It clearly looks more like a Super Star Destroyer.

Tsk tsk!

But are you *sure* the Caltech boffins mentioned superpowers in their paper?

"I, for one, welcome our huge and immensely powerful crystalline magnet men overlords".

Mine's the one made of extremely non-magnetic copper weave, thank you.

Best "That's no moon." 2008

Nasty accident with the 30 gig deathstars made them think twice..

J.G. Ballard's "The Crystal World" comes to mind . . .

Careful...

I remember these things from when I was a kid on Atlantis, and they are dangerous.

The temperature began to rise when our weather control machine broke down. Unfortunately, nobody alive knew how to fix it, since it had run flawlessly for generations.

To try to fix things, we gave up our favored means of transportation and invented the horse. But this did not stop the temperature from rising. Atlantian scientists told us that if the temperate continued to rise, the seas would soon follow. This dire warning alarmed many wealthy Atlantians, as they determined that their prime beach-front property could become worthless. We were determined to fix the problem.

Our respected and renowned scientists of the crystal invented these iron based life forms, to promote algae growth and absorb carbon. The entire economy was nationalized, then focused on mining iron to dump into the ocean to feed the ironite crystals.

It worked, and temperatures returned to normal. We had saved Atlantis.

But the government did not want to give up the control that it had gained.

Since the ironites were not being fed, they were rapidly dying. The government then declared that the ironites were endangered, and must be saved. So we continued to mine under Atlantis at a frantic pace, to feed them. Eventually, the mines were so large and extensive, that a minor earthquake caused all of Atlantis to collapse into the mines and the ocean.

Thankfully, my family was on vacation in Rome at the time.

Lazarus

Reminds me of a book I once read as a kid called "Trillions" - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trillions-H-SF-Nicholas-Fisk/dp/0340710217

.... just fragments of prehistoric HDDs as used by Earth's previous masters, the Dinosaurs?

Mines the one with "I do history, I do" writted on the back

..there probably isn't a god.

"During aforementioned PETM, Earth's average temperature rose more than 9 degrees Fahrenheit as massive amounts of carbon entered the atmosphere in the space of only a few thousand years."

Damn dinosaurs didn't give a damn about their carbon footprint and look what happened!

Should have used a Prius-toric...

> Increased CO2 levels appear to have promoted dwarfing in mammals.

Nice to know that there is a mechanism built into us mammals that heps curb overpopulation, and if we're still alive in a thousand years time, we would have evolved such that adults will be the size of two year olds, and the Sherman Brothers will have to rethink the song "It's A Small World After All", since the world wouldn't be so small at that size.

Tux. Because in a thousand years emperor penguins will be bigger than an average human.

"Giant magnet creatures in my warm planet? It's more common than you think."

I see what you did there.

This is why I love the Reg. You don't get quality writing like this in the Murdochified media

... The global warming was created by carbon released by an earlier civilization of Horse riding Monkey men. These magnetic crystals are all that is left of the memory array of their Paleolithic netbooks. If only we new how to read them we could find out what Paleoporn was all about.

Take a moment to think about what future civilizations would learn from the contents of your hard drive.

Outside the Kwik-Stop convenience store, perchance? With someone inside bitching that he wasn't even supposed to be there today? And 2 toking loafers outside?

We deserve the truth.

A future world in which everyone is Magneto? My, Spartacus will be pissed off.

Is there a Guiness category for "Most people being the same person"?

welcome our new Magnetic Death Star overlords.

Resistance is futile.

Is 'the period' part of the official Reg weights and measures? I think not (but cannot remember where to check).

Wales-sized coat

Sounds attractive.

The expansion of large mammals occuring at the PETM does not mean that CO2 caused mammals to grow - or deathstars, for that matter. The two things just happened at the same time. Another reason could be that after the demise of the dinos, there was plenty of room and food, hence less pressure on fuel-inefficient organism designs.

Proclaiming this must be faked, evolution doesn't happen, God created everything just as it is now and the earth is only a few thousand years old so scientists are faking results and those who cannot see the glory of god are misguided idiots who have a void in their life?

This would definitely explain how Magneto got his powers!!!

do bacteria need to orient themselves in alignment with the earth's magnetic field?

So they know which way the wind blows?

You fucking liar! That never happened, what kind of trick are you trying to pull?

spaceships decided to invade earth, but due to a mistake in dimensions, the fleet got swallowed by a dog...

- in fact the ships were battered to pieces by pollen particles.....

Think of it as an advanced form of the primitive "line dancing" that some human inadequates regard as "fun" - with the exception that they only do a stupid jump and flip round every half a million years or so.