Not that I think I'll change anyone's mind but really think about what makes a product, ANY product useful nowadays. Is it the raw specs? Do you buy your car based solely (or even primarily) on how many horsepower it has or its MPG? No, things like comfort and handling and responsiveness matter greatly. Possibly even safety could be considered a part of the "user interface", we could all literally tie ourselves in to the seat using rope but a seat belt is much more convenient (and likely to be used).
This doesn't even go into such things like styling or "image" (which is why you might buy a BMW over say a Chevy) and which, I'll happily admit, is a reason why I like Apple products. (Even services are very dependent on "the user interface" how is Disneyland different from Coney Island? Note: I used to design theme parks). So, if you want the maximum price to performance and are willing to suffer (great?) inconvenience, build your computer from scratch and install your own OS on it. That's what Bill had in mind, he thought we could all be nerds. I value my time more highly so I'll let Apple do the work.
I know the iPhone works in the following countries (because I've used it there): Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong and I've heard it works in China. Also they offer it for sale in Japan, Singapore and India. So I assume that all these places (at the very least) are GSM.
Not even remotely comparable figures. iPhones aren't even being sold in places like CHINA, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, etc. They've only been selling in some other countries for a month or two (Singapore, India).
So if the iPhone has 20% of the OVERALL Asian market, it must be COMPLETELY DOMINATING the few (1?) market it's been in for any length of time: Japan.
I'm surprised that you bought an iPhone based on requirements. Not that they aren't important or that the iPhone doesn't satisfy them but most people (like me) think the user interface is the most compelling reason to use an Apple product and are willing to let a few technical spec's fall through.
Oh yeah, to add to my parent post. Not only do people really really want it, they're willing to do so without support for Vietnamese! So all TEXTING, note taking, calendar entries, address book entries, e-mailing must be done IN ENGLISH. Not only is there no language support for Vietnamese currently in the iPhone but there is no country support (like in the address field; "Vietnam" isn't even one of the countries listed). I keep showing people this and they keep wanting to buy mine off me. How embarrassing really.
TFA says a big reason why it is lagging overall is because Moto and Samsung holds 80% of the touchscreen market in Asia. Considering that Apple has not even RELEASED the iPhone in CHINA, Korea and Vietnam to name a few countries it seems obvious why. Also, it was just released (like a month or two ago?) in places like INDIA, Singapre, etc.
On the contrary, seeing the crazy lengths people will go to here to GET an iPhone (I'm in Vietnam) I'm sure that that percentage will change. It is amazing to see, in a country where the per capita income is about $1K (CIA world factbook), lots of people carrying iPhones (a hacked iPhone is about $700 here). I was just in a cab and surprised to see the driver who probably makes less than $10/day using one (but maybe he "found" it from some unlucky person leaving it in the cab). The demand is so high that many telephone shops will have "iPhone" as the most prominent sign on their shops even though no-one in the entire country is an authorized reseller. Sorry but it is still a big big status symbol here.
From anyone who remembers Space 1999: they start using nuclear reactors/burying nuclear waste on the moon. Soon a chain reaction starts and BLAM! (actually no sound) and then the moon gets blown out of orbit. Or for those of you who've seen the remake of "The Time Machine", after a 20 Megaton weapon is detonated on the moon for construction, one later sees that the moon has literally been shattered (and giant pieces have come raining down on the earth). No way even an H-Bomb can, by itself, fragment to moon so something else must've happened.
I wonder if there is a (very miniscule) grain of truth to these possibilities. See the moon's been sitting around for 4.5 Billion years collecting Helium-3 from the solar wind which is a good fuel for fusion reactions. (That's why those fusion people want to collect it from the lunar dust). Well, is there any chance that, given a high enough neutron flux/ignition temperature, one could ignite this stuff? I mean, if there is enough of it there to just scoop up and bring to earth, what would happen if a nuclear explosion occurred? Sort of like the uncertainty surrounding the first nuclear chain reaction; they were concerned it could ignite the nitrogen in the atmosphere!
The physics of nuclear reactions is, unlike 60 years ago, probably very well understood and there is probably zero likelihood of this happening. Just like the LHC we can trust our physicists. Right?
