helps somewhat. All theories concerning the beggining of the universe must be equally valid. However, despite this equality, internal constraints of various systems will fource of to reject some of these views. In the case of science we are forced to reject the existance of a supernatural being. However are we really? NOt quite. It is indistuiguishable to differentiate between the big bang and the creation of the universe by a being that then removes himself from his creation. Thus, science really rejects the idea that there is a bieing that created the universe and still continues to take an active part in it. I think that makes sense. Well i hope that i at least shed some light onto the reasons that people belive in the big bang. Effectively, believing in the big bang is equivilant to beliveing in a being that creates the universe and then divorces himself from it. Thus, people that believe in the big bang sans a being are actually believing that there is no supernatural being that activily participates in the universe. As far as evolution is concerned. A series of random mutations occurred in the genome of proto-peoples. SOme of these mutations were beficial, some where not. Those that added a greater fitness to their "oweners" were increased in frequency. If just so happens that many of these mutations, when all summed up added up to the human eye. In effect, the human eye was evolved through baby steps, many many tiny baby steps. Really, i find this idea much less difficult to swallow than say, life evolved from lifeless chemicals. At least once organisms existsed, theree was a form through wich the mechanism of evolution through natrual selection could function. Before life, there was no such intety for this mechanism to function. Thus, the first life form had to arise purley from chance. And what is more, one this most improbable event happened, there was most likely only 1 thing alive. Nessesarily, it must have survived to reproduce, and its offpring as well. Crazy, if you ask me. But then again, i could be thinking about this all wrong. Anyways the answer to your questoin is this. The human eye evolved over many (way more than you care to count) mutations that occred over the course of several million/billion years. At least that is what teh theory proposes. None taken. It is quite benificial for scienctists to be thick skinned, so that we can accept attacks on our theories. And we need to be rational, so we realize that they are attacks on our theories and not on us. So the practive is good! And what is more, as i was stating on a different thread, it is a scientists duty to continually question science and examine its claims. So it is always good practice to try and defend them and try to explain them. Anyways, hope that helps some. I am sure that other people will be willing to give you their thoughts as well. Feel free to ask more questions too and welcome to the boards!

and that raises a good question, "should the government be concerned with protecting minorities?" Consider why we have elections. The reason why we hold elections and vote and bills and law ect. is to ensure that the will of the majority is followed (at least in theory). That is, in a Republic (i am talking about the US here) the idea of the government is to preform the will of the majority. As such, why should it bother with the concerns of the minority, if it is the majority that it is to serve? Just some thoughts. I don't nessesarily agree with them, just thought i would throw them out there. Cool. and i hope you enjoy Anthem, i thought it was rather well written

first off, your calculatoins are correct. So the only thing that remains is to assess what you mean by "dangerous." If by dangerous you mean by undergoing this reaction the universe will cease to exist, then no, it is not dangerous. However, if you mean, by doing this reaction could i end up with glass embedded in me, then yes, it could be dangerous. What you have to look at is the following. Does the reaction release heat? If so how much? Is this heat enough to ingite the hydrogen on its own? How much energy would be released by burning hydrogen? Is this reaction being done in a confined volume? Do i have sources of ingition nearby that could accidentaly ignite the hydrogen? How hot will my reaction vessel get? Stuff like that. Many reactions could be dangerous, but with proper thinking and managment, they are not. So it kinda all depends on how carefull you are and what you consider dangerous to be. Yeah.

Interesting. So if the government can descide when it is OK to kill a baby, it should be able to decide when it is OK to have one at all. That is, if we are going to try to decide moral issues of death before birth, shouldn't we, before birth, also be considering moral issues of that beings potnetial life? Who know. :/

Wow, what a marvelous insight! I had not considered this beofre. Thank you for pointing that out. Cool.

