Mars Rover Finds Complex Chemicals But No Organic Compounds 137
techtech writes in with the results from the first soil samples tested by the Curiosity rover. "Although NASA's Curiosity rover hasn't yet confirmed the detection of organic compounds on Mars, it's already seeing that the Red Planet's soil contains complex chemicals — including signs of an intriguing compound called perchlorate. The first soil sample analysis from Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars lab, or SAM, was the leadoff topic today at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco. The findings were eagerly awaited because of rumors that the Curiosity team was on the verge of announcing major findings — and although NASA tamped down expectations, the scientists said they were overjoyed with the first round of analysis."
NASA have nearly finished testing the new camera (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NASA have nearly finished testing the new camer (Score:5, Funny)
on Curiosity and are just about ready to go... http://imgur.com/VWcAU [imgur.com] :o)
That doesn't look like Jimmy Hoffa to me...
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I only got a 3 on the AP Chemistry test many years ago, but even I know that perchlorate [wikipedia.org] is not "an intriguing compound", but an ion that forms a variety of salts.
Re:NASA have nearly finished testing the new camer (Score:5, Informative)
Perchlorate is intriguing for a number of reasons that are tangental to the compound's intrinsic character.
First, it is a potentially biologically useful compound as an oxygen source for single cellular respiration in autochemotrophs.
Second, if concentrations are high enough, the salt lowers the melting point of water sufficiently that martian soil could be "moist" at sufficient depths.
Also, the compound usually only forms in nature from UV irridation of aqueous saline solutions. A high abundance of the mineral is very suggestive of a very different mars from what we see now.
Previous rovers have detected gypsum, and perchlorates at other locations. Additional samplings of perchlorates increases the probability that the mineral is very prevelent in the crust, which greatly increases the chances of finding microbiotic life.
The fact that perchlorate salts are about as "interesting" as O2, salt, silicon dioxide, and other inorganic substances here on earth does not mean that they are uninteresting in an environment that is radically different from our own.
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I thought the discovery of perchlorates dashed their hopes of finding microbial life - something about it being a wicked oxidizer?
Re:NASA have nearly finished testing the new camer (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a wicked oxydizer, and it does kill most terrestrial microbes almost instantly. (Its basically bleach.)
However, the degree of lethality is deprendent on concentration of the perchlorate salt (my understanding was that it was under 1% of the sample, suggesting it was a low yeild, but omnipresent mineral), as a small qualtity would be tolerable to extremophiles, which is what you would expect in the extreme conditions on mars.
Life on mars appears more and more to fall into a very narrow band of habitablility, like the photosynthetic soil microbes of antarctica, assuming it exists at all.
Missions like this one give us a better understanding of martian environmental conditions, and allow us to make better guesses about what areas of mars might potentially harbor life.
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Oxygen is, wait for it, a wicked oxidizer. Current life forms have evolved multiple processes to mitigate damage caused by having such a reactive chemical in the atmosphere.
But it's an energy source. Gotta have those electrons.
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Yup, but perchlorate makes oxygen seem tame by comparison.
I'd think that dealing with it in any kind of high concentration would be difficult, which kind of rules out the whole "well, maybe there is an ocean of salt water stabilized by perchlorates under the surface" bit.
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Well it sure prevents entire classes of organisms to develop there, but life might be based on different reactions and elements. As long as it grows, multiplies, and adapts itself to a changing environment it can be classified as life (according to genesis chapter 9, I mean :D)
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chemistry fail AC. [about.com]
Try again after you learn the differences between compounds, molecular elemental quantities, mixtures, solutions, and coloids.
The perchlorate ion is a covalently bound molecule of oxygen, chlorine, and hydrogen. It is therefor a compound. It forms ionic associations with metals, and decomposes organic compounds via oxidation reactions.
*raspberry*
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Entry: "chemical compound" [wikipedia.org]
Entry: "chemical compound" [sciencedaily.com]
Entry:"chemical compound" [britannica.com]
What definition of "chemical compound" are you using exactly, that perchlorate ion would not be a chemical compound?
