Maybe yes, maybe no.

We know that life has started out in an anaerobic environment with water present. Everything else is up for grabs. So if you're looking for life-as-we-know-it, it makes sense to go with the conditions we already know works.

TF Headline is, of course, hyperbolic. Alien life doesn't necessarily require conditions similar to earth. But that's were the money is. If you have limit the types of planet systems you will spend the time and money to look carefully at, you just might go with what has worked.

Slashdot.

Where even car mirrors have political and racial overtones.

How about a laser? You can do a vasectomy with a laser - how cool is that?

Of course, you could do a vasectomy with a shark. I'm not sure that 'cool' would be the appropriate adjective.

It's called 'marriage'.

You sure they were vasectomies?

Funny. I don't recall seeing any Boeing pens last time I was there. I did see a number of pretty attractive female engineers and pilots.

Maybe Lockheed makes the pens.

In case you've missed it, we've had plenty of articles on drugs (alcohol is a drug), distillation (chemistry) and taxation (cue the innumerable posts on taxation, etc.). This fits right in.

Stifle yourself.

That's right. He was an early eco-terrorist, spreading invasive species throughout the country.

Interesting. Didn't realize the VC were into Heinlein.

Well, Freud was batshit insane, so take whatever he says with a grain of salt. But if you start to put together the costs to treat alcohol and tobacco related illness, they absolutely dwarf moneys spent on the other drugs. Now, saying that, it's a harder comparison to make since the 'harder' drugs are illegal and costly putting many of the addicts in a position to create societal harm (robbery, theft, etc). But MVAs due to drunks costs quite a bit of money as well. Back and forth ....

It's probably not going to get anyone very far by stating 'my drug is worse than your drug' - I think the bottom line is that a) people will use them no matter what legal prohibitions are thrown in their way and b) we as a society have to come up with a reasonable balance between personal liberty, social costs and straight financial costs. The 'War on Drugs' turns out to be an unreasonable way to solve this problem.

True, but again, it's highly regulated and there are defense mechanisms - all of which are incompletely understood. And I'm not so sure that this is a good idea as the mechanisms used to disseminate the genes to the target organisms are going to have to look rather virus like as it's unlikely you're going to try to catch every Cane Toad in the swamp to give them a shot.

And viruses have lots of ways of getting around defense mechanisms.

Whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

Yeah, just imagine. A micropayment system that worked. 25 cents for a video? 10 cents? 2 cents? I'd go for that in a heartbeat. Sure, have a choice - look at the ads or pay up. I suppose that some smart marketing folks have actually looked at this and decided it 's not worth it, but I for one would welcome our new micropayment overlords.

That's likely true and the journalists are being sloppy. At least the authors of TFA plan to use this to target a particular type of critter (eg an invasive species, a pathogen). The modified organisms could spread throughout an ecosystem, but not infect everything in sight.

Except this isn't the FDA - it's the DEA who has it's own incoherent and opaque methodology to determine which class a drug or chemical falls into.

We have plenty of oil left. What we don't have is very much cheap oil. That interesting point at least allows the concept of market driven forces. Once oil is too expensive, then there will be more of a reason to switch. To be completely fair (which will never happen) we do need to cut back on the subsidies we give the fossil fuel industry. Adding differing subsidies to the mix isn't such a bright idea, but it is politically expedient.