space travel may happen some day - but there are serious problems with it. The speed of light barrier is a true barrier. Physics says that as an object approaches the speed of light it gets heavier - to a point where adding more energy simply adds straight to mass and not to velocity.

Traveling to other solar systems without light speed, has a whole other set of problems. Keeping us poor fragile beings alive in space for extended periods of time is tough. We need shielding from cosmic radiation. We need some kind of gravity to protect our bones and organs. We need air, food and water - oh and something to do so we don't go nuts on the trip. An obvious solution is suspended animation of some kind - but that's a long way from being viable at this point. And even if possible, you still need to worry about shielding and maintenance. Another potential is a generation ship - but that introduces a whole new crop of issues.

Oh, and I'm also forgetting the time dilation issue. The closer you travel to the speed of light the more time passes on Earth relative to the spaceship. So if we're talking about traveling to a place and returning, the changes on Earth could be major and your family and friends left behind would all grow old faster than you.

Then there's the issue of colonization - can humans live on another planet? Even if you start with a planet that has a breathable atmosphere, can we grow food? What about the micronutriants we need? Will our bodies be able to use the radiation/sunlight from another star to make Vitamin D? Will the intestinal flora and the other critters that are part of our makeup be able to survive?

So many questions, so few answers! Space missions are helping to answer some of these questions, but its also introducing whole new questions we didn't even realize we needed to ask (like the effects of micro gravity on the human body).

I have read up on mammoth cloning. That's fascinating stuff, but no telling how long it might take, or even if it will happen. A big concern is the host mother - Asian elephants are an endangered species and researchers can't just impregnate one with a mammoth, they first have to prove that it won't kill her or render her sterile. Some of the researchers are talking about artificial wombs, but that technology is in its infancy and isn't yet ready for use. Besides an elephants gestation period is just short of 2 years - and since we don't know the gestation period of a mammoth, I'd assume it would be close to that. You don't want to start a 2 year project using tech that hasn't been well tested yet.

I had not heard about reverse engineering a chicken though! I going to have to look that up. A quick glance at google was talking about chicken legs made into dino legs...all I could think was wondering if that produced more meat and what it would taste like LOL!

Yeah there's definitely a lot of government supported programs I would like to see funded before money going to religious organizations. For one thing, religious orgs tend to be limiting, not everyone can benefit, whereas secular programs are open to all. Everyone pays into taxes, so any program funded through those taxes should be open to all.

It's okay - habits don't change overnight, they take work. I avoided having Taco Bell the other day, but I have bought lunch for the last 2 days because I forgot I needed to prep food on Sunday. I've tried to make healthier choices at least, but it's still not great. Also I'm having a second coffee today even though I vowed to stop doing that (by coffee I mean frappuccino from Starbucks - both expensive and full of sugar and bad calories). It's a bit of a process. Maybe try to eat less of the M&Ms daily than you normally would, since you know you're gonna eat them this week anyhow :) And even if you don't, you did manage all of last week ❤️

It is hard to make healthy choices when it is so easy to grab stuff on the go. Having to pack a lunch is a challenge for me too. I live in a tiny town but work more than 20 miles away in a bigger town. When I get home at night the only stores open are Dollar General and Rite Aid. Neither of them is great for food shopping, lol. My other choices are to go to the super expensive food store down the road from work when I leave at night or go out of my way to a really busy walmart.

Line break to make reading easier, lol. So anyway, I have to food shop on Saturday and it is really hard to think of things that I want to make to take to lunch "next week" when I have just finished a week of work. Too many times I end up putting off going to the grocery store in my town - which is only open till 4 on Saturday- and end up running in to DG on Sunday after church. Which means frozen pizza, boxed mac and cheese, nothing much for lunches. Stupid, lol.

And when I do get something that I think I will want to take the next week well, I end up not feeling like cooking it on Sunday. And all of this makes it sound like I should not have weight issues at all haha! NOT TRUE

Anyway, Starbuck I have never had a problem with! I don't drink coffee. But I know it is an issue for a lot of people. To quote a friend of mine... "habits don't change overnight, they take work" And you did great by not going to Taco Bell! Next time you are tempted to go there think about their "meat"!

do people still listen to their bodies? I am not sure I ever did. I think you are much more in tune with yours than most people.

Oh man, I feel this so hard. I'm always like "I don't know what I want next week...I can't even figure out what I want right now." It's really tough, especially when your options for shopping are so limited. I'm lucky that mine are not that limited, but it's still a lot of indecision and trying to stop doing what is easy (which is hard because sometimes the pain does not want me to actually cook).

