It's not pretty. Essentially, the C-H bonds in methane are vulnerable to radical reactions. This allows for a variety of removal processes, many leading to the formation of water vapour and/or CO2 itself.

While that may not sound so bad, don't forget that water vapour is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases when it's found in the atmosphere, which is why, for example, the effective carbon emissions of intercontinental flights are so significant. So the end result is methane, an awful greenhouse gas, lives a relatively short life but ends up as either a worse or slightly less awful different greenhouse gas. In other words, methane stinks!

As free, open-source learning software (that I've loved for years), it seems right up Slashdot's alley. Except for the fact that this Anki didn't pay for slashvertising.

Ever notice how much efforts police will make to safely sedate and transport a cow that's loose on the highway? Even one that was heading (and will continue to head) to a slaughterhouse?

The reality is that the vast majority of people are not comfortable with killing animals and simply can't handle the idea -- let alone the sight! -- of it. Just the information given on this clam in TFA is enough to rouse people's sympathy and make its death seem tragic. But, as is true for war, the idea of millions of something dying is incomprehensible and therefore inconsequential. Especially if the dying is out of sight and out of mind.

It's for this reason that I can understand and respect the perspectives of hunters and vegetarians alike. But it's quite sad when people can't face the reality of their own actions.

As a fellow chemist -- one that has done research and teaching in physical and organic realms -- I assure you this is not necessarily true. A good organic course will yield a maximum grade of maybe 70% for students who are impeccable memorizers but not problem solvers. (I'd say it'd be about 50% for a good phys chem course, because plug-and-chug formulas can certainly be crammed.)

For example, syntheses are a lot like chess. They require memorizing a variety of transformations, but the potential applications of those finite transformations are nearly limitless. There's just no way to memorize them. You need to understand the rules of the game, then be both logical and creative to succeed.

I used to share your perspective, beginning my academic carerr as a phys-chem believer. In the end, I realized that if courses in organic can be aced by memorization, that simply means that whoever delivered the course fucked up. There is a heckofa lot more too it than that.

Organic chemsitry is not a fascinating subject in its ownright. And even though it falls in the purview of physics -- like, uh, everything -- it is best understood apart from physics, as a unique lense. Just as biology is not best understood as complicated chemistry, but rather as a completely different perspective.

It demonstrates the raw power of abstraction. For example, ask an experienced organic chemist to propose a synthesis of any arbitrary molecule. A good one will normally be able to come up with something plausible in minutes, and refine it to something practical in hours. A physical chemist, let alone a physicist, even with the incredible computing resources for the complex quantum mechanical calculations required wouldn't be able to tell you how to make it if you gave her months! Guarenteed.

That is the power of organic chemistry. It teaches you how a handful of simplifications, fuzzy rules, and fictional symbols can give you incredibly unique and practical skills. This is not unlike treating the human body as a group of organs, cells, cellular machines, etc., rather than subatomic particles. Of course it's all physics, but viewing systems through appropriate paradigms can yield incredible results.

If people see "orgo" as just a test of rote memorization, their professors should be ashamed -- they've missed it point.

Exactly. Someone once said that the whole trouble with having lawyers in charge is that lawyers are paid to arbitrarily pick a position, then argue for that position come hell, highwater, or new information. They don't typically have any incentive (or even the opportunity) to pick the right position -- they go with the view they've been paid to represent.

Scientists, engineers, and practically everyone else are instead expected to come to the right answer based on the objectively best evidence available. And if that evidence changes, so should the position. The lawyer-approach wouldn't cure a patient or get an airplane off the ground, why does anyone expect it to be suited to running a government?

Because small bookstores are part of what makes Paris the most visited city in the world? (You don't think tourism is a failed industry, do you?) Because literature is a huge part of the cultural heritage of France and remains a national past-time? Because if Amazon is the only bookseller in the world in a decade or so, they will do what monopolies are known to do: screw over the authors, focus on mass-appeal crap, enforce DRM? (Just look at the music industry for examples of this, and imagine how bad it would be if it was even more centralized!)

I'm not French but one of the reasons I love France is because nearly every French citizen I've met would be able to produce these answers and talk intelligently about this bill. On Slashdot, and in North America, we seem to be collectively drunk on the free-market, short-term kool-aid.

