Most of the commercial launches want equatorial orbits, and for that you want to launch as near to the equator as possible. As far as polar orbits for research satellites are concerned there is already the Kiruna site, which is fully equipped and at a better location for monitoring polar orbits. Polar orbits for secret missions? Countries involved in this will want to launch from their own turf. And space tourism? Does not exist yet.

Has the editor actually understood the idea behind this?

"Das Erste" is a (major) TV broadcaster and its name roughly translates as "TV1". The fact that they also have a Web site which summarizes the content of previously broadcast features does not change this.

From all the possible names for a motorcycle, they felt they had to choose the one which is most likely to get them sued for trademark violation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bmw_C1

Covered and innovative motorcycle by BMW, in production 2000-2003.

Any safe worth its money cannot be harmed by a simple gas explosion in the surrounding house, tornado, car crashing though the walls, etc. and if you have one or two hours of fire protection, that also covers the vast majority of house fires.

Sapphire is *not* the second hardest material known. Yes, it's written in the linked article, but it is also definitely wrong. It is hard, and it is harder than glass. That is all there is. Besides diamond. many other materials, such as some forms of boronnitride, rhenium and osmium borides, and a collection of carbon/boron/nitrogen mixed compounds are all far harder than sapphire.

To those posters claiming that these are sensationalistic numbers, or fake statistics:

This problem is well known among professional chemists, and there have been a string of high-profile accidents in recent years (and very expensive settlements for involved universities as a result).

The ACS (American Chemical Society) has instituted a task force to guide academia in establishing a better safety culture..

See for example

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2013_10_02/caredit.a1300217
www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/about/governance/committees/chemicalsafety/academic-safety-culture-report-final-v2.pdf

From the article: "by the time she ran back into the bar, her purse with her keys, wallet and phone were gone".

Maybe this is what it all was about. A standard pickpocket distraction manoeuvre.

With laser lighting, illumination in rain can be dramatically improved, but avoiding to shine the laser onto rain drops.

http://iq.intel.com/iq/33831801/future-headlight-technology-could-make-rain-disappear

a) wrongly set system clocks leaking into page timestamps, etc.

b) conspirators communicating about/cashing in on their nefarious schemes

Very misleading original article full of misguided complaints. Controls on the export of native plants or other biological specimen have been in place for hundreds of years, and with much harsher penalties.

The members of the expedition have a, admittedly tedious, path to get permits. Just play by the rules.

When John Rolfe smuggled tobacco from Trinidad to Virginia in 1611, establishing its tobacco farming industry, there was a mandatory death sentence for seed smugglers imposed by the Spanish colonialists.

but passenger aircraft have very standard motorized windscreen wipers, really low tech...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pIasu8TdhA&hd=1

For maximum effect, apply JP-8 and scorching hot exhausts simultaneously!

His password is open source and everybody is entitled to read it, modify it, or to sell it as text source if he can find a buyer, as long as the copyright notice remains attached!

The reported method requires that specially coated nanoparticles are first injected though the bone. That is just drilling a smaller hole.