Monday, March 26, 2007
fictitional themes can have real details
An example of this is "Jurassic Park" where dinosaur DNA is extracted from a 65 million year old mosquitoe that is perserved in amber. While the process of extrcating the DNA id questinable at best, I don't think that anyone in the civilized world will truthfully say that dinosaurs didn't exist.
life from inorganic processes
Creationists reject the idea of evolution because "Life cannot spring from unlife." However, modern science can refute this claim. Minerals are essential to life, yet minerals are made by geologic processes, are they alive? Use the same argument for shocking the brain of a dead person to revive the dead.
singles tend to give birth to females
Just a thought on the "single women tend to give birth to girls" part. True that the egg and sperm decide the sex of the baby, but the baby's brain was programmed by the mother's brain.
----- Original Message ----From: "JupSagg8@aol.com"To: go13440@yahoo.comSent: Monday, March 26, 2007 9:03:20 AMSubject: Re: For all those who don't know, my birthmother was single, could the fact a...
In a message dated 3/25/2007 7:55:58 PM Central Daylight Time, go13440@yahoo.com writes:
Listeners find fault with a story that reported single women tend to give birth to girls, but scientists confirm the assertion. And a listener objects to the the "western approach" of a story on the musculoskeletal system of sherpas in Nepal.
The egg and sperm meet and decide immediately if it's a male or female so it has nothing to do with it.
----- Original Message ----From: "JupSagg8@aol.com"
In a message dated 3/25/2007 7:55:58 PM Central Daylight Time, go13440@yahoo.com writes:
Listeners find fault with a story that reported single women tend to give birth to girls, but scientists confirm the assertion. And a listener objects to the the "western approach" of a story on the musculoskeletal system of sherpas in Nepal.
The egg and sperm meet and decide immediately if it's a male or female so it has nothing to do with it.
eating dirt
Eating dirt for minerals is an ancient tribal practice. I suspect that it is inherited. However, there is no healthy dirt in the inner-city, so those in the inner-city substitute with unhealthy dirt.
four ways to save the enviroment
1) dissolve all waste(both organic and inorganic) in high heat, that high heat can be transferred from the Earth's deep interior
2) there should be an underground network of high-speed trains linking each city
3) a tower should be built to space, it is basically a screw with no sharp tip and with a wall on the outside of the "thread", there will ba a magnetically propelled elevator in the center of the tower and it will have it's own helium-3 power plant to power the elevator, the tower will also have a space station at the top
4) and gas powered engines should be replaced with helium-3 powered engines, helium-3 is a clean and potent energy source that is abunddant on the moon
2) there should be an underground network of high-speed trains linking each city
3) a tower should be built to space, it is basically a screw with no sharp tip and with a wall on the outside of the "thread", there will ba a magnetically propelled elevator in the center of the tower and it will have it's own helium-3 power plant to power the elevator, the tower will also have a space station at the top
4) and gas powered engines should be replaced with helium-3 powered engines, helium-3 is a clean and potent energy source that is abunddant on the moon
reason for enviromental concern
There should be more people concerned about the envirment. It's going to be to late in 25-50years from now food for thought. Let's do something now about the situaion now before it's too late. Soon were going to have to build houses on top of that garbage. Is that how you want to live think about it.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
cloud forests are an important ecosystem
sisyphus
rank:
Conscript
points:
34
occupation:
negates the gods and raises rocks
location:
UM
submit
Subscribe
Unsubscribe
Status
View my Headlines (33)
View my Links (1)
View my Blogs (102)
currently reading:FM 19-15Society of Control
currently watching:the world die
G00028
G00091
G00038
G00051
G00045
G00355
G00066
G00514
G00193
G00237
G03262
G04177
G08424
G05713
G07114
G02412
G00068
G09226
G11947
G11975
Funeral Photography
Cataloguing life in Andean cloud forests before it’s too late
B18679 / Sat, 23 Sep 2006 15:32:13 / Environment
An excerpt from an interesting and sad article in the August Smithsonian magazine (title hyperlink goes to the full text with pictures).
Uphill Battle
As the climate warms in the cloud forests of the Andes, plants and animals must climb to higher, cooler elevations or die
By Michael TennesenPhotographs by Michael Tennesen
On the crest of the eastern Andes, about an eight-hour drive on a dirt road from Cuzco, Peru, is an expansive vista of one of the most diverse forests on earth. Storm clouds boil up in the pink evening sky, and fog advances over the foothills. The rain and fog suffuse the mountains with the moisture that makes them so astonishingly full of life.
Miles Silman, a biologist from Wake Forest University in North Carolina, brought me to this ridge to introduce me to the cloud forests of Peru. Clouds born of moisture rising from the Amazon River Basin sustain a great variety of trees, which in turn support ferns, mosses, bromeliads and orchids that struggle to lay down roots on any bare patch of bark. It’s these epiphytes (“epi” means “on top of,” and “phyte” means “plant”), plus the wet humus soil, the thick understory of plants and the immersion in clouds, that distinguish cloud forests from other types.
