The whole story of Perot's rescue was documented in a book by Ken Follett called "On Wings of Eagles".
At one point, Perot actually flew in to Tehran pretending to be a courier for a news service so he could actually visit the two guys in jail. Pretty ballsy, and while there might be few executives who would organize a rescue attempt, he's probably the only one willing to do that for their employees.

Well, I know I love the smell of ozone in the morning.

Consuming too much silver can turn your skin blue, kinda like this guy. It's not really harmful, but since most people don't want to look like smurfs, you don't want too much of it in your water.

There's already a company in Boulder, Colorado that tests kids' DNA for a "sports" gene. Apparently there is some sort of link between the ATCN3 gene and athletic ability (like running speed or endurance). This just looks like they're looking at other genes that have a tenuous association with other abilities. That being said, even an overall sports ability is probably based on more than just that gene, so I don't think any of these types of tests are detailed enough to give much of a good result. There was also an article about Atlas Gene in the NY Times last year.

The sad thing is, there already is a website devoted the sewer rat control efforts in New York City, complete with an interactive map showing general rodent population trends: NYC Rat Information Portal

Yeah, they looked at that in WWII . Apparently it worked a little too well, burning down some buildings at the nearby Army base in addition to the test buildings they set up when some bats decided to roost there instead.

The margin of safety for the majority of commercial aircraft is actually 1.5 in the US. When the military releases the RFP for new aircraft, they'll specify the margins they want, but it's typically 1.5. They'll also sometimes add in requirements for no permanent deformation at 115% of load in key components of the structure. Since this would be the first commercial passenger space plane, I imagine Rutan will be pretty conservative on the margins.