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It (very probably) targeted their centrifuges. Think for a second about what centrifuges do.

Perhaps this is your way of agreeing with me, do you realise that the centrifuge is part of the enrichment facility? The wiki article you sent me said;

There are reports that Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz was the target of Stuxnet and the site sustained damage because of it, causing a sudden 15% reduction in its production capabilities.

I hadn't read it, so thanks, but it re-iterates the exact point I was making to you.

Which is one of the most irrational stances a person can take on the issue.

Why? I provided a perfectly rational explanation for my reasoning in the post I linked you to. If you have some specific criticisms of that reasoning you should offer them.

While you sound like you've read a little bit about nuclear, if you think that the waste problem is anything but a politician made canard, you're lying to yourself.

Well I know enough about Nuclear power to understand many of the issues, like the difference between a Breeder and Burner reactor. You have offered nothing with which to explain the basis of you statement about the waste situation being a political situation. Politics are certainly a component (i.e the Yucca debarcle) but waste from the Nuclear industry has a variety of physical properties one of the most significant factors being volume.

Have a look at this article, it should help you get a better understanding of the waste situation.

1) If something has a long half-life, it's not very radioactive. You either need a lot of it to pose a hazard, or you can just ignore it.

Plutonium's half life is 25,000 years and one microgram can cause fatal lung cancer or leukemia when ingested.

It's not like the uranium ore is contained in any way before it gets mined.

What do you mean uranium is not contained before it is mined? What do you think Uranium mining entails? If it helps you understand *how* Uranium is contained from it's natural state during the mining process with atypical concentration to get a kilogram of uranium you have to process 500 tons of hard ore and it's not enriched like the products of reactors are. Of that 1 kilo of Uranium about a gram will be U-235.

To break it down for you 500 tons of rock contain 1 gram of fissile material. I think that's sufficiently contained.

2) If something has a short half-life, or you have a lot of long half-life waste, it's not waste, it's fuel.

Keh? You may not be aware, but not everything that has toxic levels of radioactivity can go into a reactor, for example radioactive mine tailings.

The problem with nuclear waste isn't the radiation, it's the heat it generates.

Actually no it isn't. The biggest problem with nuclear waste is that radioactive isotopes analogue nutrients so they bio-accumulate in the food chain. That means;

a) It cannot be detected with the senses (taste, touch etc)

b) It's extremely toxic to life processes

To break it down for you once a radionuclide enters the body, the body identifies it as a nutrient and uses it as such. If it is deposited in the bones, in the case of a calcium analogue like strontium 90 as an example, it will continue to emit radiation creating a condition for cancer to incubate (typically 6 year

The biosphere expanded last century, but don't let facts stand in the way for some nice eco-gloom ;)

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/08/surprise-earths-biosphere-is-booming-co2-the-cause/

Sahara desert shrinking, Sahel (a savannah) expanding:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html

The USPS will ship live day-old chicks. They absorb the last of the yolk before hatching which gives them enough water and nourishment for the trip.

Even better. Just as the settlers followed the pioneers and explorers and trucks followed the more exclusive horseless carriages, a private firm could build repair bot versions and start the first industrial space enterprise. With near Earth space filling up, this will be a necessity.

"Shipping lanes" are just the direct path between ports that trade a lot with each other, and hence, which happen to have a lot of shipping traffic that follows the same path. No, ocean currents play little role; for the most part, ships follow Great Circle paths:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/images/070628-human-footprint_big.jpg

In that vein, I think a good role model is someone who popularizes science. If I were to quote you some scientists who Hirsch-indices were really high, the problem is that most of their stuff is unintelligible to most adults, much less a kid. So I'd pick ones that have written books that popularize science. Along with Tyson, I'd think about guys like:

Steve Jay Gould (paleontologist, unfortunately dead)
Robert Hazen (mineralogist, works on origin of life, not really young though)
David Goodstein (chemist, writes on oil resource depletion.)
Perhaps someone who reports on science, like the scientists at work blog at the NYT or one of the blogs on national geographic. That way the kid could keep up with current events (maybe you could find a blog of someone working someplace inhospitable, like McMurdo station in the Antarctic.

