Tsiklon

Less than half?? How did you come to this conclusion?(cite sources/calculations please) A nuclear explosion in space releases no less energy than one on the earth(including atmospheric airbursts). The main difference is the HOW the energy from the explosion is dispersed. The fireball you see from a groundburst is comprised of plasma. This plasma is formed when the intense burst of radiation collides with matter. In space there would be no pressure wave but their WOULD be a very intense wave of electromagnetic radiation with a high enough energy density to vaporize matter within a certain radius. So my point is that a large enough nuke certainly would have enough energy to vaporize an asteroid into plasma which would be ultimately dispersed by the solar wind. At a high enough intensity, X-rays and Gamma rays will strip electrons off nuclei and send them flying out into space. These X-ray burst from a nuclear blast are intense enough to burn through tons and tons of solid ground, like IVY MIKE did when it vaporized the entire islet of Eleugelab.

Regarding the last statement....While there is no objective measurement for consciousness yet, it is abundantly clear that sentience and volitional thought are generated/caused by the Brain. An embryo does not have a brain and there is a period of time from conception and when the first neural impulse is fired by the rudimentary neurons of a fetus. When a person suffers brain death from an illness or injury, such that their brains cells die and there ceases to be any electrical activity(particularly in the cerebrum and outer cortexes)it can be safely assumed that they are not conscious because the organ generating consciousness has been destroyed. I am not the least bit convinced that every cell in the body is involved with consciousness, and certainly not with volitional thought. So I dont think that its reasonable to regard a blastula comprised of human cells as having the same rights as a fully formed human. Ayn Rand AFAIK, was not an embryologist or even a neurologist and had no advanced knowledge of the biological sciences. Much of what we know about the brain today was discovered in the last 30 years.

I am interested....But if sentience does not determine if a being has rights, then WHAT does?

Ancient Western Civilization was comprised of 3 cultures: The Greeks, The Romans, and The Etruscans who were unfortunately left out. I've always liked the Greeks but I voted for Egypt as far as greatness is concerned and would put the Etruscans at number 2. Why would a free capitalist vote for Rome rather than Athens?

Because orphans and the handicapped are sentient, whereas embryos are Not(neither are the brain dead).

Fair enough. When it comes to something like stem cell research I concur that federal funding isn't actually necessary to make it happen. But the thing about science and scientific research is this: If you don't do it, somebody else will. So if human embryonic stem cell research is outlawed in the US it WILL be conducted elswhere and if such research leads to new lifesaving/rehabilitating treatments that are effective, then those of us with enough money will go abroad to countries where such treaments are available. Bear in mind that a human embryo is basically a ball of cells that are genetically human and its not rational to equate an embryo with a fully formed living person. What makes a person a person is a functioning brain(i.e. sentience).

Who in the private sector would have funded the Mahattan project? I can assure you that the Apollo lunar missions would Not have been possible had it not been for goverment funding. If a private corporation were to develop nuclear weapons with no government regulation or oversight, what would stop them from selling nuclear warheads to anyone with the money to buy them? Including terrorists...

So you're opposed to government funding of scientific research??? Much scientific progress in the last century has been due to government funding. If there is sufficient funding for stem-cell research coming from the private sector than the goverment need not fund it, but legalize it.

Thats not true. The sun is a perpetual thermonuclear explosion. The energy released by a nuclear explosion on the surface of an asteroid would be absorbed by the asteroid and its enough to vaporize it into plasma. Exoatmospheric nuclear tests have been carried out and they DID indeed produce fireballs.

I would nominate the African Elephants and Orca Whales as possible candidates for non-human language. Elephants appear to have more complex emotional lives than even many primates do and their vocal chords allow them to make sounds too low in frequency for the human ear to intercept. So there's a whole range of sounds they make that we are not normally aware of.

Those opposed to stem cell research are superstitious fools who base their opinions on sentimentality rather than reason and cold hard facts.

I'd replace entry 3) with the Millau Viaduct in southern France which IMO is far more impressive and just so happens to be the worlds tallest bridge. It is my sincere hope that sometime within the next 20 years, Sky City Tokyo will be built and will be both the tallest AND largest structure ever built by humanity.

Mount rocket engines on an Asteroid to try nudge its orbit??? You gotta be kidding me! You folks dont seem to take into consideration just how much heat is produced by a nuclear explosion(in outer space). If the ensuing fireball is large enough to engulf the asteroid(and some of its extra chunks) it will vaporize it into a harmless cloud of plasma. Chunks outside of the fireball will still absorb enough heat to liquefy. The trouble is few nuclear warheads, particularly those built by the US, have large enough yield to vaporize an asteroid. The only one that might be powerful enough to be of use is the 25-Megaton warhead that tips the Russian SS-18 "SATAN" missile. I think that not only should there be space missions to rendezvous an unmanned probe with a Near Earth Asteroid, but once we can intercept asteroids close to Earth there should be another mission with a probe carrying a large contact burst nuclear warhead. It may very well be that we might need a Nuke with a yield as large as the great Tsar Bomb which was 50 Megatons and produced a fireball 8 miles wide.