KerikBalm

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/30/further-panning-of-the-arsenic/ http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110527/full/news.2011.333.html I am so so so so soooooo tired of hearing this claim repeated by laypeople. The publishers were criminally negligent IMO. There is no good evidence that the bacteria incorporated arsenic into its DNA, and ample evidence that it did not. All they did was find a bacteria that can tolerate higher levels of arsenic without dying. They grew bacteria in high arsenic conditions with low-but-still-there levels of phosphorus. They then detected arsenic in their bacteria, and concluded arsenic had replaced phosphorus. - A huge unsupported logical leap Sure, they claim to have purified the DNA, but they did it so half-assed, omitting very cruicial steps, that there would still be many contaminants. IIRC, they didn't even have a proper negative control. Stop repeating these asinine claims, and if you're in a conversation with someone else who repeats the claim, correct them. Stop the spread of a poorly informed public. The ironic thing is that these people repeating this arsenic life claim actually think they are well informed. “He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool - shun him. He who knows not and knows he knows not: he is innocent - teach him. He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep - wake him. He who knows and knows he knows: he is wise - follow him.†I'd modify that saying to not go straight to shunning people, but first try to expose their ignorance, and then see how they react.

Nah, we don't need clarification, its very clear you don't understand what you are talking about.

even the use of "class A" and "order B" that is stupid IMO. Its much simpler to just refere to clade A and clade B. A proper cladogram doesn't make any note of rank in the old linnaean taxonomy (although it may still use the same names for clades, it may be clade reptillia, but it will not say order reptillia). I would challenge you to find a cladogram that does not show that birds are reptiles. Any textbook which says otherwise is either (a) old or ( written by negligent people whom should not be producing textbooks. You seem to be making (mostly valid) criticisms of the old linnaean taxonomy, but attributing those criticisms to modern cladistics (aka phylogenetic systematics - the name may make it more clear how important it is that clades be monophyletic, you can't construct a reptile clade without including birds). I encourage you to visit this website for a (mostly) up to date set of cladograms. http://tolweb.org/tree/ http://tolweb.org/Terrestrial_Vertebrates/14952 http://tolweb.org/Amniota/14990 Note how birds are grouped with the diapsids, within clade reptilia http://tolweb.org/Diapsida/14866

By modern phylogenetic standards, a bird is a reptile. Your argument is a strawman. The whole point of cladistics is to do away with that sort of crud that you bring up (which was a problem with the old Linnaean taxonomy).

No, that is not the general consensus. That is not the consensus either. There is only good evidence of structures homologous to feathers in tetanura. It is true that there are bristles on ornithiscians (such as Heterodontosaurus), and the presence of pycnofibers in closely related pterosaurs implies that there may be a "dinofuzz" like covering basal to ornithodira, that is far from settled. Plausible yes, but probable based on the evidence? no. There's no evidence that the bristles on non theropod ornithodirans is any more homologous to feathers than the dorsal "bristles" on iguanas... There is a feathered siberian neoornithischian awaiting description, and ceratopsians posessed brittle-like structures on their skin. Yes, quite unlikely. And it was at least semi aquatic. Can we start looking at carnivorus pinnipeds now? You're begining to sound like a "BANDit" subscriber to that nutjob Martin. Crocodiles are reptiles. Birds are reptiles (according to cladistics, and common sense + sufficient information). Crocodiles are not Birds. Crocodiles are archosaurs. Birds are Archosaurs. Dinosaurs are archosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are reptiles. Crocodiles are not Dinosaurs. Anything else I need to clarify for you?

