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lord_shiva 04-Jan-18, 18:45	General Science Shirlmygirl requested I start a new thread [from the Horror Becomes More Horrible thread: gameknot.com] for discussions of matters related solely to science. While this is the "Team Captains of Gameknot" forum, one thread devoted to ideas from science seems like something many of us could have something of interest to share. With that in mind I'd like to start with a story of an infant girl (named USR1) recovered in Alaska whose bones are 11,500 years old, and from whom we have recovered sufficient DNA to pretty fully type her genome and compare it to the rest of the original inhabitants of the Americas. She and they all descended from a population that crossed into the new world and became genetically isolated and distinct from the rest of the world by 20,000 years ago. www.bbc.com
shirlmygirl 07-Jan-18, 15:46	Well, how about this one to start it off, Pasha. A few years ago, I read that a very young, frozen animal, had been found in Alaska, I believe. It was either a Mammoth or a Mastodon. I can't be sure which, but I think it was a Mammoth. It had been frozen for a very long time in the ice, then had broken free when ice thawed or softened. What do you know about that. It will surely interest me, and probably others, but I already know a fair amount about it. I also know about an ancient man called the Ice Man, wearing very primitive clothing, who was found in the mountains. I think it was the Andes, but I can't be sure of that. He had been frozen for a very long time, but had washed out from a frozen glacier.
lord_shiva 07-Jan-18, 17:31	Otzi Otzi was found not in the Andes (mountain range along the western margin of the South American continental plate) but in the Alps in Europe. en.wikipedia.org He is a fascinating character, who was murdered 5300 years ago. Fascinating character! As for mammoths, there have been multiple finds of frozen mammoths thawing free from ice, a result of industrial climate change. This ice had not melted in the thousands of years since it had formed, but is now disgorging specimens long locked away. The cells of these creatures are mostly all burst, as water expansion from freezing would rupture them. This makes it challenging to resurrect them, but plans are underway to bring back woolly mammoths, replacing the nuclei of modern elephant egg cells with those of mammoth cells. www.theguardian.com I think the Guardian is a bit overly optimistic in their projection. They were quoting Harvard scientists working on the project who predicted a two year time span back in February of 2017. I seriously doubt woolly mammoth babies are born even by 2019, given their 18 month gestation period. www.iflscience.com My guess is that we truly will have something very similar to a woolly mammoth running around by 2025. If the National Zoo in Washington D.C. does not sport a live exhibit, odds are excellent the San Diego Zoological Gardens will.
shirlmygirl 07-Jan-18, 18:06	Those links are really great, especially the Ice Man link, which has far more information now than I had gained earlier. Thank you. I think that the Mammoth body that was recovered was a very young animal, almost a baby. From memory, I think it was estimated to be about 4 months old. I also have a vague recollection that it was picked up and taken to some kind of small store, and left outside. I am not sure about this, however.
lord_shiva 07-Jan-18, 18:21	Baby Mammoth You're probably right about all of that--I know a baby mammoth had been found, but also that we have frozen remains from a good half dozen specimens. en.wikipedia.org Actually, it looks like maybe more than a hundred examples are known, but half were before the invention of modern refrigeration techniques.
shirlmygirl 13-Jan-18, 18:40	I have been wondering about the big oil-tanker ship transporting oil from, it seems Iran to, I thought they said South Korea, but I am wondering if it was North Korea, that caught fire and was billowing these huge black clouds of smoke for days. It might still be burning. What happens to this smoke? It must have particles in it. Does it finally burn up in the atmosphere, or does it continue drifting around the Universe? If it does drift around the Universe, by that time it must be almost invisible.
lord_shiva 14-Jan-18, 02:17	Particulate is unlikely to leave Earth's atmosphere. It generally settles out within months to a few years, depending on volume. Volcanic dust can be lofted for months. Oil soot even longer. The CO2 lingers thousands of years, making it problematic.
shirlmygirl 14-Jan-18, 12:09	It must be oil soot billowing from the ship. Is it probable that such discharge contributes to asteroids? If not, what causes asteroids? Surely asteroids must be created by accumulations of something in space.
lord_shiva 14-Jan-18, 16:43	Asteroids are accumulations of material that was already in space, blown out by supernova or sloughed off by colliding neutron stars. In general stuff does not leave Earth, save for the lightest stratospheric gases blown off by the solar wind, and the exceedingly rare cometary impact ejecta. Asteroids orbit primarily between Mars and Jupiter. Kuiper Belt objects, source of short period comets (under two centuries) orbit beyond Neptune, while the Oort Cloud consists of similar icy debris up to about one light year out.
lord_shiva 14-Jan-18, 16:47	Soot From fire rarely leaves the troposphere, the lowest atmospheric layer. Volcanoes can launch material higher, but it tends to settle back down into lower layers fairly quickly. Earth's diameter is under eight thousand miles. Add the atmosphere and it might barely exceed that. The atmosphere is an exceedingly thin onion skin thick layer above the Earth, which is why pumping up the CO2 level from 280 ppm to over 400 ppm is a serious problem.
