For those who need to know 07:30 ET is 11:30 UTC.

GMT is 4 hours ahead of Eastern Time, so this would be 11:30am Tuesday and 00:30am Wednesday morning GMT.

Ah, someone still stuck in the past where there is the US and “everyone else” which equals “Russian”.

That would be covered by Newton’s laws - which is to say it would depend on launch dates and the availability of gravitational slingshots.

There was a discussion on the subject right here on IO9. Now, strictly speaking, it would just allow US companies to keep what they bring back, but it’s still a Wild West model. Of course, internationally sanctioned alternatives are anathema to the kind of rabid capitalist you find in the US. who hates the word…

I don’t think it’s too likely, though - not given humanity’s record. I mean, the US government has already tried to make laws stating that extraterrestrial bodies would belong to the first person who gets there - as if they have any right to assign property rights to anything outside their own gorram borders!

A series of flybys is not a landing. Nothing to worry about.

A surprising amount of thought was given to this. For a start, even GM is limited by photosynthesis. In higher latitudes there simply isn’t enough light to add to the growing season. This turns out to be a major limiting factor. Above a certain temperature the reactions that drive photosynthesis simply stop. There is…

We are sitting on the RCP 8.5 projection, and whether or not we can use GM to feed everyone is guesswork, while putting the food supply in the hands of less than philanthropic corporations (the alternative being unregulated releases of plants cooked up in small labs all over the planet, which creates its own set of…

Stick with “wet”. It’s a good, simple word straight from Old English, with no complications as regards meaning.

“Moist” - from Latin “mucidus” (mouldy).

Yes, “fecund” is one of those Latin-derived words to be avoided in good English rhetoric. “Wet” is a good, simple descriptive from Old English, which you can make sound like something that drips (from proto-Germanic and OE).

It’s not as rough on the ears as the American pronunciation.

You had a very boring English teacher. Mine gave us several minutes on the onomatopoeic properties of the word “lust”.

Do I actually have to point out that Pilobolus is not a plant?

I don’t think you’re alone. This is precisely why I expect neither Brienne nor Sansa to survive the season. Both Sophie Turner (Sansa) and Liam Cunningham (Davos) have foreshadowed a lot of deaths of major characters towards the end of the season. I expect a nasty 3-way fight over Winterfell with Yara and her army…

The individual actions of one person will change little. The collective actions of many are a different matter. I mean, this is an identical argument to one used by those who refuse to take action on climate change. It’s completely bogus.

It’s not just about who’s funding the studies - that’s just about indication of bias. It’s about studies with a couple of dozen participants, some of whom get dropped if the data contradicts what the funder wants to find, but which is often enough for the FDA (and the fact that they should know better and yet don’t…

Not necessarily. Homeopathy does nothing except act as a placebo, but many of the drugs peddled by the pharmaceutical companies do actual harm, which is often hidden by, for example, ignoring people who dropped out of the study or not reporting adverse reactions.

Even water will wreck lubrication in the system. Sea water would do more damage (because of the salt).