The lives I’ve touched are frivolous and few
First off, I am going to be in Saskatoon from December 21 to the 27th in case any one is interested in getting down.
Second, there are a bunch of questions I have about things that Wikipedia does not have answers for (or I can’t understand what is there). If anyone has answers for me about this shit I would be quite happy to hear them.
As an example at work one day I was confused as to how the sun stays on fire if it is in space with no oxygen. Luckily Audit Room John knows all kinds of random shit and he was able to provide an answer (which I have since lost) which involved collisions and hydrogen (maybe?) and the main fact that the sun is not actually on fire, just full of visible energy due to some kind of molecular collisions or something (sorry for butchering your explanation John, I know yours actually made sense and was technical, I just can’t retain that stuff).
In any case, it was quite enlightening (even if I have obviously since forgotten the actual answer to the question, I just focused on the fact that the sun is not actually on fire) and I would like to become even more enlightened. As such if anyone knows the answers to the following questions please be forthcoming with non-technical answers.
1 – Why were dinosaurs so big? (this one has been bugging me for years)
2 – If dinosaurs were really big, were trees and things like that bigger as well?
3 – What would happen if a hot air balloon ran into a building?
4 – How deep is the ocean and is it really hot near the bottom?
5 – If deserts are expanding does it mean they are alive?
6 – Why can’t we make copies of extinct species? (and as a moral question, if we could wouldn’t that be justification for expanding cloning research?)
So yeah, that’s what I think about during the day.
Peace.
posted by caid @ 6:30 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
the ocean is actually cold at the bottom for the most part, but in some geologically active areas there are hydrothermal vents, which are like the hot springs in the mountains only at the bottom of the ocean. in these areas the bottom of the ocean cn be 350 degees C. as for how deep the ocean is, i don't know.
One of the reasons the deserts are exapnding are due to erosion and forest depletion. when we remove trees and the wind blows, there is nothing to stop the wind from blowing the sand farther and the desert "expands". also, when we deplete soils of their nutrients from over use due to agriculture, they can become desert like.
There's a really good BBC series with 3 videos called Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, Walking with Dinosaurs, and Walking with Monsters. They are really, really well done and would probably answer your questions about dinosaurs. You can get them as a set or individually, I'd recommend it.
I actually ust bought that BBc series if you want to borrow it sometime.
For the record the "anonymous" posts were from Jess. The only question I have that is not on the list is this: What is outside the universe? I mean the universe is outside our galaxy, so what is outside the universe??
Stern
Brian, I think your question is more of a philisophical one, not a scientific one, so you are not likely to ever get a conclusive answer.
What is outside of the Universe?
Simple Explanation:
There is nothing beyond the Universe, because by definition the Universe encompasses everything.
The Universe is the biggest container to describe stuff; we can, and do subdivide the stuff inside of the Universe into Galaxies, Nebulas, Solar Systems, Planets, People, Atoms, Quarks, etc. But at the highest level there is the Universe, I'm sure at this point Evan can chime in with a discussion of the word Universe and its Latin roots, so I will leave that to him.
Now for another more scientific explanation:
~14 Billion years ago something exploded into an empty void. (The Big Bang) How do I know it was a void? Because we can look at what is called the "Microwave Background Radiation," which is essentially those first photons that were created in the Big Bang.
If space hadn't been devoid of stuff prior to the Big Bang the gravity of that preexisting stuff would have effected the distribution of those early photons. But from all of our observations thus far we have not been able to detect any major disturbances in the background radiation. So scientistgs are very confident that there was nothing there.
So because the Big Bang took place in a void and the Big Bang was responsible for the creation of everything, nothing exists outside of the Universe, the void continues infinitely, but you won't run into anything. (In this case the Universe could be described as a sphere with a radius of ~14 billion light years, as apposed to the highest level in the categorical description of all things.)
Hope this helps and makes since,
Audit Room John
John, you have no business being an auditor. Go explore space or something because I don't think auditing uses enough of your brain.
John
Thanks for the answer. You've inspire me to watch more Discovery Channel. I agree with Justin; why are you an auditor?
Stern
I never wanted to be an auditor, it just sort of worked out that way. Let just say that when your failing out of University and you need to make a change sometimes you pick the easy road and not the right one. I'd change jobs right now if I could, but I've just moved to the States, my wife's in school and I've got a mortgage to pay.
Justin with regards to your cloning question, there are three major problems with trying to clone endangered or extinct species. The first as you mentioned in the ethical question of trying to restore extinct animals. The second is finding a viable source of DNA, and the third is finding/developing a means of developing that DNA into an embryo and bringing it to term.
I just heard about this project to bring back an extinct form of Zebra called the Quagga (On Science Friday's on NPR - It has some interesting stories even if the people who call in are all crazy). It's having some success and its a pretty good story, involving extracting DNA from a stuffed specimen.
http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/10_00/Quagga_project.shtml
Enjoy,
Audit Room John
So apparently I should read my links and check my memory before posting them. So its only a selective breeding program to reistablish the Quagga's apperance, not an actually attempt to cloan them. The article does mention a few other attempts to clone extinct species.
Oh well.
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