Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Internal Revenue Service told House Republicans on Wednesday that it would take years to provide all the documents they have subpoenaed in their probe of how the agency handled tea party groups' applications for tax-exempt status. The comments by IRS chief John Koskinen drew a frosty response from Republicans who run the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, one of several congressional panels investigating the controversy. The panel's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., warned him he should comply with the request "or potentially be held in contempt" of Congress, a sometimes threatened but...

Team develops new water splitting technique that could produce hydrogen fuel 15 hours ago Enlarge This is an artist's concept of a commercial hydrogen production plant that uses sunlight to split water in order to to produce clean hydrogen fuel. Credit: University of Colorado A University of Colorado Boulder team has developed a radically new technique that uses the power of sunlight to efficiently split water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen, paving the way for the broad use of hydrogen as a clean, green fuel. The CU-Boulder team has devised a solar-thermal system in which sunlight could be...

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists at MIT have discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that can cause powerful waves of energy to shoot through minuscule wires known as carbon nanotubes. The discovery could lead to a new way of producing electricity, the researchers say.The phenomenon, described as thermopower waves, “opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare,” says Michael Strano, MIT’s Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, who was the senior author of a paper describing the new findings that appeared in Nature Materials on March 7. The lead author was Wonjoon Choi, a...

Washington, DC -- A leading pro-life group that educates about the vaccines that are based on the cells from babies killed in abortions is worried about a new decision from the pharmaceutical giant Merck. The company has decided to stop producing some vaccines that are not made based on fetal cells from abortions.

Sunrise over Baghdad finds a maneuver battalion executing several missions. Two platoons are on patrol, one sweeping a main supply route for improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the other escorting "Team Trash"-a dump truck and bucket loader-through a poor Shi'a neighborhood. A third platoon is still at the brigade detention facility in-processing several insurgents captured the previous night, while a fourth escorts the battalion medical platoon for a medical outreach in one of the battalion's assigned neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the battalion commander and a company commander prepare to attend a neighborhood council meeting; the executive officer updates the agenda for the weekly...