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Ceres is also a dwarf planet. An increasingly interesting one at that. Really I find it pretty amazing that space exploration has practically ignored such a large, nearby body with tons of launch windows up to this point.

and crashed. http://news.discovery.com/spac...

The likelihood of getting a vaguely complete DNA sequence from multi-billion-year old fossils is slender

And people appear to have gotten it from 400 Ma DNA:

http://news.discovery.com/eart...

Furthermore, nowhere did I suggest that they compare ancient and modern DNA; there are other ways of getting at these problems, you know.

Finally, none of that changes the silliness of referring to "they look the same to me" as "cutting-edge technology".

5) One bad apple does not ruin the batch.

Follow up: yes it does - at least with apples. Ripening apples release ethylene gas that acts like a hormone to activate a specific gene in fruit that causes it to ripen. As it ripens further, the amount of ethylene gas soars and can cause an entire batch of apples stored together to ripen and rot.

Apples can be stored for an extended period if stored in a cold, oxygen-deprived location. Historically, before refrigeration, apples picked were stored for winter in barrels sunk in lakes. Even then, however, one rotten apple could prematurely ripen and rot an entire barrel.

More information here: Postharvest Cooling and Handling of Apples

Try looking for real perspective than repeating FUD and misreading facts;

http://link.springer.com/artic...

http://www.reuters.com/article...

http://blogs.scientificamerica...

http://news.discovery.com/eart...

http://www.insidescience.org/c...

Yeah, the truth is hard to swallow, so mod it down instead. There are readily available sources to help in perspective. Here just a start....

http://news.discovery.com/eart...

... must be more distinguishable ...

Probably, but even MythBusters proved 1 person in 3 can defeat it. As usual, the interrogator (let's not mince words; you have been denied legal representation) is making assumptions about your emotions, your thoughts, your transparency and ultimately, about your guilt.

http://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinof... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://www.discovery.com/tv-sh... http://science.howstuffworks.c... I googled that for you. Does that help?

On the other hand, I've heard advice that, if you're unavoidably going to hit an elk at highway speeds, you should slam on the accelerator to improve the odds that they'll bounce over the car rather than come in through the windshield. Not sure I buy it, but...

Myth busted

My statement was that we will tailor ourselves through a mixture of technology and biology.

If we were actually committed to the technology, we would never have to go ourselves. Sending human bodies implies a zealous commitment to a low tech solution frozen in time, like steam power in the age of electric cars. If we had the technology to make Mars comfortable we would have no need to do so, since martian robots will outstrip the utility of the human body by a country light year.

This is not quite correct, because robots don't have brains, and that is unlikely to change in the near future.

Some parts of our bodies are easier to replace than others. We have been replacing skin, blood, and bone (albeit imperfectly) for a long time. We are becoming better and better at replacing or removing parts of organs like kidneys, lungs, and even the heart. We are not even close to doing the same with our brains. We are starting to learn to do some awesome stuff with it, like control other people's limbs, and we may have even found the on-off switch for consciousness, but we can't replicate or replace the brain. We tried removing parts of it before, but even ignoring the horrid ethical violations, lobotomies had disastrous results and are no longer practiced.

Anyway, the point is, yes, robots could (and will) be a very significant part of colonization effort, but they can't replace humans entirely. I'll give you the idea that much of the human body is low tech, but our brains, though far from perfect, are more advanced than anything we've got.

Apparently many people in Cyprus trap migrating songbirds for food http://news.discovery.com/anim...

The linked article sucks, doesn't even show it.
Check this out:
http://news.discovery.com/hist...

Looks pretty good to me.

Also, Amelia Earharts crash site was never a mystery in the first place. They found her body in 1940, on this very same island
http://news.discovery.com/hist...

A woman's shoe, an empty bottle and a sextant box whose serial numbers are consistent with a type known to have been carried by Noonan were all found near the site where the bones were discovered.

So what are the odds that a white woman of earharts build, along with western womans shoe, and a sextent would be found on an island a few hundred miles from where earhart went missing and a piece of aluminum that would fit the window of her plane?

The linked article sucks, doesn't even show it.
Check this out:
http://news.discovery.com/hist...

Looks pretty good to me.

