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When aircrash investigators of the future retrieve a flight recorder from the wreckage of a plane they may have the golden-fronted woodpecker, Melanerpes aurifons, to thank for the survival of the flight data. The reason? A shock absorber inspired by the bird's ability to withstand severe deceleration. A woodpecker's head experiences decelerations of 1200g as it drums on a tree at up to 22 times per second. Humans are often left concussed if they experience 80 to 100g, so how the woodpecker avoids brain damage was unclear. So Sang-Hee Yoon and Sungmin Park of the University of California, Berkeley, studied...

BERLIN (AFP) – World leaders joined more than 100,000 revellers Monday for emotional celebrations 20 years after the Berlin Wall's fall and called for a new transatlantic push against threats to global peace. Chancellor Angela Merkel joined luminaries past and present to mark the defining moment in the end of communist rule in Europe, when the crumbling East German state finally opened the despised concrete border on November 9, 1989. Merkel, who grew up in the Stalinist state, marched through the historic Brandenburg Gate with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, presidents Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia,...

FORT JACKSON, S.C., March 21, 2007 — A Fort Jackson first sergeant has seen and experienced many different things in his nearly 20-year Army career as airborne, air assault, Ranger and pathfinder, but he never imagined that he would literally have to learn to "see" again. U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Charles Nye, Company A, 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, lost more than sleep one December night in 2003 while deployed from Fort Campbell with the 187th Infantry Regiment to Iraq, when a car bomb exploded outside his building. He lost his left eye, and temporarily lost vision in his right...

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, Sept. 14, 2006 -- A disease has robbed 23-year-old Jenni Craig of her hair, her health and, possibly, her future. But the one thing Jenni and her husband, Army Spc. William Craig, refuse to let go of is hope. Jenni Craig and her husband, Army Spc. William Craig, check for updates on the Jenni Renee Foundation Web site. Despite Jenni’s own health struggles, the couple started the foundation to educate people about Gardner’s Syndrome and to raise money for sufferers unable to afford health care. Photo by Elaine Wilson  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available....

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2006 – They were young and old, college students and retirees, rural visitors and city natives, government employees and private-sector workers, uniformed military personnel and civilians, black and white, Asian and Hispanic; but they all shared a common sense of purpose today. They all wanted to see the Pentagon’s 9/11 memorial. They all wanted to pay tribute to the memory and cause of those who died, on Sept. 11, 2001. For only the second time, Pentagon officials today allowed the general public access to the building’s memorial to the 184 people killed when American Airlines flight 77...

WASHINGTON, June 28, 2006 – President Bush kept his promise to a wounded soldier yesterday, jogging around the White House running track alongside Army Staff Sgt. Christian Bagge, who ran with his new prosthetic running legs. Army Staff Sgt. Christian Bagge, who lost both legs in Iraq last year when an improvised explosive device hit his Humvee, runs with President Bush on the South Lawn of the White House, June 27. Photo by William D. Moss  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The president and Bagge, who sported his PT uniform with "Army" emblazoned across his chest, hit the...

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo., April 5, 2006 – When he was undergoing treatment 16 years ago following a near-fatal accident in Germany, Paul Miosek asked Red Cross volunteer Jim Mayer for just two things: a poster of Madonna and a milkshake. Disabled Army veteran Paul Miosek (left) reunites with Jim Mayer, a Department of Veterans Affairs employee and long-time volunteer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, at the 20th Annual Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, in Snowmass Village, Colo. Miosek credits Mayer with opening his eyes to new possibilities while living with a disability. Photo by Donna Miles  (Click photo for...

INDEPENDENCE, Mo., March 3, 2006 – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday praised a group of young men and women planning to join the military for pursuing "a noble calling" in their country's service. During an address at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library here, Rumsfeld told the group of ROTC cadets from Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Mo., that the military offers "absolutely amazing" opportunities for its members. "You are making an excellent decision," the secretary told the group. He congratulated them for their choice "to be engaged in something you ... and your fellow Americans will know is...

MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT SAN DIEGO (Feb. 3, 2006) -- During his work lunch break, Pfc. Jonathan D. Hale, Platoon 3054, Company K, visited the grave of his high school friend, the day after the funeral. Hale didn’t know Cpl. Taylor S. Trovillion joined the Marine Corps until he received a late-night phone call saying he had just missed the funeral. “I went to his grave and kind of just sat there. The next day I went to the recruiter’s office,” said the Richardson, Texas, native. Trovillion was killed on deployment when the vehicle he was traveling in drove over...

WASHINGTON - Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan says he wants this weekend's gathering on the National Mall to be the start of a long-range movement to empower minorities, not just a one-day event. Dubbed the Millions More Movement, Saturday's event marks the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March. "We're tired of begging others to do for us what we have the capacity to pool our resources — intellectually and financially — to do for ourselves," Farrakhan said Thursday at the National Press Club. "We will make demands from our government, but we know those demands will fall on...