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You need to make sure the section is set to 'continuous' before you can use continuous breaks. Put the cursor immediately after a break, then go to Page Layout > Layout > Section and choose 'continuous'. It should work from now on.

I'm certainly not suggesting German or Japanese will become globally dominant, but they are already economically dominant. That's not about the absolute number of speakers, but about the resources handled in those languages. Japan is the world 3rd largest economy and has historically been a major scientific centre of Asia. Similarly, Germany is the major non-English scientific and business centre of Europe. Regardless of how many people speak them, they are valuable languages to learn. If you mean Mandarin is difficult for English speaking people to adopt, well it's true that it's harder than learning French or German, but it's not particularly difficult. Tonality adds a small hurdle early in the language, but the exceedingly simple grammar makes it really much easier once you're past that hurdle. With reading and writing, the logographic system is unfamiliar to many westerners but it is not inherently more difficult to learn. Because of the meaning attached to symbols, beyond just the sounds they represent, learning vocabulary becomes disproportionately easier the more words you know. People seem to think Chinese will be hard before they try to learn it, but it's really not that hard. Consider that for Chinese people to learn English is just as difficult as for English people to learn Chinese. It simply will become more popular, and if you ever thought about learning it but decided not to because of the perceived difficulty, I strongly urge you to try it - it's not bad at all. I agree about the knock on effects of the one child policy due to the favouring of male children, that's something we'll all be dealing with.

Mandarin will almost certainly be a dominant world language in the next 30 years or so. Spanish and Arabic are much less relevant in business and science, althought they are spoken widely in population. Japanese and German are much more important. If you're a scientist wanting to learn foreign languages to help your career, Mandarin, Japanese, German in that order (varying slightly with different sciences - Russian is important in physics/maths). Mandarin is the de facto language of science and business in east asia already (not just China). The one child policy will have no effect. Firstly because it's already been in place for a long time and has showed no sign of preventing the spread of Mandarin. Secondly because it doesn't stop people having more than one child, it just imposes financial penalties on those who do. Thirdly because, as CharonY said, it may be lifted at some point in the future, which would remove any restriction it might be causing. Plus, I really hope it doesn't become less important, as I've invested a lot of energy into learning it

I see, so the democrats are (ironically) trying to bypass the democratic process by preventing the vote from taking place because they know they'll lose? I suppose that might feasibly be against some law or other.

Does that mean that a planet loses energy for every satellite? And if so, could the energy lost to collective satellites ever make a difference to the Earth's rotation?

I don't understand, can politicians in the USA tell the police what to do? And why would the police want to arrest Miller? In the UK, no politician could order the police to go to someone's house, and any MP has the right to abstain from a vote.

Ankor Wat does not float, it just has a moat surrounding it (according to the official website).

I think the motivation for building these cities is not so much to escape the effects of climate change, at least for the pioneers. The idea is to create a place with political freedom. People who want to take part in the social experiment would be the initial inhabitants, not refugees or normal people who are thinking about creating a safe, lasting home for their family. I think the seasteading ideas seem more realistic (but still far fetched) than those of the artists who create the lily pad and other similar sci-fi versions of ocean living. The seasteading institute invisions the process starting with ocean vessels providing offshore medical and other tourism, then gradually moving towards platform communities (like oil platforms, without the oil) and then eventually ending up with the floating cities.

This paper (free PDF) summarizes it better than I ever could: Neurath et al. (2002)

That is extremely cool. Do you know a reference where I can read more about that, as I can't find it on google (the plate spinning, I have stuff to read on spin and circular polarized light).

OK, but if elementary particles can't actually rotate on their own axis, what does angular momentum mean in a QM context? Or is it just an analogy?

you must know some clever 12 year olds... (jk). OK, so if I understand correctly (unlikely), angular momentum in classical physics is rotational momentum, such that when you set some object spinning about its own axis, it tends to keep spinning unless some force acts upon it to slow it down or stop it. In QM, it seems like spin is a measure of angular momentum of elementary particles but which can only hold specific values (quantised)? But elementary particles don't have an internal structure, so they don't actually rotate. Is that correct? Can you point me in the right direction from here?

Bacilli, with a capital letter but not italicised, is a class of bacteria. Bacillus, with a captial and italicised, is a genus of bacteria bacillus (bacilli plural), not capitalised or italicised, refers to any rod-shaped bacterium. all are from the same root, the diminutive form of the latin 'baculum' which means stick, so bacillus means (literally) 'little stick'.

