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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: How to genetically classify a weathering mineral?

« on: 19/11/2021 21:58:26 »

I think this is really a matter of semantics, or perhaps language translation?

Supergene processes are simply geologic processes that involve weathering near the surface of the earth- oxidation is the most notable, but enrichment may also be a supergene process. Freedictionary defines supergene processes as "processes of the physical and chemical conversion of mineral matter in the upper parts of the earth’s crust and on its surface through the action of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and living organisms at low temperatures. They consist in chemical decomposition, solution, hydrolysis, hydration, oxidation, and carbonization"
Most mineral alteration is not caused by supergene processes- much of it is caused by heat, pressure and hydrothermal (hot waters) circulation in the rocks.
The case of bauxite (aluminum ore) is caused by supergene processes: Aluminum does not oxidize easily in surface conditions, so as aluminum rich (especially feldspar rich) rocks chemically weather in the tropics, almost everything besides Fe and Al go into solution and are washed out, leaving a layer enriched in Al.
The case of chrysotile is not caused by supergene processes, and is also not sedimentary. Chrysotile  is formed by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks (mostly oceanic rocks when they get shoved into continents) and is one of main components of serpentine. These rocks form deep underground and eventually are exposed at the surface due to erosion, making chrysotile endogenic, metamorphic.

I applaud you for putting together your classification scheme. I agree that diagenetic minerals (example dolomite) should be classified sedimentary.

I hope this helps- please feel free to contact me about any other minerals.

I think "weathering" is less confusing than "surface alteration", because alteration can be caused by many geologic processes and is not limited to only surface conditions.

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Just Chat! / Re: Why do we have world problems?

« on: 19/11/2021 19:43:21 »

Human egoism is the main cause of all local and global problems. If people were kinder to each other, it seems to me that this would greatly change the planet for the better. I am currently collaborating with the EduBirdie company and am writing a small study on the topic of morality and on the topic of how important it is in this historical period to understand that we are one.

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Technology / Re: Do operating system updates require new computers?

« on: 19/11/2021 05:44:33 »

Do operating system updates require new computers?

Yes and No.

The new operating system will have new features that consume more RAM, CPU power and disk space than the old operating system.
- Microsoft would have tested the new operating system on new computers with the latest multi-core CPUs, large amounts of RAM and large hard disks - and it works fine.
- But if you have a 6 year-old computer with low-powered CPU and limited RAM, you will find the old operating system is noticeably faster than the new one; and that many of the new features are unusably slow. So there is no point in upgrading to the new operating system on an old computer.

At some point in time, Microsoft will cease supporting the old operating system with bug fixes and security updates, so you will be forced to buy a new computer, which will come pre-loaded with the new operating system.

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Just Chat! / Re: Why do we have world problems?

« on: 18/11/2021 09:52:15 »

If Artificial General Intelligence ever reaches Singularity...

Could then Humans leave the roles of Creating Social Laws, Upholding the Constitutional Values & seeing to it that they are being followed...

In short, could a Super A.I. then be a Leader, Judge & Cop? What they do are basically collecting and processing information to make decisions. Cops working at the field also have some physical things to do, but that's not really a big problem for AI.

Or would even AI learn the magic trick of corruption & start accepting rabbity bribes?

Creating proper Social Laws and Constitutional Values are instrumental goal to help achieving the terminal goal. Misidentification of the terminal goal, inaccurate perception of objective reality, or inaccurate cause and effect relationships among different things can bring unintended results.

In short, what could stop a Super A.I. from being a Leader, Judge & Cop?

What makes humans possessing power learn the magic trick of corruption & start accepting rabbity bribes? IMO, it's desire to get pleasure and avoid pain, which are meta rewards naturally emerged from evolutionary process. To prevent the AI from going to the same path, they must be assigned the appropriate terminal goal and meta rewards from the first time they are designed.

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The Environment / Re: Should we conserve for a Single Species or Habitat

« on: 18/11/2021 08:49:29 »

Thanks all for your input. I have contacted PTES last year. However after the introductions it has really been left for the Dormice group of the trust. I am a retired Ecologist?Environmental; Scientist, who, prior to looking after the reserve as a volunteer, worked the coppice for 8 years. I actually know what I am talking about, but my advice falls on deaf ears. Its so frustrating. I suppose my problem is I am a do'er not a networker - no influence!!

