no comment...

[Ragnar]

If you could wish back one extinct animal, what would it be?

Sabre toothed tiger.

Or maybe the basic human that knows how to be a decent, upstanding member of society, without knocking down Grannies for their handbags, shooting each other, and any one that gets in the way, and "finding" stuff that people have carelessly left laying around their own houses.

[Crazy Healer Lady]

Ah to turn back time... I would like to see that creature too, Ragnar.

Err... my creature I think is still alive, just "gone into the mists." Dragons... I think I would fall to my knees and cry.

[Kitsune]

HEY!!!!




I'm not extint yet!

But we are a dying breed, I will say that. However I firmly believe that we are reaching the next spoke of the great wheel, It will either change everything for the better, or have everything get as bad as we can believe... Either way, we're due for upswing soon...

Oh, and I agree with Crazy... We need dragons, and unicorns, and fae, and pegasi, and phoenix, and Kitsune , and Gnomes, and Brownies, and Merpeople, and Selki, and Greenmen, and ... (continue this list yourselves, as there are simply too many regional specific creatures for me to name here. )

They may not be exinct yet, but so long as we are closing doors that were never truely doors in the first place, they visit us less and less.

[Crazy Healer Lady]

Ohh selkies are very much in this realm with us.

By the way... Did you know "they" estimate that there will be NO redheads by the year 2060???

[Windwalker]

Really? But red is such a stubborn colour! I swear, I dye my hair black and red is the first colour to show through. Which actually ends up looking very pretty. I don't actually have red hair usually, it's kinda a brown thing, but the red in it shows in the sun. As it's the first colour to push through the dye I figured it was somewhat resilient. Why is it going extinct?

[Crazy Healer Lady]

Genes.. Reds not getting together with other reds. *sigh* We're a dying breed!!!

[FyreGarnet]

I dunno. I came from brown haired parents....


FyreGarnet

[Willow]

I love redheads...breed more you guys!

[Kitsune]

Actually the problem with Red heads isn't that they don't breed enough, but that they only come naturally from Ireland. Apparently if you go far enough back any red heads ansestory, you find an Irishman there somewhere.

And since both parents must have the gene for the child to have red hair, it's being produced less and less.

So the obvious solution is for the Irish to mate with anything that walks! Then, it'll be in everybody's genes and more people with be born with the Red.

Unfortunately, they haven't discovered why Red heads are always more stubborn or how to breed that out.

And Windwalker, my hair is the same way. It's naturally a brown mess, but it's got natural red and blonde highlights, with strawberry lowlights...

I've had a few people suddenly stop talking and stare at me for a few minutes when I'm on the bus or in a car... My hair has suddenly gone bright blonde. then brown and then flaring red in just a matter of seconds... apparently it really throws people off.

Mind you, I do tend to die my hair when given the chance... I die it Red Auburn... When asked why I do it, if I already have red hair, I always answer the same... "Yes, but not enough!".

[Crazy Healer Lady]

Well, the red is not quite from Ireland, but from the Vikings who came in. Those originally from Ireland had black.

Doesn't matter if your hair is red or brown or black (oooooo black) or rainbow, if you've got an Irish accent, my heart is melted ^_^

I love redheads...breed more you guys!

My love is blonde But my dad was blonde, my mom red, and I am very sure my girls will have red hair. As for the others, all the red men I know don't want red hair!!

How did a conversation on Fundies turn to red hair?

[Lotus]

My mom is a natural redhead and has no Irish ancestry at all. She is Ukrainian (sp) and Italian. My grandma (her mother) was what would be called "white Russian" and was naturally platinum blond. So, if some Italian dude (my grandpa) can come together with a blond Ukrainian chick and produce four brunettes, one blond, and one redhead then I doubt that any gene formation is going out of business.

As for the Irish, naturally they did have lighter hair and eyes. The dark hair and eyes came when the Moors from Spain invaded Ireland.

I do have Irish ancestry from my dad but, the Italian traits seem to have taken over. Most people say that I look more Italian than anything else. I do have the Ukrainian pointed nose thing going on.


BB
Lotus

[Loke]

Hi CHL

Carbon dating is a controversial subject. There ARE faults to it. Bill Nye even threw a small piece of old wood that he had just chopped up into the microwave and sent it to a scientist to be carbon dated. It turned up I think 3 million years old.

Just playing devil's advocate here

I do not, in any way, believe that dinosaurs walked when humans did! But carbon dating still needs to be perfected. The earth is, by no means, 6,000 years old. I wonder even if time existed as it does to us now back then, and carbon dating I believe does not leave room for that.

A bit OT but C-14 dating is one of many dating tools, the useful limits is about 50 k yrs and does not have any relevance to dinosaurs. Used often in conjunction with Dendrochronology/tree-ring dating and never giving an exact age, but an age range, like: age +/- x.

I think we can easily debunk the myth about the earth/universe only being 6000 years old when we find a piece of wood that we confidently date as being 10.000 years old

Loke

[Crazy Healer Lady]

Surely the world cannot be 6,000 years old. I find this idea as stupid as saying that the world is only 21 years old, because that is when I was born, and the world did not exist before then. The scientists say my parents bore me, and all this rubbish about a war and about ancient societies? I think it is a plot to undermine the TRUTH which is that the world is only 21 years old! Try to tell me differently and I will plug my ears and scream LALALALALALA!

I am bitter today

But, honestly, how accurate is carbon dating? Surely there are flaws.

[Loke]

Sorry didn't want to offend in any way.

C-14 dating is based on the half life of the isotope which naturally only is produced in the upper atmosphere as a consequence of the suns radiation (neutrons) striking atoms of nitrogen thereby producing C-14 and hydrogen. Atmospheric nuclear explosions are the anthropogenic disturbance, but if handled carefully/not contaminated we will still get reliable, although not exact ages on the what we look at. But then nobody will use C-14 dating alone if one wants to be absolutely right.

Calibrating is essential as our solar system is cyclic in many ways, the main part being earth-sun distance and solar spot/activity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

It is a valuable tool, will someone criticize that you examined a piece of wood/organic matter being part of a building 1234 years old (before 1950) and argue about it, you can back it up by using dendrochronlogy, termolumicence and other evidence to argue your thesis, even the use of pollen is allowed (sneeeze).

Loke

ps C-14 dating always has a range of 95% probability in the laboratory, but will often be misinterpreted by the casual reader or journalist.

[Loke]

oh by the way I would like the saber tooth squirrel to see its first light;)