The Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorized the Department of Energy to develop a research and development program that could deliver a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor prototype to increase domestic energy supplies, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and move more quickly towards a national hydrogen economy. Westinghouse and its partners plan to build a pebble bed modular reactor that uses fuel balls surrounded by a hollow sphere of graphite moderator. These are stacked in a close-packed lattice and are cooled by helium, not water. The term "pebble bed" derives from the use of spheres. Rods are used to control fission in conventional nuclear reactors.

I didn't know the US even had a PBMR project. That we at least have one is something though they're now saying 2021 :/

Watch Idaho Nuclear Project to Gauge Obama's Energy Plan - 2008-11-06 09:53:26 - Design News

So far, SpaceX has lined up at least one customer for the first DragonLab flight planned for 2010. Although Vozoff would not tell Space News anything about its anchor customer, SpaceX told other space officials here that it had signed up a classified U.S. government customer for DragonLab's debut.

SPACE.com -- SpaceX Seeks Customers for DragonLab Spaceship

LONDON — A 65-year-old private pilot who was left almost entirely blind when he suffered a stroke while flying solo at more than 5,000 feet was guided to a safe landing after the pilot of a Royal Air Force training plane talked the stricken flier down, R.A.F. officials said Friday.

Stricken Blind, Solo Pilot Is Guided to Safety - NYTimes.com

If you’re like most of us, you were taught the importance of warm-up exercises back in grade school, and you’ve likely continued with pretty much the same routine ever since. Science, however, has moved on. Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes’ warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but actually bad for you.

Phys Ed - Stretching - The Truth - NYTimes.com

Decius wrote:

It cannot be denied that this feels like a punch in the gut. It is. I'm not going to pretend that the wound isn't deep and personal, like an attack on my own family. It was meant to be. Many Obama supporters voted against our rights, and Obama himself opposes our full civil equality.

Doesn't it seem wrong that a simple majority can pass a Constitutional amendment in a referendum? I must confess some ignorance of state Constitutional issues, but no minority is safe from a process that can deny any basic civil right whenever a razor thin majority desires it. If not for incorporation of federal constitutional rights, this would be a recipe for unrelenting tyranny.

Apparently, the courts could decide that this is a "revision" and not an "amendment" -- "revisions" can only be put on the ballot by the legislature.

RE: Prop 8

A fungus that lives inside trees in the Patagonian rain forest naturally makes a mix of hydrocarbons that bears a striking resemblance to diesel, biologists announced today. And the fungus can grow on cellulose, a major component of tree trunks, blades of grass and stalks that is the most abundant carbon-based plant material on Earth.

Rainforest Fungus Naturally Synthesizes Diesel | Wired Science from Wired.com

DragonLab provides a platform for in-space experimentation, including recovery of pressurized and some unpressurized payloads, as well as deployment of small spacecraft. As a complete system, DragonLab provides for all aspects of operation: propulsion, power, thermal control, environmental control, avionics, communications, thermal protection, flight software, guidance, navigation and control, entry, descent and landing and recovery.

SpaceX DragonLab, a free-flying, fully-recoverable, reusable spacecraft capable of hosting pressurized and unpressurized payloads | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

NASA indicates that the probability of achieving the IOC milestone for the Ares 1 and Orion vehicles by March 2015 is 65 percent--that is, its level of confidence about meeting that date is 65 percent, which the agency considers to be a reasonable level for purposes of program planning. (NASA estimates the feasibility of meeting such milestones by using standard probability analyses of its plans for development programs.) NASA's 65 percent figure takes into account the reduction in its fiscal year 2007 budget (relative to the Administration's request) of $577 million (in 2007 dollars), a change enacted in the Revised Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2007 (Public Law 110-5). The agency has accommodated the cut in its 2007 funding by eliminating some future missions of its Lunar Precursor Robotic Program. (That program is designed to launch robotic spacecraft to the moon to collect data about the moon's surface to help plan future human lunar missions.)

This *summary* of a cbo analysis of where NASA stands with Constellation and finishing iss/shutting down sts is still quite dense but gives a fascinating glimpse into how these programs are managed.

CBO: An Analysis of NASA's Plans for Continuing Human Spaceflight After Retiring the Space Shuttle | SpaceRef - Space News as it Happens

The foul-mouthed musician swept up by MTV’s speech code is Weird Al Yankovic, whose lyrics to “Don’t Download This Song,” a tongue-in-cheek complaint about file-sharing first released in 2006 included those so-called offensive terms. (Since then, two of those sites — Grokster and Morpheus — have become inactive.)

Censorship, or What Really Weirds Out Weird Al - NYTimes.com

In a decision that could reshape the way banks and high-tech firms protect their intellectual property, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a man’s business concept was too vague for patent protection.

Court Rules Business Concept Cannot Be Patented - NYTimes.com