Slashdot Mirror
Plasma Comes Alive
j_hirny writes "So, it seems that the widely acclaimed theory of how life begun, during hundreds of millions of years is, at least, not the only one which is being researched. As New Scientist report, a physicist managed to create life-alike beings made of plasma. They can replicate, grow and duplicate. They don't have amino-acids or DNA strains, of course, yet they may reveal something new about life's beginnings."
I for one, will welcome these new Plasma Blob overlords. Now, continue with informative comments, dear slashdotters.
So how does this help us discover plasma weaponry technology? I've played enough first-person shooters, i know its possible!
Just a guy with an opinion
...but will not sell more records than Frampton.
This New Scientist article is full of hot air.
So what if they could do this to biological materials? Would it be possible to create cells from living things?
that living gas blobs exist, just watch the Anna Nicole Smith show.
Sanduloviciu says this electric spark caused a high concentration of ions and electrons to accumulate at the positively charged electrode, which spontaneously formed spheres (Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, vol 18, p 335). Each sphere had a boundary made up of two layers - an outer layer of negatively charged electrons and an inner layer of positively charged ions.
Plasma cells are an interesting idea, but I doubt it's time to rip up the old textbooks yet. The 'nucleus' was only a collection of gas atoms. It kind of sounds like the researchers had to jump through hoops to get these 'cells' to grow or divide. Still, it might give us some new insights.
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
This shouldn't surprise many Slashdotters... I think a lot of us have suspected that any life forms we might find in the universe won't look like Klingons.
Also, probably reinforces our existential terror.
This is interesting in the light of speculation about life-forms living on the surface of suns. (As described, for example, in David Brin's Sundiver.)
Considering that a the surface of a sun itself consists of plasma, it's not improbable that spheres like in the experiment get formed there all the time. The question is whether there is any way those spheres could attain a more complex form of internal organisation, or if they remain stuck at that basic level.
My florescent desk lamp has been looking at me funny.
Well, potentially life-like, anyway. Intriguing.
I don't really see how these are cells like biological cells. It just a bunch of particles following electrostatics. Just because it resembles what biological cells do in a few ways doesn't mean that it's the 'beginning of life' or anything like that.
Similar things happen with particles in water. If you go to any water treatment plant and look at the flocculation tanks you'll see tons (literally) of particles colliding each other, forming new particles. They have natural organic matter and other crud absorbed to their surfaces, and if coniditions are right, they can break apart (too much shear).
It's interesting still, in the sense that anything that self assembles usually minimizes the total energy of a system in a 'neat' way, but I wouldn't rewrite the theory on how life begin, because of it.
I'd consider that one of the definitions of "life" could be "a pattern that attempts its own continuance despite destructive obstacles".
Reproduction is simply a continuance of that pattern. Think about it:
1) loud noise == cat runs to preserve itself.
2) War == baby boomer generation.
ad nasueum. What we have is a curiousity of bare physics, nothing more.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
This is probably going to spell doom for humankind. The plasma-monsters will look like those things in the Final Fantasy movie, and we'll have to build special living habitats like in Logan's Run.
Esoteric reference.
Already been done.
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
Whether they were doing these things spontaneously (or in response to only environmental stimulii) would make a huge difference in how big this is.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
"the ability to replicate, to communicate information, and to metabolise and grow. He found that the spheres could replicate by splitting into two. Under the right conditions they also got bigger, taking up neutral argon atoms and splitting them into ions and electrons to replenish their boundary layers.
Finally, they could communicate information by emitting electromagnetic energy, making the atoms within other spheres vibrate at a particular frequency. The spheres are not the only self-organising systems to meet all of these requirements. But they are the first gaseous "cells".
Is a form of eletronic harmonic resonance communication? Is breaking apart in two and merging together reproduction? Given that water has surface tension (boundry layer), can communicate (ooh it vibrates), and reproduce (really vague definition here), water's alive by this vague definition.