As for the question: calcium perchlorate.
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I certainly see how you draw the inference that "compound" can be used this way, but I have yet to find any online source using it this way.
Can you give any links to sources that actually refer to a polyatomic ion as a "compound"?
If you log in, I might.
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That isn't how the language works.
A compound is an identically structured association of different types of atoms, participating in either covalent or ionic bonding, resulting in a substance that is fundamentally different from its constituent parts. Eg, mixing nitrogen and hydrogen gasses together in a tank will not be the same as a tank containing the same stoichiometric quantity of anhydrous ammonia.
In fact, ionized anhydrous ammonia is a perfect test subject for this debate.
Ionizing ammonia by ripping
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Your argument is immaterial. Chemists don't call it that, because polyatomic ion is more precise, and not all polyatomic ions are compounds.
The terms are not interchangable, but many are a subset of the other.
If we play a substitution game to test the logic, it makes sense.
You say: "perchlorate ion is not a compound. It is a polyatomic ion."
I respond with this substtution:
"A rabbit is not an animal. It is a mammal."
There are animals that are not mammals, but a rabbit is both an animal, and a mammal.
In the s
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Blagh.. you are right!
That will teach me not to rant on the internet while doing NC programming!
Still, despite the naming faux pas, the argument still holds.
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Oh, as for it not being a mineral [google.com], you fail again. It is not produced by an organic process, does not contain carbon, and forms natural crystalline associations in soils. Perchlorates are minerals.
Eg, did you know that rock salt is a mineral? Geologists call it "halite". ;) perchlorate complexes are indeed minerals my friend.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can't keep this up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can't keep this up (Score:5, Insightful)
Did NASA refer to this as "earth-shattering" or a "breakthrough"? Since you use quote marks, I assume you can point to the quote where they said that, and aren't just using exaggerated paraphrasing so you can then criticize your straw man.
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Re:Can't keep this up (Score:5, Insightful)
Please point out in that story where anyone who actually works for NASA used the phrases "earth-shattering," "earth-shaking," or even "breakthrough."
Re:Can't keep this up (Score:5, Insightful)
The point the GP is making is that reporters outside of NASA blew this up, not NASA themselves. That's not semantics, that's just really bad reporting.
As far as I've seen, NASA didn't make this out to be more than it was. In fact, I saw a couple of NASA releases stating that people shouldn't get too excited about it.
Re:Can't keep this up (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but the act of saying you have some results, but you're not telling anyone yet... eh... just release the results when you have them. And NASA guy *did* say it was going to be the one for the history books. People hear than and don't assume he means "History Of Martian Soil Chemistry, Volume 3".
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And NASA guy *did* say it was going to be the one for the history books. People hear than and don't assume he means "History Of Martian Soil Chemistry, Volume 3".
Not NASA guy. Caltech professor, lead investigator, not a NASA spokesman!
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http://alltheragefaces.com/img/faces/large/fuck-yeah-close-enough-l.png [alltheragefaces.com]
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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The only place where that line about "Earth-shaking" appears, AFAICT, is in the Slashdot summary. It's not even in reporter's words in the linked story, much less in any direct quote from Grotzinger. And contrary to your previous post, the difference between "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good" and "the analysis shows something Earth-shaking" is far more than one of semantics. It's about as serious as the difference between "mws1066 got arrested" and "mws1066 is a s
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Re:Can't keep this up (Score:5, Insightful)
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the only thing they could have done better is control their staff. i'm sure there's group emails going round there to that effect now.
the problem is, when they have a big robot looking for life on Mars, everyone's going to assume that when they call a press conference, they'll announce that they've found life on Mars.
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the only thing they could have done better is control their staff. i'm sure there's group emails going round there to that effect now.
the problem is, when they have a big robot looking for life on Mars, everyone's going to assume that when they call a press conference, they'll announce that they've found life on Mars.
Grotzinger is not NASA staff - he is a Caltech professor. And Curiosity is equipped to look for organic chemistry, not current life.