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The Environment / Re: Should we conserve for a Single Species or Habitat

« on: 18/11/2021 06:30:54 »

I help look after a Trust reserve where Hazel Dormice have been reintroduced. There is Hazel coppice, that is degrading as time goes on.

Which group is running this reintroduction? I assume PTES who have been releasing. They ought to be aware of the importance of habitat management for dormice.
Have you spoken to the mammal society? https://www.mammal.org.uk/species-hub/full-species-hub/discover-mammals/species-hazel-dormouse/
It might be worth contacting researchers in this field eg https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326126680_Habitat_preferences_of_hazel_dormice_Muscardinus_avellanarius_and_the_effects_of_tree-felling_on_their_movement
Who are part of this team https://wildlifescience.org/portfolio/dormouse-conservation/
This document outlines the importance of hazel coppicing and tree cover management https://ptes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Dormouse-Conservation-Handbook.pdf

I can’t give specific advice as this isn’t my field, but if you have problems finding the right people I have a personal interest in conservation and can ask around my contacts.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Do memories exist after death?

« on: 17/11/2021 21:50:00 »

The color of my eyes, my skin tone & possibly the nose that sits on my face...All bear resemblance to my Ancestors.

Can these things be also classified as Memory?

It's classified as information. All memory is information, but if you classify all information as memory, then there seems to be no point to having two distinct words to describe the same thing. So it seems that memory is a specific kind of information, and whether a seed constitutes memory or not depends on where you draw the line between your definitions.

So again, a dead person's memories might be gone, but the information possibly isn't, at least not right away. But there seems to be no simple way to read this information, just as you can't easily tell from a DNA molecule what sort of thing is described by it. A good biologist can get pretty close though, at least if it's something related to a life form that he's worked with before.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: How similar is human mitochondria to those of other lifeforms?

« on: 17/11/2021 20:15:14 »

Mitochondria are in a symbiotic relationship with their host species.
- They respond to cellular growth signals
- They respond to energy demands
- They produce many RNA sequences that are needed for building proteins (like transfer RNA)
- They communicate extensively with the host cell and its DNA through chemical and RNA signals
- So they may not work well in another species

Structurally, in some species Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) consists of one or several circular rings, while other species have linear mtDNA.
-There are also enormous variation in the size of mtDNA (measured in the number of DNA bases)

since mitochondria are now replaced in human embryos

I think you are talking about nuclear transfer to avoid mitochondrial diseases
-This is not transplanting the mitochondria - this is a complete cell + mitochondria + cytoplasm +cell wall transplant, which offers even more opportunities for incompatibility
- Ethics committees are just now coming to terms with human to human nuclear transfer to avoid mitochondrial diseases.
- I expect it they will be even more reluctant to allow human nuclear Xenotransplant

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Do memories exist after death?

« on: 17/11/2021 19:52:27 »

A baby has life, but no memory.

Studies have shown that even before birth, babies are picking up sounds from their mother, including the sounds of their "mother tongue".

This has been shown to affect the sounds that babies can distinguish after birth.

This is more in the speech processing part of the brain, rather than episodic memories, but I still count it as memory - it is still interconnections between neurons.

aren't Seeds just a bundle of memories?

We are certainly able to decode DNA sequences from plants, animals, ancient humans and even viruses, to an extent that was impossible in the year 1990, when the Human Genome Project was just getting underway.
- Progress during that project was exponential, with the first years devoted to improving techniques, and developing a high-level gene map that later work could fill in.
- As I understand it, after 7 years, when the planned 15-year project timetable was half used, only about 3% of the human genome had actually been decoded
- Some described it as a total waste of time, and should be abandoned
- But in fact, it was declared "finished" (for publicity purposes) 1 year ahead of schedule
- Exponential growth catches everyone by surprise!

Perhaps there will be a similar exponential progress in brain research?

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project

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Just Chat! / Re: Why do we have world problems?

« on: 17/11/2021 15:33:54 »

I think that true sociopaths, who have the ability to lie with a straight face, are mostly born rather than made, but it is possible that childhood experience may contribute to this trait. Surviving a boarding school education almost demands it if you have no other talent, and those politicians educated in the state system were probably called Billy-no-mates. A degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics will introduce you to the works of the world's most notorious parasites, and defiling a pig will pretty much guarantee a safe Tory seat.

