@chadbeckwith: With 83 proteins involved, do we know for sure none of them can be absorbed through the skin? If you get a cut from a spur covered with skin-contact poison, that's still a poisoning. It just might also be an envenoming! :P
@corpore-metal: Honestly, I think he had more of the right of it. I'd say an O'Neill cylinder or something along the same lines is a little more realistic than genetically engineering all these problems out of the genome and still having a viable embryo. :P
@ShubNecktie: Eric Stoltz and John Lithgow! (John Lithgow was the first choice for Doc Brown before they went with Christopher Lloyd, though that never got even as far as filming as far as I'm aware.)
@Makidian: The UN liaison thing was a misquote from the director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, there is no UN liaison for extraterrestrials and there are no plans to create such a position.
Also, did you read this story? He went silent because he's most likely lying about it, or at the very least misremembering. "I know the scientist, and when he first announced it, I asked him for the details, and he wouldn't send them to me. I'm very suspicious." When he first announced it _two years ago_. I mean, the first discovery of a rocky world in the Goldilocks zone of a star, and the signal this person claimed to have detected two years ago without saying where he detected it coming from just _happens_ to be from this star after all? It's suspicious if only because _it's the first one we've ever detected_. If he really did detect a laser-like pulse, and it really was from an alien civilization, what would be the odds that the very first planet we've detected capable of potentially supporting life outside our solar system is the very planet holding the civilization that sent us a signal, when the people searching had no idea about the signal even existing?
You don't want to think "how well does this stuff fit together with the theory" to evaluate how likely something is, because given enough stretching, you can fit a lot of potential evidence to a given theory. You want to think "what are the odds that, given this situation, this specifically is the series of events we'd have seen leading up to it?"
Also, did you read this story? He went silent because he's most likely lying about it, or at the very least misremembering. "I know the scientist, and when he first announced it, I asked him for the details, and he wouldn't send them to me. I'm very suspicious." When he first announced it _two years ago_. I mean, the first discovery of a rocky world in the Goldilocks zone of a star, and the signal this person claimed to have detected two years ago without saying where he detected it coming from just _happens_ to be from this star after all? It's suspicious if only because _it's the first one we've ever detected_. If he really did detect a laser-like pulse, and it really was from an alien civilization, what would be the odds that the very first planet we've detected capable of potentially supporting life outside our solar system is the very planet holding the civilization that sent us a signal, when the people searching had no idea about the signal even existing?
You don't want to think "how well does this stuff fit together with the theory" to evaluate how likely something is, because given enough stretching, you can fit a lot of potential evidence to a given theory. You want to think "what are the odds that, given this situation, this specifically is the series of events we'd have seen leading up to it?"
@Bigdamnhero: This is why.
[tvtropes.org]
[tvtropes.org]
@LauraAnnT: While it was kind of poor decision making on Bugorski's part to lean over a powered particle accelerator, they did have safety mechanisms, they just didn't work for whatever reason.
Besides, similar stuff has happened in the US in nuclear experimentation; people made stupid lab mistakes over here too. Nothing with particle beam accelerators, but there were still some incidents. Like the case of Louis Slotin.
"On May 21, 1946, Slotin and seven other colleagues performed an experiment that involved the creation of one of the first steps of a fission reaction by placing two half-spheres of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around a plutonium core....Slotin grasped the upper beryllium hemisphere with his left hand through a thumb hole at the top while he maintained the separation of the half-spheres using the blade of a screwdriver with his right hand, having removed the shims normally used. Using a screwdriver was not a normal part of the experimental protocol.
"At 3:20 p.m., the screwdriver slipped and the upper beryllium hemisphere fell, causing a "prompt critical" reaction and a burst of hard radiation. At the time, the scientists in the room observed the "blue glow" of air ionization and felt a "heat wave". In addition, Slotin experienced a sour taste in his mouth and an intense burning sensation in his left hand. Slotin instinctively jerked his left hand upward, lifting the upper beryllium hemisphere and dropping it to the floor, ending the reaction. However, he had already been exposed to a lethal dose (around 2100 rems, or 21 Sv) of neutron and gamma radiation. Slotin's radiation dose was equivalent to the amount that he would have been exposed to by being 1500 m (4800 ft) away from the detonation of an atomic bomb."
