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Live Worms Found in Columbia Wreckage
Scoria writes "CNN is reporting that hundreds of live worms, fourth or fifth generation descendents of the subjects of a scientific experiment conducted aboard Columbia, have been discovered amongst the shuttle wreckage. The worms,
C. elegans ,
share many biological characteristics with humans and are the size of a pencil tip."
Many humans share common characteristics with worms, too.
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Hundreds of worms from a science experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia have been found alive in the wreckage, NASA said Wednesday.
The worms, known as C. elegans, were found in debris in Texas several weeks ago. Technicians sorting through the debris at Kennedy Space Center in Florida didn't open the containers of worms and dead moss cells until this week.
All seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle disintegrated over Texas on February 1. Columbia contained almost 60 scientific investigations.
"To my knowledge, these are the only live experiments that have been located and identified," said Bruce Buckingham, a NASA spokesman at the Kennedy Space Center.
The worms and moss were in the same nine-pound locker located in the mid-deck of the space shuttle. The worms were placed in six canisters, each holding eight petri dishes.
The worms, which are about the size of the tip of a pencil, were part of an experiment testing a new synthetic nutrient solution. The worms, which have a life cycle of between seven and 10 days, were four or five generations removed from the original worms placed on Columbia in January.
The C. elegans are primitive organisms that share many biological characteristics of humans. In 1999, C. elegans became the first multicellular organism to have the sequencing of its genome completed.
C. elegans have two sexes: males and hermaphrodites, which are females that produce sperm. A hermaphrodite worm can self-fertilize for the first 300 or so eggs but later usually prefers to accept sperm from males to produce a larger number of offspring.
The experiment was put together by researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center in California.
The moss, known as Ceratodon, was used to study how gravity affects cell organization. During Columbia's flight, shuttle commander Rick Husband sprayed the moss with a chemical that destroyed protein fiber. He also sprayed the moss with formaldehyde to preserve it. Seven of the eight aluminum canisters holding the moss were recovered.
Why worms?
The C. elegans are primitive organisms that share many biological characteristics of humans.
The experiment was put together by an Ames Research Center researcher and Dr. Fred Sack at Ohio State University.
"The cells were surprisingly well-preserved, but we're analyzing how useful it's going to be," Sack said.
NASA officials said they don't know if the worms will still have any scientific value since they were supposed to have been examined and unloaded from Columbia within hours of landing
"It's pretty astonishing to get the possibility of data after all that has happened," Sack said. "We never expected it. We expected a molten mass."
If they're the size of a pencil tip, just how many biological characteristics can they share with us?
OMG! Tremors is real! So is Keven Bacon!
I think they were the real cause of the crash, soon they'll start to take over the world unless they're stopped!
-- Hulver's site
I'm thinking the worms they found were probably eggs when accident happened. I'm no expert, but I'd think worm eggs would be more likely to survive than worms.
Oh yeah...FP!
But why is the rum gone?
Yes... because we humans are the size of a pencil tip. Then again, it's it good that they are not the size of a VW.
I do not control the Sig, the Sig controls me.
Let's make slashdot mods eat a fistful of them every time they posts a dupe :-) That would be a geeky punishment - being forced to eat space worms.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
The worms, C. elegans, share many biological characteristics with humans and are the size of a pencil tip."
"C. elegans have two sexes: males and hermaphrodites, which are females that produce sperm. A hermaphrodite worm can self-fertilize for the first 300 or so eggs but later usually prefers to accept sperm from males to produce a larger number of offspring. "
hrmm...
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
I'd like to pledge my loyalty to the alien overlord worms.
> The worms, C. elegans, share many biological
;-)
> characteristics with humans and are the size of a > pencil tip.
Humans? Size? Pencil Tip?
Well buddy yours might be that small but mine sure isn't
-- Having problems sending big files over the net? Try out Efisto (http://efisto.org)
When I was younger.... smaller and lighter I could easly jump out of a second story window onto the ground without causing myself any injury.
Now I'm older, taller and fatter there's no way I'd jump out of a second story window, it's hurt too much.
It's not too surprising that something small survived whilst the people died.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I think the world's point of view would be different, guffah!
