Of course the episodic bursts of methane came form the global surveyor that surveyed the planet: as every middle schooler knows, "whoever smelt it dealt it".

Heh, heh, heh:

Stupid old people!

AGW/anti-AGW debate? I thought we were just exchanging travel photos from our vacations. If dated photos of glaciers is what you want, I have a picture of Everest from Feb 1981 that looks much less snowy than either of these.

http://piczasso.com/s.php?s=f4n0wcs.JPG (taken from the small hill past the glacier in the lower center of Hillary's photo, I kid you not.)

On the other hand, I also have a picture of the remaining sliver of glacier on Kilimanjaro last August (which also stars my beautiful Fiancé).

http://piczasso.com/i/v84a31k.JPG

As my photos clearly show, Everest had less snow 29 years ago, Killamanjaro is almost melted away, and I am a very lucky man to be marrying that woman. I dare you to show that my photos are less scientific than the comparison in TFA.

Don't be such a skeptic. If you don't believe that 19 correct guesses proves a pattern, just come ask my favorite octopus. Now that he is retired from world-cup football he's free to predict the next mass-extinction for you.

You don't have to look so far ahead: you can use it to unfold solar panels on satellites. It would make it much easier to deploy (and change the angle of) large solar panels on small simple satellites. they have to be launched in a very compact state and deploy (obviously) without help.

It's not always the cheater's fault. Why, lots of the times I cheated it was totally the woman's fault... oh, wait, this isn't going out on the internet is it?

Please disregard.

Each implant still requires the skeletal remains of someone else's organ. Where do they plan to get all these organs? I love the idea that every recipient needs to leave behind their old organ to form the basis of for the next guy's

It's the ultimate in recycling!.

Life, Shmife! We are not focusing on the most important aspect of this report. The key is that there is sizable amounts water available in (relatively) nearby orbits outside of any significant gravity well. If the water can be used to refuel ships on their way to outer orbits, this could be incredibly useful for deep space exploration. I would personally prefer to see a space station on 24 Themis than on the moon, and it is less work to get there. Ok, more time but less work.

Facebook should cater more to their "made" clientele: Along with relationship status, there should be a "legal status" pulldown menu:

- Totally legit
- On the lamb
- Locked up
- It's complicated

The disaster might not be so "natural". The data says that only a small amount of genetic variation existed within those that passed on their genes. It would not take a volcano to decide who passes on their genes and who doesn't.

An equally valid hypothesis is that there was no environmental change, but that in an otherwise genetically diverse population one small group gained a genetic competitive advantage over other proto-humans and began to multiply wildly, killing off or starving out the rest of the gene pool. It would be interesting to compare the age of the various genes for cognitive ability, speech and socialization to see if any date to the period where these choke points occurred.

I would like to think it was a gene that supported empathy or cooperation that enabled them to out-compete their neighbors, but rather I suspect that a genetic disposition to xenophobia is a more likely culprit...

You are reading the message wrong: we went from edge of extinction to what we are today: a threat to the entire ecosystem. Clearly there must be some secret advantage to springing back from extinction, and if we can do it so can the other guys.

This plainly shows that our real enemies are all those creatures presently on the endangered species list. In the name of all that is holy, I call on you all to go out and hunt down the remaining grey wolves and pandas before they devour us all.

Hey, calm down Matt4077. Stop yelling at the nice slashdotters and I will give you a piece of candy.