SCIENCE!

[Wolter]

This could go into the Dictator Religion thread because it's refuting Deepak Chopra, but science shouldn't be political, it should be fun! And therefore, he's a thread for SCIENCE!

http://nirmukta.com/2009/12/14/biocentr ... -universe/

Note: this article is not really "fun," in any mainstream use of the word

[Flex]

I've been paid cash-money to make science political, baby.

[Wolter]

I've been paid cash-money to make science political, baby.

Shhhh! I'm sneaking politics into the fun threads by pretending it's nerdy.

Wait.


That doesn't make any fucking sense.


DAMN YOU, SUDAFED!

[Flex]

Woooo Waterworld!

A newly discovered planet orbiting a small, nearby star appears to be a "water world," with a surface that might be covered with liquid water.

"This is certainly the first planet around another star which we think is mostly made of water," says David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who led the research team that found the new planet, named GJ 1214b.

If you could ride a spaceship to this planet — which you couldn't, because it is 40 light-years away — you would first approach the small, feeble red star that the planet orbits once every 38 hours, Charbonneau says. Then you'd see the planet, bigger and heavier than Earth, and probably enshrouded in an alien atmosphere.

Plunging down through that atmosphere, Charbonneau says, the light from the star would most likely dim and disappear until you were in darkness. Then, if you kept going down and your ship could survive the crushing pressure of the atmosphere, you might splash into a hot ocean.

At least, that's what Charbonneau and his colleagues think this planet is like. There's no way to know for sure, with current technology.

But the scientists have been able to determine that the planet is about 2.5 times the size of Earth, with a mass of about 6.5 times that of our home planet. And given that planets can be made of a limited number of common ingredients — like light gases, rock and water — the scientists figured out what possible combinations of ingredients were likely for a planet of this size and weight.

"We think this planet is mostly made of water, with a thin atmosphere surrounding it, perhaps of hydrogen and helium," Charbonneau says.

The planet is pretty hot compared with Earth — around 400 degrees Fahrenheit — but even so, pressure from the atmosphere could keep any water liquid.

A report on the new planet appears in the journal Nature. An accompanying commentary by planet-hunter Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California at Berkeley calls it "the most watertight evidence so far for a planet that is something like our own Earth, outside our solar system."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... c=fb&cc=fp

[Still216]

Wait.


That doesn't make any fucking sense.


DAMN YOU, SUDAFED!

So is this why they made me show a drivers license and sign into a book every time I bought a box of Sudafed last winter? To prevent lapses of sense like the one above?

Oh, right...it was because I lived in Methtown, PA for almost two years. Never mind.

[JennyB]

Woooo Waterworld!

A newly discovered planet orbiting a small, nearby star appears to be a "water world," with a surface that might be covered with liquid water.

"This is certainly the first planet around another star which we think is mostly made of water," says David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who led the research team that found the new planet, named GJ 1214b.

If you could ride a spaceship to this planet — which you couldn't, because it is 40 light-years away — you would first approach the small, feeble red star that the planet orbits once every 38 hours, Charbonneau says. Then you'd see the planet, bigger and heavier than Earth, and probably enshrouded in an alien atmosphere.

Plunging down through that atmosphere, Charbonneau says, the light from the star would most likely dim and disappear until you were in darkness. Then, if you kept going down and your ship could survive the crushing pressure of the atmosphere, you might splash into a hot ocean.

At least, that's what Charbonneau and his colleagues think this planet is like. There's no way to know for sure, with current technology.

But the scientists have been able to determine that the planet is about 2.5 times the size of Earth, with a mass of about 6.5 times that of our home planet. And given that planets can be made of a limited number of common ingredients — like light gases, rock and water — the scientists figured out what possible combinations of ingredients were likely for a planet of this size and weight.

"We think this planet is mostly made of water, with a thin atmosphere surrounding it, perhaps of hydrogen and helium," Charbonneau says.

The planet is pretty hot compared with Earth — around 400 degrees Fahrenheit — but even so, pressure from the atmosphere could keep any water liquid.

A report on the new planet appears in the journal Nature. An accompanying commentary by planet-hunter Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California at Berkeley calls it "the most watertight evidence so far for a planet that is something like our own Earth, outside our solar system."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... c=fb&cc=fp

Do the people who inhabit said planet have to drink their own pee?

[Wolter]

They don't have to.

[Marky Dread]

So I am the Cosmos afterall.

[CorwoodRep]

Dogeball: horrible movie redeemed every once in awhile by a cast that's too good to be in it. But it has one line that I just love. It's Rip Torn saying, apropos of nothing, "And I don't have to drink my own piss, but it's sterile and I like the taste!"

[matedog]

Dogeball: horrible movie redeemed every once in awhile by a cast that's too good to be in it. But it has one line that I just love. It's Rip Torn saying, apropos of nothing, "And I don't have to drink my own piss, but it's sterile and I like the taste!"

Shouldn't you be drunk yet?

[CorwoodRep]

Six hours, baby.

[Silent Majority]

Dogeball: horrible movie redeemed every once in awhile by a cast that's too good to be in it. But it has one line that I just love. It's Rip Torn saying, apropos of nothing, "And I don't have to drink my own piss, but it's sterile and I like the taste!"

I like that film. Every picture should have somebody getting hit in the groin or the head on a regular seven minute cycle. I actually can't think of a single movie that wouldn't be improved by that. Schindler's List? No, hit 'em in the balls.

[Dr. Medulla]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1263243162#

[cretin]

Woooo Waterworld!

A newly discovered planet orbiting a small, nearby star appears to be a "water world," with a surface that might be covered with liquid water.

"This is certainly the first planet around another star which we think is mostly made of water," says David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who led the research team that found the new planet, named GJ 1214b.

If you could ride a spaceship to this planet — which you couldn't, because it is 40 light-years away — you would first approach the small, feeble red star that the planet orbits once every 38 hours, Charbonneau says. Then you'd see the planet, bigger and heavier than Earth, and probably enshrouded in an alien atmosphere.

Plunging down through that atmosphere, Charbonneau says, the light from the star would most likely dim and disappear until you were in darkness. Then, if you kept going down and your ship could survive the crushing pressure of the atmosphere, you might splash into a hot ocean.

At least, that's what Charbonneau and his colleagues think this planet is like. There's no way to know for sure, with current technology.

But the scientists have been able to determine that the planet is about 2.5 times the size of Earth, with a mass of about 6.5 times that of our home planet. And given that planets can be made of a limited number of common ingredients — like light gases, rock and water — the scientists figured out what possible combinations of ingredients were likely for a planet of this size and weight.

"We think this planet is mostly made of water, with a thin atmosphere surrounding it, perhaps of hydrogen and helium," Charbonneau says.

The planet is pretty hot compared with Earth — around 400 degrees Fahrenheit — but even so, pressure from the atmosphere could keep any water liquid.

A report on the new planet appears in the journal Nature. An accompanying commentary by planet-hunter Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California at Berkeley calls it "the most watertight evidence so far for a planet that is something like our own Earth, outside our solar system."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... c=fb&cc=fp

omg i didn't read all that. but i want to live ;there and you cann all come with and drink my pee.

[Wolter]

MORE SCIENCE!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sp ... utism.html