From USA Today: "Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83% of home-schooling parents want to give their children 'religious or moral instruction.'"

So the bulk of th 1.5 million homeschooling market teaches something that has been known to be wrong for 150 years (200 years if it includes Noah's flood and young-earth crap). I found this with 30 seconds of Google. If you look through amazon.com for creationism you'll find hundreds of books on the subject so creationist books conservatively cost the US millions a year in direct costs, but this is then multiplied greatly by the cost of correcting the falsehoods in those books. Multiple creationist ministries (Answers in Genesis, Discovery Institute, Institute for Creation Research, etc) have multi-million dollar annual budgets that are devoted entirely to obfuscation of well established scientific fact through the creation of those ignorance-promoting textbooks, science and educationally-hostile political advocacy, and legal battles, again amplifying those budgets to create a much larger drain on the US. These groups wield enormous political power: in 2008 multiple Republican presidential candidates (Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo) and the Republican VP nominee (Sarah Palin) declared their support for creationism. If you look through Republican state party platforms you'll commonly see support for damaging education by incorporation of creationism. Widespread and politically powerful opposition to evolution is something that our foreign competitors have much less of a problem with: in one survey of selected countries we only beat Turkey in terms of acceptance of scientific fact. Considering evolution is of critical importance in biotechnology, pharmacology, medicine, etc. this is a grave threat to the USA.

As a vegetarian, it really disgusts me... (I wonder, though, if this smell is better than regular diesel).

As an omnivore who's also a hunter, I'm glad that they're finding a green use for what would otherwise be a waste product.

This is a kind-of 'old tech' come back in a new form. Animal fat used to be used to produce candles and lantern oil; so the idea of using it for power isn't a new one.

BTW, this is old news; I first heard about this factory several years ago.

MUCH better article
- Hmm... Looks like a new plant, and it'll also produce fuel for the B-52. Sweet.

Ah, here's what I was remembering - light crude from turkey fats and other waste via thermal-depolymerization .Article dates from 2003.

Citation needed for your original post. When you make claims that are unsubstantiated it's OK, but since I bothered to have a rebuttle and googled it, now you want substantiation. Sure.

The 2006 study from the same group you link to from 2002. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/roper2006/pdf/FINALReport2006GeogLitsurvey.pdf
Page 26 shows 92% correct about Canada.

It also shows 79% find the Pacific Ocean just fine. You know, I'm all for increasing Geography in school, just as I'm all for increasing critical thinking and less memorization, even if those wants can be seen as somewhat conflicting. But let's not make up crap just because you have a bias. One of the biggest factors in Americans scoring lower on these types of tests is the size of America itself and the time it takes to teach students about America. 50 states and all that ya know. And it's a lot easier being an "international" living in Switzerland then it is in Iowa. They should quiz the Swiss on finding Nebraska then compare it to Americans so we get a free "win", right?

Non-relgious stats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#North_America

What else do you want? Now go show me how Christians and the Tea-Party (of which I belong to neither) are turning America into a fascist state.

Citation needed for that entire post. Heres some stats with citation.

About 11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. couldn't even locate the U.S. on a map. The Pacific Ocean's location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/11/1120_021120_GeoRoperSurvey.html

It also states that several other countries are just as bad, but the US is very very far from leading the pack, which is where it would claim to be. Many young people also place the US as being the largest country in the world based on both population and land mass which is very wrong. Not being able to find the Pacific Ocean??

Who is living in Fantasy Land again?

I've known a few people with tablets over the years. They're toys. They'll play with them a good bit at first, but in time, they'll want to sit down in a chair, type on a keyboard, etc, etc.

