OceanBreeze

From what I can gather from reading various sources, researchers have used gravitational wave signals, along with new theoretical and particle physics, to produce new calculations which indicate the cores of the most massive neutron stars are so dense, atomic nuclei cease to exist, condensing into quark matter. The researchers conclude that the cores of the most massive neutron stars are made up of an exotic 'soup' of subatomic particles called quarks, and various bound states of quarks. This is a deuteron, where a neutron and proton are bound together. In a neutron star, many neutrons bound together produce an array of “udd” bound states of quarks: Image credit: CERN / European Organization for Nuclear Research, http://www.physik.uzh.ch/ But based on my limited understanding, I will attempt to answer the question you posed earlier: Quote: “So do we agree that neutron star can create particle/antiparticle pairs including photons and exotic particles by its mighty MAGNETOSPHERE?” Unquote No, I don’t agree it is the Neutron Star’s Magnetosphere that is responsible for the creation of particles. Instead, it is the extremely high-pressure conditions inside the neutron star that causes the neutrons to fuse together, making the neutron star essentially one big nucleus, with a density over 100 trillion times that of water, just at the base of the crust. But density is expected to increase the deeper you go, and the new research, using gravitational waves, indicates under high-enough heat and density, neutrons break down even further into their constituent quarks, creating a sort of quark soup. As Victor correctly pointed out in his post, Quote: I don't think a magnetic field's energy can be directly converted into photons or Higgs Bosons. It is the proton collision that converts the energy into these particles at CERN. The Magnetic Field just accelerates the charged Protons to near the speed of light and it is not a direct conversion of energy at CERN from magnetic to massive particles. Unquote Particle creation then, either requires high-speed collisions or extremely high pressure and density to cause neutrons to fuse together and then break down into an exotic soup of quark constuents. What role the powerful X-ray and optical emissions from the nebula play in the formation of particles is not clear. There is no doubt that charged particles are accelerating to extreme energies to produce the jets and rings glowing in X-rays. But without collisions, can there be particle production? Wait, how about when two Neutron stars collide? As neutron stars merge, a hot ring with some quarks forms around the center. Then a very hot region forms in the center with lots of quarks. In this case, it does seem that all requirements are met regarding collisions plus the magnetic jets can play a significant role in accelerating particle collisions to produce exotic particles. In fact some physicists think colliding neutron stars may hint at new physics that could explain dark matter, which may answer your other perceptive question: quote: If so, could it be that our current particles list/table is not fully updated? unquote That may indeed be the case, much more research is required.

I could not answer this question without doing a bit of research. This is a NASA image of the Crab Nebula taken from optical and X-ray data from the Chandra Observatory: Brief explanation written by a professional astronomer: The Crab Pulsar, a city-sized, magnetized neutron star spinning 30 times a second, lies at the center of this tantalizing wide-field image of the Crab Nebula. A spectacular picture of one of our Milky Way's supernova remnants, it combines optical survey data with X-ray data from the orbiting Chandra Observatory. The composite was created as part of a celebration of Chandra's 15 year long exploration of the high energy cosmos. Like a cosmic dynamo the pulsar powers the X-ray and optical emission from the nebula, accelerating charged particles to extreme energies to produce the jets and rings glowing in X-rays. The innermost ring structure is about a light-year across. With more mass than the Sun and the density of an atomic nucleus, the spinning pulsar is the collapsed core of the massive star that exploded, while the nebula is the expanding remnant of the star's outer layers. The supernova explosion was witnessed in the year 1054. Some more information from a different site, explaining how 0-charge neutrons can act as a dynamo to create a powerful magnetic field; when we know that magnetic fields are created by moving electric charges. QUOTE “The key is that a neutron star isn’t just a simple ball of neutrons; it’s actually layered. As we progress from the outside-in, we find layers of: electrons, followed by the nuclei of atoms (like iron), followed by a layer where nuclei are layered (like impurities) inside an ocean of neutrons, followed by a transition zone to the core, where the core is a neutron superfluid (a liquid-like phase with absolutely zero friction) along with charged-particle impurities of various masses inside of it. It’s not like having one single, neutral entity at all. And don’t forget that neutrons themselves are not fundamental, neutral particles, they themselves are made up of charged particles that have different charges and masses from one another. And at approximately 10 km in radius — with all the angular momentum of a typical Sun-like star — these things rotate at speeds of between 10-and-70% the speed of light! In short, that’s a recipe for a magnetic field on the order of 100 million Tesla, or about a trillion times what we find at the Earth’s surface. The neutrons themselves have intrinsic magnetic moments (since they’re made up of these charged quarks), and the incredibly high energies inside the neutron star can not only create particle/antiparticle pairs, but can create exotic particles as well. The charged particles that exist inside the neutron star are highly conductive, plus there are still gravitational, density, temperature and conductivity gradients inside of the neutron star.” UNQUOTE [Which would seem to answer your question, IF we accept the correctness of this source.]