My mother said that most Labour politicians were caught with a hand in the till, and most Tories, with a hand up a skirt, but times have changed and whilst a sly wink is now cause for dismissal (though blatant adultery is not), corruption has become as acceptable as incompetence.

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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: How to genetically classify a weathering mineral?

« on: 17/11/2021 08:00:39 »

@Zer0 Thank you!

I have 180 minerals in my app. Each sheet has a field: environments of formation. @Bass It has multiple environments, not only one. In this field I have for example for chrysotile two environments:

• Metamorphic: Contact and regional of ultramafic rocks (serpentinites).
• ??: Alteration of mafic rocks in surface.

Then I create questions with code for the students as:

• What of this minerals forms in the environment [??] Alteration of mafic rocks in surface?
• a) Pirite
• b) Chrysotile
• c) Enargite
• d) Calcite

@Bass Maybe chrysotile is not a good example. I have other minerals that also form in surface as an alteration/weathering product. Some of them form on soils:

Diaspore

• Sedimentary??: bauxites.
• Metamorphic: low degree of pelitic rocks.

If the mineral is formed in diagenesis I am classifying it as Sedimentary even it is a neoformation mineral from preexisting ones.

As an alteration product the genetic origin of chrysotile is not magmatic, it is an alteration product of magmatic rocks in surface. This applies to many clays and other minerals that are neoformation minerals from preexisting ones in surface rocks or soils as montmorillonite.

They are exogenous, they are not supergenic, so, they would be sedimentary?

@Bass When a rock is weathered in surface, there is not allways an enrichment. I understand supergenic proccess as an enrichment and usually related with ores and gangas formation by interaction of basin or magmatic waters with preexisting rocks. A clay in a soil is not ganga of any ore, it is not an enrichment product, it forms because the preexisting mineral is not stable in the surface conditions.

Might I add a field "Surface alteration" or "Weathering"?

What do you think it would be better for the students?:

Chrysotile

• Supergenic: Alteration of mafic rocks in surface.
• Sedimentary: Alteration of mafic rocks in surface.
• Surface alteration: Alteration of mafic rocks in surface.
• Weathering: Alteration of mafic rocks in surface.

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Just Chat! / Re: Why do we have world problems?

« on: 17/11/2021 06:38:45 »

So...what are Politicians taught?

Primarily how to gain and retain power. That include persuading other people to follow their biddings.

Politicians were useful traditionally because decision making process related to a society as a whole could only be done by humans. No other things including machines, could do the job. But humans as individual have their own personal desires and preferences, which may be different than interest of their society. This creates conflict of interest. And problems arise for those who are not in power when personal interest of the politicians win against public interests.

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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: How to genetically classify a weathering mineral?

« on: 16/11/2021 23:50:15 »

maybe taxonomic origins?

Your choice of the mineral chrysotile is probably not the best example for your question. Chrysotile is a serpentine mineral, which forms by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks- which would make it endogenic metamorphic

There are minerals that form at the surface, such as oxides, carbonates, hydroxides, etc. An example are iron oxide and hydroxide minerals (hematite, goethite, limonite) which form due to oxidation of other iron bearing minerals or iron (think rusting nail). These form by supergene processes near the surface of the earth. I would classify these as exogenic supergenic.

Hope that helps?

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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: How to genetically classify a weathering mineral?

« on: 16/11/2021 22:26:12 »

I would say this is a question of "taxonomy" not "genetics" (rocks don't have genes)

I think the OP is right that minerals as a result of weathering would be an exogenic classification, but I am not sure... I think the best member to answer this would be @Bass

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The Environment / Re: Is Rising CO2 level a Problem?

« on: 16/11/2021 18:20:21 »

The weather is, in effect, a complicated heat engine that does things like snow, hurricanes, rainbows etc.

The more of the Sun's energy you couple into it, the more of those things it will do, and the "harder" it will do them.
CO2 increases the coupling from radiative energy to kinetic energy and thus increases the  net transfer of power from the Sun to the weather.

More CO2 leads to more "wild weather"

It's just physics.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Do memories exist after death?

