Bill Angel

MESSAGE TO MARS: OPEN WIDE...THE CURIOSITY ROVER HAS ARRIVED

"After study zoologists have confirmed that these are a new species of caecilian (a type of legless amphibian). Named Atretochoana eiselti, biologists are currently not aware of any living populations" No living populations? I would hazard a guess that there are eggs for this species buried in the mud, just waiting for the proper conditions to grow and to produce offspring.

When I had an ear infection the Dr prescribed CIPRODEX, which are ear drops containing an antibacterial agent and an anti-inflammatory agent. It worked quite well and was not too expensive.

"The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment." I believe that the above statement is overly simplistic. It does not take into account the process known as "Quantum Decoherence". "Decoherence occurs when a system interacts with its environment in a thermodynamically irreversible way. This prevents different elements in the quantum superposition of the system+environment's wavefunction from interfering with each other. Decoherence has been a subject of active research since the 1980s." Take the example of "Schrodinger's Cat". That poor cat is most likely DEAD because it has interacted with its environment in a thermodynamic irreversible way. It does not continue to exist as a superposition of wave functions whose state is neither alive nor dead until someone opens its box and checks on its condition.

I occasionally have had trouble with ear aches and ear infections. The best advice is to have an Ear Nose and Throat specialist examine you. But if you wish to discuss your situation with others with a similar affliction, check out www.inspire.com which is a medical support group that I have found it useful to participate in for my own medical issues.

There is a good book on this subject by Seth Lloyd "Programming the Universe / A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos" I've read the book and can assure you that God is a hypothesis this scientist has no need for. But he is sensitive to the question of the value and meaning of human life in a universe devoid of gods and inhabited by a humanity devoid of immortal souls. The New York Times carried a good book review on this work http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/books/review/02powell.html?pagewanted=all

That's well put, and similar thoughts occurred to me while reading about the biology of the garden slug. Here are some facts about the biology of slugs that would seem to make a joke about any assertions of "intelligent design" rather than natural selection : Slugs, like all other gastropods, undergo torsion (a 180° twisting of the internal organs) during development. The presence of a vestigial shell: Most slugs retain a remnant of their shell, which is usually internalized. This organ generally serves as storage for calcium salts, often in conjunction with the digestive glands. One can understand how the biology of an earlier snail type of organism would adapt under the pressures of natural selection to internalize its shell and modify its purpose. The same with the reorienting of its internal organs during development. Lest I be accused of attacking a straw man, fundamentalist Christians do subscribe to a literal acceptance of the biblical story of creation as depicted in Genesis, as well as using the "Argument from Design" to assert the existence of a Divine creator .

The results of the Higgs Boson photo contest are in . One of my entries received an "Honorable Mention " See http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000991

That is an interesting article in Scientific American. Here is a link to an interesting and relevant news article titled: Climate change threatens California power supply: report The thrust of this article is that California is looking ahead to predicting the impact of climate change on meeting its energy requirements.

I agree with you. The issue I was focusing on is that it would be sufficient for man made global warming to be a contributing factor in a shift in a region's weather patterns for extremely disruptive situations such as the one in India to occur. Government bureaucrats don't take possible shifts in weather patterns into account in their long term planning, assuming that they are actually doing and implementing any long term planning for growth in energy usage for example. As a point of interest, not only are we having a very hot summer in Baltimore but we just had a very mild winter with practically no snow. Also here is a link to an interesting and relevant news article titled: Climate change threatens California power supply: report The thrust of the article is that California is looking ahead to predicting the impact of climate change on meeting its energy requirements.

We have been having a real hot summer in Baltimore this year, which has led to power failures, and it appears that climate conditions is a factor in the massive power failures that recently have occurred in India. Accordng to one source: " The power deficit in India was worsened by a weak monsoon that lowered hydroelectric generation and kept temperatures higher, further increasing electricity usage as people seek to cool off. " So the issue of interest here is whether climate fluctuations, such as the one described here that is a contributing factor in India's power failure, could be caused by global warming?

