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A massive gamma-ray burst detected last March, believed to be the brightest ever seen, turns out to have been aimed directly at the Earth. A narrow jet that drove material toward us at 99.99995 of the speed of light is revealed in the data, itself wrapped within a somewhat slower and wider jet. The best estimates are that an alignment like this occurs only once every ten years. Says Paul O’Brien (University of Leicester, and a member of the team working on the Swift satellite): “We normally detect only the wide jet of a GRB as the inner jet is...

Chris Wallace (FOX TV) just stated on the Monday morning news segment of Fox TV (aired in the 7:00 a.m. EST hour) that, not only did Bill Clinton retain his anger at Wallace after the interview was over and the cameras were off (despite Wallace trying to part on friendly terms), Clinton absolutely fumed at his own personal staff, right then and there while still on the Fox TV premises, for getting him into the interview with Wallace where he had earlier lost his head.Wallace said Clinton's blow up at his staff for this mistake was very visible and...

LONDON (Reuters) - Teams of international scientists have used observations from NASA's Swift satellite and other telescopes to witness the evolution of a cosmic blast into a stellar explosion or supernova. The blast is thought to be a milder type of gamma-ray burst (GRB) -- the most powerful type of explosion known to astronomers -- called an X-ray flash. It is known as GRB060218 after the February 18 date it began in the constellation of Aries about 440 million light years away. A light year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in a year. "This extends the...

Burst.com has filed a countersuit against Apple Computer claiming that the iTunes software, the iPod and the Quicktime streaming software all infringe on patents held by Burst.com, Burst announced Monday. [more]

Real estate bubble. Clues: Speculators driving prices. Lenders offer cheap money, short-term loans. Home-equity loans fund short-term spending. Fed chairman sees minimal froth. Energy and oil bubble. Clues: Crude hits another record. Political turmoil in oil-producing nations. Consumers buy gas-guzzlers at record pace. GM, Ford in trouble. Foreign-trade deficit. Clues: Monthly deficits top $50 billion. This year's deficit will beat 2004's $617 billion. Foreigners now own $2.5 trillion of America. Federal-budget deficit. Clues: Federal debt now $7.8 trillion; add another $400 federal deficit this year. Corporate pensions underfunded. Clues: Airlines, auto, other manufacturers heavily burdened, default to taxpayers. Local government...

Hundreds of toads have met an unexplained, explosive demise in Germany in recent days, it was reported on Saturday. According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre. It is like "a science fiction film", according to Werner Smolnik of a nature protection society in the northern city of Hamburg, where the phenomenon of the exploding toad has been observed. "You see the animals crawling on the ground, swelling and then exploding," he...

A huge blast of radiation from an exploding star might have been behind one of the Earth's worst mass extinctions, some 450m years ago. In the latest issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists argue that a gamma ray burst, the most powerful explosion that occurs in the universe, was responsible for the Ordovican mass extinction in which 60% of all marine invertebrates died. Gamma ray bursts are thought to be caused either when two neutron stars collide or when giant stars collapse into black holes at the end of their lives. For around 10 seconds, intense pulses of energy...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A strange and powerful burst of radio waves from near the center of our galaxy may have come from a previously unknown type of space object, U.S. astronomers reported on Wednesday. Other experts nicknamed the mysterious source a "burper" and said there would be a race to scan for similar radio bursts. "We hit the jackpot," said Scott Hyman, a professor of physics at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, who led the study. "An image of the Galactic center, made by collecting radio waves of about 1 meter (3 feet) in wavelength, revealed multiple bursts from the...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Bob Dole Slams Kerry By Andrew L. Jaffee, August 23, 2004 Home   Search   Forum   Terms Nothing has really changed for Democratic hopeful John Kerry, except that real war veterans, like Bob Dole, are questioning the “superficial wounds” and resulting “medals” he received during four (4) months service in Vietnam. Kerry is still flailing, trying to cover up a career punctuated by extreme left-wing politics and flip-flopping by talking to voters about his military service. He squandered his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention by trying to convince Americans that his tour of duty in Vietnam will make him a great commander...

Ken Lay of Enron Indicted and Arrested By Andrew L. Jaffee, July 8, 2004 Home   Search   Forum   Terms Enron’s ex-Chairman of the Board has been indicted and arrested on charges connected with his former company’s implosion in 2001. Corporate executives at Enron engaged in all sorts of financial manipulations to pump up the company’s stock price. They created complex “partnerships” to hide company debt from shareholders. In 1998, Enron’s share price was at about $20. By 2000, it hit $90. By 2001, the company’s stock was worthless. Enron’s collapse wiped out billions in shareholder value and employee pensions. Democratic Presidential hopeful John...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 January 30 X-Ray Rings Expand from a Gamma Ray Burst Credit: S. Vaughan, R. Willingale (U. Leicester) et al., XMM, ESA Explanation: Why do x-ray rings appear to emanate from a gamma-ray burst? The surprising answer has little to do with the explosion itself but rather with light reflected off sheets of dust-laden gas in our own Milky Way Galaxy. GRB 031203 was a tremendous explosion --...

A DEVASTATING burst of gamma-rays may have caused one of Earth's worst mass extinctions, 443 million years ago. A team of astrophysicists and palaeontologists says the pattern of trilobite extinctions at that time resembles the expected effects of a nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB). Although other experts have greeted the idea with some scepticism, most agree that it deserves further investigation. GRBs are the most powerful explosions known. As giant stars collapse into black holes at the end of their lives, they fire incredibly intense pulses of gamma rays from their poles that can be detected even from across the universe...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 25 A Slow Explosion Credit: Y. Grosdidier (U. Montreal) et al., WFPC2, HST, NASA Explanation: Why would a gamma ray burst fade so slowly? This behavior, recorded last October, is considered a new clue into the cause of gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions known in the universe. The burst, first detected by the orbiting HETE satellite and later tracked by numerous ground-based telescopes, showed an...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 December 19 RAPTOR Images GRB 021211Credit: P. Wozniak, W.T. Vestrand, et al., RAPTOR Project, LANL Explanation: On December 11 astronomers found one of the brightest and most distant explosions in the Universe - a gamma-ray burst - hiding in the glare of a relatively nearby star. The earliest image of the burst's visible light was caught by an earthbound RAPTOR (RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response). The two...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 May 17 Gamma-Ray Burst, Supernova Bump Image Credit: S. Kulkarni, J. Bloom, P. Price, Caltech - NRAO GRB Collaboration Explanation: On the 21st of November 2001, satellites detected yet another burst of gamma-rays from the cosmos. While this flash of high-energy photons lasted for less than a minute, eager astronomers have been following the fading optical light from the location of the burst source ever since. Seen...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 April 5 Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow: Supernova Connection Credit: HST Image: D.W. Fox, J.S. Bloom, S.R. Kulkarni (Caltech), et al. XMM Result: J.N. Reeves, D. Watson, J.P. Osborne (University of Leicester), et al. Explanation: What causes the mysterious gamma-ray bursts? Indicated in this Hubble Space Telescope exposure of an otherwise unremarkable field in the constellation Crater, is the dwindling optical afterglow of a gamma-ray burst first detected by...