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Suppose we leave the planet. Would the Bonobos be able to determine that another intelligent species came before them? I can think of no place on the planet that wouldn't wear down and wash away the signs of our civilization.

Suppose we leave the planet, but would like to leave a message. Where should we put it, and in what form? I can think of no place on the planet that would be safe from erosion, and any satellite orbit would decay long before 5 million years had passed. (LAGEOS 1 was predicted to remain in orbit for 8.4 million years, but may only last a couple of hundred thousand years.)

In the end there will be very little reminder that humans or anything ever populated Earth.

I know this is very far in the future (4+ billion years) but a fact. The Sun is expected to swell engulfing the Earth, that should be a great eraser.

I think of all the life that's come before no matter it's intelligence that's met the same fate in other parts of the Universe;
nobody will ever know about them; hints, clues mayhaps but no facts.

At that point my "purpose for being" becomes evident and I knew it's true that nobody plays dice with the Universe, it's a freaking coin.

The best chance for the earth to be remembered are the space craft sent out with that as a secondary intent (voyagers for one).
The chances for those being found and understood will wear out that coin.

Now consider the reverse. Suppose there was an intelligent species on Earth before us. Where could we look for evidence? If they left a message for us; assuming that they want it found, where would it be?

I would look for a highly magnetic black monolith on the Moon, somewhere around Tycho,

Here's a thought problem for you.

Modern humans descended from ape-like creatures on the order of 3 million years ago. Bonobos are further back on the evolutionary scale, call it 5 million years before they become intelligent (massive guesstimate).

Suppose we leave the planet. Would the Bonobos be able to determine that another intelligent species came before them? I can think of no place on the planet that wouldn't wear down and wash away the signs of our civilization.

Suppose we leave the planet, but would like to leave a message. Where should we put it, and in what form? I can think of no place on the planet that would be safe from erosion, and any satellite orbit would decay long before 5 million years had passed. (LAGEOS 1 was predicted to remain in orbit for 8.4 million years, but may only last a couple of hundred thousand years.)

Now consider the reverse. Suppose there was an intelligent species on Earth before us. Where could we look for evidence? If they left a message for us; assuming that they want it found, where would it be?

You try dragging a 55 tonne block up an inclined plane using only a wheel. Personally I think the pyramid's stones aren't cut; they're quarried rock milled down and then re-sedimented, like a type of cement. Mostly I think this because someone found a tool inside one of them, also human hairs and the like.

By the way, we did find an extremely complex mechanical device on par with 19th century technology, but dated around 150BC.

Education is a well-known point of failure for civilization. It's not so far-fetched to think that certain people were very intelligent and educated at one point, and wrote stories that loosely translate to fact somewhere but are basically nonsense. Then the idiots took over, like politicians are doing today.

People who worry about copyright piracy don't read.

Yes, yes we do. Next stupid comment.

Ah, but by reading, you create another copy of that work you read in your memory. Naughty, naughty, you haven't paid for that copy. That makes you a pirate. See here and here for further info, and prepare to pay the appropriate copy fee plus punitive damages, bribes, etc.

Some years ago, around 1980 if I remember right there was a paper published reporting evidence for a ring system around the Earth in the past. They were doing a study of past climates, analyzing fossils laid down at various sites. They reported a period of roughly a million years during which the fossil evidence at all the sites showed normal summers but the tropical sites showed very cool winters and extinction of plants that weren't cold tolerant. The most likely explanation for a world-side pattern like this is a ring system, which shades the tropics while the sun is over the other hemisphere.

The reported time interval was around 30 or 40 million years ago. A quick google check turned up one summary with some references. (And my 1980 guess was pretty accurate. ;-)

Others have pointed out that the K-T impact 65 million years ago almost certainly produced at least a small ring system, but as far as I've read, no direct evidence of it has been reported.

Quantization may be showing up in more and more unexpected places, which may lead to the "floating-opint error" effects... here's some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity# Loop_quantization
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/oct/jarons-world- raft-future
http://discovermagazine.com/1993/apr/loopsofspace1 99/?searchterm=loop%20quantum%20gravity
http://itotd.com/articles/582/quantized-time/
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf103/sf103a05.ht m

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf054/sf054a02.ht m

  Sounded familiar, this was in my bookmarks. There's more thru google.

  If the lab is correct, at least some of the stones were indeed poured.

