coquina

Thanks - interesting article.

An old trick to maintain chrome on boats situated in salt water is to rub a rag saturated in WD40 over it after you have washed it down. If you have road salts left from snow in your area, this might help too.

Industries were filthy and unhealthy during the industrial revolution, so people wanted to live as far away from them as possible. As a result, "zoning" was instituted, to prohibit businesses and residences in the same areas. However, now, factories are powered by electricity, so they are not "smoke billowers'. There is no reason that residences, offices, stores, and factories can't be in the same area, as long as the planning is done properly. Forward thinking communities are taking steps to incorporate this into their planning. If things could be more centralized, with people living closer to their work - the need for long commutes by automobile would greatly decrease. Small electric powered rail systems would allow people to move freely through the community.

As the solar system formed, the gravity of the sun drew in the heavier, more dense chunks of planetary dust - that is why the inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, are rocky. And the outer ones are composed of gas.

I walk 4 miles a day, fast, up and down the hills of Yorktown. (This area of Virginia really is flat as a pancake except for the terraces where sea level has fallen and exposed the river banks.) I have a congenital narrowing of some of the disks in my back, and have had surgery on it once. Anything that involves running or jumping is out. I don't bike, because we don't have bike paths and the roads are narrrow, and I'm just not comfortable riding. However - walking works. It doesn't require any expense other than a pair of good shoes.

I think what Syntax meant was that when you look at a cross section of the earth, the heights of the mountains and depths of the ocean are small compared to the whole thing.... as is illustrated by this photograph: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.electrickiva.com/chs_spring_2004/Unit_EarthScience/03/earth_cross-section_lg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.electrickiva.com/chs_spring_2004/Unit_EarthScience/03/earth_cross_section.htm&h=634&w=654&sz=94&tbnid=uHvRQwM9nF0J:&tbnh=131&tbnw=135&start=3&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dearth%2Bcross%2Bsection%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D He and I are both machinists, and are used to dealing with scale models.

I'm in the same boat. - Swamped in a sea of paper work. My government customers pay by credit card. The money is in the bank 2 days later. There is a charge for processing, about 2.5% the credit card company charges an additional 2.5% for processing government credit cards because they must be paid in full at the end of each month and the company doesn't make any interest off them. However, when you consider the cost of processing an invoice and waiting 2 months for payment (and then finding out it got lost and starting all over) - it's well worth it. I have one bank account on which I have a debit card. I charge everything on that debit card. I use online banking, so whatever I have charged turns up on the screen the next day. This way - instead of entering piddly amounts into your books daily, you can post it all at conveinient times. I use Quick Books Pro. You can go online and get your account activity, and post it to Quick Books every few days. Just be sure you keep enough money in the bank to cover what you purchase and record any large purchases right away. You can pay your phone bill and utility bill online, and every thing else that you can, and use that one account for it. Keep a separate account for payroll and payroll taxes. Keep it at a different bank. I've been in business for over 25 years - it ain't all peaches and cream, but I'll help you however I can.

The USGS website "This Dynamic Earth" is the best place I know to learn about why the earth isn't flat as a pancake: http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/dynamic.html This page on the "Wilson Cycle" is good too: http://csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/Fichter/Wilson/Wilson.html

I have a hard time believing you looked very far. I'm willing to help - but I expect you to make an effort too. Use the search engine "Google" - and search for "quartz" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=+quartz&btnG=Search Then search for "rock cycle" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=rock+cycle&btnG=Search You will find that the rock cycle consists of 3 kinds of rocks: igneous rocks that come from within the earch quickly (extrusive) - for example as lava, or slowly (intrusive) ie granite. sedimentary rocks, that are eroded and laid down by streams, for example, sandstone and metamorphic or "changed rocks" Now - I want you to go to google and search for three things: igneous quartz sedimentary quartz metamorphic quartz. I've given you a start - you do the rest. Also - your shortcut spelling is OK for chat rooms - but not for forums where people need to understand better what you are asking. It is also critical that you spell correctly when you are using a search engine such as google. If you accidentally spell "quartz" wrong, you won't find a thing.

At least, cats, rats, dogs, cows, pigs and sheep can. I did a quick search using hypothyroid with feline canine, bovine, porcine, and murine and found vet links to all of those problems. Of course, they are all domesticated animals or lab animals, so humans have a hand in what they eat, I don't know whether that might affect them or not. Another search on rodent thyroid disease turned up this article: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2003/6637/6637.html I scanned it but didn't really read it for evaluation - the title is interesting: Thyroid Toxicants: Assessing Reproductive Health Effects What the heck is a thyroid toxicant? Found this: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct/gui/show/NCT00043238?order=2 Mohawk Culture, Behavior, Toxicant Exposure and Health That was a real quick and dirty look - but it does lead one to wonder whether there is an increased incidence of thyroid disease in humans and animals due to exposure to various toxicants. Gotta go to work - later...

I'm very proud of you. Keep it up.

