sethboy66

The Vatican is its own country, they don’t pay themselves taxes.

Gunter’s chain is 20.1m, so half a Gunter is approximately a decameter; a rope would be unwieldy as it’d be one and two thirds rope per decameter.

with respect to the liquid placed inside of it

It’s only this particular kind of plastic in its specific state with respect to the liquid placed inside of it, also the fact that the worry of micro/nano-plastics is relatively new.

The U.S. isn’t a signatory to the convention and nations exist in a state of anarchy, one cannot (in an official capacity) impose their will over another without consent. There are other agreements between Turkey and the U.S. which would permit any and all passage, so in the absence of the Montreux Convention (which is indeed absent in this case) the U.S. can sail a carrier right on through without breaking any agreed-upon rules.

The difference between peacetime and wartime readiness for nukes only relates to tactical nukes; at least when it comes to an competent nuclear power, nuke are always at the ready at a moments notice. They launch nukes, we launch in retaliation, major destruction spread out over large swaths of land, both sides nuclear capabilities are gone (other than subs that were already deployed and didn’t launch their payload). U.S. sails into the Black Sea.

Nukes aren’t designed to stop navies.

While I agree with your main gist, I actually think this overall creates less misunderstanding than more; at least, and probably solely, with respect to what organic means. Because people read that headline and think ‘z0mg life discovered on mars’ and then one of a few things may happen which leads them to realize that organic != organism. Though some of those ‘few things’ may include temporarily spreading their incorrect interpretation to others, I believe even a slightly intelligent person will realize that they may have wrong information when this finding doesn’t end up as front page news and ‘breaking news’ segments around the world.

So at least in that respect, this kind of journalism constantly teaches and reminds people that organic doesn’t mean life. Though, ultimately, I still dislike it as much as the next guy.

Naturally, organic simply means carbon is present in the (non-metal) structure. Generally carbon-carbon, carbon-hydrogen, and a few other bond-types are considered organic. Many articles prey on people’s misunderstanding of this in order to craft a good headline, since “carbon-based material” doesn’t sound as exciting as “organic material”.

And when they say it “be created by processes not related to life as we know it” they should also probably mention that it can be created in the absence of any life at all; since if that weren’t true then it would in fact be direct evidence of life.

Read my comment above which corrects @Candelestine’s assertion that candle flame is a plasma.

Only very hot flames are a plasma and usually only within certain regions of the main body of the flame; most flames one encounters in their life will not be a plasma due to low or non-existent ionization. A candle flame is almost certainly not a plasma, rather it’s a combusting (oxidizing) gas which appears as a flame due to the emission of photons in the visible range from regions where the fuel is reacting with air. Furthermore, fire does not require mechanical or kinetic force to combine a fuel and an oxidizer, there is no need to ‘ram’ these particles together. Simple contact between a fuel and an oxidizer in states which would allow redox will cause burning and possibly visible flame (not all redox produces visible flame).