Sanduloviciu may have found something interesting, maybe he didn't, but the wordplay and generalizations don't cut it.
-B
Kent: We're just about to get our first pictures from inside the spacecraft with "average-naut" Homer Simpson, and we'd like to -- aah!
[Camera shows a close-up of an ant floating in front of the three astronauts]
Everyone: Aah!
Kent: Ladies and gentlemen, er, we've just lost the picture, but, uh, what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has been taken over -- "conquered", if you will -- by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
Marge: Mmm, don't worry, kids. I'm sure your father's all right.
Lisa: What are you basing that on, Mom?
Sorry, I think your first assessment is right. There are few new insights here. The phenomenon described in the article sounds roughly like the formation, "mitosis," and migration of bubbles in a lava lamp. Okay, you can call these things cells. That's somewhat reasonable. But the researcher said, "the emergence of such spheres seems likely to be a prerequisite for biochemical evolution." That sounds like serious pop science quakery to me. It is only correct with the loosest interpretation of "prerequisite," "bio," and/or "evolution," and even then it's highly misleading.
I'm inorganic you insensitive clod!
If you outlaw the law, only criminals will have laws
This sounds not much more than soap bubbles. This sounds like someone creating a simulation, nothing more. This is not where these cells are creating cells that are self sufficient, but just creating a similation. And saying that they communicate is like saying the two tin cans on a string communicate.
Fight Spammers!
"It's life, Jim ... but not as we know it."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yeah ... like in Videodrome. Come to think of it: what is a plasma display but a big collection of plasma balls? If we could induce them to spontaneously replicate we could make big screen TVs really cheap.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
What, like ignoring the intellectual faculties given you by the Creator in favour of slavish devotion to some ancient collection of fairy tales?
No offence, but experiments with plasma aren't anything like as primitive as some of the things my Christian friends believe, such as the two creation myths in Genesis (although they never seem to have noticed that there are two, they just run with the cute serpent story).
Just my $0.02. You may now inform me that I am damned.
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
It reminded me of one of those funny Stephen Baxter novels--wherein the main characters are so completely devoid of humanoid characteristics that one loses interest after the thirtieth page.
Theirs takes batteries. Brzapppp!
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Is this how ball lightning is formed? sounds very similar to me.
So what's wrong with First Person Shooter weaponry?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
min(1-p,exp(1/(1-p))).
Some people even throw an integration over the spelling errors in the publication into this formula. (Seiberg's famous bad spelling trace integral.)
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
If these wisps form at high temperatures and can sustain themselves at high temperatures, what would happen if these beings were inserted into a volcano upon creation? Would Earth's core become a breeding ground and become a living ocean? Would Hell become a positive place?
It's viscous, it's a psuedoliquid! It can migrate down gravitational potentials! It can replicate itself by splitting (and even ostracize OTHER forms of polymers who try to get in between)! It vibrates, oh it vibrates! It absorbs water, it's drinking, it's drinking!
...
MY GOD, IT'S ALIVE!
(Yes, this is a joke)
Physics itself produces some amazing phenomenom. While it might be cutesy that some plasma is splitting and vibrating synchronously (everything vibrates, sigh. Lasers vibrate synchronously), it is not 'Alive'.
Favorite
what the difference between replicate and duplicate is?
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Dammit, now PETA is going to come after my new big screen.
These bubbles are called plasmoids and they were discovered long ago (see google - type plasmoids).
You, sir, are damned to a life long orgy of sin and fun.
damnit, that never sounds quite right from an atheist =/
Banaaaana!
I find it amusing how quick people are to dismiss any possibility of a creator (e.g. God) but will believe in a theory that could only be illustrated by a group of individuals acting as "the creator" by purposely and intelligently orchestrating life. Even if the scientists involved could create a 100% "life" form using plasma, the fact that it was done with human intelligence and by procedure automatically discredits their findings which are ultimately suggesting life was based on life from chaos and randomness.
