>New idea: Figh terrorists with curry powder (a cheap sensor for explosives)

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Jason Palmer– The main chemical in the curry spice turmeric could be the basis for cheap explosives detectors, say researchers.

The curcumin molecule is already well-known in medicine for its anti-cancer and anti-oxidant properties.

Now, research presented at the American Physical Society meeting suggests it could replace more complex solutions to spot explosives like TNT.

As it gathers molecules of explosive material in air, changes in its light-emitting properties can be measured.

This “fluorescence spectroscopy” is already employed in a wide array of sensing and analysis techniques.

Illuminating some chemicals causes them to re-emit light of a different colour, sometimes for extended periods – an effect exploited in, for example, glow-in-the-dark materials.

The intensity of this re-emitted light can change if different molecules bind to the fluorescent ones, and that is how sensing techniques exploit the effect. …

via BBC News – Curry powder molecule ‘is cheap sensor for explosives’.

>Outrageous Military Experiment: Modifying humans to see infrared

>This is taken from an article titled The 7 Most Outrageous Military Experiments.  I would not say that these are really the 7 most outrageous, but the one below is interesting and I hadn’t heard of it before:

 

The U.S. Navy wanted to boost sailors’ night vision so they could spot infrared signal lights during World War II. However, infrared wavelengths are normally beyond the sensitivity of human eyes. Scientists knew vitamin A contained part of a specialized light-sensitive molecule in the eye’s receptors, and wondered if an alternate form of vitamin A could promote different light sensitivity in the eye. They fed volunteers supplements made from the livers of walleyed pikes, and the volunteers’ vision began changing over several months to extend into the infrared region. Such early success went down the drain after other researchers developed an electronic snooperscope to see infrared, and the human study was abandoned. Other nations also played with vitamin A during World War II – Japan fed its pilots a preparation that boosted vitamin A absorption, and saw their night vision improve by 100 percent in some cases.

via The 7 Most Outrageous Military Experiments | 7CoolList.

Here is a PDF article from July 1939 on wall eyed pike liver oil’s special properties.

>A Nuclear Cannon

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YouTube – NUCLEAR CANNON.

Nuclear artillery is a subset of limited-yield tactical nuclear weapons, in particular those weapons that are launched from the ground at battlefield targets. Nuclear artillery is commonly associated with shells delivered by a cannon, but in a technical sense short-range rockets or missiles are also included.

The development of nuclear artillery was part of a broad push by nuclear weapons countries to develop nuclear weapons which could be used tactically against enemy armies in the field (as opposed to strategic uses against cities, military bases, and heavy industry). Nuclear artillery was both developed and deployed by a small group of nations, including the USA, USSR, and France. The United Kingdom planned and partially developed such weapon systems (the Blue water missile and the Yellow Anvil artillery shell) but did not put these systems into production. …

Nowadays, nuclear artillery has almost been replaced with mobile tactical ballistic missile launchers carrying missiles with nuclear warheads. However, some countries, such as China, India and Pakistan (and there is a rumor that North Korea is capable of using nuclear artillery), are still using nuclear artillery as an alternative method derived from conventional ballistic missiles.

via wikipedia

>A Nuclear Cannon

>

YouTube – NUCLEAR CANNON.

Nuclear artillery is a subset of limited-yield tactical nuclear weapons, in particular those weapons that are launched from the ground at battlefield targets. Nuclear artillery is commonly associated with shells delivered by a cannon, but in a technical sense short-range rockets or missiles are also included.

The development of nuclear artillery was part of a broad push by nuclear weapons countries to develop nuclear weapons which could be used tactically against enemy armies in the field (as opposed to strategic uses against cities, military bases, and heavy industry). Nuclear artillery was both developed and deployed by a small group of nations, including the USA, USSR, and France. The United Kingdom planned and partially developed such weapon systems (the Blue water missile and the Yellow Anvil artillery shell) but did not put these systems into production. …

Nowadays, nuclear artillery has almost been replaced with mobile tactical ballistic missile launchers carrying missiles with nuclear warheads. However, some countries, such as China, India and Pakistan (and there is a rumor that North Korea is capable of using nuclear artillery), are still using nuclear artillery as an alternative method derived from conventional ballistic missiles.

via wikipedia

>NATO divided over removal of US nukes from their territories

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YouTube – NATO divided over removal of US nukes from their territories – PressTV 100429.

>U.S. Military Deploys Gunfire Detection System

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A new warfighting technology will soon be making its way to Afghanistan. U.S. Army forces will be getting gunshot detection systems, which can tell where a shot was fired from.

