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swansont

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Everything posted by swansont

  1. I suggest you look at Mendel's experiment with peas. It was only a few generations to identify certain traits (including color and texture, IIRC) but when he moved on to something else he was stymied, because the genetics was more complicated. In peas the different traits are associated with single genes rather than combinations, and there was no "crossover" between the genes and multiple traits. (i.e. genes for x correlate to trait x, y with Y, and z with Z, but these are independent of each other. Not true in all subjects) So I imagine the answer is that it is going to depend on what crop.
  2. That's a tad strong "Backward time travel is another matter; we do not know whether it is allowed by the laws of physics" and "We physicists have been working hard since the late 1980s to understand whether the laws of physics allow backward time travel. We do not have a definitive answer yet" (he also equates negative mass, anti-gravitation exotic matter with the Casimir force without anything pointing to where this connection has been definitively made)
  3. Short of killing the first born male child in every household (or something similar), that rise was "baked in" to the system. As you've already conceded, it will at best take a couple of generations to bring growth to a halt. That's why growth projected to not flatten until ~2050 or later (depending on assumptions)
  4. You should use the search function on the site where you get apps for your device.
  5. Yes. In fact, as I’ve pointed out, the biggest CO2 producers already have low fertility rates. So you’re proposing a solution that’s already in progress, and complaining that the IPCC hasn’t recommended a course of action that’s already in place.
  6. Can you explain how this would occur, and what the timetable would be?
  7. There has been at least one member that registered another account after being banned, and was allowed to remain after discovery. Precisely because they changed their behavior. Some have contacted us up front and asked for a second chance some were denied, some were given another chance. Many sockpuppets are obvious because they don’t. Which is true in this case - these are pretty much the same arguments previously presented, with violations of the rules (persistent fallacies, arguing in bad faith) so I don’t see this as a case of having learned anything. The bigger picture is how much effort the staff are willing to expend after having dealt with numerous rules violations that led to the first banning. Bridges are often burned.
  8. You might not need to do work to compress it, but that would mean you expend more energy generating it. That bill still needs to be paid.
  9. His posting style got him banned the first time. There’s a good chance it would have happened again.
  10. If electricity is more expensive than natural gas, what is the economic incentive of moving to hydrogen, even at a 20% mix? Hydrogen isn't going to be cheaper than the electricity that generates it. How is your electricity generated?
  11. ! Moderator Note Moved to politics
  12. Back to the topic of the OP - these sci-fi shows tend not to depict realistic science/technology or exploration scenarios, so I have to wonder how they would generate excitement for that. It just seems like it would be a letdown to realize the parts that are made up aren’t possible in the foreseeable future or possibly ever.
  13. ! Moderator Note About wanting a link to your quote? Yes. We pay attention to plagiarism and copyright issues. Also credibility, since I doubt Ascension Glossary is considered a reliable science source.
  14. Terminator didn’t really talk about the dangers of AI. It used that as the plot device to launch an action film in a sci-fi setting.
  15. ! Moderator Note When you quote a passage you should cite your source. We can’t read your mind.
  16. Hydrogen is not a power source. It’s a storage medium. Hydrogen technology is akin to battery technology. Hydrogen can only be as green as the power that creates it.
  17. Both We have ample evidence that trickle-down doesn’t work, because only a fraction of the money trickles down. And ramping up taxes on the rich isn’t going to stop them buying their shiny pebbles, etc.
  18. It’s not the couple of million spent on the yacht. It’s the many more millions not spent on anything at all. In the hands of the lower echelons of the economy, that money gets spent. Tax from that money gets spent.
  19. The other side of this coin is that people are telling them not to trust, and to not get the vaccine…but the people at the top of the pyramid are vaccinated. It’s interesting seeing the shock of the drones at finding out e.g. FOX news has a vaccine mandate. It’s related to having authoritarians and grifters in power, and the way to show loyalty is to believe what they tell you rather than what you see with your lying eyes. It’s the price of belonging to the tribe.
  20. Only in a rough sense; fission and particle ejection are classified as different reactions. Particle ejection can be endothermic, so you need an energetic particle to cause the proton to be removed. Almost certainly required if you eject more than one. Fissionable materials are typically very heavy nuclei, and fissile materials are a small subset. Particle ejection candidates are found over almost the whole range of the periodic table.
  21. Your terminology is off. You can’t “remove an atom” as you describe. An atom consists of neutrons and protons. The number of protons tells you what element the atom is. You can add or remove protons and you will end up with a new element.
  22. https://www.facebook.com/MontyPython/videos/890758175061804/
  23. Nobody was “put in a position” You keep framing this as if they couldn’t have said “no thanks” It was their choice. You can question their level of foolishness for going, but you can’t actually gauge that unless you know what situations exist where a fully-trained astronaut would make a difference As far as training goes, at least some of that is so they know what to expect while pulling g’s during launch and while weightless so they’re not experiencing that for the first time on the trip. Someone having a panic attack in close quarters can be a dangerous situation. Also things like the need to sleep near air vents because CO2 buildup can be dangerous because you aren’t moving. As beecee’s link makes clear, NASA is not involved and the flight is 100% privately funded
  24. But nobody was “sent” Part of the issue here is the framing of the situation. Part of it is the claim that a professional would make a difference without any concrete evidence or relevant examples being presented. (Also: Everyone could simply drop the OT nonsense. Regardless of who started it, several people have perpetuated it. It takes two to tango, as it were. It’s not like the original throwaway comment was repeated until others responded, escalating the situation)

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