Spider Robinson posited this kind of life in Telempath, a way-neato "vengence is stupid" story filled with the usual Robinson themes: Brotherly love, Tolerance and Good Weed.
I always get the biggest laugh out of "educated, enlightened, I've moved past unthinking Christian mindless robot" types who are unthinking mindless robot types.
Do you honestly think you are the first person in the history of the world to notice the two creation accounts in Genesis?
Do you think that all the great Christian thinkers like Irreanus, Aquinas, Luther, Calivn, etc. didn't know there were two creation accounts in Genesis?
Do you think they just looked at it, and said, Oh, my, they disagree. We'll just sweep the second one under the rug!
If you do think this, then you really should be too embarrassed to call any Christian unthinking or ignorant, or blinded to reality.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Slow news week.
The capitalisation of "God" and the mention of Satan hinted that we were at least talking about Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. My point is, I think, valid for all three.
I am also happy to accept that similar criticisms could be levelled against just about any religion, as they all involve some degree of acceptance of the absurd. So Christians shouldn't feel that I'm picking on them; I was citing my friends by way of example, but if the original post came from somebody of a different faith, then I'll say the same about my Moslem and even my Hindu friends. (For some reason, I don't know any Polynesian animists.)
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
Stanislaw Lem wrote a very good piece fiction about a scientist discovering a form of live in plasma about 15 years ago. I can't remember the title, but that should be no problem: just read the first Lem story you can get, these are seriously good stuff.
Soap bubbles are important too.
The idea is that you need some kind of self replicating self forming cell structure before you can have DNA; something to protect whatever gets trapped and absorbed inside.
Without plasma cells, you can't contemplate plasma life because the cell protects, shields, and encourages whatever happens inside from whatever is happening outside.
GPL Deconstructed
Of course not. I don't see how you could possibly draw such an inference from what I said. Still, for the record:
I am aware of this because it was pointed out to me at some time, either in a book or during my studies in Comparative Religion at university. Like so much I know, I didn't think of it first. (I did wonder, when I became aware of it, why 18 years of Catholic upbringing had failed to draw my attention to it.)
Humble apologies for using some background knowledge, blatantly culled from libraries, when posting to Slashdot. I'll stick to unreasoned diatribes, unsupported by evidence, in future.
Have a good weekend :-)
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I think a lot of people are missing some of the implications too.
Before true life can occur, there needs, I think, to be a process, a method, a life cycle, where something like a plasma ball, a soap bubble, or a fatty lipid ball, can be produced and propagated. You need to be able to, in the absence of real life, create an environment that encourages, protects, and shields the life-activity from what happens outside the life activity.
So plasma balls that can cleanly separate inside reactions from outside reactions is important, all the more so if they are self assembling from nothing; given enough time and random variables it's likely that one or two of them will form with something *interesting* trapped inside, something that will further enhance the operation of the plasma ball, and over time that may "evolve" into something a lot like life.
But first you need the plasma balls to trap the "interesting" bits first.
GPL Deconstructed
I could do the same with oil bubbles floating on water and a toothpick. Didn't know I was creating life, wow.
What's the title you put in front of your name to designate deity status?
It's a joke. Laugh. If you see a joke and don't get it, just move on, don't mod troll.
Stephen Baxter is best read in short story form -- 29 pages or less.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Disclaimer: I am Christian, but I believe that the creation account in the bible is metaphorical.
This orchestration of life is almost certainly bullshit. Even if a life-form could evolve from his bubbles, it would not share many of the features of life on earth. These things are pretty much miniature ball lightning.
However, many of the experiments into the origin of life are quite reasonable. Scientists have a pretty good idea of the environment about the time that life arose (at least, the time it arose if you trust fossil evidence). So they try to simulate things like lightning strikes or tidal pools in a similar environment, and they find that it creates many of the prerequisites for life "as we know it," including amino acids, nucleic acids, and microscopic spheres bounded by structures siimilar to prokaryotic membranes (no, I'm not talking about the plasma experiments).
