Something that still hasn't made it into the PostgreSQL jdbc driver is updateable ResultSets. This would be an extremely useful and timesaving feature, and I am kind of suprised that it hasn't been implemented. Does anyone know what the status of this is?
While I think that the ISS _IS_ a good idea and that to cancel or scale it back now would be devastating, it amazes me how ridiculous the scheme to get the thing up there is. A lot of this has to do with the cost and cargo limits of the space shuttle.
At an average cost of around *$600 million* (this is for a bad year, but you get the point) the shuttle is most definitely not cheap and reusable. The cynic inside whispers that the ISS has been hijacked to provide a reason for existence for the STS.
I remember reading that most of the space station could be sent up in a single Energia or Saturn V size rocket. It seems to me that spending part of the $100 billion devoted to the space station to develop a large capacity rocket would offer a much greater return on investment that the equivalent number of shuttle runs.
The Saturn V's [or whatevers] could be used to send heavy stuff to mars [hab modules, anyone?] and I am sure other uses could be found.
And cancelling the pluto probe seems silly -- 200 million is only noise in the federal budget and is a small part of the yearly NASA budget too.
We can't only concentrate on low earth orbit -- planetary scientists need something to study!
Some of the magnetite and pyrrhotite in the Allen Hills meteorite was found in or very close to calcium carbonate globules with surface textures consistent with partial dissolution. While magnetite (Fe3O4) and pyrrhotite (FeS) can be inorganically precipitated under reducing conditions (high pH), these conditions stabilize carbonate.
It is possible that the iron sulfides were created at high pH and then the pH was lowered and the carbonates were partially dissolved; however, under such conditions the pyrrhotite and magnetite would also exhibit some kind of weathering, which is not evident in the samples.
Bacteria, however, are known to exhibit intracellular coprecipitation of iron sulfides and magnetite and extracellular coprecipitation of the same in anaerobic conditions.
See J.L. Kirschvink, A.T. Maine, H. Vali, Science 275, 1629 (1997) for more information.
I don't know if the crystal chains reported today were found in close proximity to carbonate globules, but they came from the same meteorite.
All of the various findings that indicate possible life in ALH84001, from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, to magnetite crystals to the so-called microfossils have possible non-biogenic origins.
The real question is what is more likely -- that a bunch of (generally) incompatible inorganic processes all occurred at approximately the same time and place, or that ancient martian life [of which we have no hard evidence at all] is responsible.
At some point Occam's Razor points to life; I am not sure we are there yet, but every new study of ALH80041 seems to push the balance a little bit further in favor of ancient life on Mars.
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Something that still hasn't made it into the PostgreSQL jdbc driver is updateable ResultSets. This would be an extremely useful and timesaving feature, and I am kind of suprised that it hasn't been implemented. Does anyone know what the status of this is?
While I think that the ISS _IS_ a good idea and that to cancel or scale it back now would be devastating, it amazes me how ridiculous the scheme to get the thing up there is. A lot of this has to do with the cost and cargo limits of the space shuttle.
At an average cost of around *$600 million* (this is for a bad year, but you get the point) the shuttle is most definitely not cheap and reusable. The cynic inside whispers that the ISS has been hijacked to provide a reason for existence for the STS.
I remember reading that most of the space station could be sent up in a single Energia or Saturn V size rocket. It seems to me that spending part of the $100 billion devoted to the space station to develop a large capacity rocket would offer a much greater return on investment that the equivalent number of shuttle runs.
The Saturn V's [or whatevers] could be used to send heavy stuff to mars [hab modules, anyone?] and I am sure other uses could be found.
And cancelling the pluto probe seems silly -- 200 million is only noise in the federal budget and is a small part of the yearly NASA budget too.
We can't only concentrate on low earth orbit -- planetary scientists need something to study!
Some of the magnetite and pyrrhotite in the Allen Hills meteorite was found in or very close to calcium carbonate globules with surface textures consistent with partial dissolution. While magnetite (Fe3O4) and pyrrhotite (FeS) can be inorganically precipitated under reducing conditions (high pH), these conditions stabilize carbonate.
It is possible that the iron sulfides were created at high pH and then the pH was lowered and the carbonates were partially dissolved; however, under such conditions the pyrrhotite and magnetite would also exhibit some kind of weathering, which is not evident in the samples.
Bacteria, however, are known to exhibit intracellular coprecipitation of iron sulfides and magnetite and extracellular coprecipitation of the same in anaerobic conditions.
See J.L. Kirschvink, A.T. Maine, H. Vali, Science 275, 1629 (1997) for more information.
I don't know if the crystal chains reported today were found in close proximity to carbonate globules, but they came from the same meteorite.
All of the various findings that indicate possible life in ALH84001, from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, to magnetite crystals to the so-called microfossils have possible non-biogenic origins.
The real question is what is more likely -- that a bunch of (generally) incompatible inorganic processes all occurred at approximately the same time and place, or that ancient martian life [of which we have no hard evidence at all] is responsible.
At some point Occam's Razor points to life; I am not sure we are there yet, but every new study of ALH80041 seems to push the balance a little bit further in favor of ancient life on Mars.