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Better Living through Metallurgy?

Important scientific breakthrough linked above, er.... or is that scientific breakdown? Whatever.

This is especially for those who are alarmed about HAARP or some other secret device causing the hurricanes.

If you don't think this is true, just check it out on Google. There's LOTS of discussion from the Keepers Of Odd Knowledge Society (KOOKS) secret members.

H/T to the minions of The Rottweiler Empire.

UPDATE:
If you are amused by the conspiracy theories, there's a great one here. This guy also got a write-up in USA Today, which based on this seems to be considering affiliation with Weekly World News. The black helicopters are close behind!

I love Thursdays. Not because there's anything special about them, or because super-extra-wonderful things happen on Thursdays, but because it's my very busy day, and because at the end of every Thursday I can relax a little and look forward...

A reader chides us for not discussing the Patriot Act. Well, there are a lot of issues we don't address because, after all, we are only one blog. We can't write about everything. To my knowledge no one on this...

The Rapid City Journal has a brief piece by Celeste Calvitto on Johnson's decision to support John Roberts.The individual he (Roberts) is going to replace was a very conservative member of the court, so his confirmation does not change the...

Michelle Malkin: Don't Get Stuck on StupidRadio Blogger has the transcript. Hat tip to California Conservative....

From today's Hotline: NEBRASKA: Who's The Fairest Of Them All? The GOP nomination "appears to be wide open" as GOPers "try to determine which of the candidates has electability." Many party activists at the GOP State Central Cmte meeting this...

Face to face at last with Captain Nemo's old foe

Attempts have been underway for some time to capture film of the legendary giant squid (star role in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). This has finally been accomplished.

Click on image to enlarge.

Scientists have taken the first photographs of the giant squid in its natural habitat, providing a remarkable glimpse of one of the most mysterious creatures on the planet.

The leviathan has long been a creature of legend. In 1753 the bishop of Bergen, in Norway, referred to one that was big enough to crush the largest man-of-war. It has been, and remains, inspirational to script writers and authors, most famously Jules Verne, who described how giant squid attacked Capt Nemo's submarine Nautilus.

Until now, our only glimpse has been when the creatures have been washed up or are hauled to the surface after becoming entangled in fishing gear. Adults have never been seen in their natural habitat and all the available information on them has been based on dead or dying animals.

A description of how the pictures of the squid were obtained is published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, by Dr Tsunemi Kubodera, of the National Science Museum in Tokyo, and Kyoichi Mori, of the Ogaswara Whale Watching Association. They used a digital camera and bait dangling at a depth of about 450 fathoms off the Ogasawara Islands in the north Pacific.

While it has nothing to do with the next SCOTUS appointment, or the next election cycle, it's still interesting.

Going Up?...all the way to Geosychronous Orbit

A couple of articles on a concept found in science fiction from Arthur C. Clarke and others: a tethered orbital elevator system! At first glance if one is unfamiliar with the concept it sounds like something from a hallucination - but the physics works, and with recent new developments in materials technology, the means are also now available.

The big advantage: CHEAP cost to orbit, especially compared to rocketry. Check these articles out: one from this weeks Sunday (London) Telegraph, and the other from none other than the big gorilla of the blogosphere hisself: Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds writing on Tech Central Station.

Click on image to enlarge. (Image from liftport.com)

Stairway to heaven

The race is on to build the first "space elevator' - long dismissed as science fiction - to carry people and materials into orbit along a cable thousands of miles long.

In a significant step, American aviation regulators have just given permission for the opening trials of a prototype, while a competition to be launched next month follows in the wake of the $10 million (£5.6 million) "X Prize'', which led to the first privately developed craft leaving the Earth's atmosphere, briefly, last year.

Folks, this isn't pie in the sky conceptualizing - it's going into the engineering phase - that's about as concrete as it gets!

Space Program: Looking Up

I've written here in the past about NASA's work on space elevators, and on the new leaner, meaner, prize-oriented approach favored by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin. Now there are some signs of real progress on a number of fronts. As I noted earlier, NASA was offering prizes for space elevator research. That's still going on, but there are some new studies suggesting that space elevators may be closer to practicality than previously thought.

Indeed!

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