Woo-hoo! I don't know if I'm more excited about the success of our military's efforts to destroy a wayward satellite because 1) it's a bold tactical, interstellar move, or 2) now we'll get to stop writing about it. Either way, the Navy is "80-90 percent confident" that a missile aboard the U.S.S. Lake Erie took out most of the spy satellite, including that tank of poisonous hydrazine that caused such a hubbub. There's no official video of the takedown, but you can imagine that it went a little something like this:
Results tagged “us” from 60 Second Science
Satellite destruction mission a success! Next up: Building the U.S.S. Death Star
Pew! Pew! Is an arms race in space on the horizon?
War is bad and all, but recent news of an errant satellite and our military's plans to blow it out of the sky has stoked the fires of our Millennium Falcon-loving youth. Luckily, our thoughtful, do-gooder big brother spent less time breaking out the action figures and actually investigated the possibility of the U.S. and China engaging in a protracted arms race in outer space. Basically, the Pentagon is already thinking about it seriously, but astronomical (heh) costs and mitigating factors (debris in orbit from space battles could interfere with essential communications satellites) might hold us or the Chinese back from building a Death Star anytime soon.
Even cooler than the article, though, is the space weapons slideshow our sibling provided at no extra charge. It covers possible space weapons, connected technology, and the feasibility and costs of getting said super-weapons off the ground. Badass entries include: a ground-based antisatellite laser, kinetic-energy interceptors, offensive satellites, and space-based hypersonic bombers (pictured left). Yes! Way to go, bro!
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Derrrrr.......Americans still science ignorant
This shouldn't be surprising, since I remember attending honors classes with a student who once asked whether Mexicans spoke Spanish or...Mexican: While the U.S. remains a leader in sci-tech innovation, our populace is still falling behind when it comes to general science knowledge, according to a biennial report released by the National Science Board.
Surveys of fourth- and eighth-graders show improvements in math, but science development is still lacking. Indeed, among all demographics, there's a gap in science knowledge, with European- and Asian-Americans scoring higher than others. Many Americans couldn't even answer correctly when asked if the earth moves around the sun (The New York Times helpfully reminds us that it does).
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American’s reduced their greenhouse gas emissions in 2006 but mainly, and ironically, because of good weather.
The US reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 percent in 2006 as compared to 2005, according to the government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA). It’s only the third time since 1990 that our emissions have declined between years rather than risen. On average our GHG output increases by .9 percent annually.
The majority of the decline is thanks to reduced energy consumption and therefore a lowering of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
This sounds like marginally good news, and it is, but let's unpack why our energy use dropped by .5 percent as compared to 2005.
Top 101 cities ranked in hundreds of categories
What U.S. city has the worst crime rate per person? Step on up, East St. Louis, IL, you've done it again! How about the coldest winters? Congrats, Grand Forks, ND! Who has the most murders? Kudos and huzzas, East St. Louis, you've pulled off a double! Care to go for a hat trick with rapes? Aw, sorry, you're going to have to settle for second behind Berryville, AR!
City-Data.com has just released their latest Top 101 U.S. Cities, Counties and Zip Codes Lists, a compilation of surveyed data from thousands of U.S. cities in literally hundreds of categories, from number of casinos to highest temperature difference in a year. There's tons of fascinating tidbits to be parsed from this wellspring of sheer information.
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