@collex: Yes, I rather enjoyed Prey. Very readable, like Congo and Jurassic Park.

@Post-Nuked: I knew there was a reason why all the climatologists and environmental physicists at university wore goatees.

Looks like a speck of dust on the sensor.

@NevilClavain: The Alien: Harvest script was really... peculiar. I really hope Prometheus is either unrelated to it, or that the script has changed beyond recognition.

@notacleverscreenname: I've been watching the TOS Season 1 box set lately.

@corpore-metal: I'm sorry your name caused you trouble, as I rather like it. Mine's just a bit dull - although I'm saddled with rather a lot of middle names, which I believe was due to some kind of misunderstanding.

I'm not so sure... I've often heard it said that the average duration of a civilization is less than 500 years (I can't find a source for that though, and of course it depends upon one's definition of civilization). The US could be an exception. But I doubt it. Usually it's best to assume that the future's going to be…

There's a novel by Charles Pellegrino, "The Killing Star", in which we're hit by relativistic missiles. Alas it's out of print and I've never been able to track a copy down.

@Ghost_in_the_Machine: I am of exactly the same mindset. Sex might be something fun to do with someone you really like on a rainy afternoon, but in my opinion as an activity in and of itself sex is highly overrated, and I don't miss it at all if I'm not in that kind of relationship. When I hear people bemoaning the…

@Nivenus: I'm pretty sure we've got a bar.

Isotropic - the same in all directions. So both observers can define a frame in which they don't observe the microwave background to be doppler shifted.

I'll take a stab at it.

@Dr Emilio Lizardo: Just don't land on any antimatter planets. It voids the warranty.

Charlie, I'd never even heard of this and you've sold me on it completely!

"...it began to expand into a red supergiant much as our own Sun will..."

@thekeith82: It's an error in the article.

"It's been estimated that such a mission would cost over $10 billion..."

@Purple Dave: I believe the current models preclude *all* dark matter being stray planets, as the majority of dark matter has to be non-baryonic - if there was sufficient baryonic matter out there to make up the numbers, it wouldn't fit with what we know about the cosmic microwave background and big bang…

@jsummerstay: Unless there's something very odd going on of which I am unaware (always possible), I think this is just wrong.

Yes, I completely agree with you.