I guess that I don't understand people's privacy objections here. Those people who got free BlackBerries are well aware of the monitoring. Legally, either party may record a conversation and save it and provide it to whomever they want (Though this varies by state). It's the responsibility of the BlackBerry owner to make sure that their friends know the situation -- and based on the last drug-text, they do.

The bigger question that should be in a /. poll soon, is: "I would give a researcher all of your phone data, text, and other information, in exchange for a free:

(1) dumb phone
(2) BlackBerry
(3) iPhone
(4) RAZR smart phone
(5) CowboyNeal "

There's plenty of oxygen on Titan. The whole crust is made out of water ice. True there is no free molecular oxygen, but neither was there on Earth before about a billion years ago.

As for life on Titan, the suggestion is that there might be an opportunity when the liquid water beneath Titan's 50-km-thick ice crust bubbles to the surface (a "cryovolcano"), or when a meteor impact leaves a patch of melted local bedrock (which is water ice, so the patch would be a lake). When liquid water from one of these sources combines with the organics in the atmosphere, who knows what happens. But it better happen fast -- the whole thing freezes over in 10^4 years!

I'm a professor. "Back to school" for me means less parking ;)

Dunno anything about these folks' rings, but I got my wife an engagement ring with Martian basalt in it. Thankfully she is also a nerd, and in fact studies the Moon and Mars for her research. Otherwise I don't recommend this tactic, as it's likely to get you slapped rather than engaged . . .

I have no privacy anymore, you insensitive clod!

I don't understand the problem, here. All data from NASA planetary missions are made public 1 year after they are taken. Here, you can go download them and use them for whatever you like at the Planetary Data System . There's a group of enthusiastic amateurs that use and interpret the raw data at UMSF , among other places. You're welcome to use these data and do science with them and publish them, scooping other scientists. Believe me, there's plenty of science left to be done in there.

Just the "pretty good depression", I'm afraid.