[en.wikipedia.org]
Or Harry Daghlian, coincidentally with the exact same plutonium core about 8 months earlier.
"In the experiment, Daghlian was attempting to build a neutron reflector by manually stacking a series of 4.4 kg tungsten carbide bricks in an incremental fashion around the plutonium core. The purpose of the neutron reflector was to reduce the mass required for the plutonium core to attain criticality.
"As he was moving the final brick over the assembly, neutron counters alerted Daghlian to the fact that the addition of this brick would render the system supercritical. As he withdrew his hand, he accidentally dropped the brick onto the center of the assembly. Since the assembly was nearly in the critical state, the accidental addition of the last brick caused the reaction to go immediately into the prompt critical region of supercritical behavior. This resulted in a power excursion.
"Daghlian panicked immediately after dropping the brick and attempted to knock off the brick without success; he was forced to partially disassemble the tungsten-carbide pile to halt the reaction. Daghlian was estimated to have received a dose of 510 rem (5.1 Sv) of neutron radiation, from a yield of 1016 fissions. He died 25 days later from acute radiation poisoning."
[en.wikipedia.org]
Besides, similar stuff has happened in the US in nuclear experimentation; people made stupid lab mistakes over here too. Nothing with particle beam accelerators, but there were still some incidents. Like the case of Louis Slotin.
"On May 21, 1946, Slotin and seven other colleagues performed an experiment that involved the creation of one of the first steps of a fission reaction by placing two half-spheres of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around a plutonium core....Slotin grasped the upper beryllium hemisphere with his left hand through a thumb hole at the top while he maintained the separation of the half-spheres using the blade of a screwdriver with his right hand, having removed the shims normally used. Using a screwdriver was not a normal part of the experimental protocol.
"At 3:20 p.m., the screwdriver slipped and the upper beryllium hemisphere fell, causing a "prompt critical" reaction and a burst of hard radiation. At the time, the scientists in the room observed the "blue glow" of air ionization and felt a "heat wave". In addition, Slotin experienced a sour taste in his mouth and an intense burning sensation in his left hand. Slotin instinctively jerked his left hand upward, lifting the upper beryllium hemisphere and dropping it to the floor, ending the reaction. However, he had already been exposed to a lethal dose (around 2100 rems, or 21 Sv) of neutron and gamma radiation. Slotin's radiation dose was equivalent to the amount that he would have been exposed to by being 1500 m (4800 ft) away from the detonation of an atomic bomb."
[en.wikipedia.org]
Or Harry Daghlian, coincidentally with the exact same plutonium core about 8 months earlier.
"In the experiment, Daghlian was attempting to build a neutron reflector by manually stacking a series of 4.4 kg tungsten carbide bricks in an incremental fashion around the plutonium core. The purpose of the neutron reflector was to reduce the mass required for the plutonium core to attain criticality.
"As he was moving the final brick over the assembly, neutron counters alerted Daghlian to the fact that the addition of this brick would render the system supercritical. As he withdrew his hand, he accidentally dropped the brick onto the center of the assembly. Since the assembly was nearly in the critical state, the accidental addition of the last brick caused the reaction to go immediately into the prompt critical region of supercritical behavior. This resulted in a power excursion.
"Daghlian panicked immediately after dropping the brick and attempted to knock off the brick without success; he was forced to partially disassemble the tungsten-carbide pile to halt the reaction. Daghlian was estimated to have received a dose of 510 rem (5.1 Sv) of neutron radiation, from a yield of 1016 fissions. He died 25 days later from acute radiation poisoning."
[en.wikipedia.org]
Let's ask Anatoli Bugorski about this.