You are aware that there are cases of fossilized dino mummies, preserving internal organs, right? We also have some amino acid sequences. We know about their breathing+ air sac aparatus, rather bird like. No. Seeing as how birds are dinosaurs, that is just asinine to say that birds metabolism is less than birds metabolism. Fuzy dinos were cold blooded eh? Also, given ample evidence that the ancestral archosaur was warm blooded, and that crocodiles are secondarily cold blooded, this cold blooded vs warm blooded debate is long over. The same can be said of mammals, where is the problem? Umm, so you subscribe to bigger= better? btw, those mass estimates have come down quite a bit. More modern T rex estimates are between 6-7 tons. In comparison, a polar bear may reach 2 tons. What is your problem with cladistics? Its a whole lot better than the old taxonomy, your statement is somewhat like saying as long as astonomy (do oyu consider that a subset of physics? I'd say it certainly is, its advanced physics with studies of high energy processes, singularities, CBR, etc) has a stellar and planetary classification system you just cannot view physics as a whole as accurate. They can't even make up their minds about what a planet is! Why is ceres not a planet? oh, it hasn't cleared its orbit? but what's this? earth crossing asteroids? (not that I disagree with this classification, classifications are human made constructs, and as long as it is useful and works, go with it, just don't pretend its some innate quality) You seem to be confusing philisophical debates that deal with biology, with biology. One can study adenovirus, modifying its promoter sequences, characterizing how microRNAs transcribed from viral DNA affect host cell gene expression, etc - You could describe exactly what it is, and what it does. Yet, that would not answer the philisophical question "is it alive?" I'll leave the questions of what is life and what is not life to the philosophers. Is a self replicating RNA molecule alive? I don't know, but I know it has biological activity, that there is hereditary descent with modification, that it evolves, etc. Likewise, I'm not overly concerned with what is a species, genus, subspecies, race, etc... If I want to study mRNA expression in mitochondria, its not even enough that two samples are from the same species... I want them to come from the same clonal cell line, wouldn't want results complicated by interspecies variation. After you get that down, then you stat useing these classifications as simply tools to direct your search... If you look at classification as anything more than a tool, you are doing it wrong.

The gut bacteria would likely be similar enough that it would work. FYI, humans are born basically with a sterile gut, which is then quickly colonized by bacteria. The bacteria living on your skin are not the same as those on someone else's skin. The bacteria on your outer elbow are not the same as the bacteria on your inner elbow. If you look at how fast and how much bacteria can evolve in the lab when subjected to different conditions, its likely bacteria acquired from the environment would become adapted to a dino digestive system very rapidly. The pH, temperature, food intake, would all be relatively similar to animals still living today. The biggest problem is simply that DNA doesn't last that long... And I would not say its the least accurate of the natural sciences. Molecular biology, a subset of microbiology, is very rigorous. Just because there is a debate over useless terminology, does not make it pseudoscience. Nobody in the lab I work in concerns themselves with the definition of a species or life. Its quite irrelevant to the studies we're doing. Of course, to the laypeople, these irrelevant definitions are pretty much all they understand.

No we don't. But you are right about the definition thing being a mess. For as useful as the interbreeding definitions are, they are completely inadequate for asexual species, or where "***" is not linked to reproduction (as in bacterial conjugation, which may be interspecies anyway). "Reproductive isolation" is often used instead, which would still allow for two animals to be classified into two separate species, even if it is possible for them to produce fertile offspring (the isolation could be behavioral, or geographical, for instance) Ring Species make that not so useful either. In the end, we must accept that classification systems are somewhat arbitrary human constructs. As such, many people will just stop arguing one way or another, and consider the whole argument irrelevant. Likewise the levels of the old Linnaean taxonomy system are arbitrary. What constitutes a genus is arbitrary (there is much uproar among d. melanogaster scientists, over the proposal to split the genus into two separates genuses - a drosophilia and a sophophora genus, with melanogaster going into sophophora). Cladistics is nice, but ultimately we just use an arbitary resolution cut off. Really, you'd be following each individual in a population, each individual would be a branch on the cladogram, and you'd have a lot of intertwined/repeatedly merging and separating branches as individuals reproduce sexualy. In which case clustering and network analysis is more appropriate to at least make objective definitions for species (even if its still arbitrary, its better than arbitrary *and* subjective)

