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The methane not being due to life sounds entirely logical.

Now all they have to do is prove it.   :;):

To do this, I'd recommend verifying that there is virtually no carbon-14 in Titan's atmosphere.  (C14 comes from nitrogen and cosmic rays, not existing methane.  Only an active chemical process - like respiration - can lock it up in C02 or CH4.)

Can they do that?  Or are they just guessing?

Well, yeah!  Of course, that's not the only reason to affiliate with a religion - there's charity and all kinds of social support from your fellow affiliates, too.  However, IMHO, that's one of the big reasons people begin religious lives.

If you're not enjoying it, you're not doing it right. 

Ian, you wrote:

A gross simplification, and simply not true.  For every single point in that statement, I can think of some Judeo-Christian derived sect somewhere that takes exception to it, including the assertion that there is a God.

Oh! Another peripherally related thread where I can act like I know what I'm talking about!   

Ahem...

When my wife and I became foster parents, we signed a contract forbidding us to use corporal punishment in any form, whether we liked it or not.  (We signed, with foreboding.)

According to the nice folks at the Office of Community Services, there are several reasons behind that requirement. 

Corporal punishment isn't widely believed to work over the long term.  It appears to be mainly employed as a "quick fix" for difficult behaviors, to make the child stop immediately, but there's little evidence that it has lasting effectiveness.  (You can stop Johnny's screaming in public with a good "brain duster", but you can't keep him from doing it again without some other form of discipline.)  It rewards the parent, too,  giving them a sense of control coupled with instant gratification, so there's the potential for abuse.

Where it is seen to be effective, that effectiveness hinges on the child's trust for the parent.  As an illustration, imagine that you are walking along when a grizzly bear runs out of the forest, snatches you up, throws you over a log, and paddles you.  Are you likely to philosophically accept your discipline and try to do better for brother bear, or are you likely to scream and attempt an escape at all costs?  Without instilling trust in the child through other means, corporal punishment is just a waste of muscle power.

Then there's the biblical argument.  "Spare the rod and spoil the child" is the most quoted biblical proverb used to defend the use of corporal punishment.  That verse refers to a shepherd's crook.  If you've ever seen someone use a rod to herd sheep, you'd know that the sheep are rarely struck fiercely at all, if ever.  A tap here and there to guide them, and occassionally some very angy whacking at the ground are the most common uses.  True, the sheep sometimes need a good smack.  You can, in fact, kill a sheep with a well placed blow from a crook.  But if all that you know how to do is whack your sheep upside the head, that makes you a very lousy shepherd.  Likewise, if all you know how to do is spank your kids, that makes you a very lousy parent.

I can't tell you that I've never encountered a circumstance where a good hand-slapping wouldn't have been very useful (or at least, very satisfying).  Even after all my practice at avoiding it, I still believe that corporal punishment can be effective in some circumstances.  Regulating its use is a good idea; outlawing it is not.  However, there are so many other means of discipline that I can assure you that you will not miss it if you opt to do without.

All the luck in the world, Bill.

Well, surface winds are certainly not upper altitude winds.  Given mean winds of even half that amount, an aerostat-suspended or tower-supported windmill is a possibility.

Still... I don't wish to impune the journalistic integrity of the good people at the Turkish Daily News, but do you have another source for this information, Errorist?

A balloon or airship might be very promising in that environment.  Methane should work as a lift gas on Titan just like it does on Earth, and hydrogen should be available from cracking the Titan atmosphere directly.  We could land a probe with an ISRU package on the surface and have it take to the air a few weeks later.

Naturally, wind power or no, we should go back.   

That pattern is unusual for a river tributary but not for a river delta.  In the river delta scenario, all flow is toward the ocean whether there is a split in the river or not. 

Still, you bring up an important question:  If this is a delta, where's the rest of the river?

The river system is likely much larger than the area imaged.  Note that the resolution of the area around the edges of the imaged area fades away to almost nothing.  That poorly resolved area is probably where the river flows in, but our view of that area is lost in the haze.  Huygens never saw the river, just its mouth.

It sure looks like shoreline.  I think I can make out barrier islands in that initial photograph.  That implies wave action. 

However, the pattern of channels in that apparent delta is a little... odd.  It's within the realm of possibility that we may not be looking at an active river system in that first photo.  (I hope so, though.)

Those smoothly rounded surface rocks definitely suggest a river somewhere.  Where?

Does anyone have an estimate for how far away the probe actually landed from that delta formation in the first released photograph?

Gee.  Rivers on Titan.  Delta country on Titan.  SEAS ON TITAN! 

Actually, sea level changes are a scenario that I believe quite likely if global warming persists more than a century or so. 

It's got nothing to do with the polar ice caps - there isn't enough water in them to make any noticeable difference, even in Tuvalu.  However, as the ocean water warms, it exchanges heat with its lower layers over the course of several centuries.  The warmed water - eventually the bulk of the ocean - will expand, changing the sea level.

When preparing for "The Coming Global Superstorm" and "The Day After Tomorrow" sudden-onset ice age scenarios, it is necessary to plan for the fact that foods and ammunition have limited shelf lives.  You must continually use and replenish your bulk storage over time in order to insure that your larder and arsenal will be ready when needed.

Just FYI...   :;):

The article does say nothing about reimbursement.  However, even if there was none, donating time on proprietary equipment is not unusual even for profit making ventures, much less non-profits and government agencies.  The article does say:

I doubt it's ever been used on anything not manmade.  Maybe they wanted to test their system's capabilities and show it off just as much as the folks at the Carnegie Museum did.

After having tried so desperately to become an academic institution for three decades, it doesn't surprise me to see NASA doing what other academic institutions do.

There is a theory that crude oil - unlike coal and other fossil fuels - could have an inorganic source. 

However, regardless of its source, surface oil seepage from underground deposits happens all the time on Earth.  There's no reason an oil-bearing Mars wouldn't have seeps as well.

Well, it's about freaking time. 

This looks like a good thing for O'Keefe to allow on his way out.  I hope the next administrator is equally tolerant of this attempt to reintroduce vision to the agency.