Science & TechnologyS


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Adolf Hitler was a "Cowardly Pig," According to Fellow First World War Soldiers

Peter Hutchison
The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 16 Sep 2010 06:12 UTC
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© Hulton/Getty ImagesCorporal Adolf Hitler pictured with two other soldiers during his stay in a military hospital.
Adolf Hitler was labeled a "cowardly pig" by fellow First World War soldiers in his regiment, newly discovered archives have disclosed.

Letters and diaries revealed for the first time in a new book portray the future Nazi leader as a loner, a wimp, and an object of ridicule.

The documents published in, Hitler's First War, overturn the commonly held view that he was popular within the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment.

The book dispels the myth that Hitler was at the heart of a close-knit regiment with many veterans going on to form the core of the National Socialist Party.

Dr Thomas Weber, a University of Aberdeen historian, who wrote the book, also discloses that Hitler's role during the Great War was exaggerated by Nazi propaganda.
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Book

Nazi Book Reveals Detailed Plans for Invasion of Britain

Richard Savill
The Telegraph, UK
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 01:30 UTC
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© NTIPicture of Penzance from Hitler's invasion dossier, which detailed plans for Nazi invasion of Britain
Hilter's detailed plans to conquer Britain have been discovered in a rare Nazi briefing book which reveals how and where German troops hoped to land on the south coast.

The book pinpoints the English coastal towns in the path of the Nazi ground assault, which was only avoided because RAF fighter pilots managed to win air supremacy in the Battle of Britain in 1940.

It also reveals that postcards identifying unmistakable landmarks including Brighton Pier, and Lands End, were given to Nazi troops to identify their targets in preparation for their blitz of the British Isles.

The original copy of the book Militargoegraphiscke Angaben uber England Sudkuste for Operation Sealion detailed every attack point and weakness along England's south coast ahead of the Germans' assault in September 1940.

It included large color maps showing every part of the south coast, from Land's End to Foreness Point in Kent.
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Secret Nazi Mission Saw German U-Boats Land Men on American Soil

Laura Roberts
The Telegraph, UK
Fri, 10 Sep 2010 04:41 UTC
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© Getty ImagesThe German documentary, called Attack on America? Hitler's 9/11 will be shown on Saturday on the anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York
Nazi U-boats dropped saboteurs onto American shores as part of a secret mission during the Second World War, a documentary has claimed.

Eight men landed on beaches off Long Island and Florida with the intention of sabotaging targets across the country over a period of up to two years.

Four men arrived ashore near Manhattan on June 13, 1942 carrying weapons, explosives and primers.

On 17 June 1942 a further four men landed off Ponte Verda Beach in Florida.

The German documentary, called Attack on America - Hitler's 9/11 will be shown on Saturday on the anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York.

The programme-makers, Spiegal TV, claim the men intended to attack economic targets such as Penn Station, hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls and aluminium factories in Illinois and Tennessee.
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Satellite

Flashback Mysterious Force Holds Back NASA Probe in Deep Space

Robert Matthews
The Telegraph, UK
Sun, 10 Feb 2002 00:01 UTC
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© NASANASA launches Pioneer 10
A space probe launched 30 years ago has come under the influence of a force that has baffled scientists and could rewrite the laws of physics.

Researchers say Pioneer 10, which took the first close-up pictures of Jupiter before leaving our solar system in 1983, is being pulled back to the sun by an unknown force. The effect shows no sign of getting weaker as the spacecraft travels deeper into space, and scientists are considering the possibility that the probe has revealed a new force of nature.

Dr Philip Laing, a member of the research team tracking the craft, said: "We have examined every mechanism and theory we can think of and so far nothing works.

"If the effect is real, it will have a big impact on cosmology and spacecraft navigation," said Dr Laing, of the Aerospace Corporation of California.
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Home of "Ice Giants" Thaws, Shows Pre-Viking Hunts

Alister Doyle
Reuters
Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:17 UTC
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© Alister Doyle/ReutersNorwegian archaeologist Elling Utvik Wammer picks up a stick believed to be about 1,500 years old and used by ancestors of the Vikings to hunt reindeer in the Jotunheimen mountains of Norway September 9, 2010.
Climate change is exposing reindeer hunting gear used by the Vikings' ancestors faster than archaeologists can collect it from ice thawing in northern Europe's highest mountains.

"It's like a time machine...the ice has not been this small for many, many centuries," said Lars Piloe, a Danish scientist heading a team of "snow patch archaeologists" on newly bare ground 1,850 meters (6,070 ft) above sea level in mid-Norway.

Specialized hunting sticks, bows and arrows and even a 3,400-year-old leather shoe have been among finds since 2006 from a melt in the Jotunheimen mountains, the home of the "Ice Giants" of Norse mythology.