I can't believe people are actually debating this on KSP forums. Gyroscopes aren't magical, and can't magically produce thrust with no reaction mass

"And we've discovered other organisms in recent years that can survive without one or more of the commonly-accepted 'prerequisites' for sustaining life. " Such as? I sincerely hope you are not referring to that terrible and soundly refuted "arsenic life" paper. Whether or not viruses are life is a matter of definition or semantics. It is clear that they are biological entities - no biologist will dispute that. If we just rephrase the question to alien biological entities, then we bypass this issue as well. "Well Laythe obviously has life, no other way to get an oxygen atmosphere, microbes and even some primitive swamps and corrals, something keep the ocean liquid." Not strictly true, but very suggestive of life. Duna != Mars, but it we assume that is true, it may still be lifeless. Duna is in many ways better than mars now (maybe not mars in the past), given that its atmospheric pressure is ~20x greater than that of Mars. Actually, given its atmospheric pressure, and temperatures, it certainly *should* have liquid water. Maybe the Devs just didn't want to make landing there too hard. Imagine landing on Duna, with 1/20th its atmosphere (even landing at the highest points would be easy) - oh, and increase its gravity by 25% Also, those mars lichen experiments still don't show that it can survive long term. It survives ~30 days, and unlike tardigrades, does show some metabolic activity in those 30 days, but they are likely still dying, and certainly not reproducing, given the lack of water. Eve- actually, at those atmopheric pressures, it *could* be water - but if it were, Eve should be a lot hotter, and then the water wouldn't last very long (lost to space, as with venus - maybe Eve is like an early venus?) Minmus- doesn't make sense for it to be ice, given that its at the same distance from the sun as kerbin, the day side near the equator would sublime off into space... and it should have a big coma like a comet

I think he meant that the "land" on titan is mostly water ice ie, in response to: "the 'land' are just frozen water?" Titan has ethane/methane/'hydrocarbon' lakes, and a lare part of its "land" is frozen water ice

There's pretty much no counter to an X ray laser. The range of just a 10 meter focusing array and a 1 gigajoule pulse will extend several to dozens of AU (depending on the specific wavelength), at those wavelengths, only grazing incidence mirrors will work, if your mirror is at less than about 1 degree from parallel with the incoming photons, it won't reflect, and you're screwed. Pulse lasers will vaporize the surface, and literally cause an explosion - and its much more effective than slowly melting through your target. The only thing better than an X ray laser, would be a gamma ray lazer... but good luck focusing that thing....

Given data indicating interbreeding between neandertals and other humans (and also Denisovans), their lineage continues. It would help to define species... but thats another topic. A species can split with no extinctions A species can evolve without any branching, still with no extinctions - the only lineages going extinct are at the individual or small group level. The interbreeding population does not go extinct. Even in the case of native americans and Europeans - native lineages continued on in many areas, although most often heavily diluted by European interbreeding (ex: sacajawea, or however it is spelled). Lobe finned fish did not go extinct, they branched - one branch was the tetrapods, they did not go extinct, they branched - one branch was the amniotes, they did not go extinct - one branch was the synapsids, they did not go extinct (although they nearly did at the end permian and mid triassic).... and so on. When amniotes split into diapsids and synapsids, both lineages continued. Of course some species cause others to go extinct, but this concept of making the "ancestral species" going extinct is flawed IMO. The "ancestral form" may go extinct, but the population continued - and of course there are plenty of examples of the ancestral form continuing with little change while a new branch takes a very different form. But still no answer to my previous statement (I know, I added it in during an edit, I started the edit before there was any reply): If you think we'd survive the events of the End-Permian extinction, you're very likely wrong. So if we wouldn't survive random event X, and species A didn't survive random event X, why do we have more right to exist than species A?

because what you described is not speciation all you described is an allele becoming more widespread Moreover, when there is adaptive radiation, the "old species" doesn't go extinct. When early lungfish like tetrapods started venturing on land, they didn't cause the aquatic Sarcopterygians to go extinct, did they?

