Good point. I suppose oxygen in an atmosphere isn't a dead lock that there's life there, although it wags its finger very suggestively.

If we do find free oxygen in an atmosphere, though, you can bet all eyes will be trained on that planet. What kind of technology would be required to confirm the presence of life visually? Obviously radio signals or something like that would be a clincher, but suppose the life there is non-technological. Could we ever "verify" that there was life on that planet without going there or sending a probe (which is currently not feasible)?

These planets are directly observable with current technology. Within 10 years, one would imagine that smaller, nearer-to-the-star planets will be directly viewed...perhaps even spectroscopy on the planet's atmosphere will be possible. The James Webb telescope might be able to do some of this as soon as 2017.

That said, will we see strong evidence for life on another world soon? My guess is that an atmosphere with gases that simply don't belong there in large quantities (dimethyl sulfide, free oxygen, etc.) will be found sooner rather than later...and that will more or less wrap it up.

Next year or so 100GB phones will be commonplace...and you will have your Hitchhiker's Guide.

Truly amazing times we live in.

TI36 solar is an excellent choice. All the functionality with very little extra. Look for a model that has the scientific notation button (EE) as the primary function. Some have it this way, while most have it as a second function. If you use this a lot, and I suspect you do, you'll find it much more convenient to not constantly push the 2nd button.

...I know, I know...tsunamis and typhoons don't cause much damage 12 miles from shore. But still, doesn't this seem like a somewhat poor location for a floating wind turbine? It's not anchored to the seafloor, which means that typhoons and storms could push it close to shore, and we've seen the kind of debris that can be produced by a tsunami.

Japan may not have a lot of power options, but it seems like this might not be the best choice...

Dinosaurs and mammals were about the same size? Didn't you just get done telling us that dinosaurs were much larger than mammals just 2 sentences ago?

Sheesh. What journal was this published in again? The Bible?

I read this essentially as saying that without an observer, time does not exist. Essentially, a "god-like" observer does not observe any change unless he or she becomes entangled in the universe he or she is observing. That universe, therefore, is without change, and therefore timeless. However, observers that are entangled within the universe (as we are), observe change and thus the universe (to them) has time.

This sounds a fair bit like some of the effects of relativity (on the train the shots appear simultaneous...on the ground they do not).

What is most intriguing to me, though, is that if the universe is both timeless (from the outside) and has time (from the inside), is it possible for us to gain the outside perspective (or any information about that timeless perspective). This shouldn't necessarily be impossible - we would need to not become entangled in the thing we are trying to observe (which we can easily do). Perhaps observing the surrounding universe would give unentangled information about the experiment in question, and thus give us a glimpse of the future?