Drink a Coke huh? Not in America. We use High Fructose Corn Syrup for most soft drinks. You want to power that baby, you'll need a Coke from Mexico. They actually use real sugar.

I noticed the wheels are covered with foil and the retro-thrusters look like they have giant rubber stoppers in them. Does anyone know the purpose of these? I am assuming the stopper things would be launched out when they're fired but how does the foil come off the wheels once at Mars? (or is that just a protective covering for until the thing is fully loaded and ready to be launched into space?)

I thought it was kind of chunky just walking normally and might be supported by the umbilicus but once the guy starting shoving it sideways I got chills. It recovered just like an animal would. Very impressive.

They're called "Tostitos."

I'd love to know where you buy your music from. I haven't seen a price change in albums since CDs first came out.

It becomes eztv.eu?

Although this is exactly how I feel about myself, I've mostly found the complete opposite of most people. It probably depends on the person and the situation though. My parents are super DIY'ers for home repairs/improvements but when it comes to technology they just flat out refuse to learn how to do things themselves. They'd rather rely on me to "just fix it."

Article says they eliminated possible sources for error but doesn't list them. Every scientific paper I've ever wrote had a section you had to list possible venues for errors in your experiment. I don't doubt they did, but I'd like to know what they were. I can't even get all my clocks in my apt to sync up to my computer or at work or to the tv or anything else. I imagine it's really hard to do this with two remote locations unless the clocks were perfectly synced in person and then transported to the different research stations. Otherwise, if they eliminated all possible known error sources could this have been a spacetime bend? We already know that matter/gravity bends spacetime. Perhaps there was a varying gravity density between the two stations? I know neutrinos rarely interact with matter but are they affected by gravity like photons are?

Tachyons. Hand in your nerd card.

Shouldn't be that hard, just have them aim for the spot where the line of trampled trees stops.

Original link seems slashdotted for me. Here's an alternate:
http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/smk-just-made-micro-usb-ports-a-lot-stronger-20110919/

I know there will be a few "who cares?" and "why are we bothering?"... If it's in orbit it will come back around again. Much like how we need to track all satellites around Earth to prevent collisions, and asteroids/comets that may be on a trajectory towards Earth, we'll need to track this object as well. Who knows when and where it might collide with something in the future.

This is slashdot. I think you meant "by the end of a week from now."

Which is why you don't test the soil for microbes right where the lander put its wheels... The entire rest of the planet is still a viable target for research. Anything that isn't buried beneath the regolith pushed by the wheels will die from UV exposure. Blown away/exposed by wind? UV exposure. This is seriously a non-threat. As long as you don't sample from wheel treads and the rover was properly sterilized it'll be fine. (not to mention any microbes you find should be tested in comparison to those of earth origin. It's highly unlikely that you'll find an identical strain of organism on Mars as found on Earth.)

Bloody Catholics having bloody children they can't bloody afford to bloody feed...