It's so hard to do food prep when it's not a habit you have honestly. A lot of my extended family does it, but they've /always/ done it, so it's second nature. It definitely isn't for me. I'm eating a lot more things now than I used to, but I am still a picky eater, so that doesn't help.

Listen, you'd think being picky would mean skinny, but it does not (why couldn't I love veggies and fish and hate pizza????)

I drove through the parking lot and was like "no, you don't want that, it does not make you feel good, go home". My biggest challenge is the coffee (although I've done pretty good the last couple weeks on not having 2 in a day) and also cheese. Because cheese is delicious and makes for an easy snack haha.

ugh it's so complicated and devastating, I think our only hope is if one day another civilization with the right knowledge would be good enough to teach us.. or maybe materials from other planets can give us new way to travel and all the administrative around it (living mainly) There is an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D that has been done very well and shows the life on another planet as a human being..

You forget one main question, should we colonize another planet? is it our right or even ethic? it can make us too powerful in my opinion.. and we barely can get along here, so can you imagine the wars and the will for power on another planet? it's kinda scary tbh..

About the Mammoth, I know it brings a lot of moral question when it comes to the elephant, especially when it's an endanger species, but idk, we should try at least once and monitor the situation, they can always do an abortion if the baby is slowly hurting the hosting mother.. I guess my dream to see a living Mammoth is big and makes me think in an irresponsible way haha

LOL probably it would taste like a chicken flash with a lizard skin xD It's still weird for me to realize that I'm eating a dinosaur.. evolution is so amazing

The problem comes when the governments are very close to those organization or even parties and bringing them inside the government.. they are very powerful and controlling everything... the best example is Italy, they are controlled by the Vatican and it's a different country, but they are holding many apartments in Italy, the taxes money goes to the Vatican and they even have control in their laws.. it's crazy!

oh yes, the ethics of colonization! That's a fun conversation. Best case scenario is we find a way to travel to other stars, but in a way that makes war impossible. That says sad things about the human race though - that the only way I can imagine dispensing with war is to make it physically impossible. The other ethical issue is life - do we have the right to colonize a world and wreak havoc with its environment? Even if we learned from our mistakes here on Earth and didn't ruin the ecology by accident, I'm pretty sure we'd have to make at least some changes to make it livable for humans.

On the other hand, I'm very prejudiced in favour of humanity - I want us to survive and we are so vulnerable living all confined on one planet. Even if we manage not to kill ourselves off by continuing to ignore global warming, by war, or some other new and thrilling way, there are so many other natural vulnerabilities. Extinction event meteor, pandemics, seismic activities, cosmic events. If the worst happens I would want humanity to go on and that means colonies. So, ethical or not, for purely personal reasons I would fully support colonization.

Don't get me wrong about the mammoths! In spite of the ethical issues involved I'd love to see it happen too. There's something about mammoths that just lights up the imagination, there's something special about them and the idea of bringing them back is awesome. LOL not so sure about chickenosaurs though :P.

I disagree about aliens saving us. If intelligent life exists out there and has a way of traveling the stars I'd want them to stay the hell away from us. Humanity needs to learn on its own, to accomplish on its own, and learn to solve its own problems. I think if a technologically superior alien society were to visit us, give us tech and knowledge it would be damaging to our psyche. Think of the spoiled kid whose parents dig them out of every scrape they get into - they never fully grow up, they remain dependent and weak. I don't want that for humanity.

The Vatican is such a strange concept - a completely separate "country" in the middle of a city. They are physically dependent on Rome for all their resources and yet politically have enormous power. It is a totally weird situation.

At one point I actively worked on meal planning. Created a chart, listed out meals and snacks for a week at a time. It worked really well, eliminated the issue of having to decide what to cook when feeling tired and hungry. Always had the necessary ingredients on hand. Fresh fruit and veggies didn't spoil. Deliberately worked in variety, which as a fussy eater can be a huge problem, so I didn't get bored with the food. Even planned for more intense cooking on the weekends and freezing portions to use later in the week or month.

I remember it fondly, but couldn't sustain it more than a few months. The system just started to break down and I'm still not sure why it did. Some of it was a lack of flexibility. Sometimes you just want Taco Bell or whatever and that can mess with the system because if you do skip a planned meal and eat something else, you still need to use up the ingredients you bought. The system should have been self-correcting because you do it weekly, so even if it breaks down one week, it should recover the next. It didn't work out that way, it just got more and more out of whack until I gave up on it.