I, for one, welcome our new invertebrate overlords.
I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to... toil in their underground sugar caves.
Meep meep
I am no expert but I think these worms must be tolerant to high temperatures because the space shuttle gets really hot when entering the Earth's atmosphere. God know what else are they tolerant to?
Ah, you manage put into words the sentiments that my heart feels but that I can only dream of expressing... :-) You are my hero.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Its Mars Attacks all over again. They will come pretending to be friends then attack us. We must use maximum force now to stop the. I suggest flock of killer crows :)
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Why don't you move to Britain? We even have proper free speech here.
your ip has been traced! the police are on their way! do not try to escape!
The worms, C. elegans, share many biological characteristics with humans and are the size of a pencil tip.
That explains those assholes on the drive in. They really do have a tiny brain.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
I know how to keep the next astronauts safe: put 'em in "nine-pound locker[s] located in the mid-deck of the space shuttle"!
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Go here for more info (genetic) and a pic of them
HIGH.. into space? Then we know how they got there in the first place!
Enig? Det alt for hot det smor!
This reminds me of Earthworm Jim's origin...
This proves that life can survive a fiery impact with the earth -- like that of a meteor impact. On top of that, it's not even a single celled organism... even though these things are as small as pencil lead, they are somewhat organized multicellular organisms.
I would think this might add a little bit more credibility to the people who think life originated in somewhere other than Earth.
O.K...
Expressed in DVD's: The size of a tiny shard of the DVD you broke in half in disgust.
Expressed in LOC's: The size of a sliver of paper that fell off an extremely old tome that was contained within.
You asked for it!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
If the worms can survive the crash, why can't they build the whole shuttle out of whatever worms are made of?
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
I remember the news stories that said if you found a piece of the space shuttle and you touched it you could face a huge fine. Would this also mean if you got infected with a weird viurus or "worm" you could sue? Think of how terrible it would have (or was) if they had biotoxins on board the shuttle?
Does anyone know if these "similar to human" worms are harmful to humans?
What makes them similar to humans anyway?
Does radiation and antigravity make such creatures mutate? What if these worms were carrying some sort of bacteria in their digestive system like tape worms and mosquitos do that are bredding grounds for new super viruses like SARS and illness like Malaria???
Not concerned or scared, just curious ...
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Just like the moon landings and that other thing.
I'm smarter than the average bear.
gives new meaning to the term "worm food"...
Heil Sig! -Rob
Tsk tsk - </. editors>>
;)
;)
:P
I read that as: "Escaped mutant worms have been found alive in space-shuttle wreckage!"
Bah, they were still in their containment ehh..container. How disappointing.
I figured the little buggers had escaped and survived in the foam insulation of the space-shuttle. Maybe I should cut down on my daily
intake of science fiction
Oh well, I'm surprised they didn't find any mutant fruit-flies (also from previous experiments
or a gigantic mutant space mould.
(Wasn't one of them growing on good ol' MIR?)
Hmmm....tasty spacebugs
I don't see why this should deliver any interesting data. The worms and mosses were to be examined during 0 grafity, the shuttle didn't make it that far.
The C. Elegans genome may be browsed here...
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
"The worms, C. elegans, share many biological characteristics with humans and are the size of a pencil tip."
Alright kids, enough with the George W. Junior jokes already. We know he's dumb but this is getting a little tired...
...what...
no?
oh alright carry on then...
My question is, if this was the fourth or fifth generation, what were they eating??
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Once again NASA opens a can of worms in their Columbia disaster enquiry!
You mean the size of the lead at the tip of a pencil, or the size of the entire sharpened tip?
Of course! It now makes sense! Because the shuttle becomes hot the worms have to be tolerant to high temperatures... because the shuttle becomes hot the astronauts have to be X-Men... I wonder what else they are tolerant to?
The asstronauts weren't pencil tip sized.
But seriously, this goes a long way to prove the panspermia theory. Or atleast to disprove all the nay-sayers. If a pencil-tip-sized worm can survive that impact, then bacteria should be able to survive the impact of a comet.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
1/100,000 the size of a football field?
