2 exciting discoveries on Mars: recent water and new craters

Comparing photos from 1999 with those taken this year has turned up what looks very much like evidence of short-lived running water on Mars sometime over the last several years. The flows are not in the older images and they are the wrong color for sand-flows. They really look like liquid water seeped briefly out the side of a crater to flow down the slope before it evaporated or froze. Given the special importance of water for life, does that hold open the possibility that there is life in the Martian soil?

Also new are 20 impact craters over those 7 years. They range from about 2 meters (7 feet) across to about 148 meters (486 feet). That isn't a count for the whole planet though. The new images only cover about 30% of the surface, so extrapolating, this could mean something like 10 new impacts a year. This means that the smooth areas of Mars' surface are much younger than previously thought. But it is also a little scary. I wouldn't like to be nearby when something hits the ground to blast a crater the size of a several suburban houses.

fairytales and crazy people who look "normal"

Normally I am very optimistic about the human race. We are amazing creatures. Each generation is smarter than the last and we are becoming a more moral and peaceful species. And then something happens to make me wonder if we have any hope at all.

This morning I was visited by two nice old ladies who drove here to bring the word of the lord to me. They looked normal but by any rational standard they were completely insane -- utterly divorced from reality. They happily held completely contradictory concepts in mind simultaneously without any inkling that something was wrong. I swear they didn't hear a word I said, because of course I would have been an emissary of the devil sent to try their faith.

These complete whack-jobs believed that before the flood people lived to an age of 900 years, that all life in the universe was created just several thousand years ago and the fossils are a cunning lie by god to trick us, that the mythical flood was the result of incredible masses of water, being held up high in the air by magic, dropped at god's command. They believe in the absolute word of the bible and that it holds no errors. They believe that being gay is unnatural despite it being a feature of every species on the planet. That it is alright to enslave other people, that women should be the servants of men, that conducting campaigns of mass murder upon those who believe in a different god is okay, that witches (you should kill them) and ghosts exist, and that you should be good to your neighbor. Stark staring mad!

What is it with some humans and fairytales? The weirder, the crazier, the more harebrained the idea, the stronger the compulsion to believe in it. It makes me incredibly sad that such delusion persists and is so actively cultivated.

Absolute lunacy!