Hey look, there's Australia's new broadband network!

Pffffffft! A robot wouldn't user razors, it would use lasers!

Eggs, Luke Skywalker is lacking.

Welp, that's exactly the problem, that isn't to say there aren't other methods though. For example you could see how much genetic differentiation there is between known species in the area and make assumptions based on that. You could also use other types of DNA, mitochondrial DNA for example which may tell a different story.

Fact is, taxonomists are always fighting about which species is which, sometimes with fruition. DNA, while it is very useful in determining one species from another has added to the questions about what really defines a species and what differentiates one from the other. Even morphologically there has been debate as to whether the two specimens you are holding are one species or two. Take the Eclectus Parrot for an early example, the male is bright green whereas the female is red/purple, scientists thought them to be separate species until they actually saw them mating. Things can get even more confusing when species don't physically mate with each other (think pollen and plants) or when they mate between species. Hopefully this type of science will take us closer to the answer.

On the other hand, personally I like these kind of studies for other uses like saying "Hey! This spot has way more genetically different organisms, maybe it's more important to not pollute it"

As with other "soup" DNA techniques those species that they do not have DNA information for (I'm using this term loosely) would simply be separated by their genetic differentiation between each other. This is one of the primary problems with identifying species with "Soup" because organisms can be the same distance apart genetically but some may be different species morphologically and others may be the same.

In a simplified example say you have organisms A, B and C. A and B are closest genetically, A and C are furthest away while B and C are the same distance away from each other. One would look at this and assume A, B and C are separate species. However you then observe in the wild that B and C are able to breed, perhaps B and C are one species while A is separate? This is one of many examples of how genetic information can mislead species information

Unfortunately speciation is complicated and often not linear which leaves a confusing genetic trail. Fortunately, data telling us the genetic variation of an area can still be very useful for many scientific questions. Not to mention the usefulness of being able to identify the presence/ absence of well known species.

There is a difference between "inaccessible" and "in a dump somewhere". The difference being it is retrievable if it's sitting in a dusty library somewhere but not if rotting in landfill. There have been many times where I have been searching for a long lost article where the only version of it is in hard copy in the library and there is no current study that would take its place. If you are desperate and far away you can call a colleague to find the paper but you cannot find lost papers in a tip.

Throwing out these old papers would only make a skerrick of sense, and I mean a only a skerrick, if it had been directly verified that there was a digital copy. I have found that digital copies exist mainly for new papers not for old ones such as these. There is a high risk that information will be and has been irretrievably lost because of actions such as these.

Dumping of historical studies and data on this scale saddens me, who knows what we have lost?

I hear you, whenever I think about Sonique I always go on a nostalgia trip. Wow, impressive that it on 8, however, I did run it on XP for a long time without having to run it in compatibility mode. I suspect it worked on 7 too, but I can't remember if I attempted to use it on 7.

I think a nice new re-make of the skin would look great, I always liked how it just looked different, almost like a funny little console on your screen (keeping in mind I was pretty young at that time).

Yes it was astronomically slow, it made up for this with great playlist management and good looks and it never demanded to "import a library". I largely got around it by never re-starting my computer and leaving it in standby, that way I never had to open again. On the other hand, for me Winamp wasn't exactly the epitome of speed

The monster that was Sonique 2 probably killed it off though.

Why does no-one ever remember Sonique? How I loved that player that I could never close because it always crashed when I did...

I do hope that Radionomy don't murder Winamp but keep the winamp dream alive. Nonetheless, the old files will always remain somewhere

While it may be impractical to tag every shark out there there is almost as much beach as there is shark, not to mention that by nature beaches are continuously changing. There is a lot of solution-finding going on right now to protect people from sharks without having to kill the sharks. It may work - all you need is one person on the beach with a phone (who doesn't carry a phone with them?) to yell "shark in the water" and bob's your uncle.

While you can't hope to tag every shark, perhaps it is possible to tag those that favour popular beaches?

Drones aren't a bad idea, I suppose the limiting factor is identifying the sharks and having enough people to watch for them (via camera I assume).

I agree, a vast number of failures is to be expected from an online course that requires no monetary input - this is education based PURELY out of self-motivation. Even those who do have the motivation of "I spent money on this therefore I should complete it" still fail due to lack of effort, even those who have little money to throw around. One can only assume that in a forum where you don't pay for the education nor have devoted educators to "hanker" students (even to the a minor extent) is going to be a higher failure rate.

This article http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/mooc-completion-rates-below-7/2003710.article reported, in a study of 29 MOOCs that the worst course studied had a recruitment of 83,000 students with just 0.8% reaching the end - this is still 664 educated people.

Encouragingly, the best course had a completion rate of 19.2% out of 50,000. This gives us 9600 educated people, not a bad number I say.

We cannot forget that MOOCs aren't just used in order to pass them. Someone might be after a particular piece of information or in more extreme cases, educators might encourage students to join these type of courses to help the course that they are studying. This would increased the course numbers but would also increase the failure rate.

It would be interesting to see whether there are trends between failures in courses, how long people stuck with the course and what uses these online course materials are being put to.