C. elegans have two sexes: males and hermaphrodites, which are females that produce sperm.
females that produce sperm ehh...
umm.. easier to say that the worms are monoecious? having both teste and ovaries! duh!
...And airstrikes, and banana bombs and exploding sheep (sometimes).
:)
Why not shuttle accidents too? Should be a walk in the park for them!
I've tried six or seven of the solutions offered by the Spam emails, but no matter what I do I still get that pencil tip comparison all the time!
www.GamezCore.com For Hardcore PS2 Gamerz : By Hardcore PS2 Gamerz
C. elegans belongs to the phylum of nematodes.
Funnily, nematodes are called "sukkulamadot" in Finnish, which translates to "shuttle worms" in English.
It was only 4th or 5th generation (times 3 days) - hmmm did they find it 15 days after?
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
It is amazing that those worms survived the journey. It just goes to prove that, after a nuclear war, only worms, cockroaches and spammers will survive.
Have any of the worms donned a space suit and escaped to save the princess?
Nobody else seems to be surprised that the worms are still alive. I hope NASA will try to understnad what kept them alive, the locker or the worm anatomy ?
;-).
This coul dend up with major consequences on space, and air travel safety (I'll ask for a locker myself next time I take the plane
Don't laugh, there is ongoing research and inovation and airplane safety, like the built-in parachute on the cirrus.
Didn't the same thing happen in Star Trek III?
The scientists better watch out, because we know how fast those things can mutate.
"This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries."
Attorney General Mike Hatch on Microsoft
A new patch will shortly be available to block these worms from speading. Look for soon it in your email box, and immediately run the attached program. Life on Earth is depending on you!
As they state in the article, C. elegans have a life cycle of 7-10 days. As they also state in the article, the shuttle, at the end of its mission, crashed on Feb. 1. That was 89 days ago. But somehow they've only managed to go through 4-5 generations? It's a pretty simple calculation.
More interesting (like CNN hasn't ever had a problem with pretty obvious facts) however is the survival. If we were talking about fungi or bacteria, organisms which are able to enter a dormant/stationary phase of the life cycle, it wouldn't be too surprising that they could survive. But C. elegans just have a pretty basic (egg-->larva-->adult) life cycle so they don't have a mechanism for surviving extreme situations (like a flaming fireball smashing into earth).
One of the great things about C. elegans is that they're easy to mutagenize and determine which genes give rise to characteristics such as resistance to UV/ionizing radiation, long life, ability to consume large volumes of alcohol, etc. I hope that some of these super space worms get into the hands of folks like Leon Avery or Tim Schedl so they can figure out what helped these guys survive.
There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything.
--Doug Copland
from little things, big things grow.
We all started out somewhat smaller than pencil tip size. Just some of us got lucky and got bigger.
So now we might guess that after the apocalpyse, along with cockroaches, there will be worms?
When people ask David Attenborough if he believes in God, given all the beautiful things in the world he gets to see, he cites the case of a parasitic worm infecting the eye of a small african child sending the child blind.
I like earth worms but pencil-tip worms are frightening. Especially ones that can survive spacecraft crashes.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
You don't know what you are talking about. Nematodes do, in fact, go through various egg and larval stages, and it may well only have been eggs or larvae that survived the impact.
Shuttle astronauts have asked for their craft to be tightly packed with moss for the next mission.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
The firey part happened in the atmosphere, the shuttle broke apart and was scattered over a wide area. It's not like the worms survived in a "firey impact with the earth". Ever drop an ant or spider from a very high place? It will always survive -- not enough mass to cause it to travel fast enough against the air friction to hit the ground with any sort of impact that would hurt it. Even if you drop a container containing a group of fragile items, some will survive the impact, using others as a cushion. I don't think the meteor anaology adds too much creditibility at all; in fact the analogy seems a bit skewed. I'm not commenting about the origins of life argument, but rather that this analogy will probably hinder your argument more than help it.
Wow... Talk about your "Worms: Armageddon"...
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
The space shuttle did disintegrate, but in terms of space bound meteorite impact, it was quite a controlled descent. It broke apart, looked fiery, but that doesn't mean it was a ball of plasma. A Fighter jet can break down and look fiery at just 200 feet off the ground...