  Now if they found the Hoffa of the Priesthood's bones in there as well, I think that'd cement the hypothesis :-)

  snarkth

Nor was Fort the last to take notice of these phenomena. See, for example, The Sourcebook Project http://www.science-frontiers.com/sourcebk.htm .

It is not only religious people don't buy the story about dinosaurs being ancestors of birds, some scientists do it too... The generally accepted theory that dinosaurs are the ancestors of modern birds is being challenged. New research published Monday in the Journal of Morphology suggests that what was thought to be "protofeathers" are more likely to be skin-related tissues, according to Dr. Alan Feduccia of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While these scientists agree that dinosaurs and modern birds share a common reptile ancestor, the theory that dinosaurs are the ancestors of the modern birds is flawed or "..full of holes.." http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/spr97/bird.html http://www.atsnn.com/story/176639.html http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf087/sf087b06.ht m

The epidemic (pandemic, actually) you're postulating may very well have been the Bubonic Plague (Black Death).

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/interv iew.html
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf119/sf119p05.ht m

Archeopteryx has been proven a fraud!! It was frabricated!! Here is story about it!! http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf039/sf039p11.ht m

In fact, that's exactly the link in the summary.

Which is why this is hardly news. The discovery of the CCR5-delta32 gene's relevance to the black death and AIDS dates back to at least 1996; the article in that link is dated 1998.

And the PBS web site the synopsis refers to is dated 2002. So the submitter can't even claim that this is an article about a new TV show.

We also know that the 17th century observations of the sun showed very few spots, whereas today spots are quite numerous. That's another variability.

Finally, several scientific papers suggest that solar activity variations have a major effect on the climate, much higher than was previously thought. There is a 208-year cycle that generated drought in South America during recent history, and these solar-forced droughts killed the Maya empire among other victims.

References: "A Variable Sun and the Maya Collapse", Kerr, Science, Vol 292, Issue 5520, 1293 , 18 May 2001 and Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands, Hodell, Science, Vol 292, Issue 5520, 1367-1370 , 18 May 2001.

So the sun most probably holds the key to long-term climate changes. We need more studies, because obviously, after a few decades of space observations, we don't know enough about cycles that last centuries.

I don't think so. Electromagnetic radiation is not a creation of man, it is a natural result of the way space/time is constructed. We just harness it for conveying information. Similarly there are naturally occurring masers out in space.

As for you size argument, there are really no constraints (other than heat dissipation) on how small a transmitter can be - as the frequency goes up, the wavelength goes down. We build radio antennas many multiples larger than human size. A mouse-sized alien could construct a similarly scaled transmitter with considerable power output.

I don't think so. Electromagnetic radiation is not a creation of man, it is a natural result of the way space/time is constructed. We just harness it for conveying information. Similarly there are naturally occurring masers out in space.

As for you size argument, there are really no constraints (other than heat dissipation) on how small a transmitter can be - as the frequency goes up, the wavelength goes down. We build radio antennas many multiples larger than human size. A mouse-sized alien could construct a similarly scaled transmitter with considerable power output.

The AP article can be found here, on CNN.

Just how often do we have to "solve" the mystery of Atlantis? When will the media accept that not every sunken city Atlantis, and that it probably isn't the last time that someone will find a site sunken by volcanic activity. Most of these discoveries are occuring in an area with large amounts of Volcanic activity, so doesn't it just make sense that these cities are there?

Rosy the Jetsons maid, Tik Tok of Oz and B9 are out of luck this time.

Careful there. If the huge deposits of frozen methane hydrate that rely on the low temps and high pressure of the deep ocean for their stability are disturbed by some ocean stiring project, or just plain warmer water, we could have a frothing burst of methane outgassing from the ocean that would greatly increase the green house gas content of our atmosphere.

Sorry but the universe is not homogenous on the largest scales. It is not so at the planetary, interstellar, intergalactic, intercluster, intersupercluster, inter-Great Wall scales. The basic cosmological assumption that the universe is homogenous has been falsified by observation. Of course someone can claim that it would be if seen at an even larger scale but at this point it feels improbable and scientifically questionable. I personally cringe on the "creationist" big bang theory but I won't get into that matter... let's just agree that data says the universe is not homogenous.

This site doesn't need "satelites" to prove atlantis exists

But these days everyone's finding Atlantis

And I quote, from Science Frontiers in March 1988 in a story about black holes: "The long history of science teaches us that all theories are eventually displaced by more accurate, more all-inclusive formulations." The observations made in the virtual observatory may allow the incredible boffins to establish the aforementioned formulations.