Such experiments do not have humans "designing" life, but merely trying to recreate conditions which could have started it.
In any case, development of life this way can still be consistent with a God that created the universe, and possibly guided the development of life.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Man, if I had mod points, I'd mod you up. Excellent reply. :-)
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
following their logic, so are soap bubbles.
Great experimenters, bad thinkers.
"Oh, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania. Was such a lovely place, I just can't explain ya..."
Gee. Why am I not surprised by this. Perhaps because I've heard of ball lightning ages ago. I find it odd that this article on Sanduloviciu doesn't even mention anything about it either.
n .txth tml
More interesting references.
http://www.amasci.com/tesla/ballignt
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/tesla/ballgtn.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
MAN in LAB COAT: Throw the switch!
IGOR throws the switch.
MAN in LAB COAT: Its alive...ALIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!!
You can't take the sky from me...
Maybe it was because of the Catholic upbringing that you didn't notice it before. It's not like the creation part is often discussed in sermons, and I doubt that all Christians have actually read the bible (I may be wrong in both, of course, as I have no first hand experience). I, a wretched atheist/agnostic, noticed two different versions of the creation myth the first time I actually read the Bible.
Like so much I know, I didn't think of it first
There are lots of things you are used to doing or knowing, but don't actually think about unless someone points them out to you, or you are deprived of them (like when your hand gets cut off). Things that don't actually have any meaning to you. Like everything I have just said - I had known all this for a while, but not actually thought of it before. But now, typing this post made me think that I need to give it all a bit more thought. So I'll now stop ranting about things you probably already know. Period.
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
I'm surprised that New Scientist reached this far into the barrel of pseudoscience for this story.
... "GOD"?!!!
What an absolute bunch of rubbish.
They have conveniently used semantics to call:
"spherical" shapes "Cellular structures",
"breaking in two" --> "Cellular division"
"radiation" --> "Communication"
And the combination of these poetically inspired semantics --> "Life!"
How about this new "lifeform":
Slashdot itself grows, divides and mutates. My GOD! Slashdot is alive... ALIVE!!! And COWBOY NEAL IS
Does anyone remember "science"?
That's my 2 cents... I'm off to see my astrologer for some advice on which crystals to wear today...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
In Genesis chapter 1, the plants are created on the third day, and man and woman on the sixth day. In Genesis chapter 2, Adam is created, after that the plants, and after that Eve. Still, executive summaries never do fully capture the sense of the whole report.
And yes, not only am I aware of the peculiarities of Catholicism, I also raised the question in a CompRel tutorial once as to why a certain phrase of Hindu scripture, predating the time of Jesus Christ, was repeated almost verbatim in one of the Gospels. The explanation offered by the professor (and that's a real professor, not a postgrad researcher with a fancy job title) was that knowledge of Hinduism was available in the Middle East at the time of Christ, and was known to be incorporated in the teachings of various off-mainstream Judaic cults. So it looks like, if your Bible is the word of God, it may well be Hanuman speaking to you.
It's teatime here now, so I'm going to cook my dinner. In the words of English comedian Dave Allen: "Goodnight, and may your God go with you."
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There's a pretty good reason for this. The existence of a God cannot be tested. We don't know the bounds by which such a being could exist for us to be able to create a control subject (ie... a universe where a God doesn't exist).
If it can't be tested, there's little reason to simply accept and assume creationism is the answer to everything.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Dave Allen is, of course, Irish. My bad :-(
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
... outer layers of ions with hot gas trapped inside. Actually, only simulated politicians since in real ones the hot gas is rarely trapped inside for long.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Also David Brin's Stardiver, except mostly as "sideshow". (They enter the Sun to look for a possible "uplifter" of humans, because the aliens are keen to disprove that humans are the only species not uplifted by another.)
Proof, Hal Clement.
Kron ownz0rs.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
You wanna see a plasma lamp?
c es .htm
n ts /NobleGases/index.s7.html
a to m.gif
If your at work, look up.
