Iron-Eating Bug Is Gobbling Up the Titanic 221
gambit3 writes "A newly discovered microbe dubbed Halomonas titanicae is chewing its way through the wreck of the Titanic and leaving little behind except a fine dust, researchers report in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. 'In 1995, I was predicting that Titanic had another 30 years,' said Henrietta Mann, a civil engineering adjunct professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 'It's deteriorating much faster than that now.'"
No more sailing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's not like it was going to sail again... So, it's the natural order of things, no great loss...
I've got relatives down there (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm totally supportive of reasonable scientific expeditions down to see the wreckage, I am rather amused that the ship will eventually just dissolve away. At some point it all just turns to dust and gets recycled by the planet into new things. Even the physical object that we want to be most immutable -- the 1kg reference mass in France -- is beyond our ability to keep pristine. But there's no shame in that, for we are but mere mortals, muddling our way through the mysteries of the universe on our little, watery planet.
In the end, it seems like a fitting and dignified end to the ship and to all of the souls who went down on her.
Re:Afterlife refuge (Score:5, Insightful)
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Instead I just won't post anonymously and ponder why Slashdots "no posting and modding the same thread" rule exists only to destroy the contributions I could have made to this discussion.
That's the primary reason I gave up moderating. I only read the stories that are of interest to me, modding along the way. Invariably I'd run across a post that I'd want to comment upon, and voila, a dilemma: Hold back my comment and leave the mod points in play, or comment on a posting and wipe out all of the mod points.
Re:Afterlife refuge (Score:2, Insightful)
Just moderate and post at will.
When smart people like us moderate, the sheeple moderators just copy what we're doing.
So, as long as a few minutes pass between our moderation and our discussion, our moderation *does* in fact have an effect -- it's just not a direct effect.