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Space

Preparing For Satellite Defense 118

Posted by Soulskill from the road-to-kessler-syndrome dept.
Taco Cowboy sends a report into China's development of anti-satellite technology, and efforts by the U.S. and Japan to build defenses for this new potential battleground. Last year, China launched what they said was a science space mission, but they did so at night and with a truck-based launch system, which are not generally used for science projects. Experts believe this was actually a missile test for targets in geostationary orbit. U.S. and Japanese analysts say China has the most aggressive satellite attack program in the world. It has staged at least six ASAT missile tests over the past nine years, including the destruction of a defunct Chinese weather satellite in 2007. ... Besides testing missiles that can intercept and destroy satellites, the Chinese have developed jamming techniques to disrupt satellite communications. In addition, ... the Chinese have studied ground-based lasers that could take down a satellite's solar panels, and satellites equipped with grappling arms that could co-orbit and then disable expensive U.S. hardware. To defend themselves against China, the U.S. and Japan are in the early stages of integrating their space programs as part of negotiations to update their defense policy guidelines. ... Both countries have sunk billions of dollars into a sophisticated missile defense system that relies in part on data from U.S. spy satellites. That's why strategists working for China's People's Liberation Army have published numerous articles in defense journals about the strategic value of chipping away at U.S. domination in space.

Submission + - The Low Down on Hypertension (blogspot.com)

Submitted by mhailokio
mhailokio writes: High Blood Pressure can affect anyone. While we know that there are certain types of people that are more prone to high blood pressure than others, everyone is a potential candidate.
High blood pressure (also known as hypertension) knows no racial barriers. Neither is age a barrier as there have been cases of high blood pressure in the very young as well as the very old.
Some that appear to be as fit as a fiddle have dropped dead of heart attack and stroke brought on by high blood pressure. At the same time, some people that are obese have relatively normal readings.

Since there is no special category of person who can be assured they will not be at risk – everyone needs to have it checked at least periodically.It is important to know that one stand alone abnormal reading is not necessarily a case in which immediate action must be taken. Consideration must be paid to potential one time factors such as what activity a person was just engaged in prior to the reading.

Submission + - The Future Is Evaporating: Climate Change Could Dry Out 30 Percent of the Earth (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Scientists expect the changing climate to bring on more drought; there's going to be less rainfall in the already arid regions. That alone would be bad news for denizens of the planet's dry zones—in some places in North Africa, the American Southwest, India, and the Middle East, water shortages could well become an existential threat to societies built there. But new research shows that in addition to less rain, the rate of evaporation is likely to rise, too. Combined, the two forces could dry out up to a third of the planet. The study, published in the journal Climate Dynamics last month, estimates that climate change will cause reduced rainfall alone to dry out 12 percent of the Earth's land by 2100. But if evaporation is factored in, the study's authors say that it will "increase the percentage of global land area projected to experience at least moderate drying by the end of the 21st century from 12 to 30 percent."

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