Yes, you do have a poor understanding of evolution "They had their chance at competing for survival and lost out. " Often due to random events. If you think we'd survive the events of the End-Permian extinction, you're very likely wrong. So if we wouldn't survive random event X, and species A didn't survive random event X, why do we have more right to exist than species A?

Does anyone know if there is a way to quickly reconnect to a docking port after undocking? It seems if I want to undock, rotate something a little with 1m distance, and redock, I can't do it. It seems I have to move some distance away, and then re-approach. Can anyone explain what the rules are on docking ports after undocking, and if there is a way to do what I want?

So I've got a modded LV-N that has two modes wit two different specific impulses (one of which consumes only liquid fuel), based upon the Rapier concept. The problem is, there are no effects associated with the engine running. All I see are the overheat effects. Can someone tell me how to get the engine effects working? Here's the relevant part of the cfg file: mass = 2.75 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.2 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 12 maxTemp = 4000 fx_exhaustFlame_blue = 0.0, -1.6, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running fx_exhaustLight_blue = 0.0, -1.6, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, running fx_smokeTrail_light = 0.0, -1.6, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running EFFECTS { running_closed { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_vent_medium volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_smokeTrail_light transformName = smokePoint emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.25 speed = 1.0 1.0 localOffset = 0, 0, 1 } MODEL_MULTI_PARTICLE { modelName = fx_exhaustLight_blue transformName = thrustTransform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.5 speed = 1.0 1.2 } } power_open { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_vent_medium volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } MODEL_MULTI_PARTICLE { modelName = fx_exhaustLight_blue transformName = thrustTransform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.5 speed = 1.0 1.2 } } running_open { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_rocket_hard volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_smokeTrail_light transformName = smokePoint emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.25 speed = 1.0 1.0 localOffset = 0, 0, 1 } } engage { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_vent_soft volume = 1.0 pitch = 2.0 loop = false } } flameout { PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_exhaustSparks_flameout_2 transformName = smokePoint oneShot = true } AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_explosion_low volume = 1.0 pitch = 2.0 loop = false } } } MODULE { name = MultiModeEngine primaryEngineID = 1 secondaryEngineID = 2 } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = 1 directThrottleEffectName = power_open runningEffectName = running_open thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 60 heatProduction = 600 fxOffset = 0, 0, 1.6 PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 1.0 DrawGauge = True } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 800 key = 1 220 } } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = 2 runningEffectName = running_closed thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 180 heatProduction = 600 fxOffset = 0, 0, 1.6 PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 0.9 DrawGauge = True } PROPELLANT { name = Oxidizer ratio = 1.1 } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 600 key = 1 280 } } MODULE { name = ModuleJettison jettisonName = fairingL bottomNodeName = bottom isFairing = False jettisonedObjectMass = 0.1 jettisonForce = 1 jettisonDirection = 1 0 0 } MODULE { name = ModuleJettison jettisonName = fairingR bottomNodeName = bottom isFairing = False jettisonedObjectMass = 0.1 jettisonForce = 1 jettisonDirection = -1 0 0 } MODULE { name = ModuleGimbal gimbalTransformName = thrustTransform gimbalRange = 1 } MODULE { name = ModuleAnimateHeat ThermalAnim = overheat }

Yes, he should have stupilated: *for a given engine type* or *engines of a given ISP* "Increasing your TWR lowers your Delta-V because you have to add rocket motors (which contributes to dry mass)." ie, increasing TWR by adding more engines of the same ISP lowers your delta-V

