https://www.livescience.com/ma...

Eris isn't possible - due to fuel, and other, limitations. Looks like it's next stop KBO 2014 MU69!

New Horizons' visit hasn't changed anything in that regard. Pluto was reclassified - I don't know why you'd think it was a demotion - primarily because it's one of many similar objects out on the fringes of the Solar System, it just happened to be the first one that we discovered. But we had figured out that it had a lot of company well before New Horizons got there and its visit hasn't corrected or altered that knowledge.

Did you know that Ceres, Vesta and a bunch of other asteroids were classed as planets for a while? And before that even our moon and the Sun were? But people got more data and felt that calling those bodies "planets" didn't make sense any more. That's all that's happened to Pluto. It's still the same object it always was, just we know a bit more about it now.

As regards the other stuff, to the best of my knowledge it was Neil de Grasse Tyson, an American scientist, who was the most vocal advocate for the change.

A fucking planet? Cool! Where can I get tickets?

The whole business of classifying Pluto as a planet or a dwarf planet is something that the IAU decided on. Really, it's a matter of having a useful definition for what they mean when they say "planet". Pluto doesn't meet one of three main criteria they applied (Admittedly they failed to take your opinion of what it looks like into account). But it's only a rule to them. It applies to their internal conversations and to their communications with the rest of the world. You can call Pluto a planet if you want.

Isn't it pretty much only a token thing in end-effect anyway? The paper is 11 years old, so I'm not sure what retracting it means at this point? I guess it disappears from the journal's archives, but would anyone using the software and wanting to cite it necessarily know that it's been retracted? If you're active in bioinformatics, sure, you'd probably know, but more than likely you would have already heard of his licensing restrictions anyway. I agree with it being retracted, on the grounds of the licensing change, just it seems more like a symbolic thing rather than censorship.

While I agree that academic writing is often too opaque - in particular the use of the passive voice in scientific papers is too slavishly followed - I think academics should be cut some slack here. They are very well aware of the review process and how their papers will be cited. That makes them generally cautious about their claims, not wanting to be accused of making claims that their research does not support, while at the same time not hiding the light of their research under a bushel. That tightrope, and the space constraint referred to above, can generate densely-argued and sesquipedalian prose.

This is a correct analysis.

Yes, exactly. I would have said a loophole is some kind of tricksy interpretation of words, distorting their intended sense, but this is an explicit exemption. Go right ahead, boys, enjoy those fat pensions and bonuses!

So contact them and ask. Why bring it up here?

Exactly, exactly, EXACTLY!!!! Practically all the comment here, in both directions, has been just in reaction to TFS. And all that says is two guys signed a letter. I'd need to see a lot more background information before forming an opinion. After all this came up before. http://linux.slashdot.org/stor...

Huh? That's so wrong it's absurd.

All of this. Yes. Though I don't know the ins and outs of the Tesla thing. There's nothing wrong with being called Irish though! ;-)

I hear the sound of a nail being hit on the head.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.