Hackers have claimed responsibility for making the CIA website inaccessible on Friday - the latest attack on a US federal agency.
Two relatively new nuclear companies, NuScale Power and TerraPower, are cooking up new reactor designs, and meeting new challenges along the way.
Modern light water reactors generate, on average, 1000 megawatts of energy. Medium reactors can dip down to 700 MW. Ideas for smaller reactors have always been around, but never made it past the drawing board, as they seemed reasonable only for small, isolated markets. But in the late 2000s, the cost of large nuclear power plants began to grow unwieldy. Even large buyers were forced to make drastic financial bets on new reactors. So around 2009, the market changed its mind about small reactors.
The official count of APS members for 2012 has been tabulated and the Society has reached a new record enrollment of 50,055 members. This surpassed last year's record of 48,263 by 1,792 new members, an increase of about 3.7 percent. This is also the first time the membership has passed the 50,000 milestone.
Arctic sea ice extent remained unusually low through December, especially in the Barents and Kara seas. In sharp contrast to the past two winters, the winter of 2011 has so far seen a generally positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation, a weather pattern that helps to explain low snow cover extent and warmer than average conditions over much of the United States and Eastern Europe.
Scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, say the frigid, snowy European winter has its origins in a warm Arctic summer. Arctic sea-ice levels last July were the lowest in three decades.
The effect is twofold.
First, less ice means less solar heat is reflected back into the atmosphere. Second, once that heat is in the ocean, the reduced ice cap allows the heat to more easily escape into the air just above the ocean's surface. One pattern, called the Arctic Oscillation, normally pushes warm Atlantic air over Europe and keeps Arctic air over the poles. In mid-January, the Arctic Oscillation abruptly changed, allowing the jet stream to plunge into Siberia and push cold and snowy weather over much of Europe.
dog person
When my son was 8 he acquired a 7 pound cat best described as South Austin Himalayan look alike.
We already had a 120 pound Rhodesian Ridgeback hound.
They were the best of friends for a decade until the dog died; Slept together, Isaac would carry Frisky around in his mouth.
As for cats, Camp Swift distills the finest.
i179.photobucket.com
Major makeout song of the 60's.
The Doors - Light My Fire ( From "Live In Europe 1968" DVD)
www.youtube.com
"Where did that little gem come from"
The National Academy of Sciences.