SMF

Puzzly. If this is really important for your relationship, any anonymous responses at a forum will not do. The issue can be settled unambiguously by genetic testing. SM

Baxtrom. I was thinking about a typical home owner's water pipe. Your tank photograph looks to be a pretty good illustration of my water hose example. I would bet somebody got in trouble for that one. SM

I ran across the website of P.Z. Meyers, a University of Minnesota biologist. He has a nice non technical piece on how chromosome numbers can change and I thought that it might be helpful to somebody who came across this thread. SM http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/basics_how_can_chromosome_numb.php

I knew a guy that had one of these- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_KR175

Because lighter than air vehicles gain the most lift at the bottom of the atmosphere where pressure is greatest and can only ascend up to the altitude where air pressure just counterbalances the weight of the craft, I don't see any benefit to dropping a balloon into the atmosphere from the top. It would just expend a whole bunch more money to achieve the same altitude. SM

So, for your first post here you wish to discuss a commercial website. Spambot.

Baxtrom, I would like some further explanation. It seems to me that a pipe made of a material with high tensile strength, but little else, such as a water hose would collapse easily when interior pressure is reduced, but because air pressure is only about 15 psi, a rigid pipe that is able to contain 15 psi internal pressure should easily be able to withstand this amount of external pressure if it were completely evacuated. SM

The naturally occurring human version of this affliction is Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. It pops up naturally in human populations and has been transferred naturally by infection from the practice of cannibalism as curu. The disease is called scrapie in sheep and has been found in most mammals where it has been looked for, including deer and squirrels. The misfolded proteins can be transferred to the same species relatively easily and this has occurred in humans when it was found that typical surgical sterilization techniques failed to eradicate the proteins on neurosurgical instruments, and in cows when they were fed cow chow that was enriched with protein made from downer cows. Cross species infection is relatively rare because of the slight differences in the neuron membrane protein involved so that the possibility of humans contracting mad cow disease is zero if one doesn't eat meat from an infected animal. SM

Pickling requires quite a bit of salt and/or acid plus refrigeration (after opening) to prevent bacterial infection. If you don't want your mangoes to be salty sour, then can them. I can a lot of apricots and peaches, and I think a water bath canner should be adequate for mangoes. SM

Yes, a modern bird could evolve such that their wings became useful front legs or arms, but I can't think of a reasonable circumstance in which there would be selection pressure for this to be advantageous and that would also be simultaneous with an open ecological niche not already occupied by an existing critter. If one had a very wealthy family with the interest in a multigenerational project, this could be accomplished in the lab with artificial selection. You could create a pool playing chicken and charge $5 per game at the county fair. SM

Kep: I think that psychics is not an alternate spelling for physics and ghosts are a product of credulity. SM

Voltman, I don't think this has anything to do with scientists and engineers. Nobody wants to pay for walls and warnings for rare events. SM

Marat, in saying- - you are expressing yet more unsupported opinions and have failed to read any of the research provided for you. Most suicide attempts by schizophrenics occur soon after the beginning of their disease when they realize something is wrong. Please provide some credible evidence for the rest of this last post. I thought that this was a science forum. SM

There are around 30 types of karatin in the body and they are an important component of the cytoskeleton inside our cells where they provide a tough intermediate filament network. They are especially well developed in all epithelial cells where they help fasten epithelia sheets to the substrate and provide strength against tearing and distortion, in muscle cells for arranging and transmitting contraction, in delicate neurons and glia, and are an important component of cell division in the nucleus of all cells. If keratins were more hydrophobic they would not fold properly and bind together to form tough filaments, and this would be fatal, while small changes give you such fun diseases as epidermolysis bullosa simplex. Green Xenon, the only benefit I can see to your idea is that you would get to slump to the floor in a pile of mush and be able to exclaim "I'm melting, melting. Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world." SM

The Algerian entomologist: Like Ringer says, if you believe in evolution you should believe that humans evolved from some precursor to a bacterium, not just another primate. In your original post you seemed to be concerned with discrepant chromosome number as a problem for evolution of primates and I gave you some references to start your own investigation of this complicated topic. One of the papers talked about genetic relationships between many different creatures, not just primates. Now you are saying something different- What is “spice.” This whole statement is very hard to understand, but I think you are making the very old and incorrect argument that because we can’t have observed some aspect of evolution directly, that it can’t be studied or believed. If this were true then we also can’t claim that electrons exist because they can’t be observed, or that the sun is a nuclear reactor because we can’t see inside it, or that the tree that fell down in my yard during the last storm was blown over by the wind because I didn’t see it fall, or that any of the writings in your religious texts have any validity because you didn’t observe the events they describe or anyone making the writing. You have “changed the goal posts” and seem to want to argue religion, not learn science, so I will not participate unless you wish to discuss some specific scientific question. You can start by explaining why chromosome number is a problem for evolutionary theory. SM

The Algerian entomologist: Here is a link to a research article that is an example of the large scientific literature on the genetic details of primate evolution- http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/18293104 . Do you think that the scientists working on evolution have just forgotten some important and obvious problem? I think you should do some studying and then ask some questions. Here is an educational site that has an article that links to more information- http://theforcethat....-evolution.html SM EDIT- I did a little more searching for you. Here is a more relevant article- http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/gb-2001-2-6-reviews0005.pdf7%20K and here is the search with very many pages of research- http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=0&q=chromosome+primate+evolution&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

PhDwannabe, I share your concern regarding unsupported opinions, so here is a little science. Suicide among schizophrenics is greater than the general public, but not as much as is commonly thought, and the rate is less than, for example, individuals with alcoholism or affective disorder-- http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/172/1/35 Further, this analysis-- http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/reprint/187/1/9.pdf found that "Active psychotic symptoms were not associated with increased risk; indeed, hallucinations were associated with a reduced risk of suicide, as were delusions when the studies of more robust design were examined." SM

I know a genetic counselor quite well and the ethics of his profession require that he help clients get reliable testing, if possible or necessary, and he calculates the odds for various outcomes based on tests and inheritance so they can make a good decision for themselves. SM

It has been a while but I think- N is the population size, mu is the population mean, and sigma squared is the population variance. SM NOTE- edited to comply with the recollections of M.

Insane_alien, thanks. That is nifty. SM

I understand the principle and was hoping for some more practical information. For example, running a gas burner into an envelope of hydrogen or helium would be adding hot CO2, so probably some sort of heat exchanger would be required. SM

I think that a consultation with a genetic councilor is just what you need. Without expert advice you will forever be second guessing your decision about this marriage no matter what you decide. SM

Insane_alien. Do you know what the typical practical advantage is, what is the temperature of the gas, and how do they heat it? SM

A hot air balloon is approximately neutral at 100 degrees C and generates maximum lift at 120 C (250 F). This maximum temperature is constrained by the potential melting point of the envelope. I wonder what kind of performance might be gained from heated hydrogen or helium. I realize that there are some major practical considerations, at least for hydrogen, but where between hot air and vacuum would hot hydrogen or helium be, and how hot? SM

Marat. I asked you to verify your statement regarding an expensive investigation by a University of Chicago cryptozoology team, but no such team exists does it? How does this behavior fit into your essay regarding the "contradictory methodological principles" underlying natural science? SM