Free Republic

Click here for video

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — Coalition forces found a weapons cache of explosively-formed penetrators in the southern Baghdad community of Warij May 2. Soldiers from 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division were on patrol in Warij and found four EFPs hidden in an office closet shelf of a factory. A brand new 107 mm rocket was also discovered. The EFPs were covered with foam and had wires leading from the back. Forty pounds of unknown bulk explosives, a rocket sled and blasting caps were also found. A guard at the factory was detained after...

Egypt's Pyramids Packed With Seashells Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Fossil-Filled April 25, 2008 -- Many of Egypt's most famous monuments, such as the Sphinx and Cheops, contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils, most of which are fully intact and preserved in the walls of the structures, according to a new study. The study's authors suggest that the stones that make up the examined monuments at Giza plateau, Fayum and Abydos must have been carved out of natural stone since they reveal what chunks of the sea floor must have looked like over 4,000 years ago, when the buildings were...

Scientists say pyramids could be concrete April 23, 2008 Scientists are taking a new look at Egypt's pyramids to see if some of the blocks could have been made from concrete. Linn W. Hobbs, a materials science professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The Boston Globe there is a chance ancient Egyptians could have cast the blocks from synthetic material instead of carving them from quarries. Scientists have long believed Romans were the first to use structural concrete. Undergraduates in MIT's Materials in Human Experience class are building a scale-model pyramid made of quarried limestone and blocks cast from...

KHADRA, Iraq, Feb. 6, 2008 – Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, wiped the sleep out of their eyes at 4:30 a.m. Jan. 27. They donned their nearly dry uniforms and looked out of their sand-bagged windows, hoping to find that it stopped raining sometime during the night. Citizens man a checkpoint in Khadra, Iraq, Jan. 27, 2008. Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers with Company C, 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, operationally attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, conduct combined traffic-control-point operations with local citizens and Iraqi National Police while concrete...

Innovations in methods and ingredients have made possible lightweight bridges, color-changing buildings, and furniture created from this efficient material Concrete is ubiquitous in the modern world, yet most people don't give it a passing thought. Why would they? It may be the most consumed substance on earth after water, but the stuff of pavements and parking garages is also a bit dull—or so most of us thought. In fact, innovations in the science of concrete have enabled architects and designers to achieve remarkable feats that would have been impossible in earlier years—everything from ultra-thin bridges spanning hundreds of feet to...

Concrete Barriers Safeguard Adhamiyah Residents in Baghdad Temporary walls keep out vehicle-borne explosives By 2nd Brigade Combat Team 82nd Airborne Division Public Affairs BAGHDAD, June 6, 2007 — The thick chains attaching the “T-Wall� barrier to the crane shuddered as the slab of heavy concrete was lifted into the air. The crane operator worked his control stick, first swinging the barrier through the air, and then slowly lowering it into place.As the 14,000 pounds of concrete settled onto the ground with a grinding crunch, the project to secure a neighborhood in Baghdad’s Adhamiyah District behind miles of protective barriers...

Drexel University researchers are revising the book on the Pyramids of Egypt, the last surviving wonder of the ancient world. The standard hypothesis for their construction speculates that ancient Egyptians carved the blocks out of nearby deposits of natural limestone, using stone age tools, and then floated the stones on barges, and used primitive ramps and levers to wrestle the blocks into place. The fact is, no one knows even to this day how the Pyramids were built. Many of the limestone blocks fit so perfectly that not even a human hair ....

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/04/irans_superconc.html Iran's Invulnerable Bunkers? A few weeks back, the Air Force detonated out its most powerful bunker-buster yet. But a new Iranian super-strong concrete might make it almost useless before it reaches service. Ord_massive_ordnance_penetrator_boe I owe this story to DANGER ROOM reader Jay Sappington, a civil engineer in Fort Worth. He graduated with his masters from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), where he had participated in a student competition organized by the American Concrete Institute. The challenge was to make a 2?x2? concrete cube with the highest possible compressive strength. Among the competitors at this internationally diverse school...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq, Feb. 22, 2007 — Concrete barriers are going up in the eastern Baghdad's Rusafa security district, aimed at providing enhanced security to the Al Shurja market place. As part of Operation Fardh Al-Qanoon, elements of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, started placing concrete barriers this week. Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment emplaced more than 130 concrete barriers at the market place, Feb. 16. "The ultimate success of this depends on the Iraqi security forces, on how they operate and implement the market checkpoints," Maj. Matthew R. Sampson, an engineer...

