“…The reflection of short wavelengths like ultraviolet gives a good indication of the occurrence of cloud particles, but the utility of ultraviolet observations is enhanced by the presence of an as-yet unidentified ultraviolet absorber in the atmosphere of Venus, which shows up in the form of dark streaks on ultraviolet images….” Full Slice

the airtanker deal was awarded to EADS was specifically to bring to light McCain’s lobbying to support a non-US (hah!) company in favor of US based (hah!) Boeing.  Karl Rove knows that McCain will lose so much support (maybe even dropping out) so that the nominating convention must put forth a Rove approved replacement candidate.  Who might that be?

sepsis prolepsis:
I will counter in advance
objections to soap

A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet’s north pole.

Soon “the man” will know where everyone is, all the time. Full Slice

Subsequent note: The man identified via DNA in the “Full Slice” story committed suicide.

“What do marathoners and heart failure patients have in common? More than you think according to new findings by physiologists…The new study shows that the fatigue that marathoners and other extreme athletes feel at the end of a race is caused by a tiny leak inside their muscles that probably also saps the energy from patients with heart failure.The leak – which allows calcium to continuously leak inside muscle cells – weakens the force produced by the muscle and also turns on a protein-digesting enzyme that damages the muscle fibers….” Full Slice

The Full Paper

well fuck you dean
who the hell do you think you are?
you’ll fuck our genes
who the hell do you think you are?
you think we’re memes
Who the hell do you think you are?
and less life means.

Few people have experienced traveling into space. Even fewer have experienced the smell of space. Now this sounds strange, that a vacuum could have a smell and that a human being could live to smell that smell. It seems about as improbable as listening to sounds in space, yet space has a definite smell.

“…Researchers have reconstructed proteins that were likely to have been used billions of years ago by the ancestors of modern bacteria and have found that these proteins provide estimates of the early earth’s temperatures that match those generated by geologists….” Full Slice

“Calendars might have read Friday, the first, but for many on Puget Sound freeways it seemed a lot more like the 13th.

There was the carjacking, the stabbing and the high-speed chase on Interstate 90 heading east from Seattle. Then there was a rolling domestic violence episode that sent a car weaving down the busy freeway.

Oh, and that 25-car pileup that closed Interstate 5 for hours just south of Tumwater, and a crash that blocked southbound I-5 during the afternoon commute in Seattle.

“It was a crazy day,” said Trooper Jeff Merrill, a State Patrol spokesman and one of several officers who helped arrest the carjacking suspect. “I don’t know what happened out there.” ” Full Slice

“…The researchers were surprised to find another subset of 84 genes triggered when either silicon or iron were limited, suggesting that these two pathways were somehow linked. Under low-iron conditions, the diatoms grew more slowly and genes involved in the production of the silica shell were triggered. Individual diatoms also tended to clump together under those conditions, making them even heavier and more likely to sink

The response of thin and thick cell walls depending on the amount of iron available had been observed at sea but “no one had a clue about the molecular basis,”…” Full Slice

Do people pay attention or might a scenario something like “On The Beach” be more likely ?

Considering what he “does for a living” I think Mr. van der Veer is being as honest as he can be but will the response be sane or not.

Of course the real issue is how do “the plans” deal with this which was mentioned in responses to the post about the next steps moving into space.

Is it possible for us all to actually have a real dialog and come to some consensus on action or not ? Of course it is. How probable ?

We shall see

Conservation fails
Reduction is the only hope
The individual rails
But exceptions are a slippery slope

Demi-Lee Brennan had a liver transplant after she suffered liver failure. Nine months later, doctors at Sydney’s Westmead Children’s Hospital were amazed to find the teenager’s blood group had changed to the donor’s blood type.

Further tests revealed the stem cells from the donor liver had penetrated her bone marrow.

Dr Michael Stormon says he and his colleagues were even more surprised when they found the girl’s immune system had almost totally been replaced by that of the donor, meaning she no longer had to take anti-rejection drugs.

abc.net.au

My friend Tom Hill sends this out to the DC area Martians, and I endorse the basic idea: (Moon: No! Asteroids/Mars: Yes!)

If there were scads of dough, I would cavil not at the Moon, but there aren’t, and I do.