I think that we will never learn tbh.. and my fear is the that humans will occupy a planet and kill all it's citizens.. it's highly possible.. we did it before and still doing it here on earth.. (instead of being called just "Terras" and cancel all the countries and live peacefully and happy all together - my dream!)

I know it's scary and we must find another way to survive.. even our planet will not survive and go boom one day with everything on it, so I think our only hope is Mars.. btw on Mars we will be taller and with orange skin xD

Mammoth are amazing, during my zoo-archeology studied I had the opportunity to touch a preserved fur, it's so fluffy!!!

Yes I see your point here, it's better to deal with everything ourselves, we also don't know the culture of any other civilization, but idk if no one came here until today, I'm not sure if someone will come.. I think it's just impossible to travel... and I think we are very advanced because all the gadget and technology came from the imagination and I don't know if it's going to be the same from other.. maybe they are very primitive and technology is simply exclusive to us?

Yeah the Vatican is strange and really annoying, I was there, it's just a square lol but very beautiful, with this they did a good job there.

I agree about living on another planet. If we discovered some way to travel faster than light tomorrow, found inhabited planets, I would fear for any life on that planet. I mean even here on earth we can't agree if ocean living mammals are intelligent (whales, dolphins, etc). And basically, intelligent or not, we'd probably exploit beings living on other planets - we need to grow up first.

Yet will we survive here on Earth until we do grow up? Its our curse to be technologically smarter than we are emotionally. Just that situation could lead to our destruction. But maybe its better for the universe if we destroy ourselves rather than taking our destructive tendencies out into the galaxy.

As for intelligent aliens able to come here, there are several possibilities. It could be they have a hands off policy to less technologically advanced species. Or they are, I don't want to say xenophobic, but perhaps indifferent, they may not choose to interfere, not for our benefit, but because they simply have no interest in us.

It could also be because interstellar travel really is difficult or impossible - but then why haven't we seen robot explorers (like the mars rovers)? Then again, the galaxy is really, really big, maybe they just haven't gotten around to exploring this section of the spiral arm - we do live way out in the boondocks. We also assume that other intelligent beings would want to explore, like we do - maybe they don't. Maybe they like their part of the galaxy and just don't travel.

The possibilities are pretty endless, but I doubt its because we are the only technologically minded beings in the galaxy, though I guess that's as likely as any other possibility.

I've been reading a series of science fiction books where the author has created a galaxy were humans have just discovered a method of quick interstellar travel. In his galaxy there are few intelligent beings. But they all seem to live in a cycle where they build up their civilizations and get to the edge of space travel and collapse. So when humans go out they find devolved beings living in ancient technological ruins, or no people at all, just ruins of past civilizations. The author has a reason for the setup and each book gives a hint of the over-riding plot, but I haven't read far enough into the series to figure it out. But its full of possible reasons why we haven't found aliens yet. Its a fun read.

Yeah, I'm trying to make better choices and plan things out, but leaving room in case it doesn't fit with how I'm feeling. It's hard to adjust like that. And expensive if you end up having a bad run of weeks, because you end up wasting food.

I need to start getting fruit to snack on and thinking of more than food for just a few days. Tiny steps though.

I think we need to settle down our own problems here on earth first, we need to stop with the "land" nonsense.. no one peed first on the land to mark it as a territory.. we need to be united as a planet first and then to search for other places to live.. as long as we don't get to that point, I prefer to stay on earth and deal with the damage that we did...

Honestly, the man kind is very egoistic and thinks they own everything (again, religion, god gave us everything) so I actually think that it's better for the universe without us.. the majority is very primitive in their minds but very technological, this mix is really bad and devastating.. we need to evolve our minds first, to open them, to understand that we are animals after all and to accept some of our instincts and animal behaviors (minus murder and other bad things) and only then we can actually understand what is it and how to live on a different planet and how to respect other living beings and maybe intelligent life..

btw dolphins are super intelligent, I love them!

Now you say "xenophobic" but you gave them a human idea which is a false thinking of understanding a different kind of species and culture.. we can't be sure if they have it in their mind or even politics or religion or whatever.. we can't even know if there are lgbt among them..

I think it's more then interest yes/no, I think they simply don't know about our existence and they are far away from us or they simply see earth in a long past when the human kind didn't exist yet.. it's highly possible..

omg the book sounds very interesting, what is the title???