Further: Among the observations that hint at the reality of black holes are the X-ray binaries. In a typical X-ray binary, prodigious, flickering fluxes of X-rays reveal the presence of an ultradense star and an orbiting companion. The rapid orbital motion of the companion star tells us that the central X-ray star has a mass of more than three suns. General Relativity assures us that such a star can only collapse further to form a black hole. Therefore, black holes must exist.

However, this speculation may merely be an accessory to a grotesque mythology surrounding the aforementioned black holes. Some people in the scientific community believe that black holes were invented by more advanced civilizations in order to act as a cloaking device for their areas of space.

I am personally of the belief that black holes do not exist, as they suffer from the 'tree falling in the forest' syndrome. If you cannot see it, it does not exist. This applies to everything. So if you wish to exist, please reply to my diatribe.. alternatively, if you haven't even read this far, mod me up as Insightful or Informative.

Tik-Tok, seen here as illustrated by John R Neill, the original Oz illustrator (He also appeared in a 1985 film). He does resemble "Boilerplate", doesn't he?

The Tin Man (or Tin Woodman of Oz). Everyone knows what he looks like. First appearing in 1900, during the Victorian era for sure, he has to be one of the first cyborgs in anything (if not the very first).

If we limit the age of the universe to 13.7 billion years, that puts some fairly tight constraints on the evolution of life, especially advanced civilizations, in the universe.

If the universe is older by a older by a small amount or perhaps a few billion years, or even greater (which an eventual solution to the age paradox might bring us to), the possibilities for extra-terrestrial life become more and more possible.

Given enough time, even "kooky" theories like the panspermia hypothesis become more and more likely, since distance, lack of speed, and survivability drastically cut the probabilities of anything resembling viable life making it across the vast tracts of space, but time increases it.

(Not to say that it happened, of course - run-of-the-mill abiogenesis could easily have happened instead... or as well.)

Panspermia is a bit worrisome a possibility, in some ways. It would mean that some/many/all alien civilizations might share anything from RNA to DNA to histones to mitochondria. Depending on how advanced the 'seeded' lifeform was (could be anything from a fragment of proto-RNA to a whole eukaryote), we might have to worry about not only bacteria on our future journeys to the stars, but viruses as well. On the plus side, chirality may be conserved, so we don't end up starving to death eating left-handed sugar (L-sucrose) and starch on alien worlds when some layabout gardener on staff mixes salt and Roundup in the fertilizer in the Earth terrarium.

There, that's my fun little bit of tinfoil hat speculation :)

Klaatu berrada nicto...

Er, I mean, back to your irregular program...

Actually water is a very good and economic solution. For one thing: water is a relatively good thermal conductor, secondly it has an enormous heat capacity, and thirdly it is easily available, as long as you don't really care about purity. Thermal conductivity makes it good, because it can absorb and release heat energy relatively easily. Heat capacity gives it the ability to absorb large amounts of energy which can be transported around by the means of steam or hot water without big problem. And availability in this case is the most important factor, since you talk about huge amounts of liquid needed. Alternative solutions would include some sort of heat sinks, but somebody would have to figure out an efficient way of converting that heat into electricity (and remember you want to avoid water, or liquids in general). Elemental math in thermodynamics reveals that there is a strict upper bound on how efficient the whole device might be, water used or not and water doesn't come out so bad. The point of the furnace is that in order to contain the reaction you need to keep the stack cool otherwise the temperature can rise quite easily to a few thousand degrees and melt any reaction inhibitors you can think of - once that happens, you've got Chernobyl. So, you need to remove that heat anyway and there is a lot of it so it would be quite a waste not to make use of it. If you think about generating electricity directly from nuclear reaction, cold fission (found with Google I'm feeling lucky TM) has proved itself to be the greatest scientific hoax in the history (as yet) and if anybody ever comes up with a real working idea, they are up for the immediate award of Nobel prize in physics.

No. NGC 4319 has been disrupted by gravitational forces from something massive, as evidenced by the wide flung arms and the dust lanes. These are roughly perpendicular to our line of sight, meaning the galaxy and the massive object are also in a plane perpendicular to our line of sight. Many members of your wacky little group thinks it's the Seyfert, Markarian 205, that is the disrupting massive object, because they think they see a bridge between the two. Any proof that the Seyfert is not in the plane is proof against this theory.