« on: 16/11/2021 15:44:35 »

You need to distinguish between "memory", the combination of hardware and software that permits storage and recall of data, and "memories" - the data within that system. There is no doubt that babies contain the hardware and bootstrap software, but are pretty much devoid of content.

So we move on to the nature of memory. In the realm of artificial memory we use a combination of static and dynamic memory hardware, and various forms of compression and regeneration software. It is arguable that we can segment the workings of the human brain in the same way.

The development of the hippocampus in London taxi drivers has been noted and implies that longterm memory is to some extent a hardware/static element. At the other end of the scale most people can remember a 7-digit phone number for long enough to dial it, but I get the impression from watching the development of pilots' radio communication that eight or nine digits is quite a feat until you acquire some "compression software" by experience: all civilian VHF frequencies begin with 1 and although communication frequencies are allocated in 8.33 kHz steps, the display is deliberately "fudged" to the nearest 5 kHz, sea level barometric pressure is usually between 900 and 1300 kPa, transponder codes are 4-digit octal (0-7 only)....so your longterm memory says you don't need to keep the whole instruction in your short-term memory to execute it.   

Most people can sing back one line of a jazz song (usually 8 or 12 bars, sometimes 16) and that is the essence of leading a crowd chorus, but to recall a whole verse or an entire 3 minute number needs lots of repetition for a beginner. An experienced musician however seems to develop some compression-decompression mechanism that allows adequate recall of an arrangement you may have only played once, years ago.  Note "adequate": like a video image, something can get lost  in the CODEC process, but the joy of live performance is to fill in the gaps!   

So my simplistic analogy is that short-term memory, like dynamic RAM, needs to be refreshed or compressed and transferred to something more akin to static RAM. To pursue the analogy to an extreme, interruption of the refresh process would destroy the contents of dynamic RAM but static RAM decays much more slowly. Evidence? Many people with head trauma never recall the previous two minutes or so, but gradually reconfigure the stuff about names and addresses. Thus we might conclude that longterm memory involves fairly permanent chemical changes that in principle could be detected in a nonfunctional brain, even if we have no idea how to decode them.

Considering how "memory techniques" work, I guess a lot of the CODEC business is done by association and probability, which may account for witness statements often being plausible but contradictory. It also explains the difference between learned language, where we consciously study the formalised structure of a foreign tongue, and language acquired by immersion. The former often gives us a good "passive vocabulary", particularly if we can recognise similarities or have studied a common root language (like Latin) and can read a newspaper or follow a conversation,  but "active vocabulary", the ability to respond  in Klingon without compiling the sentence in English and translating it, is much harder to acquire after the age of five.

Problem is that unless you know a lot about the history and experiences of your dead brain, you won't be able to disentangle the hard molecular data that has been compressed and compiled by association. 

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The Environment / Re: Is Rising CO2 level a Problem?

« on: 16/11/2021 14:17:10 »

Don't worry about my feelings, Zero.

Mark 6:4  "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house." This really should be Lesson 1 for any aspiring scientist.

I have no ambition to be liked, but one day to be respected. Probably too late, knowing how people work.

PS I spent half a day yesterday looking at "obvious" data and wondering what the x-ray machine was behaving so peculiarly. Then I looked at the underlying data and realised that it was working perfectly, but I was interpreting it superficially instead of wondering what was really going on. Thus I bear no malice towards the unbelievers:  Luke 23:34  "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

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The Environment / Re: Is Rising CO2 level a Problem?

« on: 16/11/2021 14:12:24 »

I seem to have missed your excellent point

I seem to remember just asking a question and not so much making a point, excellent or otherwise. But you answered it with "outcome for humanity", something not specified in your topic.

I suspect that the "best" outcome for humanity will be the one in which our environment changes the slowest.

OK, I can buy that, but the way to change it most slowly is to stop changing it. Whether that would be a good thing for humanity I think depends on one's vision of future humanity living in a sustainable manner. Assuming we've not totally poisoned the environment with radiation and such, do you see a low-tech life (essentially living like people did before the bronze age) or a high-tech one where there's still knowledge, internet, and industry and (importantly) globally enforced peace, without which the low-tech future is inevitable.
There are other alternative futures such as one where humanity very rapidly evolves to the new state of things, but that would probably drive the extinction levels to well above 85%.