Tiny steps is good, but can also be frustrating. Experimenting to see what works well in your life and with your habits can be good too, but sometimes when experiments fail, we're afraid to try again. Not being able to figure out why my meal planning system didn't work out, I haven't tried anything else. Now we just "wing" it. Which is limiting, wasteful of food, and can be more expensive. sigh

The author is Jack McDevitt, So far I've read The Engines of God and Chindi. But there's a whole series of books: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins The Engines of God (1994), ISBN 0-441-00077-0 Deepsix (2001), ISBN 0-06-105124-1 Chindi (2002), ISBN 0-441-00938-7 Omega (2003), ISBN 0-441-01046-6 Odyssey (2006), ISBN 0-441-01433-X Cauldron (2007), ISBN 0-441-01525-5 StarHawk (2013), ISBN 0-425-26085-2

I agree, we do need to mature. We also need to clean up this mess we've made of our planet. But I also want us to look outward more - to take steps to colonizing the galaxy. As a human, I believe in humanity, I believe we can grow up (even though some days I do wonder). I think we can not only survive, but thrive. We do wonderful things when we get past our minor differences and work together.

One of the most fascinating things about speculating on intelligent alien life is wondering just how different or how similar they would be to us. We lack the imagination to consider truly "alien" concepts. We might someday meet aliens, but never be able to communicate with them because we lack any common ground to start talking. Not to mention that they would need to want to talk to us too - one-way communication can only go so far.

I read a lot of science fiction and have come across so many different possible ways to communicate - from language, to smell, to colour. We're just now learning about how other animals, who are very similar to us, talk to each other. For example, research with meerkats is fascinating. They have guards who warn the colony when there's a threat - but these warnings aren't simply an alert like "danger" its much more complex. Seems to include "danger - hawk" or "danger - snake" and some indication if its near, or further off. If we could actually learn to understand meerkat (and other animal) languages, then that might give us an actual chance of learning to talk to aliens, if we ever encounter them.

- Thank you for taking the time to participate in the March for Science! I have some friends that traveled to DC for it. I love seeing so many people standing up together! How are you feeling?

and - Your conversation has been fascinating to read. Neil deGrasse Tyson said something a while ago about intelligent life in the universe that really struck me. He basically said that we don't know about any other intelligent life because we are not advanced enough for them to care about our existence.

- It wasn't me! I mean, it was.... I'm sorry I mentioned the Oreos :( I need to make some serious eating change adjustments. My therapist and I have been talking about habits, both breaking bad ones and forming new ones. She said to think about Narcotics Anonymous. They have meetings every day for 90 days. 90 days seems to be the real amount of time it takes to break an old behavior, start a new one, and then stick with it. That being said, I haven't yet figured out how to make that work for myself. I think I need to resort to childhood and make myself a sticker chart. For every day that I exercise, for example, I'll give myself a sticker. When I get to 30, 60, and 90, I'll buy myself a reward of some sort (Yay new clothes!).

I understand that completely. I wasted some food the first week I did it, so I'm gonna have to be mindful. This week I didn't do well and I'm trying not to be discouraged. I did not eat as healthy as I wanted and I haven't walked since my dog wrenched my back Tuesday (which I know is a valid reason to take a break, I'm in pain and will not do myself favors by making it worse), but it's so frustrating to not be doing what the plan was.

Hopefully you'll get the motivation to try a new method one day ❤️

I love Neil deGrasse Tyson. His enthusiasm for all things space is so contagious. His idea that they're ignoring us (if they exist) because we aren't advanced enough does make a lot of sense. From some of the many theories I've heard/read its one of the higher probabilities. But it also makes a lot of assumptions that we have no way of confirming/denying.

I need to get more organized in a lot of different aspects of my life...but its so hard! I'm a life-long procrastinator, so if things aren't scheduled they don't get done. I know this, and yet I still lie to myself and say things like "there's plenty of time, I'll do it tomorrow" - but we all know that saying "tomorrow never gets here."

So much the same honestly. I tend to procrastinate and forget to sort out what I need to do and not make lists/schedules and then I forget stuff too.

Hopefully both of us will get better at it.

Thanks for the books! I'll search for them in the books store :D

Yeah we need to mature, we need to give up on weapons, on ego, country power and most important, the "Wars" between us, we just need to love each other and that's it..

lol we first need to learn the languages around the world.. we really need a device that translate immediately while we talk, so we could communicate with everyone in the world xD So yes the alien languages can be a big problem at the beginning.. it's so interesting this situation!

