You know Dan, I do enjoy reading your posts, but sometimes they are infuriating when you don't explicitly relay your standpoint on things. It can be hard work when I have to infer your implied meaning all the time.

Do you, or do you not like Skype?

For a man that has dabbled in the technological world since the year dot, you really are a little dizzy. We have recently found a planet with water on it, capabale of sustaining life of some form, millions of light years away, and you're amazed because your girlfriend's mouth was moving at the same time the words were coming out?! In Australia?! Dear God, Daniel. *banging head repeatedly on desk.

I wouldn't believe everything the astronomers tell you, It is pretty clever, but the 'sustain some form of life' is either a very tenuous assumption (taking a strong view of the conditions needed to sustain life, given that the estimated temperature range doesn't contain atmospheric composition data) or one that could be amde about all sorts of objects (given weak assumptions about what is needed to sustain life. Anyway, for Sue's mouth to move at the same time as words come out is a great achievement, if we can now harness the brain to the system in real time we could have a virtuous triangle of synchronicity.

On a more important note, are you sure that this blog is still covered in bees, giving that ALL THE BEES ARE DISAPPEARING! Seriously, its the beginning of the end, its like the dolphins in H2G2, the end of the world is night and the bees are jumping ship. They're going from America, Europe, now Taiwan. I'm terrified.

PS. a far more interesting paper in Astronomy and Astrophysics can be found by going to forthcoming on their website and searching for the word Malins.