"As a researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, [Anatoli] Bugorski used to work with the largest Soviet particle accelerator, the U-70 synchrotron. On July 13, 1978, Bugorski was checking a malfunctioning piece of equipment when an accident occurred due to failed safety mechanisms. Bugorski was leaning over the piece of equipment when he stuck his head in the part through which the proton beam was running. Reportedly, he saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns", but did not feel any pain.
"The left half of Bugorski's face swelled up beyond recognition, and over the next several days started peeling off, showing the path that the proton beam (moving near the speed of light) had burned through parts of his face, his bone, and the brain tissue underneath. As it was believed that he had received far in excess of the radiation dose that would normally kill a person, Bugorski was taken to a clinic in Moscow where the doctors could observe his expected demise. However, Bugorski survived and even completed his Ph.D. There was virtually no damage to his intellectual capacity, but the fatigue of mental work increased markedly. Bugorski completely lost hearing in the left ear and only a constant, unpleasant internal noise remained. The left half of his face was paralyzed, due to the destruction of nerves. He is able to function perfectly well, except for the fact that he has occasional complex partial seizures and rare tonic-clonic seizures."
[en.wikipedia.org]
Granted, it's not a _hand_, but the basic idea comes across at least.
"As a researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, [Anatoli] Bugorski used to work with the largest Soviet particle accelerator, the U-70 synchrotron. On July 13, 1978, Bugorski was checking a malfunctioning piece of equipment when an accident occurred due to failed safety mechanisms. Bugorski was leaning over the piece of equipment when he stuck his head in the part through which the proton beam was running. Reportedly, he saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns", but did not feel any pain.
"The left half of Bugorski's face swelled up beyond recognition, and over the next several days started peeling off, showing the path that the proton beam (moving near the speed of light) had burned through parts of his face, his bone, and the brain tissue underneath. As it was believed that he had received far in excess of the radiation dose that would normally kill a person, Bugorski was taken to a clinic in Moscow where the doctors could observe his expected demise. However, Bugorski survived and even completed his Ph.D. There was virtually no damage to his intellectual capacity, but the fatigue of mental work increased markedly. Bugorski completely lost hearing in the left ear and only a constant, unpleasant internal noise remained. The left half of his face was paralyzed, due to the destruction of nerves. He is able to function perfectly well, except for the fact that he has occasional complex partial seizures and rare tonic-clonic seizures."
[en.wikipedia.org]
Granted, it's not a _hand_, but the basic idea comes across at least.
@johnnyichiban: We were lit up. But analog TV and maybe AM radio are basically the only things coming from Earth with enough power and omnidirectionality to be very detectable from outside the solar system. Omnidirectional high-powered transmissions are very wasteful compared with directed, lower-power transmissions or transmissions along cables or fiber optic lines, and so they're getting less and less common. Omnidirectional signals besides radio that are still used are fairly low-powered and short-range deals, like cell phone tower signals, wi-fi, and the like. So with analog TV phasing out in favor of lower-powered digital, and analog radio declining in popularity, we're going to quiet up again pretty quick. There'll just be about a ~70 year-wide shell of data emanating from us that'll attenuate more and more as it spreads out until it's indistinguishable from background noise.
@Dr Emilio Lizardo: That's if you're trying to detect it through the gravitational effects on the star. This is for infrared viewing, which can detect a broader range of planets, and in fact can't detect planets very close to their star because of the light from the star mostly washing them out.
I mean, keep in mind, Neptune isn't really either of those. It's the most distant planet from the sun, and as gas giants go it's relatively small.
I mean, keep in mind, Neptune isn't really either of those. It's the most distant planet from the sun, and as gas giants go it's relatively small.
@jingmo: Don't forget the most important point; there's no phone booth in Doctor Who. :D
@nefariousmuse: I don't think 66.1% is an overwhelming majority. And for the most part the few land borders between alternate side countries are little-traveled due to natural terrain anyway, so what's the big deal?
