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Responding to your questions today in finestkind all-lowercase form is Cathy Rogers, former co-host (the technical term is "presenter") of Scrapheap Challenge and Junkyard Wars, now presiding over a brand-new show, Full Metal Challenge.

1) Time...
by AmigaAvenger

On Junkyard wars it always seemed that the teams had something in running condition before the end of the time limit. Was there ever a time when a team had ABSOLUTELY nothing worth sending into competition? (Wouldn't make for much of a show though...)

Cathy:

absolutely nothing? hmmm. i think that's a question of interpretation... did you see the hydrofoils show? neither of the machines worked at all. so what did we do... repeated the challenge for the british version of the show and that time... neither of them worked again. we just won't learn. but its funny - people use to think i was just being a smart arse when i would go in and give the teams a hard time for being behind, having nothing ready etc - but really i was terrified that we wouldn't have a last part of the show and was imagining that we'd all have to do the can-can or something...

2) Why do you think Engineering is so male dominated?
by Anonymous Coward

You have said in the past that it would be good to have an all female team, but as yet, we haven't seen this.

Why do you think so few women are interested in technology?

Cathy:

oh lord i don't know. i vacillate so much on this one - sometimes i think it is all just habit and training and sometimes i think there really is some different configuration of men's and women's brains - like when i see my little niece desperately wanting to wear pink and play dollies and my nephew constantly deconstructing the alphabet / numbers etc.

but we have actually had all-female teams a couple of times now - twice on junk and in the new show full metal challenge. (in fact there is a fabulous all women team in the show next week - the flamin' aussies who are all drag-racers and are cooool) and they've done well - but they're always a real battle to find. i thought it would be easier in america, where in many ways women's position in society generally is more evolved - but i was wrong. it seems just as tough. and its odd because in other areas of science women are ahead of men. its just something about wirey stuff and digit stuff and big hammer stuff. but any tech-keen ladies reading this, please please apply! you have my ear.

3) how do you do it?
by Suppafly

A lot of people don't realize that not only do you work on all of these shows, you help conceive the initial ideas behind them. How do you do it? Did you just one day have an idea and present it to a network, or did you work from the inside to have your concepts realized? What in your past got you interested in the whole build things from junkyard parts concept?

Cathy:

i was working for an independent tv company (rdf media) when we first hatched the idea for scrapheap challenge (the british name for junkyard wars). so i was in a good position in that i was talking to people at the networks here all the time about all kinds of ideas. and that was just one that hit home. the idea actually first came from the movie apollo 13 and being transfixed by the 'houston we have a problem' part. that scene in which all the very non-typical-hero boys at ground control had to figure out how to save the astronauts lives with nothing but a bit of knicker elastic and a plastic knife. it was that that got us thinking - making life-saving stuff out of rubbish - brilliant, and making the people who aren't normally heroes (i call them the grubby fingernail brigade) into heroes - fantastic. the junkyard and all the rest kind of followed from there. don't know quite how i have managed to end up doing so many shows about boy stuff though. i would much rather go to a nice art gallery.

4) American vs. British contestants
by banda

Have you found any differences between the contestants in different iterations of the show? Speaking as an American who spent part of his youth in England, I find the British contestants much more entertaining, insightful and engaging. Was it easier to work with any particular group? Were there any contestants that made the show difficult?

Cathy:

well here's a funny thing - a lot of americans prefer the british teams and a lot of british people prefer the american teams... what can it all mean? are we all riddled with self-loathing? are we all superbly positive and outward-looking and natural anthropologists? i don't know. i think there is part of the show which is about observing people doing their thing in their natural habitat, a bit like how we might watch a natural history film about baracudas. and in that sense it is easier to watch people who are bit removed from ourselves. i would say in terms of being a host (yuk yuk hate that word) - it is easier to do the american shows because american people are more 'tv-articulate' - they understand what is required for tv - i guess simply because tv is the most dominant medium in american life and history. whereas for brits, other media are still dominant if you look over the whole period of our history; we haven't quite let go of a time when we read dickens serialised in pamphlets, so we are more used to sitting quietly taking things in - rather than 'putting them out there' ourselves. americans can get away with saying things like 'i am the big cahuna' whereas british people just sound silly saying things like that. the only downside of the american show is that americans seem to be more competitive, which can mean that things get a bit serious sometimes. in the new show FMC the brits often lose and find it all rather funny and are very self-deprecating. but the americans sometimes cry!

