66546457
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gallifreyan99 writes:
When the shuttle program was ended, and manned space exploration was put on hold, the people of Titusville, Florida were left in big trouble.
"Just 20 miles northwest of Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it used to have a proud nickname: Space City USA. The dizzying boom of the 1950s and ‘60s helped create myriad jobs by giving work to nearby aerospace companies. Unfortunately, the past 15 years have seen everything dry up By December 2010, Titusville had one of the America’s highest unemployment rates, 13.8 percent."
But even though there's been plenty of bad news recently, the city hopes that the private space industry can save it from destruction.Link to Original Source
66398391
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superboj writes:
"From everything I can find, Mars One doesn’t appear to be in any way qualified to carry off the biggest, most complex, most audacious, and most dangerous exploration mission in all of human history. They don’t have the money to do it. 200,000 people didn’t actually apply. I wouldn’t classify it exactly as a scam—but it seems to be, at best, an amazingly hubristic fantasy."
64841927
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gallifreyan99 writes:
"No one in tech has ever been as sexist toward me as teachers and rabbis before I was 12 years old, but I’ve come to notice more and more how working within the particular masculine sexism of the tech industry has nudged the way I present myself, just a little." Games writer and author Naomi Alderman talks about the identities that women have to adopt to get along in male-dominated industries.
63160621
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gallifreyan99 writes:
Every drug you take will have been tested on people before it—but that testing process is meant to be tightly controlled, for the safety of everyone involved. Two chilling investigations document the horrifying extent—and that lack of oversight the FDA seems to have over the process. First, drugs are increasingly being tested on homeless, destitute and mentally ill people. Second, it turns out many human trials are being run by doctors who have had their licenses revoked for drug addiction, malpractice and worse.
61271545
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gallifreyan99 writes:
Jason Leopold, the crusading journalist who's broken stories about the CIA, Guantánamo, and the NSA, is probably the world's foremost user of Freedom of Information laws: he's scored countless scoops by getting the US government to spill its own secrets. But this profile of Leopold explains not only how he uses FOIA, but why. Turns out, it's part of an attempt to atone for his past mistakes.
57636917
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gallifreyan99 writes:
Morgellons is a disease that has risen in prominence in the last decade, as thousands of people report the same symptoms: itching, burning fibers that burrow into the skin and make life miserable for those who suffer from it. There's only one problem with the condition: It doesn't exist.
57592529
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blastboy writes:
The symptoms of Morgellons sound terrifying—burning, biting, scratching fibers found in the skin that leave victims frantic, wild and depressed. Is it an infection? Allergies? Alien parasites? In fact, say doctors, it doesn't exist at all.
57456437
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superboj writes:
Everyone wants a piece of Egypt's most famous pharaoh, including the media, the Muslim Brotherhood and even the Mormon church. But while scientists have been trying to excavate his DNA and prove who he was—Egypt's turbulent politics have been making progress hard. Will experts be able to make a major discovery? And what happens if they do?
56806621
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gallifreyan99 writes:
Scientists have spent decades trying to understand and fix social problems like violence and alcoholism, usually focusing on the poor and disadvantaged. But now a small band of researchers is claiming that biology plays a vitally important role—because trauma can change you at a genetic level that gets passed on to kids, grandkids, and perhaps even beyond. Astonishing story.
56641757
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blastboy writes:
“It’s just a tool.” I'd heard this many times before. It contains a modicum of truth, but buries technology’s impacts on our lives, which are never neutral. Often, I asked the person who said it if they thought nuclear weapons were “just a tool.” Humans have always fought, but few would say it doesn’t matter if we fight with sticks, knives, guns, or nuclear weapons." Great essay on Snowden, technology and the problem with how we think of surveillance.
56609781
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superboj writes:
Snowden's revelations about the NSA have us all talking about big data and Big Brother. But this great piece tying together online spying, political repression and the Turkish rebellion argues that we need new metaphors—because our surveillance nightmare is more frightening, and more subtle, than we realize.
56151965
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gallifreyan99 writes:
The real revolution in drugs isn't Silk Road—it's the open web. Thanks to the net, almost anyone with a basic handle on chemistry can design, manufacture and sell their own narcotics, and in most cases the cops are utterly unable to stop them. This piece is kind of crazy: the writer actually creates a new powerful-but-legal stimulant based on a banned substance, and gets a Chinese lab to manufacture it.
55863979
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blastboy writes:
Stem cells could offer all kinds of amazing breakthroughs, but right now commercial treatments are experimental at best—and snake oil at worst. That doesn't stop unregulated clinics in countries like China and India offering expensive therapies and making vast amounts of money off some of the poorest and most desperate.
55541589
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gallifreyan99 writes:
Researchers from Duke revealed today that they had discovered nearly 5,900 gas leaks under the streets of Washington DC, including 12 that posed a serious risk of explosion. And it's not just Washington: a gas industry whistleblower who is part of the team showed this was happening in cities all over America. Why is that a big deal? Leaky pipes cause death, destruction —and the data means natural gas could actually be one of the worst fuels around.