Except... it can get even more complicated. For example, consider the case of a final stage consisting of a command pod with 2x sepratrons, and a liquid fuel engine underneath on a decoupler. If you burned the sepratrons first, then fired the liquid engine, you'd not get much benefit from the sepratrons. But if you burn the liquid engine, jettison it, and then fire the sepratrons, you'll get more dV. In this case, it goes back to mass ratio. Also I'd say we should talk about engine efficiencies, not fuels. We could do another case with 2 stages of FL-T200's and an engine - assume a lander can or even a command seat. One is a nuke, the other is a 48-7s. Burning the least efficient engine first is only good if the mass ratios are equal. Due to the mass of a nuclear engine, its more efficient to burn the nuke, then jettison it, and then burn the 48-7s. Or we could do a more reasonable case of a 48-7s and 2x oscarB/round-8 toroidal tanks, and a FL-T400 tank + nuke. For such a system, you'd want to use the 48-7s last. Also, with RCS, you could put (a) RCS port(s) on a command pod, in which case you'd want to not use the rcs it carries for maximum dV (assuming its just hte command pod, and nothing else that you are trying to push) Its ok to have a lower ISP upper stage, if its mass ratio makes up for it, and you can't get a similar mass ratio with a higher ISP engine. However, given the mass of all solid boosters except sepratrons, there are better options. SRBs should only be in the bottom stages... pretty much just like mainsails

Well, you don't actually want to keep up with terminal velocity the whole ascent. Its most obvious in the upper atmosphere where escape velocity is lower than terminal velocity. Generally you want the dV losses of gravity drag to equal the dV loses of atmospheric drag. However, the dV loses of gravity drag correspond to the sin of your angle relative to the surface. When you thrust parallel to the ground, you have no gravity drag - of course in the case where you still have atmospheric drag, this is not good - they should be equal, so you should still be pointing up, rasing your apoapsis. But assuming a proper ascent path, at the higher altitudes, well into your gravity turn, gravity drag becomes quite small due to your angle with respect to the surface, and as a result, you should also be travelling much lower than terminal velocity. Also note that generally speaking, you need a TWR of 2:1 to maintain terminal velocity (whereas a TWR of 1.5 should get you 70% of the way there), as at that point the force of drag = the force of gravity. Once you're thrusting at 30 degrees from the horizon in your gravity turn, you'd only need half the thrust to maintain a given optimal velocity - however its true you don't need to just hold one speed at one instant, but you need to accelerate to reach the ever higher optimal ascent velocities. So I'm not sure what the TWR you really need for the upper stages is... if you were already at a given optimal velocity, you need less thrust to maintain it than when in the vertical part of your ascent, but you also want to accelerate quite rapidly

Yea, I'm doing full stock, so I'm just sticking a small docking port on there, and an extra oscar-B fuel tank, hopefully the docking port weight doesn't affect my dV that much, and the oscar B doesn't kill my TWR. I also modified the launcher - which has a core of 2 stacked orange tanks with a mainsail - so I can ditch the mainsail and refuel the core as an InterPlatentary (IP) stage, maybe even dock my lab-rover to the bottom (putting a large docking port, and then a mainsail which detaches), but now my launcher seems to break on the launchpad... I still haven't actually sent kerbals (just the lander with a probe core and empty seats), or a return vessel. I also haven't bothered with refueling the launcher core for the IP journey, and just burn my lander's engines for the IP burn, land, and then edit the save file to give it full fuel for the ascent trial. Still working on getting the whole mission together... the lander launch, the sciene package, the refuel for the IP burn, and the return craft... (should be pretty standard stuff) However, I can at least cross off the ascent stage and ascent launcher - even though I'm now tweaking it with the docking port additions

