http://www.cornellsun.com/vnews/display.v/...8/435482a2ba092

From the Cornell student newspaper. This should give Squyres a few laughs (or groans...)

That newspaper has some interesting news that I am not well aware about the new findings of NaCl under the Rinds and also of new type of basalt at Gusev Crater on the Columbia Hill.

Rodolfo

I would also cut them some slack, as it is a student newspaper and the majority of the writers are learning the journalism trade as they work on it.

While I cannot stand incorrect information in a media item on science, this is where the future journalists can cut their teeth to learn how to be good at relaying science to the public.

Plus they do have one advantage at the Cornell Daily Sun - they are right where Squyres, Jim Bell, and other MER scientists and engineers are.

Hmm... okay I'll bite. I see two errors: that communication is only possible once per day, and a confusion about geography of "Hillary hill" vs. Husband hill vs. the Columbia hills. Add to that a misleading statement about studying the Martian atmosphere as if it were the next major campaign rather than an ongoing ride-along activity. Oh, and the headline writer screwed up with the "new Mars crater" bit.

These problems don't seem so egregious to me. The main elements of the story were correct, and they paint a picture of the ongoing exploration that is telling us more detail about the history of water and rock on Mars. The details that are really news -- about the NaCl and the basalt intrusion -- seem to be reported correctly. No one will "learn" things about Mars from this story that are blatently false, and they will learn things that are true and are news.

Euugh that was bad and not only for the factual inaccuracies which I could otherwise easily overlook in a college newspaper article. But wow. Did Dana Mendelowitz knock back a few before writing this? The phrasing is really poor and the flow of the article is very disjointed and thoughtless.

http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca/story.php?f=2&...&v=f&story=8238

sample:

"Mars is very dusty; it was thought that dust coating the solar panels may kill the rovers by choking out the sunlight. Designers worried about it so much, the rovers actually have small fans designed to blow dust off the panels. But the fans have gotten a boost."

Wow, what else do the rovers have that we didn't know about? Windshield wipers too?
I guess that Spirit will make it to McCool hill soon and stop at one of the Mars Service Stations to get a lube job and have its brakes checked.