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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
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(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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