Plus the majority of people drove on the left until about the 1940s; in that sense, you could say it's the right-hand side drivers that were the stodgy tradition-clingers that refused to change. They just happened to be stubborn enough to win out this time. :P
Plus the majority of people drove on the left until about the 1940s; in that sense, you could say it's the right-hand side drivers that were the stodgy tradition-clingers that refused to change. They just happened to be stubborn enough to win out this time. :P
@Belabras: Seeing as how the American scientific community uses metric, I have no idea what you're talking about here. Where do you see the international scientific community calling or thinking of American scientists as less skilled than non-American? Do you have any actual quotes for that?
(And yes, I saw your Mars Climate Orbiter link; that was a single, if expensive, incident, and doesn't prove that American scientists _in general_ don't still use metric in their work.)
(And yes, I saw your Mars Climate Orbiter link; that was a single, if expensive, incident, and doesn't prove that American scientists _in general_ don't still use metric in their work.)
@The Curse of Millhaven: Journeyman was picked up, it was just killed unintentionally by the writer's strike.
@Akitsu: Why so? If the region had the conditions necessary for a natural fission reactor, I'd be surprised if multiple sites at the location _weren't_ found. If the conditions are right in the area, why wouldn't it occur in multiple places in that area?
As for wondering if raw, processed uranium left out long enough could turn back into ore; uranium isn't like gold where you find it in its raw, pure-element state in mines. Uranium ore is composed of a mixture of about a dozen or so different kinds of uranium minerals in certain proportions. The most common of these - uraninite and pitchblende - are simply uranium oxidized in different proportions, and so I suppose might result from bare metal sitting around for enough time. But others are chemical compounds with titanium, iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and other elements. And uranium ore contains mixtures of all these together, each of which must be put through special chemical and mechanical processes to remove the contaminants and extract the U235 from the U238. A natural reactor wouldn't care about this, and the unprocessed stuff would work well enough. Especially two billion years ago, when the U235 was much higher concentration and hadn't yet decomposed nearly as much into U238. But if you're building a reactor, you want it to be as efficient as possible. And once it's processed, there's no way for it to naturally turn back into ore.
That's the other reason why it's _extremely_ unlikely that there were any prehistoric civilizations on Earth, by the way. Iron, copper, aluminium, lead; pretty much any reactive metal has to be mined and processed to be used for anything. And once you mine and process it, there's no way for it to revert to the form of ore, for the same reason as the uranium ore above. So while you're right that artifacts of the civilization wouldn't survive over two billion years, we'd still expect to find processed metals _somewhere_, whether it somehow be on the surface (though after 2 billion years, probably not), or in some geological strata somewhere. And even after two billion years, processed metals would be very easy to chemically distinguish from unmined metal.
Once you mine out metal and work it into something, that metal's basically unusable by any lesser culture, seeing as one of the effects of processing it is to make it more resistant to the very methods you used to process it; make it more chemically inert, better able to withstand pressure, give it more tensile strength. Which, by the way, is also the reason why if our civilization ever falls, it's unlikely a future one would ever rise to the bronze or iron age. We've already used up all the easy-to-access iron, copper, and tin deposits, and even after millions or billions of years, the ones we've still got hanging around will still be in an extremely difficult to work form. Even geological processes can't turn steel into iron, or bronze into copper and tin.
As for wondering if raw, processed uranium left out long enough could turn back into ore; uranium isn't like gold where you find it in its raw, pure-element state in mines. Uranium ore is composed of a mixture of about a dozen or so different kinds of uranium minerals in certain proportions. The most common of these - uraninite and pitchblende - are simply uranium oxidized in different proportions, and so I suppose might result from bare metal sitting around for enough time. But others are chemical compounds with titanium, iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and other elements. And uranium ore contains mixtures of all these together, each of which must be put through special chemical and mechanical processes to remove the contaminants and extract the U235 from the U238. A natural reactor wouldn't care about this, and the unprocessed stuff would work well enough. Especially two billion years ago, when the U235 was much higher concentration and hadn't yet decomposed nearly as much into U238. But if you're building a reactor, you want it to be as efficient as possible. And once it's processed, there's no way for it to naturally turn back into ore.