Of course, not all tablets are used for functionality. They're more of a status symbol. Why do you think people buy their Apple's? "Look at me, I have an expensive computer." Of course the fanbois will say "Not true!" That's coming from the same people who put the stupid apple sticker on their car. They wear Apple gear (hats, tshirts, etc) for no apparent reason. And those damned "MobileMe" (@mac.com, @me.com) email addresses. No, you didn't just spend a lot more than the machine was worth, but you're also making residual payments.

When you need to make a statement like "I have money to burn, so I buy the best.", the Mac Fanbois throw every last penny at their Mac. They also refuse to face reality when you say "but you can do the same thing for half the price ...." So, they're the perfect consumer. They are driven by brand recognition, and will flaunt it any chance they get. If you're sitting in a Starfucks with any PC based tablet, you're sure to get the Mac Fanboi coming by and starting a conversation with something as polite as "So I see you couldn't afford a Mac.", with the same snobbish attitude if you were caught drinking instant coffee, or reading the free local weekly.

Fortunately, there is a distinct trend among these fanbois, where they'll save up to purchase their expensive toys, just to be a member of the Cult of the Apple (tm). In reality, they live in a sparsely decorated studio apartment, which they call "artistic", but in reality it is because they couldn't afford furniture. At least it doesn't matter much, they don't actually bring people to their homes very much, they prefer to congregate at places like Starfucks and Panera Bread in their adolescent attempts to attract those of the opposite sex, but all they really accomplish is to drink overpriced coffee while drooling on their overpriced toys.

It's very sad too. I was in the mall a couple weeks ago. There is a starbucks in this mall. As I walked by, I saw a guy waiting for his "super grande mocha guano cappuccino with extra whipped cream", with his laptop in hand as if cradling a baby. I had a few minutes to kill, so I stood outside waiting for the obvious humor to happen. He was busy tapping at maybe 10cps, so he couldn't have been actually doing much more than saying "look, I have a tablet, pay attention to me!". Sometimes the hate for runs deep. Deep enough for me to hang around to watch the fun. After 5 minutes, his cup of overpriced dirty water was ready. He did something that must have been choreographed by professionals and practiced. No amateur could possibly pull it off. The tablet started to slip, so he reacted by reaching for it with the coffee. Knowing the coffee would spill, he tried to save it. In a blur that would be best described as a Loony Toons Tasmanian Devil spinning with arms and legs flailing as he tried to save both of them.

Since this was apparently choreographed by Wile E. Coyote, he tripped and fell. The tablet hit the floor and the screen blinked off. The coffee landed just right so the lid popped off, and how he is the proud owner of a grande mocha guano cappuccino with extra whipped cream flavored tablet.

He did accomplish his wish. Everyone looked at him. It was really amazing. I wish someone had recorded it. If there were an Olympic game for such things, he'd l

Might as well just post it..

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/iran-archaeology/del-giudice-text/1

It's difficult to find the ethnicities of the various people in power, other than Khameni, who is Azeri. The Azeri regions were inhabited by Arabs during the middle ages.

Like I said, it's difficult to identify the ethnicities of the specific players. It's clear that the government follows Muslim and Arab ideals, not Persian ones, regardless of the background of the specific people. I probably got the idea that the government is specifically Arabic from this article from 2008, which is definitely worth a read if you haven't already:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/iran-archaeology/del-giudice-text/1

You do understand that in many places normal food crops are still fertilized by feces?

But....

The use of human feces as fertilizer is a risky practice as it may contain disease-causing pathogens and because it contains heavy metals. Nevertheless, in developing nations it is widespread. Common parasitic worm infections, such as ascariasis, in these countries are linked to night soil, since their eggs are in feces. Night soil

Nearly 2.2 million people die each year because of diarrhea-related diseases, including cholera, according to WHO statistics. More than 80 percent of those cases can be attributed to contact with contaminated water and a lack of proper sanitation. Human Waste Used by 200 Million Farmers, Study Says

I think the "theory" in question here is the sensationalism and alarmism attributed to this mess. I'd have FAR less problems believing the climatologists predictions if they would avoid the sensationalism that they've presented in the past few years. Let me list a few so you'll be aware what I'm talking about...