That's exactly what's happening. Different groups of scientists, journalists, university-groups and so forth are trying to implement a variety of systems.

Of course, like real science, each group tends to only focus on one approach with the hope that their results will emerge as the best amongst the competition. You're not referring to "scientists" as some kind of monolothic entity, are you?

I've seen hundreds of researchers work to try to come up with a car-ready inexpensive fuel cell that's, if not safe, at least not going to level a block during a fender-bender. The conclusion I came to long ago was that the big car makers pursue fuel cells to avoid explaining why they've not pursued (or actively stalled) the development of electric vehicles. The fact is that electric cars have a much, much greater potential to replace internal combustion engines than fuel cells for the near future.

Even just the fact that infrastructure is basically in place for widespread transportation of electricity and not even on the radar for hydrogen gives electric a huge edge!

I'm not saying the technology might not prove itself within a few decades, but if half of the fuel-cell resources were placed into improving batteries, electric vehicles would be damn near ubiquitous by now. Would anyone argue that the existing automakers really wanted that?

Strange, isn't it. Almost as if governments and corporations are not the exact same thing.

Austerity makes zero sense when applied to governments. How many times does this need to be proven? How many gutted middle classes and depressions does it take? "Tightening the belt" on a countrywide scale is a feel good, self flagellating piece of fiction that simply does not work.

But don't let me take away your smug sense of superiority over nearly all of Europe. Romney 2012!

College has become far more about the degree than the experience, sadly. You can meet scores of graduates that have shining transcripts and dismal educations. And this is one of the reason the cost is so obscene -- as Thomas Frank said, "An annual pass to Disneyland would also cost $54,000 if society believed that what it took to make you eligible for success was a great many hours spent absorbing the subtle lessons of the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage."

Until there is prestige associated with online learning, an online education will never be as valuable or acceptable as a brick-and-mortar degree mill experience. However, to those who actually want to learn and to do, access to high quality education experiences from anywhere in the world is fantastic and will only continue to improve with better technology and pedagogy. Though it's no surprising that the breakthrough course was in a geeky subject that attracts genuine curiosity.

My university's model is to attract as many international students as possible and charge them 3x the 'domestic' tuition rate, which is already high for Canada. Better yet is a privately-owned college they've licensed our 'brand' to, which allows them to do the same but with dirt-low entrance requirements and higher yet tuition!

Even my previous institute, a very small liberal arts university on the opposite coast, was showing shades of the same. What else do we expect with burgeoning human resources departments and shrinking public funding?

I'm midway through a graduate program and here are the things I wish I was told before I started:

• -- Your supervisor choice is of prime importance. They will dictate your research projects, your lifestyle, and most importantly, your opportunities to continue on. They write your reference letter, after all, and decide your approach to publishing. Pick a good one! Visit several, talk to their students (over beer preferably) - really, you cannot investigate this question too much.
• -- Be ambitious about learning about different school's grad-payment policies. Do they require you to TA? Do you want to? Do they have minimum funding guarantees? If you bring in an external scholarship, do they dock your pay or match the funds? Of course it's not about the money but in Canada, I know firsthand that some graduate students will make fully twice what other students make and neither are well compensated.
• -- Pick a school for its department rather than overall reputation. The supervisor choice is first priority but the second criterion should be the department, as departmental policy and reputation will shape your life in many ways.
• -- Wherever you go, adopt the following policy: If I feel productive, I work. If I don't feel productive, I do not try to. There will be pressure to always be in the lab or in front of your computer, but the reality is that no human can work eighteen hour days for weeks on an end. So if you can't focus or your research is at an impasse, get out there and do something fun. It won't set you back academically and in the longterm, you'll be happier and healthier!

• • With that said, don't let the naysayers get you down. There are good people in academia and always room for a few more. Good luck!

That's great work, you've shown that complex, data-based mathematical modelling by NASA scientists is just like someone drawing a line between points and cheering when it later turns out to match some data. And you did so with a cartoon!

I'm sure NASA will be pleased to learn that they can forget all that tiresome building of models and instead base all future rocketry on connecting-the-dots. I thank you, good sir.