Here is additional information that came out today that could be pertinent to this issue : " AURORA, Colo. — The suspect in the Colorado theater rampage was seeing a University of Colorado psychiatrist who studies schizophrenia, according to court records released Friday, indicating for the first time that university officials were familiar with James E. Holmes’s mental state. Holmes was a patient of Lynne Fenton, the medical director of student mental health services at the university, according to the suspect’s lawyers. Holmes withdrew from a Ph.D. program in neuroscience after taking oral exams in early June. "

For the sake of discussion assume that there was a policeman in the theater equipped with a typical police sidearm .Would not the stopping power of one of those weapons be sufficient to prevent the shooter from continuing to aim and fire his own weapons? Also this fellow was not a trained soldier with knowledge of what to do when he himself comes under return fire.

That is an interesting way of looking at the situation. What if one had a shuffled deck of cards sitting on a table? The wavefunction for the deck would be the superposition of all possible arrangements of the cards. The observer now turns over the top card and places it on the table. The system now consists of the collapsed wave function for one card, and the deck whose wave function is the superposition of all possible arrangements of the remaining 51 cards.

I have had good success ridding my apartment of flying insects utilizing good old fashioned flypaper. To document my success I made a music video titled At least in my case, my idea of an entertaining form of mass killing involves flying insects and not human beings.

Here is a link to an Associated Press video about this fellow in Maine that is even more disturbing than the print story quoted above. Take a look at the firepower this disturbed individual had amassed! http://news.yahoo.com/video/maine-man-tells-police-had-174311118.html

Jesus was purportedly the son of God who performed miracles and rose from the dead. And while depictions or narratives of his life are dismissed by atheists as imaginative fairy stories, believers in this story arn't expecting God to make some kind of personal appearance in their own lives.

I think you raised a good point. A little over a year ago I was unexpectedly shaken awake from a deep sleep at 5 AM by someone I did not personally know. There was nothing sinister about the situation. It was his job where I was staying to wake people up at that hour. My reason for mentioning it is that I was having a really vivid dream, and my mind integrated his efforts to wake me up into the situation in the dream. My mind had temporary lost its ability to discern what was a dream situation and what was reality. Now the dream was of a non-threatening nature , and I don't sleep with a gun under my pillow. But I can envision how slightly different circumstances could have tragic consequences for others who are so armed.

But what would people eat? How much vegetation could thrive in an atmosphere equivalent to the current atmosphere at an altitude of 5 Km? And would there be enough of an Ozone layer to block UV radiation from the Sun?

On the question of penalties for gun law violations, would you support sentencing this fellow to life in prison without the possibility of parole? Or should he be punished less severely? After all one half of the issue is the legal regulations, the other half is the severity of the punishments handed out. "And in Maine one man was arrested when he told authorities that he was on his way to shoot a former employer a day after watching "The Dark Knight Rises," state police said. Timothy Courtois of Biddeford, Me., had been stopped for speeding, and a police search of his car found an AK-47 assault weapon, four handguns, ammunition and news clippings about the mass shooting that left 12 people dead early Friday, authorities said."

But will tougher gun laws actually have an impact on the situation in the United States? At one time alcoholic beverages were illegal, but such laws proved to be ineffective. It's obviously against the law to be in this country illegally, but our country has a serious problem with illegal immigrants. It's against the law to use marijuana, but such proscriptions don't affect people's behavior. And I'm certain other examples could be added to the list.

Your remarks seem to have been rather prescient, in light of the recent events in Colorado. Perhaps the mental state of James Holmes contains elements of schizophrenia that responded or connected to what you apparently perceived as schizophrenic elements in the Batman movie?

That's true, but I should think we should still be able to detect hydrogen bomb explosions on an alien planet , just as alien civilizations might be able to detect hydrogen bomb explosions on earth.

For those interested in voting in this contest, check out http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000978 All votes for entry #21 would of course be appreciated

Sound is a form of pressure wave. If your area of interest is energy recovery from pressure waves, you might shift your focus from the medium of air to the medium of water. The following link is to an interesting article about capturing energy from ocean waves from either surface waves or from pressure fluctuations below the surface http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/guide/wave/index.cfm