Also, Amelia Earharts crash site was never a mystery in the first place. They found her body in 1940, on this very same island
http://news.discovery.com/hist...

A woman's shoe, an empty bottle and a sextant box whose serial numbers are consistent with a type known to have been carried by Noonan were all found near the site where the bones were discovered.

So what are the odds that a white woman of earharts build, along with western womans shoe, and a sextent would be found on an island a few hundred miles from where earhart went missing and a piece of aluminum that would fit the window of her plane?

Or it is a terror network that is Al-Quida-free. Because you know those Al-Quida people are always downloading porn...

Maybe the can be laid on thick and scalloped with dimples like they did on Mythbusters.

Myth Busters on Brace Position

the link to one posted here in 2011: http://news.discovery.com/spac...

Ever heard of emergent behavior? After "magical thinking" got debunked, it was failure to recognize that complex systems are not intuitively obvious in their behavior that needed to be overcome for medicine to progress to where it is now. This is also why data-mining is not sufficient evidence for medical journals....research should (almost has to be) double blinded, randomized clinical trials to sort through the noise and empirically test the complex system under study. Otherwise we would have developed a computer model long ago. This is also why we still have medical mysteries in this day and age.

I suspect, although can not prove it, that the artificial sweeteners trigger the pancreas to release insulin which will drop blood sugar (hypoglycemia) and increase the desire for sugar. I am drawing an analogy to the cephalic phase of gastric acid secretion

What they could have done though is make the shell unique... like maybe trying out a dempled shall ala mythbusters

http://www.discovery.com/tv-sh...

No 3d printing for such experimentation is aprobbaly a best use for the method.

Exactly this! Somehow, we're going to have to take people's word for it?

Show us *evidence* for human made global warming, or shut the fuck up!

For a long time, we *know* global warming as a fact. Heck, we're technically still in an ice age at present, just coming out of a glacial period. The landmasses in the northern hemisphere are *still* lifting.

*Who* decided the status quo is sustainable?

This "consensus" thing is the same shit we've been served for the past thousands of years. Sadly, nothing is new in the human conditioning. Just new labels to obscure the facts.

Those having no Neanderthal genes are so stupid compared to those having Neanderthal genes.

As it happens this is completely true.

Why am I not seeing much more discussion of the "Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor" (WAMSR)?

http://news.discovery.com/tech...

According to the description, the WAMSR produces power like any other nuclear power station - but it is fuelled by "nuclear waste", which is essentially just fuel that has been 5% consumed and then discarded as no longer viable. Its proponents say that the WAMSR could provide all the power the human race needs until 2080, while using up all the nuclear waste that people are so upset about.

Better still, if necessary we can go on running conventional nuclear plants, and feeding their waste directly to WAMSRs.

OK, please tell me what's wrong with this picture? I obviously have missed some serious problem, but I'm puzzled that I haven't read articles debunking the WAMSR - instead, it's been completely ignored. Just as puzzling as the way bacteriophages are being ignored as replacements for antibiotics.

Remember the movie wall-e? All those fat people on the ship, we're going to end up like them if we don't tackle the root problem. A cure for type II diabetes is great and all, but it does nothing to solve the root problem(s).

This is an echo-chamber response: someone on the internet heard something, and keeps repeating it. It's rooted in emotional superiority, and comes from someone with no background in scientific research or statistics.

All attempts to pin obesity on the "that sounds about right" reasons have failed, including exercise and food intake - for both amounts and types of food.

In particular, lab animals grown today are fatter than the ones grown decades ago, despite having the same (and well-documented) diets and exercise. (Source.) Same with pets.

Current opinion holds that there is something in the environment that causes obesity - some agent that wasn't pervasive a couple of decades ago. Over 700 possible causes have been suggested, including your favorite bugaboo (whatever that is). We're slowly going through the options looking for the cause.

No diet will work, even that great "miracle cure" you heard about on Oprah. Lack of exercise doesn't cause it. Diets and exercise regimes work for *some* people because in changing their behaviour they eliminate the causal factor inadvertently - without knowing what it is. It wasn't the diet and it wasn't the exercise.

