Bill Angel

It's an interesting issue as to whether man is creating a breed of domesticated "zoo" panda, similar to dogs being a breed of domesticated wolf. Could a zoo panda survive if it was released into the wild?

I created a blog at http://blogs.scienceforums.net/BillAngel/ I had no problem doing that. What I would like to do is add entries to my blog from my Android phone. I downloaded an app from google play that interfaces with WordPress blogs. But the app has problems logging into my blog. It thinks my username and password are not valid. :'( Anyone have any knowledge concerning interfacing the SFN blog to Android devices? Thanks.

I would agree that videos are a form of canned response, much like copying and pasting of a section from a wikipedia article into a discussion thread. Personally I would not bother participating in a discussion thread if all I had to contribute was the pasting in of a section from someone else's writings, or the embedding of someone else's video. That said, I find it easy enough to ignore such postings by others when they appear in a discussion thread.

I would like to quote an analysis concerning the war that was waged in Iraq that I think touches upon this issue: " One of the biggest problems with our political system is presidents get too much blame and too much praise while Congress gets off scot free when something goes wrong. Since it was Congress that determined Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that body, including Senator John Kerry, authorized the president to attack Iraq to protect the security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council Resolutions, the American people should blame Congress for the war in Iraq." See http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/04/11/26/greenslade.htm My point here is that Congress did not subject the assertions made by the Bush Administration about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda to enough analytical scrutiny, but acted more like a "rubber stamp“.

Our Constitutional system of government (USA) relies on a system of checks and balances, to ensure integrity and honesty in Governmental activities. When governmental officials display lapses in integrity and honesty, isn't it because of a breakdown in the system of checks and balances?

Much of what politicos assert in these speeches is to motivate listeners to contribute money to their political campaigns. Why should they change their speech, if it serves to help keep the campaign contributions rolling in?

I think it is fair to say that politics by its very nature relies on the promotion of partial truths. There is actually an entire branch of mathematics devoted to the study of partial truths. It's called "fuzzy logic ". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic

It's interesting to note that the first life forms on earth quite likely utilized sulfur rather than oxygen in its metabolic processes. Also such life forms still exist on Earth. See http://m.popsci.com/science/article/2011-08/oldest-fossils-ever-found-could-present-new-target-search-extraterrestrial-life So it could be possible hypothetically for life based on alternative chemistries to emerge on Earth in an environment that was inhospitable to DNA RNA based organisms. But I am unable to suggest what kind of environments that might be.

Remember Symmetry Magazine's "Where have you spotted the Higgs Boson?" contest back in July? Well it seems that a famous photographer created an entry for this contest back in 1926! The photographer was Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and he titled his work "How Do I Stay Young and Beautiful". A copy of this work is in the collection of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. I took a little artistic liberty with his image and added the colored Higgs Boson H symbol (pointing up ) at the bottom of the image.

look who showed up inside a lava lamp (scientists utilize special goo, the recipe for which was discovered on Mars, to grow life inside a Lava Lamp...)

There is one tool that is usually taught in the context of explaining what its usefulness is: group theory and symmetry principles. There are quite a number of videos on YouTube where the lecturer starts off by explaining the concepts of rotational and reflection symmetry, and then shows examples such as crystals and molecules that possess such symmetries.

You should also think about your avocations. For example Einstein loved to play the violin all his life. And Richard Feynman was an enthusiastic bongo player. See: While my I own involvement in science has not been as significant as Einstein or Feynman, I still make an effort to merge or combine my interest in physics with my involvement with photography. See A Study of the physical dynamics of the "Lava Lamp"

On the question of whether there has been any atheistic societies, I would suggest several societies for examination: The Soviet Union under Stalin China under Mao Present day North Korea These societies view religion as an impediment to control of their society via a personality cult centered on their dictatorial leader. And of course there have been religious societies that have done the same thing: Spain under Franco for example. What happened in Spain and in a host of other countries was that the Catholic Church had become corrupt and turned a blind eye to human rights abuses in these countries.

It's interesting that you mention that wikipedia article about religion in Nazi Germany. I would like to quote from it. "Many Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler, subscribed either to a mixture of pseudoscientific theories, particularly Social Darwinism, or to mysticism and occultism, which was especially strong in the SS." and "In a confidential message to the Gauleiter on June 9, 1941, Martin Bormann , had declared that "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable." He also declared that the Churches influence in the leadership of the people "must absolutely and finally be broken." Bormann believed Nazism was based on a "scientific" world-view, and was completely incompatible with Christianity."

I would consider Nazi Germany to have been an atheistic society, as the Nazis had no intention of allowing a moral code derived from religious beliefs to constrain their actions.

Some religious teachings assert that all human life matters. The converse of this is Social Darwinism that considers some lives unsuitable to continue to support. Personally I would prefer living in a society based on religious beliefs that protected human life than an atheistic society that relied on euthanasia to rid itself of the burden of the physically and mentally disabled.

For those who might have an interest "Zombie Proof" Architecture, here is an article titled " When the dead start to walk you'd better start building" http://www.economist.com/node/21560125

I came across a new announcement about spiders today: ScienceShot: Giant-Clawed Spider Is a 'Cave Robber' - ScienceNOW The above announcement piqued my sense of humor (see below) Ziggy Stardust Apparently Thought There Might be Spiders on Mars What's the joke? These fellows performing with David Bowie, a group called the "Spiders from Mars", are now all senior citizens which makes them fossils i.e. ancient in relation to the contemporary music scene.

Here's an interesting article I came across. While it really isn't a basic introduction to quantum computing, it does discuss the technological challenges one group is struggling with in order to implement a quantum computer logic gate. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427998/a-photonic-c-not-gate-breakthrough-for-quantum/

That's a challenging question to answer, because the functioning of a quantum computer is based on subtle and non intuitive aspects of quantum theory. Not surprisingly there are quite a number of videos over at Youtube in which experts and students attempt to convey the principles of quntum computing to a general audience in videos running less than five minutes. I don't think any of them succeed all that well, but you might watch a few of them to clarify which of the issues pertaining to quantum computing you are most interested in discussing.

Here is another bit of humor connected to the Mars rover landing oreo celebrates mars rover with a special cookie

Thanks for posting those links. The first one was useful to me in determining that in approximately 3.5 billion years the andromeda galaxy will be as close as depicted in my composite photograph. See

I like the way she laughs and giggles while fantasizing cutting a defenseless man to pieces with twin gatling guns.;-)

Congratulations to NASA on a job well done! On a humorous note, and relevant to my posted image (see above link) is this post by another writer complimenting the space agency on its achievement : " Great achievement! To borrow a saying from a post I read today, Mars eats satellites like a teenager goes through Hot Pockets! (Wish I had thought that one up.) It is good to take a moment to enjoy something better than the constant slime of politics. Truly, this is an example of man’s great potential."

I had watched the computer animations depicting the sequence of events that needed to happen for the rover to land successfully on the martian surface. It strained my credulity believing that the engineering systems would perform flawlessly, which apparently was the case.