* Hurricanes will increase in frequency or strength, predicted specifically for 2009/2010.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/hurricane/2007-07-29-more-hurricanes_N.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070730-hurricane-warming.html
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/HurricaneRita/story?id=1154125&page=1

Except they didn't. I can't find the link that compared the predicted versus actual numbers but there are far fewer hurricanes than previous years for 2009 and 2010 seems to be pretty low as well so far. *I* am predicting that the next prediction will be "global warming will cause a decreased frequency of hurricanes". And they never got stronger. That was, as usual, someone not understanding statistics.

* Himalayas will be devoid of ice by 2035. Yes, it was a "typo" but everyone wanted to believe it..

* Due to the Greenland glaciers, the ocean will rise 21 feet. Too bad it was recalculated closer to 7 inches.

* And now the Antarctic and Greenland melting is happening at about 1/2 the rate they thought.. ZOMG the world is gonna end. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!! Or not.

I'm sure there are other examples but that's all I can think of right now without my caffeine..

If the climatologists would stop predicting anything other than facts and trends, they might get less egg on their faces and be considered to be at least somewhat respectable. As it stands they prefer to play the role of seer/doomsayer and as such I'm committed to shoot them down when they get out of hand.

Scientists think it's OK to warp science to fit their primitive belief systems.

Just look at...

• the Darwinian rational for fair skinned people subjugating other races, particularly those of African decent. Or have you forgotten that the full title is "On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life"
• the notion of Bloodletting for the purpose of balancing the humours and the prevention of blood stagnating in the body (doesn't circulate you know...)
• the notion that radium ore treated water was a missing vital supplement for health
• stomach ulcers are caused by stress and spicy foods
• Piltdown Man
• the universe is decellerating
• geosycline hypothesis
• ...

Knowing what states border mine is significantly more important than knowing where a random state is, is significantly more important than knowing where a random country is -- none of which are terribly important at all.

Right. Knowing what nations border Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran -- completely unimportant.

The fact that more than 6 out of ten American young adults (18 to 24) can't find Iraq on a map of the middle East, that 20% of them think Sudan is in Asia, and that almost half think that the majority population in India is Muslim, doesn't have any deleterious foreign policy.

And I've got a bridge for sale. (Don't be bothered by the fact that it's no where near any river, valley, or other geographical feature that the requires bridging...)

Please tell me you got that information from somewhere other than a Miss America contest, because according to National Geographic, the 94% can find it (look on page 26). I'm open to different surveys of different population segments giving different answers, but if your source of information is really a Miss America contest, that's sad.

Actually there are bone-stock choppers that can make it to the top of Everest now:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0509/whats_new/helicopter_everest.html

Although you're still not getting rescued unless you're Paris Hilton carrying a box of kittens.

>> What cable channels haven't jumped the shark?

My new favorites are the Smithsonian Channel and the NATGeo channels. You are completely correct, I cannot stomach most any of the Discovery channels anymore or TLC. I still do enjoy "The Universe" series on The History Channel but not too much else.

I was curious to see them, so I searched for Gibbons climbing and ended up watching about an hour of National Geographic videos on various monkeys, starting with Gibbons (video continues to other monkeys).

You reply with rumor and ad-homs. Either cite your sources or move on.

As for mine: Dune ( The Road to Dune (2005), p. 264 )
LoTR: "World War I and World War II". http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html. Retrieved 16 June 2006.
I'm afraid I will have to go home to look up the info on Journeys of the Catechist (the one I was not to sure on)

No, I'm asserting that there isn't the relationship between global climate and natural disasters that you suppose. In your hypothesis, where global temperature drives natural disasters, you should have some lower limit at which a cold world has no natural disasters.