Re:Can't keep this up (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a historic finding, which could very well repaint the landscape of Mars as we know it. That is a big deal. The problem is, we have a bunch of barely educated morons in this country who jump to the conclusion of little green men in flying saucers whenever someone looks up and sees a bird fly overhead, or who think there's ghosts everywhere because some dipshit on Ghost Hunters says "what was that!!?" every fucking episode.
Real science suffers in the US because our citizens are being bred to be stupider than shit. NASA hasn't one anything wrong, it's just there's too few people with actually brains in this country to understand basic language, much less basic science.
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Yes. If NASA, a trusted scientific source, blew it out of proportion, shame on NASA. If the media (which includes Slashdot), a known non-scientific hype factory, blew something out of proportion and you believed it, shame on you.
soil sifting != earth shaking (Score:2)
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That quote was in the context of the entire mission, not this particular data point [spacepolicyonline.com]. He was saying that the Curiosity mission data, overall, is groundbreaking.
Naturally, NPR quoted him out of context, and then everyone else ran with it.
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Please point out in that story
The news media put those words into NASA's mouth, but Grotzinger* made it sound like a bigger deal. He should have been a little more reserved but it's understandable, from a geek perspective, that he was excited over something geeky. Which most people will not understand.
Footnote: Interesting.. NPR has apparently since edited the original version of their story and changed "earthshaking" to "remarkable".
"Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the
analysis shows something earthshaking.
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the term used by one of the JPL guys was "one for the history books"
Re:Can't keep this up (Score:5, Informative)
"PALCA: Put a sample of Martian soil or rock or even air inside SAM and it will tell you what the sample's made of. Right now, SAM is working on a Mars soil sample, and [John] Grotzinger says the results are earth-shaking."
From NPR Transcript [npr.org]
Grotzinger is the "principal investigator for the rover mission".
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Re:Can't keep this up (Score:5, Insightful)
Oct. 9: Shiny Object Update: My team continues to assess a small object on ground, likely a shred of benign plastic
Oct 12: All Shook Up: Dusted off my sampling system this week & investigated a mysterious "FOD"
Oct 15: Time for a third scoop... and a second look. Investigating newfound bright material on Mars
Oct 18: Distinctly Martian: Just had my 1st taste of Red Planet regolith. Mineral analysis underway
Nov 2: I found clues to changes in Mars' atmosphere, but no methane... yet. More observations planned
Nov 21: What did I discover on Mars? That rumors spread fast online. My team considers this whole mission "one for the history books" .
Nov 29: Everybody, chill. After careful analysis, there are no Martian organics in recent samples. Update Dec 3
The whole twitter account is there to make mundane rock observation sound interesting to someone (anyone) who is not a (astro-) geologist. If "Curiosity" is excited, so should be everyone who follows. 128 characters is barely enough to convey a message, much less "tone" - but readers will inject their own tone - which is dangerous for an agency that wishes not to release any data with less than 5 9s of precession.
-CF
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To me, something "earth-shaking" would be to prove that the Mars sized planet that collided with an early Earth to form the Moon, was in fact Mars.
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Or that the chances of anything coming from Mars actually are a million to one.
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I see the problem. You're confusing Slashdot with NASA. While there are some rocket scientists who contribute to Slashdot, the vast majority... ain't.
Re:Can't keep this up (Score:5, Informative)
The quote comes from rover lead John Grotzinger, in a recent NPR interview [npr.org]:
Here are the relevant quotes from the interview:
"We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting,"
"The science team is busily chewing away on it as it comes down."
"This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good."
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So, no... NASA didn't refer to this as "earth-shattering" or "a breakthrough", and the original poster is talking out of his ass.
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When speaking to the general audience of NPR and other media sources, making a statement that findings are, "One for the history books" is irresponsible if it is *not* something that most of the populace would find earth-shaking. I think even most of us thought this was an exceptionally-important finding, such as the presence of organic compounds.
The levels of science classification by the general public are as follows:
1) blah blah blah blah
2) wtf, science is weird. what's on TV?
