Domain: phschool.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to phschool.com.
Comments · 11
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re: smaller cod
Is this what you're thinking of?
"With big, older fish selectively culled from a stock, only fish with the genes to mature early have a chance to reproduce, Heino explains. This carries important implications for the fishing industry because, he notes, "this change in maturation age means that fish begin [prematurely] allocating energy into reproduction - instead of growth." The result, he says, are more slowly growing adults, which translate into lower fishing yields."
http://www.phschool.com/science/science_news/artic les/empty_nets.html
The article also states that the average age at which codfish mature has dropped from 9-10 years to 6-7 years as a result of overfishing. It's too bad cod aren't as cute as baby seals ... -
Conducting plastic?
If that leaves you with some question as to whether you will have an operable earth ground when the ground prong is plastic, you are not qualified to plug appliances into the wall. Please contact a trained professional.
I guess you haven't heard of conducting plastic.
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Radio-Cochlear Overlords
Jokes about radio-cochlear overlords aside, two things come to mind:
- If we don't survive nuclear holocaust: what creatures, more robust than we, will? (Reminds me of the thriving Chernobylian fauna.)
- What ungodly mutations must an organism undergo to thrive therein?
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Penguin life sometimes even harsher
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RHIC Committee
According to this article, the possibility of black hole creation is nonexistent:
The lab faces an odd safety question: Will collisions create black holes, starting a chain reaction that eats up Earth?
Each blast is too tiny to make a black hole, Ozaki (RHIC's director) says. Nevertheless, the lab has convened a panel to address the doomsday scenarios.
Somehow I always feel comforted when there's a blue ribbon panel that is convened to address such things. They're always good for a catchy slogan or two, like:
"Don't Panic!!!"
"Duck and Cover"
"At least you won't have to file taxes this year!"
Think they've convened yet? -
Greenland as a tectonic counterweight
What if all the ice on Greenland melts? It doesn't float, so it will make the sea level rise. By seven meters, according to current estimates
To make matters worse, greenland is on the far end of the
North American plate.
If the downforce of all that ice disappears into the oceans, the tectonic plate might start to balance itself, causing giant earthquakes while lowering the US and Canada.
The same thing happened to Scandinavia after the last ice age.
It's difficult to predict exactly what will happen and how strongly, but it's a dangerous possibility you don't hear much about. -
wind is cheaper
Why bother when Why fund nuclear when wind is cheaper? Sure the wind doesn't blow everywhere but it blows in most of the country. Nuclear should be a back up energy source. Even when its safe and efficient, you still have really nasty waste to deal with.
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wind is cheaper!
Why fund nuclear when wind is cheaper!! Now who needs to wake up from Repubilcan propaganda?
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Why is this a record?
Why is this a record? According to Super Fibers: Nanotubes make tough threads , there have allready been 100 meter threads grown.
From the article:
By modifying a process developed by French researchers (SN: 12/16/00, p. 398), Baughman's team spins fibers made of carbon nanotubes and polyvinyl alcohol, a common industrial polymer. In the June 12 Nature, Baughman and his colleagues describe the finished threads, which are the width of a human hair and 100 to 200 meters long.
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Re:Further reading...
Glass flowing is a myth.
Old glass manufacturing technics were VERY imprecise. You might end up with a pane that had a thicker edge, in which case you would naturally put it on the bottom for balance.
Or you might end up with fairly uniform edges but have an irregular surface that looked like it was "flowing" but was static. I have picture windows in my house that are about 70 years old that have this "flow" pattern and have had people remark that the liquid must be pooling ... it's simply irregular hand-made glass.
Even if glass -does- flow (see the "a" link at the beginning), math shows it would take millions of years to complete the process, meaning no glass made by man would yet show visible signs of deterioration.
And you're right, "glassy" in this case is about the physical structure of the metal, not the light transmitting/absorbing aspects though those are probably mildly affected (I imagine a glassy steel will hold a shiny polish better than a crystal steel). -
Eciton Cluster