Try to keep current with scientific theory, otherwise we'll be repeating these old wives tales forever.

the use of such vehicles as guided bullets

Now that is evil.

http://www.discovery.com/tv-sh... - around the 5 minute mark. That's evil.

I think this was a more time sensitive mission, because Pluto is moving farther from the sun and scientists warned (rightly or wrongly) that it was about to freeze, and they had a window to use a gravity assist from Jupiter to get the probe there much sooner, and there was also an earlier mission snowballed.

On the other hand, Io and Europa aren't going to be any different in 5 years than they would have been a few years ago when the probe would have reached those destinations, so those missions were not as high priority than the potential impact of Pluto's orbit that they weren't sure of when they green-lighted this mission 13 years ago.

What is so special about Martian dirt that makes it more harmful than terrestrial dirt?

This article notes that scientists are worried about the high content of perchlorate and silicates in Mars regolith.

Mythbusters (almost as accurate as wikipedia) tested the myth of an untrained pilot landing a plane with coaching from the ground. They concluded it was "plausable".

But their second go-round with coaching assistance from an air traffic officer was much smoother sailing. Though the coach wasn't inside the simulator with Jamie and Adam, he was able to point out the gauges and controls and how to use them to correctly maneuver the plane. After being talked through how to steer and land step-by-step, Jamie and Adam each brought their imaginary planes safely to the ground, leading the MythBusters to rule this one "plausible" for someone actually flying the friendly skies. And at the end of the show, they said had they used the automation available, it would have been much easier....

see: http://www.discovery.com/tv-sh...

I don't know how much energy a nuclear sub could provide, but there must be a good reason why we don't normally wire them into the power grid? I was referring to the floating nuclear plants that have been getting more attention lately. Using the ocean as a heat sink certainly won't help with rising sea levels, though!

No its not. http://news.discovery.com/hist... Named Halomonas titanicae the bacteria are eating our wreck's metal and leaving behind "rusticles," or icicle-like deposits of rust. The porous rusticles will eventually dissolve into fine powder. So most of those bouys will be consumed and meet the fate of the Titanic, dissolved to dust. So if there is bacteria eating iron there is ones eating sulfur and other chemicals as well.

There is a point where a species cannot adapt and change fast enough.

And for those interested, that point is approximately the speed of AGW divided by 10,000:

http://news.discovery.com/eart...

If you cover a portion of the lunar surface with photovoltaics made from local materials, much less needs to be lifted up out of a gravity well.

http://news.discovery.com/spac...

Regardless of which concept ultimately gets pursued, it looks like the Japanese will be in the vanguard.

Inuit, not Eskimoes as you put it, don't have 50-100 different words for snow. There are many references for this, but one should suffice. http://curiosity.discovery.com...

While that's a good reference, this one is generally considered the most definitive.

Inuit, not Eskimoes as you put it, don't have 50-100 different words for snow. There are many references for this, but one should suffice. http://curiosity.discovery.com...

Huh? The most expensive was $3B?

The James Webb Space Telescope is estimated to be just under $8B to make and launch, then another ~$800M for operations.

An article from 2011 suggested that they had already spent $5B (or maybe it was just that they had only planned on it costing $5B at that point). An FAQ from JPL states that as of 2011, they had spent $3.5B.

If they're smart on this Europa mission, they won't design the mission around low TRL technology.

There was also was the joint Russian-European Mars500 project in 2010/2011 that lasted 520 days.

http://news.discovery.com/space/mars500-crew-experiment-insomnia-health-effects-130116.htm/

Most creatures don't stand a chance of adapting to climate change:

http://news.discovery.com/eart...

...they always say AGW can result in any conceivable data, including an ice age.

Citation:
http://curiosity.discovery.com...

This is no more proof of Big Bang, than it is an indicator of "living" in a computer simulation.

In fact, this is EXACTLY the kind of "evidence" they'd hide in such a model, to create a consistency and verisimilitude. :-)

http://curiosity.discovery.com...

Higgs Boson was a race and if the Feds had funded Fermilab's tevatron accelerator a bit more you may have seen it discover Higgs Boson before the LHC.