Unfortunately they are being charged in France, I don't know if they are in the country or if they will have to be extradited. If so, I don't know if the U.S. will agree. After all, they could claim "religious" persecution.
ok, I know this idea is a little "out-of-this-world" (groan) but if we've got all these great new genetic engineering technologies, let's go out and (ab)use them! Just read an article in sciencedaily.com where they're using genetic therapy to make congenitally blind people see; maybe we could eventually see in the UV or X-Ray. Besides it'll give the expression "sleeping under the stars" a whole new meaning!
So if we could figure out what keeps them (relatively) impervious to ultraviolet/gamma radiation and allows them to survive direct exposure to vacuum, can we genetically engineer humans like that? Wouldn't space travel be a lot easier, safer and just plain more fun if all you needed was a face mask to breathe and maybe some sort of thin thermal suit?
It probably won't be too difficult in a few decades to genetically engineer people like that, adding the ability to go into hibernation and, being able to freeze them without ice crystals forming in their blood/tissues (like some antarctic fish) would make long interplanetary/interstellar journeys practical. They probably wouldn't be able to breed with the "old-style" humans but it would sure help spread "human-like" life around. "Homo-Astra" (star man). What ethical dilemmas do you see?
One problem might be if there ever was a war, it might be one of complete annihilation since even females would be worthless to the other side (very UN P.C. I know). And we'd probably lose.
update-in today's MIT tech review they have a story about the first full sequences being available for $350K. So only the price of a dress (if you're Mrs. McCain;).
The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is in shambles due to American hypocrisy. We're basically telling countries that if you develop nukes (like India) we'll invite you into the club and reward you with more technology. Also countries like Iran will see that if you don't develop nukes you'll be invaded (like Iraq) and if you do you'll be given free oil and other subsidies (like N. Korea).
I know you right winger's won't like to hear this but it is due to: Bush's incompetence/lack of principles. When will you guys get it that he was/IS an absolute disaster for this country and the world? He cut the budget to secure Russian nuclear materials and he makes these short term deals that create long term problems. If we have another "Average" guy (gal) in the whitehouse this country has had it. Really.
Hmm... I thought the term "Junk" DNA referred to the fact that a lot of it (all?) seems to be made up of long repeating sequences like AAAAAAAAA or ACACACACAC or something else that seems pretty 'worthless" like ending sequences that aren't at the end of anything. Also I thought that they saw "skeletons" of viruses (from retrovirii that became permanently embedded in our DNA) and broken and incomplete copies of functional genes. But then IANABiologist.
Current technology to COMPLETELY sequence a single person's DNA is still way too expensive to be practical. It cost billions of dollars for the NIH and Craig Venter's company to sequence the first human (in 2000). (Guess who's DNA they used!) Even after eight internet years It probably is still in the millions of dollars, I don't think Mr Garriot is going to fork over that kind of cash. He's probably going to pay for some people's genetic PROFILE to be sequenced, enough for certain genetic diseases to be exposed. (I think you can get this done for about $1000). Then again, aliens could also use it to pick out the (un)lucky human from a extra-terrestrial police line up! Still there certainly wouldn't be enough information to recreate the human "from scratch" even assuming the technology was available.
However, he could at least bring up Craig Venter's publicly available DNA and if stored digitally I'm sure that it could be encoded very very redundantly so that even a huge number of cosmic ray hits wouldn't effect it. Consider Voyager, with 30 year old tech., still can run its old programs.
As for bringing up the real stuff, I'm not sure that the NASA/ESA and other ISS partners would appreciate him bringing up little vials of other people's DNA for storage. (Of course some contamination has always been unavoidable, humans are basically walking bags of bacteria). Would he just take some hair samples or bring up DNA in more purified form? (Actually the previous poster's 2010: A Sperm Odyssey wouldn't be bringing up complete copies of the person's DNA because during reproduction the sperm cells only have half of the man's genes...). He could however get someone's DNA and using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) make as much of it as he wants. Milky white fluid, looks just like sperm.
So anyway this past flyby was at 30 miles at 50,000 mph. I understand that a future one will be done at 15(!) miles altitude (although I don't know the speed).
I've got to believe that that's the fastest low flyby that's ever been made. With Cassini going by at about 15 miles per second it'll be spinning quite rapidly (a revolution every couple of seconds?) to take one picture right? (there is no camera platform so the entire spacecraft must turn to aim).
