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From Physorg.com:

Humanity has long since established a foothold in the Artic and Antarctic, but extensive colonization of these regions may soon become economically viable. If we can learn to build self-sufficient habitats in these extreme environments, similar technology could be used to live on the Moon or Mars.

The average temperature of the Antarctic coast in winter is about −20 °C. As if this weren’t enough, the region suffers from heavy snowfall, strong winds, and six-month nights. How can humanity possibly survive in such a hostile environment?

So far we seem to have managed well; Antarctica has almost forty permanently staffed research stations (with several more scheduled to open by 2008). These installations are far from self-sufficient, however; the USA alone spent 125 million dollars in 1995 on maintenance and operations.[1] All vital resources must be imported—construction materials, food, and especially fuel for generating electricity and heat.

Continue reading “Inflatable Habitats for Polar and Space Colonists” | >

From CNN:

MUNICH, Germany (AP) — Iran’s nuclear program is not a threat to Israel and the country is prepared to settle all outstanding issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency within three weeks, its top nuclear negotiator said Sunday.

Ali Larijani, speaking at a forum that gathered the world’s top security officials, said Iran doesn’t have aggressive intentions toward any nation.

“That Iran is willing to threaten Israel is wrong,” Larijani said. “We pose no threat and if we are conducting nuclear research and development we are no threat to Israel. We have no intention of aggression against any country.”

Continue reading “Iran negotiator: Nuclear program ‘no threat to Israel’” | >

From Guardian Unlimited:

Target Iran: US Able to Strike in Spring
Despite denials, Pentagon plans for possible attack on nuclear sites are well advanced

US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington.

The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office.

Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Mr Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons programme and abandon ambitions for regional expansion.
Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, said yesterday: “I don’t know how many times the president, secretary [of state Condoleezza] Rice and I have had to repeat that we have no intention of attacking Iran.”

But Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources’ assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. “Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place.”

Continue reading “U.S. to Attack Iran This Year?” | >


The final design for a “doomsday” vault that will house seeds from all known varieties of food crops has been unveiled by the Norwegian government.

“The Svalbard International Seed Vault will be built into a mountainside on a remote island near the North Pole. The vault aims to safeguard the world’s agriculture from future catastrophes, such as nuclear war, asteroid strikes and climate change.”

Source: BBC

“There are, for instance, well over 100,000 distinct varieties of rice, compared to the 400 or so breeds of dog out there,” Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, told LiveScience. “These represent all the options that crops have for developing in the future, the raw material for plant evolution.”

These distinct varieties may possess extraordinary and possibly unique traits in terms of taste, nutritional quality, pest and disease resistance, or adaptability to various environments. For example, some rice species can grow as much as 20 feet underwater, Fowler explained, or in semi-arid conditions.

Source: LiveScience

Two new reports on global security conclude with a growing risk for nuclear terrorism Reuters report today.

The EastWest Institute and Chatham House, the two think-tanks behind the reports, cite that more states are pursuing their own nuclear ambitions and that the materials and engineering effort for a bomb “have all become commodities, more or less available to those determined enough to acquire them”.

The vulnerability of nuclear power plants are mentioned. This is highly relevant considering all the new power plants under planning or construction. Read about the planned terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant in Australia, “Australia nuclear plant plot trial opens in Paris”, Reuters.

But most suprisingly:

Continue reading “Nuclear terrorism risk seen growing” | >

From CNN:

KEKAHA, Hawaii (CNN) — The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency shot down a dummy target missile over the southern Pacific Ocean during a test of the U.S. missile defense shield early Saturday, according to an agency spokeswoman.

First, a dummy ballistic missile was fired from a U.S. mobile launch platform in the Pacific Ocean in a simulated attack.

Moments later, an interceptor missile was fired from the agency’s missile range facility on Hawaii’s Kauai Island and struck the dummy warhead over the Pacific Ocean, military footage showed.

Continue reading “US Missile Defense System Aces Test” | >

ec flagThe European Commission, the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) and the European Research Councils have each recently recommended adopting the policy of providing Open Access to research results.

(Very similar recommendations are also being made by governmental research organisations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Asia.)

There are powerful non-research interests lobbying vigorously against these policy recommendations, so a display of support by the research community is critically important at this time.

A petition in support of the European Commission policy recommendation is now being sponsored by a consortium of European organisations:

Continue reading “Researchers of the World: Unite to Support European Commission Open Access Policy” | >

From CNN:

TBILISI, Georgia (Reuters) — Georgian special services have foiled an attempt by a Russian citizen to sell weapons-grade uranium for $1 million in the Georgian capital, a senior Interior Ministry official said on Thursday.

The official said Oleg Khintsagov, a resident of Russia’s North Ossetia region, was arrested in early 2006 and a closed court soon after convicted him to 8 1/2 years in prison.

Khintsagov was detained as he tried to sell uranium-235 to an undercover Georgian agent posing as a member of a radical Islamic group, said Shota Utiashvili, who heads the ministry’s information and analytical department.

Continue reading “Enriched Uranium Sale in Georgia Disrupted” | >

From The Daily Telegraph:

North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.

Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last October with Tehran’s nuclear scientists.

North Korea provoked an international outcry when it successfully fired a bomb at a secret underground location and Western intelligence officials are convinced that Iran is working on its own weapons programme.

A senior European defence official told The Daily Telegraph that North Korea had invited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to study the results of last October’s underground test to assist Tehran’s preparations to conduct its own — possibly by the end of this year.

There were unconfirmed reports at the time of the Korean firing that an Iranian team was present. Iranian military advisers regularly visit North Korea to participate in missile tests.

Now the long-standing military co-operation between the countries has been extended to nuclear issues.

Worrisome. If Iran develops nuclear weapons, there could be a war.

From WIRED.com:

The revelation last week that China had slammed a medium-range ballistic missile into one of its aging satellites on January 11 and littered space with junk fragments has created its own form of political debris in Washington, D.C.

The test, which the United States military had long anticipated, has touched off debate over how the U.S. government should interpret and respond to China’s actions.

“It’s a very provocative act,” said Gregory Kulacki, a senior analyst and China expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists. However, “policy makers should respond on the basis of accurate information, not military rhetoric and propaganda.”

For advocates of a more aggressive American posture in space, the anti-satellite test — the first since the United States conducted one in 1985 — confirms long-held suspicions about China’s military ambition in space, and justifies the need for increased spending on space-based weapons programs that recall the star-wars aspirations of the Reagan presidency.

“I hope the Chinese test will be a wake up call to people,” said Hank Cooper, a former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program and the chairman of High Frontier, a missile defense advocacy group. “I’d like to see us begin a serious anti-satellite program. We’ve been leaning on the administration. This argument to prevent weaponization of space is really silly.”

Continue reading “Space Arms Race, Here we Come!” | >