[quote=“Jaboney”]Why does the sun appear to move more quickly as it sets on the horizon?[/quote]Because you can see it moving against the horizon. You don’t see the difference so much when it’s moving against a plain sky. Same thing makes the moon appear larger on the horizon.
[quote]What will happen if the Earth’s magnetic field flips?[/quote]If it flips, not a lot, compasses will point in the opposite direction. But it won’t suddenly flip, it go bonkers for a while, a couple of hundred years, during which we won’t be so protected against the sun’s radiation and there will be an increase in cancers. BTW, going by the timings of past flips, we are several tens of thousands of years overdue for one.
[quote]Why do some men get a beer belly while others put the weight more on the side?[/quote]They’re fat gits.
If scientific geniuses argue about thread ownership should they settle that matter by building themselves death rays and jetpacks out of paperclips and the like and fighting it out?
OK, you can play too. Good, I actually do have some work to do today.
i promise to fully support BFM in his new position, except when we disagree. sdo far, so good.
Now, Jaboney:
(1) Ice pucks that are fully frozen have less elasticity than warmer ones and thus exert a greater impluse upon impact. (there is a shorter period for the transfer of energy from the momentum of the puck to your face, as the puck is harder and less elastic and thus has less time for deformation before it has stopped.)
(2) hair going gray from a sudden stress is perhaps due to the fact that the hairs that have been on your head the longest, the older black hairs, for example, will senesce more readily and then fall out than those that have been on your head a shorter time, the newer white hairs (like after surgery, or starvation, or summat similar. didn’t someone just ask this a few days ago, before i had my shingle put up for me?) your hairs grow in a cycle of quiet empty follicle, then growing a hair for a year or two, longer in women, then holding that hair with no change in length for a few years or so longer, then letting go. the letting go part (senescence) is enhanced by stress, hence the Jonah and the whale story.
(3) some questions that theorists find most interesting today:
is the universe still expanding, and if so, what is happening to the Einstein fudge factor, the gravitational constant (and is gravity a universal constant)?
which came first: RNA or proteins? and how did they develop using only one of the two possible rotational isomers?
is consciousness an emergent phenomenon or an epiphenomenon?
how does one extend a quantum computer from the single bit comparator molecules we can make now to a vast self assembling organic machine?
do the bubbles in Guiness really fall down or float up?
(4) Yes, the progression from exponential to diauxic and then stationary phases of growth is definitely accompanied by specific characteristsics in individuals and in the population as a whole.
quote=“urodacus” Yes, the progression from exponential to diauxic and then stationary phases of growth is definitely accompanied by specific characteristsics in individuals and in the population as a whole.
Beg pardon, most eminent Irishman, that’d be a non-deliberate typographical error. i humbly beseech thy pardon and forgiveness.
Jaboney wanted ‘details’ and luckily i saved what i was typing last night and couldn’t send because we were so RUDELY interrupted:
am i doing your homework for you now?
stationary phase cultures and populations have to live with much greater competition for resource and space. they are in a generally continued state of stress, which may be compounded by specific shortages of one resource over another. while you can get away with being less fit during an exponential phase of growth (where there is more resource than needed), the intense competition for resource upon reaching the saturation density leads to a winnowing out of those less well adapted to the specific predominating resource lack in any particular population you look at. most easily demonstrated in single cultures of bacteria and yeasts, the same condition (saturation density) constrains the growth of single animal and plant species. this is compounded when we look at webs of predator-prey relationships such as are found in most ecosystems, but fails for humans (as you point out) as there are other driving forces imposed by society, a construct that most other species don’t have to such a developed level.
the general rule is that stationary phase populations show increased resistance to the predominant stressor in their environment, and decreased genetic diversity between individuals, where those genes aply to the specific constraint for that particular population. this genetic drift (loss of some genes at the expense of an amplification of others) is one of the chief drivers of evolution, and is especially strong among small populations. short term evolution does not need mutation to achieve greater fitness of a population, but long term evolution is very much dependent on the mutation that continues in the genespace made up of those genes that are not currently of importance, and by other mechanisms such as gene duplication and exaptation.
Hmm: Chris: if a tree falls in the woods, and there’s no one around to hear it, it still makes a noise but not a sound. sound is the objective perception of noise, by definition (in this instance).
the sound of one hand clapping is therefore also dependent on whether you are hearing it with one ear or two, and is bound to be less than the sound of one thousand hands clapping, unless you clap very very hard, and they clap very very softly. i agree, that’s a tricksy one.
why does a cow? because a blackboard. everyone knows that.
and Dr M, the biscuit is some linkedin thingie. i think.
One hates to urinate on one’s Weetabix® and all, especially when one’s doing a “heck of a job, Brownie”, as it were, but I feel I must take umbrage at your usage of the Darwinian characterisation “fit” here.
You appear to be lapsing into the archaic/classical interpretation of the term, to wit: in good physical condition; in good health: He’s fit for the race.
Feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken, but hasn’t most, if not all, popular assessment in the community in the last half-century or so shifted to a preferred interpretation of Darwin’s meaning as, more accurately: adapted or suited; appropriate:A long-necked giraffe is fit for browsing treetops?
So that, in certain environments, a small and/or relatively weak individual ends up kicking the evolutionary ass of a larger and more robust specie.
Just checking is all.
it is indeed the second meaning of the word that i used, not the first. sometimes being ‘fit’ is not the most ‘fit’ thing to be, especially if we’re talking about cold resistance, or ability to float! I am fit (definiton 1), but am a lousy swimmr and would die quickly if immersed in cold water, thus less fit (definition 2) for that environment…
in an exponential growth phase, where there are much less individuals than the ‘carrying capacity’ of the available space, even those that don’t gather food or utilise energy efficiently will probably survive, but as the available space and resource per individual shrinks as the saturation density is reached, you begin to have to compete with your neighbours for that potato, that patch of land, that ray of sunshine. eventually, only those who can survive on the least amount of sunshine will survive, if sunshine is the limiting factor.
i think the second definition of the word is by far the older usage.
actually, there is a third, even more recent definition of ‘fit’ : (3) attractive, sexually rather than intellectually (Brit. slang). “Phwoar! Look at that bint, she’s fit orlright, i’d do her and her sister.”
i’ve never had salty weetabix before. Scottish influence?