You seem to be assuming a spectrum where on one end of the scale, the temperature is absolute zero and there are no disasters, and on the other end, the temperature is very high and natural disasters are common. You say "driving", but I never said temperature was the only factor. I assumed it was one factor.

Now that you have clarified, your argument is analogous to the claim "if the dirtiness of electricity drives the price down, then there should be a point at which electricity is free"

However, we know that natural disasters don't disappear in a colder world, and we know that they don't increase in a warmer world.

You're right about the "not increasing in a warmer world" part. I started looking for information to back up my statement and found that the most recent studies do not support more frequent natural disasters, but they do support stronger disasters with a longer duration. I was wrong about that, and I apologize.

Given such inherent uncertainty in a stochastic system, the only effective course of action is to prepare for the inevitable disaster - and the trick to that is to use the cheapest energy we possibly can to raise the standard of living for the people most at risk.

I'm not so sure about that part. For one thing, I do not know that coal will be the cheapest energy, forever. During that time, if we ramp up production of renewable energy sources, then renewable energy will become cheaper as we find more efficient ways to manufacture them. Then there is the evidence for global warming. Even if it does not result in an increase in the number of natural disasters, we are still gambling with the world's economy. If the models turn out to be more legitimate than the wishful thinking of some skeptics, then this will cause an incredible amount of suffering, and it will be disproportionately tilted toward those same people you talk about.

What do you think the expansion of the Sahara does to poor Africans?

You do realize that the Sahara desert has been greening lately, right? This is mentioned briefly in the IPCC report, too.

A lot of people like to come up with these crazy statistics, like the idea that New York will be covered with water, even though no serious scientist actually thinks that. We're talking about a couple degrees, and suddenly you're talking about mass hysteria. At least try to get your facts straight. No scientists are saying that we'll go back to the dark ages because of global warming, and yet that's what you're implying. This is known as 'lies and propaganda.' Don't do it.

Except if new insights require the wast to be dug up, like in the German salt mines. This dug up will be paid by the state of course, because it is in the public interest.

According to opponents waste is a problem, according to proponents all the problems can be solved.

Insurance also is such a factor. the first 10 Billion (US situation) is insured by the plants, anything over that would be paid by taxes. Compare that to the cost of Chernobyl ( ~ 235 Billion) or 3 mile island (close to a billion). You will not have to take such insurance on solar power or wind power, (not sure on hydro power).

I hope you're being sarcastic. Those who ignore history are indeed doomed to repeat it. Prohibition with its police corruption and gang wars, and economic depression, for example. It's happened before.

We actually have sent manned bathyspheres and ROVs to the bottom of the Challenger deep, so we can get there. Still, while the remoteness might be debatable, it's easily the most dangerous environment human's have ever been to. As for mountain peaks, we've landed helicopters on Everest's peak, so I'd guess we could land one on any other peak if we really need to.

Challenger Deep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_deep#Descents
Everest: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0509/whats_new/helicopter_everest.html

National Geographic blog post on Faith the 2 legged dog

http://faiththedog.info -- His website

National Geographic Magazine did a recent article on the US power grid. Apparently it is way older and sensitive to fluctuations than I thought. It's really not set up currently to handle the erratic nature of 'green' power.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/07/power-grid/achenbach-text

It's not THAT bad. A 32MwH (?) Sodium-Sulfer battery -- the largest in the US -- capable of supplying Presidio, Texas (pop 4500) for up to eight hours was recently brought on line. Cost = 15M. Presumably, as more of these are built, the costs will drop.

That said, Presidio is a sort of worst case since its normal power source is a single elderly, very long, and apparently very fragile, transmission line. But it does demonstrate that there are cases where big batteries look plausible as the best engineering solution to some "How do we keep the lights on in this earthly paradise?" situations.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100325-presidio-texas-battery/

Rated insightful for someone who can't spell dinosaurs?