5) Sounds from the indie records
by Mikey-San

Before the 'Heap, you were in a British indie-crash-twee-pop band called Marine Research, and before that, Heavenly. Do you keep in touch with Amelia and Rob these days?

Cathy:

indie crash twee pop?! yikes. don't let that get out. yes i do keep in touch with the old indies though i must say i don't go and shuffle along to shows as much as i used to. i saw britney in vegas so the tortured lollipops at the dublin castle will never feel quite the same...

6) As a musician, what do you think of...
by CSG_SurferDude

As a musician, what do you think of the music industry these days, specifically about the slave-labor-like recording contracts, industry ownership of copyrights, Peer-to-peer song sharing (MP3s), and the current fruitless atempts to copy-protect CDs?

Is there anything that you can do in your current position to help change any of that to the betterment of recording artists and consumers everywhere?

Cathy:

is this a leading question?! do you have a letter drafted for me to sign?!

er.. where to start? big corporations are scary in many many ways and the music industry is obviously no exception. but although there seem to be so many new issues today where normal people / artists / whatever are exploited i wonder whether it is really that different from when i was a kid and me and my mates used to tape everything off the radio and make compilation tapes (one of the greatest and most overlooked art forms) and never buy a record in our life. except if it was a local band or a band on a really cool label or a record where we just loved the cover and had to have it. its a big discussion - the only incontrovertible good is to support your truly independent labels. k records / kill rock stars / many others have proved that you can have integrity, great music and not go under.

7) Role of expert
by naarok

Watching on TV, it often seems that the expert provides some good initial insight into a problem, but then often becomes superflous. Sitting through many hours of actually watching the challenges unfold. How valuable were the experts in comparison to teams with general inventiveness?

Cathy:

it depends a lot on the challenge. if its something innovative and thought-provoking like 'build a car that fits in a suitcase' then most teams who have the necessary know-how to get on in the first place would be able to make a pretty good stab at it expert-less. but in other challenges, such as making gliders or submarines, they are dependent. it also depends of course how well they all get along....

8) massive disruption to geeks everywhere....
by gclef

So, have you ever been tempted to wander into somewhere like a LinuxWorld conference, just to see if you could stop all productive work from occurring? (you probably could, you know...)

If not, are you tempted now?

Cathy:

er. i blush easily. my sister and i used to have a fantasy about going to this event called 'crufts' (a really pompous but very-seriously-taken dog show in england (like, they show it on tv! ) where people parade their over-coiffured hounds around doing daft tricks and generally proving that to be english is to be humorous in this fairly tragic way) and doing a streak. but maybe just with bottom halves! it would be a totally pointless act of sort-of-harmless-sabotage of a worthless institution and this amused us.

i suppose what i mean (ie not evading your question quite so obviously) is that the notion of committing a minor act that leads to massive disruption is an appealing idea. but i'm not quite sure about yours....

9) Off screen testing?
by The Mutant

How much testing goes on off screen? For example, the episode where participants had to build a diving bell, descend to the bottom of a small pond, and retrieve a chest of gold.

I don't believe that this was not tested off camera, if for no other reason solely to insure you didn't inadvertantly end up making a snuff episode.

Same thing goes for pretty much any device where explosives were used, or even the airplanes.