OK so you'll need to provide a bit more detail to get any useful help. It's also unlikely that just looking at plain slides of skin scrapings will show any microorganisms causing skin disease, you normally need to use differential stains to be able to see different types of microorganism clearly on a slide. I do work in microbiology, but I doubt I could identify anything from just a skin scraping. When you say you have been to numerous docs over the years, does that mean you've had the itching for years and have never found relief? And what did the doctors say? It could just as easily be an allergen you're reacting to, or exczema, or something neuropathic, it's not necessarily caused by a microbe.

I think the problem is more likely that a layman doesn't know what angular momentum is. Can you explain spin as if you were explaining it to a 12 year old? (I appreciate this might not be possible, just asking)

Yes, there is research being done, primarily by the Seasteading Institute

Hmm OK so I see how the homunculus could be subsumed under labeled lines, but your description is my understanding of the concept. Actually, I shouldn't have said "not sensory information from different places". The homunculus idea is not part of labeled line theory, it can just be included in it, but it also works fine with any competing theory (since it's true).

Meditation is a bit vague if it's a scientific work. Hypothesis in science requires it to be testable Conjecture means that it appears to be true inductively, has not been disproven, but has not been proven Theory is, as far as you can tell, founded on logical deduction and is plausible I think the exploration, discussion, contemplation format is good, but personally I wouldn't ever use the word meditation to denote a scientific proposal. I'd go with conjecture to describe the initial idea.

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You are unlikely to have access via that link as it is the direct journal website. If you search in google scholar, you'll see on this page that access is through nih.gov (PubMed). If you then go to the nih.gov (PubMed) link, choose 'Linkout - more resources' and then choose the first fulltext source, you should be able to use your Athens/institutional login by clicking 'OvidSP & Athens'. Click the login links at the top right to get access. It's against the forum rules to post breaking copyright law, so nobody can send you the paper (and if they were thinking of doing so, there's no email address in your profile so they couldn't anyway).

Well, metaphase occurs twice in meiosis and once in mitosis. The difference is between metaphase of mitosis and metaphase I of meiosis - metaphase II of meiosis is pretty similar to metaphase of mitosis. If you think about what's being achieved by the process, you can see how the different positionings are beneficial to the process. In mitosis (and metaphase II of meiosis) the chromosomes are separated into two sister chromatids to create the haploid daughter cells. To achieve this, the chromosomes are lined up approximately along the centre of the cell and then pulled apart by the contracting microtubules... In metaphase I of meiosis, pairs of homologous chromosomes, having just completed crossing over, are being pulled apart. So instead of pulling the chromatids of one chromosome apart, you are pulling two chromosomes apart from one another. For this reason, the pairs of chromosomes line up roughly along the axis, but this time with one chromosome either side of the central line. So you can see the difference: mitosis and metaphase II are pulling single chromosomes apart to separate the sister chromatids; metaphase I is pulling pairs of chromosomes apart to separate the chromosomes.

Rotifers: Tardigrades: - quoted from Wikipedia The groups have a similar range of sizes, with rotifers generally being smaller, at least the ones I've seen. Individual species might be much smaller than that range though. The nervous systems are similarly simple too. Both groups are well studied as models, so if you search the literature you will be able to find plenty of detail. p.s. If you haven't seen tardigrades under a microscope, you should. They are the most interesting thing I've ever looked at through a lens. You can find them on any moss, just put a piece on a slide with a drop of water.

No, the labeled line theory suggests that different types of sensory information (not sensory information from different places) are encoded and transported uniquely. So for example, labeled line theory suggests that the sensation of heat is carried from specific heat sensors along a specific heat nerve pathway, and that's how we know it's heat. In contrast, pattern theory suggests that different sensations are encoded by the patterns of electrical nerve signals sent along the same nerve pathway, rather than being physically separated. The sensory homunculus derives from experimental observation that nerves from parts of the body correspond to parts of the postcentral gyrus. It is not the same as labeled line theory. Of course, even if this system is accurate it doesn't completely answer your question Dean. If we know that nerves connected to specific parts of the brain mapped to body parts, we still don't understand how this translates to the experience of pain, because we don't understand precisely how conscious perception arises. Is that what you were getting at?

Thanks. I have to say, the equations here look somehow nicer than the ones produced by my systems at home and at work. Perhaps it's an illusion, but they just look a bit nicer.

err... are you asking a question, or did you just post all the information you required (with occasional spaces missing)?