Free Republic

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) warned Russia is gaining the initiative on the battlefield and that Ukraine “cannot hold the present lines now without the rapid resumption” of U.S. aid, highlighting the dire situation Kyiv is in while Congress debates sending more weapons. The Tuesday ISW analysis said only the U.S. can provide critical air defense munitions and artillery shells for Ukraine that can keep them in the fight. “Lack of air defense has exposed Ukrainian front-line units to Russian aircraft that are now dropping thousands of bombs on Ukrainian defensive positions for the first time in...

We’re getting into the cold months when more people will be gathering indoors and respiratory illnesses like COVID-19 thrive. Requiring some proof of immunity is becoming more standard and widely accepted, and it remains a generally good rule. And the new boosters, now finally available to all adults, will help with this immunity. But immunity alone has proven insufficient to protect a gathering, particularly in the new environment of more aggressive and contagious variants like delta and omicron. Breakthrough infections — those in people who are already immunized — are on the rise. A stark demonstration of this is the...

U.S. Africa Command will get a new Marine Corps rapid response force as part of a plan to beef up its crisis response capabilities. More Leathernecks will be at the ready after the military was unable to get timely aid to Benghazi, Libya last year, during a terror attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and members of his security detail. Gen. Carter Ham, Africom’s commander, told Congress this week about the planned new force, Stars and Stripes reported Friday.

The wild bobcat that attacked two people in Brookfield, Mass., leaving a man with severe gashes on his face and arms, had rabies, according to a town official. Stephen J. Comtois, chairman of the town council, announced at a council meeting Tuesday evening that the bobcat was infected with the neurological disease, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported. Comtois said the victims of the attack were being treated with vaccination shots. ((snip)) Amid the frenzy, Mundell and his wife managed to pin the animal to the ground with a walking crutch. While Mundell kneeled on the bobcat, his wife ran...

Milwaukee, WI – Researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Children's Research Institute, and the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin have developed a rapid, automated system to differentiate strains of influenza. The related report by Beck et al, "Development of a rapid automated influenza A, influenza B, and RSV A/B multiplex real-time RT-PCR assay and its use during the 2009 H1N1 swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV) epidemic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin," appears in the January 2010 issue of the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. In pandemic infection, such as the present H1N1 influenza outbreak, rapid automated tests are needed in order to make...

The number of children who have died from the swine flu has jumped sharply as the virus continues to spread widely around the United States, striking youngsters, teenagers, young adults and pregnant women unusually often, federal officials said Friday. The deaths of another 19 children and teenagers from the new H1N1 virus were reported in the past week around the country, including two in Maryland, pushing the total number of fatalities to 76 among those younger than age 18. It was the largest number of pediatric deaths reported in a single week since the pandemic began last spring. "These pediatric...

Rock Layers Folded, Not Fractured Flood Evidence Number Six by Andrew A. Snelling March 15, 2009 How could a series of sedimentary layers fold without fracturing? The only way is for all the sedimentary layers to be laid down in rapid succession and then be folded while still soft and pliable. If the global Flood, as described in Genesis 7–8, really occurred, what evidence would we expect to find? Wouldn’t we expect to find rock layers all over the earth that are filled with billions of dead animals and plants that were rapidly buried and fossilized in sand, mud, and...

PARIS (AFP) - The Mississippi Delta is sinking fast, posing a challenge for the rebuilding of coastal Louisiana after the devastation wrought in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, a study released Sunday confirmed. Across large swathes of southern Louisiana, average annual subsidence of five-to-10 millimetres (0.2 to 0.4 inches) have contributed to sea-level rise, shoreline erosion and wetland loss, they said. The findings have implications for delta regions around the world -- home to tens of millions of people -- already threatened by rising sea levels caused by global warming, the researchers told AFP. But the study, published in Nature, also...

FORT LEE, Va., (Army News Service, March 24, 2006.) – Napoleon Bonaparte once said that “an army fights on its stomach.” On today’s battlefields, Soldier-chefs deploy a mobile food service system that meet the challenge presented by Soldier’s stomachs in a matter of hours. Unlike the singular movements of large armies of Napoleon’s early 19th-century Europe, many of today’s U.S. troops are deployed as modular units in a fast-moving, world-wide environment. This creates a challenge to get hot, quality chow to Soldiers on the move. The Army’s Field Operations Training Branch has answered the call to serve rapidly-deployed troops with...

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2006 – The conventional "Trident" missile program the Pentagon will ask Congress to fund is part of a larger strategy to better address diverse threats facing the United States and will further the country's defense goals, a Defense Department spokesman said here today. The Conventional Trident Modification program, which will cost about $503 million, was developed based on a 2001 comprehensive review of America's deterrence policy, the spokesman said, speaking on background. The study, he said, recognized that a deterrence strategy that relies primarily on nuclear weapons does not address the diverse threats the United States faces,...

1/27/2006 - KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFPN) -- For an aircraft to achieve hypersonic speeds, ranging from 6,000 to 15,000 mph (Mach 9 to Mach 22), and reach altitudes between 100,000 to 150,000 feet, it needs an airframe structure designed to survive intense heat and pressure. Such technology is in development by scientists and engineers with the Falcon hypersonic technology vehicle, or HTV, program. Started in 2003, the joint Air Force and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency endeavor consists of two objectives: to develop hypersonic technology for a glided or powered system and advance small, low-cost and responsive launch...

Tests dash hopes of rapid production of bird flu vaccine 17:43 16 December 2005 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie The results of first large-scale trials of a low-dose vaccine against H5N1 bird flu have been announced – and they are unexpectedly disappointing. Scientists had hoped that very low doses of vaccine virus would make humans immune if injected along with an immune-stimulating chemical called an adjuvant. But on Thursday, French vaccine company Sanofi pasteur announced that in tests on 300 people in France, they did not. “The prospects for adequate global supplies of an effective pandemic vaccine of any kind...

Computer error to blame for rapid fall of Soyuz By Marcia Dunn in Star City, Russia 07 May 2003 A computer error is suspected of plunging the three spacemen who returned to Earth on Sunday into a descent that was so steep their tongues rolled back in their mouths and they could hardly breathe. Their Soyuz spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan, 270 miles from its intended destination. The two US astronauts and one cosmonaut were returning after five months on board the International Space Station. The landing was the first since the Columbia space shuttle disaster in February. One of the...

Astronomy Picture of the DayDiscover 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 27 Light Echoes from V838 Mon Credit: H. Bond (STScI), A. Henden (USNO Flagstaff), Z. Levay (STScI), et al., ESA, NASA Explanation: Nominated for most mysterious star in the Milky Way, V838 Monocerotis briefly became one of the brightest stars in our galaxy. Its outburst discovered in January 2002, observations have indicated that V838 Mon somehow transformed itself over a period of months from a small under-luminous...