The funny bit is that the climate models contained in the 1990 IPPC report have been spot on (after 35 years, we are right in the middle of their prediction range), and all subsequent climate models were underestimating the effects. Apparently exactly those politicians you accuse of hysteria for personal gain were in fact pressuring climate scientist to modify their models and give less hysterical predictions - and they have been wrong, because they systematically underestimated the change.

But that's no wonder. While the amount of money spend on climate science is about 5 billion dollar a year, just the amount of subsidies given to oil, gas and coal is about 500 billion dollars a year, and no industry wants to lose half a trillion.

That's why I differentiated between Chinese made cars and Chinese brands.

Interestingly though, while 20% of European sales of new cars are already BEVs, it's not the Chinese cars dominating. Chinese brands only have about 3% of the market, while BEVs made in China by non-Chinese brands like Tesla account for 8% of all car sales. The BEV market in Europe is dominated by Stellantis and Volkswagen. with some heavy dose of Korean brands.

We know about Ribose and Lysine being present in comets and asteroids at least since the 1980ies, mostly from absorption bands.

My take is completely different. If the building blocks of Life are so abundant, obviously, they are forming spontaneously without biological predecessor. We are built from ribose, nucleobases and phosphates, because they are everywhere. (And this throws a big wrench into the idea of Silicon based life, because we don't see the silicon equivalents of our base molecules appearing in comets and asteroids.)

The cars I mentioned use 0W40. A car with shorter oil change intervals than 10K is probably not marketable where I live. Given that the average total time on the road is about 18 years, and the average yearly mileage about 10K, this would mean that the average car is driven for 180K miles with those long intervals.

Because it was a leasing car, and after 5 years, the leasing contract ran out and could not be extended. Colleagues of mine with more road trips put more than 125K miles on their cars before their contracts run out. And the local mechanic who was doing the oil change (five times during my run) was not laughing at all, because it was his everyday work. In fact, I went to the mechanic whenever the car engine light came up and demanded the oil change. Only one time, when I came in after 17K miles, he was a little wary because I was postponing the oil change for too long for his taste.

In most of the world, 10K oil changes are the norm. My last car had 15K oil change intervals, and got 60 mpg. Never had an engine problem. As this was a company car, I had to return it after 90K miles. Engine was an Volkswagen 1.6 liter TDI with 110 HP. Current car is owned by my wife, similar sized engine with similar range from Stellantis (1.6 liter HDI), 10K oil change interval, currently at 100K miles. Never had an engine problem.

I don't know what the U.S. car's problem is with those short oil change intervals. Low quality oil maybe?

It's not about IOS' market share as such. But if I as an Android user have the government surveillance app, but my somewhat richer neighbor with his iPhone does not, that begins to look very much like a wealth privilege. And in a country with many poor people, this does not bode well for the government.

When all spaces are full, you can't park there anyway, independent of the question if there are 9 or 10 occupied spaces.

Driving from Dublin to Donegal means that you take a short cut through Northern Ireland. Crossing the border is an everyday occurrence. And that border is one of the main reasons why a) Northern Ireland voted against Brexit and b) the Brexit negotiations were so complicated, as it is easier to levy tariffs on the ferries between Northern Ireland and Great Britain than between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

But that's where most border crossings happen from the UK. It's not the edge case. It's most of the cases. For all other border crossings, you would have to book a ferry.

There is no passport control at the border of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland. (And between most E.U. countries).

It always boils down to the question: Does it matter?

Does it matter if you have 9 or 10 dollars, if all you want is to buy an ice cone for $3.50?

Does it matter if there are 9 or 10 parking lots if you know 5 of them are occupied, and you want to park your car?

Sometimes, 9 or 10 is a question of life and death. Are there 9 or 10 people in the burning building, and have we account for all of them rescued from the fire? Sometimes it is totally irrelevant.

Same with Dark Matter. If we want to account for effects on cosmic scales, it is really important. For gravitational effects in our Solar system, not so much.

We could also call it "apparent gravitational effects, which don't fit our models right now, but would fit perfectly well if we assume about five times more mass than we can actually account for."