Is there ANY other example of a camera that had to be turned so fast as to catch a moving (relative) target? With calculated precision of course, a photographer turning a camera to de-blur a passing race car doesn't count. There must be even faster motion compensation tricks for missile launches or maybe even roller-coaster rides right? What about industrial processes, anybody have any interesting examples? Then of course, are there any other ONE TIME events when they only had one chance to get it right?
Of course the other way to get a nice crisp shot would be to use a flash but even at "just" 15 miles it would take quite a flashbulb to illuminate the target sufficiently. Then again Cassini does have about 70kgs of plutonium on board...
So anything that can detect, track and determine the orbits of NEOs efficiently has got to be good at picking up all sorts of things in space. Like military satellites.
Will (any) governments be able to "edit" the database so that things they don't want noticed will remain so? On the other hand, will they be providing this project with satellite data to prevent false positives? Also, will the database be available to the public/amateur astronomers so that things like the recent "ghost" image can be found by non-professionals as well as things like gamma-ray bursters (supernovas) as well as the explosion visible to the naked eye from half-way across the universe?
Maybe this will be integrated into Google Sky (or the Microsoft equivalent). One of these days someone is going to search for "Aliens" and Google will show a picture saying "here they are!".
Am I the only one to instantly think upon seeing this article that this may be the perfect Solar Sail material? IF they can make this on a LARGE scale (meters or kilometers square), it has got to have close to the lowest weight to surface area ratio of any possible material. Even if it is not reflective ("carbon black"?), it would still work by adsorbing photons (it would still gain momentum). Heating may be a problem but it should also radiate heat equally well.
Micrometeorites and high energy particles would surely put many nano-micro sized holes in it but that should only decrease the efficiency slightly. The overall structure should stay intact even with many many holes because of the immense tensile strength; the article said it could handle several atmosphere's of pressure.
So could this be the ultimate solar sail material (perhaps with a spray on coating of aluminum atoms if the reflectivity is worth the added weight)? With a rigging of carbon nano-tubes it makes theoretical solar sail designs so efficient that perhaps interstellar journeys are practical!
Fascinating how this (parent) post goes up and down with mods. It's been as high as a +4 and as low as a 1.
On scientific matters it usually up (if it goes anywhere) and stays there but on politics it goes up and down. People must really disagree on this.
By the way, I should have said "he's still in office HAVING PEOPLE TORTURED" in the title. Even I don't think Bush would himself torture people in the White House.
Nixon also got "lucky" with a major scientific coup (the Apollo moon landings) happening on his watch. He despised JFK and killed the program just as soon as he could. Still, it is his name and not JFK's that is on the plaque affixed to the lunar lander descent stage. Hundreds/Thousands/Millions of years from now it'll still be there.
Oops got tangled up in my own logic there. If it uses a totally different code then it is either (maybe) life-but-not-as-we-know-it-jim or a deliberate contamination. Of course I would NEVER expect (really no sarcasm) any scientist to do such a thing but having the nation/entire world launch a massive effort to investigate this newfound life on mars would be so funny if it were based on a hoax! I'm sure there are safeguards (right NASA?) to prevent the probes from being deliberately contaminated.
Really I'm bored here sitting late on a Saturday night in VIetnam so I have nothing better to do than to contribute(?) to slashdot.
Since Phoenix can find organics and (I think) has a mass spectrometer perhaps it has found DNA? If they just found some carbon compounds that wouldn't seem that noteworthy, they find them everywhere in space (like carbonaceous meteorites). Of course if it's DNA (or RNA) then the possibility of contamination comes in (of course it if uses a totally different "code" that would make me believe at least it wasn't deliberate. A really sneaky scientist could put some DNA in there that didn't bear any resemblance to Earthian DNA thus leading one to believe it was martian. I say this in reference to some experiments where scientists are adding some new "letters" to the alphabet of amino acids that DNA codes for, the triplet codons in nature redundantly code for only 20 amino acids, not the 64 it could.)
Reminds me of the scene if "E.T." when during the capture of E.T. someone announces "he's got DNA!".
Of course this is completely idle wishful speculation on my part, the discovery is likely much more pedestrian. Feel free to ignore this post.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Not that I think I'll change anyone's mind but really think about what makes a product, ANY product useful nowadays. Is it the raw specs? Do you buy your car based solely (or even primarily) on how many horsepower it has or its MPG? No, things like comfort and handling and responsiveness matter greatly. Possibly even safety could be considered a part of the "user interface", we could all literally tie ourselves in to the seat using rope but a seat belt is much more convenient (and likely to be used).
