And do not forget the even peskier radius of geostationary orbit at ~3.6*10^4 km altitude.

Funny how nobody mentioned that guy ;) http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Mordac%20The%20Preventer

Am I th only one to whom the name 'Turnitin' evokes an immediate association with names of performance enhancing drugs e.g Ritalin, Pervitin and the like?

So this dude 'reinvented' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation_analysis and solved the problem of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion.Ra-ha-ight.... Yet if we just assume that he uses a regular neutron source like Californium 252 - so no breakthroughs in fusion physics are involved- it would still be interesting to see how he processes the data from the detectors. Maybe that's where the innovation lies.

Btw this is not a flame or anything, I am genuinely curious. I read that TEPCO believes that reactors #2 and/or #3 have suffered a partial meltdown but they cannot send technicians to inspect at close quarters since radiation levels in the vicinity of the containments are way too high. Aren't there any robot sentries similar to the ones used to defuse bombs that could be sent instead?

Progress is not always exponential: look at how speed of passenger aircraft has stagnated in the past 50 years...

What if I actually *am* Mark Zuckerberg you insensitive clod?!

It is not even french. The french word for "digital" is "numerique". It should have been "Radio Numerique Mondial" (RNM) if they actually wanted it to be french. DRM is a silly acronym however you choose to interpret it.

I'll be darned if the high resistance of plants to ionizing radiation hasnt been documented since at least the 1950s ...

Dunno if it has already been posted but I would like to draw your attention to work done in the late 90s by a dude named Tristan Miller on the subject: http://en.nothingisreal.com/wiki/Why_I_Will_Never_Have_a_Girlfriend

"I don't particularly like". If by this country he means Denmark then OH BOY ... is this guy fastidious or what?! Denmark has got one of the highest friggen living standards in the world!