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Herschel Space Observatory Finds Precursors of Life In Orion
ogre7299 recommends an announcement out of Caltech on a milestone for HIFI, the Herschel Space Observatory's Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared. "The Herschel Space Observatory has revealed the chemical fingerprints of potential life-enabling organic molecules in the Orion Nebula, a nearby stellar nursery in our Milky Way galaxy. ... This detailed-spectrum, obtained with the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) — one of Herschel's three innovative instruments — demonstrates the gold mine of information that Herschel-HIFI will provide on how organic molecules form in space. The spectrum, one of the first to be obtained with HIFI since it returned to full health in January 2010 following technical difficulties, clearly demonstrates that the instrument is working well. ... [The HIFI instrument had previously been offline since] August 2009 when HIFI experienced an unexpected voltage spike in the electronic system, probably caused by a high-energy cosmic particle, resulting in the instrument shutting down. On 14 January 2010, HIFI was successfully switched back on using its spare electronics, with science observations commencing on 28 February."
The American Breed of Christian is something totally nuts. I'm a Christian, and I can tell you some of those religious Americans I've met scare me. Truly something else, really *really* narrow-minded, extreme fundamentalist and take the bible literally (WTF?).
I never understood the vitrol some people on /. show towards religion, until I met some of their Christians. It explained a lot, very irritating people, kept shoving god into every discussion or action.
Note: I'm sure there are very many normal Christians there too, just that a minority really really give the rest a bad name (I hope to god they are a minority).
And what's with tele-evangelism? It's like they turned religion into some sort of pay-for entertainment. I didn't get it at all.