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WASHINGTON, Nov. 28, 2005 – A routine patrol yielded significant results Nov. 27 when Task Force Baghdad soldiers discovered terrorists' weapons and bomb-making materials and detained four suspects in the Abu Ghraib district of western Baghdad, military officials reported. Soldiers from B Troop, 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, were traveling through an area known for attacks with improvised explosive devices when they saw something suspicious in a chicken coop behind a farmhouse. They discovered what first appeared to be unexploded ordnance buried in the ground but slightly exposed on the surface. Explosive experts were called in and they destroyed...

Working with a material 10 times lighter than steel - but 250 times stronger - would be a dream come true for any engineer. If this material also had amazing properties that made it highly conductive of heat and electricity, it would start to sound like something out of a science fiction novel. Yet one Florida State University research group, the Florida Advanced Center for Composite Technologies (FAC2T), is working to develop real-world applications for just such a material. ~snip~ Buckypaper is made from carbon nanotubes -- amazingly strong fibers about 1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair that were...

TAJI, Iraq – Task Force Baghdad Soldiers captured a terror suspect and seized bomb making materials from his home during a cordon and search operation conducted in a Taji neighborhood on the evening of Sept. 20. The Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment Soldiers, also seized 20 flares, four rocket-propelled grenades, and additional evidence indicating the suspect had been building bombs. The Soldiers took the suspected terrorist into custody for questioning.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have discovered a new class of materials which have previously only existed in science fiction films and books. A team of British and Russian scientists led by Professor Geim have discovered a whole family of previously unknown materials, which are one atom thick and exhibit properties which scientists had never thought possible. Not only are they ultra-thin, but depending on circumstances they can also be ultra-strong, highly-insulating or highly-conductive, offering a wide range of unique properties for space-age engineers and designers to choose from. Professor Andre Geim said: "This discovery opens up practically infinite...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

...Take for instance Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials, which will soon become a movie series. Pullman’s books are enormously popular with children and adults alike for their appealing central characters, imaginative touches, and thrilling adventures. The movie adaptations will no doubt attract a loyal following as well. That’s a disturbing thought, because one of the major themes in His Dark Materials is the foolishness and wickedness of Christianity and the need to get rid of it. The characters essentially re-enact the story of Satan’s rebellion against God and the temptation in the Garden of Eden. But this time, the...

Hi all; After reading/hearing various opinions on the reliability of various CD-R recording materials ("the blue cyanine-coated CD-Rs are the least reliable, while the silver- and gold-colored CD-Rs are most reliable"), I wanted to hear whether any FReepers were knowledgeable about this. I'm archiving family photos and music onto CD-R and want to use the most durable medium, if any difference exists.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hundreds of medical and commercial facilities across the country have radioactive materials that could be used for a "dirty bomb" attack, a congressman says. A requirement to track the material by serial numbers was scrapped in 1985 and in many cases monitoring has been left to state health officials, according to Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., co-chairman of a bipartisan congressional task force on nuclear nonproliferation. Forty-eight states have at least one facility using radioactive materials and 17 states have at least one facility that uses more than 1 million curies of the material for irradiation or sterilization,...

MORE EXPLORE FEATURES Lost in Space Problems with the space shuttle and the International Space Station have knocked NASA off its moorings By Mark Alpert Image: NASAALBATROSS? The International Space Station. Critics of human spaceflight have a saying: "If God had wanted people to go into space, He would’ve given them more money." This reworked adage has never seemed more appropriate than during the recent battles in Washington, D.C., over the future of the space shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS). Both programs are facing severe cutbacks as NASA’s new administrator, Sean O’Keefe, tries to bring order to...