Cathy:

worryingly little. its always the hardest decision - test them and make sure they work but risk them breaking during the test (which you're not filming) and then you have no show, or fail to test them and have true spontaneity and excitement about the outcome but risk them failing during the show or being dangerous or whatever. we debate it endlessly and there is often a half way house - the diving bells you can put in the water and test-pump some air, the gliders you can tow up on a winch without a person on them. but it never gives you the full picture and what you see in the show is invariably the first time the machines have been properly tested, people and all. scary isn't it?

10) Why Rollins? Why!!
by SanLouBlues

What's the coolest thing you've ever built yourself? Or, what's the coolest thing you've ever tried to build yourself?

Cathy:

well who else would look as good in a power station? i mean, just say the words 'disused power station' and you think of henry. i think he is fantastic - a force of nature. and he makes me laugh a lot.

what have i built? lord how embarrassing. you have outed me. the sad truth is the things i have made which have been the most impressive feats of engineering and construction have been cakes. sshhhhhh.

Junkyard Wars (and the British Scrapheap Challenge) have long been popular with Slashdot readers. Now Cathy is co-host of a new show, Full Metal Challenge, that also involves teams building strange machines out of this and that. Take a look at this 'Cathy' fan site (and possibly her less interesting official biography), then ask away. (Usual Slashdot interview rules.)

Junkyard Wars (and the British Scrapheap Challenge) have long been popular with Slashdot readers. Now Cathy is co-host of a new show, Full Metal Challenge, that also involves teams building strange machines out of this and that. Take a look at this 'Cathy' fan site (and possibly her less interesting official biography), then ask away. (Usual Slashdot interview rules.)

MQBS writes "Researchers at the University of Queensland have discovered a way to make the brain heal itself. The article is a bit light on detail but it looks fairly important (at least to the unknowledgable about advanced neuroscience (like me)). I like the part about incrased memory... anyone care to be a complete GNU/Linux source code concordance ^_^?"

jukal writes ""With a $3.7-million grant and a court ruling, Florida's Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care last week took over a primate-testing facility in New Mexico that houses 266 lab chimps, including 16 Air Force animals descended from the first space chips.", read the rest at Discovery."

jukal writes ""With a $3.7-million grant and a court ruling, Florida's Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care last week took over a primate-testing facility in New Mexico that houses 266 lab chimps, including 16 Air Force animals descended from the first space chips.", read the rest at Discovery."

dorantrist writes "A Discovery Channel article that The U.S. Government has just licensed the first commercial mission to the moon to TransOrbital, Inc.. Part of the mission is "to VERIFY Apollo and other landing sites" because there are still a few people out there who believe the Apollo program was a hoax. --Maybe they can also pickup the golf balls left by Alan Shepard?"

KeelSpawn points to this article at Discover, which begins: "Until recently, scientists thought human ears were passive devices that detected and processed sounds, but new findings suggest that ears are like perpetually turned on stereo receivers that quiver spontaneously and sing along with incoming sounds."

"Hard work, no pay, eternal glory." The Mars Society needs volunteers to simulate Mars exploration, so we're better-prepared for the problems the (hopefully) real astronauts will face. If you have a month free next summer and you'd like to spend it freezing your ass off, read on.

The Mars Society is looking for "anyone in good physical condition between 18 and 60 years of age... Scientific, engineering, practical mechanical, wilderness, and literary skills are all considered a plus." Only the passionate need apply: "conditions are likely to be tough and the job will be very trying." And that's before the robot switches into hunter-killer mode.

If you prefer roasting to freezing, there's a mission somewhere in the Australian Outback next year as well. Either way, go visit the Mars Society homepage and check it out.

I spoke with a friend of mine, Daniel Slosberg, who coordinated Mission Support for the Michigan Mars Society during two similar, less-audacious experiments this year. His was the easy job of sitting at home, coordinating communications (chiefly email, with simulated 20-minute round-trip delay), answering questions from the field, and giving advice.

Daniel happens to be working on an idea for distributed mission support; if you're interested in being part of the ground crew, drop him a line.

