But Dick posits that “the density of Jupiter is little more than that of water, and that of Saturn about the density of cork.” Jupiter, therefore, would have a gravity only twice as great as Earth’s—not so terrible in the grand scheme of things...
Well, that's kind of close. The average density of Saturn is in fact less than that of water, and the gravity at its cloudtops is only very slightly higher than at Earth's surface. Jupiter's isn't that bad, either, at ~2.5g.
Some deep hypothermia patients, however, have been successfully revived from a prolonged state of practically no brain activity whatsoever.
This is how Vetinari thinks, his soul exulted. Plans can break down. You cannot plan the future. Only presumptuous fools plan. The wise man steers.
—Terry Pratchett, Making Money
Although thought by a madman in the book, there seems to be truth in this quote. People often seem to think of the future as a coherent, specific story not unlike the one woven by the brain from the past events. Unpleasant surprises happen when the real events inevitably deviate from those imagined.
African praise songs were sung not only to kings, gods, and heroes, but to plants and animals, who obviously cannot grant anything to those who praise them.
I'm not denying the powerful psychological effect of praise in these cases, but the animistic religions of a large number of indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures do assert that plants and animals (or, more accurately, their respective spirits) have agency, and that good fortune on future h/g excursions may be ensured by respectful behaviour towards the spirits in question.
You make the "metabolism first" school of thought sound like a minority contrarian position to the mainstream "genes first" hypothesis. I was under the impression that they were simply competing hypotheses with the jury being still out on the big question. That's how they presented the issue in my astrobiology class, anyway.
But because the expansion of the Universe is accelerating, the apparent receding velocity caused by the expansion is increasing, and, for any object distant enough, will at some point become greater than c, causing the object to disappear beyond the cosmological horizon.
This, obviously, assuming that the current theories are correct in this respect.
It is interesting. IME in real life and in OkCupid, female self-identification as bisexual correlates quite strongly with the geek/liberal/poly/kinky meme complex (edit: mirroring your experiences, didn't read carefully enough). Out of my top matches in OkCupid, over 80% of women interested in men seem to self-report as bisexual.
However, also IME, bisexual identification usually doesn't imply being biromantic! Many of those women have had, or would like to have, sexual experiences with other women, but still may prefer men in romantic relationships almost exclusively.
FWIW, I support adding a question about romantic orientation in the next survey.