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Precisely why viral infections are difficult to cure is the fact that viruses are not alive and therefore cannot be killed. If the virus exists external to the human body it can be destroyed, not killed, by any number of ways. Simply washing your hands with soap and water destroys most viruses because the soap molecules wedge themselves into the lipid membrane and pry it apart. Antivirals do not attack the virus itself; they work by suppressing the virus's ability to infect and multiply in your cells. The usual mechanism involves inhibiting molecular interactions and functions in the cells, needed by the virus to produce new copies of itself, halting the attack. The virus is not destroyed and sometimes the infection can reoccur.

"I don't accept lines" You have an aversion to drawing lines? Well that explains why we are having so much difficulty communicating! Any discussion about LUCA, or any other organism which lies on the evolutionary tree of life should be done within the framework of cladistics, and cladistics is all about drawing lines. In fact, I posted a very simple cladogram in the post you are replying to and here is another: The reason why LUCA is important: It is believed that LUCA is the latest ancestor to all current existing life on Earth. And no, it is not the first form of life on Earth. Biologists consider this long-vanished organism important enough work on reconstructing a rough genetic blueprint of LUCA. The work involved studying the six million or so genes common to both bacteria and other single-celled organisms known as archaea—which are similar to bacteria but differ in shape, membrane chemistry, metabolism and more. Grouping those genes into categories defined by age, function and other characteristics, they came up with just 335 sequences that are thought to have the deepest routes in the bacteria and archaea lines—and, by extension, in all of the multi-celled organisms that followed. It was those 335, then, that formed the basis of LUCA. Naturally, just as has happened here on this forum, the genetic reconstruction provoked an academic cat-fight—a healthy if sometimes snarky part of scientific progress—to break out, with most of the debate centering on whether the organism had enough genetic robustness to qualify as a living thing yet or was only sort of quasi-alive. And no one knows either if this really is the LUCA, or just a LUCA, an early life form that was followed by something a tiny bit later. None of that should detract from the importance of this sort of research to people who wonder where they came from and invent acronyms and cladograms of lines to sort it all out. However, you have made it clear you are not interested in drawing lines, since that is your stated position, I can see there is no point in discussing this any further with you.

To answer the question of whether viruses are living things or not, requires a precise scientific definition of life. Anyone who is so inclined can argue over such a definition until the proverbial cows come home, and some arguments are more convincing than others. Then again, answering this question may amount to nothing more than a philosophical exercise; or the basis of a lively and heated rhetorical debate but with little real consequence. Since this forum’s purpose is to foster lively discussion, I will oblige by continuing. According to modern day cell theory all known living things are made up of one or more cells and the cell is the fundamental unit of structure and function in all living organisms. Since a virus does not have a cellular structure, it fails at being a living organism, according to cell theory. Now for the “However”, cells are themselves composed of many sub-celluar components, such as ribosomes, mitochondria, membranes, DNA and proteins which together carry out the processes of life. One might ask whether those individual sub-cellular constituents are alive on their own or does life arise as an emergent property of a certain level of complexity, as the cell theory seems to be claiming. While a virus fails to reach the same level of critical complexity as a living cell, it is made from the same fundamental, physical building blocks; the same complex biochemicals that cells are made of. In fact, modern molecular biology rests on a foundation of information gained through viruses. Just one example: biologists have studied viral activity in host cells to determine how nucleic acids code for proteins. Modern evolutionary biology now accepts viruses, because of their rapid rates of replication and mutation, are the world’s leading source of genetic innovation. Viruses directly exchange genetic information with living organisms. Despite that recognition, most evolutionary biologists, and indeed biologists in general, still consider viruses to be inanimate, or “not fully alive” or “they verge on life”. Of course, these viewpoints will never satisfy anyone who will only settle for a black or white answer but maybe such a definitive answer is just not possible at this point in our understanding. [I should add that as a participant in NOAA’s marine research expeditions, I have had the opportunity to query a number of highly qualified marine biologists and other researchers about the classification of viruses as either living entities or inanimate bits of chemistry and the consensus view is they are the latter.]