My further point is that this article is somehow trying to strike the "oh look, things that have common characteristics with humans (in that their cells divide, and some of them have sperm <poster's humour>) made it alive through... it's not such a big tragedy after all."
The first thing that's mentionned in the article is:
All seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle disintegrated over Texas on February 1. Columbia contained almost 60 scientific investigations.
Anyways, boo on CNN, it both draws on sensationalism (exploiting a story because of it's tragic sense), and assumes readers are stupid...
It can also be browsed here.
Exactly what kind of worms are those?
Where's that user with the sig "The can is open... the worms are everywhere"?
Seems appropriate here.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
You can just imagine it
Scientist: (Rumages about the debrise) Oh no...
Admin: What? What have you found?
Scientist: We've opened up a whole can of worms here...
What?? At most this is a melancholy little note after the event -- is it possible one of the experiments my produce data after such a catastrophic event? "No humans survived but the worms did, so it's not as big a tragedy"? Where the heck did you see that? I don't read that angle in the article, not at all.
Anyways, boo on CNN, it both draws on sensationalism (exploiting a story because of it's tragic sense), and assumes readers are stupid...
Again, what?? This article did a pretty decent job of delivering the layperson's description of what the moss and worm experiments were about -- including the bits about the worms' makeup -- along with the stuff about how they survived the crash. "Stupid" wouldn't have included the details about the life cycle of the words and so on, would it? The quotes weren't blown out of proportion at all. Pretty balanced popular science article in my book -- about on the level of Discover magazine or something like that.
Only person I see trying to be sensationalist about this story is you, and you're cooking up your outrage from thin air. Big Fox News fan, I'm guessing...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
It is often questioned as to how evolution can create such highly optimized hardware, as exists in the human brain, given the fact that other parts of biology are not optimized and the fact that the problems in graph optimization (like laying out graphs of neurons in the best patterns) are so computationally difficult. He questioned the method by which evolution could create such optimized nerual topographies given the intractable nature of the problem. In his book Minimal Rationality (which he refered to as min rat) he argues that there are some physical laws that help push the optimizations in the brain.
In his research he used C elegans because their nerual structure had been completely mapped. He used a computer program to find the optimal layout of the neurons of these worm and discovered that the worms are actually optimized. He further argues that in nature there must be certain laws that construct a analogue computer of sort (I don't think he ever called it that but I do) that has the ability to optimize graphs without the problem of intractability. The same way water flowing in a river will find the path of least resistance neurons can create optimal networks using some optimizations give free by nature.
Well anyway, this might not be the best summary of his work, it has been a few year since I took his class, but I though it was interesting.
Chickens eat worms, right?
Right?
Uh.. I don't know, but I'm going to have to pull my Bullshit card on this one.
And this time, let's do it right - Elizabeth Hurley as Saavik to get his pon faar off...
Seriously, this is a pretty interesting story from a scientific standpoint. Can there possibly be a more extreme barrier to survival than this?
Of course, the conspiricist would wonder about the safety of all the other experimental residue that they were carrying. That's not to suggest that everything that goes up should be independently reentry-proof, but I wonder how well NASA could identify the parts of the vehicle and payload that I really wouldn't want to be near?
Perhaps more interesting than any of the facts mentioned so far is we now have a confirmed example of a multi cellular life form surviving atmospheric re-entry. This would suggest that under the right conditions life could populate planets from orbit.
"We deal in lead" - Roland of Gilead
It was SHODAN, I tell you!
Not only is the genome mapped out, but C. elegans has been a model organism for development. A complete flow-chart-esque understanding of the division of the first egg cell down to the last of its 959 cells. Its one of the first model organisms for a complete body-plan understanding of genetic development, but knowing the genes and figuring out the genes are 2 differant matters. Hence the experiments in space trying to understand how 0 g and amazingly controled environments affect gene expression.
Seeing as the Columbia Mission was the first *pure science* mission not having to do with Space Station construction in 2 years, I think its a great legacy for those who lost their lives that some really amazing science can come out of their work.
Lends a new interpretation of 'Waiting for the Worms' Probably time to run that whole album backwards, forwards at varying speeds and sideways. There's gotta be a prophecy in there somewhere.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
About that big.
