Perhaps this will finally usher in new research for defensive magnetic fields? What type of energy would be required to actually deflect one of these railshots?

Funny how NASA's probe can withstand a noteworthy coronal mass ejection, while the Phobos Grunt is apparently downed by radar.

If they want to make roads safer, then they need to work on better automated driving. Vehicle to Vehicle communication is just going to be used to tell others exactly how shitty their driving is. If you think road rage is bad now, think about what it'll be like when someone can talk back and tell you to go fuck yourself and stay the same speed in front of you.

Is this still limited to usage in netbooks and laptops? What type of dimensions are in an Ipad or the new ASUS eee Slate? I would love to be able to upgrade the drives in those, it's almost the only thing holding the asus windows slate back.

I suppose it matters which type of pancake we're referring to. Are we going with literal translation of "pancake", or should we move deeper and include crepes? As for your "shitload" unit of measurement, I agree. A crepe would be a shitload flatter than a pancake.

Ideal American pancake flatness should be around 8 to 10mm in thickenss. A 30mm pancake would be a custard pie.

I agree with this. Given the circumstances, it would seem that dolphins are at a disadvantage to developing any type of society greater than the small pod communities they have now. Early humans were able to develop civilization, but first they found caves, they discovered wood, branches, etc, could build homes. Dolphins will never be able to develop shelter, communities, anything. Even if they were to try to live in underwater caves, they would still have to constantly rise to the surface to breathe. Humans never have to leave their homes. Again, dolphins can't cultivate, they cant grow food, or raise cattle, they live in a 360 degree environment, how would they ever develop a large food supply for a massive community? It seems to me that it's pretty obvious that we were only so fortunate to have just the right things to allow our culture to evolve to where it is today. If the planet were all desert with nothing that enabled us to manipulate our surroundings, we would be just as nomadic as they, wild animals with an ability to understand local community and self. Oh you could teach us tricks too.

In order to achieve an accurate simulation, we'd have to know all of the different species of, well, everything on this planet. Like one of the posts above, not only do we not have the computational power to handle all of the random things that happen on earth, but I doubt we have enough scientists on the project who have the time to add the data required. Keep in mind that if they want to have a chance at a realistic simulation, they would undoubtedly need to add genetic code to the system. It would have to account for genetic variation for every new generation of EVERY species on the planet. We could literally predict the potential evolution of the planet by fast forwarding everything at that point. A great idea in theory, but so is peace on earth, or colonizing mars, or hell, even recycling. Suppose it's worth a shot. I guess these scientists were pretty upset with how badly SPORE ended up being.

Just keep it away from my drywall!

I agree with you here. I recall seeing something like this about a year ago, I told my wife the wonderful news. To this very day, I'm still jumping to mute the T.V. as soon as the next infomercial pops on. These proposed bills are just as bad as vaporware.