The Questions not worth their own thread thread VII

[Earthling]

That sounds very much like rumor/myth/urban legend. AFAIK that's not consistent across ancient societies nor is it the norm among our closest primate relatives.

 

[Mowque]

Humans have no natural mating season. We do not go into heat or anything like that. We are evolved in an area (central Africa) where seasons have much smaller effect then say..Europe for example.

 

[Ulyaoth]

But even still in Africa the animals have mating seasons no? So maybe it was just something the Europeans made up since this was pretty much described as being part of what stonehenge was for, a giant orgy.

 

[Mowque]

But even still in Africa the animals have mating seasons no? So maybe it was just something the Europeans made up since this was pretty much described as being part of what stonehenge was for, a giant orgy.

I was merely guessing on the Africa thing.

But no, i don't think we have any natural 'mating season' although I think we have more kids in winter due to people being bored and having sex in Winter ? And those 'pagan' things were merely celebrations of fertility usually..and fertile = sex for many cultures.

 

[Ulyaoth]

Well that was the point, they celebrate their fertility, by having lots of sex and trying to birth kids into the rhythm of nature.

 

[Fr8monkey]

I have a mating season ever since I got married... every 2 years.

 

[Annex]

Well that was the point, they celebrate their fertility, by having lots of sex and trying to birth kids into the rhythm of nature.

Why are you so interested? Trying to make it with the Marilyn Manson chick?

 

[musekick]

Hi. Does anyone know any exercises that are good for someone just starting to try to lose weight who has very limited space in which to work out? (A dorm room, basically).

 

[kulade]

You could try to stop eating.

 

[Fei Kelei]

You can't just go jogging? Or if you're in really bad shape, walking? I suppose you could always do jumping jacks or something, but for most aerobic exercise you either need a gym or space to move.

I have a question. Has anyone ever brought the "airplane on a treadmill" brain teaser to this forum? That one usually makes for an entertaining thread.

 

[PeteAtoms]

You could try to stop eating.

Lol

But good ol' fashioned push-ups, sit-ups, free squats, lunges and jumping rope are pretty good for simple cardio and muscle tone.

Go out and get a few dumb-bells (sp?). Get some 'light' pair and a 'heavy' pair, and you should be good to go. Maybe get a medium weight pair too. You an use dumb-bells for a lot of exercises.

 

[Cutlass]

Hi. Does anyone know any exercises that are good for someone just starting to try to lose weight who has very limited space in which to work out? (A dorm room, basically).

Start with a fast walk for a few miles a day. Do a lap or 2 around the campus. You can't do much more than basic calisthenics in a tiny room. So I would get out. I would be surprised if there isn't a gym you can use. But just getting out of the room and moving is about the best start.

 

[Brighteye]

What about this part of the world (Britain)?

I haven't used Amazon much, but things have always arrived within the range given, and in the lower end.

How do people write 10-30 page papers? Strategies? Advice?

Write lots of notes as you read, which takes a bit longer than reading first, but less time than reading first and then going back to take notes again.
Then you've a load of material that can relatively quickly be honed down to size.

Fall would be the natural mating season for humans right? I think I heard that once and that ancient societies had all kinds of festivals on the equinox or something to knock everyone up so all the kids were born at the same time mostly. I guess it makes sense, the kids would be born into summer with more food available for the necessary development and would be big and strong enough then to survive winter.

Humans have no mating season.
The festivals were religious ceremonies, and the orgies based on marking the seasons, due to primitive beliefs that human and soil fertilities were linked, and an activation of one might help the other.

But even still in Africa the animals have mating seasons no? So maybe it was just something the Europeans made up since this was pretty much described as being part of what stonehenge was for, a giant orgy.

Stonehenge is very unlikely to have been for a giant orgy. Seasonal religious orgies are widespread cultural relics of primitive beliefs, not at all limited to Europe.

Hi. Does anyone know any exercises that are good for someone just starting to try to lose weight who has very limited space in which to work out? (A dorm room, basically).

Go outside and run. It's not easy to lose weight just by jumping around in your room. You need long periods of exercise. If running hurts, as it does some women, or people with sensitive joints, you need to find a rowing machine, a bicycle or a swimming pool.

Y
I have a question. Has anyone ever brought the "airplane on a treadmill" brain teaser to this forum? That one usually makes for an entertaining thread.

Yes, it has been here. You can try again though.

 

[Fr8monkey]

They don't let you walk around the prison yard? LOL

Exersize is the first step to loosing weight. Healthy eating is the other. Lots of fresh foods and smaller portions. Don't forget water. Lots and lots of water. Streaches > exersize (biking is good) > cool down (you can cramp up). Good luck.

 

[Mesousa]

Hi. Does anyone know any exercises that are good for someone just starting to try to lose weight who has very limited space in which to work out? (A dorm room, basically).

I was in the same situation when I started exercising last year. Apart from going out and just walking/jogging/cycling/swimming/etc, you could get some videos. Aerobics, cardio kickboxing, things like that. You really don't need a lot of room for most of the exercises, especially the beginner kind. Removes the dependence on weather and the time of day too. There are also websites that offer on demand videos of all kinds of workout for various levels, if you don't want to buy a video only to find it's not the right kind of workout for you. Of course those sites usually require you to pay for a subscription to access the videos, but it might be a good investment so you can check out the options, and you might discover you enjoy things you never even considered. It's still not as good as hitting a gym or having someone coach you in person, but for me it's much easier to exercise with a video than doing the same workout completely on my own, even if I know it by heart after some time.

If you primarily want to lose weight, running is probably your best bet in the long term (in addition to adjusting your diet). In case you lack the confidence to because you are in really bad shape, doing exercises in your room can be a great way to build up some basic endurance. A half hour of aerobics can be really tough.