Ewe muss bee knew hear!

Assuming evolution is true, what would have been the preempting factor that turned some dinosaurs into creatures with wings?

Some dinosaurs did have wings.

Let's assume again evolution is true

I assume you're an IDer, but remember that the bible doesn't say how God created life, or what steps he took to make the different kinds. There is no real dichotomy between ID and evolution, although there is between creationism and evolution. But evolution has been seen and proven in life forms with short lifespans, such as fruit flies.

What would have happened is that a dinosaur laid an egg that hatched a chicken which then laid an actual chicken egg that hacked another chicken

Evolution doesn't happen that fast; changes are tiny between generations, and with creatures like us with long lifespans, takes hundreds of thousands or even millions of years before one species morphs into a different one.

By the way, what are noncompos and for argument's sake, what dinosaur turned into a chicken?

"Noncompos" is a word coined by Dr. Isaac Asimov (who also coined the word "robotics") for a short science fiction story about a fellow with Asperger's. It's short for Non Compos Mentos. I can't remember the name of the story, sorry. But current theory is that all birds are evolved from dinasaurs, and in fact they recently found proof that some disosaurs had feathers.

Nuclear waste really isn't a problem....

Nuclear waste is a real problem once you understand the facts.

I just want to thank the folks at Slashdot for posting e-waste stories like this. I've got 45 bookmarks on e-waste http://delicious.com/joerowe/e-waste I'm looking for other teachers to develop lesson plans for e-waste education. For example: National Geographic published a good story, but it contained some major myths. I've contacted NG and they refused to admit it's only a myth that computer screens from Monitex in Texas are turned into in low cost TV sets in Thailand. See the 5th picture in this set. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/essick-photography BTW: This story was well documented by the TV show 60 minutes, which you can watch online. See my bookmarks.

Calling your opponent a fucktard hardly helps make your case. In fact, reasonable undecided readers will likely write you off for using the word.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/facts_and_figures

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/

http://www.ecosalon.com/top-10-global-warming-denier-arguments-debunked-part-2/

http://earthfirst.com/desmogblog-debunks-the-global-warming-skeptics-handbook/

http://mediamatters.org/research/200601250007

Hope this helps.

Photo: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/giant-crystal-cave-3569/Photos#tab-Photos/0 and video: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/giant-crystal-cave-3569/Photos#tab-Videos/05856_00 of those caves in Naica, Mexico

Photo: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/giant-crystal-cave-3569/Photos#tab-Photos/0 and video: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/giant-crystal-cave-3569/Photos#tab-Videos/05856_00 of those caves in Naica, Mexico

There is also a ridicoulsy long article (1/2 the mag) in this months National Geographic.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/07/middle-awash/shreeve-text

While silly scare stories of this nature are.., well what they are, it does raise a point.

Solar maximums do spit out a lot of radiation, and they have been known to cause power outages. My question is this, (because I can't seem to find a straight answer), we know that the Earth's magnetic field which protects us from solar wind is decreasing.

I'm not actually very concerned about this; the platitudes are well in place and I don't really have any reason to doubt them (other than I don't trust any government or large media promises ever), but whatever. In any case, it is an interesting and relevant point which you'd think SOMEBODY might have taken a moment to mention.

Here's NASA's website which has some details about the shifting magnetic field. Apparently it's picked up speed; magnetic North is moving at about 40 Km every year now.

-FL

While somewhat dangerous, it shouldn't be that hard to get a camera and lights down there, as it is "only" 100 feet deep. (if that makes sense)

Correction: That's 100 *metres* deep. National geographic says it's about 30 storeys deep, which I assume to mean that's where the sides of the hole end and the "cavern" (for lack of a better term) begins.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-animal-chimeras or http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html As a matter of fact, there is a controversy over a related patent that was issued in 1999 (google EP 380646). Canada has already passed national legislation with regards to this issue. This is not fiction, folks. Nor does the legislator deserve to be mocked for the concern he has on the issue. I haven't read the bill, so there may well be good reason to deride this law ... but not because the concern is over something fictitious.