Where the FUCK did my post anonymously button go? Why the fuck to I have to log out just to post? Stupid cunts what the fuck???
Wouldn't it be somehow amazing if we preserved this line of C. elegans worms as a tribute and made them available for continuing research (I'm not suggesting that they are now "worms from outer space" or anything like that) with scientists aware of their historicity as a quiet recognition of what happened. Or is that creepy or sensationalistic?
C. elegans have two sexes: males and hermaphrodites, which are females that produce sperm. A hermaphrodite worm can self-fertilize for the first 300 or so eggs but later usually prefers to accept sperm from males to produce a larger number of offspring.
Wow. These worms are more humanlike than we thought. The clitoris is obviously leftover evolution (de-evolution?) from the time when all women had both penises and vaginas. So, did anyone else just get an erection?
This is offtopic but does your signature translate to: What do we say? I think it is more important what we do.
;))
My Norwegian is not very good, but when ever I see something written, I try to translate it(a learning mechanism).
(Apologies if that was Danish
--Joey
The worms, C. elegans, share many biological characteristics with humans and are the size of a pencil tip."
Like what? Needing air and water and such, or is there any real similarities?
Does it seem odd to anyone else that this article and this article are almost word-for-word identical?
Hmmm... *clicks the CNN link*
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP)
Nope. Not at all.
Perhaps I'm feeding a troll here, but since you're logged in I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
The Associated Press (AP), to quote Yahoo! Finance (who, I'm sure, is in turn just quoting a press release), "the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing news content in text, audio, video, graphics and photos to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people worldwide... [and to] more than 120 nations."
News agencies pay for an AP news feed so that they can share the costs benefits of doing reporting. Rather than risk misquoting a story, most publications simply quote the AP feed more or less verbatim. Also, quite simply, why rewrite what you've already paid for? In paying for the AP (or Reuters, which is another news organization) news feed, it seems that they are allowed to copy the text which the industry has collectively paid AP to proofread.
It makes more economic sense than to use text that you already trust to be accurate and clear, rather than to pay someone to reword it.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
I can't be the only one with Star Trek III flashbacks here.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Thanks for the explanation.
I've never actually put much thought into it, but I assumed that each agency (msnbc and cnn, for example) would want to do their own reporting.
It's is a little annoying, actually. So does this mean that there are really only 2 actual news sources (except for local stuff) Reuters and AP?
Geez...whatever shred of faith I still had in the news media has just evaporated.
the Fins found out about nematodes from an article about using them on shuttle missions.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Among them, the intelligence of the average /. "first post!"er.
"Space Worms Invade Texas - Killer Bees Concerned"
Future shuttle missions may only carry "safe" species to avoid the possibility of introduced species habitat contamination in the event of a vehicle crash.
Dang! My cane toad and kudzu ISS experiment has just been scrapped.
Kevin Bacon announced today that the Graboid experiment was successful as they were taught to fly...
Worms survive? There goes my plot to get rid of In-Sync singers.
Table-ized A.I.
http://lifesci.arc.nasa.gov/conley/worms.html
Now where's his body?
They didn't come from the shuttle, but instead came here through a worm-hole :-P
Table-ized A.I.
5 generations removed x 10 day lifecycle = 50 days, maximum.
Discovery "this week" (say, Apr 25) - Shuttle Explosion Feb 1 = 89 days.
This doesn't account for the fact that the story says the current worms were 4-5 generations removed from worms placed in the can "in January", or the possibility that reproducing a generation may take less time than the life cycle.
Am I missing something, or are they?
CNN does do its own reporting, MSNBC I'm not quite as sure of. (most of their stories stink, and OF COURSE there's never any dirt on Microsoft on them)
But when you read an article, especially on CNN, take a look at the title and it may say something like "(AP)" That's your clue that it is an Associated Press story.
Take a look in your local newspaper, they state sources in mine, and MANY of those say the story is from LA or NY.
In truth, alot of the reporting you see is a mixture of the organizations own reporting, and that of articles copied from various news agencies around the world.
Weel, it is danish, and a rough translation would be "Will I see You? I certainly think I will!"