shirlmygirl 14-Jan-18, 16:53	Thank you for that explanation, Pasha. I shall learn something. I know, of course, that space vehicles entering our atmosphere go through extremely high temperatures, so need a heat shield.
lord_shiva 14-Jan-18, 23:08	Friction Orbital velocity is 17,000 miles per hour. Air, even cold, thin air from the upper atmosphere, creates a lot of heat at that speed. This is why meteorites burn up as they streak through the sky. There are also meteorites in the day, about as many--they are just harder to see.
shirlmygirl 15-Jan-18, 11:40	I watched about half a program of Nova the other day which attempted to show that the entire dinosaur family all over the world was destroyed by one huge meteorite hitting the earth. Quite frankly, I thought it was ridiculous.
lord_shiva 15-Jan-18, 12:54	Ridiculous Why is that? The dinosaur extinction event appears to have been fairly rapid--climate change induced by a massive impact. "Meteorite" is probably not an apt description, it would more likely have been an asteroid, based on the crater size. We know where it hit and when, and dinosaur fossils following the event are entirely absent in the fossil record, save for some Antarctic species surviving another couple million years. What was it in particular you regarded as "ridiculous?" Rocks falling from the sky? President Thomas Jefferson thought that was ridiculous. But it was about his era we began learning of the belt of asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Two of these collide, altering orbital ephemeris, ultimately one may intersect a planet. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 calved near Jupiter just a few years back, breaking into big chunks. These were swept up on the Jovian far side about a year later. An astronomer friend of mine predicted we would see nothing, despite Jupiter's rapid 10 hour rotation. But he was wrong--the massive chunks swirled up big plumes of gas from deeper within the planet--altering weather patterns so significantly we could observe the results even from amateur telescopes here on Earth. Truly fantastic! Comet trajectories tend to be faster, packing greater kinetic energy than asteroids, given their much longer orbital periods. All of Earth's oceans could have come from icy comets--I had my students calculate that in the class I taught. But it turns out there is sufficient water in asteroids to account for most of Earth's ocean volume, and the stable isotope ratios indicate asteroids were more likely the source of most of our water.
shirlmygirl 15-Jan-18, 13:15	I meant to say asteroid, not meteorite, Pasha. I said it was ridiculous that one impact would kill the entire dinosaur family over the entire earth. I am much more inclined to believe that the dinosaur family died as a result of a world-wide flood. God caused the animals and other creatures to come to the Ark. Noah did not go out and try to collect them. And the animals did not all go in two by two, some went in by sevens. Those are named the "clean" animals, birds, etc. and are the healthiest for us to eat, including grasshoppers and locusts, if you are hungry enough and can catch enough of them.
lord_shiva 15-Jan-18, 14:56	Most Scientists would regard it as ridiculous ONE flood could wipe out ALL species across the entire Earth, save those aboard some incredible ark. Have you visited the Ark Encounter in Kentucky? That thing isn't seaworthy. Of course, it was never intended to float. The largest actual wooden ship every built was the gaff schooner Wyoming, constructed with the best modern ship building techniques known to man in 1909. Measuring 449 feet, it foundered 15 years later. The Ark Encounter measures 550 feet (the museum says 510, but the builders note it is 550), isn't large enough to hold two infantile forms of each of Earth's faunal menagerie, much less their food and support crew for a year, and wouldn't survive a soft float launch (where you raise the water around the ship instead of rolling the ship into the sea). The encounter Ark required a crew of 45 eighteen months to complete. By extrapolation 22 people working 3 years should accomplish the same amount of work, or 11 people 6 years... Six people 12 years? You lose economies of scale reducing your work force. Plus, Noah probably did not have 18 wheel tractor trailer rigs or modern forestry equipment for felling and hewing ship timbers. We'll set that aside. Did God supply Noah with the blueprints too? Because we could not achieve a workable project of that scale currently, much less restricted to 40th century BC technology and building materials. But let's lay all that aside. By the close of the Cenozoic there were no polar ice caps, meaning all the water available to be in the oceans was in the oceans. There was, therefore, no source for water sufficient to inundate the Earth. Moreover, if there WAS such quantity of water available, where did it go? God didn't mop it up. Earth didn't sponge it. Alien ice pirates flying spaceships from Delta Pavonis did not abscond with it. If it froze out over the poles, there's enough ice for 200 additional feet of water now. That' won't cover a decent sized hill, much less ANY mountain range. But let's set that aside too, and the fact there is no evidence for any such flood. Some argue there IS such evidence, that the riparian flood in northern Utah where the dinosaur national monument park is represents the global flood that killed all the dinosaurs. Except only Jurassic beasts were buried there, in riverbank sediment. No marine organisms. None of the many types of cretaceous flora or fauna appear in those fossil beds. And these beds themselves lay over benthic formations, where an earlier shallow inland sea once existed. By Jurassic times this water had receded, supporting a rich middle Mesozoic ecosystem. (The Mesozoic consists of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous epochs). We are currently in the process of altering Earth's global climate. The changes we have already initiated will melt the Greenland icecap and cut into Antarctic ice, raising sea levels a good twenty feet within the next few hundred years. Kiss coastal cities buh-bye. Mass migrations inward, scientists predict upwards of four hundred million (400,000,000) climate refugees by 2100, just a bit over 80 years from now. You and I will probably be dead, but my grandchildren should all be alive and well. What kind of world will they inherit? Chicxulub would have massed up to 400 trillion tons (4.6 x 10^17 kg). In contrast, humans emit a mere 40 billion tons of CO2 from fossil fuel per year. Much less than 4 trillion tons (100x) over the last century. So yeah, the idea Chicxulub vaulted sufficient material into the atmosphere to result in global cooling over a period of time sufficiently prolonged to alter global climate is certainly believable, which is why most biologists, paleontologists, geologists, and scientists of other disciplines accept it.