For the team that actually goes into the wilderness and lives in the "hab," you'll be simulating Mars isolation as accurately as possible. You'll be brutally far north, for one thing. You'll wear a mock-spacesuit every time you go outside, which will help identify where the problems are in e.g. mobility or hygiene. You'll also spend an hour in the airlock when you enter or leave, which will help remind you not to forget your hammer.

The excursions get more sophisticated each year: next year will be the first with an already-completed hab and the first with more than one mock-suit. Your chance to be part of history.

In related news, Odyssey continues aerobraking, and its mission looks good -- if you've read Robinson's Red Mars series, you know how delicate orbital insertion is. Great work, JPL.

And just for kicks, here's a New Scientist article about synthesizing fuel from the Martian atmosphere to power a "hopper"-lander. If you find the practical chemistry of planetary travel interesting, go read Robert Zubrin who is just all about using whatever resources already exist outside Earth's gravity well.

heliocentric asks: "I recently cleaned out the garage, and discovered that I am the proud owner of 4 working lawnmower engines. Considering I neither have kids, nor am I one myself, the Go Cart idea which was quick to come to mind, left just as quickly. I'm wondering if the Slashdot community might have some good plans for some spare 5HP lawnmower engines (preferably links to plans as well as ideas)? I am a fan of the junkyard wars as well as BattleBots and all those like them as well I consider myself decent with the welder etc.. But I don't want to make something to harvest hay nor is there local Battlebot group so I am open to other ideas. Think big, think small, but please keep it legal."

bluelip writes: "This link from discovery.com describes how certain films, that when layered, change color in the presence of pollution. The devices that can produced using this method will be much cheaper than the detectors currently available. If you that chameleon car paint was cool, try this." I like to see lower-tech answers replacing higher-tech ones, especially when it means pollution monitoring can be done more easily.

Ant wrote to us with a story on Discovery about the long term consequences of manned and "womanned" missions to Mars - lots of research about bone-weakening effects of zero G environments, with tooth loss high on the list.

abh writes " CNN is reporting on the Emmy nominations, apparently there is a new category for reality-based TV (such as Survivor), and none other than Junkyard Wars got a nomination." Junkyard Wars rocks - excellent recognition of good stuff. The Daily Show was nominated as well, and deserves it, IMHO.

ewhac writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Geologist Luigi Piccardi will present a paper in Edinburgh, Scotland, today which asserts that sightings of the Loch Ness Monster can be explained as surface disturbances caused by seismic tremors. Loch Ness sits on an active fault, and eyewitness sightings of the monster correlate closely with recorded seismic activity. Don't expect the search for Nessie to be called off any time soon, however. (Can anyone out there with a good fluid dynamics model run an earthquake simulation on Loch Ness and see what happens?)" Maybe this makes more sense than the temperature explanation, but anyway you gotta love the fake photos.

linxx points to this Discover article, writing: "A 195 million year old mammal the size of a paper clip is thought to run around the earth along with the dinosaurs." Not everyone is convinced yet that this is a true mammal, either -- but like other aspects of science, it's an ongoing attempt to find a line of best fit.

quietglow points to this article at Discovery.com, writing: "See here for the story describing the use of some sort of spectronomy to read lots and lots of really important old books. Specifically, lots of Aristotle's lost texts, poems of Sappho etc. Did I mention they are using 'puters to do this? Jeeze."

el_guapo writes: "OK, this is just cool. From here, a mining company in Mexico opened up a couple of chambers containing the world's largest known crystals. From the article 'Walking into either of these caves is like stepping into a gigantic geode.'" Looks pretty impressive.

bigdavenyc writes: " The Learning Channel will be hosting an all day marathon of 'Junkyard Wars' episodes, starting at noon on Friday. This is a great show and this marathon has many episodes never seen in the U.S." Also worth noting is that Iron Chef is doing a marathon over Thanksgiving as well. I hope they make ice cream.

igz writes: "Someone is trying to set the world record for highest freefall, from over 31 miles above the Earth! There is no atmosphere up there, so speeds of up to 1.5 Mach are expected. Check it here." Whether this is insanity or courage is up to you, but it sure sounds like a fun ride. Cheryl Stearns is the insane / courageous diver, and she will jump wearing a pressure suit to counter the lack of air at (gulp!)165,000 feet up.