And who will be the first to meet them? to talk with them? USA? the UN?

I didn't know about the meerkats! thanks for sharing that!!

it is possible, it's possible that we are very primitive compare to others.. but I'm not sure aliens have smartphone and touch screen lol "^_^

Neil deGrasse Tyson is not just talking about technology, but also about our attitude and lack of maturity when he says aliens may think we're too primitive to talk with. But, still, even just looking at tech, we are primitive! I want quantum computers - affordable ones! Right now!

Some days I think the internet is the single best vehicle for bringing us together, other days I wonder if it simply divides us even more. On the one hand you have people talking to each other and realizing how much we have in common and only later discovering that the person is "different" from us - older, younger, a different colour or sexual orientation - and suddenly that difference doesn't seem as important as it once might have been. On the other hand we also have communities of "echo chambers" where we only look within the areas of the internet that hold things we already believe. LOL I guess the internet is simply a tool, like any other and its what we make of it - whether we use it to embrace the rest of the world, or just to confirm our biases.

A universal translator, like Star Trek (and other science fiction)...dream on. Enter something in Google translate, especially with a lot of metaphors, translate it to any other language then back to the language you started with. See if you can still comprehend what you wrote! And Google translate is one of the better translators out there.

I really can't imagine a "first contact" situation. So many possibilities! From ET and Starman, encounters with a single person, to Independence Day, contact with the whole world at once - what would happen in the real world is a total mystery. I guess it would depend on how contact was made - like if SETI found a signal or if aliens came to visit our solar system or the discovery was made some other way. That's why I love reading SF, I lack the imagination, but the authors out there all have really fun ones!

but we don't know if even their technology evolution is the same as ours, I mean, a computer is our invention for example, it's like 0.1% chance that other civilization will invent the same thing without having a single contact with the "original" creators and even better.

lol you can actually see it with Facebook, you surround yourself with the people that are almost like you, same interest, same political point of view and even the same human causes to fight for, so you write a post, let's say against the government and all the likes that you get are from your 300 friends and you feel awesome, but you did it in a closed circle that thinks like you... open it to the public and you'll get more dislikes probably..

The Internet is a good tool but the majority is using it badly.. a quick check on Twitter and it's really devastating to see how people are acting, especially teenagers.. there death threats, bad words and so on..

LOL yes! in Hebrew we have a lot of idioms, usually from the old bible and google translates them really funny xD

Few years ago I started to write a book Gay Robots From Outer Space, but I gave up after the first 2 pages "^_^ But hey! I still have my explicit Harry Potter parody.. I need to translate it to English one day and sell it on Amazon..

Yeah, I don't use social media much, no FB, twitter or tumbler. I do read blogs, but again, I read ones I'm interested in and already agree with. That doesn't teach us how to reach out to people who think differently.

LOL I'd read that book! I always wanted to be a writer, but sadly, I can't write. There's too much going around in my head and I wander off into tangents, or over-explain. You can't imagine how many words I type in conversations like these, then delete because they aren't adding to the conversation, just complicating it. And still my posts are novels!

As for different technological development by aliens, I'm not so sure. On Earth we have a long history of different people coming up with the same tech at the same time. This isn't people stealing ideas, its people coming up with similar concepts based on new or refined science. Granted, aliens who think differently and have different needs, may use scientific discoveries in completely different ways, but is equally possible that technology is more uniform than we think. That's the problem with having only one example and why its so important to find alien intelligence.

I have a FB account but I'm not active, just there to check news and interesting stuff.. my problem became when everything became political and I felt that it's not fun anymore.. for the rest I'm not using at all..

For me it's more laziness and stress.. I have too many ideas in my mind and then I'm doing a big salad and I just want to run for the nearest shelter and hide from my mind lol The HP parody is hmm Hannah Potter and the Philosophers Condom xD And she's a Witchtitute (a prostitute witch) that studies at F*ckwarts and she has Hello Kitty mark on her boob that was made after the curse of Miss Vladi Moor.. and more and more lol

I don't know, it's very strange because we don't know if they think like us.. and if a computer will be the same as ours or better? and like what will be it's name there? it's so confusing and amazing at the same time And can we sue them for stealing our ideas? lol it's funny to wonder that... Also spaceships.. isn't it like imagination? is it really exist? so how can they have this tech??