lol. it appears as if i have defeated myself here. That is funny. Let me see if i can redirect this somewhat. Evolution occurs. We have observed that evolution has occred in many different populations, but not all of them. Evolution is the idea that gene frequencies within a population change over time. Implicit within this statement is that this holds for all populations of all organisms. Unfortunately we will never be able to make observations of all populations of all organisms, thus we cannot ever prove evolution to be true, that is it can never be a fact. What we can say is that evolution within certain populations is a fact. And really we can only say that for the time in wich we made our observations. Thus, stating that evolution is a fact is incorrect, as it implies that we know this is the case for all populations at all times. Therefore, we find that evolution is not fact, but rather theory. ok, i will give you that for our specific observations we have obseved changes in gene frequency. But what does that tell us? Merely that over the course of a given time, gene frequencies changed in this one population? That is a fact. HOwever, as i said above, extending this to include all organisms at all times (at the theory of evolution intends to do) the observations move from fact to theory. It seems to me that we are both saying the same thing. We can observe facts, but we can never move a theory into the relm of fact. What i had contention with originally, is that the theory of evolution is often not taught as a theory. My issues with this do not lie in any creation vs. evolution debate, but rather with what i said in my above post. I fear that teaching people that the theory of evoltion is unquestionable is a horrible thing for science. WE need to teach people that sciene is not afraid of probing eyes, that, rather, it welcomes these questions and it will lead eventually to a better understanding of our world. Agreeed, and theory is also often interpreted as "fact" and that isn't so either. End the end theory is just (i dont use "just" as a bilittling word here) the best explination that the scientific community can come up with for a given phenomenon.

ah, but then you run up against one of the classic problems of weaponizing bio agents--distribution. As it turns out lots of living things (and viruses) do not like (are killed by) extreme heat and pressures. Thus, the explosion of the C4 would most likely destroy your agent, and you would not really get it distributed. AIDS in general is quite frigile, and become dead almost instantly when free in air. This difficulty of distribution is why so few of the diseases around us have been weponized. This is also why you hear the word ANTRAX so much. Anthrax is quite hearty and is one of the few bioagents that people have found is able to survive through a reletively mild explosion in the process of its distribution.

Well, the reactions themselves do not happen at a faster rate. What we mean by a higher metabolism is that the number of these reactions that happen in a given time increases. This is akin to saying that all rocks fall at the same rate due to gravity, but in some places, with a "higher rate of falling rocks" more rocks are dropped in a given amount of time. This is mainly due to the fact that children are both growing and highly active durring the day. (at least usually) Basically the effects of temperature on metabolism is a result of the fact that your body needs to keep its temperature around 98.6 degrees farenhiet. It takes energy for your body to maintain its temperature (much like it takes energy to run a heater in your house). The colder it is around you, the harder your body has to work to maintain your body temperature, so you use more energy. The way in wich your body creates the energy for heat is part of the metabolic cycle. Thus, when it is cold your body must increase its rate of metabolism in order to maintain itself at the correct temperature. Hope that helps. Great questions!

hmmm...i don't know. I was raised in a republican household and so i think many of my knee-jerk reactions (wich i try to control) tend to be concervative. HOwever, i realise the nessesity of a liberal approach to government. It is definately good to have a healthy suspision of the government. I think i am started to develop libertarian ideas, but who knows. I am defniately a fan of isolationalist policies, but in the information age, i am not sure this is feasible for a world power. As far as taxs go, well i am defnitely poor right now (grad school ), but i do kinda agree with you muffin. Enforced charity is prolly not hte way to go. If you have lots of $$ you can donate to a soup kitchen or something. I don't know. All i know is that we didnt even have income tax until the civil war, when it was started to pay for the army. Wierd, huh? Anyways, yeah that is where i am, kinda. Hey muffin, you ever read ayn rand? I think you would prolly like her. She is a good writter and i think you would agree with many of her ideas (thought she does kinda beat you over the head repeatededly with them). Anyways if you haven't read her, you should check out Anthem, it is a quick read (about 100 pages) and will give you a pretty good idea of where she is comming from. If you are interested, here is a link. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451191137/qid=1069820858/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-1548412-9444049

LOL! it is everywhere! I think that in actuallity the glass are evil space beings that are out to enslave us all into their evil minds -- or something

