I totally agree with this. Shadowrun MMO anyone? Also, I think I heard somewhere that they were coming out with a Fallout MMO. Is this true? If so, I see this as possibly turning into something similar to what you were describing... though I've only played Fallout 3 so far so I don't know if the previous ones would fit.

I highly doubt that the oil tap will be turned off completely. We might not use it for power once we find an alternative, but think of all the other things that we do with oil - plastics, polymers, organic chemicals, etc.

Ok, I really do I suppose. This seems cool and a good idea, but it irks me when they claim that the thing produces a "fuel free of chemicals" because in that case it would actually produce nothing at all. I know what they mean, but isn't there another word they could use? Harmful chemicals maybe? Unwanted byproducts? There's gotta be a better term.

Probably nobody's reading this thread anymore, but off the top of my head I think that the "Queen" mole rat releases some sort of chemical (pheromone?) that prevents the others from breeding. So they aren't sterile per se, just prevented from breeding which might lead to the same results. I could be wrong though.

I think he meant that ONLY the queen can give birth... like ants and such, where the rest of the are sterile. I'm not sure if this is true; I don't know too much about Naked Mole Rats. I wouldn't be surprised if it was true though, they're weird. And creepy looking.

Great essay grrlscientist. My botany prof was talking about something very similar to this earler this month. He was going on about how species are very ill defined in plants. It's interesting to see that the same is sometimes true for animals.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty ... ? or is it Stephen Colbert is truth, truth Stephen Colbert? But honestly, I agree with d3acon in the previous post to this. Once you get some truth designation authority, that could lead to a whole lot of bad.