That's the other reason why it's _extremely_ unlikely that there were any prehistoric civilizations on Earth, by the way. Iron, copper, aluminium, lead; pretty much any reactive metal has to be mined and processed to be used for anything. And once you mine and process it, there's no way for it to revert to the form of ore, for the same reason as the uranium ore above. So while you're right that artifacts of the civilization wouldn't survive over two billion years, we'd still expect to find processed metals _somewhere_, whether it somehow be on the surface (though after 2 billion years, probably not), or in some geological strata somewhere. And even after two billion years, processed metals would be very easy to chemically distinguish from unmined metal.
Once you mine out metal and work it into something, that metal's basically unusable by any lesser culture, seeing as one of the effects of processing it is to make it more resistant to the very methods you used to process it; make it more chemically inert, better able to withstand pressure, give it more tensile strength. Which, by the way, is also the reason why if our civilization ever falls, it's unlikely a future one would ever rise to the bronze or iron age. We've already used up all the easy-to-access iron, copper, and tin deposits, and even after millions or billions of years, the ones we've still got hanging around will still be in an extremely difficult to work form. Even geological processes can't turn steel into iron, or bronze into copper and tin.
@Clutchman83: If they didn't track your IP address (at least up until the data collection stage of the survey was done), how would they make sure not to survey someone more than once? How would they keep someone from gaming the survey and sending in a lot of fake stuff to bias it one way or another?
I think tracking by IP is fine, so long as the IP data is discarded during the data analysis stage, and so long as they're only tracking IP. There's barely any identifying data someone could get from your IP; I mean, you can change it just by doing a release/renew, it wouldn't even entirely serve the purpose I defended it for above because it's so easy to change. At best it would tell someone what ISP you're from, and they could do that from your Hulu account anyway, just checking what IP addresses access it.
I think tracking by IP is fine, so long as the IP data is discarded during the data analysis stage, and so long as they're only tracking IP. There's barely any identifying data someone could get from your IP; I mean, you can change it just by doing a release/renew, it wouldn't even entirely serve the purpose I defended it for above because it's so easy to change. At best it would tell someone what ISP you're from, and they could do that from your Hulu account anyway, just checking what IP addresses access it.
@Akitsu: The U235 was only depleted from the expected 0.720% concentration to between 0.440% and 0.717%; enough of a difference to raise questions, but not enough to be from nuclear waste. And it was otherwise still in the form of unprocessed uranium ore. To assume a prehistoric or alien civilization used it requires assuming both they had a way of making their uranium look exactly like natural, unprocessed uranium ore except for the depletion, and that they abandoned the fuel when it still has usable quantities of U235 in it were it processed.
If they had the ability to do this, it either would have been processed and much more spent, or it wouldn't have appeared depleted in the first place, since if they could make it look like unprocessed ore, they could certainly just remove enough U238 to get the ratios back in balance.
If they had the ability to do this, it either would have been processed and much more spent, or it wouldn't have appeared depleted in the first place, since if they could make it look like unprocessed ore, they could certainly just remove enough U238 to get the ratios back in balance.
@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: Hopefully this won't triple post, but my comment keeps being eaten.
(Edit: Yep, it did. Server problems I guess; sorry about that. :( )
That actually probably wasn't a prediction, but a reference. The evidence of the Oklo reactor was discovered in 1972, and Oklo isn't especially far from the western African coast. Was it Zelazny's Bridge of Ashes? I know he had the Oklo reactor be a creation of aliens in that book.
(Edit: Yep, it did. Server problems I guess; sorry about that. :( )
That actually probably wasn't a prediction, but a reference. The evidence of the Oklo reactor was discovered in 1972, and Oklo isn't especially far from the western African coast. Was it Zelazny's Bridge of Ashes? I know he had the Oklo reactor be a creation of aliens in that book.
@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: That was actually probably not a prediction, but a reference. The evidence of the Oklo natural nuclear reactor was discovered in 1972, and Oklo isn't especially far from the western African coast.