3) when will that be on my i
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didn't you hear, they discovered mardi-gras beads on mars.
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Re:Can't keep this up (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it NASA that is crying wolf? TFS suggests only "rumors" of "major findings" and that NASA was downplaying those expectations.
the Martian who cried wolf (Score:2)
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I suspect it's a case of NASA *THINKING* they *MAY* have found something like organic compounds, and one of their loud-mouths shooting off to the press about it. When follow-up tests confirmed that it wasn't organic compounds, they saved face by pulling this "Oh, the press just misinterpreted what he was saying" stuff.
Re:Can't keep this up (Score:4, Interesting)
When follow-up tests confirmed that it wasn't organic compounds, they saved face by pulling this "Oh, the press just misinterpreted what he was saying" stuff.
Or maybe ... the press just misinterpreted what he was saying. Because that's usually the way to bet when it comes to sensationalist science reporting. But you know, if you'd rather believe the worst about NASA scientists, go ahead. They'll keep doing good, professional work regardless of what you think.
Re:Can't keep this up (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Can't keep this up (Score:4, Insightful)
NASA can't keep up being the "boy who cried wolf." People will just stop listening if every little thing is "breakthrough" and something "earth-shattering!" My goodness.
You know that Grotzinger probably does not even work for NASA right? He is a Caltech professor, likely that Caltech pays his salary. He is not a NASA employee or spokesman. :-).
You really have not gotten your facts straight, but do not fret you might have an excellent career as a science reporter
Eek! the Rocknest Monster (Score:1)
There they will find the Rocknest Monster and the end of the rover. (Warning: not funny unless you actually read TFA.)
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I knew it would just be dirt. On, sorry, *complex* dirt. And this is from a big space fan.
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There are large gaps between what different groups find to be a big deal. For some it's complex chemicals. For some it's proof of Bejebus. For others, it's 3 boob martian pr0n.
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Not only that, but this 'big finding' directly contradicts last week's 'big finding'...
Last week: ."we found plastic".... plastic is based on Carbon --- Plastic is an Organic compound. If you're not a chemist and don't know what scientists call Organic, please don't vote me down or bother criticizing this point. Organic in science means carbon-based; organic in common dialogue means 'natural'.
This week: "we found complex chems, but no organic compounds"....
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE PLASTIC FROM LAST W
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WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE PLASTIC FROM LAST WEEK?
What happened is that you got trolled. Go look at the link in the original story - a photo of Mardi Gras beads badly photoshopped onto the martian surface, and an accompanying story written at about a 10th grade level.
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Funny, your post works better if you read in your sig at the end. Makes sense that way.
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As far as I am concerned the Curiosity mission is accountable for this: to gather the data they got funded to gather. This includes developing the sensors, getting them to the right spot on Mars, collecting the data, and transmitting it home. Whether that data confirms
You can't handle the truth (Score:2)
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You can't totally blame NASA for crying wolf. Last week some yahoo pulled a prank on everyone, and that yahoo had nothing to do with NASA. That got everyone's hopes up and had, again, nothing to do with NASA.
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I don't think this is NASA's fault. Not entirely, anyway.
NASA has never announced, "OMG, you guys! Life on Mars!!! We think we found it!" What they've done is release significantly lower-key findings that got themexcited (much like GodInHell says).
It looks like people want the one, big, "Holy crap! Little green men!" announcement. That's not going to happen. What'll happen (if it turns out that there's microbial life on Mars, or even was microbial life on Mars) is that the evidence will amass slowly.
So no Mardi Gras beads... (Score:4, Funny)
Much Ado About Nothing? (Score:2)
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It just sounded better than "We spent XXX Billions of dollars to send the rover to mars and discover that there is dirt there."
...aliens or not aliens? (Score:5, Funny)
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Now that we have all sobered up.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sooo.. No aliens? (Score:1)
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Or vagina?
Rocket fuel (Score:4, Interesting)
Rocket Fuel.... (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JpwjnMFlJI [youtube.com]
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Search on Zubrin and "Mars Direct". The idea makes a lot of sense.