This doesn't even go into such things like styling or "image" (which is why you might buy a BMW over say a Chevy) and which, I'll happily admit, is a reason why I like Apple products. (Even services are very dependent on "the user interface" how is Disneyland different from Coney Island? Note: I used to design theme parks). So, if you want the maximum price to performance and are willing to suffer (great?) inconvenience, build your computer from scratch and install your own OS on it. That's what Bill had in mind, he thought we could all be nerds. I value my time more highly so I'll let Apple do the work.
Yeah but 2.0 hasn't been hacked completely to work in Vietnam! So I'm stuck with 1.14.
I know the iPhone works in the following countries (because I've used it there): Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong and I've heard it works in China. Also they offer it for sale in Japan, Singapore and India. So I assume that all these places (at the very least) are GSM.
Not even remotely comparable figures. iPhones aren't even being sold in places like CHINA, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, etc. They've only been selling in some other countries for a month or two (Singapore, India).
So if the iPhone has 20% of the OVERALL Asian market, it must be COMPLETELY DOMINATING the few (1?) market it's been in for any length of time: Japan.
Time to buy more Apple Stock.
I'm surprised that you bought an iPhone based on requirements. Not that they aren't important or that the iPhone doesn't satisfy them but most people (like me) think the user interface is the most compelling reason to use an Apple product and are willing to let a few technical spec's fall through.
Still I'm happy you made the right choice! :)
Oh yeah, to add to my parent post. Not only do people really really want it, they're willing to do so without support for Vietnamese! So all TEXTING, note taking, calendar entries, address book entries, e-mailing must be done IN ENGLISH. Not only is there no language support for Vietnamese currently in the iPhone but there is no country support (like in the address field; "Vietnam" isn't even one of the countries listed). I keep showing people this and they keep wanting to buy mine off me. How embarrassing really.
TFA says a big reason why it is lagging overall is because Moto and Samsung holds 80% of the touchscreen market in Asia. Considering that Apple has not even RELEASED the iPhone in CHINA, Korea and Vietnam to name a few countries it seems obvious why. Also, it was just released (like a month or two ago?) in places like INDIA, Singapre, etc.
On the contrary, seeing the crazy lengths people will go to here to GET an iPhone (I'm in Vietnam) I'm sure that that percentage will change. It is amazing to see, in a country where the per capita income is about $1K (CIA world factbook), lots of people carrying iPhones (a hacked iPhone is about $700 here). I was just in a cab and surprised to see the driver who probably makes less than $10/day using one (but maybe he "found" it from some unlucky person leaving it in the cab). The demand is so high that many telephone shops will have "iPhone" as the most prominent sign on their shops even though no-one in the entire country is an authorized reseller. Sorry but it is still a big big status symbol here.
From anyone who remembers Space 1999: they start using nuclear reactors/burying nuclear waste on the moon. Soon a chain reaction starts and BLAM! (actually no sound) and then the moon gets blown out of orbit. Or for those of you who've seen the remake of "The Time Machine", after a 20 Megaton weapon is detonated on the moon for construction, one later sees that the moon has literally been shattered (and giant pieces have come raining down on the earth). No way even an H-Bomb can, by itself, fragment to moon so something else must've happened.
I wonder if there is a (very miniscule) grain of truth to these possibilities. See the moon's been sitting around for 4.5 Billion years collecting Helium-3 from the solar wind which is a good fuel for fusion reactions. (That's why those fusion people want to collect it from the lunar dust). Well, is there any chance that, given a high enough neutron flux/ignition temperature, one could ignite this stuff? I mean, if there is enough of it there to just scoop up and bring to earth, what would happen if a nuclear explosion occurred? Sort of like the uncertainty surrounding the first nuclear chain reaction; they were concerned it could ignite the nitrogen in the atmosphere!
The physics of nuclear reactions is, unlike 60 years ago, probably very well understood and there is probably zero likelihood of this happening. Just like the LHC we can trust our physicists. Right?
You did know that "Top Scientologists" and the church are facing fraud charges?
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/09/09/france.scientology.trial.ap/index.html
Unfortunately they are being charged in France, I don't know if they are in the country or if they will have to be extradited. If so, I don't know if the U.S. will agree. After all, they could claim "religious" persecution.
ok, I know this idea is a little "out-of-this-world" (groan) but if we've got all these great new genetic engineering technologies, let's go out and (ab)use them! Just read an article in sciencedaily.com where they're using genetic therapy to make congenitally blind people see; maybe we could eventually see in the UV or X-Ray. Besides it'll give the expression "sleeping under the stars" a whole new meaning!
