Supergrunch

I guess I don't know all that many schools.

Every school I know calls them balls.

When Simeon Poisson (the man behind the Poisson distribution) was a child, he often had his legs tied together and was hung over a hook by his nanny to stop him misbehaving when she went out. His constant swinging led to a lifelong fascination with the movement of pendulums.

That's a lot nicer... simple and stylish. I don't like the text all that much though, and I wouldn't italicise the "revo-europe member". All in all, 8/10.

I have some websites: http://www.i-am-bored.com And if you like webcomics: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com http://www.qwantz.com http://www.chugworth.com

For the gradient... perhaps something a bit more complex (with different shades of orange and gradients between), and also the gradient might look good at a slight angle. As for font, I'd go for something a litte more stylish than what you've currently got, but still nice and simple. And Shorty, your sig is tres cool... it gets a 9.

Is it time lapse photography?

Disgaea. Anyway, Ginger_Chris, your sig is simple but stylist. I think it could be improved by a different gradient and font. 7/10.

But Terry Pratchett is the most shoplifted author. (as the bible doen't have a single author)

He's the one on the left.

I think you'll find it can in some cases... why else do electric engines smell of ozone? I don't know the exact mechanism for the reaction... but surely infra-red could increase oxygen molecules by a particular quantised level causing homolytic fission just as much as ultra-violet can in the stratosphere... Anyway, the O radicals would react with other oxygen, forming ozone. Edit: Presumably you're aware that I was joking in my earlier post. Edit 2: With a bit of googling, I have discovered that oxygen radicals are produced by the electrical discharge, which then react via a mechanism to form ozone.

Your lungs have an internal surface area of about 70 square metres (about the size of a tennis court).

Dear God! You want wasabi in their drains?

It's not a translation as such, it's the approximation that would be used for the word in Japanese. Anyway, I like the red... but I think the text is a bit pixelated. Anyway, now I get what your sig is about, probably an 8.

It's probably part of the Kyoto agreement.

If anyone wants to read a book that's good but very disturbing, read In the miso soup by Ryu Murakami. (no relation of Haruki Murakami)

Surely the poo falling through the air in the Japanese toilets would create heat due to air resistance, breaking down oxygen into O radicals, which would then react to produce ozone, poisoning us all and causing global warming?

Quite nice. I don't get the reference (assuming there is one), but the sig is well done and stylish. 7/10

Yeah. There was a big article about it in New Scientist a few weeks back, saying how, as yet, it has no proven negative effects. So even the rats one was wrong.

I had to read view from the bridge for school, and I didn't think it was all that wonderful... mind you, I didn't see it performed. And Takeo, don't expect Norwegian Wood to be like Wind up bird... it's completely realistic. Neverthess, it is still a very good book.

I remember coming across a slow worm (sp?) when I was about 5 and thinking it was a snake. My dad tried to pick it up but it ran away. I like reptiles... they are cool. EDIT: Eenuh, with a bit of googling, I think your snake might be a juvenile Montpellier snake, Malpolon monspessulanus. The juveniles are a different colour to the adults... Of course, I might be completely wrong.

Aspartame has been accused of just about everything possible, but all of these accusations have been proved false.

Yes, but it could for smaller animals, and then those animals could develop valves as it is more efficient (they wouldn't get tired so quickly), and then these smaller animals could develop into larger ones. I'm 100% sure that the evidence does exist... part of the problem is that fossils of micro-organisms can be very unclear and hard to spot. This doesn't mean that evidence hasn't been found. (I'm not dodging the question, I just forgot to mention it) There are countless examples of "links" between species, especially with higher species simply due to the fact that they leave more obvious evidence of their existence (skeletons). Nobody is sugesting that entire organ systems have instantaneously appeared. People have problems now because today we're designed (by evolution) to exist with all our organs... we cannot cope with the lack of them. An example which can demonstrate how evolution works is that of the eye, as proposed by Dawkins. Imagine a group of normal cells. By a mutation, one of these cells becomes very slightly light sensitive. This is advantageous (for a multitude of reasons), so, over a long time, a group of light sensitive cells develops, as this is better than a single cell. Then the surface that the light sensitive cells are on becomes slightly concave. This allows the animal to sense direction of light. The surface becomes even more concave, as this senses direction even better. Eventually, a spherical dip devolops, with only a tiny, pupil like, hole at the front. This is the beginning of an eye. The chances are very high. Once the organs were all in place, but not working in harmony, a more harmonic use of them would be infinitely beneficial. Here you disprove your own argument- those people who liked reproducing, for whatever reason, reproduced more (surprise surprise), and passed this like of reproduction to their children. Those who didn't reproduce as much died out, by definition. See above example. (eye) You might think that if it were not for the fact that the evolution is not utterly random- compare monkeys trying to type Shakespeare by pressing random keys to monkeys who keep their texts the same if (by chance) they get a letter right. This is comparable to evolution because beneficial charateristics are maintained. And kevlar is very different to spiders web. Spiders web is a protein, so is formed of repeating amino acids (NCC) with disulphide bridges. Kevlar is a polymer formed by benzene and nitrogen atoms... the only forces between chains are hydrogen bonds. The disulphide bridges are about ten times stronger than these hydrogen bonds. (I'm also not entirely sure that spiderweb is as strong as you say... I think it's only a bit stonger than steel, meaning that it has far fewer disulphide bridges than I proposed. I'm not brilliant at arguing the case for evolution because my speciality is biochemistry rather than biology, but I can still see how evolution makes sense.

Yes... I know the question you mean. I don't think there is any way to prove it wrong by traditional methods, but scientifically I don't think there's any plausible way for it to be true. This question is generally used to open peoples' minds up to more complex philosophical ideas.

Which ones would they be? Yes we could. it could work (for example) entirely on pressure. This is the idea of "irreducible complexity", isn't it... Why should they have to evolve simultaneously- for instance, the current balance could have evolved after they were all present. Also, part of an organ is a lot better than no organ... eg. a kidney with shorter nephrons still "cleans" the blood to a degree. This argument has been proved wrong for different cases many times. (eg. what use is half an eye/half a bacterial flagellum etc.) Why shouldn't this be true? Millions of years of evolution can easily beat the amout of time man has been experimenting for, even if evolution is a blind process. Spiders web is (I assume) a fibrous protein with huge numbers of disulphide bridges, a structure which is mimicked by vulcanisation, with is not as efficient. As for birds' wings, a small advantageous change in shape helps the bird huge amounts... by natural selection this is amplified to large changes. I've yet to see the skeleton of an amoeba, as they don't have bones. I haven't done some of the arguments justice- I'll explain in more detail if you want.