I'm not saying that the people negotiating have to do all their talk in public because that would be ridiculous. But the terms of the deal have to be made public during the negotiations. When a new law is proposed there are certainly lots of back room deals but you get at least a couple of public readings and, if the law has any significant impact, lots of media attention too (at least here in Europe that's the norm). Where I live, a law adopted in a hurry or in a context of dubious public review would get struck down by the Constitutional Court. A treaty should be no different.

We must force our governments to be more transparent. IMO, it should be a constitutional principle that all law must be negotiated in public. If history has tought us one thing is that secret negotiations lead to horrible results. For example, one of the most despicable treaties in history, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was the result of such secret negotiations.

Why not get rid of politicians altogether? I mean, 200 years ago it was not feasible to get everyone in one place to pass laws but with today's technology it is actually possible to have direct democracy. That has some problems too but at least it becomes impossible to lobby. If that's too hard then at least make it so that if a petition gets X signatures then a referendum must be held on the question and the results are legally binding. That would go a long way to fix the system.

It does not follow.

But one day all the stars will go out and the universe will be a cold dark place and all of this will have been for nothing anyway...

A depressing thought.

And it's been drunk by at least one dinosaur too.

Ironically, the referendum that made Ukraine an independent country resulted in a 90+ percent yes vote with even Crimea voting in favor. At the time, no one disputed the results. It just shows how easily the populace is manipulated.

So how would you feel if the Russians tried to annex Alaska? Maybe you don't care now because it seems remote but ignoring the problem will not make it go away.

The size of newborn calves is about the same (~90 kg). The gestation period, which has been deduced from isotopic analysis of newborn teeth is also very similar (21-22 months).

It doesn't matter that the donor is dead. The process of cloning involves taking out DNA and inserting it into another cell. All that matters is that enough DNA can be collected for a complete organism. Freezing is completely irrelevant as even human embryos used for in-vitro fertilization are routinely frozen.

We have been able to clone several species already. That's not the problem. The problem is that you need a surrogate mother for the embryo and the closest we have is the African elephant, which separated from the mammoth a long time ago. From TFA it seems they are already working on cross-species clones but they are still a long way off.

No. The older crowd has seen its share of Ponzi schemes and economic bubbles and is simply less naive.

It has value because the government of the USA says so.