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Astronomers Find Oldest Known Asteroids
Researchers from the University of Maryland have recently discovered three asteroids that appear to be roughly 4.55 billion years old, dating back to the formation of the Solar System. The scientists say that the asteroids have survived relatively unchanged since that time, and make good candidates for future space missions.
"'The fall of the Allende meteorite in 1969 initiated a revolution in the study of the early Solar System,' said Tim McCoy, curator of the national meteorite collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. 'I find it amazing that it took us nearly 40 years to collect spectra of these [CAI-rich] objects and that those spectra would now initiate another revolution, pointing us to the asteroids that record this earliest stage in the history of our Solar System.'"
Seriously. Don't click that link.
248 Kessel Runs.
That link will open an infinite number of windows with porn crap and torn apart children, also lots of email messages if your email program is setup to allow mailto: Somebody must be very fucked up in his mind to even conceive something like that. What pisses me off the most is that web-browsers and operating systems seem to be entirely useless against this kind of junk. When the hell will programmers put some code so that the browser will block dozens of pop-up windows that appear at a fraction of a second intervals? Does it take a genius to think something like that? I'm actually using FireFox 3 beta 4, so far not impressed, most of my extensions don't work.
Rubbish.
this sort of impossibility twaddle is easily discredited. For example, tall buildings or arched/suspended bridges could not be erected without a scaffold or crane. But once erected those are removed. Just because there is no evidence to be found that they were there does not mean the buildings sprung into existence fully formed.
Same with sophisticated organisms.
Recently Behe's claim that the flagella motor protein could not have evolved because it's inoperable without one of it's many parts and thus has no function was shown to be wrong. SPikes used by some bacteria to penetrate others turn out to be almost identical to the motor protein assembly but with a few proteins removed. it's not a motor it's a syringe.
Bombadier beetle.
Oxidative enzymes and fizzy action are good ways to digest something in your mouth cavity. It would be no surprise if the bombadier's enzymes were developed for digestion and then later recruited for defense. Many animals regurgitate or spray digestive juices as defensive or offensive weapons. Even single celled organisms secrete highly indesructable proteases to destroy the competition. Others, like the Spike bearing ones have cannons they can shoot this from. If single celled organisms can evolve this its not a stretch to imagine a beetle pulling it off.
Giraffe.
Many animals, like diving douplhins, seals, whales pull off similar stunts at orders of magnitude greater pressure differentials. Thus not only had such mechanisms evolved while we were all sea-bred creatures, and vestigal mechanisms potentialially latent in our DNA, but the specific machanism in Giraffes is not the only way to skin the pressure cat. For example, airplane pilots who work at High-Gs know that clenching muscles can prevent vaso-dialiation consequently fainting. It's not hard to imagine that early long necked creatures could survive without this adaptation, and the means to re-evolve it was possible in DNA
Woodpeckers:
this one can be dismissed. There are lots of birds that eat tree bugs by whatever means they can dig them out. trees come in all denisities. You don't need to evolve to be a wood pecker in one go.
Rapid Canyon formation.
I happen to live on the base of a caldera. My house is perched 200 feet over a straight drop to the steep walled canyon bottom. This was carved by a combination of massive floods and slow erosion. Simmilar examples abound around the area. But the origin of the massive floods is well known too. The caldera would periodically block it's outflows and then fill with water. when these dams burst torential fllods would scour the soft volcanic ash and aleufial sands into canons that would harden to rock. Similar stories can be said about the hells canyon area.
I've seen it happen in a small way in my own life time when forest fires glazed the mountain soils turning run-off trickles into 40 mile per hour flash floods digging 10 foot channels.
You really need to not assume the first silliness someone pours in your brain is the truth.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.