Silman and other scientists are attempting to catalog and understand the plant and animal life in Andean cloud forests before it’s too late. Oil companies, having found petroleum and natural gas in the surrounding lands, are cutting roads and pipelines that scientists say are damaging some plant populations. Also, local farmers and ranchers clear cloud forest to expand their operations and harvest firewood.
Most significant, the cloud forests here are threatened by climate change. In other parts of the world, warmer temperatures in the past century have pushed native species toward the geographic poles or altered their seasonal growth and migration. In North America, for example, the ranges of the blue-winged warbler and other songbirds have shifted north; barn swallows and other birds are migrating earlier in the spring than they once did; and plants are blooming sooner. But cloud forests may be particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Of 25 biodiversity hot spots worldwide that conservation groups say deserve special protection, the tropical Andes is the richest by far, says biologist Lee Hannah of Conservation International. The region has almost twice as many plant species and four times as many endemic plants—native species found nowhere else in the world—as the next place on the list, the forests between central Mexico and the Panama Canal.
Many of the Andean plants have “shoestring distributions.” That is, the area where they can root, grow and reproduce stretches over hundreds of miles horizontally—but only hundreds of feet vertically. Says Silman, “I could stand upslope and throw a rock across the elevational range of many different species.” These plants’ preferred altitudes—and therefore the altitudes of the birds and other animals that feed on them, pollinate their flowers and disperse their seeds—are determined largely by temperature. And as the Andes heat up through global warming, these plants may be evicted from their natural homes.
rank:
Conscript
points:
34
occupation:
negates the gods and raises rocks
location:
UM
submit
Subscribe
Unsubscribe
Status
View my Headlines (33)
View my Links (1)
View my Blogs (102)
currently reading:FM 19-15Society of Control
currently watching:the world die
G00028
G00091
G00038
G00051
G00045
G00355
G00066
G00514
G00193
G00237
G03262
G04177
G08424
G05713
G07114
G02412
G00068
G09226
G11947
G11975
Funeral Photography
Cataloguing life in Andean cloud forests before it’s too late
B18679 / Sat, 23 Sep 2006 15:32:13 / Environment
An excerpt from an interesting and sad article in the August Smithsonian magazine (title hyperlink goes to the full text with pictures).
Uphill Battle
As the climate warms in the cloud forests of the Andes, plants and animals must climb to higher, cooler elevations or die
By Michael TennesenPhotographs by Michael Tennesen
On the crest of the eastern Andes, about an eight-hour drive on a dirt road from Cuzco, Peru, is an expansive vista of one of the most diverse forests on earth. Storm clouds boil up in the pink evening sky, and fog advances over the foothills. The rain and fog suffuse the mountains with the moisture that makes them so astonishingly full of life.
Miles Silman, a biologist from Wake Forest University in North Carolina, brought me to this ridge to introduce me to the cloud forests of Peru. Clouds born of moisture rising from the Amazon River Basin sustain a great variety of trees, which in turn support ferns, mosses, bromeliads and orchids that struggle to lay down roots on any bare patch of bark. It’s these epiphytes (“epi” means “on top of,” and “phyte” means “plant”), plus the wet humus soil, the thick understory of plants and the immersion in clouds, that distinguish cloud forests from other types.
Silman and other scientists are attempting to catalog and understand the plant and animal life in Andean cloud forests before it’s too late. Oil companies, having found petroleum and natural gas in the surrounding lands, are cutting roads and pipelines that scientists say are damaging some plant populations. Also, local farmers and ranchers clear cloud forest to expand their operations and harvest firewood.
Most significant, the cloud forests here are threatened by climate change. In other parts of the world, warmer temperatures in the past century have pushed native species toward the geographic poles or altered their seasonal growth and migration. In North America, for example, the ranges of the blue-winged warbler and other songbirds have shifted north; barn swallows and other birds are migrating earlier in the spring than they once did; and plants are blooming sooner. But cloud forests may be particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Of 25 biodiversity hot spots worldwide that conservation groups say deserve special protection, the tropical Andes is the richest by far, says biologist Lee Hannah of Conservation International. The region has almost twice as many plant species and four times as many endemic plants—native species found nowhere else in the world—as the next place on the list, the forests between central Mexico and the Panama Canal.
Many of the Andean plants have “shoestring distributions.” That is, the area where they can root, grow and reproduce stretches over hundreds of miles horizontally—but only hundreds of feet vertically. Says Silman, “I could stand upslope and throw a rock across the elevational range of many different species.” These plants’ preferred altitudes—and therefore the altitudes of the birds and other animals that feed on them, pollinate their flowers and disperse their seeds—are determined largely by temperature. And as the Andes heat up through global warming, these plants may be evicted from their natural homes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)