Those florescent lights are plasma lights with a phosphorus coating that absorbs the UV light emitted by the plasma and emits visible light. The plasma is created by applying high voltage to the electrodes.
Did you know that there is no such thing as a white fluorescent light?
The lights are shifted ever so slightly towards either the red green or blue spectrum. Thats why if you go into a older office building and look up you will likely notice that some of the lamps just don't look the same - look at it closely relative to the other lights and you can tell what color shift it has.
Neon lamps (I believe any noble gas will do), cold cathode lamps (the ones people install in their windowed computer cases), those cheesy globes that when you touch them lightning shaped light appears to be reaching for your finger - all plasma.
Read about plasma here:
http://www.prl.dcu.ie/expl.html
Here are the different ways to create plasma:
http://www.phys.tue.nl/EPG/epghome/polylab/sour
Or if you can find them - some of you probably remember these:
http://bulbmuseum.net/bulbs/figuralargon.htm
Noble gases:
http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Eleme
Anyway the real story here is the tools that they used to capture the data in the instant that is takes to turn on the lamps. I see nothing of intrest here esp. regarding 'life'.
The crap about life is garbage. Plasma is the fourth state of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma). They are not "reproducing" thereby mimicking life. Rather, they are merely converting an element from one physical state to another.
Quick theory:
Gas can not pass an electrical current because if the electrons (- charge) in the atom move then the rest of the atom goes along with including the + charged protons.
The electrical potential (voltage) has to be high enough such that the electrons begin to be ripped away from the atom itself. This exchange of energy causes the gas matter to change from a gas state to a plasma state and is called ionization. The emission of light (photons) is caused by the change in energy states. As you can see here..
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/images/bohr_
When an electron jumps from one orbit to another energy must be released by the atom this energy is released in a form of a proton at a fixed wavelength relative to the distance of the state change (atom specific). If the wavelength falls into the visible range of the EM spectrum you'll be able to see it.
I agree with iCat. Go get an education. A real one this time.
Anyway, on to something on a slight side note. Here's a great rant by esteemed author Ben Bova. He gives a good argument on why teaching creationism is a load of bull, and that all the agguments against evolution and for creationism are ultimately flawed. Very enlightening.
While everyone and their mothers are claiming fake (which it could be), this could revolutionise the SETL (life, not intelligence) because gas giants would be ideal for the source of life on this level, having both lots of gases and energy.
Would be damn interesting if living organisms of this sort were to be found on Jupiter, Saturn or even Titan, would be trying to communicate with them on a level which they would understand.
People tend to take theory and carry it to far.
check out my website!
http://www.beautipage.com/escape2spa/
What, haven't you ever watched Richard's "Sweatin Plasma to the Oldies"? I've known all along.
...but you've outdistanced me by about 20 years.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
They neither initiate the transmissions or understand the transmissions sent. This is saying a wire communicates because it carries the phone signal across it.
Fight Spammers!
Fire can also grow and replicate though I suppose it doesn't communicate without intervention.
Is it alive?
I didn't say it was intelligent communication. Your analogy is poor.
It is still communication.
Not all Christians buy the 6-day creation story.
Its actually a bit of a contentious point, all those old testament stories, IMHO
Needle Nardle Noo
Seriously.
Needle Nardle Noo
Try it sometime. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
There is a very thin, very hot wrapper of plasma around a relatively cool main body, but if you read any science textbook they'll tell you that the inside of the Sun is hotter - and then blithely skip over the obvious conundrum that sunspots, holes into the Sun, are cooler than their surrounds. There are stacks more electromagnetic effects than there are supposed to be, and in fact our own Sun acts like a bloody great anode.
The Dark Matter/Dark Energy hunters might want to speculate about whether in fact they're looking for Dark Cathodes, and some elliptical galaxies are just very positive. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
missed the link by one line.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Save your vitrol for replying to sincere people--that guy was obviouslly trolling; he's no more religious than you (and probably posted for the same reasons).
