I agree that these stories are sensationalized, but I don't think they're lame at all. It's great to see excitement in the national media about science results. Would you prefer more Kardashian headlines?

Of all the millions of species that have lived on earth we are the only one to develop technology. We are rare.

It's easy, you just need a reactor: http://spacechemthegame.com/

I went to see MI4 Saturday. My first trip to the theater in more than a year. After paying $20 for 2 tickets and $15 for concessions, 15 minutes into the movie a family sat down behind us and proceeded to talk to each other and to crunch the loud snacks they smuggled into the theater. We moved, but we could still hear them. Totally ruined the whole experience for me and I won't be going back any time soon.

This is exactly correct. I've tried breathing under only 2-3 feet of water in a shallow pool through an open hose and it is physically impossible, as counter intuitive as that may seem.

Actually the second co-pilot had control only briefly and the captain never touched the controls during the accident sequence. The first co-pilot (who was less experienced IIRC) insisted on flying the plane with flawed situational awareness, which I believe negatively influenced both the captain and the other co-pilot.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/methane-time-bomb-in-arctic-seas-apocalypse-not/

I think the most likely explanation is that we are just the product of freakish accidents (giant impacts and other perfectly timed extinction events) which is not likely to be repeated no matter how many habitable planets there are in our galaxy.

On March 31, 2006, the amateur radio operators from AMSAT in Germany tracked and received radio waves from Voyager 1 using the 20-meter (66 ft) dish at Bochum with a long integration technique. Retrieved data was checked and verified against data from the Deep Space Network station at Madrid, Spain.[22] This is believed to be the first such tracking of Voyager 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1

Except for the occasion rabies infection: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/05/020506074445.htm