70945251
submission
HughPickens.com writes:
Reuters reports that the United States has asked Vietnam to stop letting Russia use its former US base at Cam Ranh Bay to refuel nuclear-capable bombers engaged in shows of strength over the Asia-Pacific region. General Vincent Brooks, commander of the U.S. Army in the Pacific, says the Russian bombers have conducted "provocative" flights, including around the U.S. Pacific Ocean territory of Guam, home to a major American air base. Brooks said the planes that circled Guam were refueled by Russian tankers flying from the strategic bay, which was transformed by the Americans during the Vietnam War into a massive air and naval base. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that the airport at Cam Ranh was first used for staging Il-78 tankers for aerial refueling of Tu-95MS bombers in January 2014. Asked about the Russian flights in the region, the State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Washington respected Hanoi's right to enter agreements with other countries but added that "we have urged Vietnamese officials to ensure that Russia is not able to use its access to Cam Ranh Bay to conduct activities that could raise tensions in the region."
Cam Ranh is considered the finest deepwater shelter in Southeast Asia. North Vietnamese forces captured Cam Ranh Bay and all of its remaining facilities in 1975. Vietnam’s dependence on Russia as the main source of military platforms, equipment, and armaments, has now put Hanoi in a difficult spot. Russia has pressed for special access to Cam Ranh Bay ever since it began delivering enhanced Kilo-class submarines to Vietnam. "Hanoi is invariably cautious and risk adverse in its relations with the major powers," says Carl Thayer. "The current issue of Russian tankers staging out of Cam Ranh pits Russia and China on one side and the United States on the other. There is no easy solution for Vietnam."
70945017
submission
Lasrick writes:
In a worldwide news exclusive, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists can report that Iranian nuclear negotiators have shocked their American counterparts by announcing—after months of haggling over the minutiae of uranium enrichment—a 180-degree change in their negotiating position...'"We have thrown in the towel. All the Americans have to do is follow a treaty they helped write back in the Beatles era. It should be simple."'
70858591
submission
Lasrick writes:
Seth Baum has a provocative column in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that calls for limiting the total number of nuclear weapons in the world to 50. Baum points out that the greatest threat from nuclear weapons is nuclear winter, which has the potential to destroy civilization after even a limited nuclear exchange. Baum is looking for a way to give nations "deterrence" without the risk of nuclear winter, and he points to several weapons in development that could provide nuclear winter-free deterrence: 'The ideal weapon would have a suite of attractive properties. It would not pose a significant proliferation risk. It would be affordable, technologically feasible, and politically acceptable. It would not significantly shift geopolitical power or destabilize the international system. And it could be used as a retaliatory second-strike weapon, which is crucial for deterrence.' Baum calls the feasibility of such a weapon 'good news,' but points out that until such a weapon is developed, limiting the very real possibility of nuclear winter should be a priority.
70857641
submission
Penguinisto writes:
According to a scan by Qualys, Hillary Clinton's personal e-mail server, which has lately generated more than a little controversy in US political circles, has earned an "F" rating for security from the security vendor. Problems include SSL2 support, a weak signature, and only having support for older TLS protocols, among numerous other problems.
Note that there are allegations that the email server was possibly already hacked in 2013.
(Note: Mrs. Clinton plans on Giving a press conference to the public today on the issue.)
70856599
submission
Zothecula writes:
Future missions to Mars may well be powered by carbon dioxide fueled engines, thanks to a recent prototype developed by Northumbria and Edinburgh Universities. Exploiting a phenomenon known as the Leidenfrost effect, researchers hope that their engine could be powered by the vast amount of dry-ice deposits found on the red planet, thereby reducing the need to transport fuel on interplanetary missions.
70710077
submission
Lasrick writes:
Over the last 68 years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has reset the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock 21 times, most recently this year when they moved it from five minutes to midnight to three. Every time it is reset, the Internet is flooded with questions about the internationally recognized symbol. Former executive director Kennette Benedict explains the history of the Clock and how the decision is made about moving the minute hand.
70652561
submission
Lasrick writes:
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has just launched a very cool interactive graphic to go with their famed Nuclear Notebook, the feature that tracks the world's nuclear arsenals. Now you can see at a glance who has nuclear weapons, when they got them, and how those numbers compare to each other. A short introductory video gives some background on the success of the Notebook, which has been tracking nukes since 1987.