A lava lamp only contains two substances, but hte gas molicules have three.
w wwwwwwwwww
w wwwwwwwwwwww
Ions, electrons and atoms.
in theory you could construct simila cells using water, oil and ionic soap.
The tail end of the soap would bind to the oil and the head end to the water like so:
wwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwSSSwwwwww
wwwS000Swwwww
wwSOOOOOSwwww
wwwSOOOOSwwww
wwwwSSSwwwwww
ww
IF you were clever you should be able to create a soap-oil-soap membrane layer and create a 'cell' a bit like:
wwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwSSSwwwwww
wwwS0S0Swww ww
wwSOSwSOSwwww
wwwSOSOOSwwww
wwwwSSSwwwwww
Simila to how our cells that have membrains.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
"There's a fire sir" - The Andromeda Strain
Of course like Andromeda these plasma "creatures" feed off energy, yet another blurring between the worlds of fact and fiction, who knew?
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
I never said anything about these plasma things being alive. Why are you?
GPL Deconstructed
This article is totally obsurd. Pay close attention to the wording. These lines get my attention right away as being quietly deceptive:
"He found that the spheres could replicate by splitting into two." Indeed, the spheres may split in two parts, but how did they do it and do they done it on their own? What is "could" supposed to mean? A potential for division? Did HE split them? I don't see how the magnetic properties of this plasma would cause this to happen without external intervention.
"Under the right conditions they also got bigger, taking up neutral argon atoms and splitting them into ions and electrons to replenish their boundary layers." They "take up" atoms as in consumption, right? To me, it sounds like he's suggesting these gass balls have intent, as if the bubbles intended to separate some electrons from their atoms. Of course they don't think, so isn't it more likely that this is a natural effect of this process? Is this really 'eating', so-to-speak, or is it a self-sustaining 'effect'? What makes it different from a candle wick sucking up liquified wax? How many other reactions like this also qualify as a prerequisite for life?
"Finally, they could communicate information by emitting electromagnetic energy, making the atoms within other spheres vibrate at a particular frequency" Wait a second... How does "could communicate" mean they "are communicating". If this is just an unproven potential ability, then how dows that qualify it *currently* for this "communication" criterium of cellular life?
At the top of the article, it stated, "Physicists have created blobs of gaseous plasma that can grow, replicate and communicate - fulfilling most of the traditional requirements for biological cells." Have they truly fufilled these requirements, or just made a bunch of confusing analogies? Does this experiment prove that plasma can even operate using evolutionary mechanics? Such as distinction between plasma balls that influence its 'survival'? Is that distinction shared when it divides in two? Without properties like that, it couldn't evolve into anything more than what it is.
What makes these plasma bubbles any different from soap suds? They too can divide, consume, and communicate if you add as much speculation to the concept as this guy has. The candle example works too. A candle could be setup to divide, consume, and communicate in a similar manner.
I see no real proof of anything in this article except that argon plasma has some interesting characteristics. The plasma bubbles that this guy created don't communicate, have questionable "reproductive" and "consumption" abilities.
Sounds more like an explanation for Ball Lightning than how life started.
Probably doesn't have anything directly to do with the origin of life on earth (perhaps life on stars, if there is life on stars). But it does make an important point. Some sort of way of separating one organism from another seems to be critical for evolution to occur. This was once thought to constitute a kind of chicken/egg problem. But it turns out that membranes of various sorts, with strikingly pseudo-cellular behavior, form relatively easily out of a variety of materials and under a variety of condtions. This is just a rather extreme example. So probably the primordial cell membranes formed spontaneously. And those that happened to trap the right molecules to maintain their existence lasted longer--and we have the beginnings of natural selection
You read Baxter for technical mumbo jumbo... So far I didn't realise any of his characters had actually a character.
