Yeah yeah yeah. And there were those guys in ancient Greece who were ranting about wasting good fabric that could be used for useful things like togas on sails on boats that could do just as well with a few oarsmen. They saw no practical value in being able to boat from island to island, since there was nothing on fabled Crete or the delta of the Nile that could not be fashioned from the stuff within a donkey's trot of Athens.

Setting up gas stations in the asteroid belt could work quite well, I would think.

I begin to see the point of NASA's interest in mining the asteroids. It might be possible that water could be extracted from an asteroid by a solar powered satellite, then shipped by cheap, slow, unmanned rockets to rendezvous points for manned missions. Water has some excellent qualities for use as reactive mass in rocket motors, especially those with nuclear rather than chemical heaters, and a ship that only needed to carry enough reaction mass to get from one rendezvous to the next could open up the solar system to manned exploration very quickly. This would make a manned mission to Mars much easier.

But first there is a need to determine whether we have technology that can do the extraction, and whether there is enough water in the asteroids to make it worthwhile. Could a solar powered laser aimed at a point on an asteroid create a plume of water vapor that could be captured somehow and condensed into liquid or ice? Interesting concept...

Except washing your hands with antibiotic soap is introducing low levels of that antibiotic downstream from your sink. Into places where bacteria thrive, and compete with each other. Bacteria that develop antibiotic resistance in that environment are healthier and better able to compete.

Unless you are boiling your gray water after washing up with antibiotic soap, you ARE contributing to the increase in low dose antibiotics in the greater ecosystem, and that is definitely a part of the problem.

That I agree with. I'm a bicyclist, I use a rear view mirror mounted on my hazard glasses, and I'm pretty good about maintaining situational awareness. You get that way after pedalling for 45+ years. But there was still one time when a silent Prius sneaked up on me in a parking lot. Really startled me, like finding a rattlesnake in a mailbox.

Cars and motorbikes should make a little noise. Not very much, but a little. (Good bicyclists know how to say "behind you", "on your left", etc).

The Fine Summary states that the sponsor is the Knights Foundation. But the story makes reference to the Knight Foundation.

Knights Foundation: does good works with London juvies.

Knight Foundation: does good works with news organizations.

/. eds: Please review and fix or clarify.

Well, duh. That would work if you turned your pipes around so you were blasting the loud exhaust ahead of you.

Maybe you should do that. It would make a truthier statement about who you really are.

Idunno about that "healthy young specimens" bit. That was true when I was young. But now most of the hog riders I see on the road are gray bearded balding overweight guys who would have trouble pulling their bike upright if it fell over.

I understand that they are also developing a graphene playing card / titanium clothespin module that can be attached to the front fork for that awesome 1950s Schwinn Beach Cruiser buzz.

Well, to each their own.

I've never enjoyed trying to read by firelight when camping. Using lanterns is even worse; they attract the bugs. I won't read during the daylight hours; those are for hiking and photos and such.

Yeah but they've got lobsters. That's got to count for something.

Yeah. The official alternate pronunciation is "Oreegun".

I really cannot understand the confusion of Portland OR with Portland ME. One has Portlandia, the Wildwood, and the setting for the Grimm stories. The other has... uh, lobster.

Maine has relevance?

I'm not sure Bert and Ernie would agree with that.

I cannot speak for the dolphins, but yes, many if not all, of those who are living in tents seem to believe that science is but another religion.

For that matter, there are a lot of people living with advanced technologies that invoke "Science" as if it were a religious belief, when what they are really doing is citing some authority or other, rather than perfoming scientific experiments or scientific research. Science is not scholasticism, despite what you may have been taught in school.

Can you say "scholasticism"? . . . I thought you could.

Right on!

The easiest way to move water from here to there is to put it in the atmosphere at a place where the prevailing winds will carry the rain clouds where we want them. And we know how to do that for California!

We'd have to work out the best depth to set off the nukes and the best megatonnage per blow, but those are trivial problems.

Hell, we have the delivery systems. We have the nuclear arsenal (and that's just an embarrassment any more). This is consistent with the Manifest Destiny that made the USA what it is today! Getting this done can be a rallying point for the Tea Partiers! After all, you cannot make tea without first boiling some water!!