It's not a good translation, but catches the essence of it. The line is the closing line from a danish comedyshow. It is probably funnier if you know and like the show. I was hoping to get some reactions from other danes on this one, but I'm not a very active poster so your response is the first!
FYI danish and norwegian is quite similar, it is remnants from the time when Norway and Sweden was ruled by the Danish king.
BTW Where did you learn Norwegian?
.K
Enig? Det alt for hot det smor!
If you can call THAT living. Ha!
Man, I must be even more pathetically bored than I thought.
Weel, it is danish, and a rough translation would be "Will I see You? I certainly think I will!"
:p Though I must have had a brain fart, as I remember Vi Ses meaing "See ya later!"
;)
:D which happens often actually. Learning a little Norwegian let me use Danish sources for a report on Hans Christian Ørsted.
Mine was not even close
It's not a good translation, but catches the essence of it. The line is the closing line from a danish comedyshow. It is probably funnier if you know and like the show. I was hoping to get some reactions from other danes on this one, but I'm not a very active poster so your response is the first!
How about that
FYI danish and norwegian is quite similar, it is remnants from the time when Norway and Sweden was ruled by the Danish king.
As evidenced by the fact that I didn't know which I was reading
BTW Where did you learn Norwegian?
I visited Norway 3 years ago for a week. I was really impressed with the country, and the scenery was the best I had ever seen.
Plus, the chicks are hot, koldtbords rule, and Freia Melkesjokolade alone is calls me in the night.
It was actually France, specifically the French that made me want to learn Norwegian. In both countries I made an effort, albeit little (Takk, Vaer så god, etc), to speak the language. In Norway, I was welcomed with open arms wherever I went. Whereas in France, they would look at me in a scowling manner.
I thought that if any group of people, like the Scandinavians), are so welcoming and friendly, I should make an attempt to learn their language for future visits.
--Joey
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
Well, one of the main purposes of Slashdot is to link websites so that the mutant clicking zombies can DDOS them.
Ok, who opened the can of interstellar worms?
Temperatures were over 2,000 degrees when the main cabin disenigrated killing all the astronauts. The astronauts were burned practically all the way to the bone. Only a scorched skull was found for one of the pilots.
Not to mention the impact had to be pretty hard as well. I assume they were in a metal container. A glass or plastic would of broke open or melted.
http://saveie6.com/
"THEY FELL FROM SPACE !!!"
"Once they reached our oxygin rich atmosphere, their space metobolisms allowed them to become SUPER WORMS!"
"Mindless SPACE WORMS rampage through a small mountain town. ONLY OUR HERO CAN STOP THEM."
"CAN HE STOP THEM IN TIME ??!! FIND OUT !
COME SEE
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
If you read the CNN article, it mentions that they were the only "live" experiment to be recovered -- i.e. an experiment involving living organisms. I don't think that they were alive when they hit the ground -- the articles mentioned that they were sprayed with formaldehyde in space.
May we never see th
The CNN article isn't particularly clear on it, and the Slashdot article is likely wrong. It sounds like the worms were killed in space.
May we never see th
I'd heard about biological warfare.. but this is ridiculous !!!
I am still wondering what the kitty found in the WTC rubble was eating... She's a larger animal, warm blooded, with kittens = much higher energy needs.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/1021101/
M16A2-M4A1=1201.
Yeah, it's pretty sad, really, although I suppose it is probably a good thing that at least _someone_ is paid to do some actual reporting.
I saw a quote a few months back from the editor of a newspaper in California. Something to the effect of, "If running a story requires us to do any fact checking or investigation, we don't print it."
I don't know a whole lot about the AP and Reuters, but I do know that if you subscribe to it, you get the whole feed, not just parts.
This means that many fringe topics that no media source would waste the money on following still get covered, instead of just following what they think as news.
I suppose it's a bit like usenet -- a few topics (groups) attract most of the users.
Unlike usenet, however, either you get (pay for) the whole feed, or none of it. There's no partial subscription which might exclude, say, gay rights stories, which some media outlets normally might not cover.