 

[musekick]

Thank you to everyone who answered me. I know that walking and such is better than staying in my room, and I'm already doing that. The reason I asked was that I was looking for little exercises to do on the days I'm not walking, or when the weather is too poor for it.

Mesousa, thanks for the videos online suggestion. I wasn't aware those even existed, although of course it makes sense that they would. I'll look into them.

 

[Ulyaoth]

Would a planet in a binary star system revolve around only one star, or would it do kinda like a figure 8 orbit orbitting both or just a circular orbit around both? Would life be possible in any such configuration or would it end up too cold or hot at some point in orbit no matter what?

 

[PeteAtoms]

Would a planet in a binary star system revolve around only one star, or would it do kinda like a figure 8 orbit orbitting both or just a circular orbit around both? Would life be possible in any such configuration or would it end up too cold or hot at some point in orbit no matter what?

Spoiler :

Planets around binary stars

Science fiction has often featured planets of binary or ternary stars as a setting. In reality, some orbital ranges are impossible for dynamical reasons (the planet would be expelled from its orbit relatively quickly, being either ejected from the system altogether or transferred to a more inner or outer orbital range), whilst other orbits present serious challenges for eventual biospheres because of likely extreme variations in surface temperature during different parts of the orbit. Planets that orbit just one star in a binary pair are said to have "S-type" orbits, whereas those that orbit around both stars have "P-type" or "circumbinary" orbits. It is estimated that 50–60% of binary stars are capable of supporting habitable terrestrial planets within stable orbital ranges.[61]

Simulations have shown that the presence of a binary companion can actually improve the rate of planet formation within stable orbital zones by "stirring up" the protoplanetary disk, increasing the accretion rate of the protoplanets within.[61]

Detecting planets in multiple star systems introduces additional technical difficulties, which may be why they are only rarely found.[62] Examples include PSR B1620-26 b and Gamma Cephei.

A study of fourteen previously known planetary systems found three of these systems to be binary systems. All planets were found to be in S-type orbits around the primary star. In these three cases the secondary star was much dimmer than the primary and so was not previously detected. This discovery resulted in a recalculation of parameters for both the planet and the primary star.

Source: Wikipedia

Spoiler :

There are stable orbits for planets in binary star systems. There are various stability criteria which say when an orbit is stable. One such criteria (and I don't know the actual numbers) says that if all orbits are circular and the stars are the same size, then the planet must orbit one of them at less than /some fraction/ of the inter-star distance, or must orbit both combined at more than /whatever/ times the inter-star distance. Figure-eight orbits are unstable, and can eject the planet from the system.

If you have two Sun-like stars at the center of the system, a planet would be the same temperature as Earth if it were at sqrt(2) = 1.4 astronomical units away, rather than Earth's 1 AU. This distance is closer than Mars's orbit (1.6 AU). Most stars are dimmer than our Sun, so the orbit could be even smaller.

The high energy astronomers at NASA don't know much about this subject, so we asked an expert: Eric Mamajek of Pennsylvania State University:

The solar-like stars 16 Cygni B and 55 Cancri A have been found to have Jupiter-size extrasolar planets orbiting them. So we do have indirect proof, through Doppler spectroscopy methods (Marcy & Butler, SFSU, Lick Observatory), that planets indeed form in binary systems.

The formation mechanisms for forming stars and planets are very different. Planets require accretion to form, specifically accretion in a protoplanetary disk around a young star. Stars can form from the collapse of a molecular cloud core on their own, however planets can only form in the disk around a star. (Pulsar planets are likely formed "posthumously" around pulsars, and are a different beast all together). The main problem with forming planets in multiple star systems is dynamic ejection... stars can simply toss planetesimals out of the system all together (or even accrete them). An example of this is the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt where Jupiter doesn't allow asteroids to exist in certain orbits, and conversely it "shepherds" asteroids in to certain other orbits. A companion star would have a similar effect, except there would be a lot less "shepherding" orbits. The vast majority of binary stars have eccentric orbits. It is difficult for bodies to exist in a system with two very massive bodies in an eccentric orbit. They can only exist very close to each star, or very far from both stars.

An excellent example in the lines of the Tatooine example is the nearby solar-like stars Alpha Centauri A and B. They orbit each other at an average distance of 23 AU, however the eccentricities of each orbit bring them to as close to 11 AU and as far as 35 AU. Numerical simulations by Paul Weigert at University of Toronto have shown that each star has a "safe zone" about 3 AU in radius in which planets could safely survive for billions of years. Objects placed further out from each star than about 3 AU are dynamically ejected in a matter of millions of years or less. Alpha Cen A is about 1.5 times as luminous as our Sun, and Alpha Cen B is about .45 times as luminous as our Sun, and if you do the simple physics, one can see that a "habitable zone" exists around BOTH stars within the 3 AU dynamic "safe zone." Indeed, it could be possible that BOTH Alpha Cen A and B have planets conducive to life. Theoretical models age them anywhere from 3-8 Gyr... plenty of time for life to develop if the planets have the right conditions...

Source - http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980122c.html

 

[Ulyaoth]

Hmm, that's about the distance from Earth to Neptune(the distance between the alpha Centauri's) so I guess if you were to put an earth like planet a similar distance from one(B is slightly smaller than the sun and A slightly bigger right? So a little further from A then let's say) then B would be a decent distance away to not burn us or be pulling us out of our orbit? How big would it appear? I'd guess about a quarter the size the moon appears, would that be about correct? Too many numbers to calculate for my lazy brain.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

What's the difference between d/dx and d/dt?

Also, would it be bad for financial institutions if people knew personal finance well?