My Best Photo
Pinhole image of the eclipse from Frank McDonald's equipment
Students Watching the Eclipse in front of Woodang Hall
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081210/sc_space/whoownsthemoon
Laws tend to build on precedent. Since there's little precedent for lunar laws, some look to the sea for suggestions. That is, the use of ocean floor minerals beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. Such valuable resources are designated by some as a Common Heritage of mankind, not subject to national appropriation.
Could the Common Heritage concept work as the basis for a Moon Treaty?
Virgiliu Pop is a research specialist at the Romanian Space Agency. He has for years been keeping a legal eye on the area of space property rights, and his new book, "Who Owns the Moon? - Extraterrestrial Aspects of Land and Mineral Resources Ownership" (Springer, 2008) was published this month.
Pop has been delving into what has shaped the law of extraterrestrial real estate, and the norms which express this law. And in his view, the norms and rules regarding property rights in the celestial realm are rather limited, even failing to define basic concepts such as what is a celestial body.
Pop favors property rights over group hugs.
"Despite the noble ideals of equity and care for the have-nots, the Common Heritage paradigm of the Moon Treaty has more faults than merits," Pop told SPACE.com.
It may seem like a silly thing to think about, but ownership of the valuable resources in space is a question that will eventually need to be addressed. As a libertarian, naturally, I favor private ownership. How the ownership should be determined is a tricky matter. As Pop notes in the article, some sort of homestead law might be a good way to go. You wouldn't be able to claim a piece of property unless you were actively using it.
The alternative is to allow for government or trans-governmental "community" ownership. To imagine how well this might work just think of how the break room at your job looks.
LONDON (Reuters) – Dogs can sniff out unfair situations and show a simple emotion similar to envy or jealousy, Austrian researchers reported on Monday.
Dogs sulked and refused to "shake" paws if other dogs got treats for tricks and they did not, said Friederike Range, an animal psychologist at the University of Vienna, who led the study into canine emotions.
"It is a more complex feeling or emotion than what we would normally attribute to animals," said Range.
The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also showed dogs licked and scratched themselves and acted stressed when they were denied rewards given to other dogs.
Other studies have shown monkeys often express resentful behavior when a partner receives a greater reward for performing an identical task, staging strikes or ignoring what they view as inferior compensation.
It turns out dogs are able to show a similar, if less sensitive, response, said Range in a telephone interview.
In a series of experiments using different breeds of dogs, the researchers looked at how two animals sitting next to each other reacted to unequal rewards after handing a paw to a researcher.
Dogs not given a treat licked their mouths, yawned, scratched and showed other signs of stress and stopped performing the task, Range said.
To show this was not just because the animals were not getting food, the researchers then tested the dogs alone and found that in this situation the envious canines cooperated longer before stopping.
"It is really about the unequal distribution of the reward," Range said. "If it was only about frustration they would stop at the same time."
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