There is plenty of room for debate on what the exact trade off is between our present economy and our future economy (often called the discount rate — ie "ok, putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is bad, but if we can make enough money now by doing it, we may be in a better position to pay for solutions later.")

People, countries, and corporations rarely willingly part with money to benefit a vision of the future. It is actually probably the economy, based on growth, debt, and limited resources, which will cause the population to abruptly fall to a fraction of its levels. Global warming may or may not be the straw that breaks that camel's back, but the back must inevitably be broken, and the state of the environment at that time probably will be a significant factor in the survivability of those that remain. Hence the importance of preservation of the environment, because it's those people that are 'humanity', and not the ones with the money.

I bring this up because people, by nature, have almost zero interest in this group of people. Our morals are based on completely different goals. The moral code pushed by the religions seem designed to force God's hand, to maximize the calamity and thus force the prophesied end-times. It would be considered a completely immoral act to take actions 'for humanity' as outlined above.
And that brings me to the point I meant to spell out in the other thread: This is the lack of actual solutions from both scientists and leaders today. Viable solutions are considered immoral, so with hands thus tied, humanity is actually incapable of acting for its own benefit. If there's aliens watching us, waiting for us to mature before being invited into the 'federation of planets' so to speak, then it's probably this level of maturity that they're waiting for, and are unlikely to see.

The other problem is that so much of the damage has already been done, that we may feel like we are "in for a penny, in for a dollar"

Yes, the damage has long since passed the point of irreversability. Sure, the climate might eventually return to something resembling what it was like around 1900, but it might take hundreds of millions of years. No creature evolved for 1900's climate will be around then, still waiting for it to be nice outside. That's not how evolution works. Evolution will indeed fix this 'problem', as it has all the others.

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The Environment / Re: Is Rising CO2 level a Problem?

« on: 16/11/2021 13:07:29 »

I have a humble Request, let's Please not make this personal.
Let's Please just stick to facts & evidences.

Careful. Most of your post was personal, which I shall try to ignore.

Reverting back to the Topic...

1) Rising CO2 feeds the loop...
Making drastic changes in weather patterns.

Rising CO2 raises global temperature. There's not much loop to that. Methane is something else. It also has that effect, and rising methane causes more methane to be released into the atmosphere, which is a feedback loop of sorts.

But climate anywhich ways is Unpredictable, Right?

Long term climate is very predictable. We know the oceans are heating up and that there will be more hurricanes and more severe ones. We can predict that this area will receive less rain than it used to, and this other area will get more. These cities (or whole countries like my ancestral one) will have to be abandoned.
What is unpredictable about the weather is exactly which days the storms will hit, but it is the average that matters here, not the specific schedule of the weather.

2) Would people in North Americas or specifically in the E.U. mind or dislike warmer climate?

It will disrupt the food supply for one thing. The extinctions will destroy the ecosystem upon which we depend. Bees in particular are a critical part of the process and are very much threatened by global warming.

i feel it's not the kind words the plants are reciprocating to, rather it's the CO2!

Plants do like it. I imagine that once the people go extinct, the plants will probably come back at a level not seen in millions of years. The oceans are another story. Something needs to replace the coral reefs which are too fragile to withstand a significant temperature change. But nature will find a way to fill the vacancy.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Do memories exist after death?

« on: 16/11/2021 08:46:15 »

if we can find a way to make someone die without causing oxygen deprivation.

Someone who is on a heart/lung machine will not suffer oxygen deprivation.
But if their brain is still intact, they are not legally dead.

I think the scanning process is a major problem.
- With current technology, if you could get a "fresh" brain, to make a complete map of the connections between cells (whether that be chemical, mechanical, protein structures, etc) on a scale of a synapse would require infusing it with antifreeze, cryogenically freezing it, and slicing it into extremely thin slices. These could be infused with a suitable stain and scanned into a computer with a microscope, to be reassembled as a digital 3D model.
- With a fantastic extension of current technology, one could image a super-resolution MRI machine that could obtain a non-destructive synapse-level scan of a whole brain. But that won't come soon (as I understand it, this would require an incredibly powerful magnetic field, and lots of processing power)!   

Then that leads to the next problem: how do you interpret this mass of data?