Where can you go to see a cool example of nanotechnology? Well, just about everywhere. A new study reveals that plain old concrete, the most common human-made material on the planet, owes its properties to its nanoscale structure. Down the road, this new understanding could lead to novel forms of concrete that require less energy and CO2 to generate and might allow researchers to engineer its properties much as they have done with advanced steel alloys. Concrete isn't what comes to mind when most people think of nanomaterials. It's the oldest engineered construction material and was first used by the...

Riddle Of The Great Pyramids Of Giza: Professor Finds Some Building Blocks Were Concrete In partially solving a mystery that has baffled archeologists for centuries, a Drexel University professor has determined that the Great Pyramids of Giza were constructed with a combination of not only carved stones but the first blocks of limestone-based concrete cast by any civilization. Picture of the Great Pyramid (Kheops pyramid). (Taken by Alex lbh in April 2005 / Courtesy of Wikipedia) Ads by Google Michel Barsoum, professor of materials engineering, shows in a peer-reviewed paper to be published Dec. 1 in the Journal of...

From recycling electronics to shredding sensitive documents, now recycling old tires can become easily maintained sidewalks. Sixty-five cities are reducing the number of old tires dumped in landfills. Companies shred them, bake the fine particles and the use the material for sidewalks. These interlocking panels have cracks between them to allow water and air to reach tree roots, which delays the upward thrust of the roots. When the roots do rise, the panels will not break, making repair easier. The cost of the rubber sidewalks is three times more than concrete, but in the long run it is less expensive...

I'm listening to the Howie Carr show on WRKO in Boston and they are covering a press conference by the MA Governor and he says all of the bolts in the Ted Williams tunnel require repair. Unbelievable!

The red-hot real estate market shows no sign of cooling, but there could be a cloud on the horizon. The shortage of a humble but irreplaceable material could slow the growth of new housing. In parts of the Pacific Northwest, for instance, there's not nearly enough cement, 15% less than last year even as demand has climbed by 30%. "It's definitely affected our bottom line," says Dave Bertsch, president of Champion Concrete Pumping. "If it continues, we're going to have some layoffs. We are going to have to liquidate some equipment. It's a domino effect."

Document Document ISGQ-2003-00004530 dated September 15 2002 is a memo from a General in Saddam Feedayeens to the Supervisor of those Feedayeens who is not other than Uday Saddam Hussein. The memo talks about a hidden large container that contain a Chemical Material and that it was buried under the ground near Fallujah back when Hussein Kamal Hussein was in charge of the Iraqi Military Industrialization Commission. Hussein Kamal was the brother in law of Saddam who fled to Jordan in 1995 exposed to the world that Saddam still have WMD and then Saddam tricked him to come back by...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 2006 – Troops conducting urban operations soon will have the capabilities of superheroes, being able to sense through 12 inches of concrete to determine if someone is inside a building. The new "Radar Scope" will give warfighters searching a building the ability to tell within seconds if someone is in the next room, Edward Baranoski from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Special Projects Office, told the American Forces Press Service. By simply holding the portable, handheld device up to a wall, users will be able to detect movements as small as breathing, he said. The Radar...

(video) cement deer attacked by horny buck...

HONOLULU -- Officials are trying to determine who's at fault after tons of concrete was poured down a Windward Oahu sewer pipe and forced raw sewage into several Kailua homes. Liz Asteriadis suspects a black substance climbing up the walls in her home is the result of sewage that backed into her Windward Cover condominium on Oct 13. "You could smell what it was right away. It was nasty and my friend Barbara, I called her screaming at 11 o'clock at night. 'Ahh! We are having a sewer flood,'" Asteriadis said. The putrid water also filled the Windward Cove condominium's...

BOSTON - State police searched the offices of the Big Dig's largest concrete supplier in June and found evidence of faked records that hid the poor quality of concrete delivered for the massive highway project, Attorney General Tom Reilly said. The state is working with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney to prosecute the case. "We got the records that we were looking for and the information we were looking for," Reilly told The Boston Globe in a story published Thursday. Lawyers for Aggregate Industries said the company stood by the quality of the concrete it supplied. "Aggregate Industries never...

U-M researchers make bendable concrete click image to see video ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A new type of fiber-reinforced bendable concrete will be used for the first time in Michigan this summer—and University of Michigan scientists hope that their new material will find widespread use across the country. The new concrete looks like regular concrete, but is 500 times more resistant to cracking and 40 percent lighter in weight. Tiny fibers that comprise about 2 percent of the mixture's volume partly account for its performance. Also, the materials in the concrete itself are designed for maximum flexibility. Because of its long...

