Maybe it doesn't know any better. Rocks aren't exactly known for their keen intelligence.

Except the court reporter is generally exempt from such rules. I used to be one. Most of the time the record is keyed real time. However you can't always get it all and be 100% every time. The recording is used to clean up the transcription after the fact.

The ban of recording devices is for the general public and reporters.

We're talking about a TV show. I've seen clips of CSI. They don't let reality get in the way of a stupid story. A good story would be one hell of a step up.

I hope you live in Seattle or Portland. And have some Joo Janta 200 sunglasses and an awfully large Aloe Vera garden.

A pond is a little bit different than the ocean. Copper is fairly toxic to marine invertebrates. With it already being a given that the invertebrates in the area of the bloom are going to die; the question becomes how many will die from a large amount of copper drifting out of that area. And will it even be all that effective with the kinds of currents that are in the ocean. You can saturate a pond, even 400 acres. It will take some time for the copper concentration to wash out. In the ocean it could wash out in a matter of minutes, or hours. And that's not even considering the shear volume. I'm guessing that the pond you mentioned has no where near the depth that many of these areas in the ocean that are being affected.

Humans have been observing and recording those observations in order to make sense of the universe since before we even had a concept of what the universe was.

The move towards a rational understanding of nature began at least since the Archaic period in Greece (650 â" 480 BCE) with the Pre-Socratic philosophers. The philosopher Thales of Miletus (7th and 6th centuries BCE), dubbed "the Father of Science" for refusing to accept various supernatural, religious or mythological explanations for natural phenomena, proclaimed that every event had a natural cause.

Provided we don't destroy ourselves or our civilization, and baring global catastrophes, I'm guessing that what we believe now will seem pretty damn primitive in another 2500 years.

No, but the ones we use today will seem pretty primitive in another 100 years.

I would like to think that evolution will not be disproved. From what we can observe at the moment it certainly makes the most sense. But who knows what the future will bring. We've certainly been way off on our observations in the past. It wouldn't be the first time that a theory that was well accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community has been discarded either.

That was my entire point. Opinions change as new data presents itself. You should never simply stop looking. Sometimes the world can surprise you.

Don't be stupid. There's a profound difference between using something responsibly and being a complete moron. Drinking too much water can kill you. Mercury can kill you, but we put it in CFL fluorescent lamps. Many cleaning products are toxic. Do you have a hard time not drinking or eating them?

Many of the conclusions in Silent Spring are questionable, at best I'm sure there is validity to some, or even much of it. But that's how you make a good lie, isn't it? I'd like to think that Rachel Carson had the best of intentions with this book. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Science doesn't say anything. It's our, as a race, interpretations of what we observe. It doesn't take sides or have opinions. If the observations are wrong, then most of the time the conclusions are also wrong.

There is no "end of story". Yes vaccines work. But that doesn't mean we should stop. They can always work better, or be improved. Some vaccines have had terrible side effects in the past. We should keep working to improve them.

Obviously AWG is occurring. But if it's "end of story" we should stop spending money on proving it further, shouldn't we? But it's a very complex problem, and all of the politics and money involved on both sides has clouded this issue almost beyond comprehension. As if it wasn't difficult enough without all the noise.

Scientific theories are disproved, revised and improved upon all the time. That's the very nature of science. There is no "end of story". It's a journey, not a destination. How many scientific theories have lasted 500 years? 100 years? Or even 50 years?

More like 180 months ago.

I think it was some new /. EULA stating that by commenting in this poll you fully supported Beta.

I'm more shocked that Infinity doesn't have some sort of sensor in the drivers seat to make sure there is actually somebody behind the wheel.

Or how better tire tech, anti-lock brakes and just better braking systems have caused people to stop later, drive closer to the car ahead of them, and be less cautious in bad weather?

I liked the days of chrome spears in the drivers compartment. At least then you knew the person driving like crazy was serious as they knew that one mistake could skewer their skull on the chrome dashboard accents.

A Mantis Shrimp can strike its prey in 8 milliseconds according to the link. Granted, its a little slower, but it's also underwater and that strike has the force of 1500 Newtons. Actually, it's probably a little faster as that time includes strikes from two different appendages and the time it takes for two cavitation bubbles to collapse.

From this link: Peacock mantis shrimp use a hammer-like appendage to smash open snail shells for food. Not only did high speed imaging reveal that peacock mantis shrimp forelimbs reach maximum speeds from 12-23 m/s (in water!), but it also showed that cavitation bubbles were forming between the appendage and snail shell. We found that, as a result of the limb's extraordinary speed, the water cavitates (vaporizes) when the limb strikes the prey. Cavitation is a destructive phenomenon; when these vapor bubbles collapse, they essentially cause a small implosion in the water which produces heat, light and sound. For example, rapidly rotating boat propellers are often badly damaged by cavitation to the point of developing holes in the metal.

By linking high speed imaging with force sensors and acoustic sensors, we were able to show that mantis shrimp wield two types of strike forces â" the first force is due to the appendage physically striking the snail shell and the second is due to the collapse of the cavitation bubble. Thus, for each predatory strike, mantis shrimp work like jack-hammers with a series of four force peaks from the impact of the first appendage, the collapse of the first cavitation bubble and then the impact of the second appendage and the collapse of the second cavitation bubble. All of this happens in less than 800 Âs, with peak forces of 1500 N (over 2500 times the animalâ(TM)s body weight).

Do you happen to feel like Dr. Evil demanding "one-million-dollars"? I'm guessing you meant 30 trillion dollars.

The largest solar plant Ivanpah cost $2.2 billion and can generate close to 400 megawatts. I don't think 13 or 14 of those is going to cut it.

$30 billion would probably be enough to build 7 nuclear plants. Assuming the cost would be similar to the cost of the Watts Bar 2 reactor Considering Watts Bar 2 will produce close to 3 times what Ivanpah can, it's going to be a little more than a couple billion.

I would suggest that you make sure you get your money's worth.

That thing was drafted nearly 50 years ago, when just a handful of nations could manage to put a potato in orbit. That's such 20th century thinking. Welcome to the new age.