Brucellosis is a dangerous disease most often acquired from drinking unpasteurized or "raw" milk. The bacteria that causes it is carried by the cow and is passed through the milk. It can also contaminate other dairy products such as cheese and ice cream that has been made raw milk. Pasteurization is a process by which the harmful bacteria can be removed from a food without destroying the food itself. Here is a web site from the US Center for Disease Control - http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/brucellosis_g.htm Among other things it says that tourists are most likely to acquire the disease from eating local cheeses made from raw milk. (P

I suppose things have changed by now, but my Mom was a Brit. When she was growing up they believed that eating or drinking anything cold was bad for you because it slowed the digestion. She said some Americans opened an Ice Cream Parlor in a nearby town, and couldn't understand why no one wanted to buy it. She never put ice in iced tea either. As far as preferring cold water, in general, it tastes better. We used to have a well - it had a lot of iron and sulphides in it - water from the tap tasted downright nasty. It was tolerable tasting if it was cold and you drank it quickly.

Ahhh, Sayo - I was married to one guy for 31 years and have worked in a machine shop longer. I was about to make a smart a$$ed remark and restrained myself due to the young people who post here.

Water is probably the most important commodity. I'm stuck - I don't think it can be called a "food" or a "nutrient", however a person can go longer without food or vitamins of any kind than they can without water. As far as exercise goes - my vote is for walking. I walk about 4 miles almost every day. If you keep up a brisk pace, it's great cardiovascular exercise, and it won't damage your joints like other sports will. Best of all, you can continue to do it into old age - especially if you start a walking program when you are young. You can walk almost anywhere, in almost any kind of weather, and you don't have to buy a lot of expensive gear - just a really great pair of walking shoes.

I can think of a half dozen replies, but I'll just say "thanks for the enlightenment".

is that I was married for 31 years. Regarding urinating and erection - I have read that it is impossible for a man to urinate while having an erection, the reason given was that if it happened in during intercourse it could cause the partner to acquire an infection.

(When did the last cycle end?) Have you ever heard of an "A HA" experience - when you "get it" and it is like someone turned the lightbulb on in your brain? To me, those experiences could be compared to a "runner's high". It makes you feel so good about yourself you want to work harder and do better so you will have more of them! Work really hard on "getting it". Once you learn to focus, new stuff will build on old and you will continue to excell. (And continue to get those "A Ha's") Let us know how you do next cycle.

Googled "refinery tank storage regulation" and got the following: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=refinery+tank+storage+regulation The top site is regs for the UK. I gave you the whole page so you can check out others. In the US, the regulating body would be the Environmental Protection Agency - to my amazement, they have an Office of Underground Storage Tanks - OUST for short, cute what??? http://www.epa.gov/swerust1/ Hope this helps.

I had read about Dewey McLean's work before - he's at VA Tech - a couple of hundred miles west of me. I'd like to meet him one day. I knew he and Alvarez had opposing theories, but I didn't know how bitter it was. I tend to agree with you - that both events played a part. I, too have read theories that the impact actually caused the eruption of the traps, due to the massive shock wave that was sent through the earth's interior. The last paper I read was online somewhere - don't know if I can find it again) stated that the eruptions began before the impact, so it is impossible that the prior caused the latter. (There is a great deal of bitterness about the Chesapeake Impactor too. - One of the three principle investigators wrote a book that was published for public reading and did not give proper credit or royalties to the other two. I don't think they even knew what he was up to until the book hit the shelves. )

I wish I could evesdrop on a podular confab... "I wish those damn humans would shut up that infernal racket." "Yeah - they set off another one of their hellish explosions in the vicinity of my nephew's pod, and now the whole group has echo-location disorder. - You have to be within a mile and practically squeal in their ears before they hear a thing." "Bumbling idiots."

I don't know much about this subject, so I usually stay out of this neighborhood, however, I have a question. This event happened in a galaxy 50,000 light years away, and affected our ionisphere on 12/27/04. Since nothing travels faster than the speed of light, what we witnessed in December acutally happened 50,000 years ago --- right? When you talk about the event causing more damage if the burst came from a "nearby star" is that because some of the energy is dissipated as the burst travels through space? As far as gamma ray bursts causing extinctions - many scientists have speculated that the Ordovician Extinction (where the trilobites disappeared) may have been caused by a gamma ray burst. Here is a link to a paper hypothesizing that this is so... It was written by several researchers from the astronomy department at Columbia University. http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:kiaVO6zayx0J:www.astro.columbia.edu/~dave/papers/grb_extinction.pdf+gamma+ray+burst+extinction&hl=en One of the problems of answering this question for certain is that scientists don't know what kind of indicator to look for in the geological record. It wasn't until it was learned that iridium mostly comes to earth via meteorite, and that there is a world-wide iridium layer at the K/T boundary, that scientists realized the dinosaurs must have been killed by an impact - then, they went looking for a "smoking crater" and found it at Chicxulub.