So if we could figure out what keeps them (relatively) impervious to ultraviolet/gamma radiation and allows them to survive direct exposure to vacuum, can we genetically engineer humans like that? Wouldn't space travel be a lot easier, safer and just plain more fun if all you needed was a face mask to breathe and maybe some sort of thin thermal suit?
It probably won't be too difficult in a few decades to genetically engineer people like that, adding the ability to go into hibernation and, being able to freeze them without ice crystals forming in their blood/tissues (like some antarctic fish) would make long interplanetary/interstellar journeys practical. They probably wouldn't be able to breed with the "old-style" humans but it would sure help spread "human-like" life around. "Homo-Astra" (star man). What ethical dilemmas do you see?
One problem might be if there ever was a war, it might be one of complete annihilation since even females would be worthless to the other side (very UN P.C. I know). And we'd probably lose.
update-in today's MIT tech review they have a story about the first full sequences being available for $350K. So only the price of a dress (if you're Mrs. McCain ;).
The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is in shambles due to American hypocrisy. We're basically telling countries that if you develop nukes (like India) we'll invite you into the club and reward you with more technology. Also countries like Iran will see that if you don't develop nukes you'll be invaded (like Iraq) and if you do you'll be given free oil and other subsidies (like N. Korea).
I know you right winger's won't like to hear this but it is due to: Bush's incompetence/lack of principles. When will you guys get it that he was/IS an absolute disaster for this country and the world? He cut the budget to secure Russian nuclear materials and he makes these short term deals that create long term problems. If we have another "Average" guy (gal) in the whitehouse this country has had it. Really.
Hmm... I thought the term "Junk" DNA referred to the fact that a lot of it (all?) seems to be made up of long repeating sequences like AAAAAAAAA or ACACACACAC or something else that seems pretty 'worthless" like ending sequences that aren't at the end of anything. Also I thought that they saw "skeletons" of viruses (from retrovirii that became permanently embedded in our DNA) and broken and incomplete copies of functional genes. But then IANABiologist.
Current technology to COMPLETELY sequence a single person's DNA is still way too expensive to be practical. It cost billions of dollars for the NIH and Craig Venter's company to sequence the first human (in 2000). (Guess who's DNA they used!) Even after eight internet years It probably is still in the millions of dollars, I don't think Mr Garriot is going to fork over that kind of cash. He's probably going to pay for some people's genetic PROFILE to be sequenced, enough for certain genetic diseases to be exposed. (I think you can get this done for about $1000). Then again, aliens could also use it to pick out the (un)lucky human from a extra-terrestrial police line up! Still there certainly wouldn't be enough information to recreate the human "from scratch" even assuming the technology was available.
However, he could at least bring up Craig Venter's publicly available DNA and if stored digitally I'm sure that it could be encoded very very redundantly so that even a huge number of cosmic ray hits wouldn't effect it. Consider Voyager, with 30 year old tech., still can run its old programs.
As for bringing up the real stuff, I'm not sure that the NASA/ESA and other ISS partners would appreciate him bringing up little vials of other people's DNA for storage. (Of course some contamination has always been unavoidable, humans are basically walking bags of bacteria). Would he just take some hair samples or bring up DNA in more purified form? (Actually the previous poster's 2010: A Sperm Odyssey wouldn't be bringing up complete copies of the person's DNA because during reproduction the sperm cells only have half of the man's genes...). He could however get someone's DNA and using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) make as much of it as he wants. Milky white fluid, looks just like sperm.
If you're conservative when you're young, you have no heart-
If you're liberal when you're old, you have no brain-
Winston Churchill (?)
So anyway this past flyby was at 30 miles at 50,000 mph. I understand that a future one will be done at 15(!) miles altitude (although I don't know the speed).
I've got to believe that that's the fastest low flyby that's ever been made. With Cassini going by at about 15 miles per second it'll be spinning quite rapidly (a revolution every couple of seconds?) to take one picture right? (there is no camera platform so the entire spacecraft must turn to aim).