What if it could still convert the ATP to energy? It is not the ATP itself that is energy. The energy is a result that when you hydrolize ATP to ADP and Phosphorus, you can obtain energy. This energy when properly coupled allows the cell to make other chemicals and move. So even your definition of life=movemenet + structure would require that the cell is able to create energy (and harness it). SO, i think the ablilty to use energy is still and implicit requirement. Cool. That is some good thinking. I hope you don't mind if i point out some potential flaws? First off, everything moves. People move, cells move, molecules move, atoms move, electrons move. EVERYTHING moves. It has to. Thus, movement is too broad of a definition in my mind. Also, if you look close enough everything has structure as well. Again, peopple have structure, as do cells, molecules, atoms, and perhaps electrons (though maybe not in the case of an electron, depends on what you mean by "structure"). So i think this too is too broad of a definition. Of course this is only too broad of a defnition if you don't want to consider molecules or rocks alive. Because both molecules and rocks have structure and do move, they would both be alive. Thus, i fear that your definition is not specific enough. It is some good thinking though and perhaps i am missing the point you are trying to make. Of course i too have yet to come up with a good definition. I suppose all we can do is keep trying How about something is alive it has the "ability to make use of resources at hand to benifite itself" Where it is the same definition of benifit as above but "resources at hand" means resources in the environment or resources taht are being actively supplied. This would allow the coma patient to be alive still where the hospital would be supplying the "resources at hand". What do you think of that?

I suppose that all hinges on what you take the definition of fact to be. I belive that most people would hold that if something is a fact, then it is objectively true. Does this seem reasonable? In such a case, we find that evolution cannot be fact. It can never be proven objectively true. In science, we cannot prove things true, we can only prove them false. What we do then is advance theories that will survive as long as they are not disproven. Thus, evolution is only a theory. And it will only be accepted as a thoery until it is proven inccorect. I say until it is proven incorrect becuase surely it will be. how do i know? Becuase historically everything in the relm of science has been proven incorrect. Consider this; a long time ago, people thought that their were four elements, earth air fire and water. We know suppose this to be false. People also thought that atoms were indivisable. They thought that energy was continous. People even thought (get this!) that time and length and mass were constants! All these things have been shown to be wrong and other theories have taken their place. By induction, we find that all the theories that we now have will too be proven incorrect. As such, evolution is not a fact. What is more, a good scientist must treat the theory with a health dose of skeptisism. It as Feyman said (i am paraphrasing) science without doubt is dead. Now i hope that you do not feel that i think that evolution is a poor theory. Actually, i happen to think that it is a good theory. It explains many things around us. Furthermore, i think that it is obvious that evolution (as described by the theory) does appear to occur. We definately see that gene frequencies change in a population over time. Thus, evolution occurs. Now, saying that i think that evolution is a good theory, i also want to stress that i think it is wrong and will be shown to be so eventually. But this is only a healthy scientific view. The view that a theory is unquestionably true is not a healthy view and lead to stagnation of science as well as an almost religious fervor towards a theory -- something that is not really suited to science. The pinnacle? WHat about scientific law? As in the LAW of gravity? Would that be held higher than a theory? Whatever. This is just semantics. It does not matter what you use to prefix your idea with (thoery, law, conjecture, ect.) the fact remains that you cannot prove anything to be obejectively true in science. Science does not pretend to do this. It does not intend to do this. And a good scientist will always remember to maintain a sense of doubt and not ascribe to a theory truth that is not there. Well, i hope i made my point. Perhaps you did not mean objective truth? But i had to address this point as i feel it is quite common (especially among the young person intersted in science -- though i don't pretend to know your age). I hope i did not come across as offensive. I mearly wish to stress in the strongest possible language that science is a method of continuous discovery -- not a way to arrive at ultimate truth. That is all.

nah, i don't think that is too much of a stretch. I think that is a very good point. A person in a comma cannot really effect his environment. As such, he would die. But he doesn't, because others are taking care of him. Thus, he is still alive (or at least i feel most people would call him alive). Because of this, my definition does not quite work. Good call. well, i must admit that i am kinda stumped right now. Perhaps i need to sleep on this too. well anyways, thanks for the feedback, glad you like the joke