I agree we are talking past each other, because I said basically the exact same thing that you seem to be disagreeing with. Quote: "the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) theory states that the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth, is estimated to have lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. This theory does not insist on the LUCA being one single organism, but can be one single population of organisms. " This isn't my opinion, it is what the LUCA theory is all about. Why you insist on going further back than LUCA baffles me, but I think it best that I drop the subject because we definitely are failing to communicate! As in cool hand LUCA

"Let us hope no earthquakes again!" Taiwan's strongest earthquake in 25 years kills 9 people, 50 missing April 4, 20245:11 AM GMT+7Updated 14 hours ago Damn!

I don't wish to belabor the point, but the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) theory states that the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth, is estimated to have lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. This theory does not insist on the LUCA being one single organism, but can be one single population of organisms. It really does not matter how anyone chooses to interpret that. The point is the DNA/RNA evidence indicates that all life on earth is descended from only one particular organism or population of those organisms. Far from being considered as an outdated idea, LUCA is very widely accepted today as a viable theory that even astrobiologists at NASA take seriously.

Making people follow links, without any posted content, is usually frowned upon here. Sure. Life on Earth Arose Just Once: "All life on Earth shares a single common ancestor, a new statistical analysis confirms. The idea that life forms share a common ancestor is “a central pillar of evolutionary theory,” says Douglas Theobald, a biochemist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts." "One isn’t such a lonely number. All life on Earth shares a single common ancestor, a new statistical analysis confirms. The idea that life forms share a common ancestor is “a central pillar of evolutionary theory,” says Douglas Theobald, a biochemist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Because microorganisms of different species often swap genes, some scientists have proposed that multiple primordial life forms could have tossed their genetic material into life’s mix, creating a web, rather than a tree of life. To determine which hypothesis is more likely correct, Theobald put various evolutionary ancestry models through rigorous statistical tests. The results, published in the May 13 Nature, come down overwhelmingly on the side of a single ancestor. A universal common ancestor is at least 102,860 times more probable than having multiple ancestors, Theobald calculates. No one has previously put this aspect of evolution through such a stringent test, says David Penny, a theoretical biologist and Allan Wilson Centre researcher at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand. “In one sense, we are not surprised at the answer, but we are very pleased that the unity of life passed a formal test,” he says. He and Mike Steel of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, wrote a commentary on the study that appears in the same issue of Nature." Note: Theobald’s study does not address how many times life may have arisen on Earth. Life could have originated many times, but the study suggests that only one of those primordial events yielded the array of organisms living today. That agrees with what I wrote: One common ancestor means only one (successful) appearance of life on our planet in the billions of years that Earth has existed. The building blocks being everywhere does not mean that life has originated everywhere. What if a stone fell on our one common ancestor, killing it? None of us would be here today. That is how thin the odds are for life to originate here on Earth.