lord_shiva 15-Jan-18, 15:01	Ken Ham's Ark Could it float in the event of a sufficiently huge local flood? No. It is more like a movie set, just the false front of a boat, not an actual boat itself. It would instead tear off the support columns, if it moved at all, and debris would swirl around... www.quora.com
shirlmygirl 15-Jan-18, 15:04	Perhaps one theory is just as ridiculous sounding as the other theory, Pasha. I will read the above posting later. You are a man of many words.   Well, at least the Flood didn't wipe out the species in the water, except the humans, of course.
shirlmygirl 15-Jan-18, 21:15	It all comes down to this. Even if a person doesn't believe in God and doesn't believe in the Bible account, then how can they reconcile themselves to Jesus, Christ The Redeemer? They can say that Jesus was a fraud and someone took custody of His Body and hid it, but then, where was Jesus' Body? The Roman soldiers positioned a guard at the tomb after the Crucifixion, at the request of the Jewish leaders, to make sure that no one could remove Jesus' body. The tomb was empty. Jesus was resurrected.
lord_shiva 15-Jan-18, 21:48	Science & Jesus Can you believe in Jesus and be omfortable with the findings and discoveries of science!
shirlmygirl 15-Jan-18, 22:02	Yes, I can. To a certain extent. But remember, science is always evolving. And possibly, our understanding of the Scriptures is too.
lord_shiva 15-Jan-18, 23:13	Excellent I see no necessary conflict either.
shirlmygirl 16-Jan-18, 12:09	Quote by lord_shiva: "But let's lay all that aside. By the close of the Cenozoic there were no polar ice caps, meaning all the water available to be in the oceans was in the oceans. There was, therefore, no source for water sufficient to inundate the Earth". I would like to point out that when Noah and his family entered into the Ark, the door was shut by God. It had not rained on the earth at that time. The people were mocking Noah. The ground was watered by a mist. When it started to rain, it rained for forty days and forty nights. Also, "were the fountains of the great deep broken up" (we all know that there is water stored under the ground) "and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights". Genesis, chapter 7, and specifically Gen. 7:11 and 12. If it is in the Bible, I believe it.
lord_shiva 16-Jan-18, 13:56	Hurricane Harvey ...broke records for the continental US. Up to 4 inches per hour. 24 hours per day, sustained, eight feet of water in a day. Most storms don't let down eight feet--that is quite a barrage. But let's assume we kept this up for forty days straight--an unheard of meteorological event given Earth's atmosphere cannot hold that much moisture. 320 feet. I'm pretty certain the Pacific averages a bit more than 320 feet in depth. And 320 feet isn't enough to cover most hills: Definition 2000 feet. (Out west a hill is 2000 feet or less. Our mountains run up to a couple of miles.) So that rainstorm doesn't end up covering the Earth. I guess we could unleash water from the ground, as with artesian wells. My family had one of those on the property we rented when I was a wee little lad, first learning how to walk. There is not a lot of water available that way--and I think most of it comes from higher elevation. You can Google "artesian aquifer" for more information: en.wikipedia.org The real problems are that the water has to come from somewhere and then it has to return or disappear again. Local floods--no problem. Hurricane Harvey water came from across the Atlantic and Gulf air streams, and ended up dumped along the coast. Drop four inches an hour for 60 inches of water--you've got yourself five feet of flooding. Standard pressure is 14.7 psi at sea level. This is the weight of a column of air one square inch extending up to the edge of Earth's atmosphere--14.7 pounds. So air, water, what have you--it weighs no more than 14.7 lbs. If Earth's entire atmosphere was pure water instead of moisture laden air, how high would a column weight 14.7 lbs reach squeezed into a column one square inch in area? Water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon, and it weighs the same now as it did back in the days of Noah--even though they didn't use pounds. I could convert to cubits, but we'll stick with what we know. 14.7/8.34 = 1.76 gallons of water. There are 231 cubic inches per gallon. 231 * 1.76 = 407 inches of water. That's 34 feet. So if it rains more than 34 feet, it means the water is coming from somewhere else--being lifted back into the atmosphere from somewhere. In other words, it may rain in one location 40 days and 40 nights, but it cannot keep this up 4 inches an hour that long EVERYWHERE, because the entire atmosphere would rain out long before then if it was composed of nothing but water vapor, leaving Noah and company flopping about on the deck of their boat like fish out of water. Mammals in vacuum...