YT, i may be able to help out some here. DO you know what Iron Chloride this is? If memory serves, some of the Iron chloride comlexes are actually three dimensional matrixes. Each iron has 6 Chlorides attached to it, and some of the chlorides (i think three) serve are bridging ligands to other iron centers. Thus, the irons are all sharing chlorides. Because the chlorides are contained in an matrix it is much harder for them to exchange with potienial ligands in teh environment (including oxygen). Thus, they are given additional stability (iron complexes are usaully quite labile) beyond the little they normally have. This could be the answer to your question. Of course there could be others. It may just happen that chlorine is more stabalizing or a ligand than is oxygen. (though i doubt that this is a major cause). As such, once iron binds cholrine it is less likely to switch for an oxygen. But i must stress this is most liekly not the case, as i said earlier iron is quite labile. hmmm...it is an interesting question. I would imagine that it has to do with the 3-D structure of the complex. But of course i would have to know what iron chloride it is to be sure. Anyways, yeah. One last thing. you sai above... Well, the iron in iron chloride is oxidized. The word oxidized does not nessessarily mean "combined with oxygen." It can also reffer to the number of electrons that an atom currently has as compaired to the number it has in its elemental form. Thus, an atom that has 2 less electrons than in its elemental form carries a charge of +2 and, similarely, we say that it is in a +2 oxidation state. If an atom has more electrons than it does in its elemental form, then we assign it a negative oxidation state. For convienince we call atoms that have positive oxidation states "oxidized" and ones that have negative oxidation states "reduced". In a neutral iron cholride complex, we know that each chloride has an oxidation state of -1 so the iron nessesarily has a positive oxidaton state. SO we find that in a iron chloride complex, the iron is indeed oxidized. I am not sure whether you knew this or not, so i thought i would err on the side of telling you things you already konw, instead of letting you live in ignorace. Please do not take my telling you this as an insult if you already know. I just thought that if you didn't know this you would like to know. Thats all.

good question! I have no idea. Are there non-human animals that you feel (or have ever felt) are more alive than YOU? I am not sure if i have. I think that our instinct for survival causes us to think of other things as "less alive." HOwever, this is counterbalenced by a mental desire to do "right" whatever that is. And this is what foces us to ask "what isalive?" hmmm...just from an evolutionary standoint, i think i mouse would view other creatures as less important, if not actually less "alive." Just my thoughts.

hmmm...an interesting idea. Kinda a brainchild of nanotechnology meets biochemistry/neurology. I think that would be a pretty sweet little thing. But i would get a remote that controled my neihbors TV and then i could jack with him all the time LOL!. Another thing that would be cool too is tiny implanted phones that work off of thought too. Then we could talk to eachother just by thought. Engineered telepathy! SWEET! Of course, there would need to be some pretty stringent security concerns, otherwise anyone could just start talking to you mind without your permission. And you thought telemarketers were bad... Yeah, but cool idea. Perhaps you should write a sci-fi novel. YOu could team up with pincho, he has some pretty cool out there ideas too

yeah, plants do kinda through a kink into things... but then again, how would you define consciousness? Perhaps plants are conscience but we do not have an adequate definition to include them. I don't know. Ah, i was thinking about species. But you do raise an excellent point. Thanks! I suppose that the individual would have to fit the definition. Good call. Ok, so then perhaps reproduction is right out as a requirement. Or perhaps people that cannot reproduce should be consdered as dead (becuase they are from an evolutionary standpoint). But i think this opens up a whole ethical can of worms, so to avoid that i will just say reproduction is right out. hmmm...how about this; something is alive if it can actively change its immediate environment in order to directly benifit it? By "benifit" i mean insure its continued presense. What do you think of that? cool, just few little things... Well, most people here don't seem to, for whatever reason. But the vast majortiy of peope online do call me VM, so you are more than welcome to, will save you some typing i think. Sweet. One last thing, gotta tell you this joke muffin just because of your name. SO here it goes.... Two muffins are sitting next to eachother in an oven. On muffin turns to the other and says, "A bit hot in here, don't you think?" The other muffin then says, frightened, "AAHHHH! TALKING MUFFIN!!!" Anyways, i love that joke. Cool.

