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 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  /

    Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (11528 previous messages)

lchic - 09:55am May 9, 2003 EST (# 11529 of 11532)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

NK

Misguided Missile Shield By The Editors

Imagine that you are a police officer in a tough neighborhood where the criminals are heavily armed. You go to a maker of bulletproof vests, who proudly claims that his latest product has passed five of its past eight tests. Somewhat anxious, you ask, "Did three of the bullets go through the vest?" The vest maker looks sheepish: "Well, we didn't actually fire bullets at it. We fired BBs. But don't worry, we're going to keep working on it. And, hey, it's better than nothing, right?"

The faulty vest is roughly analogous to America's unproved system for shooting down nuclear-tipped missiles. Over the next two years the Bush administration plans to deploy 20 ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska and California and 20 sea-based interceptors on U.S. Navy Aegis cruisers. The interceptors are designed to smash into incoming warheads in midflight. Ordinarily, the Department of Defense would be required to fully test the interceptors before installing them in their silos. The Pentagon, however, has asked Congress to waive this requirement. The reason for the rush is North Korea, which is believed to already possess two nuclear devices and is trying to develop intercontinental missiles that could hit the U.S ...

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?colID=2&articleID=000B0EB6-7709-1E90-8EA5809EC5880000

....continued at Scientific American Digital

lchic - 10:01am May 9, 2003 EST (# 11530 of 11532)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

BRAIN " we still know squat about how the brain works ... "

Bugs in the Brain

Time for a bit of humility. Some microorganisms can manipulate neural circuitry better than we can By Robert Sapolsky

March 2003 SCIAM

Like most scientists, I attend professional meetings every now and then, one of them being the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, an organization of most of the earth’s brain researchers. This is one of the more intellectually assaulting experiences you can imagine. About 28,000 of us science nerds jam into a single convention center. After a while, this togetherness can make you feel pretty nutty: for an entire week, go into any restaurant, elevator or bathroom, and the folks standing next to you will be having some animated discussion about squid axons. The process of finding out about the science itself is no easier. The meeting has 14,000 lectures and posters, a completely overwhelming amount of information. Of the subset of those posters that are essential for you to check, a bunch remain inaccessible because of the enthusiastic crowds in front of them, one turns out to be in a language you don’t even recognize, and another inevitably reports every experiment you planned to do for the next five years. Amid it all lurks the shared

realization that despite zillions of us slaving away at the subject, we still know squat about how the brain works.

My own low point at the conference came one afternoon as I sat on the steps of the convention center, bludgeoned by information and a general sense of ignorance.

My eyes focused on a stagnant, murky puddle of water by the curb, and I realized that some microscopic bug festering in there probably knew more about the brain than all of us neuroscientists combined ...

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=000972A3-B440-1E41-89E0809EC588EEDF

. ...continued at Scientific American Digital

lchic - 10:28am May 9, 2003 EST (# 11531 of 11532)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

WATER water everywhere but not a drop to drink ...

"" Seawater 'salt pump' threatens drinking water

Coastal freshwater wells could be sucking more pollution from the ocean than previously thought, according to a laboratory experiment which shows that salt in seawater pumps pollutants into neighbouring freshwater.

That could spell trouble for coastal communities that rely on well water to drink

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993712 Journal reference: Science (vol 300, p 950)

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 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  / Missile Defense