shirlmygirl 16-Jan-18, 17:08	I assume then, Pasha, that you think that the Bible if full of fables. I am surely very glad that I don't think that way.
lord_shiva 16-Jan-18, 17:54	Fables Very much like Aesop's fables. Morality tales. Talking donkeys? Talking snakes? These organisms lack oral structures for producing complex sound. Snakes don't even have vocal cords, how could they speak? Magical fruit, fish with digestive tracks capable of sustaining human life three days? Gourds that mature from a seedling in a single day? Halting Earth's rotation for trivial purposes? Yeah--there is fantastic stuff even Aesop would have had a hard time swallowing. There are also great things as well. Much of the historical accounts are compelling, though it is unlikely the Jews were ever an Egyptian slave race. But the notion of humanity's migration out of Africa--that follows along the lines of what we know from anthropology. The Bible authors noted snakes evolved from a terrestrial quadruped--even if they misclassify bats as birds. The Bible is great on the hydrologic cycle--sunlight knocking ocean surface water into the sky, rainfall resulting in river flow, etc. Insightful for the state of scientific inquiry circa 3500 BCE. "Earth hangeth upon a thread." And you've probably seen my map of Genesis onto cosmology--that was is eerily on the spot. I don't want to try to convince you I find it more accurate than any other religion, but it is pretty fascinating. I am very glad my thinking has evolved over time. If it didn't, I'd fear I had given up thought. And the ability to think is the chief distinction humans possess over all other animals. The dolphin swims faster, the bear is far stronger, the gazelle runs faster and monkeys can climb like nobody's business. The bunny is more prolific. Only humans, of all the species on Earth, can make fire or engage in symbolic mathematics. Our species and a handful of those closely related to us that are now extinct.
shirlmygirl 16-Jan-18, 17:57	So can I safely assume that you are not a genuine Christian, Pasha? Please confirm.
lord_shiva 16-Jan-18, 18:15	Genuine Christian I guess this depends upon your definition. I was taught that the "unpardonable sin" was initial rejection of God--that once you were "saved" God never disowns you. I don't hold to much of the religious belief I accepted as a youth. It seems pointless and improbable to me now. Why believe things that lack utility? Why believe in infant baptism, or why disbelieve in it? Why believe in transubstantiation or why not? Does it make a lick of difference one way or the other? Is the fate of your immortal soul dependent upon whether you celebrate the Sabbath on the seventh day, as God intended, or on the first instead? Does God really care whether you are Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, a follower of Zoroaster, or none of the above? If so, why doesn't She do something about it? In that respect I've certainly fallen away from the faith. Much of what I was taught was balderdash. Material fit for entertaining children. Remember back when you were little, did you attend Sunday School? Out on the reservation they used those little felt characters that stuck to a board. I think there was a different package you could put up for each of the different stories. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Their bindings burned away in the furnace, but they themselves unharmed. Why stop at the ropes? Why not burn off their clothes too, Mother of Dragons style on Game of Thrones? I think George Martin stole that scene from the Book of Daniel. Lots daughters... Well let's not get into that. This is a family forum and the Bible stories aren't always fit for public consumption. Let me just say that William Shakespeare explained it best, "Lechery, sir, [strong drink] provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand." They didn't have distilled spirits back in those days either. Nothing more potent than beer or wine.
the-jim 31-Jan-18, 15:09	@ Lord Shiver Rainbows I understand that God sent the first rainbow just after the flood. Do you know if the cavemen or the monkey men drew rainbows in their caves before God made the first rainbow. I am curious about when anyone made the first recording of a rainbow. Is God's recording the first one? Jimmy
lord_shiva 31-Jan-18, 15:19	Prismatic Reflected Light I reckon the first rainbow existed long before the noachian flood myth was first told. Long before the Flood of Gilgamesh, which predates the earliest record of the Noah story. en.wikipedia.org time.com It most likely predates Earth, as any planet with atmospheric water vapor would likely break light in the direction opposite its primary at the appropriate latitude, or hours near evening or morning.
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