Free Republic

Mexico finalized plans to take control of a port and quarry owned by Vulcan Materials Co. on its Caribbean coast, deepening tensions days before the nation’s president leaves office. Mexico finalized plans to take control of a port and quarry owned by Vulcan Materials Co. on its Caribbean coast, deepening tensions days before the nation’s president leaves office. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s administration declared the land south of the resort cities of Cancun and Playa del Carmen a natural protected area, according to a filing in the federal gazette published hours after US lawmakers sought to dissuade such a...

Science fiction writers may have to rethink how their starship crews survive travel near or beyond the speed of light. Even the occasional hydrogen atom floating in the interstellar void would become a lethal radiation beam that would kill human crews in mere seconds and destroy a spacecraft's electronics, New Scientist reports. Just a few stray wisps of hydrogen gas -- fewer than two hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter on average -- would translate into 7 teraelectron volts for a starship crew traveling at 99.999998 percent of the speed of light. That's as much fun for humans as standing in...