I'm sure K'Breel had something to do with it. (Score:3)
Probably had some flunkies hide all the plastics and mess up some sand. I'm also willing to bet that those brave volunteers willingly had their gelsacs pierced to preserve the secret.
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I think Patrician K'Breel may no longer be with us.
http://billiongraves.com/pages/record/PatkBreel/514255 [billiongraves.com]
perchlorate = rocket fuel (Score:1)
I am only an expert on this because it contaminated all our drinking water around Las Vegas valley. It is a very important component in rocket fuel as I recall (like makes it go bang).
So, yea, I can see that being kind of important if you ever want to go home from mars.
Weak ass backpedal (Score:1)
The taxpayer deserves more for their 3 billion.
Perchlorate (Score:2)
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Perchlorate is a powerful oxydizer, yes. It has 4 bound oxygen atoms per molar quantity. That's a lot of oxygen. Further, it sheds the oxygen when heated, making it useful for a wide assortment of purposes, not just limited to propellants.
For instance, heating it in an oven will release breathable oxygen. If we ever establish martian habitats, perchlorate salts in the crust would be invaluable to maintaning a breathable atmosphere inside the enclosure.
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Now we know what Arnie set in motion when he slapped his hand down on that plate.
A giant perchlorate heater.
Get your ass to Mars, indeed....
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Some fuels. Not the fuels used in the descent thrusters.
Speaking of crappy reporting... (Score:1)
My high school chemistry is rusty... (Score:2)
...but isn't perchlorate an ion? The article reads:
including signs of an intriguing compound called perchlorate
Did they detect perchlorate ions? Or perchlorate compounds? Or perchlorates perhaps? I'm sorry, but this just struck me as a rather in-your-face mistake if that is indeed how it was reported. Or maybe I'm just being pedantic and should find a better use of my time?
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The science undoubtedly reported "perchlorates" which the journalist then translated into "an intriguing compound called perchlorate" because he remembered vaguely from high school chemistry that "chemical" is kind of like "compound" and apparently this perchlorate stuff is some kind of chemical.
Martians killed of by Dry Cleaning? (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/air/dry_cleaners_perchlorate.shtml [nyc.gov]
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This pretty much shows that NYC Environmental Protection doesn't know what the hell it's talking about. The solvent used in dry cleaning is perchoroethylene.
Perchlorate and perchloroethylene are not even remotely the same thing. You'd think they'd be able to notice such a glaring error.
Then again, maybe that's hoping too much.
Earthshaking news? (Score:1)
perchlorate? (Score:2)
Probe Dupe - Phoenix Was First (Score:1)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phx20100524.html [nasa.gov]
"During its mission, Phoenix confirmed and examined patches of the widespread deposits of underground water ice detected by Odyssey and identified a mineral called calcium carbonate that suggested occasional presence of thawed water. The lander also found soil chemistry with significant implications for life and observed falling snow. The mission's biggest surprise was the discovery of perchlorate, an oxidizing chemical on Earth that is food for
Re:Probe Dupe - Phoenix Was First - Viking maybe (Score:2)
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However, one probe's sampling is insufficient to build a general soil minerology statistic from.
Imagine, aliens send a probe to a mountain on earth and discover gold nuggets. Would it be sensible for the aliens to conclude that the earth has a high soil concentration of gold? Clearly not.
Likewise, nasa scientists thought the perchlorate discovery was a very unusual anomaly.
Discovering yet more perchlorate several hundred kilometers away in a different region makes the case that the perchlorates could be a w
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A third rate hack who pimps his blogs... that's all Phil Plait is.
Well, as a regular reader, I'd say he's more "A first-rate hack who pimps his informative, entertaining (though over-focussed on AGW zealotry) blogs."
If you don't learn anything from his blog, and aren't simply blown away by the galactic imagery he links to, then you're simply dead inside.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy.html [slate.com]
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Because he's got better things to do than argue with ACs on Slashdot? Really? The guy has kids. I wouldn't bother arguing with ACs on Slashdot either if I had kids to troll.