Can Terrorists Build the Bomb?
Last fall, the race to stop terrorists from acquiring a nuclear bomb passed through Tashkent, Uzbekistan. There, on the morning of September 19, a Russian Antonov 12 cargo plane touched down carrying two nearly indestructible steel canisters. Under the watch of elite security forces armed with machine guns, Uzbek officials unloaded the canisters and drove them to a remote, wooded area about 20 miles from the Central Asian capital. Waiting there at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, which houses a small nuclear reactor used for scientific research, was a team of Americans, Russians and officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency. With extreme care, they filled the canisters with 24 pounds of reactor fuel containing highly enriched uranium, the ideal ingredient for a terrorist nuke. Area roads were closed off as an armed convoy rushed the cargo back to the airport. The canisters were loaded back onto the Antonov 12 and flown to Russia, where their contents were sent to a secure facility and blended with less-potent materials to create a mixture that is of little use to aspiring terrorists. Continue reading »
2 loses in a bombing is a tragedy, Millions from poverty is a statistic. Poverty and famine are some of the problems of which terrorism stem. On the same topic, more then this number die of bombing in Baghdad every day, yet they now fail to even reach the news. Human life really is no longer equal.
The London Bombings: Who will Suffer?
Earlier this evening (Australian time) several blasts rocked the London underground and at least one double decker bus. The blasts coincide with not only London winning its Olympic bid, but also the G8 meeting. Who is going to lose from all of this? London? US? What about Africa. As the Live8Live and One campaign has been drumming into us, someone dies there every three seconds from poverty. One person every 3 seconds… ~2 terrorism deaths in a hundred years in the UK? It’s crucial the world leaders don’t lose sight of the big issues.
Have we caught our first glimpse of the upcoming Motorolla/Apple iPod Phone merge?
After a name was provided, the phone registered itself in the main iTunes window below the iTunes Music Store icon, the tipster said. He was then able to transfer a number of music tracks to the phone and access the iTunes “iPod Phone” preference dialog (shown below).
In what must be the biggest act of hyperbolic writing ever perpetrated by a British man, Mike from T3 writes “Talking TP has to be ultimate toilet humour gadget.� No, Mike, I’m sorry. I’m sure in old Blighty you don’t have too much fun in the loo as you drop your bonnets and produce potential petrol, but the ultimate toilet humor gadget is a plunger to the face. Gets ‘em every time.
Anheuser-Busch is launching its caffeinated beer in the UK. BE (Beer With Extra) contains 5% alcohol, 60.4mg of caffeine, guarana, and ginseng. In the US, BE is sold as B-to-the-E (BE).
Science mag in the US has released for its 125th anniversary an article on the most pressing questions facing today’s scientists. They’ve got a great little write-up on each of them. Some of the interesting ones include:
