I like your theory . . . but I was thinking the opposite, that they could have been desecrating the corpses of enemies or criminals, screwing up their chances of getting into the afterlife.

And that may well be why we lack precise skin-color language . . . because even individual persons lack precise skin colors.

My solution to this problem involves subtly shifting the moon's orbit, coaxing it to slam into the Earth. That should get us moving.

Jonathan has the right of it. The words "impossible" and "impossibly" occur nowhere in the paper. The scientists didn't say it.

Of all the io9 articles that I've ever read, this is by far the least related to science and/or science fiction.

Finally that staunchest branch of government, the girl guides of Australia, has separated their state duties from the influence of the church.

I'll agree with your conclusion (settlements should be illegal, or rarer) but for the opposite reason. I've seen the other side of settlements, where prosecutors bring charges far more severe than anything reasonable or just, as a scare tactic to get the defendant to "settle" for a punishment that's still severe, but…

Then they saw the second and third movies, and celebration turned to wanting their money back.

Now that's news you can use.

I still haven't figured out where the phrase "all dinosaurs" is coming from. "All theropods", I could see, or at least all juvenile theropods. But while this is close to basal for the theropods, it's still a good distance from the branch that leads to sauropods, or the…

Those with everlasting rain shall reign everlasting.

There is value in keeping midnight and noon synchronized to the earth's rotation relative to the sun, because time is used for more things than just scientific measurement . . . just as fluid and weight units are used for more things than scientific measurement. The cooks, chefs and bakers among us would all be…

The "your mother has to report it" line is in the full version of the Reagan response letter.

Who can sneak an explanation of siphon physics into what promised to be a light, humorous jaunt down potty-humor lane? Esther, that's who.

What differentiates a scientific phenomenon from a regular phenomenon?

Since the article called mesonychids the ancestors of dolphins, but your original comment stated they weren't the ancestors of whales, it's possible that Atoms4Peas misunderstood your point, and thought you were saying that whales and dolphins don't share a most-recent terrestrial ancestor.

That's not a pike, that's a pickle!

Especially were it Clinton's head on a pike on a network that tilted "conservative" in its programming . . . then yeah, a small stink would likely be raised.

"Not having read the paper" should never stop you from voicing a strongly-held opinion!

The researcher's point is that, unlike a ball, nobody had ever demonstrated this gravitational effect with plants before. If your science fair project was the very first experiment ever to demonstrate that potatoes could power a clock, that would cause some serious ripples. And you might even get a mention on io9…