Approximately 13,000 gunshot detection systems will be given to individual footsoldiers later this month, according to the U.S. Army. The system, called Individual Gunshot Detector (IDG), is made by Reston, Va.-based QinetiQ North America.

IDG has four small acoustic sensors and a small display screen attached to the soldier’s body armor that shows the distance and direction of incoming bullets. The sensors are each about the size of a deck of cards and can detect the supersonic sound waves generated by enemy gunfire. It alerts the soldier of the shot’s direction in less than one second.

“We’re really trying to ensure that every Soldier is protected,” said Brigadier General Peter Fuller, program executive officer soldier, said in a statement. “When you get fired on, instead of trying to figure everything out, you will have technology to assist you in knowing what happened and where the shot was coming from.”

One of the system’s advantages, according to the Army and QinetiQ, is the fact it’s very light, weighing less than two pounds. This allows the army to strategically disperse the systems throughout small, dismounted units and thus get maximum protection for platoons, squads and other units on the move.

Lt. Colonel Chris Schneider says the Army plans to field up to 1,500 gun detectors per month. The Army plans on integrating the gun detection system with its Land Warrior and Nett Warrior systems. These systems include a GPS digital-mapping-display technology, a radio, a helmet-mounted display and a hand-held data input device, allowing soldiers to have “unparalleled situational awareness.” …

via U.S. Military Deploys Gunfire Detection System – International Business Times.

>U.S. Military Deploys Gunfire Detection System

>

A new warfighting technology will soon be making its way to Afghanistan. U.S. Army forces will be getting gunshot detection systems, which can tell where a shot was fired from.

Approximately 13,000 gunshot detection systems will be given to individual footsoldiers later this month, according to the U.S. Army. The system, called Individual Gunshot Detector (IDG), is made by Reston, Va.-based QinetiQ North America.

IDG has four small acoustic sensors and a small display screen attached to the soldier’s body armor that shows the distance and direction of incoming bullets. The sensors are each about the size of a deck of cards and can detect the supersonic sound waves generated by enemy gunfire. It alerts the soldier of the shot’s direction in less than one second.

“We’re really trying to ensure that every Soldier is protected,” said Brigadier General Peter Fuller, program executive officer soldier, said in a statement. “When you get fired on, instead of trying to figure everything out, you will have technology to assist you in knowing what happened and where the shot was coming from.”

One of the system’s advantages, according to the Army and QinetiQ, is the fact it’s very light, weighing less than two pounds. This allows the army to strategically disperse the systems throughout small, dismounted units and thus get maximum protection for platoons, squads and other units on the move.

Lt. Colonel Chris Schneider says the Army plans to field up to 1,500 gun detectors per month. The Army plans on integrating the gun detection system with its Land Warrior and Nett Warrior systems. These systems include a GPS digital-mapping-display technology, a radio, a helmet-mounted display and a hand-held data input device, allowing soldiers to have “unparalleled situational awareness.” …

via U.S. Military Deploys Gunfire Detection System – International Business Times.

>U.S. and British ships and submarines fire missiles, Libyan jet shot down over Benghazi

>

YouTube – Libyan jet shot down over Benghazi.

… Gadhafi, who has ruled Libya for 41 years, said in a telephone call to Libyan state TV that he was opening weapons depots to allow his people to arm themselves in defense.

He said the international action against his forces was unjustified, calling it “simply a colonial crusader aggression that may ignite another large-scale crusader war.” He warned that the involvement of international forces will subject the Mediterranean and North African region to danger.

President Obama authorized limited military action against Libya. He reiterated that he would not send American ground troops.

“We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy,” Obama said Saturday from Brazil.

U.S. and British ships and submarines fired more than 110 cruise missiles at more than 20 Libyan air defense targets, Vice Adm. William Gortney, director of the Joint Staff, told reporters on Saturday. Most of those areas are in and around the capital Tripoli.

The first Tomahawk cruise missiles struck at 3 p.m. ET, Gortney said, after a one-hour flight from U.S. and British vessels in the Mediterranean.

No U.S. aircraft fired missiles or dropped bombs, Gortney said.