ActMatrix writes: "Just in time for Halloween, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has imaged a portion of the Perseus A Cluster that looks frightfully like an enormous skull. The "eyes" are apparently created by bubbles of gas created by electrons blasting out of a region near an enormous black hole, and the "mouth" is a galaxy with an estimated 20 billion stars. Chandra has snapped some amazing images so far, and this one is no exception. The Discovery.Com article has a good pic of the skull."

It's quickie time! Let's get into the action with some blood and guts. cthulhubob told us about Overkill. In light of all the irritating infringement news, An anonymous coward pointed us at http://www.groucho.com. I don't know why, but Jesper Skov thinks that having turbojets on model airplanes is a fantastic idea. Hey Doc, are you reading? Gabriel Golden submitted The Boomtrain Manifesto. leviathan shared the l33t surfer. According to our anonymous source, "Wired News is reporting that Danni Ashe has become the Most Downloaded Woman on the Internet. In your face, Cindy Margolis!" Bluedove (with a little help from Wes) showed us how to pirate music and video without a computer. alienmole gave us the origin of @. Mantis! is a Sega Saturn obsessive. Check out his site. Garth, while busy turning it up to eleven, told us about the upcoming re-release of Spinal Tap. On a personal note, just wanted to tell my friend Raja to get well, and that we're all thinking about him.

An unnamed correspondent points to this Discover.com article; looks like the bacteria tested for space survival (in the short term) passed that test. From the article: "Two strains of microbes from extreme environments on Earth appeared to survive a short flight through the vacuum and searing radiation of space, researchers at the University of Maryland announced Sunday. The experiment lends credence to the theory that primitive life might hitchhike between Earth and other worlds aboard debris from meteorite impacts."

Cybernetic Wolf writes: "The Mars Society has just finished building the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station in the Canadian Arctic. The station has been built to simulate what life on Mars will be like for future astronauts. This is a really cool first step in getting humans closer to colonizing other planets. There is a webcam and video of them as well."

glyneth writes "No, it's not a child of Storm and Magneto, but this weekend Earth has a 40% chance of experiencing a geomagnetic storm, according to this article. It could likely affect satellites in orbit along with power on the ground, as happened in 1989 in North America."

glyneth writes "No, it's not a child of Storm and Magneto, but this weekend Earth has a 40% chance of experiencing a geomagnetic storm, according to this article. It could likely affect satellites in orbit along with power on the ground, as happened in 1989 in North America."

Phrogman writes: "There is some great information on the Mar's Society's Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station which is being set up in the 20km diamater Haughton meteorite crater on Devon Island in Canada's high arctic. They will be assembling a complete simulation of a manned Mars lander there and conducting research leading towards a human mission to Mars. The lander was built in Denver, and is currently undergoing final checks before being flown up to the crater by the U.S. Marine Corps. There is detailed information on the lander itself here.

The project is a joint venture with NASA, and is sponsored by the Mars Society, Discovery Channel, and of course flashline.com (thus the name). There is also excellent 360 degree Quicktime(tm) photos of the entire region on the official website for the Haughton-Mars project. Marc Boucher of spaceref.com is actually onsite at the base camp and will be reporting on events there over the next few months."

The attitude seems to be pragmatic -- if we want to go to Mars, we need to start building the infrastructure, make the public aware of the possibilities, demo Mars vehicles, etc.

SEWilco writes: "This Discovery.com item points out a new estimate of 900 asteroids in orbits closer than Mars. Cornell University's William Bottke did a new study of The Spacewatch Project's small-object search. This estimate says that we've found 40% of the nearby asteroids. Well, I'm glad that we've started looking before a disaster, unlike 'Rendezvous With Rama'." Or "Lucifer's Hammer."