70589343
submission
Lasrick writes:
Dawn Stover writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that climate change is irreversible but not unstoppable. She describes the changes that are happening already and also those likely to happen, and compares what is coming to the climate of the Pliocene: 'Even if countries reduce emissions enough to keep temperatures from rising much above the internationally agreed-upon “danger” threshold of 2 degrees Celsius (which seems increasingly unlikely), we can still look forward to conditions similar to those of the mid-Pliocene epoch of 3 million years ago. At that time, the continents were in much the same positions that they are today, carbon dioxide levels ranged between 350 and 400 ppm, the global average temperature was 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than it is today (but up to 20 degrees higher than today at the northernmost latitudes), the global sea level was about 25 meters higher, and most of today’s North American forests were grasslands and savanna.' Stover agrees with two scientists published in Nature Geoscience that 'Future warming is therefore driven by socio-economic inertia," and points the way toward changing a Pliocene future.
70559789
submission
judgecorp writes:
A Bavarian fish farmer has filed a law suit complaining that a planned data center will kill his trout. Service provider e-shelter plans to build a data center cooled by groundwater, but Anton Kurz says it will warm his water by two degrees Celsius — which is enough to reduce the yield of his fish eggs by increasing the risk of disease. Kurz's lawsuit will be heard on 3 March.
70558991
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itwbennett writes:
Earlier this month Reverend Dr. Christopher J. Benek raised eyebrows on the Internet by stating his belief that Christians should seek to convert Artificial Intelligences to Christianity if and when they become autonomous. Of course that's assuming that robots are born atheists, not to mention that there's still a vast difference between what it means to be autonomous and what it means to be human.
70558457
submission
Lasrick writes:
Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are believed to carry a total of approximately 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads that can hit the US less than 30 minutes after being launched. Of this total, about 700 warheads are rated at 800 kilotons; that is, each has the explosive power of 800,000 tons of TNT. This article is a description of the consequences of the detonation of a single such warhead over midtown Manhattan, in the heart of New York City.
70558421
submission
Lasrick writes:
Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are believed to carry a total of approximately 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads that can hit the US less than 30 minutes after being launched. Of this total, about 700 warheads are rated at 800 kilotons; that is, each has the explosive power of 800,000 tons of TNT. This article is a description of the consequences of the detonation of a single such warhead over midtown Manhattan, in the heart of New York City.
70534005
submission
Lasrick writes:
Emily Strasser with a lovely essay as she grapples with trying to better understand her long deceased grandfather, a chemist who help build the first atomic bomb. Strasser illuminates the lives of the 75k people who came to live in Oak Ridge to work at the Y-12 enrichment facility, most of whom didn't know what they were working on as they went about their lives in a government-built city that wasn't to be plotted on any map. Her description of what they were doing there is both scientific and beautiful: 'The uranium in the Hiroshima bomb was about 80 percent uranium 235. One metric ton of natural uranium typically contains only 7 kilograms of uranium 235. Of the 64 kilograms of uranium in the bomb, less than one kilogram underwent fission, and the entire energy of the explosion came from just over half a gram of matter that was converted to energy. That is about the weight of a butterfly.'
70487881
submission
Lasrick writes:
Seth Baum writes about international efforts to ban "killer robots" before they are used. China, Israel, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are apparently developing precursor technology. 'Fully autonomous weapons are not unambiguously bad. They can reduce burdens on soldiers. Already, military robots are saving many service members’ lives, for example by neutralizing improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan and Iraq. The more capabilities military robots have, the more they can keep soldiers from harm. They may also be able to complete missions that soldiers and non-autonomous weapons cannot.' But Baum, who founded the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, goes on to outline the potential downsides, and there are quite a few.
70455059
submission
Lasrick writes:
Elected officials who want to block the EPA and legislation on climate change frequently refer to a handful of scientists who dispute anthropogenic climate change. One of scientists they quote most often is Wei-Hock Soon, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun’s energy can largely explain recent global warming. Newly released documents show the extent to which Dr. Soon has made a fortune from corporate interests. 'He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work.' The Koch Brothers are cited as a source of Dr. Soon's funding.