The news media is almost as bad as any other media industry: precious little money goes towards development of something worthwhile. I'm not sure what the money _does_ go towards, but the major difference between the news media and the recording industry is that the news media isn't trying to crush alternative sources of news (such as online sites), because what the AP feeds us through the major news corporations is more complete than any single website operator could manage.
AP/Reuters allows the news media to maintain a competetive advantage over other sources. If this weren't the case, I don't know what the Internet would look like today -- the major media corporations form the single largest lobby in America, and could exert a lot more political pressure than the RIAA or MPAA ever could.
You don't win elections without media coverage. Period. This is why, some people (including Ralph Nader) argue, third-party candidates never receive a huge number of votes.
I suppose this post is part information and part rant, but it amazes me how indignant people get about the control the recording industry has over politics while ignoring the fact that the news media has many times more control. The only difference is that people notice the RIAA "stepping on their toes" by shutting down Napster, for instance, but they don't notice the stories that the media outlets fail to cover, simply because of the monopoly (well, oligopoly really) on widespread coverage.
Everyone notices Napster shutting down. Nobody notices that when Congress wanted to charge tens (or hundreds, I forget which) of billions of dollars to the media outlets to license the digital spectrum (around 1996 as I recall, but don't quote me), the media outlets refused to pay, and forced the FCC to give them the licenses for free, basically on the justification that since they already controlled the existing spectrum, that they should by default be given the digital spectum as well.
This resulted in America losing out on billions of dollars. The media companies claimed that the money that they would be saving by not having to pay licensing fees would go towards improving programming.
Has anyone noticed television or radio getting better in the last 6 or 7 years? Think back to radio a decade ago. Now think of it today. It's not just the RIAA who started making music suck -- when Clear Channel plays the same few variations on top 40 across the nation, why produce anything other than homogenized crap?
Footnotes:
1) Slashdot needs legitimate footnote tags.
2) Sorry about the rant.
3) I'd not really drawn a parallel between the RIAA and the news media before, so if anything seems a bit shaky to anyone still reading, please comment! I'd love to hear what I've missed or gotten wrong.
4) Windows users: Merriam Webster's browser toolbar kicks ass. So does Google's, of course, but that almost goes without saying.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
After all, which is the more inhospitable environment?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Opened the can of worms? They said...."ALL YOUR BASES BELONG TO US!"
Where ever you go, there you are.
Does anyone have a +1 Funny to spare for the parent? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...lots of giggles. Got another spare +1 Funny for this parent?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Dear Sir,
I'm sorry I haven't responded to your fascinating email earlier, but in addition to the two or three thousand others on the same topic that I get every week, I have a problem in that my penis is too large and rigid to fit under my desk, so I have to sit back from the desk a little, and in order to reach the keyboard I have to balance it on my penis. As you can imagine, this makes typing difficult.
The reason I'm writing is to enquire as to whether you have any products to painlessly shorten or soften a man's penis. This would enable me to select girlfriends less than seven feet tall, who have had less than four children and to get more than the first half of my penis involved in the activity.
I am more than willing to sacrifice the convenience of drying clothes on it, or the usefulness of being able to drive nails without finding a hammer.
Can you help me?
Yours Desperately
J Random Websurfer
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Damn, I miss having mod points sometimes!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
a quick google search for "Project Sbarro" only turned up one link. http://www.philaconstruction.com/sbarro.html
and worst of all, its a resturaunt. they must be planning on making us fat using pizza, who would have ever thought a pizza could make you fat?!?!?!
I suggest that we don't tell them about the half buried Statue of Wormity.
A few hours after the worms were initially found, our intrepid reporter went back to the site and found a strange torpedo-shaped object which the worms had begun to congregate around.
Earthquakes have since begun plaguing the region, and the worms appear to be mutating at a highly increased rate.
NASA consultants David Marcus and a mysterious female known only as "Saavik" have been sent in to investigate.
In other news: the popcorn you are eating, has been pissed in. Film at eleven.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
This is also the most common translation, but I was trying to catch the spirit of the remark, and actually found it quite difficult.
A better translation in the "meaning of each word"-sense is "See You later! I surely think so!"
Scandinavians, are so welcoming and friendly
Just for this remark I'll befriend you ;-)
Enig? Det alt for hot det smor!