It is still interesting enough that I would like to add my own comments. I am not taking issue with anything you wrote, just contributing my own thoughts. Yes and No. The BB Theory is about how the Universe developed from what is thought to have been, a tiny, dense, fireball that exploded 13.8 billion year ago. Few, if any astronomers or cosmologists dare to speculate on what existed before that point; how that fireball came to be. That being the case, many astronomers and cosmologists simply accept the BB as the beginning of our Universe and the fireball, if that is what it was, as something outside of our Universe. That seems to be a fair presumption, doesn’t it? It seems that we are the only ones who dwell on the past, spend time analysing it, applying lessons to the future, resulting in advanced civilizations. Is there are doubt that humans are the most advanced in terms of tools, technology, and conceptual inventions? Is there any evidence to the contrary? Do we know with any certainty when the Universe will end? Could it end in 5 Billion years due to a mechanism we haven’t even thought of? Just a thought. To be fair, nobody knows this. However, it does appear that an intergalactic vacuum lacks just about everything that life needs in order to develop. We do know that sometimes stars and planets are ejected from galaxies into intergalactic space and these may have the ingredients necessary to support life. However, a galaxy was required to exist for these ejections to happen in the first place. So I tend to agree with Vic that prior to the formation of galaxies, it would have been impossible for life to come into existence. But you are right; I don’t know this for a fact. I would never say the odds of us being first or even the only technological life in existence is Zero. Consider this fact: All life on Earth replicates using a DNA/RNA code to tell it which proteins to make, how to fold them, and with only minor variations, every single living thing in the world uses exactly the same code. That means every single one of the trillions (septillions?) of living things on the planet evolved from just one common ancestor. Whatever that ancestor was that caused life to appear, it has happened only once! One common ancestor means only one (successful) appearance of life on our planet in the billions of years that Earth has existed. Before we talk about the odds of life appearing elsewhere in the Universe, I suggest we consider that the odds of life appearing on our own planet; a planet which seems to be perfect for life, must be incredibly thin, hanging on that one common ancestor surviving and replicating. If you think about that for a moment you may conclude it's just a possibility that life simply hasn't happened anywhere else. Our one common ancestor and only one appearance of life on our planet are scientific facts. The Drake equation is pure mathematical speculation. Yes, the black holes will most likely be the last structures to evaporate.

Welcome aboard our humble forum. We are happy to have you on board and hope you enjoy posting here. I liked your story about the three-masted EOLUS, and felt compelled to do a bit of research. I found this blog that has some of her history, as well as her present state as a restaurant in Malta, renamed the BLACK PEARL: I am a marine engineer myself. As a US Coast Guard cadet many years ago I cut my teeth on this beautiful three-masted cutter, the USCGC EAGLE: I can well understand why you consider those four months in 1974 as the best in your life. There is nothing quite like crossing an ocean on a tall ship.

Breathing to reduce stress Scientific studies have shown that controlling your breath can help to manage stress and stress-related conditions. Breath control is also used in practices such as yoga, tai chi and some forms of meditation. Many people use their breathing to help promote relaxation and reduce stress.

"I just assumed it would replace the Ozone layer if I produced Ozone using the Bio machines, Interesting." You have raised an interesting point, which I should have addressed before. That is, if CFCs, which are produced by human activities, which lead to elevated levels of tropospheric carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrogen oxides, and these gases participate in a series of chemical reactions with pollutants that deplete ozone; Why is it that the CFCs are able to be transported across the tropospheric-stratospheric boundary, while tropospheric ozone does not cross into the stratosphere? It would seem to any logical person if CFCs are transported to the stratosphere, the same must be true of ozone. The answer is not intuitive, but actually very simple: Because there are very much higher levels of ozone in the stratosphere, the net transfer of ozone is from the stratosphere to the troposphere. However, this exchange is minor and does not play a significant role in determining ozone abundances in both the stratosphere and troposphere. The Montreal Protocol and other major efforts are being undertaken to implement emission control strategies that will limit tropospheric pollutants such as CFCs, so that stratospheric ozone is expected to fully recover to normal levels over the next 50 to 100 years. Unfortunately, these initiatives are challenged by global industrialization which continues to create tropospheric pollutants, including CFCs, that are emitted both locally and from distant upwind sources, sometimes from other countries or continents, making the task to control these emissions that much more difficult.