IntelliTubbie writes: "In an 'unorthodox form of brand sponsorship,' RadioShack is teaming up with LunaCorp, a Virginia-based space exploration startup. The goal: put a robotic rover on the moon featuring the RadioShack logo. Artist's renderings of the monstrosity can be seen at LunaCorp's web site. We're one step closer to the eerie predictions in 'Fight Club': The IBM Stellar Sphere. Planet Starbucks. Yikes." Unfortunately the robot will be powered by a TRS-80 ModelII, requiring 14 extra tons of propellant (grin). More coverage can be found at Yahoo! and discovery.com; CMU is creating the H₂O-seeking robot for the mission. (More.)

And on a related note for anyone interested in going to the moon in the relatively near future, MrScience writes: "I just received a link for this job in my mailbox from Guru.com, a pretty decent headhunter website. They are looking for a Financial Analyst to evaluate the NASA Academy, and "The end result will be a recommendation that the program either *is* or *is not* beneficial, and the specific reasons to justify such a conclusion. This report will then go before the NASA Administrator to justify the existence (or removal) of the program." I grew up dreaming of going to this, who wouldn't after seeing SpaceCamp?" Pound foolish, anyone?

beagle writes "CNN has an article about Liberty Bell 7, which was found last July after 38 years at the bottom of the sea. That's old news - what's new is that restoration of the capsule by the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is complete, and the capsule will be on tour around the country for three years before being returned to the Cosmosphere for permanent display." Now this is pretty cool. I always thought that Gus Grissom never got the recognition he deserved... maybe this makes some small measure of amends.

Let's start this off with jsewell's truly amazing story about the rocket car urban legend from the man who claims to have invented it. Did you do your homework last week? Remember that Slashdot was nominated for a Webby in Community so go do their little login dance and vote for us if you think that our First Posts, Oog, Trolls and 'God Slashdot Really Sucks These Days' messages are cool. Maybe we'll even fly CowboyNeal out to give an acceptance speech if we win ;) Glowing Spleen sent us an optical illusion that really bugs me. I had to check if it wasn't an animated GIF. A few for the do it yourselfers: Slash T.M.F.D.W. sent us a real mech and Ryan J. Evans sent in the worlds largest playable tetris. If you don't actually want to build something, but want to play anyway, try SodaPlay and you can mess with these crazy animated 2D springy models. Its surprisingly addictive. After all that building, you might need Jeremy's Microbatch Ice Cream (thanks alangmead) and its "Wired" flavor, a caffinated vanilla ice cream. Between that and the Triple Espresso flavor. Wonder what happens if you keep it in this Bio-Plastic Wrap that detects contaminated food (sent in by Accipiter) You can't use plastic wrap to preserve human heads, but ChunkyGoodness noted that Chet Fleming has US Patent number 4666425 for keeping them alive. Dugh Daren sent us a hilarious essay from Space.com on Star War's most annoying characters that I found extremely funny. brunning pointed us to perhaps the most pressing bug in all of Microsoft's software. kwsNI pointed us to an extremely disturbing article about Pandas on Viagra in China. Blake sent in a filter based on "Being John Malkovitch." Read Slashdot in Malkovitch Mode. And finally, we need a stupid lawsuit: east_bay_pete told us about a commercial that featured a cockroach scampering over the screen ... people are suing because they keep breaking TVs trying to kill the CGI Roach!

dante773 writes "ABCNews is reporting the Mars Polar Lander has missed it's primary windows of opprotunity to signal Earth. They still have a few options left to establish contact, though. Hopefully this isn't another failed Mars mission." Other sites carrying regular updates on the Mars Polar Lander that you might to check in with now and then: Offical Mars Polar Lander site; Discovery Channel's continuing coverage.

nlucent writes " a brief history of computer hackers/hacking from RMS and the FSF, to kevin mitnick, and K & R. covers the birth of unix, the arpanet etc. " Ladies and gentleman, this is from the discovery channel. Hacking is documentary material now.