They are indeed holes into the Sun, but "only" a few thousand km deep. The patch of Sun underneath the sunspot and the layer of turbulence below it is hotter than the surrounds... but it still begs the question about the Sun in general being cooler under the surface than on top.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Government, religion, education, science, philosophy, literature, music, art, food, clothing, architecture, and more in every society have been influenced by a belief in a supreme Creator. It is inseparable from the human experience. Everyone has a theistic orientation, whether it's a/mono/pan/poly-theistic or avowed agnosticism. As the Rush song goes, even if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Now please don't give the obligatory troll response of "what about a tooth fairy orientation?" Nobody believes in that. It was created as fiction from the beginning. It was never intended to be believed and plays no fundamental part (by a long shot) in the human experience.
God is axiomatic. Most people are born into the world and just know it. Theism is natural. Atheism must be taught.
(If evolution has determined that theism is important to humans, then you are choosing to devolve your posterity. Your descendents can look forward to welcoming their evolutionary superior theistic overlords. ;-)
Pure science would be objective, but everyone has philosophic bias. A denial of bias blinds a scientist to the nature of his own being and the skewed inclinations of his own presuppositions. Philosophy influences not just the interpretation of experiments, but the very construction of experiments and the choice of which experiments to conduct. Like in the media, a bias is revealed as much by what is not included than by what is included.
There is nothing in or of the Earth that contradicts the Bible; the Bible and the Earth are complementary. They were created by the same Omniscient Being. Why does "science" seem to contradict the Bible? As the Wahabis have hijacked the religion of Islam, so have the militant Atheists hijacked the practice of science. Science was first practiced in order to have greater understanding of the Creator's handiwork.
Science is worship. It used to be worship of the One who created the objects of study. We sought knowledge of creation so that we would have more to thank God for; so that we would see manifestations of His majesty and glory; so that we might gain some insight into the character of the Lord of the Universe. Now, scientists worship the knowledge itself of the created things, while denying the One who made it all. Thus, they blind themselves to the greater realizations and appreciations that science is meant to seek out. Those who are agnostic (a-gnostic; Greek for no knowledge), have chosen to remain know-nothings -- ignorant of the knowledge of God.
There is only one account of creation in the Bible. It is the chronological account in chapter one. This narrative of the creative stages ends at the conclusion of chapter one. Chapter two mentions creation, but, in fact, moves on to a completely different subject. After the sixth day (i.e., after the last verse of the chapter), creation has been completed, and God takes a day off to reflect upon His creation. This chapter puts the focus on God's relationship with man. The transition is in Gen. 2:1-3 where God provides man with his first Sabbath. This is part of the God-man relationship, because Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made on account and for the sake of man, not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27, Amplified Bible) Keeping the Sabbath holy is the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11) and an integral part of God's covenant with man.
Chapter two complements chapter one. It backtracks and shows how t
I can't remember (this was 21 years ago...)
I'll have to dig around and see if I've still got any notes from that time.
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
> As I was scanning the comments
Later, when the DEA guys go for a doughnut, I hope you'll make a quick post telling us where you get the stuff you put in your pipe.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Cool. Hope you find those notes.
Needle Nardle Noo
Unless, of course, your maths works differently to mine.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Scientists already have the public thinking that lightning got those little proteins to turn into amino acids and to spit out a human being after a few million years so in a scientist's mind lightning as a communication medium isn't too far fetched.
h tml
Yeah, people can come up with all sorts of far-fetched ideas. That's why it's so nice that the process of science is one of self-correction. The improbable get weeded out in favor of the more probable as new ideas are tested and new data is brought to light. One of the more interesting theories that's been gaining ground is the idea that hot vents at the bottom of the ocean drove a process that created some life-like forms that continued to evolve into the many forms of life we see (and are) today.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/abyss/life/extremes.
It just takes a while for the "public" to catch on.
The only problem is that lightning never did that for amino acids because the DNA structure of all life has never been "out in the wild" to start from scratch. It was created by God who didn't need to constantly update it to see what worked best.
I personally don't see why any god would need to.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh