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WASHINGTON, June 29, 2007 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today he refuses to accept that improvised explosive devices are an uncontrollable challenge, and he urged private industry members today to produce Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, known as MRAPs, quickly and in greater numbers to counter this threat. “We absolutely are not accepting (IED attacks) as a challenge that can’t be defeated,” Gates said during a Pentagon news conference with Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, at his side. The secretary said he was briefed this week on how quickly MRAP vehicles, which...

A development that could advance of the hottest areas of physics research - "spintronics" - has been announced by US scientists. Ultimately, physicists hope that research in spintronics could lead to smaller, faster and less power hungry computers. These machines would operate using logic devices based on manipulating and measuring the spin of electrons, rather than turning current on and off. Now researchers have for the first time shown that they can inject spin-polarized electrons into silicon, manipulate them, and measure them coming out the other side.

WASHINGTON - Parts of New Orleans are sinking far more rapidly than scientists first thought, more than an inch a year, new research suggests. That may explain some levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and raises more worries about the future. The research, being published Thursday in the journal Nature, is based on new satellite radar data for the three years before Katrina struck in 2005. The data show that some areas are sinking — from overdevelopment, drainage and natural seismic shifts — four or five times faster than the rest of the city. And that, experts say, can be deadly....

In an attempt to tackle gun crime in the UK, researchers from Loughborough University are developing an innovative identification system that will use CCTV cameras to spot individuals carrying concealed firearms. Starting in June, the three-year multi-environment deployable universal software application (Medusa) project aims to develop intelligent software that can detect a person carrying a concealed weapon in real time. While it is difficult to predict if someone is carrying a gun before crime occurs, Professor Alastair Gale, head of Loughborough University's Applied Vision Research Centre and leader of Medusa, said there are a number of cues the CCTV operator...

KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 10, 2006 – A new piece of communications equipment is giving Afghan National Army units the capability to stay connected with each other and their operations centers regardless of the distance between them or the types of radios used. The Advanced Control Unit-Tactical, or ACU-T, is designed to serve as a bridge between divergent communications systems to allow communications between ANA units with incompatible radio systems. Produced by Raytheon, the unit is the newest addition to the ANA's communications inventory. Before the ACU-T, most ANA units used either VHF radios that have a maximum range of 40...

City officials grilled on recovery process Wednesday, October 26, 2005 By Bruce Eggler Staff writer New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin takes a bite of a beignet (pastry) during the re-opening of the 153-year old Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, October 19, 2005. Wednesday is the first day of business for the New Orleans landmark since it was closed down due to Hurricane Katrina. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson Members of a state legislative committee pressed New Orleans officials Tuesday for answers to a long list of questions about the status of post-Katrina recovery efforts and plans for...

Trustees of San Diego's embattled retirement system yesterday urged consultants they hired two months ago to get their report out first on how the pension fund came to be saddled with a deficit of at least $1.4 billion. Navigant Consulting, a Chicago-based company that advises public agencies, is at least the fifth firm examining decisions made in 2002 to underfund the system while also increasing employee benefits. The teams of consultants appear to be competing in a race to see "who will be last" to finish their work, said pension board President Peter Preovolos. He added that one of the...

Hurricane Frances Intermediate Advisory Number 27a Statement as of 2:00 PM AST on August 31, 2004 ...Powerfull Hurricane Frances...with 140 mph winds...moving westward a little faster... a Hurricane Warning is in effect for the southeastern Bahamas ...Which includes Acklins...crooked...Inaguas...Mayaguana and Ragged Islands...and for the Turks and Caicos Islands. A Hurricane Watch is in effect for the central Bahamas which includes Cat...Exumas...Long Island...Rum Cay and San Salvador. A Hurricane Warning means that hurricane conditions are expected within the warning area within the next 24 hours. Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion. A Hurricane Watch means that...

Near-flawless silicon carbide crystals bring extreme electronics a step closer. A method to make virtually perfect crystals of silicon carbide could revolutionize the electronics industry. The technique may pave the way for tougher and more efficient circuits. Silicon carbide (SiC) is much better than silicon at carrying current in an electronic circuit, so it could potentially reduce the amount of energy wasted in every electronic device in the home or office. It can also operate at much higher temperatures, meaning that silicon carbide-based sensors could even monitor jet engines from the inside. Scientists have long recognized the potential of silicon...

Oceans rising faster near coasts 09:45 26 April 04 Satellite measurements of sea levels have uncovered a bizarre effect - the sea seems to be rising faster near the coast than in mid-ocean. Simon Holgate and Philip Woodworth of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, in Bidston, UK, found this discrepancy using the Topex satellite, launched in 1992. The satellite measures sea level by bouncing microwaves off the ocean and timing the return trip. According to the Topex data, global average sea level rose by 2.8 millimetres a year between 1993 and 2002. This is thought to be a consequence of global...

With the global media's announcement this year of faster-than-light signalling, commencing in the Scientific American September issue's reportage, as well as their announcement of the multidimensional universe, to be tested in 2005, at the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland, there appears to be a revolution at hand, amidst mainstream discoveries. A revolution that began some 7 years earlier, and that could be set to shake the very foundation of what we call reality, depending on further research. In this article, we look at the apparent PHI, or golden number harmonics, that are described in some of these superluminal experiments. Their...

Computer scientists at Rice University say the Internet is developing wrinkles. So they're proposing, along with colleagues at other universities, to radically overhaul America's Internet infrastructure, from the backbones that transport data around the world, to conduits into homes. To jump-start the process the National Science Foundation awarded $7.5 million Wednesday to several academic institutions, including Rice, to develop technologies 2,000 times faster than dial-up and up to 250 times faster than DSL or cable modems. And they want to bring this ultra high speed to 100 million homes. "We need to take the next step," said Ed Knightly, an...

Women are better at instant counting than men, a mass mathematical experiment has revealed. Over 18,000 people took part in the research, using touch screens inserted among interactive exhibits at a science exhibition in Bristol, UK. The study confirms that the brain has two distinct ways of counting, an idea first proposed 50 years ago. "If I hold up three fingers, most people don't need to count how many there are," says lead scientist Brian Butterworth, from University of College London. But for more than a handful of objects, the time needed by people for their calculation jumps and increases...

The joint NASA-German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) mission has released its first science product, the most accurate map yet of Earth?s gravity field. Grace is the newest tool for scientists working to unlock secrets of ocean circulation and its effects on climate. Created from 111 days of selected Grace data to help calibrate and validate the mission?s instruments, this preliminary model improves knowledge of the gravity field so much it is being released to oceanographers now, months in advance of the scheduled start of routine Grace science operations. The data are expected to significantly improve...

Will Spacecraft ever Go Faster than the speed of Light? Compiled by VANNROX for BlueBay Source list and references included.Primary Sources include MSNBC,NASA,Analog, and other online publications. February 16 2003  Marc Millis, who manages NASA?s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program, says he?s more interested in ways ?to propel spacecraft farther, faster, more efficiently? than in the grand cosmological questions. ?And my ears perk up more when I hear about new experimental evidence than theories,? he says. There are a number of such theories based on experimental evidence. His top three of interest are: Photon Tunneling.Some experiments have indicated that photons...