Article History
Here’s an example of the crazy lengths NASA goes to land safely on Mars
Via: Split Personality • SiNNERs and ButtHeads • 12 Comments • 1 Like • 5 years ago • LOCKED
“15 years of work for 10 seconds of action.”
If all goes well, the Mars 2020 mission will launch toward the Red Planet next July. Then, after a six-month cruise to Mars, a lander carrying a 1-ton rover will detach from the spacecraft and attempt to make a soft landing in an ancient lake bed named Jezero Crater. Most likely, it will all...
5 bulls found dead in Oregon; then the story gets weird
Via: Split Personality • SiNNERs and ButtHeads • 55 Comments • 10 Likes • 5 years ago • LOCKED
“Theories about what happened to the bulls have included bugs, them being mutilated in a spaceship and the work of a cult.”
SALEM, Ore. — The first dead bull was found in a timbered ravine in eastern Oregon. There was no indication it had been shot, attacked by predators or eaten poisonous plants. The animal's sex organs and tongue had been removed. All the blood was gone. In the next few days, four more Hereford...
The Whistle-Blowers of 1777
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“The tension between protecting true national security secrets and ensuring the public’s “right to know” about abuses of authority is not new....”
In the winter of 1777, months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American warship Warren was anchored outside of Providence, R.I. On board, 10 revolutionary sailors and marines met in secret — not to plot against the king’s armies, but to discuss their concerns about...
Why Plastic Straws Are Being Banned
Via: Split Personality • SiNNERs and ButtHeads • 61 Comments • 5 Likes • 5 years ago • LOCKED
“The small, seemingly harmless utensil that goes generally unnoticed in your everyday life has made it onto 2018’s most-wanted list.”
You may have noticed all the news articles about plastic straws lately. The small, seemingly harmless utensil that goes generally unnoticed in your everyday life has made it onto 2018’s most-wanted list. If it’s surprising to hear that plastic straws are receiving backlash, it may be even...
Some 83,000 members of the U.S. military are missing. This group tries to bring them home.
Via: Split Personality • SiNNERs and ButtHeads • 12 Comments • 7 Likes • 5 years ago • LOCKED
“How elite military and scientific teams bring home fallen U.S. soldiers.”
By Vince Beiser June 4, 2018 E arly on the morning of January 25, 1944, eight young American airmen strode across the gravel of an airfield in Kunming, China, toward a B-24J bomber. Their mission was to fly the 67-foot-long aircraft, its nose bedecked with a picture of a pinup...
How “Useless” Science Unraveled an Amphibian Apocalypse
Via: Split Personality • SiNNERs and ButtHeads • 5 Comments • 1 Like • 5 years ago • LOCKED
“Never mind that studying chytrids was, to use Joyce’s own word, “useless,” at least by the usual standards of utility. Chytrids were interesting. ”
One spring day in 1984, Joyce Longcore got a phone call from Joan Brooks, a biologist at the University of Maine. Brooks had received a National Science Foundation grant to study the interactions of fungi and bacteria in peat bogs. She needed a hand, and she heard through the grapevine that...
A Crashed Israeli Lunar Lander Spilled Tardigrades on the Moon
Via: Split Personality • SiNNERs and ButtHeads • 22 Comments • 4 Likes • 5 years ago • LOCKED
“In fact, Spivack isn’t even the first to leave DNA on the moon. This honor belongs to the Apollo astronauts, who left nearly 100 bags of human...”
It was just before midnight on April 11 and everyone at the Israel Aerospace Industries mission control center in Yehud, Israel, had their eyes fixed on two large projector screens. On the left screen was a stream of data being sent back to Earth by Beresheet, its lunar lander, which was about...
Why Does Presidio Have One of the Best High School Rocketry Clubs in the Country?
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“The West Texas border town is among the poorest places in the state. But year after year its rocketeers send wealthier teams crashing back to Earth.”
I love Texas Monthly, I find that at least once a month they match the Los Angeles Times for in depth non partisan stories that are intended to teach us about ourselves as a nation, past and present. They emphasize our strengths and weaknesses and how we use them to our advantage. If it's no...
Decades ago, he stole a tree branch. Now he is the Durian King
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“Tan took one bite and was transfixed. Apart from the notorious aroma, which is often compared to rotting meat, it was nothing like the fibrous...”
Long before he was the Durian King, Tan Eow Chong was canvassing rural Malaysia for plants he could farm when he stumbled on a roadside stand selling a curiously golden-fleshed variety of the fruit. The seller, an elderly woman, urged Tan to have a taste, boasting that her durians were the same...