We are in the process of getting estimates on a patio cover and cement for the flooring. The salesman told me today that they spray for termites where the gound will be "disturbed" due to the pouring of concrete. Is this a must to have done? Advise as this would add $200 to the cost.

The experimental lightweight concrete on the new Benicia Bridge is not drying properly, and Caltrans says it may need $130 million to correct the problem. It is only the latest in a series of snafus that have plagued the new Interstate 680 span and caused costs to shoot up from an official estimate of $385 million in 1999 to $1.06 billion before Caltrans' discovery this week. First, poor rock quality under the Carquinez Strait slowed and complicated the construction of foundations. Then, noise from the work unexpectedly killed endangered fish. Then, Caltrans design mistakes, including failing to prepare for construction...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A brother and sister were charged Wednesday with murder for allegedly killing their mother and grandparents, burying their bodies in a basement and heading off to Las Vegas with the victims' cash. The siblings were charged with three counts each of murder and conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of robbery. Authorities removed the dismembered bodies of their mother and grandmother and the intact body of their grandfather from under concrete in the basement of the grandparents' home. All three had been killed about five weeks ago, authorities said. "It's the most horrific thing I've ever...

“Saddam Hussein has killed more Muslims than anybody, and Muslims kill each other faster than anybody else kills them. We try to save them and get preached to and blamed by these holier-than-thou gurus. I'm fed up with it.” AND OTHER GREAT RUSH QUOTES:THIS WEEK “We are in the midst of Marta birthweek, but Tuesday is her actual birthday.” “The oil-for-food program is designed to aid the starving, suffering Iraqis. Instead, what we have is a cash cow administered solely by Kofi Annan and the UN.” “The left is built around people who do not want solutions to the problems...

Hi all. I am writing a letter to the editors at Al-Sabah to request a bit of a clarification on the story they released yesterday and again today on the supposed nuclear missile find. I am not accustomed to dealing with ME folks and would like the help of FReepers to word this properly so I might get results. I'm trying to butter them up a bit in the letter, but I'm not real sure what might be either lost in translation or just look plain dumb. I'm also concerned about the wording of the questions being difficult to translate....

If you are feeling nostalgic for the 1970s, forget about dusting off the lava lamp. Go to a construction bid closing these days where estimators are having flashbacks to ’70s-style materials price inflation. An explosion in scrap steel prices during the first quarter got the ball rolling with huge price increases for almost every construction product made of steel. But steel now has more company, as other key materials face price gyrations. Commodity markets are in turmoil, resulting in price increases from 15 to 45% for copper, stainless steel and aluminum construction products. Record crude oil prices in the second...

New, Smaller Planes Crowding Skies Once Left to Big Jets By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, March 6 — For years the skies have been crowded with airplanes, but the planes' capabilities have kept them at different altitudes, with small, piston-driven models a few thousand feet above ground, commuter turboprops in the 20,000-foot range and jet airliners at 30,000 feet or higher. Now, to the dismay of aviation experts, an increasing number of planes may begin competing for space at the same higher altitudes. The turboprops are disappearing and being replaced by "regional jets," which fly at big-jet altitudes. Some...

<p>Here are three New Year's resolutions for Californians: 1) build; 2) build; 3) build.</p> <p>More houses and more roads are needed to house and transport the people who already are here, not to mention those who will move here this year and in the future.</p>

Tornado jets are poised to use yet another different weapon in the war against Iraq ... concrete bombs. The jets have already used high-tech weaponry such as the "bunker busting" cruise missile Storm Shadow, which cost £750,000 apiece and can pierce several feet of concrete. The Tornado has a top speed of 1,452 mph But now the crews operating over Iraq from the Ali Al Salem airbase in northern Kuwait are about to go to the opposite extreme and use "inert bombs". These are basically blocks of concrete shaped as bombs and painted blue to identify them as non-explosive if...

HAYWARD -- He strikes when construction workers least expect it, this unassuming man with a mysterious penchant for concrete. Visiting job sites throughout the Bay Area, the man approaches workers and asks them to pour concrete into his car -- while he is sitting in it. For Craig Cecconi, driver of a concrete mixer for Central Concrete on West Winton Avenue, May 8 started like any other day. He was working a job site on Hesperian Boulevard when he noticed a man in a late-model maroon Volvo lingering nearby. Cecconi asked the man if he needed help, and then he...