Yearly Archives: 2011

NASA Study of Clays Suggests Watery Mars Underground

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PASADENA, Calif. — A new NASA study suggests if life ever existed on Mars, the longest lasting habitats were most likely below the Red Planet’s surface.

A new interpretation of years of mineral-mapping data, from more than 350 sites on Mars examined by European and NASA orbiters, suggests Martian environments with abundant liquid water on the surface existed only during short episodes. These episodes occurred toward the end of a period of hundreds of millions of years during which warm water interacted with subsurface rocks. This has implications about whether life existed on Mars and how the Martian atmosphere has changed.

Read more.

American Cancer Society

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You’ll recall that I wrote something about the American Cancer Society and fundraising a few weeks ago (here). That was a response to something Greta Christina wrote, and now, Greta has updated us on the situation and has this post that you must read: Has the American Cancer Society Been Caught Covering Up a Rejection of Atheist Money?

If it really is the case that the beliefs (or lack thereof) of donors for medical care and scientific research is affecting the flow of money, this is a concern. Please go have a look at Greta’s piece and the piece she links to and add your comments!

Franc Hoggle, I Know What You Did Last Summer …

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Well, not really, but …

The same cannot necessarily be said of Franc Hoggle, who runs the Grey Lining blog. He used to post somewhat sporadically about a variety of topics. Since July, his rate of posting has increased, and he’s been blogging (almost?) exclusively about Rebecca, PZ, Ophelia, Greg, and me. His blog has become a stream of anger aimed at us, sometimes combined with sex. He’s been whipping up the flames on the hate campaign, as well as producing months of his own hatred.

Now a meatspace acquaintance of his has found out what he’s been up and was not made any happier by the revelation. In fact, this person took Hoggle’s real name and gave it to Ophelia, one of the people Hoggle’s been particularly ugly in attacking. We’ve been discussing what to do with it. …..

Details here.

Pseudonymous and anonymous identities on the interent

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An interesting thing happened the other day. The identity of a pseudo-anonymous internet troll kown as Franc Hoggle, who writes the blog “Grey Lining” was revealed (probably) to a number of Hoggle’s internet targets, and they had a discussion about whether or not to out him. The general consensus was that he should be outed as well as drawn and quartered, but that it would be a violation of Internet Ethics to do so. That is not going to stop his name from getting out into public. If one group of people can figure out who he is, others can, and eventually were’ all gonna know who this guy is. But in the mean time, there could be an interesting discussion about the questoin of pseudonymous blogging and commenting.

I think that conversation will mostly be happening here: “Elevatorgate” Clannenge #4