Well, I just made the attempt... I added av-8r fins to the outer asparagus ring, big mistake. I landed on a hillside, barely didn't tip over. ~1,300 m altitude.. saves me about 500 m/s I guess - still wasn't far from the liquid. Lift off was very difficult because the fins kept trying to bring my attitude to be in line with my velocity vector, which starts out more horizontal than I'd like due to the tilt of my landing site. Also, I had arranged it so that my outer asparagus stage was asparagused with the booster stage to get the lander into orbit, and I didn't action group my liftoff engines, so the engines fired as I was increasing the throttle, rather than set it to full and then firing the engines. I had to get creative with retracting certain landing legs, and locking/unlocking some suspensions, but I was able to finally launch without flying horizontally to my doom. Once the fins were gone, it flew much better, the single lv-t45 provided enough control. My lower asparagus ring had not quite enough TWR, so the ascent was a bit inefficient. The core of the lower asparagus had not enough TWR, but I had it asparagused with the twin FL-T200s+ 48-7s above it, which helped its TWR, and the TWR of the LV-909 stage. At one point around 30-40km I think I actually started overspeeding, but then again found myself under terminal velocity (although you don't want to travel at terminal velocity as you get more horizontal in the gravity turn. My ascent profile wasn't very efficient, I ened up with an apoapsis of 136km, and a perapsis of 36 km.... :/ It required less than 80 m/s to bring the perapsis above 100km. With a bit of optimization, I think it could get my 2 kerbals into orbit without using their jetpacks. Certainly, if I had just landed at a higher location, it would have been fine (while with that ascent profile, if I had landed at sea level, even jetpacking... they may not have made it into a stable orbit). *edit* just ran it again from the quick save, a more optimal ascent path got me into a 105 x 120 km orbit, with about 3.2 units of liquid fuel left in the top stage (sufficient for over 300 m/s of dV) I declare the lander a success... the only problem... ones gets science for bringing a ship/vessel back from Eve, no? I may need to design a lander where I can recover a part of it, to get maximum science...

Hmmm, I would have though that by the time I got to the Lv-909 stage, TWR wouldn't be so important, and I'd be in the upper atmo soing my gravity turn. Also, the dV seems uncomfortably low - I'm thinking either 1 more oscar B fuel tank in the upper stage, or perhaps on the Fl-t400 stage I could add 2 FL-T200 tanks on radial decouplers with 48-7s(?) Lv-909s(?) - no cross feeding to improve the TWR of the core (since when its the core alone thrusting, it won't have a full fuel load). I know 48-7s are more efficient than LV-909s for low masses (its better to push around a lot less mass at a little less ISP, than to push around a lot of mass with higher ISP), but I'd think with the stage above it, that 48-7s wouldn't be what I'd want here.... but if I only lose 4 m/s, its not such a big deal. This suggestion, and the OP's engine cluster, illustrate one thing that sort of bugs me about KSP. For gameplay considerations, bigger doesn't have to be better, but it certainly shouldn't be worse. By this I mean that using multiple small parts shouldn't be better than using one large part - if for nothing else than to reduce part count. I'm very tempted to go non-stock, and just do very simple mods using the rescale factor (and mass and thrust) to make proportionately larer "small parts" ie scale up the aerospike to be larger so I can use 1 large aerospike instead of a quad adaptor and 4 of them. Doing this with the 48-7S would improve computer performance even more, as all those cubic struts would be gone too. But a scaled up 48-7s (to the large size) would completely replace the mainsail....

Yes, it does need to be updated, as to the earlier comment, yes I know IRL lift is not a function of the mass of a wing. But then again... neither is the drag. Also IRL, any given wing has a fixed Lift/drag ratio (for a given angle of attack). I was operating under the assumption that the wings and control surfaces with the best lift rating/ drag coefficient were going to be the most efficient within atmospheres. I guess I was wrong, and I should be looking for the best lift rating/mass :/ I think that lift does not scale with the 2nd power of velocity, but drag does, can also lead to some stability issues with control surfaces that acheive active stability through varying their "lift" What may be sufficient at low speeds won't work at high speeds (now this may sound familiar to some IRL cases, but thats only in a very vague sense, when you get down to the details, its very dissimilar)