i would agree with you IMI. Religion and science both have equal claim as to what caused the universe to come into existance. Science can point to evidence that would lead us to the big bang, but then what caused this? Since by definition, the big bang created both time and space as we know them anything that lies beyond this is not in the relm of true science. By this we see that science doesn't even really have a claim to the beggining of the universe, that is the prime cause of it. This is truely the relm of philosophy, or wich religion could be considered a branch. A question for inblackard... What specifics do you have issues with? The age of the earth? The big bang? The mechanism of evolution? I am just curious. I am not Catholic and, as such, i have not kept up on Catholic doctrine. I am unsure as to what sciencetific theories the pope is in disagreement with. Also, do you find that your religious belifes tend to cause you to emphasize that the idea that life sprang from chemicals or that evolution is only a theory? That is, do you not present it as a fact, as most high school, and sadly, college classes do? Just curious. thanks

i think you hit the nail on the head, daisy. As far as i see one of two things (or both) need to happen in order to really attract people to teaching. 1) Teaching needs to be seen in a better light by the puplic. Currently, most people view teaching as kinda a "lower" level job. A job that people fall back onto when then don't know what else to do. As such, teaching is not considered by society to be a job for "driven" people or "sucessful" people. Until teaching revieces more prestige in the public eye, it will continue to be a job that many people will try to activley avoid. 2) Pay. Like daisy said, this is a major isssue. Many people do not consider teaching to be a good job becuase the pay cannot afford them the lifestyle they would like. So, unless the pay is raised, people will also tend to avoid teaching. Of course, just deciding to pay people a bunch of money will not be the best answer. Becuase then you will get people that teach just for the $$, instead of people that really do want to teach. Becuase of this, i really think the raising the prestige of teaching is what needs to be done. Let people see that teaching is a nobel profession. One that a person can take pride in. Put teaching back into the pulic eye as a desirable profession and you will see both the quality of teachers and the effort put out by these teachers increase. At least that is kinda how i see the problem.

i think you turn 11 durring 6th grade.

one way to do it is to ask "explain why" questions. For example, if you are talking about osmosis and diffusion. Then you can ask a question like "if you place a cell in a saturated salt solution what will happen? Why?" Things like that. Emphasise essay questions and the like. Of course, i don't really know how much writting you wish to incorparate. If you think that the need to learn how write longer papers on science, you could always make them give reports, write book reports, reports on some chemical that has been in the news, ect. Or perhaps you could have them write ideas then have about current subjects. For instance, every week you could go over a current contraviersial topic in science and then have them turn in a 1-2 page paper on what they think about it. Topics that could be discussed are biological weapons, nuclear power plants, the pros and cons of alternative fuel sources, genetic engineering of foods, gene therapy, drugs (both legal and illegal -- or perhaps the line between the two). Things like that could lead to interesting discussions and, besides giving students more writting experience as well as critical thinking experience, would help them to see how much science plays a part in the world around them. Anyways, i am not saying that i have the answer, but these are just a few ideas that popped into my head. Cool.

yeah, that seems to be what i did as well. (seems so long ago now). I remember we disected a shark -- that was kinda cool. Looking back at it now, i really enjoyed my 6th grade science course. One of the better ones i took. There are probably a few things that i would try to do differently if i were teaching that course now. (or course, the course was really good anyways) 1) I think it would be cool to talk about the scientific revolutions that have happened in the past. (ie. mendle and genetics, einstien and relativity, bohr hiesenburge and schordenger and quantum mechanics, Werner and coordination chemistry, ect.) I think it would be good to cover these topics and really emphasize the changes that happened durring these areas. I think this would help young students view science as an exciting and dynamic process, instead of just some static dogma that they have to learn. 2) I also think it is important to talk about scince in the real world. Give examples -- lots of em -- as to how people use science in their everyday lives. For instance, i can't remember if you cover polarity in 6th grade, but if you do, this would be a great time to discuss how detergent works. And talk about why it is designed the way it is (long non-polar chain attached to a polar group). Sutff like that lets kids appreciate science even when class is not in. Of course my teacher did this in 6th grade. I just think there is always room for more. Yeah, but over all, it sounds like you are covering the good stuff