The British defense secretary, Liam Fox, said in a statement that Tornado GR4 fast jets flew 3,000 miles from Royal Air Force Station Marham in Norfolk, England, and back. The jets launched Stormshadow missiles, while a Trafalgar submarine launched Tomahawk cruise missiles. …

via USAToday

I watched Battle Los Angeles tonight. The story wasn’t much about the aliens invading so much as the fighting. It stuck me as full length advertisement for the U.S. Marines. Who were the aliens in the movie? Did they have eyes? How could water power their technology? Where did they come from? What did they want? Did they have a leader? What did they eat?  Don’t expect to find out if you pay to see this movie.

Meanwhile, I’m starting to wonder if we are on the brink of even more real war. To top it off, it’s a hellish night. The wind is howling and banging things around my home. It is the night of the supermoon. The wind is furious. The power just flickered out, and back on. How long will it last?

>Naval sonar exercises linked to whale strandings, according to new report

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Scientists have long been aware of a link between naval sonar exercises and unusual mass strandings of beaked whales. Evidence of such a link triggered a series of lawsuits in which environmental groups sued the U.S. Navy to limit sonar exercises to reduce risk to whales. In 2008, this conflict rose to the level of the US Supreme Court which had to balance potential threat to whales from sonar against the military risk posed by naval forces inadequately trained to use sonar to detect enemy submarines. The court ruled that the Navy could continue training, but that it was essential for the Navy to develop better methods to protect the whales.

The knowledge most critical to protecting these whales from risk of sonar involves measuring the threshold between safe and risky exposure levels, but until now it has not been known how beaked whales respond to sonar, much less the levels that pose a problem. “We know so little about beaked whales because they prefer deep waters far offshore, where they can dive on one breath of air to depths of over a mile for up to an hour and a half,” said Peter Tyack, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

Now, an international team of researchers reports in a paper led by Tyack the first data on how beaked whales respond to naval sonar exercises. Their results suggest that sonar indeed affects the behavior and movement of whales.

Tyack and his colleagues used two complementary methods to investigate behavioral responses of beaked whales to sonar: “an opportunistic approach that monitored whale responses to multi-day naval exercises involving tactical mid-frequency sonars, and an experimental approach using playbacks of simulated sonar and control sounds to whales tagged with a device that records sound, movement, and orientation,” the researchers report in the current issue of the online journal PLoS ONE, published by the Public Library of Science.

That research team developed experiments to slowly increase the level of sonar at a tagged whale, to stop exposure as soon as the whale started responding, to measure that exposure, and to define the response. The experimental approach used tags to measure acoustic exposure and behavioral reactions of beaked whales to one controlled exposure each of simulated military sonar, killer whale calls, and band-limited noise.

“These experiments were very difficult to develop, and it was a major breakthrough simply to be able to develop a study that could safely study these responses,” Tyack said. “All three times that tagged beaked whales were exposed experimentally to playback of sounds when they were foraging at depth, they stopped foraging prematurely and made unusually long and slow ascents to the surface, moving away from the sound.

Beaked whales use their own biosonar to find prey when they are foraging; this means that one can monitor cessation of foraging by listening for when they stop clicking. Once the researchers found that beaked whales responded to sonar by ceasing clicking, they were able to monitor reactions of beaked whales during actual sonar exercises on the range. The research was conducted on a naval testing range where an array of underwater microphones, or hydrophones, covered the seafloor, allowing whale sounds to be monitored over 600 square miles. “During actual sonar exercises, beaked whales were primarily detected near the periphery of the range, on average 16 km away from the sonar transmissions. Once the exercise stopped, beaked whales gradually filled in the center of the range over 2-3 days,” they report. …

via Naval sonar exercises linked to whale strandings, according to new report.

>New 9/11 helicopter video of Twin Towers released

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New video has emerged of the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York’s World Trade Center, shot by a police helicopter crew hoping in vain to rescue trapped office workers.

The video shows the aircraft hovering near the towers’ roofs, only to retreat as the first tower fell.

“The whole tower, it’s gone,” an officer is heard yelling. “They knocked the whole fricking thing down.”

It was released by a US government agency that investigated the collapse.

The airspace over the towers was closed to news helicopters on the morning of the attacks, so little video of the attacks from the air has emerged.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology obtained the video from the New York Police Department during its investigation into the structural collapse of the Twin Towers.

It was released by the NIST in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, but it was not clear who published it online.

More than 2,800 people were killed when hijackers crashed jets into the buildings.

The same morning, more were killed when hijackers crashed a jet into the Pentagon just outside Washington DC, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where hijackers flew a jet into the ground as passengers fought their way into the aircraft cabin in a bid to retake the plane.

via BBC News – New 9/11 helicopter video of Twin Towers released.