Too bad its not science fiction. I personally know a group of scientists that create rabbit human embryos. Also there has been a lot of research in growing human organs in pigs". So we are already producing animal-human hybrids. Hell we even grow human ears on mice.

Whether you agree with the bill or not, it will have an effect:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html; link from wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)

The rabbit/human embryo mentioned there falls under 3701.95.A.1.e. of the bill: "an embryo produced by introducing a human nucleus into a nonhuman egg".

Since your closest relatives are unlikely to share more than 50% of your DNA,

I'm surely not going to marry YOUR sister.

From http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0831_050831_chimp_genes.html:

"Scientists have sequenced the genome of the chimpanzee and found that humans are 96 percent similar to the great ape species."

Based on that, I really gotta wonder what the bitch looks like at only 50%.

And for it's next trick, the octopus will change its color!

Oh wait, some already do that.

Seriously, black smokers are your argument? And life doesn't live *inside* them, but does just outside. Yeah, life does live just fine there. And all over the bottom of *every* ocean. Even 25,000 feet down:
http://www.extremescience.com/zoom/index.php/life-in-the-deep-ocean/44-deepest-fish

And to prove my point, life at the bottom of the Mariana Trench:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0203_050203_deepest.html

Even radiation doesn't seem a real problem for life, bacteria live ON radiation rods in nuclear power plans:
http://genome.jgi-psf.org/kinra/kinra.home.html

Although urban lighting has always been with us, we have not (yet?) recognised it as a disruptive influence.

No, some of us were blessed by growing up without street lights, instead we were treated to a multitude of bright stars in the sky. In the US there is hardly any place that does not suffer from light pollution. Even after first seeing night photos from space years ago of the light pollution covering the US, parts of Canada, and elsewhere still shocks me.

Oh, and it's been known for year that light pollution takes a toll on wildlife too.

Falcon

there are photos in encyclopedias and on web.

I've seen ball lightening from distance of half a mile, and it's been created in lab

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070122-ball-lightning.html

Methane has a GWP of 33 in the latest reports, not 20, over 100 years. It has a GWP of 72 over 20 years.

One cubic meter of methane hydrates at the sea floor expands to over 164 cubic meters of natural gas at the surface.

The methane being released from the world's oceans is estimated at 14 teragrams (about 15.4 tons) a year, half of which is from just the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. Researchers are pretty sure the reason it's matching the rest of the oceans is because the type of methane hydrates that we've been talking about are releasing gas and becoming increasingly unstable.

It seems some researchers blame releases from methane hydrates below the seas and below melting permafrost for past rapid warming trends. This is said to be the sort of warming feedback loop that carbon dioxide by itself probably couldn't trigger.

Do note the dates of some of these articles. This is recent reporting.

The short-term effects of methane are very important.

For one, you and I probably won't be worried about it personally in a century. For another, when you have methane estimated in the billions of tons in little sections of the ocean and it seems that a little warming gets that all released, things start to compound rapidly.

The carbon cycle is not in balance any more. The concentration of carbon dioxide has been at about 200-300 ppm for millions of years. Now that humans are burning fossil fuels at an increasing rate, the concentration is approaching 400 ppm. Because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, this is increasing the temperature of the planet. We will have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2050 to keep temperatures from reaching two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This reduction can be achieved by increased energy efficiency and use of alternative methods of generating energy, such as nuclear power plants.

yes, the safety valve designed to prevent this failed: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/photogalleries/100504-gulf-mexico-oil-spill-containment-science-environment-nation-pictures/?now=2010-05-04-00:01#gulf-oil-spill-containment-device-blowout-protector-preventer_19879_600x450.jpg