As water streams off the Juvfonna ice field, Piloe and two other archaeologists -- working in a science opening up due to climate change -- collect "scare sticks" they reckon were set up 1,500 years ago in rows to drive reindeer toward archers.
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New Chachapoyan archaeological site discovered


...en Peru
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:32 UTC
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© Unknown
Called Atumpucro, it has some 150 circular homes and impressive walls. Seated on a hill of the same name, it was found in the province of Luya by photographer and explorer Martín Chumbe.

An archaeological complex full of typical Chachapoyan round builds has been discovered in the district of San Juan de Lopecancha, province de Luya in the Amazonas region. The discovery was made by local explorer and photographer Martín Chumbe in a joint expedition with the district's mayor, owner of the land.
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Bizarro Earth

NIST Finalizes Initial Set of Smart Grid Cyber Security Guidelines

Mark Bello
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00 UTC
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued its first Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security, which includes high-level security requirements, a framework for assessing risks, an evaluation of privacy issues at personal residences, and additional information for businesses and organizations to use as they craft strategies to protect the modernizing power grid from attacks, malicious code, cascading errors and other threats.

The product of two formal public reviews and the focus of numerous workshops and teleconferences over the past 17 months, the three-volume set of guidelines is intended to facilitate organization-specific Smart Grid cyber security strategies focused on prevention, detection, response and recovery.

The new report was prepared by the Cyber Security Working Group (CSWG) of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, a public-private partnership launched by NIST with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding from the Department of Energy. The guidelines are the second major output of NIST-coordinated efforts to identify and develop standards needed to convert the nation's aging electric grid into an advanced, digital infrastructure with two-way capabilities for communicating information, controlling equipment and distributing energy.
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Better Earth

Earth Makes Its Own Music

Wil Milan
TechNewsDaily
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:06 UTC
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© Unknown
Our planet is a place rich in sound. This panoply of sound is so important to our perception of our world that when the Voyager spacecraft were launched as our ambassadors to the universe, a collection of sounds from Earth were part of what they took with them. Along with images and other information about Earth and humankind, there were recordings (on very old-fashioned analog disks) of the sounds of natural phenomena such as wind, surf, and thunder. There were also animal sounds, music from many cultures, and spoken greetings in several dozen languages, including a clip from then-President Jimmy Carter.
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Meteor

Pairs of 'Rubble Pile' Asteroids Exist


Lab Spaces
Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:10 UTC
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© Richardson and LeinhardtSimulation of a collision between two rubble-pile asteroids, depicted in red and green.
Though it was once believed that all asteroids are giant pieces of solid rock, later hypotheses have it that some are actually a collection of small gravel-sized rocks, held together by gravity. If one of these "rubble piles" spins fast enough, it's speculated that pieces could separate from it through centrifugal force and form a second collection ― in effect, a second asteroid.

Now researchers at Tel Aviv University, in collaboration with an international group of scientists, have proved the existence of these theoretical "separated asteroid" pairs.

Ph.D. student David Polishook of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences and his supervisor Dr. Noah Brosch of the university's School of Physics and Astronomy say the research has not only verified a theory, but could have greater implications if an asteroid passes close to earth. Instead of a solid mountain colliding with earth's surface, says Dr. Brosch, the planet would be pelted with the innumerable pebbles and rocks that comprise it, like a shotgun blast instead of a single cannonball. This knowledge could guide the defensive tactics to be taken if an asteroid were on track to collide with the Earth.
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Sherlock

First Sighting of Halley's Comet Pushed Back Two Centuries

Lin Edwards
PhysOrg
Mon, 13 Sep 2010 00:00 UTC
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© The Yerkes Observatory/Wikipedia CommonsA photograph of Halley's Comet taken during its 1910 approach.
Researchers have modeled the likely path taken by Halley's comet in the 5th century BC and compared their findings to ancient Greek texts from the period. They now suggest the ancient Greeks saw the comet, which would make the sightings over two centuries earlier than previous known observations.

Chinese astronomers first described the comet in 240 BC, but in ancient Greece in 466-467 BC Greek authors described a meteor the size of a wagon that crashed into the Hellespont region of northern Greece during daylight hours, frightening the population and creating a tourist attraction that lasted five centuries. The ancient authors describe a comet in the sky at the time.

Researchers Daniel Graham, a philosopher, and Eric Hintz, an astronomer, from Brigham Young University at Provo in Utah, compared their model of the comet's likely path with the texts describing the meteor crash. Halley's comet would have been visible for 82 days maximum, depending on atmospheric conditions at the time, while the ancient texts say the comet was visible for 75 days.
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