More Martian coolness

The Mars Phoenix probe has done some wet chemistry with a soil sample.  The soil's got a pH of 8-9 and 'contains nutrients', say the team, 'you could grow asparagus in it.'

I love the idea that you could plonk down on another freaking planet and throw up an oxygen tent and a heater, plant out your seeds in the dirt and it would just work.

Aw crap

According to boffins at the US National Snow and Ice Center, there's a greater than 50% chance that the ice over North Pole will melt completely this summer.  An iceless North Pole is not the world I know: this is TEOTWAWKI.  Only recently the predictions were for an iceless summer Pole in fifty to a dozen years.