Is there ANY other example of a camera that had to be turned so fast as to catch a moving (relative) target? With calculated precision of course, a photographer turning a camera to de-blur a passing race car doesn't count. There must be even faster motion compensation tricks for missile launches or maybe even roller-coaster rides right? What about industrial processes, anybody have any interesting examples? Then of course, are there any other ONE TIME events when they only had one chance to get it right?
Of course the other way to get a nice crisp shot would be to use a flash but even at "just" 15 miles it would take quite a flashbulb to illuminate the target sufficiently. Then again Cassini does have about 70kgs of plutonium on board...
So anything that can detect, track and determine the orbits of NEOs efficiently has got to be good at picking up all sorts of things in space. Like military satellites.
Will (any) governments be able to "edit" the database so that things they don't want noticed will remain so? On the other hand, will they be providing this project with satellite data to prevent false positives? Also, will the database be available to the public/amateur astronomers so that things like the recent "ghost" image can be found by non-professionals as well as things like gamma-ray bursters (supernovas) as well as the explosion visible to the naked eye from half-way across the universe?
Maybe this will be integrated into Google Sky (or the Microsoft equivalent). One of these days someone is going to search for "Aliens" and Google will show a picture saying "here they are!".
Am I the only one to instantly think upon seeing this article that this may be the perfect Solar Sail material? IF they can make this on a LARGE scale (meters or kilometers square), it has got to have close to the lowest weight to surface area ratio of any possible material. Even if it is not reflective ("carbon black"?), it would still work by adsorbing photons (it would still gain momentum). Heating may be a problem but it should also radiate heat equally well.
Micrometeorites and high energy particles would surely put many nano-micro sized holes in it but that should only decrease the efficiency slightly. The overall structure should stay intact even with many many holes because of the immense tensile strength; the article said it could handle several atmosphere's of pressure.
So could this be the ultimate solar sail material (perhaps with a spray on coating of aluminum atoms if the reflectivity is worth the added weight)? With a rigging of carbon nano-tubes it makes theoretical solar sail designs so efficient that perhaps interstellar journeys are practical!
Fascinating how this (parent) post goes up and down with mods. It's been as high as a +4 and as low as a 1.
On scientific matters it usually up (if it goes anywhere) and stays there but on politics it goes up and down. People must really disagree on this.
By the way, I should have said "he's still in office HAVING PEOPLE TORTURED" in the title. Even I don't think Bush would himself torture people in the White House.
Do you really wish to compare Al Qaeda and the U.S. in the same breath?
Because, if they are comparable, the terrorists really have won.
Nixon also got "lucky" with a major scientific coup (the Apollo moon landings) happening on his watch. He despised JFK and killed the program just as soon as he could. Still, it is his name and not JFK's that is on the plaque affixed to the lunar lander descent stage. Hundreds/Thousands/Millions of years from now it'll still be there.
The low TV ratings didn't help either.
he's still in office and defending things like torture
take a look at this book review
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/books/review/Brinkley-t.html?ref=review
still don't want to bash Bush?
Oops got tangled up in my own logic there. If it uses a totally different code then it is either (maybe) life-but-not-as-we-know-it-jim or a deliberate contamination. Of course I would NEVER expect (really no sarcasm) any scientist to do such a thing but having the nation/entire world launch a massive effort to investigate this newfound life on mars would be so funny if it were based on a hoax! I'm sure there are safeguards (right NASA?) to prevent the probes from being deliberately contaminated.
Really I'm bored here sitting late on a Saturday night in VIetnam so I have nothing better to do than to contribute(?) to slashdot.
Since Phoenix can find organics and (I think) has a mass spectrometer perhaps it has found DNA? If they just found some carbon compounds that wouldn't seem that noteworthy, they find them everywhere in space (like carbonaceous meteorites). Of course if it's DNA (or RNA) then the possibility of contamination comes in (of course it if uses a totally different "code" that would make me believe at least it wasn't deliberate. A really sneaky scientist could put some DNA in there that didn't bear any resemblance to Earthian DNA thus leading one to believe it was martian. I say this in reference to some experiments where scientists are adding some new "letters" to the alphabet of amino acids that DNA codes for, the triplet codons in nature redundantly code for only 20 amino acids, not the 64 it could.)
Reminds me of the scene if "E.T." when during the capture of E.T. someone announces "he's got DNA!".
Of course this is completely idle wishful speculation on my part, the discovery is likely much more pedestrian. Feel free to ignore this post. ;)