Another potential explanation for low near-UV, one pulled out of the ether as I type rather than dreamed up by a competent astrophysicist might be that quasars throw off UV in bands shaped roughly like Jupiter's clouds, and Markarian 205 happens to not have a band aimed at us.

Your ad hoc theory has no plausible mechanism, and it doesn't address the evidence. Markarian 205 is shining near-UV at us. If one were to measure the near-UV at equal distances from the center of Markarian 205, one would expect the same amount of near-UV from all points, as Markarian 205 is very spherically symmetrical. Instead, less near-UV is noted from the side closer to NGC 4319 than the side opposite.

Since you didn't actually supply links to the concentric galaxy shell theory, I will do so. Here's one from the Institute of Creation Research. Here's another from the highly respected Science Frontiers. One study was done only on galaxies in our local supercluster. Since these galaxies are gravitationally bound, it is not surprising that small packs of them might be traveling at the same speeds. Other studies were pencil-beam surveys. Since they did not cover the whole sky, or even a significant fraction of it, claiming that quantized redshifts from them are proof of shells of galaxies is bad science. A more realistic interpretation is that each pencil-beam saw the walls of bubbles, much like the wedge surveys show. Evidence of large-scale structure, yes. Proof of a geocentric universe, no.

The concentric shell theory relies on redshifts providing proper distances (quantized redshifts imply quantized distances). You provided links to pages that claim evidence that redshifts don't provide proper distances. To claim that you provided links to the concentric shell discussion is completely dishonest, as these groups are in opposing camps.

oil is from compressed carbon compounds (dinosaurs, etc.)

Thomas Gold

U.S.G.S. Professional Paper 1570, The Future of Energy Gases, 1993

Modern information re-directs attention to the theories of a non-biological, primeval origin. Among this information is the prominence of hydrocarbons-gases, liquids and solids-on many other bodies of the solar system, as well as in interstellar space. Advances in high-pressure thermodynamics have shown that the pressure-temperature regime of the Earth would allow hydrocarbon molecules to be formed and to survive between the surface and a depth of 100 to 300 km. Outgassing from such depth would bring up other gases present in trace amounts in the rocks, thus accounting for the well known association of hydrocarbons with helium. Recent discoveries of the widespread presence of bacterial life at depth point to this as the origin of the biological content of petroleum.

There is evidence against that I am familiar with against general relatively -- I read an interesting paper that used the common assertion that the precession of the orbit of Mercury was a slam dunk for general relatively, this paper argued with lots of mathmatics, that the orbit of Mercury was much better explained with Newtonian mechanics once you factored in that the sun was not spherical, but a lumpy oblate spheriod. It also happened that the irregularities in the orbits of other planets also can closer to observations on this basis as well. I found a link the refers to this here though it does not cover the theory

Re: Gravity, not much that I know of except for the possibility of gravity in more dimensions as you get small enough so that is no longer follows the inverse square law. This has been discussed several times on /. in recent articles on producing quantum black holes in particle accelerators. I have also seen some technical discussions of whether the gravitation constant changes over time (and the speed of light with it) or whether it is the same constant in all points of the universe.

Evolution. You must either be kidding, or be ignorant - or as I expect, you simply dismiss the validity of the counter arguments. There is a host of scientific evidence that is is opposition to Darwinism (and it comes from scientist and atheists). IMO Haldanes dilemma is one of the more powerful anti-Darwinist arguments and here is an anti-Darwinist site produced by an evolutionist that describes Haldanes dilemma as well as several other evidences against evolution. Yes, I am fully aware that creationists use some of the same arguments, but that does not invalidate the fact that there are scientific evidences against Darwinism. Read Haldanes dilemma, and tell how this is not a valid scientific argument against. BTW, I happen to follow the creationist, esp. given that Don Patton is a friend of mine. You'll have no trouble finding him if you dig into the creationist literature. IMO, some of it is good science (regardless of who developed it), and some of it is horrible junk science.

Plate tectonics, I know little about, but would be surprised if there was not contrary scientific evidence. Maybe someone else will point out the scientific weak links for us.

I point these out to refute the gerneral perception (not necessarily one you fall under) that science consists of a bunch a proven facts

Do such contrarian arguments mean we should discard the theory, not likely in the judgement of most scientists. But such contrarian arguments are often the beginning of discarding the theory (phlogiston) or refining it (Newton vs. Einstein)