That is a very very big if. The Tevatron operated at about 1 TeV which meant that a heavy Higgs would not be created at all. A lighter Higgs would decay into bottom quark pairs which would be swamped by background noise. The Tevatron certainly helped limiting the possible phase space where the Higgs might be found but it is not very likely that it would have found it.

Or you could spend three times that on a Bentley and have a reupholstered Volkswagen Phaeton that delivers all the mileage of a 1980s pickup truck (and is also less reliable).

Over priced as the Model S is, that price is going no where but down, and range is going to go up.

So what does it mean for Tesla's resale value? Did Consumer Reports take car's resale value into account?

So who exactly are you saying is anti-science? I'm just anti-international cooperation especially where it really isn't in any nation's best interest. ITER has laudable goals but look at the players and ask yourselves if it will seriously be successful. Nope, it'll be a run into the ground project that won't produce anything.

Higgs Boson was a race and if the Feds had funded Fermilab's tevatron accelerator a bit more you may have seen it discover Higgs Boson before the LHC.

Or you could spend three times that on a Bentley and have a reupholstered Volkswagen Phaeton that delivers all the mileage of a 1980s pickup truck (and is also less reliable).

Over priced as the Model S is, that price is going no where but down, and range is going to go up.

Why are you so sadistic that you want to force people to work as garbage men?

Because today we need garbage people. I'd love for it to become automated. Once that happens, there are still plenty of jobs people don't want to do.

If/when we get to the point that 100,000 people can operate and maintain the machinery to provide all the needs and wants of the other 8 billion people on the planet, is it honestly your suggestion that the 8 billion should live in squalor and poverty, and the entire production of the planet only be distributed among the 100,000 who have the needed skills?

Our society has become massively automated compared to the middle ages. And we have 25 times the world population now. Yet we still have plenty of jobs; I'd wager that employment as a percentage is much higher today. This seems to contradict the idea that we will ever come to a point that automation will reduce jobs permanently.

Great, so will the US then also meet EU polution standards? Or does this rule only apply when you like it?

We don't even have a mechanism to deal with this within the US. I live in western New Hampshire, right by the big hydro power plant. Aside from a few automobiles, all of our air pollution comes from elsewhere (and we have lots of trees to absorb pollution so we're probably a net negative for pollution in this area). Yet, when the heat of the summer comes and the midwest cranks up their coal-fired power plants, the smog builds in, our visibility goes to crap, and I'm buying a new set of contact lenses every week (or just switching to glasses if it's bad enough :shudder:). The low visibility hurts our tourism, because there goes the 200-mile views from atop the hilltops, and I'm out-of-pocket for the contacts (and who knows what the long-term damage is).

But just imagine the laughter of the "judge" throwing out our small-claims court cases against each of those coal-burning plants if we try to recover our costs that we incur to ease their expense ratios.

To answer your question - the rules only apply in 'the system' when it privatizes the gains and socializes the costs. The government tells us this is "for the common good". To the GP's point - that's hardly a libertarian approach.

Why is this news?? MythBusters did it already.

I remember having watched a special episode of Mythbusters a few days ago where they also made experiments with small airplanes in different flying formations. They tried the classic birds' V formation, an extended version of that or straight line formations. It was actually impressive how strongly fuel consumption and manoeuvrability were affected by some seemingly small variations of the formations.

Here is a small clip:
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/extended-v-minimyth.htm

I remember being taught this as a child in the 80s.

tested

Due to inertia, the stars would continue to travel at their current speeds if nothing were pushing and pulling on them. As it is, whatever gravitational forces are acting upon them at the moment might be comparatively insignificant to their current inertia.

So how did they get their current inertia? They might have gotten it from the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core without setting their vector towards the core. They could do so possibly using a gravity slingshot effect. So it is surprising they're not coming from the core, as the article states. So what is interesting about these stars is they don't seem to be explained by the slingshot effect.

Further, gravity is a force of attraction and so does no pushing.

Also, I did a knapkin calculation of the speeds involved and it would be 1/700th the speed of light except the article says that this speed is relative to the movement of the galaxy and not an absolute speed like the slashdot summary intimates.

So are you saying nothing of use/value has come out of the space program as a whole, or just from the space station itself? Here is just one short list of the programs value. Okay, not all of it is that valuable.